The Death of Distant Stars, A Legal Thriller

by Deborah Hawkins

  “But why, Millie? I’ve got more than my share of LWOP’s already.”

  “I’m asking you to take it because this kid is only fourteen, and he’s going to be tried as an adult. And he may, in fact, be innocent.”

  Kathryn put down her coffee cup and stared at Millie for several seconds. “Innocent? In this office? You’re kidding.”

  “No, this is that rare case.”

  “But I can’t, Millie. I wouldn’t be able to do it justice. I only have a part-time investigator, and he’s booked solid with assignments. He wouldn’t be able to give me any help at all on a new case.”

  “I know. I know. But no one has enough investigator help, so assigning it to another senior PD won’t change that.”

  “But why me, Millie? Why now when I’m in the midst of Tom’s case?”

  “Because I’d give this one to Tom if he were here.” Millie’s face became soft and thoughtful as she went on. “Look, Kathryn, no one knows the reality of this life better than I do. We all crash and burn at some point because we can’t take the stress any more. I’ve got two years until retirement, and I’m counting every day. I know the bloom of ‘helping the indigent’ has been off the rose for you for more years than you can count, but the one person in the office who never seemed too cynical to believe in the possibility of actual innocence was Tom.”

  Kathryn’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. She could hear Tom saying to her over and over again, “No, this one’s different. This guy didn’t do it.”

  Millie ignored her display of emotion and continued. “Whenever a serious case came in, if I really thought the client might be innocent, I’d give it to Tom because, unlike the rest of us, he wasn’t too jaded to believe what the client was telling him.”

  “But I’m not like that, Millie. Honestly, I’ve heard every story in the book. Nothing impresses me anymore.”

  “I know. I know. And I don’t blame you. But since I don’t have Tom now, I need you to fill his shoes. He would want you to take Tyrone’s case, Kathryn. Please.”

  * * *

  Tuesday, October 28, 2014, Juvenile Hall, Meadow Lark Drive, San Diego.

  Kathryn went to see her new client at three p.m. the following day. Because he was being held in juvenile hall, she was allowed to see Tyrone in a small gray room with a table in the middle. She had already reviewed the grainy surveillance footage of the shooting. It showed three indistinct silhouettes, two beating and kicking a shorter man and a third tall, shadowy form with a gun. A second before the short man fell, Kathryn saw the fire from the muzzle. As soon as he was down, the three men ran up to him and searched his pockets. As they ran away, the shooter turned and fired one last shot. The man’s body jerked once and then was still.

  The tall, skinny kid in front of her in gray detention scrubs could have been one of the two shadows punching the man. He sat hunched at the table, his eyes on the floor, his face sullen.

  “I understand you’re fourteen, is that right?”

  “Yeah.” He kept his eyes on the floor.

  “And where do you live?”

  “Nowhere.” He still didn’t look at her.

  “But surely–”

  His dark eyes, hard and defiant, met hers. “My momma left me with my granny when I was three. Granny died last year, and the landlord threw me out of our apartment ‘cause I couldn’t pay the rent. Mostly I sleep on couches at friends’ houses. Or on the street if I can’t find nobody that will let me stay.”

  Kathryn’s heart twisted. She felt as if Tom were in the room with her. Millie was right. Tom, the protector of the broken and homeless, would have been drawn to Tyrone’s case. It was one reason he’d been protective of Shannon, because she’d run away from her abusive stepmother at sixteen, lied about her age, and learned to support herself tending bar. Living with Steve had been the first stable home she’d ever had.

  “Do you go to school?”

  “Not since my granny died.”

  “The intake form said you have one brother?”

  “Marquess, yeah.”

  “He’s a lot older than you, isn’t he?

  “He’s eighteen.”

  “I’m guessing you two didn’t live together.”

  “Marquess lives with his baby momma. Sometimes they let me sleep on their couch. Not always though.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what happened last Saturday night?”

  “It wouldn’t do no good if I did.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m gonna get convicted regardless. I’m a Ninth Street Crip. Don’t matter if you guilty or innocent; if you a Crip, you gonna get convicted.”

  “Are you a gang member or just an associate?”

  “Member.” He fixed his eyes on the floor again as if he was ashamed of the admission. “I got jumped in when I was eleven.”

  “Isn’t that kind of young?”

  “Yeah, but Marquess is tight with the shot callers. He got them to take me.”

  “What did your granny think of that?”

  “She didn’t mind. The homies would bring her groceries when she didn’t have no money and would drive her to the doctor’s office because she didn’t have no car. They helped take care of her. And me.”

  Kathryn nodded grimly. The story was all too familiar. Gangs were surrogate families for kids like Tyrone.

  “So tell me what happened on Saturday.”

  He sighed. “Like I said, Miz Andrews. No offense. It won’t do no good.”

  “Do you know Jalal Griffin?”

  “Yeah. That’s Big Jay. He’s tight with my brother.”

  “Does Marquess have a gang name?”

  “Pit Bull.”

  “What about you?”

  “Lil’ Pit.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what happened on Saturday night?”

  “You wear people down, Miz Andrews. You know that?”

  “I know I want to help you, and I can’t if you don’t tell me what happened. Big Jay says you were there, and you helped rob Gunnar Thorn, who was visiting from Sweden. Big Jay says your brother Marquess was the shooter. The police found Mr. Thorn’s wallet in your brother’s pocket, and the murder weapon in his car.”

  “The cops showed me a videotape, but they didn’t tell me the man’s name.” Tyrone looked from the floor to Kathryn’s eyes and back to the floor. His face continued to be profoundly sad.

  “Were you on that tape, Tyrone?”

  “It don’t matter what I say, Miz Andrews. The cops, they gonna believe Big Jay because that way they take some Crips off the street, guilty or not.”

  “But if you tell me the truth, we might be able to win at trial.”

  “Ain’t gonna be no win.”

  “Try telling me your story, and I’ll be the judge of whether we have a shot at winning.”

  “Okay, but I’m telling you now, it won’t do no good.”

  “Try me.”

  “So Saturday, I spent the day at Marquess’ house. He’d had a fight with Lytisha, and she’d tooken their baby to stay at her mother’s.”

  “Where do Marquess and Lytisha live?”

  “They got an apartment in Chula Vista on La Raza Street.”

  “So what did you guys do at your brother’s?”

  “Drank beer, smoked a lot of weed. Big Jay came over and a few other homies.”

  “Like who?”

  “Freckles, Big G, Mad Dog, and Maniac.”

  “Are they all Ninth Street Crips?”

  “All except Maniac. He’s now a West Side Crip from L.A. He used to live here.”

  “How many of you went down to the Gaslamp?

  “We didn’t. At least, I didn’t. We went to a night club called The Rendevous, close to Marquess’s place. It’s on H Street.”

  “Did all of you go to The Rendevous?”

  “Yep. There was this girl I was hoping to meet up with there.”

  “And did you?”

  “Yep. Her name’s Tamara.”

&nb
sp; “Last name?”

  “No idea. I had only met her the night before.”

  “So you were at this nightclub two nights in a row?”

  “Yeah. I go there a lot. The older homies buy me food and drinks and shit.”

  “Do you have a job?”

  “Yeah, I bus tables at an Applebees on H Street. I lied to get the job, and said I was sixteen.”

  “Okay. So when did you leave this nightclub and head down to the Gaslamp?”

  “That’s the thing, Miz Andrews. I didn’t. Me and Tamara hit it off good, and I was there until closing.”

  “When was that?”

  “One a.m.”

  Kathryn felt a tiny flicker of hope. She’d been skeptical when Millie had suggested this client might be innocent. But Gunnar Thorn had been killed right around one a.m.

  “Where’d you go after that?”

  “Me and Tamara and a bunch of homies partied in the parking lot until management ran us off.”

  “And after that?”

  “Tamara had me back to her place.”

  “Where is that?”

  “Shoot, Miz Andrews. I don’t remember the exact address. It was dark, and she was driving.”

  “How old is Tamara?”

  “I don’t know. Older than me. Old enough to have a car.”

  “So you went to her apartment?”

  “Yeah. It wasn’t too far away. Next morning, she drove me back to Marquess’ place. Lytisha had come back with the baby. We was all having breakfast when the cops came and arrested me and Marquess. I didn’t know about no robbery or killing or nuthin’ until the cops put me in that room and showed me the tape of them shooting that guy.”

  “So do you know who’s on the tape?”

  “Not for sure. But I could guess.”

  “Did the police tell you Marquess’ gun was the murder weapon?”

  “Un huh.”

  “They think he was the shooter.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I know.”

  “Was he?”

  “I wasn’t there, Miz Andrews. And he didn’t tell me nuthin’ about no shooting when I got back to his place that morning. All I know is what the cops said. They think it was me and Marquess and Jalal because Jalal told them that.”

  “But Jalal knows you weren’t there, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Then why did he say you were?”

  “I’m guessing cause he figured out that’s what the cops wanted to hear. They got Marquess and his gun, so they figured I was involved, too. I mean, I seen the tape, Ms. Andrews. The two guys with Marquess are tall and thin, like me.”

  “Right. But that doesn’t make you guilty of murder.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “I know I’m not real bright. But I don’t get how they can say the two guys with Marquess killed that man. It was Marquess that pulled the trigger. The other two were beating on him, but they didn’t do nuthn’ to kill him.”

  “I know, Tyrone. And I wouldn’t say you aren’t bright. There’s a really old-fashioned rule in the law that says if you are helping out with a robbery and the person with the gun pulls the trigger and kills the victim, you are just as guilty as the person who used the gun.”

  “That don’t seem fair to me.”

  “Or to me. Do you have any information that will help me find Tamara?”

  “Alls I know is she’s a regular at The Rendevous. The owner is a guy named Ray-Ray Washington. He’s a Ninth Street Crip, but he don’t bang no more. Ray-Ray knows all the regulars.”

  “Okay, Tyrone. I’ll start there trying to find her.”

  THE DEPOSITION

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Tuesday, December 2, 2014, Lindbergh Field, San Diego

  Jose Sanchez, his driver, was waiting to pick him up at ten a.m. when Hugh’s flight from San Francisco arrived. He’d spent more than a month taking depositions in a securities fraud case involving a technology company. Being in San Francisco had given him time to hang out with Patrick and tell him why he didn’t want Buffy to push him into a run for the Senate. Patrick had agreed: it was a lousy idea.

  Jose made the trip from the airport to the Emerald Shapery Center in record time, deposited Hugh, and sped off to Coronado to deliver Hugh’s bags to Maria, his housekeeper, who would unpack them. Hugh stood in the lobby of his building for a moment, reflecting on Kathryn’s presence upstairs in the big conference room where she was being deposed. It was the second day, and Mark had called him yesterday to let him know everything was going well.

  “McLaren has tried and tried to push her buttons, but she won’t budge.”

  “That’s good news. Sounds as if you and Patty did a good job prepping her.”

  “Thanks, but she catches on very fast.”

  “I bet McLaren is pissed that he can’t poke holes in her happily married story.”

  “Pissed doesn’t even begin to describe how frustrated he is.”

  As the glass elevator ascended to the Goldstein, Miller penthouse, Hugh decided he wanted to watch Bob McLaren’s rout. He dropped his briefcase in his office, told his secretary where he could be found, and slipped into the conference room.

  * * *

  He sat down next to Patty. Mark, to Patty’s left, looked over at him and smiled. Kathryn was seated at the end of the long table, wearing a simple green wool dress that highlighted her trim figure and her eyes. Patty had made sure she came across as a grieving widow instead of a savvy public defender.

  Hugh saw Bob McLaren’s steely dark eyes shift quickly from Kathryn’s face to his own and back to Kathryn’s. Neither he nor Annette Fry nor Emma Talbert were happy to see him. Hugh, fresh off a month-long round of striking terror into opposing counsel, chuckled silently to himself. The high of knowing he had his opponents intimidated was almost as powerful as being in love. Almost, but not quite.

  Hugh was proud of Kathryn for withstanding yesterday’s onslaught of questions. Mark had reported that McLaren could not make her admit that her marriage was troubled, Tom was unfaithful, or Tom drank too much. Apparently he had spent the first part of the morning circling back over yesterday’s territory, trying to shake her story, because Mark was lodging asked-and-answered objections. But Hugh’s appearance motivated him to move on.

  “When did Dr. Myers prescribe Myrabin for your husband, Mrs. Andrews?”

  “February 2012.” Her voice was soft, clear, and unwavering. She looked McLaren right in the eye.

  “And when did your husband become ill?”

  * * *

  Monday May 21, 2012, 1845 Ocean Place, Pacific Beach

  Tom went surfing that morning. Kathryn lied to Bob McLaren and said that he was alone, but he’d gone with Shannon.

  Whereas before Shannon, they usually drove to work together, now Kathryn was always ready to go long before Tom had disentangled himself from her nemesis. But she lied so convincingly that Bob McLaren and Hugh and everyone else present bought her excuse that she went in alone because she had to be in court earlier than Tom. And although that fact was true in a superficial sense, she still would have had time to wait and drive in with her husband had she not wanted the opportunity to show him how much she disapproved of all the time he spent with Shannon.

  She was stewing about Shannon all morning as she answered the docket call for her cases. She continued some, helped clients enter guilty pleas in others, and agreed to status conference dates in the rest. When she returned to her office at eleven-thirty, she noticed Tom was now in his office. He was frowning earnestly as he talked on the phone. Likely settlement negotiations with an arrogant assistant district attorney, she thought.

  She ate a quick lunch at her desk and headed for the jail to make the rounds of client interviews. When she came back at three-thirty, Beth Price, their mutual secretary, told her Tom had gone home feeling nauseous.

  “Something he ate for lunch,” Beth said.

  Two deputy district attorney
s called that afternoon, trying to negotiate settlements in cases that neither side wanted to go to trial. Exhausted by all the back and forth about who had the stronger position, Kathryn limped home by six to find Tom in deep sleep. She had smiled and pushed the hair off his forehead and kissed him lightly on the cheek before going to the kitchen and eating a slice of leftover pizza with a glass of red wine.

  Tom was still sleeping soundly when she crawled into bed beside him at eleven p.m. He looked angelic and boyish in deep sleep. He stirred slightly when she kissed him on the cheek, but that was all.

  She woke around two-thirty to hear the sound of dry heaves coming from the bathroom. She rushed in to find Tom slumped over the toilet. His eyes were sunken, and he was so weak he was sitting on the floor, propped against the wall.

  He tried and failed to give her a smile. “Bad sushi.”

  “Lunch?”

  He gave her a weak nod.

  She managed to get him to his feet and out to the car. He could barely walk, and he had to lean on her heavily.

  She drove through the empty night, praying that he was going to be okay. Red lights and stop signs flashed past in a blurred panic. Beside her in the passenger seat, Tom was just barely holding on.

  By the time they arrived at Scripps Memorial, he had passed out. Kathryn parked the car in a no parking zone and ran in to the Emergency Room, her heart beating so hard, she had trouble speaking. While they wheeled Tom into the hospital on a stretcher, she hurriedly parked the car in the first space she saw, tow-away or not, and ran inside to find him.

  They had taken him to one of the small examination rooms. His t-shirt and knit pajama pants were gone in favor of a regulation hospital gown. A thirty-something nurse wearing dark blue scrubs and a droopy blonde pony tail was starting an IV drip to give him fluids.

  “He’s badly dehydrated,” she observed as she worked. “How long as this been going on?”