“Why are you here, anyway? I thought Myrna Adams was handling this case.”
“Not anymore. As of one hour ago the case was transferred to me.”
Ben felt a clutching in his throat. This was all he needed. In addition to a client who couldn’t communicate, a hanging judge, and a smoking-gun videotape, now he had Bullock for a prosecutor. “What happened to Myrna?”
“Myrna decided she was too busy to be lead counsel on this case.”
“Too busy? Why?”
“Because I dumped sixteen new felony cases and two grand-jury investigations on her this morning. She had little choice.”
Ben was confused and amazed. “You wanted this case? Why on earth would you want this case?”
Bullock’s eyes focused on Ben. “So I can ram it down your throat.”
For the longest time Ben didn’t seem to be able to make his mouth work.
“You need a lesson in the difference between right and wrong,” Bullock continued. “So we’re going to give it to you.”
Ben whirled to face Judge Hawkins. “Are you in on this with him?”
The judge spread his hands. “I don’t know what he’s talking about. Don’t let it worry you, son. You know how overwrought prosecutors get.”
Somehow, Ben didn’t find the judge’s reassurances the least bit comforting. “I heard the prosecution was interested in a plea bargain.”
“All offers are hereby withdrawn,” Bullock announced. “I wouldn’t cut you a deal if you were representing the pope, and your clients are considerably less saintly.”
“Who’s being immature now? You’re trying to turn a murder trial into a revenge play. Or a referendum on my personal ethics.”
“Call it what you will. This is one murderer we’re not going to let you put back on the street.”
“Leeman Hayes hasn’t hurt anyone.”
“Maybe not lately, because he’s been locked up for the past ten years. ’Course, if his case had gone to trial when it was supposed to, he’d probably be dead now. Instead, a few fancy-lawyer tricks from your ilk got him a ten-year lease on life. At the taxpayers’ expense.”
“That isn’t even accurate—”
“I’m tired of seeing our taxpayer dollars wasted on day care for unexecuted murderers. We have an obligation to the people of this state—”
“Are you sure you’re not running for office?” Ben asked. “You sure sound like it.”
“Gentlemen.” Judge Hawkins eased forward. “Let’s not bicker. I’ll note for the record that counsel for both parties are present and ready to proceed. Anything else we need to discuss?” He held out his hands for the briefest of moments, then slapped them down on his desk. “So, if there’s nothing else—”
Ben couldn’t leave without trying to accomplish something. “I asked for the prosecution’s witness list. And I haven’t got it yet.”
“Well, let me say a word on that,” Bullock said, leaning across the judge’s desk. “The first day he took this case, we got all these discovery requests from Kincaid. From his secretary, actually. We haven’t had time to put together all the exhibits—”
“I’ve already got the exhibits,” Ben interrupted. “So you can forget that wheeze.”
Bullock was taken by surprise. “I gave strict instructions—”
“To stonewall? Figures.” Ben turned his attention to the judge. “Your honor, I’m entitled to know who he plans to call to the stand.”
Judge Hawkins sighed wearily. “Any reason why you can’t get him a list today, Jack?”
“Well, of course, I just took this case this morning. I’m still feeling my way around.”
“Jack.” The judge looked at him sternly. “We don’t want Mr. Kincaid to have any excuses later on for the appeal court, do we?” He cleared his throat. “Just in case his client is convicted.”
Uh-huh, Ben thought. Just in case.
“I’ll do my best, your honor,” Bullock said.
“I’d appreciate it.” Hawkins glanced at his watch. “Now, if there’s nothing else—”
“One more matter,” Ben said. He knew he was pushing his luck, but he felt obligated to give it the old college try. “I’m bringing a motion in limine to suppress the use of a certain videotape by the prosecution at trial.”
“Videotape?” Hawkins frowned. “What is this, some Rodney King deal?”
“Even better,” Bullock said. “Hayes actually confessed on tape.”
“That’s a question of fact,” Ben said firmly. “Leeman Hayes doesn’t say a word on the tape. It’s all pantomime, and extremely ambiguous. I believe it will confuse the jury and prove more prejudicial than probative. Especially after Mr. Bullock gives it his slanted spin-doctor routine—”
Bullock looked wounded. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“—just like he did a few seconds ago.”
Hawkins frowned. “Is this a … lengthy videotape?”
“Not too long, your honor,” Bullock replied. “About an hour.”
“But the jury will probably have to watch it several times,” Ben interjected.
Hawkins sighed again. “Is this absolutely necessary, Mr. Prosecutor?”
“It’s the crux of my case,” Bullock insisted. “This kid is guilty, and the tape proves it.”
He’d said the magic words. When all was said and done, in Hawkins’s eyes, Bullock worked for the forces of good, and Ben was trying to interfere with Hawkins’s summary imposition of the maximum sentence. “Well, I hate to make a decision in advance of trial. …”
Ben tried not to snicker. Hawkins hated to make a decision, period.
“So why don’t we just overrule the motion for now. You can renew your motion at trial, Mr. Kincaid. In the event that I sustain it, I’ll instruct the jury to disregard the taped evidence.”
And a fat lot of good that will do, Ben thought. Despite this fiction judges liked to employ, there was no way the jurors could disregard evidence once they had seen it. On the contrary, most jurors tended to give particular consideration to anything they’d been told to forget.
Hawkins pushed himself out of his chair. “If there’s nothing more, gentlemen, I do have a golf game this afternoon. …”
“What a coincidence,” Ben said. “I’m playing golf this afternoon, too. At Utica Greens.”
The judge did a double take. “You’re playing at Utica Greens?”
“Oh, sure,” Ben bluffed. “I play there all the time. Don’t you?”
Hawkins’s eyes moved closer together. “I applied for membership three years ago. I was turned down.”
“Well, perhaps you can come out with me sometime.”
Hawkins’s eyes lit up. “Really? How about next Friday?” Ben tried to simulate Hawkins’s most indifferent expression. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks. I’ll look forward to it.” Hawkins shook Ben’s hand energetically, disregarded Bullock’s, and scurried out of chambers.
“Now wait a minute,” Bullock said. “You two are going to play golf together? As in ex parte? I’m not sure I approve of this.”
“Don’t get excited,” Ben said. “As long as we don’t specifically discuss this case, it’s okay, remember?” He strolled out of the judge’s chambers. “Actually, we’ll probably spend the whole time talking about you.”
26
IT TOOK BEN ALMOST half an hour to find the address Ernie had given Jones. Not that Ben was any whiz with directions, but the North Side always seemed particularly labyrinthine to him. Not the shallow North Side, close to downtown, or the yuppie North Side in Gilcrease Hills, but the real thing. The other side of the tracks. The poor part of town. Poor and black.
At the turn of the century, over eighty thousand African Americans poured into Oklahoma (Indian Territory, until 1906). In Oklahoma, they hoped to find, or make, a society free of bigotry and prejudice. By 1907, blacks outnumbered both Native Americans and those of European descent; Oklahoma had more all-black towns than all the other states c
ombined. Even in mixed cities like Tulsa, blacks had more success and more clout than anywhere else.
In Tulsa, African Americans settled in a segregated community on the North Side known as Greenwood. Oil dollars made the city, both white and black, prosperous. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, Greenwood was the most successful black community on the map. It boasted black lawyers, doctors, and tailors; it contained forty-one grocers, nine billiard halls, and thirty restaurants.
Despite the city’s overall financial strength, racial tensions between the two segregated communities, long-held prejudices, and economic competition eventually led to conflict. Mob violence, and even lynchings, began to plague Greenwood. Then, in 1921, a white female elevator operator in the downtown Drexel Building accused a black teenager of trying to rape her while he rode the elevator from his shoeshine stand to the rest rooms, a trip he made several times a day. According to the most reliable account, the boy lost his balance and accidentally stepped on her foot, causing her to lurch backward. He reflexively grabbed her arm to keep her from falling, and she screamed.
There was never any real evidence of an attempted assault. Everyone who knew the boy said he would never commit such an act, especially not in as unlikely a place as a crowded office building. Despite the dubiousness of the claim, the Tulsa Tribune, which customarily referred to Greenwood as “Little Africa,” ran an inflammatory front-page feature on the affair headlined TO LYNCH NEGRO TONIGHT. White citizens took up arms.
Approximately two thousand white men surrounded the courthouse, hoping to hang the arrested teenage boy. Later about seventy-five armed black men arrived to help the sheriff defend the prisoner. Shots broke out, and in minutes the race riot was in full force. Pistol-packing white mobs surged into Greenwood, burning and looting businesses, destroying homes, and shooting residents. The rioters particularly targeted the homes of wealthy and prosperous black families. An elderly black couple was killed while walking home from church. Another black man was killed after surrendering peacefully to a gang of looters. Less than twenty-four hours after the riot began, all of black Tulsa was in flames, and hundreds were dead. It was the worst race riot in American history, not excepting the more recent Los Angeles riots.
Greenwood was eventually rebuilt, and became known in the 1930s as the Black Wall Street. But it was never the same. The sense of optimism that once permeated Greenwood never returned, and the black community never recovered the autonomy, mobility, and economic and political power it once had. As time passed, north Tulsa became another inner-city slum—poor, shoddy, ruined. Although recent urban-renewal efforts had restored some historical landmarks, most North Side residences were still poor, the businesses were still struggling, and the streets were still dangerous. If you didn’t live there, you didn’t go there.
Ben turned onto the street where the Hayes family resided. The street was lined with small white houses—shacks, really—with thin plywood walls, warped and swollen, and peeling paint, where there was any paint at all. Torn screen doors, chipped steps, cracked sidewalks. Trash littering the street, the lawns. Everything spoke of poverty of the worst, most debilitating sort.
Ben carefully mounted the stone steps to Ernie’s house. Actually, they weren’t steps; they were cinder blocks. The house appeared to have once been red, but age and weather had turned it an ugly rust orange. He noted two cars parked on the street outside—the smashed Ford Pinto and a Chevy station wagon, about fifteen years old by Ben’s guess. While it was no prize, it was certainly more presentable than the Pinto. He wondered why Ernie had driven the clunkier car to Ben’s office.
Through the screen, Ben saw Ernie hurry to the door. Was it his imagination, or was his limp not nearly as pronounced as it had been before?
Ernie Hayes had intentionally driven his worst, most beat-up-looking car, and limped like an accident victim as he approached Ben’s office, which of course had resulted in Ben’s taking this case.
Hmmm.
“Mr. Kincaid,” Ernie said. “Ain’t this a nice su’prise.” He showed Ben into the tiny living room of his home.
Ben was appalled. The room was cluttered with food containers, potato-chip bags, empty beer bottles. There was no central air, and in this unrelenting heat, the room was a sweatbox. Every window was open as wide as it would go. Ben’s own apartment was small and cheap, but in comparison with the Hayes residence, it was a mansion. In fact, their so-called living room could probably have fit in his bathroom. And at the moment there were six people in it.
“This must be your family,” Ben commented.
“This’s my brood.” He pointed at the kids on the floor. “What’s left of it, anyhow. Monique and Kevin and Julius and Corey and Bartholemew. That’s my family, not counting the three that done already left home. And Leeman, of course.”
Ben’s lips parted. “You have nine children?”
“That I do. My wife and I, we got along real good, you know? She was a honey, God rest her soul.” He took Ben’s arm. “Let’s go into the kitchen.”
They walked into the small kitchenette and sat at a wobbly plastic table. “This here’s where Leeman grew up,” he explained. “I know it ain’t much, but I’ve done the best I can with what little we’ve had. It ain’t been easy. ’Specially since I lost my job at the glass factory.”
“What happened?”
“Got laid off. I’d been there eighteen years, and I got nine kids and all that, but I was still one of the first let go. I complained to that big white supervisor they put over me, even though he’s half my age, and you know what he said? He said, ‘Aw, don’t go cryin’ them crocodile tears to me, Ernie. You’ll probably be a lot happier drawin’ welfare anyway, won’t you?’ ”
“What about the children?” Ben asked. “Some of them look old enough to work, at least part-time.”
“I’ve been trying to get Julius—he’s my oldest at home—to get a job. But he won’t listen. Says I’m just a stupid old man. Been hanging around with one of them street gangs that’s crawlin’ all over this neighborhood scarin’ everybody. And they’re always goin’ out to that damn country club where Leeman usta work. As if that cursed place hasn’t caused this family enough misery.”
Gang members at the country club? How could that be? Ben couldn’t imagine what gang members would be doing at the country club, but whatever it was, it probably wasn’t legal.
“Now, Corey, he’s a good boy,” Ernie said, his face brightening slightly. “He sells papers.”
“He has a paper route?”
“No, not ’zactly. He tried to get him one of those, but they wouldn’t give it to him. Said someone else already had all of ’em. He goes through people’s trash, see, finds old newspapers, goes into eating places, and sells them. Till he gets chased out.”
They heard a knock on the door. “Papa!”
If Ben remembered properly, the shouting offspring was Julius. “I’m goin’ out with Booker.”
“I don’t want you hangin’ out with that boy! He’s trouble!”
Through the passageway, Ben saw Julius smirk. Ignoring his father, he slapped a high five with his friend and went outside.
Just before the door closed, Ben caught a fleeting glimpse of the visitor. The face was familiar.
It took Ben a moment, but he finally pulled the memory out of deep storage. It was Joni’s boyfriend. The one he had seen her smooching with out his bedroom window.
If Ernie was right about Julius’s connection to youth gangs, Joni’s new romance was going to be even more controversial—and dangerous—than he had imagined. No wonder she hadn’t mentioned it to her parents.
Ben ran to the front window and watched them depart. They both wore matching jackets with a bloodred emblem on the back—a swastika with a heart around it. Ben made a mental note to ask Mike about that later.
Ben returned to the kitchen and tried to ask Ernie a few questions about the case.
“Mr. Hayes, I understand that the murder ten y
ears ago took place late at night—after midnight. Do you have any idea what Leeman would have been doing out there at that hour?”
“ ’Course I do. It was the middle of the week, Mr. Kincaid. He was out there late every night.”
“Surely there was no caddying after dark.”
Ernie laughed. “Well, ’course not. Naw, he slept out there.”
“He slept at the caddyshack?”
“Sure. Why not? That shack is a nice lil ol’ place. Leeman had a lot more room out there than he did here, and he didn’t have to share it with all these brothers and sisters, neitherwise. He’d sleep out there during the workweek, then come home on the weekends.”
“Did the management approve of his sleeping in the caddyshack?”
Ernie tilted his head to one side. “Well … to tell you the truth, I’m not entirely sure they ever knew. We figgered, what they don’t know cain’t hurt them, right?”
It might not have hurt them, Ben thought, but he wondered if it hadn’t hurt Leeman. To the tune of about ten years. “Did you hire an attorney to represent Leeman when he was arrested?”
“With what? My good looks?” He laughed again. “Naw. We got one of them freebie lawyers appointed to us.”
“How was he?”
“I think he did the best he could under the circumstances. Didn’t think he was the brightest man I’d ever met, but he seemed earnest. Problem was, he had about twenty other cases he was juggling, all at the same time. He’d run in real quick like and expect Leeman to tell him his whole life story in ten minutes, which for Leeman was absolutely impossible. He never had no time to do any real checkin’ around.”
“Did you ever … talk with Leeman about the murder?”
“Talk with Leeman?”
“In pantomime. Or however you used to communicate.”
“Not as I recall.”
“Weren’t you … curious?”
“ ’Bout what?”
“Well, about whether he killed Maria Alvarez.”
“Didn’t have to ask no fool questions to know he didn’t commit no murder. ’Specially not like that, what with the golf club and bein’ so mean and all. Not my Leeman. A boy’s papa knows these things.”
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