Inevitable Discovery Page 14

She left unsaid the wrinkle that if she ended up being a fact witness, she wouldn’t be able to represent Charlie and the others. With any luck, Jordana would remember seeing him, too. She could testify if needed.

  One thing at a time.

  “How does that help Sam?”

  “It doesn’t help him in the short term. Right now, we need to find him. But once we sue the police department, they’ll be under a spotlight, more than they already are, I mean. That alone should provide some protection for Sam. Nobody takes out a witness when everyone is watching.”

  The Milltown district attorney was investigating the shooting of Vaughn Tabor, but the investigation was moving slowly and out of the eye of the public. If she sued the department in federal court for civil rights violations, she could make a lot of noise.

  Charlie shuddered at the notion of the police silencing Sam permanently. She hated to be so blunt, but that was the end game, and they all knew it.

  “Okay, so what’s our next step? Finding Sam?”

  “Finding Sam is key. But I also want to get a placeholder complaint on file with the district court today. That puts the police department and the PPC on notice that their behavior is being scrutinized.”

  “Couldn’t it also push them to take action against Sam even faster?”

  “It could,” she allowed. “Our next step is a gamble, either way. But we can’t do nothing.”

  Charlie glanced at Raquel. She nodded.

  He inhaled and pushed back his shoulders. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

  “Come on, then. Let’s go talk to Max Barefoot and see if he’ll join the complaint.” She stood and pushed in her chair.

  “Now?”

  “No time like the present.”

  “I hope we’re making the right choice,” Charlie mused as he handed her her coat from the rack.

  So did she.

  27

  Sasha came to a stop and pointed across the street to a small red brick home on the outskirts of Milltown, not far from the bypass leading into Pittsburgh.

  “This is it.”

  Charlie peered at the house with its lace living room curtains and the neat row of box hedges lining the front porch. “It’s hard to imagine Barefoot living in a place like this.”

  “According to the property records, it was his grandmother’s place. She died when he was in prison, and he inherited it,” Sasha told him. “You ready?”

  He nodded. She popped the locks, and they exited the vehicle. They hurried across the street, collars upturned against the blast of cold air, and raced up to the porch. She jabbed the doorbell while Charlie jammed his bare hand into his pockets and stamped his feet to keep the blood flowing.

  After a few moments, footsteps sounded in the hallway, and a shadow appeared behind the frosted glass door. The person on the other side of the door shifted to get a good look at them through a clear pane in the sidelight glass.

  “Come on, man, it’s cold out here,” Charlie protested.

  Sasha turned and casually glanced across the street. She hoped Barefoot would hurry up, too. But not because of the cold.

  “Hang on,” came the muffled response from inside, followed by the sound of a lock scraping across its barrel. And then the door swung open.

  “Hey, man,” Charlie said.

  “What are you doing here?” Barefoot countered.

  Sasha stepped forward. “Mr. Barefoot, hi. I’m Sasha McCandless-Connelly. I’m an attorney representing Professor Robinson and Mr. Blank. Could we please come inside? Please?” She allowed a note of urgency to creep into her voice.

  She could feel Charlie giving her a sidelong look, but she ignored it. They needed to get inside. Now.

  Barefoot shuffled back to give them room to cross the threshold. “Yeah, okay, I guess, come on in. You want a drink or anything?” His tone made it clear that the only acceptable answer was no.

  He shut the door behind them. She was pleased to see that he re-engaged the lock.

  “No, thank you. I was hoping to talk to you a bit about your experience at the PPC detention center.”

  “The what?”

  “The place where you were held is called the PPC. It probably stands for Predictive and Preventive Crime or something similar.”

  He barked out a laugh. “That dude, the one who looked like a banker or something, he kept going on about some technology that knew I was gonna commit more crimes.”

  “Right. His name is Landon Lewis, and he’s invented an artificial intelligence program that he says can predict latent criminality based on some proprietary blend of factors.”

  Barefoot twisted his mouth. “A blend of factors like having black skin and being a man.”

  Sasha allowed herself a faint smile. “That goes to the heart of the matter. Professor Robinson and Mr. Blank plan to file a lawsuit in federal court suing the PPC and the Milltown Police Department for violations of their civil rights. You would also have those same causes of action if you’d like to join them. But there’s a wrinkle.”

  “Oh, let me guess. You want paid up front.”

  Charlie jumped in, “No, it’s nothing like that. Her firm is doing this pro bono, which means—”

  “I know what it means. I’ve had free legal representation a time or two. Criminal law clinic up at the law school. So what’s the wrinkle, then?”

  “The wrinkle is that Mr. Blank went missing last night,” Sasha told him.

  Barefoot’s eyes widened. “Come on in and sit down.” He ushered them into a living room decorated by his late grandmother—either that, or he had a fondness for lace doilies and clear plastic couch protectors.

  Sasha settled herself on the loveseat amidst a loud crackle of plastic. Charlie sat next to her, and Max Barefoot claimed the corduroy recliner.

  “Sam’s missing?”

  Charlie cleared his throat. “He came back to my place after they sprang us. I told him he could stay as long as he wanted, but he must’ve freaked in the middle of the night. He was gone when I woke up.”

  “That’s not missing. That’s he rolled,” Barefoot corrected him.

  Charlie scoffed. “Come on, man. You know what he saw. The police are gonna come looking for him, and it’s gonna be bad if they find him before we do.”

  Their host cut his eyes towards Sasha, then looked back at Charlie. “I don’t know what he saw. I don’t know anything about that.” His eyes were marbles, hard and cold.

  “Mr. Barefoot, as I’m sure you’re well aware, if you engage me as your attorney in the civil rights matter, anything you say to me about your time at the PPC will be covered by attorney-client privilege.” Sasha tried not to let her impatience bleed through, but they didn’t have time for this feigned ignorance routine.

  “I’m not sure I want to get involved.”

  Charlie made a snarling sound, and Sasha shot him a warning look.

  “That’s understandable. But, you should know that even if you don’t join the lawsuit, they’re not going to leave you alone.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She unstuck her bottom from the plastic and stood up. “Did you notice that your house is under surveillance?”

  “What?” He jumped to his feet.

  She led him to the window and shifted the lace curtain. Charlie squeezed in beside them.

  “Look across the street. Do you see that navy blue Suburban behind the gray station wagon?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I see it.”

  “It’s been there since we got here. There are two men with buzz cuts, dressed head to toe in black just sitting in the front seat, drinking coffee, looking at your house.”

  “You think they’re plainclothes?” Barefoot asked as he twitched the curtain back into place. They all moved away from the window.

  “No. There’s no way Milltown could afford a fleet of Suburbans. Those are Lewis’ men.”

  “Damn,” Charlie breathed.

  “My suspicion is they’re not going to let you out of their sight
until they find something to prove their algorithm right.”

  “They’re gonna stalk me?”

  “They’ll call it surveilling you, but yeah. They probably already have a wiretap on your phone, maybe on your computer.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Their AI says you will.”

  “That’s … this is an invasion of privacy or something. This isn’t right.”

  “No, it’s not.” She gave him a long look. “So, do you want to do something about it or not?”

  He huffed out a breath. “Yeah, okay. Where do I sign?”

  She reached into her bag and retrieved a blank engagement letter. “Read that. Let me know if you have any questions.”

  He skimmed it and held out his hand for a pen.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to read it more closely?”

  “You’re going to sue those rats sitting on my house, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the cops who are working with them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s make it happen. Give me a pen.”

  She handed him a ballpoint, and he rested the letter against the wall to scrawl his signature.

  “Here.”

  “I’ll have someone from my office send you a copy of this later today so you’ll have it for your records.” She slipped the sheet back into her bag and stuck out her hand to shake on it. He had a surprisingly gentle handshake.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “What should I do if they just, you know, bust in here without a warrant?”

  “The pair in the car? I doubt they’d try it. They have to know they have no authority.”

  “No, I mean the cops.”

  “If the police show up with a search warrant, call me immediately.” She searched his face to be sure he was hearing her.

  “Okay. And if they show up without one, what do I do?”

  “Don’t let them in. They can’t use evidence they obtain without a warrant anyway,” she told him.

  He laughed darkly. “Yeah, right. The Milltown Police do it all the time. They walk right in, search the joint, no warrant. Defense attorney tries to keep out the evidence, and the DA makes some fancy argument about, I don’t know, it would be discovered no matter what? Next thing you know, the judge is letting it in.”

  She frowned. “They claim an inevitable discovery exception?”

  “Yeah, that’s what they called it. It happened in my trial. They searched my house, no warrant, and found the driver’s license of the guy I jacked in my junk drawer.”

  Charlie scoffed. “Why’d you keep it?”

  Barefoot shrugged. “Thought I could sell it, you know, to somebody who needed papers. Ended up landing my butt in a cell. The DA said the license would’ve led back to me inevitably when I sold it on the street.”

  Sasha shook her head. “That’s not how the doctrine of inevitable discovery works. Or it’s not how it’s supposed to work, at least.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. I did a seven-year stretch, so it worked. But, okay. If they show up, I’ll call you. What are you gonna do now?”

  “Charlie and I are going to look for Sam. Any ideas where he hangs out?”

  “No. But you should try the library. Those guys always hang out there when it’s cold outside.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Charlie said.

  “What about those two?” Max jutted his chin toward the window.

  Sasha smiled. “If you get bored, go outside and wander around. Lead them on a wild goose chase. They deserve it.”

  28

  The mobile phone vibrated on Landon’s desk. He grabbed it and looked at the display. Team Three, the men assigned to watch Barefoot.

  “Do you have something?” he demanded by way of greeting.

  Bartone, the senior agent on Team Three, waffled. “Maybe, sir.”

  “Maybe?”

  “We’re set up across the street from the target’s residence. It’s been quiet. He walked to the corner store earlier, came back with milk and a bag of groceries. A neighbor stopped by briefly. They spoke on the porch. We planted a transmitter on the underside of his mailbox, but we may need to reposition it—it failed to pick up the entire conversation clearly, but it seemed to involve a shared tree that’s rotting. The neighbor is concerned the next big snowstorm will bring it down.”

  Landon pressed the fingers of his right hand against his forehead and pushed hard against the tension headache that was forming. “I hope you have more than that. Otherwise, just save it for the field report, Bartone.”

  Bartone hurriedly continued, “Yes, sir. There’s more. After the neighbor departed and the target returned inside, a gray station wagon approached from the north and parked in front of us, directly opposite Mr. Barefoot’s residence. There’s only parking on one side of the street on Thursdays. Street cleaning.”

  “Feel free to edit out the unnecessary details.” Landon could do without the play-by-play.

  “Yes, sir. A petite female and a man we’ve confirmed is Charlie Robinson exited the vehicle. They approached the residence. Unfortunately, again, the broadcasting device didn’t pick up most of the conversation on the porch. We’ll get that taken care of the next time the subject leaves the home. In any event, he invited them inside. They’re still in there. Should we call the Milltown PD?”

  “Why would you do that, agent?”

  “Sir, Robinson and Barefoot were not known associates before their time in the PPC. It’s clear they formed some sort of alliance or relationship during their detention. That seems … troubling, sir.”

  Landon drummed his fingers on the desk. “Yes, it’s less than ideal that Robinson and Barefoot are meeting, but socializing isn’t a crime in itself. I’m interested to know who this woman is. You said she drives a gray station wagon, and she’s a small woman?”

  “Affirmative and affirmative. She can’t be but five feet tall.”

  The attorney who’d bailed out the blue-haired student was a tiny thing. And she drove a dark gray station wagon. His headache intensified.

  “Run the plate.”

  “Forman’s on it, sir. But, again, if we call in the address to the PD, Chief Carlson will authorize a search. He won’t hesitate to send out officers.”

  “On what grounds? Having visitors isn’t a justification for a search warrant. What’s going on in Carlson’s department?”

  “Uh, sir, we’ve heard from some of the officers that they don’t bother with search warrants much.”

  Landon encouraged his teams to get friendly with their law enforcement counterparts. Personal relationships made it easier to convince the local departments and units to accept the Cesare beta program and to trust the data. He hoped he wouldn’t grow to regret his cozy relationship with the Milltown Police Department. There were plenty of small departments in the communities surrounding Pittsburgh that were completely clean and above board. He didn’t want to think that he’d tethered himself, and his program, to a dirty one.

  “Search warrants aren’t optional, son. The United States Constitution protects citizens from unreasonable search and seizure.”

  Bartone laughed nervously. “I’m not a lawyer, sir.”

  “Neither am I. And yet, it behooves me to understand the letter of the law so that I can comply with it. It would behoove you to do that same.”

  “Uh, yes, sir. I’ll bone up on the rules of evidence this weekend,” Bartone promised. “But do you want me to call Milltown and have them break up this party or no?”

  Irritation and worry mixed in a toxic brew, driving the band of pain behind his eyes to new heights. He gritted his teeth to keep from snapping. “Did the license plate come back yet?”

  There was a mumbled back-and-forth between Bartone and his partner. After a moment, Bartone said, “the car is registered to a Sasha McCandless-Connelly.”

  “Ms. McCandless-Connelly is an attorney. So, you tell me? Do you th
ink it’s a good idea to call the Milltown PD and ask them to conduct an illegal search of a home where an attorney is present?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Good answer. I’m pleased to learn that your brain hasn’t fallen completely out of your head.”

  The agent wisely ignored the jab. “Assuming the lawyer and Robinson leave together and Barefoot stays home, do you want us to follow her or stay on him?”

  Landon considered the question. He would like to know what she was up to. But he hadn’t planned to surveil Robinson so closely. He couldn’t let his curiosity distract him from his actual priorities.

  “Stay with Barefoot. Put a tracker on her car.”

  “Yes, sir.” Bartone passed along the order to Forman. Landon heard a car door slam, and, a moment later, it slammed again.

  “Is it done?”

  “It’s done.”

  Technology was a beautiful thing. All Forman had to do was stick a relatively inexpensive, small magnetic GPS tracker to the underside of the lawyer’s car. A ten-second job, and now Landon would know where she was at all times.

  “Good. I’ll have Marshall’s team monitor her.”

  Bartone’s voice came over the line again, crackling with urgency. “They’ve exited the residence, sir. Barefoot is still inside. Robinson returned to the station wagon. But she’s approaching our vehicle, sir. Here she comes. She’s tapping on the window. Now she’s gesturing for me to roll it down. What should I do, sir?”

  “Lower the window, agent. And get a grip on your emotions.”

  Could she have seen Forman? Surely the man had been discreet. He strained to listen to the back-and-forth between Bartone and the attorney. He could make out a female voice, but not the words. Bartone sounded like he was stammering.

  After a seemingly interminable time, Bartone came back on the line. “Sir?” His voice was full of dread.

  “Yes.” Landon steeled himself to hear that she knew about the GPS tracker.

  “She gave me her business card, sir. And she … well, she said to tell you that she wants copies of her clients’ nondisclosure agreements, sir. She’s representing all three men.”

  He let out a whoosh of air. That wasn’t too bad. The PPC had defended the program before, and it could do it again.