A Gambler's Jury

by Victor Methos

  One of the guards walked by and the lights came on. He looked at me and chuckled. When he was gone, and I was left in darkness again, I buried my face in my hands and wept.

  54

  Under Utah’s contempt laws, Roscombe could only hold me at most for five days. He kept me that night and most of the next morning before letting me go and giving me the date for Teddy’s sentencing. There was no reason to be anxious about it; Roscombe would give him the maximum sentence of five to life. The parole board would probably let Teddy out at the five-year mark, but five years in prison for a mentally disabled boy . . . I didn’t know how he would survive.

  When I stepped outside of the courthouse, I had to squint. The holding cells were in a dark hallway, and the lights had been off more than on.

  Parked in front, leaning against his car, was Stefan. He smiled at me. “Will told me you called him and said you’d be here. I thought you could use a ride. They towed your Jeep.”

  “I’ll just take a Lyft. Thanks, though.”

  “It’s really no problem.”

  I grinned as I placed my hand gently on his cheek and then leaned in and kissed him. His lips tasted like fruity lip balm and they were soft, as soft as I remembered them being.

  “You’ve done enough for me,” I said. “You have a soon-to-be wife to take care of. You should go and take care of her.”

  He held my hands as he looked down at the pavement. “Dani . . .”

  “You don’t owe me a damn thing. I screwed it up. Over nothing. That’s what really pisses me off. It was over nothing.” I hesitated. “You know why I slept with that guy? I wanted you to leave me. We were getting so comfortable. So . . . normal that I couldn’t stand it. I needed that drama in my life, pain and pleasure and the huge ups and down. It felt like I was dying when everything was going well with no turbulence.”

  “That’s not a good trait.”

  “You’re telling me. That’s probably why I’ll be the crazy cat lady in twenty years.” I slipped my hands out of his. “Go be with your wife, Stefan.”

  He looked as though he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. He just got into his car and drove away. When he was gone, I sat down on the curb and cried some more.

  As I sat staring at the gutter, I knew I had screwed up everything in my life. My marriage, this case, my career . . . Everything had been destroyed because I couldn’t be honest with myself. What I’d told Stefan was true: the mundane terrified me, and all marriages seemed to get mundane eventually. But only now did I see that maybe the mundane was where the beauty was: That you could be with another person and hold them, and the rest of the world didn’t matter. That you didn’t have to be doing or saying anything. Only now that I’d lost everything did I realize what it was I had lost.

  My phone rang. It was Jack. I wiped away my tears and took a deep breath.

  “Hey, baby.”

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “What’re you doing?” I said, trying to keep it together so he couldn’t tell I’d been crying.

  “Dad said I should call you.”

  “You don’t have to, baby. I’m fine.”

  He hesitated. “I looked up who Jim Morrison was.”

  I grinned through the tears. “Oh, yeah? What did you think?”

  “I kinda like a few of their songs. He’s pretty cool. He seems like a dude who doesn’t care what anybody else thinks of him. I thought he was like you. Just like . . . doing his own thing and not caring what everybody else does.”

  I put my other hand to my head, staring down at the pavement. “Your mama’s a screwup, baby. I wish that was me, but it’s not. I’ve ruined everything in my life.”

  “I don’t know. Dad said you’re at your best when you’re at your lowest. I don’t really know what that means, but he said you always win when you want to.” He paused. “Anyway, I gotta go. Love you, Mom.”

  “I love you, baby.”

  When I hung up, there was only one person I wanted to call. Will answered on the first ring.

  “Where are you?” he said. “Are you out? Stefan said he wanted to pick you up, is he there?”

  “I’m sitting outside the courthouse. No, he’s not here. I told him to go home.”

  “Be there in a jiff.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Like hell I don’t.”

  I moved aside the strand of hair in my face and decided I would be getting drunk. I looked back at the courthouse. Teddy was completely unaware he was about to get a life sentence. He was a kid lost in a jungle. It made me want to vomit. I had to look away.

  Will showed up half an hour later and I got into the passenger seat of his Mercedes. He sat looking at me awhile and said, “So? What do you want to do?”

  “The nearest bar, please.”

  55

  I couldn’t remember the name of the bar, and Will went shot for shot with me. He called one of his assistants to pick up his car, and when evening came we walked to a karaoke bar across the street. It was packed, and someone was at the piano singing Billy Joel. The entire crowd sang along. We got a table in the back and ordered shots. I had now been drinking for five hours straight, but it didn’t seem like enough. I guzzled a couple of fruity cocktails after the shots.

  “You sure that’s a good idea?” Will shouted over the din of the song.

  “No, it’s definitely not.”

  The shots came and, again, he took them with me. It was like marching to a firing squad and having a loyal friend with you. I sang at the top of my lungs and Will joined in. We held hands across the table.

  When I was thoroughly trashed, Will summoned an Uber and we waited outside. I had my arm around his neck, and he had his around my waist. I rested my head against his. He smelled good, the same old cologne.

  I rubbed his chest and tried to kiss him. He pushed me away. “No, not while you’re drunk. It wouldn’t be right.”

  Without any warning, the tears came. I didn’t recognize them at first and had to touch my face to realize it was wet. Will asked me what was wrong, and that’s when I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I put my arms around him and cried on his chest. He held me tightly and didn’t let go, even when the car came. Not until I was done.

  “You all right?” he said softly as I pulled away and wiped my eyes.

  “No, no I’m not all right. He’s going to be in prison, Will. He’s going to be in there with monsters and he’s just a kid. He’s so damn innocent he won’t know what they’re doing to him. The thought of it makes me want to die.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “What’s the point? What’s the fucking point, when the government can do things like this? When they can treat people as things? When they can spy on us and put us in prison whenever they want and kill us like we’re nothing? Why keep moving forward when we’re not human to them?”

  He looked at me with his soft eyes and said, “I have never, not once, seen you back away from a fight. And you won’t back away from this either.”

  “It’s over. I lost.”

  He shrugged. “I haven’t seen losing stop you before.” He kissed my forehead and wiped away a few more tears. “Tonight, we’re gonna go crash at my place. And then tomorrow, we’ll think about what to do. Okay?”

  I nodded, taking a deep breath. He took my hand, and we got into the waiting car.

  56

  I woke up in Will’s soft, luxurious bed with silk sheets. It smelled faintly of lavender. Too girly for me, but I could see the appeal.

  I rolled out and realized I was wearing one of his T-shirts and nothing else. I found my clothes on the floor and slipped them on before heading out to the living room. Will was asleep on the couch.

  His condo was in one of the tallest buildings in Salt Lake. One wall was entirely glass and overlooked the city. The sun coming up tinted the glass on the buildings gold and cast shadows from the blinds. I stood in front of the windows and looked down over the city. I wondered what view Teddy had this morning
when he woke up.

  “Pancakes?” Will asked as he opened his eyes and rubbed them.

  “Please. And thanks for letting me crash here.”

  “Anytime, woman.”

  He went into the kitchen for a minute and came out with two cups of tea and handed me one. I took a sip. “It’s beautiful up here. Must’ve cost a fortune.”

  He shrugged as he looked out over the streets below. “What’s money for if not to enjoy things?” He looked at me. “You doing okay?”

  I shook my head and stared out in silence for a while. “I still can’t believe it. It’s surreal that Teddy’s going to prison.”

  “You know, and I’m just playing devil’s advocate here, the evidence is pretty good. It’s possible he did this himself. I mean, granted, he had to have been working for somebody, but it’s totally possible he knew what he was doing.”

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter that he’s guilty. That’s what people don’t understand about our system: guilt or innocence doesn’t matter. It’s the process that matters. The process has to be fair, otherwise we’re just the Soviet Union with better robes for our judges. This process was rigged from the beginning. From the time he was arrested to the time the jury found him guilty, nothing about this process was fair.”

  He took a deep breath and sat down on the couch. In front of him, on the massive glass coffee table, was my Teddy Thorne file. I hadn’t even noticed it, but he had spread out all the documents and photographs.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “There’s something in here. Something that can help this thing on appeal. We are appealing it, right?”

  “Not me, but I’ll try to get someone. Will, I’ve been through that file more times than I can count. There’s nothing in there.”

  “You went through it looking for trial tactics, not appellate strategies. Right?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “So let’s get to work.”

  We pored through the file. An hour went by. We ate pancakes with blueberry syrup while we read every line, listened to every bit of audio, and reflected on the testimony in court. The big question: Where did Teddy get the drugs? He couldn’t have gotten them on his own, so that meant he got them from Kevin or someone else.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Kevin seemed pretty sincere to me. It’s rare for someone to be that good at lying.”

  “He kinda did to me, too. So let’s start with that assumption: it wasn’t Kevin who set him up. Then who? One of the other boys?”

  I shook my head as I flipped through the photos. Will, as part of his investigation, had gone to the evidence holding room and taken his own photos of everything. You never knew what photos the police would include in what they gave you, so every good defense attorney sent their own investigator. I carefully looked through Will’s photos and the ones the State had introduced at trial. “If we assume Kevin is telling the truth, then he cares about Teddy. He wouldn’t have let one of the other boys do that to him.”

  “Then who?”

  I flipped through photos of the cocaine, and then saw the gym bag Teddy had carried the coke in, the FHY symbol prominent near the zipper. A photo Will had taken that I hadn’t noticed before.

  “Remember the bag?” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said with a mouthful of pancake. “What about it?”

  “It’s his father’s bag, right? He works at FHY. You think Teddy just grabbed it and left the house? Wouldn’t his father notice?”

  “Not necessarily. I keep my gym bags in the hall closet and wouldn’t have a clue if someone took one. If Teddy got the coke from Kevin or someone else, he’d have to put it somewhere. Maybe whoever got him the coke made him grab a bag from his father to make it look like it was his. That’s what I would do if I was trying to screw somebody. And Kevin’s dad and Teddy’s dad might be golfing buddies, who knows? Totally possible Thorne gave that bag to Kevin’s father and Kevin had Teddy use it.”

  “His mom did say in her written statement to the police that Teddy must’ve sneaked out, and I guess he could’ve grabbed the bag then, but if there’s one thing Teddy’s not good at, it’s being stealthy. He can’t.”

  “I don’t know. I guess we could go ask the dad about the gym bag. Maybe talk to Kevin’s dad, too.”

  I shook my head, staring at the photo. “What is FHY anyway?”

  “I don’t know, some medical supply company or something.”

  I took out my phone and googled it. The home page was a nice mix of blue and white, very upscale with stock photos of beautiful models in lab coats. I scrolled through the various testing outsourced to the company: blood testing, genetic testing, forensic testing, drug-therapy testing . . .

  “Drug-therapy testing,” I said.

  “Yeah? So?”

  “Don’t companies like this have an exception with the DEA and US Justice Department to use illegal narcotics in laboratory testing?”

  He looked down at my phone. “Holy shit, woman.”

  57

  Will and I sat outside the office of Michael Bowman, Robert Thorne’s supervisor. I paced as Will sat in one of the chairs and read a Sports Illustrated that had been on the coffee table.

  “You need to relax, lady,” he said without looking up.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. I mean, I saw it—I saw Robert wearing an FHY logo on a jacket and a polo—but I just never put it together. Even when Zamora said on the stand that he thought he’d met Teddy through a friend who worked in a lab, I didn’t put it together.”

  “Could be a coincidence; don’t get too excited.”

  “No way, Will. No way this kid came up with all this himself.”

  The door finally opened and a bearded man greeted us. He wore jeans and a sports coat and shook my hand. We introduced ourselves, and he asked us to come back and sit in his office.

  Will and I sat down, and Michael took his place behind his desk. He closed a window on his computer and crossed his legs before turning to us.

  “So,” he said, “you told me this was an emergency on the phone. What exactly is going on?”

  “It’s about one of your employees. Robert Thorne,” I said.

  “What about him?”

  “It’s my understanding he’s a lab technician, is that right?”

  “Yeah, he is. Robert’s been with us almost eleven years. What exactly is this pertaining to again, Officer?”

  “Oh, I’m not a cop. I’m a lawyer.”

  “Really? You gave the impression on the phone that—”

  “My investigator here found that FHY does extensive studies using narcotics, is that true?” I interrupted.

  He looked from one of us to the other. “Yes, that’s true.”

  “Cocaine?”

  He leaned back in his chair. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to speak to our—”

  “Michael, this pertains to an ongoing felony case. I can go ask the judge for a warrant, and we can deal with your in-house counsel and jump through all the hoops. I promise though, if you just answer two minutes of questions you will save yourself and us days and days of pain-in-the-ass work. I’d have to subpoena you to testify in court and the whole enchilada. Or we can just talk now.”

  He hesitated a second. “What is it you want to know?”

  “You work with cocaine, right?”

  “Yes, we have various ongoing studies using it in the treatment of Alzheimer’s. It’s all been permitted by the FDA and our shipments are delivered sealed with DEA approval. Everything’s aboveboard.”

  “I’m sure it is. That’s not what we’re here for. We’re here because I’m willing to bet you’re missing some of that cocaine.”

  “Missing? Missing how?”

  “As in it’s not there anymore.”

  He grinned. “I don’t know who told you that, but we have a strict procedure in place that prevents any type of—”

  “I bet Robert Thorne has access to the cocaine, and I
’ll just bet if you have a look-see you’ll find that what’s there and what he logged as being there don’t match. He’ll probably have forged a few things so you’ll have to physically weigh the drugs.”

  He laughed. “Robert? Robert doesn’t even jaywalk because he’s scared of getting a ticket. There’s no way he would do anything like that.”

  “It’ll take ten minutes to go down to your labs and have a look. What’dya say?”

  “I think it’s best if I now refer you to our in-house counsel.”

  I glanced at Will. He cleared his throat. “I used to be a narcs detective, Michael,” he lied. Will could no more be a narcs detective than Pee-wee Herman could. “You know, if we’re right, then Robert stole cocaine from you and sold it out there in the streets. Your cocaine that the DEA entrusted you with. And I can tell you, Michael—I know these guys. The first thing they’re gonna be thinking is who else was involved. That means you’ll be investigated. And maybe FHY will have your back and maybe they won’t. Who knows? But you help us now, you get in front of this thing. No one will even suspect you because you’re the guy who uncovered it. That’s if we’re right. If we’re wrong, then you just wasted ten minutes. I know what I’d choose.”

  He sighed. “Let me call down to the lab first.”

  58

  I pounded on the door with the back of my fist. It took a good minute for someone to answer. It was Riley Thorne. She looked surprised to see me.

  “Mind if I come in?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Ms. Rollins.”

  “Oh, you’re gonna want to hear what I have to say.”

  Will ran up behind me from the car after finishing a phone call. “I’m here, I’m here; you ladies can relax.”

  We both glared at him, and he cleared his throat and adjusted his tie.

  “Let us in,” I said, turning to Riley. “You’ll want to talk to me.”