Panther's Prey

by Lachlan Smith

  With no family to turn to, and no ability to support himself by even the most menial employment, Randall Rodriguez, like so many others, had spent the last fifteen years on the street.

  O’Dowd was in her forties, a slight woman with a prematurely lined face who wore no makeup, thus offering an absolutely unpretentious presence on the stand. As I eased her through her testimony, I snuck glances at the jurors. Their faces were skeptical, troubled, as though confronting a problem of knotty complexity. In this case, conviction was the easy answer. Their confusion meant we were winning, I hoped.

  Based on her psychiatric training and her examinations of Rodriguez, Dr. O’Dowd hypothesized he suffered from a guilt complex associated with childhood abuse. “Deep down,” she testified, “he’s convinced he must have done something to deserve it. It’s not an uncommon response in survivors. They blame themselves.

  “On the flip side, this man shares a universal human need for attention and esteem. Unlike most of ours, his life presents no realistic possibility for fulfilling those needs. The people with whom he comes into contact almost universally seek to end that contact as quickly as possible. Except, of course, for those who regard him as prey for their needs.

  “For a man like this, confessing to a terrible crime gets him off the street, into a warm room where the attention’s on him. Suddenly people are listening to him in a way he never experiences at other times. In that interview room, he’s able to give those detectives exactly what they want, and in return he receives an intense reward of affirmation and praise.

  “Also, let us remember this is a man who’s spent his life either homeless or in mental institutions. At least in comparison with the streets, prison is a relatively safe place, and the type of abuse he experiences there is predictable and familiar. So in some ways, the punishment he seeks isn’t punishment at all. Rather, the opposite. It’s the only safety in his power to achieve.”

  Saenz listened with a stony face, not writing a word on his pad. This wasn’t Dr. O’Dowd’s first time on the witness stand. Along with the hearing regarding the admissibility of Rodriguez’s confession, there’d been one to determine whether the Berkeley psychiatrist would be allowed to offer her conclusions. After that second hearing, the judge had issued an order defining what Dr. Dowd would and would not be allowed to say in her testimony. Because of this, both she and I were careful not to step a foot beyond the boundaries. She was not to opine that Rodriguez had falsely confessed, nor was she to testify that he’d told her he’d invented his confession. Rather, she was to stick to demonstrable facts based on generally accepted, reliable principles of psychiatry.

  When Saenz finally rose to cross-examine her, he simply turned her opinions inside out, showing how each aspect of Rodriguez’s pathology could be consistent with that of a criminal who, by actually committing a crime such as the one here, gained the same notoriety and fulfillment—the same “safety”—while exhibiting the same disregard for future consequences of present actions in favor of their immediate reward.

  Nonetheless, he couldn’t so easily brush aside our next three witnesses, as we moved from the abstract and theoretical to the increasingly—and undeniably—concrete and real. Now Jordan took center stage, questioning the first of the three police detectives who’d rejected Rodriguez’s previous false confessions. Each had brought that previous investigation to a successful close, leading to the conviction of another suspect notwithstanding Rodriguez’s claim of guilt. One case had ended with the confession of the real perpetrator; the second had been sealed with a DNA match; the third had been closed by video footage of the true suspect leaving the crime scene. Each detective had previously testified either in a preliminary hearing or trial to prove the guilt of the person who was convicted. Each therefore was now obligated to defend that result here in this trial.

  Though at moments a bit clumsy, her handling of Janelle Fitzpatrick had been intuitive and successful. This, by comparison, would be like shooting fish in a barrel—and the reason the fish were in the barrel was because Jordan had placed them there. She’d insisted on obtaining the complete records from every case in which Rodriguez had contact with the police, either as a suspect or as a witness. She’d then pored over every page of the nearly ten thousand the DA had produced in a “document dump” containing mostly irrelevant material. Next, after identifying the detectives who’d questioned Rodriguez in prior cases, she’d convinced them to talk. I still didn’t know how she’d done this, and I’d suggested it hadn’t hurt that she was extremely attractive, but Jordan had discounted this. “They talked because they know this prosecution is a mistake. No good cop wants to see an innocent man convicted, because that means the real rapist is still out there. The guy who did this is going to strike again. You’ve got to offer them a chance to do what’s right.”

  Testifying in response to Jordan’s questions, each of the detectives was reticent but professional. Clearly, none of them was eager to do the defense any favors, and each was conflicted by the unfamiliar role of being called as a witness on behalf of a man accused of a terrible crime. Their obvious reluctance made their testimony all the more damaging to the state.

  Jordan used them to draw out the common themes. Each of the three cases, to start with, had been the subject of intense local news coverage across multiple media outlets, including the newspapers that Rodriguez was known to hoard. (His possessions included notebooks in which he’d pasted clippings having to do with notorious crimes.) In each of the cases, following the initial wave of publicity, Rodriguez, a familiar face to the local beat cops, had presented himself at the Southern Station reception desk and asked to speak with the investigating detective. When he was interviewed, Rodriguez’s stories had seemed to fit the known facts. In none of the cases, however, had he been able to provide details that weren’t contained in the plastic-wrapped scrapbooks in his shopping cart.

  “You want to ask open-ended questions in a situation like that,” the lone woman, Sergeant Ochoa, testified. “It’s human nature to feed the witness details in the hope of jogging his memory, but some of them are like mediums, or fortune-tellers. They’ve got this ability to figure out what you want to hear and parrot it back, wrapped up in the information you provided. That’s why you always look for corroborating evidence. If the case is legitimate, the confession confirms what the physical evidence already shows.”

  When it was time for me to make our closing argument, I thought I saw disappointment in the jurors’ eyes as I stood up, notes in hand. If so, I knew its cause. The jurors wanted to hear from Jordan, the understudy who’d stolen the show. She’d won them over, helped them make up their minds.

  Nothing was scheduled in the courtroom that afternoon, so after closing arguments Jordan and I waited for the verdict there, working on our laptops, pretending to each other we were brushing off this trial and moving on to the next. Rodriguez was downstairs in lockup, the deputies ready to bring him up on ten minutes’ notice. Sitting beside Jordan, I kept forgetting he was even part of it. Some cases are like that, with the client immobilized at the center of the evidence like a fly trapped in amber.

  The jury was out a little over three hours. Then we heard the customary raps on the jury-room door. A few minutes later the deputies brought Rodriguez up. He glanced at Jordan as he took his place at the counsel table, an urgent question in his eyes. She took his hand. He made a sudden, almost violent movement to pull away. Jordan forced a smile and tightened her grip, no doubt feeling he deserved human contact at this fateful moment. I heard his breath catch in his throat.

  The judge directed Rodriguez to rise. I glanced over, then quickly looked away, my cheeks burning at what I’d seen. Jordan was trying to disengage her hand now that Randall was standing alone, with the lawyers remaining seated per protocol, but he squeezed her fingers tightly. Jordan, sitting somewhat behind our client, didn’t have the same angle I had and might not have seen what I saw. I hoped to God his poorly fitting jacket concealed the bulge in hi
s pants from the jurors.

  Their verdict was already rendered, however. All that remained was for Randall’s fate to be read aloud.

  As their “not guilty” was announced, Randall seemed to sway like someone buffeted by a strong wind. At last he let go of Jordan’s hand. He had a look of panic. It was the way most defendants look the moment they realize they’re about to be taken to prison.

  I glanced over again and saw that Rodriguez was no longer visibly aroused. I couldn’t tell if anyone else in the courtroom had seen what I’d seen. The jurors’ faces were somber, probably because they knew the real rapist was unlikely to be prosecuted even if he were caught. Rodriguez’s confession had been discredited, but it would still serve to provide reasonable doubt for anyone subsequently charged with the same crime.

  After the jury had been discharged and the judge returned to his chambers, Jordan and I stood at the back of the courtroom, accepting congratulations from our fellow public defenders. Then we went out into the hallway. At some point during this process, Rodriguez slipped away, without so much as a word of thanks for Jordan or me. I looked for him, then turned back to the half dozen assembled reporters with a shrug, assuming that the chapter in my life that concerned him was closed.

  Chapter 3

  We went for after-work drinks at Mars, the closest watering hole to the PD’s office. Around a dozen other attorneys from our office came along to help celebrate our win.

  Normally I’d have gotten drunk and spent the evening going over the details of every cross-examination, rehashing every crisis and triumph. Tonight, for some reason, I wasn’t feeling it. I wanted to bask in the glow of our triumph, but I didn’t want to think about what it meant. Maybe my hesitancy came from Rodriguez’s wink and his visible arousal, making me question whether he might have been capable of this crime after all. Or maybe I was more bothered than I wanted to admit that the real rapist would never be caught. In any event, I found myself drinking steadily but not saying much.

  Jordan had spent most of the evening talking with Rebecca, one of her friends from law school. I’d been playing pool but was sitting at the bar watching the Giants on TV when she slid onto the stool beside me. “You don’t look like a man who just won the big case.”

  No point mentioning to her what was bothering me. “I’m just tired. Trials take it out of me. When the work is done all I really want to do is go home.”

  “I know what you mean. After my last trial I wanted to sleep for a week.”

  “I heard one of the reporters ask you about Kairos.”

  “Yeah, that was the trial I did at Baker before I came here,” she said. “He was asking me if that verdict had been as satisfying as this one. Obviously, I told him no.”

  “What was it about?”

  “Money.” She sipped her beer. “And politics. The whole human spectrum of betrayal and deceit. But, mostly, it was about money. I can’t talk about it, and I wouldn’t want to if I could.”

  “Money’s not so bad. There’s something to be said for a payday at the finish line.”

  She laughed. “No one never mistook you for a crusader.”

  “I’m a realist. I’m on the side I’m on because I don’t think convicting people and sending them to prison solves any of our society’s problems. At the same time, I can’t fool myself about a guy like Rodriguez. Is it a good thing he walks free? Who knows? I’m just trying to do a job, and hopefully pick up a little human interest along the way.”

  Hearing myself, I knew I must have been drunker than I realized. Quickly tallying pints in my head, I realized I was starting my fifth. It was time to guzzle water and start thinking about going home before I ended up sounding like even more of an ass.

  Jordan had a declaration. “Today’s verdict was the single biggest satisfaction of my professional life.”

  I glanced over to be sure she was serious. The verdict had been something like four million dollars in that case. An entire company had changed hands. “You probably didn’t get to do anything in the Kairos trial. Associate work.”

  “That’s not it. It’s what’s at stake. The values. In public defense, regardless of whether the client’s innocent or guilty, we have these principles it’s our job to uphold. The right to counsel. The presumption of innocence. The requirement the state prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. These are things worth believing in. Civil work, on the other hand, it’s just about the score.”

  Now she was the one who sounded cynical. Six months ago, when I was recovering in the hospital in Fort Bragg from a gunshot wound, Jordan had been a senior associate at Baker Benton. The folks at Baker were still holding her place and expecting her return. This stint as a so-called volunteer attorney was no risk for her. While she gained trial experience, she continued to draw her annual two-hundred-thousand-dollar paycheck.

  “So stay here at the PD’s office and try cases.” I tried to bring our conversation back to the celebration of our victory and Jordan’s part in it. “Tonight, because of you, an innocent man is free instead of spending the first night of the rest of his life in Corcoran.”

  “I’d like nothing more. Unfortunately, I can’t just walk away from Baker.”

  “Why not?” If there was one thing I believed, it was that any of us ought to be free at any moment to turn our backs on a work situation, and walk out the door the minute it was no longer in our interest to remain. In fact, I intended to do just that as soon as I could afford to be my own boss again, or so I’d promised myself when I took the PD job.

  “I have commitments. I can’t just throw them off.”

  “Commitments to whom? The partners at Baker?”

  “I really don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just enjoy this moment. Right here. Right now. That’s a pretty good mantra. Don’t you think?”

  “Okay,” I said, feeling self-conscious for having pried, and slightly angry at her for letting me feel that way. I figured she’d walk away and find Rebecca now, but she didn’t.

  “I came over here to ask you if you wanted to get out of here.”

  I looked up. “Are you serious?”

  She nodded, draining her beer.

  That was good enough for me.

  We slept together that night, and twice more that week, all at my place.

  She’d wanted to know what I was doing living in such a dump, and I’d told her about being shot a year and a half ago, having my law office burned, being forced to sell my condo and losing all the equity.

  “My brother once represented the manager here,” I said, explaining how I’d ended up at the Seward.

  I suppose it was possible trysting in the Tenderloin turned her on. But more likely she was merely safeguarding her freedom, intending to be the one who walked out, who decided when that would be. I couldn’t blame her for wanting control, but at the same time I tried not to recognize these precautions for what they were. Right here, right now, she’d said. Perhaps she could feel my own hope like an electric charge, a burnt smell in the air.

  We’d just made love, and she was studying the scars on my chest and stomach with minute attention. “Have you ever thought about carrying a gun?”

  “I have one.” I hesitated. “But it’s unregistered.”

  She was both amused and disturbed. “Why?”

  “A former client gave it to me. I made the decision a long time ago that if I ever had to shoot to kill in self-defense, I wasn’t going to wait around for the cops to show up.”

  She laughed, then seemed to realize I was serious. “Because of your family?”

  “Something like that. If anyone ever wants to kill me, it’ll be because of some issues between my father and a man named Bo Wilder. Unfortunately, the backstory would be viewed by the police as incriminating. Bo thinks my family owes him because of a favor he thinks he did for us. We disagree and don’t feel it was much of a favor. But if I have to explain any of this to the police, I’d be talking us into prison.”

  “So your plan is?”

&
nbsp; “If it ever comes to that—and I don’t think it will—my plan is to shoot the people who are trying to shoot me, run, and ditch the gun.”

  I hadn’t intended to get into these complicated explanations, and I could see my answers disturbed her. “You have it here?”

  I took the gun, a Bersa 9mm, from the drawer where I stored it wrapped in an old shirt.

  “Just carrying this you’re committing a felony,” she said. “If you’re going to own a pistol, you need a permit.”

  “I’ve actually been meaning to get rid of it. You’re right. It’s a stupid liability.” I wrapped the gun back up. I didn’t want to look at it, didn’t want to deal with it, which was exactly why it was still in my drawer months after I’d resolved to throw it away.

  “We could get rid of it together,” she said. Then gathering her legs underneath her and kneeling in bed, she said: “It could be a turn-on. We can pretend you just shot somebody, and you came to me for help.”

  Her eyes were glinting. It was a side of her I hadn’t seen before. I couldn’t tell whether she was serious or not, and wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I assumed that Jordan had lived the sort of sheltered life that meant she couldn’t possibly know anything about fear.

  I was hoping to let it go. But that Friday she came into my office, told me she was busy tonight but tomorrow I should come to her place and bring the gun.

  I almost didn’t. Bring the gun, that is—I wasn’t about to turn down an invitation to Jordan’s apartment. I figured she couldn’t be serious about the game she’d proposed, but another part of me had started to come around. It was true. I needed to get rid of the thing. I’d never been into role play, but maybe it would be fun. I was pretty certain I could summon enthusiasm for any game that ended in sex with Jordan.