The Advocate's Ex Parte (The Advocate Series Book 5)

by Teresa Burrell

  About halfway through the meal, Sabre’s cell phone rang. She stood up, walked to the coffee table where it sat, and picked it up. JP’s picture and name flashed across the screen. She hesitated, then shut the ringer off and returned to the table.

  “Answer that if you need to.”

  “No, it’s fine. It’s just work.”

  They continued their conversation over the rest of the meal, each enjoying a glass of wine. Sabre felt a little light headed. She was such a lightweight when it came to alcohol. Clint didn’t seem fazed at all from the four beers he’d consumed while cooking as well as the glass of wine he was now enjoying.

  They went out on the patio and gazed at the evening sky. Clint put his arm around Sabre, placing his hand gently on her shoulder. It felt good.

  “Your weather here is exceptional,” he said. “I bet you really enjoy the beach.”

  “I do, but I don’t get there as often as I’d like.”

  “Okay then, let’s go,” Clint suggested.

  “Now?”

  “Sure, I’ve never seen it at night.”

  She looked at him. He looked like a little kid asking to go to Disneyland. “Just let me grab a jacket. It might be a little chilly there.” As she ran up the stairs she said, “Everyone should see the beach at night.”

  When Sabre disappeared from view, Tyson Doyle Cooper checked her cell phone and retrieved JP’s phone number.

  Chapter 48

  The Durham Case

  Child: Matt Durham, Defendant

  Type: Delinquency case

  Charges: Two counts of First Degree Murder

  Victims: Hannah Rawlins & Mason Usher

  Facts: Double homicide. Two teenagers bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat.

  The Handle Bar smelled of stale beer and cigarette smoke. The odor surprised JP because it had been years since the law in California had passed prohibiting smoking in bars. The small room had eight wooden, square tables, each with three chairs; a bar with twelve stools; a jukebox; and two video game machines. Four patrons sat on the stools and six more were seated at three of the tables.

  JP walked up to the bartender just as he yelled, “Tony, put that cigarette out. You know you can’t smoke in here.”

  A man with a scruffy beard and smoke billowing around his face stood up from one of the tables and stumbled out the door.

  The bartender, a man in his late thirties, turned to JP. “We go through this every day.” He shook his head. “What can I get you?”

  JP raised his hand in a gesture that indicated he didn’t want anything to drink. “Nothing at the moment.” Then he introduced himself and showed the bartender a photo of Ralph. “Have you ever seen this guy?”

  “You bet. That’s Ralph. He’s a regular. He started coming in here about three months ago. Comes in every day about five-thirty and stays until around midnight.”

  JP showed him a photo of Matt Durham. “Has he ever been in here?”

  He sneered. ”That’s the kid who killed his classmates, isn’t it?”

  “He’s been accused of it. I work for his attorney. We’re just trying to verify a few things.”

  “He tried to come in once with Ralph a month or so ago, but I chased him right out. He had an ID, but it was obviously fake. I chewed Ralph out for bringing him in here.”

  “I don’t suppose that was the same night of the murders?”

  “No, it was weeks before that.”

  “Do you know if Ralph was here the night of the murders?”

  The bartender didn’t hesitate. “Yes, he was.”

  JP looked skeptical. “How would you remember that?”

  “Because Ralph is a top-notch gamer and that was the first night we played ‘Dishonored’ with each other. He came in at five-thirty just like always and he was here when word of the murders came on the news. That was a little after nine and they had just found the bodies. I remember they rushed the boy to the hospital, but he died on the way. The girl was already dead.”

  “Did he come in any days after that?”

  “He has been in here every night since then with the exception of the two nights he missed when he was sick.”

  “When was that?”

  “Two weeks ago.”

  “Do you remember the dates?”

  “Just a second; I can tell you exactly.” The bartender walked over to a video game and looked at something on the screen. When he returned he said, “It was Tuesday and Wednesday, the third and fourth.”

  “You can tell that by the machine?”

  “Yes. We play it every night.”

  “And what about the nights when you aren’t working?”

  “I’m here at the bar on my nights off. I recently went through a divorce and I have no life. He spread his arms wide. This is my version of Cheers. The truth is I hung out here way too much when I was married. Now I hang out here with the same people I wait on all day long. I drink with them and I play video games with them. Ralph is the only real challenger I’ve got, though. He’s good. I mean really good.”

  JP spoke to several regular patrons and they verified that the bartender was telling the truth about playing video games with Ralph every night. He left the bar convinced that Ralph was an unlikely suspect or even an accomplice in the murder of Hannah Rawlins and Mason Usher. However, Ralph was not at the bar when the hit-and-run incidents involving Judge Mitchell and Dr. Heller took place. He wished he had better news for Sabre.

  Chapter 49

  The Tran Case

  Child: Emma, age 18 mos. (F)

  Parents: Father—unknown, Mother—Kim-Ly Tran

  Issues: Neglect

  Facts: Mother left eighteen-month-old girl in locked room and went to work. Apartment complex caught on fire.

  Lan Vong, Mae Chu’s emergency contact, lived in the rear unit of a small duplex only a few miles from Mae’s condo. A weathered, wooden fence separated the duplex from the house next door. A sidewalk, approximately four feet wide, ran between the building and the fence. JP walked down the sidewalk past the first unit. The L-shaped building had a concrete slab that served as a patio for all the units. He crossed the patio, walking past a concrete table surrounded by benches with an umbrella protruding from the center. There were no plants. In fact, there was nothing but concrete. The area looked cold and uncomfortable to JP, but it was definitely low maintenance.

  He knocked on the door. An Asian woman whom JP estimated to be between sixty-five and seventy years old answered it.

  “Are you Lan Vong?” JP asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m JP Torn. We spoke earlier on the phone.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. She pointed to the table a few feet away. “We can sit here and talk.”

  They walked over and sat down. “I appreciate your seeing me, ma’am. As you know, we’re a little concerned about Mae Chu. When exactly did you see or talk to her last?”

  “A week ago yesterday. She came by and had tea with me.”

  “Did she say anything about leaving?”

  “On the contrary. She was excited about being a Court Appointed Special Advocate.”

  “So, are you concerned that she hasn’t contacted you?”

  Lan furrowed her brow and sighed. “It’s not that unusual.”

  “For her to disappear?”

  “Mae is a little different than most people her age.”

  JP shifted on the hard seat, trying to make himself more comfortable. “How’s that?”

  “She’s only twenty-eight years old, but she has been through so much. She came to this country with her parents when she was five years old, but she loved the Vietnamese culture so much that she never really became accustomed to America. I met her parents shortly after they arrived here. Her father had started a dry cleaning business and before Mae graduated from high school he had four different locations. I managed one of the stores, and I was very good friends with Mae’s mother.”

  “Was?” JP asked.

  Her b
row wrinkled and her eyes closed for just a second. She looked pained. “Yes. She died when Mae was in high school. It’s a shame, too. All she ever wanted was to return to her motherland. I think she instilled that same longing in Mae.”

  “How did her mother die?”

  “She was murdered.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Do they know who did it?”

  “No, they never found the killer. Her mother was robbed in the parking lot as she left a grocery store. Someone hit her on the head and stole her purse and her car. The police never really had any good suspects. They suspect the car was taken to Mexico because the killer dumped the body close to the border.”

  “What about her father? What happened to him?”

  “He died in a car accident when Mae was in college. The father lived conservatively and had built up a hefty investment portfolio. Mae was an only child so she inherited everything. She has a trust fund that keeps her well cared for so she doesn’t have to work. She travels quite a bit and often takes off at the last minute without telling anyone. She really has no one to tell. She has few friends and I’m the closest thing she has to family. Sometimes she tells me if she’s leaving; sometimes she doesn’t.”

  “But would she just leave after she had committed to CASA?”

  The woman looked pensive. “She might. I had a long talk with her about following through once she agreed to do this and she assured me she would.”

  “But you apparently felt the need to have the talk.”

  “I did, but I really thought she was going to stick with it. All she ever really wanted to do was help people, but after college she seldom finished anything she started. This time, though, she sought out the program, signed up, and went through the training. She was quite excited about doing it, so I must say I was a little surprised that she didn’t follow through.”

  “Did she say why she wanted to be an advocate?” JP was hoping he could get some insight into Mae’s behavior. Perhaps it would help him determine if she disappeared on her own or with some help.

  “She acted a little funny about that. She would talk about what the program did for children and how important it was, but when I tried to get her reasons for volunteering, she would go silent. One time she did say something, but it didn’t make a lot of sense.”

  “What was that?” JP stood up from the hard seat and put his foot up on the bench, leaning forward a little so he wouldn’t be looking down too much on the woman.

  “These seats are terrible, aren’t they? I usually bring out a cushion when I want to sit out here. Would you like me to get you one?”

  “No, I’m fine, but thank you. You were saying?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Mae told me, ‘I have to do this to make amends for my father.’ I thought she meant ‘to her father,’ so I said something about what a good girl she had been and she didn’t need to make any amends to her father and she corrected me.”

  “What exactly did she say?”

  “She said, ‘not to my father, for my father.’ I tried to get her to explain but she wouldn’t.”

  ***

  JP drove straight from Lan Vong’s house to the Diamond Dry Cleaners on 30th Street. He watched the store from a parking lot across the street. He took photos of three women who either went in with dirty clothes or came out with clean ones. About an hour later, Scott Le pulled up directly in front of the building, jumped out of his car, and ran inside. A few minutes later he exited the store with a broad-shouldered, Asian man in an expensive suit. The “suit” yelled at Scott Le. Although JP couldn’t hear what they said, the hand gestures the man made seemed to be telling Scott Le to leave. JP took several photos before Scott Le got in his car and drove away. The other man walked quickly to the side of the store, stepped into a black Lincoln, and left, heading in the same direction.

  JP followed them both about a mile down the road when Scott Le turned left and the Lincoln went straight. JP followed the Lincoln. He had no idea where it was going or if the man had anything to do with the Tran case, but there were suddenly too many coincidences. Kim-Ly Tran had a sister, Jade, who was living in a house that was connected to Scott Le. Scott Le was somehow connected to Diamond Dry Cleaners, and now JP had discovered that Mae Chu’s father was also in the dry cleaning business. And Mae Chu was missing. Everyone seemed to be connected, but none of it really meant anything.

  JP had two missions now: to find Mae Chu and to find Jade. He was pretty sure if he found one, he would find the other. JP followed the Lincoln to the house in La Jolla owned by David Leland. The double garage door opened. The man in the Lincoln drove his car into the garage and parked next to another black car. JP couldn’t see what make it was. The door closed behind him. JP waited a few minutes and then left.

  ***

  “Hi, Quang,” JP said when the door opened.

  Quang greeted him with more enthusiasm than usual. “Did you find her?”

  “Not yet,” JP said, “but I’m getting closer. I need you to look at another photo.” JP pulled out his phone and showed him the photo of the man in the suit at Diamond Dry Cleaners.

  “That’s him. He’s the man who took Jade and that other lady.”

  Chapter 50

  The Tran Case

  Child: Emma, age 18 mos. (F)

  Parents: Father—unknown, Mother—Kim-Ly Tran

  Issues: Neglect

  Facts: Mother left eighteen-month-old girl in locked room and went to work. Apartment complex caught on fire.

  Sabre was deep into the list that Judge Mitchell’s clerk had provided her. Since finding the connection to Isaiah Banks, she was pretty well convinced that Banks had killed the judge out of some long-held grudge for the heavy sentence he’d received as a teenager.

  She looked up from her office computer just as JP walked in. “Is Klakken investigating Banks?” Sabre asked.

  “He’s their number one suspect, but they can’t find any hard evidence to support it. They’d love to nail him for just about anything. What I don’t understand is why he waited so long to seek his revenge. Why now?”

  “Who knows? Maybe his anger was aroused when he saw the judge again on his custody case. Or maybe it’s just been building and he finally blew up. I don’t understand half of what these people do.”

  JP handed Sabre a report. “The Tran Case,” he said. “There is something terribly suspicious on that case. First of all, the CASA worker, Mae Chu, doesn’t appear to be off playing somewhere, as everybody thinks. Quang Pham, the teenage boy who rescued Kim-Ly's daughter, identified her. He said she went to the apartment where Kim-Ly lived and then she left, possibly not of her own accord with the mystery Asian man in the black car. But in addition to that, I just found out that Mae Chu’s father was in the dry cleaning business.”

  “Do you think Mae Chu is connected to David Leland and/or the Diamond Dry Cleaners?”

  “You can spray perfume on a rotten egg, but it’ll still stink.”

  “So, you don’t think it’s just a coincidence?”

  “Not likely. And I intend to find out.”

  “If Mae Chu, who just happens to be the appointed CASA worker on this case, is somehow connected to Kim-Ly, that’s an even greater coincidence.”

  “Unless it’s not.” JP told her about what he had seen at the Diamond Dry Cleaners. “After I followed the man in the suit to David Leland’s house, I went to see Quang. He identified Leland as our mystery man who drove away with Jade and Mae Chu. Then Bob went to the cleaners for me and asked for the owner with some story about a suit being damaged. The same man identified himself as David Leland.”

  Sabre shook her head. “We need to report it to the police."

  "I've already done that, but I’m not sure they’re convinced there’s been any foul play. When I have a little more information I’ll call Greg. Right now they don’t really have any evidence that a crime has been committed. They don’t think Mae Chu is missing and they don’t have anything on Jade. Quang said she referred to some
one as her ‘boss’ but she called him ‘Uncle Dave’ to his face. I’m guessing she was referring to Leland. And for all we know, he could be her uncle or guardian or someone.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  JP stood up. “I’m going to follow Leland until he leads me to something. He has shown his face a couple of times already. He’ll do it again.”

  “Be careful, JP. And please check in if you follow him somewhere so I’ll know where you are. Giving you something to do will take the boredom off the job.”

  “If it makes you happy, boss.”

  Sabre didn’t like it when he called her boss, even though he did it jokingly, and JP knew that, which made him do it more often. She gave him a sarcastic smile. “These guys could be dangerous.”

  “We’re talking about guys in the real estate and dry cleaning business. They’re not exactly Ninjas.” He winked, tipped his hat, and started out the door.

  Sabre answered her phone as she watched JP leave. “Wait, it’s the hospital,” Sabre said. She returned to her call, listened for a minute, said thank you, and hung up. “Dr. Heller is awake and talking. I can see her in about an hour.”

  Chapter 51

  A different policeman was guarding the door at Dr. Heller’s hospital room. Sabre produced her ID, he checked his list, and let her pass.

  “Hello, Rip Van Winkle,” Sabre said.

  “Hello,” she forced a smile. “They tell me you’ve been here to see me many times.”

  “I’ve always said it's hard to find a good psychologist.”

  “Thank you.” She sounded weak.

  “I won’t stay long. I just wanted to see for myself how you are doing. Welcome back.” She squeezed Dr. Heller’s hand lightly. “Have the police questioned you yet?”