The bikers, manacled and in prison-blue jumpsuits, are sitting at the defense table with Mary Lou and me.
One last time.
“CALL RITA GOMEZ.”
Once more to the stand she comes, our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows. No kinky dresses and beehive hairdos like she wore on her first ascent to the scaffold, no inch-thick mascara or fuck-you ankle-strap high heels. She is being presented au naturel: acne, chapped lips and all. This baby’s come a long way, and it’s been all downhill.
“Do you swear … ?”
Her hand on the Bible, she does. Like she did the last time, with about as much conviction.
In front of me on the table is her transcript from the trial. Her pack of lies that sent four men to Death Row. I lift it for a moment, feeling the lying, incriminating pages sift through my fingers like dead, brittle leaves. Somewhere in the wilds of Washington state a tree was cut down to make the paper for this bilge, maybe a mature tree hundreds of years old, that provided shade and oxygen. A life-sustaining organism, now dead and riddled with shit.
Lone Wolf looks at her, seated on the oak chair, dwarfed by her surroundings; a frightened figure in a large, forbidding cave.
“She ain’t changed a damn bit,” he exclaims.
“Yes she has,” I answer him. “You don’t have a clue how much.”
“She looks the same to me,” he says. “Same dumb cunt.”
“You’ll see how much she’s changed once she starts singing,” I tell him.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” he answers dubiously. She’s already burned them twice—first at the trial, then when she bailed out of the court hearing. Their only expectation of her is that she’ll somehow wind up fucking them over again.
She studiously avoids looking at them. She’s going to try and save them, but she doesn’t want any contact, eye or otherwise. She’s probably more scared of them now than she was then; she’s had two years to build the terror.
But she’s going to talk straight. Mary Lou and I have spent countless hours and days preparing for this moment. We did it ourselves; Tommy and Paul, our partners at the original trial, are no longer with us. Tommy was available for a long time, even though Mary Lou and I were carrying the ball he wanted to be part of it, but a couple months after the riots he was offered a great job with a firm in Albuquerque, and he couldn’t turn it down. He’d paid his dues and more, and he left the Public Defender’s office with his head held high. His new firm expects a lot of him, and he’ll deliver; of that I have no doubts. But with the workload of the new job, he couldn’t take the time to come up here and be with us.
He regrets it, feels he’s let us down; I assured him that isn’t the case; he pulled his oar and more for a long time. Life goes on. We’ll talk over the phone. He still sees Goose, it’s a relationship that will endure. Goose understands Tommy’s absence; he paid for a bottle of champagne to be delivered to Tommy’s new office his first day on the job.
Paul, on the other hand, flat-out disappeared. He and I’d been in sporadic contact for awhile after the trial, but it had become less and less frequent, and then one day, he was gone. His office empty, a new tenant occupying his space. Both his office and home phones had been disconnected, and there were no forwarding numbers or addresses. He just wasn’t there anymore.
My feeling is, he got tired of it all. He’d been in so many of these circuses over the years that to have been part of the losing side, after so much effort, took whatever starch there was left out of him; particularly since he had been the one to commit the only blunder—the opening of the ‘hot knives’ issue—that our team had made. We never talked about it, but I think that deep down inside he felt he’d been responsible, at least in part, for our losing.
He wasn’t, of course; any one of us could have made that same mistake. And that wasn’t why we went down. We were victims of symbols, not of logic and evidence.
He had his demons; like mine, they were fueled by drink. Too many gray cells finally burned off. It impairs the ability to take the shit and keep coming back for more.
Maybe that’s a blessing. If I don’t change my ways, I’m going to find out someday, undoubtedly the hard way. It’s a sobering thought.
I stand tall, smooth my lapels, taking my time. I pause for a sip of water, turn to face the bikers and Mary Lou, offer them a reassuring smile, and then I walk forward towards my witness, who sits perched on the edge of her chair, as wary as a possum caught in a trap, awaiting an unknown misery.
‘I have met the enemy, and he is us.’ (Pogo, one of my childhood heroes, said that.)
Time to engage the enemy.
Martinez had heard much of the documentation at the earlier hearing, but he can’t keep his eyes off Rita. Not now the dispassionate jurist, even-handedly dispensing justice, above the fray; he is a man who has to find the truth, the real truth, because of the circumstances under which he’d thought he’d found it back then.
Robertson, too, is riveted by her, making copious notes as she talks, constantly referring to the affidavit I submitted with her sworn testimony, the same bombshell I’d dropped in his lap when I’d first found her in Denver and she started her song of crime, punishment, and betrayal. At the beginning, when she starts telling how she was whisked out of town without bothering to leave a wake-up call, courtesy of Sanchez and Gomez, her father confessors, and when she talks about how the brainwashing started, he’s all over the place with objections. Martinez sustains some, over-rules others, but as we get deeper into her narration he shuts Robertson down.
“This is not cross-examination, counselor,” he admonishes Robertson. “Please let the witness tell her story in her own fashion. You’ll have ample opportunity to question her.”
Martinez turns back to Rita, abruptly dismissing Robertson, who slumps in his chair, fuming, turning to look over at our table, shooting poison daggers. The bikers nudge each other, stare daggers of their own back at him. Lone Wolf flashes him a wide smile that clearly says ‘fuck you where you eat, asshole, you shit all over us, now it’s our turn to reciprocate.’
She’s been on the stand for two hours, telling her story. The version she’d told me in the hotel room at the Brown Palace. It’s been grueling; she’s still scared to death of the consequences.
“So,” I say, “after all that time up in the mountains, they brought you back to Santa Fe. The police.”
“Yes.”
“And you gave your statement. Officially.”
“Yes.”
“And they told you—they impressed upon you—that if you changed your statement, recanted it in any significant fashion …”
“Did what?”
“Recanted … went back on it.”
“Oh. Right.”
“If you went back on it, they’d book you for accessory to murder. They said that to you directly.”
“Yes.”
I look at the prosecution table. Robertson’s scribbling feverishly. Moseby, who’s been intent on Rita and me, looks away with a start. The two cops, Sanchez and Gomez, stare forward stoically, two cigar-store Indians; see all, reveal nothing.
Martinez is looking at them as well. It’s a look I can’t decipher; but one thing I do know, he believes her. Maybe not completely, but enough that he’s become extremely unsettled. Four men were sent to be executed in his courtroom, in large part because of her testimony. Now she’s saying it was all lies, worse, not only lies, but crimes of deception, of corruption, the worst nightmare an honest jurist can have. In his courtroom, with him in charge.
He had read her new testimony. But that was words on pages; here it’s alive, from her own mouth.
I look at him. His expression is almost one of grief, of being stricken unawares. As if he personally was the one being lied to, as if he was the one, personally, who gave life to those lies. I feel for him; he’s an honest man, this isn’t supposed to happen. The ground is shifting under his feet, threatening to swallow him up.
He’s afraid for his reputation, for that of his court. I sympathize with him; it isn’t his fault. The system failed him, as it failed John Robertson. The difference is, he’s willing to see it, acknowledge it, make amends. Robertson isn’t.
“When they brought you back to Santa Fe,” I continue, turning again to her, “did they offer you the services of a lawyer?”
“No,” she answers, flat.
“Even though they’d warned you that you might be charged as an accessory to murder if your story didn’t hold up.”
“Yes.”
“Did they ever at any time read you your rights, that you had the right to an attorney, and that you had the right to remain silent?”
“No.”
“Your honor.” Robertson stands. “Miss Gomez was not a suspect, she was a witness. We don’t Mirandize witnesses.”
“You do if they may be indicted as accessory to murder,” I shoot back.
“Your honor,” Robertson says, his voice starting to rise, “there was never any intention on the part of my office to indict Miss Gomez. None whatsoever. So Mirandizing her was never an issue.”
“All right,” Martinez answers. “We’ll hold that in abeyance for now.”
“Until what time, your honor?” Robertson asks.
“Until such time as we determine the veracity of Miss Gomez’s statements, counselor. Then and now,” he says.
Robertson starts to say something more, thinks better of it, sits down.
Martinez turns to me.
“This is the extent of your written affidavit, Mr. Alexander,” he says. “Is there anything further you wish to ask your witness?”
“Yes, sir,” I answer. “There is one more thing.”
I turn to Rita again.
“The four men sitting at this table,” I say.
She forces herself to look at them; then quickly away.
“Yes.”
“You said at the trial that they raped you.”
Hesitantly: “Yes.”
“Did they?”
She looks at them again. They look back at her, their eyes cold, expressionless. Even though she’s on their side now, they can’t bring any compassion, it isn’t in their nature. They are, at heart, bad to the bone, men for whom raping her was nothing but a diversion.
“Yes,” she answers.
“Repeatedly?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“It must have been terrifying,” I say.
“Very.”
“And painful.”
“It hurt like hell for days.”
“Did you go to the hospital?” I ask. “To be examined, taken care of?”
She pauses. “You mean, by myself?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Why not? If it was so painful?”
“I was too scared.”
“That the hospital might tell the police, and then you’d have to tell about the bikers, and they’d make good on their threats to come back and kill you,” I elaborate.
“Yes.”
“When the police … when officers Sanchez and Gomez … when they found you, were you still experiencing pain?”
“Yes.”
“Bleeding?”
“Yes.”
“Did they do anything to help you?”
“Yes.”
“What did they do?”
“They took me to the hospital.”
“Objection!” from Robertson, on his feet, his arm outstretched.
“Over-ruled,” Martinez barks, never taking his eyes off Rita.
“And they saw to it that you were taken care of,” I say.
“Yes,” she answers.
“And only after that did they take you up to the mountains and start to get your story.”
“Yes.”
I stand in front of her. Our eyes meet. I look at her with as much warmth and reassurance as I can muster.
“You lied before, didn’t you? At the trial.”
“Yes.” Eyes downcast, her entire body shaking. If I’ve ever felt for her, it’s now.
“And you’re telling the truth today.”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely and without reservation and without any coercion or promises from me.”
“Yes,” she answers, in a firm, clear voice. “I ain’t lying now.”
“Miss Gomez.”
Robertson stands in front of her, poised on the balls of his feet. He leans in towards her. She draws away from him, pressing her back against the hard oak chair.
“Why should anyone in this room believe what you’ve told us today?”
“Because it’s the truth,” she says, defensively.
“I see. The truth.”
“That’s right,” she answers, more aggressively. I’d coached her to be prepared for this, and not to back down. She has right on her side, and she shouldn’t be afraid to stand up for herself; in her case, easier said than done.
“And what you said at the trial, that was the truth, too, wasn’t it?”
“No.”
“But you said it was. You swore on a Bible that it was.”
“I swore falsely.” She looks up at Martinez. “I had to, judge. They would’ve sent me to jail otherwise.”
“So you say,” Robertson barks at her. His voice echoes through the courtroom.
“It’s the truth,” she protests, jumping in her seat, startled and frightened.
“You seem scared, Miss Gomez,” Robertson tells her. “I barely raised my voice. Of course, you should be; you’re involved in a pack of lies here, a web of deceit that makes this courtroom stink to high hell!”
“I am not,” she answers gamely.
“Why should anyone believe a word of what you’ve said here?” he thunders. “Of what’s in these raggedy-ass pages,” he continues, holding her new testimony in his hand.
“Because …” she starts to say.
“Because it’s the truth,” he answers for her, cutting her off, the sarcasm dripping. “Because you, an admitted liar and perjurer, say so.”
“It is,” she whimpers.
“Sure,” he comes back, “and the moon’s made out of green cheese.”
Martinez leans down from his perch.
“Counselor,” he tells Robertson, “lay off the hyperbole, okay? And stop browbeating this witness.”
“Browbeating this witness?” Robertson exclaims. “Browbeating … what’s there to browbeat, your honor, this woman is completely without credibility!”
“That’s for me to decide,” Martinez tells him.
“That’s right,” Robertson says. “It’s for you, the court, to decide.” He’s fighting to keep in control, and it’s hard, because he’s a true believer. “And may I remind your honor that your decision must be based on clear and over-riding evidence, hard evidence. It’s not enough that a witness says she’s telling the truth now and was lying then. You have to be convinced that what she’s testifying to now is the truth, beyond the shadow of a doubt, virtually, and all the rest is lies. You have to be completely convinced of that.