Howtown (27 page)

“Yes,” I conceded, imagining how all this would sound to a jury. “That’s a problem.”

“What about the actual killing?” Peter asked. “How did they do it without being noticed?”

“That part was easy. Across the street from the motel where McKay was killed there’s a lot that’s empty except for a billboard. A cop car could park there all night, and all anyone would think was that it was a speed trap. My guess is that the night McKay was killed, Vega and Morrow were out there in a black-and-white. At the right moment, one or both of them went across the street and knocked on McKay’s door.”

“ ‘McKay, this is the police,’ ” Peter said. “That must’ve scared him shitless.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think they played it that way. What they did was tell him they’d be by with the girl, so he was expecting them. He let them in.”

Peter nodded. “Yeah, I see your point.”

“The other thing,” I said. “You know how he was killed? Someone bashed his head in with something about the size of a baseball bat.”

“A nightstick?”

I nodded. “That’s why they never found a weapon.”

We were quiet. The cat stretched and purred. I glanced toward the TV screen. A half-naked woman crawled on all fours toward a guillotine. The camera cut to the gleaming blade descending. The next image was a ratty-looking, potbellied singer in leather swinging a mannequin’s head by her hair.

“How much of this can you prove?” Peter asked, diverting me from the screen.

“McKay’s conviction,” I said, “and the tie-in with Morrow and Vega. Paul can testify about why he was there. Maybe someone noticed a patrol car parked across the street from the motel.” Listening to myself I realized how iffy this sounded. “All I’ve got to do is establish reasonable doubt.”

“If the DA sits still for it,” Peter was saying. “But he won’t. He’ll fight you tooth and nail.”

“Then what do you think about going to the DA with it to bargain for a dismissal?”

“Rossi?” he asked incredulously.

“No, the head of the office.”

“Joe Burke?” He thought for a moment. “Burke’s a straight arrow.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he’d hear you out. It doesn’t mean anything else.”

I sighed. “I don’t want to go to trial with this. Once I get started pointing the finger at Morrow and Vega, there’s no turning back and if I can’t come up with some really strong evidence, it could backfire. I mean, if you were Jane Juror, who would you believe? The DA doesn’t have to believe. The only thing I have to convince him of is that I could make things very messy for the cops and his office.” I looked at him, seeking confirmation.

“Do you believe what you’ve just told me, Henry?”

“About eighty percent.”

He smiled. “I believe it about sixty percent. That would be enough for me to kick the case, and the higher up you go in the DA’s office, the lower the percentage of belief has to be before someone’ll dump the case, because the higher-ups are the ones who’ll eat shit if Windsor’s acquitted. Let’s go see Burke.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow. Technically, the case isn’t even in the Los Robles judicial district anymore, so we have to move fast.”

“Thanks,” I said, getting up.

“You going?”

“I’m exhausted.”

I said good-bye to Gina, and Peter walked me to my car. As I was getting in, he said, “Henry, if you’re right about Morrow and Vega, you better be looking over your shoulder.”

The first thing I did when I got back to the hotel was to change rooms.

The sign on the door said,
I
,-
H
Joseph burke, district attorney. Beneath it was the Los Robles county seal, an undecipherable device that involved a river, an oak tree and a Latin motto that, as near as I could translate, meant gift of the earth. Peter, who occupied the chair next to me, nervously tapped his foot.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him.

“When I was a DA the only time you came in to see Joe Burke was to get your ass handed to you.” He noisily unwrapped a stick of gum and stuffed it into his mouth.

“He have a temper?”

“Do bears shit in the woods?”

Burke’s secretary looked up and hushed us with a frown. The door to the anteroom opened and Dom Rossi hurried in. Seeing us his expression curdled. He announced himself to the secretary, who was clearly unimpressed. She got up and went into Burke’s office.

Rossi said, “What’s this all about?”

“Henry wanted to meet the DA,” Peter drawled. “Thought I’d oblige him.”

He glared at us. Burke’s secretary reappeared and told us to go in. Rossi pushed his way ahead of me and Peter followed.

Burke’s office was big but sparsely furnished. Its windows overlooked the city eight stories below. The blond wooden paneling reflected the light, giving the place a sunny glow. The DA sat in shirtsleeves behind a long, narrow desk. There was nothing sunny about him. His face was deeply seamed and cragged, his silver hair plastered back. Before him was an open file. Sitting down, I glanced over and saw the complaint in
People v. Windsor
.

“You Rios?” he rumbled at me.

“Yes. Good morning.”

He nodded unpleasantly. To Peter he said, “Private practice must agree with you, Pete, you’re fatter than ever.”

“Thank you,” Peter mumbled.

“Rossi,” he said, turning his attention to Dom, “when I assign a case I expect it to be handled by the deputy from start to finish.”

“I didn’t ask for this meeting,” Rossi said, crouching down a little in his chair.

“This man”—he pointed to me—“must not think he can do business with you. That’s not his problem, it’s yours.” He jerked his head toward me. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Mr. Burke, my client is accused of murdering a man named John McKay.”

“I read the file,” he said dourly.

“Good, then I’ll come straight to the point. My client didn’t do it. John McKay was murdered by members of the Los Robles Police Department.”

Peter drew in his breath sharply. Rossi lurched forward and started to speak but Burke held up his hand. “I hope you can prove that,” he said. “I surely hope you can.”

For the next fifteen minutes I laid out the story of Howard Thurmond, Ben Vega and Dwight Morrow. Burke trained his eyes on me the whole time, motionless, but as I went on his expression shifted from hostility to something akin to interest. When I finished, the room was still. I noticed the plaque on the wall above Burke’s head—District Attorney of the Year—presented by the California District Attorneys’ Association two years earlier, and was absurdly heartened by it.

“This is the biggest pile of shit I ever heard,” he said, quietly.

My insides collapsed.

“That’s what I think,” Rossi piped up, lurching forward.

“Shut the fuck up,” Burke snapped. “I’ll deal with you later.”

Rossi dropped back in his chair.

“What you think and what a jury will think are two different things,” I said to Burke, “particularly since the jury in question won’t be composed of a lynch mob from Los Robles County. You said you read the file? Then you have to know that the case is being moved to San Francisco.”

“Land of fruits and nuts,” he commented. “What do you want, Rios?”

“Dismissal.”

He made a contemptuous noise. “We don’t dismiss cases up here.”

I got up. “Then we don’t have anything else to talk about.”

“I guess not,” he said.

The three of us, Peter, Rossi and I, headed for the door. Burke said, “Rossi, stay put.”

On our way out of the office, we could hear Burke yelling at him.

Waiting for the elevator, I turned to Peter. “Well, that was a bust. All I’ve done is give away the defense.”

“I’m not so sure,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

The elevator came and we got on. There were other people on it. “Downstairs,” he said.

Outside, he stopped on the steps and turned to me. “I think you might get your dismissal.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Look, Henry, put yourself in Burke’s position. He’s hearing this stuff for the first time and he has no way of knowing whether it’s true or not. Why should he take your word? You’re the enemy. He needs to hear it from his own people.” We took a couple of steps down to the sidewalk and started walking toward the office. “You did the important thing, you got his attention, and once you’ve got Joe Burke’s attention, you’ve got his attention.” He smiled. “I sure wouldn’t want to be Dom Rossi.”

O
VER LUNCH, PETER AND I
discussed trial strategy should the case get that far. When we got to dessert, I said, “It just occurred to me, Peter, you’re working for me, now.”

He dug into his banana cream pie. “What are you paying me?”

I smiled. “I’d like to say double what Clayton’s been paying you, but I don’t know what that is.”

“I get billed out at fifty an hour,” he said. “You manage that?”

“I bill myself out at a hundred and twenty-five,” I said, adding, “when I can get it. I’m getting it from the Windsors. You’re entitled to half.”

He finished his pie. “I’ll be sorry when it’s over.”

I had a revelation. “How deep are your roots up here?”

“Come again?”

“I need a partner,” I said. “I’ve got more work than I can handle in LA plus, being the famous faggot lawyer that I am, I’m always getting requests to travel all over the countryside giving speeches, sit on panels, that kind of stuff.”

Peter sipped some coffee. “I bet. But I’m not gay, obviously.”

“I don’t mind if you don’t mind.”

“Let me talk it over with Gina.”

I headed back to the hotel, where I spent the rest of the afternoon on the phone to Los Angeles trying to direct my cases long distance. By the time I was done I was ready to offer Peter whatever it took to get him to LA.

My last call was to the jail to check in with Paul. When I asked the deputy to put him on the line, he said, “He’s gone.”

“I beg your pardon. What do you mean he’s gone?” I asked, apprehensively. Even though the case had been transferred to San Francisco, I hadn’t expected they would move Paul without informing me in advance.

“He was OR’d about an hour ago,” the deputy said indifferently. “His brother picked him up.”

For over two months, Paul had been denied bail on the theory that he was a danger to the community and now, suddenly, he was set free on his own recognizance, which amounted to little more than his promise to appear for trial and to behave himself in the interim. Moreover, this could have been accomplished only by a court order and, since the case had been transferred out of Los Robles, technically the local judge had no power to make any further orders on the matter.

“Who signed the order?” I asked.

I heard him rattle through some papers. “Judge Phelan.”

“Today?”

“Yep.”

“Thanks,” I said, and hung up. Peter was right—Burke had been paying attention and whatever investigation he’d conducted had convinced him there was at least enough merit in my story to OR Paul out of jail. I doubted that he’d done this out of the goodness of his heart; he was just hedging his bets and trying to minimize the possibility of a false arrest action. The phone rang.

“Henry Rios,” I said, picking it up.

“Mr. Rios,” a woman said, “this is Mary Flores with the DA’s office. I’ve been assigned the Windsor case.”

I smiled to myself. “What happened to Rossi?”

“He’s no longer on the case,” she said, flatly. “I’d like to make an appointment with you to talk about a possible plea negotiation.”

“I just called the jail,” I replied, “and it seems my client was OR’d. It’s customary to inform the defense attorney when that kind of action is taken.”

Smoothly, she said, “I tried calling earlier but your line was busy. We didn’t think you’d object. Are you busy tomorrow at, say, nine?”

“No, I’m not busy, but I’ve already stated my position on a plea bargain to your boss. We want a dismissal.”

“I understand,” she said. “I think we can work something out.” She paused. “Of course, we’d have to take any disposition we work out to San Francisco.”

“Of course,” I agreed. I saw the DA’s strategy: a quick, quiet dismissal far away from the local media.

“And,” she continued, “if we did agree to a dismissal—and I’m not saying we would—we’d be looking for a quid pro quo.”

“Such as?” I asked dryly.

A little nervously, she said, “Well, we can’t ask your client to waive any civil action he might have against the city as a condition of dismissal …”

“That’s right.”

“But we are concerned about that possibility.”

“You should be,” I replied. “Just off the top of my head, I see a suit for false arrest and false imprisonment. If I did a little research I’m sure I could come up with a few other causes of action.”

“We haven’t agreed to dismissal yet,” she reminded me. “If we have to, we’ll go to trial.”

“That would be interesting.”

“Let’s talk about this tomorrow,” she said. “Nine? My office?”

“I’ll be there. Oh, Ms. Flores?”

“Yes?”

“What about Vega and Morrow?”

After a moment’s hesitation, she said. “That’s a police matter, Mr. Rios.”

“I see. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” she said. I smiled. This business about going to trial was bluster. Without Morrow’s testimony there was no case against Paul. We’d won. But where was Paul? I called Mark.

“Oh, yeah, Henry,” he said, when I got through. “Paul tried to call you but you were on the phone.”

“Where is he now?”

“Upstairs, asleep. You want me to wake him?”

“No, let him sleep,” I replied, “but let’s get together for dinner. Say about eight.”

“Sure,” Mark said. “We’ll come and get you.”

“Tell him I think the case may be dismissed.”

“He’ll like that.”

“How are you two getting along?”

“Same as always,” he said. “Talk to you later.”

A nap sounded good to me, too. I got undressed and under the sheets. Within minutes I was asleep, only to be awakened a half-hour later by the phone. I rolled over, picked it up and managed a groggy, “Henry Rios.”

“I’ve got to talk to you.”