exculpatory and we’re going to put it into open court.”
“But I’m not supposed to have those files. You can’t cite them.”
“Sure I can. What I don’t have to do is say where I got them.”
I frowned. I would be the obvious source once my story was published.
“How long will it take for you to get this into court?”
“I have to do some research but I’ll file it by the end of the week.”
“That’s going to blow this up. I don’t know if I can be ready to publish my story by then.”
Schifino held his hands out wide and shook his head.
“My client’s been up at Ely for more than a year. Do you know that the conditions are so bad at that prison that on frequent occasion death row inmates drop their appeals and volunteer to be executed, just to get out of there? Every day he is up there is a day too long.”
“I know, I know. It’s just that…”
I stopped to think about things and there was no way I could justify keeping Brian Oglevy in prison even a day longer just so I could have time to plan and write the story. Schifino was right.
“Okay, then I want to know the minute you file it,” I said. “And I want to talk to your client.”
“No problem. You get the exclusive as soon as he walks.”
“No, not then. Now. I am going to write the story that springs him and Alonzo Winslow. I want to talk to him today. How do I do it?”
“He’s in maximum security and unless you’re on the list, you won’t get in to see him.”
“You can get me in, can’t you?”
Schifino was sitting behind the aircraft carrier he called a desk. He brought a hand up to his chin, thought about the question and then nodded.
“I can get you in. I need to fax a letter up to the prison that says you are an investigator working for me and that you are entitled access to Brian. I then give you a to-whom-it-may-concern letter that you carry with you, and that identifies you as working for me. If you work for an attorney, you don’t need a state license. You carry the letter with you and show it at the gate. It will get you in.”
“Technically, I don’t work for you. My paper has rules about reporters misrepresenting themselves.”
Schifino reached into his pocket and pulled out his cash. He handed a dollar across the desk to me. I reached across the murder scene photos to take it.
“There,” he said. “I just paid you a dollar. You work for me.”
That didn’t really cut it but I wasn’t too worried about it, considering my employment situation.
“I guess that will work,” I said. “How far is Ely?”
“Depending on your driving, it’s three to four hours north of here. It’s in the middle of nowhere and they call the road going up there the loneliest road in America. I don’t know if it’s because it leads to the prison or if it’s the landscape you cross, but it’s not called that without good reason. They have an airport. You could take a sand jumper up there.”
I assumed that a sand jumper was the same as a puddle jumper, a small prop plane. I shook my head. I had written too many stories about little planes going down. I didn’t fly in them unless I absolutely had to.
“I’ll drive. Write the letters. And I’m going to need copies of everything in your files.”
“I’ll work on the letters and get Agnes to start making copies. I’ll need copies of what you have for the habeas petition. We can say that’s what my dollar bought.”
I nodded and thought, Yeah, put officious Agnes to work for me. I would like that.
“Let me ask you something,” I said.
“Shoot.”
“Before I came in here and showed you all of this, did you think Brian Oglevy was guilty?”
Schifino cocked his head back as he thought it over.
“Not for publication?”
I shrugged. It wasn’t what I wanted but it was what I’d take.
“If that’s the only way you’ll answer.”
“Okay, for publication I can tell you that I knew Brian was innocent from day one. There was just no way he could’ve committed this horrible crime.”
“And not for publication?”
“I thought he was guilty as sin. It was the only way I could live with losing the case.”
After stopping at a 7-Eleven and buying a throwaway phone with a hundred minutes of call time on it, I headed north through the desert on Highway 93 toward Ely State Prison.
Highway 93 took me past Nellis Air Force Base and then connected with 50 North. It wasn’t too long before I began to see why it was known as the loneliest road in America. The empty desert ruled the horizon in every direction. Hard, chiseled mountain ranges, barren of any vegetation, rose and fell away as I drove. The only signs of civilization were the two-lane blacktop and the power lines carried over the ranges by iron stick figures that looked like they were giants from another planet.
The first calls I made with my new phone were to the credit-card companies, demanding to know why my cards were not working. With each call I got the same answer: I had reported the card stolen the night before, thereby temporarily canceling use of the account. I had gone online, answered all security questions correctly and reported the card stolen.
It didn’t matter that I told them I hadn’t reported the cards stolen. Someone else had, and that someone had known my account numbers as well as my home address, birth date, mother’s maiden name and Social Security number. I demanded that the accounts be reopened and the service reps gladly complied. The only catch was that new credit cards with new numbers had to be issued and sent to my home. That would take days and in the meantime I had no credit. I was being fucked with on a level I had never experienced before.
I next called my bank in Los Angeles and found a variation on the same scheme, but with a deeper impact. The good news was that my debit card still worked. The bad news was that there was no money in my savings and checking account to draw from. The night before, I had used the online banking service to combine all my money in the checking account and then did a debit transfer of the full amount to the Make-A-Wish Foundation in the form of a general donation. I was now broke. But the Make-A-Wish Foundation sure liked me.
I disconnected the call and screamed as loud as I could in the car. What was happening? There were stories in the paper all the time about stolen identities. But this time the victim was me and I was having trouble believing it.
At eleven I called the city desk and learned that the intrusion and destruction had moved up yet another notch. I got hold of Alan Prendergast and his voice was tight with nervous energy. I knew from experience that this made him repeat things.
“Where are you, where are you? We’ve got the ministers’ thing and I can’t find anybody.”
“I told you, I’m in Vegas. Where’s-”
“Vegas! Vegas? What are you doing in Vegas?”
“Didn’t you get my message? I sent you an e-mail yesterday before I left.”
“Didn’t get it. Yesterday you just disappeared, but I don’t care. I care about today. I care about right now. Tell me you are at the airport, Jack, and that you’ll be back in L.A. in an hour.”
“Actually, I’m not at the airport and I’m technically not in Vegas anymore. I’m on the loneliest road in America heading to the middle of nowhere. What are the ministers doing?”
“What else? They’re staging a big fucking rally in Rodia Gardens to protest the LAPD and the story is about to go national. But I’ve got you in Vegas and I haven’t heard from Cook. What are you doing there, Jack? What are you doing?”
“I told you in the e-mail you haven’t read. The story is-”
“I check e-mail regularly,” Prendergast said curtly. “I’ve got no e-mail from you. No e-mail.”
I was about to tell him he was wrong but thought about my credit cards. If somebody was able to crash my credit and wipe out my bank accounts, then maybe they crashed my e-mail as well.
“Listen, Prendo, something is going on. My credit cards are dead, my phone’s dead and now you’re telling me my e-mail never made it. Something is not right here. I-”
“For the last time, Jack. What are you doing in Nevada?”
