F is For Fugitive

4

By one-thirty, I had driven the twelve miles to San Luis Obispo and I was circling through the downtown area, trying to orient myself and get a feel for the place. The commercial buildings are two to four stories high and immaculately maintained. This is clearly a museum town, with Spanish and Victorian structures restored and adapted to current use. The storefronts are painted in handsome dark shades, many with awnings arching over the windows. The establishments seem to be divided just about equally between trendy clothing stores and trendy restaurants. Carrotwood trees border most avenues, with strings of tiny Italian lights woven into branches bursting with green. Any businesses not catering directly to the tourists seem geared to the tastes of the Cal Poly students in evidence everywhere.

Bailey Fowler's new attorney was a man named Jack Clemson, with an address on Mill, a block from the courthouse. I pulled into a parking space and locked my car. The office was located in a small, brown frame cottage with a pointed gable in the roof and a narrow wooden porch enclosed by trellises. A white picket fence surrounded the property, with a tangle of geraniums crowding in among the pales. Judging from the lettered sign affixed to the gate, Jack Clemson was the sole tenant.

I climbed the wooden porch steps and moved into the entrance hall now furnished as a reception area. A grandfather clock on the wall to my left gave the only sense of life, the brass pendulum snick-snacking back and forth mechanically. The former parlor on the right was lined with old-fashioned, glass-fronted oak bookcases. There was an oak desk with a typing ell, a swivel chair, a Xerox machine, but no secretary in sight. The screen on the computer monitor was blank, the surface of the desk neatly stacked with legal briefs and brown accordion files tied with string. Across the hall, the door to the matching parlor was shut. One of the buttons on the telephone was lighted and I could smell fresh cigarette smoke drifting out from somewhere in the back. Otherwise, the office seemed deserted.

I took a seat in an old church pew with a slot for hymnals underneath the bench. It was filled now with alumni journals from Columbia University Law School, which I leafed through idly. Presently, I heard footsteps and Clemson appeared.

"Miss Millhone? Jack Clemson. Nice to meet you. You'll have to pardon the reception. My secretary's out sick and the temp's still off at lunch. Come on back."

We shook hands and I followed him. He was maybe fifty-five and heavyset, one of those men who'd probably been considered portly since birth. He was short and squat, wide-shouldered and balding. His features were babified: sparse eyebrows and a soft, undefined nose with red dents along the bridge. A pair of tortoiseshell reading glasses were shoved up on his head, and strands of hair were standing straight up on end. His shirt collar was unbuttoned and his tie was loose. Apparently he hadn't had time to shave, and he scratched at his chin experimentally as if to gauge the morning's growth. His suit was tobacco brown, impeccably tailored, but wrinkled across the seat.

His office occupied the entire rear half of the building, and had French doors that opened out onto a sunny deck. Both of the dark green leather chairs intended for clients were piled high with legal briefs. Clemson scooped up an armload of books and files and set them on the floor, motioning for me to take a seat while he went around to the far side of the desk. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror hanging on the wall to his left, and his hand returned involuntarily to the stubble on his chin. He sat down and pulled a portable electric razor from his desk drawer. He flicked it on and began to slide it around his face with a practiced hand, mowing a clean path across his upper lip. The shaver buzzed like a distant airplane.

"I got a court date in thirty minutes. Sorry I can't spare you any more time this afternoon."

"That's all right," I said. "When does Bailey get in?"

"He's probably here by now. Deputy drove down this morning to bring him back. I made arrangements for you to see him at three-fifteen. It's not regular visiting hours, but Quintana said it's okay. It's his case. He was rookie of the year back then."

"What about the arraignment?" "Eight-thirty tomorrow morning. If you're interested, you can come here first and walk over with me. That'll give us a chance to compare notes." "I'd like that."

Clemson made a note on his desk calendar. "Will you be going back over to the Ocean Street this afternoon?" "Sure."

He tucked the electric shaver away and closed the desk drawer. He reached for some papers, which he folded and slipped into an envelope, scrawling Royce's name across the front. "Tell Royce this is ready for his signature," he said. I tucked the envelope in my handbag. "How much of the background on this have you been told?" "Not much."

He lit a cigarette, coughing into his fist. He shook his head, apparently annoyed by the state of his lungs. "I had a long talk this morning with Clifford Lehto, the PD who handled Fowler's case.

He's retired now. Nice man. Bought a vineyard about sixty miles north of here. Says he's growing Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes. I wouldn't mind doing that myself one of these days. Anyway, he went through his old files for me and pulled the case notes."

"What's the story on that? Why'd the DA make a deal?"

Clemson gestured dismissively. "It was all circumstantial evidence. George De Witt was the district attorney. You ever run into him? Probably not. It would have been way before your time. He's a Superior Court judge now. I avoid him like the plague."

"I've heard of him. He's got political aspirations, doesn't he?"

"For all the good it's gonna do. He's into the sauce and it's the kiss of death. You never know which way he's gonna go on a case. He's not unfair, but he's inconsistent. Which is too bad. George was a hotdogger. Very flashy guy. He hated to bargain a high-publicity case, but he wasn't a fool. From what I hear, the Timberlake murder looked passable on the surface, but they were short of hard evidence. Fowler was known around town as a punk for years. His old man had thrown him out-"

"Wait a minute," I said. "Was this before he went to jail the first time or afterward? I thought he'd been convicted of armed robbery, but nobody's given me the story on that either."

"Shoot. All right, let me back up a bit. This was two, three years before. I got the dates here somewhere, but it matters not. The deal is, Fowler and a fellow named Tap Granger hooked up right around the time Fowler got out of high school. Bailey was a good-looking kid and he was smart enough, but he never got it together. You probably know the type. He was just one of those kids who seems destined to go sour. From what Lehto says, Bailey and Tap were doing a lot of drugs. They had to pay the local dope peddler, so they started bumping off gas stations. Nickel-and-dime jobs, and they're rank amateurs. Idiots. They're wearing panty hose on their heads, trying to act like big-time hoods. Of course, they got caught. Rupert Russell was the PD on that one and he did the best he could."

"Why not a private attorney? Was Bailey indigent?"

"In essence. He didn't have the dough himself and his old man refused to pop for any legal fees." Clemson took a drag of his cigarette.

"Had Bailey been in trouble as a juvenile?" "Nope. His record was clean. He probably figured all he'd get was a slap on the wrist. This is armed robbery, you understand, but Tap carried the gun, so I guess Bailey thought somehow that let him off the hook. Unfortunately for him, the statute doesn't read that way. Anyway, when they offered him a deal, he turned 'em down cold, pleaded not guilty, and went to trial instead. Needless to say, the jury convicted and the judge got tough. Back then, robbery was one to ten in the state prison."

"That was still indeterminate sentencing?"

"Yeah, that's right. Back then, they had a Bureau of Prison Terms that would meet and set parole and actual date of release. We had a very liberal board of prison terms at that time. Hell, we had basically a much more liberal government in California. Those people who ran the board were appointed by the governor and Pat Brown Junior… well, skip that tale. Point is, these guys get one to ten, but they're out in two years. Everybody starts screaming and yelling because nobody was doing nine or ten years on a one-to-ten. Bailey only served eighteen months."

"Up here?"

"Nuh-unh. Down at Chino, the country club of prisons. He got out in August. Came back to Floral Beach and started looking for work without much luck. Pretty soon he was back doing drugs again, only it was cocaine this time, along with grass. Uppers, downers, you name it."

"Where was Jean all this time?"

"Central Coast High, senior year. I don't know if anybody filled you in on this girl."

"Not at all."

"She was illegitimate. Her mom's still around in Floral Beach. You might want to talk to her. She had a reputation as the town roundheel, the mother, this is. Jean was an only child. Cute kid, but I guess she had a lot of problems. As if the rest of us don't." He took another drag from his cigarette.

"She worked for Royce Fowler, didn't she?" "Right. Bailey got out of prison and she took up with him again. According to Lehto, Bailey claimed they were just good friends. The DA maintains they were lovers and Bailey killed her in a jealous rage when he found out she'd hooked up with Tap. Fowler says not so. It had nothing to do with Granger, even though Tap got out two months before he did."

"What about Granger? Is he still around?" "Yeah, he operates the only gas station in Floral Beach. Owned by somebody else, but he's the manager, which is about all he can handle. He's not smart, but he seems steady enough. He was a wild one in his day, but he's mellowed out some."

I made a note about both Tap Granger and the Timberlake woman. "I didn't mean to interrupt. You were talking about Bailey's relationship with the girl after he got out of jail."

"Well, Bailey maintains the romance was over with. He and the girl hung out together and that was it. They were both outcasts anyway, Bailey because he'd been in prison, the Timberlake girl because her mother's such a slut. Besides which, the Timberlakes were poor. She was never going to amount to a hill of beans as long as she was stuck in Floral Beach. I don't know how much experience you've had with towns the size of Floral Beach. We're talking maybe eleven hundred people max, and most of 'em have been here since the year zip. Anyway, she and Bailey started running around together just like they did before. He says she was dallying with this other guy, involved in some affair that she was being real tight-lipped about. Claims she never would say who it was.

"The night she was killed, the two of 'em went out drinking. Hit about six bars in San Luis and two more in Pismo. Around midnight, they came back and parked down at the beach. He says it was closer to ten, but a witness puts 'em there at midnight. Anyway, she was upset. They had a bottle and a couple of joints with 'em. They had a tiff and he says he left her there and stomped off. Next thing he knows, it's morning and he's in his room at the Ocean Street. These kids are swarming all over the beach down below, doing clean-up detail as part of some local church do-good project. He's sick as a dog… so hung over he was pukin' his guts out. She's still down on the beach, passed out over by the stairs… only when the clean-up crew gets close, they can see she's dead, strangled with a belt that turns out to be his." "But anybody could have done it." "Absolutely. Of course, Bailey was favored and they might have made it stick, but De Witt had had a string of wins and he didn't want to take a chance. Lehto saw an opportunity to bargain and since Bailey'd been burned once, he went along with the deal. On the armed robbery, he was guilty, went to trial, and got himself nailed. This time he claimed he was innocent, but he didn't like the odds so when they offered him a plea of manslaughter, he took it, just like that." Clemson snapped his fingers, the sound like the clean popping of a hollow stick.

"Could he have beaten the murder rap if he'd gone to trial?"

"Hey, who knows? Going to trial is a crapshoot. You put your money on the line every time. If you roll that seven or eleven, boy, you're feeling good. But if it comes out two, three, or twelve, you're the loser. The case generated a lot of publicity. Sentiment in town was running against him. Then you had Bailey's prior, no character witnesses to speak of. He was better off with the deal. Twenty years ago, he could've been given the death penalty, too, which is something you don't want to mess with if you can help it. Talk about rolling dice."

"I thought if you were charged with murder, they wouldn't reduce that."

"True, hypothetically, but that's not the way it works. It was just discretionary with the district attorney how he filed. What Lehto did was, he goes to De Witt and says, 'Look, George, I've got evidence my guy was under the influence at the time. Evidence from your own people.' He pulls out the police report. 'If you'll note in the record, when the officers arrested him, it states he appeared to be drowsy…" Blah, blah, blah. Clifford does this whole number and he can see George start to sweat. He's got his ego on the line and he doesn't want to go into court with a big hole in his case. As DA, you re expected to win ninety percent of the time, if not higher."

"So Bailey pleaded guilty to the manslaughter and the judge maxed him out," I said.

"Exactly. You got it, but we're only talkin' six years. Big deal. With time served and time off for good behavior, he might have been out in half that. The whole time, Fowler's thinking he got screwed, but he doesn't understand how lucky he was. Clifford Lehto did a hell of a job for him. I'd have done the same thing myself."

"What happens next?"

Clemson shrugged again, stubbing out his cigarette. "Depends on how Bailey wants to plead on the felony escape. What's he gonna say, 'No, I didn't escape'? Extenuating circumstances? He can always claim some prison goon was threatening his life, but that hardly explains where he's been all this time. The irony is, he should have hired some hotshot attorney the first couple rounds. At this point, it's not going to do him much good. I'll go to bat for him, but no judge in his right mind is going to set bail for some guy who's been on the lam sixteen years."

"What do you want from me in the meantime?"

Clemson got up and started pawing through the piles of paper on his desk. "I had my secretary pull all the clippings from the time of the murder. You might want to look at those. Lehto said he'd send down everything he's got. Police reports, list of witnesses. Talk to Bailey and see if he's got anything to add. You know the drill. Go back

Through the players and find me another suspect. Maybe we can develop evidence against somebody else and get Bailey off the hook. Otherwise, he's lookin' at a lot more years in the slammer unless I can persuade the judge no purpose would be served, which is what I'll try to do. He's been clean all this time, and personally, I can't see the point of puttin' him back in, but who knows? Here."

He unearthed an accordion file and handed it to me. I got to my feet and we shook hands again, chatting about other things as we left his office, walking toward the front. The office temp was sitting at her desk by then, trying to sustain an air of competence. She looked young and bewildered, out of her element in the world of habeas corpus, or corpuses of any kind.

"Oh yeah, one thing I almost forgot," Clemson said when we reached the porch. "What Jean was upset about that night? She was pregnant. Six weeks. Bailey swears it wasn't his."