Conviction

by Richard North Patterson

  "Ralphie," Monk said nostalgically. "Hardly left us anything to ask."

  "At least he was entertaining. I'm getting fed up with these three." Ainsworth turned from the monitor. "So which one we go back to?"

  "Fleet." Monk nodded toward the video cam. "Look at him."

  On the monitor, Fleet's hands were cupped over his mouth, as though he were about to vomit.

  * * *

  "You ready to help us out?" Monk asked.

  Eyes averted, Fleet nodded.

  "No rehearsals," Monk said curtly, switching on the tape recorder.

  For a time, Eddie watched it spin. Then he gathered his thoughts and began to speak. Listening, Monk had to give him this much—Eddie Fleet could tell a story so vividly that Monk could see it happening.

  * * *

  The knock on Eddie's door had sounded heavy, urgent.

  Eddie was alone. One eye shut, he peered out through the keyhole. In the night outside stood a massive form which could only be Rennell.

  Eddie cracked open the door. "What is it, bro'?"

  "We got need for your car."

  Somehow Eddie knew that "car" included him. Beneath Rennell's accustomed monotone he heard an urgency close to panic, and the big man's feet shifted from side to side. In Rennell this passed for jitters, Eddie thought—he must be high on crack.

  Eddie fished his car keys from the drawer where he kept his Saturday night special, taking the gun as well.

  * * *

  In the six-block ride to the brothers' house, Rennell said only, "This is trouble, man."

  He would not say more. But whatever Eddie had imagined was erased from his memory once Payton, eyes bright with crack and panic, yanked him inside.

  Lying on the floor was a small Asian girl with spittle coming from her open mouth. It took a few seconds for Eddie to absorb that she was dead.

  "What the fuck . . . ?" he whispered.

  Payton backed one step away. From behind him, Rennell said dully, "Choked on come."

  "Whose come?"

  When no one answered, Eddie felt himself begin to shake. "You make her do this? That's a kid, man."

  A spark of anger flashed in Payton's eyes. "No time for this shit," he snapped. "We got to get rid of her."

  Fleet stared down at the girl as though he'd been asked to pick up a dead rat. "No way, man. Not me."

  Payton's fevered eyes shot a peremptory glance at Rennell. From behind him, Fleet felt the big man pin his arms back in a hammerlock. He cried out, Payton's half-crazed face two inches from his.

  "Shut up," Payton hissed. "You trying to wake up Grandma?"

  * * *

  They forced Eddie to pick up the child by her hands.

  Her fingers were stiff and cold. Drool kept dribbling from her mouth, like she couldn't keep the come down. Eddie felt the bile rising in his throat.

  Payton took her feet; Rennell cracked open the front door. Jittery and silent, they edged out the door in the cool night air.

  No cars.

  They dumped her on the sidewalk while Eddie fumbled for the trunk key. When they dropped her inside the trunk, he smelled the pee.

  * * *

  Payton told him to drive down the hill to India Basin, pull into Shoreline Park.

  Payton sat beside him, Rennell in back. When they entered the darkened park, Payton signaled Eddie to stop.

  They looked around. To the left rose the stacks of a massive power plant; another car was parked close to the water. Through the windshield, Eddie saw a small orange cylinder inside, the glow of what was probably a joint passing from hand to hand.

  "Not here," Payton said tightly.

  For a moment, he started chattering about the warehouse district of Potrero Hill. Then Eddie reminded him of the homeless who camped out there.

  All at once, it seemed, Payton remembered the tallow plant.

  * * *

  They turned down an unmarked road past the shadowy forms of warehouses. Through the driver's-side window, cracked open to help him keep from vomiting, Eddie caught the stench of burning fat and animal remnants. No one else would be here.

  Silent, Eddie clamped his jaw against his own fear and nausea.

  On the spit of land where the road ended was a construction site, sand and gravel sitting in piles like burial mounds. To the left was a channel of brackish water. The wreck of an old barge was grounded there, next to a neglected wooden pier, which stuck from weeds and sand into the water. Across the channel was an outpost of the Port of San Francisco, the black skeletons of loading cranes towering above. Eddie heard no sounds at all.

  "Get her out," Payton directed.

  Eddie sat there like he was paralyzed. Only when Payton opened the car door and barked something more did Eddie force himself into the chill, toxic air.

  Curtly, Payton nodded toward the trunk. He seemed to have come down off his high.

  With renewed dread, Eddie opened the trunk.

  The child was still curled stiffly, her posture frozen. "You do it," Payton told his brother.

  To Eddie, the order carried the edge of reproof. In silence, Rennell lifted the dead child.

  Payton angled his head toward the channel. "Out there."

  Rennell started toward the water's edge. Following, Eddie thought his lumbering shape resembled that of a monster in a horror film. Their feet crunched stunted shrubbery.

  They reached the sand at the edge of the channel. "Dump her in the water," Payton said.

  Corpse cradled in his arms, Rennell walked to the pier, testing it with his weight.

  The beams creaked. Shaking his head, Rennell backed off.

  "In the water," Payton repeated. "We want her away from here."

  Like an automaton, Rennell stepped out into the channel.

  Right away, Eddie saw that its current was swift—Rennell staggered sideways, clutching at the nearest piling, the girl's body tucked beneath one massive arm. He righted himself, then began edging farther out, to where the ruined wood tumbled into the water.

  Almost gently, he laid the body on the surface of the channel.

  At once the current began sweeping her away. The last Eddie saw of Thuy Sen was strands of long black hair, swirling away in dark, moonlit water.

  Surprising tears sprung to his eyes. "Let's get high," he heard Payton say.

  * * *

  "He was shook up," Fleet finished now. "Don't think he meant to do it. Don't even know if he did do it." He puffed his cheeks and exhaled. "Whatever, you got to feel sorry for her."

  You're a real humanitarian, Monk thought. In his flattest voice, he asked, "The brothers like doing nine-year-olds?"

  Fleet moved his shoulders. "They were high, man—do crazy things when you're high."

  "That all you know?" Ainsworth asked.

  Fleet turned to him. "It is," he said fervently. "I swear it."

  "So you wouldn't mind taking a lie detector."

  Fleet faced Monk again. "You want me to?" he asked.

  Not really, Monk thought—they didn't need a murky polygraph. With a shrug, he said, "Up to you, Eddie."

  Fleet seemed to consider this. "Yeah," he said finally, "I guess it's okay."

  You just passed, Monk thought.

  "Best to keep you around," he said. "You don't want to be out on the street."

  * * *

  The next thing Monk did was call the Coast Guard. Suppose, he asked, you dumped that nine-year-old girl at the foot of that tallow factory. Two days later might a floater end up on the rocks near Candlestick Park?

  Sure, came the answer. That's how the current goes.

  Monk put down the phone. "First Payton," he told Ainsworth. "Then Rennell."

  TEN

  "IT DOESN'T LOOK GOOD FOR YOU," MONK TOLD PAYTON. "No good at all."

  Hands clasped in front of him, Payton said nothing. His eyes drilled Monk's from a tight, staring mask.

  "We're willing to hear your side of the story," Ainsworth interjected. "But we know Thuy Sen died in yo
ur house. My friend and I keep wondering if you're covering for your brother."

  Payton's grip on himself was so taut that Monk could see the tendons in his forearms straining. "Whatever you do," Monk said, "is fine with me. You can take your chances, or you can tell us what happened."

  Payton's stare still locked Monk's, and then he slowly drew a breath. "Man," he answered with weary defiance, "I don't have to tell you shit."

  "We know she was there," Monk said sadly. "We know it, and you know it."

  Rennell shifted in his chair. His demeanor, silent and sullen and self-absorbed, reminded Monk of an adolescent being chastised for some minor offense.

  "We found her fingerprints, Rennell. So tell me how they got there."

  Rennell's gaze darted to a corner. Monk watched his fear grow like a living thing.

  "She like your sound system?" Ainsworth asked.

  Still Rennell did not answer. "Sometimes," Monk proposed, "like when you smoke crack, maybe things happen you didn't mean to happen. You think that's possible?"

  Rennell's brow furrowed. "Sometimes," he responded to Monk's surprise.

  "Is that what happened with Thuy Sen? Maybe 'cause you were smoking crack?"

  Rennell stiffened, silent once again.

  "Son," Monk said softly, "we know it was you who put her in the water."

  Rennell looked up at him, mouth half open. "No way . . ."

  "You carried her out," Monk continued. "Because the current was fast, and you were the strongest. And because your brother told you to."

  Rennell's gaze broke. Eyes focused on the table, he shook his head with silent stubbornness.

  "We know she was at your house," Monk said in a reproving tone, "and we know you dumped her body. It's time for you to say what happened in between."

  Rennell was still now.

  "I mean," Monk amended quietly, "what happened before you went to get Eddie Fleet."

  The worry in Rennell's face was palpable. His gaze darted past Monk, as if searching the barren room for help.

  "No one here but us, Rennell. No one but you can tell us why you did that with Thuy Sen. Not even Payton can tell us that."

  Rennell shifted in his chair. At length he asked, "Payton, what he say?"

  "Time for you to be a man, son. Time to tell us for yourself what happened."

  Rennell crossed his arms, staring at the wall.

  "You didn't want for her to die, did you?"

  Still the big man did not respond. Then, slowly, he shook his head. "No."

  Tense with anticipation, Monk prodded. "You just wanted her to make you feel good."

  Rennell's eyes shut. In a dull monotone, he asked, "What Payton say?"

  "Why does it matter?" Monk said coldly. "Was Payton the one who killed her?"

  "No," Rennell answered with surprising swiftness. "No way."

  "No," Monk agreed. "It was you. But you didn't mean for that to happen."

  "No."

  "I didn't think so," Monk said reassuringly. "You were holding her head down. When she started choking, you didn't know what to do."

  Rennell bent forward. "I didn't do that little girl," he said with quiet vehemence. Then he just sat there, seeming gradually to detach himself, until Monk and Ainsworth left him alone.

  * * *

  "Did you begin to wonder," Terri asked sardonically, "if Rennell wasn't maybe a little slow?"

  Over the rim of his second cup of espresso, Monk gave her a look of sour amusement. "How slow do you mean, counselor? So slow he couldn't remember what he'd done?" He put down the cup. "For sure Payton was what passed for the family brains. This boy wasn't swift, though mostly he was as scared as he had every right to be. But he knew what he'd done, and he sure as hell knew that 'doing that little girl' was a bad thing to admit to. Don't have to be Einstein to do murder."

  * * *

  "Let's pretend we're the defense," Lou Mauriani told Monk and Ainsworth. "Lay out what you've got."

  It was their good fortune, Monk thought, that Mauriani was the Assistant D.A. tracking the case—gray-haired, round-faced, and congenitally affable, Mauriani had keen blue eyes and an equally keen sense of the absurd, coupled with lightning swiftness of thought and a deep seriousness about doing his work well. In twenty-seven murder prosecutions, Mauriani had never lost.

  Monk set down his coffee mug on a corner of Mauriani's cluttered desk. "First, we've got Rennell pulling a girl dressed like Thuy Sen into the house, with Payton closing the door behind them—"

  "By virtue," Mauriani interposed dryly, "of a cross-racial ID, from all the way across the street, by a scared old lady who hates them both. If I'm the defense, I'm thinking this pillar of Bayview's vibrant white community saw exactly what she wanted to."

  "We went back to her," Monk responded without rancor. "She's as solid as anyone like that can be. The forensics bear her out."

  "The fibers, hair, and fingerprints," Mauriani amended, "put Thuy Sen in the house. But only Flora Lewis makes her playmates Payton and Rennell."

  Ainsworth nodded. "True. But we also found clothes which more or less match what she says they were wearing—"

  "Uh-huh. Them, and every third guy in the neighborhood. So what happened inside the house between her and whichever two guys these were?"

  "That's where they forced her to have oral sex," Monk answered. "We found semen and saliva."

  "Whose semen? Whose saliva? Suppose Payton or Rennell says they've lost track of all the age-appropriate young women who've blown them in the living room. Saves on condoms, after all."

  "Semen," Monk countered, "is what choked this girl to death. We've got Liz Shelton for that. And we know Thuy Sen was dead when she left the house."

  Mauriani gave them a beatific smile. "Ah, yes, on the word of the honorable Edward Fleet. I can't thank you guys enough for the chance to share him with twelve of our fellow citizens. Let's see—crack selling, gun peddling, and a social life spent slapping women silly. No wonder he couldn't wait to help us out."

  Ainsworth flashed a grin. "You've put on worse, Lou. We've brought you most of them ourselves."

  "And proud of it." Mauriani's smile faded. "You know the problem, Rollie. Fleet's a dirtball, and he admits to helping them dump the body. The only reason he's talking is so we can help him save his ass. If I'm the defense, I go after his credibility like hell won't have it—maybe imply he's the one who did her, and we're kicking him loose. There's no forensics that tells us whose 'weapon' killed her for sure."

  "We know that," Monk said patiently. "But we've taken Eddie through this, over and over. From beginning to end, his story makes sense. They needed a car; Fleet had one. We found semen and saliva on the carpet; Fleet saw drool coming from her mouth. He says Payton forced him to help dump the body; forensics puts her in Fleet's trunk. Fleet says Rennell dumped her by the tallow plant; the body washed up where the Coast Guard says it should have. Logic and the evidence corroborate his story."

  "What about its internal credibility. Any cracks?"

  "Nope. Fleet doesn't try to say too much, or to be too helpful—like telling us who asphyxiated Thuy Sen. He didn't see it, he says, and no one told him."

  "That's also the missing piece. No confession, or no witness to her death."

  Monk fought back his annoyance. "You need us to go back at the brothers again?"

  "No. We've got more than enough to take them to the Grand Jury." Amusement surfaced in Mauriani's clear blue eyes. "After that, they'll have two defense lawyers—one dedicated to Payton's interests, the other to Rennell's. We'll let them sort out this last piece by themselves. Maybe they'll even play Cain and Abel."

  * * *

  "So Mauriani indicted him," Terri said. "Then the media got hold of death by oral asphyxiation, and made sure everybody in the jury pool knew everything about it."

  "No help for that, counselor."

  "No help to Rennell, for sure. Both brothers became these scary black predators, kidnapping the daughter of Cambodian refuge
es and using her for sex." Terri leaned back in her chair, studying Monk's expression. "I was in law school, and it felt like I saw Thuy Sen's face every day for weeks. And theirs, staring out from the mug shots with no expression in their eyes. I was planning to be a defense lawyer, and I hated them anyway."

  And that was before, she did not add, what happened to Elena.

  "Yeah," Monk retorted with an edge in his voice. "Pretty rough on those boys, people learning what they'd done. Kind of like it was for Thuy Sen's parents."

  This silenced Terri. For a while, they both sat there without speaking, Terri fighting back the images of what had seared Elena's soul.

  "Early on," Monk ventured at last, "you wanted to do defense work. When I was young, I thought about that, too."

  "I guess you got over it."

  "Not over what made me consider it. Being a black man, I'd had occasion to ponder the fact that life wasn't fair. I pondered it in Vietnam, watching black men sent by white folks to kill Asians and sometimes dying instead, and I pondered it when I came home and saw too many of my friends drifting into trouble for lack of much else life offered them. I thought maybe I could defend them, get some a fairer shake." His voice remained soft. "Maybe you didn't know I came from the Bayview."

  "No," Terri admitted. "I didn't. So what changed your mind?"

  Monk's gaze grew distant and reflective. "More like I recalibrated my thinking. A cop can make the judgment on whether something is a case or not, try to make sense of it all. Whatever notion of justice he has, without the cop there'd be no case.

  "The people I grew up with were struggling in their world, trying to survive. I thought maybe I could make that world a safer and fairer place—make the righteous cases, and let the rest go. Maybe even save a few young men and women by steering them right." Pausing, Monk shrugged, gazing back at Terri. "Like a lot of notions, life complicated it some. The more I lived it, the less sure I became of what justice really was. You just do the best you can. Like you're doing now, I guess."

  "What I'm doing now," she answered, "is trying to keep the State of California from killing someone else. That includes figuring out how Rennell Price lost the lottery." She gazed at Monk, curious. "That day with Mauriani, did you think Rennell would end up being sentenced to die?"