know that I feel very strongly that this is not a case that should be coming to trial. There should be a disposition.”
“The D.A.’s not giving an inch from murder one,” Sharon said sourly.
Judge Ryan set her mouth into a grim smile. “The D.A.,” she said, “can be persuaded. All right. You think about what I’ve said, Mr. Rios. Now let’s go out and do this on the record.” “Yes, Judge,” we both chimed.
We preceded her into the court. I asked Sharon what that was all about.
“It sounds to me like she doesn’t want a jury to get their hands on Jim. If I were you, I’d consider waiving a jury and having a court trial.”
I stopped at the table where Jim was sitting and leaned over. “Jim, my name is Henry,” I whispered.
He looked up at me and said, “I didn’t do it.”
5
Sharon Hart’s motion was granted and I was substituted in as Jim Pears’s attorney of record. The trial date was continued to December first to give me time to prepare. After the ruling was made the D.A. stood up.
“Yes, Mr. Pisano,” the judge said.
“The People wish to move to amend the complaint.”
The judge looked annoyed. “This isn’t exactly timely notice, counsel.”
“The Penal Code says the People can move to amend at any time,” Pisano replied blandly.
“There’s a difference between what’s permissible and what’s fair,” she snapped. “What’s your amendment?”
Sharon Hart moved to the edge of her seat. Pisano took out a stack of papers and passed a set of them to me. The other set he handed to the bailiff who took them to the judge. I glanced at the caption. It was a motion to amend the complaint and allege special circumstances to the murder charge.
“You’re seeking the death penalty?” the judge asked. Behind us, the gallery murmured. The bailiff called the courtroom into order.
“Yes, Your Honor,” Pisano replied.
Sharon Hart said, audibly, “Bastard.”
“At the preliminary hearing you said this wasn’t a special circumstances case,” Judge Ryan said.
Contritely, Pisano replied, “I was wrong. We have reviewed the transcripts of the prelim and looked at our evidence. We now think we can show special circumstances.”
I got to my feet. “Your Honor, I’m not prepared to respond to this motion at this time. I’d ask that it be put over for a couple of weeks to give me time to file an opposition.”
“Fine,” she said. “File your papers within twenty-one days. I will hear arguments a month from today. Court is adjourned.”
The judge left the bench and the bailiff cleared the courtroom of reporters. The deputies who had been standing beside Jim got him to his feet.
“When can I talk to my client?” I asked one of them.
“He’ll be back at county this afternoon.”
“Jim, I’ll be there later.”
He stared past me and nodded. They led him off.
The courtroom cleared out quickly, until only Sharon Hart and I were left.
“You coming?” I asked her.
“Not through that door,” she said, indicating the front entrance. I remembered the reporters and the tv cameras. “You?” she asked.
“If I don’t,” I said, “Pisano will have the boy convicted and sentenced by the six o’clock news.”
“See you,” she said, and slipped out the back.
“Mr. Rios, can you answer a few questions?” I stood in a semicircle of reporters, the tv cameras running behind us in the busy corridor outside the courtroom. Pisano — to his chagrin, I imagined — commanded a smaller group down the hall.
“Sure,” I said. I heard the clicking of cameras as a couple of photographers circled.
“What do you think about the D.A. seeking the death penalty?”
“It’s an obvious attempt to extort a guilty plea from my client,” I replied.
“Why did the Public Defender withdraw from the case?”
“Irreconcilable conflicts,” I said.
“What were they?”
“That’s information protected by the attorney-client privilege,” I replied.
“What’s your defense going to be?”
“Not guilty.”
“What about the evidence?”
“What about it?”
“It’s pretty strong.”
“Strong is not good enough,” I said. “It has to be,” and I repeated the ancient charge to the jury, “beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty. I expect to show that it’s not.”
“How?”
Good question, I thought. To my interrogator, though, I said, “I’m not free to disclose the details of our investigation.”
“What about the political pressure by gays that the D.A. talked about? Is that true?”
“As counsel for the People conceded, he was speaking out of turn.”
“Then it’s not true?”
“Of course not.”
“But you are gay aren’t you?”
I turned to face the person who had asked the question. It was Brian Fox’s mother. She was trembling with anger.
“Yes, I am, Mrs. Fox, for what that’s worth.”
“You’re all thick as thieves,” she said while the cameras turned on her. “All of you — faggots. What about my boy? He’s dead.”
“Yes, I know,” I said, and stopped myself from expressing condolences. It would only give her another opportunity to attack. “I expect the facts surrounding his death will come out at trial. All of them, Mrs. Fox.”
We glared at each other. Her face was rigid. She pulled her head back, drew in her cheeks and spat, hitting my neck. The TV cameras recorded the incident. I wiped my neck with my handkerchief. She turned away and clicked down the hall.
“There’s your lead,” I told the reporters.
From the courthouse I drove to Larry Ross’s house. Though he worked in Beverly Hills he lived on the west side of the city. Silver Lake was a reservoir named in honor of a tum-of-the-century water commissioner, but the fortuitous name aptly described the metallic sheen of the water which was not quite a color but a quality of light.
There were hills on both the east and west sides of the lake. Larry lived in the west hills on a street where the architecture ran the gamut from English Tudor to Japanese ecclesiastical Stucco was the great equalizer. Larry’s house was sort of generic Mediterranean. From the street it appeared as a two-story white wall with an overhanging tile roof, small square windows on the upper floor and a big, dark door set into an arched doorway on the lower. I parked in the driveway and let myself in.
From the small entrance hall, stairs led up to the guest rooms on the second floor. The kitchen was off to the right. To the left there was an immense boxy room that terminated in a glass wall overlooking a garden composed of three descending terraces and the reservoir at the bottom of the hill. The room was furnished with austere New
