The Conviction

by Robert Dugoni

  “Thanks,” Jake said.

  “Not everybody in here needs to be your enemy. I saw them bring you in the other day. You were in bad shape.” The kid started across the yard. “Come on. More classes. I’ll show you.”

  Jake stuffed the napkin inside his coveralls and ran to catch up. “Hey? What’s your name anyway?”

  “Just call me Bee Dee.”

  “Bee Dee? What’s that stand for?”

  “Big Dick. Remember, do not get caught with that sandwich. You do and I don’t know you. And if you tell them where you got it Big Baby and T-Mac aren’t going to be your only enemies.”

  THE LAST STOP

  WINCHESTER COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

  Sloane had secured Griffin Knight’s full release, exposing his arrest as a trumped-up charge by Carl Wade and his Truluck band of brothers. He also had every charge but one dismissed against the second boy. Boykin sentenced him to a month at Fresh Start. If there had been any doubt before, there was none now: Sloane had made himself an enemy in Judge Earl Boykin. Boykin had left the bench “hotter than a wool sweater in hell” according to Molia.

  In the courthouse parking lot Sloane tried to explain his actions to Molia and Lynch. “I just couldn’t stand there and let it happen without doing something.”

  “That’s all well and good,” Lynch said, “but do you intend on sitting in Judge Earl’s courtroom every morning.”

  Sloane had considered doing just that. He was staying in town after all, and if for no other reason than to be a burr in Boykin’s and Archibald Pike’s collective butts. But he also knew it got them no closer to getting Jake and T.J. released. In that regard, the morning had been a hollow victory, an act born from frustration. For the first time in his career Sloane felt utterly paralyzed by the judicial system.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Lynch said. “I’ve worked with our Sacramento office on a couple of matters, and I know they have a group of bright young associates who’d love to get some spontaneous trial experience. They can rotate the assignment to cover the juvenile calendar. I’ll make a call on the drive back and I’ll keep you posted on the appeal. We’ll get it filed Monday.”

  After Lynch departed Sloane and Molia walked down the hill into Old Town in search of a place to regroup rather than drive back to their sauna at the Tristan Motel. On a sunny Friday morning The Last Stop diner was doing a brisk business, the dozen tables full. According to the plaque on the wall the building had at one time been the Winchester post office, the last stop west for the famed Pony Express. Inside, waitresses shouted orders and cooks in white hats snatched slips from a spinning rack, deftly working pots and pans. The hostess led them to a table beside a window that looked out on a small patio.

  Sloane loosened his tie while surveying the menu, but he had little appetite. Molia hadn’t bothered to pick up his menu. He looked deep in thought.

  “You all right?” Sloane asked.

  “Just wondering if maybe we’re going about this the wrong way.”

  “How so?”

  “No offense. I know the courtroom is your domain, and I don’t mean to imply anything by what I’m about to say.”

  “Just say it, Tom; we’ve been friends a long time.”

  “You figure what, two to three weeks before we can get an appeal heard?”

  “Unfortunately, Lisa seems to think so, even if it’s expedited.”

  “So in the interim, what? We sit on our thumbs and do nothing? I’m not built that way, and I know you’re not either.”

  “What’d you have in mind?”

  “A contingency plan.”

  “Such as?”

  “What’s his deal in this?”

  “Who?”

  “Boykin. He could be a hard-ass within the law. A lot of judges are, and remember Barnes said Boykin is no dummy. Why is he stepping outside the lines?”

  “Maybe it’s like you said last night—a guy like Boykin doesn’t pay much attention to things like rules. He doesn’t believe they apply to him.”

  Molia nodded, sipped his coffee. “Maybe, but in my line of work people are usually motivated to do stupid things by something more tangible than ego.”

  “Money?”

  “That’s usually atop the list.” He put down his cup. “Think about it. Boykin can’t be sentencing these kids without others being complicit. The correctional officers have to make the arrests and the prosecutor has to convict. Even someone like the court reporter, Ms. Valdez, has to know this isn’t right. And where are the defense attorneys? Does no one in this county give a shit that kids are being unfairly sentenced?”

  It was a good point. Pike had been completely unprepared to put on evidence in either case that morning. It was as if he didn’t expect he’d have to. “Keep going,” Sloane said.

  “Okay. And now a recording gets conveniently erased?” Molia arched his eyebrows. “I’m beginning to think nothing in this scenario has been a coincidence, and that includes Wade stopping us on the way into town.”

  “Agreed,” Sloane said. “I don’t think we can discount anything around here. But what did you have in mind? We can’t very well storm Fresh Start.”

  “Boykin’s playing outside the law. I think we should do the same. I’m thinking you get that big friend of yours and his wife with the computer skills to start digging around, see what they can come up with on old Judge Earl and Archibald Pike.”

  “Maybe Carl Wade while they’re at it?”

  “Might as well invite them all to the party.”

  “Okay. But what do we do until then?”

  “We go back into friendly neighborhood Truluck and start asking questions, see what the locals have to say about Carl Wade arresting their kids and Judge Earl locking them up.”

  “Speak of the devil.” Sloane nodded to the door.

  Carl Wade removed his hat, holding the brim. His sunglasses were clipped to his shirt. He looked around, made eye contact, and walked over.

  “You two seem to be having trouble finding your way out of town.”

  Molia sipped his coffee. “What town would that be, Carl, that Disneyland recreation you work for? You might want to run on back there before that plastic badge melts in the heat and ruins your costume.”

  Wade smiled, though he did not look amused. “You’re a funny man, Detective. They teach you that back in West Virginia, did they?”

  Molia looked up from his coffee. “They taught me a lot of things, Carl.”

  Wade looked to Sloane. “And I bet you think you’re real slick after that show you put on this morning. You both think you can come in here and upset the apple cart, that you’re better than us dumb country-folk, that the law doesn’t apply to you or your boys.”

  “Actually, it’s the law we’re trying to have applied,” Sloane said. “Seems to us it’s you and that circus of a court that’s forgotten how to apply it. You made it too easy for me this morning.”

  “I got news for you, you’re going to lose. A month from now you’ll be gone and I’ll still be here. So will your sons.”

  Molia looked to Sloane. “Are we leaving, David?”

  “Not me,” Sloane said. “I’m beginning to like it here. I’m thinking of hanging a shingle right there in Truluck, specializing in juvenile defense. How about you?”

  “They say California is the land of opportunity, and it sure looks like they need a real law enforcement officer around here.”

  Wade leaned forward, palms flat on the table. The weight caused the water in the glasses to spill over the rims. “Take a little friendly advice? Give up the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby routine. It isn’t funny. Move on. Let your boys do their time. Don’t keep poking the stick in the hornets’ nest. That’s how you get stung.”

  Molia stood, knocking the coffee cups and water glasses over completely. The conversations in the diner came to an abrupt stop.

  “Do we have a problem here, gentlemen?” The voice was deep, a smoker’s edge to it. Matt Barnes stood just to the right of the tab
le. Sloane hadn’t even seen him enter.

  Wade didn’t take his eyes off Molia. “This isn’t your problem, Sheriff.”

  “My jurisdiction, Carl. That makes it my problem. I’d suggest you get on back to Truluck where you belong.”

  Wade took a moment before he straightened. “You think about what I said.” Then he turned for the door.

  “Carl?” Wade turned back. Molia tossed his hat like a Frisbee, hitting Wade in the chest. “Don’t want you to get in trouble for losing part of your costume.”

  After Wade departed, Barnes looked around the restaurant. “Sorry to disrupt your meals, folks. Everything is under control.”

  The hostess used a towel to absorb the water and coffee and refilled their cups. She brought a cup and saucer for Barnes, who sat silently considering Sloane and Molia. When she left he spoke over the rim of his cup. “You want to tell me exactly what you were hoping to accomplish?”

  “At the moment, breakfast,” Molia said.

  “I’m talking about what went on this morning in Judge Earl’s courtroom.” He looked at Sloane. “My deputy gave me the highlights.”

  “Is there something against kids being represented by an attorney in Winchester County, Sheriff?” Sloane asked.

  “You going to move here, take up the cause?”

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  Barnes lowered his cup. “Like I told you, Wade is a buffoon. Judge Earl is not.”

  “Something stinks in his courtroom, Matt,” Molia said.

  Barnes considered them with pitch-black eyes beneath silver eyebrows showing traces of black hairs. “You have evidence of that, Detective? Something I can take to the attorney general, maybe the judicial board of conduct?” His voice conveyed doubt. “What, you don’t think I’ve thought the same thing, felt the same way? You don’t think I’ve questioned a thing or two around here? Or do you think I’m just looking the other way, hoping to put in my time and leave it for someone else? This isn’t just Judge Earl’s town. This is my town. I was born and raised in this county. So while I may not like the prospect of the State doing a magic act and making Winchester and me disappear because of the legislature’s fiscal irresponsibility, until it does, I still have a job to do, and I’m going to do it. As I already mentioned, I may not like the way things are run around here all the time, but I’m elected to enforce the laws. Judge Earl decides the consequences. And as long as the good citizens of Winchester County continue to put him in office, there’s not a lot that I or anybody else can do about it. You come up with something, something I can use, you let me know, and then we’ll both have something worth fighting over.”

  WINCHESTER COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT

  JUDGE EARL BOYKIN’S CHAMBERS

  Judge Boykin beat his staff into his chambers and closed the smoked beveled glass door with the words HONORABLE EARL J. BOYKIN stenciled in block letters. Those letters had been on that glass since the ceremony dedicating the reopening of the courthouse on July 4, 1898, three years after a fire destroyed the original building. His great-grandfather had chosen the site of the new county courthouse not for the spectacular 360-degree view, as most people now suspected, but for convenience. The old oak tree had been a short walk from the jail in the building’s basement, and that’s where the public hangings occurred. Even those citizens who didn’t come up the hill could watch the festivities and receive the message loud and clear: break the law in Winchester County and the law in Winchester County will break your neck.

  The hanging tree did its job until a blight killed it in the 1920s. The stenciled letters on the door, however, remained, going on 114 years.

  A knock drew Boykin’s attention. It wasn’t the interior door, but the door to the private staircase leading to the secure parking area.

  “Come in,” he said.

  Archibald Pike leaned in, looking tentative. “You busy, Judge?”

  “I’m always busy. I’ve been busy for seventeen years.” He drew Pike in with a crooked finger, removed his robe, and hung it carefully on the wooden hanger, returning it to the knob on the inside of his closet door. He started for his desk, stopping to run a hand over the mantel of the fireplace.

  “I wanted to—”

  “Did you know, Archibald, that my great-grandfather and grandfather used this fireplace to heat the office in the winters?” Boykin asked.

  “Yes, Judge. You mentioned that once—”

  “My father fought against having it sealed when the building was retrofitted with central heating. He said there was something comforting about working by the warmth of a crackling fire, but really he just didn’t see the need to change something that had worked fine for half a century.”

  Pike carried a stack of documents. “I’ve been on the computer.”

  “Studying the law, I hope.”

  The comment stopped Pike in his tracks. Boykin left the fireplace for the arched window behind his desk that provided natural lighting and accorded him a magnificent view, like a crow’s nest atop the mast of a grand schooner.

  Pike adjusted his classes. “Actually the Internet, Judge. I thought I—”

  “When I was a boy I remember the view of the valley being nothing but orchards of fruit trees and farmland. Now it’s rooftops stretching as far south as the eye can see. And people complain that the price of produce has skyrocketed.” He shook his head at the irony. “I can still look down on the same two dozen buildings as my grandfather and his father once did, but it wasn’t called ‘Old Town’ back then. It was just Winchester. Then some people thought we needed to build a new city center, and so we built one.” He paused. “And the economy crashed and vacancies soared. But do you know what the one constant has been, Archibald, what has not changed?”

  “The law, Judge.”

  Boykin glanced over at him. “The law. Everything except the law. And do you know why?”

  “Because the people of Winchester County have voted that way for four generations, Judge.”

  “That’s right, Archibald. They have done just that. And do you know why the good people of Winchester County have seen fit to do that?”

  Pike had run out of answers. “I suppose it’s because—”

  “Respect, Archibald. They have voted a Boykin to serve on that bench in that courtroom for more than a century out of respect. And we have returned their show of loyalty by administering justice with a strong and unwavering hand.” Boykin pointed. “When I slip on that robe I am not just a judge, Archibald. No, I am much more than that. I am the keeper of a great legacy of justice, a legacy that my family has gone to great lengths to preserve. It’s the reason my great-grandfather commissioned a painting of the old oak tree before it was cut down, and why that painting has hung in that courtroom for all to see. It was not just a tree, Archibald. It was a symbol of justice. Just like me. I am a symbol of justice. The Boykin name is symbolic of justice.” Boykin’s eyes narrowed. “And you let David Sloane thumb his nose at it in front of my entire court staff.”

  “I’m sorry, Judge.”

  “So am I, Archibald, but don’t you for a minute think you were the intended target; don’t you dare flatter yourself that way.”

  “No, Judge.”

  “Mr. Sloane was taking aim directly at me. Yes he was.”

  Pike paused. “That’s why I was on the Internet, Judge, because I thought I’d heard that name somewhere.”

  “What name?” Boykin asked.

  “David Sloane.”

  “And?”

  “He’s that big shot lawyer from Seattle.”

  “I thought they said he’s licensed in California.”

  “He is. He’s the lawyer that’s always in the news.” Pike started handing Boykin documents. “The one that had that murder case last year, the one in which that female lawyer was accused of killing a drug dealer.”

  Boykin shook his head. He hadn’t heard of it. “So he’s a defense attorney?”

  “Not always,” Pike said. He handed Boykin another
document. “The year before he had that big verdict against a toy company using magnets in its toys that were killing kids. They changed the legislation because of him.”

  Still wasn’t ringing any bells with Boykin. He set that article aside.

  “And he had that case against the military on behalf of the family of that National Guardsman, the one that made Defense Secretary Northrup resign.”

  Boykin looked up from the document. That case had been all over the national news. “That’s him?”

  “He’s the lawyer who doesn’t lose,” Pike said.

  Boykin grunted, annoyed. “You sound like a damned Harry Potter movie.” Boykin hadn’t read the books but he’d taken his granddaughters to see one of the movies. “So he’s a good lawyer. It’s no excuse for what happened in my courtroom this morning.”

  “He’s more than a good lawyer, Earl… Judge. He’s, he’s not going to go away. He won’t go away.”

  “No kidding. I got that impression this morning, in my courtroom.”

  “So what are we going to do?”

  “What do you mean, what are we going to do?”

  “I mean about his kid.”

  “What would you have me do, release him?”

  “Well, I was thinking that maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.” Before Boykin could respond Pike raised a hand. “Hear me out. The loss of the recording gives you a legitimate reason. I mean, Sloane’s right about it making it more difficult to meet our burden, and he’s got a good argument of inherent prejudice. The court of appeals could grant the motion and send it back to us, and we’ll be right back where we started. This way, you have someone to blame, the clerk’s office.”

  “So I just call him up, tell him I’ve reconsidered my decision and, in light of the lost evidence, I’m going to grant his son a new trial. We bring them back here and we have ourselves a trial. And then what?”

  Pike smiled, indicating he’d thought this through. “You sentence them to detention centers in Washington and West Virginia and get them out of our hair.”

  Boykin stroked his beard, appearing to give the plan due thought. “Let me ask you, Archibald, in light of what you’ve just told me about Sloane’s reputation, what do you think are the odds he’ll stop with the release of his own son?”