Wolf's Revenge

by Lachlan Smith

  In theory, it was the DA’s burden to disprove that Alice had acted in the heat of passion, not mine to establish provocation. I was more certain than ever that we couldn’t afford to put Alice on the stand, knowing this would mean allowing the DA to discover her evident premeditation in obtaining the gun and bringing it to the city that day. There was little to gain and much to lose. The smart plan was to argue reasonable doubt, asking the jurors to hold the state to its burden of proof. I simply had to hope that I’d picked a jury that was willing to do that.

  “The defense rests,” I said.

  CHAPTER 22

  Sloane’s closing argument was predictable but effective. She hammered on the known, undisputed facts, urging the jury not to speculate regarding Alice Ward’s motivations.

  “I expect Mr. Maxwell to argue to you that the defendant was provoked. But who provoked her? Surely a defendant can’t escape a murder charge by claiming she provoked herself. Even he admits there had to be someone there.

  “They’ve thrown out a name, and even a mug shot. But Mr. Sims is a ghost conjured up by the defendant’s lawyer. Two police officers and multiple eyewitnesses testified regarding what they saw and heard. The defendant’s lawyer didn’t bother showing Jack Sims’s picture to any of them. Surely, if Sims were present, it would have been at least worthwhile to ask these witnesses about him. Mr. Maxwell didn’t do that. The reason is that Sims wasn’t there.

  “And even if there’d been some evidence that this man was in the city that evening, the fact that none of these witnesses saw him near the scene of the crime is telling. The judge is going to instruct you that the influence of any provocation must have been ‘direct and immediate.’ How immediate could it have been if he left her so far from the scene that none of these witnesses saw him? Leaving aside the fact that we have no idea what he’s supposed to have said to her.

  “But these questions are academic. Sims wasn’t there. The only person who claims to have seen him is an admitted drug addict who admits to having been in the Tenderloin in order to score heroin. Let’s talk about Mr. Rosen’s testimony for a minute.”

  Here, she launched into an attack that was all the more effective because she let Rosen’s numerous admissions speak for themselves. Rather than accuse me outright of suborning perjury, she simply stated the facts.

  “The first time Mr. Rosen met with Mr. Maxwell, Maxwell showed him a picture of an individual Rosen now claims was Jack Sims. According to Rosen, that picture was on Maxwell’s phone. After Rosen identified this person, Maxwell assured him that it couldn’t have been the man Mr. Rosen had seen.

  “Now fast-forward a few months, to their next meeting right before the trial. Maxwell shows Rosen another picture, a mug shot, and tells him he wants him to identify this man. And Rosen does identify him, agreeing with Maxwell that this was the man he saw even though he can’t say for sure whether this man and the man in the picture he previously identified are the same. And on this occasion, it’s the only picture Maxwell shows him.

  “After hearing Mr. Rosen testify, I think you’ll agree that if Mr. Maxwell wanted him to, he’d claim he saw the president of the United States that evening. Simply put, his testimony doesn’t deserve to be believed.”

  She also addressed Braxton’s testimony, of course urging the jurors to look past my attempts to manufacture a defense. “Alice Ward had an obvious motive for committing this crime. She didn’t need to be provoked. She’d been planning for years to get back at the man or men who she believed had murdered her mother. We may feel sorry for someone whose life has been poisoned, but that doesn’t mean the defendant can be allowed to perpetuate the cycle of violence by taking justice into her own hands. There’s no law that permits a revenge killing.

  “The state has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant, Alice Ward, killed Mr. Edwards, and that the killing was willful, deliberate, and premeditated. You’ve heard all the facts. Now I ask you to follow the law and find the defendant guilty of first-degree murder.”

  Sloane had homed in on the weaknesses of our defense. Now it was my job to make the jury realize she’d missed the mark. I had nothing written down, but knew exactly what I needed to say. I walked close to the jury box and stood before the jurors with empty hands, presenting myself to them without artifice.

  “The defense doesn’t have to prove anything,” I said, launching into my difficult task. “We don’t have to prove that Ms. Ward was provoked, or that she acted in the heat of passion. Rather, it’s the state that has the burden of disproving provocation. The state must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Mr. Edwards’s death was intentional and premeditated.

  “Ask yourself, has the state done this? Has it proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Sims wasn’t there?

  “There’s no evidence Alice had any clue who was behind her mother’s murder until this night. The only reasonable inference you can draw is that immediately before the shooting, Jack Sims gave her the answer she’d been hungering for all these years. He told her, at last, the identity of the man who’d murdered her mother. That’s the sole supposition we can draw from the facts, the only reasonable explanation for what she did. We know how she reacted. Remember Agent Braxton’s testimony. Right after the shooting she was ‘catatonic.’ He waved a hand in front of her eyes, but there was ‘no one home.’

  “The state wants you to look at this case through blinders—to assume, without any evidence, that Alice Ward all along has held the key to solving this unsolved crime. It wants you to believe that she patiently bided her time, keeping the identity of her mother’s killers secret from the police, until, finally, in cold blood, she deliberately acted out a long-nurtured plan of revenge. But that theory doesn’t mesh with the facts. How’d she know Edwards was there in the city that night? Where’d she get the gun she used to kill him? All these questions are ones the state leaves unanswered.

  “You’ve heard testimony about Sims’s membership in the Aryan Brotherhood, about his various criminal acts. Agent Braxton believes that Sims, along with Edwards, murdered Leann Ward, to cover up a previous murder they’d committed while robbing the Plum Tree. There’s no statute of limitations on murder. As long as Edwards remains alive, he holds Jack Sims’s life in his hands.

  “Sims is a master manipulator, an unrepentant white supremacist, a cold-blooded murderer. Alice Ward, by contrast, is just a teenager—a child with a deep void at the center of her life: her mother’s death. Do you think he’d hesitate for an instant to tap into that hurt and pain, to channel that darkness inside her in order to achieve the outcome he wants? How easy it must have been for him to utter the lie that set this damaged young girl in motion.

  “We know for certain that Braxton and the FBI helped Sims and Edwards get away with at least two murders. Evidently, granting such killers impunity is part of the government’s scheme to bring down the Aryan Brotherhood—even at the cost of innocent lives. In the government’s view, the ends justify the means. And what is it, in the government’s mind, that justifies allowing Jack Sims to escape punishment for these heinous crimes? It’s pretty obvious, folks. Sims has been allowed free rein because the government values the information he, just like Randolph Edwards, has been passing to the FBI regarding the inner workings of the Aryan Brotherhood.

  “Agent Braxton denied under oath that Jack Sims was an FBI informant. But Braxton will say anything to protect an active source. If he were to admit a thing like that, it’d be a death sentence for Sims. We all know what happens to snitches inside criminal organizations. Conveniently, Braxton now claims that Edwards was his only source inside the Aryan Brotherhood.

  “In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if Sims was the only snitch, and Edwards was targeted for other reasons. I’ll give you one—Sims’s effort to consolidate his power within the Aryan Brotherhood, requiring taking out possible rivals. The greater an informant’s role in an organization, the more valuable the information he provides. And how about another reason—preventi
ng state and local police from using Edwards to prosecute Sims for those old murders, which would take him out of play for the FBI? The feds will do anything to keep Sims on the street, even facilitate the elimination of someone who’s both a rival and a threat, a man who might’ve been having second thoughts about Leann Ward’s murder, a man racked with guilt over the death of the mother of his child.

  “Alice Ward may have pulled the trigger, but she’s not the one who’s guilty of Edwards’s murder. Sims is the one who ‘premeditated’ this killing. He planned it, then used my client as his tool to carry it out. He’s the guilty party. But he’s not here in this courtroom today. As you consider Agent Braxton’s testimony, I want you to ask yourself why Sims isn’t on trial for this crime. And, more broadly, why hasn’t he been brought to justice for the other murders he’s committed? It’s because Braxton and the FBI protected Sims. It’s safe to say that protection’s still in place.

  “This case is about more than just Randolph Edwards’s death. It’s about the murder of Leann Ward, about the murder of that innocent diner enjoying his meal at the Plum Tree ten years ago. It’s about all the other nameless innocents harmed as a result of Jack Sims being allowed freedom and protection by the FBI. It’s a travesty that he was allowed to use the umbrella of that protection to provoke my client into committing a killing that turns out to have been even more senseless than she knew.

  “Probably he hoped that once she learned the truth, that she’d just killed her father, she’d want to kill herself—carrying any evidence of his involvement with her into the grave. Thankfully, he didn’t succeed. Instead, we’ve had this opportunity to learn the truth—and the truth is that my client was the real victim in this case.

  “It’s been my privilege to speak to you on Alice Ward’s behalf today. I ask that you recognize that innocent lives aren’t worth an FBI agent’s dreams of triumph. I assert that the government hasn’t met its burden of proof on any of these charges. For that reason, your verdict should be ‘not guilty’ on each and every count.”

  In her rebuttal argument, Sloane labeled my defense of Alice Ward a “house of cards” and proceeded to deconstruct it. Sims hadn’t been there, she insisted, again harping on Rosen’s lack of credibility, along with the absence of any other witness putting him at the scene. The obvious implication here was that my client, surely, could have taken the stand in her own defense and told the jurors about Sims’s presence, and also could have told them exactly what he’d said.

  “All we have is speculation, but Mr. Maxwell’s ‘inference’ isn’t evidence,” Sloane insisted. While she couldn’t comment outright on my client’s invocation of her right to remain silent, the jurors couldn’t fail to understand what the missing “evidence,” in her view, should have been.

  This led to her next point, which was that nothing Sims could have told Alice Ward that day would have come as a surprise. Her mother had worked at the Plum Tree. That robbery had preceded her death by only a week. Might her daughter not have drawn the connection between that job and her untimely death?

  “As for Agent Braxton and the supposed machinations of the FBI, you should see it for the smoke screen that it is. Whether or not Sims or Edwards was an informant is entirely irrelevant and beside the point. Mr. Maxwell admitted as much during his closing argument when he reminded you that the defendant was the one who pulled the trigger. The murder of an informant is still a murder. The fact that the murder she committed may have served the ends of the Aryan Brotherhood doesn’t lessen her guilt. If anything, it makes her crime worse.

  “Again, there’s no evidence that Sims was there, or, if he was, that he told her anything of consequence that she didn’t already know. Even if he had been present, Alice Ward still had a choice. She had plenty of time to deliberate. She could have gone to the police.

  “Instead, she carried out an act of revenge, shooting the victim through the head. Leann Ward had been dead for over a decade. This wasn’t a killing in the heat of passion. She wasn’t provoked. She didn’t catch him in the act. Rather, she saw the opportunity for vengeance, and she made the decision to carry it out. She executed him, taking the law into her own hands.

  “Don’t be fooled by the speculations of defense counsel, by all the smoke and mirrors. Focus on the evidence. Take your time. Consider all the facts. And when you’ve done that, return a verdict of first-degree murder.”

  It was after 6 P.M. when the judge finished reading aloud the jury instructions. His intended audience was yawning, but rather than break for the evening, the jurors elected to begin their deliberations immediately, with dinner ordered in. Their sequestration from their jobs and families wouldn’t end until they either reached a unanimous decision or deadlocked, resulting in a mistrial. This meant that the pressure on any holdouts would be magnified. I had to hope that one or two jurors who’d seemed to be on our side would become my client’s advocates in the jury room, repeating my arguments and coming up with new ones to convince their peers.

  Alice had been taken into the holding cell, where a female guard was to remain with her at all times. I stayed in the courtroom, in the company of the bailiff, a few spectators, and my disordered thoughts. I spoke with Teddy and confirmed they were all fine, said good night to Carly, then stretched out on one of the benches. The room seemed to swirl around me, a side effect of trial fatigue.

  Freed from the obsessive circles in which they’d been traveling, my thoughts returned to my father. I knew even less about his motivations than I did about those of Alice Ward. Now, again, I wondered at them. I wanted to believe that he’d acted out of bravery, heroism. But I knew better.

  He undoubtedly possessed courage, yet altruism had never been his style. Informant or no, he’d benefited from his association with the Aryan Brotherhood. Working for the FBI had allowed him to hedge his bets, persuading himself that it was okay to take the protection and other benefits Bo Wilder offered. But I was sure he’d also understood the essential truth of what I’d argued in court today: that, when one looked at the larger picture, his efforts had most likely served to prop up and strengthen the enemy.

  I dozed fitfully, then sat up as my phone suddenly buzzed in my pocket. It was just after 10 P.M. The jury was still deliberating. Seeing that the call was from an unknown number, I walked out of the courtroom for privacy.

  In the hallway, Sims’s voice ran through me like a blade of ice.

  “I was loyal, you piece of shit. Because of your false accusations, a good man had to die tonight.”

  He was breathing hard, real stress behind his words. That, more than anything, frightened me. Sims sounded scared, and I pictured a cornered animal, the most dangerous kind.

  “What good man?”

  “Bo. They got to him—my orders. Had to happen today, before word reached him. Had no choice, had to strike first. I made sure he didn’t even see it coming. It was painless. A shank to the base of the neck. He didn’t even have the chance to go out fighting. A brave man doesn’t deserve to die that way, you asshole.”

  “I’m sorry.” The words escaped me unbidden, a reaction to the genuine grief I heard in Sims’s voice and my own awe at the upheaval I’d caused.

  “You will be,” he said, his voice becoming more measured now. “I should’ve known you didn’t give a shit about your family. Well, Bo Wilder was the closest thing to a brother I ever had, and now, because of you, he’s dead.”

  “That makes us even,” I said, though I hardly felt this was so. As far as I was concerned, the job was only half done. My revenge for my father’s death wouldn’t be complete until Sims, too, was dead on the ground.

  Evidently, the feeling was mutual. “I warned you,” he said. “I told you exactly what I’d do if you fucked with me. I’m a man of my word. Thanks to you, I got nothing left but my word. And I’ll be dead, too, before I give that up.”

  My throat had tightened painfully at his mention of my family. I talked fast. “It sounds as though we should meet, try to strai
ghten things out. I’m waiting on a jury here, as I’m sure you know. You wanted me to put on a case, so I did that.”

  “I’m four hundred miles away. You’re down on my list, but I won’t forget you. Bo died fast. In your case I’m gonna make it nice and slow. I just got to take care of business here in Anaheim. Don’t worry, I’ll bring you a nice souvenir from Disneyland.”

  He ended the call. But his words echoed in my ears like the tolling of an awful bell. Souvenir. Anaheim. Disneyland.

  I came unfrozen with a cry that turned the head of a reporter typing on his laptop outside the courtroom. I phoned Car. The call went to voice mail. Next I tried my brother, but he, likewise,

  didn’t pick up. Tamara’s phone also went unanswered. I dialed the Anaheim Police Department and, after several handoffs, was connected with a dispatcher. I explained the situation, telling her that I was an attorney in a criminal trial in San Francisco involving gang issues, and that moments ago I’d received a credible threat to the lives of my family members. I gave her the address of the condo and left her my number, pleading with her to have the responding officers call me once they were on the scene.

  Shortly after I hung up, my phone buzzed again. For some reason I expected it to be Sims, but it was Judge Ransom’s courtroom deputy. The jury was adjourning for the evening, she informed me. Normally, I’d have recognized the failure to reach a verdict immediately as a good sign—the longer the jury was out, the better for my client. Tonight, however, all I could think about was my family, and how stupid I’d been to send them so far away.

  In a panic, I again dialed Car, my brother, and, finally, Tamara, but none of them picked up. This couldn’t be happening, I told myself—whatever this was. Again, in my mind’s eye, I saw the slaughterhouse scene I’d discovered at Dot’s condo, revisited the stink of congealed blood and decomposing flesh.