Lassiter 06 - Fool Me Twice (38 page)

McBain anticipated the question on
cross-examination and defused it. “Ms. Baroso, you never told
Sergeant Crawford that the defendant forced you to submit to sex,
did you?”

“
No ...I couldn’t. I was so
ashamed. I blamed myself for it. Maybe I should have fought back,
but I was afraid Simmy would hear. I was afraid someone would get
killed.”

Josefina Baroso had spent four years on the
sexual assault team in the state attorney’s office, and it showed.
She knew what worked, and what didn’t, and when she spouted
clichés, they sounded heartfelt.

“
Now, Ms. Baroso, what
happened after the defendant forced you to submit to
him?”

“
I was lying there crying,
and Simmy came into the barn looking for me. Jake said something
about wanting to thank him.”

“
Thank him?”

“
Yes. He turned to Simmy
and smiled, a really vicious smile, and said, ‘Thanks, cowboy, for
your money and your wife.”

In the jury box, it looked like 12-0 for
stringing me up right there.

“
Then what happened?”
McBain asked.

“
I was crying, but somehow
I told Simmy what happened. He stayed calm. He was breathing hard,
and he told Jake to leave or he’d take him apart. Jake laughed and
said, ‘Try it.’ Simmy came at him, I’m not going to deny that. He
wanted to throw him out of there so he could take care of me. But
Jake was on him so quickly, tossing him into the wall, hitting his
head. Jake is very strong, and even though Simmy was big, he wasn’t
quick enough.”

Then she told the story, blow by blow, and
it matched everything the jury had already heard. So warm and
comforting for the finders of fact. They’d heard the story in
McBain’s opening statement. They’d heard it again from the three
police officers. Now, the eyewitness tells it one more time.
Anticlimactic but reassuring. Lawyers like to say they tell jurors
what they’re going to hear, then tell them, then tell them what
they’ve told them. That’s what McBain was doing, and he’d recap it
in closing argument.

So I sat at the defense table, a miscreant
with curved horns and hairy ears, as my hellish deeds were
recounted. I heard how I slammed Simmy around, stabbed him with a
pitchfork, laughed in the face of the bull whip, tackled him in the
corncrib, and eventually put a nail through his head. I heard every
agonizing, perjurious detail, hoping for inconsistencies, but there
were none.

She took the better part of the day,
stopping several times to wipe the tears. As the afternoon wore on,
the windowpanes of the courtroom shuddered with an approaching
storm. Outside, the sky darkened, and snow cascaded from the sky.
Inside, it was stuffy and the air so dry, the skin on my knuckles
was splitting. I longed for the heat and humidity of home, for a
gentle easterly, warm as a baby’s breath, as it crossed the Gulf
Stream.

What was I doing here? I fought the urge to
stand and run, the courtroom door banging behind me. My arms
tensed. Would the bailiff stop me? No, he was asleep, waiting for
his Social Security check.

Where would I go? An island, maybe.
Barbados, Aruba, Curaçao. I yearned for sunny days and wide
beaches, and most of all, freedom. How far would I get? They would
hunt me down. They would compare me to Ted Bundy, who crawled out a
window in this very courthouse, before going on a rampage of rape
and murder in Florida.

I’m not sure what my face showed, but
Patterson put a calming hand on my shoulder. I forced myself to
concentrate on a spot on the wall just above a line of old
photographs of judges who presided here. And I thought about where
we were and where we had to go.

McBain had done his job, and Jo Jo had done
hers. It was all wrapped up neatly and tied with a bow, an early
Christmas present for the jury. I was jotting down notes as the
prosecutor was winding down his questioning.

“
Ms. Baroso, please forgive
me for asking this, but did you love your husband?”

“
So very much. It was an
unconventional arrangement, I know, but it worked for us. He had
his ranch and his dreams of buried treasure. He was out here, in
the country he loved. I had my career, contributing to society in
the best way I could. In my heart, I know we loved each other as
much as any other couple.”

“
Did you intend the
defendant to follow you to Colorado?”

“
No. I didn’t even tell him
I was coming here. He admitted to me he broke into my house and
listened to my answering machine to find me.” A look of sadness for
the pathetic, obsessed stalker seemed to cross her face. “I thought
he had gotten over me, but once he began representing my brother
again, something happened. It started all over again, and he began
pursuing me.”

The poor woman. How could anyone blame her
for all this?

“
So, in summary, Ms.
Baroso, the defendant followed you to Colorado without your
knowledge or consent, confronted you in the barn on your husband’s
property, struck you and forced you to submit to sexual intercourse
...”

I tugged at my lawyer’s sleeve, but he waved
me off.

“
...and when your husband
found you, disheveled and beaten, the defendant taunted him, beat
him, and finally shot a nail through his brain, killing
him?”

“
Objection, leading,”
Patterson said, quietly.

“
Granted. The jury will
disregard the question ...”

It didn’t matter if they disregarded the
question. They already knew the answer.

“
Mr. McBain,” the judge
said, “do you have anything further, because the bailiff tells me
the weather is deteriorating, and I believe I’m going to let these
good folks go home early today.”

“
Just about finished, Your
Honor.”

“
Ms. Baroso, is there
anything else you wish to say, anything you’ve left
out?”

She didn’t even have to think about it. You
don’t have to when you’ve rehearsed the closing line. “If only you
could have known him,” she said, turning toward the jury. “Such a
fine, decent man, so full of life. I loved him, and I miss him
so.”

The judge cleared his throat and banged his
gavel, telling everyone to be back at nine in the morning.

My eyes were still on Josefina Jovita
Baroso, as she walked gallantly out of the courtroom. I thought
about what Kip had said this morning, that nobody would believe
her. My lovable nephew was wrong.

I can read their faces, Kipper. I can read
their minds.

They believed her and were ready to convict.
Hell, if I’d been on the jury, I would have convicted me, too.

CHAPTER 26

A-THOUSAND-ONE,
A-THOUSAND-TWO

I didn’t go to Barbados, Aruba, or Curacao.
Instead, I said good-bye to Patterson, slogged through the snow,
and got my rental car from the garage at the foot of Galena Street.
There were no beaches or bikinied lasses along the way. There were
boots and gloves, scarves pulled tight against the cold. Before
coming here, the last time I saw a ski mask, it was being
introduced into evidence against my client who wore it when
pointing an Uzi at a convenience store clerk in Hialeah.

My car yawked and hawked and sputtered like
an old codger clearing his throat. I nearly flooded the carburetor
but finally got it to turn over and cough itself to life. I pulled
onto Main Street and turned left, for no good reason, it could just
as well have been right. Clouds hung low, shrouding the town in a
gray mist, obscuring the surrounding mountains. There was no wind,
and the snow fell straight and hard, as if dumped from a celestial
truck. I used to ski on days like this, the visibility so poor you
had to guess where the next mogul would pop up. But then, I
windsurf in thunderstorms, too.

I drove slowly, politely yielding the right
of way a couple of times. Traffic was heavy, the Volvos and Jeeps,
Range Rovers and Land Cruisers heading home, ski racks laden with
equipment. Hey, fun seekers, I envy you, muscles stretched and
lungs expanded. Load up with complex carbs tonight, stretch out
with someone you love—or at least like—in a hot tub, and be back at
it in the fresh powder tomorrow. Me, I think I’ll just visit the
courthouse and let them call me a rapist and murderer all day.

I drove aimlessly and found myself heading
east out of town. I turned left and started up a gentle rise on the
lower slopes of what was probably Smuggler Mountain. I was lost,
but what did it matter? I had nowhere to go and lots of time to get
there. Suddenly, from behind, a black Dodge Turbo Ram pickup with
dual rear wheels pulled out and passed me, its oversize tires
chomping through the fresh snow. Through its steamy rear window, I
caught sight of a long spill of dark hair. I squinted at the
personalized Colorado plate as the truck sped on. “Aurum.” I didn’t
have to call Doc Riggs for the translation. I remembered it from
high school chemistry, right along with dropping a dissected frog
down Joan Wooldridge’s blouse.

Aurum
is gold.

She was driving Cimarron’s truck. Hers now,
I supposed. I gave the rental some gas and followed the taillights
up the hill. She turned right, and so did I. She turned left, and I
followed. Hey, this was fun. We went about a mile, made a couple
more turns, and she slowed. I hung back, watching, waiting.

I tuned the radio to an
oldies station and heard the Beatles longing for yesterday. Me,
too. I listened to my wipers
clackety-clacking
and had a
conversation with myself.

Just what the hell was I doing?

Following Jo Jo Baroso.

Why?

Because, like Everest, she’s there.

What does that mean?

It means I don’t know why. Maybe I want her
to testify tomorrow that I’m still stalking her, turn up the heat
some more. Maybe I’ll run her car into a ditch, grab her and make
her eat a handful of snow. Or maybe I just want to know why she’s
driving up Smuggler Mountain in the middle of a blizzard. Maybe I
figure there’s an answer out here, because there sure as hell isn’t
one anywhere else.

Through the gray haze and falling snow, I
didn’t see the fork in the road. She turned left smartly. I hit the
brakes and tried to follow but spun out. I whipped the wheel back,
let up on the brakes, then kissed them gently. The car straightened
and came to a stop. I had missed the turn. I started up again,
threw it into reverse, tires spinning, got back to the fork, and
took the turn ever so slowly. The taillights were gone. Half a mile
up the road was another fork. I took the low road and never saw the
pickup again.

I kept going because I had nothing better to
do. I listened to the Rolling Stones complain about getting no
satisfaction. I took another turn onto what seemed to be a gravel
road, though under a cover of snow, you couldn’t tell. Then I
figured out it wasn’t a road at all, but a private drive. I hit the
brakes and slid to a stop in front of a black, wrought-iron fence.
A cemetery. How appropriate.

I got out of the car, tromped through the
snow, opened a gate and walked in. The headstones were topped with
snow and weathered from the years, but the vertical ones could be
read. Many dated from the mining days. Beneath a marble figure of a
child asleep on a pedestal, the inscription: “Mabel Garnett Asbell,
December 12, 1888, one year and four days.”

I thought about the winter of 1888 and the
girl’s parents, burying their child, and it made me think of Kip
and suddenly I was filled with sorrow. If I was sent away, what
would become of him? What a strange thought. A year ago, I didn’t
know of his existence. Now, my first thought about my future, or
lack of it, was of him. So that’s what love is all about.

Other questions plagued me. How long will
Granny be around? Who will take care of her?

A statue of a lamb guarded the grave of
another child. “Our darling Mallory.” A white marble headstone,
July 28, 1898, for “Little Dale, ten months and fifteen days.”
Nearby, the headless statue of a woman in the Greek style stood
guard over a grave surrounded by a rusty iron fence. The woman wore
a flowing gown, and her right hand held a garland of granite
flowers.

I stood there, bareheaded in the falling
snow, overcome with a sadness such as I’ve never known. Tears
flowed down my cheeks. I turned and started to run, slipping in the
snow and falling, legs splayed. I got to my feet and hurried to the
car in a crablike crouch, a foolish figure of a man frozen to the
core, not with cold, but with fear.

***

The Jack Daniel’s warmed me, comforted me.
The bottle sat between my legs under the steering wheel, and I’d
already put a good dent in it. From the liquor store, I headed west
out of town for the same reason I earlier had headed east:
none.

When I got to the turnoff to Red Butte, I
swung right, fishtailing in the snow. I missed the road to Woody
Creek, did a U-turn, barely avoiding a ditch concealed by
snowdrifts, and slowly began climbing the hill past fenced fields
covered with virgin snow. I knew the way, though I had been here
only once before.

The front gate was chained and padlocked,
and the county sheriff had posted a no trespassing sign. Not enough
to stop a man overcome with lust and greed, a man with a thirst for
violence, or whatever McBain would say in closing argument.

I was wearing my trial suit and a wool
overcoat and felt out of place in the broad expanse of the frozen
ranch. I climbed over the gate, my wing tips crunching into the
snow of the driveway. I sunk to my knees with each step. It was a
laborious walk, and I began sweating. Cold on the outside, steaming
inside. Halfway up the road, I turned back to look at my tracks. I
thought of an animal, chased across the fields by hunters.