I went back and
read the stories in chronological order. Jim had not fared nearly as well as
Brian. The only picture of him showed him lifting his handcuffed wrists to his
face as he was led into court for arraignment. The first spate of stories were
more or less straightforward accounts of what had occurred at the Yellowtail
that night. They tallied with the cocktail waitress’s testimony.
Subsequent stories,
ignoring the possibility of Jim’s innocence, dwelt on his motive for killing
Brian. Much was written about what were termed Brian’s “teasing” remarks about
Jim’s homosexuality. There were inaccurate reports of the parking lot incident.
According to one paper, it was Brian himself to whom Jim offered sex. Another
paper got most of the details right but the reporter termed Brian’s activities
a “prank.” The upshot was that Jim was a psycho closet case with a short fuse
that Brian accidentally ignited.
The last batch of
stories was the worst. Oddly enough — or perhaps not — Jim’s father, Walter
Pears, was responsible for these stories. Jim’s parents had resisted the media
until just before the prelim. Then his father had talked. Walter Pears’s
explanation for Jim’s crime was “demonic possession.” He announced that since
Jim was apparently in the thrall of Satan, the best that could be done was, as
the elder Pears said repeatedly, to “put him away for everyone’s good.”
The press took up
the notion of satanism. There were rumors about the alleged disfigurement of
Brian Fox’s body. A priest made the connection between homosexuality — an
abomination before God — and worship of the devil by whom, presumably, such
practices were tolerated. At length, the coverage grew so outrageous that the
chief of police himself felt constrained to deny that any evidence of
devil-worship or demonic possession existed in the case.
I reached the end
of the binder. A first-year law student could predict the result of this case.
Jim’s trial would merely be a way station on the road to prison. Keeping him
off death row would be as much victory as anyone could reasonably expect. It
was nearly three in the morning. I finished my tea and got ready for bed.
The vast city was
just awakening as I sped eastward on the Santa Monica Freeway. I had spent a
lot of time in Los Angeles when I worked with Larry on the sodomy lawsuit two
years earlier. I knew the city as well as anyone who didn’t live there could,
and I liked the place. Between the freeway and the Hollywood Hills the feathery
light of early morning poured into the basin and it truly did seem, at that
moment, to be the habitation of angels. The great palms lifted their shaggy
heads like a race of ancient, benevolent animals. Along the broad boulevards
that ran from downtown to the sea, skyscrapers rose abruptly as if by geologic
accident but were dwarfed by the sheer enormity of the plain.
I parked in the lot
behind the Criminal Courts Building across from City Hall and walked around to
the courthouse entrance on Temple. In the space between the entrance platform
and the ground lay the charred remains of a campfire, with people sleeping in
rags and old blankets. Inside, the walls of the foyer were covered with gang
graffiti. After an interminable wait, an elevator picked me up and ascended,
creaking its way to the floor where the Public Defender had his offices. I
walked into a small reception room, announced myself to the receptionist and
sat down to wait. The room was crowded with restless children and adults
sitting nervously on plastic chairs. A little boy came up and stared at me with
wide, black eyes.
“Are you my mama’s
P.D.?” he asked.
I smiled at him. “No.”
“Then how come you
wear a suit?”
A stout woman
called from across the room, “Leave the man alone, Willie.”
“I’m waiting for my
P.D., Willie,” I said.
“Nah,” he replied,
and went back to his mother.
The door beside the
receptionist’s desk opened. A short, heavy gray-haired woman in a bright floral
dress said, “Henry Rios.”
I stood up.
“I’m Sharon Hart,”
she said. “You want to come into my office?”
I followed her
through the door and we picked our way down a hallway lined with metal file
cabinets into a small office. There was a calendar on one wall and framed
degrees on the other. Sharon Hart sat down behind her government-issue desk and
motioned me to sit on one of the two chairs in front of it. She pulled an
ashtray out of her desk and lit a cigarette.
“So,” she said. “You’re
the famous Henry Rios.”
There was nothing
particularly hostile in her tone so I ventured a smile.
“I hope you can
walk on water, Mr. Rios, because that’s the kind of skill you’re going to need
on this case.”
“Is that why you’re
getting out?”
She looked at me
sharply. “I’m not afraid of tough cases.”
“Then why withdraw?”
“This case is
indefensible on a straight not-guilty plea.”
“There are
alternatives.”
She shook her head.
“Not with this client. He won’t agree to any defense that admits he did it.”
“Any chance he didn’t
do it?”
Her look answered
my question.
“Then that could be
a problem,” I said.
“He’s also going to
make a lousy witness,” she said offhandedly. “Not that there’s much for him to
say. He doesn’t remember what happened.”
“So I was told.
Retrograde amnesia, is that it?”
She nodded. “I had
the court appoint a shrink to talk to him. You’ll find his name in the files.”
She gestured to two bulky folders lying at a comer of her desk. “The doctor
says it’s legitimate. Jim doesn’t remember anything between opening the cellar
door and when that girl — the waitress — came down and found him with Brian
Fox.”
“Is he crazy?”
She smiled
slightly, showing a crooked tooth. “My shrink will say that he was at the time
of the murder.”
“Not quite the
question I asked,” I murmured.
“Is he crazy now?
Let’s say the pressure’s getting to him.”
“Where’s he being
held?”
“County jail,” she
said.
“You’ve told him
what’s going to happen this morning?”
“Yes,” she said. “He’ll
agree to it.” She stubbed out her cigarette and lit another. “We don’t get
along,” she added. “Call it ineffective empathy of counsel. But I do feel sorry
for the kid. I really do.” She stood up. “Take the files. You’ll find my
investigator’s card in them. He can fill you in. We better get downstairs. Pat
Ryan runs a tight ship.”
“The judge.”
“Patricia Ryan.”
“Irish.”
Sharon smiled. “Black
Irish, you might say.”
Television cameras
were set up in the jury box and the gallery was packed with reporters. To avoid
the press, we had come in through the corridor that ran behind the courtrooms.
As soon as we reached counsel’s table, though, the cameras started rolling. At
the other end of the table a short, dark-haired man was unpacking his
briefcase.
“The D.A.,” Sharon
whispered. “Pisano.”
“What’s he like?” I
asked.
She shrugged. “He’s
decent enough until you get him in front of the cameras.”
“A headline
grabber?” I asked.
“The worst.”
As if he’d heard,
the D.A. smiled at us, then turned his attention to a sheaf of papers that he
was marking with a red pen.
“Where’s Jim?” I
asked.
“In the holding
cell, I guess,” she said. “They won’t bring him out until she takes the bench.”
I looked over my
shoulder at the reporters. “This is quite a circus,” I said.
“Better get used to
it.”
A middle-aged woman
with stiffly coiffed hair and dressed in black stared at Sharon Hart and me
with intense hostility from the gallery.
“Who’s that?” I
asked.
Sharon glanced
over. “Brian Fox’s mother. She comes to every hearing. You’ll like her.”
“What about Jim’s
parents?”
“Oh, them,” she
said venomously. “They’re just as nice as Mrs. Fox.”
In a seat across
the aisle from Brian’s mother sat a young man in a blue suit, wearing
horn-rimmed glasses. My eye caught his for a moment, then he looked away.
“That’s Josh
Mandel,” Sharon said.
“Oh,” I replied,
glancing at him once again.
She looked at me. “Do
you know him?”
“No,” I said, and
yet he seemed somehow familiar.
The bailiff broke
the silence of the courtroom with his announcement. “Please rise. Department
Nine is now in session, the Honorable Patricia Ryan presiding.”
The judge came out
from behind the clerk’s desk through the same door by which we had entered.
Patricia Ryan was a tall black woman whose handsome face was set in a faintly
amused expression.
In a pleasant,
light voice she said, “Good morning, counsel. Please be seated.” She looked down
at her desk. “People versus Pears. Is the defendant in court?”
A blond court
reporter clicked away at her machine taking down every word.
“He’s coming,” the
bailiff said.
The door to the
holding cell opened and the
tv
cameras
swung away from the judge over to the two marshals who escorted Jim Pears into
the courtroom. I had just enough time to glance at him before the judge started
talking again. They sat Jim down beside Sharon Hart at the end of the table.
“We were to begin
the trial of this matter today,” the judge said. “However, ten days ago the
Public Defender’s office filed a motion to withdraw from the case. Is that
correct Mrs. Hart?”
“Yes.”
The judge looked at
me quizzically and said, “Who are you, sir?”
“Henry Rios, Your
Honor. I’ve been asked to substitute in should the Public Defender’s motion be
granted.”
“Thank you, Mr.
Rios. All right. The defendant is now present and represented. The People are
represented and are opposing this motion.”
“That’s right, Your
Honor,” Pisano said.
“Mrs. Hart, you go
first.”
Sharon Hart stood
up. “The People complain about delay,” she began, “without showing that their
case would be prejudiced by the delay. They don’t say either that witnesses or
evidence would become unavailable to them if the trial is postponed. My client,
on the other hand, has a constitutional right to effective representation. My
office can’t provide that at this point. So it seems to me, Your Honor, that if
you weigh his rights against the prosecution’s pro forma objection, it’s clear
the motion should be granted.”
The judge said, “Mr.
Pisano.”
“Your Honor,” he
said, “the D.A.’s office is not a lynch mob. We want Mr. Pears to get a fair
trial. Our objection is that the P.D.’s office has completely failed to tell
anyone why it can’t handle this case. Now,” he said, stepping back from the
table and coming up behind Sharon Hart, “we saw how well Mrs. Hart conducted
the defense during the prelim—”
“Thanks,” Sharon
whispered mockingly.
“ — so what’s the
problem now? They say they have a conflict. What conflict?” He shrugged
eloquently. “Surely we all want to see that justice is done as expeditiously as
possible.”
“I’m sure,” Judge
Ryan replied with a faint smile. She was clearly aware that Pisano was playing
to the press.
Undeterred, he
continued. “We don’t know what the conflict is and I would hate to suspect that
this motion is only to delay things,
but...”
He left the end of the sentence dangling, with another shrug of his shoulders. “And
what about our friend, Mr. Rios,” Pisano continued. “He’s not going to be ready
to start trying the case today. No, he’ll be asking for time. Maybe a lot of
time. Maybe, considering the People’s evidence, forever.”
Sharon Hart
seethed. I composed my face into the mask I reserved for such occasions.
“Or maybe,” Pisano
said, “there’s another reason for this motion. Mr. Rios here is not unknown. He
was one of the lawyers who knocked the sodomy initiative off the ballot a
couple of years ago. He represents a powerful constituency.”
“I hardly see—” the
judge began.
“Your Honor, if I
may finish,” Pisano cut in, his voice darkening theatrically. “Let me suggest
that this motion is the result of political pressure on the P.D.’s office by
the gay community to let Mr. Rios try the
case...”
Again Pisano let the end of his sentence trail off suggestively.