Phillip Margolin - Executive Privilege

“I bet that was quite an experience.”

“Yes, it was very…interesting. Anyway, I talked to Mr. Little about his case. He says he’s innocent.”

Tuchman smiled knowingly. “I had dinner with the attorney general the last time I was in Washington. He told me he felt terrible because every person he sent to prison when he was a district attorney in Arkansas claimed he was innocent. He said he wished he could have convicted at least one guilty person.”

Tuchman laughed. Brad smiled dutifully.

“Little may actually be innocent,” he said.

Tuchman stopped smiling. “Why do you say that?”

Her tone was not friendly, and Brad guessed that she was sensing that his pro bono assignment might take more time than it was supposed to, which meant it would cut down on Brad’s billable hours.

“Uh, well, I did read the transcript of his trial and there was only circumstantial evidence connecting him to the crime.”

“Most murderers are convicted with circumstantial evidence, since any eyewitness is usually dead.”

“Still, looking at the case objectively, the key evidence against Mr. Little concerned other murders, which-by the way-he doesn’t deny committing. If the modus operandi of those cases didn’t match the MO in Laurie Erickson’s case the judge would probably have dismissed the case when the defense lawyer moved for a judgment of acquittal.”

“But it did match.”

“Well, yes.”

“So there you are.”

“Someone could have killed Laurie Erickson and copied Little’s MO.”

Tuchman sighed. She looked disappointed. Brad was glad Tuchman didn’t know about Ginny’s part in his investigation.

“You’re young, Brad, and I’m glad to see you’re still idealistic, but you’ve also got to be realistic. There are copycat killers in the movies and in legal thrillers. In real life one sick bastard does all the dirty work by himself.

“You’re also losing focus. This whole discussion is irrelevant to your assignment. You’re handling a case in which the only issue is whether Little’s trial attorney was incompetent. The guilt or innocence of Clarence Little is not your concern.”

“That’s a good point, except I’ve found evidence that could prove our client’s claim of actual innocence.”

“Evidence?”

“Yes. Mr. Little told me his alibi for the night Laurie Erickson was murdered. He claims that he was murdering another victim named Peggy Farmer in the Deschutes National Forest. He said it was impossible for him to have kidnapped Laurie Erickson from the governor’s mansion because he was too far away from Salem when Erickson was kidnapped. I checked. He’s right. If he killed Farmer he couldn’t have killed Erickson and vice versa.”

“I’m confused here, Brad. He confessed to another murder in the forest?”

“Yes. The police don’t know about it. That was his alibi, but he didn’t tell his trial attorney because he didn’t trust him.”

“How do we even know there was such a murder?”

“Uh, well I know because I dug up the corpse.”

“You what!!!”

“Actually, there was more than one. Mr. Little killed Farmer’s boyfriend, too. He told me where to find the bodies and his collection of pinkies, which was buried under a fallen tree near the corpses.”

“What pinkies?”

“Mr. Little took the pinkies of his victims as souvenirs. The police could never find them.”

Tuchman looked stunned. Her mouth was open and she was staring at Brad. He pushed on.

“Mr. Little says Farmer’s pinkie is in the jar, but Erickson’s pinkie isn’t. I have the pinkies, or rather Paul Baylor, a private forensic expert, has them. I didn’t know how to preserve them. I didn’t want the fingers to fall apart anymore than they have already or we won’t be able to test them for fingerprints. Mr. Baylor is a respected expert and he knows how to preserve, uh, body parts.”

“Oh. My God, Mr. Miller. What have you done? That’s tampering with evidence and I don’t know what else. How could you go off on your own like that without my permission?”

“I went down to the penitentiary on Saturday and I dug up the bodies on Sunday. I didn’t want to disturb you on a weekend when I didn’t know if Mr. Little was telling me the truth. And then when I did it…I just decided it would be better to tell you when you were well rested.”

“I don’t believe this.”

Tuchman took a deep breath and regained her composure. “Okay, here is what we are going to do. I’m going to get Richard Fuentes in here. He was a deputy district attorney and an AUSA before he joined the firm. You’re going to tell him what you’ve done and he’s going to figure out whether you or our firm have any criminal liability because of your impetuous actions. Then we’re going to give those fingers and the location of the bodies to the authorities. When that’s all done I’ll figure out what to do about you.”

Washington, D.C.

“There’s a call on two,” the receptionist told Keith Evans.

“Who is it?”

“He won’t give a name. He says he has information about the Charlotte Walsh case. He asked for you.”

That didn’t carry much weight with Evans, since he was on TV whenever the Bureau felt the need to hold a press conference about the case. He was tempted to shuffle the call to someone else but the investigation was stalled and you never knew.

“Evans here. To whom am I speaking?”

“I’m not going to give my name over the phone. All you need to know is that I’m a cop and I know something that may help you with the Walsh murder.”

“A cop? Look-”

“You look. I’m taking a chance here, so we do this my way. Walk over to the Mall. Go into it between the Indian museum and the Botanical Garden.”

Evans started to say something but the line was dead.

The Mall was mobbed with tourists and Evans never spotted his caller until a man wearing a lightweight jacket and tan slacks appeared at his side. He was medium height and stocky with the beginning of a beer belly. His face was flat and pockmarked and he’d compensated for his receding black hair by growing a bushy mustache.

“Officer…?” Evans started.

“Not until I get some assurances,” the man interrupted. “Then you get my name and what I know.”

“What kind of assurances?”

“That nothing happens to me if I tell you what I know.”

“Why do you need that kind of assurance?”

“It’s nothing really bad. I just bent the rules for someone and now I find out…Look, what I did was no big deal, but it could get me in trouble on the job so I want my ass protected.”

“I can’t make any promises if I don’t know what we’re talking about.”

“Okay. I’ll give you a hypothetical. Let’s say someone who wasn’t a cop called a cop and asked this cop to trace some license plates. How bad is that?”

“Not very.”

“So, what would you do for this hypothetical cop if he could give you information that might help you in a murder case?”

“I’d promise that the Bureau wouldn’t go to his boss and I’d list him as a confidential reliable informant in my reports so I wouldn’t have to use his name.”

“What if his boss found out what he’d done?”

“You understand I have no direct influence with the D.C. cops?”

The man nodded.

“The best I can promise is that I’d go to bat for him and I’d go as high up as I could in the Bureau for backing.”

“Okay, I can live with that.”

“Do you want to tell me your name?”

“It’s Victor Perez.”

“Thanks, Victor. So, tell me why we’re meeting.”