Missing Justice (32 page)

While Prescott corrected Thorpe’s misunderstanding, I thought more about what was bothering me. Prescott was right. If Gunderson was behind this setup, he had to have known about Jackson’s letters.

My immediate attention, though, was on the subpoenas. Thorpe hadn’t thrown in the towel yet, and we were moving into part two of the plan, the good part.

“With all due respect, your honor” lawyers should never say this, since what they’re essentially saying is I have no respect for you, your honor “I don’t see how the court’s decision about this hearing should be affected by something that the district attorney may or may not do in a separate grand jury proceeding. And if we’re going ahead and playing that game, the reality is I can always instruct my clients to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights either today or at a subsequent grand jury hearing.”

Oh, yeah. As I’d hoped, Thorpe had been the first to mention the Fifth Amendment. It was time for my move.

“Actually, your honor, on that point: I don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves here, but in the event Mr. Gunderson and Mr. Minkins are ordered to testify either today or at a subsequent grand jury hearing it strikes me that it may not be appropriate for the two of them to share counsel.” I looked down at a PPDS printout. “I see here that Mr. Minkins is on probation for forging a check. His probation officer might not be happy about a failure to cooperate with a murder investigation or gambling, for that matter, since Mr. Thorpe has said his client was in a casino just eight days ago. As a matter of fair process, Mr. Minkins should at least have an attorney who is thinking solely about Mr. Minkins’s best interests.”

They had good poker faces, but I could’ve sworn that Gunderson looked afraid, and Minkins looked mad. And they both looked nervous.

Prescott must have seen it too, because she suddenly displayed a decisiveness I’d never before witnessed in her. “I am not going to quash the subpoenas. Although I granted a similar motion filed by a different witness last Friday, I believe that the defense’s desire to question Mr. Gunderson and Mr. Minkins is distinguishable. The questioning does not raise the same issues of privacy implicated by the earlier subpoena, and the defense has articulated a plausible nexus between these witnesses and this offense. Although it is not a nexus that has in any way been proven, I believe the defense should be entitled to at least question these witnesses further to determine whether they possess relevant exculpatory evidence. As for potential harm to the witnesses, Mr. Thorpe, you said so yourself: They can always invoke if they believe the questioning is likely to incriminate them.”

Thorpe was clearly stunned, but he did his best to cover. “I’d like a moment to confer with my clients, your honor, to determine how they would like to proceed.”

“Of course. We’ll reconvene here in ninety minutes. And, with respect to Ms. Kincaid’s observations about the appropriateness of joint representation, if either of your clients wishes to speak to me in chambers about that matter, I will be available and can assist in obtaining substitute counsel if necessary. Ms. Kincaid, you might want to stay nearby, in the event you’re needed.”

Prescott had gone one step further than I expected. If Minkins had missed the point of my earlier comments, Prescott’s certainly set the stage for Minkins to jump ship.

As we left chambers, Thorpe said something to Roger, who then excused himself from Townsend, no doubt so he could accompany his partner and Slip’s next witnesses back to some conference room at Dunn Simon.

“Roger, I was hoping we could talk before you leave,” I said. “I need to speak to Townsend about something.”

“Now’s not exactly a good time, Samantha. Jim told me about the stunt you pulled back there. I don’t know what you’re up to, but don’t say a word to Dr. Easterbrook while I’m gone, or I’ll have your bar ticket. On my instructions, he’s going home.”

I stood by the door and watched them head down the hall. By the time they got to the elevator, Jim and Roger were already playing referees between Gunderson and Minkins.

I turned to my favorite flannel-and-cords guy. “Hey, Slip. You gamble?”

Thirteen.

I won the bet. Minkins called Judge Prescott just forty minutes later from a pay phone in the lobby of the Dunn Simon building. Slip had guessed it would take an hour.

I spent some of the time talking to Slip. He gave me a copy of the spreadsheets he’d printed out from Clarissa’s mystery disc. Based on a quick scan, I had to agree that nothing interesting popped out, except, of course, the fact that the data had been password-protected in a safe deposit box.

I thought about the security system on the Easterbrook house. Maybe they were cautious enough to keep something as innocuous as a backup file under lock and key. But would Clarissa really stow a copy of her husband’s file alongside a video of a tryst with her boyfriend?

I spent the remaining half hour thinking about everything I had learned about Clarissa this week. Based on what I’d heard, it was hard to imagine that she’d sell her office to someone like Gunderson. But ultimately I could picture it. After all, there had been times when I wondered whether the cops and lawyers

I knew were always squeaky clean. You never know how a person’s circumstances might affect their decisions. A few years of pushing through the morass of boredom I saw in Clarissa’s files, and your average person might not see the harm if a couple of arbitrary, meaningless decisions went the wrong way.

So what had been Clarissa’s circumstances? Maybe she felt guilty about her affair and wanted the money if in fact there had been any money to make it up to Townsend. Or maybe the money was to help her leave Townsend and start a life with T. J. Caffrey.

Judge Prescott’s clerk finally saved me from my aimless speculation when she told me about the call from Minkins.

Prescott handled the stress well. She made a quick call to Thorpe to confirm that he was aware of Minkins’s decision, then found the nearest defense attorney in the hallway to stand in as counsel. The short straw went to Lisa Lopez, one of the most liberal cop-haters in the PD’s office. If you need a defense attorney who can cut through the crap and pull a recalcitrant defendant to the plea table, Lopez is a pain in the ass. But here, we’d paint the picture of a down-on-his-luck chump-change cheat, eager to flip the switch on the big bad white-collar criminals in exchange for a walk. Lisa’d be all over it.

Prescott gave Lisa a chance to talk to Minkins alone. I called Minkins’s probation officer to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. The PO had never heard of him and told me to do what I needed to do.

A half hour later, I was sitting with Lopez and Minkins in a jury room. Lisa cut to the chase. “Before he says anything, I want full transactional immunity,” she said.

She knew that was impossible. Transactional immunity is the brass ring of plea deals, and no one ever receives it. Hand that over to a defendant, and he can boast of every bad thing he ever did, and you can never touch him for any of it.

“First of all, you know that’s not going to happen,” I told her. “More important, you know that what I’m willing to give him depends on what he’s got to say.”

“Are you in a position to give him a walk?”

I was nervous about making a deal without talking to Russell. But if I called him now, not only would I look weak, but he might screw things up and stop the flow of information. I steeled my courage. This was no different than what I’d done hundreds of times before with drug informants.

“Again, it depends on what he’s got to say. Can he give me PC for murder?” With probable cause for someone other than Jackson, I’d have enough to make arrests and obtain search warrants.

“No,” she said without hesitation, apparently surprised that I had even entertained that as a possibility. Minkins eyed her suspiciously, and I got the feeling that he would’ve offered to say whatever was necessary to save his ass.

“No promises,” I said. “You’ve got to take your chances or take the stand. Up to you.”

Lisa nodded at Minkins, and he said what he had to say.

“First off, I got nothing to do with anyone dying. Swear to God, to this day I still don’t know what the fuck’s going on. But far as I can tell, you think someone set up this Jackson for a fall. As to that point, what I can add is that Larry handed me the dude’s number a couple weeks ago and told me to hire him. Didn’t matter what the terms were. Gunderson owed a friend a favor, and that meant I had to get Jackson on-site. Turned out not to be a problem. The guy jumped at it.”

“Did he say who the friend was?” I asked.

“No clue.”

Most likely a cover story Gunderson gave Minkins just to get Jackson on the property.

“Anyway,” he continued, “Jackson gave his information to a girl we use for personnel-related stuff, and that’s about all I had to do with him. Then Friday I’m working at the site late, checking out the status of things, and I see Jackson packing away some paint into his van. I didn’t recognize him, so I asked the guy his name. I remembered it from when Larry told me to hire him, so I told him, Go ahead and take it. Then I called Larry.”

“What was his reaction?”

“Nothing special. Just thanked me for telling him about it. Next thing I know, we got a body on our hands Monday and Jackson’s getting arrested for it.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

“So I’m not a good Samaritan. Sue me.”

I wasn’t buying it. If his decisions today said anything about his behavior generally, Minkins was self-interested. No way did he sit there silently while Gunderson dragged him into the middle of this.

“You’re leaving something out. How’d you wind up at the library?”

He pursed his lips and looked at the ceiling. “So you did make me. I was beginning to wonder.”

Sucker.

“When I saw the news about Jackson, I asked Larry what the fuck was going on. All he said was and I remember this “Take a lesson from it, Billy, and keep your mouth shut.” Scared the shit out of me. So I started doing some snooping around of my own. Figured if I got the goods on whoever pulled that shit on Jackson and the lady judge, they couldn’t pull anything on me.”

“And what did you find out?”

“Not a lot. I know Larry’s leveraged up the ass trying to keep the bills paid. And I know you were doing some serious research into the urban growth boundary.”

“You’re still not telling me why you were following me, Billy.”

“It was stupid, OK? I watched the news Friday about the hearing, and they said something about there being a shooting at your house last month. I was thinking about trying to work something out with you, so I went by Saturday morning, just because I wasn’t doing nothing else. Then I saw you driving away. Next thing I know, I’m following you around the library. When I saw what you was working on, I realized I didn’t have a fucking clue about what was going on, and I was like to get myself in more trouble than be able to help myself.”

“But now you’re coming clean anyway.”

“Well, when you said what you said earlier, I figured it was about the only choice I had. Larry sure as hell ain’t gonna take care of me.”

It sounded credible. I could see a guy like Billy Minkins feeling desperate enough to follow me around while he tried to figure out what to do. Thanks to the local news, anyone who was curious could find out what block I lived on from a search of the Internet.

“Did you tell Gunderson about the library?” I asked.

“No way. I hightailed it out of there and laid low. I ain’t saying I’m perfect. Hell, it’s not like I’m blind it’s not every businessman who’s gonna let a guy like me take care of an operation. But no way did I sign up to be in the middle of a murder trial and whatever crap led up to it.”

“You certainly don’t sound like someone who trusts Larry Gunderson. How’d you hook up with him anyway?”

Minkins let out a chuckle. “AA. Court-ordered after my check-writing scheme went awry. I couldn’t get work after that, and Larry’d been in the program for years. Fucking ironic, ain’t it?”

There’s a reason guys like Minkins wind up in the system. Instead of taking some responsibility for the decision that led him to this room, he had found a way to blame it on the only chance a court had given him to get his life under control. But Minkins seemed to think I liked him, so I kept my mouth shut.

“Do you know of any connection between Gunderson and Clarissa Easterbrook?”

“Other than her body being found there? Nope.”

“Do you know anything about Gunderson paying bribes or kickbacks to her or any other public officials?”

“Nope, but I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“Are you going to bother telling me what you’re fishing for, Kincaid?” Leave it to Lisa Lopez to think she’s not doing her job unless she butts in every once in a while.

“Me telling you what I think isn’t part of this deal,” I said. “What matters is your client telling me what he knows, and I’m trying to make sure he’s done that.”

I asked a few more questions, but I couldn’t get anything more out of him.

Lopez could tell the debriefing was coming to a close. “There you go, Kincaid. Billy never even broke the law, so I want assurances that he doesn’t face potential prosecution. And his PO better not jam him up, either.”

“But he hasn’t given me anything, Lisa. He said it himself. He doesn’t know what happened.”

“You’ve got more than you had before. And he might not know all the details, but that’s because he doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

She was right. That’s the problem with our system of flipping. Those who have the most to trade are the ones least deserving of a break. If Minkins was telling the truth, he had some serious moral shortcomings but he wasn’t a murderer.

“Fine, but only after he passes a poly.”

Billy Minkins had his own priorities. “And I want some protection.”

“Explain it to him. Lisa. I’m not exactly running a witness protection program here.”

“Fuck that noise,” Minkins said. “I get the impression you don’t know any more about what’s going on than I do. You turn me loose after Gunderson knows I cut a deal, and I might wind up like that judge of yours.”