Where Nobody Dies

by Carolyn Wheat

  “Well, what did you expect me to do?” Marcy challenged, hands on her hips. “Lie?” We were outside the courtroom but not quite out of earshot of Ma Ritchie’s lawyer, whose expression was a mixture of triumph and sympathy.

  “Keep your voice down,” I muttered. “And if you really have to work that much, maybe you should reconsider this whole thing. Not only won’t it wash with the court,” I pointed out, “but it’s not fair to Dawn.” Dawn’s visit to the ladies’ room made plain speaking possible.

  Marcy’s jaw clamped shut. I tried another approach. “Look,” I suggested, “why not think of this as a public-relations campaign?”

  My client looked startled but receptive. I pressed my luck. “You’ve got a selling job to do in there,” I pointed out, waving a hand at the closed courtroom doors. “You’ve got to sell Marcy Sheldon as the best possible guardian for Dawn. You’re not going to do it by stressing how hard you work. It’s the wrong pitch for this particular market.”

  Marcy liked it. I could tell by the relaxed lines of her thin face, the receptive gleam in her brown eyes. I had struck the right note. I only hoped my words would pay off in more than a superficial change in strategy.

  I turned to see Dawn coming down the corridor. As she reached her grandmother, Mrs. Ritchie held out her arms for a hug. Dawn hesitated a moment, then allowed herself to be enfolded into the embrace. For a moment, she seemed to disappear into Mrs. Ritchie’s voluminous wool coat.

  Watching, I wondered, not for the first time, how the winner-take-all adversary system could in fairness be applied to Family Court. Much as I felt Dawn needed her aunt’s stable, realistic support for her career goals, it seemed to me there ought to be room for milk and cookies too.

  Marcy hadn’t noticed the exchange. Busily writing in a leather-bound notebook, she seemed wholly absorbed. I reminded her of the adjourned date, then I brought up another item that was on my mind. I’d done some thinking since my visit to Todd Lessek. I was still convinced he was one of Linda’s blackmail victims, but I had to admit I didn’t know what he’d done. One thing I did know was that Linda, the real-estate professional, would never have made the mistake I’d made, thinking Lessek bribed his way into city funds he was entitled to as of right. Conclusion: Somewhere there was a second envelope of blackmail material, and it contained the real goods on Lessek. I wanted it. I wanted to be able to go back to that flashcube penthouse of his and confront him with something that wouldn’t make him laugh, something he’d have to take seriously.

  “Marcy,” I began, “did Linda ever give you any papers to keep for her? A manila envelope, maybe?”

  “You mean,” she asked, a frown appearing on her well-made-up features, “something to do with the estate? Insurance policies?”

  “I’m not exactly sure,” I said with truth, if not candor, “I just think there’s something that ought to be with her other papers but isn’t. I thought of you,” I went on, a little lamely, “because it’s something she wouldn’t have trusted to just anyone.”

  “Then she wouldn’t have trusted me,” came the decisive reply. If the reflection hurt, she didn’t show it. “She wasn’t a truster, Linda. Especially of other women.”

  I nodded; I’d seen that myself when I’d offered to store her valuables in my safe after her first break-in. She hadn’t said in so many words that she thought I’d snoop, but I sensed her suspicion when she declined the offer.

  “Was there anybody she might have trusted?” I asked. It was a long shot, but there was no one else for me to ask. If I came up empty with Marcy, it was dead-end city.

  The answer was a long time coming. Marcy seemed distracted, focused on something else. I got the impression the answer had been clear to her all along, but that she didn’t want to admit it.

  “Harry,” she said at last, distaste in her voice. “Linda’s father. Mine too, but Linda was Daddy’s girl. Linda worshiped him—God knows why. He’s never been anything but a—” she broke off, biting her lip. “She might have given something to him.”

  “Do you think you could ask him about it?” I tried to suppress the eagerness I felt. The dead end had opened up unexpected pathways. “That is, if you see him.”

  “I really don’t like to ask him for anything,” Marcy said, but then she relented. “I take Dawn to see him sometimes. I could mention it.”

  “Thanks,” I said, wondering how I was going to tell Marcy the truth about her sister’s “insurance policies.”

  It was only noon; I decided on a quick foray across Adams Street to the Supreme Court. My chances of getting my case called were not large, but I could check in with the clerks and reassure my clients. I was zipping up my down coat when a social worker I knew slightly ran up to me. She was out of breath, but looked triumphant.

  “You’re still here!” she said brightly. “Thank goodness; we need you in Part 7 right away.”

  I frowned. “I don’t have anything in that part.”

  “Oh, I know that,” she said, almost grabbing my sleeve in her eagerness to keep me in the building, “but there’s a case the judge would like to assign you to, and she asked me to see if I could find you.” She fixed me with warm brown eyes that pleaded like a puppy’s. Her short hair was honey-blond, and her voice had a sprightly touch of the South. I’d seen her in court before, but where? And who was sitting in Part 7?

  I put two and two together and came up with Glenda Shute. Why else would the social worker say “the judge” instead of using a name? Usually when a judge calls in a favor, it’s because he or she has done something for you along the way, but that wasn’t the kind of arithmetic Glenda Shute understood. She knew damned well I wasn’t about to come running at the sound of her name.

  “Are you sure,” I asked warily, “that Judge Shute asked for me, Miss—”

  “Dechter,” the social worker replied, putting out a friendly hand. She had a good handshake. “Mickey Dechter.”

  I frowned. “I remember now,” I said, “the Morrissey case. The PINS petition. You backed me up when I told Shute the mother only wanted the kid declared a ‘person in need of supervision’ because the common-law husband didn’t want the kid around anymore.”

  She nodded, a conspiratorial grin flashing across her face. “You and the judge sure went at it.”

  “And now, having had second thoughts, Judge Shute wants to call me into her courtroom to apologize?”

  “Not exactly—”

  “Has she run out of court officers to do her personal errands?” I asked. I was beginning to get into this. “Does she want me to pick her kids up at school for her?”

  I got a wry smile and a shake of the head.

  “Then why does Ralph Shute’s princess daughter want me in her courtroom?”

  Mickey Dechter hung her head. “She doesn’t,” the social worker confessed. “I do. All the judge needs is a woman lawyer for this respondent who insists on being represented by a woman. But I think the mother needs more than that. I think she needs somebody who’ll really do a job for her, not just get on the railroad.”

  “What kind of a case are we talking about?” I was afraid I already knew the answer to that, and I was right.

  “Permanent neglect,” came the reply. “The child welfare agency wants to put her five kids up for adoption, and they’re trying to terminate her rights.”

  “Sounds delightful,” I said without enthusiasm. “I’m supposed to become the fifth lawyer she fires? I’m supposed to let myself be jerked round by Glenda, the wicked witch of Brooklyn? I’m supposed to voluntarily get myself up to my ass in social workers? No offense,” I added. But even as I spoke, my down coat was unzipping itself and my knit hat was shoving itself into a pocket and I was following the social worker through the labyrinth of hallways to Part 7.

  My better judgment was right. I regretted my rash act as soon as I saw my client. Arnette Pearson wore at least ten political buttons, each proclaiming a more militant proposition than the last. She also wore the belligerent
expression of someone who’s been fighting so many systems for so long, she has trouble distinguishing friend from foe. Or maybe everyone was a foe until they proved themselves otherwise. Which meant that was my first job—to demonstrate to my own client that I was on her side.

  It was a pleasure. I decided, out of the many ways I could accomplish this, to do it by picking a fight with the judge. It was two birds with one stone—show Arnette I was with her all the way, and show Glenda I wasn’t here to do her any favors.

  When I’d won my minor point, I stepped outside to talk to my new client. Judge Shute had grudgingly granted me a ten-minute recess, but I knew her well enough to know that she’d be on the phone politicking for a good twenty.

  “Hey, you were all right in there,” Arnette Pearson said, in a tone that sounded rough-edged. It could have been a whiskey voice or a heroin voice, but her eyes were full of judgment. She was weighing and measuring; so far I was all right, but her wary stance told me I was still on probation.

  She was small but solid. Her voice was deep, her words articulate, her face a weathered black mask. She wore what appeared to be a karate outfit, all in black, and her hair was arranged in the shoulder-length dreadlock style made popular by Whoopi Goldberg. She was a scary sight, and I bet Glenda Shute had already decided in one glance that she was no fit mother for her five kids.

  “Tell me about your kids,” I began conversationally. Her quick frown told me she wasn’t up for a chat. I switched to business. “How did they get into foster care in the first place?”

  “It was my mother’s fault,” Arnette replied defensively. “I left the kids with her for a while so I could get myself together, you dig. So I could think about my options, whether to go to school or get me a gig or what. When I came back, they was gone.” She shook her head, her wild-looking hair bobbing as though it had a life of its own.

  “This was all five kids?”

  “Not then. The first time it was only three—Tanika, Jomo, and Kamisha. The court gave me custody as soon as I came back that time. Then I had the twins, Kwame and Kwaku. Everything was cool for a while; they father was with me, you dig. But then he went south with his new woman, and I got restless again, so I left the kids with Mama and went to Philly with this dude I knew. When I came back, they was in foster care again. Damn!” She exploded, hitting the wall with her fist. Her face was distorted with rage; I was glad the other side wasn’t there to witness her anger. “I was so mad at that woman, I done give her a black eye. What she mean puttin’ my kids in foster homes?”

  “What did she tell you about it?”

  “She said she was too sick to keep ’em,” Arnette replied with narrow, suspicious eyes. “What kind of grandmamma gets too sick to care for her grandbabies? She did it to spite me, on account of she never like Jerome—that’s the dude I be with, you dig. She just gettin’ back at me for goin’ off with him. That’s all they was behind her puttin’ the kids in foster care, is all.”

  There were a lot of things I could have said to that, but the time was ripe for none of them. I wasn’t sure, looking at my client’s intransigent, outthrust jaw, that it ever would be.

  “Then the social workers done started in on me,” she went on, “like they sittin’ in judgment, callin’ me a bad mother. They sayin’ I ‘fail to plan.’ Damn social-work bullshit is all that is. How’m I gonna plan when welfare won’t give me the money for a bigger apartment without I got the kids home with me, and they won’t give me the kids unless I got a place to keep ’em?”

  “That’s a problem, all right,” I agreed.

  “Thank you,” she answered with satisfaction. “I don’t know why them high-toned bitches at the agency can’t see that, but it’s true. True as I stand here. All I wanted was to take my kids home with me, but every time I went to that agency, all I got was more bullshit. I got so tired behind that, I stopped goin’. They was puttin’ me through too many changes. Next thing I know, I was in court and they talkin’ about permanent neglect and takin’ my kids away forever. Now I can’t even visit no more. Fuckin’ bullshit social workers!”

  There wasn’t a tear anywhere near her eyes or her voice, and yet, somehow, the pain came through clearly. Her anger was palpable, but so was the sense of loss. “Do you want me to try to get your visitation rights back?” I asked.

  “Damn straight,” came the reply. “And that’s just for starters, you dig.”

  Back in the courtroom, I noted that the Hon. Glenda was engaged in conversation with the agency’s lawyer, another dress-for-success type who could have passed for an oversized Marcy Sheldon. I bet forty-hour workweeks were unknown to her too. She smiled a lipsticked smile and promised me full access to Arnette’s copious records any time I cared to come to her office in Lower Manhattan. I thanked her and took her card. It was all very ladylike, and I hated to turn it into a street brawl, but as the great Mao said, a revolution is not a tea party. And for Arnette to have the slightest chance of winning her case, at least a revolution would be necessary.

  I started right in on the visitation issue, painting to the court a picture of my client as a bereaved mother, deprived finally of the only solace she had since she had been unable to meet the agency’s requirements for regaining custody. My touching portrait might have been helped by my client’s looking less like somebody you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley, but it was good for openers.

  The agency lawyer’s tone was more-in-sorrow-than-anger as she outlined to the court the reasons why Arnette’s visits had been stopped. First there had been the time she showed up high. Then the time Jerome had accompanied her—armed with a loaded pistol. The words “disruptive,” “argumentative,” “disturbing influence on the children” began to creep into the conversation. On one memorable occasion, Arnette had punched a social worker during a visit. As if all that weren’t enough, she finished with a clincher. “After each of her visits, Your Honor,” she purred, “one of the twins, Kwame, invariably wets his bed.”

  “He always had that problem,” Arnette muttered. “It ain’t my fault he still doin’ it.”

  “How old is he?” I whispered.

  “Be nine next birthday.”

  A topic better left undiscussed, I decided, and went back to the generalized platitudes about a mother’s rights. I tried to point out the strain Arnette had been under during the visits, and the fact that she wasn’t responsible for what Jerome brought to the agency. I knew none of it would impress Glenda; she and the agency lawyer were probably meeting for lunch after the court day, but I wanted Arnette to see me in there slugging.

  The agency lawyer surprised me by pointing to several lengthy time periods—the longest fifteen months—during which Arnette didn’t visit at all. “So much,” the lawyer concluded with a tartness that also surprised me, “for this mother’s burning need to see her children.”

  End of argument. An adjourned date was set, but no change in visitation was granted. It didn’t mean the war was over, but it was a larger battle than I really wanted, or could afford, to lose.

  Outside in the hall, I had a more antagonistic opponent to face. My client stood, feet apart, looking for all the world like a karate expert about to slice a board in two. Her mouth was set and her eyes burned. She wanted an explanation, and she wanted it fast.

  She wasn’t going to get it. We had to settle a few things between us, and one of them was that I wasn’t afraid of her and I wasn’t taking her orders any more than I was taking Glenda’s. I had to shift the emphasis from my failure to get visitation to her failure to tell me the whole story.

  “Well, that was a lot of fun,” I said sarcastically. “I always love getting bad news from the other side first. Especially in front of the judge. It makes my job so much easier.”

  “What you talkin’ about?”

  “I’m talking about why you didn’t visit for fifteen months! Do you think it looks good to tell the judge how much you care about your kids when you didn’t even bother to see them for over a ye
ar?”

  She opened her mouth to retort, but I cut her off. “And don’t give me any bullshit about how they put you through changes. I know what they do, but anybody who really wants their kids puts up with it. At least they get to see their kids. They don’t just walk away.”

  “Easy for you to say,” she said sullenly. “You don’t be sittin’ there havin’ them look at you like dirt. You don’t be in the office lookin’ at your own kids watchin’ you like you was a stranger. With them so-call foster mothers right in the room and one of them be callin’ to my child, ‘Come to Mama.’ Ain’t nobody say to my baby ‘Come to Mama’ except me, you dig. That’s why I hit that lady that time. It just hurt me so bad to see Kwaku callin’ somebody else Mama like he done. He don’t know no better, but that social-worker bitch did.”

  “And that’s why you stopped visiting?”

  She ducked her head and something like shame crossed her face.

  “I didn’t mean to hit her,” she said. “I just got so crazy. I was afraid I might freak out again, and don’t know what I’d do, you dig?”

  I nodded. “I see your point,” I said. The truth was, the way she described the visitation shocked me. In an office, with the foster mother present. No wonder Kwame had wet the bed—torn between two “mothers,” each urging him to favor her over the other.

  Arnette looked up, determination and anger back in their accustomed places on her face. “Talk’s cheap, lawyer,” she said. “Next time, I want to see some action, you dig.” She turned and walked away, her dreadlocks bouncing, her stride masculine and intimidating.

  For once I wasn’t alone as I watched a client walk toward the courthouse elevators. I sensed Mickey Dechter’s presence before either of us said a word.

  “Some wonderful case you got me into,” I grumbled, looking at her out of the corner of my eye.

  She shrugged. “Hey, you know how it is,” she answered in a mock-tough tone. Then she grinned. “It’s a tough business,” we both said at once, and then shared the laugh that followed.