The Conviction

by Robert Dugoni

  The question erased Pike’s smile.

  Boykin’s mood darkened. “I don’t give a good God damn who he is. This is my courtroom. My courtroom, and I am not about to cede it to anyone, not even the ‘lawyer who does not lose.’ If the court of appeals grants his motion, weeks from now, then we will have ourselves a trial, Archibald, yes we will. And if we do I am going to expect a far better showing than the one you gave this morning. Until that time, his son will remain a ward of the Winchester County Juvenile Detention Department.”

  Pike reached to take back the documents.

  “Leave them,” Boykin said.

  After Pike shut the door, Boykin spun his chair and returned his gaze to the window, but his thoughts did not slip back into history. He gathered the documents Pike had left and walked to the shelves lining the wall, removing the four volumes of antique California Reporters that had been bound together at the spines, revealing the hidden wall safe his great-grandfather had asked be embedded when the building was constructed. The combination had never changed, the date the building had been dedicated. Opening the wall safe, Boykin reached past the .44 caliber Colt revolver and retrieved a cell phone. He hit the button for the preprogrammed number and waited three rings until the person answered.

  “We have a situation,” he said, considering the articles. “And I don’t want that situation to become a problem.”

  THE TRISTAN MOTEL

  TRISTAN, CALIFORNIA

  Someone had gone through their things, and they hadn’t been subtle about it.

  “It was a police officer.” The owner stood in the doorway, his blue jeans hanging well below an ample stomach, arms crossed over his short-sleeve cotton T-shirt. He’d apparently been waiting for Sloane and Molia to return. “He said it was police business.”

  “Was he wearing a Truluck uniform, blue and gray?” Molia asked.

  The man nodded. “He was a police officer. Showed me his badge.”

  “Name of Wade… Carl Wade?”

  A shake of the head. “No, sir. It wasn’t Wade. My wife wrote it down.” The owner looked from Sloane to Molia and back again, something clearly on his mind. “Listen,” he said. “We run a quiet place here.”

  “We’re not going to cause you any trouble,” Sloane said.

  “Just the same. It’s just me and my wife. We’re retired, and well, it’s nothing personal. I like you fellas, but she’d feel a whole lot better if you moved on.”

  “Can you recommend someplace?” Molia asked, resigned.

  “Down the road maybe in Dillon. You could check there. They have a couple places. I’ll refund your money.”

  “No reason to do that,” Sloane said. “How about you let us stay long enough to get things reorganized and packed and we’ll be out of your hair.”

  The man nodded. “I’ll check with the missus, but I think that’d be fine.”

  After the man had left, Sloane pulled out his cell phone. With the room sweltering, they stepped outside to a wedge of shade along the side of the building, but it offered only minimal relief. Sloane put the call on speaker when Alex answered. He’d kept her and Jenkins apprised of the situation. Jenkins had wanted to get on a plane and fly out to California, but Sloane had convinced him that, short of breaching the walls of Fresh Start, there wasn’t much Jenkins could do. They had to let the legal system play out, as frustrating as that continued to be. That was before Molia broached the subject of taking a different approach.

  “What happened with the motion?” Alex asked.

  Sloane took a few minutes to explain what had transpired. Then he asked, “Is Charlie there?”

  “No. He had to get on a plane to New Jersey yesterday afternoon. His sister called. His mother isn’t doing well.”

  “Her heart again?”

  “Looks like it. He’s going to call if he thinks we need to be there. We’ve been through this a few times now.”

  Sloane knew. “Listen, I hate to ask for a favor under the circumstances.”

  “Anything.”

  “Wonder if you can do a couple of background checks for me.”

  “I can try. Who are you interested in?”

  A judge for starters. Name’s Earl Boykin, middle initial ‘J.’”

  “What am I looking for?”

  That was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question wasn’t it? Sloane didn’t really know. “Not sure at this point,” he said.

  Molia chimed in. “Anything that looks interesting. Check out his finances, real estate holdings, history on the bench. His legal career.” He thought for a moment. “See if you can find any connection to a guy named Victor Dillon.” He spelled the last name.

  “Who’s Dillon?” Alex asked.

  “A guy with a lot of money,” Molia said. “He owns Fresh Start.”

  “What do you mean owns it?” Alex asked.

  “Fresh Start is privately owned through a limited liability company,” Sloane said.

  “You can do that?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Well that’s grounds for interest right there, isn’t it?” she said.

  Sloane watched a lizard lift its head from a rock. Before it did, Sloane hadn’t seen it sunning itself. “Look up the other members of the LLC and see if any of them have any connection to Boykin. Oh, and Dillon apparently owns the Gold Rush Brewery near Winchester.”

  “Don’t forget Wade,” Molia reminded him.

  “And see what you can find out about a guy named Carl Wade. He’s a Truluck police officer.”

  “And a royal pain in the ass,” Molia said, leaning toward the phone.

  “Do you have access to a computer?” Alex asked.

  “I will,” Sloane said. “We’re on the move again. I’ll call and give you the name of the motel and a number when we touch down.”

  Sloane changed into a pair of shorts with multiple pockets and a lightweight blue cotton shirt. He exchanged the dress shoes for a pair of Denali sandals. As he and Molia repacked the car he could feel the heat of the asphalt seeping through the soles and burning the back of his neck. His cell phone buzzed. Lisa Lynch.

  “Tell me the court of appeals granted the motion sua sponte.”

  “Don’t I wish,” Lynch said. “We’ll get it filed Monday.”

  “How do you feel about it so far?”

  “We have solid grounds. The lack of a transcribed record could have put us over the top.”

  “So what’s the bad news?” Sloane could hear it in Lynch’s voice.

  “My assistant called the clerk at the court of appeals. Even if we file Monday we can’t get it heard for two weeks.”

  “What about moving to expedite the hearing?”

  “That is expedited.”

  Sloane sighed.

  “If anything changes, I’ll let you know. But, hey listen, I have a question for you. You didn’t write any notes on the copy of the motion to have the record of yesterday’s proceedings transcribed, did you?”

  “Notes? What kind of notes?”

  “There’s a handwritten note scribbled on our file copy, just to the right of your signature.”

  “What does it say?”

  “Best I can make out it says ‘Knock - Me - Stiff. Eight, colon, zero-zero.’”

  “Eight o’clock?” Sloane asked.

  “Looks like it,” she said.

  “What’s ‘knock me stiff’ mean?”

  “That’s what I was wondering.”

  “No idea,” Sloane said.

  “Okay. Just checking. I’ll get you a copy of the appeal first thing.”

  Sloane disconnected.

  “Who was that?” Molia asked as Sloane stepped back into the room to finish packing.

  “Lisa. She says it’s going to take two weeks for the appeal, even expedited.”

  “Well, we figured that, didn’t we?”

  Sloane started to gather more things, stopped, pulled out his iPhone and opened the browser.

  “What are you doing?” Molia asked.
>
  Sloane hit a search engine, typed in the three words, and waited for the Internet. “Just checking on something else Lisa said.”

  Molia walked over as Sloane typed in the words: Knock-Me-Stiff.

  “What is that?”

  Sloane got just over seven thousand hits. “I don’t know. Lynch says it was scribbled on one of our pleadings by my signature. She thought I wrote it.” Sloane typed in Winchester.

  “Bingo,” Molia said, reading an entry halfway down the first page. “Knock-Me-Stiff Saloon. Gold Creek, California.”

  Sloane copied the address and pasted it into a different search engine. “It’s twenty-two miles down Highway 88.”

  “What else did the note say?” Molia asked.

  “Eight o’clock.”

  “As in tonight?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked to Molia.

  Molia shrugged. “It’s not like we have any other dinner plans.”

  FRESH START YOUTH TRAINING FACILITY

  SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS

  It hadn’t been much, just two pieces of bacon between dry toast, but Jake wolfed the food down in between classes. It wasn’t easy with his lips still chapped and cracked. He had to chew until he’d worked up enough saliva so that he could swallow, and after the last bite his jaw hurt, but he didn’t care. He hurried off to a class on math, which was basic algebra.

  Situated near a dirt parking lot with boulders as parking curbs and separated by the chain-link and barbed wire fence, the school building allowed the teachers and other personnel a separate door into and out of the facility. The residents filed into the classrooms through one long corridor, and the teachers entered and exited the classrooms from doors on the opposite side of the room. From what Jake could tell the teachers and counselors spent no time with the inmates other than in class and had no access to the rest of the facilities.

  In class the inmates were grouped by age, and the teachers provided a daily lesson, with each student working at his own pace in workbooks. Jack had learned the algebra equations his freshman year. His other classes—American history, language arts, science, and a class on reading comprehension—were conducted in the same manner. After school, from three thirty to four fifteen, they had study hall. Since Jake had finished his work in class he had nothing to do, but heeding Bee Dee’s advice, he kept his head down. Atkins seemed ever present, like a shark waiting for that drop of blood to hit the water.

  After study hall the guards released them into the yard for fifty minutes of structured recreation time, in this instance, dodgeball. What followed recreation time was something called Life Skills Group, fifty minutes of sitting in a circle discussing social settings and how they might properly react to unexpected situations. Jake tried to appear interested though he was bored to tears and starving. When the counselor, a man with a head of curly hair and a bushy beard, asked for a volunteer to discuss something he would like to change about himself no one raised a hand. Jake wasn’t about to raise his either until he saw Atkins step quietly into the back of the room.

  “I guess if I had to change something,” Jake started, but the counselor stopped him and asked that an eight-inch carved stick be passed around the circle.

  “That’s the talking stick, Jake. If you wish to share with the group you raise your hand. Only the person with the stick can talk.”

  “Sorry,” Jake said. “I didn’t know.”

  “That’s okay. What is it you wanted to share?”

  “Well, you asked what we would want to change about ourselves, and I was thinking that… I don’t know, maybe I’d like to not be so angry all the time.”

  The man leaned forward, notepad in his lap. “What makes you angry, Jake?”

  “Everything.”

  “And what happens when you get angry?”

  “I usually get in trouble.”

  The others laughed.

  The counselor asked, “Can you be more specific? What types of conduct do you engage in when you get angry?”

  “Well, I drink too much and I smoke pot. And I don’t like people telling me what to do. So I guess I also say shit—I mean, stuff—that I shouldn’t.”

  “And do you see how this behavior can be self-destructive?”

  “I usually end up in trouble.”

  “And does it make you feel any less angry?”

  “No, usually I’m angrier.”

  “So can you see how getting angry is counterproductive?”

  “I guess so.”

  “What is it that makes you angry?”

  “People don’t listen to me. They assume they know what’s best for me, but they never ask me. Like when my father sent me to California to live with my other father after my moth—” Jake caught himself.

  “What about your mother, Jake?”

  “After my mother and father got divorced.”

  “And that made you angry that no one asked you where you wanted to live?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you think of some behavior that might be more productive than taking drugs or alcohol?”

  “Maybe asking them to ask me what I want instead of just assuming they know what I want. Maybe talking to someone about it.”

  The counselor nodded. “It’s a good start, Jake. Something concrete we can work on.” He directed his gaze to the others. “Who else can think of self-destructive behavior we engage in when we get angry?”

  Another kid raised his hand and Jake passed the stick. “I fucking swear a lot,” the kid said, which caused everyone, including the counselor, to laugh.

  Out of the corner of his eye Jake watched Atkins slip silently from the room.

  After Life Skills they had ten minutes to clean up before dinner. On the walk to the mess hall Jake noticed a dramatic change in the weather. The temperature, which had hovered near a hundred, had dropped significantly, and a strong wind rustled branches and caused the tops of the pines to sway. Ominous dark clouds rolled over the mountaintops, banding together and eliminating more and more of the blue sky.

  “Thunderheads,” Bee Dee said, walking beside Jake. “We get them when it gets really hot down in the valley. One minute it’s baking and the next it’s pouring rain.”

  Inside the cafeteria, Jake and Bee Dee got in line. With each step Jake expected Atkins to appear and find some excuse to keep him from eating, but he reached the serving station without interruption. He slid his tray along the metal bars and the servers handed him a bowl of salad with a single red cherry tomato and a sprinkling of carrot shavings, and slopped macaroni and cheese on his plate. At the end of the line he chose a banana, a carton of milk, and a square of white cake with chocolate frosting.

  As much as he wanted to rush to the first available seat, Jake took a moment to make note of Big Baby and T-Mac sitting together at one of the tables. He gave their table a wide berth and picked a table on the other side of the room, sitting across from Bee Dee. When he set down his tray the conversation quieted. The others at the table gave him furtive glances, apparently still upset over the morning breakfast they didn’t get to eat.

  “This is Jake,” Bee Dee said. “He’s cool.”

  It seemed to break some invisible seal. The others introduced themselves in between bites of food and bits of conversation. Jake’s focus, however, was drawn to the food on his tray, his first real meal in forty-eight hours.

  “They do that,” a boy named Jose said with a Spanish accent. “They keep you awake and don’t let you eat. It fucks with your mind.”

  Jake grunted his responses, eating greedily, using a spoon instead of a fork to scoop up the starchy noodles swimming in melted orange cheese. Try as he might, he could not force himself to slow down. When another kid joined their table complaining about macaroni and cheese, Jake offered to trade his banana and ate a second helping. His stomach cramped, but the only time he stopped eating was when a pulse of blue light lit up the room and a clap of thunder shook the windows and rattled the silverware.

  “Shit
,” Jose said.

  “It’s just a storm.” Jake said.

  “The rain messes up the yard; now we’ll have to stay in.”

  Jake didn’t care. He shoved the last bit of cake into his mouth and washed it down with his milk. The yard sparked with another blue flash, and a second blast of thunder sounded, this one so loud he thought it might rip the metal roof off the building. Everyone looked to the windows at the first sounds of rain splattering the glass. When Jake returned his attention to the table he noticed everyone had grown silent.

  “What, haven’t you guys been in a thunderstorm before?”

  Bee Dee’s eyes shifted. Jake glanced to his right and saw the khaki uniform.

  “You get yourself a good meal, Inmate Stand-up?” Atkins stood with hands clasped behind his back, a crooked grin hanging from the corner of his mouth.

  The bench, attached to the table, did not slide back, preventing Jake from standing. “Yes, sir, Officer Atkins.”

  “Well that’s good, because you’re going to need your strength.”

  “Sir?”

  “You will meet me on the obstacle course in precisely three minutes.”

  “My schedule says I have group therapy at seven, sir.”

  Atkins placed his palms flat on the table, bending down so that his face was inches from Jake’s. “Schedules are subject to change without notice, Inmate Stand-up. Yours changed after I received an interesting bit of personal information about you today.”

  Jake’s eyes shifted. “Interesting, sir?”

  “It seems, Inmate Stand-up, that you have not one, but two fathers.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jake said feeling flush.

  “Two fathers,” Atkins said.

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “But no mother.”

  THIRTEEN

  KNOCK-ME-STIFF SALOON

  GOLD CREEK, CALIFORNIA

  Tom Molia circled the block a third time, alternately glancing in the rearview and side mirrors. Sloane focused on the cars parked along the sidewalk and the few tourists hurrying to get out of the unexpected rain splattering the boardwalk along Gold Creek’s Main Street. As far as Sloane could determine, they hadn’t been followed, and the way Molia had driven from Tristan they would have known if they had been. Molia set out in the opposite direction for a good three minutes then made an unexpected U-turn on a straight patch of road. He made a few other random turns before reaching Gold Creek then drove through the town twice.