Key Witness

by J. F. Freedman

  Moira pointed at their housekeeper’s retreating back. “What about Cloris?” she asked. “Do you think I’m prejudiced against her?”

  “No.” He’d pushed too hard. “Look, honey, I know you’re not racist, or anything remotely like that. It’s—”

  “I don’t want you defending a rapist and a murderer,” she said coldly, cutting him off. “I don’t give a damn what color he is.” She brushed by him, leaving the room. “You can eat dinner alone tonight. I’ve lost my appetite.”

  HELENA ABRAMOWITZ SAT A safe ten feet away from Dwayne Thompson, in interview room 1 at the county jail. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all white, and the overhead fluorescent lighting cast deep shadows under Helena’s and Dwayne’s eyes, which made both of them look older and him more sinister. The room was bare except for the chairs they were sitting on, and it was completely secure—no one could listen in to what they were saying, including members of the sheriff’s office.

  It was 8:15 in the morning. Helena had been up half the night going over Thompson’s grand jury testimony, highlighting the most significant areas, where he had the most specific knowledge of the murders and Marvin’s links to them. She had also tagged certain parts of his testimony that were of concern to her; either they were too nebulous, too general, or more troubling, were not credible—to her. She knew the police would buy what they wanted, that they would skew anything that made their case look better, but she couldn’t afford to do that. Whatever she used at trial had to be as clean as it could be, because the other side would hammer at any inconsistencies.

  This case would have racial overtones—it was inevitable. She assumed that at least half the members of the jury would be black, and although there was widespread outrage regarding the rape-murders, the black community’s hostility toward the police ran deep, and with good reason—the same reasons there was tension between black communities and police all over the country.

  Countering that antipathy would be the racial makeup of the victims. Most of them had been black women, and although they were prostitutes (except for the latest one), they were still victims whose skin color was black. She wouldn’t need a jury consultant to know that the more black women, particularly young and independent, that she could pack into the jury, the better off she’d be.

  Today was the first time Helena had actually laid eyes on Dwayne. She found his presence unsettling. Anyone who had been around the system could see that he was a psychopath. She hated this kind of witness because even when they were right, in the legalistic, technical sense, they were wrong. And he was her main witness, the only one who could conclusively put Marvin White in the murderer’s shoes.

  She had gone over Dwayne’s jacket and his psychological profile. They were in the open folder she held in her lap, along with his grand jury testimony. He really did have the crack stoolie’s knack for getting people to open up to him and confess their worst sins. He had sent three men up for life, not counting the case in progress he’d been brought down here for.

  Marvin White would be five. They were all good cases. Solid, compelling testimony.

  “I’m Helena Abramowitz,” she said, introducing herself. “I’m the senior deputy district attorney who will be trying this case.” She didn’t offer her hand.

  He nodded, his reptilian eyes scanning her top to bottom. She was not dressed flamboyantly, but she hadn’t worn her most conservative outfit, either. She was wearing a knee-length wool-knit dress, dark stockings, and black pumps. She could feel his eyes on her legs.

  His eyes locked onto hers. The whites were tinged with yellow, like a wolf’s. “Dwayne.”

  “Dwayne Thompson.” She tapped the thick manila folder on her lap. “I know all about you.”

  His eyes hadn’t moved, hadn’t blinked. “No one knows all about me,” he told her in a low monotone.

  He was wearing his infirmary whites. Legs planted on the floor, palms on thighs. His eyes moved slowly down to her breasts, brazenly checking them out, to her legs again, then back up to her face. She felt an urge to cross her legs, to flash some thigh and jerk him around with the swishing sound of rubbing nylon, but she resisted it. You don’t fuck with heads like his, even when you’re in the jail and he’s your witness.

  “What about you?” he asked her.

  “What about me.”

  “How long you been a DA?”

  “Over a dozen years.”

  “How many murder cases have you tried?”

  “This will be my eighth.”

  “How many have you won?”

  “All of them.”

  The barest of smiles edged his mouth. “Sounds like you’re the right woman for the job.”

  “I’m the right lawyer for the job, yes.”

  “The right woman lawyer.”

  She let that run over her back—she wasn’t going to get into any bantering with him. She flipped through a few pages of his testimony until she got to a highlighted section. “Let’s go over some of your statement,” she began.

  “You married?” he asked.

  She looked up. His eyes were boring into her. Curtly: “No.” Pressing straight on: “The first time you and the accused, Marvin White, talked about the killings was in the jail infirmary the day after he was brought in? Or was it later? The information is unclear on that point.”

  “Divorced, or never were?”

  “Divorced, no children, my life is my own and none of your business, please answer the questions I ask you and that’s all.”

  “You want to win this, don’t you,” he asked, sizing her up. “You want to win it bad, you can taste it. You’d rather win this case than have sex with Kevin Costner and that other faggot, what’s his name.” His eyes were locked on her calf.

  Helena smoothed her skirt down over her knees. She had been in close contact with hundreds of hardened male criminals in her time at the DA’s office, and she had handled all of them with comparative ease, but there was something about this one that set him apart. This man seemed to be totally devoid of any human feelings. She’d heard of people like this—the Jeffrey Dahmers and Ted Bundys of the world. The scariest part was that if this case went to trial, and she won, Dwayne Thompson was going to walk out of prison a free man.

  “When did Marvin White first broach the issue of the Alley Slasher murders?” she asked, consulting her notes again. “Was it the first day after the night he was brought in?”

  “Something like that. Yeah, that sounds right.”

  “It’s what you said in your testimony. Do you remember precisely what the circumstances were?” This interview had started off on the wrong foot. If he couldn’t remember something as basic as when he and the defendant had started talking about this case, how could he remember the more important and much more specific details?

  His smile was that of the cat who had finally caught and eaten Tweety Pie. “It was the first morning I was on infirmary duty,” he began. “Eleven o’clock, I had switched the television set to the news at the top of the hour. The lead story was about the latest killing and they had a shot of a reporter standing in the location where the killing had taken place. I had finished changing the dressings on his ass—excuse me, his posterior—where he’d been shot up with birdshot. We were watching together. He said, ‘I know where that is,’ or words to that effect, and he told me he used to work in that neighborhood. He knew the exact address of the alley.” He stared at her hard, challengingly. “I’ve got a photographic memory, lady lawyer. Once I hear something, or read something, I know it. Cold. So don’t worry about my testimony holding up, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  I’ve got to be careful with this one, she thought. A photographic memory? What other surprises did he have in store for her? Aloud, she said, “The more precise you are the better it will be for us. And for you, given the deal you cut with my boss.”

  “I scratch your back, you scratch mine, lady prosecutor,” he said. “I give good back-scratch. You want to check it out, you
let me know.”

  He leaned back in his chair, arms now folded across his chest, and as she looked up from her notes she saw that his pants were rising in the crotch. He looked at her; and then slowly, deliberately, he licked his lips, his serpentine tongue traversing his mouth from one side to the other.

  “I have a back-scratcher,” she informed him, looking away.

  “In case you forget it sometime.”

  When pigs can fly, asshole.

  Looking up again, she saw that his pants were quivering from the force of his erection. Don’t come in your pants, you piece of garbage. Not while I’m alone in the room with you.

  “I need to take a short break,” she said. “I’ll be right back. Maybe you need a break, too.” She stood up. The door immediately swung open, the burly deputy on duty sticking his head in.

  “We’re going to take a five-minute break,” she informed the deputy. “Mr. Thompson needs to use the bathroom.”

  She smoked a cigarette in the lawyers’ lounge and reread some of his testimony. His grand jury statement about how he and Marvin White had first started discussing the murders was exactly what he had told her, almost verbatim. He really must have a photographic memory. He’d be a tough witness to break down under cross-examination.

  She didn’t have to like Dwayne Thompson. She didn’t like plenty of the witnesses she used, especially the criminals. All she wanted from them was their help in winning the case.

  When she returned to the interview room he was already there, waiting for her. The bulge in his pants was gone. She asked him questions, he answered them. The light was gone from his eyes.

  THE STORM CAME DOWN from the north overnight, bringing a hard, driving rain. It fell in heavy, cold sheets, the strong wind off the water blowing it sideways.

  Wyatt and Jonnie Rae Richards sat in a coffee shop across the street from the jail. Outside the greasy storefront window the drops punched the potholed asphalt street like BB pellets, bouncing high into the air. Already, at seven-thirty in the morning, the gutters were overflowing onto the sidewalk, sloshing muddy water on the shoes of the passersby who were running to get inside wherever they were going.

  Even though she had an umbrella Jonnie Rae had been soaking wet when she pushed the door open and sat down in the corner booth across from Wyatt. She grabbed a handful of napkins from the dispenser on the table, took off her plastic rain hat, and patted down her face, neck, and hair.

  “Excuse me,” she apologized to Wyatt, “but I can’t afford to get a cold.”

  Balling up another handful of napkins, she unceremoniously pulled off her shoes and stuffed the paper around in the insides of her low pumps, which were misshapen from years of conforming to her wide, flat feet. Wyatt noticed that the heels on her shoes were run-down and the soles had holes in them.

  “How far away did you have to park?” he asked. He’d lucked out, finding an empty space right in front.

  “I don’t have no car,” she said, shucking out of her raincoat and draping it over the back of the booth to dry out. “Took the E bus to Merchant Street and then the 34 trolley,” she told him. “The trolley-stop roof leaks like a sieve, that’s how come I got so damn wet. Damn transit company ought to fix up their trolley stops,” she complained.

  Wyatt hadn’t been on a trolley car in decades. His mother used to take him for rides when he was little, for a treat. It had been fun, watching the driver shift the levers that activated the overhead electrical current. He rarely took public transportation anymore; the cars were crowded and dirty, and it took too long to get from one place to another.

  “If the weather’s like this next time I’ll send a taxi for you,” he volunteered. It was inconvenient having to ride the buses for however long it took to get here; an hour or more, with the transfers and the waiting. Getting soaked to the skin on top of that was ridiculous.

  “Don’t worry about that. I ride three buses every day to get to my work. I buy the monthly pass, so I can ride as many times as I want, don’t cost me any extra.”

  The waitress came over to their table, pad in hand.

  “Just coffee for me,” Wyatt ordered.

  “I’ll have the same,” Jonnie Rae seconded.

  “Are you sure you don’t want anything else?” he prompted. “We pay for it,” he added, trying to make it sound like it was an everyday occurrence. It would come out of his pocket—big deal.

  “Well, in that case, let me have a bowl of hot cereal and some toast. White toast,” Jonnie Rae told the waitress.

  “Oatmeal or Cream of Wheat?”

  “Oatmeal. With brown sugar if you’ve got it.”

  The waitress went away to put in their order. “Something hot to take this chill off,” she said, as if apologizing for his spending money on an order of cereal and toast.

  The waitress plonked down two thick mugs of hot, tarry coffee. Jonnie Rae put three sugars and a large dollop of cream in hers.

  “Let me explain what’s going on,” Wyatt began.

  She licked her coffee spoon clean before putting it down on the table. “We’re meeting with Marvin, aren’t we?” she asked. “To do whatever it is you lawyers do?”

  “Yes and no.”

  This was not going to be an easy conversation. In a few minutes he would walk her across the street to the jail, where they would meet with Walcott and Josh Dancer, who, Josephine had cued him, was the senior Public Defender in the office. Wyatt knew that Dancer had been working overtime behind his back to convince Walcott the defense had to be handled by a career staffer, not Wyatt. If Walcott and Dancer got their way, by lunchtime Dancer would be the lead attorney on the case and he would be a backup.

  He would never be a backup to anyone.

  Walcott had called him with the news last night Dancer was going to be given the case. He’d lost his temper and reamed Walcott’s ass royally, accusing Walcott of using the good offices of Wyatt’s prestigious firm when it was expedient and turning a cold shoulder when it wasn’t.

  Walcott had held firm. His men and women had to be taken care of.

  Wyatt took a sip from his coffee. It was too hot; he scalded his lips. He put the cup down.

  “I’m not an experienced lawyer in criminal trials,” he told Jonnie Rae. “I’m a very good lawyer, of course, I’ve won hundreds of important cases”—he wasn’t going to back off who he was—“but in this situation, Marvin should have someone who has been down this road before, so to speak. You see,” he explained, “I don’t practice this kind of law for a living. I’m working for the Public Defender as a volunteer.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, confused. “You done good by him already, with that robbery charge. Why couldn’t you do good on this part of it?”

  Good question, he thought. “The head of the department makes these decisions,” he told her. “It’s out of my hands.”

  “Not if I have anything to do with it,” she came back.

  “It’s not your choice.”

  “Why not?” She was getting angry, and building up a good head of steam behind it. “I’m the boy’s mother, ain’t I?”

  “Yes, but he’s legally of age, so the decision will be his, not yours or anyone else’s. You can counsel with him, and you should, but it’s a decision he has to make.”

  “It sounds like a bunch of bureaucratic bullshit to me,” she said.

  Wyatt had no answer for that, so he didn’t offer one.

  The waitress put Jonnie Rae’s cereal and toast down in front of her. Jonnie Rae liberally sprinkled the cereal with brown sugar, buttered her toast, and went directly at her breakfast.

  Wyatt took another try at his coffee. It wasn’t too hot to drink now; it just tasted like shit in his mouth. He drank it anyway.

  Walcott and Dancer were waiting in the front lobby. Walcott looked wary, but relatively calm. Dancer was fidgety, bouncing from the ball of one foot to the other. He avoided direct eye contact with Wyatt, who ignored him in turn.

  Wyatt made the int
roductions. Jonnie Rae looked disdainfully at the two men, whom she’d never met. They didn’t make much of an impression, compared to Wyatt. They wouldn’t be sending taxicabs for her and buying her breakfast, one look at them and she knew that for a fact.

  “Before we talk to your son,” Walcott said to Jonnie Rae, trying to be charming and considerate, neither of which he was good at, “we should talk for a minute amongst ourselves. We can go in here,” he added, pointing to a small visitors’ anteroom off the main guard station.

  She shook her head emphatically. “He’s the one got his butt in the sling,” she said. “You do your talking to him. I’ll listen and counsel him, if it comes to that. That’s what a mother is for when her child becomes old enough to get hisself into trouble.”

  Wyatt turned away so they couldn’t see him smiling. She was almost parroting what he’d told her, word for word.

  “Fine by me,” Walcott said, taken aback. He walked over to the duty sergeant and announced their presence.

  A deputy accompanied them through the secure gates and into a small visitors’ room. They sat at a table, all on the same side. Wyatt sat next to Jonnie Rae, shielding her from the others.

  The door from the other side, the jail side, swung open. Marvin was led in by two deputies. He was in handcuffs and leg-irons, shuffling his slippered feet along the floor. His complexion was ashen, his hair was all kinked up like it hadn’t been washed or combed out in days, and his eyes and nose were runny. He looked down at his feet as he came in, unable to look up at his mother’s face.

  “Oh, baby,” Jonnie Rae cried out. “What have they done to you in here?” Instinctively, she jumped up and tried to reach across the table to hug him.

  One of the deputies immediately stepped between them, blocking her. “No physical contact,” he said sternly, pointing to the instructions on the wall.

  Wyatt was on his feet, and not as a courtesy to Marvin. “Why is this man shackled?” he demanded. “Who authorized this?”