by Tim Green
“That’s right,” Jake said, “the police found Dwayne Hubbard, but there were some things about the case that people-people like yourself-asked about that others didn’t like. What can you tell us about that?”
“Well,” Kissle said. He sat forward, the chair creaking and his rheumy eyes beginning to glisten. “We got word from above that said for us to stop asking questions, we had our man, and that was to be the end of it. The detective on the case-”
“Uh, Detective Yancy?” Jake said.
“Right. He dropped right out of it and left the force. Last thing he said to me was that if I was gonna stick around it’d be best to stop asking questions. Then he dropped off the face of the earth.”
“What kind of questions were you asking?” Jake asked.
“First thing was the boyfriend of the girl, I mean the ex-boyfriend,” Kissle said, using his aged hands to conduct as he spoke. “He’d been following her. She worked just up the road at the putt-putt golf, worked the ice-cream stand, and he’d show up there most every night, just hanging around with his buddies, or by himself if he didn’t have any, and watching her. We’d get calls from her dad, but we had to tell him that it’s a free country, which it is.”
“And what was the question some people had about the ex-boyfriend?” Jake asked.
Kissle shrugged. “Well, it only figures we should have talked to him. I mean, I know we had the New York City boy, but talking to him seemed like proper police work. That was my take on it. Billy Cussing-he was my partner-he thought more about it than me and he found himself looking for work. Couldn’t find anything until he got to Florida. I’m past that now, though. Work.”
“You worked hard for a lot of years,” Jake said. “Can you tell us about the ex-boyfriend? Who he was, and why you think it may have had something to do with you and others being asked to forget your questions?”
“We weren’t asked,” Kissle said, narrowing one eye and rubbing his nose. “They told us flat out. Leave it alone. We had our man and that was that.”
“Why?”
“Simple,” Kissle said, “the boyfriend was the DA’s son.”
“Can you tell us their names?”
“Everyone knows,” Kissle said, “that Patricia Rivers’s boy, Nelson, was no good, never. We’d pick him up smoking pot and driving drunk out on the road and we’d just bring him home. People didn’t necessarily think he’d do something like butcher a girl, but we thought at least he should be asked some questions. Not her, though. She put the word out and the chief at the time-not our chief now-he went with her on it, so did the mayor, and the word came down we had our man.”
“Do you think Nelson Rivers is the one who killed that girl?” Jake asked.
Kissle shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not, but we sure didn’t do nothing to find out if he did. He was stalking her. We all knew that. You won’t see any reports on it or anything, but the chief had a talk with the mom about getting him to back off.”
“Did Patricia Rivers, Judge Rivers now,” Jake said, “did she ever say anything to you directly about the investigation?”
Kissle tightened his lips and nodded slowly, remembering. “I imagine she said the same thing to Martin Yancy and Billy Cussing that she said to me. I was getting into my patrol car out back of the station and she pulled up in her big black Mercedes and she says, ‘Myron, you’ll leave that Thornton case alone if you know what’s good for you. You’re an officer of the law; you’re supposed to be working for the law, not against it.’ Well, I told her I thought I was. I told her the law was supposed to be blind when it come to color, but she just gave me a funny smile and told me the world was a hollow place for a cop who worked against the law. That’s what she called it, a hollow place.”
“And what did you do?” Jake asked.
“I believed her,” Kissle said. “She’s not one to mess around, never was. I guess Billy Cussing found that out the other way.”
“And Dwayne Hubbard,” Jake said.
“Yeah, him, too,” Kissle said, “and I’ve had an ache in my gut ever since. That’s why I’m sitting here now. I been keeping it inside all these years, and when I saw you people showing up and trying to help put things right? Trust me, though, back then? No one was putting anything right. She’s a hellcat. No one messed with Patricia Rivers and no one ever called her Patty, either. How do you think she got to where she is? Big judge in that big house? It wasn’t any kind of luck, I’ll tell you. She’s a barracuda.”
Jake looked over Kissle’s shoulder at Dora, his head feeling much better. She nodded and gave him two thumbs-up.
37
JUDGE KOLLAR swung large and shanked his ball into the trees.
“Fuck!”
He drove his wood into the turf, leaving a chocolate depression in the pristine turf before wiping the club with a towel and slipping its head into a cover shaped like a fluffy gopher.
“Judge,” Marty said, leaving the safety of the cart he and Casey had taken out onto the course.
Kollar glared at Marty and slammed his club into the bag on the back of his own cart before removing an iron. His tan forearms flexed as he gripped the club. His face showed red against the yellow of his golf shirt.
“I’m golfing, Marty,” the judge said.
“I’m sorry, Judge,” Marty said, offering his empty hands in peace.
Kollar turned his attention to Casey. His eyes flickered at Marty. He set his jaw.
“As a courtesy,” Casey said, slipping out of the cart and onto the paved path, “we wanted to let you get on board. If you choose to work with us, it’ll be easier all the way around.”
“I don’t work with people, Ms. Jordan,” Kollar said, twisting his lips and glancing back at his golfing buddy to see that he was in on the fun. “I’m a judge.”
“Not only does Dwayne Hubbard’s DNA not match the swabs from the hospital,” Casey said in a low tone, “the person who does match is Patricia Rivers’s son, Nelson.”
The judge’s scowl intensified and he glanced back over his shoulder before lowering his own voice. “I figured it was you in the paper yesterday, but I thought you’d want your name in there.”
“I’m part of the Freedom Project,” Casey said. “It’s not just me, but, yes, we found the information on Judge Rivers and her son. He drove a white BMW that my client saw near the scene, and he was romantically linked to the girl. That gave us the hint, but we’ve got the DNA now. It’s over. The only question is, how painful do you want to make this?”
“Because I have lots of latitude as the trial judge,” Kollar said, pointing the grip of the five iron at her as though the club were an enormous pistol.
“If you’re fool enough to use it,” Casey said, looking up at the judge without blinking. “Then you can go down with the rest of them.”
“Rest of who?” Kollar said, contorting his entire face.
Casey shrugged. “Rivers and her son. He’ll go to jail. She’ll be removed from the bench, if not put in jail herself.”
“I have nothing to do with them.”
“You can perpetuate their crime,” Casey said. “Put your club down and think. You should be racing me to the prison with your own set of keys to free that man. It’s a disgrace. Incompetence? Racism? Horrible realities that put innocent people behind bars, but this? This is an evil so deep there’s no bottom. A district attorney, police, a judge, officers of the court, who knows who else? It’s a smear on this town and if you toy with it, the smut will stick to you like pinesap, like skunk spray. You won’t get it off, and you won’t get reelected. I don’t care how strong your party is. You’ll be done.”
Kollar snarled silently.
“But why can’t you just ride in on your white horse and save the day, Judge?” Casey asked. “Righting a wrong, no matter who it’s to. Everyone respects that. And when Rivers’s seat goes empty, who better to fill that spot than a man with high morals who transcends things like race and gender?”
“But I’m still a c
onservative,” Kollar said, musing to himself and looking over at Marty as if daring him to disagree. “Not soft on crime.”
“A compassionate conservative,” Casey said. “What we need more of.”
“What are you thinking?” Kollar said, his voice almost too low to make out.
“Sign the order to overturn his conviction right now, without waiting,” Casey said. “I’ll have the lab results sent to your chambers this afternoon. Issue a statement, something about the horror of justice turned inside out and making things right as quickly as possible. A man who spent twenty years of an innocent life behind bars doesn’t deserve to spend another day there. People will love it. You’ll be part of the story, the good part.”
Kollar gritted his teeth. “I don’t want any fucking stories.”
“The curtain is already up,” Casey said. “Whether you like or not, whether you want it or not. Now it’s all about your lines. Judge.”
38
YOU WANT TO see it?” Jake asked.
Casey sat on the end of the bed in his hotel room at the Holiday Inn and crossed her legs, tugging down the hem of her skirt. In his hand, Jake held a long black TV remote.
“Yes.”
“’Cause, technically, I shouldn’t,” Jake said. “You know, keeping the parts of the story separate and all that.”
“I can do a Chinese wall in my brain,” she said.
“A what, in your brain?”
“When you have an ethical conflict in part of your firm, you create a Chinese wall to keep certain lawyers separated from the information, like the Great Wall of China. It’s just a way of keeping confidences, that’s all.”
He aimed the remote at the disc player atop the TV and played for her the interview with Myron Kissle. Casey let out a low whistle.
“You like?” he asked, feeling good not only from his work but from the painkillers for his head.
“And I was proud of my angle on this,” she said.
“DNA trumps a surly old cop,” Jake said. “That’s what’s setting your man free.”
“But Kissle completes it,” she said. “I mean, Nelson Rivers actually stalking her? You were right about no one else having the complete story. The mom issuing a mandate on a murder investigation? Personally threatening the cops? I can’t believe she got away with it.”
“Small town, right?”
“I know, but.”
“Anyway,” Jake said, “I guess it’s back to Texas now?”
“We’re doing a big press conference tomorrow afternoon,” she said.
“I know,” Jake said. “My bosses love it. Everyone will be talking about the scandal, upset and ready to make someone pay, then we’ll hit prime time Friday night and introduce everyone to the villain. It’s classic. So, are you leaving right after that? I’d like to sit down with you again, nothing big, just to add some depth to what I’ve already got on Hubbard, the racial angle.”
“No problem,” Casey said, “but it’ll depend on Graham’s jet. I think we’re out of here right after the press conference. This whole thing was faster than I ever thought it’d be. It’ll be strange to watch this thing play out without me. Like leaving the fireworks before the grand finale, but I have a lot to do back home.”
“Maybe I could do a story on that sometime?” Jake said, sitting down on the end of the second bed and facing her with his hands in his lap. “Your clinic, I mean. It’s the kind of thing I like.”
“Anything that helps the cause,” she said, unable to keep her eyes from traveling across the chiseled lines of his face.
“And it’d be good to see me?”
“Of course,” she said. “Everyone loves a celebrity, Jake. You probably know that too well.”
“I wanted to explain what happened to me on Friday,” Jake said.
“You don’t have to explain,” she said, picking a piece of lint free from her navy skirt.
“I do, though,” he said. “I got tripped up.”
Jake turned his head and parted the curtain of blond hair in the back of his head, revealing the wound. He’d seen it in the mirror, gruesome and purple and stitched shut with black thread, still oozing coagulated lumps of blood.
“Jesus,” Casey said, standing up.
“It’s okay,” Jake said. “I hit my head, running from Graham and his goons.”
“Robert did it?”
“No. I did, a stupid mistake,” Jake said, letting the hair fall back over the wound and turning his eyes back to her. “Well, maybe not stupid, but a mistake. Your guy Graham has something going on outside the lines. I know that. It’s just not what I thought.”
They sat back down on the corners of the beds, Casey with her hands folded in her lap, her knees pressed together. Jake told her again what he knew about the shipload of manufacturing equipment and how Massimo stood to make a lot of money if the deal went through.
“And that’s exactly what he told me,” Casey said, holding Jake’s steady gaze.
“But I still think something is up with him and those people,” Jake said. “I could tell, just by the… I don’t know. My gut. Those people are not good.”
“They’re in toxic waste and city politics,” Casey said. “What’d you think?”
“More than that,” Jake said, shaking his head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. This is the story now, but I wanted you to know I tried to reach out to you once my head cleared, but I got no answer.”
“I went to Turks, to get the DNA,” Casey said. “My cell didn’t work down there. Sorry about that.”
“Sounds like it wouldn’t have mattered,” Jake said.
Casey shrugged. “So I can see you on TV Friday night, huh?”
“Graham’s pull is even heavier than I thought,” Jake said. “Yeah, it’s all one big happy network family-Twenty/Twenty agreed to let me do the story and my show loves the exposure, so I’ve got a boatload of work to do.”
“Seems like the hardest part is done,” Casey said.
“I’m going to take a crack at Judge Rivers. You never know,” Jake said with a grin. “Either way, we’re going to indict this whole town. That’s the angle, and I have to admit, it’s a good one.”
“The town?”
“A prison town, corrupt politics, bribes, payoffs, extortion, nepotism, you name it,” Jake said. “They want me to throw the kitchen sink at this place, make it much bigger than a woman DA. She’s the crown jewel, but they want us to rip up the floorboards, show how everyone kept quiet and sent an innocent black man to jail for twenty years. How Rivers got away. How his mom went on to position herself for the highest court in the state.”
“How did she?” Casey said.
“Probably the same way she got her son off,” Jake said. “Like Myron Kissle said, the woman’s a barracuda, and that always makes good TV. I could save myself about three days in the library if I had someone who knows local politics who’d talk to me.”
“I think I know someone who might be up for it,” Casey said.
“The ear guy?” Jake said, sticking a pinkie into his ear. “I was thinking that. Be nice if you weighed in for me. I think he’d do it for me, but he works for you.”
“My pleasure.”
39
CASEY FORCED her lips into a flat line. She should look cheerful, but she’d already recruited every muscle in her face not to frown. Trucks sprouting small satellite towers lined Genesee Street as far as the hill dipping toward the rough side of town. Their generators belched spent diesel into what would have been crisp morning air. Graham, she knew, wanted to give the networks plenty of time to cut their pieces, and give his PR people more time to sell it into the news cycle.
Ralph pulled over in front of the police cruisers, which sat angled watchfully out on the wide street. Between them, cops working crowd control leaned with their arms and cups of coffee resting on the roofs of their cars, sunglasses pushed up above their hairlines in the shadow of the courthouse. Casey circled the cluster of patrol cars and the sidewal
k bulging with cameras, microphones, and smartly dressed reporters. While not an unfamiliar scene, the VIP tent Graham had somehow arranged to be set up in the narrow plot of grass beside the courthouse made her wonder if they hadn’t overdone it.
She was waved through the police checkpoint by a party planner who wore a turtleneck beneath his Armani suit. The linen-covered table, heavy with Danish, salmon, and caviar hors d’oeuvres and silver urns of coffee and tea, held no interest for her. Neither did the retinues surrounding Al Gore, Brad Pitt, or Jesse Jackson.
“There you are,” she said to Graham, who stood with a crystal tumbler of orange juice. He was in his Timberland boots, Levi’s, and flannel shirt with dark hair poking out of the open collar. “Who’s the party planner?”
“Abel?” Graham said, nodding toward the wispy man in the turtleneck. “He’s a director. Won two Clios last year.”
“Commercials?”
“Try the cheese Danish,” he said, surveying the small crowd. “Brad Pitt loves them. They’re from Neddi’s, a little place Abel found in Chicago. Fresh this morning.”
“How did you do this?”
Graham smiled without looking at her, obviously proud. “They believe in the cause.”
“That’s bullshit,” Casey said. “What did it cost? Is there a service you use to get a lineup like this?”
Graham shrugged. “It’s a big moment.”
“It is now.”
“It was always big,” he said. “Big to Dwayne. His mom. The Project. Nothing could be bigger.”
“Now it’s big to every housewife in Dayton,” Casey said. “I’m serious. If I’m going to be doing these on a regular basis, I want to know how it works.”
Graham reined in his smile and met her eyes. In a low voice he said, “There is a service. They work through the agents and keep schedules for all the A-list people. You have to fly them in and out and provide police escorts, and you have to take who happens to be close by. Brad Pitt was shooting a movie in New York. Gore was actually in Buffalo showing his movie.”
