Resurrection Walk

“I wasn’t hiding anything. I was going to leave the crime scene. I went to tell Deputy Sanz’s girlfriend at the time what had happened. I thought she should hear it from one of Robbie’s friends before she saw it on the news.”

“That was very noble of you, Sergeant Sanger.”

“Thank you.”

She said it with a solid tone of sarcasm. I was near the end of my questioning. I decided it was time to rock her boat with a big-time wave.

“Sergeant Sanger, were you aware that at the time of his murder, Roberto Sanz was in a sheriff’s gang?”

Sanger actually did rock back in her seat a few inches. Morris quickly stood and objected.

“Assumes facts not in evidence,” he said. “Your Honor, counsel is on a fishing expedition, hoping the witness will misspeak and give him something he can blow out of proportion.”

I shook my head. I walked to the petitioner’s table and opened a file containing several copies of the photos from the Roberto Sanz autopsy. I made sure Lucinda did not see them.

“Your Honor, this is no fishing expedition and I think counsel knows it,” I said. “I am prepared, if the court will indulge me, to show this witness proof that her colleague was a member of a sheriff’s clique. If the court needs it, I can also bring in an expert on the internal investigation by the sheriff’s department and the external investigation by the FBI into these clusters of gangsters with badges, probes that resulted in a former sheriff going to prison and wholesale changes in personnel and training within the department.”

It was a bluff. The expert was the FBI agent MacIsaac, and so far I hadn’t been able to get to him. If pressed by the court, I would bring in the Los Angeles Times reporter who exposed the scandal and covered its multiple investigations.

Luckily, I needed neither.

“I don’t think we need an expert to tell us about the well-known problems in the sheriff’s department at the time of this murder,” Coelho said. “The witness will answer the question.”

All eyes in the courtroom returned to Sanger. I asked if she needed me to repeat the question.

“No,” she said. “I was not aware of Roberto being in a clique or a gang or whatever you want to call it.”

“If the court allows, I am going to show you two photos,” I said. “They were taken during the autopsy of Roberto Sanz.”

I approached the bench and handed the judge a set of photos showing Sanz’s body on the autopsy table and the close-up of the tattoo on the body’s hip. I turned and gave Morris a set. He immediately stood and objected to the inflammatory nature of the photos.

“This man was a hero, Your Honor,” he said. “Counsel wants to flaunt these photos that purport to show gang affiliation when they show and prove nothing.”

“Your Honor,” I countered, “the petitioner can bring in an expert on this subject who will identify the tattoo on Roberto Sanz’s body — incidentally located in a place that would not be seen by the public — if necessary. But just a casual Google search by the court or anyone else would confirm that Sanz’s secret tattoo directly connects him with a so-called clique that operated in the Antelope Valley.”

The judge did not take long to render a decision.

“You may show the witness,” she said.

I approached the witness stand and handed Sanger a set of photos.

“Do you recognize that tattoo, Sergeant Sanger?” I asked.

“I do not,” Sanger said.

“You did not know of your unit member’s association with the Cucos, a known sheriff’s clique?”

“I did not and I don’t think a tattoo is proof of that.”

“Do you have such a tattoo, Sergeant?”

“I do not.”

I paused there and in my peripheral vision saw Morris stand, anticipating that my next move would be to ask the court to have Sanger’s body inspected for tattoos. But I didn’t. I wanted that possibility to hang over the judge’s eventual decision on the petition.

“I have one more question for now,” I said. “Sergeant, what was your phone number that was linked to the Special Operations Reporting System?”

Morris, who was in the act of sitting down, suddenly bolted to his feet. He spread his arms wide and displayed an exaggerated look of shock and horror on his face.

“Objection, Your Honor,” he said. “What could the plaintiff possibly want with the revelation of this law enforcement officer’s private number other than to expose it to the media and the public?”

“Can you answer that, Mr. Haller?” the judge asked.

“Your Honor, I am not trying to expose her private number to the public,” I said. “But she testified to having received notice of the Sanz killing on her cell phone, and the petitioner is entitled to that phone number as part of the evidence in this case. If the court would order the witness to privately disclose the number to me through Mr. Morris or the clerk of the court, that would be fine.”

“But why would he need the number other than to harass the witness with phone calls?” Morris said.

“Judge, I will never distribute or call the number,” I said. “And you can hold me in contempt if I do.”