Fox is Framed

by Lachlan Smith

  I heard the courtroom door creak open. Turning, I saw Car, my investigator, beckoning me. I slid from the spectators’ bench and went out through the double doors into the hall.

  “I talked to Russell Bell, served him with a subpoena. If you want him in court, you’ll need a body attachment. He isn’t coming on my say-so.” Car handed me a file folder with the subpoena return inside it. What this meant was if the judge allowed it, we could have Bell arrested by a sheriff’s deputy and brought to court.

  “So he’s the snitch?”

  “Apparently. He didn’t deny it.”

  “What’ve they got hanging over him?”

  “Nothing, far as I can tell. He’s been clean since the day he got out of prison. He’s right here in the city. At city hall, in fact. He works as a driver for Supervisor Eric Gainer.” Car delivered this astonishing news without blinking.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. Eric Gainer had been my high school classmate and the star of our state championship basketball team my junior year. Five years later, he’d also been an eyewitness to the abduction of Lucy Rivera. His role in the drama had involved a heroic attempt to save the girl. He’d managed to yank the driver’s door open as the kidnapper sped away. Eric would end up dragged along for half a block before he was shaken loose, yet he’d managed to get a look at the kidnapper’s face. Lucy was herself unable to identify her abductor, as she’d spent the long hours of her captivity blindfolded while being repeatedly raped.

  In many ways, Gainer’s heroism and his testimony identifying Russell Bell as the kidnapper had launched his political career. From the beginning, Gainer seemed marked for higher office: the governor’s mansion, perhaps. Now, in what appeared to be a stunning reversal, Bell worked for Gainer and had ratted out Lawrence, who’d helped free him.

  I wondered why on earth this hadn’t made the papers, why we’d heard nothing about it. Nothing Car had said so far contradicted my father’s story that Russell Bell had snitched on him before my father could do the same. Yet there had to be more.

  Car and I returned to the courtroom to hear Crowder ask, “Detective, how long have you been the lead investigator on this case?”

  “Two weeks,” Shanahan said.

  Sitting at the defense table, Nina glanced back. I held up the folder containing the subpoena return, and she rose to take it. Returning to her chair, she opened it partway to glance at the contents, then gave a frown.

  Crowder went on with her examination. “In those two weeks, have you learned of any information that was not contained in the investigative file?”

  “I have. I interviewed a new witness earlier this week, who provided important information.”

  So here it was, exactly as Nina had predicted. The DA was going to solve the problem of relying on stale and tarnished evidence by building its case on words allegedly from Lawrence Maxwell’s own mouth.

  “Does the name of this witness appear in the original investigative file?”

  “No. The individual wasn’t a witness at the time of that investigation.”

  “Explain to me, if you can, how you came to interview this person.”

  “Sure. Maxwell’d been in prison twenty-one years. It seemed logical to me that at some point he would have talked about why he was there. I obtained a list of individuals with whom he might have communicated, including prison staff and inmates. I contacted as many people as I could whose names appeared on that list, and interviewed them, either in person or over the telephone.”

  Nina was jotting notes, presumably a reminder to request a copy of the list from the DA.

  “And what information, if any, did you learn from these interviews that was relevant to your investigation?”

  “Last week I spoke to a former inmate who told me that Lawrence Maxwell had confessed to murdering his wife.”

  “Did you obtain a statement?”

  “Signed and sworn.”

  “Without revealing any information that might identify that informant, please read his statement into the record.”

  Nina rose to object to the statement being admitted without Bell’s testimony. But Liu overruled the objection and told Shanahan to go ahead. The state wasn’t required to bring Bell into court until the trial.

  Shanahan proceeded in a monotone, paraphrasing from the document in front of him. “The informant told me that one morning in 1991, he and ‘Larry’ were in the yard at San Quentin prison, where they both were inmates. Larry remarked to the informant that his younger son was graduating from college, and that he hadn’t spoken to the son since Larry’s arrest. Then Larry made the comment, ‘The boy hates me. I killed his mother.’ He went on, ‘It was a terrible thing, but it had to be done. I just wish he hadn’t been the one to find her. I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my days.’”

  The younger son referenced in the supposed confession, of course, was me. I heard the murmur of hushed voices, muted exclamation, and a buzzing in my ears. The courtroom seemed to swim. The gist of the confession, even if manufactured, struck me as the sort of remarks my father might make. It pierced me to the core.

  Crowder moved on quickly, establishing that Bell was out of prison but entirely omitting any mention of Lawrence’s role in getting Bell exonerated. They went on for about ten more minutes, Shanahan testifying that the details of Lawrence’s confession matched those of the crime.

  At last, Crowder yielded the podium to Nina. “Detective, please identify the informant and give his current address and telephone number,” Nina said.

  Shanahan looked at Crowder. She promptly announced that the state would not disclose the informant’s identity out of concern for his safety.

  “Ms. Schuyler?” Judge Liu said.

  “We’re entitled to this informant’s identity. The prosecution can’t withhold evidence.”

  “If the defendant wants to learn this informant’s identity, he can follow the procedures in the Evidence Code,” Crowder said. “But that’s for another day. We’re here to establish probable cause.”

  “I agree,” Judge Liu said. “Ms. Schuyler, you can raise this issue again at the proper time, by motion. Your questioning today should be limited to matters that would conclusively establish your client’s innocence.”

  “But we can’t possibly prove that this informant is lying without knowing his identity,” Nina protested.

  “I won’t allow a fishing expedition. If you develop something, I’ll give you leeway, but right now you’ve got nothing other than conjecture, and that’s not enough for me to disbelieve the informant’s statement.”

  Nina drew an impatient breath and turned to the witness. “Detective Shanahan, do you share the DA’s opinion that disclosing the identity of this informant would pose a safety risk?”

  “I do. Absolutely. He begged me not to let the defendant know that he was the one who’d given this information. He told me that if Maxwell found out he’d come forward, his life would be in danger. He said that Maxwell had orchestrated several violent reprisals. In one of those attacks, an inmate had ended up stabbed to death.”

  At the defense table Lawrence loudly muttered, “Jesus.” Judge Liu shot him an angry glance. Nina didn’t turn, but I saw her shoulders tighten. My own blood boiled at his loss of self-control. She must have been even more furious. On the stand, Shanahan now wore a look of self-satisfaction.

  “Did you make any attempt to verify whether what he said was true—whether Mr. Maxwell had been responsible for such attacks?”

  “Mr. Maxwell’s name never came up in the original investigations of those attacks.”

  “So this part of the informant’s story didn’t check out, correct?”

  “That was actually the point, that he’d been able to cover himself by acting through intermediaries. So no, I wouldn’t say that it didn’t check out. I was able to confirm that the inmates i
n question were, in fact, assaulted. And that one died as a result.”

  “Are there any facts independent of this informant’s statement that allow you to connect Lawrence Maxwell with those incidents behind bars?”

  “Not yet.” The detective looked straight at Lawrence. “I’ve only been investigating this informant’s information for a day and a half.”

  “Did this informant tell you any information that was not publicly available regarding the murder of Caroline Maxwell?”

  Shanahan thought for a moment, then said, “No, he didn’t.”

  Quickly, Nina said, “What was the informant’s conviction?”

  “Excuse me,” Crowder said, rising. “Objection. She’s doing it again. She’s just trying to fish for information to uncover the informant’s identity.”

  “It’s obviously for impeachment,” Nina said. “We know he was convicted of something. We’re entitled to know whether it was a crime of dishonesty or moral turpitude.” Such crimes, of course, being admissible evidence for the purpose of establishing that the unnamed witness had a character for dishonesty.

  Quick thinking. Especially as Nina knew from the note I’d passed her that Bell’s conviction had been reversed. But Crowder didn’t rise to the bait and contradict her. The judge deliberated a moment, gazing at the clock at the back of the courtroom. “How about this? For the purposes of this hearing, to avoid disclosing information that might identify the informant, I’ll assume that he was convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude or false statement.”

  “That’s fine,” Crowder said. No doubt she recognized that there was no way Liu would disregard the informant’s story based on this hypothetical assumption.

  With no choice but to move on, Nina asked whether the detective knew if the individual, while incarcerated, had provided information in connection with any other pending case. Again Liu shut her down. “You’ll have your day to pursue these areas, but none of them is relevant today unless you can show that the informant is a material witness with evidence that might exonerate your client. Do you have anything else?”

  Like all good attorneys, Nina knew when to fight and when to shut up, how to walk the line between earning a judge’s respect and needlessly awakening his anger. “Nothing further.”

  “Does the defendant have witnesses?”

  “Your Honor, if we could have a minute,” Nina said. The judge nodded, surprise visible on his face.

  Nina whispered something to my father and grabbed the folder containing the subpoena return. Accompanied by Lawrence, she beckoned me and pushed through the swinging doors into the hallway outside the courtroom. I followed her. “What am I supposed to do with this?” she asked, swatting me on the arm with the folder. “You didn’t tell me you were planning to drop a subpoena on him.”

  “Yes, I did. We talked about it this morning. What was Car going to do, invite him to lunch?”

  She turned to Lawrence. “Russell Bell. You’re saying he’s the snitch?”

  “Russell is a liar. That’s what I’m saying.” Lawrence’s hand trembled as he fingered the cigarettes in his chest pocket.

  “How am I supposed to show that?”

  Lawrence didn’t make any response, just stood there.

  “You want me to put him up there when I don’t have any ammunition? Is that what you want? Me standing up there firing blanks, showing an empty hand?”

  “Yeah,” he said with sudden heat. “Put the fucker on the stand.”

  Nina asked him to go inside and wait at counsel table. Once the door had closed behind him, she turned to me. “Why would we want to call him? Who are you trying to impress?”

  “You don’t have to call him. It’s your case.” But I reddened at the obvious answer, that I was trying to impress her. I saw in her face that she’d been aware for some time of the attention I paid her. Now, for the first time, that awareness was shading into anger.

  “It’s supposed to be. But I can’t not call him now. Look, I don’t practice law by ambush. Maybe that’s how you do business in Oakland, but not me, not here. We gain nothing by pulling tricks. It makes us look amateurish. It turns the court against us without any tangible benefit to your dad. Who happens to be my client.”

  She turned away, and it was as if she no longer saw me, the same way she’d looked right past the collection of characters in her waiting area the first day we met.

  Nina strode through the gates to the podium.

  “Your Honor, the defense calls Russell Bell. Mr. Bell has been served with a subpoena but refuses to appear. We request a body attachment.”

  At the mention of Bell’s name Angela Crowder threw herself back in her chair, arms crossed, with a smile of disbelief. Seeing her face, I knew we’d miscalculated—or rather, I had. Shanahan’s eyes were on Lawrence.

  Crowder stood and said, “May we approach the bench?”

  A whispered debate then took place between Nina and Crowder at the sidebar of the judge’s bench. Shanahan looked on, arms folded, and Judge Liu officiated, his chair wheeled to the edge of the platform. From where I sat, I couldn’t hear a word, but I could tell that Nina was defending the corner I’d put her in as stridently as if she’d chosen that ground.

  When they returned Nina was visibly upset. Crowder, on the other hand, was satisfied and triumphant. From the bench, Liu announced his ruling. “Having heard counsel’s explanation, I find that the testimony would not be relevant to the issue of probable cause. Since the defense intends to call no other witnesses, I’m ready to hear argument.”

  Crowder kept her remarks to a minimum, emphasizing that the informant’s statement, if believed, was sufficient in itself to sustain a conviction. Nina used her time to reiterate and clarify her objection to the informant’s testimony and to Liu’s refusal to allow her to call Bell to the stand.

  Liu promptly announced his ruling. “I find the state’s informant to be credible, and I find that his statement gives rational ground for a strong suspicion that Caroline Maxwell was murdered on June twentieth, nineteen eighty-three, by the defendant with malice aforethought. In accordance with these findings I order Mr. Maxwell to be bound over for jury trial.” After consulting the calendar he set a trial date in mid-May, sixty days out. “Anything else?”

  Crowder stood and made a motion to increase bail. Liu again heard arguments. In the end, he left Lawrence’s bail unchanged, allowing my father to walk out of that courtroom a free man, if a man could be called free when both the past and the future pressed in on him with literal prison bars.

  After the hearing Nina left without speaking to anyone other than Lawrence, taking his arm and whispering a few words, my father nodding in response, both of them avoiding my eyes. Lawrence had to use the men’s room. Waiting for him in the hallway, neither Teddy nor I said a word.

  Chapter 7

  On the last Saturday in March, two weeks after the hearing, I took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather and went for a ride. My head needed clearing, and biking was the only sure way I knew to do that. I was still bothered by the mistake I’d made at the preliminary hearing, forcing Nina’s hand in a half-conscious effort to impress her. Ever since then, I’d noticed tension between us, as if she were holding herself aloof.

  When my legs needed punishment, I typically looked to the horizon. Mount Tam and Mount Diablo, the Bay Area’s two highest peaks, both offered steep climbs and amazing views to accompany my skyrocketing heart rate. I decided to tackle Diablo, in the East Bay, both because the air was extraordinarily clear after a few days of rain, promising views for hundreds of miles from the summit if I made it that far, and because I wanted to avoid the necessity of leaving my car in Marin County and having to ride a loop.

  I rode the BART to Castro Valley station, and worked my way north and east, gaining altitude most of the way, to Diablo Road. At South Gate Road the climb began. It’d been a while
since I’d made a climb as difficult as this one, and I tried to go easy on my legs. Sweat ran down my forehead and poured down my sides. My calves, quads, and ass ached as I pumped, straining to find the familiar rhythm. I had to remind myself to lift my eyes to the ever-expanding vista as the road wound around to the north side of the mountain.

  I told myself that instead of trying for the summit I was going to peel off and coast north to Walnut Creek, there to catch the BART back to Oakland, but at the turn I surprised myself and kept going with a surge of power I hadn’t known was there. It wasn’t, really. The rest of the climb was a slog. The only thing that kept me from stopping was the knowledge that if I did, I wouldn’t have the heart to point the wheel up the mountain again.

  The last two hundred meters were little more than a footpath, with a grade of over thirteen percent. Near the top I finally had to let myself tip to one foot, shoulder the bike, and walk, but I’d made it and was rewarded with the view I’d hoped to find. To the west, the Sierra Nevada rose in a jagged, snowcapped line. On a day like today, supposedly it was possible to see Half Dome in Yosemite with binoculars. I’d never seen it.

  Riding down, my legs were shaky, my quads aching as I coasted. There were a few moderate hills to surmount, and I was out of gas, but at last I was navigating the busy city streets to the BART, where I collapsed gratefully into a seat in one of the nearly deserted end cars where no one would mind my sweat.

  Coming into MacArthur, I checked my phone and saw that Nina had left several messages, including two texts telling me to phone her right away. “I’ve been trying to reach you all afternoon,” she said when I did.

  “I’ve been out of service. What’s happened?”