Corrupt Practices (11 page)

Lovely walks into The Barrista a little after seven o’clock, comes over to my table, and says, “I want to talk to you about the Baxter autopsy. I’ll be right back.”

“Ms. Diamond, wait.”

But she’s already halfway to the coffee bar.

She returns five minutes later carrying some sort of syrupy drink topped with a huge mound of whipped cream. She sits down across from me, sips the drink through a straw, and says, “Dean Mason told me where to find you. He didn’t want to, but when I told him the reason, he gave in. He said this is where you always hang out.”

I hate that I’ve become so predictable.

“This place is awesome,” she says. “The coffee’s great. Much better than the chains.”

“Thank you,” Deanna says from somewhere behind me. She pulls up a chair and situates herself between Lovely and me. She extends her hand. “I’m Deanna. The owner.”

“This is Ms. Diamond,” I say. “One of my law students.”

“My name’s Lovely. I’m in Professor Stern’s trial advocacy class.”

“Good meeting you,” Deanna says with a look so solemn that it’s clear she’s trying not to laugh at Lovely’s name and at the idea that anyone would call me
Professor
Stern.

“The autopsy report,” I say.

“I finished my analysis. I wanted to debrief you on it.”

“Whoa,” Deanna says. “Serious stuff. You know, Parker here has the crazy idea that Rich might’ve been murdered.”

“I think the professor is right,” Lovely says.

Deanna and I sway back in our seats and move forward again at exactly the same time, as though we’re performing a bizarre dance.

“Are you saying someone strung poor Rich up into a noose?” Deanna asks her.

“Unlikely. Murder by hanging is almost unheard of. It’s almost impossible for one person to overpower another and hang him, even when there’s a big difference in size and strength. At least, not without other signs of violence or a beating, which don’t exist here.”

“Then how—?”

“Let Ms. Diamond finish,” I say.

Deanna frowns and rolls her eyes. She’s on her best behavior, because ordinarily, she’d flip me off.

“First I checked some resources at work,” Lovely says. “And then this guy I know at the USC Medical School did me a favor. My firm has used him as an expert pathologist, and he and I dated for a couple of months, so . . . He says that people who’ve been murdered by strangulation usually have a mark on their neck where the cord cut in. It’s called a ligature furrow. It takes a lot of strength to strangle someone, and the application of force results in the mark. People who commit suicide usually don’t have a ligature furrow, especially if they use a soft material to hang themselves. Like Rich Baxter’s silk necktie.”

“The coroner found no evidence of a ligature furrow,” I say. “Wouldn’t that support his conclusion of suicide?”

Lovely nods.

“Then how—?”

“There are ways—arm bars, specialized holds—where Rich could have been murdered without the killer leaving a ligature furrow. A professional hit man or martial arts expert or military special forces veteran could easily do it.”

“So the absence of a ligature furrow isn’t proof of suicide,” I say. “But that doesn’t mean it was homicide.”

“But there was a fracture of the hyoid bone.” She straightens her neck and rubs it at a place just under her chin. “Right here. A fractured hyoid bone—and a fractured thyroid cartilage, which Baxter also had—usually come from manual strangulation, not from hanging. After forty, the likelihood of a hyoid fracture from a suicidal hanging increases because old bones are more brittle, but Rich Baxter was only thirty-eight. If it was really suicide, he shouldn’t have had a fractured hyoid. There was also some hemorrhaging at the spot, which would indicate homicide. And there was a wound on the back of his head. The ME’s report concludes that the head injury was caused when the marshals pushed the door of the cell open to get inside, but someone could have hit him.”

“So why the conclusion that Rich killed himself?” I ask. “Was the pathologist negligent or corrupt or—?”

“My friend says it’s still a judgment call,” Lovely says. “But in his opinion, when someone has a fractured hyoid bone like Baxter did, he thinks the presumption should be murder unless proven otherwise. The problem is that while the feds don’t like suicides in their jail, they like homicides even less. Baxter faced a long sentence and the disgrace of being branded a criminal and a drug addict. And a traitor to the Assembly. It was easy for the coroner to conclude that he killed himself to escape all that.”

“In other words, the ME took the easy way out,” I say.

Lovely nods.

“I can’t believe Rich was really murdered,” Deanna whispers.

“Probably murdered,” Lovely says. “I wish I could be more definite.”

Lovely begins walking us through the autopsy report in more detail, explaining the technical terms as best she can. Deanna slides her chair close, puts her hand on Lovely’s shoulder, and leaves it there for a long time. I’d take the gesture as innocuous if I hadn’t seen Deanna put the moves on women before. Lovely doesn’t shrink from the contact. Eventually, the glances and the smiles flow only between them. It’s as if I’m on the wrong side of a sheet of Plexiglas. Nothing makes you feel lonelier than being with people who are paying attention to each other and ignoring you. Worse, it’s not Deanna’s attention I crave, but Lovely’s.

Last week, I assigned Kathleen Williams the task of researching and reporting on the origins and beliefs of the Church of the Sanctified Assembly. If my students are going to help me investigate the Assembly, they need to know what it stands for. Now, she’s so nervous that she restarts her presentation three times. With each misstep she takes, I want to flee the room, as though I’m the one melting into a shapeless puddle of embarrassment. All the while, I nod sympathetically and dole out bits of wisdom about how lawyers can learn to manage stage fright, how it’s natural to feel anxious before speaking in public, and how adrenaline, if harnessed, can help you succeed. I wish it were true.

As she scans her notes, she twists her stringy brown hair around her left index finger. Red splotches appear on her plump cheeks and then dissipate almost as quickly. “OK,” she says. She fumbles with her pages and takes three short breaths. “The Church of the Sanctified Assembly was founded . . . was founded maybe twenty . . . I guess twenty-five years ago, in around 1987 or ‘88, by the late Bradley Kelly.” She speaks in a monotone, almost as if her voice were computer-generated. “Kelly was a former actor who experienced a spiritual transformation during what he described as a state of pure celestial ecstasy. In 1978, during the darkest time of his life, he found a crease in the universe that had opened up to him. By passing his soul through that crease or tear, whatever, in the time–space continuum, he was able to converse with the Celestial Fountain of All That Is, or the Fount, which transmitted the Celestial Laws to him, like Moses and the burning bush. He described his experience as almost like making love with God. He wrote a best-selling book about all this stuff, which really kick-started the religion.” She scans her notes, momentarily lost. When she gets back on track, she summarizes the Assembly’s basic tenets, not only those packaged for public consumption—mostly benign platitudes plagiarized from other religions—but also the extortionate tithing policy, the intense brainwashing palmed off as “self-criticism” sessions, the church-sanctioned homophobia, the contempt for the mentally ill.

“Anyway, in 1995, Kelly died in a boating accident. He was sailing with some friends in a yacht off the coast of California and was thrown off the boat in rough seas. The death kind of deified him. The Assembly says that Kelly didn’t really die, but instead was translated through that crease in the universe in a fiery chariot just like Elijah the Prophet from the Old Testament. His death—Kelly’s, not Elijah’s—sent the sale of his book through the roof, and Assembly membership as of 2011 has increased to six million people worldwide since his death. The Sanctified Assembly is banned as an illegal cult in some countries. You know, countries that don’t have a First Amendment protection for freedom of religion like we do. Anyway, that’s all.” She collapses into her chair.

“Nice job,” I say. “Very thorough.”

She mumbles a “thank you,” but doesn’t believe my praise for a minute.

I glance at the clock. I’m about to end the class when Lovely says, “I just checked the Internet Movie Database. It says here you appeared in a movie with Bradley Kelly when you were a kid?”

Kathleen and Jonathan snap to attention.

“You know I don’t like talking about my acting career, Ms. Diamond.”

“This isn’t about that,” she says. “It’s about the founder of the Church of the Sanctified Assembly.” She simply will not give up, on this or anything else.

“OK. We were in one silly movie together. Doheny Beach Vacation or something like that.”

Lovely checks her computer screen. “
Doheny Beach Holiday,
1986. He costarred with you. Played your stepfather.”

“
Erica Hatfield
was the costar,” I say in a tone more emphatic than I intend. I feel my face flush.

Lovely shifts in her chair and gives me a puzzled look, which I pretend to ignore.

“Erica was a superb actress. She played my mother.”

“Who’s this Erica Hatfield?” Jonathan asks.

“She was big in the eighties,” I say.

Lovely types into her keyboard. “A lot of TV and movies, and then nothing after 1989.”

“What happened?” Jonathan asks.

“She got sick of the industry bullshit and moved on with her life.”

“What’s she doing now?” Lovely says.

“I lost track of her twenty years ago.”

“What was Kelly like?” she says.

“I really didn’t know him. I do know that he wasn’t much of an actor. In hindsight, he probably didn’t care much about acting. He started out in the sixties as a pretty-boy type. He was Hollywood slick, if that means anything to you. I certainly didn’t see anything indicating he was the Messiah. But what did I know? I was just a kid.” I cross my arms. “That’s all for today. See you next week.”

Christopher McCarthy’s assistant leads me into a large corner office where McCarthy sits behind a beveled glass and chrome desk that has only one piece of paper on it. Though we’re indoors, McCarthy’s wearing sunglasses with tinted blue lenses. He’s dressed in an expensive brown silk suit, monogrammed pink dress shirt with a white collar and cuffs, and pink tie. In this era of sunscreen and skin cancer, he has a deep tan.

He gives me the once-over, and I know why—I’m wearing a polo shirt and blue jeans. Back when my law firm still existed, the Assembly insisted that its lawyers wear suits to meetings. He stands, and when we shake hands I smell his spicy cologne, perfumy and cloying.

“Have a seat,” he says in the stentorian, mocking tone of a talk-radio host. His voice scrapes at my nervous system, just as it did back at the law firm when he’d walk into the lobby and assault the receptionist with a loud, “Hello there, Kay, I’ll show myself back.”

I sit across from him in a sleek chair with a hard, uncomfortable back.

“One moment,” he says. He picks up his phone and buzzes his secretary. “If Jillian Jackson calls, put her through.” It’s his way of letting me know that he won’t interrupt his day for someone as insignificant as I am. He replaces the handset in the cradle. “It’s been a long time. I’m always interested in my former lawyers.”

“I was never your lawyer. Though God knows you asked Harmon to assign me to your cases often enough.”

He’s always had this peculiar tightening of the right corner of his mouth that at first looks like a smirk. Only when it repeats do you realize that it’s a nervous tic. Now, his lips twitch twice in succession. “So you’re here to talk about that unfortunate Rich Baxter, huh?”

“The Assembly accused him of stealing and had him thrown in jail. Then he died. He didn’t steal and he didn’t kill himself.”

“What’s your interest in this?”

I can’t tell him that Raymond Baxter has hired me to defend the estate against a future Assembly lawsuit. If he knew that, he wouldn’t tell me anything. “After Rich was arrested, he hired me as his lawyer. I want to clear his name. He was my friend.”