by Mandy Miller
“No, I owe you one. That night, I should have—”
I grab her shoulders. “Stop right there. I shouldn’t have. You did everything you could. That night is all on me.”
Extricating myself from behind the desk, I stumble against the wall and, reflexively, redirect my prosthetic leg.
She catches sight of the metal ankle and drops into her chair. “You did it. You finally got the operation.”
“It was time. It was never going to be right. And I was never going to be right if I had to keep taking those damn pills,” I say, smoothing down my pant leg.
As I am about to leave, she puts an arm around my shoulder. “Grace, what’s past is past. It’s time to move on. Now go show them they can never take away what you got.”
“And what is it I’ve got?”
“Fight, my friend. You’re a fighter from way back.”
Chapter 22
The waiting area outside the Office of the Public Defender resembles a casting call for The Wire. On one side of the room are the cops, some in uniform, others in plain clothes, faces pinched, as if they’ve just eaten something that doesn’t agree with them. Going to the Public Defender’s Office is a trip to the place cases go to die because of what law enforcement calls “technicalities” and it isn’t exactly a cop’s idea of a good time.
On the other side sit the PD’s clients. Some wearing saggy pants and flat-brimmed hats, legs splayed. Others have chosen Walmart church clothes in hopes of making a good impression. One young woman, holding a wailing infant wrapped in a dirty blanket, chews on her nicotine-stained fingernails. Lines of people wait in front of three windows behind which sit attendants, all with eyes which say, “I’ve heard it all before.”
I lean against the wall by the entrance and fidget with my phone to avoid eye contact. I had called ahead to Joshua Jacobs, the Broward County Public Defender, to avoid waiting too long face-to-face with defendants I may have prosecuted, or cops I may have ripped a new one for blowing a case with an illegal search or a confession extracted without Miranda warnings.
After a few minutes, the security door buzzes and a short man in cowboy boots and a string tie appears. He rushes me, hands outstretched. “Ms. Locke, how the hell are you?”
All heads swivel in Joshua Jacobs’s direction. Cops shake their heads. Defendants chuckle. One guy with a gold medallion the size of a pizza hanging around his neck lets fly with, “Hey, bro. I saw you on TV.”
Jacobs has a weekly spot on the local news called Jacobs’s Justice, in which he rights legal wrongs suffered by Average Joes. Price-gouging roofers, home-health-care aides stealing old ladies’ Social Security checks, contractors absconding with deposits, they’re all up Jacobs’s alley. My favorite episode was his straight-faced analysis of whether it was unconstitutional for Toys “R” Us to sell only white, and not black or Hispanic, Barbie dolls. Laugh as I might, Jacobs’s Justice has made him a darling of the underdog, not to mention a household name when election day rolls around.
I let myself be hugged, a prop in his performance. Maybe it’s my puritanical upbringing, but I’ve always found his “man of the people” theatrics a bit over the top. Still, I owe him big time, and have to admit he isn’t without a certain charm.
Showmanship aside, it was Jacobs who stepped up to help me when everyone else, including my own husband, had written me off as a self-inflicted train wreck. Manny had cut off my access to our bank accounts. With no money for a lawyer, Jacobs was my lifesaver, representing me himself, something he rarely did. He had little to work with, but he managed to engineer what he did have into a plea agreement that spared me a felony on my record and disbarment—two things State’s Attorney Britt wanted.
Not that Jacobs went to bat for me out of the goodness of his heart, however. An old hippie from way back, he stepped in because he hates cops, and never misses an opportunity to go to war with authority, a quality which made me despise him when I was a prosecutor, but which saved my ass when I was looking down the barrel of a long prison sentence.
“Josh, good to see you.”
“Back at you, my friend,” he says, his stubby legs taking two steps to every one of mine as we head toward his office, his curlicue ponytail bouncing side to side.
He points me to an upholstered client chair opposite his desk.
“Your face is on TV as much as my own these days,” he says, propping his feet on a wide mahogany desk. “Things seem to be looking up for you. So, what brings you to my humble abode?” he asks, motioning at the view of the New River from his corner office. It’s a location that would go for thousands a month if it weren’t paid for by the taxpayers.
I puff out my cheeks.
Jacobs tents his fingers in front of his face, a maze of tanned wrinkles punctuated by probing blue eyes. “Start at the part where you tell me what you want.”
I take a deep breath. “You’re familiar with the Slim case?”
“Of course. Who isn’t? Like I said, it’s all over the news.”
“Maybe the victim wasn’t quite the angel the media is making him out to be.”
He drops his feet to the floor and paddles his chair to the desk. “Do tell. You know me, I always like a little tattle and a little tale.”
I can’t help but smile right along with him. A bit of a caricature he may be, but he is amusing, not to mention an effective advocate for the powerless and the just plain crazy.
“It appears that Sinclair, the guy my client is accused of killing, was involved somehow in a criminal case.”
“Your client, by the way, is a shit show.”
I laugh along with him, but only for a second, more of a reflex than an expression of agreement.
“A shit show she may be, but she’s a profoundly mentally ill young woman in a fight for her life.”
“That, she is.”
“You enjoy being a champion for the underdog, don’t you?”
He gives me a time-out sign. “Enough flattery, for now.”
“You’ll help?”
“You had me at underdog.” He drops his feet to the floor and leans in. “And you know this, how? The thing about Sinclair being involved?”
“I ran Sinclair through the Clerk’s computer, and nothing. Not a party to, or a witness on any case, not even a freakin’ traffic ticket.”
Josh shrugs. “It’s always the ones with no history who do the worst shit.”
“True, but starting with the assumption that he was involved in a case somehow, which I have on good authority—”
“Get to your point, will you?”
“Bottom line, the State Attorney has no records either, which means either my information was wrong and there was no case, which I doubt, or he had a case that was expunged. If it were just sealed, the State would still have the records, but they don’t.”
His eyes light up as if someone’s just turned on their power source. “Seems as if you still have at least one friend over at the conviction factory, former ASA Locke.”
“Maybe. Well…anyway…” I study the ceiling, searching for a way to frame my favor.
“Your point? Please.”
“Since your office represents ninety-nine percent of everyone arrested…”
Taking full advantage of my pause, Jacobs points at me. “Yes, and me,” I say with a sigh. “Since your people are in magistrate court for every first appearance hearing, you get the complete docket every day and log every possible defendant’s name in case they need counsel later.”
He bats his eyelashes. “And you want to know if your guy’s name is in our database.”
“Exactly.”
He shifts in his chair. “Let me put this another way, maybe a way that would make me feel more comfortable? The State, your former employer and now archenemy, may not have given you all the goods on Sinclair, correct?”
“Maybe not.”
He wheels around to the credenza behind him and punches at a keyboard, screeds of names appearing on the screen. “Which is w
hy you came to me, given my fondness for poleaxing the State.”
I stick my tongue in my cheek. “Is that so? I’d never have guessed.”
“Humor me a little so I can get even more comfortable with this whole, I won’t say, conspiracy, but what shall we call it? Let’s just call it an evil little plan, shall we?” Jacobs rubs his hands together. “Would you agree that, if we have anything in our database about Sinclair, it wouldn’t be a violation of attorney-client privilege for me to share? After all, he wasn’t actually our client. He never signed an engagement letter.”
I jump on board. “And court dockets are public records, after all.”
He swivels around. “Brilliant point!” He turns back and motions to the screen. “I think I have something for you.”
I walk to his side of the desk and look over his shoulder.
“Brandon Sinclair, DOB 4/23/1974, arrested December 2, 2008, one count of Trafficking in oxycodone, seven to fourteen grams.”
I am rendered speechless. That’s what Marcus meant! The wild blue yonder. Sea of blue. Marcus meant blues, slang for oxycodone—OxyContin’s generic name.
“You ever watch late night TV, former ASA Locke? When some Benihana type is trying to sell you Ginsu knives you don’t need?”
“If I had a dime for every late-night commercial I’ve seen when I can’t sleep, I wouldn’t be defending criminals to scrape out a living.”
Josh flaps his hands. “And what is it they say when they keep adding more crap to the deal for nineteen ninety-nine?”
“And that’s not all folks?”
“Correcto mundo. Add this little nugget to what I just told you. Brandon Sinclair, DOB 4/23/1974, arrested May 25, 2009. Any guess on the charges?” His smile widens, revealing coffee-stained teeth.
“More drugs?”
“You get the prize. Yes! Trafficking in oxycodone, but this time the quantity was greater, twenty-five to one hundred grams.
“No way,” I say, my mind racing. “Meaning he was facing some major prison time.”
“No way that amount could have been for personal use. That amount of blues would kill an elephant. And, as you know, having put away a dealer or two yourself, that amount will send you up the river for a minimum of fifteen years. So, unless your victim was a superhuman addict, I’d say he was a dealer. Says here, the second case was filed by Statewide.”
He clasps his hands behind his head and leans back in his chair. “Any of that make sense to you?”
“Sinclair was popped in a task force drug sting.”
“I’d say you have pulled back the curtain on the great State of Oz,” Jacobs says. “Cases come, only to go bye-bye when a rat is willing to help the cops catch the bigger fish.”
“So says the wizard, otherwise the whole system would come to a grinding halt.”
“And then where would we be? Fewer people convicted. Fewer going to private prisons. Fewer dollars going into reelection campaigns so those same elected officials can allocate more tax dollars for more prisons.”
“And I thought I was cynical.”
He shrugs. “The truth is the truth, Grace, no matter how you spin it.”
“Sinclair flipped.”
“Would explain why his case evaporated, why he has no record in the database. It would’ve kept him out of prison.”
“And employed.”
“That too.” Josh gives me a lopsided grin.
I bury my face in my hands. “Thank you, Josh. Thank you so much.”
“But remember, my friend, you aren’t in Kansas anymore.”
I drop my hands. “Meaning?”
“Think about it, Dorothy. Doing the right thing by old man Vicanti cost you dearly. And now you find yourself in the same position again. Standing up to the almighty State’s version of things, which is that these arrests don’t exist, is not without risk.” He takes a deep breath. “Sometimes it’s not so easy speaking truth to power, even if it is the truth and the life on the line is a kid’s.”
I exhale hard. “Why is it I always have to do things the hard way?”
“You and me both, sister. You and me both.”
The printer starts to hum. “Here. Take these. There may be something in them that will help. Our people scan all of the police reports into our database after magistrate court every day. That way, if we end up appointed on the case, we can get straight to work without waiting for the State to provide the reports in discovery when they damn well please.” He covers his mouth. “Oops, I keep forgetting you used to be one of them.”
We share a full-throated laugh this time. “‘Used to’ be being the operative phrase.”
“Amen to that.” he says, flopping back into his chair.
I scan the papers. Two identical arrest reports for Sinclair. Each one written poorly. The earlier of the two, dated December 2, 2008, states: Subject arrested when he attempted to sell thirty-five pills of Oxy to Det. Sorenson who was plain clothes. The second, dated May 25, 2009, reports in similar pidgin English, that Sinclair was arrested for “attempting to sell a hundred and fifty Oxy for fifteen hundred.”
“Seems as if Mr. Sinclair was not only a murder victim, but a twice-arrested drug trafficker,” Josh says.
“And, interestingly, one without a criminal record.”
“If only we could all be so lucky,” he says. After a long pause, he adds, “Like you.”
I grab my backpack and head for the door. “Again, thank you.”
“Not at all. Always glad to help an underdog,” he says. “And if the high life of private practice ever stops suiting you, there’s always a place for you here, Grace. I can always use another bull in a china shop.”
“I appreciate that compliment, but for now I need to make some real money. I’m broke and a PD’s salary won’t cut it.”
“It’s a standing offer, no expiration date, but in the meantime, keep those eyes in the back of your head wide open, young lady. I’m not interested in going down the yellow brick road with you ever again.”
Chapter 23
I jab my finger at the windowless, concrete-block structure. “That’s it! 1447 West Sunrise Boulevard.”
“What is that place? Looks like the death row at Starke,” Vinnie says, his top lip curled back.
“That, my friend, is a pill mill, also known, in more polite circles, as a pain clinic.”
A low growl from the back seat.
“Maybe we should have left her in the crate back home?”
Another growl.
Vinnie shoots me a look that could strip paint. “No one’s getting locked up in a cage again. Not on my watch,” he says, docking Carmela in one of the few empty parking spaces outside the pill mill.
Many of the vehicles in the jam-packed lot are multi-passenger vans with out-of-state license plates. Most of the cars with Florida plates are beaters, some rusted out, others with mismatched quarter panels. All appear to be on their last legs, not unlike the dozen or so emaciated, jittery people pacing back and forth outside the entrance, smoking cigarettes and chomping gum.
A white, middle-aged man exits the building and hones in on a skeletal woman in skin-tight jeans and a bikini top leaning against the fender of a tan pickup with West Virginia plates. The woman sucks on a cigarette and forages deep in her pocket as if it contained untold treasure. Cash in her hand, the man shoves something at her, grabs the money, jumps into the truck, and guns the engine. The woman stays behind, swaying, staring at whatever is in her hand.
“If I had to guess, I’d say they’re giving away blue candy in that bunker.”
“Huh?”
“The blues, baby,” I say, affecting a dreamy tone.
“That a music club?” Vinnie asks, the furrows in his brow carved deep by time and a hard life.
“For a former made guy, you sure can be naive. No, not music, silly. Drugs. Pain pills. OxyContin. Called blues because of their color. Hillbilly heroin. Whatever you wanna call it, it’s pure evil on steroids.”
A young couple, hand in hand, walk inside. Her hair’s in pigtails. He’s wearing a Nirvana T-shirt.
A young woman gets out of her car and straps on a back brace, before limping inside with the help of a cane.
“More grist for the pill mill.”
“I read about them pill mills in the paper. It said Broward is the epicenter of the opioid epidemic. Whatever epi and opi are.”
“They mean this is where people come to die at the hands of those sworn to do no harm.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning doctors in white coats pushing drugs. All legal. All made out to be a regular medical office. Except the patients, most of them at least, as just looking for their next fix.”
“Back in the day, we weren’t no pushers. We had our rules, and drugs were against them.”
“Only girls and gambling. Isn’t that the party line?”
“A little of this, a little of that,” he says, examining his age-spotted hands on the steering wheel. “But that’s all another lifetime ago, sweetheart.”
“Check that out. Dude over there in the brown Toyota. He’s shooting up right there, out in the open!”
“Mother of God.” Vinnie covers his eyes, but peeks though his fingers at the man tightening a rubber band around his arm with his teeth. “Thought it was pills they’re sellin’.”
“Yeah, but the high is twice as special if you crush the pills and shoot or snort the powder.”
“Jesus, Gracie. Enough. I ain’t got the stomach for this. And neither do you,” he says to Miranda, along with a command to lie down.
“Thank God, nor do I. Anymore,” I whisper to myself.
“Why is it we’re here again? You said Sinclair got arrested here. But for what, if all this is on the level?”
“Sinclair was arrested here for drug trafficking. He got caught trying to sell some pain pills to an undercover cop.”
“Oops,” Vinnie says with a shrug. “But why here?”
“You ever heard the saying that bank robbers rob banks because that’s where the money is?”
“Sure.”
“Drug dealers deal drugs at places like these because it’s where the drugs and the consumers are. Here in the Sunshine State, not only can you get pain pills prescribed at a pain clinic, but you can also get that very prescription filled there too at an on-site pharmacy.”