“Then, maybe we can just talk about a disposition on the matter,” he said as if the idea had just occurred to him.
And there we were. We had come to the place Posey had wanted to get to from the moment he’d answered the call.
“I’m open to it, Dwight. You should know that my client voluntarily entered a rehab program after his arrest. He has completed the program, has full-time employment, and has been clean for four months. He’ll give his piss anytime, anywhere, to prove it.”
“That is really good to hear,” Posey said with false enthusiasm. “The DA’s Office, as well as the courts, always looks favorably upon voluntary rehabilitation.”
Tell me something I don’t know, I almost said.
“The kid is doing good. I can vouch for that. What do you want to do for him?”
I knew how the script would read now. Posey would turn it into a goodwill gesture from the prosecution. He would make it seem as though the DA’s Office were giving out the favor here, when the truth was that the prosecution was acting to insulate an important figure from political and personal embarrassment. That was fine with me. I didn’t care about the political ends of the deal as long as my client got what I wanted him to get.
“Tell you what, Mick. Let’s make it go away, and maybe Patrick can use this opportunity to move ahead with being a productive member of society.”
“Sounds like a plan to me, Dwight. You’re making my day. And his.”
“Okay, then get me his rehab records and we’ll put it into a package for the judge.”
Posey was talking about making it a pretrial intervention case. Patrick would have to take biweekly drug tests and in six months the case would go away if he kept clean. He would still have an arrest on his record but no conviction. Unless…
“You willing to expunge his record?” I asked.
“Uh…, that’s asking a lot, Mickey. He did, after all, break in and steal the diamonds.”
“He didn’t break in, Dwight. He was invited in. And the alleged diamonds are what this is all about, right? Whether or not he actually did steal any diamonds.”
Posey must have realized he had misspoken by bringing up the diamonds. He folded his tent quickly.
“All right, fine. We’ll put it into the package.”
“You’re a good man, Dwight.”
“I try to be. You will withdraw your motion now?”
“First thing tomorrow. When do we go to court? I have a trial starting the end of next week.”
“Then we’ll go for Monday. I’ll let you know.”
I hung up the phone and called the reception desk on the intercom. Luckily, Lorna answered.
“I thought you were sent home,” I said.
“We’re about to go through the door. I’m going to leave my car here and go with Cisco.”
“What, on his donorcycle?”
“Excuse me, Dad, but I don’t think you have anything to say about that.”
I groaned.
“But I do have a say over who works as my investigator. If I can keep you two apart, maybe I can keep you alive.”
“Mickey, don’t you dare!”
“Can you just tell Cisco I need that address for the liquidator?”
“I will. And I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Hope so. Wear a helmet.”
I hung up and Cisco came in, carrying a Post-it in one hand and a gun in a leather holster in the other. He walked around the desk, put the Post-it down in front of me, then opened a drawer and put the weapon in it.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “You can’t give me a gun.”
“It’s totally legal and registered to me.”
“That’s great but you can’t give it to me. That’s il—”
“I’m not giving it to you. I’m just storing it here because I’m done work for the day. I’ll get it in the morning, okay?”
“Whatever. I think you two are overreacting.”
“Better than underreacting. See you tomorrow.”
“Thank you. Will you send Patrick in before you go?”
“You got it. And by the way, I always make her wear a helmet.”
I looked at him and nodded.
“That’s good, Cisco.”
He left the room, and Patrick soon came in.
“Patrick, Cisco talked to Vincent’s liquidator and he still has one of your long boards. You can go by and pick it up. Just tell him you are picking it up for me and to call me if there is any problem.”
“Oh man, thank you!”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got even better news than that on your case.”
“What happened?”
I went over the phone call I’d just had with Dwight Posey. As I told Patrick that he would do no jail time if he stayed clean, I watched his eyes gain a little light. It was as if I could see the burden drop off his shoulders. He could look once again at the future.
“I have to call my mom,” he said. “She’s gonna be so happy.”
“Yeah, well, I hope you are, too.”
“I am, I am.”
“Now, the way I figure it, you owe me a couple thousand for my work on this. That’s about two and a half weeks of driving. If you want, you can stick with me until it’s paid off. After that, we can talk about it and see where we’re at.”
“That sounds good. I like the job.”
“Good, Patrick, then it’s a deal.”
Patrick smiled broadly and was turning to go.
“One other thing, Patrick.”
He turned back to me.
“I saw you sleeping in your car in the garage this morning.”
“Sorry. I’ll find another spot.”
He looked down at the floor.
“No, I’m sorry,” I said. “I forgot that you told me when we talked on the phone the first time that you were living in your car and sleeping on a lifeguard stand. I just don’t know how safe it is to be sleeping in the same garage where a guy got shot the other night.”
“I’ll find someplace else.”
“Well, if you want, I can give you an advance on your pay. Would that help you maybe get a motel room or something?”
“Um, I guess.”
I was glad to help him out but I knew that living out of a weekly motel was almost as depressing as living out of a car.
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “If you want, you could stay with me for a couple weeks. Until you get some money in your pocket and maybe get a better plan going.”
“At your place?”
“Yeah, you know, temporarily.”
“With you?”
I realized my mistake.
“Nothing like that, Patrick. I’ve got a house and you’d have your own room. In fact, on Wednesday nights and every other weekend, it would be better if you stayed with a friend or in a motel. That’s when I have my daughter.”
He thought about it and nodded.
“Yeah, I could do that.”
I reached across the desk and signaled him to give me back the Post-it with the liquidator’s address on it. I wrote my own address on it while I spoke.
“Why don’t you go pick up your board and then head over to my place at this second address. Fareholm is right off Laurel Canyon, one street before Mount Olympus. You go up the stairs to the front porch and there’s a table and chairs out there and an ashtray. The extra key’s under the ashtray. The guest bedroom is right next to the kitchen. Just make yourself at home.”
“Thanks.”
He took the Post-it back and looked at the address I’d written.
“I probably won’t get there till late,” I told him. “I’ve got a trial starting next week and a lot of work to do before then.”
“Okay.”
“Look, we’re only talking about a few weeks. Till you get on your feet again. Meantime, maybe we can help each other out. You know, like if one of us starts to feel the pull, maybe the other one will be there to talk about it. Okay?”
“Okay.”
/> We were quiet for a moment, probably both of us thinking about the deal. I didn’t tell Patrick that he might end up helping me more than I would help him. In the past forty-eight hours, the pressure of the new caseload had begun to weigh on me. I could feel myself being pulled back, feel the desire to go to the cotton-wrapped world the pills could give me. The pills opened the space between where I was and the brick wall of reality. I was beginning to crave that distance.
Up front and deep down I knew I didn’t want that again, and maybe Patrick could help me avoid it.
“Thanks, Mr. Haller.”
I looked up at him from my thoughts.
“Call me Mickey,” I said. “And I should be the one saying thanks.”
“Why are you doing all of this for me?”
I looked at the big fish on the wall behind him for a moment, then back at him.
“I’m not sure, Patrick. But I’m hoping that if I help you, then I’ll be helping myself.”
Patrick nodded like he knew what I was talking about. That was strange because I wasn’t sure myself what I had meant.
“Go get your board, Patrick,” I said. “I’ll see you at the house. And make sure you remember to call your mother.”
Thirty
After I was finally alone in the office, I started the process the way I always do, with clean pages and sharp points. From the supply closet I retrieved two fresh legal pads and four Black Warrior pencils. I sharpened their points and got down to work.
Vincent had broken the Elliot case into two files. One file contained the state’s case, and the second, thinner file contained the defense case. The weight of the defense file was not of concern to me. The defense played by the same rules of discovery as the prosecution. Anything that went into the second file went to the prosecutor. A seasoned defense attorney knew to keep the file thin. Keep the rest in your head, or hidden on a microchip in your computer if it is safe. I had neither Vincent’s head nor his laptop. But I was sure the secrets Jerry Vincent kept were hidden somewhere in the hard copy. The magic bullet was there. I just had to find it.
I began with the thicker file, the prosecution’s case. I read straight through, every page and every word. I took notes on one legal pad and drew a time-and-action flowchart on the other. I studied the crime scene photographs with a magnifying glass I took from the desk drawer. I drew up a list of every single name I encountered in the file.
From there, I moved on to the defense file and again read every word on every page. The phone rang two different times but I didn’t even look up to see what name was on the screen. I didn’t care. I was in relentless pursuit and cared about only one thing. Finding the magic bullet.
When I was finished with the Elliot files, I opened the Wyms case and read every document and report it contained, a time-consuming process. Because Wyms was arrested following a public incident that had drawn several uniform and SWAT deputies, this file was thick with reports from the various units involved and personnel at the scene. It was stuffed with transcriptions of the conversations with Wyms, as well as weapons and ballistics reports, a lengthy evidence inventory, witness statements, dispatch records, and patrol deployment reports.
There were a lot of names in the file and I checked every one of them against the list of names from the Elliot files. I also cross-referenced every address.
I had this client once. I don’t even know her name because I was sure that the name she was under in the system was not her own. She was in on a first offense but she knew the system too well to be a virgin. In fact, she knew everything too well. Whatever her name was, she had somehow rigged the system and it had her down as someone she wasn’t.
The charge was burglary of an occupied dwelling. But there was so much more than that behind the one charge. This woman liked to target hotel rooms where men with large amounts of money slept. She knew how to pick them, follow them, then finesse the door locks and the room safes while they slept. In one candid moment—probably the only one in our relationship—she told me of the white-hot adrenaline high she got every time the last digit fell into place and she heard the electronic gears of the hotel safe start to move and unlock. Opening the safe and finding what was inside was never as good as that magic moment when the gears began to grind and she felt the velocity of her blood moving in her veins. Nothing before or after was as good as that moment. The jobs weren’t about the money. They were about the velocity of blood.
I nodded when she told me all of this. I had never broken into a hotel room while some guy was snoring on the bed. But I knew about the moment when the gears began to grind. I knew about the velocity.
I found what I was looking for an hour into my second run at the files. It had been there in front of me the whole time. First in Elliot’s arrest report and then on the time-and-action chart I had drawn myself. I called the chart the Christmas tree. It always started basic and unadorned. Just the bare-bones facts of the case. Then, as I continued to study and make the case my own, I started hanging lights and ornaments on it. Details and witness statements, evidence and lab results. Soon the tree was lit up and bright. Everything about the case was there for me to see in the context of time and action.
I had paid particular attention to Walter Elliot as I had drawn the Christmas tree. He was the tree trunk and all branches came from him. I had his movements, statements, and actions noted by time.
12:40 p.m.—WE arrives at beach house
12:50 p.m.—WE discovers bodies
1:05 p.m.—WE calls 911
1:24 p.m.—WE calls 911 again
1:28 p.m.—Deputies arrive on scene
1:30 p.m.—WE secured
2:15 p.m.—Homicide arrives
2:40 p.m.—WE taken to Malibu station
4:55 p.m.—WE interviewed, advised
5:40 p.m.—WE transported to Whittier
7:00 p.m.—GSR testing
8:00 p.m.—Second interview attempt, declined, arrested
8:40 p.m.—WE transported to Men’s Central
Some of the times I estimated but most came directly from the arrest report and other documents in the file. Law enforcement in this country is as much about the paperwork as anything else. I could always count on the prosecution file for reconstructing a time line.
On the second go-round I used both the pencil point and eraser and started adding decorations to the tree.
12:40 p.m.—WE arrives at beach house front door unlocked
12:50 p.m.—WE discovers bodies balcony door open
1:05 p.m.—WE calls 911 waits outside
1:24 p.m.—WE calls 911 again what’s the holdup?
1:28 p.m.—Deputies arrive on scene
Murray (4-alpha-1) and Harber (4-alpha-2)
1:30 p.m.—WE secured placed in patrol car
Murray/Harber search house
2:15 p.m.—Homicide arrives
first team: Kinder (#14492) and Ericsson (#21101)
second team: Joshua (#22234) and Toles (#15154)
2:30 p.m.—WE taken inside house, describes discovery
2:40 p.m.—WE taken to Malibu station
Joshua and Toles transport
4:55 p.m.—WE interviewed, advised Kinder takes lead in interview
5:40 p.m.—WE transported to Whittier Joshua/Toles
7:00 p.m.—GSR testing
F.T. Anita Sherman
Lab Transport, Sherman
8:00 p.m.—Second interview, Ericsson in lead, WE declines got smart
8:40 p.m.—WE transported to Men’s Central Joshua/Toles
As I had constructed the Christmas tree, I kept a separate list on another page of every human being mentioned in the sheriff’s reports. I knew this would become the witness list I would turn over to the prosecution the following week. As a rule I blanket the case, subpoenaing anybody mentioned in the investigative record just to be safe. You can always cut down a witness list at trial. Sometimes adding to it can be a problem.
From the witness list and the Christmas tre
e, I would be able to infer how the prosecution would roll out its case. I would also be able to determine which witnesses the prosecution team was avoiding and possibly why. It was while I was studying my work and thinking in these terms that I felt the gears begin to grind and the cold finger of revelation went down my spine. Everything became clear and bright and I found Jerry Vincent’s magic bullet.
Walter Elliot had been taken from the crime scene to the Malibu station so that he would be out of the way and secured while the lead detectives continued their on-site investigation. One short interview was conducted at the station before Elliot ended it. He was then transported to sheriff’s headquarters in Whittier, where a gunshot residue test was conducted and his hands tested positive for nitrates associated with gunpowder. Afterward, Kinder and Ericsson took another stab at interviewing their suspect but he wisely declined. He was then formally placed under arrest and booked into county jail.
It was standard procedure and the arrest report documented the chain of Elliot’s custody. He was handled solely by the homicide detectives as he was moved from crime scene to substation to headquarters to jail. But it was how he was handled previous to their arrival that caught my eye. It was here that I saw something I had missed earlier. Something as simple as the designations of the uniform deputies who first responded to the call. According to the records, deputies Murray and Harber had the designations 4-alpha-1 and 4-alpha-2 after their names. And I had seen at least one of those designations in the Wyms file.
Jumping from case to case and from file to file, I found the Wyms arrest report and quickly scanned the narrative, not stopping until my eyes came to the first reference to the 4-alpha-1 designation.
Deputy Todd Stallworth had the designation written after his name. He was the deputy originally called to investigate the report of gunfire at Malibu Creek State Park. He was the deputy driving the car Wyms fired upon, and at the end of the standoff he was the deputy who formally placed Wyms under arrest and took him to jail.
I realized that 4-alpha-1 did not refer to a specific deputy but to a specific patrol zone or responsibility. The Malibu district covered the huge unincorporated areas of the west county, from the beaches of Malibu up over the mountains and into the communities of Thousand Oaks and Calabasas. I assumed that this was the fourth district and alpha was the specific designation for a patrol unit—a specific car. It seemed to be the only way to explain why deputies who worked different shifts would share the same designation on different arrest reports.