Key Witness

by J. F. Freedman

  Hopkins shook his head affirmatively. “They were …”

  “Having sex,” Wyatt finished for him.

  “She was wailing like an animal in heat. Really loud.”

  “It was a woman’s voice. You’re positive.”

  “I know the difference between a woman’s voice and a man’s,” Hopkins replied with petulance.

  “No offense meant. I have to be certain, you can appreciate that. But you didn’t actually see Blake, you said that. It could have been another woman, maybe even a prostitute. The way the system here has been coddling Thompson, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “I didn’t see them actually fucking, that’s true,” the nurse agreed. “But I did see Lieutenant Blake.”

  He paused; Wyatt nodded for him to continue.

  “They hadn’t heard me,” Hopkins went on. “The way she was moaning and shrieking, I could’ve shot off a cannon and they wouldn’t have heard me. So, quiet like a church mouse, I crept out of there.”

  “So when did you actually see Blake?”

  “I snuck around the corner,” Hopkins said, “where I could see whoever came out, but they couldn’t see me. And sure enough, about fifteen minutes later, out she came.”

  Wyatt asked a few more perfunctory questions. He had what he needed.

  “Thompson isn’t going to know what I told you, right?” the nurse asked nervously as Wyatt prepared to leave.

  Wyatt shook his head. “Not about this or anything else.”

  Hopkins couldn’t help being fretful. “Guys like Thompson, it’s amazing what they can find out. And what they can do, once they do find out.”

  WYATT HAD EXPECTED A big woman, but not this big. This was a grande mama suprema, John Madden in a bra.

  “Lieutenant Doris Blake?” he said, tentatively approaching her. He was almost six feet tall, and she hovered over him. He checked out her hands, her feet, her arms filling out the sleeves of her khaki uniform shirt. Everything about this woman was Bunyanesque. If they were outside in the sunshine, he thought, he could stand in her shadow and his would be invisible.

  How difficult, on a daily basis, could life be for a woman who looked like this?

  She turned to him. “Yes?” She didn’t know who he was.

  “My name is Wyatt Matthews.” He handed her his card, not the one from his firm, which was embossed, but the one he’d been issued by the Public Defender’s office, which was on plain flat paper.

  She glanced at it. “Yes?” she said again. It was a yes that implied “Who the fuck are you and why are you bothering me?”

  “I’m defending an inmate presently incarcerated in this facility. I’ve been getting information from some of the deputies here. I spoke with Captain Michaelson earlier, and he gave me a roster that included your name, and suggested that I speak with you.” If she checked with Michaelson the captain would say that was a lie, but he didn’t think she would do that—it would open up a door, the one to her relationship with Dwayne Thompson, that she wanted to keep closed. Needed to keep closed.

  She eyeballed him warily. “What’s the name of this prisoner?”

  “Marvin White.”

  It was like he’d poked her with a cattle prod. She flinched—her body language cried out as plain as day. “I don’t know why you would want to talk to me about him,” she managed to say. “I don’t know why Captain Michaelson would think I would know anything that you should know.”

  They were in the officers’ lunchroom, adjacent to the kitchen. Wyatt had waited in the lunchroom for her to show up—the daily duty-roster had informed him of her schedule, and a clerk in Michaelson’s office had told him this was where she usually came on her breaks. He didn’t come forward until he could see that she was going to be sitting alone. She manifested a lonely, pugnacious expression on her face, as if saying to the world, “You’re going to reject me? No. I’ll reject you first, before you get the chance to hurt me.”

  “If you’ll allow me to explain,” he told her calmly as he slid into a chair next to hers, “you’ll understand why.” He looked around. About twenty deputies were in the room, having coffee and snacks and gossiping with each other. “Perhaps there’s someplace we can go where we’ll have more privacy.”

  “I’m busy,” she said, glancing around to see if anyone was watching or listening. “I don’t have time to talk now.”

  “When would you have time?” he asked her, maintaining his pleasant demeanor.

  “I wouldn’t,” she said brusquely. “I don’t have anything to do with your client, so I don’t have time to talk to you.”

  He cocked his head and looked at her as if surprised. “You know Dwayne Thompson, don’t you?”

  Her look turned to one of poorly disguised panic. “What does that have to do with Marvin White?”

  “Thompson’s a witness for the state against Marvin White, and you know him. You knew him at Durban State Prison when you were a guard there and he was a prisoner, and you got reacquainted with him here. You’re not arguing that, are you?”

  “No,” she answered belligerently. She glared at him.

  I’m in good shape, he thought, and this woman could beat the shit out of me. Which is exactly what she’d like to do right now, I’ll bet.

  She shook her massive head, like a Saint Bernard shaking off rain. “I don’t want to talk to you, and I don’t have to. Now leave me alone, okay?” She turned her back on him.

  “No, it’s not okay,” he said.

  Her body stiffened.

  “You do have to talk to me,” he informed her, “as part of the discovery process. If you don’t believe me, check with a lawyer, or your superiors. So if you don’t want to talk to me informally,” he went on, boring in on her, “I’ll go to court, get an order that will force you to talk, and we’ll go on the record.” He paused to let the seriousness of his intent filter down deep. “But if you make me do that, Lieutenant,” he continued, “I’ll play a harder brand of ball than I’m playing now.” He grabbed his briefcase off the table and stood up. “Screw this. I don’t have time to mess around. You’ll get your notice by registered mail.”

  “Wait.” Blake turned back to him. She was scared, which had been his intent—her face was an open window to her emotions. She looked around again. A few people had glanced their way, but no one was paying them serious attention. “Not here,” she said quietly. “Let’s go someplace where we can talk in private.”

  They sat across Blake’s desk from each other. She had locked the door. “What do you want?” she asked him bluntly. “I don’t know anything about Marvin White, except what I’ve read in the papers. I’m not sure I’ve even seen him. It’s a big jail, you know. We have hundreds of men coming and going every day. I don’t keep track of them.”

  “But you do know Dwayne Thompson,” Wyatt said.

  “Yes, but what does my knowing him have to do with anything?”

  He ignored her question. He decided to sidestep the issue for a moment. “You’re a lieutenant?” he asked, benignly changing the subject. He wanted to find out about her, to put her at ease with him and help in this interrogation. “Is that what those bars signify?” he said, pointing to her shirt collar.

  Her hand went unthinkingly to the bars, fingered them. “Yes,” she answered.

  “That’s a high rank, isn’t it?”

  “It’s okay,” she said modestly. “No big deal.”

  “It seems like a big deal to me,” he said, “but I don’t know that much about jail hierarchy. Although I didn’t see any women’s names of your rank or above,” he added.

  The flattery brought forth a smile. “I am the highest-ranking woman here,” she admitted, a touch of pride coming through.

  “You must be well thought of.”

  “I do my job. I haven’t had any complaints.”

  “So your plan is to move up in the system? Do you want to be the warden here someday?” he asked.

  She scowled. “No way. I’m already out the door here
. I’m just biding my time.”

  “For what?”

  “I’m a lawyer,” she said proudly. She couldn’t resist adding, “Like you.”

  He stared at her. “Really?”

  She nodded vigorously. “I graduated from law school. Fairfax. Last winter’s semester.”

  Fairfax was the local night law school. It was for people who already had careers and wanted new ones. What he envisioned for Josephine.

  “That’s great,” he said, meaning it. “When do you take the bar exam?” he asked.

  “I did,” she said. “This spring. And I passed,” she added proudly. “With a seventy-six.”

  “That’s a good score. Do you have a job lined up?”

  It was as if she were a balloon and he had stuck a pin in her. “No. Not yet.”

  “Have you sent out résumés?”

  She nodded.

  Poor woman, he thought, scoping out her situation. Older and unattractive. A bad combination in an oversaturated market. “What about the public sector?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “The district attorney’s office is full up, and there’s a waiting list. I already checked.”

  “What about the Public Defender’s office?”

  “I’m a cop,” she said. “I don’t think I’d feel comfortable working the other side of the aisle.”

  “You’d be surprised,” he told her. “Some of the best defense lawyers I know are former cops and prosecutors. You guys, better than most people, know what that’s like, the convict’s life—what makes a man become a criminal. Like Dwayne Thompson, for instance,” he threw in smoothly. “A smart man like him, who knows how he might have turned out if a good lawyer had gotten hold of him at the beginning, before he went hardcore bad.”

  “Maybe,” she said, hoping she wasn’t flushing. “I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

  “I could arrange a meeting with you and my boss,” he offered.

  Her entire countenance changed. It was as if a light had been turned on inside her head, where previously it had been a dark, empty shell. She smiled, the shy smile of the wallflower no one is ever nice to. “I’d appreciate that.”

  He made a show of checking the time on his watch. “I’d better move this along,” he said. “I know you’re busy.”

  “It’s okay.” She was enjoying the unexpected attention.

  “Let’s get back to Dwayne Thompson. You knew him at Durban State Penitentiary?”

  Blake blinked her eyes rapidly. “He was a prisoner there during some of the time when I was a guard, yes.”

  This was attention she didn’t want. She was going to ration her responses regarding Dwayne Thompson—grudgingly and warily. He knew that—he was counting on it. He was deceiving her, so that by the time she understood his true motive—to get to the core of her personal relationship with Thompson—she’d be in too deep to get out.

  “How well did you know him?” he asked.

  She flushed. “What do you mean?”

  “You knew who he was. You knew his name, what he looked like?”

  “Yes.”

  “You knew him better than you knew some of the other inmates.” He was humming along, throwing out innocuous little facts.

  “I didn’t say that,” she protested.

  “You just told me you didn’t know anything about Marvin White, that you hadn’t even seen him.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Yes?” he pressed.

  “Yes,” she agreed.

  “Durban is bigger than this jail. But you knew Dwayne Thompson, you talked with him on occasion, who knows what else,” he threw out elliptically. “So you must have known him pretty well, better than many of the other prisoners.”

  “Well, yes, I did know him better than some of the other prisoners,” she admitted reluctantly. “He was there a long time. Guards get to know prisoners when they’re exposed to them over a period of time. Not like in here, where it’s a revolving door.”

  “Makes sense,” he conceded. “But you and Thompson were friends, right? Are friends?”

  “I know who he is,” she flared. “That doesn’t make us friends.”

  “You visited him in the infirmary, where he’s working.”

  Her exhale was caught in her throat—she had to push from her diaphragm to get it out. “Where did you get that idea?” she challenged him.

  “Several people told me,” he lied smoothly. “Surely you aren’t disputing that. I would think it’s logical, since you knew each other up at Durban.”

  She took the bait. “Yes, that’s true,” she admitted. “I did say hello to him a couple of times down there.”

  He had a flash of intuition. “Thompson’s job in the infirmary. He’d done that kind of work before at Durban, hadn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which was why you thought that would be good duty to assign him to while he was here awaiting the trial he was testifying in.”

  She recognized the trap he was setting, and sidestepped it. “I don’t assign jobs,” she said. “That’s done by the booking officer when a prisoner enters the system.”

  This would be easy to check. He’d bet that her fingerprints would be all over this. And if his hunch was right, he could come back and confront her with her lie, and blow her out of the water.

  “Okay,” he said. “I guess that’s about it. Thanks a lot.” He picked his briefcase up from the floor. “Oh, one more thing. I almost forgot. Dwayne Thompson knows his way around computers, right? Warden Jonas up at Durban said he was a computer genius—that he even got a college degree in computer science. You wouldn’t know if Thompson had any access to a computer here, would you?”

  Blake looked him squarely in the eye. “Not that I’d know of,” she said.

  IT WAS AFTER SIX by the time Wyatt pointed his car toward the hospital, where his daughter lay recovering. Moira was sitting by the side of the bed.

  The television was on to a game show, Wheel of Fortune. They never watched shows like that at home. The two women were staring soundlessly at the screen, as if using the distraction to avoid interacting with each other.

  “Dr. Levi was by earlier,” Moira told him with a forced-bright attitude. “Things look good for Wednesday. And we’re going to have a session with a psychologist tomorrow,” she added.

  “That’s a good idea,” he said neutrally. Her friend and partner, Cissy, had broached that idea, and to his surprise, Moira had responded positively. She and Michaela needed counseling, together and individually. A wide, strong bridge needed to be built to bring them back together.

  He sat down next to Michaela. Her leg was extended in the pulleys and balances of the traction bar. She reached out for his hand. He squeezed back, gently. “How are you, sweetie?” he asked. She has to be so uncomfortable, he thought, lying in this position twenty-four hours a day, unable to move. Why did this have to happen to her?

  “I’ll be glad when it’s over,” she confessed.

  “Me, too.”

  “I need to walk,” Moira said diplomatically. “I’ll leave you two to yourselves.”

  After she left Michaela clicked the television off. “How’s your case going, Dad?” she asked, her face animated, eager to take a break from her own situation.

  “Good,” he told her. “Making progress.”

  She nodded. “I’m glad. For your client, and for you. You need a win, Dad.”

  “I’ve had lots of wins, honey. You getting well will be my best win.”

  “I’m going to get well,” she said with forced assurance. “Although …” She didn’t finish her thought.

  “Although?”

  “I have a premonition that it’s going to be a long time before I dance again.”

  “You’ll dance again,” he said quickly. “You’ll do everything.”

  “The bone in my leg is shattered, Dad,” she said, stating fact.

  “You have to keep telling yourself you’ll do everything you did before. And you will. D
r. Levi’s very confident.”

  She looked at him. “I’ve been wanting to say that I’m worried about recovering completely; but I can’t to Mom. She feels so guilty.”

  “I know. I haven’t been as supportive of her as I should be,” he admitted.

  His daughter squeezed down hard on his hand. “Sometimes I get really angry at her,” she said, tears beginning to form in the corners of her eyes. “I don’t want to, but I can’t help it. What if I can’t walk again, Daddy?” Her voice was quivering with fear.

  “You will, sweetheart. I promise you,” he said, bringing as much conviction to his voice as he could muster.

  “That gun was like an obsession with her. She even made me go to the shooting range with her.” The tears were free-flowing now; he reached over for a towel that was draped over the foot of the bed and held it to her face. “I didn’t even know you and she were in the room,” she cried. “Why couldn’t you have said something, like ‘Stop’? I would have said it was me, right away.”

  She was sobbing uncontrollably. He reached out and drew her to him, cradling her in his arms. She needed to get this out. It wouldn’t be the only time.

  And what about his own anger toward Moira? How was he going to deal with that? He would need therapy, too, he knew. To get his rage out, deal with it, put it behind him.

  Michaela cried for a good five minutes, until the emotion had run its course—this time. She wiped her cheek on her sleeve. “Will you wet a washcloth for me?” she asked him. “I don’t want Mom to see me looking like this.”

  She scrubbed her face and held ice cubes from her water pitcher to her swollen eyes. “I don’t want frog eyes,” she said to him, grinning through the residue of tears. “Mom’s already freaked enough.”

  When Moira returned, Michaela was looking almost normal again. If her mother noticed anything she didn’t comment on it.

  He stayed with them until nine, when the night nurse came in with Michaela’s sleeping pill. He kissed her good night and held her hand until she drifted off.

  Moira walked him to the elevator. A few people passed them, preop patients in wheelchairs, and some postops, all bandaged and wrapped in various patterns. The overhead lighting was turned low; everything was hushed.