“It wasn’t me,” Donnally said. “What’s the storyline?”
“What do you think it is? How the fucking DA’s office fucked up and let a fucking maniac get away with a fucking murder for over twenty fucking years.”
Donnally heard the beep of an incoming call. “Hold on.” He connected the call. “Harlan Donnally.”
“It’s me.” It was his waitress at the cafe. “I got a couple of calls from the press. Apparently you’re the hero.”
“What did they want?”
“A picture of your handsome face and to find out how you got involved in this.”
“What did you tell them?”
“What could I tell them? I don’t have a clue.”
Donnally imagined camera crews camping out in front of Mauricio’s junkyard and ex-prosecutors and marginal defense lawyers standing by in a cable news studio, all made giddy by a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction elixir of murder, attempted rape, a maniac on the loose, incest, and patricide.
“Tell them I was doing research for a book and happened to run across the case.”
“Really? What’s it about?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She laughed. “I get it.”
“Try to sound sincere.”
Donnally reconnected to Blaine. “You seem a little deficient in the adjective department today.”
“Asshole.”
“And the noun department.”
Donnally heard Blaine drop into his chair.
“You know what else is going on?” Blaine said.
“All I know is what you’re telling me.”
“The Crime Victims for Justice group held a press conference on the courthouse steps. They want the state attorney general to take over the prosecution, claiming that we’re incompetent. And get this. The Albert Hale Foundation jumped in.”
“The what?”
“Albert Hale Foundation. Some kind of do-gooder organization put together by some rich guy who’s never been robbed.”
“What’s their angle?”
“That Brown has been abused by the courts and failed by the mental health system.”
Donnally’s anger shifted from Brown to his equally misguided defenders. “Sounds like they’ve forgotten who the victim is.”
“Hey, man, this is California.”
Chapter 14
B rown was already seated at the defense table, handcuffed to his chair, when Donnally and Blaine had walked into the courtroom. He was bracketed by two attorneys that neither of them recognized.
One bailiff sat five feet behind Brown and another next to the low swinging doors leading to the gallery.
“People versus Charles Brown.”
Donnally sat down behind the barrier as Blaine walked up to the prosecution table and faced Judge Julia Nanston.
“Thomas Blaine for the People.”
The thickset woman sitting next to Brown rose to her feet.
“Margaret Perkins substituting in for the public defender.”
Blaine glanced at Perkins, then said to Judge Nanston. “Your Honor-”
Judge Nanston raised her palm toward Blaine, then glared down at the new attorney.
“Ms. Perkins, two weeks ago I gave the public defender a date certain. And that date is today. The people of this state have waited over twenty years for a resolution in this case.” Nanston removed her half-height reading glasses, then pointed a thin finger at Perkins. “If this is some kind of stunt to get a continuance…”
Perkins smoothed the front of her gray suit. She looked to Donnally like an army captain adjusting her dress uniform.
“No, Your Honor. We’re ready to proceed.”
“And your colleague, for the record?”
“Doris Tevenian of my firm, Schubert, Smith, and Barton.”
Blaine’s head swung toward Tevenian, then toward Donnally, his eyes asking, Who’s paying for this? Then he mouthed the question, Albert Hale?
Donnally knew SSB’s reputation as one of the most expensive firms in the nation. Because of their ages, Donnally guessed that Perkins and Tevenian were partners, which meant that between them and their two assistants, the case was costing more than two thousand dollars an hour.
“Just to make sure we understand each other,” Judge Nanston said. “I hope you don’t think you’re making a special appearance to give yourself some time to see whether you want to take the case. You’re in for the duration.” Nanston nodded twice, expecting Perkins to nod along. She did. “Even if that means a forest of motions and a three-month trial.”
Tevenian rose. “Yes, Your Honor.”
Judge Nanston looked at Blaine. “Any objection?”
“No, Your Honor, but the People want some assurance that the defendant consents to the substitution. There are appeal issues to be considered.”
The judge looked down at Brown. “Mr. Brown, would you like Ms. Perkins and Ms. Tevenian to represent you?”
“I don’t want no public defender. I want a real lawyer.”
Judge Nanston smiled, then looked at Blaine. “May I take that as a yes?”
“W hat the hell is SSB doing in this case?” Blaine asked Donnally as they walked down the ninth floor hallway toward his office.
“Does it make a difference?”
“No. But I’ll tell you something that will.” Blaine stopped and turned toward Donnally. “The jailhouse informant that we were going to use in Brown’s original trial died of a heroin overdose ten years ago. He was the only one who heard Brown confess.”
“Did he testify in any pretrial hearings?”
“Nope. So we’ve got no testimony that would be admissible now.”
They walked a few more steps, then Donnally realized that Blaine’s complaint was a setup.
Donnally stopped. “What are you saying?”
“Maybe we should…” Blaine let his voice trail off.
Donnally’s fists clenched. “Let him be found incompetent again?”
“But we’ll keep an eye on him.”
“Like you did for the last two decades?”
“At least we’re sure to keep him locked up for another ten years-”
“And then he falls through the cracks again and walks out the door?”
Blaine folded his arms across his chest. “The risk of going to trial is that he walks out sooner, either on a not guilty by reason of insanity or on a lesser offense.”
“You mean a manslaughter?”
“Exactly. Say Brown gets up there and says it wasn’t premeditated. It was just an accident or heat of passion or some kind of sex play that went bad. Nobody remembers what a gem Anna Keenan was. Most jurors will think she was just a Berkeley weirdo and will be prepared to believe anything.”
Donnally pointed a finger at Blaine’s chest. “It’s your job to make sure they don’t.”
“Not mine alone, pal. If you want to bury Brown, then you’ll have to be my first witness at the competency hearing.”
“And testify to what? I’m not a shrink.”
“You’ll testify that even with you catching him by surprise, he was able to articulate that he’d been accused of murder and that he was thinking clearly and quickly enough to come up with a fake manslaughter defense that would cut his jail time in half.”
Blaine spread his arms to encompass the courthouse.
“That alone makes him more competent than ninety percent of the crooks that come through here.”
Blaine chuckled, but Donnally didn’t laugh with him.
“Most of them don’t figure out how they’re going to fight their cases until halfway through trial.”
Chapter 15
D onnally watched Thomas Blaine jump to his feet and shoot his hand out toward Margaret Perkins.
“That’s not the issue, Your Honor. The question isn’t whether the defendant is mentally ill or even developmentally disabled. It’s whether he’s competent to stand trial. Now. Right now. Not twenty years ago.”
Judge Julia Nanston glared down at the prosecutor.
“For the third time I’m telling you. No… speaking… objections. The only words I want to hear out of you are ‘objection’ and ‘relevance.’ If the basis of your objection isn’t obvious, I’ll ask for an explanation.”
Nanston made a note on the yellow legal pad before her. The flourish of her pen stroke gave Donnally an edgy feeling, as though she viewed the evidentiary battle as just a game and she was keeping score.