“As I indicated,” he said without shaking my hand, “you’ve got ten minutes.”
His rumpled appearance matched the decor of his office. Case files and law books were strewn about. His desktop looked like the aftermath of a tsunami. The walls were naked but for a battery-operated clock and a framed law degree. The timepiece was hammered copper and shaped like the continent of Africa. The sheepskin was from Yale.
“I’ve been trying capital cases for thirty-five years,” he said as he parked himself behind his desk in a well-worn leather executive chair. “Dorian Munz was as guilty as they get. That doesn’t mean the government had the right to do him like it did. No man’s got that right.”
I sat down in a folding chair opposite his desk. “You said on the phone you’d let me have a look at Mr. Munz’s closing remarks.”
“You a PI?”
“Flight instructor.”
“A what?”
“It’s a long story and you’ve got ten minutes. If I could just see the videotape…”
He eyed me sideways, firing up his cigar with a lighter shaped like a gavel. “I still don’t get what you’re trying to get at, Mr. Logan.”
“Just trying to bring a little closure to a father who lost his child.”
“Closure’s vastly overrated.”
Dowd dug a laptop out from under a pile of legal briefs on his desk, typed in a few commands, swiveled the computer screen in my direction, checked his watch, then sat back with his feet up, smoking and gazing out at the sailboats plying San Diego Bay.
The videotape was black and white and less than a minute long. It offered few insights beyond what Hub Walker had already shared with me: Munz lay lashed to a gurney, gazing into a camera mounted on the ceiling above him. Through tears, he alleged that Ruth Walker had stumbled upon a billing scam in which Castle Robotics had ripped off Uncle Sam to the tune of nearly $10 million for work that was never performed. Ruth, he said, intended to go to the authorities with what she knew before she was killed. But that wasn’t the only reason, he said, why Greg Castle wanted her dead.
“Ruth had a baby, Castle’s baby,” Munz said into the camera. “He wanted her to get an abortion and she said no, so he killed her — or had somebody do it for him.”
Munz acknowledged that his relationship with Ruth had turned bitter but insisted he was no murderer. “I loved that girl,” he declared. “I’ll always love her.”
The tape ended.
“What proof did Ruth Walker have that Castle’s company was ripping off the Defense Department?”
“Mr. Munz received an anonymous letter about a month after he was convicted,” Dowd said, flicking the ashes from his cigar into a cut crystal bowl on his desk. “All the letter said was that Castle was dirty, that Ruth Walker knew it, and that’s why she died.”
“Any idea who sent the letter?”
“Not a clue.”
Whoever mailed it, Dowd said, also sent copies anonymously to various local news media outlets. The story dominated San Diego’s newspaper and TV stations for several days before the press lost interest. Beyond that anonymous letter, Dowd said, his client had no real evidence tying Greg Castle to Ruth Walker’s murder, nor for his assertion that Castle had fathered Ruth’s baby. The condemned man was merely grasping at straws, hoping to forestall his execution.
“I petitioned for a retrial,” Dowd said. “I argued that the letter introduced sufficient reasonable doubt. My motion, however, was denied. The Ninth Circuit held that the evidence presented by the prosecution was, and I quote, ‘Overwhelming and irrefutable.’ ”
“Sounds like you weren’t able to mount much of a defense.”
Dowd’s mood turned on a dime. “I’m a damn fine lawyer, Mr. Logan. Or perhaps you think people of color got no business in a court of law except wearing ’cuffs and a jumpsuit.”
“I don’t see color, Mr. Dowd. I only see good or bad. I meant no offense.”
“Well, I am offended. I’ve been practicing law in this city for more than twenty-five years, and I don’t much appreciate some flight instructor coming in here, questioning my legal skills.” He snuffed out his cigar on the sole of his scuffed black wing tip. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting upcoming with my investigator on another matter.”
I stood. “What was the evidence against Dorian Munz that was so ‘overwhelming and irrefutable’?”
“You’ll find the entire case file over at the clerk of the court. You can read to your heart’s content.” Dowd picked up his phone and waited for me to leave. “I’m sure you can find your way out. Fly safe, Mr. Logan.”
What can I say? Some of us have a knack for offending others without even trying. Call it a gift. I thanked the attorney for his time and turned to go.
Standing in the doorway, blocking my way, was a towering, well-built man with mocha-colored skin. Except for his ears, which were abnormally large for his head, he reminded me of a Doberman pinscher. Same sinewy frame. Same darkly menacing features. His untucked, green silk camp shirt bulged subtly at the right hip of his baggy jean, where his concealed pistol rode in a pancake holster. I made him for Dowd’s aforesaid investigator.
“Who’s this?” he asked Dowd while gazing at me hard.
“This is Mr. Logan. He’s looking into the Munz case ex post facto.”
“Looking into the case for who?”
“The father of the victim. I believe Mr. Logan was just leaving, weren’t you, Mr. Logan?”
“Surf’s up,” I said to the Doberman. “Wouldn’t want to keep Frankie and Annette waiting.”
His eyes held steady on mine. In a previous life, I can only assume we must’ve crossed swords. Whatever the instinct, it was clear that his dislike of me was as instantaneous as mine was of him. At six-foot-four and 220, he had a good three inches and what looked to be about thirty pounds of steroid-fortified flank steak on me. Ah, but what I gave away in height and weight, I more than made up for in wisdom-rich years. Which is to say that if push came to shove, I was likely going to get my sage, unarmed ass stomped — not without getting in a few good thumps of my own, mind you, but stomped regardless.
“Who’s Frankie and Annette?” He had a grating, raspy voice.
“Original Mouseketeers,” I said. “Annette went on to have a very successful career as a professional virgin.”
The human Doberman smiled frigidly. His teeth looked like something unearthed by a paleontologist. “You’re a regular comedian,” he said.
“My ex-wife would beg to differ.”
“Let him pass, Bunny,” Dowd said sternly.
Bunny? Who names a Doberman pinscher “Bunny”? I wanted to say something snide, but held my fire.
Grudgingly, Bunny stepped aside. “See you around, funny man.”
“Not unless I see you first.”
The receptionist winked at me as I walked out.
I might’ve blushed if only I could’ve remembered how.
The clerk’s office of the U.S. District Court, Southern District of California, was located a block east on Front Street, in the first floor of a modernistic, five-story building named in honor of a federal judge who, if the memorial plaque in the lobby was to be believed, never uttered an unkind word to anyone, including the hundreds of miscreants he’d sent to federal prison for the rest of their miserable lives. It was past 2:30 by the time I got there. I filled out a request form with the case number I pulled from a computer terminal, turned over my driver’s license to an indifferent civil servant manning the counter, and waited for someone to retrieve the file — or, more accurately, files.
Excluding subsequent appeals, the government’s proceedings against Dorian Nathan Munz filled three banker’s boxes. The clerk’s office closed in less than two hours. I’d need to do some serious speed reading. Skimming was more like it. I took a seat at a wooden, librarian-style table, on an unpadded wooden chair, and dove into the transcripts of the trial.