False Witness Read online

  Drew took the room in, his eyes landing on some bookshelf pictures of Jamie in her kayak. “You a kayaker?” he asked.

  “I used to race a little.”

  He looked at her, probably thinking that she must have been slow since her shoulders and arms didn’t look like a Russian weight lifter’s. Everybody expected kayakers to be bulky. But the opposite was true.

  “I’ll bet you were fast,” he said, surprising her.

  “I did all right.”

  “‘All right’ as in ‘Olympics’ all right? Or ‘all right’ as in ‘I could usually make it down the course without tipping over’?”

  “I missed the Olympics. But not by much.”

  “Impressive.”

  He actually looked impressed. And he also looked . . . well, he looked good for an unmarried police detective. Very good. He had thick black hair that he wore longer than most cops, with unruly bangs that accentuated piercing dark eyes. He had a bit of a Latino look, despite the Anglo name, with sharp facial angles that contrasted markedly with his soft-spoken personality. Jamie bet that when it was necessary, Drew could play a convincing bad cop. But when he smiled, with the perfect white teeth and a small dimple that formed on his right cheek, lesser women would have melted.

  Not Jamie Brock. Not yet, anyway.

  Drew placed a folder on the table. He pulled out some handwritten notes. “Your man Walter Snead is quite a civil trial lawyer—” he looked up, apparently wanting to gauge Jamie’s reaction—“and a pushover when it comes to criminal defense.”

  Jamie shrugged. “Meaning what?”

  “I have a friend in the L.A. area who owed me a favor. I had him run a report on Snead. He cross-referenced newspaper articles and checked case files at the courthouse. He limited his search to the last five years and only those cases filed in L.A. County. Here’s what he found. . . .”

  Drew pointed at some math in the middle of the page. “Eighty percent of his personal-injury cases settled out of court—nothing unusual about that. But this statistic caught my attention: most of his large personal-injury settlements—thirteen out of nineteen to be exact—had the same three judges assigned to them. That’s three judges out of a pool of fourteen. Pretty amazing, huh?”

  Jamie nodded. It was statistically suspicious, but it was not impossible.

  Drew drank some coffee, and Jamie could tell the man was working hard not to sound overly enthusiastic. “Here’s where it gets really interesting. Of the thirteen cases assigned to those three judges, Snead received favorable rulings on important pretrial motions in eight of them.”

  Drew raised an eyebrow, and Jamie couldn’t deny the sinister implications of that statistic. Trial judges didn’t like to make important pretrial rulings. They’d rather leave the issues hanging out there, like swords of Damocles, the uncertainty of them forcing the parties to settle.

  “Were any of those rulings appealed?” Jamie asked.

  “Not those. It’s my understanding that you would have to try the entire case before you could appeal them. But you would know more about that than I do.”

  Jamie flipped a wrist. “That’s basically right.”

  “In three other cases that didn’t settle, the opposing attorney challenged the pretrial rulings, went to trial and lost, but then got the case reversed on appeal. Just goes to show how messed up the rulings were in the first place.”

  Jamie tried hard to make sense of all this. She tried to think of innocent explanations. “Maybe it’s the old boys’ club. Maybe these are college buddies, frat brothers.”

  “Judge Elaine Estrada might not appreciate those insinuations,” Drew said. He gave Jamie a sinister little “gotcha” smile. Even that smile was cute, she had to admit.

  “Plus, there’s the matter of the criminal cases. These same three judges heard a fair number of Snead’s criminal cases, and guess what?”

  “He happened to win based on miraculously effective pretrial motions?”

  “No. Just the opposite. He lost every time he had a case in front of them. Every . . . single . . . time.”

  Jamie remembered her conversation with Isaiah from the week before—the same abysmal assessment of Snead’s criminal defense record. But it didn’t make sense. Why fix only the civil cases? Before she could say anything stupid, something else Isaiah said dawned on her. Because the civil cases are where the money is. Contingency fees. Snead gets one-third of any amount in settlement.

  “So you’re saying he sells out his clients in the criminal cases in order to collect big fees in the civil cases?”

  Drew held up his palms. “I’m not saying anything. I’m just giving you the stats.” He took another drink of coffee. “But if you want my opinion on the matter . . .”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Maybe there’s a highly structured corruption ring that reaches into the highest echelons of the Los Angeles bar. Maybe Snead is just one part. Maybe he makes money on the civil cases and provides kickbacks to the three dirty judges. Maybe there’s some mob money involved—there usually is when we’re talking high-level corruption.”

  “Maybe he’s just one heckuva civil lawyer and a pitiful criminal lawyer.”

  Drew gave her a lopsided half smile. “And maybe he’s a Boy Scout leader on the side.”

  Drew pulled out another piece of paper and turned serious again. “We also turned up a few things on your buddy Isaiah Haywood.” Jamie tried not to show her shock. “Between college and law school he got busted for possession with intent to distribute. Cocaine. Fulton County. Somebody pulled some strings, and the next thing you know he’s got a suspended sentence. He stays clean for six months, and the judge wipes out the charges.”

  Jamie stared at her cup for a moment. Isaiah had always come across as ready to party . . . but she was still pretty disappointed in him. You think you know somebody . . .

  Drew must have read the consternation on her face. “I’m not saying that either of these guys had anything to do with the mob finding out about the hearing. I just thought you might want to know.”

  Jamie leaned back and stretched, suddenly very tired. It was incomprehensible that Isaiah, or even Professor Snead, could have anything to do with her abduction. Or Snowball’s poisoning.

  “It’s hard to know whom to trust,” Jamie said.

  “I’ve got some advice for you. . . .” Drew Jacobsen’s brown eyes turned intense, and the muscles on his face pulled tight. “Until this is over, don’t trust anybody.”

  61

  Wednesday, April 9

  Jamie struggled through her UCC class on Wednesday after lunch, unable to concentrate with everything else going on. The blue suits from the U.S. marshals’ office had made an earlier appearance at school and promised to meet Jamie at her condo that night. Fortunately, her UCC professor disdained the Socratic method and Jamie was in no danger of being called on as her mind drifted.

  After class, she exchanged a few comments with friends as she packed up her computer, her thick textbook, and her colored highlighters and pens. As always, the Kimber rode all by itself in the zipper compartment on the bottom of her backpack. She had unzipped that area on the right side a few inches, precisely at the spot where the handle of the Kimber rested. Even with the backpack straps over both shoulders, she could reach around with her left hand and quickly unzip enough of the pocket so she could pull the gun out with her right hand in a matter of seconds. She had practiced for nearly half an hour last night before Drew Jacobsen came over. A good sequence took no more than two seconds. Jamie Brock, quick draw. Welcome to the wild, wild West.

  Jamie’s UCC class was on the second floor, and Jamie, of course, never used elevators for such a short distance. Today, by the time she hit the stairwells—large, hollow, windowless caverns with plastic grips on the steps—the crowd of students leaving the second floor had already slowed to a trickle. Jamie descended the steps, lost in thought over her slumping classroom performance, David Hoffman’s dangerous case, and Drew Jaco
bsen’s interest in her as a person, not just a victim. At least that’s how she evaluated it.

  Her mind elsewhere, she never would have registered alarm if the man in front of her had not slowed down ever so slightly—a pace too leisurely for any full-blooded Southeastern student. She casually reached around to her backpack with her left hand. Somehow, feeling the outline of the Kimber’s handle made her feel better. It didn’t register until it was too late that the man in front of her wasn’t carrying a backpack at all.

  It happened so quickly, so unexpectedly, that Jamie had a hard time processing everything. With a dull thud, the noise of the ventilation system stopping, a power outage plunged the stairwell into darkness. It was totally black. Only later would Jamie realize that somebody must have removed the exit lights earlier in the day. Jamie stopped abruptly on the steps, instinctively reaching out for the handrail with her right hand.

  The few students in the stairwell started murmuring, and then it hit her—a sharp elbow in the solar plexus, a blow with such force that it jolted her back, knocking the wind out of her. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream. Her thoughts jumbled as she tried to recover, holding tight to the handrail with her right hand while simultaneously reaching back again with her left, finding the zipper on her backpack . . .

  She felt a whirlwind of motion behind her, so fast it seemed the man was inhuman. He clamped his hand over her mouth and put her in some kind of martial arts headlock, twisting her neck.

  She scrambled to free herself, adrenaline fueling her body. But this attacker was so strong, so quick—he had her neck wrenched at a weird angle, and it seemed to affect every nerve up and down her spine. She was virtually off her feet, the pressure intense on the side of her neck, the carotid artery . . .

  She had her right hand on the gun now, but she was losing consciousness fast. Her mind played tricks, floating away. She pulled the Kimber out, no longer thinking, just reacting. She stuck the gun in his ribs, felt herself descending into a whirlpool of darkness, pulled the trigger once, twice . . .

  His grip didn’t loosen!

  Is this what death feels like? Defiant to the end, she twisted one last time in rage and fear. And then the darkness won.

  62

  Sometime later, Jamie began the process of fading back in. Exactly how much later, she had no idea. It was not a smooth passage, more like fits and starts, reality merging with apparitions, and it was hard to tell which was more frightening. She felt the road rumbling beneath her, saw Snowball’s neck being twisted around, his head snapping off like a twig; she felt the handcuffs, saw the ghoulish face, the nose flattened by the stretched nylon of a stocking, the insides of the man exploding as she pulled the trigger a third time.

  She closed her eyes and tried to control the thoughts inside her head, sifting the realities from the nightmares. What did she remember? Where was she? What was happening to her? What was real?

  The horror of it all and the precariousness of her situation helped bring her thoughts in line. This time, when she opened her eyes, the phantoms had vanished, replaced by a single cold, stark reality: Jamie was a hostage.

  She was in the back of an enclosed truck, some kind of Ryder or U-Haul moving truck, lying on her back, hands cuffed in front of her. It was dark, but enough light bled in that she could make out some silhouettes. She assumed that meant it was still daylight outside.

  She was bound to some kind of gurney—wide canvas straps pulled snug around her torso and legs. She was fully clothed, still wearing the jeans and formfitting cotton top she had worn to class earlier that day. Or was it yesterday?

  She was not gagged.

  The ride was smooth. The gurney itself was anchored somehow to the floor of the truck. Next to her stood a man with a gun, his face squashed flat and indistinguishable by a nylon stocking. He held on to a strap on the side of the truck to keep his balance. As far as she could tell, he was the only other person in the back of the truck with her.

  The stocking on the man’s head frightened her even more than the gun. It not only distorted his facial features, but it also spoke of something more sinister. Rapists wore stocking masks like this. Men who tortured. They were animals, not human beings. It made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. It terrified her.

  She felt vulnerable. Naked. The man just stood there and stared. Speechless.

  She tried to think rationally and put the pieces together. Her very survival, she knew, might well depend on clearheaded thinking and her ability to develop a relationship with her captors. She knew the standard advice for hostages. Give them what they want. Try to develop some kind of bond with them.

  But the thought of giving this man what he wanted gave Jamie the creeps. What if he wanted information about Hoffman? She couldn’t help him even if she wanted to. But what would they put her through before they would believe her?

  Jamie strained to remember faces in the stairwell. There must have been at least two men—one in front of her and one behind. The man behind had been lightning quick, like some kind of martial arts expert.

  She remembered pulling the trigger on her Kimber . . . not once but twice. After Snowball died, Jamie had ditched the last-clear-chance theory and pulled the blank out of the chamber. Two shots to the gut—who could survive that?

  But she didn’t remember hearing the echoes of a gunshot. She didn’t remember feeling the recoil. The man behind her had never released his grip.

  Which led to her next line of thinking. Who had access to my gun?

  As she ran down the list of possibilities, the man standing beside her spoke. He startled Jamie, jerking her back to the present. “We’re not going to hurt you,” he said.

  For some reason, that statement frightened Jamie most of all.

  When the federal agents first told Wellington Farnsworth about the kidnapping, his stomach went into such turmoil, he wondered if he’d ever eat again. He asked a slew of questions about Jamie, said a prayer for her safety, and then realized that he was undoubtedly in danger too. He was nineteen years old, barely old enough to be out of high school, and now a possible target for the mob?

  At least his name wasn’t on any of the pleadings filed in federal court. Since he was a second year, the only names on the pleadings, in addition to Walter Snead’s, were Jamie’s and Isaiah’s. On the other hand, he had been sitting in court with them all day Monday and had even taken the stand to testify against the government.

  He was at grave risk. There could be no rationalizing around that.

  Wellington considered the irony. He had always avoided every unnecessary risk life tried to throw at him. Cell phones while driving—80 percent of crashes involve distractions within three seconds of the crash. Roller coasters—according to a German study, the adrenaline rush can speed up the heart, triggering an irregular heartbeat. He almost rode one once but decided not to when the ride operators couldn’t produce a defibrillator. Using pens at restaurants to sign credit card receipts—a television investigative report once found that such pens contained more germs than bathroom door handles.

  And now this! What were the odds of surviving a mob hit list? This was precisely why he wanted to practice patent law. Scientists, for the most part, were harmless. His nearest brush with crime would be the technology component of home security alarms.

  His first inclination was to call home. But he was a law student now. The federal agents had said he couldn’t talk to anybody about this except Isaiah and Professor Snead. They had emphasized that anybody meant anybody. They promised to provide him protection. As if that had done Jamie any good.

  After fretting about his own safety for a few minutes, Wellington started feeling guilty. At least he was still safe. Jamie was the one who needed his thoughts and prayers right now.

  He decided to start by doing what he did best. Analyze. Research. Eliminate variables. He assumed that Jamie’s kidnappers had captured her to get access to Hoffman and ultimately the algorithm. If that was the case, somebody
must have told the kidnappers that Jamie was still in contact with Hoffman, that she was part of a team representing him in federal court. The field of possible suspects was relatively small.

  When he had drafted the second federal court lawsuit seeking millions in damages, Wellington was told that the only line of communication with the Hoffmans was a connection between Isaiah Haywood and Stacie Hoffman. Accordingly, Wellington had assumed they would have Isaiah run the new lawsuit past Stacie for approval. But when he talked to Snead about obtaining authorization from the client, Snead had answered Wellington cryptically. “I’ve already taken care of that,” he’d said.

  In the back of his mind, Wellington logged away three possibilities. First, Snead had already asked Isaiah to get authorization. Second, Snead never obtained his own client’s approval to file a multimillion-dollar lawsuit. That seemed unlikely. Or third, Snead had his own channel of communication going with the Hoffmans.

  At the time, it didn’t seem to matter which of these possibilities was true. Snead said he had taken care of it, and Wellington took the professor at his word. But now, Wellington was curious.

  He sent a text message to Isaiah and learned that Isaiah had never obtained authorization from Stacie Hoffman. Next, he logged on to Westlaw and started searching cases filed by Snead in the California state court system. He first examined the cases that resulted in reported opinions since they were all in one database. No luck. Next, he started reviewing cases filed by Snead that never made it to trial. It was tedious work since there was no statewide electronic database, but Wellington stayed at it, county by county, city by city.

  By late afternoon, Wellington’s persistence paid off. He sent another set of text messages to Isaiah explaining his findings. Isaiah, in turn, called Snead and insisted on an emergency meeting. He and Wellington agreed to meet together beforehand.

  David Hoffman received the gut-wrenching news in a phone call from Snead. This changes everything.