The Conviction

by Robert Dugoni

  Sloane’s immediate concern was much more focused. “What will happen to all the boys?”

  “We’re notifying family members. That will also take some time to process. The Justice Department has a team of attorneys in place to go through the files and sort out what’s what. Those wrongly accused and convicted will be set free and their records expunged, but it won’t happen overnight. They’ll remain here tonight, under the custody of federal correctional officers.”

  “That just leaves Judge Earl,” Sloane said.

  Wicks grimaced. “I’m afraid you’re not going to like this answer too much. The Justice Department will be talking to Judge Earl’s lawyers about cutting a deal.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Judge Earl set up most of Dillon’s enterprise, all the limited liability companies, the accounts offshore, everything. It started when he was in private practice, before he was elected to the bench. That’s how he got his fingernails into Dillon in the first place. He really does have a brilliant legal mind. He created a labyrinth of companies we might never untangle without his cooperation.”

  “He knows where the bodies are,” Molia said, sounding disgusted and discouraged.

  “He knows where the money is,” Wicks said. “Without him Justice doesn’t think it can tie everything together. Oh, they’ll get Dillon just fine, but they want the entire operation, and they want the money. There’s too much at stake to ignore.”

  “So he’s going to walk?” Sloan asked.

  “We’ve had to make tough calls throughout this investigation,” Wicks said. “Watching kids be sentenced to a place like this, knowing the conditions. It made me sick to my stomach to be a part of it. But Victor Dillon has always been the target. He’s always been the goal. We take him down and we dismantle a huge criminal enterprise. Justice thinks Boykin can get us there.”

  Sloane seethed. “He didn’t just betray all these kids, Agent Wicks; he betrayed the entire justice system. Every time he put on that black robe he swore to uphold the legal system. Then he abused it. He abused these kids, and he took advantage of their families. He abused his power and he abused their trust, and he did it for his own financial gain.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir, David. I empathize. I really do. But that decision is being made by people a whole lot higher up the food chain than me. Is it fair? Hell no. Frustrating? You bet. Is there anything I can do about it?” He shrugged.

  Another man in a blue windbreaker approached. “Agent Wicks? I have a call for you.”

  Wicks excused himself.

  “Unbelievable,” Sloane said.

  “Sometimes law enforcement sucks,” Molia said. “But he did his job. You can’t blame him. But yeah, we’re going to be spitting out a very bitter taste for a very long time.”

  Molia’s phone rang. He almost didn’t answer it. “Hello?”

  It was Lisa Lynch. She said she had been unable to reach Sloane.

  “That’s because his phone is at the bottom of a river,” Molia said. “Hang on. I’ll let him explain.”

  Molia handed the phone to Sloane. He told her he’d fill her in on everything later but that they were at Fresh Start and had Jake and T.J. “It’s a long story,” he said.

  “And I thought I had good news.” Lynch said. “The court of appeals granted our motion for a new trial.” Sloane didn’t immediately respond. He turned and found Wicks standing in the fading light, the bruise-colored sky at his back. “David?” Lynch said.

  “Sorry, Lisa. There’s a lot going on at the moment. Let me call you back.” He hung up and walked across the yard. Jake sat with the other inmates. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  Jake slid off the table, and they walked off to the side. Sloane explained to him the situation with Judge Boykin.

  “That’s not right,” Jake said, becoming agitated. “He sent us here. He sent us all here.”

  “I know,” Sloane said. “And I think I might be able to do something about it, but I can’t do it alone. Even if I can get all of these people around here to buy my idea, I’m going to need your help. It’s a lot to ask, Jake, and I want you to think about it before you answer.”

  Sloane explained what he had in mind. When he’d finished, Jake broke out in a smile. “I don’t have to think about it. Hell, yeah, I’ll do it,” he said.

  Sloane left him to talk to Wicks, arriving as Wicks concluded his call. “Has Justice spoken with Boykin’s attorney?”

  “What?” Wicks asked.

  “Has any deal been struck with Judge Earl?”

  Wicks shook his head. “Doubtful anything’s happened yet; we’re in the preliminary stages. I just thought I’d give you a heads-up—”

  “Can you get me a meeting with the person at Justice making that decision?”

  Wicks didn’t immediately answer. Then he said, “I suppose so. Mind telling me why?”

  “What if I told you I had someone who could unravel Victor Dillon’s operation for Justice, that she could find all the limited liability companies, all the accounts, all the money?”

  “I’d say I’m listening.” Wicks smiled. “But I’m also getting a sense you’d like something in return.”

  “I want Boykin.”

  “Mind sharing how you’re going to do that?”

  “I need to talk with whoever it is at Justice who’s going to be making the deal with Boykin. They need to agree not to put him on administrative leave or remove him from the bench.”

  “Two minutes ago you were fuming that Boykin wasn’t going to jail; now you want to keep him on the bench?”

  “What’s a guy like Boykin value more than anything?”

  “That’s easy. Being a judge. It’s his legacy—his entire family’s legacy in Winchester County.”

  “Exactly. So you know he’s going to at least try to negotiate a deal in which he gets to stay on the bench.”

  “That ain’t going to fly. Once this story breaks, the public outrage will compel that he be removed.”

  Sloane put up a hand. “Not if Justice pitches to Boykin that in exchange for his cooperation they’ll protect his reputation, paint him in the press and the media as having been a part of the undercover operation, that he was working to take down Victor Dillon’s criminal enterprise and clean up Winchester County.”

  “Why the hell would they ever do that?”

  Sloane smiled. “Those kids went into Boykin’s courtroom thinking they’d receive justice and found injustice. Why not do to Boykin the same thing he did to those kids.”

  “Like I said, I’m listening.”

  “First things first, Justice needs to represent that in exchange for Boykin’s cooperation he gets to remain on the bench. Pike, too. He keeps his job.”

  “Pike? Why Pike?”

  “Because I want him to think he dodged a bullet also.” Sloane looked across the yard to where Jake and T.J. sat. Even in the dark Sloane could see Jake continuing to smile. “I think it only fitting that Judge Earl get to preside over one last trial right here in Winchester County. And I guarantee you it will be remembered long after he leaves the bench.”

  Two dozen boys circled Jake and Bee Dee, eyes wide with curiosity and awe. They asked questions with a tone of reverence, wanting to know what had happened and what was to happen, hanging on each and every word. T.J. stood to the side, at the back of the group, in the shadows that continued to steal the last remnants of light.

  “We all knew it was you,” Rafe said to Jake. “We knew it was you who kicked Big Baby’s ass.”

  “How’d you do it, man?” Jose asked.

  The others chimed in. “Yeah, tell us how you did it?”

  Jake started to answer, stopped, and looked to where T.J. stood. What Jake had got, he deserved. He’d been a major shit. T.J. was guilty of nothing more than trying to befriend him, and he had paid dearly for it. “It wasn’t me,” he said. “It was T.J.”

  “T.J.?” the boys said in near unison.

  T.J.’s eyes widene
d. Heads turned in disbelief.

  “T.J. took Big Baby down, twice,” Jake said. “He saved me in the bathroom, knocked Big Baby out, and he saved me in that isolation cell. T.J. did it. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be dead.”

  T.J. stared at him, eyes searching, wondering what was the catch. He was about to deflect the accolade, but Jake nodded, a silent acknowledgment that there had only been the two of them present in the bathhouse and nobody but Bee Dee knew what had happened in the isolation cell. The truth was whatever they chose to make it. “Go ahead,” he said. “You deserve to tell it.”

  As the crowd drifted to T.J., Jake slipped off the table and walked off, to an empty spot in the yard, alternately watching the commotion continuing to unfold and staring up at a pale moon and the first faint stars in a sky still awash with the colors of the passing storm. Physically he hurt all over, his body battered and bruised. He’d lost weight, how much he couldn’t be certain, and he was exhausted and hungry. He’d been running on adrenaline, and now, with the end of their ordeal actually in sight, his body was giving in to the fatigue. He thought of his mother up there among the stars. She’d raised him Catholic, and said his faith was a gift but also that he wouldn’t realize it until he got older. She told him to always trust in God, to believe that everything happened for a reason. She said we didn’t know God’s ways but we had to have faith that everything was part of his plan. Jake couldn’t fully accept that her death was part of any plan, but he was starting to at least understand what she had meant. Maybe he’d never get the answer he sought most—why she had to die at so young an age. Maybe he just had to accept that was the way it was, and believe that he’d somehow be okay. He realized that his inability to accept her death had led to his frustration and his frustration had become the anger that had poisoned him. Anger, as much as anything, was the reason he had ended up in Fresh Start.

  He heard the sound of approaching footsteps.

  “You all right?” Bee Dee asked.

  Jake nodded.

  Neuzil motioned to where T.J. had become the center of attention. “That was a nice thing you did.”

  Jake shook his head. “I got a lot to make up for. What’s going to happen to everyone? Do you know?”

  “All the cases will get reviewed. They have an organization in place to go through every one of the files. They’ll shut this place down.”

  “Too bad,” Jake said.

  Neuzil frowned, confused. “How do you figure?”

  Jake shrugged. For the first time since his arrival he saw the beauty of the mountains. “You take away the guards, and this is a beautiful place. They should turn it into a camp or something.”

  Neuzil nodded. “Maybe they’ll do that.” He stuck out his hand, and Jake shook it. “You got the rest of your life ahead of you, Jake. Don’t waste it on drugs and alcohol. I’ve seen too much of that in my life, too many good kids dying and ending up in places like this, or worse. It takes a lifetime to build a life. It only takes a second to ruin it. Do something great with your life. You have it in you.” Neuzil walked in the direction of the bevy of SUVs and unmarked police vehicles.

  “Hey, Daniel.”

  Neuzil turned.

  “You never told me what Bee Dee stands for.”

  Neuzil smiled. “What, you don’t believe it stands for ‘big dick’?”

  Jake laughed.

  Neuzil walked back to him. “This is between you and me; I’ve never told anybody this story, but I think you’ll appreciate it. When I was a kid I was picked on because of my size, bullied by the bigger kids, you know, the usual childhood problems. On days when it got particularly bad, my mother would hold me and rest my head against her chest. It was the best feeling in the world. I’d sit there and she’d say, ‘Don’t you fret about it, Daniel. You have better days ahead of you.’ Eventually she shortened it. She’d just say ‘better days.’”

  “Sounds like my mom,” Jake said. “She used to say ‘everything happens for a reason,’ that I had to have faith.”

  “My mom died when I was thirteen,” Neuzil said. “They diagnosed her with a rare blood cancer, and she died fifty-four days later. The night before she died I went into her room to kiss her good night and she opened her eyes and looked at me. She was too weak to sit up by then or to talk much, but I heard her. It was a whisper, something between just the two of us. She said, ‘Better days.’” He looked off for a moment before looking back. “Your mother’s right. Everything does happen for a reason. If I wasn’t so small and hadn’t got picked on she might never have enrolled me in martial arts and then I would never have had the skills I needed today. If I didn’t look immature for my age, I couldn’t do what I’ve been doing, could never have been here. No one would believe I was sixteen. I’ve put away a lot of people who hurt kids with drugs. I like to believe I’ve saved a few lives doing it. I’m hoping yours is one of them.” He put a hand on Jake’s shoulder. Then he walked off.

  “Better days, Daniel,” Jake whispered. He hadn’t intended to speak the words aloud, but they carried on the still night air and-Neuzil stopped, turned.

  “Better days, Jake.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  WINCHESTER COUNTY COURTHOUSE

  WINCHESTER, CALIFORNIA

  Judge Earl Boykin took the bench looking very much like a man who believed he remained in control. “Call the next case,” he instructed the clerk sitting in the space normally reserved for his regular clerk, Melissa Valdez. Valdez could not be in the courtroom. She sat in the hall outside, along with the other witnesses for the prosecution.

  The clerk stood and did as instructed. “The People of the State of California versus Jake Andrew Carter.”

  The charges against T.J. had been dismissed. Jake had testified before the review board tasked with going through the hundreds of juvenile cases Boykin had presided over and told them he was responsible, that T.J. had been an innocent bystander who unsuccessfully tried to stop him. The board overturned T.J.’s conviction, and the arrest was expunged from his record.

  At the request of the Department of Justice, however, the board agreed to let Jake’s conviction stand so that the appeals court ruling would mandate he received a new trial. They advised Sloane that Jake had a right to have his case heard by an impartial judge, as did all those juveniles whose cases would be reheard. Sloane declined. In fact, he specifically asked that the matter remain assigned to Judge Earl Boykin. The review board, though confused by the Justice Department’s mandate that Earl Boykin remain on the bench, and by Sloane’s request that Jake’s retrial remain assigned to him, had granted the request.

  Most judges would have smelled a trap. Most would have recused themselves and put as much space between themselves and Sloane as possible. Most in Judge Boykin’s position, with his attorneys seemingly in heated discussions to negotiate an immunity agreement with the Department of Justice, would have stepped aside, acknowledged they had dodged a bullet, retired, and moved on, grateful not to be spending their glory years in a federal penitentiary. But Judge Earl was not most judges. When the Justice Department dangled the carrot that he would not only receive immunity but also remain on the bench, his family legacy intact and preserved, he could not resist the temptation, and now his ego would not allow him to walk away from what he considered a direct challenge to his authority. He had already justified his actions to himself, as unbelievable as that seemed. Men like Boykin could rationalize just about anything. In his mind he still had a score to settle with David Sloane, the attorney who does not lose, and he was not about to allow that opportunity to pass.

  The first thing Sloane did was file a motion to have Jake’s confession thrown out. Boykin took that bait as well, denying the motion and holding that the State had the right to prove in the retrial that Jake had admitted his guilt, ruling that it went to Jake’s credibility now that he had recanted his in-court confession.

  The die cast and the stage set, Sloane and Archibald Pike stood and stated their names for the record. P
ike looked nervous and drawn, dark bags beneath his eyes, gaunt through the cheeks, a man who had not slept or eaten much. Pike was not like Boykin. He likely would have preferred to have been anywhere but in court that morning, standing opposite Sloane, but his fate was dictated by others. His sickly appearance also could have been attributable to nerves. This morning Pike was not playing to an empty house and reading from a well-rehearsed script. This morning the gallery was full, every seat taken front to back with overflow spectators seated in the jury box and standing along the back wall. And there was no script. This was live theater. Anything could happen, and Sloane suspected from the buzz of the audience that they felt the same.

  Tom Molia sat in the front row behind Sloane, T.J. and Maggie beside him. T.J. had wanted to be present for Jake and Maggie said she wasn’t about to take any chances leaving the two of them alone again. Dave Bennett was in the gallery, along with Frank Carter and Tamara Rizek, the reporter who had met with Sloane and Molia at the Shanghai Ale House. The news of the arrest of Victor Dillon and of his marijuana ring had initially drawn the attention of hundreds of reporters and media outlets. They had descended on Winchester County and Truluck in a horde. Their nightly reports had been splashed all over the world news. This morning, two weeks after the bust, only half a dozen of those reporters remained, either curious or talented enough to smell something more was about to happen. They, too, sat in the gallery, along with Winchester County’s citizens.

  Boykin nodded to Pike’s side of the table. “Mr. Pike, the State may proceed.”

  Pike called the owner of the general store first, and the tall, lean man loped to the stand, raised his right hand, and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Pike ran him through the preliminaries before getting to the meat of his testimony, establishing that Jake had attempted to buy beer and cigarettes and had produced a fake ID. The man testified that he confiscated it, which led to a confrontation. When Pike sat, Sloane stood and approached.