State's Evidence: A Beverly Mendoza Legal Thriller (18 page)

Maxine nodded. “I know,” she murmured.

Beverly composed herself. “Was he wearing
anything on his hands?”

“Gloves.”

“What type of gloves?”

“Leather.”

“Did he remove his clothes during the
attack?”

“Only his pants.” Maxine gave her a sideways
glance.

“What type of pants?”

“Jeans, I think.”

Beverly noted this. “What about his
underwear?”

“He wasn’t wearing any,” Maxine responded in
an undertone.

“Were there any distinguishing marks you
noticed on his body?” Beverly asked.

Maxine closed her eyes. “He had a scar on his
thigh.”

“Left or right thigh?”

“Right.”

“Any tattoos?”

Maxine froze, envisioning this. “There was
one...”

“And where was that?”

Maxine hesitated. “Below his waist—where his
pubic hair would be—”

Beverly raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying
Santiago’s pubic hair was shaved?”

Maxine nodded.

This certainly hadn’t come out before for
some reason. What an odd place for a man to shave and put a tattoo.
Then again, there seemed to be no place on a body that was off
limits these days. So why not the pubic area?

She looked at Maxine. “Can you describe the
tattoo?”

After a moment or two, Maxine answered, “It
was some sort of reptile...like a lizard—”

Beverly wrote that down. Was there something
symbolic about having a lizard on your shaved pubic area?

“What color was it?”

“Green, red, and black,” Maxine responded
almost mechanically.

“Do you think you’d recognize the tattoo
again if you saw it?”

“Yes.” Maxine sighed. It was something she
couldn’t forget even if she wanted to.

Good to know.
That could be critical
in the absence of the murder weapon in further identifying the
suspect as her attacker.

“Had you ever seen Rafael Santiago before
that night?” Beverly asked while tasting her now cold coffee.

Maxine pursed her lips. “No.”

“You’re sure?” Beverly pressed, not wanting
to find out later that her knowledge of his anatomy came earlier.
Not that she had any reason to disbelieve the victim’s story.

“Yes,” Maxine responded curtly.

Beverly swiveled her chair. “We’re just about
through, Maxine,” she said, sounding like her physician. “Just need
to ask you a few personal questions. You don’t have to answer them,
but the defense is likely to ask similar questions and the judge
might permit him to. I just don’t want any surprises.”

“I have nothing to hide,” Maxine insisted
testily.

“Judge Crawford was quite a bit older than
you,” Beverly noted. “Why did you marry him?”

“Because I loved Sheldon, plain and simple.”
Maxine held her gaze. “Other men only wanted me for my body or what
they thought I could give them. But never my mind and soul.”

And Judge Crawford was different? Beverly
pondered skeptically. He married a woman twenty years his junior
for her mind and soul? Couldn’t he have found someone closer to his
own age who fit the bill? Or did it help that she happened to be
beautiful as well?

But who am I to say it wasn’t
true
?

Beverly met Maxine’s eyes and asked, “Have
you ever cheated on your husband?”

Maxine stared at the question dourly. “No! I
was faithful to Sheldon till the end.”

“Was he faithful to you as well?”

To this Maxine was not as quick to respond.
“My husband is dead, for heaven’s sake,” she groaned. “What
possible difference does it make?”

“Maybe none,” Beverly conceded. “Or it could
mean that Rafael Santiago had an accomplice in killing Judge
Crawford. Even a woman,” she pointed out. “It could have been
blackmail. Or was motivated by revenge—”

“Sheldon was
not
having an affair!”
Maxine’s brow creased in two places. “We had our issues like
everyone else, but infidelity wasn’t one of them. Sheldon and I
were happy together for the most part, no matter what anyone else
chooses to think. I never gave him any reason to want to be with
another woman.”

Men didn’t always need a reason.
Even
if a wife were willing to have oral, anal, or any other sex act her
man chose to engage in. Sometimes variety, fantasy, and opportunity
were more important to men than having a wife ready and waiting at
home.

But was Maxine always ready and waiting for
the judge’s sexual desires? Beverly wondered.

And was Sheldon Crawford really as faithful
as she claimed? Or had he hooked up with a woman who turned out to
be the mistress from hell, with Rafael Santiago as her partner in
crime, complete with a lizard tattoo where his pubic hair should
be?

In any event, it was obvious to Beverly that
Maxine’s mind and soul alone were insufficient for her marriage to
Judge Crawford to work. The real question was whether or not the
couple’s sexual appetite played any role in the judge’s murder and
his wife’s sexual victimization.

“I think that’s all I need for now,” Beverly
told the woman she expected to be her star witness against Rafael
Santiago.

After she showed Maxine out, promising to
keep her informed on the progress of the case, Beverly asked Jean
to get Walter McIntosh on the line.

* * *

Ten minutes later Beverly watched as the ex
cop turned D.A.’s office investigator strolled into her office.

“Nice of you to invite me over, Beverly,” he
said dryly, flopping onto a leather side chair.

Walter McIntosh was forty-one, around
six-two, and had no neck to speak of. His dark blonde hair receded
and was pulled back into a tiny ponytail. Beneath thick brows,
gray-blue eyes gazed across Beverly’s desk at her.

“You’re always welcome here, Walter,” she
said with a teasing smile.

“Yeah?” He grinned crookedly. “Is that why I
practically have to bribe Jean to talk to you?”

Beverly laughed. They had always had a
good-humored working relationship. Though he had been careful not
to cross the line, she suspected that Walter was attracted to her.
Unfortunately he was not her type for romance. Not to mention she’d
heard that he went after everything in a skirt and heels.

“So what’s up?” asked Walter, lifting a
brow.

“I need you to do a background
investigation.”

“Okay.” He rubbed his aquiline nose. “So who
am I supposed to be investigating?”

Beverly’s throat went dry. “I want to find
out everything I can about the late Judge Sheldon Crawford
and
Maxine Crawford—”

Walter scratched his pate. “Everything? That
covers a lot of territory. Can you be a bit more specific?”

She had anticipated this, but it still didn’t
make it any easier to dig for possible dirt on a dead judge and his
victimized wife who Beverly needed as a friendly rather than
hostile witness. Better to know upfront anything that could derail
or otherwise call into question what seemed to be a solid case
against Rafael Santiago.

“I’d like to find out about their sexual
histories, financial histories, friendships, acquaintances,
enemies, and any other information or innuendoes about their
lives—”

Walter jerked his head back. “Wow! Is that
all?” He chuckled uneasily. “What
exactly
are you hoping to
find in their sullied laundry? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

Beverly wondered the same. “I guess I’ll know
when, and if, I find it.”

Walter put his large hands on the desk and
peered. “In case you don’t already know, Judge Crawford was a
powerful man in this town,” he warned. “Asking the wrong questions
about his life, professional or otherwise, could bring us
both
down.”

Beverly got the picture. Judge Crawford’s
stature was such that Walter considered the assignment risky to his
own job. Along with perhaps his welfare.

And mine, should I step on the wrong
toes.

“I’m not looking to trash the judge’s good
name,” Beverly promised assuredly. “Or his widow’s. I only want to
be sure that Rafael Santiago acted alone in committing the crimes
against the Crawfords.”

Walter’s forehead wrinkled. “Are you thinking
this was some kind of conspiracy to commit murder?”

“Not saying anything of the sort,” she
stressed, aloud anyhow. “But anything’s possible. I just want to go
into the trial knowing everything my opponent knows.” And maybe a
little extra for good measure.

There was no reason to believe that Conrad
Ortega would go to any unusual lengths for a client such as
Santiago. On the other hand, why wouldn’t Ortega try and use this
golden opportunity to steal a victory any way he could? Even a hard
fought loss could do wonders for his career.

Whereas Beverly felt there was no substitute
for winning. She knew her career advancement could rest on the
outcome of a trial.

This trial
.

As a result, she preferred to cover all the
bases. Even those that may lie outside the base path.

“I’ll see what I can find out,” Walter told
her. “I just hope you know what you could be getting yourself
into—”

What might I be getting myself into beyond
the obvious building a case for trial
? Beverly wondered. Did
Walter know more than he was letting on?

She considered if there could actually be
some sort of conspiracy against Judge Crawford, who had more than
his share of critics in spite of his reputation as a no-nonsense,
by the book judge. One that could have resulted in murder and a
brutal sexual assault.

Beverly shuddered at the thought that moving
ahead could open up a Pandora’s box. It was a risk she was willing
to take, considering the alternative of allowing a rapist-killer to
walk and justice to be denied.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Rafael Santiago was brought into the room by
an armed guard who looked to O’Dell like he just got out of high
school with a little goatee and few freckles on his broad nose.
They seemed to be getting younger each year, if not bulkier. He
wondered if the guard was taking steroids.

“Just need a few minutes with him—alone,”
O’Dell told the guard.

“What are you gonna do with him?” The guard
wrinkled his nose suspiciously. “Or don’t I wanna know?”

O’Dell smiled slightly. “You should ask. If
you didn’t, it could cost you your job.” He ran a hand across his
chin, casting an eye toward Santiago. “Don’t worry, I’m not going
to beat the crap out of him. I don’t need to have the brass all
over my ass telling me I’ve violated his damned civil rights.”

The guard grinned with relief and went into
the hall, closing the door behind him.

The suspect, who was handcuffed and shackled,
flashed O’Dell a smirk, which annoyed him. He didn’t like killers,
plain and simple. Especially killers of judges—the men and women
who took assholes like Santiago off the streets and put them where
they belonged.

He also didn’t like men who had their way
with women by force. O’Dell considered such men to be spineless and
the scum of the earth.

But he wasn’t willing to test the waters with
this creep, by smashing his face in. It wasn’t worth it.

“What you want, man?” Santiago asked
fearlessly, thin brows knitted.

“Not much, asshole,” sputtered O’Dell. “Just
need to see a certain part of your anatomy.”

Santiago laughed instinctively. “You a queer,
man, or what?”

O’Dell got into his face, growling. “You
wish, you son of a bitch! You’ll get your chance soon enough to
have a
daddy
. I’m way out of your league. Now get them pants
down, and fast, or I’ll do it for you—”

Santiago smiled wryly as he pulled his orange
prison pants down to his ankles. He wasn’t wearing underwear. He
grabbed himself, half erect, and pointed it towards O’Dell, as if
it was a garden hose.

“You want some of this, huh, man?” he taunted
the detective. “Come and get it—” He began caressing himself,
grinning salaciously.

O’Dell glared disgustedly. He wanted to wipe
that grin off his face, but thought better. He grabbed the prick’s
cuffed wrists tightly, lifting them over the inmate’s head, and
regarded the area above Santiago’s penis. Just as Maxine Crawford
had indicated, damned if he didn’t have a colorful lizard tattoo in
place of pubic hair.

“What’s with the tattoo?” he questioned.
“That part of the Latino brotherhood in the pen?”

“Just freedom of expression, man,” Santiago
responded tartly. Nothing more. Why, you want one, too?”

“Not a chance.” O’Dell squeezed his wrists
till Santiago winced in pain. “The woman you assaulted will have to
live with that damned reptile for the rest of her life—and so will
you!”

O’Dell released him and stepped away,
thinking it was another surefire indication that they had the right
man.
You just sealed your fate, Santiago
.

“If it was up to me,” he said out loud, they
would castrate you first
without
anesthesia—so you could see
how Maxine Crawford felt when you raped, orally copulated, and
sodomized her—then put the lethal drugs in your veins.”

Santiago laughed crudely. “It ain’t gonna
happen, man. No matter what the bitch is sayin’, me and my lizard
friend here are innocent.”

“Like hell you are.” O’Dell noted the
half-inch scar on his right thigh. The judge’s widow had also
identified the scar. Probably the result of some gangbanging
activity. “Put your clothes back on, asshole,” he ordered. “I can’t
stand the sickening sight of you.”

“Whatever you say, man,” chuckled Santiago,
lifting his pants. “We through?”

“Yeah,
we through
,” mimicked O’Dell.
He called the guard and ordered photographs to be taken of the
suspect’s pubic area and left leg. They would come in handy during
the trial.

* * *