The Flaming Motel

Thursday

November 7





XXIV


The courtroom was standing room only. Dozens of lawyers and teary-eyed family members were crammed at the back, spilling through the doors and out into the hallway. The cattle call started at nine and only a handful of people got there early. Liz and I were sitting in one of the front rows by 8:30, sipping coffee and going over what I’d planned to say.

We’d gone back to the office after we left Jendrek and stayed up half the night pulling cases, preparing our argument. We had all the different tests for analyzing flight risk, we had cases that supported our position pulled, with extra copies for the Court so we could go over them right there if we had to. I’d practiced a few versions of my argument with Liz critiquing. We finally made it home at three in the morning and had a few hours of fitful sleep.

I called Wilson on the way downtown. I told him where we were headed and asked him to call me so we could meet. I promised him some new information, good information, hoping that might entice him. At a quarter to nine my cell phone rang. It was Wilson.

“Okay, I got you the file,” he said, without so much as a hello. “Now what have you got for me?”

I said, “Quick, Indy, throw me the idol, I’ll throw you the whip.”

“Huh?”

I laughed, “It was a joke.”

He barked, “Have I ever given you any reason to think I like jokes?”

He had me there. “I’m downtown at the courthouse waiting for an arraignment.”

“What’d you do?”

“It’s not for me, but it’s related to this whole mess. It seems your comrade struck again. Meet me down here and we’ll tell you about it. We can exchange info as well.”

He grunted into the phone and asked, “You’re down at the morning cattle call?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be there. Wait for me.” He hung up.

A few minutes later the court reporter came in and sat at her desk below the bench. Then a bailiff peeked into the courtroom to see what was going on. The courtroom was booming with noise. Lawyers chatting with each other, kids running in and out of the rear doors, family members speculating about what was going to happen. There was commotion in every corner of the room. Then a side door opened and two police officers came in, leading a line of men in orange jumpsuits.

The clamor in the room subsided as everyone turned to watch them come in. Each man had his wrists cuffed in front of him, but was otherwise unbound. I watched them come in, one at a time. They were all men. I wondered if there was a separate session for women or if that was just the way it worked out that morning. Surely women got arrested in Los Angeles.

Jendrek came in near the end of the line. He looked around the room, trying to spot us. Liz and I both waved our hands until we caught his eye. He grinned at us but looked tired, haggard, mildly disheveled. He sat with the others on the long bench that ran along the side of the courtroom, essentially where the jury might normally have sat. The room stayed quiet for another minute.

And then the judge came in. The bailiff made us all rise, called out his normal spiel, and a woman in her late-forties, with shoulder length salt and pepper hair poking out of her black robe entered from the back of the room and stepped up on the bench. She flashed a quick smile, told us all to be seated, and immediately got down to business.

The judge flipped through some papers she had and asked for the first case to be called. It was a black kid in his early twenties, arrested for a hit and run in the parking lot of a dance club I’d never heard of. The kid came up in front of the court and a police officer undid the handcuffs. Then the kid conferred with a lawyer in a ratty suit who looked like he was meeting his client for the first time right there at the hearing.

The judge looked impatient as the kid and his lawyer whispered back and forth. When they were done, the judge asked the kid if he understood the charges against him. He said he did. Then she asked how he pled. Not guilty. Then she set his bail at $2500 and called for the next case, an assault charge, which was handled in much the same way. Five or six cases went by like that, until a forty-something Mexican guy was called on a drug possession charge.

“Emilio Sanchez,” the judge said to the man, “you were arrested for possession of marijuana. Do you understand the charges against you?”

Sanchez unfolded a piece of paper he held in his hand and studied it. Then he answered that he understood.

“How do you plead?” the judge asked.

“Your honor, I do not wish to plead, I wish to motion for the evidence to be thrown out.”

The judge rolled her eyes and leaned forward. “On what grounds?”

Sanchez turned the paper over and read it for a few seconds, before answering, “The search of my car violates the Fourth Amendment as an illegal search and seizure.”

“Nice try, Mr. Sanchez. Your car isn’t a private space in the same way your home is.”

“But your honor, I live in my car.”

“You can’t live in your car.”

“Says who? I can live where I want.”

“Your car is on the public streets, it isn’t protected like someone’s house is. The Fourth Amendment doesn’t work that way. The police can search your car when they arrest you in connection with your car.”

“But I wasn’t inside the car.”

“It doesn’t matter. You were in control of the vehicle, Mr. Sanchez.”

Sanchez glanced over at Jendrek. Jendrek nodded his head at him, mouthing something to him that I couldn’t make out. Sanchez studied the paper he was holding, and then said, “But your honor, it was an illegal search and seizure. My car is my home. I park it on private property, which I rent.”

“Excuse me?” The judge seemed surprised by the statement.

“I rent the parking space where I park the car. Fifty dollars a month. And I live there. I was outside of the car when the police came up to me and asked me if I was drunk. If they were going to arrest me for public drunkenness, that’s one thing, but they had no right to search the car. I want the evidence they found in the car thrown out.”

Sanchez turned over the piece of paper he was holding and glanced back at Jendrek. I watched Jendrek sitting there, beaming, glowing at the judge and the cop standing behind Sanchez. The cop was just shaking his head in disbelief. The judge flipped through what appeared to be a police report, reading it through for what I imagined was the first time.

When she was done, she looked at Sanchez and said, “Mr. Sanchez, did someone help you with your argument?”

Sanchez looked down at his paper again, as though the answer to that very question was written there. Then he said, “With all respect, I can’t see how that matters, your honor.”

The judge stared at him and then uttered a short laugh. “I suppose you’re right, Mr. Sanchez. I’ve read through this police report and the officers do say that they observed that you were standing next to your car and you appeared drunk. They then asked you whether the car was yours, to which you responded that it was. They then searched the car and arrested you based on what they found as a result of that search. Unfortunately for the police, they forgot to arrest you and charge you for public drunkenness. Mr. Sanchez, I’m giving you one week to come back here with proof that you rent the parking space where the car was parked. If you do that, I’ll dismiss the charges.”

Someone in the back of the courtroom hooted in support. Sanchez turned and faced the room, smiling, giving us all a thumb’s up. The judge rapped her gavel on the bench and said, “Calm down everyone, this isn’t a free-for-all in here.” Then she asked for the next case.

“The People versus Mark W. Jendrek,” the bailiff called out.

Jendrek got up and walked over to the front. I rose and came forward, through the gate and stood next to Jendrek. The officer removed the handcuffs and Jendrek leaned over and whispered to me, “Did you like that? I made cheat sheets for twenty guys last night.”

I didn’t have time to respond, the judge peered down at us, giving Jendrek a stern look. So stern, some of it seemed to be spreading to me. I felt like I was being accused of something. “Mr. Jendrek, you’ve been charged with possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute.”

As soon as she said it, I realized I’d come up front without any cases, without my notes or anything. I felt a sudden panic. Then she asked how he wanted to plead. I jumped in.

“Your honor, we have numerous issues to contest regarding the evidence and Mr. Jendrek’s Fourth Amendment rights.”

She looked at me like she was wondering where I’d come from and said, “So is that a not guilty?”

“Not guilty, your honor,” Jendrek said.

She glanced back down at the thin file in front of her and then said, “Mr. Jendrek, nearly a pound of heroin was found in your car. This is a very serious charge.” Jendrek didn’t say anything, but the judge looked at the two of us like one of us ought to be talking.

So I said, “Your honor, we dispute the charges on every level. Mr. Jendrek is a lifelong resident of Los Angeles. He has been a licensed and practicing attorney in this city for more than twenty-five years. He is an adjunct member of the faculty of the UCLA Law School. There is absolutely zero risk of flight from this jurisdiction. Mr. Jendrek fully intends to remain here and prove his innocence.”

She flashed me a condescending smile, as if to tell me I was being cute and should shut up, and then she said, as if pulling a random figure from the air, “Fifty thousand dollars bail,” and rapped her gavel on the bench, already looking for the next case.

Jendrek smiled and said, “Well, I guess Vargas’s money is going to get put to some use.”

We waited around for Detective Wilson for about fifteen minutes, and then I started getting anxious. I wanted to get the bail posted so we could get Jendrek out. I called Wilson but couldn’t get him. Then I described him to Liz and left her at the back of the courtroom to wait for him while I went and got a cashier’s check. It didn’t take long. I was back forty minutes later, but Liz said he never showed.

The cattle call was winding down. Most of the lawyers and families had gone. Liz said they’d brought in a fresh round of detainees and they were now down to only the last few of them. Out in the hallway, we sat on a bench and studied the worn tile on the floors, the worn paint on the walls, smudged with handprints and God knows what else. Municipal courts were dreary places, stained with the residue of misery, rejection, and punishment.

I was beginning to worry that we’d missed Wilson, or that maybe he’d decided at the last minute that he didn’t want to help us. It didn’t seem like him, but I was starting to question what I knew about everyone.

Liz spoke suddenly, derailing my thoughts. “I guess I should go to the office,” she said. And then turned to me. “What do you think I should do?”

It hadn’t occurred to me. “You could make something up, or tell them you’re working on a case and need to be out of the office.”

“Nothing I’m working on requires that. It would seem odd. Maybe I should just tell them what’s going on.” She seemed to be wanting me to tell her what to do, but I couldn’t. The whole problem seemed absurdly practical and normal compared to the situation we were in.

“Maybe you should,” I said. “It might be a good idea for someone else to know what’s going on.”

She stared at me with a glassy fear in her eyes. The implication behind what I’d said surprised even me. Tell someone, in case we’re never heard from again. Was I serious? Was the situation coming to that? I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t be certain of anything.

“I’m scared,” she said, stating the obvious. “I don’t want to be by myself.”

“You wouldn’t be. You’d be at the office.”

“But what about after? Or what about driving in the car alone? I’d rather we just stayed together.”

I thought about David Daniels’s girlfriend packing her stuff and leaving town. Not a bad idea. It had its appeal. It seemed an easy solution until you had to figure out what to do with yourself. Where you were going, how you were going to survive. I imagined her clutching the piles of cash Daniels had been bringing home. That would help for a while. I supposed forty or fifty grand seemed like a lot of money to her. But it could and would be spent. It might last two years if she was lucky. And then what? Off by herself, hiding from something she wasn’t sure was coming, trying to forget about the afternoon she’d spent tied to a bed in a room off Huntington Drive.

“Then stay with me,” I said. “We might all go down together, but it’s better than being alone in the world.”

Liz gave me a funny look. I didn’t explain myself because Detective Wilson came around the corner and down the hallway toward us before I could speak. He held a thin file folder in his hand and looked harried, annoyed, and surly, just like always.

“So what the hell are you doing down here?” he asked, when he was still twenty feet away.

I said, “Let’s talk about it outside.” I introduced Liz and Wilson on the way back down the hall. Each of them was indifferent to the other. We rode the elevator in silence. Wilson drummed his fingers on the file folder and we went out the main entrance onto the wide stone entryway where the air was cool and filled with traffic noise. It was only then that I became aware of the oppression inside the courthouse.

“Is that the file?”

Wilson handed the tan folder to me and said, “I owe a guy in records a big favor for getting that.” He said it in a way that made it clear that I now owed him a favor as well. I opened it and held it so Liz could see. There were two printouts, one on each flap of the folder. Each had a picture at the top and some basic information about each officer’s career with the LAPD.

Wilson pointed at the picture on the left. “Officer Davis, the shooting officer,” then he pointed to the other, “Officer Mills, the other officer responding to the call.”

“That’s him,” Liz said, pointing at the headshot on the left. She poked it so hard I nearly dropped the file. Her voice was cold and flat. “I’m sure of it. That’s him, the one who put the gun in your face.”

I was sure too, but less sure than she was. It was dark. Everything happened fast. He looked the same, but it wasn’t an overwhelming sense of recognition. “I think you’re right,” I said.

“Are you kidding me? Of course I’m right. I was looking right at him the whole time. He was standing behind you. If anyone had a good look at him, it’s me. And I’m telling you, that’s the guy.” She turned away from us for a second and took a deep breath. When she turned back she said, “I can’t f*cking believe it was really a cop.”

I couldn’t either. Somehow, the mere possibility that it was someone faking it had kept reality at bay. Despite David Daniels’s girlfriend. Despite Jendrek’s arrest. Somehow we both still imagined and took comfort in the possibility that we were wrong. But we weren’t. Here was the guy’s picture right in front of us, direct from the files of the LAPD.

“Now hold on,” Wilson said, holding his hands out in front of him as though our words could be physically held back. “Wait a minute. You’re saying this guy is the guy who put a gun in your face and told you to stay away from Vargas?”

“That’s him,” Liz said, poking at the picture again.

“What about the other guy?” Wilson asked. “That was the other guy at the Vargas house.”

I didn’t recognize the other guy at all. Liz took the file from me and studied it for a minute. “Haven’t seen that guy before,” she said, shaking her head. “But this guy,” she pointed at the picture again. “This motherf*cker I’m certain about.”

Wilson scratched his head and looked around behind him, over his shoulder and back at us again. He seemed to be looking for something, perhaps the answer to the question what next? He combed his fingers through his cropped gray hair and said, “You’re absolutely sure? You’d testify to that?”

“Absolutely,” Liz said.

Wilson looked at me. “What about you?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Definitely.”

“Jesus f*cking Christ, this is just great.” Wilson stood with his hands on his hips, staring at the traffic going by in the street in front of the county courthouse.

Liz said, “So what do we do? Who do we talk to about this?”

Wilson glanced sideways at her and held his gaze on her for a second, sizing her up. Then he glanced at me. “Look,” he said, “we don’t do shit with this right now. I can’t just go back to the station and arrest the guy. And I can’t just go back there and start raising hell about it either. If we do, two things will happen. First, no one’s going to believe you. Or at any rate, it’ll take a helluva lot of convincing. Second, Davis will hear about it—you can’t keep a goddamned thing secret around there—and whatever he’s up to, he’ll bury it. He’ll back off. We’ve got to get more evidence first. When you go after a cop, you’ve got to be ready to go all the way, and we’re not ready yet. We’ve got no idea what he’s up to.”

“Well, we’ve got something else,” I said. “Two things, actually.” Wilson just stared at me, waiting for the big news.

“First,” I went on, “the reason we’re down here is because two cops arrested Mark Jendrek, my law partner, last night. They found a pound of heroin that had been planted in his car.”

“How do you know it wasn’t his?” Wilson asked.

I shot him a stern look. “Please,” I said, “give me a break.”

“Hey man,” he said, “I’m just asking. You can’t trust anyone.”

“Tell me about it,” I said. “But Jendrek ain’t that kind of guy. Besides, a pound? Where the hell would you even get that kind of quantity, even if you were into the stuff?”

“It’s easier than you think.”

“I’m sure it is, especially for a cop. Look, this was a setup. The cops that arrested him said they got an anonymous tip.” Wilson flashed me a grin and gave me a light roll of the eyes. He was familiar with the anonymous tip, and the abuse that went with it.

“You think it was Davis?”

“I got no idea. He described them to us. They didn’t sound like the same guys. But these pictures will clear that up. But even if it wasn’t the same guys, it would probably be Davis here who called in the tip.”

Wilson didn’t have anything to say to that. He stood quiet for a minute and then asked, “So what was the other thing?”

“What?”

“You said there were two things that helped prove Davis is up to something.”

“Oh yeah, I went to see David Daniels’s girlfriend yesterday, after I left you. She said a cop came by her place and roughed her up, asking her about Daniels.”

“The guys we sent never roughed her up.”

“This cop came after your guys. He came the next day. Said he needed to follow up on some things.” I paused for a moment and wondered how much to tell him. I had kept the details from Liz so far, but I thought Wilson would want to know. I thought it might help motivate him a little.

I said, “She showed me some bruises. Said he knocked her around pretty good. Looked pretty bad to me.” I left it at that. Then I said, “It scared her enough, she was packing her stuff, getting ready to leave town. But the most important thing of all was something she said she didn’t tell him, or your guys, for that matter.”

“What’s that?”

“David Daniels was Tiffany Vargas’s adopted brother.”

Wilson looked like he was choking on something. Surprise most likely. “Our guys didn’t find that out?”

“She said Daniels made her swear to never tell anyone. And she didn’t, until I came along.”

“And what, you’re such a charming guy she just spilled it?”

“Something like that.”

“Jesus Christ,” Wilson spat on the concrete. “You’re just one lucky guy, ain’t you?”