JO03 - Detour to Murder (4 page)

Roberts didn’t answer. He stood there steadfast, staring at Goodwin, remaining stoically silent. Schlereth adjourned the hearing. The guards moved in to take Roberts away.

As they approached him, he turned to me and said in a low voice, “I thought Haskell might’ve been dead when he rolled outta the car, but I figured it would look like I clobbered him for his dough. The DA, that son-of-a-bitch! He knew.” Roberts pounded the air with his balled fists. “Goddammit, he knew I had nothing to do with it. I wasn’t gonna be sent Arizona, after all.”

“Maybe it was for the better,” I said.

“Man, what are you saying?”

“If you went to trial here in L.A. County over Vera’s death, with the lawyer you had at the time, you would’ve lost. You would’ve drawn the death penalty.”

“I didn’t kill her, either. I swear.”

The guards cuffed Roberts’s wrists, securing them to a chain lashed around his middle. Then they started to lead him away. He looked back at me over his shoulder. “Can I get a new trial, or were you just blowing smoke?” Without waiting for my answer, he turned and hobbled toward the door.

I stood there and watched Roberts as the prison guards frog-marched him across the room. He’d been railroaded by the DA back in 1945, which might be grounds for a new trial, but the courts wouldn’t go along with it unless I had new evidence to offer. Not evidence about Haskell’s death, but evidence that exonerated Roberts regarding Vera’s murder. And even if he were innocent and the evidence existed and the courts allowed me to proceed with a new trial, what about the money? The cost would be substantial and I figured Roberts had nothing. I’d have to be Merlin the Magician to pull
that
rabbit out of a hat, not an inexperienced lawyer with a Cub Scout merit badge.

C H A P T E R 
5

It took over an hour
to get back to the office. I didn’t care; KFWB had broadcast a Beatles tribute practically the whole way. “Hey Jude,” the full version, three times in a row.

“The phone’s been ringing,” Mabel said as I came through the door.

“Clients?”

“Hardly.”

“Who?”

“Your little friend, Millie. Called several times. She’s upset.”

“Why?”

Before Mabel could respond, the phone rang. After answering it she handed the receiver to me. “Ask her yourself.”

“What’s up, Millie?”

Millie, an attractive divorced woman whom I’d taken to lunch several times, was Judge Balford’s clerk. She’d been instrumental in persuading the judge to assign cases to me when the public defender office was jammed up. The cases didn’t pay much but they provided a steady flow of income. I wondered for a moment why she was upset. Couldn’t have been the last lunch we had together. She said she loved Burger King.

“Jimmy! What are you
doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“I heard about your grandstand play at the parole hearing this morning.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Come off of it, Jimmy. You’re gonna file for a new trial? Taking Roberts on as a client? New evidence? My God, what are you thinking?”

Yeah, well, I mean… Hey, he might be innocent.”

“My judge is pissed. And she’s pissed at me for recommending you. You know the rules. Just supposed to represent Roberts at the hearing, that’s all. You’re supposed to keep cases from moving up the line. Schlereth called Judge Balford. He said that you’re an arrogant SOB.”

“He did? He’s the arrogant one. Nothing but a weasel.”

“Don’t think the County is going to cough up the money for you to engage in your fantasy and follow through with your threat. As far as Judge Balford is concerned, you don’t exist. You’ll get no more cases from her.”

“It wasn’t a threat. I merely stated a few facts.”

“You opened your big mouth and now you’re on your own with Roberts. Good luck!” Millie hung up.

I let out a deep sigh and glanced at Mabel. She shook her head slowly, looked down, and fiddled with some papers on her desk. I moved into my office, quietly closing the door behind me. I figured I’d let Millie cool off for a couple of days. Then I’d ask her out for lunch. Yeah, it’d be okay. We’d work this out over a double order of onion rings.

I don’t drink, quit a number of years ago, but later that day I met my friend, Sol Silverman at the bar in Rocco’s on Florence Avenue. The restaurant was located downstairs from Sol’s office on the top floor of the Silverman Building. Sol had made it big in the protection, security and investigation business, and now owned the ten-story building that housed his company, Silverman Investigations, Incorporated. I would’ve moved my office there but who could afford the rent?

Some say Rocco’s, with its lively bar, is the best restaurant in Downey; others say the Regency is better, classier. But Sol didn’t give a damn about that, he just liked the place, all leather and polished brass, thick steaks marbled with fat, and strong drinks made with name-brand liquor.

Sol, in his middle fifties, had a huge chest and bulging belly. He had short legs, a round face, and his salt-and-pepper hair—although styled by Maurice the barber on a weekly basis—was disheveled, giving him the look of a college professor or musical director. But he had amazing physical strength and, if need be, he could brawl with the best of them.

With an infectious sense of humor, he could be charming and jovial, and he always appeared to be unruffled. But if you crossed the line, watch out. He was also an invincible optimist and a little wacky at times, but extremely bright and shrewd. And he was my friend. I was lucky.

He’d started his business some fifteen, sixteen years ago and now owned one of the most lucrative and respected security firms in the nation. People wondered how Sol became so successful so fast. I didn’t wonder; I knew how he did it. He treated everyone fair and decent, and, of course, paid off the right people.

I could hear his laughter as I walked into the restaurant. He sat alone at a small table, the top of which sat on a large square pedestal. The table, positioned in the entryway, must’ve been new. I hadn’t seen it there before. Sol’s fingers, under the edge of the surface, were going crazy, twisting and turning knobs that jutted out from the base. He stared intently at a small black-and-white TV embedded in the tabletop. I slipped up beside him and glanced down at the screen. “What the hell is this, Sol?”

Without looking up, he said, “Pong. It’s new. Electric ping-pong—” Just then the table let out a beeping sound. “Damn, you made me miss. Got any quarters?”

Ten dollars later, we moved into the bar and sat at a real cocktail table.

“I can beat the goddamn thing. I might go broke trying, but what the hell,” Sol said, laughing. “I’m gonna get one of those gizmos for my office,” he paused for a moment. “No, better not. Wouldn’t get any work done. Pong. Hey, what are they gonna think of next?”

Jeanine, one of Rocco’s attractive barmaids, brought our drinks—a Beefeater’s martini for Sol, his usual, and a Coke for me.

“Hey, Jeanine, where’s my glass of water?” Sol asked.

I was shocked. Sol never drank water in his life, unless it came from the melting ice cubes in his drink.

“The drought, Mr. Silverman. We quit serving water unless the customer requests it. But I’d be happy to get you a glass.”

“Nah, forget it. But I know André. He’s just using the drought as an excuse to cut down on washing dishes. It’s all propaganda, drought my ass, just an excuse for the municipal water companies to raise rates.”

“I’ll be back with your water in a minute.”

“Water, who wants water? Just keep the Beefeaters coming.”

He picked up his drink and in a mock toast, said,
“Le’Chaim
… to Jimmy, my friend with the long face.” Sol lowered his glass. “I can tell something’s bugging you. Wanna tell me about it?”

“I’m frustrated, Sol.”

“Only lonely people are frustrated. Are you lonely, Jimmy? Hey, what about that little
bubele?
What’s her name? I could fix you up.”

“Christ, not
her
, Sol. Anyway, that’s not what’s on my mind.”

“What wrong with her?”

I didn’t know who Sol was referring to and I didn’t care. He continually tried to fix me up, usually one his wife’s picks. I’d taken out a few. They always turned out to be some poor girl who couldn’t get a date with a starving man if she was munching a giant turkey leg. Now that I think about it, most of them were. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with her, Sol,” I said. “She’s too old, doesn’t speak English, hates sex, and she’s about as husky as a cement truck. How’s that?”

“Nobody’s perfect.”

“Shut up,” I said with a chuckle. “But let me ask you something.”

He grabbed his pack of Dunhill cigarettes off the table, flipped one out and lit up. “Shoot.”

“I got a guy who’s in prison for murder, been there for almost thirty years. He’d been railroaded by a less than forthright DA back in ’45.”

“The guy’s innocent?”

“He says he is, but I don’t know. He could’ve murdered the woman, but he didn’t kill Haskell.”

“Who’s Haskell?”

“The dead man he didn’t kill. But the DA induced him to confess to killing the woman.”

“The woman he killed?”

“Yeah, but—”

“So, what’s the problem?’ Sol said with his arms wide. “He did it. He confessed. He’s in jail. Sounds like justice has been served.”

“You don’t understand. The guy deserves a new trial and I kind of agreed to take the case.”

“I wonder what they cost.”

“What? The cost of a new trial?” I said.

“The Pong thing.” Sol took a drag on his smoke. “I could get one for the staff, but only on their lunch break, mind you. We’ll have no Pong during working hours.”

“Sol, you’re not even listening to me.”

“What’s to listen? The bad guy is doing time, paying the price.”

“Look, this thing has me bugged. I represented him at his parole hearing this morning. I found mitigating facts, and opened my mouth at the wrong time.”

Sol arched an eyebrow, which I took as a sign of mild interest. So I continued. I outlined my discovery in a quick and concise manner. I explained how Roberts hadn’t murdered Haskell after all, and therefore had no motive to kill the woman. I explained how the DA had bluffed Roberts into thinking he was headed to the gas chamber. I even cited a precedent I’d looked up prior to our meeting where the courts overturned a conviction and granted a new trial once it was shown that the prosecutor had lied and withheld evidence.

I desperately needed Sol’s help with this thing. I needed new evidence for a retrial, and Sol and his staff of crack investigators would find it. That is, if any evidence existed. Also, I had to satisfy my commitment to the law. If I did what I could for Roberts and nothing came of my efforts, well then, so be it. But I had to try. Still, there was no money available and Sol’s services were expensive. He’d helped out in the past
pro bono
, so to speak, and he might do it now. Sol and I had worked together on a murder case a couple of years ago where the accused, a poor gardener with a family, was set up to take the fall for a powerful politician. Together we got the guy off. There was no financial payoff then. But just seeing the guy’s face when he walked out of prison and into the arms of his family was reward enough. This case wouldn’t be like that one. Roberts had no family who counted on him, and he might indeed be guilty. However, Roberts was an American citizen with a right to a fair trial and the justice system had illicitly denied him due process. I took an oath when I was admitted to the bar; the same oath the DA, Byron, took years ago when he was admitted. I swore to uphold the law and I intended to keep my word.

But all of that had nothing to do with Sol and I knew that without his help I’d just be running in circles without a chance to discover what really happened back in 1945.

As I talked, Sol listened, nodding occasionally. I was making headway. But how do I ask for his help? Should I just come out with it, or should I plant the seed and see if he volunteers? I told him that Roberts had sold his story when he was arrested and they made a movie of his ordeal, a film called
Detour
.

Then I said, “You’d have to get a copy of the film somehow, Sol. Maybe there’s something in the movie we could use. What do you think? Maybe we could do a little investigation of the woman’s murder. You could have one of your people snoop around—”

Sol interrupted. “Why should you care? You were just hired to be his lawyer at the hearing, right?”

“Yeah, but, there’s a chance that guy might be innocent. I’m a lawyer and he’s now my client. Hell, I took an oath. I’m an officer of the court.”

“Look, Jimmy, the guy’s probably guilty.” Sol stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray on the table. “You said yourself. He could’ve murdered the woman. But for the sake of argument let’s just say he didn’t do it. And let’s say he got screwed back in ’45 and didn’t get a shot at a trial.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly my point. You see—”

“Let me finish, okay?”

“Sorry.”

“Now listen. It happened a long time ago, almost thirty years. There is no way anything new will be found now. At any rate, if he deserves it, the parole board will cut him loose. If not, well, what can I say? It’d be best if you dropped the case. You can’t win. Why put the guy through all that? Besides, I can’t imagine the guy has any money.”

“Sol, you know he has no money and I’m certain his parole will be denied. I’ve done enough of these cases to know when the board’s going to refuse parole.” I didn’t mention to Sol that I had pissed off the board so much that even if Roberts were the reincarnation of St. Francis of Assisi, they’d keep him locked up forever on a diet of stale bread and water. “The parole board is going to send a letter of denial. I saw it in their eyes. That’s why I need your help. C’mon, Sol, Roberts deserved—no make that,
society
deserved a fair trial back then. The system trashed him in ’45 and for the system to work it has to be blameless, unimpeachable. It’s guaranteed in the United States Constitution.”

“Is this where I stand up and salute?”

Jeanine brought another round of drinks and a selection of hot hors d'oeuvres: chicken wings, pizza puffs, and miniature wieners impaled on a toothpick drenched in some kind of red sauce.

I took a sip of Coke. “Are you going to help me with this Roberts thing, or not?”

Sol surveyed the tidbits on the table, his head on a swivel. He settled on the little wieners. Plucking one from the plate, he held it up before his eyes like he was a noted biologist perusing a species of a rare tropical bug. “Hmm, looks good.”

He popped it in his mouth and chewed.

“Well?” I said.

“Not bad, has a hint of Tabasco.”

“Not the goddamn wiener,” I said. “Are you going to help me investigate the Roberts case?”

“Yeah, guess so. Why not?” He nodded. “Here, try one of these.” He shoved one of the little wieners at me.

I took a bite and smiled. Sol was right, a bit spicy, but not too bad.