“Jo?”
“Yes. This is Jo.”
“Matt Terry. Just wanted to call to let you know two things. The shitstorm on the Brad Gecina-related civil case is raining down on the DA’s office.”
“Sorry. I didn’t know,” Jo responded softly.
“I know. It’s one of those things. Everything will be fine. At least a bad cop was forced to leave the force, so there’s slight mitigation. The shock of any big payout will wear off in a few months. Which leads to the main reason I called.”
“What’s that?”
“One of the guys from the Salazar robbery crew you turned us on to. Well, we got a warrant for the dispensary robbery, went to Jimmy’s home, and the guy was laying in his kitchen with his throat cut wide open and thousands of dollars stuffed inside the gash.”
“Shit,” Jo said as she pictured the gruesome scene. “His buddies turn on him for holding out on them?”
“Looks that way. We’re getting warrants for their homes and the office they use for their marketing business as we speak.”
“Get them off the street.”
“That’s the plan. And I think we’re really moving ahead on this one because of an anonymous tip. I was wondering if we could expect any more help from any anonymous sources like this.”
Jo’s eyes wandered over her desk to a folder titled ‘Marcos Omar.’ “Even though I’m on this side of the system I’ll always try to help justice. So if I hear of something I can share, I’ll send it to you.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Take care.”
“Bye.”
Jo hung up, then dialed Omar’s number.
“Evening, counselor.”
“Hi, Omar, there’s a bit of news on your case. Have a few minutes?”
“I do. And I have a bit of news on your old case. I can be at your office in thirty minutes.”
Jo looked at her watch. “That works. See you in a bit. Bye,” Jo added before Omar had a chance to hang up.
She heard no salutation from Omar and nothing but silence on the phone. She hung up and texted Dzuy, [I’m meeting with a client that might run late. Can you come to my office, then we’ll go to dinner from here?]
[Sure. See ya soon.]
[:)]
Jo printed out her suppression motion and was almost finished with her final proof when she heard a pulling against her locked door. She looked on her computer and saw it was Marcos Omar, wearing a navy sport coat and brown slacks. She turned off the record feature before letting him in.
Jo’s eyes widened as she saw Omar reach into his inside sport coat pocket before sitting down. She felt like he could be reaching for a gun.
Omar retrieved an overly stuffed legal-size yellow envelope that had been pinched under his armpit. From it he pulled out several hundred dollar bills. “Was it two hours for your lunch meeting with that DA guy?”
“Only one,” Jo said with a bit of relief and embarrassment that Omar was pulling out cash and not a weapon.
Omar counted three hundred dollars onto Jo’s desk.
“Thank you. Would you like a receipt?”
“Don’t need the write-off this year.”
“Well, if you do, just let me know.” Jo couldn’t help but wonder where that pile of cash Omar held in his hands came from. Did he recover the marijuana money? Was this from a different recovery? She couldn’t stop herself from asking, “So is the marijuana case closed for you?”
Still standing, Omar gave a little smile as he said, “Nope. It’s on ice for a while.”
“Have a seat,” Jo offered. “I’ll relay what I learned from the DA’s office.”
Omar set his envelope of cash next to the three hundred he had counted out for Jo, took off his sport coat and laid it across the second client chair before sitting down.
Jo recapped what Matt told her about the robber being found dead. Omar listened intently without interrupting. When Jo finished she asked, “Did you say you had some information on one of my cases?”
Omar nodded. “Before I tell you about it, I want to make sure it’s clear that you are my attorney. If I decide I want to take the case, which I’m leaning against, but if I do, you won’t work against me.”
“Omar, you are my client. I am bound by the rules of professional conduct not to work against your interest, so long as it is not in the furtherance of a crime.”
“Would that apply if a client lied to you? Tricked you?”
Jo recalled Omar saying he had information on one of her clients. Tai and the cocaine charge was too small. It had to be Brad Gecina. How did Omar know Brad lied? Jo exhaled deeply. “Yes.”
“I wonder if that would change when you heard I was asked about a potential recovery. A big one.”
Jo’s eyes widened and she slapped her desk with both hands. “No fucking way!” Everything clicked in her mind at once. “Brad and Cassie were in on it together.”
Omar’s head turned in surprise. “How’d you know?”
Jo shook her head vigorously. “You first. How on Earth did you know? Did Cassie back out of wanting to pay Brad so he called you?”
Omar paused in awe of Jo’s ability to piece things together so quickly. Before he could respond she continued, “Brad could be lying about this, too. Trying to shake her down for undeserved money.”
“He’s not lying,” Omar said while shaking his head.
“How do you know that?”
“He called me last night, begged for a quick meeting about his fear of needing to collect a debt. I was overseeing a landscaping project so just met him a few hours ago at my taco shop.”
Jo tried to calm herself. “What happened?”
“He started out coy and vague. He said he might have an account where the person won’t pay. Three million dollars was his share. He said he had a verbal contract recorded on video. But the contract wasn’t exactly legal, so he might get screwed out of the money and was wondering how my services worked.”
“Did you see the video?” Jo leaned forward, hoping somehow that Omar had a copy of it.
Omar nodded. “I explained to him my rate was fifty percent of the recovery. He tried to bargain me down.” Omar shook his head. “On a hypothetical debt. I told him I had no interest unless the debt was ripe.”
“Okay,” Jo encouraged Omar to continue.
“He’s nervous. He doesn’t want the tape to go out, but knows it’s only leverage against Cassie if she doesn’t pay him. But if she does pay him, how can she justify a three million dollar gift to the man who raped her? I told him he didn’t have it well thought out.”
“Okay.” Jo leaned forward further. Anymore and she would be able to smell the sixth cup of coffee on Omar’s breath.
“So he’s like-” Omar sat up rigid and changed his inflection to sound like a newscaster, “‘Trust me. It’s perfect. Look at this.’”
“At what?” Jo trembled with anticipation.
Omar relaxed and used his regular voice. “A video on his cell phone. It starts with a pretty blond, the Cassie girl, I assume, lying naked on top of the covers. Brad’s voice says it’s May 2 as he pans to the television and flips through channels to show the TV is live with the time stamp on the guide. The TV turns off and the video pans to an Amazon Alexa. Brad asks for the date and Alexa says it’s May 2.”
“The rape was in October. They planned this months in advance.” Jo leaned all the way back in her chair to process this.
“The video continues. Brad pans back to the bed and says something like, ‘I’m going to choke you with that chord and fuck you hard so it looks like a rape. You’re going to sue the city and we’re going to split the money, right, honey?’ Cassie says something like, ‘That’s right baby. Are you sure it’s a good idea to put this all down in video.’ Then Brad is like, ‘I won’t go through with the plan unless I have backup proof that you’re in on it first.’”
Jo put her hands up to her forehead and closed her eyes. “This is insane. But makes so
much sense. It’s why he needed the damn immunity deal so much.”
Omar shrugged. “I was wondering, why does the city have to pay for everything and not him personally?”
Jo’s mind wandered and she tried to focus on his question. “Because of immunity, criminal restitution is out. Because he was on duty, the city has to defend and indemnify him under the labor code. And because he was reported to the city but the city didn’t do anything, they were negligent in keeping him active on the force. It’s the perfect shit storm of cover. I mean, Cassie could sue him individually for an intentional tort, but that could mean the City’s not on the hook. Getting a lawyer like Aaron Baker would make sure she sued only for negligence, to frame the suit right to get the big payout.”
“So it was a pretty good plan?”
“Very good. If he didn’t come to you and you didn’t come to me, I was his lawyer and wouldn’t have even known.” Jo deflated as she thought about how she sent Cassie the tape. Brad probably set that in motion.
“What are you gonna do?”
“You remember the other day we talked about rape?” Jo asked.
Omar nodded.
“Fake rape is horrible. It makes it harder for real victims to come forward. The penalty for reporting a fake rape should be just as high as a real rape. I don’t want to let this stand.” A wave of realization washed over Jo.
“What?”
“If the settlement goes through I’ll get two hundred grand and I can really use the money now.”
“Still want to stop it?”
Jo nodded.
“What if it was me? Would you want to stop my interest someday?” Omar asked.
“If you lie to me. Trick me into working for you. And try to pull some bullshit that’s just plain wrong. I’ll do whatever my conscience and the law allows.”
“Fair enough.”
Jo cocked her head slightly. “Was your plan to set up the marijuana robber to get killed by his friends?” She looked him in the eye as she thought, Or did you kill him yourself?
“Are you upset that the murdering robber wound up dead?”
“No.”
“Are you upset that Brad lied to you about the rape?”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes my methods can skirt with the other side of legal, but I run an honest, long-term business. We met because of your client Tai and an issue with a drug dealer. Both of them are alive and well. We are actually co-workers now. I’m a problem solver, not some thug for hire.”
Jo looked down at her suppression motion next to the fat envelope of Omar’s cash. “Are you going to take Brad’s case?”
Omar shrugged his shoulders. “I’m here talking with you first. I think that shows you where my priorities are. Not to mention, it would be a really tough collect because on the surface the money looks clean.”
Jo chuckled. “Know what we should do? Get a copy of the video and blackmail them into giving us the six million.”
Omar raised his brows high and whispered, “Jumanji!”
Jo rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t serious.”
“It would serve them right,” Omar tapped at his chin to ponder how he could possibly pull six million from a bank account.
Jo thought about her options. Do nothing and get a two hundred thousand dollar referral fee. Try to steal the video and blackmail them for a share of six million dollars, plus get the two hundred thousand from Aaron. Try to steal the video and give it to the authorities to kill the payout and get Brad and Cassie busted for fraud. For no money. Why does the right thing have to financially suck?
A pulling against the door brought Jo and Omar out of their deep thought. Jo clicked on her computer and saw it was Dzuy. Like a teenager worried about a parent seeing something a little amiss, she whispered, “Can you put your money away?” She picked up her three hundred and put it in her desk drawer.
Omar shook his head. “It’s yours. For meeting with the DA. An advance against future legal work.”
“I can’t. It’s too much. I didn’t earn it.”
Omar stared at Jo’s eyes. “You can. No, it’s not. You will.” Omar stood and put on his sport coat.
“We’ll figure this out later,” she said, as she put the envelope under her desk, laying it on top of her compact computer tower.
Omar pulled his shirt cuffs tight so a bit of his white cuff peaked out through his sport coat.
“Please stay,” Jo implored. “My boyfriend is a computer security person. I want to get his thoughts on Brad’s phone.”
“Okay.” Omar stayed, standing by his seat while Jo walked past him.
She unlocked the door and pushed it open, whispering, “I have a client here. I want you to meet him.”
Dzuy looked awkward for a second, as if he were wondering if he should hug, kiss, or shake her hand, under the circumstances.
“Come in,” Jo encouraged. As Dzuy entered her office Jo called out, “Omar, this is Dzuy.”
The men exchanged a handshake and the three took a seat.
“Dzuy, this is kind of an unusual situation. I want to ask you to be a computer security consultant for my client, Omar. That would mean you are part of my legal team and the attorney-client privilege would attach to you. You won’t be able to tell anyone about what we talk about in here. Are you okay with that?”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“If we want to get a video file from someone’s cell phone, how can we do it?”
Dzuy looked at Omar then back to Jo. “Ask them for it?”
“They want to keep it private,” Omar added.
“Swipe their phone and upload it to another device?” Dzuy asked.
Jo started tapping her foot. “Isn’t there some sort of James Bond thing you can do to hack in?”
“Maybe. If you know what network they’re on. But it’s not like the movies. Even simple measures can be pretty hard to break through.” Dzuy shrugged. “What kind of phone?”
“iPhone,” Omar interjected. “Newish. One of the big ones.”
“Realistically, you need a finger or if it’s the newest one, a face. To steal the device might be easy, to hack it would be hard.” Dzuy shook his head. “Wait, why we are talking about this like it’s something that might happen. Isn’t this a crime, Jo? Like a big one?”
“Little one,” Omar quietly offered and pretended to pat a tiny little crime.
“I think the doctrine of necessity would preclude any charges being filed. And no prosecutor in this City would want to bring a case against us,” Jo added.
“Us?” Dzuy asked.
Jo nodded. “Omar, can you get that stuff that got you upset with Tai? Do you know how it works?”
“It’s in my car. Like I said, I’m working with the guy now. He said you take one, you might get sleepy. You take one with crack or coke, it mellows you out. You take a few with some booze, total blackout where you don’t remember anything.”
“Hey, guys, I don’t think that’s a little crime.”
“How fast does it work?” Jo asked Omar.
“Fifteen minutes. Half hour. More or less.”
“Uh, Jo? Can we talk for a minute? In private?” Dzuy asked.
Omar stood. “I’ll get the pills.” He looked at the package of water bottles next to Jo’s cabinet and said, “Let’s see how they dissolve.”
“Thanks,” Jo said before Omar let himself out.
Dzuy opened his arms. “What the hell, Jo? I have security clearance. Top secret. If I get caught up with some drug stuff, I can lose my job. My whole career. Not to mention your career. You see us getting married and breaking bad? Going to jail? What’s going on?”
Jo was three quarters through explaining everything to Dzuy about Brad Gecina when Omar came back in. By the time her story was finished, the three of them were watching Omar swirl a white pill in a bottle of water one gulp short of full.
As Omar gently swirled he asked, “What do you think about her plan now?”
Dzuy sighed.
“Jo told me that without proof of the video the police can’t get a warrant to search Brad’s phone. That’s the only evidence of the rape being fake. So either Jo does something or they get away with it.”
“It’s going to cost her two hundred grand,” Omar added as he held up the bottle to see the pill almost entirely dissolved. “How long did that take?”
Jo looked at her watch. “I didn’t time it. Maybe two minutes. Little less?”
Omar took another pill from his sport coat and put it on Jo’s desk. “Got a piece of paper?”
Jo had her motion on the table and pushed it towards Omar. Omar used the bottom of the pill jar to grind up the pill. Once it was a good powder, he said, “Time me.”
Jo noted the time on her watch.
Omar twisted the cap open, then folded the paper over to funnel the drug into the bottle. He put the paper on the desk, swirling the mostly-full bottle as fast as he could without it spilling over. “Done,” he called out when he couldn’t see the powder any longer.
“Ten seconds to get it in and ten seconds to swirl.”
Omar capped the bottle and put it on Jo’s desk. “The guy who gave me these said they are the old kind. The new kind have blue dye in them. This got really clear. Look at it.”
Dzuy picked it up. “Okay, so if you can get him to drink that, then what?”
“You got Facetime?” Omar asked Jo.
“Yeah.”
“I haven’t slept for shit. I’m going to go home, take a shower, brush my teeth, then drink that bottle right there. We’ll be on Facetime. Watch how it affects me. If it looks like I’m dying or something, call an ambulance.”
“Wait,” Dzuy said, raising his hands. “Why not just get a couple of guys to watch when he’s using his phone, so it’s open, then take it from him? That’s like one little crime. This drugging stuff seems like a big crime.”
“I’ll tell you why,” Omar said, as he pantomimed pulling a gun from his belt. “He’s a former cop. Odds are he’ll be carrying a gun. I don’t think someone dying, probably him, would be a little crime.”
“Oh. Good answer.” Dzuy nodded his approval.
“If I may,” Omar said looking back at Jo, “propose that I go home and Facetime you as I chug the water. We don’t talk about any of this on the phone. But we learn how it affects me and meet tomorrow to finalize the plan.”
Blanket Immunity Page 15