Ground Truth (2 page)

Chapter 2

May 30

7:00 p.m.

AT THE END OF the long driveway, he pulled up in front of Peck’s house, a Craftsman redwood rustic place at water’s edge. As soon as he got out of the car, Anita, wearing tight jeans and a form-fitting cashmere top, ran along the flagstone walkway and threw her arms around him.

“Hey, take it easy.” He held her shoulders at arm’s length. “Let’s find out what Peck’s up to.”

He tossed his jacket on a chair inside the door and walked from the entrance hall into the great room. After Jack’s mother died, Peck bought this place to suit his new life: gourmet kitchen, hot tub and sauna, wine cellar and floor-to-ceiling west-facing glass to take in the spectacular view of Sausalito and Mount Tamalpais. Jack hadn’t grown up here and had never related to it. All he wanted now was to get this over with.

He turned right and walked down the corridor past the game room to Peck’s study at the end of the hall, Anita sniffling close behind him.

He knocked on the door. Nothing. He knocked again, harder, and tried the handle. Locked.

“Damn it, Peck,” he called, “I didn’t leave the club and drive over here to be jerked around.” The answer was more silence. Worried now, he went back to the game room for the set of house keys Peck kept taped to the bottom of the billiard table. When the lock clicked, he swung the door open and walked in.

Peck, still wearing his sailing gear, sat behind his antique walnut partners’ desk. His puffy cheeks and full lips made him look self-indulgent and dissolute, very unlike his formal portrait at the far end of the room in which he wore a judge’s robe.

He didn’t turn his head as Jack approached. He simply shifted his gaze like an owl, his face fixed in a stern expression, head tilted just a few degrees back from vertical.
Jane’s Fighting Ships,
the massive book Peck often read as a kind of diversion, lay open on the desk in front of him. Next to it was a bottle of Glen Breton Rare Canadian single malt whiskey and an almost empty glass.
Odd.
Not like his father to drink whiskey early in the evening.

He also didn’t look sick, and his bad temper had to be about more than losing the race. That wouldn’t have caused him to order Anita out of the house. He walked to the desk.

“You’re just in time,” Peck said in a flat tone.

Before Jack could ask what the hell he was talking about, Peck raised a remote control and pointed it at a television monitor across the room. The sound came on, screen filled with the heavy-jowled face of the KNBC NewsCenter 5 anchorman.

“. . . and that’s the uplifting story of how one Menlo Park mother got her child the care he desperately needed.”

The anchorman’s tone dropped into his trademark melancholy growl. “Now we have a tragedy to report. KNBC has learned that Customs and Immigration officials boarded
Pacific Dawn,
a cargo ship tied up at Pier 7, and discovered a horrifying scene. The bodies of six women were shackled together in a locked container against the bulkhead of
Pacific Dawn’s
engine room where temperatures are reported to exceed 120 degrees. Likely causes of death were dehydration and heat stroke.”

Peck usually offered a string of critical comments during the news, but never for a listener’s benefit. That was Peck. He was the star of Peck’s World in which everyone else was a bit player. This time he was silent, watching the screen as if hypnotized.

“KNBC NewsCenter 5 investigative reporter Mary Kim has learned that
Pacific Dawn
was chartered by a trading company based in Panama City. District Attorney Rick Calder said his office is in the process of tracing ownership of the vessel. More at eleven.”

Peck clicked the TV into silence, finished the whiskey in his glass, and took in a deep breath, as if appraising the alcohol’s bouquet.

“That’s terrible,” Anita said softly from beside Jack.

It was, but why had Peck wanted to watch it?
Jack asked, “What did you mean when you said we were ‘just in time?’”

“Forget that. Just get out, both of you.”

“No, I want to stay with you,” Anita cried.

Peck looked at her with no empathy in his expression. “Touching thought my dear, but you’re already a dead woman.”

That sounded like he was pronouncing sentence on a convicted defendant.

Anita gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.

Peck paid no attention to her. Instead he shifted his gaze to Jack. “Your life is about to change more than you can imagine, and there’s nothing you can do to prevent that . . . not that I give a damn.” His tone was cold. “But I’ll tell you this,” he said with more energy, “those bastards on Wall Street have it right. Buy on the rumor, sell on the news. Well, you just heard the news.”

From behind
Jane’s Fighting Ships,
Peck raised the silver Smith & Wesson .45 that he always kept in the second drawer of his desk. “To fend off pirates from Sausalito,” he’d once told Jack.

Index finger curled around the trigger, Peck swung the muzzle toward Anita. She screamed and turned away, bending over at the waist. “No! No! No!”

Jack hurled himself across the desk to knock the gun from his father’s hand.

Chapter 3

May 30

7:30 p.m.

THE MAN HAD talked his way through hundreds of high society gatherings like this one, but even the incredible view from the penthouse did nothing to relieve his mid-evening boredom. Brain cruising on autopilot, he offered periodic nods and random “hmmms” as three men and a woman debated conflicting ways to reduce suffering caused by drought in the Sahel. He knew they were putting on a performance and didn’t give a damn about the ugly reality. As his mind wandered, his attention was caught by the comments of a man standing behind him to his left.

“I’ll spend thirty million for a short term fix,” the man said, “and then get run out of town on a rail.”

Interested, he half-turned to glance at the speaker. The voice belonged to a bulky, middle-aged man named Bronkowski, who looked as if he might be wearing football shoulder pads inside his suit coat.

“Oh, be serious,” said a woman with the super-buff figure of an exercise addict. “Why would anyone run you out of town?”

“When our shareholders watch that thirty million knock down the price of their stock and realize we’ll have to spend much more in the future, they’ll blame me,” Bronkowski said, “and start heating the tar.”

“Can’t all the states get together and—”

“About the time hell freezes over. Those assholes in Washington have avoided dealing with this for fifty years.”

He knew what Bronkowski did for a living, so he understood exactly what the man was talking about. With an abrupt apology, he walked outside to the wrought iron railing on the terrace to think. A fireworks show was going off in the distance. Smoke trails arched into the sky, spreading apart and bursting into red, green and white blossoms, followed seconds later by a string of staccato pops.

He tried to think about the conversation he’d overheard because it concerned a problem he’d thought about many times. Failure to solve it could throw the American economy into serious recession. God knows, there had been some crackpot schemes proposed. Whoever provided a real solution would be paid any price he demanded. He could be—he
should
be—that person. He had a gift for seeing what others could not and the guts to take advantage of it.

His efforts to sort through the elements of the problem kept being interrupted by bursts of laughter from the guests. Seeing a nearby door, he escaped from the terrace into the host’s darkened study and settled into a high-back chair.

After a few minutes, the outline and then the details of the solution coalesced with the clarity of an equation drawn on a blackboard. It was incredibly simple.

But despite his desire for total secrecy, he would require help. That’s when the second “ah ha!” hit. The missing piece of his mosaic had a name and needed only to be fitted into place.

There was just one problem. She hated him.

Chapter 4

May 30

7:45 p.m.

IN THE SPLIT second before Jack could reach him, Peck swung the barrel of the Smith & Wesson .45 away from Anita, stuck the muzzle in his own mouth, and squeezed the trigger. The sound of the blast filled the room. Shock filled Peck’s eyes as the back of his skull exploded.

His chair crashed backward. Peck sprawled awkwardly, eyes staring vacantly toward the wicker ceiling fan. A dark stain spread from beneath his head. In the bookcase, which stood a few feet behind the desk, a gluey mess of tissue and blood had splattered the rows of beige and red Pacific Reporter 3rd Series law casebooks.

Jack’s ears rang. Gasping for breath, he struggled to his feet from where he lay across the broad desk. Peck had been too fast.

This was impossible, incomprehensible. Peck had been such a powerful force, he couldn’t have done this to himself, couldn’t be dead. Jack’s impulse was to pull the chair upright and restore his father to his authoritative place. Instead, he backed away.

Behind him, Anita screamed and screamed while beating his back with her fists. “You bastard,” she sobbed. “You could have stopped him.”

He turned to comfort her, but her eyes were wide with shock. She backed out the door, ran down the hall and up the stairs. A moment later, a door slammed.

Was she right? Could he have stopped Peck?

He dropped into the leather chair near the door of the study, sweat cold on his face. His hands trembled. His body was reacting while his mind remained in shock—disconnected, unable to take action. But beneath his horror at Peck’s gruesome act there was an odd detachment, and for a moment he experienced more relief than grief. The son-of-a-bitch was gone. The pressure was off.

Peck had long ago made himself impossible to love. The wedge between them probably started when Jack was five, the day his father said, “Time to stop that ‘Dad’ crap. Call me Peck.” Being a father was only a role he played in public, and even then, only when it suited him. It was something he did because part of his own reputation depended on how well his protégé performed. Peck needed Jack the same way a grand master chess player needs a pawn to move around the board.

Peck had named his only son John Jay Strider and insisted that everyone call him John Jay because he was related to the famous jurist through his mother’s lineage. Peck reminded him from time to time that John Jay had been president of the Continental Congress, author of some of the Federalist Papers, and first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

When he was eight, he had rebelled at the affectation and would answer only to “Jack.”

A few weeks before she died, his mother told him bluntly that he should stop teaching at Stanford Law. “You’ve locked yourself in an ivory tower, focused on that damned ‘Supreme Court track.’”

She was referring to the fact that Peck had tried to plan every step of Jack’s life to put him in position to be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. He called it “keeping on the Supreme Court track.” Whatever Jack did was met with Peck’s stern admonition to do better. Jack’s instinct had been to push back against his father’s heavy hand but, truth was, striving for excellence suited him fine. In his first year at the university he’d also realized that a career in law sounded good too.

As a Stanford Law student, he graduated first in his class. As a professor of law, he projected an easygoing but confident image, published articles in major legal journals, and was called a rising star on the law school faculty. At the same time, he’d been developing the skills and temperament needed to make a contribution on the Court if he got the opportunity.

Now, with one squeeze of a trigger, Peck had set in motion an irreversible chain of events that could not end well. Jack pulled himself together and dialed 911.

Chapter 5

June 2

2:30 p.m.

JACK WALKED through the unimpressive front door of the San Francisco Hall of Justice and checked the directory for District Attorney Rick Calder’s office number.

He’d been awake half the night trying to figure out why Peck killed himself. Had he been severely depressed? No signs. Could someone be blackmailing him? No, he’d have fought back.

Peck had been such a prominent judge that the same question probably troubled the District Attorney and was the reason Calder had summoned him to come in this afternoon. Maybe Calder thought Jack, as Peck’s son, knew something that would help solve the puzzle. If that was it, he was in for a disappointment.

An assistant showed him into Rick Calder’s corner office. It was orderly, the walls filled with seascapes in cheap frames and photographs of people who could only be his wife and children.

Calder, middle-aged, well-tanned, wearing a starched white shirt, didn’t rise from the chair behind his desk. He looked up and poked horn-rimmed glasses into place. “Thanks for coming in, Mr. Strider.” He gestured to the chair across the desk from him.

“No problem,” Jack said as he sat.

“This is about your father’s death, of course. I knew him, but we didn’t run in the same circles.” Calder slid a file folder aside and put one hand on top of the other. “I have a few questions for you. In the statement you made last night you said that just before the incident you, your father, and Ms. Anita Hudson were watching a KNBC News show that pertained to a vessel known as
Pacific Dawn,
correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you recall that six people were found dead aboard that vessel, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And as soon as that report ended, the judge killed himself?”

“That’s right.” Jack crossed his arms. “Is this going somewhere?”

Calder ignored his question. “After those bodies were discovered, I ordered my people to find out who owns
Pacific Dawn.
”

“According to the news report, it’s some company in Panama City.”

Calder shook his head. “The KNBC reporter only got as far as that company. My men dug deeper and learned it was a front. They had to pierce two more corporate shells before we identified the real owner.” He stopped, interlaced his fingers, and looked straight at Jack.

“That owner is—” He paused. Jack recognized the sleazy courtroom trick. Calder had set up his little dramatic moment to watch how Jack would react. “—the Honorable H. Peckford Strider.”

The accusation hit Jack like a rock between the eyes. In a blink, Calder had switched from ally to adversary. He froze his features, giving Calder nothing. “That can’t be true.”

“It’s true, all right, and someone in this office—and I’ll find and fire the bastard—tipped off Judge Strider that we knew who the real owner was and that the story about the deaths would break on the KNBC seven o’clock news.” Calder leaned forward. “The fact that the judge watched the show tends to confirm I’m right.”

His implication was clear. Peck had killed himself because he was about to be busted for some connection with those deaths. But there must be a mistake. Even if Peck had owned that ship, he couldn’t possibly be responsible for the deaths.

“Maybe—”

Calder cut him off and changed the subject. “I made certain the ME and the forensics lab took a hard look at whether the cause of Peck Strider’s death was suicide or whether it could have been murder. I also ordered an autopsy.”

“Oh, for God’s sake! Of course it was suicide. I saw him pull the trigger. So did his friend, Anita Hudson. Or maybe you think one of us shot him.” He let his face show his scorn.

“We consider all possibilities, Mr. Strider. I don’t have the autopsy report back yet, but the ME concluded yesterday that it was suicide. Right after that, I got a warrant to search your father’s house.”

Jack’s knowledge of constitutional law kicked in. “Wait a damn minute. Since you knew it was suicide, you knew his home wasn’t a crime scene. You had no grounds for a search warrant.”

“Not for your father’s death, but
Pacific Dawn
was definitely a crime scene. Linking your father to that ship was all it took to get the search warrant and put our team in his house. They brought back a load of files and documents and have been reviewing them. We now know that back when Judge Strider was practicing law, he had a client named Esposito who owned
Pacific Dawn.
When the client died, your father was the executor for his estate. Instead of selling the vessel, he kept it and took over Esposito’s business of transporting illegal aliens into the U.S.” He thumbed through a stack of papers in front of him and glanced at one. “My men found bank statements showing it was a very profitable business. We’re following the money trail to see who else is involved.” Calder leaned back with a triumphant look. “Any questions?”

Jack’s throat tightened.
Illegal aliens?
Calder had to be wrong. Peck cared about money, but he cared far more about his image. He’d never cross the line into illegality, never risk a discovery that would ruin him. He bristled at the smug look on Calder’s face.

“Your charges don’t deserve any questions. Your men have made a bad mistake, but that doesn’t matter, because you can’t prosecute a dead man. So this is over.”

“Not even close,” Calder said. “Those young women were cooked to death in that container. I’m going to find every damned person responsible. We’re going to uncover a lot more before this is over. However, I’m not going to release any of this to the media until my Investigative Bureau has finished digging. In the meantime, I want you to agree to a private burial for your father. No visitation. No crowd. No media. I’m not going to allow speeches praising Judge Strider as a paragon of virtue, then have all this leak out to the media. That would make me, and the Mayor, look like idiots. That’s not going to happen.”

Jack was tempted to tell Calder to go to hell, but the last things he wanted were speeches and crowds.

“Agreed.” He stood.

Calder didn’t move. “I’m not finished. Tell me about all bank accounts and safe deposit boxes to which both you and your father had access.”

“I haven’t had a joint bank account with my father since I was thirteen, and never a joint safe deposit box.”

“But he could have set up such a joint account or box without your knowing about it, correct?”

“Theoretically, but he didn’t.”
He was certain of that. Peck had been obsessed with the Supreme Court track. No way he’d leave a trail that could implicate his protégé.
“Leak anything like that to the media, and I’ll haul you into court.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Calder said, but his thin smile communicated that he’d go for the front page whenever he felt like it. “I can’t prosecute Judge Strider, but I intend to find something that implicates you. When I do, I’ll go for an indictment the same day. Make no mistake. I will get you.” He stood. “Now we’re finished . . . for today.”

“Calder, you slandered my father even though you can’t prosecute him. Now you’re threatening me. I think you have some sort of vendetta going, and you’re way out of bounds. Give me an excuse, and I’ll be coming after
you
. Any questions?” He clenched his fists, hoping Calder wanted to make a move.