Deadly Distractions, A Stan Turner Mystery Vol 6

CHAPTER 33

  PRETRIAL JITTERS

  My meeting with Officer Curtis didn’t go well. I showed him Don Harris’ photo and he couldn’t say for sure that Harris was the one driving the Mercedes the day Tuttle was murdered. Nor was he even positive the driver was male. The lab report that finally came in on the silver paint we found at the Double T Ranch didn’t help my spirits much either. Apparently the paint was used on several Mercedes vehicles and wouldn’t be enough to prove Harris’ Mercedes was at the Double T Ranch.

  It was early January 1987, and although Paula’s civil case was years away from trial, her criminal case was coming up fast—just 29 days away. The video surveillance report had just come in and it was very disappointing. Miss Cabrillo had been watched and videotaped for 48 hours straight and did nothing inconsistent with her claimed injuries. A jolt of fear went through me. What if we lost? What if Paula was convicted and had to serve time. I took a deep breath and tried to relax. I couldn’t get depressed. That would just make matters worse. I had to concentrate and keep plowing ahead. Something would turn up. I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer for Paula. I didn’t often pray, but when I really needed help, I did. I knew God would come through if I just had enough faith. When my emotional crisis was over, I got back to work.

  Shortly after taking Miss Cabrillo’s deposition, I had taken the depositions of the two witnesses to the accident. They had been better prepared by Ortega and stuck by their stories, but I also subpoenaed all their records. Six large boxes of records were sitting in my storage room. The job of going through them was pretty daunting so I had procrastinated getting to it. Finally I moved the boxes to the conference room and started looking through them. I enlisted Jodie’s help to speed along the process.

  There were bank statements, deposit books, real estate papers, tax returns, letters, memos, bills, receipts, insurance policies, and many other papers. None of them, however, seemed to have any bearing on Paula’s case. Miss Cabrillo seemed like a quite ordinary person. But when I got to the records of Ernesto Garcia things got interesting.

  His passport showed he had done a lot of traveling—El Salvador, Brazil, Trinidad-Tobago, Grand Cayman, Mexico, Belize, Venezuela, and Ecuador. Seeing the Ecuador stamp in the passport bothered me. Could there be a connection between General Moya and Ernesto Garcia? I didn’t think so. It was probably a coincidence but I couldn’t get that idea out of my head. There was also a lot of unexplained cash going through Garcia’s bank account. He supposedly made $25,000 a year at his job, but he ran nearly a hundred thousand through his bank account during the preceding twelve months. Drug money? I figured he’d be into that being a member of the 18th Street Gang. They were known to deal in just about anything from guns to teenage prostitutes. Garcia was obviously hired to set up Paula, but who hired him? Was this just about money or was there another motive?

  I finally broke down and hired another private investigator. His name was Paul Thayer. He had called me a couple times soliciting work and I had put him off, but when he called a third time, I told him to check out Cabrillo’s boyfriend, Raul Marcos. Marcos also had a record, having been convicted of assault and battery stemming from a beating he had dished out to a rival gang member who had reportedly insulted him. He had served six months in the county jail and was on one-year probation. Other than the bartending job his girlfriend had mentioned, there was no record of employment. A final interesting piece of information was that Marcos was also a plaintiff in a personal injury suit. Allegedly he had been struck by a limousine in front of the Fairmont Hotel. He was claiming $120,000 for medical expense reimbursement, pain and suffering, mental anguish, permanent impairment to his leg, and lost wages.

  As Paula’s case got closer I was getting very concerned. We had a lot of circumstantial evidence but nothing to conclusively prove a conspiracy to set up Paula. Our only hope was that Paula could convince the jury that her version of the facts were correct. The problem we had, however, was coming up with a motive for the setup. We could say the lawsuit was the motive but Cabrillo had a perfect right to bring the suit, and unless we could show it had been brought in bad faith, we really didn’t have much. Likewise, Marcos’ personal injury suit would not necessarily be relevant to Paula’s criminal case. It was unlikely we’d get it into evidence unless we could prove Paula had been set up and then tied Marcos into it. I finally decided I had no choice but to take Marcos’ deposition. Maybe he wouldn’t be as slick as his two gang buddies.