Page 32 of Falling for Roxanne

“I have a little boy,” I said, and I took out my phone and showed her a picture of Colin, “he’s in first grade. I don’t think there’s a rule I wouldn’t break to keep him safe.”

I surprised myself, making this so personal, but it was true. I felt it deep down, a burning certainty that I’d lie on a witness stand and never blink if it would protect my child, keep him with me.

“So you get it?” she said. “I know it was wrong, what I did. I knew it when I did it, too, so I’m not gonna blow smoke up your ass about how I got tricked into it. I knew exactly what I had to do. I didn’t give a damn about anything but my boy. Until this here girl called me and told me that Daniel has twins and how her daddy got sent to jail and it tore up her whole family. Then I got to thinking, I hurt those twins, those kids that don’t have their daddy on account of my lie. I couldn’t sleep after that, and I knew I had to come clean.”

“That’s very brave of you,” I told her. “I admire that, and I understand the impulse to fight for your child and make a deal with the devil if you have to. My wife died when our son was a baby. I’m all he has. If there was any chance of him being taken away, I’d probably get on the witness stand and tell the judge I was abducted by aliens if I had to.”

She cracked a smile. “Thanks for saying that. I thought you was gonna sit there thinking you’re better than me, and you probably are, while I tell you all on the record how I lied in court. But that makes it a little easier, knowing you’re a daddy and you can see how it was for me.”

Roxanne gave her a cup of spicy tea and the two women moved to the couch. Pansy and Roxanne settled down, both drinking paper cups of tea while I turned my chair around from the table to face them.

“I have some questions, but if you want you can just tell me what happened and I’ll record and take notes, and we can circle back on any questions I have left at the end.”

“Let’s do it that way,” she said. “I’d rather tell it my way if I can. And I signed that paper out front that you can record it all.”

“Thank you,” I said, and started the recorder and spoke my name and the date.

“Roxanne Park, intern from Berkeley School of Law,” Roxanne said, and then the witness said, “Pansy Denise Lestrade, 38 years old. I’m a waitress and I was a witness at the trial of Daniel Garza last year. I’m here at this law firm because Roxanne called me and asked about what I said in the trial, and I told her I lied.”

“This deposition is being recorded for purposes of public record and will be entered into discovery for the appeal of Daniel Pedro Garza in the State of California in its entirety. Please go ahead, Ms. Lestrade,” I said.

She put down her tea and looked at Roxanne who nodded encouragingly.

Pansy launched into her story. It was sad and gritty and at times, she had trouble telling it. At one point, she broke down into tears and Roxanne put her arm around Pansy to comfort her. I couldn’t help but feel horrible for the woman.

I got up out of my seat, put my legal pad down and knelt on the floor by the damn couch. I patted Pansy Lestrade on the shoulder. After she took a drink of her tea and smoothed her dress, she nodded and then spoke again.

“They took me to the station and I had to take a drug test and give a statement and they wouldn’t tell me where my son was. I could see him in a week with that caseworker watching us the whole time like I was gonna hurt my child! I couldn’t even talk to him on the phone to tell him I was okay! I needed to hear his little voice, and I knew he was scared and they just split us up like that—” her voice broke again.

“The detective was there. He saw me walk out, and he called me the next day and said he might be able to help me.”

“Which detective? Could you state his name for the record?” I asked.

“Donald Alan Cheavers. He was just promoted, and he said maybe he knew a way to get my charges reduced. Well, we went out for coffee and pie, and then we hooked up. I can’t say if I knew at the time that he wanted me to have sex with him for his help or if I just did it because he was nice to me on the worst time of my life. I needed any help I could get, and you and I know that public defenders ain’t shit.”

I cleared my throat and resisted the urge to correct her, that I had colleagues who worked very hard as public defenders—but she wasn’t wrong for the most part. Roxanne, who met my eyes, had a spark in hers like she shared my opinion. Pansy went on.

“I got to do my jail time only a couple months, and then a rehab. Now state rehab ain’t no picnic, but they let me do video calls with my Titan every week if I did good, and let me tell you, I did good. When I got out, I did my service plan and I got to get him back.”

Roxanne just hugged her and let her cry for a minute. “I’m sure sorry I keep taking up time with my crying, but this ain’t easy for me to talk about. Thing is, I kept seeing Donny after I got out of jail. He was my boyfriend, I guess. I guess once I got my son back, I would’ve done anything to keep him and anything Donny asked me to do.”

“So, you were in a long term relationship with Detective Cheavers?” I questioned.

“Yeah, we were together probably two years off and on. He didn’t act like we had no future or nothing, but he let me know I owed it to him that I got in that state rehab as quick as I did because there’s waiting lists. It was real lucky, if you know what I mean,” she said. “And when I fell on the stairs and broke my ankle, well guess who took me to the ER and then gave me the money to pay my medical bills and even paid my rent for two months so we didn’t get evicted? So there was the money hanging over my head too, not that I saw it that way at the time.”

I took down the information, but I was having personal feelings about the case the same way Roxanne was. As soon as I’d shown the photo of Colin I’d gotten invested in this woman’s story and how she had been exploited and how she was as much a victim as Daniel Garza was. I have great respect for the police, but this particular detective made me want to throw up—or punch him. I didn’t have a lawyer’s desire to hold him accountable for harm—I wanted to hit him in the mouth. I had to get myself together. I was emotional. Maybe it was because of my son or because Roxanne was here or because I had forgotten how to compartmentalize things in my brain.

She went on to say that when the Garza case came up, Cheavers asked her for a favor. When she balked at giving false testimony, he showed her the drugs he’d picked up on a bust and “accidentally” forgot to turn in for destruction. All he had to do, he said, was plant them where she’d be found in possession, and she’d be in violation of her probation and end up back in jail and then Titan would go right back into care. The way her face paled when she told it, Pansy could remember every detail like it was yesterday.

“So, I said right then, I’ll do it. Just don’t do that to me. You know what my baby boy means to me. I’ll do it.”

“That must have been awful,” Roxanne said, rage and grief warring on her face. “But you held on to your boy, and you kept him safe.”

“I did. And after that, I knew better. I knew I had to do anything Donny asked of me because he’d made that threat that one time and I knew where I stood. It wasn’t a relationship; it was like he owned me. And maybe it was like that all along and I was just now getting the idea, and I wondered how many girls he done this to besides me. Like maybe blackmail was a thing he did to pull the strings. Anytime I saved a little money and tried to pay him back on that medical bill, he wouldn’t take it. He’d say, ‘now Pansy don’t you know you’re special to me, that hurts my feelings when you try and pay me back. I gave you that money and we help each other out, you and me.’”

“I can assure you that the situation will be fully investigated, and that Donald Cheavers isn’t going to be in a position to terrorize you any longer,” I said. “He will be placed on administrative leave pending the investigation, so he won’t have the authority to interfere with you. I checked into the family court rulings, and you have solid custody of your son. You met all the conditions of your probation.”

I asked her some follow up questions, about the dates and amounts of the medical bills and the number of times she met with Cheavers after the Garza arrest. She gave me the information to the best of her recollection and pulled up a couple of receipts for payment of medical costs that I asked her to send me so I could print them and enter them into discovery as supporting documents. I made a note to subpoena the bank records on Cheavers and for Roxanne to call his ex and see if she had any evidence of the extramarital relationship. Soon, Pansy Lestrade was thanking us and hugging Roxanne.

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