Grant of Immunity (19 page)

E
rin lived
with a roommate whom she’d met in her Alcoholics Anonymous group. Their place was a furnished, two-bedroom apartment in West Hollywood, off Crescent Heights, near Santa Monica Boulevard. They lived on the second floor of a U-shaped, two-story complex. Her roommate worked nights as a waitress at Norm’s Restaurant on La Cienega. When Sean called, Erin insisted that he come over immediately. Now they were sitting at a small Formica table in Erin’s tiny kitchen, which was filled with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee.

“I’m going to Fitz and tell him everything,” Sean was saying. It felt good to talk to Erin about the episode with Hart. Just getting it out had eased much of his anger.

“I don’t understand,” Erin said. She was wearing jeans and a dark-gray YMCA sweatshirt. She pushed up the sleeves, then leaned over the table. “You said Hart gave the knife to Babbage out of fear. Isn’t that something like self-defense? And wouldn’t that mean that Hart
wasn’t
guilty?”

Sean shook his head. “Hart wasn’t protecting himself.”

“But he was, wasn’t he?” Erin said. “Babbage might have killed him if he’d said no.”

“Murder is different than any other crime.” Sean explained. “If I hold a gun to your head and tell you to rob a bank or commit any crime other than murder, you wouldn’t be guilty because you were forced. But if I hold a gun to your head and tell you to kill someone, you would be guilty. The law doesn’t allow you to take someone else’s life to save your own.”

“That’s not fair,” said Erin.

“Sure it is.” Sean sipped his coffee. “Try to look at it from Mom’s point of view. She was helpless. Hart had a knife in his hand. Babbage demanded that Hart hand it over. She knew as soon as Babbage got the knife, he was going to kill her.” Sean felt his face reddening.

Erin reached over the table and touched his arm. “It’s okay.”

Sean nodded.

“In a way, I was lucky being a baby at the time,” Erin said. I never really knew her. All the same, I’ve always wondered what it would have been like.” She swallowed the rest of her coffee, got up with her cup and went to the counter, where she picked up the coffee carafe. “Do you want any more?”

Sean shook his head.

She poured coffee and returned to the table. “I don’t know about you, but when I was fifteen, I didn’t know shit. I got into drugs and wound up on the street. And why? Because I went along with the crowd. I wanted to be liked. Now I’m finally learning to take care of myself.”

Sean frowned. He was thinking about the PD’s Office. About his clients. Most of them were guilty of just being dumb. Others were a product of where they lived and who they lived with. If your mom and dad are addicts and you get the shit beat out of you daily, are you really to blame when you go out and do the same thing as your parents?

Then he thought of his mom again—begging Hart
not
to give Babbage the knife.

He got up and walked into the living room. He opened the sliding glass door that led out to a small balcony that overlooked the pool. Erin followed him out.

He gazed down at the pool, lit by underwater lights. “I just can’t get that scene out of my mind,” he said. “Looking at the pictures, reading the police reports …”

Erin put her arm around his waist. “I know,” she said. “I couldn’t do it.”

The two of them were quiet for a time. The night air was cool and damp. A crescent moon illuminated dark clouds. Sean thought it looked like rain. It felt good to have Erin’s arm around him, and he put his arm around her. “Why didn’t he just refuse to hand over the knife?”

Erin shrugged. “It’s between him and God.”

Sean sighed. “What he told me was enough to get him convicted.”

A baby in one of the apartments started crying. In another, a man and a woman argued loudly. “Let’s go back inside,” Erin said. “It’s chilly out here.”

Sean closed the sliding door. They sat on a grayish-white couch that was not very comfortable. Erin said, “What are you going to do about what he told you?”

“I don’t know.”

“If you tell Fitz, Hart will go down for sure.”

“Isn’t that what
should
happen?” Sean said.

“I don’t know,” Erin said. “It just seems like this stuff is all backwards.
Babbage
is the one who should be on trial, and Hart should be the guy with immunity.”

Sean said, “But if I don’t say anything, Hart may go free.”

“But Hart
should
go free, Sean. He was just a kid. He didn’t know any better.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you were in the same situation our mom was.”

“Maybe not. But I’ve had enough people telling me what I should have done or how I could have ‘used better judgment.’ What a crock.”

She went into the kitchen, and started opening and closing cabinet doors. “I know I have a pack of cigarettes somewhere in here.”

“I thought you gave up smoking,” Sean said.

“I did.”

She returned a minute later with a cigarette in her mouth and a book of matches in her hand. She lit her cigarette. She took a long draw, inhaled, and then she turned and blew the smoke away from Sean. “God, that tastes good,” she said. She took another drag. “Sean? Don’t say anything to anyone about Hart. Not yet.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“You can always spill it later. But until you open your mouth, we’re still in control for once.”

S
ean had
some trouble finding Babbage’s place. He drove to Chatsworth, but the map showed dotted lines for the streets that led to the address. When he got to the vicinity, apparently the dotted lines signified unpaved and dusty gravel roads. There were few address markings. Eventually, he found what must be Babbage’s. The property looked unimproved, covered with dry brush, with a dirt road between two Joshua trees that led to a locked, chain-link gate. He parked on the dirt shoulder across the road and waited. He knew that Babbage worked the graveyard shift and should be coming home soon.

After twenty minutes, a red Toyota pickup truck pulled up to the gate at the front of the property. With the engine still running, Babbage got out of the truck and unlocked the huge padlock that secured the gate. Turning around, Babbage looked in Sean’s direction and frowned.

Sean got out of his car and approached. “We’ve seen each other in court,” he said. “I’m not sure that you know this, but I’m Sarah Collins’s son.”

Babbage looked at Sean for a moment. Sean couldn’t tell if there was any recognition in Babbage’s eyes, but the look wasn’t friendly. “How’d you get my address?”

“It was in the file,” Sean said.

“Bullshit. It’s confidential information.”

“I don’t mean the Sarah Collins file,” Sean said. “I’m talking about the Erin Collins matter. I was one of her attorneys on the probation violation case.”

Without replying, Babbage pushed open the gate, then got back into his truck, drove onto the property, and parked on the other side of the fence. Sean followed and stood at the gate as Babbage stepped out of his Toyota. The road on the other side of the fence continued. Brush and pine trees obscured Sean’s view of what lay beyond the road.

“I have a question for you,” Sean said.

Babbage pushed the gate closed, locked it, and began to walk away.

“Snake,” he called out to Babbage. “That’s what they called you, isn’t it?”

Babbage stopped, turned. The morning sun was behind Babbage, making it difficult to see his expression. The two men stood in silence, then Babbage came back, unlocked the gate, and held it open.

For an instant, Sean froze. Babbage would be a fool to risk his immunity by harming him. But he realized he was in the presence of a man who was there the night his mother was murdered. It was an eerie feeling, and he hesitated. But he’d come this far and he had to play this thing out, no matter what. He swallowed hard and walked through the gate.

Babbage locked the gate after him and briskly moved up a steep, winding driveway. Sean hurried to keep up, listening to the crunching of gravel beneath Babbage’s boots.

It was a clear day. Pine, eucalyptus, and magnolia trees dotted a landscape of weeds and rocks. Dense brush grew in front of chain-link fences on either side of the property and on the steep upward slope, abutting the rear of Babbage’s lot. There was an unpleasant cloying smell in the wind that Sean couldn’t identify.

At the top of the driveway, an old Airstream trailer glinted silver in the morning sun. Babbage stomped through knee-high bent grass at the side of the trailer with Sean behind him.

A brown shed about the size of a children’s playhouse stood at the rear, shaded by a massive oak tree. Next to it sat a pine rabbit hutch. Families of white rabbits were inside.

Babbage took out a gray plastic container from underneath the hutch, unscrewed the lid and scooped out rabbit food. He opened the wire mesh front. The rabbits cowered and crowded to the rear as Babbage poured feed into wooden troughs at the side of the hutch.

Using a hose, Babbage added water to a tank over the rabbit enclosure.

He looked up at Sean. “Who told you I was called Snake?”

“I talked to Hart.”

Babbage frowned. He reached into the hutch and pulled out a pink-eyed, trembling rabbit by the scruff of its neck. The creature struggled, but Babbage put it in the crook of his arm, held it tightly with his hand. With his other hand, he reached into his pocket and took out a tiny box cutter and made a sharp movement across the back of the rabbit’s neck. A bloody smear stained the rabbit’s snowy-white fur. “What did he tell you?”

Sean stared at the rabbit. “Why did you do that?”

Babbage walked over to the large shed, opened the door, gently put the rabbit inside, and closed the door. Sean could hear movement inside, but it was dark, and he could see nothing. “I asked you what Hart said to you.”

Sean could feel the morning sun beating down on him. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead. “He told me his version of what happened. Now I want to hear yours.”

Babbage reached into the hutch again, took out another rabbit and repeated the procedure. “You’re a public defender, right?” He put the second rabbit into the shed, and grabbed another from the hutch.

Sean nodded.

The rabbit squirmed and almost freed itself, but Babbage held on. “Then you must know,” he said, as he again made a slit at the back of the rabbit’s neck, “that you leave investigation to the pros.” He opened the shed door. The frantic rabbit jumped inside. There was more movement inside the structure. “Amateurs muddle up the facts.”

Sean’s mouth went dry. “What’s in that shed?” he asked, knowing the answer.

Babbage walked back to the hutch, reached under, retrieved a towel, and wiped his hands.

Sean had the urge to get the hell away from this man, but he pushed on. “You said in your statement that Hart wanted you to hang out with him. Why would you, a twenty-year-old, want to hang out with a fifteen-year-old?”

Babbage stepped closer to Sean, his face inches away. His foul breath made Sean sick to his stomach. “Do you want to see what’s in the shed? I’ll show you,” Babbage said, grabbing Sean’s arm with a vise-like grip. Babbage’s eyes were cold.

Sean jerked his arm away. “This is a waste of time,” he said, hoping his voice was strong enough to cover his fear. “I’m out of here.” Sean turned and headed quickly back down the gravel driveway.

The gate was locked.

Babbage caught up with him, unlocked and opened the gate, but blocked his path with an arm. “You’re playing with fire, Chief. If you’re not careful, it will consume you. Remember that.”

T
he headquarters
of the Los Angeles Public Defender’s Office occupied the penthouse floor of the ten-story courthouse in Van Nuys. By PD standards, the office was plush. Meetings were held in a large central conference room that had a view of the entire San Fernando Valley. A long hall stretched from one side of the building to the other with the conference room at the center. On either side of the conference room were offices shared by up to four deputy public defenders. The public reception area was directly across from the central conference room. Sean Collins shared the first office next to the conference room with three other deputy PDs.

Sitting at his desk this morning, Sean thought of how he loved his work and surroundings. More importantly, he enjoyed his interaction with other PDs. They were people he could go to for advice, people who understood the everyday difficulties of defending persons accused of crimes. Most people looked at criminal defense lawyers as one level above their clients. He was sick of people asking him how he could defend guilty people. How he could work to defend murderers and child molesters. People who asked those questions were never satisfied with statements that everyone deserved a defense, no matter how unpopular they were, that innocent people would have no chance if the mere fact that they were accused of a heinous crime prevented them from being defended. But working in the public defender’s office he was surrounded with people like himself, who knew that guilt was not a black and white situation.

But now, he was contemplating a move that would require that he give up, at least temporarily, working here.

His phone rang. It was Beth Daniels. “Great news,” she said. “I just got a call from Chuck Allen about your sister Erin’s probation violation hearing set for Wednesday. They decided to stipulate that Erin’s probation be reinstated without a hearing.”

“I heard last night they might do that,” Sean said. There was relief in his voice.

“It’s a smart move,” Beth said. “The prosecutor wants a murder conviction and their chief witness, Babbage, would have to testify in your sister’s case. So why risk fucking up a murder case just to get a small-fry probation violation?”

After hanging up, Sean picked up his phone and called Erin. He got her answering machine and left a message with the good news.

Sean put on his suit jacket. He walked down the hall to Beth’s office. She was sitting at her desk, studying a stack of police reports. She looked up when he came in. “Erin’s hearing was the only thing stopping me from taking my leave of absence,” Sean told her. “Now that she’s squared away, I’m going to HR to arrange for the leave. Also, I’ve got a critical errand to run, but I’ll be back to the office before eleven.”

“Any cases that need coverage this morning?” Beth asked. “I’d be glad to handle them for you.”

Sean was halfway out the door. “I’m okay. All of my cases were transferred last week, except for Erin’s.”

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

Sean nodded. “Thanks. Actually, this morning I made up my mind about this Hart case. Since then, I’ve felt a lot better. See you when I get back.”