witness stand. She nodded to the jurors, looked the clerk in the eye as she took the oath, smoothed her dress, and sat down.
I studied her. Now, here was a total woman. Here was a woman who had been assaulted, who had witnessed a savage crime, and who was ready to do what had to be done to right those wrongs. She was attractive without being seductive. She was purposeful without being pugnacious. She was here, not because she thirsted for vengeance, but because she sought justice. She was, in short, the perfect witness, which was precisely the image she had worked so hard to create.
Jo Jo recited her name, her address, and her profession.
“ So you have the same job I have?” McBain asked.
“ Yes,” she said.
Bonding with the witness, telling the jury: If you like me, you’ll like her.
McBain had her run through the life and times of Jo Jo Baroso, beginning with her family fleeing Castro’s Communist island when she was still an infant. Her father lost everything in Cuba and never adjusted to life in the States. He turned to liquor and gambling and eventually left her mother who raised a son and daughter by herself. She met the defendant while she was still in college, and he was a pro football player.
Yes, she became romantically involved with the defendant. “I was so young then,” Jo Jo said, almost shyly.
Making me sound like a cradle robber.
“ How did the relationship end?” McBain asked.
“ Rather badly,” she said. “I always pushed Jake to be better, to make something of himself.
True, true.
“ He went to law school, and I like to think I had something to do with that…”
Okay already, you saved me from a life of selling insurance.
“ But I always believed in public service. I wanted to repay this country for what it gave me, a home, freedom…”
Arroz con pollo in every pot. Talk about laying it on thick.
“ And I don’t think Jake could relate to that. He had so much, and everything came so easy to him.”
Wait one gosh-darned second. I’m the one without a daddy or mommy.
“ I wanted him to do something meaningful with his life, but he preferred hanging around with swindlers and con men, including, I am sorry to say, my brother, Luis, or Louis, as he preferred to call himself. They hatched schemes together, and Jake would defend him when things went bad. I was just devastated that my brother and my…my lover were involved in activities that ran counter to everything I believed in, so I cut myself off from both of them. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do.”
“ You terminated the relationship with the defendant?”
“ Yes, I dropped him.”
Hey, who dropped whom?
“ Did you lose touch with the defendant?”
“ Yes, for several years. Oh, I’d see him in the Justice Building once in a while, walking some three-time loser out of court, but we no longer had a relationship. Then, I ran into him when he was defending my brother in a fraud case. After the trial, I learned how they ingratiated themselves into Simmy’s…Mr. Cimarron’s venture.”
“ You’re talking about Rocky Mountain Treasures, Inc.?”
“ Yes. It was Simmy’s dream. Buried treasure. I know it sounds foolish, but it was part of his love of the old West. He knew most of the legends were just that, but he believed some were true, and he wanted to explore. He had studied the old maps and diaries, and he would talk about it for hours. It was my brother’s idea to raise money through a public sale of stock. Unfortunately, he and Jake embezzled money from the cash Simmy put up.”
“ Objection!” Patterson thundered. “There’s been no predicate laid for such a conclusion. The testimony is prejudicial and inflammatory and should be stricken.”
“ Sustained. The jury will disregard the last remark of the witness.”
Sure. Just try.
“ What did Mr. Cimarron tell you concerning the stock sale and Mr. Lassiter’s involvement?”
“ Objection, hearsay!”
“ Not at all, Your Honor,” McBain replied. “It’s not coming in for the truth of the statement. Perhaps Mr. Cimarron was wrong about Mr. Lassiter. It doesn’t matter. The statement is coming in to show what Mr. Cimarron believed, and once that belief was communicated to Mr. Lassiter, it is relevant to the issue of Mr. Lassiter’s intent to commit the homicide.”
“ Respectfully, Your Honor,” Patterson said, “Mr. Cimarron’s state of mind is not at issue here. It doesn’t matter what he-”
“ Overruled. I’ll give the state some leeway here.”
“ Simmy said that Jake stole seventy-five thousand dollars from him, but even worse, he helped my brother in the stock scam. They defrauded investors and threatened the existence of the company.”
“ Were you present at a conversation between Mr. Cimarron and Mr. Lassiter to that effect?”
“ Yes. Last June, in my house in Miami.”
If that was a “conversation,” Ah versus Frazier was a tea party.
“ And what transpired?”
“ Simmy and Jake exchanged words…”
To say nothing of fists.
“ Simmy accused Jake of stealing. Jake hit Simmy, but Simmy is…that is, was…quite large and very strong. He got the best of Jake that time.”
Her voice cracked on the last words, and her eyes teared.
Judge Witherspoon was looking at his watch, and McBain was thumbing through his notes. It was a few minutes before six and had been a long day, at least for me.
“ Perhaps this would be a good place to recess,” the judge said. “Your witness can resume at nine in the morning.”
“ Just one more question, Your Honor.”
A lawyer promising to ask only one question is like a kid promising to eat only one jelly bean.
The judge nodded, and McBain came closer to the witness stand. “Ms. Baroso, I seem to have quite forgotten to ask something. What was your relationship with the deceased?”
Her voice was as soft as a fluttering snowflake. “He was my hus
…”
That’s funny. For a second, I thought she said ole Kit was her…
“ Please keep your voice up for the jury, ma’am.”
“ Kit Carson Cimarron was my husband,” she said, in a strong, proud voice. “I am his widow.”
CHAPTER 25
My brain trust couldn’t agree whether to lather the margarita glasses with salt, so how could I expect coherent advice on cross-examining Josefina Baroso? We were in the kitchenette of Granny’s double-wide, the four of us scrunched onto stools at the Formica counter.
“ That girl’s lying through her teeth,” Granny said, as she squeezed limes the old-fashioned way, in her clenched fists. “She never got hitched to that cowboy, or Jake would know about it.”
“ McBain showed me the marriage certificate,” Patterson said, glumly. “A civil ceremony in Nevada six years ago. Uh, no salt on mine, please. Watching my blood pressure.”
Granny growled and kept squeezing. “Six years! Criminy, Jake, you been sniffing after a married woman.” Now she poured tequila into the juice. “You like yours with a dash of Triple Sec or Cointreau?”
“ The bottle of tequila will do just fine, Granny, and I broke up with her before she met him. It just beats me
