Jamison nodded and waived his hand over the booking photo on his desk. O’Hara tapped his finger on the photograph of Harker. “Asshole.” To O’Hara they were all assholes, just some were bigger than others. “If that weak-ass Judge Stevenson had done his job, Harker would be burning in hell by now.”
The contempt in his voice was acid-edged. Judges were another group on O’Hara’s long list of people who needed an attitude adjustment. He had little patience for the procedural considerations that the law accorded to people accused of crimes. And he had no consideration for a judge who didn’t have the stomach to sentence a lowlife like Richard Harker to the death he so richly deserved.
He knew all about the Harker case. It was going on when O’Hara came on at the sheriff’s department. The old guys talked about it, and they still talked about it at training sessions. But mostly they talked about the judge who let Harker spend his life eating and sleeping at taxpayer expense while Lisa Farrow lay in cold ground.
Jamison was used to O’Hara’s diatribes. He knew there was no point in making fine legal distinctions with O’Hara about the presumption of innocence. He had heard O’Hara say so many times that as far as he was concerned the presumption of innocence ended with the ratcheting of handcuffs.
O’Hara took a seat and pulled out a cigar. He slid a fingernail down the cellophane wrapper with practiced skill and jammed the cigar into his mouth. Jamison turned his nose up but he knew it wouldn’t do any more good than a lecture about illegal searches. He also knew that O’Hara reveled in Jamison’s aversion to cigars. The only concession that O’Hara had made in their relationship was that he wouldn’t light it in Jamison’s office, but he would chew it to a soggy pulp, and then they both knew that O’Hara would find a way to leave the wet cigar on Jamison’s desk. Another part of O’Hara’s sense of humor.
O’Hara rolled the cigar around in his mouth until he found the right fit before he offered his next observation. “The sheriff’s department says they got all the evidence in the Harker case locked up with the other high priority cases. I looked at it—lotta shit there. Checked on the file. It’s all paper, nothing on computer, but they still have the original case file and the clerk said they also had it on microfilm. I told them we would need a copy of everything. They asked why but I said I would tell them when I knew what was going on—which I don’t yet.” O’Hara added the last comment with a tone that made it clear he didn’t like operating in the dark. “Guess we can get it put on a computer disc. Anyway, I asked them to do that. So, what we lookin’ at? Why’s this case back here?”
Jamison handed O’Hara the declaration from Christine Farrow that came in the packet of papers with the writ and order from the supreme court, letting him take a moment to read it. After thirty seconds, all he heard from O’Hara was, “Shit—shee-it,” the word spit out as two syllables.
O’Hara put the declaration back down on the desk with an observation borne of years of experience. “Boss, you know this poor girl’s been hammered by a defense attorney. I’ve seen this before with kids. They get to a point where they don’t remember up from down. And now almost thirty years later this girl has to be made to think she did a wrong thing? On top of everything else that happened to her? I know Jensen was the detective. He wouldn’t have screwed this up. I mean, yeah, he was a rough guy. Detectives back then were tough as an old boot and Jensen wasn’t any different, but this was a kid. He would have been careful with a kid. You looked at the reports?”
Jamison nodded. “Yeah, I’ve looked at most of the crime scene stuff. I haven’t gone through the trial transcript yet, but there isn’t much as far as the little girl’s statement. After all, she was only three at the time—five when she testified. He summarized the preliminary reports for O’Hara before he got to the part of Jensen’s additional reports that he knew was going to be the issue. He had been reading those reports when O’Hara walked in.
Apparently, Jensen had a female deputy sit with Christine in the back of his unmarked car with the intention of driving her to the hospital to make sure that she was in fact unharmed, although the child appeared physically unhurt. The neighbors had already called Lisa Farrow’s mother, who showed up at the crime scene before they took the child to the hospital. Jensen had to have deputies restrain her and calm her down. Then he reunited Christine with her grandmother, Barbara Farrow.
Jamison understood Jensen’s dilemma. This was a murder and he needed information quickly but he also had to be sensitive to the trauma both to Christine and to a woman who had just learned her daughter had been brutally murdered. Jensen was present when the grandmother talked to Christine so he could try to control the situation as much as possible. The grandmother asked if they knew who did it, and Jensen told her that Christine said that “Rick did it.”
Jensen asked if she had any idea who Rick was, and Mrs. Farrow turned to Christine and asked if Rick was “Tommy’s daddy?” Christine had nodded and said, “Tommy’s daddy, Rick.” Mrs. Farrow had then said that Rick was Rick Sample. Tommy was his son by another relationship. As soon as he read Rick Sample’s name, Jamison’s mind flashed back on the fact that Sample’s prints had been found at the crime scene. He could already hear the questions Harker’s lawyer was going to ask. It took flipping through a few more pages for the answer. It wasn’t a good answer, but it was an answer. The problem was that it came with a lot of questions, and they weren’t good either.
According to his report, when Jensen asked Christine if Rick used to live with them she said yes, and then shook her head no but then repeated that “Rick is Tommy’s daddy.” He decided to wait until he had photographs and had radioed in to see if Sample had a record and available mug shots. His report said that he quickly found out the answer to both questions was yes. He asked that the mug shots of Rick Sample, along with other similar mug shots, be acquired as soon as possible for a photographic lineup.
Jensen had the female deputy ride with Christine and her grandmother in the back of his unmarked car as he drove to the hospital. While he was at the hospital the photo spread he had called for was brought to him and, according to his report, after talking to the grandmother he showed a photo lineup to Christine that included a mug shot of Rick Sample. Christine immediately picked out the photograph of Sample, putting her finger on the picture and saying, “That’s Tommy’s daddy.” She didn’t say anything else and her grandmother was so distraught that she refused to allow Christine to be questioned further.
O’Hara watched as Jamison rummaged through the files looking for the photo spread that had been used by Jensen with Christine. He spread the six photographs out on his desk and put the photograph of Rick Sample in the center. Then he pulled out the booking photograph of Richard Harker. There was no question there was a resemblance. Jamison could understand why a child might be confused.
Jamison already knew that when Clarence Foster was questioned he identified the photograph of Rick Harker. From the look on O’Hara’s face, Jamison knew the same thought was going through O’Hara’s mind that had gone through his: Who the hell was Rick Sample and was that who Lisa Farrow was now going to say killed her mother?
Chapter 9
Boss,” O’Hara said, “this little girl probably got confused. Hell, she was only three years old. You know as well as I do a kid that age isn’t that reliable.” Jamison nodded thoughtfully at O’Hara’s observation. It was true. Children under the age of five were normally not considered competent to testify, but that didn’t mean they didn’t understand what was going on or they couldn’t explain in their own words what they had seen or heard. The problem was that in terms of testifying, the standard was whether the witness understood the more complex concept of the obligation to tell the truth. As any parent knew, truth to a child can include what they believe as opposed to what’s real. That includes believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. But as lawyers know, truth may be an obligation that witnesses understand but it does not mean that it is an obligation that is alwa
ys honored.
He responded to O’Hara’s comment. “Maybe so, but she isn’t three years old now and in her declaration she’s saying that she was wrong. My guess is she’s going to say that this Rick Sample is the guy.”
“Well at some point she obviously testified that Rick was Rick Harker because her declaration says she identified the wrong guy. You talked to The Big Guy yet?”
O’Hara usually referred to District Attorney Gage as “The Big Guy” and referred to Jamison as “Boss.” Although Jamison was not naive enough to think O’Hara used the term “Boss” as anything but a little jibe that he got some personal kick out of. “No, I haven’t talked to Gage yet. I need to finish with the reports before I start asking him any questions. If I go in there now, all he’ll say is, ‘Did you read the reports?’”
“Well it has to be in there,” O’Hara said through teeth firmly clinching the half-chewed cigar. “Anyway, the sheriff’s office is pulling the evidence out for us to look at and I have a call in to Jensen to talk to him. Let’s look at the rest of the file on the kid and see what’s there.”
“That’s what I was doing when you walked in, Bill. The next report is almost three weeks later.”
“And?”
“And it says that Jensen and Gage met with Christine.” Jamison picked up the report and quickly skimmed down. “Apparently, the grandmother wouldn’t let Christine be questioned without her present and she wouldn’t let anybody talk to her for several days. The kid just kept saying Rick did it and the grandmother said that Rick was Rick Sample.”
“Then how the hell did she change, and Harker become the suspect? I know why Jensen and Gage thought it was Harker. They had the neighbor ID and a fingerprint and Foster.” O’Hara pulled his cigar out of his mouth and stabbed it in the direction of the report. A small spot of tobacco juice splattered one of the manila files and Jamison shook his head as O’Hara said, “Sorry.” But both knew O’Hara was seldom sorry and this wasn’t one of those times.
“I haven’t been through all of the reports, but it looks like Jensen and Gage finally got to question the kid outside the presence of Grandma because there’s a transcript here of them talking to her. It’s a little hard to follow because she was so little, but apparently she had some idea of who Rick Harker was.”
Jamison smoothed the paper down that detailed the transcribed statement. When he had opened the file, he had seen a manila envelope stapled to the inside of the file and had quickly looked inside, seeing an old tape cassette with Christine Farrow’s name on it and a date consistent with the one on the transcript. “We got a tape here. Maybe we should listen to it. That’ll tell us a lot more than the transcript.” He called the secretarial pool and asked for a tape recorder to be brought out of storage that would handle the larger cassette-type tape that had been used back then. “According to this transcript, Gage, Jensen, and Cleary talked to her and she identified Harker from his photograph.”
“Cleary? You mean Judge Cleary, the guy that the papers keep talking about that’s supposed to be under consideration for a federal appointment?” The raised eyebrows telegraphed that O’Hara was beginning to see the political outlines of the Harker case.
“That’s him. Back then he was a junior prosecutor on the rise. It looks like Gage pulled him in to be second chair because he was present when the child’s statement was taken and he was one of the trial attorneys.”
O’Hara stifled a snort. “Sounds like somebody else I know, a golden boy moving up.”
Jamison let the comment pass. “Whatever. Anyhow, look at the transcript. It seems like they had cleared up the identification and any confusion.”
With a practiced eye, O’Hara followed the transcript, jumping over all the preliminary comments that explained where they were when the statement was taken and who was present. “I’ve talked to a lot of kids over the years. Three years old is tough. They don’t sit still and they either talk too much about nothing or they don’t say anything. You have to dig it out of them.” His eyes followed the meandering twenty-six-year-old conversation. Gage had taken the lead.
Jamison focused on how Gage and Cleary had dealt with the identification trying to visualize the small child sitting in a room with three men she didn’t know. “They should have had a female officer in there. We wouldn’t do it that way now.”
Ernie Garcia stuck his head through the doorway, a large tape recorder in his hand. “You two looking for this? Must be a tape from the Harker case to be using one of these old tape recorders. So, you two going to investigate it again?” Ernie shrugged, acknowledging that he had been sniffing around. “At least that’s the rumor around the office.” Ernie’s square brown face broke into a grin as he handed over the recorder to Jamison.
“Nope, it’s not the two of us, it’s the three of us. You’re going to be with us on this ride.” Jamison took the tape recorder and sat it on his desk, indicating for O’Hara to plug it in. “You may as well sit down and listen. I’ll fill you in on the rest later.”
O’Hara slid the tape into the machine and then carefully pushed the Play button, mindful of the risk of erasing it. “I think we better get duplicates of any tapes just to make sure we don’t screw one of them up, like President Nixon’s secretary did with the White House transcripts.”
O’Hara was not a lover of Nixon, not because Nixon was a Republican but because he got caught covering up a second-rate burglary. O’Hara had said before that anybody that let something like that get out of control didn’t deserve to be president. What always puzzled Jamison was that O’Hara had been much less offended by the criminal act than that Nixon had gotten caught. But then, Jamison had learned that O’Hara had a much more pragmatic side to him about what was justified. Jamison had experienced that very clearly in the case involving a doctor that had ended up dead after committing a series of murders. Even though they never positively identified the shooter, the investigation concluded that it was a justified shooting—probably. And whoever did it was left as a dead end by Jamison’s choice. Neither he nor O’Hara had discussed it since. Jamison dismissed the momentary flashback from his mind. Sometimes questions were better left unanswered. It had been a hard lesson to learn.
The tape hissed and crackled as it slowly began to unwind and release words that hadn’t been heard in almost three decades. The three men listened, each letting the sound paint images in their minds as they heard the voice of a younger Bill Gage, not yet roughened by years of political speaking and coarsened by the cigars and bourbon he had become too fond of. It was in sharp contrast to the child’s voice that they had to strain to understand.
Bill Gage sounded uncharacteristically gentle. “Christine, you and I have talked before, right? And you’ve talked to Mr. Cleary here and Detective Jensen?”
Christine must have nodded because Gage said, “You have to answer so we can make sure that is what you said, okay?”
The tiny voice came through. “Yes.”
“Okay, that’s good. That’s very good, Christine. Now I need you to use your big girl voice.”
“Where’s Grandma?”
“Your grandma is waiting for you, don’t worry. Remember? Grandma said we could talk to you for a little while and then you could have ice cream. Remember?” Jamison focused on the sound in Gage’s voice. He had done enough questioning of children to know that it was going to be a slow process.
“Christine, I need you to look at me. Can you do that? It’s important. This won’t take long.” The sound of shuffling could be heard on the tape as well as a muffled whimper. “Christine, now don’t cry. We just need to ask you a few more questions, and then you can go with Grandma. Can you do that?”
The sound that came through on the tape was broken by the beginning of a child starting to cry and then Gage saying, “Christine, you have a rabbit, right?” Jamison could hear a door opening and then footsteps before the next words were spoken by Gage. “There’s your rabbit. You hold him, okay? I need to show you something.
I want you to look at some pictures. Do you see them?”
“Yes. That’s Rick and that’s Rick.”
Gage tried to clarify what was happening. “You’re pointing at two different pictures. Both of these pictures are of people named Rick, is that right? I see your head nodding. Is that yes?”
“Yes. This Rick is Tommy’s daddy. This Rick is bad Rick. Rick put fire on Mommy.” Now the tape filled with the increasing sound of Christine’s crying. The pained expression on the faces of Jamison, O’Hara, and Garcia mirrored what Jamison could only imagine was the emotional strain for Gage and Cleary as they tried to coax the child to relive that night without leaving her with more nightmares.
Gage’s voice was low and precise. “Christine, this picture of the bad Rick, is this the man who hurt Mommy? You need to answer so we can be sure. Is this the bad man?”
Christine’s childish voice whispered through the span of years. “This Rick. Him hurt my mommy. He was bad. I want my grandma.” The child’s tears almost seeped from the tape.
“Very good, Christine. You’re a good girl.” Gage tried to comfort Christine and then simply said, “The bad Rick won’t hurt anybody else, I promise. We’re going to take you back to your grandma now. Okay? Let’s shut off the tape.”
The silence from the tape recorder continued for a few seconds before O’Hara snapped the Off button. “I guess that’s it. According to the report, they showed her the picture of this Rick Sample who used to live with her mother and also the photo of Rick Harker and the mug shot she picked on the tape was Rick Harker—the ‘bad Rick.’”
O’Hara left a brief gap of silence before uttering one word. “Asshole.” He had a daughter, although they had been estranged for years. But he remembered her when she would sit in his lap at the same age as Christine Farrow. It was a memory he revisited often in his mind. It was one of the few about his daughter that he could revisit.
Shades of Truth Page 7
