Bury the Past

by James L'Etoile

  “I just need a quick response about the court looking into Charles Sherman’s request for a new trial.”

  “You should call the department’s public information officer,” Paula said.

  “I have a source indicating the court may grant the appeal. Do you have a response for me?”

  “Not that you can print, Amanda. I think that’s a bit premature. I doubt the court will put much weight in anything Sherman has to say.”

  “I’m looking at a copy of the appeal. He’s making claims that you set him up.”

  “Fuck him!”

  “I can’t print that.”

  “I told you,” Paula said and disconnected the call. “Shit, shit, shit!”

  “Your mom set you up on another blind date?”

  “Amanda Farney over at the Bee is going to run a piece on Charles Sherman’s appeal.”

  “You had to figure the press was gonna get ahold of that at some point.”

  “I’ve got to get my hands on a copy of the appeal. Amanda made it sound like the court’s buying into his bullshit that he was set up,” she said.

  “You think there’s any coincidence that the press got this leak right after the DA had her little visit with us?”

  “It would be just like that bitch to spin this to make it look like this is all someone else’s—my—fault.”

  John gestured down the hallway. “I bet the lieutenant can get us a copy of the appeal. You can enjoy some light fiction while I drive out to the prison. Time to get something right from the horse’s mouth. Let’s see what Sherman has to say.”

  She shrugged. “Aren’t we supposed to call his attorney before we talk to him about his appeal?”

  “If we were going to talk about the appeal. Our interview is in regard to a person of interest in the Burger case. If he happens to mention that appeal—well, that’s on him.”

  TEN

  The California State Prison–Sacramento was a maximum-security prison tucked in the foothills next to the historic Folsom Prison. Unlike its 1880s counterpart, CSP-SAC was a modern facility designed to house the most dangerous and violent prisoners in the system. Slightly more than three thousand convicts called the place home, and most would never see the outside world again.

  By the time they pulled into an empty parking space in front of the administration building, Paula had gotten worked up, throwing the copy of Sherman’s appeal on the floorboards.

  “How can anyone believe this shit?”

  John knew to keep his mouth shut and let her vent. Stay out of the blast radius.

  “The only thing missing in this conspiracy story is that I shot JFK. Break out the tinfoil hats for everyone. Jesus!” She hit the dashboard with a fist.

  “That good, huh?”

  “There is no way Sherman could have prepared this on his own. City accounting records, personnel file details, IA interview transcripts—all stitched together with enough paranoia to make it sound real.”

  “That’s what his attorney is supposed to do.”

  She kicked the document on the floorboard. “Mission accomplished.”

  “How would Sherman’s attorney get IA interview transcripts?”

  “Beats me. They weren’t used in Sherman’s trial, and they weren’t part of the discovery given to the defense attorney. How did they even know my interview with Burger existed?”

  “Someone leaked it.” John put the car in park and shut off the engine.

  “Out of context, it makes it sound like I forced Burger to rat out his SSPNET buddies. Follow that with a city paycheck, and it even makes me wonder what he was being paid for. I don’t like this one damn bit.”

  “Like I said, that’s the appeal attorney’s job—to punch holes in the case.”

  They got out of the car, Paula slamming her door a little harder than she needed to.

  “Feel better?” he asked.

  “Not in the least.” She glanced at the wire-and-concrete prison complex. A stark and imposing place, complete with a lethal electric perimeter fence. “How long has Sherman been here? I didn’t keep tabs on him after he went to the reception center at Tracy.”

  They walked toward the administration building and passed through an entrance gate where they showed their identification and stored their weapons before entering the prison.

  “I spoke with the chief deputy warden, a guy by the name of Griggson. He said Sherman transferred here about a year ago for treatment.”

  “Treatment? They have treatment to de-asshole-ify someone?”

  “He didn’t get into details and said he’d explain more when he met with us. That’s him waiting by the door.”

  “You know him?”

  “I met him when he was a sergeant on the old prison’s security squad. Helped us get the convictions of a few guys back then for trying to smuggle weapons into the courthouse while they testified in a Mexican Mafia murder trial.”

  “Penley, good to see you again,” Griggson said as he shook the detective’s hand.

  “This is my partner, Detective Paula Newberry.”

  “Detective,” he said with a nod.

  “So what treatment is Charles Sherman getting here?” she asked.

  “I can fill you in. You mind going for a walk?”

  A half-mile trek through gates, doors, and multiple sally ports brought them to a bunker marked “A Facility Control.” A last check of identification and the detectives followed Griggson down a concrete-lined hallway with a steel door at its terminus. A tall window set into the door looked out to the main yard. A handful of blue-denim-clothed prisoners could be seen walking in the distance. When they reached the door, an electric lock popped, and Griggson pushed the door open.

  There were thirty inmates roaming about, and at first glance, it looked like it could be any one of a hundred prison exercise yards. A few convicts played basketball, and others spent their time in the sunlight consumed in solitary activities. What set this apart from the other prison yards John had seen was that the inmates held heated conversations with imaginary adversaries, ducked and dodged from unseen insects, and one even mimicked awkward kung fu movements. A large enclosed cluster of metal cages took up a third of what looked like a soccer field. The individual cages held one inmate; some worked out, others paced, and some just sat against the expanded metal screen.

  “What’s that?” Paula asked. She’d stopped at the collection of pens.

  “Those are walk alone yards for the PSU,” Griggson said. When he saw the confused look on Paula’s face, he continued, “The Psychiatric Services Unit houses inmates who require mental health care for severe issues: extreme psychosis, schizophrenia, or other debilitating psychiatric disorders. These men also can’t be housed in the general population because they’ve killed a cellmate, assaulted one of our staff, or violated other rules. If they didn’t have the mental health condition, they’d be in a security housing unit at Corcoran or Pelican Bay.”

  “Is Sherman in the PSU?” John asked.

  Griggson nodded. “He’s in group. I’ll show you.” The chief deputy warden approached a white steel door set into the concrete wall with “Treatment Center” stenciled above the threshold. He tapped a button on a speaker. “Yard door.”

  The electric lock popped, and Griggson pulled it open and gestured John and Paula forward. As opposed to the stark concrete in the yard, the treatment center was modern and polished, an ambiance that had earned it the nickname “Taj Mahal” from prison insiders. The space offered individual treatment and clinical space for the doctors and psychiatric techs working with the mentally ill inmates. As a reminder that this wasn’t a typical community treatment facility, holding cells for disruptive inmate-patients were included in the design.

  Griggson asked a correctional officer at a podium to locate Charles Sherman, and the officer consulted a roster and directed them to one of the group rooms.

  A short distance down the hallway, windows exposed the group treatment rooms for the PSU inmates. Like othe
r group counseling settings, the patients were arranged in circles while a group leader—a psychologist, according to his identification card—directed the discussion. In this prison-based counseling, each inmate was enclosed in an individual cage, roughly three foot by three foot, and the psychologist wore a stab-resistant vest.

  Paula saw him before they entered the room. Charles Sherman sat in his cage, seemingly unengaged in the lesson plan for the day. He’d aged since she’d seen him last. Close-cropped gray-and-black hair, dark circles under his eyes, and he looked heavier.

  All faces turned to the door when they entered. The group leader nodded and tried to continue the discussion, which was on the subject of empathy. Selling salvation to the soulless.

  “You FBI?” a man in the closest cage called out.

  “Johnson, we were talking about how your victims felt,” the psychologist said.

  “Man, fuck them. They had it coming.”

  Sherman’s eyes locked on to Paula and followed the detective as she moved through the room.

  When John and Paula got to his cage, Sherman stood. What Paula saw wasn’t a prison version of the freshman fifteen. Sherman had packed on at least twenty pounds of muscle, most of it in his shoulders and chest.

  “We need to talk to you, Sherman,” John said.

  “This is my treatment time. Come back later.”

  Paula made the sign of the cross in front of his cage. “There, you’re cured.”

  The man in the next cage stuck his nose to the wire mesh and sniffed the air.

  Griggson signaled to two correctional officers to pull Sherman from the cage. A ritual of attaching handcuffs and waist chains occurred before the cage door opened. Sherman was walked backward from the cage, a correctional officer on each arm. They led him to a private room used for individual patient treatment. Sherman was directed to a chair, and the correctional officers backed off and leaned against the wall behind the inmate.

  The chief deputy warden excused himself, saying he’d arrange for an escort out when they were done with Sherman.

  John sat in a chair opposite Sherman while Paula hovered behind.

  “You remember Larry Burger, don’t you?” John said.

  Sherman rolled his neck and remained silent.

  “He was responsible for you ending up in here, wasn’t he?”

  Stoic, the prisoner showed no reaction or indication that he’d heard or understood John’s question.

  “What did Sherman do to earn a PSU bed?” John asked the correctional officers.

  “Other than being batshit crazy? He killed his cellie.”

  “Really? Still winning friends everywhere you go, Sherman?”

  “He said he wanted a single cell, and when they tried to house someone in with him, he beat the guy into a coma.”

  “Is that right? Well, Larry Burger got himself beat to death too,” John said.

  A flicker of a grin shone from Sherman’s thin lips at the mention of Burger’s demise.

  “Did you have anything to do with that? You have anyone on the outside carrying a torch for you?”

  Paula slammed her palms on the table. Sherman didn’t react to the loud slap of skin against the surface. “I guess you didn’t count on getting another conviction for the murder of your cellmate, did you?”

  Sherman turned his head so that he faced Paula. “They didn’t prosecute. Turns out I’m too crazy to be held accountable.”

  “Where’s the justice in that?” Paula seethed.

  Sherman leaned forward. “Who are you to talk about justice?” he said in an icy voice.

  “I know you had Burger killed,” Paula said.

  Sherman raised his shackled wrists. “I have the ultimate alibi. Do you?”

  Sherman stood. “Take me back to the house.” The correctional officers escorted him from the room. He stopped at the doorway while inmate traffic was cleared from the passage. He looked over his shoulder. “I’ll be seeing you soon.”

  Back in the administration building, John and Paula looked in on the chief deputy warden.

  “Get what you needed from him?” Griggson asked.

  “Not really,” John said.

  “How easy is it to play crazy?” Paula asked.

  “You think Sherman is a malingerer? There are easier ways to game the system than getting yourself into the PSU.”

  “One of your officers mentioned Sherman assaulted another inmate,” John said.

  “Beat a cellmate to death, if I recall. That happened a little more than a year ago over at Old Folsom.”

  “Did you decide not to file on that case? Sounded like a solid felony.”

  “We file on all of them. The decision to prosecute isn’t ours.”

  “What happened with Sherman’s case?” Paula asked.

  Griggson picked up a phone and dialed a number. “Nora, get the DA determination on Charles Sherman and bring it to my office, please.”

  Moments later, a lieutenant entered with a small file in hand.

  “Lieutenant Nora Carrozo, our litigation coordinator.”

  She handed the file to Griggson. He opened it and scanned the topmost document. He handed it to Paula.

  “As I remember it, we filed for murder and assault with great bodily injury. The case was rejected for prosecution. There’s a note that says, ‘The accused’s mental status diminishes the likelihood of conviction.’ I’ve had cases go forward with less evidence. That happens sometimes.”

  Paula tapped a finger on the page and showed it to her partner. The decision not to prosecute was personally signed by Linda Clarke, the district attorney herself.

  ELEVEN

  “You think Sherman is faking it?” Paula asked as they returned downtown from the prison.

  “He could be, but like the prison staff said, why? Seems like a hard way to do his time.”

  Paula reached down and snagged the wrinkled pages of Sherman’s appeal from the floorboard. “This doesn’t mention anything about his current mental health status or that he’d killed another inmate. Isn’t that a bit odd?”

  “Anything that happened in prison after Sherman’s conviction doesn’t have anything to do with the original trial and verdict. I think the whole thing smells, but the court is gonna look at the facts in the appeal, nothing else.”

  “Facts, my ass. Sherman is gaming the system. He always had an angle, and I know he does here too. You heard him back there; as soon as the shrink was out of earshot, he dropped the silent act and started talking,” she said.

  John swung the car into Paula’s driveway. He shifted into park but didn’t shut off the engine. “We’re on call tonight. Why don’t you try to get Sherman’s game out of your head? He’s trying to get you rattled. Whatever the court decides to do with him is out of our hands.”

  “You make it sound like a twelve-step meeting, all that powerless-over-my-addiction noise. I’m telling you, he’s got a plan, and I want to be there when it comes undone.” Paula got out and made the trek to her door. Her pace mirrored her anger—quick, tense, and hot.

  John waited until Paula closed the door, then he backed out and went back to the office. He found Lieutenant Barnes in his office going over a stack of reports. The lieutenant glanced up and wagged a report at John.

  “Did we forget to teach report writing at the academy? Or how about using spell check? It’s not like they have to handwrite these damn things anymore. If we had the budget, I’d send Shippman back for a GED.”

  John sat heavily in a chair across from Barnes. He took the report and scanned the pages. “Shippman tends to take shortcuts when he thinks no one cares about the case.” John looked at the first page, which identified the victim, suspect, and location of the crime. “This is that drive-by shooting out in Del Paso. He probably figured if no one wanted to come forward, then he wouldn’t bust a grape on the investigation.” John tossed the report back on the desk.

  Barnes tapped a finger on the file. “This isn’t how we work. Every case gets worked
. Justice matters. We start picking and choosing which cases get investigated . . . hell, that’s profiling, and we know where that leads.”

  “I don’t think Shippman was profiling so much as he was being lazy. Want me to talk to him?”

  Barnes pinched the bridge of his nose. “If you can, otherwise I might end up in a city-sponsored anger-management program.”

  “Speaking of anger, we went to visit Charles Sherman out at the prison this afternoon.”

  “Sherman still pissed at the department for flushing him away?”

  “Did you know he’s in a locked mental health unit?”

  “Huh. No, that’s news to me.”

  “Killed a cellmate.”

  “No shit? That should buy him—and us—some time before we have to worry about his appeal,” Barnes said.

  “You’d think, but no. The DA declined to prosecute him for the crime.”

  “Really? What rookie deputy DA made that screening rejection?”

  John sat back. “I had the same reaction. But the rejection was made by the DA herself.”

  “Why would she pass on a slam dunk like that?”

  “I don’t know, and after her tirade here this morning, I don’t know what to make of it.”

  “I hate it when politics get in the way of common sense,” Barnes sighed.

  “We’re still following up on Burger, but the threads are getting harder to find.” John stood and paused. “I’m worried about Paula. She’s feeling the heat on this one, and getting blamed for Sherman’s appeal is getting under her skin. She’s a good cop and has learned to follow her instincts. I don’t want her to fall apart because of one asshole.”

  Barnes remained silent.

  “What?”

  “IA is going forward with an investigation into the allegation of paying Burger for his testimony.”

  John’s shoulders slumped. “You gotta be kidding me.”

  “I wish I was. With the DA’s interest in this Sherman appeal, the brass decided to cover their asses.”

  “At Paula’s expense.”

  “She’ll get through it. IA will give her notice of the investigation tomorrow. You might want to be around when they do their drive-by.”