The Gods of Guilt mh-5 Read online

  “Got it.”

  “Good.”

  Arraignment court is the place where the criminal justice system becomes a feeding frenzy, where those who are caught in the net are delivered to market. I stepped out from the holding facility and into a morass of defense lawyers, prosecutors, investigators, and all lines of support staff, all moving in an unchoreographed dance presided over by Judge Mary Elizabeth Mercer. It was her job to make good on the constitutional guarantee to swiftly bring those accused of a crime to court to be informed of the charges against them and assigned counsel if they have not made such arrangements themselves. In practice, this meant that each of the accused had but a few minutes before the judge prior to beginning the long and usually torturous journey through the system.

  The attorney tables in first-appearance court were large boardroom-size tables designed so that several lawyers could be seated at once as they prepared for their cases and clients to be called. Still more defense lawyers stood and milled about in the corral to the left of the judge’s bench, where defendants were brought in from the holding cells in groups of six at a time. These lawyers would stand with their clients for the reading of the charges and then the scheduling of an arraignment hearing, where the accused would formally enter a plea. To an outsider — and this included those accused of crimes and their families packed into the wooden pews of the courtroom’s gallery — it was hard to keep track of or understand what was going on. They could only know that this was the justice system at work and that it would now take over their lives.

  I went to the bailiff’s desk where the custody call list was on a clipboard. The bailiff had crossed out the first thirty names on the list. Judge Mercer was efficiently moving through the morning shift. I saw Andre La Cosse’s name next to the number thirty-eight. That meant one group of six was ahead of his group. And that gave me time to find a spot to sit down and check my messages.

  All nine chairs at the defense table were taken. I scanned the line of chairs running along the railing that separated the gallery from the court’s work area and spotted one opening. As I made my way to it, I recognized one of the men I would be sitting next to. He wasn’t a lawyer. He was a cop, and we had a past history that coincidentally had been brought up that morning at the staff meeting. He recognized me, too, and grimaced as I sat down next to him.

  We spoke in whispers so as not to draw the attention of the judge.

  “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Mickey Mouth, great courtroom orator and defender of douche bags.”

  I ignored the shots. I was used to it from cops.

  “Detective Lankford, long time no see.”

  Lee Lankford was one of the Glendale PD homicide detectives who investigated the murder of my former investigator Raul Levin. The reasons for Lankford’s grimace and insults and the friction that still obviously existed between us were many. First, Lankford seemed to have a genetically bred hatred of all lawyers. Then there was the little rub that came when he wrongly accused me of Levin’s murder. Of course it didn’t help our relationship when I eventually proved him wrong by solving the case for him.

  “You’re a long way from Glendale,” I offered as I was pulling out my phone. “Don’t you guys do your arraignments up there in Glendale Superior?”

  “As usual, Haller, you’re behind the times. I don’t work for Glendale anymore. I retired.”

  I nodded like I thought that was a good thing, then smiled.

  “Don’t tell me you went to the dark side. You’re working for one of these defense guys?”

  Lankford looked disgusted.

  “No fucking chance I’d work for one of you creeps. I work for the DA now. And by the way, a seat just opened up at the big table. Why don’t you go over there and sit with your own people?”

  I had to smile. Lankford hadn’t changed in the seven years or so since I had seen him. I kind of enjoyed tweaking him.

  “No, I think I’m good here.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “What about Detective Sobel? Is she still with the department?”

  Lankford’s partner back then was the one I communicated with. She didn’t carry around a bagful of biases like he did.

  “She’s still there and she’s doing well. Tell me, which one of these fine upstanding citizens they’re traipsing out in bracelets is your client today?”

  “Oh, mine will be in the next batch. He’s a real winner, though. A pimp accused of killing one of his own girls. It’s a heartwarming story, Lankford.”

  Lankford pressed back into his chair slightly and I realized I had surprised him.

  “Don’t tell me,” he said. “La Cosse?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s right. It’s your case, too?”

  A sneer cracked across his face.

  “You bet. And now I’m going to enjoy every minute of it.”

  DA investigators were used for ancillary duties on a case. The primary investigators remained the police detectives who worked the case from the crime scene on. But when the case was filed and shifted from the police department to the Prosecutor’s Office, DA investigators were used to help prep the case for trial. Their duties included locating witnesses, getting them to court, and reacting to defense maneuvers and witnesses and the like. It was a mixed bag of second-tier responsibilities. Their job was to be prepared to do what needed to be done in the run-up to trial.

  The great majority of DA investigators were former cops, many of whom were retired like Lankford. They were double dippers, collecting a pension from one department and a paycheck from the DA. Nice work if you could get it. The thing that struck me as unusual was that Lankford had already been assigned to the La Cosse case. The defendant had not even made a first appearance yet and Lankford was on the case and in the courtroom.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “They just filed on him yesterday and you’re already assigned?”

  “I’m in the homicide division. We get cases on a rotation. This one’s mine and I just wanted to get a look at the guy, see what I’ll be dealing with. And now that I know who his lawyer is, I know exactly who I’m dealing with.”

  He stood up and turned to look down at me. I noticed the badge clipped to his belt and the black leather boots he wore below cuffed suit pants. It wasn’t a good look but probably no one wanted to incur his wrath by telling him.

  “This will be fun,” he said and then he walked away.

  “You’re not going to wait for him to come out?”

  Lankford didn’t answer. He walked through the gate and down the center aisle toward the door at the back of the courtroom.

  After watching him go, I sat still for a few moments, thinking about the veiled threat and the knowledge that I now had to factor in having an investigator with a hard-on for me working for the prosecutor on the case.

  It was not a good start.

  My phone buzzed in my hand and I checked the text. It was from Lorna and it was a little bit of good news to balance out the Lankford episode.

  The gold brick was real! $52K+ deposited in escrow account.

  We were in business. No matter what happened, at least I was going to get paid. I started to forget about Lankford. And then a shadow fell across me and I looked up to see one of the detention deputies standing over me.

  “You’re Haller, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s me. What’s—”

  He showered a stack of business cards down on me. My own cards. The ones I had given La Cosse.

  “You pull that stunt again and you’ll never be allowed back to see one of your scumbag clients. At least not on my watch.”

  I felt my face growing red. Several attorneys were watching us. The only saving grace was that Lankford had missed the show.

  “Got it?” the deputy asked.

  “Yeah, got it,” I said.

  “Good,” he said.

  He walked away and I started gathering up the cards. Show over, the other lawyers turned and went back to business.

 
8

  There was only one Lincoln at the curb when I got out of court this time. Everybody else had already split for lunch. I jumped in the back and told Earl to head toward Hollywood. I didn’t know where Stacey Campbell lived but I was guessing it wasn’t in downtown. I pulled my phone, looked at the number on my hand, and punched it in. She answered promptly with a practiced voice that was soft and sexy and everything I assumed was wanted in a prostitute’s voice.

  “Hello, this is Starry-Eyed Stacey.”

  “Uh, Stacey Campbell?”

  The soft and sexy left her voice and was replaced by a harder-edged tone that had a tinge of cigarette to it as well.

  “Who is this?”

  “My name is Michael Haller. I’m Andre La Cosse’s attorney. He told me he spoke to you and you agreed to talk to me about Giselle Dallinger.”

  “The thing is, I don’t want to be dragged into court.”

  “That’s not my intention. I just want to talk to someone who knew Giselle and can tell me about her.”

  There was a silence.

  “Ms. Campbell, is there a chance I could come by to see you or meet you somewhere?”

  “I’ll meet you. I don’t want anyone coming here.”

  “That’s fine. Is now okay?”

  “I need to get changed and put on my hair.”

  “What time and where?”

  Another silence went by. I was about to tell her she didn’t have to put on her hair for me when she spoke first.

  “How about Toast?”

  It was ten past noon, but I understood that a woman of her occupation might have just gotten up for the day.

  “Uh, yeah, that’s fine, I guess. I’m trying to think of a place where we could get breakfast.”

  “What? No, I mean Toast, the place. It’s a café on Third near Crescent Heights.”

  “Oh, okay. I’ll meet you there. So about one, then?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “I’ll get a table and be waiting.”

  I ended the call, told Earl where we were going, and then called Lorna to see if she got my two o’clock status conference postponed.

  “No soap,” she said. “Patricia said the judge wants this thing off his calendar. No more delays, Mickey. He wants you in chambers at two.”

  Patricia was Judge Companioni’s clerk. She actually ran the courtroom and the calendar, and when she said the judge wanted to move the case on, it really meant Patricia wanted to move it on. She was tired of the constant delays I had asked for while I tried to convince my client to take the deal the DA had put on the table.

  I thought for a moment. Even if Stacey Campbell showed up on time — which I knew I couldn’t count on — there was probably no way I could get what I needed from her and get back to the courthouse in downtown by two. I could cancel the meeting at Toast but I didn’t want to. The mysteries and motives surrounding Gloria Dayton had my full attention at the moment. I wanted to know the secrets behind her subterfuge, and diverting to handle another case was not going to happen.

  “Okay, I’ll call Bullocks and see if she’s still up for covering for me on it.”

  “Why, are you still in first-appearance court?”

  “No, heading to West Hollywood on the Dayton case.”

  “You mean the La Cosse case, don’t you?”

  “Right.”

  “And West Hollywood can’t wait?”

  “No, it can’t, Lorna.”

  “She still has a hold on you, doesn’t she? Even in death.”

  “I just want to know what happened. So right now I need to call Bullocks. I’ll talk to you later.”

  I clicked off before I got a sermon about getting emotionally involved with the work. Lorna had always had issues with my relationship with Gloria and could not understand that it had nothing to do with sex. That it wasn’t some kind of whore fixation. That it was about finding someone you somehow shared the same view of the world with. Or at least thought you did.

  When I called Jennifer Aronson she told me she was working in the law library at Southwestern and going through the Gloria Dayton files I had given her that morning.

  “I’m going case to case and just trying to familiarize myself with everything,” she said. “Unless there is something I should be specifically looking for.”

  “Not really,” I said. “Did you find any notes on Hector Arrande Moya?”

  “No notes. It’s amazing you remembered his name after seven years.”

  “I remember names, some cases, but not birthdays or anniversaries. Always gets me in trouble. You need to check on Moya’s status and—”

  “I did that first thing. I started with the L.A. Times online archives and found a couple stories about his case. It went federal. You said you made your deal with the DA’s Office, but the feds obviously took over the case.”

  I nodded. The more I talked about a case, the more I remembered it.

  “Right, there was a federal warrant existing. The DA must’ve gotten big-footed because Moya was papered and that gave the feds first dibs.”

  “It also gave them a bigger hammer. There is a gun enhancement with federal drug-trafficking statutes that made Moya eligible for a life sentence, and that’s what he got.”

  I remembered that part, too. That this guy was put away for life for having a couple ounces of coke in his hotel room.

  “I’m assuming there was an appeal. Did you check PACER?”

  PACER was the federal government’s Public Access to Court Electronic Records database. It provided quick access to all documents filed in regard to a case. It would be the starting point.

  “Yes, I went on PACER and pulled up the docket. He was convicted in ’06. Then there was the plenary appeal — the usual global attack citing insufficient evidence, court error on motions, and unreasonable sentencing. None made it past Pasadena. PCA right down the line.”

  She was referring to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. It had a Southern California location on South Grand Avenue in Pasadena. Appeals from Los Angeles — based cases would be filed through the Pasadena courthouse and initially reviewed by a theee-member screening local panel of the appellate court. The local panel weeded out appeals it deemed unworthy and kicked the others for full consideration to a merits panel composed of three judges drawn from the circuit that held jurisdiction over the western region of the country. Aronson’s saying that Moya never made it past Pasadena meant that his conviction was “per curiam affirmed” by the screening panel of judges. Moya had struck out swinging.

  His next move was to file a habeas corpus petition in U.S. District Court seeking postconviction relief, a long-shot move to vacate his sentence. This was like shooting a three at the buzzer. The motion would be his last shot at a new trial unless startling new evidence was brought forward.

  “What about a twenty-two fifty-five?” I asked, using the U.S. Code designation for a habeas petition.

  “Yep,” Aronson said. “He went with ineffective assistance of counsel — claiming his guy never negotiated a plea agreement — and got blown out on that as well.”

  “Who was the trial attorney?”

  “Somebody named Daniel Daly. You know him?”

  “Yeah, I know him, but he’s a federal court guy and I try to stay clear of the fed. I haven’t seen him work but from what I’ve heard, he’s one of the go-to guys over there.”

  I actually knew Daly from Four Green Fields, where we both stopped in on Fridays for end-of-the-week martinis.

  “Well, there wasn’t much he or anybody could do with Moya,” Jennifer said. “He went down hard and stayed down. And now he’s seven years into a life sentence and not going anywhere.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Victorville.”

  The Federal Correctional Institution at Victorville was eighty miles north and located at the edge of an air force base in the desert. It was not a good place to spend the rest of your life. It was said up there that if the desert winds didn’t dry you up and
blow you away, then the constant earthshaking sonic booms of the air force jets overhead would drive you crazy. I was contemplating this when Aronson spoke again.

  “I guess the feds really don’t fool around,” she said.

  “How do you mean?”

  “You know, a life sentence for two ounces of blow. Pretty harsh.”

  “Yeah, they’re harsh all the way around on sentencing. Which is why I don’t do federal defense. Don’t like telling clients to abandon all hope. Don’t like working out a deal with the prosecution only to have the judge ignore it and drop the hammer on my guy.”

  “That happens?”

  “Too often. I had a guy once… uh, forget it, never mind. It’s history and I don’t want to dwell on it.”

  What I did dwell on was Hector Arrande Moya and how a slick deal I made for a client ultimately landed him in Victorville with a life sentence. I hadn’t even really bothered to track the case after making the deal with a deputy DA named Leslie Faire. To me it was just another day in the salt mine. A quick courthouse deal; a hotel name and room number in exchange for a deferral of charges against my client. Gloria Dayton went into a drug rehab program instead of jail and Hector Arrande Moya went off to federal prison forever — and without knowing who or where the tip to the authorities had come from.

  Or had he?

  Seven years had gone by. It seemed beyond the realm of possibility to consider that Moya had reached out from federal prison to exact vengeance on Gloria Dayton. But no matter how farfetched the idea, it might be useful in the defense of Andre La Cosse. My job would be to make the jury second-guess the prosecution. To make at least one of the gods of guilt think for himself or herself and say, Hey, wait a minute, what about this guy up there in the desert, rotting in prison because of this woman? Maybe…

  “Did you see any hearings in the docket on a motion to produce a witness or a motion to suppress based on lack of probable cause? Anything like that?”

  “Yes, that was part of the first appeal on court error. The judge refused a motion to produce any confidential informants in the case.”

  “He was fishing. There was only one CI and that was Gloria. What about anything on the docket that is under seal? Did you see anything like that?”