Fox is Framed (4 page)

As the afternoon sun declined, we gathered in the front yard to see them off, like a wedding party watching newlyweds embark. Lawrence, having been persuaded to accept Dot as a driver, fit the helmet she'd brought him onto his head and swung his leg over the saddle. As Dot kicked the bike to life he wrapped his arms around her and held on tight. Dot pumped her fist, sounded the horn, and bore him away.

Chapter 5

I hadn't been quite straight with Lawrence when I praised the public defender's office before his release. In fact, I'd known it was unlikely that an attorney from there would be appointed. A man named Keith Locke was in prison after having pleaded guilty to attempting to murder my brother. Locke had been defended by the San Francisco public defender's office. That was enough of a conflict of interest to keep the PD from also representing my father, so it was no surprise to me when later that week they filed a notice of conflict. This resulted in so-called conflict counsel being appointed for Lawrence. What it meant was that a private attorney from the court's panel would be paid on an hourly basis to juggle Lawrence's case along with those clients who'd chosen her to be their lawyer.

Wednesday morning, Teddy and I caught the BART into the city for our first meeting with the new lawyer. Her name was Nina Schuyler, and her office was on Sixth Street south of Market, not far from Teddy's old building. Lawrence and Dot arrived soon after we did, Dot parking her bike on the sidewalk. A bored-seeming security guard looked the four of us over, took a peek inside the file box I'd lugged with me on the train, then summoned the elevator to take us up.

I hadn't seen my father since he rode off with Dot after our welcome home party last week. He seemed harried. Dot was short with him. Maybe they were just nervous. They'd never been allowed to touch, and now they were living together. Neither would look me in the eye.

Four of the five chairs in the third-floor waiting room were occupied. The lone woman, white, wore short short cutoffs and a fringed vest. She sat beside a sprawling man dressed completely in red. There was an empty chair, and on the other side an Asian kid scratching at a bandage. Beside him sat a middle-aged Latino. The office had potted trees and framed prints by Kandinsky, cubist Picasso, and Chagall. The carpeting was aged but clean, and the large windows admitted plenty of light.

A quick online search had revealed that Nina Schuyler had graduated from law school in 1996, three years before me. She'd worked for the San Francisco public defender's office for six years, then opened her own practice. She'd tried a few high-profile murder cases and made something of a name for herself. She was just thirty-three, two years older than I was, having graduated from Stanford and begun her studies at Berkeley at the age of twenty-one.

We didn't have to wait long before the inner door opened and Nina came out, tall but slight, long limbed but not willowy. She had a piano player's delicate-fingered hands, and dark hair swept back from a no-bullshit face. She wore suit pants and a sleeveless blouse, and she studied her BlackBerry as she walked.

“Marcella, who are all these people? I told you I'm booked solid today.”

Her receptionist just shrugged, not taking her eyes from the phone screen. “They say they want to see you. I tell them you're booked, but they think if they wait, then maybe . . .”

“Excuse me for a moment,” Nina said to my father. Putting a hand on my arm, she stepped around me. “I'm not taking new clients now,” she announced to the room. “Even if I were, I wouldn't have time today. And even if I had time, you'd need appointments. Marcella can give you the names of attorneys I refer cases to. Other­wise, I'm afraid you're only wasting your time.”

The man in red started to rise, but she turned without seeing him, the room instantly becoming invisible to her, her body language communicating refusal so clearly and forcefully that the pimp sat back down.

Nina held the door as we filed into an inner hallway, me lugging the file box. As the door closed I heard her would-be clients begin talking all at once.

“You're having to beat them off,” I said. She was an attractive woman and I wanted her to notice me.

“I swear to God, if it weren't for the trouble of having to hire someone to replace her, Marcella would be out on the street.” Nina showed us past a small, cluttered office and a tiny kitchen to a small conference room. On the table were a vase of lilies, a water pitcher, a coffee carafe, and three fresh legal pads and pens. “Nina Schuyler,” she said. “Call me Nina. Please, set down your things.”

I put the box on the floor and we took our seats. “I've followed your case with interest. And was thrilled to get the draw. I've read the court's order, and I've read the briefs. Yours was well done,” she said to Teddy, who simply nodded. Despite all her years practicing in the city, she made no direct acknowledgment of his reputation. Lawrence introduced Dot, and Nina graciously took her hand.

I gave her one of my cards. “Leo Maxwell.”

She placed the card on the pad in front of her. “Here are my ground rules. Right now, it's a bit crowded in this room for my taste. I'm happy to keep the two of you informed, but you shouldn't expect to be included in decisions. You'll sit in the gallery, not at the counsel table. You won't be second chairing this trial. This is a vessel with one captain, and that captain is me.”

“Okay,” I said. She appeared not to notice the look my father was giving her. “You want Teddy and me to take a walk?”

She considered the question. “No. You can stay. You all can, for now.” She turned a few pages of the file in front of her, which as yet was thin. “We're set for a probable cause hearing next Friday,” she said, reading from her notes. “According to the court's order, motions to dismiss will be heard at that time. Briefing is due”—she consulted the file again—“in two days.”

“Leo can handle that,” my father said. “I don't want us asking for a delay.”

I offered her an apologetic look, only to be shut out by the intensity of her focus. “It would be a mistake to give the state more time,” she said, carefully returning Lawrence's stare. “You know how they're using this time.”

He held her gaze grudgingly, then looked away. “I have a pretty good idea.”

Nina leaned slightly back in her chair, now including me, Teddy, and Dot in her attention. “They're interviewing your old cell mates, everyone you might have spoken to during all those twenty-one years you spent in prison. Most men who do time, like you, make enemies inside. I'd be very surprised if you were any different.”

Teddy leaned forward. “You're saying they're trying to drum up a snitch.”

“Isn't that where you'd direct your efforts if you were in their position? In a case like this one, DNA or other physical evidence couldn't possibly be conclusive, given your marriage to the victim. And after so many years, it's unlikely that any new eyewitness would come forward. No, I think their only path to a conviction is through your own words, something you let slip to someone who now believes he might have something to gain. Or just as likely, something you didn't say. What other new evidence could the district attorney hope to find after all this time?”

I watched Dot out of the corner of my eye, wondering what she made of my father's alleged crime. If Dot had never bargained on him being released, she certainly hadn't signed on for this.

My father had gone pale. I saw his fear and knew Nina was right: an informant was the state's easiest route to conviction. I'd thought they might revisit whatever evidence they had, test it for DNA, but a match would be meaningless. My mother had been killed in the home she shared with Lawrence, and his DNA would naturally be all over any sample collected from the scene. A snitch, on the other hand, didn't need science, and such testimony would be free of the taint of the prosecutorial misconduct that had served as the grounds for the judge's order reversing my father's conviction. No doubt San Quentin was full of men willing to give false testimony for a ticket out of prison.

Nina went on. “From news reports covering the bail hearing it's clear that the judge is disposed to dismiss the case. So we have to move quickly, before the state has time to locate or manufacture the evidence that will convince him otherwise. That's why I'm not planning to ask for a postponement, even though I don't expect to be fully prepared for the preliminary hearing.”

My father's eyes were shut. When he opened them his expression was unreadable. But, to me, he looked as if he knew already that the police would find the informant they were looking for. “Okay.”

Dot put her hand on his arm, gripping it above the elbow, but he didn't react.

“So do you believe I'm on your side?” Nina asked.

“I'll believe anything if it'll keep me out of prison.”

“As for your suggestion that Leo draft the brief that's due in two days, I think it's a smart one, given that I've just come on board.”

“I already made a start,” I told her. “An outline.”

“Then you should be able to send me a draft tomorrow.”

I was annoyed by her assumption that I might have nothing else to do, but merely said, “Fine. I'll have it for you tomorrow afternoon.”

“Very good.” She gave me a quick smile, which had the warming effect it was intended to have on me. “Now why don't you show me what you have in that box.”

Before I could open the box, Dot rose, as if afraid what the contents might reveal. “Sorry,” she said. “But your lawyer doesn't want me here, and the truth is I don't want to stay. This is the unfinished business. There are things here that I don't want to see.”

“You'll be at the trial,” Nina said. “That's what's important.”

“Of course,” Dot said and went out, with a quick smile at Lawrence. Nina looked worried. I could see that it took all Lawrence's self-control to let Dot go. When the sound of her bike had faded from the street, half of his attention seemed to have fled with it.

Over the course of the next ninety minutes Teddy and I walked Nina through the old case file, with Lawrence offering details as needed. Then Teddy outlined his theory of Keith Locke's guilt and our father's innocence. If Nina was skeptical she kept it to herself for now.

We made a few decisions, none earth-shattering. First came a no-brainer, that Lawrence wouldn't testify at the probable cause hearing. Because the standard for finding probable cause was so low, the defense rarely put on any evidence. Typically the only effect was to give the prosecution a preview of the defense's case. Second and more significant was that Lawrence and I would begin making a list of prisoners who might hold grudges, men who might be tempted to give false testimony to put him back where they were.

“If they find a witness, they'll try to keep his identity secret as long as possible,” Nina said. “I'll need to be prepared to make an argument and cite cases saying why we need to know who the informant is.”

“I have a pretty good investigator I use on most of my cases,” I said. “I'll put him to work.”

Leaning back in her chair, she stretched her arms, surveying the table crammed with transcripts, notes, and photographs. “Make sure you get me a good list of anyone who might testify against him. A complete list,” she emphasized. She was addressing me, not my father. “That's the main thing.”

I gave a nod. It hadn't escaped me that she'd avoided asking Lawrence whether he'd confessed to anyone inside. If he'd confessed, and told her so, ethically she wouldn't be able to put him on the witness stand later to deny the confession. Her comment made clear—in terms that only another lawyer would understand—that it would be my role to get vital information from my father and pass it on to her in sanitized form, allowing her to learn what she needed to know, and nothing more. This arrangement would free her to ethically and imaginatively defend his case. It was clear she was taking all the precautions a good defense lawyer would take with a client whom she believed to be guilty.

Without further ceremony she rose. “Now if you don't mind, I'm going to try to put all this in some kind of order, and start on the research I'll need for Friday. We'll speak again tomorrow after I've reviewed your motion.”

~ ~ ~

“About that list,” I said to Lawrence when the three of us were on the train back to Oakland. He'd decided to spend the afternoon at the office with us, and then I would give him a ride to San Rafael. “Don't leave anyone off. I don't need to know why the names are on there.”

He was staring into the blackness of the Transbay Tube outside the window. Looking at me, he said, “She thinks I confessed.”

For a moment I wasn't sure whom he meant, Dot or Nina. If that's what Nina thought, she must have considered me some kind of deluded half-wit, I reflected, working to free the man who'd killed my mother. I remembered Dot's sudden departure. Suddenly, the familiar doubt surged through me, and I had to push it down. “She's a good lawyer. It doesn't matter what she believes.” Hesitating, I then said, “Look, I hope that you and Dot are able to enjoy this time.”

He glanced across the aisle. “I don't want to
enjoy
myself. I can bring in business, you know. I'm not a lawyer anymore, but if I have someone handling the cases, I can work them.”

“Prisoner lawsuits? I'm not that desperate. But stick around.”

“Appeal work, for a start. Guy gets convicted, sentenced, people inside refer him to me. We write the appeal, make a few gestures of appreciation—it wouldn't take much—and pretty soon you've got a steady stream of paying clients.”

It sounded pretty implausible to me. “I'm a trial lawyer, not an appellate lawyer. I make the messes, I don't clean them up.”

“Maybe, but this contingency work of yours—these civil cases—the defense lawyers have to be afraid of you or they won't pay. You and I both know they're not going to be afraid of Teddy anymore.” Lawrence spoke intently, peering into my face, his eyes avoiding his older son's. Teddy registered the slight only in a faint tightening of his shoulders, a readiness for a movement that never came. It angered me that Lawrence could be so blunt in front of him.