I almost corrected him by suggesting that he actually meant he was the grease that kept the system moving, but I held back. He was my witness, after all. Instead, I asked him to be more specific about his work.
“For one thing, I’m a state-licensed bail bondsman,” he said. “I also got my PI license and I use that for process. And if you go down to the second-floor coffee shop in this building, then I’m the leaseholder on that. I’m with my brother on that deal. So—”
“Let’s go back for a moment,” I interrupted. “What is a PI license?”
“Private investigator. You gotta have a state license if you want to do that kind of work.”
“Okay, and what do you mean when you say you use your license ‘for process’?”
“Uh, process. You know, process serving. Like when people get sued and stuff and the lawyer has to put out a subpoena if he wants to call somebody to come in to give a statement or a deposition or come to a trial so they can testify. Like what I’m doing right now.”
“So you deliver the subpoena to the witness?”
“Yes, like that. That’s what I do.”
For all his years spent being the oil in the machine, it was pretty clear that Valenzuela did not have much experience testifying. His answers were choppy and incomplete. Whereas I thought he would be one of the easier witnesses to question, I found myself having to work extra hard with him to get a complete answer to the jury. It was not the perfect way to start the defense case, but I pressed on, annoyed more with myself than with him for not conducting a practice run-through beforehand.
“Okay, now did your work as a process server bring you in contact with the victim in this case, Gloria Dayton?”
Valenzuela frowned. What I believed was a straightforward question had thrown him for a loop.
“Well . . . it did, but at the time I didn’t know it. What I mean is, her name wasn’t Gloria Dayton at the one and only time I came in contact with her, you see.”
“You mean she was using a different name?”
“Yes, she was. The name that was on the subpoena I delivered to her was Giselle Dallinger. That’s who I served paper on.”
“Okay, and when was that?”
“That was on Monday, November fifth at six oh six in the evening at the lobby entrance of the apartment building on Franklin, where she lived.”
“You seem pretty precise about the time and place you did this. How can you be so sure?”
“Because I document every service in case somebody doesn’t show up for court or for a depo. Then I will be able to tell the lawyer or the judge that, see, sure enough, the person was served and should’ve been there. I show them the record and I show them the picture which has the date and time stamp on it.”
“You take a photo?”
“Yep, That’s my policy.”
“So you took a photograph of Giselle Dallinger after you served her with a subpoena last November fifth?”
“That’s right.”
I then produced an eight-by-ten copy of the date- and time-stamped photo that Valenzuela had taken of Giselle née Gloria and asked the judge to accept it as the first defense exhibit. Forsythe objected to the inclusion of the photo and was willing to stipulate that Valenzuela had served a subpoena on Gloria Dayton. But I fought for the photo because I wanted the jurors to see it. The judge sided with me and I handed the photo to juror number one so it could be examined and then passed from juror to juror.
More than anything else, this was what I wanted to accomplish with Valenzuela on the stand. The image was key because it did more than bring validity to Valenzuela’s story. It also captured a look of fear in Gloria’s eyes that had to be seen and not testified to. The photo was taken at precisely the moment she looked up from having read the subpoena. She had seen the name Moya in the styling of the case—Hector Arrande Moya vs Arthur Rollins, warden, FCI Victorville—and in that instant she had been struck with fear. I wanted the jury to see that look and to surmise that it was fear without me or a witness having to tell them.
“Mr. Valenzuela, who were you delivering that subpoena for?” I asked.
“I was working for an attorney named Sylvester Fulgoni Jr.,” he responded.
I half expected Valenzuela to add to his answer the improvisation about Fulgoni being the attorney who put the F-U in litigation, but luckily he spared the jury that. Maybe he was finally getting the hang of being a witness.
“And what was the case the subpoena was attached to?”
“It was called Moya versus Rollins. A convicted drug dealer named Hector Moya was trying to—”