Snap Judgment (Samantha Brinkman Book 3)

by Marcia Clark

  We shared the spinach artichoke dip as an appetizer. I had the Baja fish tacos for a main course. Alex had the Lab burger. Nothing inspired, but it’d stay down.

  At three o’clock, we headed to Phil’s place. He’d just gotten home, so the smell of pot was a whisper instead of the usual scream. He remedied that by flopping down on his usual beanbag chair and whipping out a blunt the size of two cigars. As always—ever the good host—he offered us a hit. As always, we declined.

  I decided I’d best jump right in, before he slipped into the purple haze. “Did you tell anyone about Diana or Alicia pole dancing?”

  Phil blew out a stream of smoke so thick it looked like there might be a chimney in his stomach. “No, definitely not. Diana obviously didn’t want anyone to know. It wasn’t a fun, crazy thing for her.”

  I was taking shallow breaths. “Like it was for Alicia.” He nodded. “But you didn’t tell anyone about her, either.”

  He shook his head. “It was a dumb thing for her to do, and I had a feeling she’d regret it. I guess I just wanted to protect her from herself.”

  So many people seemed to have done that for her. Phil’s gaze was getting droopier by the second. “Just one more thing. Are you sure you saw Graham leaving Davey’s building before Roan died?”

  Phil took a long toke and squinted at me as he held it in. Smoke drifted out in little tendrils as he spoke. “I think so, yeah.” He popped his jaw to make doughnut holes as he blew out the rest. “But, you know, I guess I could be wrong.”

  Great. Perfect. Now we weren’t just getting stalled, we were actually losing information. I stood up, and Alex joined me. “Okay, thanks, Phil.”

  We started for the door. Then I stopped. I had an idea. “I bet you guys throw a lot of parties here.”

  Phil grinned. “That we do.”

  I grinned back. “You ever party at Davey’s place?”

  He shook his head. “Sometimes, not often. But it’s cool. He always contributes when he parties here. Brought some gnarly Kush last time.”

  I somehow never pictured Davey as a smoker. But I guessed bringing it didn’t necessarily mean he was smoking it. “We’ve been bugging you guys to death. I think we owe you a break. How about if you all get together? The booze and food is on me.”

  Phil squinted at me through the haze. “That’s super nice. You sure?”

  I gave him a thumbs-up. “Absolutely. How’s tomorrow night?” It was a Wednesday, but I had a feeling that wouldn’t slow down anyone in this group.

  Phil gave me a hazy grin. “Works for me. I’ll get back to you on the others.”

  I told him to give me a call in the morning to confirm, and we left him to enjoy his high.

  When we got back to the car, Alex turned to me, perplexed. “So we’re throwing a party? How do we afford this?”

  “We don’t. Graham will foot the bill.” As Alex headed for the freeway, I mentally replayed my plan. Foolproof it definitely wasn’t, but I didn’t have time for anything more elaborate. “Something’s going on, but we keep running into brick walls. We need to take out the blasting caps. I don’t get any kind of vibe that Phil’s hiding something. You?”

  Alex shook his head. “None. He feels pretty straightforward to me. Davey, on the other hand . . .”

  “Exactly.” I told Alex what my plan was. When I’d finished, I said, “Please feel free to improve on that. I know it’s not my proudest piece of work.”

  Alex shook his head. “It really isn’t. I’ll kick it around between now and tomorrow, but as of this moment, I’ve got nothing. Anything else we can do right now?”

  I was all out of moves. “Unfortunately, no. Home, James.” As we headed back to the office, I tried to figure out how Roan might’ve learned that Alicia was Davey’s sister. “We put it together, but it took a lot of work. How did Roan manage it?”

  We were inching along in the rush-hour traffic, and it looked like we’d be stuck in it for a while. Alex sat back and steered with one hand. “I don’t know. Something had to have tipped him off to make him start digging. But what that was . . .” Alex shrugged. “Because it’s not as though Alicia and Davey look alike.”

  I’d detected a few subtle similarities in the shape of their eyes and the angle of their jawlines, but I’d never have noticed it if I hadn’t known to look for a resemblance. “And Roan never met Graham.” So he wouldn’t have seen the resemblance between Davey and Graham.

  Alex rolled his shoulders back and leaned against the headrest. “Right. So he must’ve stumbled onto something else that put him on the trail. After that, it probably wasn’t that hard to figure out. It’s always easier to find something when you know what you’re looking for.”

  I considered what would happen when—and it was when, not if—the press found out about Graham’s love child. The only question was how bad it would be. Because an affair, a child he paid for but never met—none of it would play well.

  It was almost six o’clock by the time we rolled into the office, and I was ready to call it a night. I dropped my briefcase in my office. No sense bringing it home. I wasn’t going to get any more work done tonight.

  I told Michy to pack up, and as we all trooped out, Alex and I gave her the latest news and told her about the party we planned to throw for Phil and company.

  Michy got into her car and rolled down the window. “I don’t know why you think you have to do that. But you’d better make sure Graham will pay for it, because I barely covered our electricity bill this month.”

  I nodded and opened my car door. “He’ll pay. And we’ll do it on the cheap anyway.”

  Michy waved me off. “Whatever.”

  Alex and I got into our cars, and we all headed for our respective homes.

  When I got back to my apartment, I dropped my keys on the kitchen table and flopped down on the couch. I went through my mail, read the news on my laptop, and answered some e-mails. At ten thirty, I poured myself a double shot of Patrón Silver and took it to bed. I was confused and aggravated. And depressed. I honestly didn’t know whether Graham had killed Roan. But I did believe there was a lot more to this case than I’d been able to find out, and the unanswered questions were like a constant low-level buzz in the background that wouldn’t go away.

  When the alarm woke me at six thirty a.m. the next morning, it felt like the middle of the night. For a moment, I forgot why I’d decided to get up that early. Then I remembered that I had an appearance in the San Fernando court at eight thirty. It was just a continuance. The deputy DA was trying to get her boss to let my guy plead to a second-degree burglary for a county lid. My guy, being the experienced inmate that he was, had said he could do a year, no problem.

  That was it for my court appearances for the day, so after I was done, I swung by Twin Towers to check in on Jorge and make sure he was still alive and well. He seemed fine, though understandably nervous about Tracy. I tried to reassure him that she’d be okay, but I wasn’t entirely certain that was true. And when I left, I had the feeling that between my own anxiety and the vague kind of code we had to use to maintain secrecy, my effort to reassure Jorge had largely been a bust.

  Since I didn’t have any meetings scheduled for the rest of the day, I decided to stop at home and change into jeans. I’d just thrown on jeans and a sweater and was about to head for the office when Michy texted me to say that Phil called, and she gave me his number. I tapped it into my phone and hoped the party was still on.

  He said, “Hey, man. Midterms are happening. The only day everyone can do it is Friday. That okay?”

  I told him it was. “How many am I buying for?”

  He counted off the names of the group, then added, “And they’ll probably bring people. You’d best buy enough for fifteen.”

  I calculated the cheapest and easiest food to deliver—I’d only be able to sell Graham on so much for this enterprise. “Tacos and pizzas okay?”

  He said that was cool, then chuckled. “Hey, this’ll be something differe
nt. I’ve never partied with a lawyer before.”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him I didn’t intend to hang out with them.

  Or that I had partied with a pothead before. But I guess that was less remarkable.

  FIFTY-THREE

  Since I didn’t have to set up a party, my day was wide open. Having just seen Jorge, I thought it might be a good idea to go check in on Tracy as well. I was just about to call Dale and ask him to clear my visit with Liam and Noah when my phone rang. I looked at the number. It was Dale. “That is so weird. I was just about to—”

  He interrupted me, his voice tense. “It’s on for today.”

  My heart began to pound. He’d warned me that—for security purposes—he wouldn’t be able to give me much lead time to get ready to launch our plan, but his call still made me feel like I’d slipped on an invisible patch of ice. “What time?”

  “I’ll be there with the note in one hour. You need to get to Tracy by noon and make sure you’re all on the road by twelve thirty. I don’t want to give them any more time than necessary to check out our story.”

  The story being that Tammy was in the urgent care clinic in Costa Mesa, the victim of a beating by someone she wouldn’t name—yet. Tiffany—in the handwritten note Dale would deliver—begged Tracy to come to the clinic and persuade her younger sister to name the perpetrator and give a statement to the police. Tiffany was sure it was Ronnie. But without Tracy’s backing, her little sister Tammy would never tell the truth.

  We’d decided to have Tiffany send a note instead of just call so Liam and Noah would have something they could verify. Since Tiffany really had written the note, they’d be able to verify that it was her handwriting—because it’d match the first note she’d sent to Tracy—and if they decided to run the note for prints, they’d find the prints matched Tiffany, too. In addition, Tiffany was standing by in case they decided to call her and confirm the story on the phone.

  The note would give the name of the urgent care clinic, and when the feds called, they’d find that Tammy had indeed been checked in for treatment of severe blunt-force trauma. But that, of course, wasn’t true. The girl who’d really checked in was Dale’s other daughter, Lisa, who was close to Tammy’s age. Dale had hooked her up with a fake ID in Tammy’s name and very real-looking bruises—courtesy of a fabulous makeup artist I’d represented on a DUI case a few years ago. So everything would check out.

  We knew Liam and Noah would insist on driving Tracy, but they’d never make it to the clinic. It was in a sparsely populated area, and the road leading up to the clinic was long, winding, and usually deserted—which was why Dale had chosen it. Dale and two of Cabazon’s men would wait for them on that road, cut them off, and “kidnap” Tracy—actually, take her to one of Cabazon’s secure locations, where she could hide out until Jorge’s case was dismissed. And that shouldn’t take long. The feds had told Dale that although they’d been trying to come up with other evidence against Jorge, they hadn’t found anything, or anyone, who could help them make the case without Tracy.

  One of the many tricky parts to this whole setup was that Tracy didn’t know about any of it. We couldn’t risk her letting something slip that might tip off the agents.

  It was a dangerous plan, to say the least. But with Dale there, it was much less likely anyone would get seriously hurt. As for Tracy’s safety, we were counting on Cabazon’s fear of what Jorge could tell the feds to keep him honest.

  But I’d hoped to have a little more than an hour to at least get myself mentally prepared for all this. The whole scheme depended on my ability to sell the agents—and Tracy—on our story.

  I swallowed hard and tried not to sound nervous. “Okay. See you when you get here.”

  I called Michy and told her I was stuck in the San Fernando courthouse because I’d agreed to stand in for another lawyer. “After that, I’m going to meet Dale for lunch, so I might not be back until late afternoon.” Michy said she’d let me take the rest of the day off. I thanked her and said I might just do that.

  I hung up and spent the next hour and a half rehearsing my performance for Tracy and the agents.

  Dale showed up at a quarter after eleven, carrying a manila envelope. He snapped on a pair of latex gloves, opened the envelope, and pulled out a business envelope that was addressed simply to “Tracy.” He handed it to me. I held up my hands and pointed to his gloves, but he shook his head. “They’ll expect to find your prints.”

  As I took the envelope, I looked at his taut features and thought again how risky this was for him—in every possible way. I had to make this go right. There was no room for mistakes. “Want something to drink? Water?”

  He shook his head and looked around the room. “Where’s your phone?”

  I went and got the phone from the kitchen counter and handed it to him. “You made sure they’re all at the house?”

  Dale nodded. I could tell he was too keyed up to talk. He called Liam and Noah and said I’d told him I had a serious issue to discuss with Tracy. Twenty seconds later, he ended the call and handed the phone back to me. “You’re cleared to go see her.” I nodded as I took a deep breath and exhaled. Dale gave me a long look. “You can do this.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Piece of cake.” As he headed for the door, I felt a sudden stab of panic. This plan could wrong in so many ways—some of them lethal. I might never see him again. And if I didn’t, it’d be my fault. After all, my plan had put his life in the hands of Cabazon’s maniacal minions—safe was not their middle name. “Hey, be careful. Okay?”

  He paused and turned back. “Thanks.” He gave me a grim smile, then left.

  I checked out the envelope. I’d hoped to read the letter from Tiffany, but it was sealed. Outside, I heard Dale’s car back out of the driveway. I had to get moving. I’d noticed it was pretty cold when Dale left, so I grabbed my fleece-lined bomber jacket, then headed down to the carport.

  My hands were shaking as I started the car. I told myself to calm the hell down. If I acted scared or overly nervous, it could ruin everything. I forced myself to take deep breaths as I drove. I made it to the house at noon on the dot. This time Noah answered the door. He gave me a curt nod and watched the street over my shoulder as I stepped inside. The moment I did, he closed and locked the door.

  He patted me down—and not gently—then searched through my purse and pulled out the envelope with Tiffany’s letter. “What’s this about? And what’s the status of the investigation on her brother?”

  “Stepbrother.” I pointed to the envelope. “And that’s what the letter is all about.” I told him the story about Tammy being admitted to the urgent care clinic in Costa Mesa.

  He opened the envelope, removed the letter, and read it. When he’d finished, he said, “She wants Tracy to go see her in person?” I nodded. “We can’t risk that. The trial starts in one week.”

  One week. And Tracy would be the first witness called. If this plan didn’t work, we were doomed. There’d be no time to come up with a plan B. My heart thumped so hard and fast I almost couldn’t speak. I forced a deep breath. “You can verify everything in that letter.” I tried to keep the pleading note out of my voice as I said, “This is critical, Noah. If Tracy doesn’t go see her, Tammy will never talk—which means this asshole will get away with it again. And who knows what he’ll do next time? ’Cause you know there will be a next time.”

  He set his jaw and tapped the envelope against the side of his leg as he frowned at a point over my left shoulder. After a few moments, he said, “Stay here.”

  Noah left the living room and headed down the hall. I guessed he’d gone to confer with Liam. That was good. Liam was less of a tight-ass. I wanted to pace, but I didn’t want to look as anxious as I felt. As I waited, I could feel beads of sweat gathering inside my bra and springing out on my scalp. My hands were wet and clammy. I wiped them on my thighs.

  I craned my neck to look down the hall, then glanced at my watch. It was twelve twenty-five. Noah w
as taking forever. Was something wrong? Had they figured out it was a bullshit story? I couldn’t help it; I started to pace. At twelve forty-five, Noah finally came back. Liam was with him. I forced a calm—yet concerned—expression. “I assume everything checked out?”

  Liam nodded. “So far. We’re waiting for an answer on the print run. Are you sure this is legit?”

  I nodded. “Very. And I’m hoping Tracy will be willing to go talk to her, because this might be our only chance to lock the asshole up. Can I see Tracy now?”

  Though Liam seemed more sympathetic, he didn’t look any happier about this than Noah. “Yes. Just make sure you tell her we’ve got to finish verifying all this information before we decide whether she can go.”

  I knew the prints would come back to Tiffany, so I wasn’t worried on that score. And I was fairly sure that once they got confirmation on the prints, the feds would let Tracy go. My only worry at this point was that Tracy might not want to. If she refused, I’d have no choice but to fill her in on the plan and hope she could keep it together. “I’ll tell her. Can you let me show her the letter?”

  Liam shook his head. “Not yet. It’s being scanned for prints. Just tell her you’ll show it to her when we’re done.”

  I’d been hoping to start off by having her read it, thinking it might soften her up a little. But I had to play the hand I was dealt. “Got it.” I headed down the hall and knocked on her door.

  Tracy seemed happy to see me, though she was very upset about the reason I was there. “They told me Tammy got beat up. I bet it’s Ronnie. That fucker!”

  “That’s what Tiffany thinks, too. You’ll see her letter when they get done with it. But she wants you to come to the clinic and talk to Tammy, tell her she’s got to tell the police who did it. And that you’ll back her up. Otherwise, she doesn’t think Tammy will do it.”

  Tracy bit her bottom lip and frowned. “I want to help, but the cops won’t believe me.” Her tone was sad and bitter. “They never do. No one ever cares about what I say.”