Wolf's Revenge

by Lachlan Smith

  Ransom was in his late sixties, with a drinker’s face and a philanderer’s reputation, one bolstered by his four ex-wives, at least two of whom had either appeared or been employed in his courtroom. Ransom’s mask of detached intellectualism was a facade covering his hunger for approval and admiration. The lawyers laughed at his jokes, and sometimes this worked in their favor. The defendants, with much more at stake, often did not laugh. The trick was to script the action so that the role this judge was offered would be an interesting one.

  I’d crafted my motion to this end, opening with a quotation from a nineteenth-century legal treatise about the right of the courts “to every man’s evidence.” After Ransom summoned me to the lectern, I began in a similar vein.

  He waved at me as if shooing a fly. “Enough. I get that. But what’s this FBI agent going to say?”

  “I shouldn’t have to disclose my defense in order for my client to exercise her Sixth Amendment right to call witnesses. My word as an officer of the court—”

  Cutting me off, Ransom finished my sentence for me: “—isn’t good enough. Come on, Mr. Maxwell. You’re asking me to dismiss a murder charge because some guy won’t come to court. You knew that was going to be the result when you subpoenaed him. It was preordained. You also knew the only possible remedy I could give you was dismissal. Maybe the only point of this is to manufacture an issue for appeal, but you’re going to have to tell me what he knows that’s so important if you expect me to even consider dismissing this case.”

  “If the ADA doesn’t know it already, she’s not going to hear it from me. If she does know and hasn’t disclosed it, then we’ve got a serious Brady violation. So I’ll defer to Ms. Sloane. Let her answer—if she can.”

  The judge’s face tightened with anger. After a moment’s reflection, however, he shifted his gaze to Sloane, nodding for her to speak. I saw the slight possibility of his shifting the target of his anger from me to her.

  Flushing, she rose.

  “There’s nothing this FBI agent could conceivably say that changes the basic facts. Several witnesses saw the defendant run up and shoot the victim at close range. It’s an open-and-shut case.”

  The judge turned his focus back to me. “You’re not suggesting the FBI put her up to it, are you, Mr. Maxwell? Because that would hardly be a defense. Not to a murder charge.”

  “Why was she running? What was her state of mind at the moment when she pulled the trigger? The answers to those questions are tremendously relevant, and Agent Braxton’s testimony is essential to answering them.”

  “You’re saying he was present at the scene of the crime?”

  Six spectators filled the back pews of the courtroom. I’d recognized one as a beat reporter. The one in the suit with a briefcase was no doubt a lawyer from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, serving as Braxton’s eyes and ears. The others were unfamiliar to me, but I had to assume that what was said here would be relayed to Wilder within hours.

  “That would be surprising, Your Honor, considering that none of the police reports mentions Braxton’s name. But, yes, to answer your question, I have reason to believe that he was present, notwithstanding the failure of the police incident reports to record that fact.”

  “Your client, it seems to me, would be the best person to testify about her own state of mind.”

  “Reversing the burden of proof is hardly a remedy for the deprivation of my client’s Sixth Amendment right to call witnesses.”

  Ransom’s brow furrowed. He shuffled the papers before him and found the document he wanted.

  “I’m going to deny the dismissal motion. However, we can revisit the issue after trial. Let’s take up the state’s motion to preclude the defense from presenting evidence or argument regarding the victim’s ‘alleged’ association with the Aryan Brotherhood. Mr. Maxwell hasn’t drawn any connection between wanting to call an FBI agent and the prison gang issue, but if I were a betting man I’d put money there’s something there.”

  Sloane stepped back to the lectern. “The only conceivable reason for the defense to introduce evidence of gang affiliation is to suggest the victim somehow deserved to be killed, and to turn the jury against him. The victim’s character is completely irrelevant. There’s no plausible claim of self-defense here, so the victim’s past involvement in violent acts is also beside the point.”

  “I don’t see how we can keep it out of the case,” I responded when Ransom nodded for me to speak. “The state has listed the autopsy photos as exhibits, as usual. I didn’t bring copies with me, but I think the DA will agree with me that Edwards’s body is covered with racist tattoos. The man had Adolf Hitler’s face depicted on his back.”

  Ransom didn’t allow himself to smile. “I notice you didn’t file the usual defense motions to keep those photos out.”

  “My client and I feel that the jurors need to learn all the facts, not just the ones the prosecution wants them to hear.”

  “In the future, Mr. Maxwell, please refrain from making sound bites in my courtroom.”

  “Yes, Your Honor. I don’t intend to use Edwards’s gang affiliation as character evidence; that would be improper. The relevance is to motive. My client had no motive for murdering Edwards. There are plenty of other people who did, however.”

  “Wait a minute. Are you disputing that your client pulled the trigger?”

  I demurred. “The state has the burden of proof on that question.”

  Ransom sighed with exasperation. “Fine. You’ll be given limited leeway. But you’re not going to put the victim on trial in my courtroom.”

  “I understand, Judge.”

  With these matters decided—or, rather, punted for future consideration—Ransom dispensed with the remaining pretrial motions, granting and denying the routine requests filed by both sides. He concluded with a series of housekeeping matters, discussing the familiar ground rules for the trial, procedures for selecting the jury and introducing exhibits, all of which had the enervating effect of a coach’s pregame admonitions.

  After the hearing, I had a few minutes with my client. Jail had worn her down. She was looking more tired each time I saw her. Her skin was ashy, her hair a static frizz, and she seemed to be losing weight, although the impression may have been due to the hopeless, withdrawn look in her eyes. In her mind, the upcoming trial was merely a stopover between these months in the county jail and a lifetime of imprisonment.

  “What’s this about an FBI agent?” she asked when we were alone.

  “Remember last time, when I asked you who first put the handcuffs on you? You said it was all a blur. You just remember sitting on the curb, and the police grabbing you. Well, the video appears to show this FBI agent was the first one on the scene. Mark Braxton. I’ve met him. He’s been investigating the Aryan Brotherhood for the last fifteen years. If I’m right, it can’t have been a coincidence that he was there with Edwards when you shot him.”

  “So what would he say anyway? He saw me do it? How’s that help?”

  “The point is that sometimes the witnesses who aren’t summoned end up being more important than the ones who are. That’s called ‘reasonable doubt.’”

  “Am I going to have to testify if you can’t get him to come?”

  “Possibly. The trouble is, they’ll ask you where you got the gun, and you’ve already told me you got it from someone in advance and brought it to the scene. That’s pretty damning evidence of premeditation.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I mean, it’s just …”

  Her voice trailed off.

  “You don’t have to go through with the trial. The ADA’s offering you fifteen years. That’s a lot of time, but it’s not forever. If you don’t want to fight it, I can go back to Sloane and tell her you’re accepting the offer she made last week.”

  “No,” she said. “I want to go to trial.” But she sounded unconvinced.

  I couldn’t help wondering whether her answer would be different if she’d had a different lawyer. Still, I’d
given her every chance to take a deal if she wanted one.

  The time had come to broach another delicate subject. “There’s one more thing we need to discuss,” I said. “Sims, when he threatened me, hinted that he plans to attempt to influence the jury, probably with threats. This has to be disclosed to the judge and prosecutor so that measures can be taken to protect the jurors during the trial.”

  She looked at me with shock. “He’ll kill you,” she said. “Or your family. That little girl—”

  “Which is probably the reason I ought to withdraw from the case, but I’m not going to do that. Not unless you tell me to.”

  She thought a moment, then looked at me and shook her head.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “So when are you going to tell them?” She was indicating more trust in me than I’d so far felt, along with an untapped reservoir of courage.

  “As soon as my brother and his family are out of town. Probably Friday. I need to make a few other arrangements first.”

  “What about my testimony?” she asked. “Can’t I just tell them Sims gave me the gun?”

  “No.” Having told her story one way to me already, she couldn’t un-tell it, and I couldn’t un-hear what she’d said. I might have been a gang leader’s go-to lawyer, but I wasn’t going to make the same mistakes Teddy’d made. I prided myself on playing by the rules, and I intended to go on doing so until the end—even if those rules would mean the end of me.

  I went on: “What you can do for me is rehearse. I want you to picture yourself on the witness stand. I want you to hear yourself telling your story, in your own voice. From beginning to end, starting with your mother’s death and ending with how you got my number. We’ll run through it in the evenings once the trial starts. Do that and you’ll be as ready as you can be.”

  She seemed unconvinced. That made two of us. I took her hand and pressed it in a gesture of reassurance, the only emotional connection I could offer her. Then I stood and went through the ritual of knocking on the door to be let out.

  CHAPTER 16

  The arrangement we’d finally settled on was that Car would accompany Teddy, Tamara, and Carly to Disneyland, ensuring that they traveled in safety and, to the extent possible, that they maintained anonymity at all points of exposure. Like most negotiated compromises, this one made everybody unhappy.

  “I’m a PI, not a bodyguard,” Car told me with frustration when I first suggested the idea to him. “I don’t even have a concealed-carry permit. And even if I did, I don’t own a gun.”

  “I can’t let them go without knowing someone I trust is watching them,” I said over coffee. “Can you? Because the alternative is they go alone, or with some kind of hired security guard who’d cost a fortune. As for going alone, I don’t even know if they’re up for a simple trip like this under normal circumstances, much less when they might be walking targets. They’re going to need help.”

  “Well, that goes for all of us. Shit, Leo, you know how your cases usually go down. You get some brainstorm at the last minute, you need an investigator to run out and work a miracle for you. That’s my job. Who’s going to do my job if I’m down in Anaheim playing Mickey Mouse?”

  “I’ll do it myself. I’m not asking you because I want you out of the way. You’re right, I need you here for the trial. But Teddy needs you more. Remember what you said to me at Wendy’s that night? We’re going to want someone on our side as ruthless as the people who’re going to be coming after us. Your words. You may not own a gun, but whatever the situation, I know you’ll do whatever you have to do. Shit, you don’t have to stay with them. Just be there.”

  Car gave in, as I’d counted on. “But you’re the one who’s going to have to explain to your brother why he needs a chaperone to take his family on vacation. You’ve got to find a way to make it right. The old Teddy, he never would have been able to stand the idea that he couldn’t take care of his own family. I hate to think how it’s going to make him feel.”

  “Let me worry about that,” I told Car. In truth, my brother’s pride wasn’t high on my list of concerns.

  When I broke the news to Teddy, however, his response wasn’t what I’d expected. If anything, he seemed relieved to share some of the responsibility, not just for the safety of his wife and daughter but also for the ordinary trials of travel. This, I reminded myself, was a man who, because of the risk of seizures, the DMV didn’t trust behind the wheel of a car.

  Teddy’s acceptance of the new reality affected me deeply. Seeing him nod, clear his throat, and look down, I felt my throat seize, my eyes sting, and I had to stand and busy myself pretending to wash my hands at his kitchen sink.

  I’d had plenty of reminders of my brother’s diminishment, so I ought to have been used to the new Teddy by now. When I looked at him, however, I still saw, at first glance, the bearlike figure of my youth, the brother I’d looked up to with such a tangled regard that he’d seemed almost mythic to me, remote, inaccessible, and fiercely talented. When I’d begun my career, I’d merely been seeking my brother’s approval. The last thing I’d expected was to feel pity for Teddy Maxwell.

  Despite all the ways that he’d been diminished, however, I’d come to believe that his loss was outweighed by his gains: a loving wife whom he loved in return, a beautiful daughter, a caring regard for others that, to the old Teddy, would have seemed a sentimental indulgence.

  Now, everything that mattered in his life and mine was at risk through my actions. My only solution was to send them away for a vacation that, even if my plan worked, would do little to guarantee their long-term safety.

  I shut the water off but still didn’t feel ready to face them.

  It was Teddy who finally spoke. “We’ll be all right,” he said. “This situation isn’t your fault, and you’re doing your best to get us out of it. I’m more worried about you, staying here. Who’s going to be looking after you if Car’s with us?”

  “Don’t worry about me,” I said.

  I heard a rustle of fabric, then felt a hand on my shoulder, turning me. Tamara drew me toward her, pulling me into a silent embrace. I met my brother’s eyes over her shoulder as I hugged her.

  She released me, and Teddy put an arm around each of us.

  “Carly wants her uncle to go in and say good night,” Tam said.

  I had one more stop to make. Sitting in my Saab outside Teddy’s place, I thumbed Braxton’s number into a burner phone. He answered on the second ring.

  “This conversation isn’t happening,” I said, not bothering to introduce myself.

  “That’s right. You and I don’t have a single word to say to each other. I plan to let a federal grand jury do my talking for me where you’re concerned.”

  “You haven’t indicted anyone in fifteen years. You’re not going to start with a lawyer who’s trying to salvage the life of a sixteen-year-old girl.”

  “I’m sure you believe your intentions are upright and noble. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’ve chosen to lend your talents to the furtherance of a criminal racketeering enterprise.”

  “I didn’t call to argue. I have a proposition.”

  “I’m the one who makes the propositions here.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not ambitious where snitching’s concerned. I’ll let you take the credit, or you can always blame me if we crash and burn; odds are, if that happens, I won’t be around to say any different. I’ll be in People’s Park in half an hour. Oh, and, Braxton, try not to look like a narc.”

  Half an hour later, as promised, I’d taken up a position between two homeless camps, sitting with my back against a young redwood tree, the hood of my sweatshirt up, like a college kid who’d smoked too much bud and needed to chill until it wore off. Braxton, awkward in running clothes, jogged up on the sidewalk, circled the park under the streetlights, then rested with his hands on his knees, gasping somewhat, before walking into the relative darkness beneath the trees and stretching against a neighboring trunk.

&nbs
p; I spoke quietly: “I can give you Jack Sims on the murder of Russell Bell, in furtherance of the AB’s goal of having my father working for them on the outside. But I think you already know all about that. You know because my father knew.”

  Braxton went on stretching.

  “Sims also killed my father and Dot. You know that, as well. The fact that you haven’t moved on him yet tells me that you’re after a bigger target. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, and the only conclusion I can reach is that, where the Aryan Brotherhood and similar organizations are concerned, the FBI’s goal isn’t prosecution. Because what good does it do to convict a man of a crime when he’s already serving a life sentence? Hell, Bo Wilder would probably have just as easy a time running his criminal empire from inside a federal prison.”

  “There’s always the death penalty,” Braxton said.

  “How’s Justice’s record on that? Actual terrorists aside. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with you that these guys are the worst of the worst, but we both know the death penalty’s no sure thing. You could convict Bo Wilder tomorrow, but there’s very little chance of that sentence ever being carried out. Plus, a trial would just give him a stage to recruit more members and expose any assets that you may still have within his organization.”

  Braxton seemed to freeze for a moment. Then he bent to his stretch again, pushing against the tree with one leg braced behind him as if he could push it down. “I don’t think you have any idea what it’s like to bring a major investigation to fruition,” he said. “Let’s talk about something you do know about.”