Wrongful Convictions, page 10
“I need to speak with the Chairman.” Her raspy voice spoke through the small prepaid mobile phone.
“May I ask who is calling?” An elderly native woman answered. Tess had no idea who worked in his office now that her mother was gone. When she was a kid, she had known everyone.
“Tess Whitebird.” She was placed on hold and waited there for what seemed like a very long time. Finally the Chairman’s voice came back over the line.
“Chairman Banks.” He had the confident powerful voice of a leader. Tess still thought it was very sexy, even though he was married.
“Clifford, I thought you would be interested to know who I saw yesterday.”
“Tess.” His voice softened as if he didn’t trust his secretary to actually identify his callers. “It is good to hear from you. So tell me, who did you see?”
“Marcel Wright.” The words cut a silence that made it feel as though the phone were disconnected.
“Your sure?” The phone was still connected.
“I talked to him in person,” She continued. A feeling of importance enveloped her. It was a foreign feeling. She hadn’t been an important person to anyone in a long time. She supposed that was why she liked the Chairman as much as she did, because he had always made her feel like she was important. It reminded her of when she was sixteen and dating Henry. It was a little sad to her to think that she was more important when she was a teenager than she was now.
Henry had been someone; people had listened to him, and when she was with him, people had given her respect. When he was killed, so was her sense of self. The Chairman had given it back to her.
“Tell me all about it.” She could hear that she had the Chairman’s full attention and she planned to tell him the whole story.
Tess felt conflicted about the call; once upon a time Marcel had been like family, but he had abandoned her after all. He had left her with her sorrow, and no one to share her pain. She suffered more than sorrow and heartbreak. She had also been afraid. The summer Henry was killed had been a violent one on the rez and without him around to protect her, Tess had been afraid to even go to the Y-mart to pick up milk for her mom.
It wasn’t simply Marcel’s abandonment of her that allowed her to make the call. She also didn’t feel like the Chairman had any ill will towards Marcel. She wasn’t certain exactly what business the Chairman had with Marcel, but she knew he was a good man who had done much to improve the lives of the people on the reservation. Her mother had put her faith in the man and that was enough for her. The Chairman was a sheppard and Marcel was a part of the flock, even if he was a lost sheep.
22
Joanne read the write up a second time. She couldn’t believe what she saw. She didn’t really know Marcel, but Shannon had spoken very highly of him over the summer. Her TA had been right. Marcel was a prodigy and together they had hit a homerun with their presentation and write-up on this case. They had found something no one else on the case had seen and if they were correct it was certainly a factor that could raise a new trial on appeal. Though it was an impressive theory, it was a theory nonetheless. The likelihood of hitting pay dirt was pretty slim, but even if their theory fell apart, it was impressive. Either way, these were two students she was definitely going to keep her eye on.
She was yanked from her thought by a knock at her door. She was sitting in her office on the upper floor of the law school. It was almost eight o’clock at night and there weren’t many other professors still in the building, only those who had night classes, and they were in session right now.
“It’s open.” She always left her door ajar when she was there.
Two men in their late twenties entered her office. She didn’t recognize them as students. Both were tall and bronzed from the sun. One wore a straw cowboy hat over straight blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. The other had shaggy, long tan hair and looked like a surfer. They both wore western style shirts unbuttoned low enough to reveal chiseled pectorals. The cowboy wore a sharks tooth pendant around his neck that looked real. The surfer wore puka shells. The cowboy finished his ensemble with a belt buckle and cowboy boots. The surfer, board shorts and flip flops.
“Can I help you?” she inquired of the strangers.
The men came in and the surfer closed the door behind them. The gesture made Joanne nervous. Working with criminal defense was a relatively dangerous field of law, nothing like family law, but there were certainly unsavory characters abound.
“I think we can help each other,” The cowboy responded. He had an accent maybe Australian.
“Do I know you?” Joanne was trying to formulate an escape plan but the men had the door blocked and the office was on the second floor.
“Let’s just say we have a mutual friend.” The man’s cryptic tone didn’t provide reassurance.
“Ms. Benson...” The cowboy continued but was interrupted.
“Call me Joanne.” If she was going to be scared shitless, it wasn’t going to be by someone calling her by her ex-husbands last name.
“Joanne” The cowboy nodded with approval. “Someone very close to us is in a real big jam right now,” he continued.
“Tell me more.” Joanne thought it was really odd that the men came to her office at St. Stevens seeking legal assistance.
“This person, who is close to us, is in prison for something he didn’t do.” The cowboy showed no emotion whatsoever.
“Has he put in an application with Innocence Institute?” Joanne asked skeptically.
“I don’t know, I know he has sent hundreds of letters to everyone from the president to Santa Claus,” the cowboy said.
Joanne looked from the cowboy to the surfer, who sat with an equally blank face to the left of the cowboy. He said nothing keeping his cold gaze fixed firmly on her. Joanne felt a shudder run down her spine. She was now terrified but she certainly wasn’t going to show it to these two.
“Well, Mr...” She paused, realizing the men hadn’t given their names.
“Harvard.” The cowboy glanced at her law degree before he spoke.
“Mr. Harvard, I assure you that the way to handle this matter is through proper channels, fill out the paperwork…”
She was interrupted by the surfer who finally spoke up, a cold and serious tone also accented.
“There is more to the story. You had a business partner out west; he just put himself into a coma on I-90 outside of Rapid CIty.” The words smashed into Joanne.
Joanne had been working with a man she met out west on a side project; something neither Frank nor Tavian knew anything about. She didn’t think there was anyone else who knew about the arrangement. Obviously she was wrong.
“The man we are concerned about,” the Cowboy continued, “was recently caught in prison with a considerable amount of dope.” The Cowboy explained still emotionless.
Joanne’s heart almost stopped. Joanne hadn’t taken a case in years and the money from Court TV had run out. Her salary from St. Stevens was healthy but her drug habit and the expense of that damned house was pushing her to the brink of financial ruin, so she had agreed to help set up a corporation for some unsavory characters. The business her associate was involved in had been supplying prescription drugs to prisoners. Her partner ran the operation; she helped them hide the money. She had good insulation from any trouble. The operation was small and everything was meticulously put together, or at least she thought so. While Joanne thought she was simply supplementing her income, in reality the business had gotten involved with a major player.
Her attorney instinct told her to shut down the conversation, but the demon within her told her to keep listening.
“What can I do? I am not licensed in Colorado.” This was a lie, but she thought it still pertinent to play it safe. For all she knew, the men were cops.
“Go see him, hear his story. I think you might be interested in what he has to say.” The Cowboys tone softened.
“What’s in it for me?” The threat in the room was beginning to evaporate. Or at least that was how Joanne was now assessing the situation and she took a calculated risk. When push came to shove, Joanne knew that she couldn’t decline their offer. That didn’t stop her from trying to reap some sort of benefit from the situation.
The man reached into his bag and pulled out a baggy of pills. The sight of them made Joanne’s heart leap with excitement and fear. She knew exactly what was in the baggie.
“There is an unlimited supply.” The cowboy slid the baggie across the table to Joanne. “These are yours simply for hearing his request tonight.”
“I have no idea what this is if you are suggesting you are going to provide me illegal drugs in exchange for legal work, I am advising you right now to pack this up and get out of my office, before I call the police.” Joanne wanted to dip into the bag and share a couple with her new best friends across the table, but feared a setup.
“You know exactly what that is. You know because you are a degenerate junkie.” The surfer laughed.
“I would like you out of my office, now.” Joanne pushed the pills towards the cowboy.
“The man’s name is Ken Northbird. He is incarcerated in Florence, not the ADX, the maximum security there. He will be expecting you.” Then both men got up simultaneously, looked at the pills then at Joanne. They then wheeled, leaving the pills on the table and exited her office.
Joanne wasn’t sure what to do. She felt she needed to call the police to protect herself. If this was some sort of police sting, she would be in deep shit if she took these pills. On the other hand, it didn’t feel like a setup. It was too close to entrapment to feel like the police. And besides, she wanted those pills.
She took out a legal pad and wrote the name Ken Northbird on it. Below the name she scribed Florence Federal Prison. She then took several notes about the encounter, in particular all she could remember about the men. At the bottom she wrote Australian and underlined it. Before she did anything she was going to find out who the hell Mr. Harvard was and who he was working for. She stashed the bag of pills in her desk and got on the phone with her investigator.
23
Joanne’s investigator came up blank. He couldn’t find anything on any local fixers from Australia. He was also unable to figure out who could be working on behalf of Ken Northbird. Ken did have a sister. It had taken the investigator less than twenty-four hours to track her down but she was clean. She had no ties to police that he could tell. He had put surveillance on her. Nothing. She didn’t even mention her brother’s name. The trail from the two men was ice cold once they left her office. These guys were ghosts.The only solution to figure out what the hell was going on was to go see Ken Northbird himself.
Joanne’s plane touched down at 2:15PM local time in Denver. She then hopped a small plane down to Pueblo. From there, the prison was about a forty five minute drive. She had dealt with this flight like she had dealt with most flights in her life; with just a little medicine. Considerably less than she took to get to Texas, however. She didn’t want to be high when she got there this time.
She felt absolute bliss when she got off the tarmac in Pueblo. Her beast was satiated. She felt no pain, and she had slept like a rock on the plane. She was still a little under the influence. It was of no consequence. She felt that she had her wits about her.
She took a quick glance in the mirror. One of the best parts of being high was that she always looked more beautiful. She had noticed in her week of sobriety that she had aged faster than she had anticipated. She felt like she was beginning to look like a junkie, her eyes looked more sunken, her skin was always dry and she was getting so thin, but this afternoon, with narco rushing through her veins, she was the stunner her ex-husband had hit on while still a waitress downtown.
Joanne was pretty sure that the drugs would completely wear off within the next forty five minutes, which would be perfect. She could sit face to face with Ken Northbird and examine his eyes just as she had looked into Diaz’ eyes while at the same time not be in agonizing pain. She also felt that she was in control enough that she could slip past everyone undetected.
Her coming to Colorado presented a bit of a problem. Joanne only took A-I-I cases but she didn’t want any connections between the A-I-I and Ken Northbird just yet. She also needed some deniability if she was in fact being investigated. Enter Ron Aristman.
There were two attorneys who collaborated with Joanne and the A-I-I in Colorado. One was Ron Aristman, an attorney out of Pueblo who worked for the Colorado Innocence Institute. He was an old timer; Joanne liked him. Aristman reminded Joanne of a combination of her grandfather and James Coburn. He had a powerful presence, but a charming, pleasant demeanor. The Innocence Institute had built a strong network of attorneys who were all loosely affiliated on a day to day basis. It wasn’t until a case started amping up that a team would be assembled, headed by Joanne or Frank. Frank was generally responsible for the South and East Coast, Joanne for Texas and the West. The death penalty cases were their primary focus, but they took on any case where actual innocence was a claim. Joanne had been to Colorado before and worked with both Aristman and the project’s other attorney Suzanne Wally. Suzanne was a kiss ass of a woman who talked too much and bugged the living shit out of Joanne. There was more to the story than just petty difference. Suzanne had a penchant for booze. When Suzanne imbibed she tended to run her mouth just a little too much. Loose lips sink ships. Well, at least that is what Joanne thought about when considering who to bring in on this particular frolic.
Joanne’s revelation that the drugs had killed her looks was not the only casualty in her addiction; the drugs had also frayed her nerves. She was as cool as a cucumber when she was high, but when she started to come down her temper fuse became considerably shorter. When she was sober, she was like one of those cheap Chinese firecrackers that would take your finger off if you tried to light it in your hand. The Texas Tart knew all about that. Christ on crutches, If she would have had to spend an entire afternoon putting up with Wally’s brand of b.s., she would likely have lost her shit and they would have all went down in flames. Jonne knew that if she were to have it out with Wally, and then Wally would get into the jug a bit, everyone in the legal community would know that Joanne was in Colorado.
Joanne was sure now that sobriety was starting to take hold; she was feeling pretty edgy. Maybe a coffee would do her some good. She asked Aristman if they could stop at a Caribou.
“Starbucks?” Aristman suggested.
Joanne had forgotten that Caribou hadn’t expanded too deep into Colorado yet. Joanne begrudgingly acquiesced.
Aristman pulled the car into the lot. Joanne hopped out and hustled inside. She asked the kid behind the counter to give her something with a lot of caffeine. He hopped into action and in less than three minutes Joanne was back in Aristman’s sedan. She took a big drink of the hot liquid and burned her tongue a little. She thought of the caffeine and a realization came to her. She wasn’t alone; millions of Americans shared her predicament. In the legal world she saw it every day. The countless multitude that couldn’t start their day without a shot of caffeine to get them going. What a load of bullshit. The same prick judges that would be quick to disbar her for her tiny narco habit couldn’t start their own morning without a quick fix from their own Dr. Feelgood. It was funny to her that here, in a coffee shop in Pueblo Colorado, she came to the realization that she was seriously fucking up her life. She knew she needed to clean up, yet justified it because of coffee? The Starbuck’s defense. She laughed to herself, then stopped. Was she becoming hysterical? She cleared away the fog of nonsense and decided once again that she had to get clean. Regardless of what she would learn from Ken Northbird, she had to kick the dope.
Aristman’s Cadillac provided a smooth comfortable ride out to Florence. For all the beauty associated with Colorado, there was plenty of desert as well. Denver, known as the mile high city, wasn’t actually in the mountains. This had always bothered Joanne. Somehow she expected more. Yet for all Denver’s fraudulent advertising, it was still a hell of a lot nicer than Pueblo. Pueblo was south of Denver and was in the same high desert in Southern Colorado as Florence. Florence itself was a considerable distance from the mountains though it was still possible to see the snow capped peaks off in the horizon. Inside the Cadillac was a comfortable seventy degrees; outside was a sweltering one hundred and four. That was hot even for Colorado.
“Hot like this all summer?” Joanne asked Aristman.
“Unbearable, glad I am not one of these guys.” Aristman nodded at a road crew performing construction on 115 into Florence.
The thing about Aristman that Joanne most liked was that he was able to talk about subjects other than the law. They spent the forty five minute drive talking about his upcoming hunting trip to Aspen, the weather in Colorado, and the upcoming Broncos season. Joanne thought it was a nice reprieve to get her mind off the law for a little bit. She wasn’t much of a hunter, but that was okay because Aristman was one hell of a storyteller. Joanne listened to his story, firing an obligatory question every so often to hold up her part of the conversation, but adding nothing of any true substance. The forty five minutes flew by and before she knew it, they were pulling into the prison.
