Back to Lazarus (Sydney Brennan)

by Judy K. Walker

  I knew something wasn’t right before I’d even stepped up on the curb. My door was apparently unlocked—ajar, to be exact—because a dim bar of light ran vertically in the doorframe. Now what? I could run across the street and ask to use Mr. Ginley’s phone to call… someone. I couldn’t even think of anyone. Certainly not the cops. I probably just forgot to lock the door this morning and one of the neighborhood cats snuck in. And if I went to Mr. Ginley, he’d start asking me again about my personal relationship with God. Mr. G means well, but 10 p.m. is a little late to be worrying about salvation.

  Slipping my purse strap over my head and across my chest to keep my hands free, I advanced on the door. Since I hadn’t parked in the driveway, the intruder may not even know I’d returned. If there was an intruder. I paused on my front step. If someone lurked inside, was surprising him really a good thing? My eyes scanned the darkness for a weapon. Ben had left my shears on the front step, but 12 inches of pointed metal was a little more than I wanted to commit to, even if they were frightfully dull. Instead I picked up a freshly watered, six-inch terra cotta pot of impatiens and crept inside.

  The light from a small table lamp kept me from tripping over my furniture when I entered, but was too weak to travel much beyond a three-foot radius. I stopped for a moment to let my sight adjust, but ended up seeing more with my ears than my eyes. The sound of movement in the kitchen ahead of me seemed ridiculously loud to my straining ears, but the nature of the noise was unclear. The refrigerator door was open, its bulb the only illumination in the room. Unfortunately the bar style counter blocked my view of whatever was scrounging in my refrigerator. I slipped around the counter and raised my pot. At the last moment, a squatting figure turned and looked up at me.

  “Syd!”

  It was too late to stop—my arms were already arcing down. I managed to hold onto the pot, but the flowers and muddy soil dumped out onto the kitchen floor. “Jesus, Ben, you scared the shit out of me!”

  He grinned up at me. “Sorry, Syd. It was getting late, and I was worried about the fish. I came over to feed ‘em.”

  It really was getting late, even for Ben, and it was rare that he let himself in when I wasn’t at home. He probably had a fight with his mom, not that he’d ever say.

  “So the fish drink Barq’s and eat Doritos? No wonder Bruce looked so bloated this morning.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  Ben stood, stretching his legs to his full height. 5’ 9”? 5” 10”? He must have grown an inch since yesterday. By the time he got his license next year, he wouldn’t be able to find a car he could fit in. Ben turned to close the refrigerator as an afterthought. Then he noticed the mess on the floor. “Ohh, man. I just planted those.”

  “Yeah, well, no offense, kid, but I’m not a big fan of impatiens. Or anything else bubble gum pink. Give them to your mom.”

  “Yeah, right,” he said. He was already squatting again, trying to scoop soil, leaves and petals back into the pot. I couldn’t see his face.

  “Just leave it, Ben. I’ll get it later.”

  And I would. I’d put the pot in the windowsill where he could see it every time he raided my refrigerator. Warning or warm and fuzzy message? It would depend on my mood. I reached for the soda, chips, and a folding laminated chart next to the phone.

  “C’mon. Let’s go out back and feed the mosquitoes. What’s our constellation of the day?”

  Amateur astronomy was our latest kick. Before that had been field guides of birds, trees and shrubs, and reptiles. We’d learn one or two items a day, more as an excuse to sit in the back and hang out than out of any motivation to better our minds. We’d spend as many days or weeks as it took to master the backyard, our little chunk of the world. Reptiles hadn’t taken long—with the exception of sunning anoles they’re uncooperative little buggers—but there was an astonishing array of plant life, most of which I’ve since forgotten. (I can’t remember people’s names either, so I don’t think the funky vines were offended.) We’d soon finish astronomy. Tree branches above us kept us in perpetual shadow and blocked our already limited view, although in our neighborhood, the humidity and cloud cover did more to obscure the night sky than the lights of the city.

  When we’d gotten one under our belts, fudging a little to make the constellation fit what we actually saw in the sky, I tentatively approached the subject I knew he didn’t want to discuss. “So, Ben, what brings you over this time of night?”

  Even in the dark I could feel the suspicion of his gaze. “I told you. It was getting late, and I thought Jackie and Bruce might be getting hungry.”

  “Hunh.”

  I grunted noncommittally, nodding my head as I rocked up and back on a plastic lawn chair, its formerly straight legs buckling and bending. Ben should feel some responsibility toward Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. He’s the one who convinced me I needed some other living beings in my life, helped me pick out the fish (our compromise between ferrets and sea monkeys), and gave them the spectacularly nimble names they can never hope to live up to. Bruce and Jackie were a good choice, pretty and calming, something to talk at that has a heartbeat (I think) without being demanding. But they don’t exactly bark or beg or even do somersaults when they’re hungry. I sat rocking, counting my breath. When I got to ten, I spoke.

  “So, Ben, what brings you over this time of night?” His head turned in my direction, but he didn’t respond. “Fight with your mom?”

  Ben lived alone with his mother. I had some vague notion of teenage angst and familial discontent, but I didn’t know how they manifested their brand of dysfunction. All I knew was that when he wasn’t with his friends, Ben spent a lot of time with me, and I suspected his mom spent a lot of time with someone else. Or various someone elses.

  “Back off, Syd.” There was an edge to his voice I didn’t often hear, and I don’t think he did either. It was gone when he spoke again. “I got my dose of Oprah this afternoon.”

  “On my TV, no doubt.”

  “The boys were looking depressed. I thought they might feel better if they saw how bad the air-breathers have it.”

  I laughed before I could stop myself, and we passed the danger zone. He told me about the latest prank on his “fascist” math teacher, then drifted off into cafeteria adventures and who was caught making out next to the deep fryer by the grease stains on the ass of her jeans. I finally kicked Ben out around 11:00 p.m. He had school the next day, and even if he didn’t need to sleep, I did. Or so I thought. My active brain had other plans. I told myself I’d had caffeine too late in the day, but I really didn’t want to go to sleep. I was afraid of my dreams.

  I made use of my insomnia by going online to check out newspaper archives. Most didn’t go back to the time of Vanda’s death, but I still thought there might be something. I was sorely disappointed. Apparently the small town domestic killing hadn’t held the media’s attention. Nothing piqued my own interest until nearly 4 a.m. There was no coverage of Isaac Thomas’s case, but there was a short article on his death. He committed suicide by hanging, just as Noel had said. The article didn’t say what kind of “homemade noose” he had fashioned, only that he had been found during a routine early morning head count. I wasn’t familiar with the prison, but I did have a stroke of luck with its location. In a state littered with prisons, Isaac Thomas had been serving his life sentence for the 1980 murder of his wife in the Panhandle, near all of my potential witnesses.

  My subsequent searching brought up nothing else, not even an obituary, so I downloaded the single article and printed it before shutting the computer down. Noel was coming by my office again tomorrow, and I wanted to have a copy to show her. My eyes and mind were losing their focus, but I forced myself to label a folder before heading to bed for a few hours. A disorganized person by nature, I love the illusion of organization that a labeled folder gives me. As I slid the article inside, my dry, fuzzy eyes caught something on the printed page that had escaped me on the computer screen—the date. Isaac Thomas h
ad committed suicide on October 12th, 2002, not four or five years ago as Noel had said, but less than two. Why was my client lying to me?

  CHAPTER THREE

  The time discrepancy bugged me, although I couldn’t imagine it made a difference when Isaac Thomas had committed suicide. The next morning in the shower I went through all my hot water trying to figure it out, and trying to flush the fuzzy remnants of nightmares from my mind. I emerged no wiser with wrinkled fingers, simultaneously flushed pink and shivering cold. No big deal. You can’t stay cold for long if it’s June in Tallahassee. The humidity would have my hair a frizzy red mass by afternoon, so I didn’t bother with it. By 10 a.m. I was in my office, comfortably attired in jeans and a men’s button-down shirt, but I could tell I’d be dragging by the time Noel arrived at 4:00.

  The day slipped by quickly with me catching up on paperwork, wrapping up old cases and accounts and getting started on the new. I called to set up an appointment at the prison for the next day, then prepared a contract and releases for Isaac’s records. Ready ahead of time and feeling virtuous with my accomplishments, I wandered outside to face the gorgeous if slightly muggy day. My office is downtown, but on the outskirts of total respectability, which suits me.

  Downtown has some lovely older buildings, and some concrete government monstrosities, but nothing to rival the “new” capitol building. Erected in the late 1970s (pun intended), apparently the architect wanted to leave no doubt of its function as the source of power in a large and influential state. A tall, ugly tower of a building, the new capitol rises behind the more traditional columned and cupolaed old capitol, and is flanked by two rounded domes. I’ve seen Mad magazine folding covers that look less like a penis. It sits atop a hill, the hub in a hub and spoke traffic pattern, and entering the city by way of Apalachee Parkway it looms ever larger, like political porn.

  Fortunately I didn’t have that kind of office view, nor did anyone else in my neighborhood. My feet led me around the corner to my favorite coffee shop for some afternoon sustenance—carbs and caffeine. Most of the people sitting out front in the shade were familiar to me.

  “Afternoon, Syd. Working hard or hardly working?” a grizzled older man asked me over the top of his cup of coffee. He wore his usual Veterans of Foreign Wars baseball cap, but I couldn’t remember his name. Though he used the same tired line every time he saw me, he still seemed to think it witty.

  “I aspire to do both,” I replied with a slight bow. I reached for the door, but he wasn’t finished yet.

  “I’m surprised you have time to mix with the likes of us now. The riff raff!” A laugh exploded from his hoarse throat, and he turned to share it with the two pierced and jangling young men sitting at the table to the right of him. They made no move to join in, but stopped their own conversation and eyed him tolerantly.

  “Why is that, Jerry?” I asked, having recalled his name.

  He directed his answer to the young men. “Betcha didn’t know our Syd here is a regular celebrity. TV, newspapers…”

  He’d caught their interest now, and was enjoying the attention.

  “Yeah, Jerry, I’m expecting the call from Hollywood any day.”

  The stringy blonde jangler broke his silence. “What for?”

  Jerry’s eyes flashed, and his bottom left the chair when he spoke, nearly jumping up in excitement. “You didn’t hear? She’s the one that told the world our governor is nothing but a dumb-ass cracker looking out for his own.”

  “I did not! What, are you trying to get me killed?” Jerry tried to look chastened, as I tried to look outraged. “It was the Attorney General, and I didn’t say he was a cracker. I said he shouldn’t rely solely on the word of elected officials whose daddies wore white hoods to say who was being racist.”

  Stringy Blonde’s jangling friend, Brown Buzz-cut, forgot his nonchalant slump, grabbed the arms of his chair and raised himself to his full sitting height. “Oh yeah, I heard about that a few months back. The case over there near Destin with the Spring Breakers.”

  He turned to Stringy Blonde. “Remember, that kegger got a little crazy, and they arrested everybody. The white guys got released the next morning, but the black guys got charged.”

  Now he turned to me. Hopefully not on me. “That was you, bitching about it?”

  It had been more complicated than that, and I wasn’t the only one “bitching,” but he was asking for a yes or no. “Yep, that was me.”

  Brown Buzz-cut sucked his cheeks in, tested his face, and sucked in his cheeks some more until he looked sufficiently bad-ass. He stared me down for a few seconds, then ruined his handiwork with a child-like grin. Well, it was child-like if you ignored the glint of metal in his tongue.

  “Good. Fucking brats.” He nodded his approval, and his grin faded. “Fucking cops.”

  Returning his nod, I took the opportunity to slip inside for my coffee and bagel before Jerry started up again. I thought I’d heard the last of that little fiasco, but leave it to Jerry to resurrect it three weeks after my phone finally stopped ringing. Buzz-cut had the basic facts right, but not the context. Once word of the unequal treatment got out, charges against the black students were dropped. The State Attorney tried to bury the story, blaming it all on a computer glitch akin to Rose Mary Woods’ 1973 postural twitch for Nixon, but it was too late. An FSU professor had been compiling statistics on racial disparities in the justice system from neighborhood surveillance to charging, trials to sentencing, and the preliminary results were troubling. Civil rights groups had been waiting for the appropriate moment to release the data, a time when the public was ready to listen, and they rightly recognized it was now or never.

  Unfortunately the latest celebrity criminal trial occupied the national stage and refused to budge. However, at the state level, liberals called for a statewide investigation, a task force on race in the criminal justice system, and the generally apathetic citizenry began to agree. The governor refused, but knew he couldn’t totally ignore the public outcry. Instead, he invited 50 community activists, criminal justice advocates, and “assorted screwballs” to a token “Day of Dialogue” with the Attorney General. “Day of Dialogue” was the governor’s turn of phrase. “Assorted screwballs” was my friend Ralph’s, being one of the chosen screwballs. He’d been unable to attend (he said he couldn’t trust his temper; his wife said he was too sick) and sent me in his stead.

  Ralph’s turn of phrase turned out to hold more truth than the governor’s. If the participants thought their presence would mean anything, they were screwballs. Idealistically naïve screwballs, the kind we need more of, but screwballs nonetheless. As for the day of dialogue, it wasn’t a day, and there was no dialogue. It lasted less than two hours, beginning with a self-congratulatory statement on the import of the occasion and a lengthy ass-kissing introduction of the Attorney General by one of the governor’s aides. The AG gave a prepared speech, then took three softball questions from the audience (obvious plants) before exiting the stage to make a statement to the press. I remember looking around at 49 other open-mouthed, speechless screwballs, all of us momentarily unable or unwilling to move from our seats. Everyone who worked for the AG or the governor had slipped out unnoticed when the AG had, so we had to find our own way out. By the time I’d navigated outside to the mocking sunshine, I’d found my voice again. And a reporter found me.

  After that first reporter, I tried to be more diplomatic in my statements to the press, but I soon discovered that diplomacy wasn’t in me, at least not in this case, and tried to keep my mouth shut. The Tallahassee paper is a horrid mish-mash of AP articles and state office propaganda, but a few central and southern Florida newspapers went beyond the flashy Klan accusations to the substance—the current racial iniquities in our criminal justice system. If the government wouldn’t have a dialogue with the public, at least the public was having one with each other. I can’t say I was a media darling, but for once most of my phone calls didn’t come from telemarketers.

 
Of course, Ralph found it all hilarious, at least in the beginning. (“Better you than me, Syd, better you than me.”) Then the fall-out got serious. I often do contract work for court-appointed attorneys and even under-staffed public defender offices. Suddenly my bills were routinely audited and even challenged by prosecuting attorneys in court. Attorneys, civil and criminal, became leery of hiring me for anything that might require my testimony.

  The final straw, for me and for Ralph, was a letter from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) informing me that I was being investigated for my conduct in connection with an eight-year-old case. I’d been a lowly apprentice at the PD’s office at the time, and the witness I’d allegedly coerced was now dead. When I showed Ralph the letter, he ranted and raved until his wife Diane admonished him for the sake of his blood pressure. Then he marshaled his resources and a devilish grin, ordering me to go home and get some rest.

  I don’t know what was said, but Diane told me that before my headlights were out of sight, he’d called one of partners of the biggest law firm in Tallahassee. At home. Within a week, I had a letter from FDLE saying the investigation had been closed for insufficient evidence, and I was back to getting my bills paid on time (by government standards, that is). Now I could support my coffee habit.

  Shaking Jerry took longer than I realized, and I had to chat with the barista and some of the other regulars while I ate my bagel. By the time I brushed the sesame and poppy seeds from my shirt, any chance of punctuality for my 4 pm appointment with Noel had slipped away. At 4:03, I did what any professional investigator would have done in the same circumstances—I slipped off my sandals and ran.

  When I got to my office, Noel was already sitting on the front steps. Her expression was unreadable. “Sorry, Noel. I—anh!”

  Pain shot through my foot. Better than any sweet mantra, the thought of my still technically “potential client” watching helped to suppress the expletives dancing on my tongue. Instead I settled for a squealing grunt through clenched tooth and hopped the remaining few feet to the front steps with as much dignity as I could muster. I’d stepped on the detritus of an overhanging tree, one of those barbed seed pods from a sweetgum shaped like a medieval torture device. Sitting down next to Noel, I used the cuff of my sleeve to gingerly tug the barbs from my arch while not embedding them in my fingers.