Lost Lake

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

The Justice Center is a sixteen-story concrete-and-glass building in down-town Portland, separated from the Multnomah County courthouse by a park. In addition to the central precinct of the Portland police bureau, the Justice Center is home to a branch of the Multnomah County district attorney’s office, several courtrooms, the state crime lab, state parole and probation, and the Multnomah County jail. Ami Vergano had already been on the thirteenth floor of the Justice Center when she was interrogated in the detective division of the Portland police bureau, but she had never been inside a jail and she found her first visit to this part of the building unnerving.

The jail occupies the fourth through tenth floors of the Justice Center, but the reception area is on the second floor. To reach it, Ami walked through the center’s vaulted lobby, past the curving stairs that led to the courtrooms on the third floor, and through a pair of glass doors.

“I’m Ami Vergano, Vanessa Kohler’s attorney,” she told the sheriff’s deputy who was manning the reception desk. “I’d like to visit her. She may be here under the name Vanessa Wingate.”

While the deputy checked her ID, Ami looked around the room. A jittery teenage girl with tattoos and a nose ring was casting anxious glances toward the door where released prisoners left the jail. She smelled as if she hadn’t bathed in days, and there were dark circles under her eyes. The only other person waiting in the reception area was a heavyset attorney in mismatched sports jacket and slacks, who was reading over police reports in preparation for a visit to a client.

The guard returned Ami’s ID and searched her attache case. When the search turned up neither weapons nor contraband, he motioned Ami toward a metal detector that stood between her and the jail elevator. Ami passed through without setting off an alarm and the guard walked her to the elevator and keyed her up to the floor where Vanessa was being held.

After a short ride, Ami found herself in a narrow hall with concrete walls. The moment the elevator doors closed, she started to feel claustrophobic. The guard in the reception area had told Ami to summon the guard on this floor by using the intercom that was affixed to the wall next to a thick metal door at one end of the corridor. Ami punched the button anxiously several times before the box crackled and a disembodied voice asked her about her business.

Moments later, a jail guard peered at Ami through a plate of glass in the upper half of the door, then spoke into a walkie-talkie. Electronic locks snapped, and the guard ushered Ami into another narrow corridor that ran in front of the three contact visiting rooms in which prisoners met face to face with their attorneys. Ami could see into the rooms through large windows outfitted with thick, shatterproof glass.

Vanessa was already waiting for her in the room farthest from the elevators. She was dressed in a shapeless orange jumpsuit and sitting in one of two molded plastic chairs that stood on either side of a round, Formica-topped table that was bolted to the floor. The guard opened another metal door and stepped aside. Ami walked into the room, and the guard pointed to a black button that stuck out of an intercom affixed to the pastel-yellow concrete wall.

“Press that when you’re through, and I’ll come and get you,” he told her before closing the door.

Vanessa’s hair was uncombed, and she looked even thinner than Ami remembered. Endless days in jail in San Diego, while Oregon and California fought over which state had the right to prosecute her first, had turned her complexion ashy-gray and beaten down her spirit.

“Are you okay?” Ami asked.

“No. I’m really down,” Vanessa answered honestly. She seemed exhausted.

“I’m so sorry, Vanessa.”

“Don’t be. None of this is your fault. I have only myself to blame.” Suddenly a flash of Vanessa’s determination and self-confidence showed on her face. “But I don’t regret what I did. Carl would be dead if I hadn’t rescued him.” Then her shoulders slumped and she looked lost. “I just hope he survives in prison, but I don’t think he has much of a chance. He’s too much of a threat to the General.”

Ami did not argue with Vanessa. She was finally convinced that the secret army was a fantasy and her client a seriously deluded woman, but what good would it do to challenge Vanessa’s delusions now? Instead, she opened her attache case and took out several legal documents.

“I have a substitution of counsel for you to sign,” Ami said, sliding the papers and a pen across the table.

“You’re not going to represent me?”

“I can’t. Remember, we talked about this the first time we met. First off, I have no experience as a criminal defense attorney. Second, it’s unethical for a lawyer to represent two people in the same case. It’s a clear conflict of interest. One of the ways a lawyer helps a client is by negotiating a deal for her with the district attorney. If there are two defendants, it’s normal for the lawyer for one of the defendants to tell the DA that her client will testify against the other defendant in exchange for a lighter sentence. I can’t do that for you or Carl if I represent both of you.

“And there’s another problem. I helped you hide out. Do you know how much trouble I’d be in if that came out? I aided and abetted your escape. If I become a codefendant, it’s obvious that I’d have to drop off the case.

“Not to mention that I’m a witness to Carl’s attack on Barney Lutz and the police officer at Ryan’s game.”

Ami smiled ruefully. “I’ve got so many conflicts of interest that I feel like a human law school exam question. But don’t worry. Ray Armitage is still willing to represent Carl and I’ve lined up Janet Massengill to represent you. She’s excellent. She thinks there’s a good chance that she can get you released at a bail hearing.”

“No, no,” Vanessa said as she shook her head back and forth. “I wouldn’t be safe out of jail. I’m in solitary here. Unless he bribes a guard, my father won’t be able to get to me.”

Ami held her tongue. It was sad to see such a strong woman reduced to this state of terror.

“That’s something you can talk over with your new lawyer. You don’t have to ask for bail if you don’t want it. As soon as you sign this substitution, Janet will take over. She’s tied up today, but she can visit you tomorrow.”

Vanessa reached across the table and placed her hand on top of Ami’s.

“Don’t desert me, Ami.”

“Haven’t you been listening? I have no choice.”

“You have to stay on as my attorney. It’s my only chance.”

“To do what?”

“Expose my father and save Carl.”

“How can you possibly do that, Vanessa?” Ami asked, finally exasperated by her client’s refusal to face reality.

“I can demand a hearing in open court with the press and the public present. I can call witnesses. I can subpoena my father, and you can cross-examine him under oath with the whole world watching.”

“It won’t work. He’ll just deny everything, and the prosecutor will trot out your mental history. Your lawyer won’t have any evidence to contradict anything the General says.”

“Carl will contradict him.”

“No one is going to believe Carl without corroboration. Think of how he’d look after Brendan Kirkpatrick got through with him on cross. There is overwhelming evidence that he has killed a congressman, a general, several of your father’s guards, and my friend George French.”

Vanessa looked Ami in the eye. “Carl swears that he wasn’t even in the United States when General Rivera was murdered, and he didn’t kill George French. I was with him from the time I helped him escape until I was kidnapped.”

Ami shook her head. “That’s going to be a hard sell, Vanessa. I saw the photographs of the crime scene at Lost Lake. George was killed the same way that Carl killed Congressman Glass. If you’re the only alibi he has…” Ami held out her hands, palms up. “You see the problem?”

“I do have a way to defeat my father that doesn’t depend on Carl, but you have to stay with me. I don’t trust anyone else to pull this off.”

“Pull what off?”

“There may be a way to prove that the Unit existed and that my father was involved, but it’s a long shot.” Vanessa looked down at the tabletop. “If this doesn’t work…”

She looked so defeated that Ami could not help feeling sorry for her.

“I can’t, Vanessa. I just explained why I have to step down from your case and Carl’s case. Tell Janet Massengill your plan. She can do anything I can do, and better.”

Vanessa looked up. Her features looked set in stone, and her eyes blazed with insane determination.

“You are my only hope, Ami, and you are not going to desert Carl or me.”

“Vanessa…”

“I’ll tell the police that you helped us escape.”

Ami’s jaw dropped, and she flushed with anger. “I’d be ruined,” she said. “I’d be arrested and disbarred.”

“I didn’t want it to come to this, but I have no choice. I must stop my father. I can’t let him become the president of the United States. He has to pay for what he’s done to me and Carl.”

“Please, don’t do this, Vanessa. I’ve only tried to help you. I’ve never done anything to hurt you. Why would you want to hurt me and my son?”

“I don’t want to hurt you or Ryan, but I will if I have to. Remember one thing, Ami. I am my father’s child, and I can be just as ruthless as he is if I have to.”

“What do you want me to do?” Ami asked, hoping that she would find a flaw in Vanessa’s plan that would persuade Vanessa to drop it and let her go.

“Write down this number. It’s for Victor Hobson’s cell phone. Arrange a meeting. If I’m right, there is proof that the Unit existed and he can help me prove it.”