A Killing in the Valley (19 page)

At the time he stopped, he owned a 1953 Vincent Black Shadow, a pre-war Indian, a 1974 Harley-Davidson Electra Glide, plus a couple of Italian motorcycles for when speed, rather than style, was of the essence. He sold the Indian and Harley and the Ducatis, but he put the Vincent in storage. Someday his son might want it. He’d never sell it, because he would never be able to find another one. Black Shadows were as rare as Stradivarius violins. It had been the miracle of a lifetime when he had found this one, and even more extraordinary that the owner was willing to sell it to him. He wouldn’t get that lucky a second time. Some people collect incredible bottles of wine they never open, others buy great works of art no one ever sees. He owned a legendary motorcycle he might never ride again.

But he was still a committed gearhead, so he switched to classic muscle cars of the ’60s and early ’70s: Dodge Challengers, Pontiac GTOs and Grand Ams, Chevy Camaros. They were some of the greatest automobiles America had ever produced. Songs had been written about them, as well as doctoral theses discoursing on what the GTO and its brethren—Dodge Chargers, Chevy Camaros, Shelby Mustangs, and the like—symbolized: the mystique and romance of the rugged American frontier spirit. All of which boiled down to the unalloyed fact that they were testosterone monsters. He knew the handling was heavy, they got terrible gas mileage, and they were an affront to the environment: but they flew off the line, the air conditioners cooled the inside down to meat-locker temperatures, and you could catch rubber not only in first gear but in second as well, if you knew how to pop the clutch ever so delicately.

Luke had recently finished rebuilding this car, a Fontaine-blue ’66 Pontiac GTO coupe. He had spent over ten thousand dollars restoring this tribute to the American assembly-line worker to its original, pristine condition, albeit with a few more dependable components, like modern wiring and hoses, a radiator that didn’t boil over in traffic, and a modern sound system. He could blow out eardrums for two blocks in any direction.

He still preferred two wheels to four, but these cars were buff. They were the envy of every car freak in Santa Barbara, particularly the Latinos. At car shows they would cluster around his wheels like workers around the queen bee, checking it
out
!

Someday, his son might drive this wonderful dinosaur. Or his daughter.

The highway flowed under the GTO’s oversized tires. He and Kate Blanchard were driving to Juanita’s ranch to prep Steven McCoy. The formal arraignment was two days away.

He had brought Kate with him to hand-hold Juanita McCoy. The old woman had been a rock, but she needed to be stroked. She had written a check to the court for $50,000 to post Steven’s bail, and had signed off a portion of her property as collateral for the rest of the $500,000. And unless Steven’s bail was revoked, she would be responsible for him from now until the trial.

Kate leaned back in the low passenger bucket seat, watching the trees whiz by. Off in the distance, halfway up a low hill, she saw a herd of cows grazing on the sparse brown grass. They moved slowly in the oppressive heat. She was glad for the old car’s hefty air-conditioning—the rush of cold air up her bare legs felt good. Her legs were too pale; she had hardly any sun this year, too much work. This weekend she’d hit the beach. Maybe Sophia would come with her. They were spending more time together. She hoped that would last.

She ran a hand over the tightly woven seat fabric. She had never ridden in this car. “I don’t see you as the NASCAR type,” she said to Luke. “More like a Porsche driver, or a hot Beemer.”

“They’re fine machines,” he agreed. “But everybody drives them. Hope Ranch housewives, Montecito au pairs.” He patted the leather-wrapped steering wheel. “I can work on this myself. You can’t do that with modern cars, all the computers and space-age gunk they have.” He smiled, a slight upturn of the lips. “This brings back memories of the cars the cool guys in my neighborhood drove when I was a kid. Which I could never afford.”

“Where’d you grow up, east L.A.?” Kate asked jokingly.

“The east San Fernando Valley. Same difference.”

“Seriously?”

“Uh huh. It wasn’t all Chicano then, there were still pockets of blue-collar whites in Tijunga and Sunland.” He swerved around a dead possum that lay smeared across the center of the road, the heavy car nosing down on its front-end shocks before it straightened up again. “My old man bailed when I was pretty young, so we had to scuffle. My mother was a working woman. That little bungalow off Vineland Avenue was the best she could do for my sisters and me, and let me tell you, we were damn grateful for it.”

“But you went to UCSB. Stanford Law School.”

“On scholarship.” He grinned at her. “What, you thought I was born a child of the patrician class? I had to work damn hard to achieve my effortless savoir faire.”

Our backgrounds aren’t that dissimilar, Kate thought with surprise, as she looked out the window at the low rolling hills festooned with burnt-out mustard grass and scrawny live oaks that jutted out of the ground at weird angles. She had always liked and admired Luke, but now, learning stuff about his past she’d never known, she liked him even more. Too bad he was married; plus she really liked his wife.

Trash that thought right now, she warned herself. Fantasizing about married men can lead to appalling consequences, like getting involved with them. There were still a few good men out there who weren’t attached. She had been with one, not too long ago. That she wasn’t with him now was on her, not him. When it came to relationships it was still more comfortable for her to live in the dreamworld than the real one. Someday she’d get past that. She hoped.

Since Kate couldn’t be in the house when Luke and Steven talked about the case, because she wasn’t covered by the attorney-client privilege, she and Juanita took a walk around the property. Juanita wore an old straw cowboy hat against the glare of the afternoon sun. Kate had on a jauntily decorated visor from last year’s Summer Solstice parade. It was her favorite parade of the year, the only one that didn’t take itself too seriously.

“How are you doing?” she asked Juanita. The old woman seemed to be in good spirits, considering all the dirt that had been thrown on her.

“Better than I expected,” Juanita replied candidly. “Steven has been very helpful and cooperative. Although I know he’s going through hell. Who wouldn’t be?”

Kate nodded silently. Who wouldn’t be, indeed?

“Is there a chance he’ll have to go back into the jail, once he is formally arraigned?” Juanita asked. “The D.A. seems hell-bent on making that happen.”

“You should ask Luke about that,” Kate answered cautiously.

“If it happens, Steven will survive,” Juanita said, surprisingly blunt. “He’s made of strong material. Although it would be crummy. Spiteful. My husband was a lawyer. I’m sure you know that, everyone knew Henry, or knew of him, although he didn’t practice the brand of law you get involved with.” She plucked a piece of honeysuckle off a low vine and chewed on it. “He was establishment through and through—we were members of the Valley Club, you don’t get more establishment than that—but he always had a deep suspicion of the coercive power of the state. He wasn’t a right-winger, but he was sort of a Barry Goldwater libertarian when it came to the government having too much power.”

She spat out the honeysuckle. “Is your daughter coming here again?” she asked, changing the topic. “She could be a good rider with practice.”

Kate hesitated before answering. Sophia was excited about learning to ride. But the situation had changed. A boy was living here who was going on trial for the murder of a girl who had been Sophia’s age. Steven was Luke’s, and by extension, her client, but that didn’t mean she was comfortable with her daughter being around him.

“I don’t know,” she answered evasively. “She’s been pretty busy. I’m sure she’ll call you.”

Juanita smiled. “I hope she will.” She gave Kate a reassuring pat on the arm. “She would be in safe hands with me.”

Luke and Steven sat across from each other at Juanita’s kitchen table. “You look like you’ve gotten a lot of sun since you’ve been here,” Luke observed.

Steven grinned. “My grandmother has me working in her garden. With this wind, the weeds are humongous. My back’s killing me, but it’s worth it. The vegetables are great. And she cooks a mean tri-tip. This is the best I’ve ever eaten in my life. A shitload better than that crap they feed you in jail.” His face darkened. “Am I going to have to go back in there? Grandma and I have been talking about it.”

“It will depend on whether the D.A. has anything else up his sleeve, besides the straight murder charge,” Luke answered.

“Like what?”

There was no point in pussyfooting around. “If they add rape to the murder there’s a strong chance your bail will be revoked, because it would make this a potential capital case. Do you understand what that means?”

“I could be electrocuted?” Steven asked, his voice suddenly shaking.

“It’s lethal injection now, but yes, if you were found guilty of murder and rape, it could happen.”

Steven stared at Luke in shock. “I never saw this girl. I didn’t kill her, and I sure as hell didn’t rape her.” He thought for a moment. “How could they prove that, anyway?”

Luke explained to Steven that if he and Maria had intercourse, even if it was consensual, his DNA would be present in her body, unless he used a condom.

“I know that,” Steven said. “I’m pre-med,” he reminded Luke. “Or was,” he added morosely.

“But we still can’t claim you and she had consensual sex, with or without a condom, because our argument is that you never saw her. So I’m going to put it to you one more time, Steven. You never met Maria Estrada. You never laid eyes on her.”

“No,” Steven answered. “Never.”

“You never had sex with her.”

“No.”

“And you didn’t kill her.”

“Absolutely not.”

Luke sat back. “Okay, then. We’re pleading innocent, all the way.”

“I
am
innocent,” Steven replied hotly. “Listen. Can they force me to take a DNA test? Jack off into a bottle or something?”

“They’d take a sample of your blood,” Luke answered, “which they can and will do. Very shortly after your arraignment.”

“In a couple of days.”

“Yes.”

Steven let that information percolate for a moment. “What if they
don’t
find my DNA in her?” he asked. “They won’t have a case, right? They’ll have to let me go.”

Luke shook his head. “You didn’t have to rape her to have killed her. Your fingerprints are on the murder weapon, Steven. So were hers. You both handled that gun. That’s clear-cut.”

“But without that DNA, they can’t go for the death penalty,” Steven argued doggedly. “And if it wasn’t there that would be good for me, wouldn’t it? Help my chances? Cast doubt on the rest of their case?”

“It could,” Luke answered guardedly.

“Then I want to take a DNA test. Can we ask for it first, instead of waiting for them to make me?”

Luke was rocked. This would be like diving into a quarry without knowing how deep the water was. A positive DNA test might not be legal proof of murder, but for real-world purposes, it would seal a guilty verdict.

“Think hard, man. You really want to do this?” he asked Steven. “And for God’s sake, please be absolutely truthful. You did not have sex with this girl.”

“I never saw her. I never was with her. So there was no way I could have had sex with her.”

Now that the preliminary skirmishes were over, a permanent judge, Fred Martindale, had been assigned to the case. Steven was scheduled to appear in his courtroom tomorrow to face the formal charges. Then the show would really begin.

Luke was waiting outside Judge Martindale’s chambers when Elise Hobson, who had been alerted to his request for a pre-arraignment meeting only an hour earlier, came storming in. She was alone.

“What’s going on, Luke?” she asked her former lover and boss. She was clearly pissed off. There was no love in her attitude toward Luke now. “What game are you playing today?”

“Where’s El Jefe?” he countered, sparring with her. He loved to get under Elise’s skin. It was so easy, like dangling a piece of yarn just out of the reach of a kitten. She should learn to play it cool. But that would never happen. She wasn’t wired that way. She only had one speed.

“Santa Maria,” she answered. “He’s tied up in north county all day. He isn’t happy about your calling this meeting on short notice, Luke,” she fumed. “He wants to be in on everything.”

Luke knew that Alex Gordon was a control freak who hated surprises. “What’s the matter?” he needled Elise, “you can’t make any decisions on your own?”

Elise was close to blowing—he could read the signs. “Don’t be an asshole,” she spat back. “I have as much authority as I need. So let’s be adults about this. Why are we here? Is this another one of your half-assed forays into the unknown?”

Before Luke could come back with a pithy remark that would squash her like a bug, the door to the judge’s office opened. His secretary, a cheerful matron who had known Luke for almost two decades, came out. “It’s nice to see you again, Luke,” she said cheerfully. With less brio: “Hello, Ms. Hobson. The judge will see you now.”

“Nice to see you, too, Eunice, as always,” Luke replied. He motioned with a cavalier sweep of his arm. “Ladies first,” he said, winking at Elise. “And as to your question: in a minute, you’re going to know why.”

Ruddy-faced, white-haired Fred Martindale was elegant in his robes. But his court was dark today, so at the moment he was in shirtsleeves. He had been eating lunch—the remains of a chicken salad sandwich were on his desk. He looked at the document in his hand.

“Have you seen this?” he asked Elise.

“She hasn’t, your honor,” Luke answered quickly, before his counterpart could react. “I just finished it an hour ago. I wanted to make sure you got it immediately, since you have to rule on it quickly.” He took a copy of the document out of his briefcase and handed it to Elise. She read the top sheet.

“Motion for DNA analysis? What the hell is this?”