The Last Innocent Man

by Phillip Margolin

  At thirty-five, David still looked open and honest, like a little boy at an American Legion oratorical contest. Jurors trusted him. When he looked them in the eye and told them that his client was innocent, they believed him. When he told a witness, like Jessie Garza, that he was interested only in finding out the truth, they spoke to him. More than once David had seen the shock on the face of a witness as something innocently revealed during an interview was used to destroy the prosecutor’s case.

  Jessie shrugged and walked over to a chair near Detective Stahlheimer, turning her back to David.

  “I don’t care,” she said. She didn’t say anything else, David noted. She knew the routine.

  “I think it’s ready,” Stahlheimer said. Monica sat down across from David and beside the girl. She was immaculately dressed, in a double-breasted charcoal-pinstripe cutaway jacket, a matching skirt, and a cream-colored, ruffle-front blouse. Monica looked more beautiful now than she had when they were married. Their eyes met for a moment; then David looked away. He always felt a bit uncomfortable when he had a case with Monica. Their divorce had been relatively amicable, but being in her presence stirred up feelings of guilt best left buried.

  “This is Detective Leon Stahlheimer,” the detective said into the mike. “It’s Thursday, June sixteenth. The time is ten-oh-sevenA.M. I am present in a conference room at the Juvenile Detention Center for the purpose of an interview with the victim in an attempt murder. Present are Jessie May Garza, Deputy District Attorney Monica Powers, and David Nash, the attorney for Anthony Seals.”

  Stahlheimer stopped the tape and played it back. David took a pad out of his attache case and wrote the date, the time, and “Jessie May Garza” at the top. Monica leaned over and said something to the girl which he did not catch. Jessie crossed her fat forearms on the table and rested her head on them. She looked bored.

  “Okay,” Stahlheimer said.

  “Jessie,” David started, “I represent Tony Seals, one of three boys who you claim tried to kill you several weeks ago. The purpose of this interview is for me to find out what happened and, more specifically, what part Tony…You know him as T.S., don’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “You’ll have to talk, Jessie, so it goes on the tape,” Monica said.

  “Yes. T.S. It meant ‘Tough Shit,’ he said. I never even knowed it meant Tony.”

  “Okay. I’ll say ‘T.S.,’ then.”

  “It don’t make no difference to me.”

  “Now, Jessie, I don’t know what impression you have of lawyers from TV or the movies, but I’m no Perry Mason and I’m not trying to trick you here. The purpose of this talk is to find out what happened, and if I ask a question you don’t understand or if you say something you want to change, ask me to explain the question or just say you want to change what you said. Okay?”

  The girl said nothing.

  “Why don’t you just start at the beginning.”

  Jessie sat up, then slouched back in the chair.

  “Like, when?” she asked.

  “Well, when did you first meet T.S., Sticks, and Zachariah?”

  “I don’t know. It was at Granny’s. Whenever I started living there. Because Zack was there already, you know, and then T.S. and Sticks moved in about a week after I got there.”

  “Who is Granny?”

  “I don’t know her last name. I heard someone call her Terry once.”

  “What does Granny have going on over at her place?”

  “Well, it’s where a bunch of people used to crash. There was always guys who worked the carnivals when they came through. Then she used to let people fix up speed, and she used to do acid and everything, and then everything changed because Zack and Sticks OD’d. All of them came damn close to OD’ing on pure heroin and, let’s see, and so like, so like her old man’s in the Navy or used to be, and she changed old mans. This guy Norman is now her new old man.”

  “Is he young?”

  “Oh, he’s about twenty-three.”

  “But she’s quite a bit older, isn’t she?”

  Jessie laughed sarcastically.

  “Like a hundred.”

  “She liked having young boys like T.S. and Sticks around?”

  “Yeah. She dug it.”

  “Did she go with Zack for a while?”

  “No. She brought Zack into the house to bring him off the needle from speed ’cause he was gettin’ to the point where he needed speed all the time.”

  “Were you guys speeding quite a bit the night it happened?”

  “I hadn’t took speed for almost two weeks ’cause the last time I did, I overacted on it.”

  “What about Sticks and Zack?”

  “No. Like I said, they quit speed and chemicals altogether ’cause they almost OD’d.”

  “And T.S.?”

  “Man, like he was constantly fucked up. Yeah, he was doin’ speed and acid. But I don’t know what he was into that night specifically, except for pot, ’cause we was all smoking that.”

  “Well, did he seem awake and aware that night or what? How did he look?”

  “I guess he was stoned. We all were, a little.”

  “When you say ‘stoned,’ what do you mean? Can you describe how T.S. looked?”

  “Well, he was talking slow and his pupils were big and he was dreamy. I don’t really remember that much. I remember in the car, going up to the park, I was in the backseat with T.S. and he was tripping out, you know, like gazing off in his own little world. My problem remembering is I took some downers before we left and I slept through most of the ride.”

  “Why did you go out there?”

  “Around two that afternoon Zack tells me how there are pounds buried out by the park in a place he knows and how they’re gonna get it that night. So I asked if I could go.”

  “Were Sticks and T.S. around when he said this?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sticks was teasin’ and sayin’ how they shouldn’t take me, but Zack said I could come.”

  “And T.S.?”

  “He didn’t say nothin’ I can remember.”

  “Okay, what happened when you got to the park?”

  “Well, it took a while. I remember Sticks was driving, but Zack had to take over because Sticks was tired and got lost. Then, when we got to the place where Zack said it was, we didn’t find it right away.

  “We parked the car and Sticks crawled into the backseat to sleep. Then me and Zack and T.S. went into the woods a ways until we came to the railroad tracks. There was one shovel, which Zack carried, and T.S. had a flashlight. I remember about four trains goin’ by, because Zack would say to turn off the flashlight when they came, so no one would see us.

  “Anyway, we walked up and down the tracks and every so often Zack would say he thought this was it. Then he’d change his mind. Finally he said this was it at a spot about twenty feet from the tracks, and we started digging.”

  “Did you dig, too?”

  The girl looked directly at David and smiled, as if amused by some private joke.

  “Yeah, I dug. I dug almost the whole goddamn hole. Zack did almost nothin’ and T.S. dug a little, but mostly he held the flashlight. And when I’d get tired, Zack would say to keep diggin’ or I wouldn’t get any of the weed.”

  “Did you get sore?”

  “Sure, but I wanted the pot.”

  “Do you think there really was marijuana out there?”

  “I really kind of doubt it in my mind now, because…well, at first, I thought…yeah, really, I thought there was some out there, because Zack kept sayin’ dig, dig, dig, like he was determined to get it. But, now, well, when I got shot, I was in the hole and I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Now I think they was having me dig my own grave.”

  David felt a chill. Just a moment, then it was gone. He saw the acne-marked, hollow-cheeked face of Tony Seals during their interview at the county jail. The eyes dull, the dirty, uncombed hair thick with grease. He was suddenly sick with himself.

  “How did
it happen?” David asked. “The shooting, I mean.”

  “Like I said, the tracks was behind us and I had been digging for a long time and I was tired. T.S. was standing above me and behind me to my right with the flashlight. I couldn’t see Zack, but I think he was to my left, because when the train came, he was the one that said to put out the light, and I’m pretty sure the voice came from there.

  “Every time a train would come the light would go out. This time the light went out and Zack said, ‘Keep digging.’ I said okay, then I heard the shot out of my left ear.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I was in the hole and I froze. I didn’t feel no pain right then, but I was scared. I called for T.S. and Zack, but they didn’t say nothing. It was dark and cold, and when the light didn’t go back on, I called again. I was feeling weak and I slumped down in the hole and I was leaning against the side of the hole on my stomach with my head and arms just over the rim.

  “I called again and this time I seen their shadow. They was about forty-five feet away near some trees and I yelled, ‘I’ve been shot,’ and they walked back. Zack said, ‘Let’s see,’ and he squatted on the edge of the hole and said he didn’t see nothin’, just a clot of dirt on my shirt. Then T.S. and Zack looked under the shirt with the flashlight, and they said they still didn’t see nothin’.

  “I told ’em again I was shot and I was getting more tired. They said they’d go for help and walked off. I said, ‘No,’ I was comin’ with them, but they just walked off and I crawled out of the hole by myself.”

  The look of boredom had disappeared from Jessie’s eyes, and David could see that she was reliving the incident. She had a faraway look, and there was a rigidity in her body that had not been there before. Monica gave Jessie a glass of water, then looked across at David. He could read her unspoken criticism of him for representing Tony Seals.

  “The car wasn’t far from where we was digging, but it was hard getting back. I was feeling weak and I couldn’t breathe. By the time I got there, all three of ’em was by the back of the car talkin’. I asked ’em to help me, but they acted scared and stood away, like they didn’t want to be near me. The back door was open where Sticks had got out, so I laid down in the backseat. The pain started gettin’ real bad then and I was cryin’ and blood started coming out of my mouth and nose and I got so dizzy I shut my eyes and just laid there. I could taste the blood and that was scaring me worse than the pain. Someone started the car and I thought we were going to the hospital, ’cause that’s what I asked them and they said they would.”

  “Do you remember the car stopping?”

  “When they dumped me out?” Jessie asked bitterly. “Yeah, I remember that. I was lying with my head on the driver’s side, but facing the back of the car and the car had been bouncing a lot like we was on a dirt road and then they stopped and the passenger door opened. Sticks or Zack, I don’t know who, said to get out. That there was a kind of a plant that would stop the bleeding. I knew what they were up to, so I said I couldn’t move, I was in pain. Then T.S. and Sticks grabbed my legs and pulled and Zack was on the other side pushing me out. I tried to go into the front seat and I was hanging on underneath the seat and they was pulling me out by the feet. I was really scared then, ’cause it was so dark and I didn’t want to be alone. Then Zack said again how I should let go because there was a plant that stopped bleeding and I said, ‘Bullshit, there’s no plant that stops bleeding. Take me to the hospital.’ And that’s when Zack hit my fingers with the gun and I let go and they dragged me onto the ground a ways from the car.

  “I lay there. I think I was cryin’ ’cause they were gonna leave me alone in the dark and the pain was gettin’ worse. I heard the car door slam and I yelled to them to take me with them. I even said I wouldn’t take none of the pot. Then I heard two shots and I just shut up. I laid there not moving until the car drove off. I didn’t move then, either. I thought maybe one of them was waiting for me to move.

  “About two minutes later they turned around and fired the rest of the shots in the gun off at me.”

  It was very quiet in the room. David was having trouble taking this in, which was unusual for him. He was an old pro at this sort of thing. How many mutilated bodies had he seen in photographs or in person? How many human tragedies had he been involved in? What was this girl to him?

  “How close did the shots come to you?” David asked.

  “One bullet spit up dirt right near my head. So did another.”

  “Did you hear any of them say anything when they left?”

  “Yeah, someone said, ‘I think we got her,’ but I don’t know who.”

  “Do you know who shot at you from the car?”

  She shook her head and put it down on her crossed arms again. She looked very tired.

  “How did you get down to the bottom of the mountain? It’s several miles from where the shots were fired.”

  “I crawled.”

  “Crawled?”

  “I got scared lying there. I stayed curled up for a while, but the pain wouldn’t stop and there was no sound up there. Just the wind and animals in the woods. I didn’t want to stay put, so I crawled. And it took hours and it hurt so much.”

  There were tears in her eyes and David felt dead inside.

  “But I wasn’t gonna let them do this to me. So I crawled and sometimes I walked a ways and I got to the bottom and just fell in that ditch, and anytime a car come by or a truck I’d pull myself up. That was the worst. Even worst than the shooting and being alone. No one would stop for me or help me.”

  The tape recorder spun on. The rays of the sun created splotches of light on the tabletop. Monica placed her arm around Jessie’s heaving shoulders and spoke soothingly. David stared at the wall. It took every ounce of control he had learned in the courtroom to keep his features from showing any emotion. Sometimes he wondered if that wasn’t one trick he could do now without trying.

  Monica and David agreed to meet by the reception desk, and Monica took Jessie back to the girls’ detention area. It was a little past noon and the reception room was empty. David sat down on a couch in the corner. The interview had shaken him, and he wanted some time to calm down.

  A teenage boy walked up to the reception desk and David thought about the man-boy, Tony Seals, whom he was being paid so much money to represent. Eighteen years old, his brains burned out by controlled substances, not caring about anything or anyone, not even himself.

  And the boy’s parents. David would never have come into the office the day after the Gault verdict if Anton and Emily Seals had not been old and valued clients of his firm, and close personal friends of Gregory Banks, one of the senior partners and David’s closest friend.

  During the meeting Anton Seals had sat straight-backed and expressionless, wearing his conservative pinstriped suit like a uniform. His only show of emotion had been the constant stroking of his wife’s hand. Emily Seals had also kept her composure, but David could see that her eyes were red-rimmed from crying. The Sealses represented old money. They were elegant people. Neither of them fully understood what their son had done to Jessie Garza, himself, or their lives.

  “Why did you shoot Jessie Garza?” David had asked Tony Seals yesterday at the county jail. Even now David did not know why he had asked the question. You didn’t have to know why a person violated the law to get him off.

  “She was a pain in the ass.”

  “You shot her because…”

  “Well, you know, she knew how to get drugs, so we used her like that for a while, but she was a pain in the ass. Then she tore up some marijuana plants that Sticks had growing. So we were talking about what a pain in the ass she was and how no one liked her because she’s got such a big mouth and Zack says he’ll bump her off.”

  “Just like that?” David had asked. “Just because of the plants?”

  “I guess so. Zack was always talking like that. About how he was a hit man. He said he’d killed guys before, but Sticks and me didn�
�t believe him even though he was always flashing this gun around. We didn’t think he’d use it.”

  “Why didn’t you try to get Zack to take her to the hospital after she was shot?”

  “I did say we should back at the hole, but Zack said, ‘Don’t worry about her, she’s just gonna die,’ so I forgot about it. Besides, I was real tired and I didn’t want trouble with the cops.”

  David saw Monica walking toward him and he stood up.

  “Is she okay?” David asked when they were outside.

  “It depends on what you mean by ‘okay.’ Physically, she’s doing fine. Psychologically…” Monica shook her head. “She’s one tough cookie, Dave, but I don’t know. And her ordeal on the mountain isn’t the worst part. We’re holding her until the trials are over; then we want to send her back to her parents in Montana. Only they’re not sure they want her.”

  “Shit,” David said.

  “Yeah,” Monica answered bitterly, “but that’s life, right? Why the interest?”

  David shrugged.

  “She got to you, right? You better watch that, Dave. It’s bad for the old ‘Ice Man’ image.”

  “Give me a break, Monica,” David said without anger. “I’m not in the mood.”

  Monica sensed his exhaustion and backed off.

  “Say, I haven’t congratulated you yet on the Gault verdict.”

  The way she said it, David wasn’t certain it was a compliment, so he said nothing.

  “Norm says you tried a good case.”

  “We both did.”

  “Who’s going to play you in the movie?” Monica asked with a mischievous grin. David laughed.

  “You angling for a part?” he asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe if Tom Cruise gets the lead.” She struck a pose. “Whadda ya think? Do I still have what it takes?”

  “Yes, Monica, you still do.”

  And they were suddenly too close to personal problems for comfort.

  “Look,” David said to change the subject, “is there any possibility we can deal on this one?”

  “Not a chance, Dave,” Monica answered.