Key Witness

  “I would prefer Lieutenant.”

  “Lieutenant it is, then.” He arranged his papers in front of him. Looking up again, he asked his first question. “Do you know Dwayne Thompson, inmate #3694, serving a sentence at Durban State Penitentiary, the state’s maximum-security penitentiary, who is temporarily incarcerated in the county jail of which you are a deputy?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes bore in on him.

  “Did you know him at Durban, while you were a guard there?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you renewed your relationship when he was brought down here.”

  “I have no relationship with Dwayne Thompson,” she stated firmly. “Or any other prisoner.”

  “You have seen him in the county jail.”

  “Yes.”

  “On several occasions.”

  “I have not seen him on several occasions.”

  “More than one.”

  “Yes.”

  “More than three?”

  She hesitated. “Yes. I can’t help seeing him. He’s an inmate, I’m a guard. That’s my job, watching them.”

  “Let me rephrase my earlier question,” he said calmly. “Do you have a personal relationship with Dwayne Thompson, Durban State Penitentiary inmate #3694?”

  “No.”

  “None whatsoever. It’s strictly business.”

  “Strictly.”

  “Then why did you personally arrange for Dwayne Thompson to sleep in the jail infirmary? Which is not only uncommon, it’s unheard of.”

  She rearranged the folds of her skirt. “I thought I was acting on Sheriff Lowenthal’s orders.”

  “Sheriff Lowenthal told you to transfer Dwayne Thompson, a man serving a lengthy sentence in the state’s toughest prison, where only hard-core, repeat offenders are sent, into a section of the jail that is unguarded at night? Is that what you’re telling this court?”

  A second rearrangement, then a smoothing of folds. “Not directly, no,” she admitted.

  “You arranged for that transfer on your own, without receiving orders from higher authority. Didn’t you?”

  “Yes.” Sitting erect, she continued, “It was a mistake. I thought that was what Sheriff Lowenthal wanted. When I found out it wasn’t, Thompson was transferred into the general population, and subsequently into protective housing.”

  “But you didn’t transfer him out of the infirmary. In fact, you didn’t know it had happened until you went down there to see him one morning and were told by another deputy that Thompson was no longer there at night. In an unguarded part of the jail,” he added emphatically.

  “No. I did not arrange for the transfer.” She spat the words at him like BBs.

  “In fact, you were upset when you found out about it, weren’t you?”

  “Of course not. Why would I be upset?”

  “Because you couldn’t see him clandestinely anymore.”

  “Objection!” Abramowitz sang out. “The witness has already stated under oath that she was not seeing Thompson, clandestinely or any other way.”

  Grant pondered for a moment. “Sustained,” he said with some reluctance.

  “Witnesses have said she did, Your Honor,” Wyatt protested. Putting up a hand like a traffic cop, he went on, “But that’s okay. I’ll pursue another line of questioning.” Turning back to Blake, he asked her, “Did you ever see Dwayne Thompson in the infirmary at night? After lights out?”

  “No, never.”

  “We have had a witness on the stand who swore you did.”

  “He’s lying.”

  “That he heard the sounds commonly associated with a man and woman making love, and shortly after saw you emerge from the infirmary.”

  Her large face went blotchy florid. “That’s a lie!”

  “How many times have you and Dwayne Thompson had sexual intercourse, Ms. Blake?” he asked forcefully. “Half a dozen? A dozen? A hundred?”

  “Objection!” from Abramowitz.

  “Sustained. The witness has stated she has not had sex with Dwayne Thompson, Mr. Matthews. That’s enough of this.”

  “Well, if that’s true, Your Honor, then someone is lying. Either Ms. Blake or Nurse Hopkins.”

  “That’s a decision the jury has to make, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Your Honor. It absolutely is.” He rummaged through his papers on the lectern until he found what looked to be a receipt. “Do you own a computer, Lieutenant Blake?”

  “Yes,” she nodded.

  He looked at the receipt. “You spent a lot of money on your computer, Lieutenant. You must be good on it.”

  “Not really. I know how to work the programs I need.”

  “Do you ever bring it to work, to the jail?”

  She took a moment to reply. “Yes.”

  “You use it in your office?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anywhere else?”

  “No, not that I remember.”

  “You didn’t use it in the jail’s law library? While you were going to law school at night?”

  “Yes,” she admitted. “I did use it there.”

  “On several occasions?”

  “Some.”

  “But until I jogged your memory you’d forgotten you had used it there even once.”

  “I forgot. Those were the two places I used it—my office and the law library.”

  “When was the last time you brought your personal computer to the jail, Ms. Blake?”

  “I …” She thought for a moment. “I can’t remember.”

  “Did you bring it to the jail after Dwayne Thompson had been transferred there?”

  Again: “I don’t remember.”

  “Don’t, Ms. Blake?” he asked. “Or don’t want to.”

  “I don’t remember,” she told him, her anger starting to show.

  “But you might have.”

  “I don’t think I did. I didn’t have any reason to bring it by that time.”

  “Because you were using it to study for your bar examination, and by the time Thompson was sent down to the jail you had already taken the bar?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “That’s the reason I didn’t bring it to work.”

  “That’s the bar exam you took in the spring? The one you told me you passed on your first try? With a seventy-six, which is a very high score.” He looked at the jury. “Passing your bar examine with a score of seventy-six puts you in the top twenty-five percent of those taking the test. It’s a real accomplishment.”

  Pridefully, she answered, “Yes.” Then the implications of his question hit her. “I mean no,” she said, quickly revising her answer.

  “You said yes.”

  “I meant no.” She was getting flustered; her body language was giving her away.

  “Yes or no. Which is it?”

  “No. I said no.”

  “You didn’t take the bar exam this past spring?”

  “Yes, I did take it.”

  “You just said no.”

  “The no is, I never told you I passed it.”

  Wyatt threw up his hands in astonishment. “Then how did I know your score, if you didn’t tell me?”

  “I don’t know my score,” she said.

  “Excuse me?” He gave the jury a “Can you believe this?” look. “You told me your score on several occasions, Lieutenant, and I told my boss. And other people as well, including some of your former law professors.”

  She shook her head vigorously. “The bar exam scores won’t be posted for some weeks,” she said. “There’s no way I could have known my score, or even if I passed.”

  He cocked his head, eyeballing her across ten feet. “So now I’m lying, too?”

  “I’m not saying you’re lying, Mr. Matthews,” she said cautiously. “I think you misunderstood me.”

  “How so, Ms. Blake?” he asked, his voice dripping sarcasm.

  “I told you I thought I did well on the exams, and might have done as high as seventy-six,” she offered guilelessly.

&n
bsp; “Gee. That sure wasn’t the way I heard it.”

  “I’m sorry if I somehow misled you.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure you are,” he barked at her. “Like you’ve been misleading me and everyone in the world about your sexual relationship with Dwayne Thompson, and how you helped him fabricate evidence against Marvin White!”

  “Objection!”

  “Sustained!”

  Abramowitz watched Wyatt’s examination of Blake with loathing. Of course this bitch fucked Thompson. Her lies about that oozed right out of her pores. But who gives a shit about who fucks who? Passing information, that’s all Abramowitz gave a damn about.

  She replaced Wyatt at the lectern. “We’ll keep this short,” she told Blake, forcing a smile. But not sweet. “Did you ever give any records of any kind, directly or indirectly, to Dwayne Thompson?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Did you give records of any kind to any prisoner, or to anyone who wasn’t allowed access to them?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Blake swore, the look on her face that of a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar, the mother calling from another room—she hadn’t actually taken the cookie out, but her chubby fingers, closed around the prize, reluctantly open and withdraw, empty. “I never took any records out. I swear it.” Her lower lip began to tremble. “I’m a dedicated officer,” she said, looking like she was actually going to break down right there on the stand. “I’d kill myself before I’d do something like that.”

  Wyatt, listening to this predictable, self-pitying exchange with half an ear, passed a note to Josephine. “Issue a subpoena to seize her computer.” She read it, nodded, and quietly left the courtroom.

  Abramowitz gathered up her slim set of notes. “No more questions for this witness, Your Honor.”

  THE DAILY END-OF-THE-DAY summing-up and plotting out the next day’s work took place in Wyatt’s cramped, gothic-feeling office. The Hunchback of Notre Dame would feel at home here, he thought—but he had come to like it here. He wasn’t so romantic about the situation to want to work out of these kinds of digs for the rest of his life; but for now, with this case, this was the right place to be. These were underdog offices. You didn’t entertain here, you didn’t impress, you didn’t schmooze. You brought your lunch pail to work and you did your job.

  The meeting was him and Walcott. Darryl had stopped by as well; he came to the trial a couple times a week, whenever his busy schedule permitted, to lend weight to Wyatt, silently cheer him on. Once in a while he would pass a note along about some aspect of how Wyatt was conducting himself, but pretty much he was there to be a body for the cause.

  The three men—in shirtsleeves, ties askew—sucked long-necked Buds. The ancient window air conditioner was fighting a losing battle with the brutal heat and humidity. Wyatt pressed the cold, beaded bottle to the back of his neck.

  Josephine would be here in a minute. She was triple-verifying last-minute details about tomorrow’s witness, Agnes Carpenter, and taking care of tonight’s creature comforts for her. Up until now, the defense had been serving up appetizers. With Agnes Carpenter, however, Wyatt was beginning the main course, shifting into high gear. Attacking the opposition’s credibility and punching holes in their witnesses was good, and important. But showing how ridiculous they were was not the same as offering proof—concrete, physical proof the jury could see, touch, take a bite out of—that what Pagano and his gang had accused Marvin of doing was physically impossible. No matter how anyone framed it, he could not have been in two places at the same time. When he presented these two women, Agnes and Leticia Pope, that would be the match that lit the dynamite.

  “You could see Blake’s nose getting longer every time she opened her mouth,” Walcott said derisively.

  “Do you think the jury saw it as clearly as we do?” Wyatt asked. He knew things the jury didn’t, which meant his feelings about her were colored by that knowledge. All of theirs were.

  “If they didn’t, they’re blind.” This from Darryl. “The nurse, as nervous as he was, nailed her cold. Trying to lie her way out of that—and it was ugly to watch, she was so transparently lying to them—discredited everything else she said.”

  “And that stuff about the law boards,” Walcott chimed in. “She screwed up royally there, too.”

  “Speaking of which, I need to find out what’s going on with that,” Wyatt said for his own benefit, making a note to call his pal Ginsberg first thing in the morning and see if he’d got anything about Blake’s score. “What’s with the request for her computer?” he asked Walcott.

  “It’ll be ready tomorrow. We’re gonna serve her and she’s gonna turn us down,” he cautioned Wyatt. “Pagano’s gonna tell her not to, in case she doesn’t get it. Then we’ll see if we can get an order from a judge, preferably Grant.”

  Josephine breezed in as Darryl and Walcott polished off their beers and reached for their jackets. Wrinkling her nose, she lifted her arm and sniffed at her blouse. “I showered this morning, honest to God. I even shaved,” she said joshingly.

  “Our departing is mere coincidence,” Walcott said, smiling.

  “I can’t help it if the humidity’s Fahrenheit 451,” she complained. She slumped into a chair as the two men took their leave, indecorously shedding her high heels and wiggling her stockinged toes.

  “Are we all set for tomorrow?” Wyatt asked, trying to sound at ease. In fact, he was nervous. People like Agnes Carpenter, who lived in a world that was part dream-fantasy, part revenge, and much preening and showing off, gave him the jitters when they were his witnesses. But thus far, in every encounter, every mock trial and tough question-and-answer, she had come through like a champ. She had her story, she stuck to it, she was rock solid.

  “I’m going right back to the hotel as soon as you and I powwow over whatever we have to do,” she assured him. They had put Agnes Carpenter up at the downtown Hilton, registered under a pseudonym. As usual, Wyatt was paying out of his pocket. Josephine would be in a room next door, with access from her side only. Everyone, including room service, would come through her room to get to Agnes.

  “Good. Anything new I need to know?”

  “Yes,” she said, eyes alight with excitement.

  “What, have you been holding something out on me?” he asked. He didn’t need any surprises from her, not with the meat of his case starting tomorrow.

  “Relax, boss, I just got here,” she chided him gently. “Take a look at this.” She handed him a file folder with some pages clipped together inside. “I’ve been looking at these things for months, and I finally figured out what was bugging me.”

  He opened the folder and glanced at the contents. “A record of withdrawal of police files,” he noted quickly. “What’s the point?”

  “Check out who checked them out.”

  He turned to the last page. “Detective Dudley Marlow,” he read aloud. “So?” he asked, a bit annoyed. “We knew he took out the files. He told us in court he did.”

  “Open your eyes, Wyatt. Look at the code.”

  He turned the last page over, the one with Marlow’s name on it. Then he did a double take. “This says it was accessed by computer.”

  “Give that man a teddy bear!” she crowed.

  “But he never did that. So he claimed.”

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  “Which means he was lying.”

  “Looks like it, doesn’t it? Now look at the date.”

  He stared at the date on which the files had been electronically withdrawn, silently counting to himself on his fingers. “Less than a week before Dwayne Thompson took his dog and pony show to the grand jury.”

  “Two days before he went to Pagano with it. We may have found our leak,” she said, unable to restrain her excitement.

  “Slow down,” he cautioned her. “Don’t jump to any conclusions. He would have taken the files out, given that a fresh murder had just been committed; he’s already testified to that. And maybe he did do it through hi
s computer, and forgot, or maybe one of the other detectives working with him did, and his name wound up on the request because Marlow’s the lead detective. It’s interesting, Josephine, but it could be nothing.”

  “Or it could be something,” she came back, defending her find.

  “It definitely could be,” he agreed. “Let’s bring him back for redirect, after Agnes.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “And enjoy your evening,” he said straight-faced.

  “Up yours,” she rejoined.

  AGNES CARPENTER, POISED, CALM, and composed—remarkably, almost eerily so—sat in the witness chair. She was wearing an expensive silk dress, and was accessorized to the max.

  “You are a married woman, Mrs. Carpenter?” Wyatt led off after the swearing-in and initial introductions.

  “Yes,” she answered. Her voice was low and well modulated, the essence of an old-fashioned culture that seemed more appropriate to a woman of seventy-five than one a generation younger.

  “For how long?”

  “Thirty-one years.”

  “Your husband is a physician here in the city?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you work, Mrs. Carpenter?”

  “I do volunteer work,” she said with a patrician air. “I don’t have a profession.”

  He took a deep mental breath. Then he plunged forward. “Within the past two years, Mrs. Carpenter, have you had a relationship with the defendant, Marvin White?”

  “Yes, I have,” she answered clearly.

  “Would you describe that relationship to the court, please.”

  Without hesitation, she said, “It was a sexual relationship.”

  Wyatt looked over at the jury. Several of them looked like they were in shock. They gaped at her, then altered their looks to stare at Marvin, who sat impassively at the defense table, stalwartly staring at the wall behind Judge Grant’s head.

  “Approximately how long were you and Marvin White in this sexual relationship, Mrs. Carpenter?”

  “From shortly after he became the deliveryman for my laundry service until he was let go.”

  “So that would be about a year and a half?”

  “Yes.”

  She gave the details of their biweekly sexual encounters as she had done at her house, during their first interview. At one point in her description Wyatt looked at Jonnie Rae, who was in her customary seat in the first row of spectators behind the defense table, directly to the rear of her son. Marvin’s mother was rocking silently, eyes closed shut, teeth biting the knuckles of a hand.