I Scarce Can Die (Quill Gordon Mystery Book 5)

by Michael Wallace

  “I’m not a fisherman myself; haven’t got the time. But I thought you might ask, so I checked with my foreman, who does wet a line occasionally. He says grasshoppers.”

  “Grasshoppers,” Peter said.

  “Quite a few still around,” Oscar said. “In the afternoon, when it gets a bit warmer, the fish start looking for them. That’s about all I can tell you.”

  “It’s enough,” Gordon said.

  THEY WALKED UPSTREAM from the ranch house. Gordon suggested fishing Pioneer Creek from where it entered the ranch property downstream to where it ran under the gravel road and into another ranch. The sun had risen high enough to be shining on most of the meadow by now, and the frost that covered the grass was rapidly melting.

  At the point just before the meadow reached the mountain, a barbed-wire fence marked the property boundary. Just beyond the fence, the creek emerged from a canyon, widened, and ran under the fence. It was a foot to a foot and a half deep at this point, and 60 feet after entering Monroe Ranch, it narrowed, deepened, and began its serpentine path through the meadow. As they walked alongside it on the way to the boundary, Gordon noticed the creek’s deep holes, lush weed beds, overhanging banks, and the occasional log and boulder to shelter a fish. It was a stream that any self-respecting trout would be proud to call home.

  They stopped at the fence and surveyed the water. For a minute or two, they stood quietly, taking it in.

  “Should we try nymphs?” Peter asked.

  “Do you see any fish rising?”

  “Right. Nymphs it is.”

  “You could try a Woolly Bugger or a streamer in some of the larger pools. If you want to cross to the other side, this is your chance. There are a few more shallow areas downstream where you can come back to this side if you want.”

  “You’re not wearing waders,” said Peter, who was.

  “Almost all the fishing’s going to be from shore. As long as you keep your shadow off the water, I don’t think it matters which side you’re on. But if we’re on opposite sides, at least we’re not in each other’s way.”

  “I can take the hint.” Peter stepped into the water, and gingerly worked his way to the opposite side. Once there, he turned to Gordon and shouted, “You take the first hole. I’ll go downstream to the next.”

  Gordon nodded. He had expected to be starting the day with a nymph, and his rod was rigged up with a #16 Copper John, three feet under an indicator. He sized up the depth of the pool, moved the indicator a foot higher, made his first cast, and looked at his watch. It was 8:58.

  Fifty minutes later, and more than a hundred yards downstream, they had nothing to show for their efforts and had each lost a fly or two in the weeds.

  “What are we doing wrong?” Peter shouted across the creek.

  “We’re not doing anything wrong,” Gordon said. “We’re making good casts and getting good drifts over the right kind of water. There’s probably nobody home right now. It was pretty cold last night,” he squatted, put his right hand in the creek and held it there for five seconds, “and the water in the creek feels like it’s in the low fifties. Give it time to warm up a couple of degrees, and we’ll be catching fish.”

  Ten minutes later, at exactly ten o’clock, with a cast and drift no better than the dozens that had gone before, Peter hooked the first fish of the day. It was a beautifully colored 14-inch Brown, and it swam quickly back into the weeds after Peter unhooked it. Five minutes later, Gordon caught his first of the day, a 13-inch Brown. For the better part of an hour, they worked their way downstream, catching fish every ten minutes or so.

  At 11 o’clock, Gordon heard a splash on the water and turned to see the outward rippling where a fish had risen in the pool above the one he was fishing. He realized he had so intently been watching his indicator on the water that he hadn’t noticed the air filling with insects.

  “Caddis hatch!” he shouted to Peter. “Switch to dries. It’s showtime.”

  For the next hour, the top of the stream was covered with insects, and trout were noisily rising to the surface to eat them. Using #14 Elk Hair Caddis patterns, Gordon and Peter had a strike on nearly every cast and lost count of the number of 12-to-18-inch fish they caught and released. Fish and fishermen were both in a frenzy, and the world outside ceased to exist.

  Five minutes after noon, it stopped as suddenly as it had started. Gordon and Peter kept casting on autopilot for a few minutes before it dawned on them. When he stopped casting, Gordon realized he was sweaty and thirsty. The sun was overhead now, and in its direct light, the temperature was in the high 70s. He saw a lone pine tree, 50 feet back from the creek, and gestured to it with his rod.

  “I’m taking a break,” he said. He walked to the tree and sat in the shade, on ground covered with pine needles. Leaning back against the tree trunk, he took several deep swallows from his water bottle, watched Peter changing his fly across the stream, and thought back to the meeting with his father the last week of September.

  THE JOHN MARSHALL CLUB occupies the first four floors of an older building a block off Montgomery Street in the heart of the Financial District. Named for the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, it is San Francisco’s most exclusive club for members of the legal profession. Rumor has it (nothing is in writing, of course) that in order to join, one has to have won a criminal acquittal in a front-page case, won a criminal conviction in such a case, won a multi-million dollar verdict in a civil suit, or defended such a suit so successfully that not a dollar in damages was awarded. Judges also qualify. Judge Gordon thus was eligible for membership under criteria three and five.

  The club is a short ride by taxi (or, more commonly, privately driven vehicle) from the Superior Court building on McAllister Street. It does not advertise its existence; the only sign of its presence from the street is the number of the building and a 9-by-12 inch plaque underneath reading J.M.C. It required five years of debate to get the plaque approved by two-thirds of the membership, and if the time spent on the argument had been billed at the members’ hourly rates, the sum might have funded the city government for half a year.

  Founded during Prohibition, in part to quench the thirst of the original members, the club was designed to look like a British men’s club a century older. San Francisco law being a lucrative business, the effort was largely successful. The ground floor consisted of game and sitting rooms, and the second held the bar and restaurant. The third floor offered rooms for members’ overnight stays when working on difficult cases (according to the official explanation) and the administrative offices and employee rooms; the fourth floor was all overnight rooms. Women were allowed only on the third and fourth floors, reachable by direct elevator from just inside the front door, and were presumed, until proven otherwise, to be the wives of the attorneys accompanying them.

  When Gordon arrived, five minutes early for their one o’clock lunch appointment, the judge was sitting in one of three plush leather chairs by the entrance, reading the Wall Street Journal. He stood up, made a show of folding the paper and putting it under his arm, and buttoned the middle jacket button of his black suit with barely visible gray pinstripe. He was five-eleven with perfect posture, tanned complexion, and short salt-and-pepper hair — now more salt than pepper. He was 68 years old and had the confident mien of a man who has gained authority with each passing year and revels in the awareness of it.

  “Good to see you, Quill,” he said as they shook hands. The judge was the only person who called Gordon by his given name.

  “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting,” Gordon said.

  “Not at all. We can take our time if you like. I’m essentially done for the day. I just have to pull together some briefs to read over the weekend.”

  Gordon nodded. He was wearing his best charcoal-gray suit with spread-collar white shirt, and a tasteful burgundy patterned tie. As they walked up the thickly carpeted stairs to the restaurant, they looked like junior and senior partners in a law firm. It occurred to Gordon
that the judge, who was disappointed that his son had not gone into law, was bringing him to the club as a way of saying, “See, this could have been yours.” He found himself wondering if his tie was conservative enough, a doubt that he would have entertained only in his father’s presence.

  They were seated at two leather-backed chairs flanking a table next to the fireplace, covered in thick white linen. The fireplace was lit every day, and on this cool September afternoon, when the fog couldn’t make up its mind whether to retreat or hang over the bay, the fireplace was inviting. A minute after they were seated, one of the younger waiters (he couldn’t have been a day over 65) materialized.

  “Good afternoon, your honor. What would you and your son like to drink?”

  Gordon hadn’t been at the club for two years and didn’t remember the waiter, but the waiter remembered him.

  “I’m done with work, Robert. What’s your red wine special for the day?”

  “The Chalk Mountain Pinot Noir. A hint of spice and good tannin. I don’t think your honor will be disappointed.”

  “I’ll have a glass of that, then. And you, Quill?”

  “Iced tea for me. I’m afraid I still have a bit of work to do later.” He didn’t, really, but felt the need to differentiate.

  Robert headed for the bar to fill their order. The judge picked up his menu, then set it down without opening it.

  “If they have the braised lamb shanks, I’d recommend that. It’s the club’s signature dish.”

  “It should go well with the Pinot Noir.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. Now before I forget, your mother wanted me to bring up the question of Thanksgiving. I know it’s a couple of months off, but she’s planning ahead.”

  “She always does.”

  “You’re invited, of course. You always will be. And your lady friend, too, if she’d like to come.”

  “Her name’s Elizabeth.”

  “As I said, Elizabeth is welcome. Your mother likes her, you know, so she’s over the biggest hurdle. What I think doesn’t matter so much, though, for the record, I like her too.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “Anyway, it’s too early to expect a definite commitment, but if you could give me a hint which way you’re leaning?”

  “Is Uncle Bill coming this year?”

  “I think he and Aunt Grace are going to spend the holiday with their daughter in Connecticut.”

  “Then the odds of my appearance just went up.”

  “Understood.”

  “And I haven’t discussed anything with Elizabeth yet.”

  “Of course.”

  “But I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”

  Robert returned with the drinks.

  “Are you gentlemen ready to order, or do you need a few minutes?”

  “If you have the braised lamb shanks,” the judge said, “I’m ready.”

  “I took the liberty of asking just now. We do have them, and the chef says they’re very good.”

  “Quill?”

  Gordon hesitated for a second but decided the iced tea had been rebellion enough.

  “Same for me.”

  EVENTUALLY, THE CONVERSATION worked its way to the subject of wrongful convictions, which had been one of Gordon’s reasons for suggesting the lunch. After explaining his involvement in the Baxter case, and after giving the general outline of it, he asked for his father’s take on wrongful convictions.

  “They happen,” the judge said. “Not all that often, but more than most people realize. Our justice system — which I believe to be the best in the world — is run by and dependent on human beings. Human beings make mistakes. End of story.”

  “Did you ever think there might have been one in your court?”

  “It was more common to see someone acquitted who I thought was guilty. But now that you’re asking, you’ve taken me back almost 20 years. The Rollins case.”

  Gordon said nothing as the judge mentally arranged his recollections.

  “I forget her first name now — that’s what getting older does to you — but I recall the details of the case as if it were yesterday. Her boyfriend was a drug dealer who stabbed a client to death, and she was prosecuted as an accessory. Aside from the fact the boyfriend committed the crime, there was almost nothing to tie her to it. Prosecutorial overkill. But she was a user and he was a dealer, and the jury convicted her anyway.”

  “Did the color of her skin have anything to do with the verdict?”

  “It could have.”

  “And there was nothing you could do about it?”

  “Actually, there was. Under California law, the judge can override a jury’s guilty verdict if he thinks it was mistaken based on the evidence presented. I went almost three nights without sleep and finally decided to set the verdict aside. It was the only time in my career I’ve ever done it, and I believe I’m the only sitting judge in San Francisco who’s ever done it.”

  “But you say it doesn’t happen often? Wrongful convictions, I mean.”

  “In San Francisco, the defense attorneys are usually too good to let a bad prosecution win. Rollins — damn it, what was her first name? — had a wet-behind-the-ears public defender doing his first murder trial. He flubbed it. A better attorney would probably have gotten her off or gotten the prosecution to drop the case before it ever got to trial.”

  “So, apart from overzealous prosecutors and incompetent defense attorneys, what else leads to a wrongful conviction?”

  “Bad expert witnesses can be a problem, but the number one factor is bad eyewitness evidence. The reality is that most people aren’t worth crap when it comes to identifying someone they’ve seen one time in a highly stressful situation. Usually, there’s enough corroborating evidence to mitigate that, but when you get one that rests almost entirely on the identification — look out!”

  “Can you give me an example?”

  “There was one really bad case. Happened in the South somewhere. A man was shot to death on the street for his wallet, with $22 in it. A woman who lived in a second-story apartment in a building on that street said she saw it all and positively identified the suspect. He got the death sentence. Then a better attorney, who took the appeal pro bono, got the brainstorm that maybe he should go to the scene of the crime and see for himself.”

  “And?”

  “And it turned out the windows in the woman’s apartment all faced an alleyway. If she leaned all the way out, she could have seen only a sliver of street, and not where the shooting occurred.”

  “So she was lying?”

  “Not lying, really. She was old and lonely, and probably felt important and wanted to help. I think she actually convinced herself, over time, that she really had seen the crime.”

  “And the defense attorney didn’t check that out?”

  “Nor the prosecutor, if he’s to be believed.”

  “Would you have checked it out?”

  “Absolutely. Regardless of which side I was taking. That reminds me, they have a saying in the legal profession. It goes along the lines that if you’re innocent, the worst advocate you can have is a really good defense attorney.”

  Gordon was puzzled. “Why?”

  “Because really good defense attorneys are used to their clients being guilty. They tend to think in terms of seeing that process is followed or getting the charge reduced. It’s hard for them to believe that their client might really, actually, truly be innocent.”

  They finished the lunch, which was excellent, and after the plates were cleared, Gordon leaned toward his father.

  “I have another favor to ask,” he said.

  “You’re in luck. I’m in a good mood.”

  “We’re going to be just over the pass from the Monroe Ranch. I didn’t realize until I checked the map how close it was. Can you get us a day of fishing there?”

  “No problem. Now you’re taking me down one of the sweeter parts of memory lane.”

  “You must have really done so
mething for them that they’d let your wayward son fish the ranch 30 years later.”

  “Did I ever tell you what turned the case?”

  He had, but Gordon let him tell it again.

  “I dug through the code book for hours and came across a 1908 California law that protected the rights of existing users of a single water source. It was forgotten and almost never used because most of the times a dam was built, one of the reasons was to guarantee the farmers downstream a water supply. The water company attorney missed it in his research, but it was still on the books, never repealed. Once I introduced it, the rout was on.”

  “Sounds like good lawyering.”

  “It was, if I do say so myself. When the judge not only ruled in our favor but awarded legal costs as well, I decided on the spot to add a hundred thousand to my bill. And that was back when a hundred thousand was real money. I hadn’t been counting my time as closely as usual, and finding that law was worth a hundred grand in itself.”

  He took a small pad and pen from his coat pocket.

  “What date did you want? I’ll make the call this afternoon.”

  “Sunday October 18.” Gordon watched his father write it down, and added, “You were quite an old buccaneer, weren’t you?”

  “It was fair value,” the judge said. “The water company paid without a whimper.”

  NOTHING AS ASTOUNDING as the frenzy of the caddis hatch occurred again, but the fishing remained excellent all day. Drifting nymphs over weed beds or near the overhanging grass banks, Gordon and Peter got a strike every three or four casts. In late afternoon, they tried dry flies and had consistent success with grasshopper patterns or large attractor flies. Gordon caught the biggest fish of the day, a Brown Trout measuring exactly 23.5 inches (Peter had the tape ready) by dropping a hopper at the edge of a current running under an overhang. The fish grabbed it with such ferocity that Gordon almost jerked the hook out of its mouth by reacting too fast. Peter caught and released two trout of 20 inches or more, a first for him, and was well pleased.

  At two o’clock, they saw a woman waving at them from the veranda of the ranch house. They fished out their casts and trudged in that direction. Gordon leaned his rod against the vehicle, retrieved something from the glove compartment, and put it in his shirt pocket.