“Does he remember what time it was when Alvarado came in?”
Mike asked again. “He says he can’t say for sure, but it was in the afternoon, after lunch.”
“Get an approximate time,” Sandro urged. Life and death hung on the answer.
Mike asked.
“He says he was here around two thirty, two forty-five,” he translated the answer.
Sandro studied the crowd of Puerto Ricans for a moment. He studied the barber, the barber shop. Life and death, murder and innocence were so unhistoric, so matter-of-fact, everyday.
“Was that the time Alvarado came in or left?” Sandro pressed.
Mike asked the barber.
“He says he must have come in around two twenty-five or so, mas o meno, more or less.”
“How does he know?” asked Sandro, wanting to anticipate Ellis. “Did he have a watch, or look at a clock in here?” Sandro looked around. There was no clock on the wall. The young barber was not wearing a watch.
“He has a friend,” said Mike, after the usual preface in Spanish, “who works in a day-care center and playground near here. Every day this friend comes here about four, after the playground is closed. On this day, July third, because the next day was a holiday, the friend got off from work early, and he came here early. They kidded about it, the barber and his friend. You know, like ‘Hey, only half a day today?’ That sort of thing. While this friend from the playground was here, Alvarado came in with another guy.”
“Who is the fellow from the playground?”
“He says the guy’s name is Julio. But he hasn’t seen him for a while. He moved.”
“Does he know this other fellow with whom Alvarado came in?” Sandro directed to Mike. Mike translated.
“He knows the other guy from seeing him around the neighborhood. His name’s Eugene. But he hasn’t seen him today,” Mike replied for the barber.
“Was there anyone else in the shop when Alvarado came in?” he asked.
“There was Alvarado, this guy, Eugene, this barber, another barber, and the friend from the playground, Julio,” Mike interpreted.
“There was another barber here?” asked Sandro. “Does he still work here?”
“No. The other barber works in another shop. But this barber sees him once in a while.”
“All right. What’s this barber’s name anyway?”
“Francisco Moreno.”
Sandro smiled. He shook Francisco Moreno’s hand firmly. “Maybe you’ll save someone’s life. You understand what I say?” In case he didn’t, Mike gave a running translation. The barber smiled and shrugged, because it had not been really challenging to recount what had happened on a rainy afternoon in a barber shop on Roebling Street.
“Take Mr. Moreno’s story down so that we can have a signed statement for our file,” Sandro instructed. Just in case, Sandro thought. The first thing he had learned in preparing cases for trial was to obtain signed statements. It might act as a reminder. It could also be used against the witness if he decided to change his story and help the opposition.
Mike took a pad of yellow paper. Again, he spoke to Francisco Moreno about the afternoon of July 3rd, writing as he listened. Sandro added comments and occasional instructions. Mike wrote first in Spanish, and then, on the same paper, wrote a translation in English:
My name is Francisco Moreno. I am 26 years of age. I live in 136 South Fourth Street, in Brooklyn, Apartment 2C. I have no telephone. I work at the Imperial Barber Shop, 319 Roebling Street, Brooklyn. The 3rd of July, I was working in the barber shop and between the hours of 2:30 or 3, and about that time Luis Alvarado was in my shop. He seated himself in my chair, and I cut his hair. I remember that Mr. Alvarado was calm and he was not excited. He was wearing a sweater. I cut his hair and moustache and he left the store. I noticed that Mr. Alvarado was well dressed; that his clothing was dry and did not give me the impression of having taken part in any fight.
(Signed) Francisco Moreno,
September 6, 1967
When they had finished, Sandro asked Mike to instruct Moreno not to talk to anyone about the case. He handed Moreno his card. Mike wrote his home telephone number on the back of the card so that Moreno could call in case of any new developments or trouble. Sandro had Mike ask Moreno to look for the other barber, for Alvarado’s friend Eugene, and for Julio, his friend who worked in the playground.
The barber smiled and nodded. They all shook hands again.
The five-and-ten was typical, with open counter upon open counter of merchandise, each with little price cards in front of the .bins.
“Alvarado said about two counters down from the door in the center, we’d see the counter where the girl works,” Sandro said as they entered. They stood at the front counter, looking back. There were no girls at any counter. Off to the side, about two counters back, some customers had just made a purchase. They turned from an employee who was placing merchandise in a bag. When the customers moved, Sandro beheld an apparition. A Negro girl, young, with nice, fat, puffy cheeks, as if there were peach pits in them. Sandro looked at Mike, who returned his look. They smiled.
“Pardon me,” said Sandro. “My name is Luca. I’m an attorney. I represent a man named Alvarado who is being charged with a crime. At the time it happened, he says he was here and you were serving him.”
She shrugged and smiled. Her smile was extraordinarily bright, delightful. “I wait on a lot of people, mister.” Her voice had a southern sound. She wasn’t Puerto Rican. “I don’t know all them who comes in. What’s his name?”
“Alvarado.”
“That Spanish?” she asked.
“Yes. He’s Spanish, but he’s colored too. You know, very dark.”
“I don’t know nobody by that name. When was he supposed to be here?”
“July third,” Sandro said.
“Mister, that’s two months ago. I couldn’t tell you one guy from another.”
“Well, you might have remembered his face. This is his picture.” Sandro handed her the newspaper clippings.
She looked at the picture. Then she looked at Sandro.
“He changed some money, I believe,” Sandro said.
“A hundred-dollar bill?”
“Yes,” he said, trying to sound calm.
“I ’member him. I ’member him now,” she said, her face bright. “He changed another one before that, too, another day. I ’member when he come in again, cause I kidded with him, you know.”
“Any trouble here, gentlemen?” asked a young white man with a little badge pinned to his shirt that identified him as the assistant store manager. “Any trouble, Annie?”
“No, Phil. This here is the lawyer for that fellow—I showed you the paper and told you about the one-hundred-dollar bill I changed, and the guy’s picture was in the paper about killin’ a policeman?”
“Yes, the one-hundred-dollar bill. I remember that. You’re his lawyer? That’s a murder case, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. A policeman was killed.”
“On a roof, right?” asked the assistant manager, pleased with his memory.
“That’s right. You remember the fellow with the one-hundred-dollar bill being here?” asked Sandro.
“No. I didn’t see him. I do remember Annie telling me about the one-hundred-dollar bill.”
“You okayed it cause I had to get somebody to okay changing the bill,” Annie said to him. She turned to Sandro. “I can’t change no more than a twenty without gettin’ it okayed by the assistant manager or the manager.”
“Did I, kid?” the assistant manager questioned the girl. “If you say so. I’m not sure. I do remember you telling me about it the very next day. What day was it?”
“The policeman was killed on Monday, July third. You were probably closed the next day, Independence Day. The picture wasn’t in the paper until Independence Day. July fifth was a Wednesday,” Sandro explained.
“That’s when I showed it to you. Wednesday, when I came in,” Annie sa
id. “His picture was all over, in the newspapers, on TV. I knew him soon’s I seen the pictures. I said to my husband, ‘That man was in the store yesterday.’”
“Is there any question that this is the man who was here?” Sandro asked.
She looked at the picture again, then up at Sandro. “That’s the man all right. I know I seen him here that day. Cause I seen him on television the next day. I was off. That was the day all right.”
“Did you know him? Was he a friend of yours before that day?”
“Except he changed another hundred-dollar bill here, a few days before, I never seen that man before in my life.”
“Now, what time was he here that day?”
She studied the floor for a moment, her left hand to her chin. “Well, I just finished my break. I work ten till three. Only part time. And about one, one fifteen I have a break. I got back from my break that day, and then I seen him and changed the bill.”
“Could it have been before one o’clock?” asked Sandro.
“No. Had to be after one. Maybe a little later. One fifteen, one twenty. Something like that.”
“I want to have Mr. Rivera write down these facts. So I’ll have a record for my file and I won’t have to inconvenience you again.”
“I won’t go to no court,” she said firmly.
“No, no. I just want this statement for my records. Let’s face it, you know the police aren’t going to give a Negro a soft time, especially when a cop was killed. I’d appreciate your cooperation.”
“He’s not Negro,” Annie said flatly.
Sandro looked at her. Alvarado was darker by far than she was.
He turned to Mike. “Start writing,” he whispered.
“What good is a statement if she won’t go to court?” Mike whispered back, taking out his pad.
“Just take the statement. We get that now, and I’ll worry about court later.” Her reluctance to help Alvarado was more comforting than eagerness would have been.
Mike started writing. He handed the finished statement to Sandro:
My name is Annie Mae Cooper. I am 34 years old. I live at 346 Havemeyer Street, Brooklyn. Married, my husband’s name Johnny. I am employed at Associated Five & Ten store at Broadway and Roebling Street, Brooklyn.
In regards to Mr. Luis Alvarado and July 3rd, 1967, I remember that Mr. Alvarado was in the store that I work in on that day because he had come into the store and had asked me to change a one-hundred-dollar bill. On that day it was raining and I was off from work the next day. I had returned from my lunch that day about 1:15 P.M., a few minutes more or less, and a few minutes later Mr. Alvarado came and we kidded about him changing the hundred-dollar bill. I changed the bill and he left the store. I would say this was around 1:20 P.M.
Sandro nodded. He handed the statement to Mrs. Cooper. She read it and signed it.
Sandro and Mike walked back to the car. Sandro felt more at ease now. Not that he was sure beyond doubt. It was possible that these people were friends of Alvarado and lying to him. But it was a good start.
When he arrived back at his office, Sandro photostatted the two statements and placed the originals in a sealed envelope in his safe. He wasn’t leaving anything to chance or police snooping.
The intercom buzzed. “Dr.Travers from Bellevue is on the wire,” said Elizabeth.
“Hi, George, how’re you?” Sandro was ready to jump on the desk and dance if the Bellevue records had been found.
“Fine, Sandro. I called in reference to that Alvarado thing you asked me about. There are four or five ways of checking when Alvarado was here and where he was treated, and obtaining his hospital chart. I’ve checked just about every one of them so far, and none of them checks out. There are a couple more things I could try, but so far it doesn’t look promising.”
“All right, George. Just cover every possibility there is. A man’s life is at stake, and I have to have the answer. From what he says, he was there about July tenth.”
“Well, unless somebody has removed his record and is looking at it, I don’t know where it could be. But I’ll keep at it and get back to you as soon as I can.”
“George, you’re a prince. Thank you.” Sandro hung up the phone. The day seemed suddenly gloomy.
CHAPTER XII
Sam and Sandro sat next to each other in adjoining jury-box seats. This was the favorite roost of defense counsel while waiting to have cases called for disposition or trial. An assistant D.A. and another lawyer were sitting in the second row at the other end. A defendant was being arraigned. He had been charged with assault in the first degree, and, after a conference at the bench with the judge and D.A., defense counsel announced that the defendant was willing to plead guilty to assault in the third degree, a misdemeanor, to satisfy the entire indictment. The D.A. recommended the acceptance of the plea. The court accepted it.
“The D.A. must have had a weak case,” said Sam.
“The hell with that case. What do you think about the barber shop and the hundred-dollar bill?”
“It sounds great—if it’s true. Even if we get some people to testify, it doesn’t mean they’re telling the truth. They might be friends of Alvarado’s, trying to help him.”
“I thought of that, too,” Sandro said.
“You’d better check them out with a lie detector. I mean, what the hell kind of bullshit is this? Every time you go to the Tombs, Alvarado’s got a new story for you. He must have people in the street working for him, getting him witnesses, telling him what to say.”
“But he doesn’t have any visitors.”
“He doesn’t need them. There are so many Puerto Ricans, junkies, going in and out of the Tombs every day, he’s got his own private messenger service.”
“You think his story is a phony, then?” Sandro asked.
“How the hell do I know? It sounds great, perfect. But how about those witnesses Soto told you about. Why would the people who live on the block where the cop was killed say they saw this guy Alvarado that day? They have no reason to lie. They’re independent witnesses. That’s what the jury’ll believe, anyway. They’ll think this barber and salesgirl are friends of Alvarado, people he knew from before.”
“I may be getting sucked in,” said Sandro, “but I believe Alvarado.”
“That’s fine. But it’s what the jury believes that counts,” Sam cautioned. “I’ve handled too many murder cases to get hopped up about the statement of some witness or other. They’ll come in later and change their story, or you’ll find their story full of holes, or they’ll be horrible witnesses whom the D.A. destroys on cross-examination. Look, this is good experience for you. You’ll be an even better lawyer after getting a case like this under your belt. But I don’t want to see you getting yourself all tied up in knots over one case for some lousy junky.”
“I just want to see the case through and see it through right.”
“Okay, but don’t set all your hopes on these people. They sound great. But you can’t trust these spics—any witnesses for that matter. They’re treacherous. Especially junkies. They tell you anything, just for a fix, for a few bucks. They have no conscience.”
“Well, the barber and the salesgirl aren’t junkies, and she’s not even Puerto Rican.”
“Okay, you got a Puerto Rican and a nigger. I doubt it makes much difference in front of the jury.”
Sandro shrugged. Sam was cynical, he thought, but he might also be right.
“I’ve seen too many of these things go wrong to get all excited or go shlepping all around those neighborhoods, maybe get stabbed,” Sam went on. “We’ll see what else you discover. By the way, I saw Ellis in the corridor before. He was talking, and I was listening.”
“What did he have to say?”
“Nothing much, just talked about this and that. He’s pretty smug about it. I’ll bet he really has a confession from this son of a bitch Alvarado. What do you think of that?”
“Alvarado said he was in Brooklyn at the time of the killing. And
now we have witnesses who agree that he was in Brooklyn.”
“Not enough. You’ve also got independent eyewitnesses who saw him in Manhattan. Let me tell you where it’s at. In Bellevue! If he went to Bellevue bleeding, then the rest of the stuff—the beating, the alibi—fits together. If we’ve got that going for us, the jury’ll take all the rest along with it, everything. Without it, you’ve got a bunch of bullshit.”
“I’ve got a doctor by the name of Travers on the staff over there checking out the story. He’s a brother of someone I went to law school with. But he hasn’t come up with any record so far.”
“If it ever existed! And even if it did, the cops may have already destroyed it anyway.”
“You think they could do something like that?”
“Could they beat a guy and lie about it? Could they lie about having warned him of his rights? Why couldn’t they throw away a couple of sheets of hospital records? You keep forgetting, a cop was killed here. You think letting a couple of pieces of paper disappear from a city hospital is a big deal? The same city that the cops work for? Don’t put anything past these people. If they want you, they can get you.”
“Alvarado’s cellmate saw him bleeding and being sent to the hospital. He can testify.”
“A con! Who the hell will the jury believe, a con or a cop? Listen, I know and you know that a cop is only a man, and he can lie like anyone else. But the jury thinks that all cops are good guys. Juries go in and jerk around, and nobody knows what the hell they talk about. Maybe they play cards. And they throw a man’s life up in the air, and come out and send him to the electric chair not because he did it but because they think spics can’t tell the truth or junkies are no good.”
“You think the jury won’t believe the cops beat Alvarado?”
“They’ll think that’s the usual story some wise-guy lawyer made up.”
“But if the guy was bleeding?”
“They’ll think—or the D.A.’ll make them think—he did it to himself,” said Sam. “The jury’ll stretch their imagination to any length to believe the cops. And the cops’ll go to any length to sink a cop-killer. I know what the cops can do. I was a D.A. myself for fifteen years. Listen, I remember Judge Chapansky, now on the bench in Brooklyn, when he was a D.A. He went to a station house one night to get a statement, and just as he approached the station house he heard this horrible scream. He went inside and asked what happened, who screamed? And the cops looked at him like he was crazy, like they heard nothing. Then he went to see this guy who was supposed to give the statement. The guy was as white as a ghost. He looked like death. Judge Chapansky told the cops he wouldn’t take the statement. That if they thought that he’d take a statement from a man in that condition, they were nuts.
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