Jeff Sherratt - Detour to Murder

“You don’t understand. The guy deserves a new trial and I kind of agreed to take the case.”

“I wonder what they cost.”

“What? The cost of a new trial?” I said.

“The Pong thing.” Sol took a drag on his smoke. “I could get one for the staff, but only on their lunch break, mind you. We’ll have no Pong during working hours.”

“Sol, you’re not even listening to me.”

“What’s to listen? The bad guy is doing time, paying the price.”

“Look, this thing has me bugged. I represented him at his parole hearing this morning. I found mitigating facts, and opened my mouth at the wrong time.”

Sol arched an eyebrow, which I took as a sign of mild interest. So I continued. I outlined my discovery in a quick and concise manner. I explained how Roberts hadn’t murdered Haskell after all, and therefore had no motive to kill the woman. I explained how the DA had bluffed Roberts into thinking he was headed to the gas chamber. I even cited a precedent I’d looked up prior to our meeting where the courts overturned a conviction and granted a new trial once it was shown that the prosecutor had lied and withheld evidence.

I desperately needed Sol’s help with this thing. I needed new evidence for a retrial, and Sol and his staff of crack investigators would find it. That is, if any evidence existed. Also, I had to satisfy my commitment to the law. If I did what I could for Roberts and nothing came of my efforts, well then, so be it. But I had to try. Still, there was no money available and Sol’s services were expensive. He’d helped out in the past pro bono , so to speak, and he might do it now. Sol and I had worked together on a murder case a couple of years ago where the accused, a poor gardener with a family, was set up to take the fall for a powerful politician. Together we got the guy off. There was no financial payoff then. But just seeing the guy’s face when he walked out of prison and into the arms of his family was reward enough. This case wouldn’t be like that one. Roberts had no family who counted on him, and he might indeed be guilty. However, Roberts was an American citizen with a right to a fair trial and the justice system had illicitly denied him due process. I took an oath when I was admitted to the bar; the same oath the DA, Byron, took years ago when he was admitted. I swore to uphold the law and I intended to keep my word.

But all of that had nothing to do with Sol and I knew that without his help I’d just be running in circles without a chance to discover what really happened back in 1945.

As I talked, Sol listened, nodding occasionally. I was making headway. But how do I ask for his help? Should I just come out with it, or should I plant the seed and see if he volunteers? I told him that Roberts had sold his story when he was arrested and they made a movie of his ordeal, a film called Detour .

Then I said, “You’d have to get a copy of the film somehow, Sol. Maybe there’s something in the movie we could use. What do you think? Maybe we could do a little investigation of the woman’s murder. You could have one of your people snoop around-”

Sol interrupted. “Why should you care? You were just hired to be his lawyer at the hearing, right?”

“Yeah, but, there’s a chance that guy might be innocent. I’m a lawyer and he’s now my client. Hell, I took an oath. I’m an officer of the court.”

“Look, Jimmy, the guy’s probably guilty.” Sol stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray on the table. “You said yourself. He could’ve murdered the woman. But for the sake of argument let’s just say he didn’t do it. And let’s say he got screwed back in ’45 and didn’t get a shot at a trial.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly my point. You see-”

“Let me finish, okay?”

“Sorry.”

“Now listen. It happened a long time ago, almost thirty years. There is no way anything new will be found now. At any rate, if he deserves it, the parole board will cut him loose. If not, well, what can I say? It’d be best if you dropped the case. You can’t win. Why put the guy through all that? Besides, I can’t imagine the guy has any money.”

“Sol, you know he has no money and I’m certain his parole will be denied. I’ve done enough of these cases to know when the board’s going to refuse parole.” I didn’t mention to Sol that I had pissed off the board so much that even if Roberts were the reincarnation of St. Francis of Assisi, they’d keep him locked up forever on a diet of stale bread and water. “The parole board is going to send a letter of denial. I saw it in their eyes. That’s why I need your help. C’mon, Sol, Roberts deserved-no make that, society deserved a fair trial back then. The system trashed him in ’45 and for the system to work it has to be blameless, unimpeachable. It’s guaranteed in the United States Constitution.”

“Is this where I stand up and salute?”

Jeanine brought another round of drinks and a selection of hot hors d'oeuvres: chicken wings, pizza puffs, and miniature wieners impaled on a toothpick drenched in some kind of red sauce.

I took a sip of Coke. “Are you going to help me with this Roberts thing, or not?”

Sol surveyed the tidbits on the table, his head on a swivel. He settled on the little wieners. Plucking one from the plate, he held it up before his eyes like he was a noted biologist perusing a species of a rare tropical bug. “Hmm, looks good.”

He popped it in his mouth and chewed.

“Well?” I said.

“Not bad, has a hint of Tabasco.”

“Not the goddamn wiener,” I said. “Are you going to help me investigate the Roberts case?”

“Yeah, guess so. Why not?” He nodded. “Here, try one of these.” He shoved one of the little wieners at me.

I took a bite and smiled. Sol was right, a bit spicy, but not too bad.

It wasn’t the heat thatgot me down, though that was surely part of it-the thermometer hovering around the 100? mark-it was the drive out to Chino, back to the prison. It seemed to take forever. A Sig Alert had been issued. The Pomona Freeway, north of Diamond Bar, was jammed again; three lanes were blocked due to an overturned big rig.

The State had hired me to represent Roberts only at the parole hearing, nothing else. So before I could officially act on his behalf regarding matters not related to the hearing, he’d have to sign an attorney/client retainer agreement. Maybe I should’ve asked Mabel to travel out here instead to get his John Hancock on the form. Yeah, sure…

Because my visit wasn’t considered confidential, I met Roberts in the crowded visitors’ meeting room, a large well lit area with a half dozen rows of long tables placed end to end. Prisoners sat on benches with their visitors across from them. Several guards roamed the spaces between the tables and one guard, a sergeant, stood at parade rest next to the only door leading in and out of the room. The low murmur of voices reverberated off the concrete walls as inmates and their visitors-a few men, but mostly women-leaned into one another and talked. Some held hands across the table, and some had tears in their eyes, but for most it was blank stares from hollow faces.

One of the guards escorted me to Roberts. He sat bunched with prisoners in the middle of a table placed along the far wall. He didn’t say anything, just nodded, when I squeezed in tight between a man on my right and woman on my left and sat facing him. The guy to my right, a slab-sided Hispanic with tattoos up and down his arms, gave me a quick look and squirmed in his seat before turning his attention back to the inmate he was there to see.

After explaining to Roberts that I needed his signature on the form in order for me to continue to represent him, he perked up, looked around and whispered, “Someone finally gives a shit about my case. I don’t understand why, but I’m grateful just the same.”