Blind Justice (10 page)

WHAT WOULD I do, indeed?

If Howie saw “the devil,” it was either a delusion or real. I didn’t believe it was real. That left delusion, and that meant Howie’s mental state at the time of the killing was an issue. While the old diminished capacity defense is no longer available in California, an expert may give testimony about a defendant’s background and perceptions and his mental condition at the time the offense was committed.

I had just the expert in mind to do it.

On Tuesday, the day after Howie’s prelim and my devilish discussions with my client and his sister, I phoned Dr. Hendrick Brown’s office, which also happened to be his condominium near downtown Los Angeles. He wasn’t in, so I left a message for him to call me.

Then I called Mandy.

I got Rick.

“Mandy’s at camp,” he said.

“What camp?”

“A day camp.”

“That narrows it down nicely. Thank you very much.” I was being a complete jerk, but it seemed by now to be my habitual response to Rick Wilson. He was not a bad guy at all, I knew that, but he was married to my ex-wife. My typical American male pride sat on one of my shoulders, whispering in my ear to make Rick as uncomfortable as possible.

“I can have Barb give you a call when she gets in,” Rick said.

“I would just like to know where my daughter is. I would like to be included in the planning stages from time to time.”

“Barb felt, I think, that you pretty much leave those decisions to her.” He had an understanding tone in his voice that irritated me more. I didn’t want my ex-wife’s new husband to be right about the situation. He was, though. I palmed off to Barb a lot of the day-to-day stuff concerning Mandy. And I knew why. I had enough troubles getting through each day myself without having to micromanage my daughter.

That didn’t stop me from fanning the flames of my irritation. “So now you’re an expert in what Barb thinks? And you’ve been married to her what, a year?”

“I’ll have Barb call you.”

“Don’t you know what camp Mandy’s at?”

“It’s a nice camp, a church camp.”

“Church camp? What’s that all about?”

“Our church sponsors it.”

An image of Mandy walking blank-eyed down a city street with free magazines in her hand suddenly popped into my head. “What church is that?”

“Church of the Hill out in Chatsworth.”

“What kind of a church is it?”

“Just a regular church.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything.”

“If you’re unsure about it, come visit.”

“No thanks. Tell Barb to call me.”

I hung up. It took me a few minutes to calm down and realize what a boor I’d been. Then I stopped myself. I didn’t want to admit, even to myself, that I was wrong.

Anytime I thought about being wrong, I pictured my father. He was not the type to ever admit being wrong. He had an iron will and a steel pride. Not once in all the time I knew him did I ever hear him apologize—for anything.

Once, we were watching a movie on TV, a John Wayne flick called
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.
At one point in the movie, John Wayne rebukes a soldier, saying, “Don’t apologize. It’s a sign of weakness.”

I remember Dad mumbling, “Right on.”

Even after those times he beat me up, he never apologized. I once overheard him arguing with Mom about it. She said something about his being unfair to me, and he said that didn’t matter. It was going to toughen me up, and I needed toughening because I was a “mama’s boy.”

But I would gladly have taken more of the physical punishment if once, just once, Dad had told me I’d done a good job on something. Anything.

He never did.

I was thirteen when he died. He hung on to life for a week in the hospital before his heart stopped for good. I only saw him there once. He was gaunt and weak. I was sure—and I’m sure he was too—that this would be the last time we spoke to each other.

As I look back on it now, even though I was uncomfortable around him, I was waiting for the grand gesture. A hug. A plea for forgiveness. Some parting words of affirmation.

Instead, I got mostly silence.

Just before I left, he said “Don’t mess things up for your mother.”

Those were the last words he ever said to me. Four days later he was dead.

The night after the funeral I decided to sneak out of the house and get rip-snorting drunk. And I decided to do it with the only friend I had at the time.

Howie Patino.

He was more than willing, as was the wino who hung out near the liquor store and bought us the bottle with the money I gave him, along with an additional buck for his trouble.

Even though I was sick the next day, I remember that night as one of the happiest of my life.

It was like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders, and with each sip of wine I became lighter and lighter, like I could fly from Orlando to Los Angeles and back again with barely a flap of my arms.

Howie and I began making plans for our futures. For once I was able to think about it without wondering how Dad was going to put me down.

Howie said he wanted to be a jet fighter pilot. He wanted to go to war against the Commies and blast them out of the sky.

I said I wanted to become the biggest millionaire in the world. I was going to have my own fleet of yachts and go to all the great spots in the world where millionaires go. I was going to drink champagne all the time and own my own football team, and then people would know that Nick Denney’s kid had so far outdone his old man that nobody could remember the dead guy anymore.

As I said more and more, Howie sat there slapping his legs and saying, “Yeah, man! Yeah, man!”

Well, I didn’t make my millions. I became a lawyer scouring for clients just so I could afford a place to live and drink. I wondered if the old man could see me and wondered what he would think. Sometimes the only thing that would make those thoughts go away was a drink.

I spent an hour in my office making disjointed notes on Howie’s case, then got a return call from Dr. Hendrick Brown.

“You were an expert on a case I tried,” I told him.

“Yeah,” he said. “Attempted murder, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right. The guy who shot his wife and said he couldn’t remember it.”

“As I recall, she was somebody who deserved to be shot. Kind of a big lady with a mouth to go with it.”

“Doc, that kind of opinion is inadmissible in a court of law.”

“I’m talkin’ about my world now, which is the court of reality. Anyway, Jake, what can I do for you?”

“I’d like you to examine a client of mine.”

“You name the time and place. I’ll name the fee.”

We haggled about the fee part, but I set up a tentative date for him to see Howie.

At one o’clock Triple C came to my office. We had the names of two people we were going to interview in Hinton. I was going to take the old lady who lived across the street from the Patino house. Trip would see the bartender at the place where Rae had most recently worked. Maybe one thing would lead to another. I was hoping that all this would lead to something, anything, because at this point we didn’t have a lot.

And we were just about to find out we had even less than we thought.