Key Witness

by J. F. Freedman

  Dwayne thought for a moment. “She knew I was down here to help out the district attorney on this other case. I think maybe the sheriff gave her that order.”

  “Think again,” Wyatt said. “The sheriff didn’t know anything about it, did he? In fact, when he found out about it, he blew up, didn’t he? And even before that, District Attorney Pagano changed your situation, didn’t he?”

  Dwayne blinked, but didn’t answer.

  “The fact is, you and Lieutenant Blake had a relationship … call it a friendship if you want, but it was more than just knowing who the other one was, years ago. And when you came down here you renewed your friendship, and she did you some favors, isn’t that right?”

  Dwayne looked down at the floor, looked up at the ceiling, twisted his neck to get a kink out, then answered. “Okay, so she did me a favor? What’s the big deal?”

  “You tell me.”

  “There was none.”

  “She didn’t happen to feed you any information about the Alley Slasher murders, did she? Being a corrections officer, she could have gotten her hands on that information pretty easily, I’ll bet.”

  “Objection!” Abramowitz called out. “That issue has already been resolved.”

  “Not to my satisfaction it hasn’t,” Wyatt returned.

  “Sustained,” Grant called out. “There is no factual evidence that has been shown to this court that the officer in question had access to the files relating to the Alley Slasher murders.”

  Wyatt bore in on Dwayne. “The fact that you, a prisoner who is currently serving time in the toughest penitentiary in the state, and a female corrections officer who worked up there and is working down here now, the fact that the two of you are sexual partners, that isn’t a big deal?”

  The courtroom exploded. Abramowitz leaped to her feet as if a mortar shell had been detonated under her. “This is truly outrageous, Your Honor,” she protested vehemently. “This is an outrageous, horrendous accusation which has absolutely nothing to do with this case. It is a pathetic smear tactic designed to throw tar all over the facts. You’re despicable!” she screamed at Wyatt. “I object to this scurrilous reviling of the witness, Your Honor, and I object to this entire line of questioning!”

  Grant was hammering his gavel like it was a jackhammer. “Both of you stop this behavior this minute,” he warned them. “Or I’ll hold you both in contempt.”

  Dwayne stared at Wyatt, his pale snake eyes hooded almost to closure. “I’ll answer his question. If you ever saw Doris Blake,” he said coldly, “you’d know what a stupid question that is. I have never had any kind of sex with her.”

  Abramowitz’s redirect was short. It dealt with only one issue.

  “Has anyone from any law-enforcement agency, or any other outside agent, given you any information files or otherwise, about the murders the defendant is on trial for?”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  “Everything you know about this case you learned from conversation with the defendant.”

  “Yes.”

  “Marvin White confessed to you that he is the Alley Slasher murderer.”

  “Yes.”

  She turned to Judge Grant. “We have no more questions for this witness, Your Honor.” She gathered up her material from the podium. “And pending rebuttal, the prosecution rests.”

  THE TRIAL RAN ON a four-day week, Friday being the court’s dark day. Wyatt spent all of Friday prepping his two key witnesses, Agnes Carpenter in the morning, Leticia Pope after lunch. Josephine sat in on the sessions, taking notes. From time to time Walcott popped in and observed for a while, occasionally scribbling a note on a piece of scratch paper and handing it to Josephine, for Wyatt to look at when he had the time. Other than that he remained in the background, nodding occasionally in approval at a question asked or clarification made.

  Mrs. Carpenter, dressed as if she were going to a reception for the Queen Mother, was quite calm and composed, given the circumstances. Weeks before, she had given Wyatt her own detective’s report about her husband’s whereabouts on the night she claimed Marvin had stayed over, to bolster her story that she’d been alone, rather than with Dr. Carpenter. Now, sitting in the run-down offices, they went over her statement incident by incident, line by line. Her answers matched up to the letter—she was a strong, credible witness who was going to provide a rock-solid alibi for Marvin.

  “Does your husband know you’re going to be testifying?” Wyatt asked with concern.

  “No,” she answered firmly, “and he isn’t going to until after the fact. He’ll be served the divorce papers on the very morning I testify,” she told Wyatt with relish. “My only regret is that I won’t be there to see the look on his two-timing face.”

  Dexter, appropriately attired for the weather in a Shaquille O’Neal tank top, baggy shorts, and hundred-dollar high-top Reeboks, brought Leticia in after lunch. He frowned as he checked out Wyatt’s work digs. “I’ve been in shooting galleries looked better than this, Mr. Matthews,” he said with obvious disappointment. “What’s an ace like you doing working in some crap-hole like this? Don’t you have some fancy uptown office?”

  Wyatt laughed out loud. Status and symbols of status were all important to these kids. “My uptown office is for the clients who can pay the big bucks, no offense meant to your friend Marvin. And don’t worry—I’m as good a lawyer working out of this office as I am working out of that one.”

  Dexter nodded. “Well, if I ever get into trouble and I hire you to get me off, we’re meeting in that fancy uptown office, you hear?”

  “Our office doesn’t do drug cases. I’ve given you my advice before, Dexter. Get out of the trade. You’re going to take a fall sooner or later, and you’ve got too much going for that.”

  “I’m going to, I promise, Mr. Matthews,” Dexter swore earnestly. “By the end of the summer.” He squared his shoulders. “I’m going to college in the fall,” he told Wyatt with pride.

  “Well, good for you,” Wyatt congratulated him, although he knew the assertion was either bullshit or a pipe dream.

  Wyatt went all afternoon and into the evening with Leticia. Going over her story dozens of times, from every angle he could think of. Grilling her hard, bucking her up, not letting her stray off the point. He cross-examined her as he guessed Abramowitz would, yelling at her, belittling her, jumping on every minute discrepancy in her testimony.

  “I’ll be protecting you,” he told her, trying to reassure her as they sat in the gloomy, cheerless space. “All you have to do is tell the truth and not let her scare you.”

  “She ain’t gonna scare you, is she?” Dexter, who was there the entire time, butted in. “You gonna get right in her face, she disrespects you, ain’t you, girl?” he browbeat her.

  “Back off, Dexter,” Wyatt told him. “She has to do this herself.”

  “Nobody gonna scare me,” Leticia told him in her quiet, high voice. She wasn’t at all assertive saying it.

  Walcott joined them for the last hour of their session, nodding in silent agreement at Wyatt’s handling of his witness. “This is my boss,” Wyatt said magnanimously, introducing him to Dexter and Leticia.

  “I’m not his boss,” Walcott told him, disclaiming proprietorship. “I feel very lucky to have him working on this case,” he told the two young people. “And so should your friend Marvin.”

  “He is,” Dexter sang out. “Marvin knows.”

  Finally, after seven hours of working with Leticia, Wyatt couldn’t think of anything more for them to do. They were the last ones left in the building—everyone else was long gone for the day. “We’ll talk again the night before you testify,” he told the girl. “Get plenty of rest, and stay out of trouble.”

  “Me and my guys, we’re sticking to her like Super-glue,” Dexter promised him.

  “Good. See you in a few days.”

  He bought Josephine dinner at a nearby red-checkered-tablecloth Italian restaurant. They ate Caesar salads and lasagna and split a bot
tle of Chianti, polishing off the meal with made-on-the-premises cheesecake and espresso. “What’re you doing this weekend?” he asked her as he walked her to her car.

  “I’m at your beck and call.”

  “Don’t be. Go out and do something. Have fun, put your brain on hold. It needs the rest. We all do.”

  “Is that what you’re going to do?”

  “I’m going to do some running, play my trombone, read magazines, watch television, talk to my family, and sleep. I’m not going to worry this case to death. I’m as prepared as I can be, so that’s it. The rest is in the hands of the gods.”

  ABRAMOWITZ AND WINDSOR HAD grilled Dwayne intensely after he left the stand, going over what had transpired, Abramowitz asking him over and over again if he’d had access to a computer. As many times as she asked him he swore up and down to her that he didn’t, and she finally quit beating him up about it. But he could see the suspicion in her eyes.

  “I don’t want a bomb dropped on me,” she warned him strongly. “If there’s something I don’t know about, you’d better tell me. I can protect you if I know everything, but not if I’m caught unawares.”

  Dwayne Thompson made her skin crawl, almost literally. Every time she had to come down to see him it would take her an hour to psychologically gird herself for the encounter. She never wore a dress cut above the knees when she came to see him, preferring slacks whenever possible. She would strip her face of almost all makeup, and would wear her hair pinned back as severely and matronly as she could. She knew he regarded her with pure lasciviousness, mentally fucking her every single moment they were together. She refused to look at him anywhere below the belt, although he tried various guises to pull her look downward, to his scrotum.

  Despite these defensive measures, she could feel his sexual agitation building over the course of each interview, to the point that by the time she left—as soon as possible—his pale skin would be flushed. Sometimes he would brazenly rub his hand against his crotch as he stared at her with fierce intent.

  Fleetingly she would regret that she’d campaigned so hard for this assignment. Helena knew of women who had succumbed to the dark charms of inmates. Some had even gone so far as to have sex with them, smuggled in drugs, money, tried to help them escape. She knew of women who gave up their lives for men who were worthless and were only using them.

  She had to keep the prize in focus. The end would justify the means. When this trial was over, and Marvin White was on his way to death row, she would be set up professionally for the rest of her life.

  But she felt sick to her stomach when the persistent memory of her last private session with this snake insinuated itself into her consciousness, despite her struggles to forget it. It was a nightmare that loomed when she least expected it, and was emotionally and psychologically vulnerable.

  He had asked for some expensive clothes to wear while he was on the stand, so he’d look good for the cameras. She had refused him—it wasn’t in the budget, and wearing an expensive suit would look suspicious. He had stared at her with hooded eyes, his tongue a sliver out the side of his thin lips, for all the world looking like a cunning cobra. “In case you’ve forgotten,” he reminded her, “I am your case.”

  “And without me,” she countered, “you’re going to spend the rest of your life behind bars.” She wanted to add “so screw you,” but she couldn’t. He was their witness, their linchpin, and no matter how much she hated him personally, she had to maintain their relationship.

  At his request they moved him before he testified. To prevent contamination, and to protect him. Now that he was actually going to testify, he could be the target of any number of crazy cons who didn’t like snitches. He was being held in a single cell on a high-intensity floor, similar to the one they had Marvin on. Him, a few other prisoners, and beaucoup guards. Here were housed men who, for one reason or another, couldn’t be placed in the general population—men with threats on their lives, psychotics, men who were unpredictably violent. There were two hermaphrodites who had no other place to be. And then there were men like Dwayne.

  In addition, Dwayne’s work detail in the infirmary had been curtailed. The political fallout was too risky. Letting an inmate, particularly one with his background, have that kind of free run was no longer an acceptable risk, regardless of his desires or demands.

  Dwayne told Abramowitz why he wanted to move. “There’s a guy they brought in recently. An old-timer like myself, I knew him up at Durban. We were in some group-therapy sessions together. It can get pretty heavy in those sessions. He knows some of my dark side,” he added cryptically.

  “What does he know about you?” she asked suspiciously.

  “How I get men to confess their sins to me.”

  “And how is that?” she parried.

  “With a little help from my friends,” he sang-sung.

  She stared at him across the table. I didn’t hear you say that. “Are you insinuating …” Where was this going?

  “My friends help me, I help my friends,” he answered. “I’m helping you, so you must be my friend. So if you’re my friend, then I must be your friend.” He smiled his snakeskin smile. “Are you my friend, Ms. Abramowitz?” He drawled out the “Ms.”

  Her nostrils winged. “Our relationship is not about friendship. It’s about—”

  “Mutual advantage?” he finished for her.

  “If I get a conviction of a guilty man and in doing that you get a benefit, then we would both come out ahead, yes.” Her leg was vibrating under the table. She pushed down on her knee to still it.

  He stared at her. “ ‘A guilty man’? You want the conviction, lady. The jury will do the guilty bit. Your job is to get a conviction.”

  She stared at him. “I wouldn’t want to be a party to convicting an innocent man,” she said carefully. “If I knew for sure he was innocent.”

  “You wouldn’t, huh? Who anointed you Diogenes?”

  “No. I wouldn’t.”

  “If all of a sudden some angel came down from on high and whispered in your ear,” he persisted, “which happens to be very lovely and sexy, lady prosecutor …”

  She felt herself flushing. A wave of hatred for him washed over her. Don’t let him get to you, she berated herself. That’s what he does.

  “… that little ol’ Marvin White was being railroaded, that he was actually an innocent babe, you’d tell the world that and walk away from this case?”

  Helena began to answer him; then she checked himself. He’s trying to suck you in. Don’t let him.

  He shook his head. “No way in hell. You’ve got to have this conviction. Your boss has to have this conviction. A million people in this city have to have this conviction. And I want my freedom. And they’re all wrapped together in a tight, tight knot that can’t be cut, not with a sword, not with a pang of conscience.”

  He leaned in close. His breath was sour gossamer. “I am Satan walking the earth,” he announced melodramatically. “And you, Helena—I’m going to call you by your first name from now on, because you and I are soulmates—you are Faust. And we both have to uphold our end of the bargain.” He paused, enjoying his hegemony over her. And then his hand was on hers and he was guiding it to his erect penis, which was protruding from the open fly of his pants.

  She tried to scream, but she was paralyzed. Then she felt him shudder, the thick slime-wetness spurting onto her hand and up along the inside of her wrist.

  She managed to pull away from him, her legs rubbery with fear and rage, her entire being aflame with humiliation and intense hatred toward Dwayne. She felt she might choke on the bile rising in her throat as he grabbed her hand again and rubbed his jism across her blouse. “Remember me when you go home tonight,” he whispered.

  Before she managed to ring for the guard to release her from this hell, he taunted her one last time. “You don’t have to know how I know what I know. All you have to know is that it’s the truth. The truth, Helena, that w
ill get your conviction.

  “And the truth will set me free.”

  She hadn’t told anyone about that incident, not even Alex Pagano. Particularly not Alex. He didn’t want to hear any excuses, doubts, or human anguish. He wanted a conviction.

  WYATT PRESENTED HIS FIRST witness, Dr. Joseph Stroud, who was an old hand at expert-testifying. A specialist in intelligence testing and memory retention, he had spent eight hours with Marvin in the weeks before the trial, administering the standard IQ-type tests—Stanford-Binet and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), revised. Dr. Stroud told the jury that Marvin fell in the low-normal range of intelligence, but his skills were poorly developed—his reasoning and deductive abilities were far below average, and his reading level was terrible. He was functionally literate, but barely.

  His memory retention was similarly weak. He had been given a WRAML: Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning, as well as the Detroit Test of Learning Aptitude. There, also, he did poorly, well below average.

  “Is there a scientific or clinical definition for this condition?” Wyatt asked.

  “It’s basic ADD,” Stroud answered. “Attention deficit disorder. The subject typically is unable to focus on any one topic for an extended period of time.”

  “Given the results of these tests you had Marvin White take,” Wyatt continued, “could he have remembered the details of these murders as the state’s witness has described them?”

  Stroud shook his head emphatically. “Not a chance. He had a hard time remembering numbers or words in sequence, let alone common phone numbers, street addresses, things that were part of his daily life. He couldn’t remember what he had eaten for dinner the night before one of our interviews. To remember the complex details of something that had happened a year or more after the event, particularly in the heat of passion and nervousness that would accompany such a violent episode, is not within his capability.”