The Conviction

by Robert Dugoni

  “I think I got your article,” she said. Sloane had called her the night before and asked her to search for any articles on Fresh Start, hoping she’d find the one Eileen Harper had mentioned. “It’s called ‘The Selling of Youth Offenders.’ I’ll forward it when your computers are set up. It’s strong on details but weak on quotes and provides no names.”

  “Any luck finding the reporter?”

  “You got a pen and paper?”

  “In hand.”

  “Then I have a name and a number.”

  SHANGHAI ALE HOUSE

  WINCHESTER COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

  Tamara Rizek rose from her chair as Sloane and Molia entered the brick ale house. Tall and athletic with a black ponytail, she waved them over to join her at a table far from the picture windows in the back near floor-to-ceiling glass enclosing stainless steel beer vats that prevented anyone from sitting close.

  Sloane greeted Rizek over the guitar riffs of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” and introduced Molia. “You indicated you might not have much time?”

  Rizek had hesitated at Sloane’s invitation when they spoke by phone, though not because she was reluctant to talk. She had a newborn son, three months, along with a three-year-old daughter. “Double trouble” she had called them on the phone. Sloane had offered to meet at her house, but that just made her laugh.

  “I take it you don’t have a toddler,” she’d said. She told Sloane she’d make arrangements with her mother-in-law to help out and would call Sloane back with a time and a place to meet.

  “I’m good for a couple hours,” she said, retaking her seat.

  A waiter refilled Rizek’s coffee mug. Sloane opted for an iced tea and Molia joined Rizek with a cup of coffee. “And I’ll have a Guinness,” Rizek said.

  “A woman after my own heart,” Molia said.

  “Doctor’s orders.”

  “No kidding? Where can I find him? I’d like a prescription with a lifetime renewal.”

  “You’d have to give birth first.”

  “There’s always some small catch.”

  “I’m anemic since my son’s birth. Happened with my daughter too. Guinness is loaded with iron. Also helps with the milk production.”

  “Maybe two catches,” Molia said.

  Molia never ceased to impress Sloane with his ability to put a witness at ease. He’d seen the detective do it more than once. “Can I buy you breakfast?” Sloane asked Rizek.

  Rizek declined. “The Last Stop is better for breakfast.” She paused. “I thought there’d be fewer people in here this hour of the morning.”

  “You’re concerned?” Sloane asked.

  She shook her head. “Curious. I wrote that article two years ago and it didn’t generate much interest then.”

  “Is that when you moved to Winchester County?”

  “About six months before. My husband wanted to get out of the Bay Area after my daughter was born to get out of the traffic and congestion. He’s a lawyer and he was looking to change careers, and we both wanted to be home more for the kids than either of our jobs would have allowed living in the Bay Area. He grew up not far from here. Country living sounded like a good thing at the time.”

  “So how did the article come about?” Sloane asked.

  “I took a job part-time with the Winchester Recorder just to keep from going stir-crazy. Mostly fluff pieces, you know, the local Girl Scout troop raising money for a mission to Mexico. It was fine. I was burned-out. I’d spent ten years at the Mercury doing investigative pieces.” She pulled her ponytail tight at the back of her head. “Then the phone rings one day. Aubrey Garzinni. I won’t forget that name. She tells me she’s filing a complaint against Judge Earl Boykin, that he’s sent her son to someplace called Fresh Start without her knowledge and without any trial.”

  “At least he’s consistent,” Molia said.

  “Honestly, I thought it was bullshit, you know. You get that a lot as a reporter, people wanting to use you for their personal vendettas. But I confirmed she’d filed the complaint and told her I’d look into it. When I tried to get a copy of the hearing, the clerk wouldn’t release it. She said juvenile records are sealed. When I had Aubrey try to get a copy she got the runaround, and I got more interested.”

  “Funny how that works,” Molia said.

  “Are you a reporter?”

  “Detective.”

  She nodded. “I made an FOIA request on her behalf to get copies of Judge Earl’s sentences. It took awhile and I didn’t get names, but I got a list of the offenses and the sentences. When I compared them with other counties I found them completely out of whack, kids being sent away for minor stuff that other counties were giving home confinement, and Boykin’s sentences much longer than the average. That was all very interesting, but what really caught my attention was it seemed they were all being sent to this place Fresh Start.”

  “We know it,” Molia said.

  “So I shifted focus and I find out Fresh Start is a private detention facility, that the parents have to pay when their kids get sentenced there. Now I’m really interested. So I call up and ask if there is someone I can talk to. I tell them I want to do a feature article on the place. They put me in touch with a woman, I forget what they called her.”

  “Parent liaison,” Sloane said.

  “That’s it. But really she’s just a PR person.”

  “Felt like she was going to sell us a time-share,” Molia said.

  The waiter returned with Rizek’s Guinness and Sloane’s ice tea. Rizek sipped her beer and wiped the foam with a napkin. “I asked if I could tour the facility but she shined me on for a week or two then said the request had been denied because it could violate the privacy of the occupants. Now I’m just pissed. So I arranged to go with Aubrey when she went to visit her son. She said I was her sister.”

  “Did you get in?” Sloane asked.

  She nodded. “We got in. They dress the place up nice enough, kids playing on the basketball courts, shooting pool and playing pinball in the recreation room, but there was something that made my skin crawl, you know? The guy who runs the place calls himself ‘Captain’ something, I can’t remember his name. Freaky guy. Something not quite right, you know? Anyway, when Aubrey’s kid enters the room and sees me with his mother he pauses like he’s wondering what’s up. When Aubrey tells him I’m a reporter the blood drains from the kid’s face and he gets skittish. He tells her she has to stop whatever she’s doing. He says she’s making things worse but he won’t say how. When I try to ask a question he leaves the table.”

  Sloane looked to Molia, an unspoken thought between them.

  “I’ll tell you, I worked the police desk at the Mercury for two years, and I’d met a lot of victims of crime. I’d seen fear etched on faces before, and this kid was scared, I’m talking genuinely terrified. And that’s when I realized what was bothering me. The kids were all going through the motions, but not one was smiling.”

  FRESH START YOUTH TRAINING FACILITY

  SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS

  Getting up had been agony, putting on clean clothes he found by the side of the bunk worse. But Bee Dee had been right; the more Jake moved, the more the initial pain and stiffness lessened. His chest felt as if someone had stomped on it with a boot and he could barely bend his fingers. When he did his blistered palms burned. He forced himself to walk about the room before sitting on the edge of Bee Dee’s bed to carefully slip on socks and push his feet into his boots. He didn’t bother to tighten the laces and the boots made a shuffling sound when he walked across the concrete floor. The door to the dorm was open, but no breeze greeted Jake when he stepped out. He saw no one in the yard.

  Despite the torrential downpour the sun had already begun to bake the ground dry, leaving the imprints of the soles of boots, like molded clay dried in a kiln. The camp was eerily quiet as he made his way across the yard to the mess hall. When he pulled open the door he saw inmates seated at tables, others carrying their canary yellow and orang
e trays, and others still waiting in line to be served.

  As Jake stepped into the room, Henry looked up at him then nudged the kid sitting beside him. It had a domino effect, elbows and whispers spreading throughout the cafeteria until each pair of eyes found him, including the guards stationed around the perimeter. Having stopped in the doorway, Jake’s muscles and joints felt as if they’d refrozen, and he grimaced when he started again, the sound of his shoes sliding on the floor more pronounced. He flinched when the tray pressed against his palm, and placed it on the horizontal metal bars, adding a plate and utensils. As he made his way down the line the first server heaped what appeared to be a larger than usual stack of pancakes on his plate. The second added two slabs of ham instead of one. At the end of the line Jake added a milk and grimaced when he picked up his tray and turned in search of a table.

  He took a step and heard a knocking sound. Uncertain, he took another and heard the knock again. A third step and the knock grew louder. The guards, Atkins not among them, turned and looked at one another, an indication they too had heard but not expected the sound. Jake took another step, and when the knock again accompanied him he realized the source. Bee Dee held a spoon, and with each step Jake took he knocked the handle on the table. Henry had joined him, along with the others at his table, and the beat quickly spread, infectious, growing in both numbers and in volume.

  SHANGHAI ALE HOUSE

  WINCHESTER, CALIFORNIA

  “But you wrote the article,” Sloane said, sliding the copy Alex had sent to him that morning across the table.

  “Not the article I originally intended,” Rizek said. “When I went to Fresh Start that day I realized the story wasn’t just one boy; it was the facility, and Judge Earl’s sentences. That’s the story I wanted to write but of course he wasn’t about to comment, and the prosecutor gave me some bullshit quote about how getting tough on juvenile offenders reduces recidivism. I decided to find out for myself.”

  “Does it?” Molia asked.

  “Depends on who you talk to and what you read. Most of the studies I read said these boot camps do little to decrease the rate of recidivism and some contend graduates have higher rates than more traditional detention facilities because the juveniles don’t complete the aftercare programs once they’re out.”

  “The notion of being ‘scared straight’ wears off when the immediate threat of punishment evaporates,” Molia said.

  “Exactly. The correctional and military experts I spoke to said most juveniles lack the maturity and self-control to succeed once they leave a disciplined military environment. A boot gets out of boot camp and he or she is still in the army, still in a highly structured, rule-oriented environment with a chain of command. The kid graduating from a boot camp is sent home to the same parents that couldn’t control him in the first place. That’s what the studies say, anyway. But I think there’s a better explanation.”

  “Which is what?” Sloane asked.

  “That a confrontational model using intimidation and humiliation is counterproductive with kids, some of whom may already have severe emotional or behavioral problems.”

  “You take a kid who has spent his life committing violent crimes—robbery, rape, assault—and you’re basically just reinforcing that use of physical force,” Molia said.

  “And that using degrading tactics is appropriate to achieve your purpose.” Rizek added. “You reinforce that in a kid who’s bigger and stronger than the others, and you’ve created a potential Frankenstein.”

  FRESH START YOUTH TRAINING FACILITY

  SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS

  The guards had put an end to the utensil salute, but they couldn’t erase the smiles on the faces of the inmates, not completely anyway. Jake set his tray down across from Bee Dee, who was doing his best to conceal his own shit-eating grin. He knew he should be hungry, but he had little appetite. He sat staring at the mound of food on his plate.

  “Just start slow,” Bee Dee said.

  Jake started with the eggs, which he figured would require minimal chewing. His jaw, like the rest of his body, hurt to move. The ham was a problem but for a different reason. He couldn’t hold a knife and apply the pressure needed to cut the meat.

  “I gotcha, man.” The kid sitting next to him stabbed the two pieces, put them on his plate, and cut them up.

  “Thanks,” Jake said, realizing he didn’t know the kid’s name.

  “Rafe,” he said. “No problem.”

  The kid seated beside Bee Dee introduced himself as “Tommy” and the kid beside him was “Jose.” Jake already knew Henry. T.J. sat at the far end, but unlike the others he kept his head down, picking at his food.

  “Why is breakfast so late?” Jake’s voice was hoarse from yelling over the sound of the storm.

  “Saturday,” Bee Dee said. “Everything gets pushed back for family visits at ten. If you don’t have family, you have chores. You’re working in the horse stables with me and Henry. Afternoon we get free time.”

  Jake looked around the room.

  “I told you, he’s not here,” Bee Dee said.

  “Even an asshole like Atkins gets a weekend off from torturing us,” Rafe said.

  “Probably why he gave up last night,” Henry said. “Wanted to get home and beat his dog.”

  “Maybe the steroids wore off and he needed another shot to pump back up,” Tommy said, puffing out his chest like a bodybuilder.

  Rafe leaned forward for all to hear. “He gave up because our boy Jake beat him. That’s why.”

  “How’d you do it?” Tommy asked. “How’d you last so long?”

  Jake shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t think I had a choice.”

  That brought chuckles, though not from T.J.

  Jake ate most of his meal, though his stomach balked at times, cramping. When the bell clattered guards barked out orders and the inmates dutifully carried their plates to be cleaned, scraping the leftovers into large blue garbage cans before setting them down on the wash belt.

  “Fifteen minutes to get cleaned up before we have to be at the horse stables,” Henry said, getting up from the table. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  Jake looked to the end of the table. T.J. had picked up his tray, moving slower than the others. “You go ahead,” he said. “I’ll catch up.”

  “I got your tray.” Rafe lifted Jake’s tray. “And with Atkins gone you can bunk in our dorm. The weekend guards won’t know. Cal went home yesterday, so we got an empty bunk. They don’t bring in nobody on the weekend.”

  “Get moving,” one of the guards said, approaching their table.

  The table emptied. Jake started after T.J., about to call out his name when he overheard a conversation at another table where the inmates sat lingering.

  “I don’t know,” a kid with a horse face said. “He was there arguing about something; I think his kid’s in here. He left, but then he comes back in.”

  “And he just agreed to represent you?” another kid asked.

  Jake’s pulse quickened. He moved closer to the table.

  “Like I said, he was walking out and then he just came back. He walked up to the kid and asked him, ‘Hey kid, you want an attorney, don’t you?’ or something like that. He didn’t even know the kid’s name. He said it just like that. ‘Hey kid, you want an attorney, don’t you?’”

  “What did the kid say?”

  “At first he just stood there, like he didn’t know what to say. Then he says, ‘Are you any good?’ Man, I about peed my freaking pants. ‘Are you any good?’ And the guy, this attorney, he just says, ‘Yeah.’ So the kid says ‘okay.’”

  “And he got him off?”

  “I thought Judge Earl’s head was going to explode.”

  Jake leaned closer. “What was his name?” The group stopped talking and pulled back. “The attorney,” Jake said. “Did he tell you his name? Was it David? David Sloane?”

  The kid nodded. “Yeah, that was it. Sloane.”

  “Yo
u said he was trying to get his kid out?”

  “Him and a woman. They were asking for a new trial.”

  Jake remembered the lawyer with David in the Martinez courtroom though not her name. “The woman. Was she short with blond hair?”

  “Yeah, that’s her.”

  “What happened? What did the judge do?”

  The kid shrugged. “Fucking Boykin does what he always does. He said no. So they said they were going to appeal it.”

  They were still close. They hadn’t left. They were still trying to get him and T.J. out. Jake looked up but did not see T.J. at the table or in the line to scrape his plate. He hurried for the exit.

  Outside Jake did not see T.J. He started across the yard, figuring T.J. would go back to his dorm before going to whatever chore he’d been assigned. He was halfway there when something weird caught his eye, a mass exodus of red coveralls from the bathhouse, like ants pouring out the top of their mound. Then T-Mac stepped out from behind the block wall that shielded the entrance, casually leaning against the edge as if waiting for someone.

  Jake looked to his left and saw T.J. walking in the direction of the bathhouse with his head down. He had not seen the others fleeing. Jake was about to call out when a guard stopped in his path, blocking his view.

  “Do you have someplace you’re supposed to be, Inmate?”

  “Uh, yes, sir.”

  “And where is that?”

  “Horse stables, sir.”

  “Then I’d suggest you get moving before you’re late.”

  “I need to use the bathroom.”

  “You should have thought of that before you stood here jerking off. You’re just going to have to hold it until you get there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jake started for the path leading to the horse stables. In his peripheral vision he watched as T.J. neared the bathhouse. T-Mac did not try to stop him. He stepped out of his way, as if about to walk off. But T-Mac didn’t walk away. He walked to the side of the building. Jake could not see what T-Mac did next, but seconds later Big Baby lumbered around the corner of the building and entered. Jake’s instincts made him want to change course, but when he looked back over his shoulder the guard remained rooted in place, watching him.