The Conviction

by Robert Dugoni

  They had a lot in common, Sloane and Molia. They had been trained to question people’s motives, to look for holes in their explanations and to consider everything that could possibly go wrong. It was a hell of a way to go through life, thinking the worst of people, but if a lawyer made a mistake the worst that could happen was he lost a case. If a detective made a mistake, people could end up dead.

  Neither wanted to take a chance.

  Molia parked across the street from swinging shuttered doors and watched people enter and exit the Knock-Me-Stiff Saloon, which was adjacent to the Gold Creek Restaurant and across the street from the Gold Creek Hotel, an ornate three-story structure with two carved balcony railings draped by red, white, and blue bunting. Old-fashioned street lamps lit the boardwalks, though lightbulbs replaced flames.

  On the drive they had decided it best for Sloane to enter the bar alone, with Molia watching the door from the car. If the handwritten note was a setup, Molia did not want both of them vulnerable. Sloane had a different concern. If the person who scribbled the note had intended it to be a message for Sloane alone, bringing someone with him could make the person reticent to follow through.

  “Okay,” Molia said. “Punch in my number.”

  Sloane entered Molia’s ten-digit number.

  “If you get in trouble, just hit the send button, and if you can’t use your hands lean up against something. If I hear it ring, I won’t wait to answer it.”

  Sloane slid the phone back in his pocket, stepped out, and hurried across the street using an arm to keep the rain out of his eyes. He ascended the steps to the boardwalk and pushed through the swinging doors. Much like the Winchester Courtroom, the next step was back a century, to a place with brick walls, round wood tables, spoke-back chairs, and a polished wood bar with a brass foot railing that ran the length of the south wall. Liquor bottles behind the bar reflected in mirrors that also caught the light from an ornate, glass bead chandelier. Wood paddle ceiling fans stirred the warm summer night. Only flat-screen televisions, one mounted on each side of the bar, broadcasting motocross broke the ambiance.

  Sloane took a spot at the bar and considered the faces of the patrons eating and drinking at the tables and sitting on the other bar stools. No one looked familiar. No one made eye contact. No one looked poised to approach. He checked his watch. When he looked back the bartender was placing a beer with a head of foam on a coaster in front of him.

  “We’re serving two specialty brews tonight,” the man said before Sloane had time to tell him he hadn’t ordered. He pushed the frames of his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. “The second beer is on the other side of your coaster. Just flip it over.”

  The coaster advertised a beer called “Gold Digger.” Sloane flipped it over and read the reverse side. When he looked up the bartender had gone about his business, serving a young couple seated a few stools to Sloane’s left. “Can you point me in the direction of the bathroom?” Sloane asked.

  The bartender nodded to a hallway at the end of the bar. “End of the hall.”

  The door to the ladies’ room was first, the men’s room beside it. Both doors were unlocked, both rooms were empty. The third door, at the end of the hall, was not marked. Sloane turned the door handle, his other hand on the phone in his pocket, pushed the door open, and stepped into muted light.

  Tom Molia bit the nail of his index finger, a nervous habit he’d never quite conquered. Like a reformed smoker, the temptation never went away, and when he got anxious the temptation became harder to resist. Unlike a smoker, he didn’t have to drive to a store to buy a pack of cigarettes. The fingernail was readily available and all too easy to gnaw on. Most times Molia didn’t even realize he was doing it. Maggie usually scolded him.

  Their conversation that afternoon had gone better than the one the day before. Maggie continued to sound distant, but it was born more from a mother’s worry and fatigue than from anger. She asked how Molia was holding up, if he was doing okay. He told her he had moments when the loss felt crushing, but he pushed through those to focus on doing everything he could to get T.J. released. He explained what had happened in court that morning, refrained from telling her about the appeal taking two weeks, and said they were taking another tack, looking into Judge Boykin’s background to see if there might be something more motivating his actions. He knew it didn’t sound like much, but it was something for Maggie to hold on to, which was better than the alternative. An awkward pause followed. Then Maggie said, “I’m sorry, Tom, for what I said about you not coming home.”

  “Don’t be. I have no intention of leaving here without him,” Molia had replied.

  The cell phone rang in his hand, drawing him back to the present—Molia didn’t pause to answer it. He pushed out of the car and hurried across the road just as the skies let loose a torrent of water.

  FRESH START YOUTH TRAINING FACILITY

  SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS

  His fingers slipped from the rung; his blistered hands and tired arms not able to hold his weight long enough for him to reach and grip the next rung. His legs folded upon impact, and he dropped into the mud, the rain having reduced the yard to an inch-deep brown pool of muck.

  He vomited the macaroni and cheese, salad, and cake in a lump of yellow bile that mixed with the ever expanding puddles. The rain cascaded thick as a gray sheet, pounding the ground with such force it splattered and rebounded, and the clouds had brought a darkness that reduced the light fixtures atop the stanchions to small glowing rings.

  Lightning pulsed, revealing Atkins’s contorted face beneath a wide-brimmed hat. Water sleeted down his green poncho and the wind and thunder devoured his voice, though the strain on his face and neck indicated he continued to yell at the top of his lungs.

  “You think you can lie to me? You think you are smarter than me?”

  “No, sir, Officer Atkins,” Jake said.

  “I know everything about you, Stand-up. I said, stand up. Get on your feet. Get on your feet.”

  Jake struggled to rise, slipping in the sludge. The ground had become the consistency of wet cement, and his legs felt as if encased in blocks. The coveralls too had sucked up the moisture, further weighing him down.

  “Stand up straight when I’m talking to you.”

  But Jake could not stand up straight. His stomach felt like a balled knot that refused to uncoil.

  “You’re a punk! You’re never going to be anything but a punk. You’re going to spend the rest of your life in a jail cell. Twenty-three hours of the day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. And it won’t be half as bad as the time you spend here with me. When we’re finished you’ll be begging for that cell. You will beg to be locked up.”

  Water flowed unimpeded down Jake’s shaved head, blurring his vision. He blinked and shook it from his eyes, but did not dare raise his hands to wipe away the water.

  “Do you think you can lie to me and get away with it?”

  “No, sir,” Jake yelled, barely able to hear his own voice.

  “Do you think you are smarter than me?”

  A blast of thunder shook the ground.

  “No, sir,” Jake shouted.

  “Start again,” Atkins said. “Move when I tell you, Stand-up! Move!”

  Jake slogged to the start of the obstacle course, Atkins screaming incoherently in his left ear. He raised a foot onto the rope ladder and stepped up. It swayed and pitched. He reached for the next rung and willed himself up. His foot slipped through the net, but he held on, like a sailor climbing the mast of an old schooner in a storm. Blood and water trickled pink down his wrists from the cracked blisters of his palms.

  “We’re going to be out here all night, Stand-up. You got all night in you?”

  KNOCK-ME-STIFF SALOON

  GOLD CREEK, CALIFORNIA

  Molia’s eyes worked the room. Sloane wasn’t there. He noted an exit at the back of the bar and a hallway to his left. He moved to the exit and pushed the door open, con
sidering a narrow alley with a blue Dumpster. Shutting it, he saw that he’d gained the bartender’s sudden interest.

  “Can I help you?” the man asked.

  “Looking for a friend.” Molia moved toward the hallway.

  The bartender became more animated. “Hey. Hey!”

  Molia slipped down the hall, the bartender’s voice trailing him. He opened the door to the ladies’ room to his left, then the men’s room, calling out. “David?”

  Sensing movement from behind, Molia turned. The bartender was moving quickly down the hallway, carrying a wooden ax handle.

  Sloane cut off midsentence when he heard what sounded like Tom Molia’s voice calling his name. He pulled open the door to find Molia cornered.

  “No!” Sloane said.

  The bartender’s eyes shifted from Molia to Sloane, then beyond Sloane to the woman in the office. Sloane raised a hand. “It’s okay. He’s with me.”

  The bartender’s chest expanded and deflated. He looked back down the hall before motioning for them to enter the office. When he closed the door his hands shook and he took a moment to collect himself.

  Sloane looked to Molia. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

  “I was about to ask you the same thing.” Molia held up his cell phone.

  Sloane pulled the phone from his pocket and checked the call log. “Damn. I’m sorry, Tom. I must have hit the send button by accident.”

  Molia shook his head. “You know, accidents are mistakes, as opposed to deliberate acts that can have a tendency to induce heart attacks.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sloane repeated. He introduced the woman. “Eileen Harper. She works in the Winchester County clerk’s office.”

  Molia had not entered the clerk’s office when Sloane and Lynch filed the pleadings. He had waited outside in the marbled rotunda. He looked from Harper to the bartender. “Who are you, Paul Bunyon?”

  “Dave Bennett. I’m real sorry about that. I thought maybe…” He held up the ax handle. “My dad kept it under the bar when he owned it. I’ve never had to use it. It’s really more for intimidation.”

  “Yeah? Well, it works.”

  No longer flush with adrenaline, Bennett had a gentle face with a reddish brown goatee graying at the chin. “I didn’t know what to think. I thought maybe… I don’t know. I better get back out there,” he said to Harper. “You call if you need me.”

  They took a moment to settle in after Bennett left. Harper sat behind the desk. Sloane offered the only other chair in the room to Molia, but the detective declined. “I’ll stand,” he said. “My heart’s still racing.” He leaned against a green, three-drawer file cabinet.

  The only light in the windowless room came from an antique, stained-glass desk lamp. The shadows it cast made the bags under Harper’s eyes more pronounced. She tucked light brown hair behind each earlobe then picked up a paper clip, fidgeting with it.

  “You wrote the note?” Molia asked.

  Harper glanced at Molia then shifted focus back to Sloane. “I thought I recognized the name from the news. I looked it up on the Internet.”

  “Eileen’s son is at Fresh Start,” Sloane said, as if to explain.

  “I’m sorry,” Molia said. “What did your son do?”

  “What did he do, or what do they say he did?”

  “What did they say he did?”

  “We live in Truluck,” she said. “They said he had pot on him.”

  “But you don’t believe that.”

  She shook her head.

  “No attorney,” Sloane said. Molia nodded. “Did you know he’d been arrested?” Sloane asked.

  “It wouldn’t have mattered. You don’t challenge Judge Earl; it only makes it worse.”

  “What do you mean, makes it worse?” Sloane asked.

  She sat back. “I’ve worked at the court for fifteen years. I thought maybe there might be—” Her voice choked. She paused to collect herself. “I asked if Tommy could go to one of those programs.”

  “An outpatient program,” Sloane said.

  “They have some in Sacramento. I asked if Tommy could go there instead.”

  “You asked who, Judge Earl?” Sloane asked.

  Harper nodded.

  “And he wasn’t willing to do that,” Sloane said.

  She looked away but not before Sloane saw a tear leak from the corner of her eye. She unclenched her other hand, revealing a wad of tissue, and dabbed at the tear the way women do when trying not to smudge their mascara.

  “He might have been.” She let her statement linger.

  “But he wanted something in return?” Molia asked.

  She nodded.

  “Money?”

  She dabbed the tissue again. “I know his wife and kids.”

  Molia looked to Sloane.

  Sloane said, “He wanted to sleep with you?”

  “He didn’t say it in so many words, but it was pretty clear that’s what it would take. When I didn’t show any interest he said he couldn’t help me. He said that if I had done a better job raising Tommy, Winchester County wouldn’t have to do it for me. He said that it would be best if I didn’t make waves. He said it would be better for Tommy.”

  “And that’s why you didn’t hire a lawyer.” Sloane said.

  She nodded. “He sentenced Tommy to four months. He’s been there two.” She blew her nose, threw the tissue into a wastebasket under the desk and pulled more from a box on the desk. “I heard about what you did in court, about how you helped those two kids. Everyone’s heard about it; people want to know if you’re going to help.”

  “Help how?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Help us get our kids out of there.”

  Sloane didn’t want to go there. Not yet. His focus was on Jake and T.J.

  “Let’s take a step back; why all the cloak and dagger with the note, meeting here in this office?”

  “No one can know I’m talking to you.”

  “Because you’re worried about losing your job?”

  “Because of what could happen to Tommy.”

  Sloane looked to Molia. “Why? What exactly are you worried about?”

  “When I call or visit Tommy says everything is fine, but I know it’s not.”

  “How?” Sloane asked, recalling his conversation with Jake. He hoped Harper could provide specifics about Fresh Start.

  “I just know. I can hear it in his voice and I can see it in his face when I visit. He’s lost weight. He looks tired and he speaks in a monotone. He’s afraid, Mr. Sloane. They’re all afraid. Even the ones who get released won’t say much.”

  “Do they say what they’re afraid of?”

  “I know what they’re afraid of. Everything. The guards, the police, Judge Earl. Mostly they’re afraid of being sent back.”

  “How long have things been like this?” Molia asked.

  “Ever since they built Fresh Start.”

  “And nobody’s filed a complaint; nobody’s challenged Judge Earl?” Sloane asked.

  “One woman did. She filed a complaint with the board of judicial conduct and started talking to a reporter.” Harper shook her head at the recollection. “After that, her life became hell. She got parking and speeding tickets and they garnished her wages to cover the cost of her son’s incarceration. If she didn’t pay they threatened to throw her in jail. Stores in Truluck wouldn’t serve her. Fresh Start said her son lost his weekly visitation privileges. When she did finally visit him she said he looked horrible. She said he told her she had to stop what she was doing, that she was making it worse.”

  “What did she do?”

  A shrug. “What any of us would have done. She stopped.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “I don’t know. When her son got released she moved away. I heard she had a sister in Texas.”

  “What about the reporter? Did she ever write an article?”

  “As far as I know nothing came of that either. No one else would talk to her.”


  “Why not, Eileen? If nobody does anything how do they expect things to get better.”

  “People around here lead simple lives, Mr. Sloane. That’s why we live here. It’s a small town. Everyone knows everyone else’s business. They’re good people, but they’re afraid. These are our kids. Nobody wants to sacrifice their son for the greater good. Most of us can’t afford to sell our homes and move, especially not in this economy. Where would we go? Where would we find jobs? People don’t know who to turn to.” She paused. “People are asking if maybe you’re going to sue Judge Earl.”

  Sloane took a moment to gather his thoughts. He wondered if his stunt in court would make things worse for Jake, and what could happen if they continued to push Judge Earl. “It isn’t that simple, Eileen. A judge is immune from being sued for decisions he makes while sitting on the bench, no matter how bad those decisions might be.”

  “How can that be?” She nearly whispered her question.

  “He may be wrong. He may be harsh, but that’s what the court of appeals is for. Judge Earl can’t be sued unless he’s doing something illegal.”

  Harper seemed to give this some consideration, and as she sat in the shadows Sloane was suddenly struck with the image of a woman sitting at a poker table considering how best and when to show all of her cards. She was holding something back. She looked to Molia, then back to Sloane. “I know Thursday’s proceedings were recorded,” she said. “We use an audio recording system called ‘For the Record.’ The State has strict rules about keeping the recordings.”

  “That may be the procedure, Eileen, but that doesn’t help prove someone erased the disk.”

  “Maybe not,” she said. “But I can.”

  “And an accident,” Tom Molia said, smiling, “is a mistake, as opposed to a deliberate, intentional act.”

  FRESH START YOUTH TRAINING FACILITY

  SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS

  They had hurried from the cafeteria, leaping across the accumulating puddles to get to their dorm. T.J. ran with them and soon realized their hurry wasn’t just to avoid the rain. It was to witness the spectacle.