Policewoman

by Uhnak, Dorothy

  “No,” I said. “The time of the arrest was three o’clock. I first observed him at 2:20 P.M. by the lion cage.”

  Mrs. Drexel frowned, squinted, her face puzzled. “By the lion cage? We haven’t heard about the lion cage before. What was he doing by the lion cage?”

  I answered softly, “Watching the lion.”

  There was a small sound of amusement in the courtroom and Mrs. Drexel whirled about, leaning her head downward to peer over the tops of her glasses; then she spun back to me. “And that struck you as unusual, and so you watched him, because he was observing the lion?”

  “No. I observed him first at the lion cage, and then he began moving. He moved toward the ...”

  Mrs. Drexel held up both her hands, and a paper fell from her grasp to her feet, unnoticed. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. You noticed him at the lion cage. Whom else did you notice at the lion cage?”

  “There were other people there.”

  “Describe them! What did they look like? Who were these ‘other people’? What were they doing?”

  I shook my head, shrugged; I couldn’t see her point. “Other people. I didn’t notice them particularly, because they did nothing to arouse my suspicions.”

  “But the defendant aroused your suspicions, just standing there, looking at the lion?”

  “When he began moving, he aroused my suspicions.”

  “No, no, wait. We will go back, I want to know exactly,” Mrs. Drexel said, stressing the word, as though it were the key to a perplexing and important secret, “exactly why you noticed him standing there watching the lion, in a great crowd of people who were doing exactly the same thing. Why him?”

  “There wasn’t a great crowd,” I said steadily, “there were maybe four, five people, some children. And the defendant.”

  “Yes, yes, go on,” Mrs. Drexel said, blinking impatiently.

  I took a deep, slow breath. “And then, the defendant began moving ...”

  Mrs. Drexel stamped her foot. “No! No, don’t get him moving. I want to know ...”

  The district attorney held up his hand at me, pulling his lips between his fingers as he rose. “Your Honor, I think Mrs. Drexel will have us at the lion cage all day. Will she concede that the officer saw the defendant at the lion cage and that the defendant then moved on?”

  Mrs. Drexel’s voice crackled loudly. “I won’t concede anything! I want to know why this police officer picked out this boy among all those other people just standing there watching the lion. That is her testimony, those are her words. Why this caused her to be suspicious of him. That’s what I want to know!”

  The judge made a deep rumbling sound, ignoring Mrs. Drexel’s angry glare. He spread out his palms toward the jury and shrugged slightly, helplessly, and the jury made appreciative soft sounds. When the woman began to speak again, he held his hands up toward her, and leaned toward the witness chair, and said, softly, rationally in contrast to Mrs. Drexel’s tones: “Officer, why did you notice the defendant and not the other folks watching the lion?”

  I answered the judge, not looking at Mrs. Drexel, but feeling her eyes on my face. “He called attention to himself by his manner. He was jumpy, nervous, edgy. He just didn’t ‘look right.’”

  The judge flicked his hand at Mrs. Drexel, smiled and leaned back in his chair, but Mrs. Drexel leaped at my last words. “He just didn’t look right, eh? You didn’t like his looks?” She didn’t stop for an answer, but continued a barrage of angry questions. “He looked dirty? Something like that? Out of place? Were there any other Puerto Ricans in the crowd watching the lion? Or was he the only one?”

  That was what she had been building to. I clamped down on my teeth, then answered slowly, in a tightly controlled voice, “Which question do you want me to answer, Mrs. Drexel? I’ve lost track.”

  She jutted out her jaw: don’t get smart with me. “Just this one, then. Was he the only Puerto Rican there?”

  The judge slapped his hand on the top of his desk flatly. “Come on, come on, Mrs. Drexel, none of that stuff,” he said roughly.

  “I want to know. It’s pertinent. I feel it’s pertinent.”

  I didn’t look for any signals. I answered quickly, coldly, “I couldn’t say, Mrs. Drexel.”

  “Well, he’s Puerto Rican, isn’t he? Could you say that much?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anyone could see that, even if he were in a crowd, right?”

  The judge spoke loudly, suddenly, so that the sound of his voice made me jump. He pointed brusquely at the defendant and the jury’s eyes followed his outstretched hand. “Anyone can see he’s a Puerto Rican. Okay, Mrs. Drexel?” And then he called across the space separating him from the defendant, “Are you a Puerto Rican, mister? Huh? Speak English, mister?”

  The defendant, a sallow, thin boy of twenty-three, suddenly aware of the attention focused on him and not understanding it, grinned foolishly and lifted his hand in a confused half-salute to the judge and nodded his head up and down in a kind of greeting.

  “Yeah, he’s a Puerto Rican. He just said so. Okay, Mrs. Drexel?”

  The woman’s face flushed down to her neck and she smashed the sheath of papers against the side of her thigh. “Judge Goldhaber, I object,” she shouted, “I object to these tactics and I intend ...”

  The judge’s voice was full and rich now, filling the courtroom. “And I object to these tactics of yours. Get on with it. Make all your objections later, in written form, like you usually do. Get on with it, get on with it.”

  Mrs. Drexel stood motionless, frozen, her eyes on the judge. Watching her face, I felt a great, lunging sensation in my chest and stomach, and was unable to glance at the judge or the jury or at the spectators in the room. I felt my own face redden, felt some strange, unknown humiliation. But Mrs. Drexel turned to me slowly, and her face was completely composed, the color normal.

  “All right, then,” she said calmly. “After you became suspicious of him because he was standing there, watching the lion, then what did you observe?”

  “Hold it,” the judge called out noisily, addressing the jury now. “The officer was suspicious of him because of his nervous, jumpy, edgy manner.” And then he turned to me, smiling. “Isn’t that right, officer? Isn’t that what you said?”

  I did not want this ally, did not want to be a partner to this man. Seeing nothing, just the haze of the room, I answered, “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Yes. Continue,” he said, waving at Mrs. Drexel.

  Mrs. Drexel continued as though there had been no interruption. “What did you observe then?”

  “The defendant walked over to the monkey cages and ...”

  The sharp voice broke into my words. “Were there other people watching the monkeys?”

  I had a strange sensation of being far away from my questioner, as though the demands were coming from some far, hollow place, and my responses sounded empty. “Yes, and then he ...”

  “What other people?” Mrs. Drexel demanded. “What did they look like? Who were they?”

  Mrs. Drexel asked her questions totally oblivious to the soft, expectant moan in the courtroom. I watched her curiously, wondering how the woman could deliberately expose herself to the waiting judge. Everyone else in the room held his breath; all eyes now turned to the bench.

  I did not answer. My silence was almost an anticipated pause, as though we were all in some play; the judge had the next lines. He sat silently, majestically building his anger around him, until all eyes were on him. Only Mrs. Drexel, seemingly totally unaware, awaited my answer.

  “Oh, no,” the judge said, in a whining, groaning voice, and only then did Mrs. Drexel look at him. “Oh, no. We’re not playing that game again. We’ve been through the whole bit, and you are not going to play tricks with this court!”

  Mrs. Drexel stared at him in honest amazement. “I am trying to elicit some facts here, your Honor. I want to know some things here,” she said, now pointing at me. “I want to know just what’s so te
rrible about a young Puerto Rican kid watching some lions and monkeys at the zoo, why our police officers think it’s a suspicious thing. That’s what I want to know.”

  I heard the sounds of the argument, the shrill, high, demanding voice and the heavy, powerful voice of authority, but not the words, because the meaning of Mrs. Drexel’s method was building inside of me. The woman was attempting to twist me into a mold, a pattern of her own making, and I felt a wave of resentment toward the woman, far removed from the long-time sniping contempt of the judge and the contemptuous amusement of the jury. Openly, without reason or justification of any kind, Mrs. Drexel was making me out as a bigot. I glanced at the jury and then at the defendant, sitting at the long, shining table, rubbing the palms of his hands absently on the silky-smooth surface. He seemed faded, grayed by his confinement; his eyes seemed stale, with no trace of the black sparkle. His clothing, probably provided by some relative, was crumpled and too big for him and his skinny neck stood away from the yellowing white collar which was pulled together by a wide, brightly designed blue and green tie. He was twenty-three but he had the face of an old child; a resigned child, for he smiled quickly whenever Mrs. Drexel glanced at him or a court attendant poked him. Then his face would lapse into a staring, uncomprehending blankness. This courtroom was just a place to him, as his prison cell was just a place to him.

  I looked at the jury of his peers—for that was what he was supposed to be entitled to. A large woman, fanning her perspiring face with her ringed hand, leaned heavily against her chair, crowding a middle-aged, well-groomed woman who probably smelled of some tangy, fruit-flavored toilet water. She looked like a woman who was aware of doing her share, of fulfilling her part of public responsibility. A white-haired man occupied the foreman’s chair, and his fire-red, vein-scarred face and swollen nose were in startling contrast to the whiteness of his hair, which was lank and fell against the sparkling silver frame of his eyeglasses. He carefully pushed it back from time to time with long, clean fingers. He was studying the defendant; his mouth was cast downward, and he whispered something to the man next to him. They both stared at Paco Hernandez, who stared into space.

  The rest of the jury seemed intent on the judge’s words, aware of the uniqueness of their position, aware that the famous man was playing to them. Appreciative of the honor, they gave their reactions quickly: the stifled, court-acceptable laugh, the stiff, discerning, disapproving silences. The district attorney was glancing at his wrist watch, looking at the streak of sunlight from the window up near the ceiling. Judge Goldhaber was fighting his battle for him. I felt no alliance with anyone in the room; I felt removed from the wrangling which actually was revolving around me.

  Finally, the shrill voice was silenced, and the judge’s voice rumbled to a halt. Then Mrs. Drexel approached me, looking unruffled, fresh, ready. “All right, then, we’re at the monkey cages. What did you observe the defendant do next?”

  I blinked rapidly, bringing my mind into focus, trying to alert myself to the moment. “Yes, the defendant watched the monkeys for a moment or two, and then began to move among the people standing near him.”

  “That was suspicious? That he moved a bit?”

  “To me it was,” I answered stiffly. “I knew what he was looking for.”

  Mrs. Drexel regarded me silently for a moment, her face hard and still. Then her voice rasped out in the angry tone of the school-teacher to the class cheat, “You knew that he was looking around at the people, but don’t tell me what thoughts were inside this boy’s head!”

  I felt the resentment; I wanted to be free of this woman’s voice and stares and nasty, digging words. But knowing that the anger, released, would be dangerous, would interfere with my words, I spoke carefully, consciously and with great effort, keeping my voice from trembling or betraying me in any way. “He was looking around in a manner that I considered suspicious. I then observed him walk over to the seal pool.” And then, for no reason that I could fathom, or perhaps without a reason, perhaps just by a natural falling-in with the pattern established in the room, I said quietly, rhythmically, “And I don’t know how many people were standing there, or what they looked like, or who they were, or if any of them happened to be Puerto Ricans!”

  There was a loud burst of laughter from the judge, echoed by sounds throughout the courtroom. “Good, officer,” he said, between gasps, “you’ve saved us some considerable debate, I would say.”

  I felt an immediate regret, a hot flushing shame, and there was a look of pure and open hatred and disgust on Mrs. Drexel’s face. “Go on, officer, what did you observe then?”

  “I observed the defendant move in back of an unidentified woman and place his hand on the clasp of her pocket-book. He then moved away and ...”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute.” Again, the quick, insistent voice, delving into some deep, hidden pit wherein might lie the truth of the matter. “You observed him put his hand on a woman’s pocketbook? What woman?”

  “An unidentified woman.”

  Mrs. Drexel rubbed her chin fiercely. “You observed him place his hand on a woman’s pocketbook? You’re a police officer? What action did you take at this point?”

  “I continued my observation and then ...”

  “No, no, no!” Mrs. Drexel was shaking her head and waving her hands filled with papers of various sizes before her. “Are you familiar with Section 722-6 of the Penal Law? Do you know what it states?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I’m familiar with it.” It was my trap, not hers, and she had slipped into it too easily.

  “Did you observe the defendant violate that section of the Penal Law dealing with jostling—place his hand in close proximity to a woman’s pocketbook, which, according to Section 722-6 of the Penal Law, is an offense?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Why didn’t you arrest him then? For jostling? For the lesser crime, the offense of jostling?”

  My voice was hard and flat, my answer anticipated by every police officer in the courtroom. “At the time the defendant committed the act of jostling, there were many other unidentified persons in the immediate vicinity, including several children. My partner and I approached the defendant with the intention of placing him under arrest, but by the time we moved toward him, he had already moved further into the crowd. We didn’t want to take any sudden action which might cause harm or injury to an innocent bystander,” I recited by rote.

  Mrs. Drexel nodded her head, then sharply shook her head from side to side with a kind of weariness rather than anger. Her voice sounded heavy now, and sad. “So you watched him until he committed the felony, the act of grand larceny, eh?”

  “Yes, ma’am. It was only a second or so later. After he hit the pocketbook, and by the time I finally reached his side, he was in the act of removing a wallet from the right-hand back trouser pocket of Mr. Ludwig, the complainant in this case.”

  “You’re a very cautious police officer, would you say?” The question was contemptuous, the tone insulting.

  “Where innocent people are concerned, I ...”

  “Oh, yes, and very slow moving, and so cautious that you stood back, according to your testimony, and let the defendant get away with an offense so that you could get him for a felony,”

  I didn’t answer.

  “I demand to know why you didn’t arrest him for the offense!”

  The district attorney called out from his chair that the officer had taken satisfactory police action and had responded properly to the question, but Mrs. Drexel, in a new burst of indignation, shouted him down with her own accusation. “You decided to give him enough rope, isn’t that it?”

  And finally, responding now, meeting the anger, I snapped back, “Yes, yes, that’s right, Mrs. Drexel, and he hung himself with the rope!”

  My answer and Mrs. Drexel’s scalding remarks were lost in a crossfire of shouting by the district attorney and the judge. The court stenographer studied his fingernails for a moment, his hands off the keys
of his machine.

  The rest of the cross-examination was tense and quick. Mrs. Drexel covered the ground already chopped into earlier with my partner, who had testified first, and with the complainant, a befuddled, regretful man who would rather have forgotten the whole thing with the return of his wallet.

  “Now, let’s discuss the matter of the charge of 1897—possession of a dangerous weapon. When the defendant was searched by your partner, a four-inch knife was found in his trouser pocket, is that correct?”

  “It was a switchblade knife, yes,” I replied.

  “All right. That makes it sound more sinister, doesn’t it?”

  “I don’t know, I think a four-inch blade in the hands of someone like the defendant is pretty sinister, regardless of what you might call it.”

  She ignored my remarks. “Now, when you put the question to him, the defendant told you, did he not, that the knife was used by him in his job as a packer?”

  “No, that wasn’t what he said at first. He said that he didn’t know how the knife got there. That it wasn’t his knife,”

  “Did you accuse the defendant of having used the knife in an alleged attack? Wasn’t that when he got frightened and said he had never seen the knife before?”

  “In questioning the defendant about the knife, I asked him if he had used the knife on a girl, in the park, and then he said that the knife wasn’t his.”

  Mrs. Drexel screwed her face into a look of amazement. “Was a girl attacked in the park previous to this arrest? Did you have any reason to suspect the defendant in such an attack?”

  “Mrs. Drexel,” I said impatiently, “I wanted to get a statement from the defendant relative to his possession of the knife. First, he said it wasn’t his; then, after a few more questions, he told us that he only used it for self-defense, in gang fights or things like that.”

  The foreman of the jury scowled, and Paco had the misfortune to turn his face toward the jury box at that exact moment. He grinned brightly, and nodded his head up and down, and the foreman of the jury made a snorting noise and shook his head.