Gage stood up. “Counselor, Clarence Foster is a criminal. He’s always been a criminal. I never thought he was a murderer. You can tell. Some men don’t have it in them and there are a lot of reasons for that, but in Foster’s case it’s because he has no backbone and I could see it. I knew he would break and I put the pressure on him until he did. Put Foster on the stand, and then we’ll see what he says. Until then, don’t try to smear me or anybody else. We’re not the ones with Lisa Farrow’s blood on our hands.” Gage didn’t wait to be excused. He stepped down, turning to look at Judge Wallace. “Am I through here, Your Honor?”
Wallace directed his question at Gifford. “Is Mr. Gage done, Mr. Gifford?”
“Mr. Gage is done for now, Your Honor. But I want him excused subject to recall because I will be back.”
Jamison stood up. “Just for the record, Your Honor, I have no questions of Mr. Gage.”
Gifford sat at the counsel table while Gage walked through the swinging gate of the courtroom like a battleship leaving the harbor. “We call Jonathon Cleary, Your Honor.”
Jonathon Cleary walked across the well of the courtroom with all the assurance of a man in complete control of his surroundings. He nodded to Judge Wallace as he took the witness stand and waited quietly before Wallace deferred to him. “Justice Cleary, I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to do this.” Cleary nodded in acknowledgment but remained quiet.
Gifford began deliberately. “Mr. Cleary, you were one of the prosecutors of my client, Richard Harker, correct?”
Cleary ignored the slight with respect to his title. “Yes, that was some twenty-five years ago, but that is correct, although I was the second chair lawyer, assisting Mr. William Gage, who was the primary prosecutor.”
“That was a big opportunity for you, wasn’t it, a young lawyer sitting as second chair in one of the most notorious cases in the state at that time?”
“Yes, it was,” Cleary answered quietly, looking directly at the defendant.
“Were you present with William Gage and Detective Jensen when Clarence Foster was interrogated?”
“Yes.”
“Did you participate in that interrogation?”
“If by participate do you mean did I ask any questions? Not that I recall. I wasn’t there to ask questions. I hadn’t seen many interrogations and nothing like that. Mr. Gage was in charge and I wasn’t there to do anything except what I was told.”
Gifford smiled. “Things have changed since then, haven’t they?”
Cleary laughed. “Well, I’ve been married for twenty-five years. I’m not sure they’ve changed all that much.”
Nodding, Gifford answered, “I think we all understand that reality. Did you ever have a private conversation with Clarence Foster during the interrogation?”
“If you mean outside of the presence of Mr. Gage or Detective Jensen, no I did not.”
“Did you ever have a conversation with Clarence Foster before he identified my client as the killer of Lisa Farrow?”
Cleary pursed his lips, pausing momentarily like he was considering his answer before giving it. “I believe I just stated that I did not have such a conversation, so the answer remains, no.”
Gifford stared for a moment at Cleary, measuring what to ask next. “If I were to tell you that Clarence Foster says you did, are you saying he’s lying?”
Cleary’s calm expression momentarily hardened before Jamison leapt to his feet. “Objection. The question is argumentative. First of all, the witness already said it didn’t happen and now he’s being asked to dispute what some convict says. I object.”
Wallace visibly sighed. “The objection is sustained. Mr. Gifford, ask your next question.”
“Were you aware of any conversation between my client, Mr. Harker, and Clarence Foster in the back of a patrol car?” The tone of Gifford’s question had lost any deference to Cleary’s status as a judge.
“I was aware later that the two of them were put in a patrol car together, but I was not present when it happened. I just recall reading the report of the conversation.”
“Did you ever listen to any tape of that conversation?”
Cleary’s face took on a quizzical expression. “As I recall, there was no tape.”
Abruptly switching subjects, Gifford asked, “Were you present when Christine Farrow was questioned?”
“Yes, I was there when she identified your client as the man who stood over her bed the night her mother was murdered.”
“Isn’t it true that she originally identified Rick Sample as the man who murdered her mother?”
“I was only present when she identified your client. I am not sure precisely what you are asking.”
Gifford’s voice rose with barely concealed irritation. “She was three years old when you questioned her. I am asking whether she picked Richard Sample and either you or William Gage told her that she picked the wrong man.”
Cleary straightened up, forcefully pushing his answer out. “Mr. Gifford, if you are asking whether either I or Bill Gage influenced that poor little girl to give an answer because we wanted it, that did not happen, and I resent the implication.”
Undeterred, Gifford persisted. “But that is what happened, isn’t it?”
As Jamison rose to object, Cleary said, “I’ve answered your question, Mr. Gifford. My response isn’t going to change simply because you throw out unsubstantiated innuendo.”
Gifford returned to the counsel table and made a show of writing a note. “No further questions.”
Jamison resisted the temptation to ask any questions. There was nothing really to ask. “No questions, Your Honor.”
Wallace looked at the clock on the back of the courtroom wall. “Mr. Gifford, is your next witness here?”
“My next witness will be Clarence Foster and he will have to be transported from the jail. I had him brought in from Corcoran State Prison.”
“Well, as I told you, I have another scheduled calendar to call. If Mr. Foster is in the jail, then he won’t be unduly inconvenienced by staying there a few more days. We will resume next Thursday.”
Chapter 23
Jamison sat behind the desk in his office, fiddling with a pen and drawing circles on a yellow legal pad. O’Hara and Ernie sat across from him waiting for Jamison to say something. Finally, O’Hara broke the silence. “Well, so far Gifford hasn’t done anything but throw out some bullshit to see if anybody is going to step in it. I haven’t heard anything.” O’Hara approached most situations like a rock smashing a walnut; there wasn’t much finesse.
Ernie shrugged. “Matt, I wasn’t in there when Gage testified but the old man was madder than hell when he came out. His face was so red I thought he was going to have a stroke. I followed him up to the office, but he didn’t do anything except swear. I hope you have this under control.”
Jamison’s pen dragged aimlessly across the paper in front of him. “Well, it’s as under control as it can be when we don’t know what’s coming. Gifford hasn’t gotten anywhere so far. But you don’t ask questions unless you know answers or think you know answers. Gifford thinks he knows something. I’m guessing that either Foster told him something or maybe Harker says that’s what Foster said. We won’t know until they go on the stand. Either way his objective is to tar Bill Gage with whatever he can smear on him. This is personal with Gifford and now he has a chance in a courtroom to get away with whatever accusation he wants to make.”
“So, you think Foster is going to get on the stand and say that he told Gage that he was lying?” O’Hara slit open the wrapper on a cigar and shoved it in his mouth. Jamison eyed the wrapper as O’Hara dropped it on his desk. O’Hara finally reached over and picked up the crumpled cellophane, grinning that he had provoked a small reaction.
“We won’t know that until Clarence Foster takes the stand or Rick Harker. We’ll just have to wait and see. Anyway, I want you and Ernie to go back to the files at the sheriff’s office. Pull everything. Look
everywhere. Make sure we have absolutely everything. If I don’t have it, then I doubt that Gifford has it, but you never know. Go back and see Alton Grady and talk to his daughter. Chances are that Gifford has already been there, but you never know.”
O’Hara pulled a speck of tobacco off his lip. “Boss, I think you need to be the one to talk to Grady and his daughter. I don’t think Ernie or I will get very far. You’re the lawyer. Don’t you guys all swim in packs like sharks?”
It didn’t taken long to find Alton Grady’s daughter, Lorie. Jamison remembered that Grady had told him she took care of Grady’s home, which was in an older section of the community where elegant, aging houses reflected the affluence of yesterday’s social icons. Jamison heard the crunch of gravel and hard-packed dirt as he pulled up to the area in front of the house. It struck him that while most people who moved to new neighborhoods wanted sidewalks and gutters, in this section of the city the homeowners insisted that there be no sidewalks. Old money preserving old ways and new money ignoring the subtlety of restrained affluence. Towering evergreen trees and thick-trunked oaks lined the street and the yards of homes set back behind lawns larger than the average lot of a new home. Jamison knew the area well. It was where the old movers and shakers had lived and now it was where younger generations lived who wanted the same luster and were willing to accept it with a little patina of age.
The house was two stories with white painted brick and dark green shutters. Jamison waited on the uneven brick porch for the door to be answered. A young woman opened the door quietly, looking at him with questioning eyes before saying, “Matthew Jamison?” He was surprised that she knew who he was and it showed on his face. She answered his unspoken question. “I’ve seen you on the news and I’ve been reading about the Harker case. Isn’t that why you’re here? I heard you visited my father.”
“You’re Lorie?” Jamison inadvertently blurted. “I expected …”
She finished the sentence. “You expected someone older, right? My parents said I was their late-life surprise. But yes, I’m Lorie Grady.” Jamison stood uncomfortably. Lorie Grady was beautiful in the way that some women can be whether they have on a T-shirt and jeans or a cocktail dress. Right now, she had on a T-shirt and jeans and her hands showed that she had been working in dirt. She stepped back from the door and waved him in, saying she would just be a minute while she washed her hands. The art on the walls wasn’t what he expected. It was modern with slashes of color that jumped out, contrasting with the formality of the home.
Lorie walked back into the entry area again, answering his question before he asked. “I’m a painter. Those are mine.” She smiled before offering, “I’m also a lawyer like my father, but I don’t practice. Didn’t like it. It didn’t fit my artistic spirit.” And then she laughed again. “The law is only about logic. Art is about emotion. Each one clashes with the other. I only went to law school because I admired my father so much I wanted to do it for him.”
“So you make your living as an artist?”
She laughed. “Don’t sound so surprised. Some people do, you know. I make part of my living as an artist. The rest I make from working with emotionally challenged children.” She laughed again. “It helps that I had the experience of growing up around lawyers—and then there’s the trust fund. So, what can I do for you, Mr. Jamison? You want to look at my father’s old files, right?”
Jamison had tightened up as soon as he heard her say she was trained as a lawyer, and he tightened up more at her answering questions before he asked them. It was like she knew what he was thinking. He shifted uncomfortably, hoping she didn’t know everything that was going on in his head, but he could see her bemused expression and the thought crossed his mind that she probably did.
“Did your father keep his old files?” It was a careful question because there were attorney-client privilege issues. He knew as a lawyer that she would be aware of it.
“If you’re asking about the Harker file, it’s down in the basement, but I will tell you right now that Gifford has already been here and gone through it. Before you ask, I watched him the entire time. He didn’t take anything, but I did make some copies of papers that he asked for. As you know, the file belongs to the client and Gifford is Harker’s lawyer. As far as I was concerned that meant Gifford could look at the file.”
Jamison knew she was right and that debating the matter was pointless. He tried a different tack. “Look, this case is about whether Harker was wrongfully convicted. Your father defended him. If there’s something there it might help me to know what to do.” He could feel growing discomfort because he was dissembling, and he knew she knew it. Most of what was in those files was probably still subject to attorney-client privilege. But not all of it. He tried a different direction. “Certainly, the discussions your father had with Harker are privileged. I understand that, but witnesses he talked to, those aren’t privileged.”
“No, they’re not, but they may be my father’s work product and that is privileged. Anyway, I’m not going to hand it over without a court order. You know that the work a lawyer does on a case may not be privileged as an attorney-client communication, but it does have the protections of work product for a lawyer’s ideas and strategy.” She paused. “Mr. Jamison, I do understand the problem and I will tell you that I know what’s in that file because I’ve read it. I figured how my father handled it would become an issue and I do handle my father’s estate as his conservator, so as far as I’m concerned I have the legal authority to protect his interests. I will tell you that there’s no smoking gun in there. My father was a good lawyer. If he had something he would have used it. I remember how stressed he was when he was defending Harker. I was, I think, in the third or fourth grade. He sat in his study and I could see the strain on his face. After Harker’s conviction, he just sat at his desk and stared out the window for hours at a time. He cried with relief when the trial judge refused to impose the death penalty. And I can tell you the only other time I saw him cry was when my mother died.” She walked over to a heavily cushioned chair and sat down. “I met your father, you know. He spent time in that study with my dad. Did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t know. He’s been gone for a number of years.”
“Maybe you’re looking in the wrong place.” Her expression was thoughtful.
“What does that mean?”
She leaned forward in the chair. “I mean maybe it isn’t the Harker file you should be looking at. I’ve already probably said too much from a lawyer’s perspective, but as I said, I didn’t like practicing law.” She stood up and started walking back to the front door. Jamison understood that the discussion was over. As she opened the door to let him out she smiled. “Come back anytime. We don’t have to talk about our fathers.” After the door closed, Jamison stood in the walkway thinking about that. But he guessed that Lorie Grady already knew what he was thinking. He walked to his car and started driving back to the office. Then he made a quick turn and headed for his parents’ home.
As soon as he walked through the door, Jamison’s mother was trying to feed him. Then she began her relentless interrogation about his private life, which always centered around whether he had met “a nice girl.” At first, he had tried to be flippant and acknowledged that he had met a few who “weren’t so nice,” but his mother wasn’t amused. Now he just dodged and weaved, hoping she would give up. She never did.
After trying to get answers from him as to why he wanted to see the files, she told him that they had stayed at his old law office that he shared with a few other lawyers. She didn’t have them and she had no idea where they might be. She suggested he call a few of the lawyers who worked with him. It didn’t take long for her to get the one name he didn’t want to hear, Samuel Gifford. “Try Sam. Don’t you know him? Isn’t he the one defending that awful Harker case that you’re working on?”
Waiting for the answer to her question about Gifford, his mother started pulling leftovers from the refrigerator. “As l
ong as you’re here you should eat.” Jamison didn’t feel much like eating. The fact that his father’s file was probably with Gifford had made him lose his appetite.
Chapter 24
Jamison sat in his office debating with himself about calling Gifford. Legally the file belonged to the client and the client was Clarence Foster. Jamison had no right to go through that file, even though Gifford might hand it over, which he doubted. But then again, neither did Gifford because he wasn’t Foster’s lawyer. But there was a possibility. Right now, Foster didn’t have a lawyer but that could change quickly.
O’Hara sauntered into Jamison’s office. “What you got? Anything?”
“Bill, go pull the file on Clarence Foster. There might be something there that isn’t in the Harker file.”
It didn’t take long for O’Hara to walk back into Jamison’s office. “Boss, I went to the dead files. I checked Foster’s rap sheet. It shows that he was arrested for murder in this case but it didn’t show anything else. I went through our files. He was charged so there should have been a file because it was a murder case, but I couldn’t find it.” Jamison nodded. Old files were routinely destroyed ten years after the case closed, but Foster’s file was related to the Harker case and that should have red flagged the file.
“Did you check the file shelves? Sometimes files get put in out of sequence.”
O’Hara sniffed, insulted that Jamison would imply that he didn’t know his job. “I checked the entire shelf of files and boxes. It wasn’t there. So, then I checked the records on files that have been destroyed. They keep a record of that.” O’Hara sat down heavily and waited for Jamison to ask.
Jamison knew O’Hara was stringing it out. “Well? I know there’s more from the expression on your face.”
O’Hara slowly shook his head, acknowledging that he had something else. “The destruction record didn’t show that Foster’s file had been destroyed, so it was supposed to be there where I looked. I went back again because it would be a thick file, maybe even a box. It wasn’t there, but there was something that was there. I could tell from the dust and the discoloration on the files next to where it should have been that a file had been removed. Boss, that file should have been there and I’m sure it was there, or at least some file was. I looked at the checkout file but there was nothing. It looks to me like somebody removed it and they didn’t do it that long ago. Before you ask, there’s so many people who have access to those dead files that there’s no way I can tell you who took it or when. All I know is that it wasn’t that long ago because of the dust pattern.”
Shades of Truth Page 16
