“Yes.” Wish sat forward in the witness stand, fanning out the photos. “Then I popped out the memory card and stuck it in my pocket, and then I popped in another memory card before I started running and dropped the camera.”
“Are these the twelve photos you took numbered in the sequence in which you took them?” Don’t dither, she prayed, don’t say I think so or that’s what Paul said. She had given Wish the set as soon as she had prints and Wish had told her he could identify the shots.
She needn’t have worried. “Yes,” Wish said positively.
“Nine of these have no people in them?”
“Correct.” Nina paused to let the judge and prosecutor confirm this for themselves, and to see the flames, the forest, the night.
“I direct your attention to Photographs Number One, Three, and Four. Would you pull those out, please.”
“Okay.”
“Are all three of these photographs of the same person?”
“No. There are two people here. One person in Number One, and then two shots of another person in Numbers Three and Four.”
She had done it, provided hard evidence that someone else was on the mountain. Jaime was still looking from one photograph to the other. Salas was nodding. A lot of hard work was paying off.
“May I approach the witness?” Nina asked Salas. He nodded, and she went up to Wish at the witness stand and took the first photo, Number One, Danny holding his hand up to shield his face, saying something.
“This first photo? Do you recognize the man?”
“Yes.”
“Who is it?”
“A man named Robert Johnson,” Wish said. Nina shook her head and tried again.
“Look again, please. Tell us who this man is.”
“It’s Coyote. Robert Johnson.”
“B-but that’s Danny Cervantes, isn’t it?”
Wish looked hard at the photo.
“No, that’s Coyote.”
“Well, let’s take a look at Numbers Three and Four,” Nina said, to give Wish a chance to get his head straight. He had been doing so well! “Those are photos of the same person, you said. Do you recognize that person?”
“Yes. It’s Danny Cervantes.”
“Don’t you have it backward?”
Jaime was up. “I must object. She’s cross-examining her own witness at this point. He’s made the identifications.” Nina rolled her eyes at Wish, trying to get him to wake up from whatever dream he was in. But Wish just looked back at her, wide-eyed.
“What’s the problem?” Salas asked her.
“Well, it was my understanding-it’s clear that-let me just confirm this identification, Your Honor.”
“Go ahead. It’s important. Objection overruled.”
“Let’s go back to Photo Number One. What is that person wearing?”
“Dark shirt and pants. Doc Martens.”
“And who is that person? Look carefully, Wish.”
“That’s Robert Johnson.”
“But-look at Numbers Three and Four. Please notice what that man is wearing on his feet.”
“Jeans and a white T-shirt. He must have taken off the jacket, it was so hot. And black Nikes. Nikes! That’s Danny. That’s it! I knew something was wrong about the shoes the doctor was talking about! Remember yesterday, Nina? She said Danny had Doc Martens on his feet! Now, how could that be! How? How?”
“Take it easy, sir,” Salas told Wish, who had half gotten up.
“One moment, please,” Nina said, and walked back to the counsel table where Paul was waiting. “Help!” she whispered.
“You got me,” Paul said. “Maybe Wish is all mixed up. Go back and try again.”
She stood up straight again and said, “Mr. Whitefeather, did you specifically notice the shoes Mr. Cervantes was wearing when he came to your home to ask you to go to the ridge that night?”
“I sure did,” Wish said. “He wore black Nikes. I remember up on the ridge he got mad at me because his shoes were so much quieter than my boots.”
“But you’ve heard the testimony that Mr. Cervantes was wearing Doc Martens when he was found?”
“Yeah. And I think I know where they came from. That’s what Coyote was wearing. You can see, here, in Number One. Black Doc Martens.”
“But that can’t be,” Nina said.
“But it is!”
“I’m not following, Counsel,” Judge Salas said. Jaime was shaking his head, baffled. Nina was not following either.
Coyote wore Doc Martens. Therefore the body was Coyote. But the body wore a white T-shirt, jeans, Danny’s concho belt… therefore the body was Danny…
Wish said, “Can I say something?”
Salas spread his hands. “Can you shed some light on this?”
“Those boots take a long time to unlace.”
“So?”
“So the feet in the boots were Coyote’s feet. That’s for sure.”
“Ah-ha,” Salas said, tapping his pencil on his dais. “So-”
Wish was pounding his fist into the palm of his other hand, blinking as he tried to figure it out. Jaime’s eyes were shut as if in prayer. Paul was staring fixedly at his shoes.
But it was Nina who got it clearly into her noggin first. “So the feet in the Nikes are still running around somewhere, Your Honor,” Nina said. “Which would mean that Danny Cervantes is alive.”
“Wow,” Wish said. “I can’t believe it. That is so-that is so-maybe it isn’t.”
“Wish,” Nina said, “is it your testimony that the man in Photos Number Three and Four, who is wearing shoes that are obviously not Doc Martens boots, is Danny Cervantes?”
“Absolutely.”
“Thank you. I have nothing further. Your Honor, I move for a dismissal of all murder and manslaughter charges in the complaint, on grounds that there is no probable cause to believe that the defendant committed any crime against Daniel Cervantes.”
“We’re all pretty excited,” Salas said. “But I’m not so excited that I won’t let Mr. Sandoval cross-examine. It is now the lunch hour. We will resume at one-thirty. Jaime, why don’t you and this lady talk to each other.”
Jaime and Davy Crockett came up as soon as they were adjourned and Jaime said, “I can’t figure out if this is some scam you guys are trying to pull or if we ID’d the wrong man.” Paul stood next to her.
“Did you do the DNA test yet? Or the dental records comparison?” she asked Crockett.
“We haven’t had time. We relied on the uncle,” Crockett told her. “I’ll call the uncle. I’ll talk to Dr. Rittenhauer some more.”
“I have to go,” Nina said.
“See you after lunch.” The prosecutor and his investigator left quickly, and Nina repeated to Paul, “‘Those boots take a long time to unlace.’ Is it really possible? You know, sometimes you think you have this huge surprise in a case, but then it whiffs.”
“The foot bone’s connected to the leg bone. The medical examiner said it still was. And the leather boots were practically welded to the burned feet. And the photos don’t lie. Coyote’s wearing the boots. Wish ought to know. Didn’t you have him explain who was who in each picture?”
“No. I gave him the pictures and told him he’d be authenticating them and that we were going to show that both Coyote and Danny were at the fire. I didn’t go through each one with him. I blew that.”
“So the man in Arroyo Seco-the man who chained Nate-”
“Was Danny!” Nina clasped her hands together and said, “Nate wasn’t as incoherent as he sounded, Paul. We should have given him more credit, questioned him more closely. I remember-he said his brother was gone or something.”
“We missed some bets,” Paul said, “but I forgive us.”
“Maybe Coyote and Danny exchanged shoes during the fire.”
“You lost me there. Why-”
“It doesn’t make any sense. The body was wearing Danny’s clothes.”
“Maybe Coyote and Danny exchanged clothes during the fire. That’s more likely than switching shoes, because-”
“-the boots take a long time to unlace,” Nina said again. Nina smiled, spread her hands, and said, “Wish has such a way with words. He loves his boots too.”
“What now?”
Nina looked at her watch. The Siesta Court people would be waiting in the law library. “There’s so much I still don’t understand, Paul. Maybe Danny’s dead.”
“Then who killed Ruth Frost and Brian Donnelly? Who attacked Britta Cowan?”
“Right. It has to be Danny. But why bring Wish up to the ridge that night? What was Danny’s relationship to Coyote?”
“You go to your meeting,” Paul said. “I’m going to help Crockett, whether or not he wants my help. Try to get something to eat at some point so you don’t keel over in court.”
The Siesta Court deputation waited in the law library: Debbie Puglia, Megan Ballard, Jolene Hill, and Tory Eubanks. Nina shook hands and led them into one of the drab conference rooms nearby. They sat down around the table quietly. Jolene opened her bag and took out sandwiches and Snapples.
Nina took a moment to adjust to these women, who seemed so different from her impressions at the party and the talks on Debbie’s deck. Extracted from their family lives by whatever grave business had brought them here, dressed in business clothes, they had taken on the look of serious adults. Megan, in her suit coat and slacks, seemed to be the leader of the moment. The block party-had it only been ten days or so ago? It seemed to have been years ago.
“I’m very sorry,” Nina said. “I have to tell you that I don’t have very much time right now.”
