“Good morning, Boss. Shall I make the coffee?”
“No, Rita, it’s been made, but I’ve got something for you to do right now.”
“Okay.”
I took a number-ten envelope from my desk and handed it to her. “I want you to take this to the mailbox on the corner and pretend to mail it.”
“What is this all about?” she asked, flipping the envelope over in her hand.
“Rita, when you get to the mailbox, look around to see if you spot a blue Buick parked somewhere close by.”
“Jimmy, what’s the story?”
“Just look for the car, okay?”
“Sure, but I’ll save the envelope; money’s tight, you know.” She winked.
“That’s why you’re the money manager around here.”
While waiting for Rita to return, I made the call to Thomas French’s office. He probably wasn’t there. He’d be out helping little old ladies cross the street.
A female voice answered. “Law office. May I help you?”
“Mr. French, please. Jimmy O’Brien calling about a matter involving his client, Senator Welch.”
“Mr. French is away from the office.” Her voice turned cold, like a wind from the north. Her lips must be purple.
“I’ll leave my number. Please have him call me back. It’s important. I have a hearing in a few days and I need to discuss an urgent matter regarding his client.”
The frosty voice said French was in court and would check his messages during the break. But if he called me back, it wouldn’t be until court adjourned, in the afternoon.
French might not know anything about Welch’s affair with Gloria Graham. Even if he did, I doubted that he would be willing to discuss it. He would only tell me facts already in the police report. I needed to go eyeball to eyeball with the Senator himself to see if he’d blink when I mentioned his romance with Gloria. But if I handled French right, maybe he could arrange a meeting. I figured I’d have to hound him until he answered my calls.
Rita returned, humming a pleasant tune I didn’t recognize. She came into my office and handed me the envelope.
“I saved the envelope,” she said, smiling. “But I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.”
“You didn’t see a blue Buick?”
“Let me see…there was a pick-up truck and a bug, you know a V-dub. I think it belongs to the guy in the State Farm office next door. And two or three other cars parked close.”
“How about a blue car, a sedan? Maybe some guy sitting in the driver’s seat?”
“Well, yes, but it was down by the corner. Some big guy sitting behind the wheel,” Rita said. “He was giving me the eye. I just figured he liked the way I looked.”
“I’m sure he did,” I said.
Rita turned to leave, then stopped. “Is this trouble, Jimmy?”
“No, of course not. It seems I’ve picked up a tail.” I leaned back in my chair and tried to appear unconcerned. It didn’t make sense to worry her. “Someone’s trying to intimidate me. That’s all,” I said. “If they were pros, out to do harm, we wouldn’t have seen them or the car.”
“Jimmy, this is giving me the creeps.”
“Rita, forget about it.”
“Are you sure?”
“There’s nothing to worry about.” Okay, so I lied.
I needed answers. After Rita went back to the outer office, I sank into my chair and tried to think. Why was the guy in the Buick tailing me? Who’d care enough about a small-time murderer to send thugs out to scare me off? Another thing bothered me: why did Johnson pick me to represent the accused in the first place? And why’d he get so upset when Rodriguez wanted to plead not guilty? There had to be answers and there was one man who could give them to me.
“I’ll be gone for a while,” I told Rita as I blew by her.
C H A P T E R 10
With the blue Buick trailing three or four car lengths behind, I drove west on Firestone, heading to the South Gate Municipal Court. I parked and walked directly to Division III, Judge Johnson’s courtroom. I pounded on the door to his chambers. His clerk stuck her head out. “Judge Johnson is busy at the moment, Mr. O’Brien.”
“It’s imperative that I speak to him right now.”
Johnson shouted from behind the door, “What do you want, O’Brien?”
“Bob, I need to see you, now.”
“You want to see me, ex parte? Have you notified the D.A.’s office?”
“This is off the record.”
“Look, Jimmy, I’m busy. I’m preparing for a hearing. It’s coming up in an hour.”
“It will only take a minute. It’s about the Rodriguez case.”
“All right. But I can only give you five minutes.”
Johnson sat behind his perfectly organized desk, not a paper or file in sight. He wore an expensive, yellow alpaca sweater. The clerk shook her head slowly as she left the room, carrying a stack of papers.
I sat in one of the tufted leather chairs facing his desk. “Nice sweater,” I said, glancing at the golf bag leaning against the wall in the corner.
“You’ve got four minutes left,” he replied with a hard look on his face. I figured he was still steamed over my inability to bring in the guilty plea.
“You give me what I want, and it won’t take that long,” I said.
“You let me down. We were friends. I trusted you, tossed you a bone, and you let me down.”
“I’ll get straight to the point, Bob. Something’s not right about the Rodriguez case. I’ve got thugs following me around. Rodriguez is a gardener, for chrissakes, not a mob boss. Who gives a damn about him? And, by the way, why’d you pressure me to get a guilty plea anyway?”
“Calm down, Jimmy. Nobody pressured you. I tried to help you out, give an old buddy a break. That’s all.”
“C’mon, Bob. You wanted a guilty plea for a reason, and you forced the deputy D.A. to go along with it.”
He rose from his chair. “Who are you to come busting in here, Christ almighty?”
“I’ll tell you who I am,” I said, my voice rising. “I’m the patsy you conned into taking the case.”
He stood and looked at me for a moment. Then, before saying anything, he sat down again. “Are you going to calm down and listen to reason, or are you going to continue to make a fool of yourself?”
“Something around here smells and you know it.” I paused. “Tell me this, Bob. Are you protecting Welch?”
“That’s absurd. Welch didn’t kill the girl. He told me he was in love with her, dumb shmuck. But the cops had the killer, and Welch was running for re-election. The campaign couldn’t stand a scandal.”
“Welch wanted the case wrapped up nice and tight. Didn’t he?”
“Of course he wanted it wrapped up, wanted a conviction before the muckrakers and his political enemies tore into his hide and blew it all out of proportion.” He leaned back in his chair and studied my face. “Surely, you can understand his position, and mine as well. I’m up for reelection too, and I’m on Welch’s campaign committee, for chrissakes. But my obligation to the bench comes before politics. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Nothing wrong? You have a conflict, and Rodriguez got the shaft!”
“Whoa, slow down. Welch has an unimpeachable alibi, four hundred miles away at the time of the murder. I was with him in Sacramento at his fund-raising dinner. Everybody was there having a good time, great entertainment-Robert Goulet, and a comedian, Foster Brooks. The guy was hilarious, did a drunk routine.”
“I don’t care about the dinner or the show. I want to get to the bottom of this. Maybe Welch didn’t kill her, maybe he did; don’t ask me how. But I’m saying there are other factors to consider. I think the cops made a rush to judgment. Rodriguez was a very convenient fall guy.”
“Look, Jimmy, I went to law school and took the same courses you did. Even the one where we learned, ‘When you’re up a creek, lay the blame on someone else.’ It was called Reasonable Doubt 101. You’d better come up with something other than what you’re implying. No jury is going swallow a line of bull like that.”