“Fourteen.”
“And you live with your family at the Osborne ranch?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell us about your family, Jaime.”
“Well, uh, I don’t know what’s to tell.” He glanced down at his parents and Dulzura and Lum Wing, seeking inspiration. He found none. “I mean, they’re just a family, no big deal or anything.”
“Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“Yes, sir. Three of each.”
“Are they living at home?”
“Only me and my two younger sisters, they’re twins. My oldest brother, Cruz, is with the army in Korea. Rufo is married and lives in Salinas. Felipe’s got a good job in an aircraft plant in Seattle. He sent me ten dollars for Christmas and fifteen for my birthday.”
“When your brothers were at home, they all had chores to do around the ranch, did they?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What about you?”
“I help after school and on weekends.”
“Do you get paid?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How?”
“My pop just hands me the money and says go buy yourself a Cadillac.”
“What I meant was, do you get paid by the hour or by the job?”
“The job usually. Also for the last three years I’ve been in business for myself part of the time. Pumpkins.”
“You’re pretty young to be in business for yourself.”
“Well, I don’t make much money,” Jaime said earnestly.
Ford smiled. “How do you go about getting in the pumpkin business, Jaime?”
“I just took over from Felipe, the way he did from Rufo and Rufo from Cruz. It all started with old Mr. Osborne lending Cruz a field for a crop that would bring him money to put away for his education. Cruz and Rufo grew a lot of different things. It was Felipe who thought of pumpkins. They grow fast and don’t take much work and you harvest them all at once at the beginning of October.”
“And is this what you did at the beginning of October 1967?”
“Yes, sir.”
“After the pumpkins were picked and sold, you plowed the vines under?”
“I did when my dad said I’d better get to it or else.”
“What date was that?”
“Saturday morning, November four, three weeks after Mr. Osborne disappeared. The vines were drying up by that time and a lot of them were broken and, you know, trampled down by people looking for clues and stuff like that.”
“Did anyone find any ‘clues and stuff like that’?”
“I don’t think so, not in the pumpkin field.”
“Did you?”
“I found the knife,” Jaime said. “The butterfly knife.”
“Where was it in the field?”
“The southwest corner.”
“The corner nearest the road leading out of the ranch?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was it buried in the ground?”
“No, sir. It looked like maybe somebody flung it out of a car window to get rid of it and it sort of stuck in the ground underneath one of the vines.”
“I’m going to show you a knife and ask you if it is the one you found.” Ford held up the knife, now labeled with an identification tag. “Is this it, Jaime?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Here, take it in your hands and examine it.”
“I don’t want — well, okay.”
“Is it the knife you found?”
“I think so. Except it looks cleaner now.”
“Some of the bloodstains were scraped off for analysis in the police lab. Allowing for that difference, would you say this is the knife you picked up in the pumpkin field?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was it open with the blade operable the way it is now?”
“Yes, sir, open.”
“Had you ever seen a knife like it before that time?”
“A couple of the boys at school carry butterfly knives.”
“For show? For fun?”
“No, sir, for real.”
The knife was offered in evidence, numbered, then replaced on the court clerk’s table. Two of the high school students in the audience stood up to get a better view of the knife but the bailiff promptly ordered them to sit down.
“Now, Jaime,” Ford said, “I want you to go over to the map on the board, and using one of the colored marking pencils, indicate the location of the pumpkin field.”
“How?”
“Draw a rectangle and print the words pumpkin field beside it.”
Jaime did as he was told. His hand shook and the boundaries of the pumpkin field were uneven, as though old Mr. Osborne had laid them out himself on one of his drunk days and no one had bothered to straighten them. The area where the knife was found, Jaime indicated by a circle with the letter K inside it. Then he returned to the witness box and Ford went on with the questioning.
“Jaime, I understand the pumpkin business occupied your time only for a couple of months out of the year.”
“Yes, sir. Late summer and early fall.”
“The rest of the year you were engaged in other projects around the ranch, is that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did these other jobs bring you in contact with the various crews of migrant laborers?”
“Not much. I did my work mostly after school and on weekends and holidays. Also my dad gave me orders to stay away from the mess hall and the bunkhouse.”
“So you didn’t become acquainted with any of the men personally?”
“No, sir. At least not very often.”
“Referring now to the crew which was employed on the ranch during the first half of October 1967, I’ll ask you if any of the men were known to you by name.”
“No, sir.”
“Do you recall anything in particular about the crew?”
“Just the old truck they came in. It was painted dark red. I noticed that specially because it was the same color red as the pickup Felipe used to teach me to drive. It’s not there any more, so I guess Mr. Osborne sold it on account of its gears being stripped too often.” He added, half in contempt, half in envy, “The kids in driver education at school learn in cars with automatic shifts.”
“I have no more questions, Jaime. Thank you.”
Jaime went back to his place very quickly, as though he were afraid the lawyer might change his mind. But Ford’s attention was already directed elsewhere, to the empty seat beside Devon.
“My witness is still missing,” he told Judge Gallagher. “Robert Osborne’s mother.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, find out.”
“I’ll try. I need a short recess.”
“Ten minutes?”
“Half an hour would be better.”
“Mr. Ford, somewhere in the county of San Diego right now, at least one irate taxpayer is figuring out exactly how much a minute this case is costing him. Do you realize that?”
“I do now, your Honor.”
“Court is recessed for a period of ten minutes.”
As the room began to empty, Ford walked over to where Devon was sitting. He would have liked to sit down beside her. His legs were tired and the lower part of his body felt as if the vertebrae had softened and the connecting discs had been unfastened. “Where is Mrs. Osborne?”
“She went home to rest during the noon hour but she intended to be back by one-thirty.”
“I told her I was going to put her on the stand right after the lunch break. Perhaps it slipped her mind.”
“I hardly think so. Mrs. Osborne is very meticulous about such things, and very punctual.”
“Then perhaps one of us had better find out why she’s suddenly not meticulous and punctual any more.”
“Mrs. Osborne hates to be checked up on. It makes her feel old.”
“It’s time she got used to it,” Ford said briskly. “There are pay phones at the end of the corridor.”
“She might take it better if you called her.”
“That’s unlikely. I’m the big bad man who asks her embarrassing questions, you’re her loving daughter-in-law.”