Disturbed Ground (40 page)

Robert French was a droll old cuss who lived in the boardinghouse in late 1987, and Dorothea glared at him while he testified. He ridiculed Puente, clearly amusing the jurors, and shared two key views of life at 1426 F Street.

French remembered one of the victims, a "skinny little lady named Dorothy Miller," whom he described as "sorta dingy" and "about a hundred pounds soaking wet." He recalled that when Miller had disappeared, Puente had explained that "Dorothy got arrested downtown for shoplifting and she threw her out."

French also testified that Puente was far stronger than she looked. When six ninety-four-pound sacks of ready-mix concrete were delivered to the house, she'd wanted them put under the porch, he said. But French was recovering from a hernia operation, and another tenant, Homer Myers, "just turned down his hearing aid and pretended he didn't hear." With no one else to turn to, Puente had to move the heavy sacks herself.

Under cross-examination, Vlautin asked French to demonstrate, hoping he'd botch it. But French convincingly mimed how the landlady had turned each sack up on end, squatted down, wrapped her arms around it, then stood, lifting with her legs.

This was the tough old bird O'Mara wanted the jury to see.

Another witness even accused the old woman of physical assault. An ex-con with a drinker's face and a smoker's voice, Joyce Peterson said she'd had a broken leg the month she'd stayed at the boardinghouse. After being brusquely evicted, she'd returned for her things, struggling up the stairs with her leg in a cast. Then, Peterson declared, "I'm standing up on the very edge of the top step, and she just come at me—
brkk!—
and pushed me down the stairs! I thought my leg was broken again, and she was just standing up there at the top of the stairs looking at me!"

But Joyce Peterson was hardly the most credible witness. The defense pointed out that after Puente called the police that morning, the officer had hauled Peterson off to Detox.

This witness bore a grudge against Puente, and her testimony might be discounted, but a far friendlier witness sullied Puente's character without even realizing it.

Patty Casey, a stout, plain little woman, had done herself up nicely for her stint on the witness stand, with her dark hair combed back, lipstick, tasteful clothes, and red nails. Under questioning, Casey recalled meeting Mrs. Puente in 1987. Gradually, Casey had become Puente's favorite cabdriver, taking her on shopping trips for groceries, gardening supplies, even carpeting. They'd grown closer in March 1988, when Dorothea had invited her into the house to give her a kitten, and later she'd visited the house several times. "I felt a friendship with her, and we had a communication going," she said earnestly. "I cared very much for her, yes I did."

Casey came to know some of Dorothea's tenants, including Bert, whom she described as "a very sweet, likable person. Very quiet, very shy."

"What did Dorothea tell you about Bert?" O'Mara asked.

"Basically, that he had brain damage. He had a very traumatic accident, and had been very severely injured." Casey stated this as if it were fact. (Even some of the press accepted this as true.)

"How did he act around Dorothea Puente?"

"He was very devoted to her. He'd refer to her as Mama, kind of like a son. He was very responsive if she told him to do something. He took good care of himself because she would tell him, you know, to straighten his hair, or fix his pants, or his belt, or something. And she made sure he was well cared for."

O'Mara asked if she'd ever seen Bert drink.

She had, she said, but only on two occasions. Joe's Corner Bar "was close by and safe," and so it was "prearranged with the bartender" that Bert could have two beers a day. "It was something he looked forward to every day," she explained. "Dorothea had mentioned that it was his way of having a little independence."

But sadly, Bert had gotten carried away, just as Dorothea had feared that he might. In late July, Dorothea told her that Bert, "in his naiveté," had poured out all of Dorothea's soda supply, then "took the cans and bought alcohol with the money. He became quite inebriated," Casey stated.

"What was Mrs. Puente's reaction?"

"She was quite distraught. It was difficult for her."

"Was she angry?"

"It bordered on anger. It disappointed her."

Casey clearly believed this
.
But it was hard to reconcile this account with the Bert Montoya who was so childlike that he had to be instructed at every turn, so honest that he'd turned in a large sum of money that he'd found at Detox. Bert hardly seemed cunning enough to view cans of soda as a ticket to the liquor store. Why would Dorothea even concoct such a story
?

Members of the jury glanced at the defendant, who became agitated during Casey's testimony, nudging her attorneys, passing them notes, whispering in their ears.

In one apparently inconsequential exchange, O'Mara asked Casey whether Puente could drive. "Oh, she
could
drive," Casey replied, "but she didn't care to."

When the jurors had been excused for a break and the courtroom was virtually empty, Dorothea burst out, "I don't know where these people get all the things they're saying about me!" Addressing her comments to Bailiff Bill Jackson, she complained, "I can't drive a car! I could never drive a car! I never even wanted to learn. I'm scared to death of driving."

Her voice low and contemptuous, she protested that Patty Casey had never been inside her house, not even when she'd given her the kitten. Further, the cabbie was in no position to know the least bit of what she was testifying to because "I stopped using her from June to September."

Puente seemed to think that this woman who'd called herself a friend had turned against her. And worse, in Puente's eyes, Casey
was raking in fame and glory.

"She was even on
Geraldo,"
Dorothea griped. Making a startling leap, she added loudly, "And she's being paid by that lady back there!"

[Author's note: As I was the only other person in the courtroom, this surprising news was clearly aimed at me.]

Puente went on, muttering, "Where do these people get all this shit they're saying about me? She never was inside my house,
never
was inside my house!"

After her attorneys returned, the defendant resumed her nudging and whispering as Patty Casey's testimony continued.

O'Mara covered various things, then asked, "Was there a time when you no longer saw Bert?"

I
t was in early August, Casey said, when she "began to miss seeing him around the house."

"Did you discuss Bert's absence with Dorothea?"

"She said he had taken a trip to Mexico," Casey answered, recalling the day. "I picked her up and she said, 'Oh, I sent him off to Mexico.' And we joked about it because he got to go and she didn't."

O'Mara asked whether Casey had ever heard of Bert returning from Mexico.

She had. It was a Saturday in early November, she was sure, when Dorothea told her that Bert had returned for just a short time, and then someone had taken him away. "I believe she said it was a relative."

"No further questions, Your Honor."

The defense declined to question Patty Casey that day, and she was excused.

The plump cabdriver exited the courtroom, leaving behind the question of whether she ever fully realized that not just a few things, but virtually everything her friend Dorothea Puente had told her was a lie.

Throughout weeks of testimony, from the mouths of former friends, associates, and tenants came words of praise and scorn for Dorothea Puente while their statements also curiously linked her with one particular man:
John McCauley.

First, McCauley was supervising the guys on work furlough who dug here or poured concrete there. Next, McCauley was riding some two dozen times in Patty Casey's cab, carrying supplies home from Lumberjack. And finally, McCauley was escorting Dorothea to Tiny's Bar to help her escape.

Robert French called him Puente's "majordomo."

Oddly, while many boarders had come and gone, he'd stayed on. And though most of the men had roomed downstairs, he'd lived upstairs, in a room near Dorothea's.

If they were lovers, it was a stormy affair. John Sharp recalled that the couple had battled and cursed, throwing a vacuum and even a small refrigerator down the stairs.

Carol Durning Westbrook, hearing the two screaming at each other, said she'd rushed in to see McCauley punching Dorothea. She described McCauley as "an antagonist.”

“He constantly tried to start arguments with people, insulted people,” she said. “A very mean person, I thought."

Others had been evicted for simple offenses, why not McCauley?
Because they were lovers? Or because Dorothea needed his help? If she'd kicked him out, would he have gone to the cops to tell them what he knew?

Or might John McCauley be the murderer, she the accomplice?

If he wasn't an accomplice, what was he?

CHAPTER 40

No one could figure out this jury. A bit of kinship among jurors wasn't unusual, especially once they'd become familiar and relaxed, finding avenues toward camaraderie. But they usually didn't get along so
well.

At first, it was just good-natured kidding of a juror who arrived late or spilled a cup of water. It didn't matter that they joked and joshed during the breaks, or that this joviality sometimes carried into the courtroom. With such an extended trial, humor comes as relief.

The attorneys laughed along with them, and sometimes tossed out witty asides during questioning. Even the judge offered an occasional jest. Peter Vlautin was wearing a particularly loud necktie one day when the power went off. In the sudden darkness came a long pause, and then Judge Virga's voice: "I told Mr. Vlautin not to wear that tie."

And some of the witnesses were funny. When one former tenant griped about Dorothea's burritos, saying, "Let's face it, Dorothea's a lousy cook," even the attorneys broke up, and Kevin Clymo laughed so hard he slapped the table.

But what had started as polite chuckles blossomed into open guffaws. The jury got rowdy. A few whispered and pulled faces during testimony, with the XREM1ST the most comedic of the group. Wearing bright "Jungle Training" or Harley-Davidson T-shirts, he frequently leaned forward and hung over the rail, behavior O'Mara had never seen. Strangest of all, some jurors made comments directly to the attorneys, and neither side knew how to respond. Certain that any impropriety would come back to haunt him, O'Mara tried to ignore them. Clymo, the most good-natured of the attorneys, frequently chuckled or offered a rejoinder. And Vlautin, literally and figuratively, was in the middle.

It was jarring, in the midst of a multiple-murder trial, to have the jury suddenly burst out laughing. Even the court clerk wished they would "straighten up." But the dilemma was, who could chastise them without inviting hostility? The attorneys certainly weren't going to risk offending the very people who sat in judgment. And the judge was reluctant to scold a group that, in performing its civic duty, would have to endure several months of testimony.

One could only wonder what the defendant thought of this merry bunch.

At the end of one long day of testimony, the attorneys were tired. Rather than have O'Mara call a witness to the stand to present yet another display, the defense stipulated that, yes, this was an accurate map of Sacramento, so O'Mara could present it to the jurors himself. He grabbed a pointer and, looking consummately professorial, indicated the yellow arrows showing 1426 F Street, Detox, and assorted other spots they'd heard about.

O'Mara wrapped up quickly, then Judge Virga adjourned for the day and stepped down from the bench.