A Matter of Conviction

by Ed McBain

  “If we send these three boys to the electric chair, will we stop three other boys from killing?”

  “We might.”

  “Yes, we might. But we might not. In which case we’d be adding the senseless murder of Di Pace, Aposto and Reardon to the senseless murder of Morrez. The only difference being that our murder will have had the sanction of society.”

  “Wow!” Karin said. “You’d better go easy, my friend.”

  “Where the hell is justice?” Hank asked. “What the hell is justice?”

  The telephone rang. Karin went to it, lifted the receiver and said, “Hello?” She paused. “Oh, hello, Alice, how are you? Fine, thanks, everyone’s fine.” She paused again, listening. “Oh?” she said. “Oh, I see. Yes, well, that’s understandable. No, I wouldn’t expect you to leave him. Yes, I understand completely. I hope he feels better soon. Thank you for calling, Alice.” She replaced the receiver, a puzzled look on her face.

  “Alice Benton?” Hank asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “She can’t make it this Saturday.” She hesitated, nibbling her lip. “I invited some of the neighbors for dinner, Hank. To meet Abe Samalson.”

  “Oh. Something wrong at the Bentons’?”

  “Frank has a fever. Alice doesn’t think she should leave him alone.”

  The telephone rang again. Karin turned to it and then looked at Hank. Slowly, she crossed the room to answer it.

  “Hello? Yes, this is Karin. Hello, Marcia, how are you? No, you’re not interrupting dinner. Hank just got home a little while a—What?” She listened. “Oh. That’s too bad. We were looking forward to—Yes, mistakes can happen, especially when two separate calendars are kept. Yes, I understand. Certainly, Marcia. I’m glad you called.” She hung up and then stood by the phone.

  “Marcia Di Carlo?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can’t make it this Saturday?”

  “Can’t make it this Saturday,” Karin said, nodding.

  “Reason?”

  “Joe had made a previous engagement. Put it down on his calendar. When I called, she didn’t realize they had this other date. She begged off. Said they’d see us soon.” Karin paused. “That makes three cancellations so far, Hank.”

  “Mmmmm. Do I detect the fine hand of McNalley and Pierce at work here?”

  “I don’t know. Would our neighbors …?”

  “Would our neighbors assume we were threatening their way of life by trying to find justice for a dead Puerto Rican? Karin, I don’t know. I gave our neighbors credit for a lot more intelligence and tolerance.”

  The telephone rang again. “I’ll get it,” Hank said. He put down his drink and went to the phone. “Hello?”

  “Hank?”

  “Yes, who’s this?”

  “George Talbot. How goes it, boy?”

  “So-so. What’s up, George?”

  “Ran into a slight snag, Hank boy. Afraid Dee and I will have to pass up the festivities this Saturday.”

  “What kind of a snag, George?”

  “The brain trust at my sweatshop decided they ought to send me to Syracuse for the weekend. To talk to a prospective sucker about his breakfast cereal. So what can I do? I’m a slave to the hidden persuaders, only this time they’re not so hidden.”

  “I’d say they’re not hidden at all,” Hank said.

  “Sure. So what’s more important, lad, a drink in the fist or bread and butter on the table?”

  “Sure,” Hank said. “When are you leaving?”

  “Tomorrow. That is, I think tomorrow. Be gone until Monday. Unless the big brass change their mind. In any case, I wouldn’t count on the Talbots.”

  “Seen McNalley or Pierce lately?” Hank asked.

  “Huh?”

  “John and Fred,” Hank said. “Our good neighbors. Seen them recently?”

  “Well, I always see them around. You know how it is.”

  “I know exactly how it is, George. Thanks for calling. I’m sorry you can’t make it this Saturday. But then, a lot of other people in the neighborhood seem to have come down with the sniffles, or grandmothers dying out in Peoria. Maybe you can all get together and have a little party of your own.”

  “What do you mean, Hank?”

  “A sort of do-it-yourself party. You can make all kinds of interesting things.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, Hank.”

  “You can make a lovely wooden cross and then come set fire to it on my lawn.”

  “Hank?”

  “What is it, George?”

  “I really do have to go to Syracuse. This has nothing to do with the junk McNalley and Pierce are spreading.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you believe me?”

  “What’s not to believe?”

  “I just wanted you to know. I don’t ask your advice on how to write copy that sells cigarettes. And I don’t intend to tell you how to do your job.” Talbot paused. “Guilt by association is a sin, too, isn’t it?”

  “I’m sorry, George. But this telephone has been going like crazy.”

  “I just wanted you to know I haven’t joined the barbarian hordes. My reason for not coming is legit. As a matter of fact, I was looking forward to meeting Samalson.”

  “Okay, George. I’m sorry you can’t make it. Thanks for calling.”

  “See you soon,” Talbot said, and he hung up.

  Hank replaced the receiver on its cradle. “Who else did you invite?” he asked.

  “The Cronins.”

  “They haven’t called yet?”

  “No.”

  “Think they will?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He went to her and took her in his arms. “Are you angry?”

  “No. Just a little sad. I rather liked this neighborhood.”

  “Stop talking as if we have to move out tomorrow.”

  “That isn’t what I meant. I didn’t think the people here …” She shook her head. “Is it wrong for a man to do his job the way he feels it should be done?”

  “I always felt that was the only way to do a job,” Hank said.

  “Yes.” Karin paused. “So the hell with them. I’m selfish enough to want Abe’s company all to ourselves, anyway.”

  “Sure,” Hank said, and he smiled.

  “Only it makes me wonder. If these high-minded citizens of Inwood, these pillars of the community, these people who are shaping thought—if these people can behave this way, can we expect any more from the kids living in Harlem? Maybe there doesn’t have to be a reason, Hank. Maybe people would much rather hate than love.”

  “I doubt it,” he said, and he smiled again. “I’d much rather love, wouldn’t you?”

  “You’re a sex fiend,” she said. “One day you’ll be exposed and locked up for the rest of your natural life.”

  The telephone rang.

  “That’s the Cronins,” Hank said. “That should make it unanimous. We now know that everyone on the street thinks we should bury Morrez in a hurry and forget all about him. And maybe we should put up a statue in the park to the three kids who killed him. Do you want to answer it, or shall I?”

  “I’ll take it,” Karin said.

  “Bury Morrez before he begins to stink. Pat the young killers on the back and say, ‘A job well done, lads.’ And thereby win the acclaim of McNalley and Pierce and all the pure-white Protestants in the neighborhood.”

  “The Cronins are Catholics,” Karin said. “You’re beginning to sound like McNalley.”

  “I was using a figure of speech,” Hank said.

  Karin lifted the receiver. “Hello?” she said. She listened for a moment and then, still listening, she nodded knowingly at Hank.

  NINE

  Judge Abraham Samalson sat in the outdoor slate patio of the Bell house in Inwood, a brandy snifter of cognac in his delicate hands. The sky to the west was peppered with stars, and the judge tilted his bald head and examined the heavens, and all the w
hile he rolled the glass of cognac in his thin hands, and occasionally he sniffed at the bouquet, and occasionally he drank. Music came from the hi-fi setup inside the house, oozing onto the patio, where Karin had planted a wild array of summer-blooming flowers that formed the flanking walls of the terrace. The open side of the terrace faced the river and the New Jersey cliffs on the opposite shore.

  “That was a nice job Barton did on you in the newspapers, Hank,” Samalson said.

  “Oh, very nice,” Hank agreed.

  “I think it’ll work in reverse for you. It makes you sound very dashing and romantic. Who is there in the entire city of New York who hasn’t longed to lift the skirts of an Irish lass? Not that I believe a word of the story’s implications. But it serves to illustrate the dangers of incompetent composition. Barton starts out to kill you, and what does he achieve? He creates a romantic figure.”

  “I didn’t think the story was so romantic,” Hank said.

  “You’re too sensitive. The Mike Bartons of America are people to laugh at, not to hate. Give Barton a trench coat and a juicy piece of gossip and he’s happy. He can play at being a reporter.”

  “I think he’s a dangerous man,” Hank said.

  “Only if we take him seriously. If we laugh at him, the danger is immediately dissipated.”

  “I wish I could agree with you, Abe,” Hank said.

  “You never did agree with me, so I see no reason for you to begin now. You were the most argumentative student I ever had in any of my classes, and I taught law for fourteen years. I might add, in the fairness becoming my role as a magistrate, that you were also the most promising student I ever had.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I think I can safely say, in fact, that in the fourteen years I taught law I had only six students who I thought should be lawyers. The rest should have been shoe clerks.” Samalson paused. “Or is that a prejudiced statement?”

  “A bit snobbish perhaps, but …”

  “I’m referring to Danny Di Pace’s father. He runs a shoe store, doesn’t he?”

  “Oh. Yes.”

  “What sort of a person is he?”

  “I’ve never met him.”

  “He must be—Well, forget it.”

  “What were you going to say?”

  “Only that delinquency doesn’t simply spring from the soil. If a kid turns bad, chances are nine out of ten you’ll find some sort of trouble with the parents.”

  “So what do we do? Prosecute the parents instead of the kids?”

  “I don’t know what we do, Hank. The law makes no provision for the allocation of blame. If three men conspire together to commit a murder and only one of them actually pulls the trigger of the gun, the three are nonetheless tried for acting in concert. On the other hand, if parents, through neglect or overindulgence, or just plain indifference, produce a boy who stabs another boy, the parents are not considered the lawbreakers. But have they not, in all fairness, contributed to the crime? Weren’t they, too, acting in concert?”

  “You’re saying we should arrest the parents, too?”

  “I’m saying nothing of the sort, and I won’t have you pulling any of your trick shyster-lawyer questions on me.” Samalson chuckled. “I’m simply asking a question. Where does the blame begin? And where does it end?”

  “That’s the big question, Abe. Answer that one, and you can start your own TV quiz show.”

  “I get that question every day in my courtroom. And every day I make my decision, and I pass my sentence as specified by law, the punishment to fit the crime. But sometimes I wonder about justice.”

  “You? Abe, you don’t!”

  “Ah, but I do, and this is strictly out of school and if you ever repeat it to a goddamn soul, I’ll tell the newspapers that you once prepared a theoretical defense of the Sacco-Vanzetti case.”

  “He never forgets a thing, Karin,” Hank said. “He’s got a mind like a blotter.”

  “Spongy and blue,” Samalson said.

  “I’m interested to know why you doubt justice,” Karin said.

  “I didn’t say I doubted it, I said I wondered about it.” He turned to Hank. “Are you training her to be a shyster, too?”

  “She’s the best damn lawyer in New York,” Hank said. “You should hear some of our arguments.”

  “Well, how do you wonder about it?” Karin persisted.

  “Look at her,” Samalson said. “Like a terrier with a bone, anxious to start gnawing at it. I wonder about justice, my dear, because I’m not sure I’ve ever dispensed real justice in my courtroom.”

  “And just what is real justice?”

  “Real justice is nonexistent,” Samalson said. “Is retribution justice? Is there justice in the Bible’s eye for an eye? I doubt it.”

  “Then where is there justice?” Hank asked.

  “To be just is to be actuated by truth and lack of bias, to be equitable and evenhanded. There is no such thing as justice.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because men administer justice. And there is no such thing as a truthful, equitable, evenhanded, unprejudiced man.”

  “Then we might just as well forget law and order,” Hank said. “We might just as well become barbarians.”

  “No. The law was designed by men to fill the needs of men. If our justice is not pure, it is at least an attempt to maintain the inherent dignity of man. If someone has been wronged, it is the duty of society to give him redress. Your Rafael Morrez was allegedly wronged. An act of larceny was committed against him. The grandest sort of larceny. His life was stolen from him. And now Morrez, or society speaking for Morrez, is seeking redress. You are protecting the dignity of Rafael Morrez by prosecuting those who allegedly wronged him.”

  “And this is justice,” Hank said.

  “No, this is not justice. Because if we were truly seeking justice, the Rafael Morrez case would consume a lifetime. Don’t you see, Hank? In our courtrooms, we are concerned only with blacks and whites. Did these three boys commit this crime against this other boy? If so, they are guilty of first-degree murder and must be punished as specified by law. If not, they are free. But where are the grays? How can a man be fair, and truthful, and equitable, when he has only the most obvious black and white facts before him?”

  “The county will present all the facts, Abe. You know that.”

  “The facts of the crime, yes. And, of course, there will be psychologists presented by both sides, and the defense will try to show that these poor boys were misguided and a product of our times, and you will try to show that we cannot blame our times for the product, that a modern murderer is no different from a Colonial murderer. Three weeks from now, the jury will listen to all this, weighing the facts of the crime, and I will guide them as to points of law in the case. And then they will turn in their verdict. And if they decide the boys are not guilty, I shall free them. And if they decide the boys are guilty of first-degree murder, and if they do not ask for leniency, I shall do what I am duty-bound and sworn to do. I shall administer sentence as prescribed by the law. I shall send those three boys to the electric chair.”

  “Yes,” Hank said, and he nodded.

  “But will that be justice?” Samalson shook his head doubtfully. “Crime and punishment. A noble concept. But how much of our system of punishment is based on the guilt-ridden complexity of modern man? Are we satisfying our own hunger for self-punishment every time we level sentence on a so-called criminal?”

  “You can’t apply modern psychology to laws conceived thousands of years ago, Abe.”

  “Can’t I? What makes you think man has changed so very much in the past thousand years? We’re the guiltiest animals on the face of the earth. And we share a race memory of guilt. And we cover our shame with the high-flown notion that justice will triumph. But I’ll tell you something, Hank, and this I firmly believe, and it has nothing to do with my ability to judge a case as I’m supposed to. I do that very well within the specified confines of my job. But I do not bel
ieve that justice very often triumphs. There are more murderers loose than I’d care to count. And I’m not talking about the people who pull the trigger or plunge the blade. Until mankind can decide where the act of murder begins, there will be no real justice. There will only be men armed with rhetoric and—like our friend Mike Barton in his reporter role—they will only be playing at the game of administering justice. They will only be fakes.”

  Samalson looked up at the stars.

  Somberly he said, “Maybe it takes a God. We’re only men.”

  He began preparing his case on Monday and, with the trial three weeks away, he found he could not get the judge’s words out of his mind.

  Usually, Hank was a careful and meticulous worker, preparing his cases with the preciseness of a mathematician. It was his contention that a lawyer should never make the mistake of thinking a jury would appreciate subtleties. Beginning with the assumption that a jury knew nothing whatever about the law or the case being tried, it was his task to present the facts so that, once understood, they led to an inescapable conclusion. In offering the facts, he tried to leave nothing to the imagination. Piece by piece, he built his jigsaw puzzle. By the time he was ready to make his closing statement, the scattered evidence would have locked together into a clear and indisputable picture from which one conclusion, and one conclusion alone, could be drawn. The skill of such a trial performance depended largely upon the groundwork he did in his office before the trial. It was no simple task to batter a jury with facts and at the same time leave them convinced that they had done all their own reasoning. He was, in a sense, demanding total identification from them. Moving from the jury box into the figure of the prosecutor, they were in the position of being able to assay the facts as he himself had done earlier. But, and he knew this with the instincts of an actor, the jury needed more than identification. They demanded, too, a performance. They wanted to see a show, especially in a murder trial. And so it became important to decide which witnesses preceded others, how the testimony given could be presented so that it built to a logical and seemingly effortless climax of overwhelming truth. And, in addition to this, he had the defense’s case to worry about. He had to be prepared for whatever they might hurl at him. In effect, he had to prepare two cases—his own, and the defense’s as well.