The juvenile prosecutor did indeed file formal charges against Jake that afternoon. Although the fitness hearing wasn’t until one o’clock Friday, I took the day off so I could find a lawyer. I didn’t even have a dentist or a hairstylist yet in Las Cruces, much less an attorney. Locating someone in criminal law had not been on my to-do list.
The only people I knew to ask were my colleagues at the paper, and I didn’t want them to know about this. Because Jake was still a juvenile, at least for the moment his name wasn’t released. I turned to the Internet, where a Uriel Cohen sounded good on her Web site and even better on the phone—sharp and intelligent. She promised to meet Dan, Jake, and me at the courthouse at twelve thirty.
“I wish you’d lawyered up before they interviewed him,” she’d said.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “He didn’t say a word.”
Until noon, I poured coffee I didn’t drink and made the bed I hadn’t slept in and studiously avoided the front page of the Sun-News. I’d told Frances I didn’t have anything worth sending her. In truth, when I looked at my shots on the laptop the night before, they told a clear story of a vicious attack on a young man that left his family and friends seized with horror.
I finally relented around eleven that morning and skimmed the text of the front-page article. Miguel Sanchez was in serious but stable condition at Memorial Medical Center.
Señora Sanchez probably hadn’t slept any more than I had. I could see her in my mind, where God put her—pressed to her son’s bedside, trying to push life into his forehead with her hand, whispering the will to survive into his ear. It was everything I wanted to be doing with my own son.
But I didn’t see Jake until he and Dan slipped into the courtroom at the Third Judicial District Courthouse a mere fifteen seconds before the bailiff called our case. It might have been by design, so I wouldn’t have a chance to speak to him, but then, Dan was always late and, like today, always seemed surprised that it made any difference.
“Didn’t you get my message?” I hissed to him. “We were supposed to meet with the attorney first.”
I jerked my head toward the fiftyish woman with limp white hair I’d just spent thirty minutes stalling with.
She gave Dan a quick assessment through black-framed rectangular glasses and said, “We’ll talk later. This is only a fitness hearing.”
Only a fitness hearing? I wanted to scream. They’re going to decide whether to handle our son like the young boy he is or treat him like a career criminal.
I looked past Dan and drank Jake in. He evidently wasn’t that long out of the shower. The dark hair was only now starting to curl out of his apparent attempt to slick it back, and his face looked raw, as if he’d tried to scrub off any visible signs of fear. But he’d had no success with his eyes, which had the same frightened sheen I’d seen the day before. Except for the manly Adam’s apple that moved painfully with every swallow, he could have been twelve.
He sat so that I was left next to Dan, who smelled vaguely of Irish Spring soap and gasoline and had tried the same approach with his hair that Jake had. Except for their eyes—Jake’s were blue, like mine—they were so alike, I used to joke that I’d merely been an incubator for the child. I didn’t find it that amusing anymore.
The judge, the Honorable John Hightower, was a boxy, humorless man with more eyebrows than hair. He cocked one of them at us from the bench.
“This is a fitness hearing to determine whether”—he glanced down—“Jacob Coe is to be tried as an adult in the vehicular assault of Miguel Sanchez.
“What do you have for me, Ms. Hernandez?”
He cocked the other brow at the representative from the DA’s office, a large woman with mocha skin and enough dark hair for six women, which she tossed over her shoulders several times as she stood up, making her long, beaded earrings dance. The image of a Hispanic matriarch was completed by the command in her stride as she approached the bench.
“Your Honor, I would like to read a note that was found on the seat of the truck where Jacob Coe was apprehended.”
I hated the way she said his name, as if he were a newly discovered disease.
Hernandez perched a pair of red half glasses on her nose. “To whom it may concern—that would be you, Sanchez, in case this strains your English vocabulary.” Hernandez gave the words a sarcastic twist. I crossed and recrossed my legs.
“Whereas you are a lowlife immigrant loser, and whereas I am an American-born citizen with certain inalienable rights—therefore, you are going down, dude. Way down. When I’m finished with you, you’ll be licking the dust.”
Hernandez looked over the top of the paper, directly at Jake. He stared at his hands, which shook where they dangled between his knees.
I leaned into Uriel Cohen. “Jake didn’t write that,” I whispered to her.
She didn’t answer. Hernandez was handing the note to her, which she studied for an interminable moment. Dan tugged at my sleeve.
“What?” I said between my teeth.
“Leave it alone.”
“I’m going to tell her Jake’s dyslexic. There’s no way he wrote that.”
“Just leave it.”
Uriel put her hand on my arm and stood up.
“This is typed,” she said to the judge. “And it’s unsigned. I don’t see a strong link to my client.”
“Except that it was on the seat next to him with his fingerprints on it.” Hernandez drew herself up. “This vehicular assault was clearly not an accident, or even an impulsive act. It was planned. That alone indicates that he should be tried as an adult.”
“He’s fifteen years old, Your Honor,” Uriel said.
“I don’t care if he’s ten—this is a premeditated crime with racial features. That sounds pretty adult to me.”
Judge Hightower smeared his hand over his lower face. “What else do you have, Ms. Hernandez?”
My pulse raced. There was more?
Hernandez swept to her table and then to the bench, wafting yet another sheet of paper in his direction. “Your Honor, phone logs have also revealed that a call was made from Jacob Coe’s residence to the home of Miguel Sanchez one hour before the incident.”
“Which proves what?” Uriel said.
“It doesn’t have to prove anything, Ms. Cohen,” the judge said. “It only has to give me a reason to bind this case over to regular court.” The courtroom fell silent as he worked his eyebrows over a file in front of him.
“Is there a history of problems at home?” he asked.
“The parents are divorced, Your Honor.”
“As are 50 percent of the parents in this country,” Uriel said.
“The defendant’s father has sole custody,” Hernandez said, as if that alone was reason to lock Jake up indefinitely.
“Any evidence of lack of parental control?”
“He was driving a vehicle without a license. He—”
“I mean prior to the incident.”
Hernandez folded her arms. “None that has been reported.”
The judge looked up at us. “What about family support?”
“You see that both of his parents are here,” Uriel Cohen said.
“However, the detective who interviewed the accused reported that they argued—”
Uriel grunted. “What couple doesn’t—especially in a situation like this?”
The judge put up his hand. “There are three things here that I don’t like.” He bored his eyes directly into Jake. “One—the severity of the crime you have allegedly committed. Two—the strength of the evidence. And three—your attitude, young man.”
My heart stopped.
“According to the interview report, you were uncooperative, refused to answer questions or defend yourself in any way. And I myself am not seeing much remorse.” He shook his square head. “You will be tried as an adult. However, because of your age, your case will be expedited according to Juvenile Justice Commission recommendations.”
Hernandez didn’t hide a look of triumph. “The people would like to revisit bail at this time, Your Honor.”
I turned on Uriel, but she was already getting back to her feet. “We ask that the defendant be released to the custody of his parents, Your Honor. He has no priors. He is not a flight risk. He doesn’t even have a driver’s license.”
“He doesn’t seem to need one.” Ms. Hernandez didn’t look at Jake this time. She turned her eyes on me, lip curled as if she could smell how much I reeked as a mother.
I wanted to spit at her.
“I’ll leave custody as it is,” the judge said. “Young man, you are to adhere to the restrictions that apply, or you will find yourself behind bars.”
With a bang of the gavel, we were done. Papers were shuffled and new names were called, and Uriel Cohen was herding the three of us up the aisle and out into the hall where she nodded us to a long bench none of us sat on.
“What was that?” I said.
“Just a hearing.” She turned to Jake, who held his hands together in front of him as if he were still in handcuffs. “Don’t let that scare you.”
“How can that not scare him? They wanted to put him in jail!”
“We all heard it, Ryan.” Dan shifted his gaze up and down the hall and once again hung his hand on the back of Jake’s neck.
I lowered my voice. “That just wasn’t fair. You didn’t have any time to prepare—”
“It wouldn’t have made any difference. I knew going in they had enough. If he’d been a year younger, it might have gone differently. Over fourteen they consider them to have the ‘guilty mind’ required to be accountable.” Uriel pulled her mouth into a straight-line smile. “We didn’t want to show our hand. We’ll save it for—”
“Save what?” I said.
“Look, I’m going to take Jake home.” Dan put out his hand to Uriel. “Nice meeting you.”
“Dan, we need to talk about this!”
“No, actually, why don’t you let me get my ducks in a row, and then we’ll all sit down together and sort it out, hmm?” Uriel let go of Dan’s hand and gave Jake a quick nod. “You guys go on, and I’ll call you.”
I dropped my forehead into my hand and listened to Dan and Jake’s retreating footsteps across the tile to the front door. They all but broke into a run.
“I know that all sounded grim for Jacob.”
I looked up at Uriel Cohen. “Jake. We call him Jake.”
“Jake. Nina Hernandez made it sound like we might as well cart him off to Springer right now, but I feel positive that I can get straight probation for him.”
“Probation,” I said.
“He has no priors,” she said. “Never been in trouble with the law before?”
“No!”
“Is he a decent student?”
“He has to work at it, but he does fine. Unless his grades have slipped in the last year.”
She looked at me.
“He hasn’t been living with me,” I said. “I was out of the country until six weeks ago.”
“I should have no problem getting him two, three years’ probation max. All that stuff about premeditation and racial features was just to make us think—”
“Are you saying Jake’s going to be convicted?”
She tucked a lanky strand of white hair behind each ear. “I need to go in with a defense that plays up the impetuousness of youth—”
“You don’t understand,” I said. “There is no way Jake did this. I’ve watched him carry a black widow spider outside on a sheet of paper because he can’t stand to kill anything.”
“We can definitely use that.”
“I don’t care what the evidence is, things are not what they look like here.” I shook my head hard. “I don’t want probation for Jake. I want him acquitted.”
Uriel’s eyes took on a glint. “I see you’re a woman who’s used to getting what she wants.”
“I’m used to getting to the truth. Aren’t you?”
“I’m used to getting the best possible deal for my client.”
When I opened my mouth to protest, she put up a hand. “That could mean an acquittal. It could mean probation. In any case, I don’t think it’s going to mean any jail time for Jake. In fact, I can almost promise you that.”
“If I can get the true story of what happened out of Jake, will you use it?” I asked.
“It depends—”
“No, will you use it? Because if you won’t, I’m finding another lawyer.”
She blinked. “Girlfriend, you are tough. You want to come work for me?”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
I was already turned toward the exit.
“Okay—I will try to use anything you bring me that will hold up in court. That’s the best I can do. And there’s not another lawyer who can do any better than that.”
“You’ll hear from me,” I said.
Her mouth twitched. “Oh, I don’t doubt that for a minute.”
I careened out of the courthouse and crossed Picacho Avenue without bothering to check for cars. I licked at my dry lips as I headed for the lot where I’d parked the Saab. Evidently I was the only person in existence who didn’t think Jake had turned into a racist killer overnight. Fine. I was used to doing it all myself.
I didn’t see Levi Baranovic until he reached out an arm to keep me from plowing into him. Even at that I didn’t recognize him at first. He was wearing a crisp shirt and a conservative tie and a pair of sunglasses. He wasn’t wearing the grim expression he’d had on the day before. At least until he registered who I was.
“Mrs. Coe,” he said.
“Detective.” I straightened my shoulders. “I’m glad I ran into you. How is the investigation going?”
He looked at me blankly. “What investigation?”
“The vehicular assault.”
“There isn’t much to investigate,” he said. “We have a smoking gun.”
“It looks like one. It’s not. I know my son didn’t hit that boy, and I want you to keep looking.”
“For what?”
“For witnesses.”
“There were none.”
“For other possible explanations, then. That’s your job, isn’t it?” He took off the sunglasses and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Let me tell you about my job, Mrs. Coe. I just came from Memorial Medical Center because Miguel Sanchez can’t go to a free clinic or some Mexican farmacia to be treated for what’s going on with him. I had to talk to his mother, see if she knew any reason why your son or anybody else’s son would want to run over hers.”
His eyes hardened on me, and my stomach turned over. He was going to say she’d seen it happen.
“She couldn’t tell me anything,” he said. “All she could say, over and over, was that her boy is in a coma. That both of his legs are broken. That he has serious internal injuries and a fractured skull. If he ever regains consciousness, he will probably be in a vegetative state. That’s what she told me.”
I could see the face of the woman I’d never met, and I could feel the pain that ripped through her. Only that stopped me from pinching the detective’s head off.
“I grew up in Las Cruces,” Baranovic went on. “It’s a good town, and I don’t want to see it sucked up by youth crime the way places like Atlanta and LA have been. I’ve got two kids myself, and I want them to think ‘race issues’ means who can run the fastest.”
“I’m right there with you.”
“So I have given every scrap of evidence we have to the DA, and if I find more, I’ll give that to her too.” He slid the sunglasses back onto his face. “Because I’m all Miguel Sanchez has to provide closure for his family. That’s my job, Mrs. Coe.”
I stood there long after he disappeared around the corner, grasping for sanity, until my cell phone rang. I fished it out of my bag, ready to tell Frances to either get off my back or fire me. But it was Dan’s number.
“Yeah,” I barked into it.
“Hi, Mom,” said a boy-husky voice.
I closed my eyes and reined myself back in. “Alex,” I said. “Hey, guy.”
“You wanna come to my soccer practice?”
“Oh—yeah—I heard you were a little jock now.”
“I’m a superstud. It’s at four o’clock. Can you come?”
“Try and stop me. Where?”
“Burn Lake. You know where that is?”
“Yes,” I said, though I didn’t. “See you at four.”
“Oh, and, Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“Could you bring the snacks?”
“Snacks?”
“For the team, for after practice. All the moms do it, and it’s your turn.”
“Then I’m on it,” I said.
We hung up without my asking how many snacks to bring. I didn’t want him to know I had no idea how many kids were on a soccer team. Or anything else about his life.
But I was determined to find out.