A Past That Breathes

by Noel Obiora

  “And you two became close after your mother arrived?” Anthony asked.

  “No. We’re not close. But they started being nicer to me at the club. I didn’t have to stand in line to get in the club, and the guys that work there started to call me by my name.”

  “What’s the name of this club, ‘Cheers’?” Anthony asked, and Jed laughed.

  “We heard you shouting that you were not a regular, when you left to answer the phone,” Cassandra said.

  Kenneth had started his career at the public defender’s office about the same time as Tiffany. A year later, they were laid off. He started his own practice, with Tiffany lending him a hand periodically without compensation until she was rehired. Anthony, who had been at the public defender’s office before them, had since been urging Kenneth to return, too.

  “What are you going to tell the police?” Jed asked.

  “Hopefully not that it’s the place where everybody knows your name,” Anthony said. Only Jed laughed, but it brought a smile to the others’ faces, including Kenneth.

  “I will tell them the truth; I wasn’t there on Thursday night.”

  “You said that you’ve represented this guy or his club in the past?” Tiffany asked.

  “Yes, that’s the other thing. Once my mother made contact with his family, I became the go-to lawyer for the club, but try to get these guys to pay your fees and they’ll actually tell you that your attitude represents what’s wrong with the African American community today.”

  “Well, here’s an idea, tell the police you can’t talk to them because whatever they want to know could spill attorney-client privilege,” Tiffany said.

  “Or,” Cassandra quickly joined, “you don’t have to tell the police anything. Instead, you call this guy and take his case.”

  “Why?” Kenneth asked.

  “You are a criminal defense attorney, aren’t you?” Cassandra asked.

  “Who has never tried a murder case before,” Jed said. Jed was the only one among the lawyers who did not have a criminal law practice. He worked for a major law firm in downtown Los Angeles and wrote country music in his spare time.

  “Is that a new California Bar standard that I don’t know about?” Anthony asked.

  “I go through those capital case transcripts every week, and I will pick Kenneth over half the attorneys who have tried those cases,” Cassandra said.

  “That’s not quite a ringing endorsement—” Tiffany began to say.

  “I get what she’s saying,” Kenneth said, smiling over at Tiffany. “But Cassandra, these guys never pay their fees.”

  “And your other clients do?” Cassandra asked. Tiffany laughed. “Ken, do you want this case. Use it to showcase your talent, then ride it to a law firm. It could be your big break, if it’s the case I think it is,” Cassandra said.

  “You realize Cassandra is literally offering you her services by urging you to take the case,” Anthony said.

  Kenneth’s face lit up for the first time since the discussion began. “Are you?” he asked Cassandra, but she blushed and looked down at the tray, then picked up a piece of sushi and ate. “Seriously, Cassandra, are you?” Kenneth asked again, but Cassandra ignored him and continued eating.

  “Get the case first, then you can worry about Cassandra,” Mary said. At that, Cassandra smiled at Mary.

  •••

  At Paul’s house in the San Fernando Valley, the police found an automated teller machine receipt for a withdrawal at 12:04 a.m. in West Los Angeles and a pair of shoes matching prints found at Goldie’s apartment. Alvarez wanted to arrest Paul on this evidence, but Kate wanted to wait.

  “The longer he’s free, the more time he has to destroy evidence we haven’t seen yet,” Alvarez said

  “Then find something else to tie him to the case and you can pick him up.”

  “That’s fair,” Fritz said to Alvarez of Kate’s compromise when they were alone. “He has been sloppy so far, leaving the receipt at the house. There’ll be more from him.”

  3

  District Attorney

  Deputy District Attorney Amy Wilson arrived at 8:30 a.m. on Monday morning to start her new position at the head office in downtown Los Angeles, but it seemed they were not expecting her. She waited in the lobby while someone located the division secretary who should know about her new position.

  Then she waited at the secretary’s workstation and filled forms for her new identity and access cards while the secretary tracked down the office that had been assigned to her. Staff appeared rushed. Most sat behind sturdy desks, hunched over documents, or peered at computer screens with an urgency that gave the office the chaotic energy of people trying to find something amiss.

  “Yippee! I found your office,” the secretary said excitedly after about twenty-five minutes of making calls and searching her computer database.

  Two other women sharing her workspace in a four-desk enclosure laughed, and the third just shook her head. Amy was amused. The secretary was quickly on her feet and hurrying away, waving to Amy to come along. Amy thanked the other women, and they bade her good luck in her new position.

  “Sorry about this. Today is one of those Mondays when we get a ton of arrests over the weekend that must be reviewed and filed within twenty-four hours,” the secretary explained. “Then you add to that the O. J. circus.”

  “I understand,” Amy said. She had noticed the activities outside the courthouse, adjacent to the district attorney’s head office, where the O. J. trial was scheduled. Large vans with satellite dishes, broadcast company logos, and one big rig truck were in the parking lot. She had wanted to reply that she had thought the circus around the case was waning but decided it would show how little she knew about the most important trial her new office has had in decades.

  Amy was promoted from the West Covina branch office, about twenty miles east of downtown Los Angeles, but this iconic building at the corner of Temple and Broadway was completely foreign to her until she interviewed for the job. It was not quite what she imagined it would be every time she saw it in a motion picture or the news, though she was not sure how she had imagined it. She had joined the district attorney’s office out of law school as a vehicle for landing in Los Angeles but stayed after the Los Angeles riots exploded because she felt a calling to public service. Events in her life at the time also made the collegiate environment of a small branch office ideal for her.

  She had chosen a gray skirt suit with a light blue silk shirt to blend in more with her colleagues or at least not draw much attention to herself. Still all eyes turned to her, partly thanks to the division secretary being her guide. The men especially appeared to hold their attention on her long enough for her to notice or acknowledge them, before they looked away. As often as men did this to her, she never got used to it and she never liked it, unless she was looking first.

  “And here you are,” the secretary said as she walked into Amy’s new office. “These are your boxes, right?” she asked referring to five brown boxes gathered in a small pile against the wall opposite the door.

  “I suppose,” Amy said, and opened a couple of the boxes to examine their contents. “Yes, they are mine. They were packed for me and delivered over the Christmas break.” She followed the secretary’s eyes to a solitary box on the desk to the right of the door. It was a different type of box, white, with a different labeling, but nothing written on it.

  “That looks like ours, though,” the secretary said looking at the box. Amy shrugged as the secretary looked at her to confirm. “You want to check it? See if it came with these, too?” the secretary asked.

  Amy walked over to the box and opened it. The uppermost folder in the box had a note for her.

  “I think it is for me,” Amy said as she pulled out the file from the box. The secretary had approached the desk as well and could see the note clipped to the file folder
.

  “I guess I’m done here,” the secretary said as Amy occupied herself with reading the note silently. “Melissa is your section supervisor; she was the person who took you to meet Gil after your last interview,” the secretary said, referring to the Los Angeles District Attorney Gil Garcetti. “She said to tell you she’ll be coming around to take you to lunch, if you haven’t already made plans.”

  Amy nodded, then quickly added, “I haven’t made any plans.”

  “Good, if you need anything, you know where to find me,” the secretary said and started to leave.

  “Wait, please,” Amy called out to her, and she stopped. “This note is signed Kate, with no last name. But you just said Melissa is my section supervisor. Who is Kate?”

  The secretary shook her head slowly. “There are at least four Kates in this office, if you count the Catherines, and I can’t tell the way they write. I’ll ask around to see who sent the box to your office.”

  “No, don’t please. It’s totally fine.”

  “If you go through the file and it doesn’t say which Kate, I’m sure Melissa can tell you. The only way anyone assigns a case to you is if Melissa agrees to it.”

  Amy thanked her as she left, glad that she had not looked in the file or asked for the title of the case.

  The note was in one of many folders labeled People v. Jackson. It read:

  Dear Amy,

  You are second chair in this case. It is basic. Suspect Mr. Jackson has not been arrested but there is strong evidence tying him to the murder. He was the victim’s boyfriend and manager until recently. It appears the victim let him go and he could not deal with it. Victim was a lounge/jazz singer. Review the file and let me know your recommendation. Do we have enough to pick him up without waiting for DNA results, which we are certain we will get? I have scheduled a meet with LAPD for Wednesday at 11:00 a.m. Welcome to special prosecutions. I am presently in trial in Pasadena.

  [Signed] Kate.

  Amy was standing by the desk when the secretary left. She placed her purse on the desk, went around, and checked the chair for dust before she sat on it and opened the folder with Kate’s note.

  Inside the folder was the official police report as she expected, with Officer Alvarez’s statement attached to it. She leafed through the other documents in the folders and to her surprise, the murder was less than a week old. There were statements by several police officers who had been at Armacost Avenue, from the first officer to arrive at the scene to the officers who cordoned off the street and those who took scientific evidence, the K-9 Unit that brought the sniffing dogs, and officers who interviewed witnesses. The date she was killed, her age—about the same as Amy’s—and the location of her apartment, all made Amy feel like she was reading about someone she knew.

  Her first day in this office and she had the first murder trial of her short career as a deputy district attorney. She felt uncomfortable searching the box on her desk further, dreading the crime scene photographs she was certain were in it, particularly pictures of the deceased young woman. Her visceral response to this expectation recalled the first time she shot a gun in the woods, while hunting with her grandfather. She was ten. The bullet swooshed into oblivion, clattered into leaves and fell silent. Although she was certain that she had not hit any animals, she felt every second of that experience because it was suddenly real. The hairs on her body stood, her heart beat so fast, and her blood pressure shot up, all while she stood rooted to the spot with the gun in hand. It was different from shooting in the firing range or gallery, where certitude could be verified. In the woods, her imagination ran away from her, just as it was suddenly doing with this case.

  She had left some items in her car, hoping to settle down before unloading them, but now decided to get them. Kate’s note concluded that Goldie’s ex-boyfriend could not deal with Goldie leaving him, but nothing in the police report seems to support that conclusion. It had a sad ring of stereotype to it, which Amy did not like. Thankfully, no one in the case was famous…or infamous, she thought.

  On returning to the office with the box of items from her car, she put aside the file in People v. Jackson to arrange things she brought in the box. She placed some picture frames on the file cabinet. There was a picture she took with her horse when she was nine, a roan she named Barrett, which first brought her the pleasures of love and horse riding, and a picture of her dog Poca. On her desk, she placed a picture of her family at her graduation from college and a picture of a group of friends from high school on a trip abroad. Among the friends was Thomas Clay Jr., whom Amy had recently started seeing last fall. She paused, looking at the picture, at Thomas in particular. If anyone had told her when the picture was taken that she would later date Thomas, she would have told them they were crazy. Someone had actually joked that he was so unlike her type. Was she his type then? The thought had never occurred to her, perhaps because she was too sheltered or too shy to find out. Placing the diplomas on the wall pins that were already in place, she made a mental note to move them when she redecorated.

  Melissa came carrying a box of business cards with Amy’s new information on them and more case files with imminent preliminary hearings, each involving notorious Los Angeles gangs. She asked where Amy would like to go for lunch.

  “I am not too picky about lunch. A good salad will do just fine, and I can usually find one in most restaurants.”

  “Are you vegetarian?”

  “No, but I lean that way.”

  “Doesn’t everyone in LA?”

  They both laughed. Melissa suggested they go to a Japanese restaurant a few blocks south of their office.

  “Do you know Kate Peck?” Melissa asked as they left the office.

  “Kate who?”

  “Peck. My colleague.”

  “No.”

  “She called me last night to loan your services to her as soon as you start this morning. That’s why I thought you knew each other.”

  “No, we don’t.”

  “I told her I would have to talk to you about it first, because the case might have some publicity following it.”

  “That Jackson case?” Amy asked.

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “The file was in my office with a note from Kate when I arrived.”

  “That’s Kate. She’s a good one to have on your side, but there are other cases you can help on if you don’t want to accept this assignment. It might drag you into the kind of publicity you might not be ready for.”

  “I’m up for it,” Amy said before Melissa was done speaking.

  “The LA riot gifted us about seven thousand arrests, and the charges in those cases are still going through the courts, eighteen months after the riots. I’m sure you guys had your share in West Covina.”

  “We did,” Amy said. “But mostly the misdemeanors.”

  “Right, most of the serious crimes came here. Anyway, we in the various sections are helping each other out as much as we can until we get a better budgetary outlook that lets us hire from outside,” Melissa said.

  “I understand…” Amy said.

  “But there are enough cases to go round, if you would rather not be involved in this one.”

  “I would…I like it,” Amy said.

  Amy struggled to keep up with Melissa as they walked to the restaurant. Melissa was about five feet three inches with blonde hair and a face full of emotional vulnerability. Amy recalled her well from the interviews, which were before a panel of three attorneys. One would not know it now, but Melissa spoke the least during those interviews. Now Amy’s supervisor, she spoke as rapidly as she walked, and cheerfully, even when she spoke of mundane issues.

  The Japanese restaurant was a small sitting space with about four bamboo booths lined against opposite walls and four tables in the middle. Amy and Melissa were standing at the front, waiting to be seated, when Amy saw a
woman who was sitting alone leave her table and walk toward them.

  “Professor Rayburn,” Melissa said on seeing the woman approach.

  “I’m almost done,” Cassandra said. “So, if you don’t mind sitting with me, I should be out of your hair before your meal is served.”

  Melissa looked at Amy, who shrugged her approval, and at the attendant, who nodded.

  “Sure,” Melissa said and followed Cassandra to her table, where she formally introduced Amy. “Are you attending the O. J. proceeding?” Melissa asked Cassandra.

  “No, the next court proceeding on that is Wednesday. Hopefully a seat opens up and I get to attend and watch. It is fascinating.”

  “I read an opinion piece in the UCLA Law Magazine where you were quoted as saying that ‘if the defense plays the race card, they win.’ Are you encouraging it?” Melissa asked.

  “I believe I said that if they succeed in turning the case into a referendum on racial justice in America, they could likely win.”

  “What’s the difference with what I just said?”

  “I guess I’ve always understood the ‘race card’ to refer to a person who is exploiting their racial identity to claim that he’s being oppressed. O. J. may want to do that but it won’t work for him because he is not oppressed by anything. On the other hand, if even he, with all his stature and wealth, can show as a matter of fact that he is being subjected to a different process than the average white American would get under our judicial system, then you guys are going to find it hard to convict him.”

  “How about the facts of the case itself, regardless of the referendum on race? Are the facts of the case not convincing?” Amy asked.

  “Professor Rayburn runs a criminal justice clinic at UCLA Law, but don’t expect her to give you a straight answer on criminal justice in America.”