Pipe Dream

by Solomon Jones

  “Objection,” the prosecutor said. “Conjecture.”

  “Sustained.”

  The defense lawyer immediately asked his next question.

  “What happened to the tape of the interrogation, Miss Thomas?”

  “I gave it to a reporter named Henry Moore right after the interrogation, and Mr. Moore was killed. My brother was—”

  “Objection. Mr. Moore’s death is not germane to these proceedings.”

  “Sustained. Please answer the question, Miss Thomas. What happened to the tape?”

  She paused and looked over at Black with an apology lingering in her eyes. “I gave it to Henry Moore. I don’t know what happened after that.”

  “Thank you,” the lawyer said, ending his questioning before it did any further damage. “Your witness.”

  The district attorney walked up to the witness stand and said what everyone else must have thought.

  “I’m sure you’re aware that Detective Hillman is dead, Miss Thomas.”

  “Yes, I know that.”

  “Was there another detective present for this interrogation? Someone who could corroborate your story?”

  “There was, but he left the room right before Darnell started talking. And by the time he came back, the nurse was telling us that we had to leave.”

  “So, you’re telling this court that the only two people to hear your brother make these claims were you and Detective Hillman.”

  “Yes.”

  “And there was a tape of this interrogation with your brother, who—and I mean no offense by this—was not a very credible witness to begin with. But you don’t have the tape and you haven’t seen the tape since you gave it to Mr. Moore.”

  “That’s correct, but—”

  “How convenient. And how utterly believable. No further questions.”

  As Latoya Thomas stepped down, the judge called a recess and said that the trial would resume at one P.M. that afternoon.

  Black sat in his wheelchair, watching the jury file out and wondering if they would ever hear the entire truth.

  Lieutenant Jorge Ramirez was the best hope for the defense. The Commonwealth hadn’t sought his testimony because everyone knew that he blamed Sheldon for the councilman’s death.

  When Black’s lawyer called Ramirez to the stand, he asked a question that would allow him to convey that sense of blame to the jury.

  “If you would, Lieutenant, please tell us who headed the Homicide Division during the investigation into the death of city councilman Johnny Podres.”

  “Captain Irv Sheldon. He was commanding officer at the time.”

  “Did Captain Sheldon carry out his duties effectively during that investigation?”

  “Objection, Your Honor,” the prosecutor said. “Calls for an opinion.”

  “Your Honor, I’m merely trying to establish whether there was a thorough investigation into the shooting. Lieutenant Ramirez was the lead investigator. Who better to establish that fact than him?”

  “I’m going to allow it. Answer the question, Lieutenant.”

  “No, Captain Sheldon didn’t carry out his duties effectively, because he was very singular in his approach to the Podres shooting,” Ramirez said. “He told me that the suspects were our best chance for a conviction in this case, as if he were saying that we needed to bring them in whether or not they were guilty of the crime.”

  “Objection,” the prosecutor said. “Conjecture.”

  “Sustained.”

  “What, if anything, did the captain do that was detrimental to the progress of the investigation?” the defense lawyer said.

  Ramirez took a few seconds to think about his answer.

  “Captain Sheldon urged me to hide the fact that we’d conducted what turned out to be an illegal search. He was also very adamant about not pursuing a kidnapping charge against the suspects because he didn’t want the FBI to become involved in the investigation. Then, after Detective Hillman spoke with an eyewitness who described Podres’s killer as a man fitting the captain’s description—”

  “Objection,” the prosecutor said, jumping out of her seat. “Captain Sheldon is not on trial here.”

  “Your Honor,” Black’s lawyer said, “Lieutenant Ramirez is merely recounting the events as they occurred. I believe he will testify that Captain Sheldon was fixated on my client as a suspect, because the captain believed that—”

  “Your honor, the defense is putting words in the mouth of the witness!” the prosecutor said.

  As Ramirez listened to the attorneys, he was reminded of the way Sheldon had dressed his deceptions as truth. He thought of the people who had paid with their lives so that Sheldon and Morgan could break the very laws they were sworn to uphold. He thought of how Reds Hillman had stood for the truth, only to be struck down for a lie.

  Ramirez took it all in and mourned the illusions that had been shattered, the realities that had been unearthed, the never-ending game that would always protect the Sheldons of the world. He took it in and was consumed by a fiery anger that filled him to overflowing.

  As the judge overruled the prosecutor’s objection and the defense lawyer approached the witness stand and repeated his question, Ramirez knew that he couldn’t leave the courtroom without revealing the truth he’d come there to tell.

  “Lieutenant Ramirez?”

  Ramirez’s eyes snapped forward as the lawyer’s voice pulled him from his reverie.

  “I ask again, Lieutenant, what, if anything, did Captain Sheldon do that was detrimental to the investigation?”

  Ramirez took a moment to gather himself, then answered the question.

  “Captain Sheldon went AWOL and disappeared from the Command Center.”

  “And was Captain Sheldon seen or heard from again?”

  “Five witnesses at Abbottsford Hospital said they saw a man fitting the captain’s description go into Darnell Thomas’s room, then come out of that room and struggle with Detective Hillman. When officers came to investigate, they found that the witness and Detective Hillman were both dead, with gunshot wounds to the head.”

  “Objection,” the prosecutor said, jumping from her seat.

  “On what grounds?” the judge said.

  “I withdraw the question and I have nothing further for this witness,” the defense attorney said before the prosecutor could explain her objection.

  But Ramirez couldn’t hear the lawyers anymore. The only thing he heard was the truth ringing in his ears. So he kept talking.

  “Captain Sheldon killed Johnny Podres because the councilman wouldn’t give in to his attempt to blackmail him.”

  The judge banged his gavel. “That’s enough, Lieutenant! You may step down!”

  But even as the sound of the gavel reverberated throughout the courtroom, Ramirez’s voice kept getting louder.

  “Sheldon tried to pin the murder on Mr. Jackson and the others because he believed they would be easy to convict,” he said.

  “Lieutenant, I’m going to hold you in contempt if you don’t stop this right now!” the judge warned, banging his gavel again.

  Ramirez began to yell. “Captain Irv Sheldon murdered Johnny Podres—not the man on trial here!”

  The judge stood up and called out to the bailiff and the sheriff’s deputies who stood in the back of the room. “Remove him from my courtroom!”

  The deputies approached Ramirez and gestured for him to step down. He looked at both of them, then looked up at the judge, and he knew that he had probably done more harm than good. But it was off of him. The truth had been told and they could do with it what they liked.

  “I’m holding this witness in contempt,” the judge said, continuing to bang his gavel as the courtroom collapsed into a den of confusion.

  The deputies escorted a struggling Lieutenant Ramirez from the witness stand.

  “Take him to the holding cell!” the judge yelled over the growing din.

  Some of the courtroom spectators rose from their seats to get a better look
as the deputies led Ramirez away.

  The judge kept banging the gavel in an effort to restore order, but it was useless.

  As Ramirez walked out of the room, he could hear the judge’s decree: “The jury will disregard Lieutenant Ramirez’s comments and his entire testimony will be stricken from the record. This court is in recess until eight A.M. tomorrow morning.”

  But Ramirez knew, even as he was forced into the holding cell, that no judge on earth could ever kill truth, because truth always found a way to resurrect itself.

  The next morning, when the judge called a five-minute recess and a few people walked out into the hall to stretch their legs, Black’s lawyer turned to him and looked him in the eye.

  “I’ve done the best I can for you, Samuel,” he said. “I hope you know that.”

  Black couldn’t deny that the lawyer had exceeded his expectations. Usually, court-appointed lawyers provided shoddy representation. But this lawyer had done all that he could to represent his client well.

  “I know you tried,” Black said. “I appreciate that.”

  “I didn’t want Lieutenant Ramirez to lose control up there,” the lawyer said, shaking his head. “And frankly, I don’t know how the jury’s going to take that. But the bottom line is, you might have about a fifty-fifty chance at acquittal, if that.”

  He paused to give Black a chance to weigh that statement.

  “This is the time in a trial when the defense has two choices,” the lawyer said. “Either we put you on the stand and take the chance of having the prosecutor portray you as a career criminal, or we rest our case and hope that somewhere along the way we created enough doubt to convince the jury of your innocence.”

  “But I am innocent,” Black said. “It don’t matter how the district attorney tries to make me look. That don’t turn a lie into the truth.”

  “Oh, but it does matter. Because truth is what those twelve people say it is. It’s not about what you did or didn’t do, Samuel. It’s about what they believe. And I don’t want to see you risk your life to try to change that.”

  Black was quiet for a moment, reflecting on his lawyer’s words. When he spoke, it was with a finality that belied his uncertainty.

  “I spent a lotta years riskin’ my life,” he said slowly. “Livin’ in the street, smokin’ crack, takin’ things from people. I risked my life for next to nothin’. But now I’m riskin’ it for a lot more than that. And this time, I think it’s worth the risk.”

  The lawyer was silent, knowing that his client was right, but wishing that there was another option.

  “I’m testifyin’,” Black said. “I don’t have a choice.”

  The lawyer nodded. Then he shook his client’s hand and looked into his eyes like he was seeing him for the last time.

  As the lawyer took his seat at the defense table, Black felt something inside of himself come alive. It felt like a loving touch, stroking his hair, whispering in his ear, singing him sweet lullabies, and protecting him from harm. Black closed his eyes and relished the familiarity of the feeling. And as realization burst onto the landscape of his mind, he quickly turned around in his chair.

  Black feverishly scanned the spectators’ seats, looking for the face he knew must be there. And when he saw her, the peace that engulfed him was indescribable. His mother’s head was bowed. Her lips moved ever so slightly. He saw her lips form the word “amen.” And when she looked up, their eyes met.

  She smiled, and in that moment they both knew that God had brought him back from the dead. No matter what happened, he was alive again. They both mouthed the words “I love you.” But before Ruth Jackson could make her way toward the defense table, the judge reentered the courtroom.

  Everyone stood, and it seemed that the judge’s flowing robes shed a black pall over the entire room. Everything about the day became darker as he took his seat. Perhaps it was because Black knew that he was about to expose his entire life to the scrutiny of the twelve people in the jury box. Or perhaps it was the knowledge that he would be tried on the events of a lifetime, and not just the events of that night. Whatever it was, Black was suddenly stricken with an uncontrollable fear.

  As his body shook against the seat of his wheelchair, he hoped that no one noticed the salty streams of moisture that popped from his forehead and rolled quickly down his face.

  Black reached for a tissue to wipe away the sweat, and there was a rustling sound at the back of the courtroom.

  “Your Honor, the defense would like to call another witness to the stand.”

  As the lawyer spoke, the judge’s eyes shifted to the back of the room. The rustling grew louder as a young woman squeezed past the two sheriff’s deputies who were guarding the door.

  “The defense would like to call . . .”

  The lawyer stopped as he sensed, along with everyone else, that there was a presence in the room that hadn’t been there before.

  The jurors’ eyes went to the back of the courtroom. Black saw recognition dawn on some of their faces. It was her, they seemed to say to themselves. It was the young woman whom no one had seen since she was released from police custody following the shooting at the train station.

  It was the old man’s missing granddaughter; the missing link between the reality of Podres’s murder and the fantasy of a drug-fueled escape from a world of conspiracy and intrigue.

  The sound of voices followed her path to the front of the room, growing from a soft murmur to a steady hum as the sound of her name blew in behind her like a wind urging her forward. They whispered it, almost in unison, until the sound of it reached Black’s ears and snatched him from the grips of his life’s most frightening moment.

  “Clarisse.”

  The sound of it settled into his ears again and again.

  “Clarisse.”

  The defense attorney turned around and looked at her as she walked regally down the aisle, slowly pressing toward the defense table with a swaying gait that seemed to tick away the seconds as they all waited to hear the only story left to tell.

  Black turned around, and in an instant, his mind and his heart joined hands and carried him back to the train station. It was like he was there again, filled with all the hope he’d held for their future. And free of all the pain he’d shared from his past. He was there again, draped in the love that propelled him back to her when she was taken by Morgan. All of the memories converged and brushed softly against him, like the whispers that carried her name across the room.

  As the sweat that dripped from his forehead leaped into his eyes and turned to tears, he was filled to overflowing, until her name burst from his lips.

  “Clarisse,” he said aloud, and the evidence of his love for her spilled over from his eyes and trickled down the sides of his face.

  She smiled almost imperceptibly as she stood in the middle of the aisle and waited for what they all knew must come next.

  “The defense would like to call . . .”

  Black’s lawyer looked at him and Black nodded his approval.

  “The defense would like to call Clarisse Williams.”

  Clarisse walked through the wooden swinging gate in front of the courtroom and made her way to the witness stand. She stated her name, then looked at Black and breathed deeply as the lawyer asked her the question that was burning in everyone’s mind.

  “Where have you been, Miss Williams?”

  “I . . .” She paused for a moment and composed herself. “After the police told me that I wouldn’t be charged in the shooting and released me, I went to work as a live-in nurse for a man in Delaware. He died about a month ago and I came back to Philadelphia. But I didn’t want to come forward too quickly. I knew I had to wait for the right time.”

  She looked at Black for a split second and her eyes were like mirrors, reflecting the love he felt for her. He saw it looking out at him, absorbing him. And he knew in that moment that she loved him, too.

  “I wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for Everett,” she said
. “He could’ve walked away from me in that train station. He could’ve turned his back and left me there to die with Morgan. He could have gotten away from this.”

  She swept her hand through the air, indicating the courtroom.

  “But he turned around. He came back for me. The only other people who’ve ever done that were the Scotts.”

  She looked toward the back of the room at Eldridge Scott, who’d attended every day of the trial since he’d testified. Her eyes offered him an apology. He nodded his acceptance. No words ever passed between them. There was no need for words.

  “And why are you here today, Miss Williams?” the lawyer said, prompting her.

  Clarisse fixed her gaze on the lawyer. “I came back to fight for him. I’m not going to let anyone hurt him again.”

  Her breath came in gasps and her chest heaved up and down like she’d been saving up those words for the past year. Then she looked at Black, and a single tear rolled down her cheek. “Nobody is ever going to hurt you again.”

  “Objection, Your Honor,” the prosecutor said, jumping up from her seat. “This testimony is irrelevant.”

  The judge glared at her. The prosecutor looked up at the judge, and then at the jurors, and she knew that everyone in the room was caught up in the emotion that ran between Clarisse and Black. So she took her seat and hoped that irrelevance was the only thing Clarisse had to offer.

  “Objection overruled,” the judge said slowly, pronouncing each syllable in a deep resonating voice that was as much a warning as anything else.

  Then he turned to the defense attorney. “I’m going to need this witness to get to the point of her testimony, Counselor. But you may proceed with your questioning.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” the lawyer said, looking over his shoulder at Black and hoping that Clarisse had something other than passionate words to defend him.

  “Miss Williams, you said earlier that you were waiting for the right time. Waiting for the right time for what?”

  Clarisse pulled a cassette tape from the folds of her dress. “I was waiting for the right time to come forward with this tape,” she said. “This is a tape of Darnell Thomas speaking with Detective Hillman about the Podres shooting.”