Steve Martini - The Arraignment

Some county supervisors operate like feudal lords. They are untouched by the restrictions of term limits and largely ignored by the glare of the news media that is interested only in covering the A-list in Washington and the state capital. Supervisors in large counties in this state have constituencies larger than members of Congress. They reign over districts more vast than the Spanish land grants. And like the colonial dons of early California, some are in the habit of exercising unquestioned authority.

In a state where many citizens don’t read, write, or speak English, where voters trudge through their daily existence like vassals, paying their taxes and asking few questions, a well-greased machine can maintain power for decades on nothing but its own perpetual motion. If you want your streets swept, your sewers unplugged, and the doors to your health clinic kept open, you’d better sign on to your local supervisor’s oath of fealty. In some shining communities, it has reached the level of Stalin’s utopian state. Here it no longer matters who votes. It only matters who counts the vote. It’s the old ward system, alive and well in sunny Southern California.

“So our man Tresler is the common thread between Dana, Metz, and Fittipaldi. Their ticket to the arts commission. So what does it mean?” says Harry.

“Probably nothing,” says Tolt.

“You don’t think Tresler was in somebody’s pocket?” says Harry.

“If it was anybody else, I’d say only up to his elbows,” says Adam. “But Tresler doesn’t need the money.”

“The devil’s got a corner on sin, but he still wants more,” says Harry. My partner is a firm believer in the dark side of man.

“He’s into power, yes. Taking bribes-you can look, but my guess is you’re wasting your time. The fact of the matter is he had to appoint somebody. Why not the people who gave him money for his campaign? Sorry to say, but I have given in that cause myself,” he tells us. “As well as a few others.”

This doesn’t surprise either Harry or me.

“It’s hard to tote your load without greasing the skids,” says Adam. “We all pretend it’s not extortion, just the exercise of our First Amendment rights. Still there are times when most of us would rather not engage in that form of expression.”

“Maybe we should see who else gave?” I say.

Tolt gives me a “What do you mean?” expression.

“Check Nick, Dana, Metz, our friend Nathan Fittipaldi. There should be disclosure statements filed someplace.”

“My guess is it won’t tell you anything you don’t already know. Everybody who is anybody is likely to show up on Tresler’s list,” says Adam.

“All the same, we’ll take a look.”

It will tell me one thing: whether Dana gave in her own name. She told me that she didn’t know Tresler. Now I want to know if she told me the truth.

Harry makes a note on the back of one of Adam’s business cards, snatched from the little holder on his desk.

“What I can’t understand,” says Tolt, “is why Nick would enter into a business arrangement with Metz?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. But it does seem that Metz was obsessed with getting Nick on the hook for legal work.”

This sets a few more wrinkles in Adam’s forehead. “That’s the part that bothers me most. It has a connection to the firm, and I don’t like it. It seems to me this would only make sense if this business, this Jamaile whatever it was, was intended as an import-export conduit for drugs. In which case Nick’s services would be a major asset.”

He looks at me to see if I have any other theories. I don’t.

“I like to think Nick got cold feet,” he says. “That he thought about it and either decided not to, or that if he got involved, the better angles of his nature asserted themselves, and he wanted out.”

“Maybe that’s why they killed him?” says Harry.

“That was an accident, remember?” says Tolt.

“Oh. Right,” says Harry.

The room falls quiet as we consider scenarios of what might have happened in Nick’s life. Only the ticking of the antique regulator clock on the wall breaks the silence.

“There is a possibility,” says Adam. He is still deep in thought, fingers now steepled, forefingers touching his lower lip as his brain tries to untangle the human equation.

“Of course it’s only a theory,” he says. “It wouldn’t do to talk about it, especially right now with the question of insurance and accidental death in the air.” He looks at Harry and me, looking for agreement on a vow of silence.

“What’s one lawyer’s theory, but a guess?” I say.

“Right. But consider for a moment. What if Metz was drawing Dana in, trying to get her involved, let’s assume for the moment anyway, without her knowledge, in some extralegal activity.”

“To what purpose?” says Harry.

“In order to gain leverage over Nick,” he says.

“She says she didn’t know Metz that well. They’d only talked a few times,” I tell him.

“Yes. But it would explain Nick’s efforts to palm Metz off on you, wouldn’t it?” he says. “To put some distance between himself and this man, while protecting his wife.” Adam is a man well studied in human motivations.

“Go on.”

“If the two men weren’t getting along,” he says, “Nick might threaten to blow the whistle. If that’s what happened, Nick could have become a very real threat to them, to the people who killed them.”

“You mean the people on the other end of the drug connection?” says Harry.

Tolt nods.

“I just don’t think Nick would have ever gotten involved in drugs,” I tell them.

“I don’t like to think of one of my partners doing it either,” says Adam, “but stranger things have been known to happen, human nature being what it is. And you have to admit, from all appearances, the Rushes must have been having some financial difficulties.” He glances down at the spreadsheet from Nick’s client trust account on the desk in front of him.

It’s one of the unanswerable questions. Where did all the money that Nick made over the years go? Without an audit, canceled checks from his accounts, credit card receipts, we will never know.

Adam sits up from his brief reverie. “In any event, for the time being it wouldn’t do to engage in too much idle speculation about victims. Especially now that a certain insurance carrier is getting ready to dip its pen in the ink pot and put its signature to a check.”

“Point well taken,” says Harry.

“What are we going to do about this other thing?” says Tolt. He means the forged trust account checks.

“Let me talk to Dana.”

“Fine. Just don’t take too long.”

I take I-5 south from the Coronado bridge and accelerate into the middle lane, past Logan Heights. At National, I take the freeway off-ramp and head east. In my rearview mirror I can see the giant vapor lights from the naval shipyard as they infuse their eerie orange glow into the looming cloud deck that hangs over the bay.

It is nearly nine o’clock. Midweek traffic at this hour of the night is light. A fine mist covers my windshield.

The streets are empty except for a few souls wandering aimlessly. The only businesses lit up at this hour are liquor stores and a few taverns.

It takes twenty minutes to find the street Espinoza mentioned during our last conversation at the federal lockup. I have confirmation that at least this much of what he told me is true.

The neighborhood exudes the kind of aura picked up by a sixth sense that lingers and lifts the hair on the back of my neck. It is not a place I’d want to walk my dog at night unless the pup has sharp teeth, likes red meat, and can outrun a bullet.