This Is for the Mara Salvatrucha (13 page)

A
ddicted to the freedom she’d experienced while living on the streets, Brenda got antsy in her new role as informant. For nearly two months she had spent most of her time locked up with no hope for release or escape. Greg took her out to eat on occasion, and there were always the meetings with Porter, Ignacio, her defense lawyer Jason Rucker, Greg, and Rodriguez, but she was ready to get out of detention.

Her wish was granted. The social workers at the Landmark Juvenile Detention Facility could no longer house Brenda. She was a minor who had committed no crime in Arlington: she had to go. But Greg knew she couldn’t return to the streets. She had already provided so much information, more than she originally intended, including the contents of five letters from Denis and one letter from Veto she had received during the month of June. It was simply not an option to put her back on the streets.

Greg scrambled, and with Porter’s help, he managed to find a bed for her at the end of July in the Less Secure Facility in Fairfax County. As the name implied, the facility had little more security than a regular college dorm building. After they checked her into the facility, Greg arranged another meeting with Porter, Rodriguez, and one other detective. They had very specific questions about MS activity in Fairfax, but Brenda didn’t have all the answers.

After saying good night to the cops and Greg, Brenda waited until lights-out, and with two girls she had met that day, she snuck out the back door. It was easy. The two attendants on duty that night were making out on a couch in the lobby. All Brenda needed to do was walk out quietly and not let the door slam shut.

Free of the Less Secure Facility, Brenda and her friends waited at a nearby bus stop for the George Mason bus to take them to the Vienna metro stop, the last stop on D.C.’s orange line. At the metro station, Brenda and the girls hopped the turnstiles and boarded the train for East Falls Church, the stop closest to Bailey’s Crossroads in Fairfax County, where Brenda knew there was always an MS party. An older member of her clique held a party at the same house every weekend. Brenda didn’t think that this weekend would be any different.

On her first night of freedom, Brenda took her two friends to a destroyer party, a celebration of the gang life. MS members would drink Coronas, smoke pot, and share stories, and those who had earned rank or respect would receive tattoos. They were wild parties that lasted all night.

When they arrived, Brenda fell right back into the gang life. She introduced her friends around and began partying. She had been away for close to two months, but she didn’t have to make up any excuses. Most of the people there didn’t question her absence. Those who did received a well-constructed lie. Since leaving Texas, Brenda had grown accustomed to lying and knew how to leverage her special position as a member of the venerable Normandie Locos clique and as Denis Rivera’s girlfriend.

Brenda got high, had a few drinks, and introduced her friends to the upside of gang life. They were in awe of what they saw. The excessive partying was easily absorbed, but when one MS leader got into a shouting match with another, the party ended in a fight. One pulled a knife and stabbed the other. For Brenda it wasn’t a big deal. She’d seen her fair share of knife fights and was comfortable behind the gangster façade she wore. But the other two girls were scared. They wanted to leave immediately.

Brenda arranged a ride with a homie who was headed into D.C. It was early in the morning. Making up some excuse, Brenda got the driver to drop her and the girls off at the National Mall, where they walked around the Reflecting Pool before catching the metro to Columbia Heights. Brenda picked the location because she thought it was
a place where people from Colombia lived. She thought she would feel more comfortable surrounded by Latinos before she tried to call Greg again and get a ride back to the Less Secure Facility.

During the night Brenda had tried to call Greg with the disposable cell phone he had given her, but wasn’t able to reach him. Greg’s cell phone was on the charger and not set to ring.

The next morning Detective Porter received a call from the Less Secure Facility. Brenda and two other girls were missing. Porter called Greg, who was at home with houseguests.

It was an emergency. Porter and Greg knew if Brenda was back on the streets, she could be in serious trouble with her gang. She had been in custody for nearly two months, long enough, they thought, for her homies to note her absence. Best-case scenario, Brenda would never come back. Worst-case scenario, she was dead.

Before Greg decided what to do, he received a call from Brenda. She was at the Columbia Heights metro stop in Washington, D.C. He knew he had to go get her, but in the back of his mind, Greg wasn’t sure if it was a setup or not. He thought that Brenda probably wouldn’t try to harm him, but he didn’t trust the men she ran with. He decided to grab his Sig Sauer P228 pistol before heading into D.C. to pick her up. But there was no threat. He found her standing in a slice of shade by a pharmacy on Fourteenth Street NW with two white girls.

Greg pulled up to the curb and got out. Brenda explained she had met the two girls at Less Secure. One girl didn’t want to go anywhere with Greg. He couldn’t force her to do anything, so he gave her $20 and told her to go home. The other girl wanted to go to jail, or anywhere safe. She was observably nervous. She got in the backseat and Brenda happily hopped in front. Greg thought it would be a good idea to get them something to eat.

“Where do you want to eat?” Greg asked Brenda.

“I dunno, maybe Italian?” she replied.

“How about the Olive Garden?” the other girl chimed in.

“I’ve never been to the Olive Garden, but I’ve seen those commercials,” Brenda admitted, clearly interested in what she thought was a meal fit for kings.

When Greg, Brenda, and her runaway friend were seated at the Olive Garden in Tyson’s Corner, back in Fairfax County, it was immediately apparent to Greg that Brenda did not know how to act in a restaurant. Brenda was embarrassed by her table manners. Greg immediately set
out to teach her basic table skills—no elbows on the table, napkin in your lap, eat with your mouth closed. Greg showed her how to use a fork and twist the pasta noodles on a spoon before taking a civilized bite without slurping. Greg restrained himself the whole meal. Brenda had made a stupid decision when she left the Less Secure Facility. She had endangered both their lives. But he held back. He didn’t want to get started on her with the other girl present.

Once they were back at Less Secure, Greg dropped off the runaway girl. He was burning to ask Brenda why she had escaped, but before he could begin on Brenda, they ran into Detective Porter.

“They’re refusing to take her,” Porter said. Great, Greg thought. What a fucking mess. The only place in Virginia that would take Brenda was now out of the question. He thought a lot of Brenda, even respected her. But she could be a real pain in the ass, he thought, as he absorbed the consequences of Porter’s news.

Brenda had burned the only place they could legally keep her. There was nowhere else Greg could place Brenda, and he still hadn’t managed to remove the capital murder warrant out for her in Texas. Greg knew that if they couldn’t get Brenda into a safe place that night, she would most likely be extradited to Texas the next day and face a very serious charge in a state that had a long history of capital punishment.

I
t was late on a Sunday. Greg was tired, and the last thing he wanted to deal with was finding Brenda a safe place to stay. He and Porter were at a loss for where to put her. They stood just inside the doors of the reception area of the Less Secure Facility with Brenda seated on the couch and talked over their options, trying to force out a solution. An idea finally formed after long minutes of back and forth. They would have Brenda charged with a crime that Porter and Greg agreed would later be dropped.

Denis Rivera had once tried to kill the father of a rival gang member, but failed when the gun misfired. Brenda had knowledge of the event. It had happened earlier that summer. Brenda was supposed to make the kill. She was in new MS turf, and despite her street credentials, she had to prove her loyalty to her new homies in Virginia through an act of violence. When the moment arrived, Brenda didn’t have it in her to kill the man, so Denis took the gun, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The gun didn’t fire. Denis pulled the trigger a second time. Nothing. He grabbed the barrel with one finger wrapped around the trigger guard and hit his victim repeatedly in the face with the pistol grip.

Denis had been charged with the assault, called a malicious wounding in Virginia, and Porter agreed they could charge and hold Brenda as an accessory after the fact.

It was legal fiction. Greg was certain that if Porter asked the judge
to drop the charge, there would be no questions asked. It was a rare leap of faith between an arresting officer and a defense attorney, but it paid off. Porter arrested Brenda so he could legally place her in the Fairfax Juvenile Detention Facility. It was a building connected to the Less Secure Facility and considerably safer. Her new home was a place where Greg knew Brenda could remain safe until he figured out their next move.

With that troubling snag out of the way and Brenda safely checked into the detention facility, Greg picked up where he had left off. He needed to know why Brenda had snuck out.

“I went to find answers,” Brenda replied, showing Greg bits and pieces of notes she had taken on separate scraps of paper. She listed the nicknames and cell phone numbers of a number of MS members and additional information Porter and other cops wanted to know.

Brenda had risked her life just to get a few answers to questions asked the day before. Greg thought that it was a stupid risk to take, but Brenda was determined to get the information. For Greg it was a sign Brenda had become more sincere about helping, but he was worried about her judgment. She obviously thought she was smart enough to get away with fooling her MS homies. Greg couldn’t help but remind himself that for all her street-smart experience, Brenda was still only sixteen years old. Her importance as an informant and subsequent treatment often masked the very real fact that Brenda was still a teenage girl with all the weaknesses and vulnerabilities associated with growing through adolescence into adulthood.

After their quick chat, Greg turned Brenda over to the facility staff and headed home. He had a choice to make. In Arlington County, Greg was her guardian ad litem, but in neighboring Fairfax County, he was her defense counsel. A guardian ad litem had been assigned to her case in Fairfax, but he only did what he had to do, nothing more. The onus of responsibility for Brenda’s well-being was on Greg. He had initially been uncomfortable with performing the duties of both guardian and lawyer in Arlington, and still felt a little uncomfortable with his dual role between the two counties.

It had been a long, frustrating weekend, and keeping Brenda in a secure location and out of trouble had turned out to be a real job, not just a few hours of paperwork, as he had initially thought. Greg wondered if he should remove himself entirely from Brenda’s defense in Fairfax.

He could dump her case onto the Fairfax juvenile justice system and walk away, or he could stick with her. For the moment, Brenda was safely ensconced in the local juvenile detention facility. She had an established relationship with local gang unit detectives as a reliable informant, and Greg had kept careful notes. He could easily debrief any defense counsel in Fairfax who picked up her case.

Greg continued to think about his options the next morning as he sat in the front hall at the Fairfax juvenile court, waiting to apprise the judge of Brenda’s situation. He watched the faces of the Fairfax County lawyers as they passed him by. They were frustrated or bored, tired or uninterested, he observed, yet these were the men and women called upon to help children out of a tight spot. Greg could see clearly how the Fairfax County judicial system was struggling under the weight of a high caseload and a limited budget. It was depressing.

Enthusiasm and compassion were completely absent. In their place was a begrudging sense of duty, laced with some greed. Every day, the judge assigned one guardian ad litem and one defense counsel to all the cases that came through the juvenile court docket. That number swung wildly from half a dozen to well over triple that number. Two lawyers splitting an entire day’s caseload could make good money, but the attention they gave each individual, each child, was almost always lacking. The strained administration of a tired old court often got in the way of delivering blind justice.

Greg thought that most of the men and women who served the kids who came through that court system were lawyers who had failed in every other area of the legal profession, from divorce law to real estate and taxes. In those halls walked men and women who functioned best in a poorly run judicial system. This was welfare for bad lawyers, Greg realized as he reached a decision. There were a few decent lawyers in the bunch, but Brenda’s chances of landing one of them was slim to none.

That morning, as Greg sat on the bench waiting his turn, he ultimately decided to stick with Brenda. He had grown to like Detective Porter, and Brenda had become more than a client. She was almost like family. His first impression of Brenda as a street-savvy runaway punk had given way to a feeling of friendship. He simply couldn’t leave Brenda to the mismanagement of a hack lawyer.

At his hearing that morning, Greg felt renewed enthusiasm for debriefing the court on what had transpired with her case thus far. Greg
had worked Brenda’s case for just under seven weeks and had earned only $117. But he didn’t care about the money. Keeping Brenda safe was his priority.

At the end of the hearing, the judge assigned Greg to continue on as Brenda’s defense counsel in Fairfax County. She also gave him an order that allowed him to check Brenda out of the Fairfax Juvenile Detention Facility without the presence of a Fairfax County police officer. It was a favor from a judge who realized that Brenda was in good hands. Greg planned to make every effort to break out Brenda for a meal or some mall time and talk to her about finishing high school and college, books she was reading, and other interests for a regular teenage kid.

After that day’s hearing, Greg closed out the first seven-week phase of the Brenda Paz case. It had been an exciting and challenging period, but he was just getting started. The following weeks would force him to the extremes of what he was willing to do to keep his young friend and Mike Porter’s most charismatic informant alive.