Benefit of the Doubt

by Neal Griffin

  Standing outside the jail, Ben looked to the upper floors and the thin openings that passed as windows, a design Ben knew was to discourage thoughts of escape or suicide among the occupants. His wife was somewhere inside. Locked in a cell. Three days since her arrest. Since officers from his own department had descended on his home and taken his wife away in handcuffs. His life had been turned completely upside down, and already Ben was questioning his ability to cope. Ben couldn’t help but think back to an earlier point in his life. The feeling was familiar. Here we go again, he thought. Where will it end this time?

  For the second time in his life, Ben was the subject of a media circus. Within hours of that hellish event, a half-dozen camera crews had arrived outside the Sawyer home and set up camp. White vans each emblazoned with a different media logo lined the curb. Milwaukee, Madison, Chicago, and Minneapolis were all represented. Even a national cable channel hailing out of New York City had joined the party. The portable antennas had been raised like flags claiming new territory. Each night from ten to eleven o’clock, bright lights illuminated the front yard as the latest reports were broadcast live for the evening news. Shifts of different reporters came and went, but there was always someone at the ready to pounce on anyone who emerged from the front door. Jake sat in his room like a hapless shut-in, afraid to even peek through the blinds. Ben didn’t have that luxury.

  The morning after Alex’s arrest, he was forced to run the media gauntlet to report to the office of Chief Jorgensen. Ben, exhausted and still muddy from his wrestling match the night before, had held out hope that Jorgensen would rise to his defense, that he would refuse to allow this obvious rush to judgment. Hoping to avoid a scene, Ben entered the building through the chief’s private entrance and nearly ran over three of the officers who had come to his house the night before. The group was leaving as Ben arrived, and from their looks of indignation, Ben had an idea of what would come next. Thinking back now, Ben remembered every word of the chief’s sanctimonious speech.

  “I’m sorry as I can be about your wife, Ben. Terrible thing to go through.” The chief had been in his impeccable attire and smelling of soap and expensive cologne. “I know you want to be as supportive as you can. Speaks well of your character. But your conduct last night was inexcusable. You’re lucky Detective McKenzie has decided not to press charges. But you’ve put a cloud over the entire department.”

  Ben was beyond offering arguments or comebacks. The obscenity of officers from his own department coming to his house and dragging his wife to jail went beyond any offense he had ever known. He chastised himself for not having fought harder. If offered a do-over, he’d kill McKenzie before he let that man, or anyone, put a hand on a member of his family.

  “Truth be told, Ben, most of the officers and even the civilian employees have come to me. They’ve told me that if you continue to work here, they’ll quit. All things considered, I can’t say I blame them.”

  The chief had paused again, apparently hoping Ben would offer his resignation. But Ben just stared at him through glassy eyes, hoping that some fraction of the hatred he felt showed through. Jorgensen delivered his final blow.

  “If you’re going to insist on trying to keep your job, for now the only fair thing is to minimize the hostility around here. You’re suspended without pay. You can leave your badge and police ID with me. Turn your firearm in at the armory. You’ll be advised of the date of your disciplinary hearing by mail.”

  Just quit, he thought. The whole department wants you gone.

  Now sitting idly on the bench outside the jail, Ben resigned himself to the cold wait, which he felt certain had grown longer because of his outburst. Several of the other men shot looks his way, letting Ben know they blamed him for their troubles. Another twenty minutes passed before the correctional officer returned and, without comment, unlocked the door.

  The slow-moving line shuffled inside, and Ben waited his turn to be subjected to the indignities that come along with visiting an inmate. He emptied his pockets into the orange plastic dish and fell in line to be searched. After a pat-down, conducted by the officer from the doorway with more than a little personal violation, Ben collected his property and followed the crowd through the doors to a large open area about the size of a basketball court.

  The linoleum floor gleamed from thirty years of daily buffing by inmates who stretched that sort of light work to take up as much time as possible. The air reeked of bleach and lime disinfectant. Ben watched as the others fanned out across the room. He looked around at the metal tables and chairs, all bolted to the floor, and saw that the available space was filling up quickly. Ben sat down to claim one of the last vacant tables only to learn that once all the tables were occupied, people just started doubling up. A large man, unshaved and with heavy body odor, joined Ben, taking a seat across the table. He nodded his head as if to say he wasn’t any happier than Ben about their forced association, but it would be short-lived.

  The entrance doors slammed shut, and Ben heard the steel bolts engage. A few moments of uncomfortable silence passed among the visitors, who were now practically inmates. A deep-throated buzzer cut through the air, its ominous tone causing Ben and the other first-timers to jump in alarm. Large automated steel doors on the far side of the room opened slowly, grinding across heavy iron rails. Several guards, including the doorkeeper, emerged and took up positions in different areas of the room, standing with arms folded across their chests, nonverbally establishing a sense of control.

  A sharp bell chimed and women clad in navy blue jumpsuits began to enter the visitors’ room through the open doors. With quick, darting eyes, they scanned the room for a familiar face and then sped toward friends or relatives with a purpose that said every second counted. Ben craned his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of his wife. In a moment he spotted her.

  Unlike the women around her, Alex’s jumpsuit was bright orange. She walked slowly, shuffling her feet in cotton slippers, rattling the silver chains that connected her cuffed hands to her waist and the ankle chains that restricted her steps. Her very appearance distinguished her as a high-risk prisoner.

  “Oh, my God.” Ben’s voice was low.

  He couldn’t believe his eyes. In just three days his wife had aged three lifetimes. Ben looked at the woman coming toward him, her face splotched with streaks of gray and yellow. Although her jail attire was of the one-size-fits-all variety and offered no sense of the outline of her body, the gauntness of her face told Ben she had no weight left to lose. Her uncombed hair hung in clumps; her eyes had gone dull. This after three days, he thought.

  Ben rose to his feet and every guard turned to look. Physical contact was forbidden. Alex stopped two feet in front of Ben, her eyes searching his face. The din of a hundred voices bounced off the unforgiving walls, making quiet conversation impossible. He struggled to speak and his voice cracked with emotion.

  “Hey, Alex,” he stammered. “I-I don’t know what—”

  “Today, Benny?” Her voice was desperate. “Have you come to take me home? Can I leave? Can you get me out today? How’s Jakey? And Papa? You didn’t tell him what happened, did you?”

  After waiting all this time, Alex stood in front of him, but Ben had no idea what to say. Words of affection, comfort, or encouragement escaped him. The enormity of the circumstances and his failure to control them weighed him down, and it took all his strength not to break.

  “Talk to me, Benny.” Her voice was cracking too. “Please tell me what is going on. Please, Benny. Get me out of here.”

  Ben motioned Alex to sit at the half-occupied table.

  “I’m trying. But even ten percent of two million, we just don’t have it. Jake won’t talk to me. I think he blames me for letting them take you. He won’t eat.”

  Ben struggled to continue. “And your dad … Jesus. I think he believes you’re dead. I’m going to have to tell him something. I don’t know what else to do. But how do I tell him this, Alex? It might kill him.”
/>   Alex put her manacled hand on Ben’s arm.

  “Inmate Sawyer, no physical contact.” The nearest guard closed in. Alex pulled back and acknowledged the guard with a look of compliance.

  “Ben, listen to me.” Her voice grew a little in strength but still wavered with emotion. “We need to be strong. We’ve got to figure out what is going on. Why I’m in here.”

  “Figure it out?” When Ben heard his own voice, louder than necessary, he realized how close he was to losing control entirely. “How? How am I supposed to figure this out? You tell me: What the hell is going on?”

  In the days since the murder, a steady flow of leaked information had appeared in the press. Reports of witnesses. Evidence collected from the scene. Experts on crime scene evaluation had begun to appear within the media reports. None of it looked good for Alex, and Ben needed answers.

  “Why did Louis have pictures of you? Your fingerprints are inside his apartment. An eyewitness saw your van parked outside his apartment. And nobody at the Convalescent Center saw you after seven o’clock that night.”

  “Ben Sawyer,” Alex said with anger in her voice, “do you think for one minute I did this terrible thing? That I killed Louis? That I stabbed a man to death?”

  “Alex, they pulled a knife with his blood on it from our trash. They even found blood on the screen door at our house.”

  “I asked you a question?” Alex sounded like she was on the verge of tears. “Do you think I killed Louis?”

  “You tell me what happened, then.” Ben was almost shouting now. “The newspaper interviewed someone who said he saw you running from the scene. Seems like they got people lining up to be eyewitnesses. And everybody knows how much time you were spending there.”

  Alex cringed in her seat. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. You think…”

  “Just tell me what you know,” Ben said, almost pleading with her. “If there’s something you need to tell me, now’s the time.”

  The other couple at the table had become mired in a heated argument as well. Ben heard mention of money for booze that should have gone to bail. The nearest guard smirked as if he were watching Jerry Springer.

  Alex spoke in a low voice. “I can’t believe you would for a second think I had something to do with this. I was with Dad until almost ten o’clock. I left the building through the employee entrance. That’s why no one at the front desk saw me.”

  Ben stared at his wife. He thought back over the dozens of cases he had worked where spouses stood by their partners even when their loved one was guilty beyond any doubt. Alex picked up on his uncertainty, and looked down at her hands.

  “What about Dad? What about his accident or whatever it was? Remember, I asked Dr. Schneider if someone could have pushed Dad out of his chair? Attacked him in some way?”

  “So what?” Ben’s voice was incredulous. “What if your dad did have it out with a nurse or an orderly or whoever? What’s that got to do with what was going on between you and Louis?”

  Alex stared at Ben with a stunned expression on her face. “What did you just say? What are you thinking?”

  “Excuse me. Mrs. Sawyer?”

  Ben looked to the sound of the voice and saw a heavyset, disheveled man with a walrus mustache stained yellow by nicotine and a mop of bushy gray hair. He tossed his brown wool overcoat on the bench and set a battered leather briefcase on the table. He fumbled with the metal latch to open it, then pulled out a folder containing a bundle of crumpled sheets of legal-size paper. He drew a pocket watch from his vest as he spoke. Surprised at the interruption, Ben fell silent.

  “I’m Jean Marquette, your court-appointed attorney.” The man spoke as he looked at his watch. “I’m sorry, but we only have a few minutes. I had to meet with another client who is also making an appearance this morning.”

  Ben stared as the man shuffled through the papers for what looked to be the first time. Ben figured the other client was of the paying variety and not court appointed. Marquette seemed to feel Ben’s eyes on him and he looked up.

  “Is this your husband?” Marquette looked Ben up and down as if to check him out more thoroughly. “May we speak freely in front of him, or would you rather I ask him to leave?”

  Ben didn’t hide the coolness in his tone that conveyed a great deal of what he thought of defense attorneys. “I’m her husband, Ben Sawyer. Don’t worry about getting all that familiar with the case. I’m hiring a private attorney as soon as I can get the retainer together.”

  Ben noted the ill-fitting suit, sweat-stained collar, and overall comical appearance. It didn’t matter what the truth was, he knew he could never place Alex’s life in the hands of this man. Marquette seemed to read his mind.

  “I’m sure you’ll find someone.” The man smiled, dismissive and curt, then looked directly toward Alex, effectively cutting Ben out of the conversation. “But in the meantime, Mrs. Sawyer, until your husband can arrange for a member of the A-team, I’m all you got. The state has appointed me to represent your interests.”

  His voice carried no offense, as if he understood why anyone might have misgivings. He elbowed his way onto the bench next to Ben and took a seat.

  “I am already familiar with the circumstances of your arrest and really must advise you that the prosecution has a compelling case. We needn’t discuss any details here and now, but I recommend we enter a plea of not guilty at today’s hearing. After that we can start to formulate a self-defense argument, see what sort of deal the district attorney might be willing to make. By going self-defense we’ll be able to offer a plausible story, something a jury can believe. If we stick with a plea of not guilty, no one is going to buy that—and the district attorney knows it. She’ll take us to trial, and with all her resources … it would not be a good outcome for you.”

  “Plead?” Alex sounded shocked. “You mean say I did it?”

  “I’m not terribly concerned with whether or not you ‘did it,’ Mrs. Sawyer. I am only concerned with what the state can prove. In this case, they can prove a lot.”

  Ben turned to face the lawyer directly. He tried to speak firmly, but his voice was hollow and lacked conviction. “Forget it, Marquette. We’re not interested in any deals at this point. The only plea Alex will be entering is not guilty.”

  “That’s fine, Mr. Sawyer.” Ben picked up on the faint odor of bourbon and cheap pipe tobacco. “But once again, let me remind you I represent your wife. Not you.”

  Marquette turned back to Alex. “Mrs. Sawyer, I’ve practiced law in this county for over thirty years. This is a high-profile murder case and the district attorney will be swinging for the fences. If, and I emphasize if, she offers any sort of deal, it will be one-time only and it will come after today’s hearing. Beyond that, suffice it to say, there will be no more offers.”

  Alex’s voice faltered. “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, Mrs. Sawyer, that if you don’t seek a plea bargain, when you’re convicted you will receive a life sentence. I’m certain of it.”

  The long buzzer sounded, signaling the end of visitation, and guards began to herd the women back to the cells. Alex didn’t budge, looking at Ben with a dumbfounded expression.

  “Ben, he can’t be serious. I can’t plead guilty.”

  Ben stared at the attorney. “Marquette, consider yourself relieved.”

  “Excuse me?” Marquette turned again to face Ben, clearly put out by this man who kept butting in.

  “I said, you’re fired. Get lost.”

  “Mr. Sawyer, I am the state-appointed counsel for your wife,” he said smugly. “You can’t fire me and neither can she. Only the judge can.”

  Ben shifted until his face was an inch from Marquette’s. He spoke soft but clear. “Fine. Let me put it to you like this. Talk to my wife again and I’ll kick your ass back to whatever horseshit law school it is you came from.”

  Unconcerned, Marquette responded to Ben. “University of Michigan School of Law, cum laude.” The lawyer
stuffed the papers away and snapped his briefcase shut. He looked at Alex.

  “Consider what I’ve told you, Mrs. Sawyer. We’ll make our appearance today, and after that, we’ll have about ten days to trial. That will give me time to negotiate with the district attorney.”

  “Ten days?” Ben was stunned by the short length of time. “Aren’t you going to make a motion for a delay? This is a murder case, Marquette. We need more time.”

  The lawyer picked up his overcoat and stood to leave. Ignoring Ben, he directed his response to Alex. “I disagree. We need a quick settlement. If we go self-defense and offer to plead to manslaughter, I can probably get you ten to fifteen years. If you behave yourself, you could be out in eight.” Marquette went on in a matter-of-fact tone. “You should know there are plenty of people serving longer sentences for murder on a lot less evidence than what the state has got against you.”

  Ben worked to control his temper. “Get away from my wife, Marquette. That’s the last time I tell you without punching your lights out.”

  Marquette again dismissed Ben with nothing more than a sideways glance and turned to Alex. “Do not say anything during the proceedings this morning unless I direct you. I will do all the talking. I’ll see you in the courtroom. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I do have another client to attend to.” Marquette gave Ben a last look before turning away. Ben watched the man waddle through the female prisoners until he disappeared in the crowd.

  “Inmate Sawyer,” a guard called out. “Proceed to the holding area now. Visiting hours are over.”

  Alex looked at her husband and spoke, her voice trembling. “Benny, you’ve got to believe me. I didn’t kill Louis. You’ve always told me the whole system is based on scaring people into pleading out, into not fighting back. You told me that was what they did to you. Can’t you see, it’s happening again? It’s started already.”