The 37th Amendment - A Novel by Susan Shelley

The 37th Amendment - A Novel By Susan Shelley - Copyright 2002. All rights reserved.
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You are reading "The 37th Amendment," a novel by Susan Shelley. Copyright 2002. All rights reserved. This material may not be republished, retransmitted, printed, copied or distributed in any manner, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the author. Permission is granted for publication of short excerpts in the context of a review or commentary, provided the material is appropriately credited.

Chapter Two

"Arrested?" Ted's eyes widened as if they could get a clearer picture that way. "For what? What happened?"

He heard the woman take a deep breath. "How do you know Rob?" she asked.

"Well, uh," Ted stammered, "We sit together at the Laker games. I'm sure sorry to hear about this." I'm sure sorry I called, he thought.

"Thank you," the woman said, her voice calmer, "What's your name?" Ted introduced himself. He heard the skritch of a pen on paper at the other end of the phone. "I'll tell Rob you called if they let me see him tomorrow," said the woman. Her voice was starting to break again.

Ted's curiosity overwhelmed him. "Uh, ma'am?" he began tentatively, "What did they arrest him for?"

"The murder," she answered. "The police think he killed Maria Sanders."

Ted didn't hear anything she said after that. At some point he must have hung up the phone, because there was a hand waving back and forth in front of his eyes. It had green fingernails. "What happened?" Flynn asked. "You look dazed."

Ted stared at the phone still in his hand. "You know that awful murder a couple of months ago? This guy did it."

Flynn's mouth dropped open. "You know the guy who murdered Maria Sanders?" she gasped, "I have to call Pearl!" Flynn raced out of the room to spill the news to her best friend.

It wasn't possible, Ted thought. Robert Rand was a slight, almost skinny guy who did magic tricks for seven-year-olds. Then again, no one could pay for Lakers season tickets doing that. Ted shook his head. You never know about people, he thought.

Ted unzipped his jacket and typed a password on his keyboard. "Welcome, Ted Braden," the computer screen announced silently. "Today is Friday, May 12, 2056. The time is 8:55 a.m. Today's calendar: Project meeting, Sony Motors, 9:30 a.m., Screening Room D; Video conference with Preston Henry Associates, 9:30 a.m.; Meeting with Clete Johansson, 9:30 a.m.; Lunch with Royce, 1:00 p.m., Begonia's; Flynn's game, 6:30 p.m., Beachwood Park."

Ted groaned, slipped a headset around his right ear and clicked a few keys on his keyboard. "Rocki, it's Ted," he said. "Is the boss in?"

"I knew you were going to call." The assistant sounded rattled. "This is about your calendar, isn't it? I meant to write you a note but I didn't get to it yet. Hang on." The line clicked over to on-hold music and Ted listened irritably to eight seconds of thin-sounding Mozart. "Sorry," Rocki said.

"That's okay," Ted said patiently. "And what was the note going to say?"

"It was going to tell you that the people from Preston Henry need you in the video conference on the new campaign, hang on." Mozart returned. "Sorry," Rocki said. "So the Preston Henry people couldn't do it at any other time except 9:30. So I figured you could go late to the Sony meeting since that's just in-house."

Ted sighed. In-house, three weeks behind schedule and facing a Tuesday deadline to produce reworked spots that normally would take a month to complete. "And who is Clete Johansson?"

"He's a young man who is joining the agency and he needs kind of an orientation."

"Orientation!" Ted's voice carried over the sound walls that separated his executive workstation from a double row of cubicles nearby.

"Well, not really orientation," Rocki pleaded, "It's just that this is someone who's going to be working with the really top people and..."

"And he can't be left alone."

"Uh, yes. Hang on." Mozart floated through the phone line again. "Sorry."

"What is he, the chairman's nephew?"

"Living with his daughter."

"Perfect. Call him up and reschedule him for 3:00."

"I'd love to, Ted," Rocki sighed, "But they're going to Paris for the weekend and their flight leaves at 1:00."

"Perfect. I don't suppose we could have this orientation right now."

"He couldn't come in before 9:30."

"Right," Ted said.

"I'm really sorry about this," Rocki said helplessly. "Hang on."

"No, gotta run," Ted said. "Thanks for trying." He clicked the phone off and leaned back in his chair, spreading his hands wide apart and shrugging, half at the screen and half at the sky.

The quiet chime broke the silence in the office and the concentration of C. Dobson Howe. He pressed a button on the brass panel set into the top of his desk. "Yes?" he asked. His tone was polite but the power of his voice nearly shook the windows.

"I'm so sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Howe," the British accent of his assistant floated from unseen speakers. "But there's a Mr. Jackson on line three and he insists that it's an emergency."

"That's all right, Casey, I'll speak to him." Howe pressed another button on the brass panel. "This is Dobson Howe," he boomed.

"Hello, Mr. Howe," said a casual voice. "This is John Morley Jackson."

"Yes, Mr. Jackson, how are you, sir?"

"Fine, thanks," Jackson said. He sounded surprised by the polite reception. "I don't know if you remember me," Jackson began, "but we met at an ABA conference three years ago. You were speaking about the negative consequences of the 37th Amendment. Do you recall it?"

"Refresh my memory," Howe said. "I do remember the conference."

"Well, I'm the guy who came up to you afterwards and said it was your fault."

Howe frowned. He remembered Jackson now. "Yes," Howe said, "and as I told you then, I opposed that amendment, I campaigned against that amendment, I did everything in my power to stop that amendment from being ratified. I warned repeatedly that the repeal of the Constitution's due process clauses would be a mistake that we would all live to regret."

"All well and good," Jackson said, "but it was your campaign for the Equality Amendment that opened the floodgates."

Howe was drumming the point of a pencil against a yellow legal pad. The man wasn't telling him anything he hadn't thought himself at least ten thousand times. "I must tell you that I reject that view," Howe said. "The Equality Amendment was an entirely different matter. It cannot be blamed for every crackpot initiative campaign that followed it."

"I understand," Jackson said. "Still, if you hadn't shown the country that it was possible to organize a successful campaign to amend the Constitution, we'd still have the U.S. Supreme Court to protect us."

Howe's pencil poked a hole three sheets deep into the legal pad. "We still have the Supreme Court, Mr. Jackson," he said. "It's the scope of judicial review, not judicial review itself, that has been cut down."

"Same thing," Jackson said.

"Mr. Jackson, I understood there was some type of emergency."

"There sure is," Jackson said. "I represent Robert Rand."

Howe's pencil froze in mid-thump. "Oh, no," he said in a soft voice.

"I see you watched the news this morning."

Howe closed his eyes. "You're going to tell me he's innocent," he said.

"Case of mistaken identity, plain as day."

"There's nothing I can do," Howe said. The energy drained from his voice as he ran down the list. "The Public Safety Act in California, the federal Ramirez Act, the statutory limitations on habeus corpus. The 37th Amendment says no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, except by the law of the land. And according to the Supreme Court, that means the intent of the legislature must be upheld wherever it can be clearly demonstrated. If Californians choose to model their criminal justice system on a slaughterhouse, the courts have no authority to stop them. There's nothing I can do."

"The governor will take your call. Justice Margulies will take your call."

"Mr. Jackson," Howe said gently, "This governor is not known for his thoughtful consideration of requests for commuted sentences, to say nothing of pardons. And there's no need to ask the California Supreme Court for a stay of execution. Until the U.S. Supreme Court rules in the Owens case all executions in California are stayed."

"You know as well as I do," Jackson said, "where the Court is going to come down in the Owens case. This Court will never find that Congress has the authority to re-write California's criminal laws."

Howe sighed. "A man can hope," he said.

Sergeant Thomas Blandon peered through the wire-reinforced window in the steel door at the 24-year-old girl sitting alone at the conference table. "Who is she?" he asked.

"Her name is Bara Salvacion." Officer John Avery looked disgusted. "She was arrested an hour ago selling heroin in the parking lot of the New Greek Theater. She says she has information about the Maria Sanders murder and she wants a deal."

"A little late, isn't she?" Blandon laughed. Robert Rand's arrest and identification by an eyewitness the day before had ended a three-month siege of nightly overtime and canceled vacations for the officers of the LAPD.

"That's what I told her," Avery said. "But she says she has information so I thought I'd better bring it to you."

Blandon frowned. "Well, I'm not the one who's going to make that decision," he said. "We'll have to take it to Whitfield." He pulled a wireless out of a loop on his belt and keyed in a number. "This is Blandon," he said after a moment. "We just brought in a heroin dealer who says she's got information on the Sanders case. Yeah. Room A34. Right." He pressed a key and replaced the wireless on his belt.

It was less than a minute later when Whitfield, nearly out of breath, joined them in front of the door. "I knew drugs were involved," he said, with something like smug satisfaction. "Then I thought maybe I was wrong when Rand, if that's his name, didn't show up in the DEA's computer, but I should have trusted my first instinct."

Officer Avery nodded deferentially. "She says she wants a deal for information," he said. He handed Whitfield a file folder with a report clipped to the top.

Whitfield glanced at it, smiled, and pressed two keys on the wireless that was clipped to his belt. "Lilibet, it's Cal," he said after a moment. "Is the chief in? No, that's okay, don't interrupt him. Just let him know we may have another witness in the Sanders case. I think he might want to call the mayor." Whitfield listened for a moment, then laughed. "I know," he said. "Well, he'll be happy to hear about this. Right. No problem." He pressed a button on the wireless, nodded to the officers and opened the door.

Bara Salvacion was rail thin and rather attractive. Her dark hair, long and straight, was parted in the middle and tossed back behind her shoulders. She wore a pair of tight-fitting bright blue jeans and an oversized man's white dress shirt, fully unbuttoned to expose augmented breasts spilling over a beaded bra top. "You're Detective Whitfield, aren't you?" she demanded.

"I'm Detective Whitfield," he answered, pulling out a chair and sitting down opposite her.

"I saw you on television," the girl said.

"Mm-hmm," Whitfield nodded.

"If I help you with the Maria Sanders case, can you get me probation?"

Whitfield was leafing through the file that Avery had given him. "I don't know," he said. "Quite a record you've got here."

"I don't want to do no more time," the girl said. "I can tell you how Robert Rand killed Maria Sanders, why he did it, and how he got away. Interested?"

Whitfield studied her face. Her eyes were narrowed. "Possibly," he said.

"I want your word you're gonna get me probation. Otherwise I'm gonna call a lawyer."

"Call a lawyer if you want," Whitfield said. "It's not going to change anything."

Bara's gaze fell. "I don't want to do no more time," she repeated.

"Bara," Whitfield said. "Tell me what you want to tell me, and I'll do what I can do."

"All right," she said. She took a breath. "Robert Rand killed Maria Sanders because she stole three packages of heroin that she was supposed to deliver to him and sold it herself."

"Mm-hmm," Whitfield said, watching her.

"He got away in a car driven by an accomplice who was waiting for him in the parking lot."

"Mm-hmm," Whitfield said.

Bara was finished.

"And how do you know these things?" Whitfield asked.

A dark flush crept up Bara's cheekbones. Her eyes were bright.

"Because I was his accomplice," she said. "We were lovers."

Ted entered Screening Room D at 9:55 a.m., trailed by a lanky Swede having a conversation on a wireless. A group of eleven staffers from various departments were seated around an oval table littered with papers, disks and assorted multimedia devices.

"Sorry to hold you up," Ted said. "I'd like you all to meet Clete Johansson." The Swede waved politely at the group but stayed back near the door and continued his conversation. Everyone around the table murmured greetings and a few waved solicitously. "So," Ted began. He pulled up a chair and sat down at the far end of the table. "What have I missed?"

"Well," Miller Sebring of the art department was the first to respond. "We've all agreed it can't be done, and we're looking for a way to work around that."

"There's no time to do anything except use a stock animation and composite it with the footage we've already shot," Dorena Haggarty said glumly. "You'll have to pick something." She slid a multimedia player down the table in Ted's direction.

"No time to audition announcers, either," Peter Crandall added. "This is a disk of voices from an audition this week for a different client. We could hire three or four of them without hearing them read the copy, record them all and then pick one afterwards."

Ted groaned.

There was a knock at the door. Clete Johansson, wireless still at his ear, reached over and opened it disinterestedly.

"We're looking for Ted Braden," a deep voice said. Ted looked up and saw two uniformed sheriff's deputies standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the doorway. "I'm Ted Braden," he said, rising from the table. "What's the trouble?"

One of the deputies crossed the room to where Ted stood and placed a folded document on the table in front of him. "You've been subpoenaed to testify in the trial of Mr. Robert Rand, sir," he said with solemn politeness. "We've been sent by the court to bring you to the Los Angeles District Attorney's office immediately."

"Immediately?" Ted asked, startled. "Yes, sir," the deputy said. "We'll wait, if you need to make any phone calls or anything."

"Hello?"

"Royce, it's Ted."

"Don't tell me you're canceling lunch."

"I'm canceling lunch."

"I asked you not to tell me that."

Ted didn't even smile. "There are two sheriff's deputies here waiting to take me to the district attorney's office," he said.

"Sheriff's deputies! What happened? Is Flynn all right?"

"She's fine, she's fine," Ted said. "I'm a witness in the Maria Sanders murder trial."

"What?!"

"It's a long story," he said. "But I need you to take Flynn to her game tonight because I'm going to have to work when I get back here."

"Okay, hon, no problem. What time?"

Ted sighed in relief. If he and Royce had gotten along this well when they were together, they might have gotten married. Well, not married, but they might have stayed together. "The game's at 6:30," he said. "At Beachwood Park."

"Okay. Maybe I'll see you later at your place. I want to hear all about this."

"I'm just glad you're in town this week," Ted said. "I don't know how long this is going to take." He said good-bye, grabbed his jacket and headed to the elevator where the deputies were standing, watching him.

The district attorney's office was located in a brand new 17-story building adjacent to the downtown Criminal Courts building. The lobby was two stories by itself, paneled in what looked like rich cherrywood but, of course, wasn't. Decorative wood hadn't been permitted in new public buildings in California for thirty years.

Ted and the deputies walked briskly over the flat gray carpet to a bank of three stainless steel elevators along the back wall. "Hold the elevator, please!" one of the deputies called as the doors of the middle elevator began to close.

A sleekly manicured hand slipped around one door and held it.

"Thanks," Ted said, as he and the deputies stepped inside.

"You're welcome." The hand belonged to a stunningly beautiful woman, tall and slender with long dark brown hair and blue eyes the color of a diamond-bright July sky. She wore a soft white cashmere suit fitted so close to her body that she appeared to be sculpted from Carrera marble. Ted was motionless, standing sideways in the elevator, looking at her.

"Excuse me," one of the deputies said, stepping around Ted as the elevator doors closed behind him. "Would you press eight, please?" he said to the woman.

"That's where I'm going, too," she said, pressing the button. The elevator made a whisper sound and reached the eighth floor without interruption. The doors opened.

Ted didn't notice the rows of gray cubicles that extended from one end of the floor to the other. He didn't see the side walls of sliding steel doors leading to private offices. He was watching the brunette walk away.

The deputies watched with him.

"This way," one of the deputies said finally. He led Ted to the last steel door along the right side wall. A tiny green light glowed on the doorjamb. Without knocking, the deputy grasped a bracket on the door and slid it open.

A weathered Hispanic man of about fifty-five was seated at a glass desk. "Come in, Mr. Braden," he said in a deep voice. Ted looked apprehensively through the doorway at the small office, just a desk, three unoccupied armchairs and some computer equipment pushed up against a glass corner of floor-to-ceiling windows. He stepped inside.

"Thanks, fellas." The man dismissed the deputies with a wave. The door slid closed, silencing the hum of voices from the cubicles.

"Mr. Braden, I'm Carl Gonzales, Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles County. Please, sit down."

Ted sat in the armchair closest to the door.

"I'm sorry about the escort," Gonzales said. "We're operating under expedited procedures in this case and sometimes people aren't as cooperative as we need them to be."

A tapping knock rattled the door. Gonzales flipped a toggle switch on a flat metal box on top of his desk. The door slid open and a slender man in a dark suit walked in.

"Hi, Merritt," Gonzales said. "This is Mr. Braden. Mr. Braden, Assistant District Attorney Merritt Logan. He's the lead prosecutor in this case." Logan shook Ted's hand. "I'll bet this is the last place you wanted to be today," Logan said with an excessively understanding smile. Ted stood up to let the lawyer squeeze past him to a chair. "Don't worry," Logan continued, "This won't take long."

Gonzales moved a stack of papers to one side and looked through the surface of his glass desk at a blue video screen underneath it. He clicked another toggle switch on the metal box. "Testing, testing, Mary had a little lamb," he said in a clear voice. He watched his words scroll in bold white text on the screen. "Good news," he said. "The transcriber is working. Let's get started."

Before he could reach for his legal pad, the phone rang. Gonzales picked up the privacy handset. "Yes," he said brusquely. "What? Where did she pop up? That's outstanding. Absolutely. Of course we will. Bring her over right now. Absolutely. Thanks, Cal." Without hanging up the phone, he pressed a series of buttons. "Gracie," he said, "Would you call Jordan and ask her to come to my office, please?"

Ted saw Merritt Logan tense up.

"Detective Whitfield is bringing someone over," Gonzales told Logan. "I think you ought to go talk to them and I'll get Rainsborough in here to chat with Mr. Braden."

"That's not necessary," Logan said quickly. "If Detective Whitfield can wait a little bit, I'll be able to do both."

"No, no," Gonzales said casually. "It's no problem. You go and meet with Detective Whitfield. That's our first priority here."

"Perhaps Mr. Braden could wait..." Logan began.

"No," Gonzales said. "I don't have time for this. You talk to Detective Whitfield and Rainsborough will be responsible for Mr. Braden."

Merritt Logan appeared to swallow a sentence. He stood up, squeezed past Ted and slid open the office door. Standing there, framed like a portrait by the stainless steel doorway, was the stunning woman from the elevator.

"Merritt," she said with a bright smile, "What a nice surprise."

"Yes," he said tersely. "For me, too." He stepped briskly past her and disappeared between two rows of cubicles.

"Come in, Jordan," Gonzales said. "This is Mr. Ted Braden. Mr. Braden, Assistant District Attorney Jordan Rainsborough. She'll be one of the prosecutors in this case."

"Hello," Jordan said, extending her hand. "Thank you for coming in on such short notice."

Ted's tongue felt frozen in his mouth. He shook her hand, as soft as the white cashmere she was wearing, and nodded silently.

Jordan's blue eyes twinkled with amusement.

"Mr. Braden's name is on the witness list Rand's lawyer sent over this morning," Gonzales said as Jordan slipped past Ted's chair and took a seat next to him.

"Yes, I know," Jordan said. "I read the file."

"That was quick," Gonzales said. Jordan smiled sweetly. Ted was beginning to understand what had made Merritt Logan so tense.

"All right, then." Gonzales leafed through a few pages on his legal pad. "Mr. Braden, we'll be asking you some questions to help us understand the facts of this case. It's the policy of this office to conduct interviews of this type under oath. Would you raise your right hand, please."

Ted did.

"Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"

"I do," Ted said quickly.

"All right, then. Jordan, why don't you begin the questioning."

"Thank you," Jordan said with another sweet smile. "Mr. Braden, would you state your name and address for the record, please?"

Ted cleared his throat. "Theodore David Braden, B-R-A-D-E-N, 6505 Whitley Avenue, Hollywood, California."

"Oh, it's beautiful up there," Gonzales interrupted. "I used to live in the Hollywood Hills. Gorgeous at night, all the lights. You must love it."

Ted nodded.

"Yeah, my ex-wife has the house now. Are you married?"

Ted shook his head.

"Smart. NEVER get married in California. That's my legal advice to you, no charge. I'm sorry, Jordan, go ahead."

Jordan shifted in her chair and crossed her legs. The white cashmere skirt rode up her thigh just slightly. "Mr. Braden," she said, "Where were you on the night of February 21st?"


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You're reading The 37th Amendment, a novel by Susan Shelley. Copyright 2002. All rights reserved. This material may not be republished, retransmitted, printed, copied or distributed in any manner, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the author. Permission is granted for publication of short excerpts in the context of a review or commentary, provided the material is appropriately credited.

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