A Killing in the Valley (17 page)

She had been on the fence about this case. She had finally decided to take it because Sophia had given her blessing, and because she felt guilty about not standing with Luke. But the combination of her gut-feeling that Steven had killed that girl, combined with the emotional proximity of the situation to her own child, was a rock in her stomach.

She should have jumped off the train when she had the chance. Now it was too late. She was on for the ride.

J
UANITA TOOK A VALIUM
before she went to bed, but it didn’t help. She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since Steven was arrested. Her mind was racing. What must it be like to be in jail? Terrifying for someone like Steven, who had never been in serious trouble in his life.

The weight of her complicity in that girl’s murder, and Steven’s being accused of it, lay on her heart like a crushing stone. The old revolver. It all came back to that. Why in the world had she taken it out of the gun cabinet? So what if somebody had come onto her property? What was she going to do, actually shoot them? She hadn’t even thought it was loaded. That was one of the miseries of getting old—fearfulness. Her grandson might spend the rest of his life in prison because she had allowed her irrational fear to overwhelm her common sense.

She was going to fix that. How she would do it, she didn’t know. But somehow, she was going to atone for her mistake.

Once again, Luke met with Steven in the holding room at the jail. Steven looked about the same as the last time Luke had seen him. At least he isn’t looking any worse, Luke thought. He had to remind himself to cut Steven some slack. The kid—he was a man, but he was still young, and in here he looked younger than he did in the free world—was up against a situation he had no preparation for, and he hadn’t figured out how to cope with it yet. But that didn’t mean he was going to lighten up on getting at the truth, whatever that was in the moment. That wouldn’t help either of them.

He tossed the latest questionnaire on the table. “This isn’t much better than the last one,” he said.

Steven stared at the pages. “I did the best I could. I’m blanking on a lot of it. It’s like…” He threw up his hands.

“That’s a damn shame,” Luke told him, “because your amnesia is hurting you, man. And another thing.” He rapped his knuckles on the pages. “Your so-called sojourn in Kris & Jerry’s, before the movie? We have a gold-plated witness who said you weren’t there. What’s your answer to that, pal?”

Steven looked at him with bewilderment. “What witness are you talking about? Someone who
didn’t
see me there? That’s like saying I was a ghost.”

“Cut the bullshit, Steven,” Luke said harshly. “Kate Blanchard checked your story out with the bartender who was on duty that afternoon. She remembered you, from a year ago, and she flatly denied that you were in there that day.” He sat back. “What gives?”

Steven slowly shook his head in denial. “I don’t remember who served me, I’ve already told you that. And what’s this about a year ago?”

“The bartender said you were in there over your Christmas break, and that you chatted her up. She remembered it enough to remember that you weren’t there on September 14,” Luke told him.

This time Steven’s head-shake was emphatic. “No way, man,” he protested strongly. “Look. I don’t remember who served me. I don’t remember who served me last Christmas, either.” He tried to smile, but his face wouldn’t hold the effort. “I flirt with lots of women. Everybody does in bars. But I don’t remember who that was, or even if it happened.” He tilted back in his chair. “If some woman is carrying a misguided flame for me, that’s her problem.”

Luke regarded him carefully. “So you’re sticking to your story. You were in Kris & Jerry’s on the fourteenth.”

“Absolutely.”

Luke exhaled heavily. “Okay. I have to go with your word,” Luke told his client. I hope it doesn’t blow us up, he thought.

He sat back. “Let’s get down to the important business. Your preliminary hearing is set for the day after tomorrow. The prosecution is going to lay out the minimum they need to get an indictment. Your fingerprints on the gun are going to be enough to bind you over for trial.” He shuffled Steven’s papers back into his briefcase. “I want to waive our rights to a preliminary hearing and request that we go directly to trial. It’ll speed up the bail hearing, and frankly, Steven, the prosecution’s going to get that indictment. A monkey could get you charged on the evidence they have, and these people aren’t monkeys, they’re sharp.” He smiled tightly. “They should be. I trained most of them. But I need you to agree to waive that hearing.”

Steven felt his throat tightening. “You mean admit I did it?” he managed to croak out.

Luke shook his head. “You’re not admitting guilt. But you are agreeing that there’s enough evidence to go to trial.” He fixed his look at Steven. “The press is going to be all over this. Larry King, Geraldo, all the talk-show ghouls. I want to give them as little as possible.” He leaned forward. “You need to trust me on this, Steven. On everything.”

Steven nodded slowly. “If that’s what you think, then you should do it.” He stood up. “I hope it’s the right thing.”

Luke spent an hour on the phone twisting Alex Gordon’s arm, until Alex reluctantly agreed to waive the preliminary hearing. “But we are going to be fighting bail, in any amount. I want you to know that,” Alex told him.

“I wouldn’t expect any less,” Luke rejoined. Before Alex could renege on their agreement, he added, “I would do the same, if I was in your shoes.”

“See you at the hearing,” Alex told him curtly.

“See you,” Luke began to answer, until he realized that Alex had already hung up and he was talking to himself.

Kate drove through the gate, which had been left open for her, and started up the narrow, bumpy road. She had never been to Rancho San Gennaro before. She knew that Mrs. McCoy opened up this section of the old ranch a few times a year for various charitable functions, but as she didn’t move in those circles, she had never had occasion to come here. Until now.

She was here because she needed to see where the killing happened. Judging by Steven’s testimony (regardless of whether or not he was the one who fired the gun), it was almost certain that it had taken place inside the old house. She would also check out where the body had been found; how far it was from the house, how difficult it would have been to move the body there, how it would have been hidden, and so forth.

Once she was actually at the location, a picture would start to form. After years of doing this work, that was almost always how it happened. The location would talk to her. The trick was knowing how to listen.

A three-decades-old Mercedes was parked near the house. As Kate approached, the front door of the house opened, and Juanita came out. Kate parked her car next to the Mercedes. “Hello, Mrs. McCoy,” she called.

Juanita smiled as she approached. “Welcome to the family
casa,
our humble abode.”

Kate looked at the old place. This woman’s humble abode would be anyone else’s dream-fantasy. An honest-to-God American ranch house, right out of an old John Wayne movie. Except this one was real.

As she was getting her bearings, the passenger-side door of her car opened, and Sophia scampered out. She looked around, wide-eyed. “This is so
cool
,” she gushed.

Kate put an arm over Sophia’s shoulder. “This is my daughter Sophia, Mrs. McCoy. I hope you don’t mind that I brought her. This is take-your-daughter-to-work week,” she joked. “Sophia, this is Mrs. McCoy, the owner.”

“I’m delighted,” Juanita said warmly. “I’m very glad to meet you, Sophia.” She smiled. “And please call me Juanita. Both of you.”

She led them inside. The heavy window curtains had been raised, so the light was decent. Kate looked around. “Is that the gun case where the…” She paused—she didn’t want to say “murder weapon” in front of her daughter.

“Yes,” answered Juanita. “That’s where it was.” She pointed to a small side table next to a Queen Anne chair that was covered in a dark, heavy brocade. “And that is the table I put it on.”

Kate walked over to the table. She stood there for a moment, her eyes closed, trying to visualize the scene. Two people. Maria and her killer. She fought not to let Steven’s image come into her mental picture, but it was difficult. Who had picked up the gun? Whichever one felt threatened. Probably Maria—she was the victim. But it could have been the person who was with her. Maybe he—again, she had to fight not to see Steven here, in her mind’s eye—had felt like he was under attack.

Another scenario, which no one, neither Luke, the cops, or the District Attorney’s office, had yet thought of, suddenly came to her. There could have been more than two people here. The assumption was that this was a boy-girl tryst gone wrong. What if it wasn’t? What if, after Maria had left the earring shop with a boy, whoever he was, she had hooked up with a different group of people? Or maybe that boy was involved, but with some others.

Maria Estrada was Hector Torres’ niece. Hector had been off the books for a long time, but there were always rumors. Wouldn’t that be an out-of-the-blue stunner, if this was drug-related? That it wasn’t a random killing, but part of something bigger? Which would mean Maria wouldn’t have been a passive victim, but would have been at least partially responsible for her own death.

Kate didn’t want to think badly of anyone, particularly a girl who had been murdered. But she had a client who had been charged with murdering her, and she wanted to get him off anyway she could, as long as it was legal. She would discuss these ideas with Luke later today, after she finished up here and she and Sophia went back to town.

She slowly made her way through the house, room by room, making notes in one of the small reporter’s notebooks she always carried. Had the police gone over this entire place? Or had they become so enraptured when they found the gun that they didn’t look for any other possibilities? Cops loved to develop a theory, have it confirmed, and then exclude any alternatives. She’d had that mind-set when she was on the Oakland PD. Most of the time, the theory held up. But not always.

She looked out one of the living-room windows into the side-yard, where Sophia and Juanita were down on their hands and knees, their faces inches off the loamy ground, digging in the soil. The two of them were practically head to head. Juanita was talking and Sophia was listening intently, her head bobbing up and down as she took in the knowledge Juanita was dispensing. They seem so at ease with each other, Kate thought, almost with a pang of jealousy.

She reached into her purse and took out her digital camera, another tool of the trade. The window made a perfect frame. She took the picture.

Kate stood where the ranch foreman had found the remains. It was a good place to hide a body. The area was a massive bramble of bushes, like the Br’er Rabbit’s briar patch. Whoever had dumped the body here hadn’t been so unnerved by the killing that he couldn’t think clearly enough to get rid of the evidence. Or if one of her other theories turned out to be what really happened, he, or they, wouldn’t have been flustered at all.

In any case, this had been a good hiding place. If the foreman hadn’t been riding by that day, the body would never have been found.

She looked toward the house. Even though it was only half a mile away, carrying a hundred and forty pounds of dead weight to this spot wouldn’t have been easy. Whoever did it was strong.

Steven McCoy was a tall, rangy boy. He could have carried the dead girl here, especially if he had to.

She took some more pictures.

Sophia and Juanita were sitting on an old wooden swing under the gazebo when Kate came back to the house. They were laughing about something. Juanita put a grandmotherly hand on Sophia’s. They looked as if they had known each other forever.

They looked up as Kate approached. “Did you get everything you needed?” Juanita asked.

“For this time. I might want to come back later. Thank you for being so gracious.”

“Anything I can do to help Steven, of course I will.”

“We have to get going, kiddo,” Kate said to Sophia. “Did you have fun?”

“Lots. Juanita has a stable at her house, Mom. She keeps horses in it. Can we go see them?”

She had a ton of work overflowing her desk. “We’ve already taken a lot of Mrs. McCoy’s time. I’m sure she has other things to do.”

“The one thing I have plenty of is time,” Juanita said. Her eyes were almost twinkling as she and Sophia exchanged a conspiratorial glance.

Kate looked at her daughter. She hadn’t seen her this happy since she had moved to Santa Barbara. “Okay,” she agreed cheerfully.

The stable was dark and cool. Sophia and Juanita were in front of the stall that quartered Juanita’s mare. The mare nuzzled Sophia’s hand.

Kate stood apart from Juanita and her daughter. She didn’t need to be here, but she was glad she was.

Juanita handed Sophia a quarter of an apple. “Give her this. She loves them. You’ll be her new best friend.”

Sophia held the apple in the palm of her hand. The mare slurped it up, sucking on Sophia’s fingers. Sophia giggled.

“Have you ridden?” Juanita asked her.

“At camp, one summer,” Sophia responded. She made a face. “It wasn’t really riding. We sat on horses and walked around a ring in a circle, with a counselor leading us.”

“That’s the way you start.” Juanita said. “Would you like a riding lesson?”

“Sure,” Sophia answered eagerly. “When?”

Juanita reached for a bridle. “No time like the present.”

Sophia and Juanita stood in the riding ring. Sophia had exchanged her flops for a pair of worn boots. A riding helmet, covered with brown felt, sat atop her head. The horse she was going to ride, a large roan, already saddled and bridled, stood by docilely as Juanita held the reins. Kate was outside the ring, watching. She had her camera ready.

“This old boy is named Pecos,” Juanita said, rubbing the horse’s nose. “He’s about twenty now, and he’s the perfect horse to start on, nice and mellow. Go ahead, make friends with him.”

Sophia put a tentative hand on the horse’s shoulder.