Corrupt Practices (8 page)

Manny nods his head in agreement. Rich and Grace Trimble, the fifth member of our class, dated for eight months, when we were all third-year associates. Two mismatched souls drawn together by the force of the new millennium. Grace was brilliant, but also disturbed. She was wilder than Deanna—well, not wilder, but far more self-destructive. Every night after work and on weekends, Grace would hit the music clubs, ostensibly to sign talent in her quest to become a music lawyer, but really to dance and pick up men and do drugs. She’d tell outlandish stories about sleeping with rock stars and rappers and fighting off muggers and rapists. Shortly before she left the firm—a few years before Harmon died—she was diagnosed as being bipolar. When she crashed, we all realized that she’d been self-medicating.

“This is mean,” Deanna says. “But I was pretty surprised when Rich came to the firm summer party with Monica. She was so hot, and Rich . . .” She half-shrugs. “Well, he was Rich.” She takes a drink of cognac and smiles salaciously. “If Rich hadn’t been my friend, I would’ve hit on Monica myself.”

Manny grimaces, then takes a long drink, as if to wash away the bad taste of Deanna’s comment.

“Monica married him because his so-called church arranged it,” I say.

“Jesus, Parker,” Deanna says, shaking her head in disapproval.

We sit in silence. And then we start reminiscing again, repeating well-worn stories that have become more fanciful with each telling. Rich’s chronic inability to keep his meal off his clothing, so bad that he once walked out of RJ’s restaurant with half a chicken wing hanging from his collar. Rich always playing the “fish” in our monthly card games. Rich as a marvelous rainmaker who spent time wining and dining clients at the expense of learning technical legal skills.

“This is another shitty thing to bring up,” Deanna says. “But I always worried that he was a walking malpractice suit. When he left the firm, I couldn’t see him making it on his own with a demanding client like the Assembly.”

Manny glances at me. He said the same thing about Rich. So did Andrew Macklin.

I chug down the last of my cognac. “Maybe that’s why he was murdered. The Assembly doesn’t tolerate mistakes. Maybe he made an error that cost him his life.”

“Come on, Parker,” Manny says. “There’s absolutely no reason to believe—”

“You know what? Forget what I just said. I don’t think Rich was killed because he malpracticed. I think it was because he discovered something about the church that he wasn’t supposed to know. Just like he told me at the jail. The Assembly wouldn’t hesitate to eliminate him if that happened. Not for a second. And they could arrange a jailhouse hit with the snap of a finger.”

Deanna and Manny in tandem take long sips of their drinks. For the next few minutes, they both avoid looking at me. I know they’ve always found my dislike for the Church of the Sanctified Assembly irrational, that they resented me for refusing to pitch in on Assembly matters. Parker Stern, prima donna.

They don’t know my history with the Assembly. I’m sure they’d feel differently if they did.

Over the next few weeks, I teach my law school seminar and spend time at The Barrista and drink coffee. And I read. I learn that Gladys Towles Root, the lawyer who specialized in defending rapists, maintained that there were only two types of rape—the brutal and the invited. Absent a beating or a threat, the woman asked for it. Once, during a trial, Root held up a sheet of paper with a hole in it and defied a male juror to stick a pen in the hole while she moved the paper around. I can’t tell from the biography whether this was merely a trial tactic or whether she believed it. I hope she didn’t believe it. There are few things more dangerous than a lawyer who’s a true believer.

I think about Rich constantly, about how and why he died. And the more I think, the more convinced I am that he was murdered. Deanna and Manny don’t want to hear about it anymore. I consider calling his wife, Monica, but I know she won’t talk to me. I think about contacting his parents, but what would I say? Would they find comfort in hearing some stranger speculate that their son might have been murdered?

Today, while I’m working in my law school office—a windowless hole in the wall reserved for part-time faculty like me—the autopsy report shows up in my e-mail inbox. Because I was Rich’s lawyer at the time of his death, the medical examiner’s office agreed to send me a copy. I know what the report will say without looking at it, which doesn’t stop me from dropping what I’m doing and opening it immediately. I scroll down the computer screen, trying to decipher the pathologist’s hypertechnical language. The cause of death is listed as suicide, of course. Then the techno-language.
Partial suspension; asphyxial death; presence of conjunctival and facial petechiae
;
hyoid fracture; thyroid cartilage fracture; no injuries of a defensive nature; absence of ligature furrow; signs of vital reaction around constriction area ambiguous
.

I print the report, hoping that reading the hard copy will make things clearer. Before I can begin rereading, there’s a loud knock on the open door. Lovely Diamond stands in the doorway, backpack slung over her shoulder. She’s never spoken to me outside the classroom, much less come to my office.

“Got five minutes, Professor?”

Over the past weeks, we’ve managed to forge a barely peaceful coexistence. One of my strengths is figuring people out, digging beneath the exterior and understanding their motivations and fears and strength and weakness of character. Maybe that’s how I became a good actor and a successful trial lawyer. But I’m not close to figuring Lovely out. Around her, I feel as if I’m trying to decipher a frustrating but glorious avant-garde novel, dark and impenetrable and lyrical. She reveals herself in fragments.

She sits down and glances around the office. “I’ve never been in one of these adjunct professor offices before. Is this the best they can do for you?”

“This is about it.”

She crinkles her nose. “It smells like mildew or black mold. You adjuncts should go on strike or something. Or get masks.”

“The others never come up here. They all have jobs and offices of their own. It’s just me.”

“Poor you.” She reaches into her backpack and pulls out some sort of energy bar, unwraps it, and takes a small bite without asking if I have any objection to her eating in my office. I don’t, but I would have appreciated her asking.

I’m about to ask her what she wants when I remember that Lou Frantz handles a lot of medical malpractice cases. “Ms. Diamond, in your job do you review medical reports?”

“Yeah. A lot, unfortunately.”

“I just got the medical examiner’s report on Richard Baxter’s death. I was wondering if you could—”

“Yeah, I’ll take a look. I’ve read my share of pathology reports. Mostly accidents and botched surgeries, but . . .”

I hand her the report. She attacks it with a palpable intensity. She nibbles at her energy bar until it’s gone, leaving a crumb stuck to her upper lip. When she finishes, she looks up at me. “So what do you want to know?”

“You . . . you have some food on your lip.”

Without a hint of embarrassment, she circles her tongue over her lips, catching the crumb and pulling it into her mouth. “Gone?”

I nod. “What I want to know . . . can you see anything in the ME’s report that would lead you to question the conclusion that Rich committed suicide?”

“Possibly.”

It’s not the answer I expected to hear, and I have to fend off a morbid rush of excitement at the thought that Rich might have been murdered. “What makes you say that?”

“I’d rather hold off on giving an opinion. I need to do some more research.”

“Can’t you give at least me a hint?”

“No point.” She folds her hands in her lap and gets that stubborn look that I see so often in the classroom.

“But you came to see me,” I say. “How can I help you?”

She reaches into her backpack, takes out some paper, and hands it to me. “My client, Tyler, has been indicted.” Her voice, usually a steady alto, sounds off-key, like a guitar string wound too tightly by a fraction of a turn. “I guess I’m going to get to defend a real case.”

The document charges one Tyler Daniels with three counts of Transportation of Obscene Matters in violation of 18 U.S.C. §1462 of the United States Criminal Code:
Whoever knowingly uses any interactive computer service for carriage in interstate commerce of any obscene, lewd, lascivious, or filthy book, pamphlet, writing, print, or other matter of indecent character shall be fined and imprisoned for not more than five years for any first offense and ten years for each such offense thereafter.

I flip to the second page and read the specifics of count 1. It’s just one paragraph, seven lines, but by the time I finish my teeth are clenched so hard that I can hear a high-pitched whine in my ears.

“Oh, Lovely. Why in God’s name didn’t you tell me what this was?”

Count I: On or about July 29, 2011, in the Central District of California, Defendant, TYLER DANIELS, did knowingly use an interactive computer service for carriage in interstate commerce of an obscene matter: that is “darlene.txt,” a text description of the kidnapping and sexual molestation of ten-year-old Darlene.

Count II: On or about July 29, 2011, in the Central District of California, Defendant, TYLER DANIELS, did knowingly use an interactive computer service for carriage in interstate commerce of an obscene matter: that is “nursery.txt,” a text description of the sexual molestation of a five-year-old boy.

Count III: On or about July 29, 2011, in the Central District of California, Defendant, TYLER DANIELS, did knowingly use an interactive computer service for carriage in interstate commerce of an obscene matter: that is “kids.txt,” a text description of the sexual molestation of an eight-year-old girl, a nine-year-old boy, and a four-year-old girl.

/s/ Neil Latham, United States Attorney

Assigned to Hon. Cyrus Harvey

Lovely sits with hands folded primly in her lap. I want to be angry with her for not disclosing what she was getting into, but I’m more upset with myself for not asking the right questions. When defending sexual-predator clients, Gladys Towles Root maintained that most children lie about being molested.
A child possesses an imagination rivaling Alfred Hitchcock’s, and often just as macabre
, she said. She used her status as a woman and a mother to influence juries. When I read this, I almost hurled the book against the wall. No matter how much you believe in the adversary system, there are some cases you refuse to take. This sleazebag, Tyler Daniels, doesn’t deserve a defense.

I slide the indictment back to Lovely. “You’re actually OK with this?”

Her cheeks redden. “Of course I’m not OK with stories about abusing kids, if that’s what you mean.”

“I mean that—”

“They’re horrible, disgusting stories. But if you mean defending this client, I’m more than OK with that. I’ve talked about this with Tyler and checked the court records, and there’ve never been any arrests or convictions or accusations of wrongful conduct, if that’s what you’re worried about.” She pauses for a moment. “The case is just about words, not pictures or actions, and the First Amendment protects words no matter how despicable. Words are sacred. Besides, Tyler needs me.”

I try to reserve judgment. I’ve only read the indictment, in which the prosecutor always slants the facts. “I assume you’ve read the actual stories. How bad are they?”

She straightens in her chair. “They’re as bad as you can imagine. Worse. It’s like I had to shower after I read them. But it doesn’t matter. This is a case of free speech. It’s like Justice Stewart said: ‘Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself.’”

“He also said he knew obscenity when he saw it.” I read through the indictment again, deciding. “I’m sorry, Ms. Diamond, I don’t think you can be involved in this. Not under the auspices of the law school. Why don’t you see if Lou Frantz will take it pro bono.”

“He won’t. Will you at least talk to the client first?”