Baltimore Blues

by Laura Lippman

  But Abramowitz’s clients, at least the ones who made the papers, seemed to adore him. The stories about him as a public defender stressed his heroics. He had won three out of the seven death penalty cases he tried, which made his early reputation, but that accomplishment had faded with time. In fact, the state’s attorney’s office seldom went for the death penalty in Baltimore any more.

  Cop Killer Goes Free on Technicality. Tess remembered that case. The “technicality” had been an illegal search and seizure, that pesky fourth amendment thing. Abramowitz had been vilified for his unapologetic defense of Donald Bates, who in all probability was a cop killer, but the state failed to prove it when the judge excluded key evidence from the trial. Bates ended up dying two years later, shot to death by a cop answering a call for a domestic dispute. Interestingly there had been no record of the 911 call summoning the cop to the scene, but no one had pressed the issue. Bates would have lived longer, much longer, on Death Row.

  Tess jotted down the name of the cop who had killed Bates, and the names of the relatives of the cop who had been killed. It had been twelve years ago, but time passed differently for some people. Again, Tess wrote down the names of the victims’ relatives.

  Abramowitz’s losses were more interesting, but men on Death Row seldom had the funds or mobility to pursue vendettas. And, again, none of Abramowitz’s convicted clients seemed to bear him ill will. A photo of one showed him bear hugging the lawyer, while Abramowitz stared down at the floor, seemingly embarrassed by the show of affection and gratitude. Or perhaps he was pissed at losing, Tess thought.

  Tucker Fauquier embraces his lawyer, Michael Abramowitz, moments after an Anne Arundel County jury returned a death sentence for the murder of Joey Little. It is expected Fauquier will now enter guilty pleas in the other murders of which he is suspected.

  Tucker Fauquier. Tess remembered him. Anyone who had been alive in Maryland that year remembered him. Born in the western Maryland town of Friendsville, he had decided one day to work his way across the state by killing and sexually molesting a boy in each county. He was twenty-two when he began, venturing out to distant counties—Worcester, Cecil, Dorchester—where he would kidnap a boy, kill him, then bury him. At first he was careful, spacing out his visits, and law officials made no connection, not publicly. Baltimore, Prince George’s, Calvert. But after six cautious years, Fauquier became bolder. He kidnapped a boy from his home county of Garrett, then went to Allegany where he procured another boy to witness the first boy’s murder. Then from Allegany to Washington County, where a Hagerstown boy watched him kill the Allegany boy. And so on. He was halfway to his goal—twelve victims out of Maryland’s twenty-four jurisdictions—when an Anne Arundel County boy, the latest witness and soon-to-be victim, leaped from the car as Fauquier slowed to pay the toll on the Bay Bridge.

  Tess studied his picture. She had been in college at the height of Fauquier’s spree and knew his name far better than his face. A slight man, with bad skin and straggly blond hair. He could have been anyone at the edge of one’s life—a gas station attendant, convenience store clerk, pants presser at the dry cleaner’s. Just one of those vague, blurry faces on which one never quite focuses. He had been lucky to have Abramowitz for his lawyer. His execution may not be the state’s first in the modern era, but it would be the most eagerly anticipated.

  Abramowitz’s other losses in death penalty cases were less interesting. A robber, a rapist, another robber. Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, Tess thought to herself as she wrote down another group of names. The cases against them were notable only for the futility of presenting a defense at all.

  As she moved forward through each year of clippings, Abramowitz seemed to disappear. Fauquier was his last big case. The murder trials on page one gave way to briefs, five-paragraph stories about sexual assault trials and what were known as misdemeanor murders—one lowlife killing another lowlife. Once Abramowitz left the public defender’s office, his practice had been the kind of DWI/slip and fall/birth defects office that seldom draws any publicity, except for occasional editorials and columns decrying ambulance chasing and lawyer advertising. This second phase of his life had produced only one full-length clipping, a feature story about a rap song inspired by his instant camp commercials. “I’m highly flattered,” Abramowitz had told the reporter.

  At least half the file contained photographs of him at society events, most taken in the past year, perhaps part of a desperate attempt to make himself respectable. Abramowitz at the symphony, Abramowitz at a concert to benefit a local AIDS foundation, Abramowitz at the March of Dimes ball, Abramowitz at the United Way kickoff. He never seemed to have a date or a smile, and he was never photographed with anyone who really mattered, except for two pictures with his employer, the senior “O” at Triple O, Seamon P. O’Neal. In both of those, taken at fund-raisers for the foundation named for O’Neal’s famous father-in-law, developer William Tree, Abramowitz’s arm was slung around O’Neal’s neck while O’Neal stared deeply into his cocktail glass, only the part in his hair visible. Abramowitz smiled broadly in these photos, obviously proud to be seen with someone considered the model of integrity and class. He had made it.

  Other than these photos, the last phase of Abramowitz’s life had garnered little attention. There was a short, one-graph item about his decision to close his own practice and join the Triple O, published in the fall of 1992. And, in June of this year, there was a column item, a “brite,” albeit one written by someone without much feel for the form.

  DISGRUNTLED PLAINTIFF GOES TO BAT

  A Baltimore man who was awarded $850,000 in one of the last nonconsolidated asbestos trials showed up at the law offices of O’Neal, O’Connor and O’Neill carrying a Louisville Slugger and demanding justice.

  The elderly but spry man chased lawyer Michael Abramowitz around his desk with the bat, demanding, “Where’s my money? Where’s my money?” He continued to chase Mr. Abramowitz until police arrived and subdued him. The firm represents Sims-Kever, one of the asbestos manufacturers now in bankruptcy.

  Ironically Mr. Abramowitz, once known for his “Sweet Sue” commercials, was not with the firm when the case was decided, but has since taken over the asbestos defense. The firm declined to press charges against the man, but noted his energy and vitality raise doubts about how badly he suffers from asbestosis.

  Typical, Tess thought. The columnist uses irony to denote anything interesting or strange. Common liability in newspaper writing.

  Finally there was a feature article about local support groups. Survivors of incest, cancer, traffic accidents, even a chlorine leak on the Southwest Side. At first Tess couldn’t see its connection to the dead lawyer. Then she found a mention of Victims of Male Aggression (VOMA), a group for rape “survivors.” Its founder, a woman who had been attacked in her apartment, recalled with great bitterness how Abramowitz had done everything to get his client off.

  “He couldn’t ask me about my sexual history—it wasn’t that long ago,” the woman, identified only as “Mary,” told the reporter. “But he still managed to twist everything around, make it look as if the man who broke into my apartment was some neighborhood guy I had been having fantasies about. A lot of the women in our group faced lawyers like him. We call them the real rapists.” VOMA, according to the two-year-old story, met every Monday night. It offered support, psychological referrals, and instruction in the martial arts.

  Tess looked at her little piles. Not much of a life. Still, it was more of a paper trail than most citizens would leave, especially those whose only distinction was being loved by their families and going to work every day.

  Should she go to the Monday night VOMA meeting? It was her only lead. Tyner had told her explicitly to wait for his instructions, not to do anything without checking with him first. Whitney had called her a coward and a wimp. Whitney was right. Tess had become tentative and timid, and not just in the past three days. Ever since the Star folded, her life had been on hold. She wa
sn’t much different than her father, with his patronage job as a city liquor inspector, or her mother, reporting to her glorified secretarial job at the National Security Agency every day for almost thirty years now. Except Tess didn’t have a do-nothing job to go to, or a pension to look forward to. According to the severance papers she had received when the Star shut down, she could look forward to about $4,200 from the pension fund in thirty-five years or so.

  As she sat there, imagining the tiny pile her own life would make, the phone rang. She let the machine pick it up.

  “Tess, it’s Tyner.” His voice rattled teacups in her cupboard. For one paranoid moment she imagined he had read her thoughts and was calling to rebuke her. “We need your expertise tomorrow. Damage control. I’m going before a judge to get permission for Rock to row in out-of-town races, and we want to keep the local jackals at bay. We need you, Tess. Call me.”

  She let the machine record it all. After Tyner hung up she played the message over. “We need you, Tess.” She rewound, played it again. “We need you.” It seemed such a long time since anyone—a boss, a lover, a friend—had said those words to her. “We need you.”

  She pulled a page out of her notebook and began, from memory, diagramming the Clarence Mitchell Courthouse. Stairs, elevators, entrances, and exits. Getting in was easy. Getting out undetected would be the challenge.

  Chapter 11

  Like most midsize cities at the millennium’s edge, Baltimore had one newspaper, four television stations with evening newscasts, and an Associated Press bureau. Two radio stations also did some original reporting, rather than going the rip-and-read route with the AP broadcast wire, but most of the news came from the Beacon-Light by way of the AP. In fact news was one of Baltimore’s most successful recycling projects. The Beacon-Light reported the story and sent a copy, an electronic carbon, to the AP. Unless the paper asked for special credit—“the Beacon-Light is reporting in today’s editions”—AP could rewrite it and put it out on the broadcast wire, which allowed some sonorous-voiced anchor to intone: “Channel 9 has just learned…”

  “And it’s not a lie,” Tess said as she explained all this to Tyner at lunch the next day. “Chances are, the folks at Channel 9 have just learned it at exactly the moment the story moved on the wire.”

  It was noon, a hot, blue-sky day in Baltimore. In honor of Dies y Seis, Mexican Independence Day, the Hasty-Tasty, a downtown diner that worked hard to earn its reputation as a greasy spoon, was offering an enchilada plate special. Two frozen tortillas stuffed with shredded chicken, rice and canned beans on the side, and a pale green substance billed as guacamole.

  Rock, the only one who had dared order it, was now sculpting tiny figures with the large avocado mound left over at meal’s end, uninterested in Tess’s impromptu seminar on the local media.

  Tyner, however, was intent on every word. His small practice had not brought him into contact with the media, and he prided himself on never reading the local paper. Still, he was savvy enough to know he wanted to avoid the “perp walk”—the parading of a suspect through a gauntlet of cameras. And he was astute enough to know that ruining the picture could ruin the story for the local television stations; he just had no idea how to do it. This was Tess’s job.

  Tess warmed to her topic. “TV reporters, no matter how dumb, excel at the chase. They love nothing better than to follow a moving target, whether it’s through the courthouse, outside police headquarters, in front of some row house. It doesn’t matter if they yell inane questions and get no answers in reply—it’s good video, and good video leads the news and gets more time. They will lead the newscast with footage of a fireman rescuing a kitten from a tree if they have good pictures. But bad video, or no video, and the story gets less time.”

  “Is it possible the television reporters will skip the hearing, since the state of Maryland doesn’t allow cameras in the courtroom?”

  “Doubtful. In fact you can bet someone in the state’s attorney’s office or the police department will remind them to come. It’s an unusual move, petitioning the court to allow a murder defendant to leave the state so he can compete in head races. If we’re not careful Rock could look very unsympathetic, worrying more about his rowing than his murder trial.”

  Rock looked up from his guacamole sculpture. “I wish you wouldn’t talk about me as if I weren’t here. I don’t care what the paper says, or the television stations. I’m innocent, and I know Tyner will be able to prove it. Why do we worry about this trivia?”

  “The less publicity, the better,” Tyner said. “That’s our rule. Somewhere out there a potential juror may be watching television tonight. I’d prefer not to have an image of you, face averted as you run through the courthouse, planted subliminally in his brain.”

  Rock ran the back of his spoon along the banana-shaped line of his guacamole, then stuck two toothpicks on either side perpendicular to it. He finished by placing a single pinto bean in the center of the avocado, between the toothpicks. A scull, Tess marveled. He just built a racing shell out of his lunch, and he’s the pinto bean.

  “You are either extremely calm or on the verge of cracking up,” she told her friend.

  “Can’t you be both?” he asked.

  They were scheduled to go before Judge R. Robert Nicholson at 2 P.M. Avoiding the media hordes on the way into the courthouse was quite simple: They showed up an hour early and asked the clerk to let them sit in the empty courtroom. Once they were inside the cameras could not follow them. About 1:55, the TV reporters realized Rock had slipped past their stakeout along the broad steps at the courthouse’s main entrance, and they began drifting in, leaving their cameras in the hall.

  The courtroom was a grand, imposing space, with the touches of seediness endemic to public places in Baltimore. The wooden benches didn’t match and were running to splinters in the grooves worn by generations of behinds. Delicate tulip-shaped sconces lined the walls, but three held burned-out bulbs. The gilt paint on the elaborately patterned heating vents had started flaking off. Still, the room was double height, with limestone walls leading to Palladian windows, five on each side—affording a view of blue sky and gray pigeons.

  The oddest decoration in the room was a golden bas-relief eagle, perched on a verdigris half globe jutting about five feet above the judge’s red leather chair. It looked like a crown in flight, but it was impossible to tell if the eagle, gripping the crown in its talons, had just absconded with it or was about to drop it on the judge’s head.

  Rock, who had taken the afternoon off from his job, wore his work garb of khakis, a plaid shirt, and a navy blue blazer. Tess had dressed much the same, although she had on jeans. Tyner had given her a curt look, as if to say: “You’ll do.” At least my hair is up, Tess thought, and my black Weejuns are as shiny as Rock’s.

  “All rise,” the clerk said. By now all the reporters were here—Tess recognized Feeney, the Beacon-Light’s overworked court reporter, looking bored and irritable as he joined three women in the front row. The women had heavy, almost theatrical makeup and vacant, stunned looks. TV reporters. They seemed to shut down when their cameras weren’t around, Tess noticed, as if recharging their own batteries.

  “All rise.”

  In profile, Judge Nicholson looked like the eagle flying over his head. Slight, with a huge nose, he held his head to the side as if daring one to try and look at anything else in the room. Given that he was so far above the courtroom, it was difficult not to stare into his nose. Tess was so entranced by his nostrils she forgot to sit down once the judge had taken his seat. Tyner had to yank her down by her blazer.

  “Luckily he hated Abramowitz,” Tyner hissed, then rolled forward to present his case.

  Judge Nicholson’s face was unreadable as he listened to Tyner argue that Rock, who had paid a bail bondsman ten percent in cash for his $100,000 bail, was not likely to flee if allowed to go to Pittsburgh, Boston, Virginia, and Philadelphia over the next eight weeks. He pointed out Rock’s work history,
his ties to the community, his eagerness to be acquitted by a jury of his peers in this matter.

  “Your Honor, we absolutely object to allowing the defendant to leave the state,” said the state’s attorney, a thin young woman whose shrill voice bounced painfully off the limestone walls. She wore a cheap suit with a nylon blouse, the kind with a bow at the neck. Her shoes were scuffed and run-down at the heels. Tess, who knew how poorly prosecutors were paid, almost felt sorry for her. She looked quite mousy next to Tyner, splendid in a pale blue shirt, red bow tie, and navy suit.

  The judge’s eyes narrowed like a bird closing in on a particularly fat worm.

  “Does Mr. Paxton have any prior arrests?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “Does he have any prior convictions?”

  “No, but the crime was quite violent and impulsive. PreTrial Services recommended he not be allowed to leave Maryland under the circumstances. The state believes he is at risk for flight.”

  Tyner whispered to Tess: “The state believes it had better look as tough as it can on this case, so no one accuses the state’s attorney’s office of being soft on a white defendant.”

  The judge glanced at Rock. Seated, his overmuscled torso hidden by his blazer, his legs concealed beneath the table, he looked like a stocky nerd. The judge turned his stare back to Tyner.

  “Mr. Gray, would you be willing to accompany your client out of town and to guarantee his return?”