[Jessie Black 01.0] Burnout

by Larry A Winters

“Here’s some advice,” Woody said, not looking at him. “You want to get out of here with your heart still beating, find someone to quote besides a convicted cop killer.” He took the letter, folded it, returned it to the inside pocket of his leather jacket, and stood up.

  “Hey.” Ramsey was watching him intently. “Why are you doing this? What’s in it for you?”

  Nothing comes without a price—a typical criminal’s assumption, natural when your worldview includes neither mercy nor kindness, where friendship and love are myths.

  But hey, in this case it was accurate.

  Woody offered him a half-smile. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  2

  A familiar bell tinked as Jessie shoved open the stiff door to Quick Mart and shouldered her way inside. The owner, Alish, didn’t even glance up from his Armenian newspaper to acknowledge her, even though she’d been coming here every weekday morning for years. Morning to you, too. She moved through the narrow aisle toward the back of the store, half on autopilot at 6:00 AM, drawn by the smell of coffee.

  Alish’s convenience store didn’t have the selection of a Wawa—or the fresh air and elbow room, for that matter—but it did have a couple key things going for it. First, it was really close to work. Only a couple of steps from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, where her coffee would still be hot when she settled behind her desk. And second, that coffee. The smell was fully in her head now, tingling in her nose and on her tongue, as the grimy carafes came into view beyond the racks of Doritos and Tastykakes. The best coffee in Philly.

  She was filling her travel mug when she saw the kid out of the corner of her eye. He wore jeans and a sweatshirt with the hood up, a few flakes of snow still melting in the black material. He held a magazine in his right hand, but his left hand picked four-packs of Duracell batteries from the rack and slipped them into the wide front pocket of the hoodie. He was good, but not good enough to get away with it here. She shook her head. Let him learn his lesson the hard way. She had a ton of work waiting for her down the street.

  But something about the kid—maybe the youthful face shadowed by the hood—made her think of Kristen Dillard. Rationally, she knew this stranger had nothing to do with the fragile, orphaned crime victim recovering at Philadelphia Center for Inclusive Treatment, but sometimes rationality lost out to instinct—especially before any coffee hit her brain. She sighed and stepped beside him. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  He whirled on her with narrowed eyes. “Do what?”

  She tilted her travel mug at his sweatshirt pocket. “That.”

  He rolled his eyes, turning away. “Yeah, why don’t you mind your own business?”

  “I’m an assistant district attorney. This is my business. Not that I prosecute shoplifters anymore, or juveniles. But I did enough of that when I was starting out. And you’d be surprised how many of my cases involved this store.”

  He chewed his lip. “What are you talking about?”

  She gestured at the security camera bolted to the wall near the ceiling, dusty and enmeshed in cobwebs. “That thing works, believe it or not. And the old man’s been watching you for the last five minutes. He looks like he’s reading, but Alish has eyes in his forehead. Probably already called the police.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “And he will press charges. He always does. He loves going to court.”

  The kid seemed to hesitate, then his left hand began to unload his pocket. He didn’t thank her for the advice, or even say goodbye, before strolling out of the store. The bell jangled and he was gone.

  She walked to the front of the store, put her mug on the counter, and pulled her wallet from her bag. Alish, gazing longingly at the door after the would-be battery thief, said, “Why you gotta ruin all my fun?”

  “Give me a free coffee and I’ll let you have the next one.”

  He snorted and gave her something close to a smile. “What is it you lawyers say? I’ll take that under advisement.”

  She was pulling two dollars from her wallet when her phone vibrated. She passed the money to Alish and answered the call. The person on the other end of the line, one of her contacts at the courthouse, started telling her about a recently filed petition. Her face must have betrayed what she was hearing, because the old Armenian left her money on the counter and looked at her worriedly.

  “Everything okay, Jessie?”

  She shook her head. “No. Not at all.”

  The first things Jessie noticed when she barged into her boss’s office twenty minutes later were the protein shake in place of his usual bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwich and a pair of running shoes in the corner. Otherwise, the office of the head of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Homicide Unit looked the same as ever—cramped, lightless, and overflowing with paper. She had to gently push a stack of documents aside with her foot just to edge into the room.

  “Hard to believe it’s only November,” Warren said, and she heard the complaint in his voice as he watched snowflakes slant past his window. He leaned back in his swivel chair, springs creaking loudly under his weight, and shook his head. “So much for my plan to start jogging during lunch.”

  “Sounds similar to the plan you had three months ago, before you realized it was too hot.”

  He took a sip from his protein shake and made a face. “How can I fail with a cheerleader like you in my corner? But I’m guessing you didn’t stop by to talk about physical fitness.”

  “You know why I’m here,” Jessie said.

  “Yes.” He glanced down. Piles of documents covered every inch of his desk. The man seemed to have a compulsion to print hard copies of everything—even e-mails. She couldn’t have said what the surface of his desk looked like, as she’d never seen it. But even among a sea of similar documents, she spotted Ramsey’s Post Conviction Relief Act petition before he lifted it from the top of a stack beside his keyboard.

  The corner was stapled, but she didn’t see any fold. “You didn’t read it yet?” she said.

  His face looked sallow, puffy, but her three years in the Homicide Unit had taught her that these were his natural features. “Do you know how many PCRA petitions cross my desk in a—”

  “This one isn’t typical.”

  Warren sighed. “Because it’s for our infamous Family Man? Come on, Jessie. How many times has Ramsey tried to appeal his conviction? And failed? There’s nothing to appeal. No holes in your case. Relax. The Appeals Unit will knock this one down and Ramsey will march one step closer to his lethal injection.” He let the petition drop back on its pile and turned to his monitor. End of discussion, apparently.

  “I’m not sure it’s going to be that simple.” She squared her shoulders. “I think I should handle the response, just to be sure.”

  He barked a laugh, and took another slurp of his protein shake. “Post-trial chores are the responsibility of the Appeals Unit, you know that.”

  “I can do a better job.”

  “No shit. But it’s not your job. You need to convict the next murderer, not dwell on past cases. It’s not like you have a lot of free time.” He turned to look at the oversized dry erase calendar on the wall behind his desk, where her name appeared over and over again. “And besides, the newbies need to practice on something.”

  Was that supposed to make her feel better? She bit her lip, remembering her own rise from the Appeals Unit through the Juvenile Unit, to the Felony Waiver Unit, to the Trials Division, and, finally, to Homicide. Thinking of her skill level as a fresh-faced law school grad only made her more uncomfortable trusting Ramsey’s petition to a rookie.

  “You know this is personal for me,” she said.

  He looked up sharply. “Oh, I’m not likely to forget.”

  Heat rushed to her cheeks, but she forced herself to maintain eye contact. “I’m not talking about Detective Leary.”

  Leary had been a mistake, a one-night thing, and if she could go back in time and undo the adrenaline- and alcohol-fueled sex they�
�d had in Leary’s car in the alley behind the Thirsty Giraffe Pub where half the police department and DA’s office had celebrated the end of the Ramsey trial, she wouldn’t hesitate. She’d certainly knock out the legal blogger who’d managed to take a fuzzy phone pic and post it on his (mercifully low-traffic) website. The best sex she’d ever had, and the dumbest.

  “An affair with the lead detective.” Warren stabbed a finger at the petition. “I hope that’s not in here.”

  “It’s not. And I’m talking about Kristen Dillard.”

  “I know.” He spread his hands, and for a brief moment he actually looked sympathetic. “Look, I know you got close with the girl. You’re not the first prosecutor to form a bond like that. It’s a hazard of the job. But there’s nothing I can do. This is protocol. Standard operating procedure.”

  “Not if you convince the DA to make an exception.”

  That elicited another laugh. “You think this is Rivera’s first rodeo? The fact that Ramsey got a lot of press is not going to scare him into assigning a top homicide prosecutor to handle a Hail Mary PCRA petition.”

  Top homicide prosecutor? She liked the sound of that, but wasn’t about to let Warren flatter away her valid concerns. “Some Hail Marys win the game. Read the petition. You can’t trust a rookie to deal with this. Did you even look at the signature at the end?”

  He flipped to it now. Made a face.

  “Yeah,” Jessie said. “Gil Goldhammer. He’s not a lawyer we can afford to underestimate, right? And besides that, there might be some merit in his argument.”

  Warren’s eyebrows came together. “I thought it was an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. The PCRA judge will toss this after a ten minute hearing. Who represented Ramsey at trial, anyway? I can’t remember. Wasn’t it someone from the public defender?”

  “Yes. Jack Ackerman.”

  “Ackerman. That sounds familiar.” She watched his eyes shift out of focus as he started to put the pieces together. “Oh Christ.”

  “Right. The crazy guy. Call Rivera.”

  She knew she was getting through. Warren was a politician at heart. He must know they had a situation here, one an elected official like District Attorney Jesus Rivera could not ignore. Ramsey had a shot at wriggling out of his conviction because he had been represented at his trial by a lawyer who’d subsequently resigned because of some sort of nervous breakdown. If Ramsey overturned his conviction, every newspaper, blog, radio talk show, and TV broadcast would opine about what went wrong within the city’s venerable district attorney’s office.

  Warren turned to his PC, moved his mouse. “Looks like the Appeals Unit already assigned petition.”

  “To whom?”

  “Elliot Williams.” Warren’s face colored briefly, and she knew he was referring to his nephew. Jessie had never met the kid, but the rumor mill had not been kind.

  “He’s pretty new, isn’t he?” she said, straining for a diplomatic tone.

  Warren tapped a finger to his lower lip, thinking.

  “And with him being your nephew and all, if he screws up, wouldn’t that reflect on you?”

  He held up a hand. “All right, I get it. Maybe, considering your personal investment in this case, a small exception can be made here. The matter will remain with the Appeals Unit, but you’ll assist Elliot. I’m sure he would appreciate the help of someone with your experience.”

  “That’s not what I asked for.”

  “No, but it’s what I’m giving you. I’ll brief Rivera after you and Elliot have had a chance to review the file.”

  She took a breath, willed herself to remain calm. “This is not a mentoring opportunity, Warren. It’s an emergency. You must see that.”

  “It’s a PCRA petition. Not a homicide prosecution. I can justify your involvement as a support function based on your knowledge of the trial, but that’s as far as I’m willing to push.”

  “Fine.” She had more to say, but bit off the words. Warren wasn’t going to budge—she could see that much in the set of his jaw and the hardness in his gaze. Her only option was to do this his way. Not ideal, but not terrible, either—it would get her close to the pleadings, into the courtroom. Even in a support position, she could make a difference. She owed Kristen that much. “I’ll keep you posted,” she said, and turned to leave.

  “You’re welcome,” Warren said to her back.

  3

  Jessie still kept her copy of the Dillard file in a cabinet in her office, although there wasn’t much need. For months after the trial, she had seen the pages every time she closed her eyes. Even now, she could recite the facts from memory.

  The bodies were found upstairs in the master bedroom. The police had found no broken windows at the crime scene, no signs of forced entry, leading them to conclude that the killer had gained access to the house simply by knocking on the door—a theory later confirmed by the prosecution’s eyewitness. The burglar alarm had never been set. The Dillard family had gathered around the TV to watch sitcoms. They had probably planned to engage the alarm before going up to bed a few hours later.

  Why had they answered the door? It was a question that still haunted her.

  The lead homicide detective on the case, Mark Leary, believed the family was herded upstairs at knife point. Bob Dillard, the father, a forty-three-year-old biochemist, had defensive wounds on his hands and legs, suggesting he had put up a fight. In the master bedroom, his hands were bound behind his back, as were those of his wife and daughter.

  According to the medical examiner’s report, Bob Dillard had been killed first. His body was found on the floor to the left of his king-size bed. A weapon with a blade at least eight inches in length and slightly less than an inch in width had inflicted seventeen stab wounds to his chest.

  His wife Erin was found with a pair of balled-up panties in her mouth. Her attacker had torn them from her body with such force that the thin cotton had bruised her left hip. Her attacker raped her but left no trace evidence. A lubricant common to several brands of condom was the only foreign substance recovered. Like her husband, she was stabbed to death. Eleven stab wounds were found in her chest and upper abdomen, one of which had severed the major artery from her heart.

  Their daughter Kristen had been raped and then stabbed three times in the chest, once in the back, and once in the neck.

  She was bleeding when the police arrived, and still, barely, alive.

  Months later, trembling on the witness stand, she had pointed her finger at Frank Ramsey and positively identified him as the man who had murdered her family and attempted to murder her.

  She found Elliot Williams in one of the Appeals Unit’s conference rooms. He was sitting at an oval conference table, his back to the door, hunched over a legal pad and some printed pages. He barely looked up to acknowledge her when she stepped into the room and closed the door.

  “I’m Jessie Black.” She placed her thick file folder on the table in front of him, but she didn’t sit down. She crossed her arms over her chest. This was their first meeting, and she wanted to establish a chain of command. This might be his case, but he needed to understand that she would be running the show.

  After a moment, he leaned forward and peered up at her. “I know. I got your e-mail.”

  The room had no windows, and the florescent bulbs humming from the ceiling seemed to tint his face yellow. He was short like his uncle, but unlike Warren, he had a full head of hair. Judging by the severity with which he’d raked it back and plastered it in place, she guessed the chestnut mane was unruly if left to its own devices. Even Elliot’s liberally-applied gel failed to contain three wayward strands that stuck out from the top of his head like spears. His hair was the only energetic part of him. The rest slumped in his chair.

  “Listen,” he said, “I appreciate that you want to help me—I’m grateful—but I know what I’m doing. I don’t need a coach.”

  She took the seat beside him and opened her folder, arranging its contents on the table in front
of them. Everything from the initial police reports to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s denial of allocatur. The color photographs and the muddy, photocopied reports and transcripts formed a grim mosaic.

  “I’m not here to be your coach, Elliot. I’m here to defeat Ramsey’s petition.”

  “Is that right?”

  She sighed. “Working together wasn’t my idea, either, but this is how Warren wants this matter handled. Look at the bright side. You might learn something.”

  “Uh-huh.” He turned his attention to the photographs and documents arrayed in front of him. The color photo of Erin Dillard’s stab wounds made him cringe, and he pushed the photo beneath the medical examiner’s report that she’d placed beside it. “You might get a kick out of dwelling on gruesome details, but I have everything I need right here.” He patted the print-outs on the table. “Standard forms for defeating an ineffective assistance of counsel claim.”

  “You think all you need is forms?”

  “No. I’ve also been researching case law on the subject. It’s damn hard to prove ineffective assistance of counsel. You basically have to show that the lawyer did something so crazy that no competent lawyer would have done it.” She must have flinched, because he said, “What?”

  “You used the word ‘crazy.’”

  “So?”

  “You don’t even know who Jack Ackerman is, do you?”

  “He’s the guy who represented Frank Ramsey at trial. A lawyer from the public defender’s office.”

  “Let me give you some advice, Elliot. Not as a coach, of course, since you don’t need one of those, but as a colleague. Here in the DA’s office, finding the right form, and researching the law, these are the smallest, least important parts of our job. The most important part—the crucial part—is knowing the facts. All of them. Inside and out. You’re shocked by these photos, almost like you’ve never seen them before. You don’t know who Jack Ackerman is. Have you even reviewed the petition?”