The Jury

chapter fourteen

You get the feeling we’re being used?” asks Harry.

Several months behind bars and on matters of common sense David Crone still lives in a criminally artless other world. It causes me to wonder what confidences he may be sharing with his cellmate at night. The gangs may have his attention, but nothing else seems to make a dent.

By nine the next morning I was back at the jail, this time to watch Crone and Tash flash pages with numbers back and forth. The only reason I did this was to ensure that they didn’t discuss matters relating to Kalista Jordan or Tanya’s testimony, for which Tash has no privilege. This mime act of number crunching took almost forty minutes. Tash would hold up a work sheet against the partition while Crone jotted numbers on a piece of paper with a dull pencil on the other side. Crone would then hold up his penciled sheet while Tash made adjustments on the original. It was Greek to me, though the guard behind Crone outside the door seemed to take particular interest in the doings. At one point he called in a supervisor who observed the antics for a moment through the window. Seeing that legal counsel was present, the supervisor, a sergeant, chose not to interfere. But I can imagine Tash on the stand being pressed by Tannery to explain what was happening. I raised the question myself, posed it to Tash as we left the jail.

All he would say was “Genetics. The project.”

“That’s crap,” says Harry. “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of this hiding behind the high-tech veil. It’s like the holy of holies. Only the lawyers can’t go inside. How do we know what they’re doing?” he asks. “It’s a convenient cover, if you ask me. They don’t want to talk about their work, and yet everything always seems to come back to that. Now we have the victim’s mother telling the court they’re involved in collecting data with a racial tinge. And still Crone won’t tell us what’s going on. We need to draw a line in the sand. They don’t tell us, we withdraw.”

“It’s a nice thought, but Coats isn’t likely to let us out at this late date,” I tell him.

We are camped in the office, another late nighter. Epperson is up tomorrow, Tannery’s offer of proof and still I have nothing to talk to him about. If our message to Epperson from Tash got through, it has borne no fruit. I have called the answering service to make sure they put any calls through and will have them forwarded to the house when we leave here.

“I told you he wasn’t gonna call,” says Harry. “What did Tash say?”

“Says he talked to him. That Epperson told him he would make an effort to call us.”

“What does that mean? Makes it sound like it’s a marathon to push the buttons on the phone,” says Harry. “I’m telling you he’s not gonna call.”

I look at my watch. It’s almost eleven P.M. Harry is probably right.

“So much for Crone’s high regard and good working relations,” he tells me.

Harry spent the morning and afternoon chasing geese, trying to get a lead on the engagement ring Epperson supposedly bought for Kalista Jordan, and running down audit trails at the university on Crone’s research.

“Let’s start with the ring,” he says, “since that’s gonna be a short discussion. Came up with nothing.”

This is a long shot. With no drawing, no picture and no description, we might as well be looking for the Holy Grail.

“If I have to deal with one more jeweler trying to peddle me a watch. . They all wanna know the same thing: why some old fart is asking questions about an engagement ring.”

“I understand,” I tell him. “It’s not like old farts never get married. Right?”

He looks at me sideways. “Right. It’s just you get tired, everybody putting you in pigeonholes all the time.” Harry hates to be old, white and male. For Harry, it was hard enough being young. But then I have a feeling Harry was old even when he was young.

“The world is always making assumptions,” he says. “Don’t you get tired of it?” Harry doesn’t wait for me to answer.

“Pisses me off,” he says. He’s had a bad day. A lot of shoe leather left on the street, so that his shoes are now sitting in the middle of my desk on top of a stack of papers, as he lets off steam rubbing one foot crossed over his knee.

“So what are you telling them, these shop owners?” I ask.

“That we’re trying to verify an insurance claim. I describe Epperson. That seems to do it.”

“And how are you describing him? Tall? Dark?”

“Yeah,” says Harry. “A detailed description is always best.”

“And of course you’re telling them this is a man with a Ph.D.?”

“I think I may have left that part out,” he says.

I raise an eyebrow.

“You let their imaginations fill in the blanks.”

“With assumptions,” I say.

“Yeah. Well.”

I can imagine that the vision these shop owners have of Epperson after Harry’s visit is something from a mug shot. God help the man if he tries to buy more jewelry in any of these places. They’ll be calling out the SWAT team.

“Spent a lot of time, came up with nothing,” says Harry. “Squat. Nada. Of course, I only covered half of La Jolla. You have any idea how many jewelry stores there are in that town? And that’s just the ones selling new stuff. I haven’t even started with the antique spots, the fucking boutiques and galleries for the artsy set. I have a call in to get some help from one of the P.I. firms downtown. They’ll have a couple of investigators for us by tomorrow.”

“Good. How about the audit? You picked up the file, the papers from Doris Boyd?”

“Yeah. I went by. She couldn’t find them, but she turned the place upside down. She finally located them.”

“Where were they?”

“Seems her husband had looked at ’em last. He put the file in a drawer in a cabinet in the dining room. Good place to keep papers, huh? It got sorta touchy,” says Harry. “Doris wanted to know if maybe the grant application for the daughter was up and running again. I had to burst her bubble, tell her no, that we needed the documents in Crone’s case. Nothing like opening old wounds,” says Harry.

“Still, with their file I was able to track the stuff at the university. Only problem, there was nothing there but another dry hole,” he says. “If there was an audit, I couldn’t find it. They do a financial analysis every year for the budget, but that’s it. No certification by an accounting firm, and no audit trail of where last year’s money went. Everything I was able to get is there in front of you.” He gestures toward the pile of papers he has planted on my desk, under his shoes.

“If there’s no audit trail, it’s not going to tell us much.”

“There’s some stuff from Cybergenomics in there. I saw the letterhead as I was copying. Didn’t have time to read it all, but glanced at it. It looks like normal covering correspondence to me. No mention of Epperson, or Jordan. The letters were addressed to the financial affairs office at the university with copies to Crone.”

I pick up Harry’s shoes, hand them to him to get them off the desk, and start pawing through the papers, a stack about five inches thick. I go through fifteen, maybe twenty pages quickly, to see if anything jumps out. It doesn’t.

“They bind all the working papers together each year. Put ’em between covers in those plastic spiral things and stack ’em on a shelf. I get the sense nobody really looks at them. Makes it a bitch to copy, though,” he says.

“Hmm?”

“The spiral binding. Gotta turn each page. End up losing the margins in the copier.” Harry sounds as if he’s become an expert on this.

“Some of it’s gonna be hard to read. The action seems to be in the budget augmentations,” says Harry, “and new applications for grants.”

“Did you see any references to genetic graying?” I ask.

Harry shakes his head. “Like I say, I didn’t read every page. But then I wouldn’t expect to find anything in there on that. If Crone was siphoning money from the grant to put ethnic evolution into overdrive, he wouldn’t have been likely to document it in a grant application. You think?”

Harry is right.

“What’s the process for the money?” I ask. Age-old adage-follow the money.

“From what I’m told, everything from the state goes into the university’s general fund. Gets disbursed from there. Grant money is sequestered in separate accounts and doled out by the university in accordance with the written conditions for each grant. The vice chancellor for fiscal affairs has the final word if there’s any dispute. Unless it gets into court.”

“How often does that happen?”

“Never,” says Harry. “Though according to the woman I talked to in the financial affairs office, disagreements happen more often than you might think. From what I’m told, flaps over grant money are usually handled at the administrative level. The courts are a little too public for comfort.”

“Sounds like you got a lot of information from this lady.”

“I took her to lunch,” says Harry.

I give him an arched eyebrow.

“Nothing fancy, just the student union,” he says. “Between soup and salad she tells me there’s a lot of stuff goes on people don’t know about in higher education. A lot of it comes under the heading of entertainment. Deans and chancellors, it seems, have to entertain. They buy a lot of shit, pianos and furniture, university logos painted on the bottoms of their swimming pools. This seemed to be a real problem with her, so I listened,” says Harry. “Give somebody a shoulder to cry on, sometimes you hear something. According to her, some of this stuff may not be entirely necessary.”

“I’m shocked,” I tell him.

“And sometimes it disappears. The university set gets real sensitive about scandal. Seems the chancellor at one of the other campuses took a dive on insurance fraud a few years back. It’s one thing to fudge on the state budget, another to screw over an insurance company. Seems this chancellor spent a bundle of state money buying silverware to entertain,” says Harry. “Somehow they misplaced it between trips to Europe. So they file an insurance claim on behalf of the university. Problem was, when they found the mahogany case with the silverware a month later, they forgot to tell the insurance company. Cashed the check.”

“Oops.”

“To make a long story short, this lady thinks there ought to be more insurance companies involved in education audits. That or the mob,” says Harry. “Either way.”

“Sounds like she loves the people she works for.”

“According to her, the university is anxious to keep a low profile, especially when it comes to gifts, donations and the like. They don’t like judges looking over their shoulder, asking accountants to get out their calculators. This makes the givers nervous,” says Harry. “So disputes are almost always handled in-house. You get two professors pissing on each other over who gets what for research, the chancellor’s office steps in like the pope, resolves it and everybody kisses the ring and moves on. You screw with the chancellor, you find yourself in academic hell.”

“That means finding records of anything rising to the level of an argument is not likely,” I say.

Harry points a finger at me like a pistol and drops the thumb like a hammer. “Bingo.”

“According to the woman in the financial office, you have a director. In this case, Crone. Then you have associates, other people involved in aspects of the same project getting funding.”

“Jordan and Epperson,” I say.

He nods. “If the money is apportioned and funding gets shifted around like a shell game, somebody finds out theirs was spent on some other part of the study. Well. You see what can happen,” says Harry. “In that case, whoever got screwed might complain to higher-ups.”

“Do we know whether that happened here? With Jordan and Crone?”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” says Harry. “I asked the lady in the office. She didn’t know. She says it would be in the documentation, but we might have to read between the lines to find it. And that’s not all.”

“What?”

“There’s no form,” says Harry. “You’d think these people would come up with some kind of a form you could look for if there was a dispute. But they don’t seem to want to do that,” he says.

“For obvious reasons,” I say.

“Right. So what do they do? They just send a letter to the vice chancellor. That’s if we’re lucky.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sometimes it’s just an e-mail message asking for a review of the grant and a ruling on an item.”

“Let me guess. There are no copies of the e-mail messages in your pile of papers?”

Harry nods. “Academic confidentiality,” says Harry. “You can’t look at anybody’s e-mail without a specific subpoena.”

Before I can say a word, he goes on: “I’ve already prepared one for Jordan, Crone and Epperson. Problem is, Jordan’s computer was re-programmed after she was killed. The cops got into it, took what they wanted, all under the careful eyes of university lawyers. Then they turned it back in to the university. God knows where it is now. I looked at their evidence sheet. There was nothing in the e-mails that came remotely close to a complaint on funding.

“Crone’s machine is still collecting dust in his office,” says Harry. “But it’s not likely he would have complained about anything. And Epperson. I assume he has his. So we’ll take a look.”

“There must be a server somewhere.”

“Paul, listen. I’m tired. Worn out.”

“It is the university’s e-mail system, right?”

Harry nods.

“There ought to be something in a server somewhere if Jordan complained about funding. See if we can subpoena the server?”

“Fine,” says Harry. A long sigh. He makes a note. I can always tell when Harry’s hit the wall. I’m treading on thin ice.

“Too bad there was no federal money involved,” he says. “In the grant.”

“Why’s that?”

Before he can answer, the phone rings. I look at it. It’s the back line. This number is not listed. Both of us thinking the same thing-Epperson calling.

I pick it up. “Hello. Law office.”

“Is Harry Hinds there?”

I don’t recognize the voice on the other end, but it’s not Epperson.

“Who’s calling?”

“Max Sheen.”

“Just a second.” I start to hand the phone to Harry.

“What did you mean, ‘too bad there was no federal money’?”

“Who is it?” he says.

I hold the phone back.

“If there were federal funds, it’s more likely there would have been an audit at some point.”

“Ah.”

“Who is it?” he asks.

“The press calling. Your friend Sheen.” I hand him the phone.

Harry takes it. “Hello.”

I continue looking through the stack of papers on my desk, part of the original grant proposal. There are entire lines of typed print blocked out by black marker. Classified material. No doubt information subject to protection as trade secrets. Arriving at conclusions is going to be like putting a jigsaw puzzle together without all the pieces.

“Why? What’s happening?” asks Harry. There’s a tone of urgency to his voice that causes me to look up.

“What is it?” I ask.

He shakes his head at me. Doesn’t answer.

“When?”

“Are you sure?”

“What’s happening?” I ask.

Harry cups his hand over the mouthpiece to the receiver.

“Epperson is dead.”

IN THIS ANCIENT INDIAN VILLAGE OF COSOY

DISCOVERED AND NAMED SAN MIGUEL BY CABRILLO IN 1542

VISITED AND CHRISTENED SAN DIEGO DE ALCALA

BY VIZCAINO IN 1602

HERE THE FIRST CITIZEN

FRAY JUNIPERO SERRA

PLANTED CIVILIZATION IN CALIFORNIA

HERE HE FIRST RAISED THE CROSS-HERE BEGAN

THE FIRST MISSION

HERE FOUNDED THE FIRST TOWN, SAN DIEGO, JULY 16, 1769

The original native inhabitants of the place might quibble over how well those seeds of civilization took, especially if they could see the macabre scene here tonight.

William Epperson’s body twists in the dark, damp air of early morning, suspended from a rope around his neck that is looped over the horizontal beam of the massive brick cross that forms the monument.

The bronze plaque with its words to the friar rests embedded in the white plaster covering the base beneath the giant cross that stands thirty feet high, faced with red brick.

By the time Harry and I arrive, the medical examiner’s office is setting up a ladder, an extension affair lent to them by the fire department that is on the scene with two of its trucks and several big portable lights.

Even from a distance, I can see Epperson’s body. Harry and I park at the top of the hill on the street near the colonnade. We slipped in this way to avoid the emergency lights all along the road down below. We drove up past Old Town and came in through the park at the top of the hill. It takes us five minutes to hike down, avoiding the roots of eucalyptus trees and the depressions in the ground obscured by the angle of the bright lights aimed up from the cross and shining in our eyes from below.

Both Harry and I come out of the woods with one arm up to shade our eyes from the light.

As we get closer, I can see the rope and crude noose, rough hemp, and hear it strain under the weight and over the hush of voices, as Epperson twists slowy in the still, damp air and the evidence techs work beneath him around the base.

He is clothed in a white dress shirt and suit pants, one shoe on, the other lying on the ground, as if shot by gravity from his foot when the body stopped at the end of the rope. The line suspending him is tied off around the bottom of the brick cross, just above the rectangular base with its plaque.

A painter’s ladder, which looks to be ten or twelve feet in length, is tipped over, lying on its side near the path that fronts the monument.

It is a picture worth a thousand words, all of them screaming one thing-suicide, all of it bathed in bright floodlights with the SID, the Scientific Investigation Division, crime-scene folks, working it and looking for a different message.

One of them is examining the soil near the foot of the base, casting light at different angles over the ground, looking for impressions, footprints, though I doubt they will find much. The compacted river-bottom sand is as hard as concrete.

Several cops are working farther up the hill. They have laid out police lines of yellow tape from tree to tree. One of the uniforms stops us as we approach the tape.

It takes a couple of minutes to explain why we are here, the dead man being a witness in a case we are trying. He takes my business card. This seems to work its way from hand to hand up the hierarchy, until it gets to somebody in a suit farther down the hill. If the man is impressed, he doesn’t show it. Gives us a look, then back to the card. Words exchanged with one of the uniformed officers that I cannot hear.

We cool our heels.

Harry nudges me in the ribs with an elbow. When I look over, he nods, off in the direction of the parking lot down below toward the museum that sits on the opposite hill.

The lot is crowded with police cruisers, emergency vehicles with strobes flashing, blue, red and amber, enough color to spike blood pressure even if it isn’t in a rearview mirror.

Getting out of one of the cars is Evan Tannery. He stops to talk to the brass clustered in the parking lot, spending most of his time and attention on an older guy, gray hair, in a uniform. He seems to be in charge. Tannery is pumping him for information. They huddle for several seconds, the cop motioning with his arm up toward the hill behind us.

Until that moment I hadn’t seen it. Parked in the shadows under a eucalyptus on a narrow service road leading up the hill toward the cross is the dark blue van I’d seen Epperson driving earlier that day. The cops have staked it off with yellow tape and one of the fingerprint guys is giving it a going-over with dust on the driver’s-side door handle and window, spreading the graphite liberally with a brush and blowing every few seconds searching for latents.

They’ve got a problem, and somebody knows it. A key witness in a felony murder is dead, and the cops are telling themselves this is no suicide.

“You Madriani?”

I am interrupted by the detective holding my business card. He has come up the hill behind us and is now looking at Harry and me like something the cat dragged in, interlopers.

“I’m Madriani. This is my partner, Harry Hinds.”

“I understand you knew this man?” He squares off in front of me, legs spread, and gestures toward the dangling body with his head. The coroner’s guys have finally got their ladder up, and two of the firemen are giving them a hand, lifting the load so that they can sever the rope near the base and lower the body. They will cut this to avoid screwing with the knot, hoping that the fashion in which it is tied will tell them something about whoever tied it.

“We weren’t well acquainted,” I tell him. “I talked to him once, about a week ago. I was scheduled to cross-examine him in court.”

“Looks like that show’s off,” he says. “How did you get here so quickly?”

“We were alerted by a phone call,” says Harry. “He’s right over there. You want to talk to him?” Harry has spotted Max Sheen in the distance, reporters in a flock, Sheen trying to work his way toward us around the police tape. The last thing the cops want, a conversation with counsel close to microphones, on camera, or anywhere near the pad-and-pencil crowd.

“Why don’t you come this way,” he says. Open sesame. We are through the police line.