Resurrection Walk

“Okay, then, like I said, we have attorney-client privilege now. Anything you say remains confidential. So I need to start by asking: Is there anything you need to tell me and that I need to know about this case?”

“I did not kill him. That’s what you need to know.”

I held her eyes for a long moment before continuing. Again, she didn’t look away as liars often do. It was another good sign.

“Then, hopefully, there is something we can do for you,” I said. “I have a few questions and then Mr. Bosch will have more. We have about forty minutes left and I want to make the best of them. Is that okay, Lucinda?”

“Yes, okay. But people call me Cindi.”

“Cindi. Okay. Cindi, why don’t we start with you telling me how you came to hire Mr. Silver as your attorney back when you were arrested?”

Sanz had to think for a moment before responding.

“I didn’t have money for a lawyer,” she finally said.

“So he was appointed?” I asked.

“No, I had the public defender. But then Mr. Silver, he went to them and he volunteered. He said he would take my case.”

“But you said you had no money. I saw that you signed a document with credit card information.”

“He told me he could get the credit cards for me and I could pay that way.”

I nodded and knew that my early assessment of Silver as a weasel had been spot-on. Lucinda Sanz was in trouble from the start.

“Okay,” I said. “Now, looking over your sentence, you got midrange plus the gun enhancement and that totaled eleven years. With good behavior, you’d do about nine years max. So here you are, more than halfway through your sentence, and your letter to me indicates a desperation to get out. Is there something going on in this place? Are you in danger? Do we need to get you moved?”

“No, this place is good. Very close to my family. But my son, he needs me now.”

“Your son. That’s Eric, right? What’s going on with him?”

“He’s with my mother in the old neighborhood.”

“How old is Eric?”

“He’s going to be fourteen.”

“Where’s the old neighborhood?”

“Boyle Heights.”

East L.A. I knew that the White Fence gang was deeply entrenched in Boyle Heights and membership recruitment started as young as twelve years old. I turned and gave Bosch a slight nod. We both understood that Lucinda Sanz wanted to get out of prison to save her son from going down that path.

“You grew up in Boyle Heights?” I asked. “How did you end up in Palmdale?”

“Quartz Hill,” Sanz said. “When my husband got out of jail division, they put him there at Antelope Valley. So we moved.”

“Was he from Boyle Heights too?” Bosch asked.

“Yes,” Sanz said. “We grew up together.”

“Was he White Fence?” Bosch asked.

“No,” Sanz said. “But his brother and his father... yes.”

“What about when he started at the sheriff’s department?” Bosch asked. “Did he join any of the deputy gangs?”

Sanz was silent for a long moment. I wished Bosch had eased into that question with a little more finesse.

“He had friends,” she said. “He told me they had cliques, you know.”

“Did Roberto join a clique?” Bosch asked.

“Not when we were married,” Sanz said. “I don’t know what happened after. But he changed.”

“How long before his death did you divorce?” I asked.

“It was three years,” Sanz said.

“What happened?” I asked. “To the marriage, I mean.”

I read the look on Sanz’s face. She wondered what this had to do with whether or not she was innocent. I wished I had used a little more finesse myself.

“Cindi, we need to know as much as we can about your relationship with the victim,” I said. “I know that it’s painful to recount all of this, but we need to hear it from you.”

She nodded.

“We just... he had girlfriends,” Sanz said. “Deputy dollies. When he started doing that, he changed. We changed, and I said, ‘That’s it.’ I don’t like to talk about it.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “We can drop it for now. But we may need to come back to it. Do you know the names of any of these women?”

“No, I didn’t want to know them,” Sanz said.

“How did you know about them?” I asked.

“I just knew,” Sanz said. “He was different.”

“Was it a source of argument after the divorce?”

“After? No. I didn’t care what he did after we divorced.”

“So the argument that night was about him being late with Eric.”

“He was always late. On purpose.”

I nodded and looked at Bosch.

“Harry, you have more questions?” I asked.

“I have a few,” Bosch said. “Who were some of his friends in the department and at the substation?”

“He was on the gang team,” Sanz said. “They were his friends. I don’t know their names.”

“He had a tattoo on his hip,” Bosch said. “Below the beltline. Do you know when he got it?”

Sanz shook her head.

“I didn’t know about that,” she said. “He didn’t have tattoos when we were together.”

Since we had not choreographed the interview before getting there, I wasn’t sure why Bosch was trying to determine when Roberto Sanz had gotten the tattoo. I decided I’d wait and ask about it on the drive back to the city.

Bosch then asked another question I hadn’t seen coming.

“Would it be possible for me to talk to Eric?”

“Why?” Sanz responded.