PRAISE FOR LITTLE BOY LOST
“Little Boy Lost isn’t just an engrossing novel; it’s one that enlightens as well.”
—William Kent Krueger, New York Times bestselling author and Edgar winner
“. . . Tense, powerful thriller . . .”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“. . . Trafford delivers . . .”
—Booklist
“Little Boy Lost is an exciting and thoughtful read . . . Trafford’s writing style is brisk and no-nonsense with a dash of introspection and a lot of keen observations . . . tackles some important and tough issues head on . . .”
—Bookreporter
“. . . A cracker-jack narrative . . .”
—The Missourian
OTHER TITLES BY J.D. TRAFFORD
Little Boy Lost
No Time To Run
No Time To Die
No Time To Hide
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2018 by J.D. Trafford
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542045513
ISBN-10: 1542045517
Cover design by Jae Song
For my family and all the people who choose to serve others.
CONTENTS
In re the . . .
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In re the Honorable James Thompson
California State Board on Judicial Standards
Inquiry Transcript, Excerpt
BOARD MEMBER GREEN: Do you understand that you can be represented by an attorney at these proceedings?
THOMPSON: Of course I understand that, Nick. I’m a judge.
BOARD MEMBER GREEN: And do you also understand that you could exercise your right to remain silent?
THOMPSON: Yes.
BOARD MEMBER GREEN: Even though this is merely a disciplinary hearing, your testimony this morning before this panel could be used as a basis to prosecute you criminally for many things, including, at the very least, obstruction of justice. Understanding that, you’d still like to continue?
THOMPSON: I’m here.
BOARD MEMBER GREEN: That’s not what I asked. That’s not an answer to my question.
THOMPSON: [Pause] I understand the risk, and I’d like to go forward.
BOARD MEMBER GREEN: Without counsel?
THOMPSON: Without counsel.
BOARD MEMBER GREEN: Very well.
CHAPTER ONE
My life began to unravel the same day I found my mentor dead. I had planned on meeting Judge Harry Meyer early in the morning for coffee at the Tin Cup Diner, a local hangout for judges and lawyers that was close to Oakland’s courthouse on Twelfth. A newspaper reporter had called me with a vague message about one of the first child abuse cases I had handled, and I needed Harry’s advice.
She didn’t give me any specifics, but I knew which case she wanted to talk about. Because I’m a new judge, you’d think I hadn’t yet done anything that would merit media attention, but you’d be wrong.
When Harry didn’t show at the Tin Cup, didn’t return my phone calls, and didn’t come to work, I got worried.
“Anything I need to do right now?”
My new law clerk, Karen Fields, shook her head. “Nothing until this afternoon, Judge.”
“This my mail?” I pointed to a stack on the edge of Karen’s desk.
“Yes, Judge.” She nodded. “Didn’t look like anything important.”
I picked up the stack, which included the new issue of the California State Bar Association’s monthly magazine, and put it all in my briefcase. Then I grabbed my black wool trench coat and went to the elevators. As I rode down to the main floor, I put the coat on.
I was glad I did, because a stiff, cold wind came off Lake Merritt the moment I stepped outside. I buttoned up the coat higher, took a step forward, and braced myself for another blow. The tall trees lining the lakeshore park bent as darker clouds rolled over the redwood hills in the distance. It wouldn’t be too much longer until the sun disappeared for the winter, sending the Pacific coast under a blanket of clouds.
I walked to a parking garage about a block away, got into my Range Rover, and drove out of Oakland toward Harry’s house in Berkeley’s Rockridge neighborhood. Even though it was less than seven miles away, there wasn’t a quick route because nothing was quick in Oakland.
I had been to Harry’s restored Craftsman so many times, it was practically my own boyhood home. He and my father had been law partners together, and, after my father died of a heart attack, Judge Meyer stepped up as my mother fell apart, met a new man, and eventually moved to Florida. It was Harry who had taught me how to throw a baseball and pitch a tent, and his wife, Mary Pat, kept me fed.
It took twenty minutes to cross town. I drove down Broadway, turned left on College, and then up into a leafy residential area. Harry’s house was in the middle of the block. The neighborhood was calm, but an uneasy feeling grew as I approached the house.
Then I saw it.
The front door was wide open. The wooden storm door swung in the breeze. It creaked and banged as I walked up the steps. I noticed when I reached the top that the screen was torn, pushed out from the inside. Then I saw Harry.
He died in the entryway.
A gun lay discarded a few feet away. Harry’s body was twisted: legs bent, one hand ab
ove his head reaching toward nothing, the other hand—stained dark red—wrapped tight to his stomach. Blood had pooled underneath him.
The air was heavy and caught in my lungs. It was thick and raw.
I couldn’t move my feet as I stared at him. I knew Harry was gone. I didn’t need to check. The ends of my fingers went numb, then my hands. Sickness rolled up from my stomach, and that’s what forced me to move. I turned around, went back outside, and threw up in the bushes next to the house.
I don’t know how long it took for the paramedics and the police to arrive. I can’t tell you who got there first. I don’t even remember much of the call itself—what I said or how I said it, whether I was crying and screaming or whether I was methodical and calm. I only remember the lack of feeling in my hands as they shook, and how hard it was to unlock my phone and dial 911. Tapping that stupid code had been damn near impossible.
I must have, at some point, walked down the driveway and sat on the curb, because that’s where I was when the officer approached me.
“You Judge Thompson?” The officer spoke with hesitation. He had a baby face and was probably twenty-three.
“Yes.” I nodded my head. “I called it in.”
“Any reason you were here?”
“I was worried.” Then I told the officer about the morning. I told him about our plans to meet for coffee, and how Harry didn’t show up or return my calls. “He lives alone now. His wife’s in a memory unit—Alzheimer’s—and Harry’s not young. Thought it could be his health . . . Didn’t imagine it was this.”
“Anybody who I can call to confirm?” The officer was all business, trying to play it cool, pretending he handled murder investigations all the time.
I didn’t take offense. Most murders weren’t great mysteries. They were simple. It was usually the person standing next to the dead body with the bloody knife. Case closed. By focusing on the only person around, which was me, the cop was just playing the odds.
“You can call my law clerk.” I searched my phone’s contact list for Karen’s number. My hand still shook, but not as badly. “She can fill you in. Folks at the Tin Cup also know who I am. They can confirm I was there this morning.”
The officer nodded, unsure of whether to treat my candor with thanks or skepticism.
I didn’t really care. My thoughts were elsewhere.
Police officers continued to arrive. Within minutes, the whole area was cordoned off. A barricade was placed on both ends of the block, and eventually the medical examiner, forensic team, and detectives arrived. That was when the investigation truly began.
From the comfort of my vehicle, I watched them work the scene. Although I could handle the cold wind, I had decided to get inside the Range Rover when an icy rain began to spit down on me.
Theoretically, I could leave at any time. I wasn’t under arrest. I was just a witness, but I wanted to stay. I owed Judge Meyer everything.
My wife, Nikki, understood that. Between my law school loans and her loans from medical school, we had been drowning in $200,000 worth of debt. She wasn’t making much as a resident at the local hospital, and the cost of living in the Bay Area didn’t help. But, thanks to Judge Meyer, who’d helped me become a judge, we had won a little space to breathe. I was now earning triple what I had as an assistant prosecutor.
“Should I come over?” There was some static over the phone. Nikki’s voice trailed, sounding as lost as I was. “I can find coverage at the hospital. Somebody can pick up my shift.”
“Stay.” I fought back the lump that formed in my throat. Telling her what I had seen was hard. It made it real in a way that was different from when I was talking to the cop, more personal. “I’ve gotta call Karen and check in,” I said. “I’ll see if they need any more from me here, too. Then I’ll let you know what’s going on.”
I hung up with Nikki and then, forcing myself to keep it together, called my law clerk.
Karen answered on the fourth ring. “Judge Thompson’s chambers, how may I help you?”
“Karen, it’s me.”
“Oh.” Karen sounded a little surprised. “A police officer called asking questions.”
I told her where I was and what I’d found, keeping it short.
Karen didn’t say anything at first. She’d been with me for only a month, but she knew how close I was with Judge Meyer. Under her breath she said, “Unbelievable.” Then to me she said, “I’m so sorry, Judge. He was a great man, a really great man.” There was another long pause and then a question. “What do you want me to do about your afternoon calendar?”
I emitted a quick, involuntary laugh. I couldn’t help it. It didn’t matter if the judicial district was large or small. The justice train rolled on. Matters needed to be called. Disputes needed to be heard. The system didn’t stop for anybody, not even Judge Meyer. It never stopped.
“How many?” I asked.
“Twenty lines.” Lines meant the number of cases on any given docket. “All broken babies. No truancy. No juvenile delinquency.”
A weight pressed down on me.
We called them broken babies for short, even though they weren’t all technically babies, nor did they all have broken bones. They were broken in other ways. They were kids who were removed from their homes and placed into the foster care system, broken emotionally or physically by their parent: a three-year-old wandering the halls of an apartment complex with a diaper that hadn’t been changed in a week; a five-year-old found playing in the corner of a meth house during the execution of a search warrant, her mother passed out in the corner; a newborn with two broken legs; a three-year-old with a fractured skull and cigarette burns down her back; a six-year-old with gonorrhea or some other sexually transmitted disease that nobody, especially an innocent child, should have to endure.
It was the science of child abuse. There were pediatricians board certified in the subject, who could determine whether an injury’s explanation given at a hospital was consistent with the actual injury.
Unfortunately, every day I was becoming an expert myself. I was learning about how parents could be unnaturally cruel. In less than a year as a judge, I’d learned how to read an X-ray. I could determine by the shape of a fracture whether an adult had broken a child’s bone by twisting, squeezing, or using a baseball bat. I knew at what age a baby’s skull hardened, and at what amount of torque a leg bone would snap at various ages and under what circumstances. I knew whether a burn was caused by accidentally stepping into too-hot bathwater, or by a parent holding their child’s feet in boiling water as punishment.
Me becoming an expert was what Harry had wanted. It was why he called in every favor, why he tapped every connection he’d developed over his long career. It was how he convinced the former governor to appoint me on the governor’s last day in office, a process that bypassed the merit selection committee and ignored its recommendation to appoint my former boss, the Alameda district attorney, Nick Green.
Harry Meyer was the former president of the American Association of Juvenile Court Judges. He was a nationally recognized speaker and an authority on child abuse and the child protection system. Nearing retirement, he wanted me to carry on his legacy. I had reluctantly agreed, but I didn’t think I’d be on my own so soon.
“Can you move them?” I asked.
“I could reschedule the hearings,” Karen said, “but we’d blow the timelines.”
All child dependency cases were on a strict statutory timeline. Since Alameda County’s child protection agency received most of its money from the federal government, it was audited by the US Department of Health and Human Services almost every year. If the county wasn’t in compliance with the federal timelines, then it could be sanctioned or lose its funding entirely.
There were thousands of reports of child abuse and neglect in Alameda County. There were over a hundred kids removed from their homes every month and even more in foster care. In addition to investigating abuse at home, county social workers had to personally loo
k into additional reports of abuse and neglect at the foster homes and group homes. The whole system was collapsing under its own weight. Some would argue that it had already collapsed. Cases that should’ve taken months took years.
Judge Meyer and I were trying to change that.
“Keep them on,” I said. “I’ll come back.”
“You’re sure?”
I wasn’t sure, but that was how it was. The system never stopped. Harry wouldn’t have wanted me to stop, either. “I’ll be in after lunch.”
“OK,” Karen said. “That reporter called again. Anything I should say?”
The reporter. I remembered the reason why I had wanted to see Harry that morning. “Push her off.” I hung up, watching as a detective finished his conversation with the medical examiner and then walked toward me.
He was a big guy. An aged high school football star with broad shoulders and a matching gut. He tapped on the Range Rover’s window.
I rolled it down. “Want to come in here and talk?” I asked. “Out of the rain?”
The detective nodded. “Appreciate that.” He walked around the front and got in the other side as I rolled up my window. “Much better.” The detective held his thick hands close to the hot air coming out of the vent. He took another minute, then turned and introduced himself. “Detective Frank Jarkowski.” He held one of his paws out to me.
“Jim Thompson,” I said. We shook, and the introductions were done.
“So you’re the new judge.”
“That’s true.” I nodded. “Relatively new. It’s been about a year.”
“Look pretty young to be a judge.” Detective Jarkowski eyed me, sizing me up.
I’d heard it before, and I knew the comment was only a test. People wanted to poke me. They wanted to see my reaction. They’d watch to find out if I got defensive or turned arrogant. In short, they were looking for a reason to dislike me.
“You’re not the first person to say that.” I fell back on the script that I’d developed for this conversation. It just came out. The response and inflection in my voice were automatic, even in these circumstances. “Come back and see me in six months. I’ll be fat and bald, just like a good judge should be.” I paused for a beat, then delivered the punch line: “I promise you won’t be disappointed, or your money back.”
Good Intentions Page 1