Redeeming Justice: A Legal Thriller (Bill Harvey Book 2)

by Peter O'Mahoney

  Right now, he’s positioning for the best deal.

  “You’re lucky they’re only charging you with possession. With this amount of drugs, they could have charged with the intent to distribute; however, I imagine they don’t have enough evidence to push that forward. They’re taking you for possession because that’s their strongest chance.”

  “I’m supposed to feel lucky?” Carlos grimaces. “I didn’t even have the drugs on me. How can they charge me with possession when they weren’t in my possession?”

  “Drug charges can fall into many different groupings when they reach the court. Actual possession is precisely what it sounds like: the actual possession of narcotics, involving hard evidence which is found by law enforcement officers on the person. In that sort of case, the question is less whether the defendant may be found innocent or guilty, and more whether the officers had sufficient probable cause to justify conducting a search. The concept of constructive possession is less straightforward, and that’s what we’re looking at here. It doesn’t involve the presence of tangible physical evidence on the person. Instead, constructive possession involves two key components which can be used to point to the possession of narcotics: the defendant must have knowledge of the drug’s physical whereabouts, and the defendant must have the ability to exercise authority and control over the drugs in question. That’s what they’re saying with your case.”

  “That’s stupid. The law is stupid.”

  “That’s your opinion, and maybe the jury feels the same, but the prosecution is sure on this one. They have the briefcase in your apartment and are arguing you had knowledge of the case and you could exercise control of the drugs. They’re going to bring you down unless we broker a deal with them.”

  Carlos wipes the thin layer of sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist. “What’s the deal?”

  “The police want you to testify that the case belonged to Lewis. They have made that very clear. Like you said, they’re not after you. They were tracking Lewis that morning, and when they saw he entered your apartment, they raided the place. Our problem arises because they didn’t see you or Lewis leave the apartment. You didn’t walk out the front or back door. When they went through the front door of your apartment, they thought that they’d pinned the case on your friend. And when they found that neither you or Lewis were there, and there was no further evidence that the case belonged to Lewis, they were left with no option but to charge you with the crime. But that gives rise to another question. Where did you go?”

  “We went to the diner that we always frequent; El Mejor. We were there from ten in the morning until late in the afternoon. We drank coffee, ate tacos, talked about life. That’s what we did all day. Nothing unusual.”

  “Interesting.” Bill turns from the window and quickly scrawls more notes on his pad. “If you give up Lewis as the owner of the briefcase, then we can get you a very good deal. We might even be able to get you off completely. But you have to testify against your cousin and state that the briefcase belonged to him.”

  “Like I said, that’s not going to happen. Lewis and I are tight. He’s my family from Mexico. We would never do that to each other. I couldn’t sleep at night if I did that to my family.”

  “That’s the only deal on the table. They’ll put the squeeze on you until you give up who the drugs belonged to. They’re not after you, Carlos. They couldn’t care less about you. All they want is the person who is dealing the heroin on the streets. They want to bring the whole house down. They want you to turn over on Lewis.”

  “You know that I can’t do that.”

  “And there’s no chance you’re going to plead guilty?”

  “None. I’m innocent. The drugs weren’t mine. I’m not going to prison for a crime I didn’t commit.” Carlos is firm. “I’m not pleading guilty. Never. I didn’t do anything wrong. Your job is to get me off the charges. That’s why I’m paying you the big bucks.”

  Bill draws a large breath, filling his lungs with the cool, air-conditioned air. Sometimes, his job would be a lot easier if everyone just told the truth.

  But if everyone just told the truth, he wouldn’t have a job at all.

  Watching Carlos closely, he leans on his hefty oak wood desk and lets the silence sit in the room. The way a man reacts under the cloak of silence says a lot.

  Carlos looks comfortable.

  In fact, he seems too comfortable. He’s either very confident of his innocence, or he’s overly confident in the judicial system.

  Either is dangerous.

  “We can take this to court, but I wouldn’t recommend it. The odds are very much against us. Firstly, we need to explain to the court how $50,000 worth of drugs ended up in your apartment. Do you have any reasonable explanation that might convince a jury?”

  “The postman dropped them off?”

  “No.” Bill shakes his head, in no mood for jokes. “Does anyone else share the apartment with you?”

  “No.”

  “Any regular visitors?”

  Carlos shakes his head. “None that I would blame the crime on.”

  “We will have to fight for lack of intent or lack of knowledge for the possession. I could explain that you picked up the suitcase by accident. Have you done any recent travel by plane or bus?”

  “I flew to New York last month.”

  “Too long ago. No jury will believe that you picked up a suitcase by mistake and then took a month to open it. No, that won’t work. But… how about a taxi ride?”

  “Yeah, sure. I take taxi rides all the time.”

  “Right. That might be our best option. You picked up a briefcase out of the boot of a taxi and, clearly, you picked up the wrong one. How long before the arrest did you catch a cab?”

  “I think it would have been the night before.”

  “Perfect. We will have to check the surveillance footage around your apartment building and make sure that the prosecution can’t disapprove our theory with the footage. Otherwise, we might have the smallest of chances.”

  “That’s getting better, Bill. I knew you would be worth the money.”

  “Now, they’ll bring up your connection to Juan Lewis in court. He’s the man they’re actually after, and as your alibi for the time of the raid, I have no doubt that they’ll subpoena him and get him on the stand under oath.”

  “He’ll say whatever he needs to say.”

  “I’m going to need to talk to him.” Bill’s statement is firm. “The prosecution is going to subpoena your cousin to the stand as a witness, and we need to make sure that he’s ready for their questions. They’re going to go after him, and his responses are going to be very important for our case.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Carlos stares at him for a while, waiting for a response. “But if you have to talk to him, be careful. My cousin has a mean temper; he snaps very quickly. Even talking to him is dangerous.”

  “Carlos.” Bill grins, closing the folder in front of him. “That’s just how I like it.”

  Chapter 5

  “New tattoo?”

  Lifting the sleeve of his black T-shirt, Private Investigator Jack Grayson reveals the new tattoo on his left shoulder. “Got it last week. It’s always been my life motto – it says ‘No regrets’.”

  “I really hope that in twenty years’ time, when the tattoo removal person is using a laser to burn that off, that they see the irony of that tattoo.”

  “Ha!” Jack slaps his hand down on the table, laughing heartily. “I was going to get a tattoo that said ‘No Fear’ across my back, but the thought of it hurting scared me too much.”

  This time, it’s Bill’s turn to laugh loudly. “The tattoo I love the best is one that says ‘Trust No One’ because you’d better have put that on there yourself.”

  Jack laughs loudly again, and the two men laughing in the small café captures all the other customers’ attention. Jack Grayson is used to the attention. When he walks into a room, most heads turn.


  “I was at a restaurant last night, and the waitress screamed, ‘Anyone know CPR?’ I yelled out, ‘Yeah, I know the whole alphabet,’ and everyone laughed… well, except that one guy.”

  “That’s a good joke.” Bill laughs again. “But is that a touch of gray hair I see?” Bill tilts his head to look at the first few strands of aging hair on Jack’s head. “You need to dye that hair, or somebody might start taking you seriously.”

  “Don’t even start, Bill.” Jack runs his hand over his temple, brushing over his short black hair. “I saw a few strands the other day, but I have never used hair dye in my life. I wouldn’t even know how to use it.”

  “It’s pretty simple. Just go to the drug store, buy a packet of hair dye, and follow the instructions on the box.”

  “I’m not good at following instructions. You know that.”

  “That’s true. You should go and see a professional. Don’t do it yourself. I would hate to see you walk in here next week with half your face dyed a different color.”

  “I need to protect this face. It’s all I’ve got. You’ve got your smarts and your money, all I have is this pretty little smile.” Jack grins as he tries to find a comfortable position on the wooden chair.

  The café chair isn’t big enough for him. Most chairs aren’t. As a six foot four, broad, and muscular man, Jack Grayson fills most things out.

  Including his T-shirt.

  But then, if he didn’t buy his T-shirts two sizes too small, they wouldn’t be as tight around his rippling biceps.

  “You’ve had your fair run with women.” Bill makes the obvious understatement. “Give the rest of the male population a chance for once.”

  The twenty-something waitress places two coffees in front of them, never quite taking her eye off Jack Grayson. In most situations, Bill is used to getting female attention, but when Jack is in the room, he doesn’t stand a chance. Confidently, Jack winks at the girl and watches her walk away with a spring in her step.

  “Ok, Bill, what have you got for me?” He swirls the coffee in his mug.

  “As you probably know, Judge Andrew Hardgrave was murdered a month ago.”

  “I read that in the news. He was your mentor, wasn’t he?”

  “He was. A great man. We met ten years ago when I was a baby face lawyer, and he took me under his wing. I didn’t have much of an idea of what I was doing, but he showed me the ropes. I think he saw a lot of himself in me, and he could see that I wanted to make a difference. We met so many times, and I learned so much from him. Plus, we got along really well on a personal level. We were good friends. We had the same sense of humor.”

  “None?”

  Bill smiles. “What’s the difference between a snowman and a snowwoman?”

  “What?” Jack starts to laugh.

  “Snowballs.”

  “Ha!” Jack laughs hard, slapping his hand back on the flimsy wooden table. If he hits it too much harder, it’ll crumble under the weight of his large hands.

  “That was Hardgrave’s favorite joke. He told it to me every year after he came back from his annual ski trip in Canada. He always had tears in his eyes when he tried to tell that joke.”

  “It’s a good one.” Jack calms down, still chuckling slightly.

  “We used to have dinner once a month, and Mary would cook the greatest turkey in the world. Oh, that was good turkey. I’ve never had better. Mary was his second wife; his first wife died of cancer over a decade ago. Hardgrave had mentioned to me that he did a lot of things in his past that he wasn’t proud of, but he was determined to redeem himself. He tried hard to make a difference in the world.”

  “And no one has been arrested for his murder yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What have the police got?”

  “A connection to my client, Carlos López.”

  “Really? And you’re still defending him?”

  “I have to keep him close. He’s a reformed drug addict that spends all his time volunteering at a drug rehab center, but who knows what happened. The closer I am to López, the closer I am to the Hardgrave case. I won’t let Hardgrave’s case go cold. I won’t let my friend’s killer walk free.”

  “What’s in the López case?”

  “Drug possession charges. He was found with a briefcase full of heroin in his apartment when the cops raided his apartment.”

  “Why were the cops raiding the place?”

  “The apartment that Carlos lives in is owned by his cousin, Juan Lewis, and—”

  “The drug dealer?”

  “You know him?”

  “Of course I do. Everyone around East L.A. knows him. His reputation is about as big as they come in those parts. He’s rich, he’s mean, and he loves women.”

  “Along with Hardgrave’s daughter, apparently. Lewis and Michelle Hardgrave were an item for many years. That’s how Hardgrave is connected to Lewis.”

  “Why were there drugs in López’s house if he’s clean?”

  “He claims that the cops planted the drugs. He claims that the police were trying to set up Lewis, and take him down. Lewis and López were supposed to be in the apartment at the time of the raid, but they’d slipped out the laundry window an hour earlier.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I’m working on figuring that out.”

  “And if the police did plant the drugs, why plant it at López’s place? Why not Lewis’ house?”

  “Lewis spends a lot of time at the apartment, and the cops thought it was one of his drug houses. It wasn’t.”

  “Well, they stuffed that up.” Jack groans. “And so, you want me to sniff around Carlos’ business? Get the inside word to see if he’s still involved in the drug trade?”

  “No. I don’t think the briefcase full of drugs belonged to him. I’m going to have a hard time proving that in court, but I think he’s telling the truth when he says that he had never seen that briefcase before. What I want from you is to have a sniff around Juan Lewis and Roberto Miles. See how deep their connections to Hardgrave go. See what the word is on them.”

  “You want me to be looking around for the case with Judge Hardgrave? Not working the López case?”

  “There isn’t a lot we can do with the López case. It’s fairly black and white. We’ll only be able to get him off on a technicality, or if he makes a deal with the prosecution to sell out Lewis or Miles.”

  “He won’t do that. Lewis and Roberto Miles are both dangerous men, and you would have to be crazy to try and cross them. I don’t think for a second that anyone is going to cross Lewis or Miles. Nobody would be that stupid. You would rather do time in prison than cross them.”

  “Then the answer is yes – I want you to look into the Hardgrave case. See what you can uncover.”

  Jack Grayson nods slowly, taking the instructions from his main employer. As a private investigator, he can rely on Bill Harvey’s office to hand across the most interesting cases.

  Last week, he spent his time tracking a portly office worker because the wife thought he was cheating on her. He wasn’t. Instead, he was spending his time with his friends at an underground poker game. Jack understood that need for male bonding, and after the wife paid him the fee, he told her that she needs to loosen her grip on her husband’s balls. Most people listen when Jack Grayson gives instructions.

  “Have you got time to look into the case?” Bill asks.

  “For you, I’ll make time.”

  “So nothing else on then?”

  “Not a thing. Work is drying up. Most people do their investigations online these days. They find out more in an hour online then a week’s worth of tailing someone. They can find out who the person they’re surveying is talking to, what they’re looking at, what they’re downloading, just from a few clicks at the computer. Without your work, my job is just about obsolete; just jealous housewives and duped employers left after that.”

  “Don’t worry, Jack. I’ll always need you.”

  “
And this is so much more exciting than trailing workers’ compensation claims.”

  “Good.” Bill hands a folder to Jack. “But this is going to get heavy. These guys are dangerous, so I need you to remember what your tattoo says, ‘No Fear’. That’s how I want you to go into this one.”

  “But I didn’t get that tattoo. I choose the other one that said ‘No Regrets’.”

  “Really? I don’t think that was the right choice.” The smile on Bill’s face grows. “You should’ve chosen the other one. I bet you’ll regret that decision one day.”

  Chapter 6

  The smell of Mexican spices and overcooked meat fill the air.

  Bill Harvey catches a waft of the cooking, and his stomach instantly rumbles. He loves that smell. It reminds him of a time when he first moved into a small apartment in Downtown L.A., and his neighbors cooked all afternoon, and then fought all night. When he was missing his hometown, the nightly routine comforted him.

  Walking into the El Mejor diner where Lewis and Carlos are known to frequent, Bill Harvey places his bowler hat on the bench, cautiously sitting on a sticky and squeaky stool.

  It’s strange where people feel the most comfortable. Despite the ability to afford even the most high-end restaurants in town, Juan Lewis spends most of his time at a diner where all the meals are under ten dollars. It’s cramped, the tables aren’t cleaned properly, and there are ten-year-old coffee cup stains on the counter. The radio is humming in the background; the chatter of the locals is constant.

  But this is more than just another diner serving Mexican food.

  This a community. A place where people feel safe to be themselves.

  That should never be underrated.

  “What’ll it be?” The woman behind the counter has a clear Mexican accent and a cheeky grin. Her round cheeks glow, her eyes smiling at her new customer.