I walked out of his office and back to my cubicle. Phones were ringing, teletypes rattling. There was a low din of squad room noise. I looked around at all of this-my chosen profession. I was a blue knight. My job was the application of justice in a world gone mad. I was good at it. The job suited me. So why did I always seem to be on the outside looking in?
I grabbed my black jacket off the back of my chair and left. I'd already decided what I wanted to do next.
On my way out, I left the Hickman file in Captain Calloway's box.
Chapter 11
The Los Angeles Superior Court Northwest Division is on Erwin Street in the Valley. The prosecutor's office building is one block over on Van Nuys. I parked in the lot behind the large modern structure and got out of the car. Everything told me this was a terrible idea. Maybe because of frustration with Alexa I was striking out, throwing a temper tantrum, breaking my own toys. Maybe I should go to see Dr. Lusk and get some more beige-on-beige insight.
What I did was walk into the lobby and ask to see Tito Morales. I figured he'd be in because most area supervisors were desk jockeys. Except, that is, for Brian Devine, who it seemed could always make time to roll on a call and ruin a case.
I showed my badge to the lobby security officer. As I signed in I happened to notice that the name on the line right above mine was Detective Secada Llevar. Time of arrival, five minutes ago. Apparently there was more than one kamikaze in the building.
I went up to the attorney's floor on four and walked down the hall to Morales's office. The waiting room was large enough to accommodate two seating areas, both with leather sofas and club chairs. Sitting in the one across from the reception desk was Scout
Llevar. She was also in black today. Another six-hundred-dollar pantsuit, but unlike me, she had jazzed it up with a red silk scarf. Her long dark hair curled seductively around her neck and shoulders. The woman was breathtaking. I entered the room and took the chair opposite her.
"Come here often?" she said, smiling.
"You got a bullet I can chew before this guy beats us to death?"
"Don't worry," she said. "Won't happen. This is my best outfit."
"You told Captain Sasso what we were doing," I said. "Not smart. I understand that you hate to lie, but now I've got a charge sheet heading my way for insubordination and a lot of other nonsense."
"Yeah, me too." She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. "But I didn't tell her. Apparently somebody from I. A. saw us having lunch at Leonardo's and mentioned it to her. Then when you went up to Corcoran, somebody up there made a call to our office to check out your story. Jane Sasso may be a five-foot-eight-inch hemorrhoid with ears, but she's no dummy. She knows how to add up facts."
"Great."
"She called me in last night and confronted me. What choice did I have? So I leveled with her. Sorry. I'm facing a suspension, too, so I figured what the hell, maybe my carnal here might be willing to admit his mistake and to drag us out of the ditch."
"That's either good thinking, or the worst idea since pet alligators."
"What're you doing here?"
"I got pissed off. I get impulsive and self-destructive when I'm pissed."
"Immature," she said. "But at least I understand it."
"This guy, if he's not on the up and up, is gonna pound us into the sand."
"Look, I know a little about Tito," Scout said. "His parents are from some little Mexican hill town. He's an ex-cop, LAPD. Used to be one of us. Went to Southwestern Law School at night, worked his butt off to get his degree. Now he's got a shot at the mayor's office. He may have cut this bad deal to plead the Hickman's case, but trying to get rid of cases to clear the court calendar is part of a prosecutor's job. He was supplied bad info by Lieutenant Devine and he acted on it. Now we're just gonna put some better case facts on the table and ask him to do the right thing."
A female assistant appeared in the doorway. "Mr. Morales will see you now."
"I hope you're right," I muttered.
Scout was fumbling with something in her purse as she stood. "You'll see," she said. "He'll give us a straight hearing."
As we crossed the room to Morales's office, she pulled her backup clip out of her purse. She thumbed a 9mm bullet out and handed it to me before she stepped through the door. "In case I'm wrong." What a kidder.
Tito Morales was compact and handsome, with smooth skin and a boatload of Latin charisma. His dark hair and strong jaw gave him an air of prominence. He had one of those smiles that light up a room. His eyes flitted across me, barely registering before they missile-locked on Scout.
"Come in, come in. Sit down. Did Elena get you something to drink?" All of this to her. I'd suddenly become invisible.
"We're fine, thank you, sir," Secada said.
"How can I help?" He sat opposite us and smiled warmly at her.
"Do you remember the Hickman case?" I asked.
"Hickman… Hickman…" He was looking up reflectively, showing Scout his heroic profile. "Hickman. Jeez, that's familiar." He seemed lost.
"You pled the case," I reminded him. "Probably didn't have it in the system for more than two or three weeks. The story was he killed his mother for two hundred dollars."
"Oh, yeah. Right. I remember now. The kid was a crystal meth freak. That one?"
"That's the one."
"Detective Llevar is an IO at PSB and she received a letter from Hickman alleging that his case was mishandled," I continued. "As you know, it's a function of her job at I. A. to investigate these kinds of complaints and three days ago she started looking into it."
"I have the file right here," Secada said, and handed her copy to him.
He didn't open it, never took his eyes off of her. "As I recall, Truit Hickman confessed."
"Yes, but he's not all there," Secada answered. "He's done way too much meth, Mr. Morales."
"Tito, please. I'm not much on formalities."
He was very easy to like. With our huge Hispanic population in Los Angeles, I could see why he could go far in Southern California politics.
"Thank you, Tito." Secada widened her smile. When she turned the wattage up, I heard him exhale slightly. The hook was set.
"Anyway," she continued, "during Tru's interrogation, he says he got confused and signed a confession that Lieutenant Devine wrote for him."
"I see." Morales opened the Hickman file in his hands and frowned down at it. "Just hit the high points then," he said. "I assume you're here because you feel there's a due-process problem."
"Yes, sir, we do," Scout said.
We ran Tito through the basics. Once we were finished he continued to frown.
"This sounds horrible," he finally said.
"Yes sir," Secada said. "That's why it seems wrong that the case was closed by Captain Sasso just as we started to get into it."
Morales stood and walked to his window and looked out. "This is exactly the kind of thing that really gets me," he said softly. "I have to take the investigator's statements and reports at face value. Same with a confession. I have to assume a suspect was informed correctly of his rights and wasn't lied to about his polygraph results or case facts in order to secure a confession. If this murder was inadequately investigated, or if the suspect was lied to, then it should be reopened. For the primary investigator to fail to follow through on that footprint, or fully interview this Mike Church person, is absolutely untenable. What the hell was Van Nuys Robbery-Homicide thinking?"
"Exactly," Secada said.
"And despite this, Captain Sasso closed the case?"
"Worse than that, she filed a PSB charge of insubordination against us for working it after we were told not to," she said.
He turned back from the window. "Sounds like you've got a little bit of a reckless streak, Detective Llevar." Then he smiled, showing beautiful teeth. "Don't get me wrong, I like reckless when it comes to upholding the tenets of the law. It shows a commitment to principle."
All of this directed exclusively to
Secada. If I wanted this guy's attention, I was going to have to drop trou and expose myself.
"If the department ever knew we were over here, we'd both get in major trouble, so we're counting on your discretion," Scout said.
"I'm glad you came." He turned his heroic gaze out the window again. "I was part of that plea bargain. If what you're telling me checks out, then we've made a terrible mistake."
"And you're willing to admit it?" Secada asked. She leaned forward, showing him a nice swell of breasts.
"As you undoubtedly know, I'm running for mayor in a few months." More great Latino porcelain came on display. "There are those in my campaign who would say that to admit such an error would cause me problems politically, but I see it differently. A man has to have a code, a standard he lives up to. My job is to stand up for what's right. If I make a mistake, then I'm honor bound to admit it. If I sent this boy away on bad facts, then I damn sure should be the one to fix it." Somewhere up in heaven angels were singing.
"Thank you, sir," Secada said, smiling. Then she glanced at me and raised an impatient eyebrow, prompting me to say something.
"Thanks," I muttered.
He crossed to his desk and handed us each his card.
"My private line is on here. I suggest maybe you two should drop your investigation now and let me run with it. If you stay involved, you're gonna have more trouble with Jane. I'll try and help out there, but there's only so much I can do. She can be difficult sometimes."
We thanked him again and prepared to leave.
"So how do I reach you?" Tito said, addressing Secada again.
We both gave him our cards. Mine was going into some bottom desk drawer. Hers would undoubtedly end up in the glassine section of his wallet.
"I hope you can reopen this so Shane and I don't cook in the gravy," Scout said.
"I'll think of something. How 'bout if I tell PSB that we picked up some investigative discrepancies on this situation during a standard case review."
"That should work," Scout said, smiling widely at him.
"I'll be in touch," Tito promised and led us to the door. "Listen, Detectives, I want to tell you something. Even though the insubordination charge is a problem, I salute your dedication to the truth in this case. After the parade has passed and everything's been adjudicated, it's much easier to just look the other way. You did the hard thing, which is the right thing."
"We really appreciate your time, sir," Secada beamed. I felt a twinge of annoyance, or was it jealousy? "Tito," he reminded her. "Tito," she said.
And then, we were out of his office and standing in the hall. "What a doll," Scout enthused, "And he's still single." "Still got your wallet?"
"Come on, he's charming. This is just what we needed, Shane." "Yeah."
"Look at you. Why don't you smile? And what's with this black-on-black ensemble? You look like Steven Seagal. Who picked that outfit, for God's sake?" "This just feels way too easy," I said.
Chapter 12
I left Secada in the parking lot. She seemed as if a great weight had just been lifted from her as she got into her slick-back and tooled off toward the Bradbury Building.
I guess I'm just such a natural skeptic that I couldn't accept a good break even when I got one. Or maybe it was that my luck had been running so cold, I couldn't quite believe in a crusader D. A. willing to flag a prosecutorial mistake on the eve of his own mayoral election, no matter how great his teeth or warm his smile.
Since I was already in Van Nuys, standing in the parking lot of the prosecutor's office, and had the name of Tru Hickman's court-appointed public defender in my file, I decided to look her up and see what light she could shed on this mess.
The Public Defenders Division is part of the prosecutor's office, so I found myself on the second floor of the same building I'd just exited. The P. D.'s office was a cluttered cube farm full of fresh-faced recent law school graduates. Tru had told me that his P. D. had red hair, braids, and freckles and looked like she just graduated from high school.
That pretty much fit my take when I located Yvoune Hope seated behind a battered metal desk that looked like it had been used to block a year's worth of slap shots from an NHL hockey team. She seemed implausibly young. Pippi Longstocking with a law degree. But that was only until you bothered to look deep into her blue-green eyes. They were tired, angry eyes that had seen enough misery to fill a prison.
"Truit Joseph Hickman confessed to killing his mother," she said after I told her why I was there.
"Miscarriage of justice," I said.
"Yep. We get a lot of that around here. John Dillinger, John Gotti, and Al Capone. They all got fucked by the system, too." A cynic. So young and her soul was already poisoned by her experiences.
"Take a look at some of this," I said, and pushed the folder I'd compiled across the desk at her.
Yvonne Hope didn't open it. "Lemme guess, rubber hoses in the I-room, right?"
"You shorten your last name from 'Hopeless'?"
"Don't be a smart-ass. I've been on this job for almost two years now. The average for P. D.'s in this meat house is eighteen months. The burnout rate is through the roof. You wanta know why?"
"Not really."
"I'll tell you anyway. Because just about everybody I represent is a scumbag liar. Including this guy." She tapped her short, chewed-nail ring finger on my folder. "I have baby-rapists and child molesters as clients. I have to try and get deals for people you wouldn't waste a bullet on. My job is to ignore the crime and save the criminal. It can warp you. Tru Hickman killed his mother. He copped to it. Now he's up in Corcoran and it's worse than he thought so he's had a change of heart. Next case. You got any idea how often I see that?"
"Listen, Yvonne. Can I call you that?"
"Vonnie."
I'm not some bleeding-heart, hand-wringing, social activist, Vonnie. I'm a homicide cop. I scrape dead people off the pavement for a living. If you want to compare battle scars, I bet, with my years on the job, I'll beat yours. I'm telling you, Lieutenant Devine and Tito Morales flushed this kid on bad evidence. Pardon me for saying it, but you were supposed to defend him and you let it happen."
She sat there, all hundred and six pounds of her, and looked at me with eyes that had been hardened to the approximate texture of pale, green marbles.
"Okay, I'm listening. But I'm a stone cold bitch so make it convincing."
I gave her the rest of it, stopping when I got to the bloody shoe prints.
"Did you ever finish the match on those prints? I can't find a record of it anywhere."
"Probably never happened," she said matter-of-factly. "After we dropped the special circumstances and he copped to the murder, the plea went to my division supervisor, got signed off on, and shipped to the prosecutor's floor upstairs to get executed."
"How about the lie detector test? Were you there when he took the poly?"
"No. He did that before he asked for an attorney, before I got the case."
"It's also nowhere to be found," I said. "You ever see it?"
"He confessed to the crime. What part of that sentence is confusing to you? The confession makes the damn poly irrelevant."
"Brian Devine told him he flunked the poly. He panicked. That's why he confessed. Don't tell me you've never seen that before. A ten-year veteran of Homicide is now standing here telling you the wrong guy is probably in jail. I think this VSL gangster, Mike Church, is the doer."
She sat behind her scarred metal desk, still clocking me with machine gunner's eyes. "Whatta you want?" she finally asked.
"You handled his case a year ago. I think it was a miscarriage of justice. I guess Pm over here attorney shopping. If I can get enough evidence to refile, how'd you like to have another swing at this? Go for a writ of habeas corpus and a new trial?"
"My division chief is going to love that," she sneered. "My job is to see how many of these things I can kick down and plead out. How fast I do it counts. It's all about plumbing around here. My boss doe
sn't like the cleared cases to bubble back up in the bowl. What goes down must stay down."
"In Homicide, I've got the same problem. That doesn't mean either of us wants to see innocent people convicted of crimes they didn't commit. At least I hope not."
She watched me for a moment, then sighed. "Okay, Detective Scully, you get me something I can use, and I'm not talking about hearsay air-balls from Tru's old meth buddies or an alibi statement from his Aunt Bea. I need something watertight as a frog's ass. If it looks good, I'll take a shot. But don't waste your time coming back here with bullshit."
Hardly Pippi Longstocking, I thought as I stood to go.
"Thanks. Gimme your card." She did and I saw that her two years' seniority in the P. D.'s office had allowed her to rise to the position of Deputy Assistant. I started to go, but she cleared her throat, so I turned to look back.
"You know, Tru Hickman won me that month's loser pool," she said.
"I'm sorry?"
"We've got a pool around here. Everybody puts in fifty bucks and picks a number. Then we ask every client who gets convicted how much he or she weighs. We add it all up and at the end of the month, the P. D. who comes closest wins the pool. I remember Hickman's case was finally settled and he was sentenced on the thirtieth of August. My number was twenty-five hundred pounds. Tru weighed one-sixteen. Put me a hundred pounds off the number. I won nine hundred and fifty dollars. Went to Vegas with two girlfriends, got drunk, screwed a guy whose name I can't remember. Don something. I always wondered if part of me accepted that plea so I could win the pool. Never been one hundred percent sure. After twenty-four months of shoveling human garbage, I still wonder about it."
I stood there and looked at her, not sure what to say to that.
"Know what we called the pool?"
"Haven't a clue."
"Justice by the pound." She frowned. "Some pretty cold shit, huh?"
Chapter 13
In the elevator on my way to the lobby, I reflected on the damage that working in the criminal justice system could do to the people who pulled the ropes and turned the wheels. Yvonne Hope had undoubtedly started out as a caring person. She probably went into the P. D.'s office with hopes of defending the downtrodden. But the endless supply of craven liars she got as clients killed the dream. Calluses had quickly formed to protect her from the ugly reality of her job. It had cost her a large measure of her humanity.
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