The Brass Verdict (8 page)

The top file was the Edgar Reese file. I had already reviewed this one in preparation for the sentencing. Reese was one of Vincent’s repeat clients. It was a garden-variety drug case. A seller who used his own product, Reese was set up on a buy-bust by a customer working as a confidential informant. According to the background information in the file, the CI zeroed in on Reese because he held a grudge against him. He had previously bought cocaine from Reese and found it had been hit too hard with baby laxative. This was a frequent mistake made by dealers who were also users. They cut the product too hard, thereby increasing the amount kept for their own personal use but diluting the charge delivered by the powder they sold. It was a bad business practice because it bred enemies. A user trying to work off a charge by cooperating as a CI is more inclined to set up a dealer he doesn’t like than a dealer he does. This was the business lesson Edgar Reese would have to think about for the next five years in state prison.

I put the file back in my bag and looked at what was next on the stack. The file on top belonged to Patrick Henson, the painkiller case I had told Lorna I would be dropping. I leaned over to put the file back in the bag, when I suddenly sat back against the bench and held it on my lap. I flapped it against my thigh a couple times as I reconsidered things and then opened it.

Henson was a twenty-four-year-old surfer from Malibu by way of Florida. He was a professional but at the low end of the spectrum, with limited endorsements and winnings from the pro tour. In a competition on Maui, he’d wiped out in a wave that drove him down hard into the lava bottom of Pehei. It crimped his shoulder, and after surgery to scrape it out, the doctor prescribed oxycodone. Eighteen months later Henson was a full-blown addict, chasing pills to chase the pain. He lost his sponsors and was too weak to compete anymore. He finally hit bottom when he stole a diamond necklace from a home in Malibu to which he’d been invited by a female friend. According to the sheriff’s report, the necklace belonged to his friend’s mother and contained eight diamonds representing her three children and five grandchildren. It was listed on the report as worth $25,000 but Henson hocked it for $400 and went down to Mexico to buy two hundred tabs of oxy over the counter.

Henson was easy to connect to the caper. The diamond necklace was recovered from the pawnshop and the film from the security camera showed him pawning it. Because of the high value of the necklace, he was hit with a full deck, dealing in stolen property and grand theft, along with illegal drug possession. It also didn’t help that the lady he stole the necklace from was married to a well-connected doctor who had contributed liberally to the reelection of several members of the county board of supervisors.

When Vincent took Henson on as a client, the surfer made the initial $5,000 advance payment in trade. Vincent took all twelve of his custom-made Trick Henson boards and sold them through his liquidator to collectors and on eBay. Henson was also placed on the $1,000-a-month payment plan but had never made a single payment because he had gone into rehab the day after being bailed out of jail by his mother, who lived back in Melbourne, Florida.

The file said Henson had successfully completed rehab and was working part-time at a surf camp for kids on the beach in Santa Monica. He was barely making enough to live on, let alone pay $1,000 a month to Vincent. His mother, meanwhile, had been tapped out by his bail and the cost of his stay in rehab.

The file was replete with motions to continue and other filings as delay tactics undertaken by Vincent while he waited for Henson to come across with more cash. This was standard practice. Get your money up front, especially when the case is probably a dog. The prosecutor had Henson on tape selling the stolen merchandise. It meant the case was worse than a dog. It was roadkill.

There was a phone number in the file for Henson. One thing every lawyer drilled into nonincarcerated clients was the need to maintain a method of contact. Those facing criminal charges and the likelihood of prison often had unstable home lives. They moved around, sometimes were completely homeless. But a lawyer had to be able to reach them at a moment’s notice. The number was listed in the file as Henson’s cell, and if it was still good, I could call him right now. The question was, did I want to?

I looked up at the bench. The judge was still in the middle of oral arguments on a bail motion. There were still three other lawyers waiting their turn at other motions and no sign of the prosecutor who was assigned to the Edgar Reese case. I got up and whispered to the deputy again.

“I’m going out into the hallway to make a call. I’ll be close.”

He nodded.

“If you’re not back when it’s time, I’ll come grab you,” he said. “Just make sure you turn that phone off before coming back in. The judge doesn’t like cell phones.”

He didn’t have to tell me that. I already knew firsthand that the judge didn’t like cell phones in her court. My lesson was learned when I was making an appearance before her and my phone started playing the
William Tell
Overture — my daughter’s ringtone choice, not mine. The judge slapped me with a $100-dollar fine and had taken to referring to me ever since as the Lone Ranger. That last part I didn’t mind so much. I sometimes felt like I was the Lone Ranger. I just rode in a black Lincoln Town Car instead of on a white horse.

I left my case and the other files on the bench in the gallery and walked out into the hallway with only the Henson file. I found a reasonably quiet spot in the crowded hallway and called the number. It was answered after two rings.

“This is Trick.”

“Patrick Henson?”

“Yeah, who’s this?”

“I’m your new lawyer. My name is Mi— ”

“Whoa, wait a minute. What happened to my old lawyer? I gave that guy Vincent—”

“He’s dead, Patrick. He passed away last night.”

“Nooooo.”

“Yes, Patrick. I’m sorry about that.”

I waited a moment to see if he had anything else to say about it, then started in as perfunctorily as a bureaucrat.

“My name is Michael Haller and I’m taking over Jerry Vincent’s cases. I’ve been reviewing your file here and I see you haven’t made a single payment on the schedule Mr. Vincent put you on.”

“Ah, man, this is the deal. I’ve been concentrating on getting right and staying right and I’ve got no fucking money. Okay? I already gave that guy Vincent all my boards. He counted it as five grand but I know he got more. A couple of those long boards were worth at least a grand apiece. He told me that he got enough to get started but all he’s been doing is delaying things. I can’t get back to shit until this thing is all over.”

“Are you staying right, Patrick? Are you clean?”

“As a fucking whistle, man. Vincent told me it was the only way I’d have a shot at staying out of jail.”

I looked up and down the hallway. It was crowded with lawyers and defendants and witnesses and the families of those victimized or accused. It was a football field long and everybody in it was hoping for one thing. A break. For the clouds to open and something to go their way just this one time.

“Jerry was right, Patrick. You have to stay clean.”

“I’m doing it.”

“You got a job?”

“Man, don’t you guys see? No one’s going to give a guy like me a job. Nobody’s going to hire me. I’m waiting on this case and I might be in jail before it’s all over. I mean, I teach water babies part-time on the beach but it don’t pay me jack. I’m living out of my damn car, sleeping on a lifeguard stand at Hermosa Beach. This time two years ago? I was in a suite at the Four Seasons in Maui.”

“Yeah, I know, life sucks. You still have a driver’s license?”

“That’s about all I got left.”

I made a decision.

“Okay, you know where Jerry Vincent’s office is? You ever been there?”

“Yeah, I delivered the boards there. And my fish.”

“Your fish?”

“He took a sixty-pound tarpon I caught when I was a kid back in Florida. Said he was going to put it on the wall and pretend like he caught it or something.”

“Yeah, well, your fish is still there. Anyway, be at the office at nine sharp tomorrow morning and I’ll interview you for a job. If it goes right, then you’ll start right away.”

“Doing what?”

“Driving me. I’ll pay you fifteen bucks an hour to drive and another fifteen toward your fees. How’s that?”

There was a moment of silence before Henson responded in an accommodating voice.

“That’s good, man. I can be there for that.”

“Good. See you then. Just remember something, Patrick. You gotta stay clean. If you’re not, I’ll know. Believe me, I’ll know.”

“Don’t worry, man. I will never go back to that shit. That shit fucked my life up for good.”

“Okay, Patrick, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Hey, man, why are you doing this?”

I hesitated before answering.

“You know, I don’t really know.”

I closed the phone and made sure to turn it off. I went back into the courtroom wondering if I was doing something good or making the kind of mistake that would catch up and bite me on the ass.

It was perfect timing. The judge finished with the last motion as I came back in. I saw that a deputy district attorney named Don Pierce was sitting at the prosecution table, ready to go with the sentencing. He was an ex-navy guy who kept the crew cut going and was one of the regulars at cocktail hour at Four Green Fields. I quickly packed all the files back into my bag and wheeled it through the gate to the defense table.

“Well,” the judge said, “I see the Lone Ranger rides again.”

She said it with a smile and I smiled back at her.

“Yes, Your Honor. Nice to see you.”

“I haven’t seen you in quite a while, Mr. Haller.”

Open court was not the place to tell her where I had been. I kept my responses short. I spread my hands as if presenting the new me.

“All I can say is, I’m back now, Judge.”

“I’m glad to see that. Now, you are here in place of Mr. Vincent, is that correct?”

It was said in a routine tone. I could tell she did not know about Vincent’s demise. I knew I could keep the secret and get through the sentencing with it. But then she would hear the story and wonder why I hadn’t brought it up and told her. It was not a good way to keep a judge on your side.

“Unfortunately, Your Honor,” I said, “Mr. Vincent passed away last night.”

The judge’s eyebrows arched in shock. She had been a longtime prosecutor before being a longtime judge. She was wired into the legal community and most likely knew Jerry Vincent well. I had just hit her with a major jolt.

“Oh, my, he was so young!” she exclaimed. “What happened?”

I shook my head like I didn’t know.

“It wasn’t a natural death, Your Honor. The police are investigating it and I don’t really know a lot about it other than that he was found in his car last night at his office. Judge Holder called me in today and appointed me replacement counsel. That’s why I am here for Mr. Reese.”

The judge looked down and took a moment to get over her shock. I felt bad about being the messenger. I bent down and pulled the Edgar Reese file out of my bag.

“I’m very sorry to hear this,” the judge finally said.

I nodded in agreement and waited.

“Very well,” the judge said after another long moment. “Let’s bring the defendant out.”

Jerry Vincent garnered no further delay. Whether the judge had suspicions about Jerry or the life he led, she didn’t say. But life would move on in the Criminal Courts Building. The wheels of justice would grind without him.

Ten

T
he message from Lorna Taylor was short and to the point. I got it the moment I turned my phone on after leaving the courtroom and seeing Edgar Reese get his five years. She told me she had just been in touch with Judge Holder’s clerk about obtaining the court order the bank was requiring before putting Lorna’s and my names on the Vincent bank accounts. The judge had agreed to draw up the order and I could just walk down the hallway to her chambers to pick it up.

The courtroom was once again dark but the judge’s clerk was in her pod next to the bench. She still reminded me of my third-grade teacher.

“Mrs. Gill?” I said. “I’m supposed to pick up an order from the judge.”

“Yes, I think she still has it with her in chambers. I’ll go check.”

“Any chance I could get in there and talk to her for a few minutes, too?”

“Well, she has someone with her at the moment but I will check.”

She got up and went down the hallway located behind the clerk’s station. At the end was the door to the judge’s chambers and I watched her knock once before being summoned to enter. When she opened the door, I could see a man sitting in the same chair I had sat in a few hours earlier. I recognized him as Judge Holder’s husband, a personal-injury attorney named Mitch Lester. I recognized him from the photograph on his ad. Back when he was doing criminal defense we had once shared the back of the Yellow Pages, my ad taking the top half and his the bottom. He hadn’t worked criminal cases in a long time.

A few minutes later Mrs. Gill came out carrying the court order I needed. I thought this meant I wasn’t going to get in to see the judge but Mrs. Gill told me I would be allowed back as soon as the judge finished up with her visitor.

It wasn’t enough time to continue my review of the files in my roller bag, so I wandered the courtroom, looking around and thinking about what I was going to say to the judge. At the empty bailiff’s desk, I looked down and scanned a calendar sheet from the week before. I knew the names of several of the attorneys who were listed and had been scheduled for emergency hearings and motions. One of them was Jerry Vincent on behalf of Walter Elliot. It had probably been one of Jerry’s last appearances in court.

After three minutes I heard a bell tone at the clerk’s station and Mrs. Gill said I was free to go back to the judge’s chambers.

When I knocked on the door it was Mitch Lester who opened it. He smiled and bid me entrance. We shook hands and he remarked that he had just heard about Jerry Vincent.