Key Witness

by J. F. Freedman

  “If I tell you something you promise you won’t spread it around?”

  He turned back to Marvin. “What?”

  “Mrs. Carpenter? She isn’t all that bad a person. I kind of like her, you know? As a person. The way her old man treats her and all. But you can’t tell anybody I said that, right?” he said quickly.

  “What we talk about is strictly between us, unless you say otherwise.”

  “Yeah. Good.” Marvin exhaled in relief. “But the sex part—that was for the money, strictly,” he said adamantly. “It wasn’t like I did it … because I wanted to or anything.”

  “For the money,” Wyatt agreed. “Strictly business.”

  WYATT WENT BACK TO his own office near the close of day, casually bantering with the secretaries and some of his colleagues. Alerted to Wyatt’s presence, Ben Turner came out of his office to greet him. Wyatt looked better than he had that morning, but his face was still showing the previous evening’s wear and tear.

  “How are you?” Ben asked, showing concern beyond the normal salutation.

  “Good. Frazzled some. This is no Sunday picnic in the park, I’m finding that out more every day.”

  “Are you making progress?”

  “I am. We’re doing well, better than I thought we might be at this point.”

  “Do you think you have a chance of winning?”

  “Oh, yeah. A decent chance, maybe better.”

  Putting a fatherly arm around Wyatt’s shoulder, Ben pulled him into his office. “Wyatt, I have to ask you this directly. Is there any chance this boy is actually innocent?”

  Wyatt stiffened under the paternal gesture. “Why are you asking me that?”

  “Because I want to know, that’s why.” Ben let go of Wyatt’s arm. “I expect you to give him a crackerjack defense, a Wyatt Matthews job, whether he’s innocent or not—whether you even know it or not. That’s not the point.”

  “What is the point, Ben?”

  “You may be working this case off the books, Wyatt, but you’re a senior partner here, vital to the health and welfare of this office. We have very important clients to think about. About how they perceive us.”

  “Defending a mass murderer could hurt the firm.” This conversation was getting ugly.

  Ben threw it back in his face. “Of which you are a major shareholder.”

  “I don’t know if he’s guilty or not,” Wyatt answered, keeping his cool. “He says he isn’t. I’m going to fashion a strong defense, more than strong enough to raise reasonable doubt in any fair-minded person’s mind. That’s my job. Nothing more, or less.”

  Ben stiffened. “Then do it well. I know you will.”

  They walked out into the corridor. It was quitting time for those who didn’t have to stay late. The secretaries were shutting their computers down for the night, some of them slipping out of their heels and putting on the running shoes that they wore to come and leave in.

  “It’s good seeing you, Ben.”

  “It’s good seeing you, too, Wyatt,” the old man replied. “Don’t be a stranger.”

  “Not to worry.”

  Ben reached out and touched Wyatt’s shirt—a light touch; barely connecting, but affecting in a way Wyatt rarely felt from Ben. “I’m not going to be around much longer, Wyatt. I’m looking to retiring toward the end of the year. This work is too rugged for a man my age. And I don’t want to die in my office, passed out over a brief. You’re my logical replacement; you know that and so do all the others. I want to make sure you’re standing tall and unbloodied when that day comes.”

  Wyatt was touched. “I will, Ben. That’s a promise.”

  “Good.” Ben pumped Wyatt’s hand vigorously. “Wyatt?”

  “Yes, Ben?”

  “Between us—is he innocent? Or guilty? What’s your lawyer’s gut reaction? You have a nose for these things.”

  “I hope he is. But honestly, I don’t know. I wish I could give you more.”

  “I wish you could, too. I wish you could.”

  The reason Wyatt had come to the office was to see Darryl Davis. He had called Darryl and asked to have dinner with him, tonight—he needed to pick the brain of the head of Waskie, Turner’s criminal-defense division.

  He made reservations at the Steak Joint. There are times when a man needs a couple of stiff drinks, a great New York strip, charred medium-rare, with a baked potato on the side and a good bottle of California cabernet. This was one of those times.

  The restaurant was one of the oldest in the city, a favorite watering hole of the politicians, lobbyists, high-priced lawyers, and all-around wheeler-dealers—men (and women) like them, along with the ubiquitous gaggle of Japanese businessmen (several parties of them were on the premises tonight, tucking into the biggest porterhouses the joint offered). There was a throwback element to the Steak Joint—it was, in the last decade of the twentieth century, still a man’s restaurant, in the classic sense of the term—women were outnumbered three to one. Decorated like a private club, it featured red leather banquettes, thick plush carpeting, English hunting prints on the walls. And it was arrogantly expensive—most patrons came here on their expense accounts. Darryl would bill this dinner to the firm, since Wyatt was technically on leave.

  Wyatt knew more than half the people in the place. Several passed by their booth to meet and greet and offer their encouragement. “Give Alex Pagano a good ass-kicking” was the general tenor of their remarks.

  After they were left alone, he told Darryl of the events of the night before. Darryl listened silently, shaking his head a few times in stunned disbelief. “Sounds like you had a guardian angel on your shoulder,” was his first comment when Wyatt had finished.

  “I could as easily not have.”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Not go down there alone at night, for one thing.”

  The waiter placed their two-inch-thick steaks in front of them. The plates were sizzling. He freshened their wineglasses and left discreetly.

  “Let me ask you a straight-up question,” Darryl said.

  “Shoot.”

  “Are you looking for a way out?”

  “No,” Wyatt answered firmly. “I’m not quitting this. But I am worried.”

  “You should be. If you weren’t I’d think you’d gone brain-dead.”

  “Not about my safety. I’ve learned my lesson there—I hope.” He cut into his steak—perfect. “About my ability to try this case.”

  “Because you haven’t done criminal work before?”

  Wyatt shook his head. “Because my client comes from a world that is completely alien to me.”

  “Ah.” Darryl held his wineglass up to the light, “Do you know what are some of the greatest things in the world about making it?” he asked Wyatt.

  “You tell me.”

  “This kind of stuff.” He waved his arm around the room. “The great wine, the food, the atmosphere. Vacations in Vail, suits by Armani, a Mercedes car. The material benefits, the so-called shallow, narcissistic pleasures of life.” He took a sip of wine and rinsed it in his mouth before swallowing. “Yes, there are oceans between you and that housing project Marvin White lives in. But you can get on a Concorde airplane today and fly across the Atlantic Ocean in less than four hours. It isn’t that big a gulf between any two people in this world anymore. Didn’t you tell me his friend that pulled your ass out of the fire drives a tricked-out Jeep that goes out the door at thirty thou plus?”

  “Yes, but look how he makes his money.”

  “Everything is relative, Wyatt.” Darryl held up his wineglass for inspection. “Look around you. People in this room ruin and otherwise fuck up people’s lives every day: That’s the world. You live in it, you benefit from it.”

  “I try not to.” The statement sounded lame before it was even out of his mouth.

  Darryl cackled. “Sure you do. You own stock, don’t you?”

  “Okay, I get the point. I know where this is going.”

&
nbsp; Darryl cut him off. “No, let me ramble a little. I’m in a philosophical frame of mind tonight. You got me going here. Okay. We have the head of AT&T. Cuts forty thousand jobs from the payroll, fucks up forty thousand lives, the economy applauds it and AT&T gives him a million-dollar bonus. Some kid from the ghetto sells crack cocaine, fucks up what—dozens of lives?—we put him in jail. But isn’t he also contributing to the economy? You think the bozo that sold him his Jeep or his suit or his fancy watch cared where his money came from? Or where Baby Doc’s money comes from? Alcohol used to be illegal and cocaine was legal, so who’s to say? More important, who’s to judge?”

  “I don’t equate drug dealing with anything.”

  Darryl scowled. “I don’t think Jonathan Swift wanted people to eat babies, either. I don’t advocate drug dealing, that’s not my point. This is the world, Wyatt. And it’s a tiny, tiny, tiny little world. The difference between you and the Marvin Whites of this world is getting smaller every day. Which is a good thing, I’m sure you’d agree. Whether or not you like the means.”

  “What’s the moral of this story?”

  “You’re a lawyer, Wyatt, not a social worker. If you’re defending the CEO of a major corporation do you go to his house for dinner and ride around with his teenage kids?” Answering his own rhetorical question: “Of course not. You’d consider it a waste of your time and irrelevant to the issue, unless his home life was a factor, which isn’t really the case here. This is about whether or not Marvin did it—not his family history, poverty in America, the corruption of the welfare system, or anything else that social thinkers like to chew the fat over. Look at the small picture—he couldn’t have done it because a, b, c, etc.”

  Wyatt took a mouthful of steak, chewed, and swallowed before continuing. “But it’s hard for me to separate these things out. That corporate executive you mentioned? I don’t have to look at his life, because I already know it. See,” he continued, feeling some kind of juice stirring, “what I think is screwing me up here is the why of my doing this work. Do I want to defend people who need it, or do I …”

  “Want to change the world? Is this about some kind of rich white man’s guilt trip? I thought you had resolved that issue already.”

  “I’m still fighting with it.”

  Darryl nodded sagely. “Wyatt, you didn’t invite me to have dinner with you tonight because I’m some fount of wisdom. You wanted to talk to me because I’m black and you don’t know how you’re supposed to act.” He lifted an eyebrow. “True?”

  Wyatt’s tension broke. “Yes. That’s exactly why. Is that …?” He didn’t know how to put what he wanted to say without offending his partner and friend.

  “Patronizing?” Darryl finished his thought. “One could say so, if one wanted to look at it that way. But so what? Sometimes it can’t be helped, there’s no other way.”

  Wyatt felt truly grateful. “Thank you.”

  “It’s okay.” As Darryl finished his glass the waiter was miraculously at his shoulder, filling it up again to the exact proper amount.

  “These waiters here are good at what they do, aren’t they? Came a time, not so long ago, the only black faces you’d see in here would be waiters and busboys; but that’s for another long night. So okay—here’s my suggestion, as a lawyer and a black man, which in this case dovetails almost completely. Either you’re in … or you’re out. If you’re out, get out, right now. Tomorrow morning. But if you’re in, put all this extraneous bullshit aside and prepare your case. Your soul might belong to Jesus, Wyatt, but Marvin White’s ass is going to belong to the state, unless you stop that from happening.”

  “I JUST FOUND THIS.” Josephine dumped a thin file on Wyatt’s desk. She looked unhappy. “This is …?”

  “An addendum to your client’s juvenile records. Somehow it got left out of what you’ve already seen.”

  “I take it you’ve read this.” He didn’t like the unhappy tone of her voice.

  She patted the top of the file gingerly, as if it could be a package bomb. “The best you can say about this is that the other side won’t be able to use it, since juvie records are inadmissible. Although I’ll bet they’ll try like hell.”

  He opened the file. Josephine walked out of his cubicle. A moment later, she stuck her head back in. “I almost forgot. The woman who identified Marvin in the police lineup has agreed to come in and meet with you—the one who claims she saw him outside the bar. I ran it through the DA’s office. They have to comply, but they weren’t overjoyed about it.”

  “When is this?”

  “This evening. She said she could come by around seven-thirty. It was the earliest she could make it. I hope it doesn’t mess up your plans, having her come in late.”

  “I don’t have any plans for tonight,” he said. “Actually, I was going to ask you if you wanted to have dinner, since I’m staying in town for the next few days. After the interview?”

  She hesitated. “I’d love to. But I can’t tonight. My aunt’s birthday party. I have to go,” she added.

  “No problem.”

  “Can I have a rain check?” she asked.

  “Any time.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” she said with a quick smile before taking off. He heard the tapping echo of her heels growing fainter as she walked to the elevator. The elevator doors opened and closed with a whoosh. Then it was quiet, the only sounds a barely perceptible buzzing coming from a malfunctioning fluorescent light somewhere out in the hallway and the hum of traffic from the street, six floors below.

  He turned to the new documents Josephine had brought in. The charge that hadn’t been in what he had read was an allegation of aggravated rape, when Marvin was fifteen. The girl, who was Marvin’s age and who knew him, told the police that Marvin had enticed her into going alone with him to the roof of her apartment, another building in Sullivan Houses. She thought they were merely going somewhere private to make out—she had an admitted crush on him, as did many of her friends. There he had raped her at knifepoint, and after he raped her he forced her to commit fellatio. Again with a knife at her throat, threatening mutilation or worse if she didn’t comply.

  The girl had not gone to the police willingly. Her mother had noticed bleeding in the girl’s underpants, although it wasn’t her time of the month. The girl had finally broken down and told her mother of the assault, although she didn’t give a name then. The mother took the girl to the hospital, where a sympathetic female doctor examined her and said that indeed there had been penetration, which certainly could have been of a forceful nature. The doctor had reported her findings to the police, as is required under law. That’s when the cops took over, bringing the girl and her mother in for questioning. It took some hemming and hawing, but the girl finally gave up her assailant’s name: Marvin White. According to the girl’s mother, whose statement was included, the girl had been a virgin.

  Wyatt rocked back in his chair, cursing. Fucking civil-service bookkeeping. Helena Abramowitz surely would know about this. It might not be admissible in court, and there would be strenuous arguing back and forth, but it was a compelling piece of corroborating evidence against Marvin. He was an accused rapist and he had threatened to kill his victim if she didn’t comply.

  Maybe he had learned his lesson—don’t let them live so they can go to the police.

  Wyatt read on. Marvin had been arrested. Unable to post bail, he had been detained in juvenile custody for two months, until shortly before his trial.

  At that point, everything started to get murky. Two of Marvin’s friends (Dexter was one of them) swore that Marvin had been across town with them at the time of the alleged rape, at a Martin Lawrence movie. Also, it came to light that the girl had a record of her own, including shoplifting and using a stolen credit card. And she had dropped out of school, which Marvin, at that point, had not yet done. All of which made her a less-than-sterling candidate to hang a successful prosecution on.

  Two days before the trial was to begin th
e girl got cold feet and told the prosecutor’s office she wasn’t going to testify. There was nothing she could get out of it, and she had already been humiliated enough. She flat-out was not going to get on the stand.

  In a finding that accompanied the case file, there was a memorandum from the assistant DA handling the case to the head of the juvenile prosecution division, offering the strongly held opinion that there had been intense pressure put on the girl and her mother to walk away from the case. It was assumed that Marvin and/or friends of his, gang members; had threatened the girl and the mother, scaring them off.

  The upshot was that the district attorney’s office had no alternative—they had to drop the case. Marvin walked. But the authorities believed that he was guilty, as he had originally been charged.

  One more crack in the system.

  Three months later Marvin was arrested for robbing an appliance store of a video camera. This time there was no backing off by his accuser, the store owner. He was convicted and sent to six months at the county juvenile farm.

  Wyatt got out the comprehensive file he’d read earlier and went through Marvin’s sorry history again. There wasn’t much redeeming material: no affidavits from sympathetic teachers, no letters asking for clemency from the minister of the church Jonnie Rae attended. No one seemed to give much of a damn for Marvin White except his friends, and most of them had records as bad as Marvin’s, or worse. He was a gangbanger (possibly not an official member of a gang, maybe only a hanger-on), a school drop-out, a thief. And, a rapist who had managed to beat the charge.

  After he had reread as much of Marvin White’s encounters with the law as he felt like stomaching in one sitting, Wyatt went back through the accounts given by the woman who had ID’d Marvin as being outside the club in the same time frame the murder and robbery took place. Her testimony seemed to be very straightforward, convincing material.

  The elevator doors opened with their particular pneumatic sound. Then the sounds, much like those made by Josephine earlier, of a woman’s heels on linoleum. He glanced at his watch—7:30 on the button.