Authors: James Scott Bell

Tags: #Mystery

Blind Justice (10 page)

She looked at me steadily. “You’re the one defending him. If you think it will be helpful, then do it.”

“Thanks.”

“But what will you think if it turns out to be true?”

“If what turns out to be true?”

“If Howie really did see the devil? What are you going to do then?”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

WHAT WOULD I do, indeed?

If Howie saw “the devil,” it was either a delusion or real. I didn’t believe it was real. That left delusion, and that meant Howie’s mental state at the time of the killing was an issue. While the old diminished capacity defense is no longer available in California, an expert may give testimony about a defendant’s background and perceptions and his mental condition at the time the offense was committed.

I had just the expert in mind to do it.

On Tuesday, the day after Howie’s prelim and my devilish discussions with my client and his sister, I phoned Dr. Hendrick Brown’s office, which also happened to be his condominium near downtown Los Angeles. He wasn’t in, so I left a message for him to call me.

Then I called Mandy.

I got Rick.

“Mandy’s at camp,” he said.

“What camp?”

“A day camp.”

“That narrows it down nicely. Thank you very much.” I was being a complete jerk, but it seemed by now to be my habitual response to Rick Wilson. He was not a bad guy at all, I knew that, but he was married to my ex-wife. My typical American male pride sat on one of my shoulders, whispering in my ear to make Rick as uncomfortable as possible.

“I can have Barb give you a call when she gets in,” Rick said.

“I would just like to know where my daughter is. I would like to be included in the planning stages from time to time.”

“Barb felt, I think, that you pretty much leave those decisions to her.” He had an understanding tone in his voice that irritated me more. I didn’t want my ex-wife’s new husband to be right about the situation. He was, though. I palmed off to Barb a lot of the day-to-day stuff concerning Mandy. And I knew why. I had enough troubles getting through each day myself without having to micromanage my daughter.

That didn’t stop me from fanning the flames of my irritation. “So now you’re an expert in what Barb thinks? And you’ve been married to her what, a year?”

“I’ll have Barb call you.”

“Don’t you know what camp Mandy’s at?”

“It’s a nice camp, a church camp.”

“Church camp? What’s that all about?”

“Our church sponsors it.”

An image of Mandy walking blank-eyed down a city street with free magazines in her hand suddenly popped into my head. “What church is that?”

“Church of the Hill out in Chatsworth.”

“What kind of a church is it?”

“Just a regular church.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything.”

“If you’re unsure about it, come visit.”

“No thanks. Tell Barb to call me.”

I hung up. It took me a few minutes to calm down and realize what a boor I’d been. Then I stopped myself. I didn’t want to admit, even to myself, that I was wrong.

Anytime I thought about being wrong, I pictured my father. He was not the type to ever admit being wrong. He had an iron will and a steel pride. Not once in all the time I knew him did I ever hear him apologize—for anything.

Once, we were watching a movie on TV, a John Wayne flick called
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.
At one point in the movie, John Wayne rebukes a soldier, saying, “Don’t apologize. It’s a sign of weakness.”

I remember Dad mumbling, “Right on.”

Even after those times he beat me up, he never apologized. I once overheard him arguing with Mom about it. She said something about his being unfair to me, and he said that didn’t matter. It was going to toughen me up, and I needed toughening because I was a “mama’s boy.”

But I would gladly have taken more of the physical punishment if once, just once, Dad had told me I’d done a good job on something. Anything.

He never did.

I was thirteen when he died. He hung on to life for a week in the hospital before his heart stopped for good. I only saw him there once. He was gaunt and weak. I was sure—and I’m sure he was too—that this would be the last time we spoke to each other.

As I look back on it now, even though I was uncomfortable around him, I was waiting for the grand gesture. A hug. A plea for forgiveness. Some parting words of affirmation.

Instead, I got mostly silence.

Just before I left, he said “Don’t mess things up for your mother.”

Those were the last words he ever said to me. Four days later he was dead.

The night after the funeral I decided to sneak out of the house and get rip-snorting drunk. And I decided to do it with the only friend I had at the time.

Howie Patino.

He was more than willing, as was the wino who hung out near the liquor store and bought us the bottle with the money I gave him, along with an additional buck for his trouble.

Even though I was sick the next day, I remember that night as one of the happiest of my life.

It was like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders, and with each sip of wine I became lighter and lighter, like I could fly from Orlando to Los Angeles and back again with barely a flap of my arms.

Howie and I began making plans for our futures. For once I was able to think about it without wondering how Dad was going to put me down.

Howie said he wanted to be a jet fighter pilot. He wanted to go to war against the Commies and blast them out of the sky.

I said I wanted to become the biggest millionaire in the world. I was going to have my own fleet of yachts and go to all the great spots in the world where millionaires go. I was going to drink champagne all the time and own my own football team, and then people would know that Nick Denney’s kid had so far outdone his old man that nobody could remember the dead guy anymore.

As I said more and more, Howie sat there slapping his legs and saying, “Yeah, man! Yeah, man!”

Well, I didn’t make my millions. I became a lawyer scouring for clients just so I could afford a place to live and drink. I wondered if the old man could see me and wondered what he would think. Sometimes the only thing that would make those thoughts go away was a drink.

I spent an hour in my office making disjointed notes on Howie’s case, then got a return call from Dr. Hendrick Brown.

“You were an expert on a case I tried,” I told him.

“Yeah,” he said. “Attempted murder, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right. The guy who shot his wife and said he couldn’t remember it.”

“As I recall, she was somebody who deserved to be shot. Kind of a big lady with a mouth to go with it.”

“Doc, that kind of opinion is inadmissible in a court of law.”

“I’m talkin’ about my world now, which is the court of reality. Anyway, Jake, what can I do for you?”

“I’d like you to examine a client of mine.”

“You name the time and place. I’ll name the fee.”

We haggled about the fee part, but I set up a tentative date for him to see Howie.

At one o’clock Triple C came to my office. We had the names of two people we were going to interview in Hinton. I was going to take the old lady who lived across the street from the Patino house. Trip would see the bartender at the place where Rae had most recently worked. Maybe one thing would lead to another. I was hoping that all this would lead to something, anything, because at this point we didn’t have a lot.

And we were just about to find out we had even less than we thought.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

DAPHNE BARTH’S EYES were filled with suspicion as she peeked at me past the chain lock on her door.

“My name is Jake Denney, Miss Barth.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m investigating the murder.”

“I already talked to you.”

“I’m not from the police, Miss Barth. I’m the lawyer representing the defendant.”

Her face came close to that hideous countenance I feared. “I am not going to talk to you!”

“Now, Miss Barth—”

“You leave decent people alone!”

There were two ways to handle this. The first way, the hard way, was to threaten her with a subpoena and the prospect of being dragged into court—dragged would be the actual word to use—and grilled on the witness stand. I’d probably get her scared enough to talk for awhile, but how much good information I’d get would be another story.

I chose the other way. “You’re right, Miss Barth. Absolutely right.”

She looked puzzled. “Excuse me?”

“You’re right about decent people needing protection from our system. There’s only one way to do that, and that’s to make sure the truth comes out.”

“I believe that’s right.”

“Now, if I could get at the truth quickly, at the facts, there might be a way to protect you in court.”

“How?”

I took a little step closer. “Would you mind if I came in?”

She hesitated. “I’m not supposed to talk to you.”

“Who told you that?”

“Somebody from the district attorney’s office. They said I wasn’t to talk to the defense. You seem like a nice young man, but I have to do what I’m told.”

A jolt of electric excitement shot through my body. There was a real possibility here of witness interference. A witness for the prosecution is not considered to be represented by the prosecutor and can be directly approached by the defense. An attempt to interfere with communication with defense attorneys or investigators is an ethical violation. If I could nail this down, it might come in very handy at trial.

“Miss Barth, are you sure this is what you were told?”

“Well . . . yes.”

“Do you remember the name of the person who told you this?”

She shook her head. “It was a nice young lady.”

“Does the name Sylvia Plotzske ring a bell?”

She thought for a moment. “Yes, I think that’s it.”

“I know Sylvia.”

“You do?”

“Sure. Miss Barth, if I could come in for just a moment, I won’t take up much of your time. And I promise that if you get uncomfortable with anything I say, you can ask me to leave. Fair enough?”

The cogs and wheels turned inside her head. Then she unlatched the door and let me in.

Her house was Victorian—in size, decoration, and smell. It had an eerie sense of time standing still. The little woman took me into what would have been called the drawing room many years ago, and we sat on furniture that could have come from Mark Twain’s home.

“This is all so upsetting,” Daphne Barth said. “I don’t want to get into any trouble.”

“You won’t, Miss Barth.”

“It’s
Mrs.
Barth, young man. My dear Oscar and I were married for fifty-four years.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What’s that?” She cocked one ear toward me.

“I said I was sorry.”

“You’ll have to speak up, young man. He was a rancher, you know.”

I nodded and smiled.

“He helped build Hinton. He was the first city commissioner.”

“Was he now?” I wanted to keep her talking. The more she talked, the easier it would be to transition into discussing the case.

“Oscar first came out here in 1936. We were living in Kansas then, but my dear Oscar was never one to be fenced in.”

“A real pioneer type, eh?”

“A free spirit, Oscar was. He was the smartest man I ever knew.” She described, in protracted detail, Oscar Barth’s acumen in the cattle business, his meeting with Franklin Delano Roosevelt—“Gave him a piece of his mind, my Oscar did”—and several other highlights of Oscar’s life.

Before I got her around to the night of the murder, my neck was almost sore from nodding and my cheeks from forcing a smile.

“I don’t remember anything about it,” Daphne Barth explained. “It was a night like any other night. I always make myself a pot of tea at nine o’clock or thereabouts. I like to drink it out on the porch when the nights are pleasant.”

“Was it pleasant that night?”

“Not that I remember. I drank my tea inside. I watched the -television.”

“Did you hear anything from across the street?”

“I did hear a loud voice, like I told the police, and I think he shouted her name.”

“You mean Rae’s name?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“I assume it was him.”

“Her husband?”

“That’s your client, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I think it was him.”

“But you’re not sure?”

“That’s all I remember.”

“Anything else?”

“No, that’s all.”

I scratched my forehead, not because it itched, but because I was trying to figure out why the prosecutor would be advising this woman not to talk to me when she had only one item of relevant testimony, which probably wouldn’t even be needed at trial.

I had just sat through a half hour of the history of Oscar Barth, and I was not about to let that investment go with such paltry returns. “How well did you know Rae Patino?” I asked.

“I never saw her very much. She was a night crawler.” She whispered the last two words.

“What, exactly, do you mean?”

“Oh, you know.”

“Help me out.”

She leaned a little forward, as if someone else might be listening. “She was
fast.”

It was an old-fashioned term, but I’d heard it used in the South by some of the older ladies. “You mean she had rather loose morals?”

Daphne Barth nodded.

“What makes you say that?”

“Oh, I’ve been around the block, sonny.”

“Did you ever observe Rae Patino with other men?”

She shook her head. “But I know it just the same. The way she dressed.”

“Did you ever hear anything going on at her house? Any parties? Things like that?”

Again she shook her head. “Nothing wild, if that’s what you mean.”

I didn’t know what I meant. I was fishing for something, anything. “So, no noise,” I said offhandedly.

Oscar Barth’s widow frowned at that, like she suddenly remembered something. “There was a time,” she said, “when I heard a strange thumping.”

“Thumping?”

“Yes. It was loud. It was so loud, it rattled my windows and woke me up.”

“What was it?”

“It sounded like someone pounding on my front door. I was frightened. I didn’t dare get out of bed.”

“Someone trying to break into your house, maybe?”

“It was so loud, but then it suddenly stopped. I stayed in bed waiting for it to start again. When it didn’t, I got out of bed and went to the window. I peeked out.”

“What did you see?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Just a car driving by.”

“What kind of a car?”

“A big one, more like a truck.”

“Was it a truck?”

“No, it was more like a car than a truck. But it was
like
a truck.”

I almost laughed at the massive waste of time this had turned out to be. The pounding on the door might have been relevant, but without some identification tied into some incident at Rae Patino’s, it was useless.

I stood and thanked Daphne Barth. She asked if I had to go so soon. She probably wanted to fill me in on Oscar Barth’s childhood. I told her I had to get over to the jail and talk to my client. She asked if I would need to speak with her again.

“No, Mrs. Barth. This was all I needed.”

She looked disappointed.

Triple C was breathless on the phone, like he’d been jogging. I was in my car, driving to the jail.

“You ready for this?” he said.

“For what?”

“Something weird’s going on down here.”

“You talk to the bartender?”

“Yeah, I talked to him.”

“You get anything useful?” I was anxious for a bit of good news.

“Maybe. But that’s not the weird part.”

“Why don’t you tell me the weird part?”

“Our boy Delliplane? The surfer?”