Between Dreams and Nightmares

Chapter 2-1

TWO

(Three Weeks Earlier) May 16 11:45 a.m.Brian Harmon walked from the back of the courtroom to the defense counsel table. He was accompanied by a thirty-five-year-old man in an ill-fitting suit. A mid-fifties man with greying hair and a bored expression moved to the other counsel table.

As they took their positions, Judge Victor Savage gave a nod to the court clerk, who stood and announced, “This is the arraignment in the matter of the People of the State of California v. Matthew Carter. Will counsel please provide appearances for the record?”

“Assistant District Attorney John Thurmond for the People, Your Honor.” His monotone reinforced the perception that he could hardly wait to do something else.

“Brian Harmon for Mr. Matthew Carter. Mr. Carter is also present, Your Honor.” Brian had appeared in front of Judge Savage for over fifteen years, and they had once served on a panel addressing mandatory and discretionary sentencing together. Savage was known as a tough sentencing judge but was fair in the way he conducted trials.

The judge was in his late fifties and had white hair combed straight back over his head. He looked at each attorney over black-rimmed glasses perched half-way down his nose. “Mr. Carter is charged with three counts of fraud, one of mail fraud and one of money laundering. How does your client plead, Mr. Harmon?”

“Not guilty to all charges, Your Honor.”

“Jury demanded?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“And your estimate is two weeks for trial?”

“Correct,” Brian replied. Thurmond said nothing.

“We are setting trials about 120 days out at this point as the calendar is a little crowded. So, we are talking September 17. Does that date work for counsel?”

“Your Honor, I will be engaged in another trial that date. Can we kick it back one more week?” Thurmond asked.

“That would mean September 24. Does that work for you as well, Mr. Harmon?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Trial is set for September 24. Get the case resolved in the interim. Do we have bail issues?”

“Serious crimes, Your Honor. We want bail set at $250,000.”

“Mr. Harmon, your response?”

“Mr. Carter has resided in this community for over fifteen years. He runs a business that is ongoing. He is not a flight risk. We request that he be released OR.”

“Your Honor,” Thurmond responded, now up in arms, “this is far too serious a case for OR release. We cannot be assured he will appear and…”

Judge Savage nodded and interrupted by saying. “I agree that serious crimes are charged, but Mr. Carter has ongoing ties to the community, and I don’t see a major flight risk here. Bail is set at $50,000. Anything else?”

“No, Your Honor,” Thurmond said.

“Not at the moment, Your Honor, although we will be back if the prosecution withholds anything from discovery. We are getting indications that may occur.”

“Understood, Mr. Harmon, but I am not going to guess whether discovery compliance will occur at some later date. We will save that issue for another day when there aren’t just indications but actually something to fight about. Good-bye, gentlemen, have a good day. The court stands in recess for fifteen minutes.”

Thurmond picked up his file and said, “I’ve got another appearance down the hall. We’ll talk about this case in the next day or two, okay?”

Brian gave Thurmond a nod as he ran out the door. Brian turned to his client and said, “Okay, Matt, that’s it for today. My office will be in touch with you to schedule a meeting once we receive discovery from the prosecution. Should be a couple of weeks. At that point we’ll see the strength of their evidence against you.”

“All right. I’ll see you then.”

“You got your bond taken care of yet?”

“Yeah. All set. Wise Guy Bonds will post it and I have arranged to pay them what they need.”

“One more thing; my fee needs to be fully paid at our next meeting, okay?”

“I understand, I’m just not sure where I will get…”

Brian raised a hand. “I don’t get involved in that part. You’ll work it out. I just want you to be aware that I can’t continue representing you unless you can pay the fee up front.” Brian had been stiffed on fees in his early days, so he made sure that didn’t happen anymore. Clients who might go to jail needed to pay in advance. If they lost and got sentenced, their motivation to pony up fees went away quickly.

“I understand,” Matt Carter replied with an expression that said he was not happy, but Brian knew that squeezing him for the fee would work. He would beg, borrow or steal the money and pay Brian when they next met. As long as it wasn’t counterfeit, Brian would ask no questions about what Carter had to do for the money.

As Matt Carter walked away, Brian turned his attention back to his file. He slid the file into his brief case, and then looked up to see the court clerk wave him over. He walked to her desk and she said, “Judge Savage wants to talk to you. Go ahead into chambers.” His surprise must have shown, because she followed her response with, “Don’t worry, he said it’s not about your case.”

“Okay,” Brian replied, and walked past the bailiff’s desk and through the door behind the courtroom bench. He turned right into the hallway and walked a few feet until he came to a sign on his left that said, “Judge Savage.”

He tapped on the open door and Victor Savage stood up behind his desk and said, “Come in, Brian. Take a seat.”

“Yes, Your Honor.” Brian sat down in a visitor chair across from Judge Savage’s desk and waited.

The judge had shed his robe. He wore a white shirt, a blue striped tie and a worried expression. He took his seat and studied Brian for a time. After an awkward silence, Judge Savage narrowed his eyes said, “Brian, you are here because I have some faith in your ability to do your job.” He paused and then added, “I need to talk to you because I’m faced with a,” he paused and then said, “disconcerting situation.”

“Yes, judge. What can I do for you?”

“Not here,” the judge replied curtly. “We need to talk somewhere else; away from the courthouse.”

“Okay, when and where?” Brian asked. “Do you want to come to my office or my house?”

Judge Savage shook his head. “No. I reserved us a private meeting room at the Waterman Club tonight. Can you meet me there at 7:00 p.m.?”

“Yes, sure,” Brian offered, wondering what this was all about.

The judge recited an address and then said, “See you tonight,” standing to make clear that this meeting was over. “Just give them my name at reception and they will take you to the meeting room.”

“See you then,” Brian said. He stood and walked from the judge’s chambers without further exchange, nervously wondering what this was all about. Judges maintain distance from the lawyers who practice in their courtrooms; they don’t go fishing together and they don’t request clandestine meetings with those lawyers. At least he had never heard of those events occurring through this point in his career.

Brian considered what this might be about. It struck him that the judge might have something on him that required confidentiality. Clients had accused Brian of overcharging from time to time. He had two of those complaints pending and a third alleging that he had taken more than his share of a settlement, but those complaints had been filed with the California State Bar Association and were handled by California State Bar judges, not Superior Court judges. This was something else and it was unsettling. The judge knew something about what Brian was doing that could only be discussed confidentially. A couple of possibilities that came to mind. One was the overbilling issue; sometimes he added a few hours to bills that he hadn’t actually worked. Or it could be his other ways of picking up extra money; doubling or tripling his fees for defendants who needed immediate help and had no room to bargain. Some of the guys who were likely guilty, but desperately wanted to stay out of prison had sums of money stored in back rooms and under floorboards. Overcharging these guys was dangerous because some of them were capable of anything. On the other hand, they were great targets because they would defraud, steal, or do whatever it took to find the cash they needed. The d**g defendants were the best because they were always flush with cash, and they had enemies that they couldn’t afford to visit in a prison. They would pay most anything to have him work their cases.

It was possible that one of these clients had approached Judge Savage through another attorney. Maybe the judge wanted to give Brian the opportunity to explain some allegations made against him before something else was turned over to the California State Bar Association to investigate. If that was the plan, then he would need to have explanations at the ready. He would agree to make amends or to do whatever it took to put any complaint to rest. One thing was certain; he could not afford to have the State Bar looking too closely at his practice, so whatever the judge had learned that was a problem, Brian planned to do everything it took to make it go away. As he drove back to the office, he found himself increasingly nervous about the meeting. It was hard to prepare answers when he didn’t know the questions.

May 16 2:50 p.m.Brian dialed and waited impatiently while four rings made him think there would be no answer. When he expected to hear her voice mail recording kick in, Amanda picked up the phone and replied. “Hi, Brian.”

“Hi. I just wanted to tell you that I expect to be late tonight. Maybe eleven or so.”

“That seems to happen a lot these days,” she said.

“I can’t help it. I’m busy.”

Amanda was quiet for a time and then said, “Okay. I’ll probably be asleep.”

“Okay. See you in the morning,” he said curtly, and he was gone.

As she put down the phone, Amanda stared out the window from her fifteenth-floor office at nothing, contemplating the wreckage that was her marriage. Brian didn’t even make a pretense anymore. There was no effort to support her or even to be with her. She was some kind of scheduling annoyance that he tolerated. It had been a long time since things were really good, but now they were at an all-time low. She knew he was screwing someone else again; she could feel it. With some regularity his cell went unanswered in the middle of the afternoon. She would call his office and his staff would say he was ‘out of the office,’ but they weren’t able to say where. And these unexplained disappearances were accompanied by late nights, two or three times a week. It wasn’t hard to figure out. It had been that way two years ago, when he had taken up with Alexandra Carr. She had learned about it by way of an anonymous phone call from the legal assistant’s coworker, who was apparently distraught by the favoritism shown to the woman Brian was f*****g. What had she said? Something like ‘you don’t know me Ms. Harmon but I work in your husband’s office, and I thought you should know that he is sleeping with someone who works here. I’m really sorry, but I thought you should know.’

Amanda questioned Brian when he arrived home that night and he had lied to her repeatedly. Ultimately, she told him she knew that he was f*****g a woman at work and that there was a witness to his actions who had called her. When Amanda named the woman Brian was sleeping with, she saw the truth of it in his eyes. Three hours after the discussion began, he admitted that it was true and told her that the affair had gone on for three months. He professed that he was sorry and swore that it would never happen again; that was his solemn vow. He was so sorry that he had hurt her. And on and on until she slowly relented, agreeing to give him another chance to prove that a leopard can change his spots. After that, their relationship had been better for several months and, little by little, she began to trust him. Then it all started over. He was somewhere else again; at appointments with clients who could only meet after five, at a bar with other clients who bought him drinks while they paid him to keep them out of prison, or he was simply too busy to come home because he had to work late.