Web of Justice

by J J Miller

  With that Jessica sat back down. Demarco was leaning back in his chair like it all was okay. That didn’t mean he was indifferent to what was going on, but the sense of fatalism he displayed worried me. I had no issue with believers, trust me, but it is hard to help someone fight a powerful adversary when they are nourished by a belief that whatever becomes of them is pre-ordained, tailored even, by God.

  In our meeting prior to this hearing, Demarco had said he would never plead guilty, that he owed it to God to maintain the truth—that he was innocent—no matter what. So from the get-go, I knew I wasn’t going to be approaching Jessica for a plea deal. And I knew Jessica would be delighted to learn that Demarco was standing his ground. That way it would go to trial, and she could put him away for life with no chance of parole.

  I had to admit, I felt hamstrung by what I could offer to counter Jessica’s cold assessment of my client. But I was going to give it my best shot.

  “You Honor, to properly judge someone, we need to not only be aware of the facts as they are recorded by the police, but also the facts as they are recorded by others in a position of social authority. I know it has only been a matter of months since Demarco was before you, but I can assure you that in that time he had indeed embarked on a corrective path, all of his own volition.

  “Based on the documents I have filed, it is recorded fact that he entered the Los Angeles Mission of his own accord six months ago. This was when he told you, Your Honor, that he was following the path of God toward redemption. And his actions have reflected a commitment to that end. At the mission, he took part in charitable works and underwent counselling to help equip himself for the significant mental challenge of making deep changes in his life.

  “Your Honor, I think you would agree that such a commitment to change for the better is rarely seen in people of any background of a similar age to Demarco.

  “As for the crime for which Demarco stands accused, I believe there is a lot of room to question the presumption of guilt that the prosecutor seems so willing to accept without weighing all the facts impartially.

  “It cannot be questioned that Demarco was there at the time of the killing and that he engaged with the victim verbally moments before the shooting. Yet, it is another thing entirely to accept that Demarco pulled the trigger.”

  “Counselor, gunpowder traces were found on your client’s hand,” said Judge Callaway.

  “Well that indicates his proximity to the shooting, but it does not necessarily mean he was the shooter.”

  Judge Calloway almost groaned.

  “Your Honor. If we look at motive for this murder, Demarco Torrell possessed none. He was running an errand of sorts for which he expected to be paid a total of one thousand dollars. Money that he could not refuse. Money that he planned to use to return to school, graduate and then join the Marines and serve his country, just as his father did.”

  I had a few more words to say, but Judge Calloway held up her hand.

  “Counselor, I’m sure you will have a very thorough and detailed defense to mount for your client, but this is not the place to present it fully. I’m not here to judge whether Mr. Torrell is guilty of the crime for which he is charged. My duty is to determine whether the circumstances dictate this case be transferred to the Superior Court.”

  I was about to interject, but I thought better of it and sat down.

  “Now, I need to make a decision based on a few considerations. Does the seriousness of the crime for which Mr. Torrell is charged warrant his trial as an adult? Yes, it clearly does. Does Mr. Torrell’s background, history and actions tell me I should direct him towards adjudication and, if necessary, rehabilitation in the juvenile justice system? No, I think not. What I have before me tells me that Mr. Torrell’s commitment to changing his ways is not abundantly clear. It could well be that he is impervious to any benefit on offer from such services. To that end, I am granting a waiver that will allow the case of Demarco Torrell to be tried in the Superior Court. Good luck to you, Mr. Torrell.”

  Jessica couldn’t help herself. She gave me a smug grin as she stood, swept up her belongs and made for the door.

  I turned to my client. “I’m sorry, Demarco. This was to be expected, but it’s still a blow. I just need to gather the evidence to make the strongest defense possible.”

  “I think you’ll be fighting an uphill battle,” he replied. “They are going to pin my ass for this no matter what the truth is.”

  “Not if I can help it. But I need you to help me.”

  The bailiffs were at his shoulder.

  “Hang in there, Demarco. I’ll see you soon.”

  “You know where to find me,” he said with a wry smile.

  9

  “Still no word. He’s disappeared. No one’s seen him for over a week now,” said Jack. He was talking about Toby Connors, the young man Demarco said paid him to go to VidCon. “I’ve spoken to his mom and his girlfriend again. Candice Levine, the girlfriend, said she hasn’t heard from Connors since the day he met with Demarco.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” I said.

  “No, it doesn’t. Doesn’t sound good for Demarco, doesn’t sound good for you, and sure as hell doesn’t sound good for Toby Connors.”

  As we spoke, I was headed San Diego way to pay Evan Harrington a visit. I wanted to ask about his altercation with Luke Jameson the day before he was killed. I needed to see for myself if he had anything to hide. To my mind, the police should consider him a suspect.

  But we desperately needed to speak with Connors so he could corroborate Demarco’s story. Jack had been on the hunt for days. Turned out he was a wannabe YouTube star who lived with his mom and did little else but make prank videos.

  “His mother didn’t know a hell of a lot about his videos,” Jack said. “She said he was obsessed. All he ever did was go out to get footage then spend hours on end editing.”

  “Have you checked out his channel?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  “It’s just like what you’d expect from a young kid who thinks a string of really dumb stunts is going to turn him into a celebrity.”

  “How lame are we talking?”

  “Take Jackass, subtract the imagination and the pain and the humor, and then what you have left is the Toby Connors channel. You know that scene in Napoleon Dynamite where he goes over that ankle-high jump and crushes his nutsack?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, that’s too good for this guy’s channel.”

  “Well, you have to start somewhere.”

  “That’s what his mom says. His girlfriend said he intimated to her that he’d been hired to do a job. He was excited about it.”

  “Like what? Was he hired to prank Luke Jameson?”

  “She couldn’t say. She said Connors was super hush-hush about it all. Didn’t tell her anything. Normally, she’d go along for his shoots—you know, drive him around, help talk down pranked strangers who were pissed off with him, but he insisted he had to do this job solo.”

  “So she knows absolutely nothing about it?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did they report him missing?”

  “Yeah, a few days ago. They thought he might have run off for a couple of days with some friends, which he does sometimes, but none of his friends know where he is and, obviously, he’s not returning calls.”

  “So he’s dropped off the grid completely?”

  “Yep. I know one of the cops looking into the case, and he’s going to give me a heads up if anything surfaces.”

  The case against Demarco was building. Jack had interviewed all the witnesses listed on the police report. One young woman was adamant she saw Demarco follow Jameson into the theater with an angry expression on his face. Another two witnesses who were standing right next to Jameson when the shots were fired said they didn’t doubt Demarco pulled the trigger.

  “Where does this Connors kid get a grand to pay someone to help out?”

  “A
ssuming you believe Demarco’s story.”

  “Jack, the cops found five hundred bucks exactly—five hundred-dollar bills—in his pocket. To me that backs his story. Still, it seems like a lot of money to pay someone to help you humiliate Luke Jameson.”

  “That’s the thing—you put ‘Luke Jameson shamed’ into the title of your video and you’ll get millions of views. That’s called strategy.”

  “So he was hoping to use Jameson to build his profile?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Okay. Have you made contact with Cleo Jones?”

  Cleo Jones was one of the VidCon organizers I’d spoken to to get Ramon X’s number.

  “No.”

  “Can you touch base with her. Ramon X said there were quite a few people who disliked Luke Jameson intensely, but he didn’t have names besides Harrington. Can you check with her?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Thanks. Keep me posted.”

  ✽✽✽

  As I cruised south, I lost myself in thought. The more I learned about the social media world, the more it disturbed me. My mind returned to Bella and her Instagram account. Claire had never ceded any ground to the objections I’d raised, and now, with me even more on the outer, I had less sway than ever.

  Of course, I knew that parents these days held a disproportionate amount of fear about the dangers facing their children. When I was a kid in Boise, Idaho, we’d leave the house on our bikes in the morning, come home for lunch before heading out again with mom calling out: “I want you home by six at the latest.” We smoked cigarettes, made mischief and explored. Our boundaries were set by time and geography, not fear.

  According to Claire, things today were not so different. The interactions Bella had with her “fans” were almost always positive, Claire told me, save for a few naysayers critical of what she was doing. She rattled off a list of pre-teen fashionistas with larger followings than Bella’s. She actually cited the number of followers each of them had—all in the millions. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I wondered whether Claire nursed an ambition for Bella to outdo them. Hell, this was LA—If you’re going for something, you want to be number one, right? Otherwise, what was the point?

  It all made my head spin.

  The sound of my phone ringing jolted me back to the here and now. I glanced down at the screen. It was Jack.

  “Hey, you got something?”

  “Yeah. I just heard from my cop buddy, the one looking into Toby Connors’ disappearance.”

  “And?”

  “They found his body in a disused lot near the Santa Ana Freeway, a few blocks from the convention center. Some homeless guy noticed the smell. Cops found him in the trunk of his car. He’d been shot twice; one to the head.”

  “Any idea when this happened?” I asked.

  “Too early to say, but my buddy tells me it’s been a few days at least, maybe even a week.”

  My mind shifted into a higher gear. We were never going to get to speak to Connors now, but the next best thing was to get hold of his phone. And the only way to do that was to be a very good friend of the good folk at the city morgue.

  “Jack, any chance you could...”

  “I’m going to head to the mortuary after I’m done with Cleo. The kid’s body won’t be there yet. But all his belongings will go with him, including his phone.”

  I liked that about Jack: often you just didn’t have to ask; he just knew.

  “Good. Hopefully you can get every call and text message Connors exchanged in the last few days of his life.”

  What Jack was about to do was not what you’d call legal. But I needed those phones records ASAP. Sure, the police would get them and that meant they’d eventually be made available to me via the discovery process, but I couldn’t wait that long.

  If Demarco was telling the truth and he had been framed, then Connors’ phone might help us find the real killer.

  I ended the call and sped on south.

  ✽✽✽

  A few seconds after I knocked on the door of a perfectly middle-class looking house in Grantville, a young woman appeared carrying an infant child. The pink floral headband told me the baby was a girl.

  “You must be Amy. I’m Brad Madison, defense attorney for the man charged with killing Luke Jameson. I spoke with your husband earlier today.”

  “Yes, of course,” Amy Harrington said with a warm smile. “Evan’s just ducked out—we ran out of diapers. He’ll only be a few minutes. Come on in.”

  Amy had that beautiful girl-next-door radiance. She just seemed perfectly wholesome—a wellspring of positive vibes. As I stepped through the door, she lifted the little girl’s hand to give me a wave.

  “This is Rhapsody,” she said.

  The little button squinched her face into a gummy grin. Total heart-melter.

  “Oh my, what an absolute cutie. Lovely to meet you, Rhapsody. How old is she?”

  “Nine months.”

  I was actually surprised, and relieved, that Amy didn’t answer the door holding a camera. I’d arrived ready to insist that my appearance and interview was not to be recorded for their channel.

  Since Evan Harrington had appeared on my radar, I’d taken the obligatory dive into the internet, checking what I’d been told, reading his posts and what others had said or written about him. In their vlogs, Evan and Amy were an openly Christian couple who wanted to share the trials and tribulations of a young family pursuing life in God’s name. The channel had been running for two years. When they started out, they’d posted every few days, but for the past year they’d committed to posting daily. The degree to which they’d opened their lives to the public drew criticism. More than a few said they were commodifying the lives and privacy of their children, who had no say whatsoever in the fact that they were being watched by millions.

  I couldn’t help but marvel at the determination they possessed to film the whole day, every day. Everything they did, from going to the supermarket to taking one of their kids to the hospital, was done with a selfie stick in hand so it could be captured for the channel. To date, they had built a following of two million subscribers, and their commitment to daily vlogs meant they had to devote almost every minute of the day to shooting or editing footage.

  Along the way they’d become a magnet for trolls. Every video they posted drew a swathe of negative, judgmental comments about their parenting, their motives, their choices, Evan’s infidelity, and the rumors that they’d bought subscribers. In the end, to block the haters, they’d disabled video comments.

  Yet they’d managed to do well enough to buy a new house. It was a two-story picture-perfect family home. As I walked in, I glanced around the walls of the living room, where photos of the family plus three framed YouTube awards hung.

  Amy saw me looking at them.

  “They’re for when we reached half a million subscribers, then one million and then two million,” she beamed.

  “You’re doing well.”

  “Well, we’ve worked hard at it.”

  “And what’s this?”

  A framed letter hung next to the YouTube awards. “The Halo Group” logo was printed across the top. I leaned in closer to read the text. It was a note of congratulations and thanks from Victor Lund himself. He expressed his pride in their work and said he looked forward to their continued growth and success. “Your family is a bright, shining beacon amid a sea of darkness. God bless you.”

  “The Halo Group has been very supportive of what we’re trying to do,” Amy said.

  “So they’re your primary sponsor?”

  From her response, I could tell Amy didn’t really want to say. “Well, we couldn’t have gotten this far without them. What with the Tinder scandal and all. They helped us get through a really tough time, and now it’s all paying dividends.”

  As she spoke a young boy, about four years old, came running into the room. Amy broke into a sweet laugh.

  “Isaiah, say hi to Mr. Madison.”

 
The boy and I high fived.

  “Where’s daddy?” he asked.

  “He’s down at the mall, honey. He’ll be back soon.”

  “Are we going to the waterslide?”

  “Yes we are, sweetheart, once daddy’s finished speaking with Mr. Madison. Why don’t you run outside and make the most of this beautiful day?”

  “Okay,” he said and turned for the back door beyond the kitchen. A few seconds later, I heard a dog’s happy bark before a big, blonde, hairy lump of enthusiasm appeared at the sliding door. Isaiah tackled the dog with loving arms.

  “That’s Honey,” Amy laughed.

  “I actually know that.”

  “Ah, so you’ve watched our videos.”

  “Some of them. I don’t know how you do it—day after day, through the tantrums and meals times. Parenting is stressful enough without having to shoot and edit a video diary of it. Every day.”

  “Well, that was kind of how we looked at it too a while back, but it’s just become a way of life, the way we do things as a family.”

  “I know you’ve caught some flak for making the lives of your children so public.”

  “Well, that’s fair enough if people disagree with what we’re doing, but they don’t know the amazing things that have come from it. And I’m not talking about money or the house. A lot of people really connect with what we’re doing. We’re not movie stars, we’re real people with real issues that we deal with day in, day out. And we have the Lord to thank for this precious life we lead.”

  “You must be thrilled with how it’s going.”

  “Well, I think people think it’s a piece of cake to do this. But we don’t pretend to be the perfect family, you know? We have our ups and downs, our fights, our disappointments and our goals. But that’s what people see, and that’s the beauty of it all. It’s genuine. You just can’t do this on a daily basis and have your whole family working to create some kind of fake image you’ve pre-prepared. The Lord will decide where our lives travel—we just have to open our hearts to His will, and He will make the journey clear to us.”