The alleged killer of Saint Cimarron, according to the story, was one Jacob Lassiter, a Miami lawyer facing disbarment, a man accused of a second murder in Florida. Then they repeated the “sexual assault” on the angelic Ms. Baroso.
“ Hey, Kip, get a load of this. It says here I’m facing additional charges for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”
“ It ain’t true,” he said. “I was a delinquent before I met you.
“ With all this pretrial publicity, maybe I should ask for a change of venue.”
“ Yeah, like to Samoa.”
I needed help. Granny could only do so much. Charlie Riggs wrote me inspirational letters with moral support. Britt Montero called from the Miami Daily News, either to wish me well or to get an exclusive interview, I couldn’t tell which. We went out a couple of times years ago, but Britt always found triple homicides more interesting than my description of a bull rush past the offensive tackle.
At the moment I needed a lawyer more than friendly chitchat. So when Kip headed back for his bus, his eyes wet as I hugged him good-bye, I used the jail phone to make a collect call to an old friend and sometimes adversary.
H. T. Patterson was in Aspen the next day and had a bond request filed the day after that. The state attorney worked up a sweat arguing against any bond, but the judge set it at a cool million dollars. Granny and Doc Charlie Riggs pledged all their assets, as did I, but we were still short, and not even close at that. One more phone call and Gina Florio came up with the rest, only her name was Gina de la Torre now, married for the time being to Carlos de la Torre, sugar baron. When I knew her, she was a Dolphin Doll, shaking her booty for fifteen bucks a game, and we lived together for a while, but that’s another story. Thanks to Gina, we had enough collateral to spring me, and as long as I showed up at trial, they’d get their money back, minus ten percent which I promised to repay, even if it was out of my prison salary. I was ordered not to leave the county or attempt any contact with Ms. Baroso, or bond would be revoked.
The day I got out, I assembled my team. Granny, Kip, H. T. Patterson, and I met at the Woody Creek Tavern. Granny had bourbon, H.T. an iced tea, and Kip and I split a Coors, the world’s most overrated beer.
“ You sure you want me to try the case?” H.T. asked. He was wearing a blue denim suit with red piping and red leather cowboy boots so new he must have bought them at the Denver airport. He looked like a very short and very black John Wayne.
“ Why wouldn’t I? You’re a real lawyer. You got bond issued in the blink of an eye.”
“ I merely pointed out your clean record of never having been convicted of a felony, though you do seem to have a history of contempt citations and occasional misdemeanor assault. But the fact remains that I am not…shall we say, demographically correct for this case?”
“ Why?”
“ This ain’t exactly Malcolm X country. You’re not likely to get even one dark complexion on the jury, unless it’s pasted on at the tanning salon.”
“ I don’t care. I need you. I’m facing a lifetime of sleeping with a cork up my ass-”
“ But you’re innocent,” Granny interrupted. I didn’t correct her.
“ Guilt or innocence isn’t always black or white,” I said in my lecture tone I must have learned from Doc Riggs. “It’s more of a continuum. Somewhere in the middle is not-so-guilty bucking up against not-so-innocent. The state has to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Apparently, they can prove I fired a nail through Cimarron’s brain. Hell, I can’t even deny it, ‘cause I don’t remember. But it was justifiable if I was acting in self-defense. The problem is that Jo Jo Baroso is going to weave a web for the jury that makes me the attacker. That’s why I need you, H.T.”
“ You think I can break her?”
“ I don’t know, but you’re a great lawyer. Hell, when we oppose each other, you always convince me you’re right.”
“ Jake, I’ve never known you so accommodating and amiable, so considerate and cooperative as when you’re under indictment. In any event, I thank you for the gracious compliment.”
“ I mean it. You remind me of Bum Philips’s line about Don Shula. ‘He can beat your’n with his’n or his’n with your’n.’ H.T., I’d take you on either side of a case.”
“ Well then, let’s get to work,” Patterson said. “Start by telling me everything that happened that night. Take it slowly, try to remember every word spoken, every move made. Don’t leave out anything, no matter how seemingly insignificant. I’ll take notes, but you might want to write everything down yourself. It helps jog the memory.” He looked at Granny and Kip. “You two will have to take a walk.”
“ No,” I told him. “They stay.”
“ The privilege, Jake. We lose it if-”
“ I know, I know, and I don’t care. They stay.”
So I rehashed it, everything I could remember. Jo Jo Baroso’s pleas for me not to come to the barn, my trotting out there anyway like a good little puppy.
“ Women!” Granny huffed. “Following a woman will get you in Dutch every time.”
I told Patterson of Jo Jo’s puffy eyes and bruised face, and then Cimarron dropping in. “At first, we sparred, mostly. He slung me into the walls a few times to see whether my head was harder than his lumber. Then he dropped me into a pile of horseshit. Once he chased Kip out, it was just the two of us.”
“ And Ms. Baroso,” H.T. reminded me.
“ Yeah, and Ms. Baroso. At first she was in the loft, but she came down to join the fun.”
Patterson turned to my nephew. “And where did you go, young man?”
“ Out toward the main house, along a stone path. I was yelling for help, but there wasn’t anyone around. I came back when I heard the nail gun. It’s so loud, I thought it was a real gun.”
“ It is,” Patterson said. He thumbed through some documents the state gave him in pretrial discovery. “Powered by a. 27-caliber charge, it can drive a carbon-steel nail through solid concrete.”
“ Or a mushy brain,” I added.
Patterson gave me a raised eyebrow.
“ I wasn’t trying to kill him,” I said.
Now he arched both eyebrows.
“ Okay, I went there meaning to do him some serious harm, but after Jo Jo accused me of assaulting her, I realized she was lying about being beaten by Cimarron. That took the stuffing out of me. But by then, I didn’t have a choice. Cimarron wanted to maim me and was doing a pretty good job. At first, I just wanted to defend myself, so I went into a Wing Chun defense because Cimarron was bigger than me.”
“ Just like Bruce Lee did to Chuck Norris in Return of the Dragon ,” Kip added, helpfully.
“ What gets me,” I said, “is how Jo Jo played me for a fool. I thought her brother was a great con artist, but you should have seen her. She fooled me, and then she fooled Cimarron. She had me hating him, and then had him hating me, and when he hates…”
I let it drift off, realizing he isn’t hating anymore.
“ Why would she have done it?” Patterson asked. “What’s her motive?”
“ I’ve been lying awake nights on that one. Only thing I can figure out is that she wanted me dead.”
“ What makes you say that?”
“ Are you kidding, H.T.? She set me up so Cimarron would kill me.”
“ But that isn’t what happened, is it?”
“ No, I killed him. So?”
“ So what makes you think that is not precisely what Ms. Baroso intended?”
CHAPTER 21
Summer became fall, and the aspen trees turned their shimmering gold. Football season began, and locals at a basement sports bar saluted the Broncos’ early success, all the while bitching about how they would fold in the playoffs.
Trial was set for the first week of December. Patterson had completed his pretrial discovery and arranged his documents in color-coded files. Unlike Florida, Colorado law did not give us the right to take pretrial depositions, a severe handicap in trying to peck away at a criminal case. Although we didn’t have a chance to cross-examine their witnesses before the trial, we knew what they would say on direct examination. The state gave us their sworn statements and grand jury testimony, and so far, no one, including Josefina Jovita Baroso, had a kind word to say about me.