after Thanksgiving — it had been relatively easy for one of Ramirez’s homeys to sneak into the parking lot and gun her down as she was about to get into her car.
Shortly after that, sixteen-year-old Eduardo Rivera was stopped in a Jeep Cherokee because of a busted tail light. When the cops radioed in to check the license plate, they found that the jeep had been seen driving away fast from a shooting. A search of the jeep revealed a Glock, and Rivera was arrested on the spot. Then the evidence technicians went in. Ballistics matched the gun to the bullets and cartridges from the Melody Sedaka killing, while fingerprints — albeit on the barrel, not the stock — linked the gun to Rivera. He also had gunshot residue on his left hand, but not on his right. The fingerprints on the barrel were also from his left hand.
The Public Defender — who was representing Rivera — pointed out that his client was right-handed and that the lack of right-handed prints on the stock or gun residue on Rivera’s right hand suggested that the boy was merely driving the getaway car and dumping the gun.
This was what his
There were, however, some in the DA’s office who had their doubts.
Alex knew all of this, but had been in too much shock to process the information. He had no idea whether Rivera was guilty or not, and frankly he didn’t care. That was perhaps why the DA had thought it an ideal time to try and persuade Alex to abandon his one-man law firm and join the DA’s staff. So far Alex had refused. But the DA wasn’t yet ready to stop trying.
Ironically, while Rivera was still trying to prove himself a man, Delgado was now busily re-branding himself as a returning Catholic and campaigner against gang violence. Alex had wondered if this was a ploy to reduce his prison sentence. But maybe his brush with death had really changed him into a better man. The jury was still out on that one.
Strangely, one of the factors that had given Alex pause was a visit from a young Hispanic woman who introduced herself to him as Eduardo Rivera’s cousin. She had never been part of the gang culture, but she came to him to personally apologize for what her cousin had done. She offered no excuses and when he was initially rude to her, she had taken it all in her stride.
By then it was his turn to apologize to her and — over lunch at a nearby deli — it emerged that she was attending night school for a law degree and was a fast typist with good shorthand skills. One week later, the young woman — Juanita Cortez — started work for him as his secretary.
He remembered now that he had been about to call Juanita when Debbie had phoned. He reached out to the cell phone in its hands-free cradle.
“Alex Sedaka’s office,” Nat’s voice answered.
Alex was surprised.
“Oh hi, Nat. Where’s Juanita?”
“She’s out for lunch.”
“Out?”
Now that really was a surprise.
“I think the pressure’s getting to her.”
“Do you know when she’ll be back?”
“Any minute I’d guess. Shall I get her to call you?”
“No, it’s actually you I wanted to talk to. I was wondering how it went with Burrow’s mother.”
“Well I didn’t get much. I think I kind of offended her by some of my questions.”
“That’s hardly surprising. What was it, like: ‘How dare you accuse my poor boy of doing anything bad? That bitch had it coming.’?”
“Oh, no, if anything it was quite the opposite. She’s written him off — disowned him completely. It was more like, ‘I’m not to blame for the way my son turned out. He’s just a bad apple.’”
“Yes, but did the apple fall far from the tree?”
“It’s hard to say. She’s a bitch. But I wouldn’t say she was evil.”
“In what way a bitch?”
“The sin of indifference. She didn’t bring up her son. She got on with her life and let him grow up all by himself.”
“Maybe if she’d given him a bit more attention, he would’ve turned out different.”
“That’s exactly what I said.”
“Not to her face, I hope?” The moment of hesitation lasted too long. “Oh you
“‘Fraid so,” said Nat, sheepishly.
Alex was forced to smile at Nat’s shoot-from-the-hip approach.
“And how did she take it?”
“She chased me out of the trailer park with a 12 gauge pump action — figuratively speaking.”
“Well thank the Lord she didn’t have a real one.”
“Ay-men!”
“Okay, is anything else going on? Any more crap with those reporters outside?”
“No, they left after you brushed them off.”
“Well when Juanita gets back, get her to call me.”
“Will do.”
Alex pressed the red button and returned his attention to the road, wondering how Nat knew about him brushing off the reporters.
14:46 PDT
“I tried to put up a fight, but he just beat the crap out of me.”
“I guess that makes it kind of hard for you to accept what we’re doing.”
“Not really. I mean you’re just doing your jobs. The law says a man’s entitled to a lawyer when he’s accused of a crime. And you’re just giving him his legal rights.”
They were walking back to the office now. Juanita felt that she had made as much progress with Jonathan at the deli as she could. And it was quite obvious that he wanted to go back to the office with her. Whatever it was he was interested in, it was something at the office.
Maybe he thinks we leave files lying round, Juanita thought. If so, he was liable to be very disappointed.
In the meantime, Juanita was determined to turn the tables and get some information out of Jonathan.
“So how old were you at the time?”
“Well Clayton and Dorothy were seventeen and I was five years younger than Dorothy, so I guess I would have been twelve.”
“You must have hated Clayton Burrow a lot.”
“Not half as much as he must have hated me.”
“Why? I mean, if Burrow beat you up, wouldn’t he have been satisfied after that? Why would he bear a grudge?”
“Because he got kicked out of school on account of it.”
“How did that happen?”
“He beat me up in front of a dozen other kids. I wasn’t one to snitch, but it got back to the principal and he got canned.”
“So you think that Burrow blamed your sister for telling the principal about him beating you up and killed her to get revenge?”
“It’s a possibility.”
