Authors: John Ellsworth
I
n a daze
, I walk back to my office. I am utterly sick at heart, and as soon as I come inside my little safe haven I find I have a walk-in. Mrs. Lingscheit whispers that the girl sitting in our waiting room is someone involved with James Lamb, and she must see me immediately. Still dazed, I hang up my coat and motion to bring her in. Mrs. Lingscheit leads her into my office and stands to the side. I am greeted by a sickly young woman—maybe twenty-five, if that—with sleeve tattoos on both arms. She is wearing a navy T-shirt and baggy khaki pants held up by a belt that looks like a piece of rope with buckle. Sunglasses are perched on her forehead; her reddish hair looks like she hasn't run a brush through it in a week, but there's a low light in her eyes that is reaching out to me, earnestly reaching out even before she says a word. So I give her a smile, and she sits down.
We introduce ourselves. Her name is Sylvia Manes, and she's James Lamb's girlfriend. She has lived with him off-and-on for six years, and she tells me he is a difficult person to be around.
Well, I want to say, duh. But I don't, of course. She deserves a fair listen.
"So what brings you here, Sylvia? How can I help you?”
She purses her lips and fiddles with her sunglasses, taking them off and then putting them back on, this time on top of her head.
"He's got my baby and won't give her to me. He threw me out and said he was gonna sell her."
"What? Are you serious? Is this his child too?"
"He says not, but she has to be. I was loyal to him."
"He's going to sell the baby? Do you believe him?"
"James will do it. ‘Course I believe him. He said he was gonna get back at the judge who sent him to prison first time around, and he did. Didn't he? Knocked off the man's wife. James will sell my baby and never think twice, Mr. Gresham."
"Why would he do this? Is it about money?"
"He's been having to lay low. Cops follow him everywhere. He can't make a dollar on the streets. So he thinks selling my baby he can get at least five thousand, and he can move. Maybe Los Angeles, maybe Phoenix. He don't know for sure."
"Well, where is the baby now?"
"James won't tell me. I went over there with the po-lice and he played all dumb and shit. Said he didn't even know I had a kid. Played like we didn't ever live together. Just all kinds of James shit, you know? You know him, Mr. Gresham. He's probably sold her already."
"So what do you want me to do?"
"Call him up and tell him to give her back. Tell him I'm dying for my child. Please, Mr. Gresham, you gotta help me."
"I can try calling him. I'll try right now."
I've still got James on my cell phone. I punch his name and the calls rings, but there's no answer on the first three rings. Then it goes to voice mail.
"Sorry, but he's not answering. Let me call again, I'll leave a message."
"Threaten his ass or somethin."
I don't threaten him; I ask him to call me before he does anything with Sylvia's baby.
I take down her number and tell her I'll call when I know something. She takes one of my business cards and puts it inside her pants pocket. She breaks down and cries for several minutes and I buzz Mrs. Lingscheit, who comes in and helps her out of my office.
"You are trouble," I say to Lamb under my breath.
Three hours later I receive a call from a Chicago police officer. He's a patrolman, and he says he found a badly beaten young woman behind a 7-Eleven store in South Chicago, a block from the old Cabrini-Green projects. Is she all right? I ask. She is dead; he tells me.
And she was carrying my business card. Inside the right-hand pocket of her pants.
H
er name is Valentine Quinones
, and she is the top federal criminal lawyer in Illinois.
I can't afford her out of current cash, but I hire her anyway. It takes only an hour and one phone call to get the HELOC on my house. First State Bank of Chicago had the first mortgage, which I paid off with the proceeds from an accident case something like twenty-five years early. They are only too happy to open a homeowner's line of credit for me now.
Valentine has made room for me on her calendar since I have court Monday morning. And since I told her I could pay her asking price.
Truth be told, I've had a very terrible two hours since leaving the AUSA's office. I've sat in my own office, eyes closed, trying to think how and why Judge Pennington would implicate me in his case as a co-conspirator. I want to call him, desperately, but the lawyer within tells me not to act until after I have spoken with my own attorney. I will do what she says at all turns in the road. When it comes to being on the wrong end of a criminal charge, we are our own worst enemies. In fact, half the time the prosecutors wouldn't get convictions if the defendant hadn't just had to tell their story in an effort to "straighten things out" when they're first confronted by the police. Damn, people, shut the hell up! Otherwise, when you tell your story, you're actually testifying against yourself. It never fails to be just that. So I sit in my office with my eyes closed, trying not to panic.
Consider this. I've been a practicing attorney thirty years, ages twenty-five to fifty-five. In all that time of hanging out with criminals and fighting with police and prosecutors, I have never been charged with the commission of a crime. It's never even been mentioned. There was one guy who got himself convicted because he wouldn't listen to me. He turned me into the State Bar, and I had to defend my license to practice law. But that's the closest I've ever come to being accused of anything (leaving out Sue Ellen, who forever was accusing me of being downright boring). The bar complaint was the closest I've ever come to the sharp blade of the justice system. No charges were ever filed against me by the bar, and the whole thing died a quick death.
But now I'm just another civilian with an indictment setting his whole world on fire. Criminal charges are never fun, but criminal charges instituted by the feds are plain old hell. As I mentioned before, these people don't just tap dance around the edges of a criminal case. They will have the entire case made up front.
So, I'm scared to death.
At 4:55 I pull into the parking garage just down from the Monadnock Building. The Monadnock is a skyscraper located at 53 West Jackson Boulevard in the south Loop area of Chicago. The building sits almost directly across the street from the Dirksen federal courts—a smart, convenient location for Valentine's boutique criminal defense practice.
The elevator opens and a rush-hour crowd of workers circles around me as they flee their building. Once the elevator has cleared out, I am on my way upstairs.
In the hallways, the wainscoting is blond wood and the skylights overhead let in brilliant, spring light. The place gives me a good feeling, and my hopes rise. Not much, but some.
The receptionist smiles at me and offers water, juice, or coffee. Nothing, I tell her. I'm already wired and don't need more coffee. Five minutes later, she's showing me into the office of Valentine Quinones.
Ms. Quinones turns from her credenza to the front of her desk as I enter and I am struck by her raw beauty. Here is a woman who could put the cosmetics companies out of business because she doesn't need them. Dark, black eyebrows and hair, dark skin—her name is Latino—purple eyes with long, un-enhanced lashes, and full lips that break into a welcoming smile as I saunter up to her desk, trying to appear cool about everything even though I know she knows I'm in full-on panic mode.
"Michael," she says. "I'm so sorry about what's happened to you. Let's see if we can just make it go away. Here, sit down."
"Thanks."
"Do you need tissues?" she says, moving a box toward me. "It's okay to cry in here."
"Cry? I'm ready to shoot a particular federal judge."
She smiles again. "Well, let's limit that kind of talk to just my office, shall we?"
"You know what I mean."
"I do, I do. Now, I've read over the indictment your secretary faxed over. Like I told you in our brief talk, it's a very serious set of charges they've brought against you. I also told you that my fee to defend a federal murder case is five hundred thousand. Did you bring a check?"
I open the flap on my shoulder case and produce the check. She holds out her hand, and I pass it to her.
"Good," she says, "I'll deposit this on the way home."
"It's out of my HELOC, so it's good."
"Fine, fine. Now, you were told your initial appearance is set for nine Monday?"
"Right, nine a.m."
"Now, let's talk about the substantive part of the case for just a few minutes. Are you up to that?"
"Yes. They told me I was implicated by Judge Pennington in a letter he wrote to Raul Demad Ramon in Tijuana."
"The kingpin
narcotraficante
in the country of my birth."
"You were born in Mexico? I wondered."
"I'm from Baja. I know all about your Mr. Ramon. So what discovery do we have so far?"
"They gave me this Redrope folder earlier. They said it contains a letter written by Judge Pennington to the Tijuana killers that implicates me in the murder. This file was to be my discovery as the defense attorney for Judge Pennington. But that's not going to happen now that he's implicated me, so I'm just turning it over to you. I don't even want to look at it."
"You'll have to at some point, but not today. We'll set up a time maybe next week when we can go over these items."
"All right."
"Now, back to the letter. Have you seen what Judge Pennington wrote to Raul Ramon?"
"No."
"Well, whatever it was, it was enough to get you indicted. Have you ever spoken with the Tijuana family?"
"Well, yes and no."
“What about James Joseph Lamb? You defended him.”
"James Joseph Lamb? Yes, I did."
"What did you learn about Mr. Lamb?”
"I defended him in the case that he wound up going to prison over. This would be the first case where Judge Pennington sent him to prison."
"Then he came out after that prison time and killed the judge's wife?"
"Exactly."
"Did your defense of Mr. Lamb have anything to do with the charges brought against Judge Pennington? I'm asking whether you knew of Lamb's vulnerabilities, say, as his attorney and maybe you tipped off the judge."
"Not for a second. I would never do that.” She has set me to thinking, though and I go back over the past several years since Lamb first went to prison. I didn't handle his appeal. The federal appellate defender did that. "No, I was finished with the guy after the trial court sentenced him. I might have filed the notice of appeal, but that would be common, as you know, for defense counsel to get that done in order to bridge the gap between the trial court notice of appeal and when the federal appellate defender takes over. So that's a possibility."
"What about this: what if Judge Pennington thinks you in some way conspired to get Lamb out of prison early so he could come and murder his wife? What if Judge Pennington has been playing you all along?"
I can't even swallow. That has never occurred to me. Would never have occurred to me. But then I instantly realize she is right. I have been played by this man. He has hated me forever and now he's out to take me to prison with him. Or worse. Federal prisoners sometimes even get the death sentence. I can feel my bowels straining to relax and dump all over the chair. I have never been so afraid in all of my life as I am right this minute.
"Oh, my God," I breathe. It is like a prayer.
"But you never discussed Lamb's case with Judge Pennington after you defended him in the first instance?"
"No."
"And you said yes and no when I asked if you'd spoken to the Tijuana family?"
"I called them, yes."
"When was that?"
"After the judge retained me to defend him. The call I made would be shortly after I found out they were turning government witnesses. Probably the same day."
"What was said during those conversations?"
"Nothing, actually. They were trying to locate Angelo somebody, a guy who spoke English and could translate for them."
"Would that have been their attorney, Angelo Juan Martinez in TJ?"
"Possibly, I don't know."
"Could they have been telling you to call Angelo Juan Martinez, their attorney, and talk to him?"
"Possibly. I honestly don't know. It was very confusing."
"Did you tell your client you had called the Ramons?"
"No need. He was sitting right there with me."
"In your office?"
"In my office."
"Both times?"
"Yes. We were going to have him listen in. Speakerphone."
"Did you ever speak with the Ramons where you discussed the case against Judge Pennington?"
"No, like I said, no English. I left a message, but did we talk back and forth? The answer is no."
"All right."
She folds her hands on the desk in front of her. She checks her wristwatch.
"As you know, Michael, we'll need to review the discovery in the case against you before we can even know what it is they say you've done. Can you be patient while I put those things together for us?"
"I'll have to be."
"And in the meantime, I am going to instruct you to withdraw from Judge Pennington's case. And give him back his files. No, bring his files here and let me return them. That will keep you out of the middle."
"Can I bring them Monday?"
"Yes, please do. Now, what about bail?"
"They said they would have no objection to no detention."
"Well, big hearts there! Of course, you're not going anywhere anyway, and they know that. You've got an office full of clients. You can't go."
"They know that, yes."
"So for now, let's cool our jets over the weekend. No need to meet and discuss. Monday we'll meet just before nine across the street at Dirksen. That will be Judge Staunton; I'm guessing?"
"So they said."
"We'll meet outside his courtroom and check the calendar. Does that work for you?"
"It does."
"And Michael. Please don't discuss this case. Not with anyone. Not even your office staff. In talking to them about your case, that wouldn't be privileged. They could be called to testify against you."
"All right."
"Okay. Shake my hand and get on home. Don't worry if you're followed. They love to harass and intimidate. They think it will force some kind of plea."
"That's it, Ms. Quinones—"
"Valentine, please."
"Okay, Valentine. I was just going to say there won't be a plea. I've done nothing wrong."
"I hear that, and it's duly noted. Good night now, Michael."
"Good night."