Page 74 of Resurrection Walk

“Yes, Your Honor, it is.”

“Very well. Sustained. Mr. Haller, move on and get to the reason we are here today.”

I nodded. So it was going to be like that.

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “Cindi, did you kill your ex-husband, Roberto Sanz?”

“I did not,” Lucinda said.

“But you pleaded no contest to manslaughter in the case. Why would you plead to something you now say you didn’t do?”

“I’m not saying it just now. I have said it all along. I told the sheriffs. I told my family. I told my lawyer. I did not shoot Roberto. But Mr. Silver told me the evidence was too much, that a jury would find me guilty if we had a trial. I have a son. I wanted to see my son again. I wanted to hug him and be part of his life. I didn’t think I would get so many years.”

It was said in such a heartfelt manner that I paused and looked at the legal pad in front of me on the lectern so I could let Lucinda’s words hang in the courtroom like a ghost. But the judge, who had been appointed for life more than a quarter of a century ago, had witnessed every trick in the book and wasn’t having it.

“No further questions, Mr. Haller?” she said.

“No, Your Honor, I have more,” I said. “Cindi, why don’t you tell the court what happened that night nearly six years ago.”

This was the dangerous part. Lucinda could not stray from what was already repeatedly on the record. We could add to it, which I intended to do, but we could not deviate from what was there. To do so would give Morris all he needed to send her back to Chino to finish her sentence.

“Roberto had our son for the weekend,” Lucinda began. “He was supposed to bring him home at six so we could go to my mother’s house for dinner. But he didn’t bring him till almost eight o’clock and he’d had dinner already at Chuck E. Cheese.”

“Did that upset you?” I asked.

“Yes, I was very upset and we had an argument. Me and Robbie. And he —”

“Before we get to that, did Roberto tell you why he was late?”

“He just said he had a work meeting, and I knew that was a lie because it was Sunday and his unit didn’t work on Sundays.”

“Okay, so you didn’t believe him and you argued. Is that what happened?”

“Yes, and then he left. I slammed the door because he had ruined my plans for that night.”

“And what happened next?”

“I heard the gunshots. Two.”

“How did you know they were gunshots?”

“Because I grew up hearing guns in Boyle Heights, and Roberto, when we were married, took me to a gun range to teach me how to shoot. I know what a gunshot sounds like.”

“So you hear two gunshots and what do you do?”

“I thought it was him — Roberto — shooting at the house because he was mad, you know? I ran back to my son’s room and we got on the floor. But that was it, no more shots.”

“Did you make a 911 call?”

“I called, yes. I told them my ex-husband is out there shooting at my house.”

“What did they tell you to do?”

“To stay with my son and hide until they checked it out.”

“Did they tell you to stay on the line?”

“Yes.”

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