After we signed off and I went into the jail, I took a second to refresh my overheated self in the restroom. When Ruiz mentioned the pay, it reminded me of the financial nightmare I was about to walk into. I’d reached out to the county public defender’s office, telling them I thought they had a conflict on account of how often they’d represented Karl in his various scrapes with the law, including child abuse against Jackson. They were more than willing to agree—they had more cases than they could handle already—so at Summary Court, I’d gotten the magistrate to appoint me Jackson’s lawyer. That meant the state would pay me—at most—the princely sum of $3,500 to spend probably the next year of my life trying to bust him out of jail. If this went all the way to trial, I’d be lucky if it worked out to five bucks an hour.
When I came into where Jackson was waiting for me, he cracked a weak smile and asked, “You here to tell me it’s all been a mistake? I can go home tonight?”
It was a joke, but it just felt sad. I sat down and looked at him squarely. “Look, Jackson, I wish I could. Going back in time a few weeks would be nice too. But we got to deal with what we got.”
He nodded and looked at his lap.
I said, “Now, I need you to answer some questions. Like they say, with nothing but the truth, and the whole truth. All the details.”
He shrugged.
I decided to spring it on him like a prosecutor would, just to see his response. “So what were you doing carrying a crowbar around that night?”
He looked up at me, confused. He truly did look confused.
I said, “Word is Detective Blount saw you walking by the marina with a crowbar in your hand.”
“That is bullshit.”
“Which part?”
“All of it! I don’t even own a goddamn crowbar. And I know Blount, or I seen him around, but I didn’t see him that night. I didn’t see no cars on that road, nobody.”
I sat back and sighed. “You got any idea why he might say that?”
“’Cause he’s a dick.”
“Fair point, but you’re going to have to do better than that. The world’s full of dicks, but most of them don’t go around committing perjury.”
“Do most of them tell a kid whose dad broke his arm that he deserved it?”
“Jesus. He said that to you?”
“He said all kinds of shit. He’s had it in for me since, I don’t know, ninth grade. He busted up a party I was at, and a bunch of us had weed.” He looked off at the corner, shaking his head. Whatever he was thinking about, I got the sense he wasn’t going to share it. He went back to joking. “Ruined a great party. Maybe he’s just jealous of anyone having fun.”
“Jackson, dang it, this is your life on the line here. It’s not a joke. I can’t help you if you don’t take this seriously and really think about what might be going on.”
“You don’t got to tell me this is serious,” he said. He was looking at me with barely concealed rage. “You ain’t the one who’s in jail and who got strip-searched yesterday.”
“Oh, goddammit,” I said. “I’m sorry. What the hell did they think they were going to find?”
“Drugs, they said. You know me: I’m pot dealer number one in Blount’s book. He arrested me and threatened me with hellfire after that party, but I was fourteen years old. I got off with community service. And I ain’t never been a dealer. I just smoke.”
I shook my head, looking at him, letting him know I knew this wasn’t right. I wanted to kick the shit out of whichever guards had strip-searched him—and whoever had set him up for it. But I had to set the small battles aside and focus everything on getting him out of here.
“Listen,” I said. “Were you smoking that night? Is that why you can’t remember too much detail or don’t want to tell me?”
“What the hell’s the point?” he said. “You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”
“I’m trying to help you,” I said. “You just let me know when you’re ready to give me the means to do it.”
Back home, I went over what I had. The only way I could even confirm whether the solicitor’s office was going to put Blount or anyone else on to testify that Jackson was near the murder scene was if I filed a notice of alibi. But unless Jackson gave me something better than him sleeping on the beach in a state of apparent invisibility, I couldn’t do that.
When Noah popped in looking for something to eat, I asked if he’d seen Jackson at all the day Karl was killed. He checked his phone, scrolled a bit, and showed me their texts: Park tonight? Jackson had said. Noah had answered, Dunno maybe.
Pretty useless. He shrugged an apology and went back out with a bowl of cereal.
His quick search for evidence on his phone reminded me that Terri had said something about social media, and that got me wondering how I could get her involved in this. What I needed was detective work to find anything that could throw doubt on Jackson’s involvement, and that was her skill set, not mine. Maybe the $3,500 the state was paying me could finance my hiring her. Hell, hiring her might free me up to try to make some real money.
I gave her a call. I thanked her for the tip on Blount’s statement and told her I’d realized I needed an investigator and the job was hers if she wanted it. “I’m playing catch-up as it is,” I said, “and researching this social media stuff is not my thing. I had other people doing that for me at the solicitor’s office.”
“Must be tough,” she said, “being David when you used to be Goliath.”
“Heck yes. I don’t know how those career public defenders do it. They’ve got fifty of these cases going at the same time.”
“I’ve helped some of them too. Once in a while they need an investigator.”
“I know you got a lot going on,” I said, “working and getting your degree. So go ahead and sleep on it, but if you could let me know tomorrow—”
“I don’t need to sleep on it,” she said. “I need the work. And internet detective work is what I like best.” I could already hear her tapping away on her keyboard. “It’s unbelievable what some people put up there. I once had to tell a PD that his car-theft client had posted a video of himself stealing the car.”
We laughed. “Dear Lord,” I said. “People really are that stupid sometimes.”
“Which is why you and I have jobs. Okay, I’m sending you some links. His Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are all public.”
I fired up my laptop and started looking over more of Jackson’s life. Going to the beach, complaining about a hangover, joking with his friends. A photo he’d posted of Karl with devil horns added on and the caption, “Happy sucky fathers day.”
Terri said, “We might want to listen to this.” I clicked on the link she’d sent and found myself on the Twitter page of some podcast called “4/20 Confessions.” The logo was some sort of collage of pot leaves and kids’ faces. One of the faces was Jackson’s.
I groaned. “Not great, but his pot use isn’t relevant to the crime. I should be able to keep any evidence of it out.”
“I’m listening to the May 5 podcast. Check out the title.”
I scrolled down. It said, “The Per420ct Murder.” Not even witty. I clicked and was treated to the sound of Jackson himself opining on the awesomeness of marijuana, then flicking a lighter to start smoking.
I said, “He clearly had his college applications in mind when he recorded this.”
She laughed. Then she said, “Oh, uh-uh. No. Leland, go to about the four-minute, twelve-second mark.”
I scooted ahead. We listened in silent horror as Jackson described a dream he’d had after smoking a blunt. He’d dreamed of committing a brutal murder, he said, beating a guy half to death and then finishing him off with a baseball bat. The phrase “I turned his face into fuckin’ hamburger” stuck in my head. All the kids were laughing.
I stopped it and asked her, “Was that hard to find?”
“No. It’s one of his friends’ pinned tweet, and it mentions Jackson’s Twitter handle.”
I
looked at the clock. We hadn’t even been on the phone twenty minutes. Ruiz was going to find this for sure. Even though it was most likely inadmissible as evidence, I knew from my own experience that things like that could make a prosecutor truly believe the defendant was guilty. It could put Ruiz on a crusade, making him less likely to go along with my bail request or offer a good plea deal.
But the real problem wasn’t Ruiz. Hearing Jackson laughing like a hyena while he described beating a man to death made me have my own doubts.
10
Thursday, July 11, Morning
On the morning of Jackson’s bond hearing, Noah and I met Mazie outside the courthouse. It was a pompous-looking building, two stories, plain brick with some Greek columns thrown on the front to let you know it was important. We passed under oak trees hung with Spanish moss, then came back into the blazing sun beside the tattered-looking palm trees out front. I was telling them both what to expect, but Mazie hadn’t said a word besides hello. She was terrified.
Once I’d deposited them in a pew in the oak-paneled courtroom, I went to the pen, where prisoners were held until their hearings were called. Through the plate glass I saw Jackson in an orange jumpsuit and cuffs. In a tote bag I’d brought an old suit from law school, when I was nearly as skinny as him. I was hoping they’d let me lend it to him so he could appear in court looking like a decent man instead of a prisoner.
I chatted with the guard. When I asked, he shrugged. “Put it through,” he said, indicating the X-ray machine’s conveyor belt. He sounded like it had been a long while since he cared about anything.
Jackson changed in full view of the guard and half a dozen other prisoners. When he was in his skivvies, I discreetly looked him over for bruises. I was glad not to see any.
In the courtroom, I was dismayed to see a couple of local reporters and some rubberneckers. Ruiz was shuffling papers at the prosecutor’s table and whispering to his sidekick. When I got to the defense table, the bailiff deposited Jackson beside me. He wasn’t wearing the necktie I’d brought. I wanted to kick myself for not showing him how to tie it. Karl probably never wore a tie in his life, and even if he had, he wasn’t the kind of man to take the time to teach his son.
Jackson leaned over to me and said, “This is freaking me out.”
“It always does, the first time,” I said. “Try not to let it get to you.” Courtrooms were designed to look intimidating. They put you in your place.
Judge Chambliss was still in chambers. In front of his empty bench, set lower than it but higher than us mere mortals, his clerk was at her desk. She looked young and a little nervous. With our small-town crime rate, I wondered if this might be her first hearing in a murder case.
It was my first time before Judge Chambliss. I was at a disadvantage. Back in Charleston I knew which judges wanted incisive legal argument and which ones would let off any defendant who said he’d found Jesus while in jail. But since coming home, I hadn’t set foot in criminal court. I didn’t know which clerks and bailiffs liked a friendly chat and which didn’t. I wondered if this bailiff, who was standing at attention with his back to the chambers door, had been assigned to General Sessions—that is, criminal court—on account of his size. He was a Black man with a face as impassive as an Easter Island statue, and he looked like he could lift the front end of a Buick off the ground with one hand.
I turned to give Mazie and Noah a reassuring smile. He gave me a nod, but she didn’t see me. She was glaring at Ruiz like her greatest wish was for him to drop dead on the spot.
She was going to need some coaching. I did not want the jury to see that expression on her face.
The bailiff called out, “All rise.” The judge, an energetic little white-haired guy, scooted up the steps and took his seat between two flags: the Stars and Stripes and South Carolina’s indigo with its white palm tree and crescent moon. I couldn’t tell if his pink face was from sunburn or exertion.
The clerk announced the case. The judge leaned back like he was sitting in a recliner and said, “Morning, Mr. Ruiz. What you got for us today?”
“Morning, Your Honor. Well, as you know, our peaceful little seaside community had a murder last month.” He paused to let the gravity of his words sink in.
Judge Chambliss shook his head like it was a damn shame. “I’m familiar, counsel. And may God rest his soul.”
Ruiz said, “Amen, Your Honor.”
I didn’t normally send good wishes on high when child-abusing drunks died, but perhaps His Honor wasn’t aware yet of what kind of man Karl was. I would need to make that clear.
“We’re here to talk about bail,” Judge Chambliss said. “Anything you want to say on that, counsel?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Ruiz said. “Mr. Warton here is a repeat offender with convictions for drugs and vandalism, two of them from just last year, right before he turned eighteen. And now he’s charged with murder, and the victim is his own father.”
Judge Chambliss was shaking his head with his lips pursed. I half expected him to say something about the folly of mankind.
“Not only that,” Ruiz continued, “but when the police came to inform him and his mother that his father was dead, this young man”—he was pointing at Jackson—“fled out a back window and remained in hiding for more than a week. So even if the general rule was to grant bail in murder cases, which of course it isn’t, the facts here weigh powerfully against granting it.”
“Okay, thank you.” Judge Chambliss looked at me and said, “And good morning, uh…” He glanced at something on his desk. “Mr. Munroe. I don’t believe I’ve seen you in my courtroom before.”
“No, Your Honor. I was with the solicitor’s office in Charleston until recently, so today’s the first time I’ve had the privilege.”
“Well, welcome. Okay, you got anything you want to make of record?”
“Yes, Your Honor. I appreciate that. While it’s not relevant here, I do want to make sure it’s clear that when Mr. Ruiz suggested my client had some sort of drug record, he must’ve meant the $200 fine my client paid for possessing a single marijuana cigarette shortly after his seventeenth birthday. And the vandalism was a moment of teenage foolishness with some spray paint. He worked hard and paid for that small amount of damage.”
Judge Chambliss asked, “That true, Mr. Ruiz?”
“We’ll stipulate to the marijuana fine, Your Honor. And while I’m dismayed that Mr. Munroe is making excuses for vandalism, it’s my understanding it was spray paint on the wall of a local bar.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Now, Your Honor, as Mr. Ruiz is aware, my client has no history whatsoever of violence. This is the first time he’s ever been accused of laying a hand on anybody. And I know this isn’t the time to enter a plea, but he denies any involvement—”
Ruiz stood up. “Your Honor—”
I said, “Mr. Ruiz, that’s just for context. The point I was getting to is that as far as I understand the solicitor’s theory, what he’s going to allege here is that a boy with no history of violence was provoked until he lashed out at the father who’d abused him badly enough to break his arm.”
“Your Honor, I—”
“Mr. Munroe,” said the judge, “this is a bail hearing. You’ll get your chance to argue for lesser charges later on. At this stage, I’m not going to second-guess Mr. Ruiz on charging this as murder rather than some degree of manslaughter.”
I said, “Of course, Your Honor. My point was just that there’s nothing here suggesting my client poses any danger to the community. And he’s a local boy, just nineteen, with deep ties to the area. His entire family lives within an hour of this courthouse, and he’s never set foot outside of South Carolina. He’s a hardworking kid, and far from wealthy. Up until his arrest he was working nearly full-time at Barrett’s Hardware here in town, earning just $7.95 an hour. In short, Your Honor, he’s about as low a flight risk as he could be.”
Judge Chambliss said, “But the first thing he did was flee. He went out
the back window and went into hiding—am I wrong?”
“Your Honor, he slept in a friend’s shed for a few days. He does have, I’m sorry to say, some fear of the police due to some perceived mistreatment that he feels he experienced during those previous incidents Mr. Ruiz stipulated to. But I’ve explained to him that there’s nothing to fear.”
“Okay,” the judge said. “You done?”
We both said we were.
He said, “All right, given this is a murder case, and particularly since the defendant already fled once, I’m denying bail.” He banged his gavel and stood up.
“All rise,” the bailiff called out.
As soon as the judge was gone, Mazie made a beeline for Jackson. They hugged; she cried. Noah came up too, and this time he smiled at me.
“You told us not to get our hopes up,” he said. “You said there was no way he’d get bail. But you fought for him anyway.” He stopped abruptly, gave me a nod of approval, and turned to say hi to Jackson.
I was fighting for both of them, I realized. And if I could give Jackson a shot at getting his life back, I had a shot at being redeemed.
“’Scuse me, Mr. Munroe.” Ruiz knocked my train of thought right off its tracks. He held out his hand. As we shook, I saw Mazie glaring at both of us. I’d warned her about this, told her me being polite to the prosecutor was in Jackson’s best interest, but I was pretty sure she still saw normal attorney collegiality as some kind of betrayal.
Ruiz said, “I assume you’ll be wanting a preliminary hearing?”
He meant the probable cause hearing. “Yep.”
“We’ll be sending over some more discovery as it comes in,” he said.
“Thanks.” I saw the bailiff coming over to get Jackson and excused myself.
We all went down to the pen with him. When Mazie saw him starting to undress in front of everyone, I could tell it was taking everything she had not to bust out crying. He traded my suit for his prison garb, gave her a hug, and let himself be led back out to the van.
Defending Innocence (Small Town Lawyer Book 1) Page 7