Bad Intent

by Wendy Hornsby

  When I left to pick up Casey, the vision was clear. I left Guido hard at the mechanics of execution.

  I had Casey excused early from her last class—dance studio—so that I could take her by the house to say good-bye to Mike and still be on the freeway by three-fifteen. In the car, she pulled on Levis over her leotard, shook out her ballet bun, and brushed her hair into a long, smooth fall. With fresh makeup and a light sweater draped over her shoulders, she was ready to travel. One-inch shy of being six feet tall, she looked much older than her fourteen years.

  My first thought when we saw the South Pasadena house was, I hoped the neighbors were of a forgiving nature. There was a massive dumpster parked at the curb. All the old carpets and drapes lay in dirty heaps on the driveway. Everywhere, there were tools and building litter. And beer cans.

  The work crew was a noisy, happy collection of off-duty police friends of Mike, and his dad, Oscar. Oscar was knee-deep in a ditch in the front yard with two other men, working on water pipes and a six-pack. He stopped swearing long enough for Casey and me to get out of earshot.

  I hadn’t met most of Mike’s friends, though they all seemed to know who I was when I walked into the house. They were friendly toward me, and curious. But it was my daughter who caught their collective eye. I restrained myself from throwing her sweater over her head and rushing her back out to the car.

  Through the chaos, the beauty of the house was beginning to emerge. The hardwood floors were being sanded down to a natural honey color, and the cabbage roses were on their way out. The smell of paint-stripper was overpowering, the scum it created was a mess. But the result was going to be exceptional.

  Bowser saw us and wandered in from the backyard to say hello. He took his place beside Casey and followed us through the house.

  “What do you think, Casey?” I asked.

  “No ocean view,” she said, measuring the height of the ten-foot ceilings with her eye. “But it’s okay.” High praise from a fourteen-year-old.

  We found Mike on a scaffolding set up in the living room, wrestling with a rented wallpaper steamer. Sweat poured down his face, plastered his shirt to his chest. There was a liter bottle of Evian at his feet, but the dropcloth on the floor under him was littered with empty beer cans. When he saw us, he turned off the steamer and climbed down.

  To Casey he said, “All set?”

  “I guess,” she said, dusting off her hands. “What a mess.”

  “By the time you get back Sunday, it’ll be a showplace.” He grabbed a length of paper towels and wiped his face and arms. “Hot work.”

  I said, “We just came to say good-bye.”

  “Bye,” Mike said. Without touching her, he leaned forward to give her a chaste kiss. “Take care of yourself. You have my pager number. Need any heads ripped off, you call me.”

  “So weird,” she tsk’ed. “You two finally get a weekend alone, and this is how you spend it. Very romantic.”

  He laughed. “Ms. Wiseass, Junior. Don’t miss your plane.”

  “Is Hector still here?” I asked as Mike walked us outside. “Couple of things I want to clear with him.”

  “He’s on a beer run. What’s the problem?”

  “No problem. I used some of the photos, and this and that, from the reports he gave me. Nothing from the reports themselves shows up. On camera.”

  “If he has some objection, it’s too late to do anything about it. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So we’ll just wait until four before we panic.”

  “Good idea,” I said. I kicked through a stack of cans. “Do me a favor and give a Breathalyzer to anyone who picks up a power tool.”

  The tough guy said, “We know what we’re doing.”

  “Bye,” I said. I kissed his damp, whiskered chin.

  Casey had been smiling at us the way fond parents regard slow-learning children. “You two are so cute.”

  Mike sneered, but he was flattered, I could tell. We left him standing on the curb waving to us.

  On our way to the freeway, we drove through the first burger place we came to so Casey could refuel the carb levels and get a cold drink. All of her anxiety from the night before about going to Denver seemed to have vanished. I thought she seemed almost eager to get on the plane.

  “Have fun,” I said when I kissed her at the boarding gate. “I’ll be waiting right here Sunday night.”

  “Bye, Ma. It’ll be nice to get out of the heat for a couple of days. I’ll miss you.”

  I said, “You better.”

  She turned away and walked her ballerina walk down the ramp, with every male eye fixed on the rock-hard curves in her jeans. I felt like slapping every one of them.

  When I got back to my office, Guido had tapes running on four screens at once with the sound off. I saw Hanna Rhodes under the flowered sheet, Tyrone Harkness in Juvenile Hall, James Shabazz walking around the war zone that had been a service station, Linda Westman in the studio upstairs. Occupied with the images on-screen, Guido handed me a slip of paper.

  He said only, “She called.”

  When I read what he handed me, I do believe I felt the skies open up and the sun shine through. She was LaShonda DeBevis and she had left a phone number.

  I went to the phone and dialed. “When did she call?”

  “Right after you left.” He was grinning evilly. “I told her you’d be back by five.”

  I got no answer, and no machine. I said, “Damn.” Guido began to chuckle.

  “What is it?” I demanded.

  “She just went into the can. I had her come straight over.” LaShonda DeBevis, in the flesh, walked in from the bathroom.

  “Miss MacGowen?” she said. “I understand you want to speak with me.”

  The LaShonda in my mind was a scared little ten-year-old girl. Before me I saw a very grown-up, sophisticated-looking young woman. She was about my height, very slender, with cafe-au-lait skin and lightened, straightened hair.

  “You were difficult to track down,” I said, offering my hand, holding on to hers when I caught it. “You seemed to have disappeared into the library system.”

  “I guess maybe I did.” She had a slight southern accent, but had lost the ghetto-speak that appeared in her police interviews. “From out of nowhere, I got a transfer Friday. Before I went to my new assignment, I was notified I had been transferred again. With all the budget cuts going on, I didn’t question this circumstance very closely because I was just happy that I still had a job. But when the third transfer came, I knew something was wrong. No one had any answers for me. It just seemed that some computer wanted me moved around. The area supervisor gave up trying to figure it all out and sent me to work at the county media center in Downey until he could get to the source of the confusion. So, that’s where I’ve been, staying with an aunt in Downey, going to work every day.”

  I led her over to the sofa. “I’m glad we finally connected. We have a lot to talk about.”

  The subject matter was painful for LaShonda. I could see remembered grief and terror in her expressions as she told me what she saw the night Wyatt Johnson was murdered. She seemed eager to help us, as if, I thought, watching that nightmare night played out to its end might make it all finally go away.

  Her memory of the night of the shooting was clear. Of course, she had been over those events many times. She gave us not only her perspective on the shooting, but also had a few things to say about other people we had interviewed, Etta and Shabazz among them.

  LaShonda was very bright, and eager to be useful any way she could. We were short on time, and here was another set of hands and eyes. Guido put her to work.

  At six, it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard from Mike. There were several possibilities: he hadn’t found a television, the film had been dumped from the rundown again, he saw it but it was no big deal, or, he saw it and he was so angry he wouldn’t speak to me.

  As a check, I turned on the news. The lead story was about the restive crowd of dem
onstrators outside City Hall demanding the immediate release of Charles Conklin. A smaller, angrier group had gathered at the corner of Normandie and Florence where the riots had begun a couple of years ago. There had been some bottle-throwing, someone had set a fire in the intersection before a phalanx of police in riot gear swept everyone away.

  We were the follow-up story. The anchor was a handsome, well-known local. He gave the camera Look Number Four from the anchorman’s handbook, Serious Concern, as he introduced my film.

  He read from the teleprompter, “At a press conference Monday, District Attorney Baron Marovich leveled charges against the police, alleging that undue pressure had been placed upon witnesses to a cold-blooded shooting of a police officer fifteen years ago, coercing those witnesses to wrongfully identify Charles Pinkerton Conklin as the killer.

  “According to the district attorney, Charles Conklin should not have been sent to prison fourteen years ago. The case of Charles Conklin came to symbolize for our city, and for all of America, flaws in a justice system’s guarantee of equal protection to all. Again, in the spotlight, came disturbing evidence of police excess.

  “While the community expressed its outrage over this matter, a second side of the case has come to light.

  “Renowned filmmaker Maggie MacGowen, while working on a documentary for this station, came across information that not only casts doubt upon the district attorney’s version of the case, but also raises questions as to his motives in supporting Conklin’s claims.

  “Here, in a network exclusive, we offer Miss MacGowen’s findings. We will let you, our viewing audience, decide.”

  “Fuck,” I said. “I didn’t want to hear my name.”

  Guido shushed me as my film faded in.

  Ralph Faust owed me for his overuse of the Etta Harkness tape. I had taken repayment by lifting a healthy chunk from the SNN show he did with Baron Marovich, Jennifer Miller, and Leroy Burgess. I let Ralph Faust introduce the major players. On the screen, the four of them are sitting in a tight half-circle. Once their names and credentials had been established, I froze the frame, reduced it, and moved it up to the top right quadrant of the screen, a miniature like a postage stamp in the corner. Marovich alone, just his face, stayed behind to fill the remaining three-quarters of the screen.

  Marovich is seen talking, but the voice heard is mine: “The District Attorney is in the middle of perhaps the strongest political challenge he has faced since his first, and unsuccessful, run for public office in 1979.” Marovich is replaced by a full-face shot of George Schwartz.

  I continue: “George Schwartz has been an investigator with the district attorney’s office for twelve years. According to Schwartz, he was asked by the district attorney to tail one of the original detectives assigned to the Conklin case. Again, according to Schwartz, the surveillance was ordered after the detective attempted to make telephone contact with his former partner on the case. Mr. Schwartz rear-ended the detective’s private automobile, and angrily confronted him.”

  The still shots I had taken of George Schwartz in South Pasadena begin to move through their sequence: Schwartz turning, his face ugly and contorted as he runs at Mike, assaults Mike from the rear. I stopped before Mike stepped aside and let Schwartz fall. I had also cropped the handcuffs until the last frame, when Schwartz was being put into a South Pasadena police car. His Toyota’s dented front bumper is clear in the foreground. In sum, it is a wonderfully damning three seconds.

  Fade to Jennifer Miller taking her turn in center screen, my voice: “The defense attorney for Charles Conklin works for a major Los Angeles law firm, the same law firm that employed Baron Marovich before his election to public office.”

  The foursome in the top corner begins to move, Leroy Burgess begins to speak, but the larger part of the screen is still Jennifer Miller. Burgess says, in his resonant baritone: “Mr. Marovich listened to us, understood the implications of our findings right away. He has such confidence that the original investigation was tainted that he persuaded one of the city’s big-dollar law firms to represent Charles Conklin on a pro bono basis. Without charging a fee, Jennifer Miller will lead the defense.”

  The foursome freezes. Split the screen again, Jennifer moves left, my voiceover as Jerry Kelsey fills screen right. “Retired Detective Jerry Kelsey has been accused by the district attorney of coercing the young witnesses to lie in order to gain a conviction of Conklin.” Pull back, spread the screen so that the original full photograph is seen. Clearly Jerry Kelsey, framed in his trailer window, is looking at Jennifer Miller standing in his front yard.

  “When this reporter tried to speak with Detective Kelsey at his home, attorney for the defense Miller arrived. She was identified as the ‘advisor’ for Detective Kelsey. Charges of gross ethics violation have been filed against Miller. To this date, no one outside the district attorney’s circle has successfully questioned Detective Kelsey.

  “There were two witnesses to the killing,” I say. Wyatt Johnson’s bloody body in black and white replaces Kelsey and Miller. “In 1979 LaShonda DeBevis was ten years old when she came upon this scene. Hanna Rhodes was eleven. According to the district attorney, both witnesses have recently recanted their original testimony and signed new affidavits, denying that they identified Charles Conklin as the man they saw at the crime scene. The affidavits are unavailable. And so are the witnesses.

  “Since Friday, no one, neither co-workers nor close friends, has heard from LaShonda DeBevis.

  “Hanna Rhodes, the second witness.” Juxtaposed next to Johnson’s corpse, Hanna’s shrouded body, her own stream of blood blending with his in the middle of the screen. “Monday night, Hanna Rhodes was gunned down just blocks from the service station where this case began fifteen years ago. Since her release from prison Friday, where she was alleged to have retracted her identification of Conklin, Rhodes had been hiding out in a Hickory Street rock house in Southeast Los Angeles. She told friends someone was after her.

  “Charles Conklin, the center of this controversy, has remained silent to this point. Who is he?” Bring up Charles Conklin’s booking photographs, three of them, each clearly labeled, from three different police departments: Los Angeles, Compton, the county sheriff. His rap sheet fades through the photographs. Slow scan down the rap sheet, slow enough to read rape, crime against child, burglary, pandering, murder.

  After the gray and white of the computer printout, a flash of color that is James Shabazz. I am only visible as a blue sleeve beside him. My voiceover: “James Shabazz was a sometime foster father to Charles Conklin.”

  On the tape, I asked him, “You saw something redeemable in Charles?”

  “Charles?” Shabazz was thoughtful here, appearing careful before he spoke. For reasons of time, I edited out a few seconds of his answer. “Your question, did I see something worth redeeming in him? All of Allah’s children can find redemption. But a boy who would put a bullet in the back of a man’s head to steal his car for an hour’s ride, who would take his own girl child into his carnal bed, a boy like that was beyond my power to help.”

  Fade James. The foursome in the top corner again comes to life. Leroy Burgess takes his turn center screen. He is leaving the network studio with a garment bag over his shoulder and his empty toupee head held in front of him like a torch. He’s smiling self-consciously for the camera, hurrying, head down as if he’s been caught doing something naughty. I ask in voiceover, “Why has Charles Conklin’s case suddenly appeared in the media?”

  As Burgess in the center of the screen begins to jog, wearing his clerical collar, Burgess up in the comer speaks. “Let me clear up one misconception here. I’m not a priest or an ordained minister of any kind. I never said I was. Sure, I wear a clerical collar. That collar opens a lot of doors to me that wouldn’t normally open for a private eye.”

  He opens the door of his rental Cadillac and gets in. His voice says, “I’m not a flim-flam man. Leroy Burgess is not getting rich off the misfortune of others. My organizati
on, Pastoral Crusade, is completely nonprofit.”

  As Burgess drives away, sunlight glints off the shiny Cadillac. Fade to black.

  It takes a while to describe action that in fact occupied exactly, and only, sixty seconds.

  LaShonda applauded.

  I stood up and bowed. “Okay, LaShonda, it’s your turn. You ready to do an interview for me?”

  “All right.” She ducked her head shyly. “What are you going to ask?”

  “First, did you recant your identification of Charles Conklin?”

  She shook her head. “All I did was, I said I never actually saw him pull the trigger. But that’s what I said in court all those years ago. I heard the shots. I saw Pinkie run out of the restroom. I saw the dead man’s feet sticking out of the rest-room and his blood running into the driveway. After that, all I saw was nothing until I got to James’s house.”

  I said, “You didn’t see anyone else?”

  “Only Hanna.”

  “Were you bribed by the police?”

  “I was very young,” she said. “As I remember, the officer told my mother there was a reward for catching the man who killed the other officer. He said if my testimony helped convict Pinkie, I might get enough from the reward to buy a new bike. I don’t know if that’s offering a bribe or not.”

  “Who made the offer?” I asked.

  “The tall one.”

  I looked at Guido. “Mike?”

  Guido stood up and stretched. “Better record her. Want me to see if there’s studio time available?”

  I said, “No. Let’s keep this just us.”

  While Guido fussed with lights and LaShonda checked her makeup, I paged Mike.

  I went over to a locked cupboard, took out a handycam, put in a fresh tape. Then, with the camera running, I asked, “What did you see on the night of November 6, 1979?”

  Chapter 23

  At seven, I still hadn’t heard from Mike. I reached Michael just as he was leaving the house to pick up his date.