Key Witness

by J. F. Freedman

  COURT WAS RECESSED FOR lunch. When they came back at one-thirty it was Wyatt’s turn. He strode to the edge of the lectern, rested one hand on the mantel, and stuck the other casually in his pocket. He had no portfolio in front of him, no notes. He knew what he wanted to say—he had rehearsed this speech several times—and he was going to say it. Comfortably, personably, without a trace of threat or malice.

  “Good afternoon,” he began. “First of all I want to thank you for being here. For taking the time out of your lives to do your civic duty. It’s no small thing, sitting on a jury, especially when the case is as important as this one.” He paused, glancing from one juror to the next, establishing eye contact with each in turn.

  “My opponent here for the prosecution”—he waved his hand behind him in the vague direction of the prosecutor’s table without turning to look at them—“made a nice speech to you. Fiery, passionate. She has this killer everybody’s been thirsting after in her sights and all you’ve got to do is pull the trigger for her and we’ll all go home happy.” He shrugged. “Pretty uncomplicated. Slam dunk.” He nodded, as if accepting the wisdom of Helena’s theses. “Except there are a couple problems with her argument.

  “First off, there’ve been seven killings, spaced out over close to two years, in a large area of the city. But no one’s ever been a witness to any of them, and no murder weapon’s ever been found. No witnesses, no weapon. Now I grant you, circumstantial evidence can be a powerful tool, but that’s all it is—circumstantial. In case you don’t know exactly what the term ‘circumstantial evidence’ means in this setting, I took the trouble to look it up, because I wasn’t exactly sure myself, and I knew the state was going to base their case on it.”

  He plucked a three-by-five index card from his inside jacket pocket and read from it. “ ‘Circumstantial evidence. Evidence not bearing directly on the fact or facts in dispute but on various attendant circumstances from which the judge or jury might infer the occurrence of the fact or facts in dispute.’ Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary said that.”

  He put the card back in his pocket. “To me that means they don’t have any direct evidence. It’s all coming in from the sides. But no facts—no witnesses, no weapon, and a big one—no motive. In over ninety percent of all murders committed in this country, probably in the world, the person doing the killing knew the person they were killing. If only for a little while. But Marvin White didn’t know any of these victims. Had never met them, talked to them, had any relationship with them. Most of the victims, as you may know, were prostitutes. Streetwalkers, not the high-priced kind. Which is not to in any way denigrate or otherwise demean them. They were God’s children, as we all are. Their lives were as valuable and important as any of ours, yours or mine. But the point is, they were women that needy men paid money to for cheap, quick sex. And we will show you—I believe conclusively—that Marvin White never paid a woman to have sex with him. Never.

  “So—no motive. No prior knowledge with any of the victims. No witnesses, and no weapon.” He paused for a moment to let that sink in. Several of the jurors were taking notes, he noticed.

  “But they do have one thing,” he continued. “A confession, all wrapped up in a pretty package with a big blue ribbon tied around it. Not a legal confession, of course,” he added quickly, emphasizing the word “legal.” “Not a confession on the record, to a policeman or a prosecutor or anyone in a position of legal authority. No—they don’t have that. They have what is commonly known as a quote ‘jail-house confession,’ unquote. You know what a jailhouse confession is? A jailhouse confession is where one bad guy bares his soul to another bad guy because he’s so overcome with remorse at the terrible things he’s done that he has to tell someone, so he tells that first bad guy, ’cause if you can’t trust another criminal, who can you trust?” He stopped for a moment. “Especially some other criminal you’ve never laid eyes on before in your life, who you don’t know from Adam. But my worthy opponent would have you believe that these so-called jailhouse confessions are carved in stone, from God’s mouth to your ears.” He shook his head. “Uh-uh. Wrong! Snitches—in the old days they were called stool pigeons—because that’s what these jailhouse informants are; informant is just a fancy name for snitch, folks, you’ve seen the old Jimmy Cagney and Humphrey Bogart movies on your cable channels—these snitches and their testimony have been discredited from coast to coast. Sometimes they’re just flat-out lying—they know one or two things and make up the rest—and other times they’ve been fed their information. By policemen, prosecutors”—this time he didn’t merely wave behind his back at the prosecution table, he turned and stared at them for a moment before turning back—“who want to get a conviction, have to get a conviction, for lots of reasons; but none of them are the right reason, the only reason—which is that justice should prevail.”

  He could feel Abramowitz’s eyes shooting daggers at his back. Good. He wanted her to take this personally—it would help him control the flow of the trial.

  “Now I’m not saying the police collaborated with the state’s key witness. Or the prosecution or anyone else. But I am telling you it has happened. And you have to know it and be on guard for it.”

  He paused for a sip of water. He wasn’t thirsty, but he wanted to take a dramatic moment. Then he continued.

  “But that’s their case, which we don’t have to disprove. They have to prove it, beyond a reasonable doubt, as my opponent told you. They have to prove their case. And while they’re trying—futilely, I suspect—we’ll be presenting our own case. You will hear witnesses who will tell you Marvin White was with them on the dates and times when those crimes were committed. And not just one date, ladies and gentlemen. We have solid, credible, honest witnesses for two of the days when these women were killed. People who will swear, and will offer real, physical proof, that Marvin White was with them on the days or nights in question, and couldn’t have—could not have—committed those murders, because he wasn’t there to commit them. And since the prosecution firmly maintains that one man committed all seven crimes, then if Marvin White didn’t commit two of them, we know he couldn’t have committed any of them.”

  Now he leaned forward on the lectern. “They don’t have any eyewitnesses. But we do.”

  He took a step back, assuming his more relaxed, user-friendly position again. “These seven murders have been horrible. We all agree with that. And we all agree that whoever committed them should stand before the bar of justice and face a severe penalty. But you can’t scapegoat someone because collectively we need catharsis. You can’t throw an innocent young man to the lions because you want blood.”

  He walked around the front of the lectern and stood in front of the jury box.

  “The only reason Marvin White was bound over for trial, ladies and gentlemen, was not because some snitch who’s spent his life behind bars got some unbelievable confession out of him. No. He’s here as a sacrifice. One Marvin White, served up on a plate, so a million people can rest easy in their beds. One for a million. Good trade-off. The ancient Egyptians, and Mayans and other civilizations that practiced human sacrifice would have loved those odds. They wouldn’t have thought twice. But we’re not barbarians anymore, ladies and gentlemen; thank God. We don’t sacrifice one for the good of many, just because it’s easy or convenient. One of the great beauties of our legal system is that we respect each and every one of us as unique and special. Which is why we don’t find innocent men guilty of crimes they didn’t commit.”

  He walked back to the lectern and stood in front of it so all twelve jurors and eight alternates could see him easily.

  “My client isn’t the easiest person in the world to defend. He has a juvenile record, he comes from a class of people who are nowadays too often automatically under suspicion. But that’s one of the great things about our criminal justice system, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Someone’s background, or what they did in the past, doesn’t count in a trial. All that matters are the
facts in this case. That’s what innocent until proven guilty is all about, and it’s one of the main reasons we’re considered the greatest country in the world.”

  He was cloaking Marvin in the flag, apple pie, and motherhood because he had to. His client was everything juries looked for in justifying a guilty verdict. So you had to massage them, guilt-trip them. And remind them of their sworn duty.

  “You have a sworn obligation to judge the evidence in this case carefully, soberly, and with great attention,” he said. “Only the evidence—not what my client looks like, not where he comes from, not what he’d done in the past. And I know that is exactly how you’re going to conduct yourself.

  “Marvin White didn’t kill these women,” he told them. “You’ll see. And when you do, you’ll return the only verdict possible. A verdict of not guilty of these crimes. And you’ll free this young man who never should have been here in the first place, and let him walk out of this courtroom a free man.”

  HE AND JOSEPHINE HAD a working dinner in the office. Walcott stuck his head in. “Heard it went well today,” he commented.

  “Pretty good,” Wyatt agreed.

  “Considering it’s your first criminal-defense opening, I’d say it went better than ‘pretty good,’ ” the head of the office told him.

  “He kicked serious ass,” Josephine chimed in.

  “This one’s a tough critic,” Walcott said. “She doesn’t pull her punches.”

  Wyatt gave a mock shit-kicker shrug. “The jury was paying attention. The stuff about building a case on nothing but circumstantial evidence and a jailhouse confession—they definitely heard that. And if I can work in any evidence of collusion with the police or the DA’s office—anything, even if it’s off the point—that’ll hit home hard. These people want to trust the cops on this one but I think it’ll be easy to turn them around if we can find something discrediting.” He looked at Josephine. “Review every instance we’ve got of police, sheriff’s, and district attorney’s office malfeasance or other kinds of fuckups over the past five years. Let’s see if we can find any kind of pattern we can use.”

  She jotted the request down in her always-ready notebook.

  “See you mañana,” Walcott said, leaving them.

  Josephine leafed through her notes. “I checked into the stuff from this morning,” she said. “Physical evidence on the last body linking her to Marvin—I don’t know what that means. They do have sperm samples from her and the two previous victims but they never did DNA comparisons with Marvin’s.”

  “They have a confession and an eyewitness placing him where it happened. Why take the chance of muddying the waters with a complicated DNA result?” He took a bite from a slice of mushroom pizza. It was cold, but he scarfed it down anyway. “Let’s spring for a microwave tomorrow. The least we should be able to do is eat a slice of hot pizza.” He stuffed his papers into his briefcase. “See you tomorrow.”

  THE MESSAGE LIGHT WAS blinking. He called in. There were two messages.

  The first one was from Moira and Michaela. “Hi.” (Moira.) “We’re doing fine here. The weather’s starting to clear, we were able to go to the beach today and get in some swimming. Michaela’s amazingly active, considering she’s lugging ten pounds on her leg. We went to Boston yesterday and had it checked—she’s doing great, ahead of schedule, she does her exercises religiously. We found a nice psychologist here and we’re going to start seeing him twice a week. The good thing is we’re talking to each other, really talking. I hope you and I can do the same some day.”

  Michaela kicked in. “I hope your first day at the trial went really well, Daddy. We’re having lots of fun here. I miss you a lot.” (There was a pause—he could hear talking in the background.) “Mom does, too. I wish you were here, so finish your trial off as fast as you can and come.”

  Moira came back on. “We’ve been going to bed early, so if you’re going to call us it’s better to do it in the morning or early afternoon. We’re always home by eight—we’ve been watching videos every night. Talk to you soon.”

  The message ended. He checked his watch—it was after ten. If he had the time he’d call tomorrow during the lunch recess, or right after court finished for the day.

  His daughter missed him. His wife did, too, after some prompting.

  The second call was more recent, logged in at 9:30.

  “I’m glad I’m talking to a machine. I don’t know if I would have had the guts to stay on if you had answered. I know I shouldn’t be calling you. I wanted to be in the courtroom today but Mrs. Abramowitz said since I’m a witness I can’t come until after I’ve finished testifying.

  “My friends who were there told me you were very good. My stomach was churning as I talked to them—I have such strong emotions about the boy you’re defending and thinking that my friend was murdered and the police are so sure he did it. I want whoever did it to pay but I don’t want you to get hurt. It’s hard. If you did get hurt, I’m sure I’d feel bad, too. I hope it’s proved he’s guilty or not guilty conclusively, one way or the other.

  “I know I shouldn’t have called you—I said that, didn’t I—but I guess I couldn’t help myself. You take care of yourself. Maybe when this is all over …” There was a long pause, as if she was going to say more; then the phone went dead.

  He lay on top of the covers in his clothes, nursing a Scotch and watching CNN. There was a brief blip about the opening of the trial, less than thirty seconds. A quick shot of him entering the courthouse after lunch, a longer one of Helena Abramowitz. Nothing of Marvin or the family.

  As much as he could he wanted to shield the family from this. They had no media savvy—they could come across as bumpkins, victims, cheap fodder. Their lives had already been devastated; anything he could do to protect what shreds of privacy and pride they had left, he was going to.

  That was all background for what he was thinking about. Violet had called. He’d felt his breath stop, listening to her voice. He would have loved to have heard it in person, spoken to her, but at the same time it would have been a load to handle.

  He stripped down, brushed the whiskey off his teeth, had a good piss. He fondled his cock, thinking of her, thinking of their night together. When he got hard he stopped playing with himself.

  He had to put her out of his mind. An impossibility; but he had to try. He had a life to defend, a family to worry about.

  Sleep came hard. His family, the trial, Violet—they all swirled around in his head. His last physical sensation before he fell into a troubled sleep, so strong that it could have been happening in the very moment, was remembering how Violet’s body fit so naturally and effortlessly with his.

  “YOU’RE ONE OF THE lead detectives on what have been referred to in the press as the Alley Slasher murders?”

  “I am.”

  “How long have you been a detective on the force?”

  “Nineteen years.”

  “You’re one of the senior detectives on the force?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You have been cited numerous times for being one of the best detectives in the city, haven’t you?”

  “I don’t know about that,” the man answered modestly. “There’s plenty of good detectives on the force. They don’t assign you to the homicide division unless they think you can do the job.”

  “Have you been assigned to these cases from the beginning?”

  “Yes, although it wasn’t until the fourth body turned up that we realized we had a definite pattern—a serial-type series of killing, almost definitely by one perpetrator. I had investigated the first one, and then that fourth one, and when we realized there was a pattern, like I said, then I backtracked and checked out the second and third ones, and they matched the MO of the ones I’d been working on, numbers one and four, so from then on I was one of the lead detectives. And still am,” he added.

  Abramowitz was questioning her first witness, Detective Dudley Marlow from the police department’s homicide
division. Homicide detectives weren’t limited to any particular precinct or area; they covered the entire city. Like most large-city homicide units, they were considered the elite detective division in the force, as Abramowitz was making sure the jury understood and appreciated. They had one of the highest percentages of solved murders of any police force in the country, a fact they were proud of. And over ninety-five percent of the murder cases they brought to the district attorney’s office for prosecution resulted in convictions. In general, if they arrested someone for murder, he or she was guilty. At least found guilty in a trial.

  Wyatt listened. He had Marlow’s police reports from the seven murders opened in front of him on the table. Some of the reports were computer printouts, others were copies of reports that were handwritten. From the way the reports were entered it looked to him like the detective had taken notes by hand at the scene and later on, when he was in his office and had the time, had typed them up and entered them into the computer, which was sent to the Department of Records, the agency he had visited when he was trying to find out if Lieutenant Blake had accessed the files.

  All the detectives who had worked on the murders had done their reports in this fashion—making notes at the crime scene while it was still fresh, then typing up their reports later.

  The typed, computer-stored reports were the public record as such. They were similar to the handwritten ones, but the syntax, grammar, and accounts of the event had been cleaned up and made more readable and coherent; also, some of the material in the handwritten reports didn’t get into the computer. Either the detective didn’t think it was important, or he was too busy (or lazy) to put in every detail.