Blind Justice (5 page)
CYRIL CORNELIUS CARR liked to take his meetings at Sal’s Deli on Van Nuys Boulevard. This was partly because his office, like mine, was usually an unsightly mess and partly because only Sal’s famous sky-high pastrami sandwiches with Russian dressing could satisfy Cyril’s prodigious appetite. Even though he was forty-five years old, he still looked like he could tear through the Green Bay Packers, offensive line.
Cyril Cornelius Carr—sometimes called Triple C, Trip, or just plain C—was one of the more colorful characters I’d ever met, and that -doesn’t just refer to the loud Hawaiian shirts he favored. He had grown up in south Philly and might have ended up another gang statistic if it hadn’t been for his grandmother, Pearl, who raised him after his mother died. She was one tough lady who used the Bible and a leather strap to keep Trip on the straight and narrow. Even when he outgrew her by six inches and 150 pounds, Triple C obeyed her every word.
What he got as a result was a 3.9 grade point average in high school and an academic scholarship to Princeton, even though he had his pick of major football schools offering full scholarships. He was All-Ivy defensive end his sophomore year and was destined for the NFL. An illegal block by a Harvard man blew out his knee and any hope of pro ball.
Cyril Cornelius Carr was not dismayed. Football had really only been a lark for him. He had a hundred different interests, one of which was literature. It just so happened that Princeton’s big theatrical production the spring of Trip’s injury was
Othello.
Even though he’d never acted in his life, he memorized the entire part in a week, walked into the auditions, and won the lead.
Othello.
Even though he’d never acted in his life, he memorized the entire part in a week, walked into the auditions, and won the lead.
Thus began his love affair with Shakespeare.
After graduation, Trip moved to Hollywood to take up an acting career. A few years later, after being cast as one heavy too many, he gave it up and joined the Los Angeles Police Department. Five years later he was an investigator for the district attorney’s office. He was married by this time to a beautiful gal named Victoria, and everything seemed rosy.
Then Victoria died in a terrible accident on the 405 Freeway, skidding into a tanker truck on a rain-slicked road.
Trip had to go on stress leave after that and eventually resigned. It took him a year to get his life back together. He started going to church again, and that, he said, started his turnaround. He opened his own office because he said he couldn’t stand the thought of working for anyone else again. He never remarried, and as far as I knew, didn’t even have a girlfriend. His work for clients and for the Van Nuys First Baptist Church were everything to him.
Trip was at a table by the window, reading a book. Even though his back was to me, I couldn’t miss him. He overflowed his chair and was wearing a yellow Hawaiian shirt with pineapples and
humu-humu
fish on it.
humu-humu
fish on it.
“Whatta you say, Trip?” I slapped him on the back hard enough to make noise.
“You still hit like a girl,” Triple C said. He was wearing sunglasses and a gold cross around his neck. “My grandma would take you out.”
“No doubt.” I sat in the chair opposite him. “You’re looking prosperous.”
“Can’t complain, though I could give a good imitation.”
“Anything big right now?”
“Just you, baby.”
A waitress came by for our order. For Trip it was the sky-high pastrami. I ordered matzo ball soup and a beer.
“Still drinking, I see,” Trip said.
I shrugged. “It’s not a problem.”
“Don’t play me, man,” he said.
“I didn’t come here to talk about me.”
“I don’t want to see you fall again.”
“I won’t.”
“You tried AA?”
“I don’t go in for that.”
“In for what?”
“All that ‘higher power’ stuff. I went to a couple of meetings, but everyone there was into this authority from on high.”
“Hey, man, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Trip was the only person I ever met who could go from street talk to Shakespearean verse without missing a beat. “When you coming to church with me?”
“How about when pigs fly?”
“I can arrange that.”
I looked at the ceiling. “I’ve got a case, and I need your help. You interested or not?”
Trip took his shades off and laid them on the table. “All right, gimme the 411.”
“It’s a murder case. Guy I knew when I was a kid. Killed his wife.”
“How?”
“Stabbed her. I mean, really messed her up. Then he stabbed himself.”
Trip nodded. “Classic cover-up. Never works though. I had this case once where a guy blew off his own foot with a shotgun after he shot his girlfriend. All that got him was a fake foot and twenty-five to life.”
“His sister says he didn’t do it.”
“What else is new?”
“He says he did.”
“He confessed?”
“To me he did.”
“You taking it to trial?”
“No way. We’ll take a deal.”
“So what do you want me for?”
“I’d like you to find out something about the wife.”
“Why?”
“His sister, she didn’t have too high an opinion of her.”
“Maybe that’s why the guy O. J.’d her.”
“That’s what I was thinking. If you talk to somebody who knew her, especially over the last couple of years, maybe something will come up, and I can tell the sister about it.”
Cyril Cornelius Carr looked at me through squinting eyes. Then all of a sudden, an enormous smile lit up his face. Triple C had one of those incandescent smiles, like the Cheshire Cat.
“Jake Denney! Is this the very ecstasy of love?”
My face took on a little heat. “What are you talking about?”
“You had a certain look. Am I wrong?”
“I told you to leave me out of it.”
“It’s all over your face, man.”
Thankfully, the waitress picked that moment to deliver my beer. I took a long, satisfying pull. Trip watched me with concern, but I didn’t care. In fact, I ordered another. Triple C agreed to drive up to Hinton and interview a couple of people. And over the course of the lunch, he didn’t lapse into Shakespeare again until just as I was about to leave.
That’s when he said, “Thou hast very poor and unhappy brains for drinking.”
I didn’t stay to applaud.
ON WEDNESDAY MORNING I arrived in Hinton for the arraignment of Howard Patino in the courtroom of Judge Oswald Mellor. I knew nothing about Mellor except what I picked up from another lawyer in the hallway. Mellor, like most judges in the law-and-order atmosphere of California, was a former prosecutor. He liked to pretend he was the folksy type, this lawyer told me, sort of like Andy Griffith. “He’ll sell you crackers and cornpone before he slams your client in the clink,” the lawyer said.
Maybe that’s why Sylvia Plotzske wore a slight smile as she entered with her files and plopped them on the prosecution table. I didn’t give her time to get into them.
“Good morning,” I said, with just the right mix of civility and churlishness.
“Give me a moment, please,” she said. I merely stood there as she fussed with her files for a minute or two, making herself look busy. Finally she acknowledged my presence again and said, “I spoke with Tolletson about this case.”
“Yes?”
“And we really can’t offer anything less than second degree.”
“You could if you really wanted to.”
“This was a shocking crime, Mr. Dennis—”
“Denney.”
“—and it just isn’t going to go any lower.”
I didn’t know Sylvia Plotzske well enough yet to know whether this was a bluff or not. My guess was that it wasn’t. She didn’t seem the type, and she was probably just following the dictates of her boss on this one.
“I’m going to need some time to think about it,” I said.
“You can have until the prelim,” she answered.
There was nothing more to say. I took a chair and waited for the judge.
At 8:55, three jail inmates were marched in by deputy sheriffs and seated in the jury box. One of them was Howie. He looked pale and scared, or maybe just horribly confused. I walked over to the box and waited for the sheriff to remove the shackles.
“How you doing?” I asked.
“What’s going on, Jake?”
“You’re going to enter a plea this morning. That gets us on track for the preliminary hearing.”
“Do I plead guilty?”
“Not yet. You plead not guilty.”
“But—”
“Buy us some time.”
“But—”
“Okay?”
Howie looked at his hands. “I’ll do what you tell me, Jake, but I want to confess. I want to get this over with. I want to clear my soul.”
He was starting to move down the path toward hysteria, so I put my hands up to calm him down. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I been having dreams every night, Jake. The devil is in them. He’s going to take me if I don’t confess!”
“Howie, you trust me, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s do it my way.”
“But—”
Judge Oswald Mellor entered the courtroom. The bailiff called everyone to order as I motioned to Howie to sit down.
“Morning, ya’ll,” Mellor said. He was graying and in his sixties, with short hair that was a bit unruly. It was almost like the look was studied and intended to portray an air of informality.
He called the first case. One of the other jail inmates stood at the jury box rail as his lawyer joined him. It was a felony battery. Judge Mellor read a litany of rights and asked the defendant if he understood them. He said he did, then entered a plea of not guilty. A prelim was set, and the defendant disappeared back into the bowels of the courthouse lockup.
Then Mellor called our case.
I stood and said, “Good morning, Your Honor. Jake Denney on behalf, Howard Patino.”
“Morning, Mr. Denney. Nice to have you here.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.”
“Hope it stays that way.” The judge winked at his bailiff who smiled. “We don’t usually get city folks up here.”
“Well, that works out,” I said. “We don’t usually get the rubes down there.”
Mellor didn’t smile, and I immediately realized my blunder. You don’t joke with a judge who wants to be the head comedian. And you especially don’t fling humorous insults back at him as if he were a drinking buddy. I felt the other lawyers looking at me like they couldn’t believe I could be so dumb.
Quickly, I said, “We’ll waive a reading of the complaint and statement of rights, and my client is ready to enter a plea.” I joined Howie at the jury box.
“Son,” the judge said, “do you understand the charges against you?”
Howie looked at me, and I nodded at him. Howie said, “Yes.”
“How do you plead?”
Again Howie looked at me. I whispered, “Not guilty,” but Howie shook his head.
“
Not guilty,”
I whispered, a little louder this time.
Not guilty,”
I whispered, a little louder this time.
Howie just looked at me like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights.
“Mr. Denney?” the judge said. “Is your client ready to enter a plea?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Turning again to Howie, I whispered, “Do it!”
Howie looked down and mumbled, “Not guilty.”
“How’s that?” the judge said.
I glared at Howie. He raised his voice a little. “Not guilty.”
“All right,” Judge Mellor said. “Preliminary hearing is set for a week from Monday in Judge Abovian’s court. You have any thoughts on bail, Ms. Plotzske?”
Sylvia Plotzske stood. “Yes, Your Honor. We request that the defendant be held without bail. This was an act of extreme violence, shocking to this community. The victim sustained at least twenty-five stab wounds. In addition, it’s clear that this defendant has no ties to the community. He’s been living in Alaska for the last several months. He’s a flight risk as well as a danger.”
The judge looked at me with a frown.
“Your Honor,” I said, “it is not true that my client has no ties to this community. He has his son, Brian. He’s not going to abandon him. The boy’s staying with Mr. Patino’s parents now, and he wants to see him, to be a father to him. He is not going to flee.”
The judge kept his frown intact.
“And my client has no prior record of violence. There is nothing in his past to indicate he is a threat to anyone. I don’t think the prosecutor has shown by clear and convincing evidence that he is.”
“Twenty-five stab wounds is pretty convincing,” the judge said.
“Again, look to my client’s past.”
Judge Mellor said, “Bail set at five hundred thousand. Let’s go to the next case.”
“Your Honor?” I said.
Mellor looked at me like I’d interrupted his lunch. “What is it?”
“I’d like to request the appointment of a confidential psychiatrist.”
“You want him evaluated for mental competency?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Denied.”
“I think this is a necessary step.”
“I don’t. If you want him evaluated on your dime, go ahead. But I don’t see any evidence of incapacity here.”
“That’s what the evaluation is for, Your Honor, to—”
“Denied. Next case.”
And with that, I was dismissed. I told Howie to hang in there a little longer and reminded him not to talk to anyone. He was just about to be taken back into the lockup when he said, “You only said one wrong thing, Jake.”
“What was that?”
“I don’t want Brian back. I want him to forget about me. I’m no good for him.” He turned around and went with the sheriff.
I didn’t say anything to Sylvia Plotzske before I left. There was no need to. We could both read the handwriting on the wall of the Hinton County Courthouse.
Howie was going to do some serious time in prison.
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