associate at Gunther, McDonough, I was in the kitchenette in our office getting a drink of water. One of the partners wandered in.
It was strange, because he was the kind of man who never wandered anywhere. He was the quintessential go-getter, a creature of constant motion. Exactly the kind of high-powered lawyer who makes it big in the kind of high-powered law firm I’d joined. He made many hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. I wanted to be him.
He was not wearing a tie. But he always wore a tie. He was always, in fact, impeccably dressed.
No tie, and the first three buttons of his shirt were undone.
He looked at me, and looked sick.
“Are you all right, Mr. Henry?” I said.
His look changed not one bit. “How long have you worked here?” he said.
“About six months.”
He laughed. Which jolted me, because he never laughed. “You know how many years I’ve been here?”
“No.”
“Twenty-two. Twenty-two years I been coming in, day after day.”
And then his eyes grew dark, as if gazing over the desolation that is lost youth. “Why am I doing this? I should be on my boat. I should be out on my boat.”
Before I could say anything else he turned and walked away.
I finished my water and threw away the cup. As I walked out of the kitchenette to return to my office, I looked down the long hallway.
Mr. Henry was there, ambling slowly toward the other end of the building. I watched him. Every so often he would reach out and tap the wall with his hand.
One month later he was dead.
19
MONDAY MORNING I drove to the Hollywood courthouse.
Carl and his mom and brother were waiting for me outside Department 77. The three of them took up an entire bench, with Mom in the middle. Parts of Carl and Eric drooped off the ends of the bench.
They stood up as one to greet me.
Carl was dressed in the same tie and coat he had on at the arraignment. He had his lucky Dodgers hat on. Fine. We could use any luck that was hanging around.
“Do I have to take the stand or anything?” Carl said.
“No,” I said. “I’m just going to argue some law to the judge.”
“What law?”
“The Constitution of the United States.”
“That covers drunk driving?”
“Stupid,” Eric said. “All them founding fathers were drunk. Of course it covers it.”
“Thanks for the history lesson,” I said. “Let’s just go in and have a seat and we’ll see what happens.”
“I got confidence in you,” Carl said.
20
KIMBERLY PINCUS WAS dressed in a fire engine red suit with a white blouse. Her hair and makeup were perfect, of course. Her demeanor less than collegial.
“This is a waste of time,” she told me as I joined her at the counsel table. “Why are you doing this?”
“It’s the system we got, Kim.”
“It’s Kimberly, and you can call me Ms. Pincus, and I can’t possibly see any point to this except showing off for your client.”
“I’m stunned,” I said. “You are an officer of the court. We all get to have our day, even those who are accused of misdemeanors.”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“Ms. Pincus, I’m shocked. Shocked.”
The judge entered the courtroom.
“You’re going to get shocked right out on your ear,” Ms. Pincus said.
21
I THOUGHT SHE might be right, because Judge Solomon did not seem in a cheery mood. She called the case and said, “So are you really going to press your 1538.5?” She was referring to the penal code section dealing with motions to suppress evidence.
“Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “It was a warrantless stop. As such, it is presumptively invalid. The burden of proof passes to Ms. Pincus. She must present evidence that justifies an exception to the warrant requirement.”
“Ms. Pincus, do you agree?”
“I agree only that this is a waste of time, Your Honor,” she said.
“Then all you have to do is provide a justification for the stop, Ms. Pincus, and you can have your precious time back.”
It sounded to me like Solomon was a little put out with the prosecutor. For whatever reason. Which gave me the slightest bit of hope.
“Call your witness,” the judge said to Kimberly Pincus.
Patrol Officer John Caldwell of the LAPD took the stand and was sworn. He was a P-2, had been on patrol for three years. He looked young and still idealistic. That usually fades for a cop by year five or six.
That said, he was the kind of officer who would look extra hard for a stop if the conditions