“I knew you’d be happy,” Metina said. “The article doesn’t get into details, but it says that the adoption of the baby, Jeffrey Plank, was a happy ending to a difficult case. Doesn’t say what happened to the other three.”
“If you got the names,” Jarkowski said, “I can track them down.”
“I can get you the names.” I thought about Karen’s spreadsheet. “It shouldn’t take long, a couple clicks.”
“Good,” Jarkowski said as our waitress walked our way. “Then I’ll find them. Might be nice for the feds, too, allows them to follow the money to the end.”
“Speaking of the feds . . .” I paused as the waitress delivered our plates and left. “Has Helen Vox reached a deal yet?”
Jarkowski picked up his fork. “No. Since she’s home in her comfy condo, I don’t think she’s in a rush anymore.” He stabbed a piece of sausage and put it in his mouth. “They tell me she’s ready to talk about Harry the moment the plea deal is signed.”
“Do you think she did it?” Metina asked.
“What I think and what she says might be two different things.” Jarkowski chased his sausage with a splash of coffee. “I don’t think she’s going to confess or anything.”
“But you still think she did it?” I asked.
Jarkowski smirked. “And after all this, you still think she didn’t?”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
I didn’t tell Jarkowski or Metina I was going to pay Helen Vox a visit. The last time I’d gone to her condo, I ended up in jail. I also knew that Jarkowski would expressly tell me to stay away, and I’d much rather ask for forgiveness later than be denied the opportunity.
Since Helen was represented by an attorney, I knew that Jarkowski and any other law enforcement was prohibited from having direct or third-party contact with her. The only exception was if her lawyer consented, which her lawyer never would. I technically wasn’t law enforcement, so keeping Jarkowski out of the loop also protected the investigation.
That was how I rationalized my own recklessness, anyway.
I pushed the call button, seeking closure and hoping to find something redeeming in what Harry had done. Although the feds didn’t care, I wanted to know why. Perhaps if Harry was trying to care for Mary Pat or help pay for a better life for Jennifer Plank’s children, his involvement with the conspiracy would not have been driven entirely by greed. That was important to me.
I rang the buzzer a few more times before Helen answered. “Yes.”
“This is Jim,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”
There was a hesitation. I figured Helen would want to ask a few questions herself, but I didn’t ask.
The door clicked as the magnetic lock released.
I went through the small lobby, past a row of mailboxes, and got on the elevator to the third floor. I had a copy of the photograph and the newspaper article. As the elevator doors slid open and I walked out into the hallway, I had second thoughts. It wasn’t too late to turn around.
The door to Helen’s condo opened, and she stepped out. She wore a soft black sweater and a pair of designer jeans. Near her ankle was a bulge—the electronic monitoring bracelet. She looked sad and as hesitant as I was about meeting. She looked lonely, too.
Helen turned, and I followed her inside.
Helen had decorated her one-bedroom, open-layout condo well, but simply. Obviously there were no children to mess up the pillows, clutter the tabletops, or dirty the white furniture.
As we crossed to the kitchen, she pointed at the open bottle of wine on her counter. “Can I get you a glass?”
“Too early for me, but thank you.”
Helen went around the granite island and refilled her wineglass. “I can’t talk about the case. And I won’t.”
“I’m not here to talk about you and Marsh.” I put the photograph and the old newspaper article on the counter. I watched as she looked at both. Her eyes narrowed. Her hand trembled slightly as I slid the article closer to her.
Eventually she looked up at me, her face oddly bemused. “The road to hell . . .”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Some cases stick, even when you try to push them out of your mind. According to Helen Vox, In the matter of the children of Jennifer Plank was a case that Harry could never leave alone. He kept picking at it, a scab he never allowed to heal.
Harry never found peace, convinced that he should’ve found the right answer.
He was a younger judge when the case was filed. The child protection division was smaller back then, too. Helen wasn’t a supervisor. She worked in the courtroom every day, pushing files through the system as a dedicated soldier in the fight against child abuse and neglect.
Their affair came much later.
A doctor at Highland Hospital met Jennifer Plank in the emergency room. Her baby, Jeffrey, was fussy, and he’d been suffering from a runny nose and cough for weeks. Her pediatrician examined the baby just days before and instructed her to rest and do her best to comfort Jeffrey with warm baths. The older children could take care of themselves with microwave dinners and television.
The baby’s father was unknown, a product of too much alcohol and bad luck. The older children’s dad had left seven years prior, seeking freedom in the Texas oil fields. Jennifer Plank didn’t mind. She figured that they were better off, less drama.
She was a single mom, working as a secretary for a shipping company at the Port of Oakland. As thousands of steel containers arrived from China, she managed the paperwork. It wasn’t a high-paying job, but it was decent: regular hours and benefits.
After the doctor listened to the baby’s breathing with his stethoscope, he asked to do a chest X-ray. It probably wasn’t necessary, but he had stated that he wanted to be thorough. Jennifer Plank agreed, and that was it.
She didn’t know it at the time, but that was the last decision she would ever make as a mother.
The X-ray revealed a broken clavicle. It wasn’t uncommon for a collarbone to fracture during childbirth. Given the healing that had occurred, it was unclear when it had been broken. So that injury alone was not sufficient to prompt a report to Alameda County’s child protection unit to remove the children.
It was, however, the myriad of other broken bones that ethically mandated the doctor to disclose what he had found.
The radiologist noticed six rib fractures, mirroring one another on the front and back. Given the angles and symmetry, it was impossible for the fractures to have occurred from a car accident, fall, or baseball bat. It could have occurred only by gripping an infant with both hands, squeezing and shaking vigorously for an extended period of time.
The combination of the clavicle and rib fractures prompted the radiologist to obtain further X-rays. Those revealed two additional fractures, one in the left femur and one in the right femur.
An infant’s bones were like green branches on a tree, pliable and hard to break. It was incredibly rare for an infant’s bone to fracture, absent a clear and logical explanation. One fracture would be suspicious. Baby Jeffrey had nine.
“If she would’ve admitted it, maybe something would’ve been different.” Helen examined her small rack of wine and pulled out another bottle. “We’re required to make reasonable efforts, but therapy and treatment don’t make any sense or do any good if the parent doesn’t admit that there is something to treat.”
“What about babysitters or relatives?”
“She denied that there had ever been a babysitter. Also said that she’d never left the baby alone with her kids or a relative.” Although the case was close to twenty-five years old, Helen answered the questions like it had happened yesterday. It haunted her in the same way that it had haunted Harry.
“You said she worked at the port,” I said. “Somebody had to watch the baby while she worked.”
She shook her head as she removed a corkscrew from the drawer and began to remove the foil from the top of the wine bottle. “Maternity leave.” She lined up the corkscrew on the top
of the bottle and started twisting. “She wasn’t going to go back to work for another month, combination of paid leave and accrued sick time.” The cork came out with a hollow pop.
We sat on the couch as Helen continued drinking wine. It was as if talking about abused and neglected children was perfectly normal. She recalled the bitter hearing, the trial, and ultimately Harry’s decision. “He terminated Plank’s parental rights. Of course that was the agency’s position, but I’d be lying if I said we didn’t have doubts. But the medical experts were clear. There was no bone disease, no vitamin deficiency, no rickets, nothing medical that could have caused Jeffrey’s bones to fracture or break. It was child abuse.”
Helen took another sip of wine, then refilled her glass. I wondered when, and if, she was going to stop drinking.
“Then the question was whether Harry should terminate her parental rights to the older kids as well,” she went on. “Keep in mind, there was no abuse alleged against them. Nothing that would indicate that they had ever been harmed, but Harry terminated her parental rights to those kids, too.” She looked away. “It was hard.”
“He drew a bright line,” I said.
“Exactly. If you accept the science and the testimony as true, then the mother did that to her newborn child. And, if the mother did it, then she wasn’t a fit parent for any child. That was Harry’s logic, setting all sympathy aside.”
“And he bore the guilt from that decision for the rest of his life.”
“Right again.” Helen got up and walked to the kitchen. “It tore him up.”
I turned on the couch and watched her open the refrigerator and remove a package of sliced cheese.
“Of course, Plank appealed,” Helen said. “And on appeal, her story changed. This time she was ready to admit that she was involved with a man. Her affidavit said that she had a boyfriend that she had met on the docks, and that Jeffrey was probably his kid.” She removed some crusty bread from a drawer and cut off a slice. “She admitted that she sometimes let the boyfriend watch the kids, just to give her a break. But it was too late. The termination was done. The county’s position—my position—was that you can’t undo it, and her new story wasn’t credible, because she still refused to reveal the name of the boyfriend.”
The adoption of baby Jeffrey to a new family was a happy day, but the older kids didn’t fare as well. The two oldest, Tina and Brooke, were placed together, and they refused to be adopted. Some people were interested, but the girls wouldn’t consent. They wouldn’t go on visits. They wouldn’t give adoption a chance. They kept saying they wanted to go home to their mother, which the court wasn’t going to approve.
The girls had three foster care placements in two years, and then, finally, they got one of the ghosts.
“Ghosts?”
Helen nodded. “Foster care parents in name only. They just cash the check for providing foster care, even though the kids are coming and going as they please, if they come home at all. The agency knows what’s going on, but it’s easier to let it be. No questions. Just let the kids turn eighteen and wash our hands of them.”
Then there was Jeffrey’s older brother, Mitchell Plank. He was the boy in the photograph with brown hair and a gap between his two large front teeth. Mitchell was already a handful, but the termination made his behavior much worse. A young couple was set to adopt him. As the adoption paperwork slowly made its way through the bureaucracy, the couple got increasingly nervous. They wanted more money, more resources. The state denied it, so they backed out.
Mitchell had been living with them for over a year when he was suddenly shifted to another foster care home, and then another, and then another.
“So Harry gave them money?”
Helen looked at me for a moment. Then she put down her glass of wine, took a deep breath, and straightened her back. “I don’t think I should talk about that.”
“Did one of them come to Harry’s house on the morning he was shot?”
Helen pursed her lips and sighed. “I think you should go.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
I called Jarkowski, but he didn’t answer. It was one of the few times that I’d ever been grateful for voice mail. I left a message about my conversation with Helen Vox, and, given her reluctance to say whether any of the Plank children were at Harry’s house the morning that he was murdered, finding them had taken on an even greater importance.
Pushing the investigation back onto Jarkowski was a relief, and I slept better than I had slept in over a month. The next morning, I woke up gradually and spent a fair amount of time staring at the ceiling and looking at Nikki still sound asleep beside me. A lightness came from clarity, and I thought I’d found it.
I didn’t have all the answers, but I was on the path. The Thill trial was over. I was confident that Helen Vox and Marsh Terry would now become the focus of the governor’s task force and Benji Metina’s articles, which would dig deeper into the corruption and conflicts of interests within the child protective services department as well as the county. The spotlight would finally be off me and the death of Gregory Ports.
I was even at peace with Judge Karls and Nancy Johns. If they wanted me to continue working on child dependency cases, that would be fine. On the other hand, a permanent transfer to the criminal division also seemed like a vacation by comparison, and I needed a vacation.
I walked to the bathroom, grabbed a towel off the shelf, and put it on the hook next to the shower. I turned the water on hot and drowned myself for thirty minutes.
When I got out, the lightness remained. Morning sun poured in through the windows. It’d been weeks since we’d seen the sun, and Augustus was ready to play. He wagged his tail as I let him go out into the backyard while I made some coffee.
As the water heated and beautiful brown liquid began to drip, I went to the computer and checked my e-mail.
That was my mistake.
I should’ve waited for the coffee to be done before I did anything requiring intellectual functioning. There were at least fifteen e-mails marked urgent, each one more desperate and tragic than the last.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
In re the Honorable James Thompson
California State Board on Judicial Standards
Inquiry Transcript, Excerpt
BOARD MEMBER GREEN: Let’s talk about the matter involving Tanya Neal and Peter Thill.
THOMPSON: I don’t have anything to say. There’s a written record of the case, and that record speaks for itself.
BOARD MEMBER GREEN: Certainly you feel some responsibility for what happened?
THOMPSON: I feel responsible for what happens in all of my cases, Nick, but I’m a judge. I’m not a fortune teller. I can’t predict the future. Nobody could have predicted what happened.
BOARD MEMBER GREEN: But there were indications that this was not going to end well, correct?
THOMPSON: There’s a written record of the case. If there is something that I did wrong, legally, then there’s a process to appeal it. I believe I followed and applied the law to the best of my ability.
BOARD MEMBER GREEN: Do you think you had an ethical obligation to step down as the judge?
[Pause]
THOMPSON: No.
BOARD MEMBER GREEN: And you also suspected that Thill broke into your house?
THOMPSON: I suspected it, but I don’t know.
BOARD MEMBER GREEN: But you were worried enough to buy a security system with alarms, motion sensors, and cameras?
THOMPSON: I bought a security system, yes.
BOARD MEMBER GREEN: And prior to trial, you did not disclose these incidents to the attorneys or the parties, correct?
THOMPSON: The record speaks for itself.
BOARD MEMBER GREEN: And if the record indicates that you never disclosed these incidents, either on the record or off the record, you don’t have any reason to dispute it?
THOMPSON: I do not.
He was excited. I could tell, and I’m sure Judge Feldman and Judge N
itz could, too. For the first time, Nick Green was scoring some serious points. I wasn’t going to make it easy for him, but I had to admit that his line of questioning wasn’t unreasonable. He may have found a way for the board to get me, and he wasn’t going to let it go.
Green leaned in. “You’d agree, Judge Thompson”—he looked over at the court reporter in the corner, wanting to confirm that she was documenting every question and answer—“that the rules on judicial conduct require a judge to recuse himself for actual bias as well as the appearance of bias, correct?”
“That’s what the rule states.”
“And wouldn’t you also agree that your interactions with Peter Thill were such that an outsider could conclude that you were incapable of keeping an open mind, even if you, in fact, had no actual bias against Mr. Thill and believed that you could handle his case fairly?”
“I was and am aware of the rule, and I believe that the record speaks for itself.”
I wished Green would’ve stopped there, but he kept going. “And the record indicates that you went forward with the trial despite all that had happened?”
“I went forward,” I said. “That’s correct.”
“And by the end of the trial, Peter Thill was quite agitated, right?”
“He was agitated, but he wasn’t disruptive to the court or out of control.”
“Do you think your decision to not recuse yourself and push forward with the trial may have contributed to Peter Thill’s behavior? That the trial caused him to snap?”
“I think that question calls for speculation.” I pushed my chair back from the table. “I’m not going to speculate.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
The tragedy of Peter Thill began after court on Friday afternoon, while I was with Helen Vox. Although I wasn’t there, I’d read every report. After that barrage of urgent e-mails, I spoke with the social workers and the foster parents and met with the police officers who investigated the incident.
There was no dispute about what happened, and I was not even sure there was a dispute about why it happened. I can picture it all, and I understand exactly how it unfolded the way it did.
Good Intentions Page 21