Chapter 13
The drive to the California State Correctional Facility in San Bruno, just south of San Francisco, also called County Jail Number Three, was a short one. On two sides, the property was surrounded by a greenbelt and woods, the other sides bordered a local college and a residential community.
Benjamin hadn’t been here before. In fact, it was rare that he or anybody else from Scanguards had to deal with inmates, unless they were vampires, and those were housed in the vampire prison in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, a four-hour drive from San Francisco.
“There is visitor parking around the corner,” Catalina said, pointing to a road to the left of the main entrance.
“How often have you been visiting your brother?” he asked, while he drove to the parking area.
“Once a week. I’m trying to keep his spirits up…” She shrugged. “It must be awful in there for him.”
Benjamin parked the car and put his hand on Catalina’s thigh, squeezing it gently. “Let’s go talk to him.”
They got out of the car, and he took her hand into his.
Together, they walked to the main entrance.
It didn’t take long to get admitted to the visitor area.
Donnelly had called ahead and even made sure that they could meet with Santiago in a private room normally utilized by inmates and their attorneys. He appreciated the gesture.
As they waited inside the small room with a table and several chairs, Catalina squeezed his hand. There was a large window that looked out onto the corridor so anybody could look inside the room.
“I normally have to visit with him in the main visitor hall. It’s loud there. How did you manage to get them to give us this room?”
“I know the Chief of Police. He made the arrangements.”
“Thank you,” she murmured.
A few moments later, there were sounds outside the door, and through the glass insert, he saw a young Latino appear on the other side, with a guard next to him. The door opened, and Santiago, dressed in prison garb, entered.
The guard nodded at Benjamin. “I’ll be watching from outside.”
“Thank you, officer,” Benjamin said.
With a look at the prisoner, the guard added, “There’ll be no touching. Vargas, sit down.”
He left the room and closed the door.
“Santiago,” Catalina said. “What happened to you?”
She pointed to his split lip. It wasn’t the only bruise on him.
But the others were older. It wasn’t hard to guess what had happened to him.
Some of the other prisoners were showing him who was boss.
And a young man like Santiago, who looked no older than twenty-four and had fine features, was welcome fodder for the bullies behind bars.
“It’s nothing,” Santiago claimed. Then he cast a glance at Benjamin.
“This is Benjamin,” Catalina introduced him. “He’s a friend. He’s going to help us get you out of here.”
“Are you a lawyer?”
Benjamin shook his head and motioned to the table and chairs. “Please take a seat.”
When they all sat down, he added, “I’m a private investigator, and your sister has asked me to look into your case.”
Confused, Santiago looked at his sister. “But we don’t have any money for that. Mama needs the money for her treatment.”
Benjamin turned to Catalina. “What treatment?”
Catalina sighed. “Our mother has cancer. She was already doing better—”
“But then she and Papa got deported,” Santiago interrupted, “in the middle of her cancer treatment.”
He could hear the pain in Santiago’s words. “They were undocumented?”
Catalina shook her head. “They had work permits, but they got swept up in one of the ICE raids anyway and got deported. They were sent back to Mexico.”
“And you two? You managed to stay here?”
“We were born here,” Santiago spat, anger rolling off him now. “We’re citizens.”
Catalina put her hand on his forearm to calm him, but instantly there was a knock at the glass. Benjamin whipped his head in that direction and gestured to the guard to show he understood.
“Sorry!” he said, then turned back to Santiago. “I’m not the enemy, Santiago.” Then he looked at Catalina. “Is your mother in treatment in Mexico?”
She nodded. “Yes, but she lost valuable time while she was in the detention center, and the treatment isn’t as effective as it should be.”
“I understand.”
He felt for them, for the entire Vargas family.
It appeared that they couldn’t catch a break.
Cancer, deportation, a criminal conviction, no money.
No wonder Catalina was desperate to help her brother.
If he stayed in prison and their mother couldn’t beat her cancer, he would never see her again.
It was hard to push away those thoughts and concentrate on the things that he could help with.
“Can we talk about what happened with the Prestons, Santiago?”
“What do you wanna know?”
His voice sounded tired now, without energy, hopeless. His shoulders sagged. He looked older now. Even his skin took on an ashen tone.
“You were accused of stealing a very valuable necklace from the Prestons.”
“It’s all in the court transcripts. Haven’t you read those?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. I want to hear your version first.”
“My version is simple: I didn’t do it. I never opened that safe. I never stole anything from them.”
Benjamin nodded. Santiago was defensive, and who could blame him? But he had to dig deeper.
“How did you know the Prestons? Where did you first meet them?”
“I got a job with an electrician. And they had a job to rewire part of their house. You know, they were doing renovations, and they needed more lights and outlets. And since the house is so old, a lot of that stuff wasn’t up to code anymore. So we needed to rip out some of the old wiring.”
“Were you the only one who worked on this job?”
Santiago shook his head. “No. Joe, the owner, did some of the work too, but a lot of the grunt work was just me.”
“Does that mean you would be left alone for long stretches to do the work? Without anyone supervising?”
Santiago shrugged. “Yeah, but I knew what I was doing. Joe had trained me. I knew enough to get my electrician’s license, I just hadn’t applied for it yet.”
“How long did you and Joe work on the job at the Preston house?”
“A good week for sure.”
“And what happened then?”
“The city signed off on the permits, and all went well. Joe sent his invoice, and then he asked me to swing by there on my way to another job to pick up the check from them.”
“And how did that go?”
“It went fine. Mrs. Preston gave me the check, and then she asked me to help her with something in her walk-in closet. Her husband wasn’t home, so she couldn’t ask him.”
“What did she ask you to do?”
“She was looking for something in one of the upper cabinets, so I reached up there and brought down the boxes that were up there. But whatever she was looking for wasn’t in there, so she asked me to put them back up.
She didn’t want me to bring the ladder up there, because she said the carpets had just been deep-cleaned, so I had to hold on to the shelves, just to get the boxes back up there. ”
Benjamin let the information sink in. “Hmm. Was that the only time you were in the master bedroom?”
He nodded.
“So none of the electrical work you did was in the master bedroom or walk-in closet?”
“No.”
“Okay. Then what happened?”
“I left with the check. Gave it to my boss, and then a couple of days later, I was arrested.”
“And had you been back to the Prestons’ house between you leaving with the check and getting arrested?”
“No, I swear.”
“And the evidence? I assume they found your fingerprints all over the walk-in closet where the safe was located.”
“Yes. But I explained what I told you. That Mrs. Preston wanted me to help her with the boxes. That’s when she suddenly said that they have a security video of me in their house, stealing the necklace.”
Benjamin wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “What?”
“Yeah, they have security cameras inside the house. And they showed the video to the police. I saw it. It was me with the necklace in my hands. But I swear I never did that. It has to be a fake.”
Benjamin turned to look at Catalina.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the security video earlier?”
“Would you have agreed to help me if I had?”
She had a point there. A pretty good one.
But that also meant that there was very strong evidence against Santiago.
No wonder the jury had found him guilty.
The fingerprints he might have been able to explain away, but not the video.
And video was powerful when shown to a jury, more so than any eyewitness testimony could ever be.
He stared back at Santiago and gave him a long, hard look.
Despite the bruises on his face and arms, he didn’t look like a hardened criminal.
His hands sported no cuts or bruises, evidence that he hadn’t started a fight, and most likely hadn’t even fought back when another inmate or inmates had jumped him.
When he’d talked about his work as an electrician, he’d sounded proud of his work, and his plan to get his electrician’s license also pointed to Santiago wanting to make something out of himself.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Santiago, but I have to ask this. Have you ever been part of a gang?”
For a moment, Santiago looked stunned. Then he answered, “No.”
He believed Santiago. He didn’t know why. But there was something in his eyes, something that showed that Santiago wasn’t the kind of kid who thought that a life of crime would be a faster way to making it in this world. This guy believed in hard work.
“I believe you, Santiago.”
He looked at Catalina, then back at her brother.
“I don’t know yet what I can do to help you. But believe me when I say that I will try. I’m going to review the police file they have on you to see whether there’s anything that can prove that what you say is the truth. In the meantime… let me speak to the guard for a moment.”
He rose and walked to the door, then made a sign that he wanted the guard to open the door.
“A word, officer,” Benjamin said and stepped outside into the corridor.
The guard closed the door behind him again.
“Yes?”
“I’d like to know which inmates were responsible for messing with my client,” he said.
“You know as well as I do that that’s not something I can talk about.”
“Then maybe Chief Donnelly from the SFPD can have a word with the warden,” Benjamin said calmly.
The prison guard hesitated for a moment, then relented. “I’ll get you a name.”
“I appreciate it.” He pulled a business card from his pocket and handed it to the guard. “Send it to my cell or my email.”
The guard looked at the card. “Ah, Scanguards. I’ve heard of you guys. If you ever have any job openings…”
“Just send your resume to my email; I’ll forward it to HR.”
“Will do. Appreciate it.”
“When you send me the name of the bully, tell me which inmates are available for protecting my client. We pay well.” At least then Santiago would be safer while he was incarcerated—for however long he would remain in here.
“And you’ll get a cut if you set it up for me.
But it has to happen right away. I don’t want my client to go through another beating. ”
The guard nodded. “Understood.”
Pleased, Benjamin shook the guard’s hand. Before he went back into the interrogation room, he sent a quick text to Anita, the Scanguards liaison to the SFPD.