Bad Intent

Chapter 32

My mother called at nine o’clock on Monday morning-nine o’clock Boston time. She and my father were there on vacation and had seen my name in a wire service item that ran in the local papers, “Filmmaker Slays Attacker.”

“Should we be hysterical?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “Whatever you read, it’s a lie.”

She chuckled. I read that you were a renowned and gifted filmmaker who shot a carjacker.”

“Thirty-three and one-third percent a lie, anyway. You can decide for yourself which third of that you want to throw out.” She grew serious. “Are you all right, Margot?”

“Shaken, but untouched.”

“Your father, feeling nostalgic, wonders, do you need bail money?”

“Not this time, Mom,” I said. “Just bring me home some lobsters.”

After speaking with my dad and repeating virtually everything I had said to Mom, I went outside to fetch our morning Times to see whether they had something to say.

I had made the first page of the Metro section, just a short piece with very few details, not even the names of the victim and my passenger. The paper had gone to bed before there were many details to learn. It would be different later. I would see to it.

Before word got out, before all her friends heard about it, I had to talk to Casey and explain what had happened the night before.

There was a period after her father and I separated when Casey was morbidly afraid for me all the time, worried that something would happen that would take me away from her. For two weeks, I had hardly been able to leave the house. After a reasonable time she overcame her fear, but with reservations I had to be careful to respect.

It was nearly time for her to get up, anyway. I went in and sat on the end of her bed with Bowser and talked it out with her. She was at once dubious, and frightened, and sympathetic. When we had gotten to the end, she made a half-hearted attempt to feign illness and stay home-the old pattern-but gave it up when she remembered she wanted to ask Mischa whether her friends could come to classes with her on Friday. When she left with Michael, she seemed fine.

Detective Valenti picked me up at eight and took me in for more questioning. I would have preferred to drive myself, but my car had been impounded as evidence. Valenti’s attitude toward me had softened considerably overnight. I thought someone must have gotten to him, filled him in. And I thought that someone was Hector.

Mike had been told by his lieutenant to stay away, so in loco amantis, Hector was there. During all of the questioning he worked at his desk no more than six feet away from us.

Valenti and I made sketches, went over the crime scene photographs, talked about the minutiae. He asked a lot of questions about my “relationship” with Roddy O’Leary that I found irksome. Overall, it wasn’t bad.

We had our heads together over a city map while I retraced the route I had taken from Parker Center, when I heard a door open and then a familiar voice. I got up and went across the big bullpen, following the voice. Hector followed close behind me.

A detective in shirt-sleeves was carrying two cups of coffee into a small interrogation room that was tucked into a dogleg in a back comer. He handed one of the cups to Jennifer Miller.

“Good morning, counselor,” I said, leaning against the door-frame.

Jennifer wasn’t particularly happy to see me, but she didn’t duck, either. She was wearing one of her perky suits and her hair and makeup were freshly done. That is, she hadn’t spent the night in jail.

“How are you this morning?” she asked.

“I haven’t decided.”

Hector put a gentle hand on my arm and drew me back. “Valenti needs you,” he said, making a lot of eye contact. Trusting Hector, I acceded. On my way out, I said to Jennifer, “Let’s do lunch.”

“Not today,” she said, sitting with the posture of the victor waiting for his laurel wreath. “Remember? I have a habeas hearing scheduled at two.”

Before the door closed again, Hector was inside with Jennifer.

I went back to Valenti with a white rage rising. “What is she doing here?”

“Same as you,” Valenti said. “She’s your witness.”

“Only by miscalculation. She tried to get me killed. Why wasn’t she held?”

He was shaking his head while I ranted, waiting for me to wind down. “I’ll tell it to you as she told it to us. She asked you to pick her up at Parker Center, take her to an address on Hudson Street in the city. When you stopped at the address to let her out, a man approached the car and opened the driver’s side door. You raised a weapon and shot him. Mrs. Miller did not know you were armed, she did not see his weapon. The name of the victim was familiar to her only because she has followed election coverage. Mrs. Miller says she has no memory of ever meeting Roddy O’Leary.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair, as in, end of story.

I cleared my throat and leaned nearer to him. “A couple of things. Why did she want to go to Hudson Street if she lives in San Pedro? And, what was she going to do with the chloroform in her purse?”

“What do you think?”

“I think she lured me to a dark area, planned to gas me so I wouldn’t make a fuss when her colleague blew me away.”

He was shaking his head again. “She didn’t want to go home to an empty house, so she directed you to her parents’ place. And, there’s nothing illegal about carrying chloroform in that quantity-bug collectors do it all the time. She says her son has a sick hamster. She was going to euthanize it.”

“You checked this out?”

“Mom and Dad have her graduation picture on the piano. The kid has a hamster, but whether it’s sick or not…” He shrugged. “And another thing. She says you had previously mentioned to her that an employee of the victim, election staffer named George Schwartz, had been stalking you. She said you had taken pictures of him on several occasions to document the fact. She said you even had him arrested once.”

Jennifer was good. Her vulnerability crap just kept sucking me right in.

Valenti was studying me with a devilish light in his eyes, a crooked smile growing from the tough-cop sneer. “How long you known Flint?”

“A while.”

“I worked a couple cases with him here and there. He’s a good guy. Great sense of humor.”

I didn’t say anything. Everyone has a Mike story, it was Valenti’s turn to tell one. They’re funny stories, but I wasn’t in the mood to be jollied.

Valenti was grinning wide now. “Outside of me, he’s probably the best detective in the city. You know why? Because he can read a person like the label on a pack of weenies. You can’t hide any of your shit from Flint, ‘cause you’ve got everything he needs to know right there on your wrapper. It’s a gift. Sometimes it takes the rest of us a little while to catch up to him. You know what he always says? ‘Who you gonna believe?’”

“I know, ‘Me, or your own lying eyes?’ So, who are you going to believe?”

Still studying me carefully, he said, “It’s a gift, the way Mike can read a person.”

I reminded him I needed my car, so he made some calls and got it released. He drove me over to the crime lab garage just east of the civic center and waited to make sure there were no glitches.

Because I was in the building, I paid a visit to my old friend Sharon Yamasaki, a senior investigator with the coroner’s office. I wanted to know what progress had been made identifying the body found in the remains of Kelsey’s trailer, anything that had been discovered about the fire itself.

Sharon seemed genuinely happy to see me. Most of her work involves moving official documents from one side of her desk to the other, so I offered her a potentially interesting diversion. She put aside her heavy case load to go hunting for me. I was in her office, halfway through a cup of coffee, when she came in with a couple of files.

“Everything is preliminary,” she said. “There’s no positive I.D. yet, but there is a profile. The deceased was male, early to late fifties, probably Caucasian, five feet nine to six feet tall, slender build. So far, there are no inconsistencies with the dental records of Detective Jerry Kelsey. Considering the condition of the remains, we may get no closer than that.”

It wasn’t really news, but I felt a jolt of something akin to pain. What made me sad was the notion that there probably was no one close enough to Kelsey to arrange a proper funeral.

Sharon sorted through a stack of forms. “The medical examiner was looking for some indication of state of mind, weighing the possibility of suicide over murder. The arson people put that notion aside.

“The prelim arson report indicates the fire’s point of origin was directly under the living room portion of Kelsey’s trailer. One end of an ordinary garden hose was placed into the gasoline storage tank situated in the yard, the other end of the hose was placed under the trailer, a distance of fifty-three feet. A lit votive candle was placed under the trailer a few feet from the end of the hose. Once the arsonist had begun the siphon effect of the gasoline at the tank end, he had the time it took for the gas to run through the hose and reach the candle at the other end to get the hell away. Then, to use the technical language, kaboom.”

Elegant, yet simple. Anyone who had seen the layout of that equipment yard could have planned it.

I rose. “Thank you.”

Sharon got up with me, walked with me toward the elevators. “I understand we have another acquaintance of yours in residence at the morgue.”

“Word gets around,” I said.

“It does when the brass takes special interest.” She held the elevator door open. “The D.A. was on the horn first thing this morning. Wants a twenty-four hour lid put on public statements coming from the crime lab. Idiot forgets we’re civil service. I personally know three people who called the Times to make sure they knew exactly what he wanted a lid put on.”

I invited Sharon and her husband to the housewarming on Saturday and went back down to the garage. Just in case anyone changed his mind about releasing my car, I took it out of the lab garage and reparked it in the lot under the civic center mall.

The Conklin hearing was scheduled for two, giving me maybe an hour and a half to kill. I took the stairs up to the street level and caught a Dash bus to Chinatown, walked around the neighborhood.

I first met Mike Flint in Chinatown.

Ever since the night before, when I watched Roddy O’Leary make his explosive bounce across the pavement, it worried me that thoughts of death had taken up very assertive residence at the front of my mind. I couldn’t shake an unfamiliar sense of melancholy, a distressing preoccupation.

I’m sure that feeling of doom was why I ended up where my story with Mike had begun, because of all that I hold precious, Mike is in the top two. I stood for a while next to a six-foot plaster Buddha on Hill Street, watched the tourists and the locals go about their shopping, moving at two speeds: tourist stroll versus Chinese housewife sprint. I just stood still like the plaster Buddha, thinking things over. When I decided it was time to walk on, I felt much better.

The Dash dropped me right in front of the courthouse twenty minutes before the scheduled two o’clock hearing.

The hall outside the appointed courtroom was dotted by clusters of media teams and their captives; it was like homecoming. Mrs. Rhodes and Etta had their heads together with Ralph Faust. LaShonda and James Shabazz huddled with Jack Riley’s news team. Beth Johnson and a tall young man I guessed was Wyatt, Jr. stood with a third video crew. Leroy Burgess had two cameramen all to himself.

I ducked at least a dozen microphones that were thrust into my face, and made it, frazzled but intact, into the courtroom.

Mike was there, in suit and tie, sitting in the back row with Hector. When they saw me, they did some negotiating with their neighbors to clear a seat for me between them.

I slid my hand under Mike’s elbow. “Are you allowed to be here?”

“I don’t give a fuck.”

“Boy, and I thought I was having a bad day.”

He squeezed my hand. “Are you?”

“Yes.”

“That’s two of us.”

The defense entered the court, Jennifer Miller in the same suit she had been wearing earlier that morning, a bit wrinkled in the lap, makeup faded, hair in need of a comb. I glanced up at Hector. “Did you at least give her enough time to go to the bathroom before she had to be here?”

All innocence, he said, “Guess I forgot.”

The district attorney came in and took a seat behind the defense table. After him came the media crowd from the hall, stumbling around the news pool’s camera emplacement in the middle of the aisle to get to the last available seats. I did not see Leroy Burgess come into the room.

Finally, Charles Conklin was led in by the bailiff.

Though I had seen his old booking pictures many times, I would never have recognized him on the street. Conklin was prison-yard buff, huge arms and shoulders, and tiny, undeveloped legs. He seemed uncomfortable in his new clothes. The sport coat fit tight, his slacks were too big in the waist and too long. His dress shirt was buttoned up to the neck, but someone had forgotten to get him a tie.

I thought that Conklin had a very strong sense of his star status. He waved to the crowd, preened for Jennifer, gave Marovich a complicated two-handed handshake.

The judge, a distinguished-looking senior, came in from chambers carrying a thick notebook identical to the one in front of Jennifer. After the bailiff announced the opening of the session, the judge asked Jennifer to state her case.

“From the beginning,” she said in a sweet, cultured voice, reading from notes placed on a lectern, “the police investigators grossly manipulated the case against Charles Pinkerton Conklin. They threatened the children who witnessed the killing of Officer Johnson, forced them to identify my client. They withheld evidence from the defense. They made a mockery of the system of justice they swore to uphold.”

She went over the case witness by witness, reading into the record the new affidavit signed by Hanna, but saying only, “Your Honor, the second child witness also signed a revision of her original testimony.”

I looked around for LaShonda, saw her shake her head and whisper to her neighbor, James Shabazz. What Jennifer had said was true in its words, but not in its intent. And so she went, point by point through the case, skating the edge of truth.

With every point, Mike grew angrier. When his name was brought into the proceedings, Hector reached behind me to grip Mike’s shoulder. Mike set his jaw, gripped my hand so hard it throbbed.

The district attorney was called to give his expert analysis. I swear he was staring at me during his testimony describing a flawed investigation and a flawed prosecution. He laid the heaviest blame on the police, neglecting to mention that he had been part of the original prosecution team. Mea culpa for believing the police, was how I read him.

There was no opportunity for rebuttal. The police were not called. Mike was not asked to explain his procedures, or to answer the charges placed against him.

LaShonda, the surviving witness, wasn’t even mentioned by name.

No one said anything about the man who had been killed. I imagined Marovich explaining that lacuna, “The loss of a man’s life was not germane to the issues here.”

The testimony lasted barely an hour before Jennifer, in tones that were almost weepy, closed. “Your Honor, Charles Conklin is an innocent man. He was an innocent man fourteen years ago when he was sentenced to life in prison because of a deeply flawed trial. We ask the court at this time to grant our writ of habeas corpus and release this man from custody.”

Jennifer sat down and the judge took out his own set of notes. The entire hearing had been only a formality, because he obviously had his decision prepared in advance.

After scolding the police for their misbehavior, the judge faced Conklin.

Conklin was scared. He had sweated through his new coat. He shook, he dabbed at his eyes with a large handkerchief. He did not face the judge, did not look over at Jennifer.

“Mr. Conklin,” the judge said, “on behalf of the state of California, I apologize to you for the gross injustice that has been done. No legal cause exists for your continued imprisonment. Your writ of habeas corpus is granted. The defendant is ordered released directly from this courtroom. You are a free man.”

I got up with Mike and slipped out the back door. Jack Riley ran out after us, dragging a cameraman with him.

“Detective Flint, will you give us a statement?”

“Damn right,” Mike said. I was afraid he was winding up to deliver a scorcher that might embarrass him later, but his statement was both brief and controlled.

“I stand by my original investigation. I absolutely believe that he’s guilty. All this hearing did was throw out the first verdict on a technicality, it didn’t declare Conklin to be innocent. Far from it. There is no statute of limitations on murder. The man should be retried. That is the proper procedure in a case of procedural error.”

Mike walked away toward the elevator as the courtroom began to spill into the hall, every significant player trailing a camera crew. As the din rose, Jack pulled me closer.

“Listen, Annie Oakley,” he said, “Lana wants to do a special about last night’s shooting. But not here. Meet me at the studio before five.”

“I’ll try.”

The D.A. walked by, distracted Jack. “Gotta go,” he said.

This time, I grabbed him. “Innocent man freed is a tempting story, but don’t get suckered into it. Go over and talk to LaShonda about the contents of her affidavit. She’ll help you see what’s screwy.”

From Jack’s reaction, I must have been babbling. “Maggie, you had your say last Friday. This is Monday. Conklin is Monday’s story.”

“Whore,” I said.

“Ratings,” he said.

He trotted off to join the mob swarming around Jennifer and Conklin. As I walked away, I heard Jack’s distinctive voice, “Congratulations, Mr. Conklin. How does it feel to be a free man?”