I turned to her. It was late, and I was tired. It was getting harder to keep up the fight, but there was something in her tone that kept me going. “I’m being candid, Judge Nitz.” I wasn’t going to fold. “Let me try and be clear.”
I raised my voice and looked at the court reporter. “Under oath and for the record, I was doing a research project. I wasn’t sure, maybe it was going to be a law review article with statistics or maybe a remembrance article for the bar association’s magazine. I wasn’t sure where my research on Judge Meyer’s career was going to take me. And, of course, I was also looking into things for Detective Jarkowski.”
“But he didn’t specifically ask you to do this, right?”
“He didn’t expressly ask me to do it,” I said, “but that was the impression he gave me.”
“But you initially withheld your discovery of the photographs and the journals from him, true?” Nick Green retook control. He didn’t like the other members of the panel interrupting his line of questioning.
“I shared all of the information with Detective Jarkowski,” I said. “But I waited. I wanted to make sure it was relevant. He’s busy, and I didn’t want to waste his time.”
“And this law review article? Have you ever written it?” Judge Feldman asked.
I shook my head. “No.”
“And why not?”
I laughed. “Because this investigation and doing my actual job has taken up a lot of my time.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
When court began, Peter Thill’s daughters hadn’t returned. They may have heard enough. Benji Metina was also gone, and I wondered what was happening. Perhaps she’d come for the afternoon.
It was just the usual players. Bob Finley and Thill had come to an uneasy peace, and I didn’t expect any surprises. Thill was still agitated, but the emotion was dialed back. The electricity of the first day was gone.
Foster parents, doctors, and social workers would be called. Medical records, police reports, and certified copies of criminal convictions would be offered into evidence, hundreds of pages. It was a guaranteed tedious slog for the rest of the week, as Sylvia Norgaard had to establish each statutory element required to terminate Thill’s parental rights.
She had the information and the documents, but it would take time.
“Are you ready to call your next witness?”
Norgaard stood. Today she was wearing an expensive black suit, a white silk blouse, and an impressive pearl necklace. If I didn’t know the truth, I would have thought she could have passed for one of the venture capitalists who lunched at places like Il Fornaio and La Bodeguita. “Your Honor, the agency would like to call Dr. Neville Wiess. He’s the psychiatrist for Peter Thill’s youngest son.”
When I got back to my chambers for the noon recess, there was a voice mail from Benji Metina. She wanted me to call her as soon as possible.
Metina answered on the second ring. “Judge.” She sounded excited. “Where are you right now?”
“I’m at the courthouse, of course. Where are you?”
“About six blocks away. You’ve gotta come down here.”
“Why’s that?”
“The cops and the FBI,” she said. “They’re raiding Marshall Terry’s offices. It’s total chaos. Employees are out on the street. Some people are crying. Law enforcement is loading up these big moving vans with boxes of files and computers.”
“What about your story?”
“It’s already up on the website,” she said. “It’ll be printed tomorrow, but I wanted to break the news first. Thank you for your help on it. I had it ready to go, and then this happened.” It was the happiest that I’d ever heard her. “Couple quick additions and I was done.”
I told Karen I was going to go for a walk. It took about ten minutes to get to Marshall Terry’s offices, but I didn’t mind. The fresh air and the exercise felt good after sitting all morning.
AFC Services Inc. was housed in a dark stone building across from Snow Park on Harrison Street. The fifteen-story office tower was considered fancy when it was first built, but its modern curves hadn’t aged well.
I found a park bench across the street and watched the show from a distance. Although there were no longer as many people standing around, the number of cops and FBI agents seemed to be growing. As soon as one moving truck was filled with documents, files, and computers, another one arrived.
“What do you think of all this?”
I turned and saw Jarkowski. “I didn’t know the feds were involved.”
Jarkowski nodded. “The offshore stuff and the theory that Terry was funneling money through the Arizona vacation property—all that crosses state lines and makes it federal.”
“So you’re not involved anymore?”
“I’m just a detective.” He smiled. “I’m hoping Helen Vox sees the light, takes a deal, and tells us what happened to Judge Meyer.” He shrugged. “I don’t think it matters much, since they’re all going to prison for quite some time, but it’d be nice to know for sure.”
“Where is she?” I asked.
“Both Vox and Terry are at the federal courthouse being arraigned right now, but I figure they’ll be home in a few hours, probably placed on electronic home monitoring or something.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “Appreciate your help on this.”
The afternoon’s testimony was much like the morning’s. Each witness called by Norgaard talked about how Peter Thill was an unfit parent, unprepared and incapable of raising his four children. He was forced to sit there and listen.
Although Thill spent most of the time with his head down, writing in a notepad, I could tell he was becoming increasingly agitated. When Norgaard finished with one of Kayla’s therapists and was ready to call a teacher, I decided we’d heard enough for the day.
Karen gaveled the court session to a close, and I left the courtroom just as Thill began arguing with his attorney. “Why aren’t you stopping this? You’re not fighting for me.”
I didn’t have to go to Harry’s house, but I wanted to go. The little Craftsman in the middle of that quaint leafy neighborhood had always been a place of stability and calm. With the stress of the trial and everything else, I needed that house. If I could just recapture a fraction of what it represented, I’d feel better, even though the Harry that I thought I knew was not what he seemed.
I listened to KQED while driving over. All Things Considered reported on national and world events, but the raid of AFC Services and the indictment of Marshall Terry and Helen Vox dominated the local news.
As I pulled up to the house, I found it difficult to believe that Harry was involved in such a scheme. What would have happened if he hadn’t died? What would I have done if he and Marsh Terry would’ve invited me to play, too?
I was certain that was their plan. It had to be. Would I have taken the money, somehow rationalizing the greed? Is that what Helen had done?
Helen Vox was a woman I had consoled when she was grieving, a woman I had trusted enough to call when I needed answers. We drank beers and played pool together. Now, like Harry, she had become someone foreign. News of her arrest had stirred every emotion on the spectrum, but, in the end, I was left numb.
As I walked up the driveway, a neighbor emerged from her front door, waved, and came over with a stack of mail.
“Hoping I’d see you.” Lucille was a plump woman, recently retired from Pacific Gas & Electric. “Been piling up. Glad you came by.”
I smiled, thanked her for collecting Harry’s mail, and apologized for not coming by on a more regular basis. “Anything interesting?”
“Mostly junk, but I didn’t throw any of it away.” She held the stack of different-size envelopes up as if to prove it. “Figured you can sort it out.”
“Appreciate that.” I expected her to go back to her house, but she remained. Lucille was on a mission.
“Any plans for the house yet?” She kept it casual, but it was obvious she wouldn’t accept vague pleasantries. When
ever an owner-occupied house goes up for sale in Berkeley, neighbors go on high alert, fearful that it’s going to be turned into a rental or torn down to build a completely out-of-scale McMansion that casts its neighbors in shadow.
“That’s one of the reasons why I’m here.” I tried to reassure her. “I need to check it out, then figure out a plan to start boxing things up, moving them out, and preparing it for sale.”
“So you’re selling it?” Her eyes narrowed in order to better study each facial tick and expression. Lucille wanted the truth.
“Don’t have much of a choice,” I said. “Harry’s wife, Mary Pat, isn’t going to get better, unfortunately, and I can’t just let it sit empty.”
Lucille tried to be understanding, even though letting it sit empty sounded pretty good to her. “Well, I hope you have a good night.” She took a few steps away, then, as if it were an afterthought, asked, “Any time frame?”
“Not sure. Probably a few months.”
I closed the front door behind me. I put the stack of mail on the kitchen island, then walked from room to room, opening windows.
When I was done, I went back to the kitchen and reached into the fridge for one of the beers Nikki and I had brought to the house. It’d been a long week, but I promised myself I’d have only one.
As I sat down on a stool, I began to sift through the pile of mail.
Remarkably, little of it was worth keeping. I sorted through the different gradations of junk mail until I found something that might actually be important. The return address was from Alliant Credit Union.
I opened the envelope and removed a bank statement. This surprised me, because Alliant Credit Union was not on the list of bank accounts, retirement funds, and credit cards in Harry’s files.
The balance was $40,375, but the three-month activity summary below the balance was much more interesting. At the end of each month, it appeared as though Harry deposited a relatively small amount and then withdrew a couple of thousand in cash.
The amounts Harry had deposited looked consistent with the amount of cashier’s checks he was obtaining from PFC.
I took out my phone and called Jarkowski. I told him about the bank account at Alliant, and he told me that the feds had already figured that out. “They talked to the clerks, who said Harry would get the cash and leave. Sometimes there’d be a person with him that looked shady—whatever that means—but the bank couldn’t come up with any video. So we’re out of luck.”
I thought about the nine hundred families on Karen’s spreadsheet. “Do you think the money was for foster kids?” My thoughts went from the spreadsheet to the photographs I’d found in Harry’s office. “Like Harry had some kids he was taking care of?”
“That’s quite a theory,” he said. “Not sure how we’d track them down.”
“You’re right. Thanks for talking about it with me.”
“You ain’t planning on doing any more freelance crap with this, are you?”
“No,” I said. “I might try and talk to Mary Pat tomorrow, but you know how that’s going to go.”
“I do,” Jarkowski said. “Because I’ve tried having the same conversation with her a dozen times, and I get nothing.”
“Maybe we’re just not doing it right.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The final witness, guardian ad litem Cherelle Williams, was called on Thursday afternoon. The guardian always testified last, because he or she would render an opinion. Based on all the evidence presented, as well as on knowledge acquired over the course of the case, the guardian would state whether it was in the child’s best interest to terminate the parent’s legal and custodial rights.
This conclusion was every case’s final and overriding requirement.
Ms. Williams approached the witness stand with pride along with a good deal of grief. She’d been a guardian ad litem for twenty years. She’d seen it all but hadn’t become ambivalent or worn down over the years. When she was sworn in and stated and spelled her name for the record, she commanded the room. Her husband was a prominent African American pastor, conducting a service for eight hundred worshippers every Sunday morning, and she’d been known to take the pulpit herself from time to time. She wasn’t afraid to take center stage.
Sylvia Norgaard smiled. “Good morning, Ms. Williams.”
“Good morning.”
“Let’s begin with the basics. When were you assigned to this case?”
“About a year ago,” she said. “All cases are randomly assigned, and I was notified that an emergency motion had been filed to grant the county’s child protective services to take the children into emergency protective care.”
“And why was that?”
“My understanding was that they were living alone in an apartment. The apartment was rented to Ms. Tanya Neal. She had been evicted for nonpayment of the rent. When the landlord came to evict her, he discovered the four kids. When he asked where the mother was, they said they didn’t know. When he asked how long she’d been gone, they said about a month. Then the landlord asked if she had a cell phone number or something else to reach her, and the eldest daughter, Neisha, gave him a number.”
“And did the landlord try that number?”
“Yes.”
“And did the mother answer?”
“No,” Ms. Williams said. “The phone was disconnected. Later, we were told that it was a prepaid phone. The mom was out of minutes. Couldn’t afford more.”
Norgaard continued to guide Williams through the case’s legal history, her conversations with the four children, and then to her final opinion. “You’ve been present for all the testimony that has been provided in this trial?”
“I have.”
“And have you formed an opinion in this case as to whether Peter Thill’s parental rights should be terminated related to each of his four children?”
“I have.” Williams looked at Peter Thill, then turned to face me. “I believe that termination is in their best interest. Peter Thill is a dangerous man. In the past twenty-five years, I don’t think he has been in the community more than a year or two before he’s suspected, caught, or charged in some sort of kidnapping, sexual assault, or predatory behavior. The children aren’t safe with him in their lives.”
Williams looked at Thill, and her eyes narrowed. She was fearless. “We all heard the testimony about his plan, and I believe those dream journals reflect Mr. Thill’s true beliefs. He only wants the children back because he has a plan. It’s a plan that only makes sense in his mind, and we’ll never understand where those urges come from.” She looked at me. “As for the children”—Williams sighed—“I think it’s desperation. I know the kids want to be back with him, but it isn’t in their best interest. He’s made them believe in something that isn’t real. It’s not possible. Unfortunately, I’ve seen it all too often. Therefore, I support going forward with the termination.”
Norgaard pushed her notepad aside and leaned back in her chair. “Thank you, Ms. Williams.” She looked at me. “I have no further questions at this time.”
“Mr. Finley.” I checked my watch for the time and instructed Bob Finley to begin his cross-examination.
It didn’t take long for Finley to work through the preliminary questions and start to score points.
“How many cases do you have on your caseload, Ms. Williams?”
Williams braced herself. She’d been around long enough to know exactly what was coming at her. “I have about a hundred on my caseload, but only sixty cases that are particularly active.”
“So let’s just go with the lower number, sixty cases. You’d say it’s on average two kids per case?”
“Probably closer to three, tough to say.”
“Three times sixty, that’s a hundred and eighty children,” Finley said. “That right?”
“That’s right.”
“And they’re not all in the same foster home, true? That’d be ideal, but often the agency has to split brothers and sisters up, right?
”
“That’s right.”
“Must be hard to keep track of all those kids?”
Williams paused, then seemed to choose her words carefully. “It’s challenging.”
“So challenging that there are people that you don’t meet with, true?”
“I try to meet with everybody, but sometimes that’s not possible.”
“Did you meet with the two eldest children? The two girls, Neisha and Kayla.”
“I tried.”
“How’d you try?”
“I called them and left messages. They didn’t call me back.”
“In the past year, how many times did you leave a message?”
“Probably once every two months, about the time I was writing my court report.” Williams looked at me. “The social worker assigned to the case and I talked. I knew they opposed termination and loved their father. I didn’t see much that would be gained.”
Finley scoffed and barked, “Perhaps what could be gained was perspective.” A smile widened across Thill’s face. He loved the show. He loved the fight. He’d waited for a few days for someone to fight for him. “You’re recommending that the parental rights be terminated, and you disregard their feelings entirely. Don’t even talk to them.”
Williams shook her head. She was mad but worked to contain her emotions. “Sometimes adults have to make the tough decisions. Of course a child loves their parent. Of course they don’t want their father’s parental rights to be terminated, but it is up to us in this room to weigh the facts versus the emotion and determine whether the value of that continuing relationship is outweighed by other factors.”
I had assumed Finley would move on to the other, younger children. He was an experienced attorney, but he was caught up in the emotion. He made the ultimate mistake: he asked one too many questions.
“Other factors.” Finley shook his head, dismissing the idea. “Like what?”
Williams’s eyes brightened. The door was opened. “Based upon Mr. Thill’s history and conversations with the mental health professionals in this case, I believe he was grooming his daughters for sexual abuse and exploitation. He encouraged—”
Good Intentions Page 19