The Christmas Present, Page 3

  He nodded his head, cool and collected except for the tremor in his hands. “I told the cops—”

  “I know,” she interrupted. “But I’m not the cops. I’m your lawyer and I’m on your side.” Against her better judgment, she reached over and laid a hand on his elbow. The kid just looked so lost.

  Of course he’s lost, she told herself. It had only been two months since everything he cared about in the world had been wrenched away from him. Less than that since he’d been arrested.

  “That’s what the public defender said when he urged me to take the deal they offered. He said I wouldn’t get a better offer.”

  “And you probably won’t.” She’d already been over his file—twice—and had familiarized herself with the assistant D.A. who had his case. The man didn’t like to plea-bargain, had only offered to do so on this case because some of the evidence was shaky and Diego was under eighteen. She remembered enough from law school to know that that combination was often good for the defense.

  “Not from Gallagher.” And not with the amount of interest the press was taking in this case. If she wasn’t careful, they’d have Diego tried and convicted before any of them ever set foot in a courtroom.

  “But I didn’t do anything! I couldn’t hurt Esme. I would never hurt her. Or my baby.” Diego looked as if he was going to cry. “I loved her. We were gonna get married before the baby was born, as soon as I’d saved up enough money to get an apartment for us.”

  “It’s all right, Diego. Vivian can’t make you take the plea bargain if you don’t want to.” Rafael shot her a look, one that promised retribution, when she hadn’t done anything wrong. “And he doesn’t want to,” he added in a hard voice.

  “I never suggested that he should take the plea bargain. I’m not in the habit of sending innocent boys to jail, no matter what you might think of me, Mr. Cardoza.” She was proud of the icy tone she’d managed, when what she really wanted to do was tell him to go to hell. For someone who had asked for help, he sure didn’t act as if he expected her law firm to be able to deliver.

  But then he didn’t know her. Didn’t know that there was no way she could let Diego be convicted if there was some way she could prevent it. Something about his utter vulnerability, the pain he couldn’t hide, struck a chord in her she hadn’t realized existed.

  Rafael’s eyebrows rose incredulously. “So you believe him?”

  She raised hers in mocking response, completely fed up with the attitude he kept throwing at her. “Don’t you?”

  “I would have left him in the hands of that incompetent public defender if I didn’t.” The man’s expression said that he wasn’t sure she was any better, which angered her, even though she agreed with him on a base level. But he didn’t know she wasn’t a defense attorney, so he had no right to his ridiculous opinion. And she refused to apologize for the fact that her life, so far, had been pretty damn good.

  Refusing to rise to the bait any more than she already had, Vivian smiled at Diego as Rafael escorted them to a room at the end of the hall that had a table with a bunch of chairs scattered around it. “The first thing I want to know,” she commented, pulling out a notepad to record the conversation, “is how come your P.D. didn’t apply to have the case heard in juvenile court? You’re only sixteen, right?”

  “Mr. Williams said the judge wouldn’t move it. The crime was too big a deal and I’m too close to eighteen.”

  “‘Close’ only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades,” she muttered, shaking her head in disgust. She might not know her way around the criminal justice system the way Diego’s P.D. had, but she recognized laziness when she saw it. “We’re going to give it a shot.”

  “Why?” Diego asked. “Wouldn’t it be better to try my case in front of a jury?”

  “Who told you that?” she demanded.

  “Mr. Williams.”

  She shot Rafael a disgusted look. “I take it you’re the one responsible for getting rid of this guy?” she asked.

  He snorted. “Every single thing that came out of his mouth struck me as idiotic.”

  “That’s the smartest thing you’ve said all evening.” She turned back to Diego, but not before she saw the flash of annoyance in Rafael’s eyes. Good, let him be on the receiving end of the digs for a while. She’d had enough of his nasty attitude and nastier comments. It was past time for her to get a little of her own back.

  Resting her hand gently on top of Diego’s, she turned her back on his mentor and said, “The evidence in your case is far from rock solid.”

  “Because I didn’t do it.”

  “I know,” she answered soothingly. “But that’s why we want you in front of a judge in the juvenile system. Judges look only at the evidence, while juries, despite their best intentions, are often swayed by photographs and emotions.” She made sure she was looking into his eyes before continuing. “The photos in this case are particularly brutal, so—”

  “I saw them.” This time he couldn’t hold back the tears.

  “When?” she demanded, suddenly furious. “Williams didn’t—”

  “No, not him. The police made me look at them, when they questioned me.”

  “What did your lawyer say?”

  “I didn’t have one then.”

  She stared at him. “You were questioned without an attorney? Were your parents there?”

  He shrugged. “My family, we’re not real tight like that. I’ve been staying here for the past few months.”

  Her gaze shot to Rafael. “Were you there?”

  He shook his head grimly. “I was out of town when all this went down. Diego sat in jail for four days until I got back and found out about it.”

  “This whole thing has been a joke from start to finish.” Vivian rubbed her hands over her tired eyes. “I need you to walk me through this whole thing.”

  “Can’t you just read the file?” Rafael objected. “He’s already told the story a bunch of times.”

  “I have read the file, Mr. Cardoza, but I need to hear it from him. Besides, he needs to get used to telling it, as he’ll be saying it again and again—to me, to the judge and to whomever else I deem necessary.”

  She turned to Diego. “I know it’s hard to talk about what happened to Esme and your baby, but I need to know everything. Don’t leave anything out, no matter how insignificant you think it might be. At least not now, not with me.”

  She held her hand up when Rafael started to protest, and in the steely voice she reserved for deadbeat dads and abusive husbands, said, “You went through a lot of trouble to get my law firm to take this case, so why don’t you cut the guard-dog routine and give me a chance to do my job? Otherwise you should have stayed with Williams.”

  “He trusts me and I’m not going to let you waltz in here and turn him inside out for your own enjoyment.”

  Her mouth dropped open before she even had a shot at finding her poker face, and she finally felt her temper snap. “My own enjoyment? Look, you jerk, I can think of a lot of things I’d enjoy more than sitting here listening to a child talk about murder, but I don’t have that option. And neither does he. Not if we want to win this thing.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Diego’s eyes widen and his hands clench, and she forced herself to take a few deep breaths as she worked to regain her composure. No matter how she felt about Rafael, Diego trusted him. “I assume that’s what we all want to do, isn’t it?”

  Rafael refused to answer, but he didn’t object when she asked Diego, “When was the last time you saw Esme alive?”

  He cast an uncertain look at the man, but started to speak when his mentor nodded at him. “About four o’clock, on the day she died.”

  “January 12.”

  “Yeah. I took her to her doctor, for her checkup. She was six months and pretty big, so he did another ultrasound. Just to check out the baby, you know?”

  Vivian nodded and he continued, his fingers tapping a nervous rhythm on the scarred conference table. “But everything was cool
. He was growing like he was supposed to, swimming around in that amni—amni—”

  “Amniotic fluid,” she supplied.

  “Exactly. Esme’s weight was good, her blood pressure, everything. So he sent us home, told us to make an appointment in two weeks.”

  “This was at the clinic on Washington, right?” she asked, glancing up.

  “Right.” He wiped his hands on his jeans, his foot tapping in the same rhythm his fingers had been following a minute before. “I took her home and then headed over here. I had work.”

  “Did you drive her home?”

  “I don’t have a car. We took the bus and then I walked with her from the bus stop.”

  “Did you see anyone you knew?”

  “Where?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. On the bus. On the walk home. At her building.”

  “I guess so. I never really thought about it.”

  “So think about it now. Who did you see?”

  His eyes narrowed as he concentrated. “I saw Nacho and Luis—they live in the building next to Esme’s.”

  “Nacho?” She glanced at Rafael for confirmation.

  He nodded. “Same kid.”

  Diego looked at her questioningly, but let it go when she didn’t pursue the matter. “Anyone else?”

  He thought for a second. “Esme’s oldest brother Ric. He was leaving when we were going in.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “Just said hello, you know? Nothing big. He and Esme don’t—didn’t—get along.”

  Her antennae went up. “Really? Why not?”

  “I don’t know. Esme pretty much thought he was a jerk, so we didn’t talk about him much.”

  Vivian lifted her head, studied him carefully. “She never said anything about him? Never complained to you about him, never talked about buying him a birthday present? Nothing?”

  “Well, sure, that kind of thing. But nothing major.”

  “So tell me what she did say.”

  “Everything?” he asked incredulously.

  “Sure. Whatever you remember.”

  “I don’t remember much. I mean, we were together for two years, so she said a lot about him, I guess.”

  “You just said she never talked about him.”

  “We never really had a conversation about him. Just stuff she said in passing.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Like he’d dropped out of school to deal drugs for a while. Like she didn’t like the guys he hung around with, even before the dealing started.”

  “You’re telling me Esme’s brother is a drug dealer?” she asked, just to clarify things.

  “They both are. Nothing major, though. Just some weed and X, that sort of thing.”

  “Ecstasy?”

  He looked at her as if she was stupid. “Well, yeah.”

  “And the cops know about this?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You didn’t tell them?” She couldn’t keep the shock out of her voice.

  “I figured they knew. What’s the big deal, anyway?”

  “The big deal is there’s nothing in their report about it. I can’t believe they didn’t at least look at them.”

  “For Esme’s murder?” Diego asked. “Ric and Danny wouldn’t do that.”

  She pinned him with her best glare. “I thought you said you didn’t know Ric very well?”

  “I don’t. But I didn’t get any crazy murder vibes off him, either.”

  “I didn’t realize every killer radiated ‘crazy murder vibes,’” she commented. “It must make the police’s job so much easier.”

  “Vivian.” Rafael’s voice held a warning.

  She glanced at him, saw his jaw tighten, and decided not to push Diego about Esme’s brother. At least not right now. “Okay. So did you talk to anybody else that you can remember?”

  “Just Lissa, Esme’s best friend. She came over as I was leaving to head to work.”

  “She’s the one who found Esme’s body later that night.”

  He nodded stiffly, then started drumming on the table again, his rhythm faster now that he was more agitated.

  “How did you find out that Esme was dead?”

  “Lissa called me on my cell phone, after she’d called 911.”

  “And you rushed right over.”

  “Of course I did. I loved Esme and our baby. I didn’t want to believe her.”

  Vivian doubled back. “And you came straight here after taking Esme home?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What time did you get here?”

  “About four-fifteen. Her apartment’s only a couple of blocks away.”

  “You were here the whole time?”

  “Yes!” His voice got louder, more insistent, but she didn’t try to calm him down. Not now.

  “Who saw you?”

  “A bunch of people.”

  “So why don’t you have an alibi?”

  “I was up here working most of the time.”

  “By yourself?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah. Rafa gave me the job, but the center can’t really afford to pay a bunch of us, so I come in every day and work for a few hours. Do what I can.”

  “And you didn’t leave?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t take a break? Go downstairs and get some dinner? Go to the restroom? Nothing?”

  “I went to the bathroom, but up here.” He pointed down the hall. “There’s a bathroom near the stairs.”

  “What time did Lissa call you?”

  “Around ten-thirty that night. She told me that I had to come right away.” He looked down at the table, shame in every line of his body. “I hassled her. Things were coming along really well here and I didn’t want to be interrupted.

  “I was here, patching the walls, painting, thinking about an essay I had to write for school, while Esme was dying! How could I have been doing that, while some animal was hurting her?”

  THERE IT WAS, Rafael thought, the question that had been haunting the kid for the last nine weeks. Well, that and who had actually committed the murder Diego was charged with. Rafa knew Diego hadn’t harmed Esme—he wasn’t capable of it, could barely bring himself to squash a spider, let alone brutally rape and murder the girl he loved.

  “How could you have known, Diego?” When he spoke his voice came out gruff with misuse. It had been hard to sit here, keeping his mouth shut, while somebody else took over with Diego, but he knew enough about the system to know it was necessary. And for the first time since he’d gotten back to town and found out Diego had been arrested, he felt as if the kid had a chance.

  For all of her fashion magazine looks and cool, cultured voice, Vivian Wentworth seemed to know her stuff. Her questions had been fair, incisive and structured to give her the whole picture of the situation. He could admire that, especially since it seemed to indicate that Diego would get the defense he deserved.

  And the look in her eye—the one that had messed with his head back in his office?—he’d finally identified it. Behind the mascara and shadow, her eyes held the gleam of a warrior, one who didn’t like losing.

  It was the same look he’d seen in the mirror any number of times since he’d decided to change this old warehouse into a teen center. The same look that had gotten him through all the fundraising and city council meetings it took to keep this place going. The same look that convinced his board to let him do things at the center his way.

  It was nice to see that Vivian had some of that same fight in her. She was going to need it before this thing was over.

  Rafael had a hard time trusting anyone—couldn’t stand being out of control enough to let someone else do what he couldn’t—but as he watched her with Diego, he thought he just might be willing to bet on Vivian doing what was necessary to protect the boy.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE QUESTIONS WENT ON forever, until Diego’s eyes were drooping with exhaustion and even Rafael felt as if he’d been put through the emotio
nal wringer. The only one who looked no worse for wear was Vivian, whose voice was as calm and compassionate now as it had been when she’d started questioning Diego two hours before.

  As Diego went over details of his relationship with Esme for the second time, Rafael let his mind wander for a minute. Then was brought back to the present with a jolt as Vivian started gathering up the copious notes she’d taken.

  “I think that’s all for tonight,” she said as she slipped the papers into her briefcase. “But I’d like to meet again in a couple of days, after I’ve had a chance to research some things.”

  “Sure.” Diego stood, wiping his palms on his jeans before extending a hand to her. “Thanks, Ms. Wentworth.”

  “You’re welcome, Diego. But we’re just getting started—there’s a long road ahead of us.”

  “Yeah, but you’re the first person, besides Rafa, to really listen to what I had to say about everything. I really appreciate that.”

  Vivian smiled, and Rafael was struck again by her sincerity. Though he hated to admit it, he might have been wrong about her. Maybe this was more than just a toss-off pro bono case to her. Maybe—

  He cut his thoughts off with a grimace. It was early days yet and there was a lot to do before Diego even had a chance of getting out of trouble. Yet Rafael couldn’t help looking at Vivian differently as he escorted her downstairs.

  “Where’s your car parked?” he asked, his voice rusty from hours of disuse as he’d sat back and let Vivian do her thing.

  “I took BART.”

  “Are you telling me you walked all the way from the BART station in this neighborhood? I thought you’d just parked on the next block or something. Are you crazy?”

  As soon as the words slipped out he wanted to take them back. Not because he didn’t mean them, but because her back turned as stiff and unyielding as a fireplace poker. But damn it, was she insane? She was lucky Nacho and his gang were the only trouble she’d run into.

  “No, Mr. Cardoza, I am not crazy. I was however, running late and didn’t have time to go home for my car. As I take BART to work every day, I was stuck with that option to get here. Believe me, I wouldn’t have been wandering the streets at dusk if I could have avoided it.”