The Hidden Law (19 page)

“Tino,” I called at the boy walking ahead of me on the sidewalk. He slowed, glanced over his shoulder, then stopped to wait for me. Approaching him, I noticed how little he resembled his father. It was his mother he favored. In his blue suit and red tie, he might have been a first-year associate at a big firm; in fact, I’d heard he was in law school, at Southland University, a bastion of the children of privilege. Apparently, Gus had seen to it that his son would be spared the deprivations he had experienced.

“Hello, Mr. Rios,” he said neutrally.

“Call me Henry,” I told him. “I just wanted to thank you for talking to Carolina Ruiz this morning.”

This wasn’t entirely true. I still itched about Michael’s relationship to Angela Peña and although Michael’s account had been plausible, I kept returning to Lonnie Davis’s description of them. He was, after all, impartial, whereas Michael might well have something to hide. It had occurred to me that if he had killed Peña, and it involved Angela, he would have reason to lie about her, to protect her.

“That’s all right,” Tino said, relaxing. “I know it must be hard for her, having Mike in jail.”

I was taken by the magnanimity of his tone. “Considering why Michael is in jail, you seem remarkably free of anger.”

“Being mad at Mike’s not going to bring my dad back,” he said.

“But you want justice done, don’t you?”

He looked uncomfortable. “Maybe I shouldn’t be talking to you. I’ll probably be a witness. I was there, you know.”

“I’m not going to ask you anything about that night,” I told him. “Can I walk with you for a minute?” Before he could answer, I took him by the elbow and started moving. “You’re in law school, I hear, at Southland.”

“Yeah, just started.” We came to a red light.

“In September?”

He shook his head. “I transferred last quarter from Berkeley.”

The light changed. “Where’s your car?”

“Just around the corner.”

“Boalt’s a good school,” I said. “Some would say better than Southland. Why’d you come back?”

“After my dad’s—,” he hesitated, “accident up in Sacramento, I wanted to be close to my family.”

“I can understand that,” I said, as we passed City Hall. “What did your parents think about Angela going out with Michael?”

He stopped. “I beg your pardon?”

“They knew, didn’t they?”

“Excuse me, Mr. Rios,” he said, politely, “but I don’t think I want to talk to you anymore.”

“I understand, Tino. Just doing my job.”

“Sure,” he said, and hurried away.

When I got back to my office, I went through the investigation reports on Peña’s murder. Something Tino said had struck me as wrong. Sure enough, the report stated that only his mother and sister had been with Peña at dinner the night he was killed. Why had he lied? I called Freeman and asked him to check around, to see what he could find out about Angela and Michael, and on Tino’s whereabouts the night of the shooting.

A
S IT HAPPENED, MICHAEL
didn’t get out of county jail until the next morning because there was still the matter of his probation violation pending. Pisano had attempted to use the probation hold to keep Michael in jail until the prelim, but the judge who had imposed probation released him after conferring with Judge O’Conner. It was courageous of O’Conner to stand up for his bail decision; the media had slaughtered him for it. The district attorney, a tireless self-promoter, threatened to go all the way to the state supreme court to have the decision reversed. The city’s other politicians all lined up behind him, each taking their shots at O’Conner. As a consequence, I was not feeling particularly well-disposed toward elected officials as I drove downtown to meet Inez Montoya for lunch.

On my way in, the phone rang. It was Freeman. “He was at school, in the library.”

“Who?”

“Peña’s son,” he said. “He took a call around eleven.”

A thick layer of smog lay in the air, dissolving the gleaming spires of downtown.

“Are you sure, Freeman?” I asked.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” he said.

“Oh, well,” I said. “It was just a thought.” A man selling sacks of oranges at the intersection held one up and shook it hopefully in my direction. “What about the girl?”

“She was with her dad,” he deadpanned.

“Yes, I know that. What about her and Michael?”

“She goes to that Catholic school out by the airport,” he said, “but lives at home. She’s got a couple of girlfriends, but as soon as I told them who I was, they clammed up. She does own a white Miata, though, if that helps.”

“Anyone at SafeHouse remember seeing her with Michael?”

“The director, what’s his name, Sweeny? Said he’d call the cops on me if I didn’t clear out.”

“I’ll deal with him later,” I said. “What about Tino’s transfer from Berkeley? Was there any impropriety about it?”

“It checks out,” he said. “I could go up there and ask around…” he said, dubiously.

“No, I don’t think I could justify the expense. What about our gangbanger friend, Shorty?”

“Still looking,” he said.

“Sounds like a washout on every front,” I said.

“Well, here’s something interesting,” he said. “A couple of weeks before Peña got killed one of the neighbors called the cops on him.”

“Why?”

“Domestic violence, it sounds like,” he said.

“Any arrests?”

“No, cops came up, were told it was nothing and left. But,” he continued, “I played a hunch and checked around the local hospitals. Mrs. Peña came in about three months ago, to St. Vincent’s. Some bruises. Some bleeding.” He cleared his throat. “She fell.”

“Three months ago,” I said. “That would’ve been after Peña’s accident, after he supposedly sobered up. Who brought her in?”

“The boy,” he said.

I drove into Little Tokyo where I was meeting Inez, and left my car in a new parking structure that had been put up on the site of a sushi bar I’d frequented when I’d first come to LA. Back then, only a couple of years earlier, the storefronts lining this section of First Street had been quaintly shabby, little restaurants displaying plastic replicas of food. Redevelopment had set in, however, and Little Tokyo looked glossier by the moment. I crossed the street and went into the Far East Cafe, the only Chinese restaurant on the strip.

She was waiting for me, in one of the enclosed wooden booths that lined the walls. A very old, very surly waiter slapped a greasy menu in front of me and asked me what I wanted to drink.

“A Coke,” I told him. He twitched his nose in disapproval and scuttled off. “This is the worst Chinese food in town,” I told her.

“My father used to bring me here,” she said, shrugging. “Anyway, the almond chicken’s not so bad.”

“You wanted to see me,” I said.

She smiled disarmingly, “You won’t like me when I tell you, so why don’t we order first.”

The waiter returned with my Coke. Inez ordered, and he repeated each choice, muttering it caustically just under his breath, as he wrote it down.

When he left, she said, “We’ve been friends for a long time, Henry.”

“This is going to be bad.”

“Shut up and let me finish. I know I can talk frankly to you. Get off the Peña case.”

This was brazen, even for Inez. “Why?”

“It’s a bad career move, Henry. Look, the governor’s anxious to appoint Latinos to the bench before the next election. He’s been asking some of us for recommendations. Your name is on everyone’s list. It won’t be there for long if you insist on defending Gus Peña’s killer.”

“What happened to presumption of innocence?”

“This isn’t law, this is politics.” She dug a cigarette out of her purse. “You got the kid out on bail. You’ve done enough.”

I looked at her for a moment, doing some political calculations of my own. “You going to run for Peña’s senate seat?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” she asked, irritably.

“His widow’s endorsement would be helpful.”

“I represent the same district he did,” she snapped. “I don’t need anyone’s endorsement.”

“And of course, there’s Peña’s fund-raising machine,” I went on. “Extremely efficient, from what I hear.”

Our waiter rolled a trolley over and laid plate after plate of greasy, gray food on the table between us.

“And I don’t need his money,” she said.

“But that would help, too. Did the Peña family ask you to talk to me, or was it his money men?”

“When are you going to come in out of the cold, Henry?” She crushed her cigarette angrily. “You’re Chicano, you’re smart, you’re articulate. You could do a lot of good for a lot of people if you’d come into the tent instead of standing outside pissing on it.”

“Listen, I’m your biggest fan, Inez. I hope you do become mayor, governor, whatever you want, but I’m not interested in it for myself. I saw what that kind of power did to Gus Peña, I can see what it’s doing to you.”

“Do you? Well I have eyes, too, Henry. It’s not the power you’re afraid of. You’re afraid of what people whisper about you behind your back because you’re gay. Well, if you’re so damn proud of it, why don’t you fight for it? Take on the Peñas of the world. They don’t think you’re a man. Prove it to them.”

“I’ve proved it to myself,” I said. “That’s all that matters.”

“Oh, I give up,” she said. “You’re too fine for me.”

“Inez, you don’t mean that.”

“Of course not.” She ladled food onto her plate. “Eat, Henry. Some rice at least.”

“No thanks,” I replied. “I have to be at Parker Center at twelve-thirty for a lineup. Tell me something, Inez, did Gus beat the kids, too, or just Graciela?”

She picked up her chopsticks. “What makes you think I would answer a question like that?”

“Under the circumstances, I think you owe me,” I said.

“Let’s just say,” she said, “he never left any visible marks.”

I walked to Parker Center from the restaurant. Patrol cars moved in and out of the lot beside the police headquarters, and the sidewalk was stained purple where pedestrians had trampled jacaranda flowers fallen from a few spindly trees. Dusty stalks of birds of paradise opened their orange-tongued blossoms. The heat raised the smell of urine from all the dark little enclaves that the homeless used as toilets. A few of them trudged along the sidewalk with the government workers, conspicuous in ragged layers of clothes far too warm for the season.

I thought about Inez, gobbling lunch, and heading back to work to do the people’s business. Yet for all her busyness, and that of the thousands of bureaucrats who filled the towers that surrounded me, the people did not appear to be better off. The only power any of us had was what we held in our hearts and minds, and in that respect, the bag lady squatting to piss on the lawn of City Hall was no different from Inez Montoya, or me.

I was standing in a narrow rectangle of a room, a couple of benches arranged to face a glass wall. Beyond the wall was a brightly lit platform and behind it, a wall marked with different heights. This room was not visible from the other side of the glass. I wasn’t alone. I had lots of company, Detectives Laverty and Merrill, Anton Pisano, and a frail-looking man with a drooping moustache who’d been led into the room by two uniformed INS agents. Pablo Saenz, the People’s star witness. He scrunched down in his seat, terrified by the authority arrayed around him. A very old man, with silky white hair, sat reading a paperback in the corner.

I had been studying the six-pack, the photo lineup from which Saenz had chosen Michael. It was a square piece of cardboard with six slots holding booking photos backed by more cardboard. The six men looked uniformly menacing, but there was little other resemblance except that all were Latino with the same basic facial structure, thin and narrow. That didn’t bode well for this lineup; if Saenz had been able to pick Michael out of this group, then maybe he had seen him. Still, I was far from convinced his choice had been completely voluntary.

I approached him. “Where’s the interpreter?” I asked Laverty. I didn’t trust my Spanish.

“Why?” Pisano asked. “What do you want to ask him?”

“I’ll have the questions and answers translated,” I said.

The old man in the corner put his book down and said, in elegantly accented English, “I am the interpreter.”

“I need you over here,” I said.

He shuffled over, smiling, and bowing slightly. “At your service.”

“Thank you, Mr.…”

“Sevilla,” he said.

“I’m Henry Rios, the defendant’s attorney. I want to ask Mr. Saenz a couple of questions.”

Pablo Saenz had been listening to this exchange with mounting anxiety. I turned, smiled at him, and in my best, albeit faulty Spanish, said, “Mr. Saenz, I am a lawyer, and I have a few questions to ask you. Since my Spanish is not good, I will be asking through the interpreter, Mr. Sevilla. Please don’t be nervous or frightened.” He didn’t look reassured.

Pisano, who had moved in, said, “What did you say to him?”

I repeated my remarks in English. “Now,” I said to Sevilla, “ask him if the police showed him the photo lineup before he came here today?”

“Jesus, Rios,” Pisano said, disgustedly.

Sevilla translated the question, having some problem with the concept of photo lineup, but eventually, he made himself understood. Saenz said, “No.”

Sevilla repeated, “No.”

“Ask him if either the police or the INS agents said anything at all to him about why he’s here today, or what he’s expected to do.”

Sevilla translated. Saenz began to babble, but Sevilla cut him off, telling him to answer only yes or no.

“Wait,” I told Sevilla. “This isn’t a formal examination. Let him talk.”

Sevilla apologized and asked Saenz what he was going to say before he had been stopped. I listened, able to translate that he had not been told why he was coming here, but only that if he cooperated he would soon be released.

Before Sevilla could translate, I said to him, “Ask him who said he would be released?”

Pisano said, “Wait a minute. What did he say before?”

“He said someone offered him a deal,” I said. Then to Sevilla, “Go on. Ask him.”

A moment later, Saenz was saying that the agents for
la Migra,
the INS, had told him they would release him as a reward for his cooperation with the police.