In My Dark Dreams (13 page)

“Okay,” Cordova says, meaning, go on.

“The woman drew abreast of him, and stopped.”

That catches Cordova by surprise. He looks to the other detective, whose own brow is furrowed. “Stopped?” Cordova asks. “When she reached this man?”

“Yes.”

“Was there any force involved? That you could see?”

Lazarus shakes his head. “Not at all. Again, I was on the other end of the block, but it appeared to me that she knew him.”

An involuntarily outburst: “She knew him?”

The old accountant withdraws his declaration, partially. “Perhaps she didn’t know him,” he amends. “Perhaps she was asking him a question, or replying to one of his.” He smiles as a thought suddenly occurs. “Maybe he was saying something about his truck, or asking her a question about it. Does this tire seem flat to you? That sort of thing.”

“But you don’t know.”

“Oh, no. I was all the way at the other end of the block.” There is another slight hesitation. “I don’t think either of them saw me,” he says. “There’s only one streetlight on the block, and it’s at the other end from where I was.”

“Near where they were?” Cordova asks, for certainty. He starts writing notes on his pad.

“Yes.” Lazarus watches Cordova’s penmanship. “Do you want me to wait while you …”

Cordova shakes his head. “Keep going.” He looks up and gives Lazarus a reassuring smile. “I can write and listen at the same time.”

“That’s handy in your line of work, I’m sure,” Lazarus says admiringly. “Well, there wasn’t much after that.”

“What did the driver do then?”

“I don’t know. I was right outside my house. I stood there for perhaps a second or two more, and then I went inside.”

“And the driver and woman were still there?”

“They were when I went inside, yes,” Lazarus replies.

“And you don’t think they saw you,” Cordova asks again.

“I don’t think so. Like I said, my end of the block was in darkness, and my dog was quiet.” With a touch of embarrassment, he adds, “I was standing behind a tree, a bit.”

So they couldn’t see you watching them, Cordova thinks. This nice man didn’t want to admit he was peeping at them. The detective’s thought is not judgmental. He knows from long experience that everyone’s a voyeur, even the local pastor. It’s the getting caught that’s mortifying.

But does this mean anything? A driver out at night, a woman out at night. There would have been dozens of both. “How late was this, do you recall?”

This answer is firm. “After eleven-thirty. Mollie and I—Mollie’s my dog—we took our constitutional after the eleven o’clock news was over.”

That narrows down the field. There wouldn’t be that many people out that late at night, certainly not a woman alone on foot. Cordova makes a note to canvass the area to see if anyone else might have seen the victim that night, after eleven. They’ve already done that, but they’ll do it again, this time more thoroughly.

He puts his pencil aside and retrieves the murder book that is sitting in his top desk drawer and opens it to the relevant page. “Did you by any chance notice what the woman was wearing?” he asks. “Was there enough light to see that?”

Lazarus’s head bobs up and down, a cork on a pipe cleaner. “Oh, yes.” He squints in recollection. “A sweatshirt and sweatpants. Light blue.” He smiles that he still has excellent memory at his age. “And she had these funny clog-type thingies on, like my wife wears for gardening. Crocs, they’re called.”

Cordova drops his pen on his desk and leans back. This old man has the attire pegged, even down to her shoes. This wasn’t public knowledge; the department had kept that a secret, to smoke out impostors. This guy is the real deal—the first one.

“All right,” he says, keeping his emotions in check. He has a good poker face, which comes in handy at times like this. “What about the man? The driver?”

“His clothes were dark,” Lazarus says, not as certain. “They didn’t stand out like hers.”

Meaning you were watching her more than you were watching him. An attractive young woman—that’s what catches a man’s eye, all the way to the grave, apparently.

“Work clothes,” Lazarus continues. “You know, like maybe a mechanic?”

Dark work clothes. Another line of notes. The other detective is doing the same with his notepad. “Did you get a good look at him as well?” Cordova prompts.

“No,” Lazarus admits. “He was wearing a hat, which covered most of his face. A baseball hat,” he offers meagerly.

“Any insignia you could identify?”

“A Dodgers hat?” the man ventures. “I’m not sure.”

Half the male population in Los Angeles wears Dodgers caps. Not much help there. “Did you see his face at all?”

The old accountant shakes his head sadly. “I couldn’t identify him, if that’s what you mean,” he says. “He was dark skinned,” he offers.

“Black? I mean African American?” Cordova asks, quickly correcting himself. The walls have ears. Political correctness and civilian commissions have been ruining the department for more than a decade.

Lazarus shakes his head. “Not that dark. Like you.”

“Latino.”

This time, a nod. “Spanish, yes. Maybe Middle Eastern. But in Los Angeles, you’re probably right.”

A Latino in work clothes in Santa Monica near midnight. Something else to check on.

One more thing to find out. Cordova mentally crossed his fingers. “This man’s truck. Did you get a license plate?”

“No.”

That was too much to hope for. Lazarus hadn’t been suspicious. His attention was based on curiosity, with a little checking out of tits and ass. He must be a liberal, Cordova thinks. A conservative seeing a Latino man around there at that time of night would have called the police. “Make?” he asks. “Model? Color? Style?”

“I don’t know the make,” Lazarus answers. He’s fumbling now, on shaky ground. This cop isn’t as much of a friend as he initially thought. “Japanese, I think. It was a pickup truck—that I do know. Small. Dark color.”

Not as much as Cordova would like, but better than nothing—a Mexican in work clothes driving a small, dark-colored pickup truck. There’s probably no more than half a million men in L.A. who fit that description. Still, it’s more information to throw into the neighborhood canvass, which he will initiate first thing tomorrow.

“Anything else, Mr. Lazarus?” he asks, wrapping it up as he stands. The older man gets up more slowly; it’s an effort to get out of the chair. Cordova hands Lazarus his card. “My office and my cell,” he explains, pointing out the numbers. “If you can think of anything else, call me, twenty-four/seven, late or early, I’ll be there.” He extends his hand, and adds a smile to it. “We appreciate your help, sir. I wish there were more people out there like you,” he says, meaning it.

Lazarus smiles back, almost shyly, from the praise. This man is okay, really, he has a hard job to do. “I wish I could tell you more,” he tells Cordova, looking from him to the other detective. “I wish I had paid more attention.”

“You’ve done fine,” Cordova says. “And again, if you do remember anything, even if you think it isn’t important, don’t hesitate to call.” He nods to the other detective. “You’ll see that Mr. Lazarus gets a ride home?”

“Right away.”

Lazarus leaves with his escort. Cordova watches until they’re in the elevator. Then he picks up the phone.

M
Y MOTHER DIDN’T KNOW
squat about guns, but I do. I own one, and it’s not some pissant little peashooter like the one she shot me with. My weapon is a SIG Sauer P239 semiautomatic, the .40 S&W model. It’s small for a powerful gun, which is why it’s a popular weapon for women, because our hands are generally smaller than guys’. Even so, it really packs a wallop—it could stop a bull elephant in its tracks. Not that I’m ever going elephant hunting, or any kind of game hunting. I’m not a hunter; I don’t believe in killing animals that have done me no harm.

What I do believe in, and care about deeply, is my safety. I’m a woman who lives alone in a modern city, which means there’s a potential for danger in my life. The three women who have been murdered lately, along with the thousands of other victims of violent crime every year in L.A. County, are powerful testament to that.

I have never fired my gun in a real-life situation. I hope I never have to. But if I do, I want to be ready, which is why I go to a firing range out in the West Valley four or five times a year and shoot off a few magazines’ worth of rounds. That’s where I am now: Annie Oakley in Lucky Brand Jeans, wraparound Ray-Bans, Banana Boat SPF 50 sunblock, and shooter’s earmuffs. I am woman, hear my gun roar.

It’s hot out here, and bone-dry. The temperature is over a hundred degrees, but the humidity is under 10 percent. When you live near the ocean and work downtown, it’s easy to forget that Southern California is basically a desert. The only reason we’re not as arid as Joshua Tree or Palm Desert is that we have a good water supply, which we stole from Northern California decades ago. If you’ve seen
Chinatown,
you know that story. When every house in the county, from Long Beach down south to Palmdale in the north, has a lawn, and many of them, even in tracts, have swimming pools, you live under the delusion that we have an abundance of water. But when you’re standing out in the midday sun and your mouth is as dry as a cotton ball, the fragile reality of our ecosystem is right there in your face.

My companions on the range today are the usual variety of men and women you see on any street. They aren’t gangbangers, outlaw bikers, or disenfranchised loners. They are people who like to shoot guns. They love the power of explosion, the feeling of lethal heat in their hands. They want to be able to protect themselves, because they know the established forces of law and order can’t do a very good job of it. Some of them, from time to time, try to right the wrongs that beset modern society, like rude drivers on the freeway, rude civil servants, rude bosses. You worry about those people, and hope they won’t have their hands on their guns when their minds are clouded with temporary rage.

I finish firing and check my targets. Not bad for someone who doesn’t practice enough. I don’t score any bull’s-eyes, but with a weapon that has the stopping power my gun has, you don’t have to hit your target between the eyes. You take a 40-mm hollow point almost anywhere in your body and you are going down—I don’t care if you’re the size of King Kong.

I police my area for the empty shell casings, fold up my targets, put my gun in its case, and lock everything in the trunk of my car. I wish I lived in a society where I didn’t feel I had to have a gun. But I do. My mind-set is an occupational hazard. At home, I keep my weapon handy, but I don’t think much about it. I hope I never have to.

Jeremy doesn’t know I have a gun. He’s against personal firearms; he’s never fired a gun in his life, not even a shotgun at a clay pigeon. He would never stay over in my house if he knew I kept my gun stashed under my mattress springs. He might even break up with me—he’s that much against them. If we ever live together, I’ll get rid of it, because a relationship has to be a two-way street, particularly about trust. But for now, I am a woman living alone, whose job puts evil in her face every day. So I keep it handy.

The shipping warehouse in San Pedro that had the television sets Roberto Salazar is accused of stealing was broken into between nine and eleven o’clock, the night before he was arrested. The prosecution and I have both stipulated that this information is indisputable. So today is a good day for me, because I have just found out that Roberto has an alibi that will knock out the charge of breaking into the warehouse, which is the most serious one against him. He was holding a youth-group meeting at his church. The meeting didn’t end until ten. He could not have left the East Side, driven all the way to San Pedro, and stolen the television sets.

It’s an axiom that rules are made to be broken. Usually, I only meet with clients and others involved in their defense in the jail, the courtroom, or my office. But now I am in a coffee shop a few blocks from my office building with two of the parents, both women, who have kids in the program. They are stepping forward to swear that Salazar was with their children that night.

Both women are about Salazar’s wife’s age. They are friends of hers—they watch one another’s kids, cook in one another’s kitchens. Neither of them speaks English, and they are intimidated by the surroundings. Every time a sheriff’s deputy or city patrolman saunters in from off the street to grab a cup of coffee or snack, they cringe. Even though I have assured them that no one is paying attention to them, they are two Latinas in a sea of brown faces. Fear of
la Migra
is basic in the Latin community, especially for recent arrivals; where they come from, cops are never your friend.

I didn’t want to meet with them in my office because I want to keep this encounter off the record. I don’t know if these women are legal in this country or not. I could care less; I don’t work for ICE. All I care about is that they tell me the truth. Fortunately (and humanely), the D.A.’s office doesn’t care about their status, either. They don’t hassle people about that. But these women don’t know that, so it took real guts for them to come down here. Guts and love for their minister, who has been wrongly accused of a crime.

Salazar, who brought them to me, hovers nervously as my translator reads their statements back to them in Spanish. Both witnesses agree that everything they said is true, that their testimony was given freely and voluntarily, and they sign the documents. I put them in a manila envelope, seal it, and stuff the envelope in my briefcase. My opponent, Assistant D.A. Dixant, that arrogant asshole, will eventually learn about this, but not yet. For now, the less he knows about my case and my witnesses, the better. I’m not going to show my hand until I absolutely have to.

I can hold back information for a certain amount of time because the rules concerning discovery, particularly witness identification, allow me to. The prosecution has to give me the names and other relevant information about all the witnesses they are going to call at trial. I have to do the same once I decide a witness will be called. That’s where I have wiggle room:
once I decide.
Will I use these witnesses? Probably. But until I’m absolutely committed to them, I can withhold their information. There’s no reason to show your cards early. Often, once the prosecution gets your witness list, they will send an investigator to interview your witnesses, interview being a politically correct term for hassling them. Sometimes it works; they scare off a witness. So that’s another reason to play it slow. The statute requires me to come clean thirty days before the trial starts. But I can also make the argument that I don’t know if I’ll call a witness until I’ve heard the prosecution’s case at trial. That’s kind of slippery, and the judge can rap your knuckles if they think you’re bullshitting them, so it’s not a ploy to overuse.