Where Nobody Dies

by Carolyn Wheat

  “Somebody got busted?” I asked sleepily. He nodded.

  “What kind of case?”

  “Drugs,” he replied, then frowned. “Don’t ask too many questions, Cass. For your own good.” He took his clothes into the bathroom and I put mine on in the bedroom.

  Matt Riordan’s compulsive secrecy about his clients had surprised me at first. Legal Aid lawyers routinely discussed cases, partly to seek advice from colleagues and partly just to let off steam. I’d unconsciously expected the same from Matt. But his caseload and his clients weren’t society’s losers but its winners. Their doings were too dangerous to discuss lightly.

  I had to wonder sometimes why I continued to go out with a man whose secrets outnumbered by far the things he was willing to share with me. Large portions of Riordan’s life were sealed off behind a barbed-wire fence. No Trespassing signs were everywhere, posted in several languages. Why did I keep coming back? I shrugged an answer; in spite of all that very private property, I liked the view.

  Riding the subway at one A.M. didn’t provide many pleasures. But there was one. Scrawled on the place where the map would have been was a great piece of graffiti: Enola Gay, it read, the kiss she gives will never ever go away.

  Exhaustion hit when I got home. I fell into bed and slept like the dead until the phone woke me. It was the Daily News asking about Todd Lessek’s arrest. I groggily gave the details the reporter wanted, then fell back into oblivion. Another bell from hell. The Post this time. I did it again. What with one thing and another, I got about as much sleep as Lawrence Block’s insomniac spy, Evan Tanner.

  Eyes gritty and head heavy, I dragged myself out of bed. Afraid to turn on the news in case I was on it, I stood in a hot shower until I began to feel alive again, then got dressed for work. I stopped into my office to pick up files and check my answering machine, and was on my way out the door when the phone rang.

  It took a moment, in my fuzzy state, to recognize the thin, querulous voice. When I did, my heart sank. It was Hattie Hopkins, Terrell’s grandmother.

  “How could you do it?” she asked, her tone incredulous. “How could you let that boy plead guilty to something he didn’t do?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but Hattie hadn’t called to listen. “I suppose,” she said, “I didn’t have enough money for you to go to trial like I wanted. If I was a rich woman, my boy wouldn’t have to do time. He’d be home with me where he belongs, not locked up with animals.”

  “Mrs. Hopkins,” I finally raised my voice, “did Terrell tell you he was innocent?”

  “I know my boy,” she replied, a world of dignity in her tone. “He don’t like me to worry, so he told me a lie to spare my feelings. He told me he robbed that boy, but I don’t believe it for a minute. He just sayin’ that to make me accept that he’s going to be in jail. But I don’t accept it. I don’t accept it atall, and I don’t aim to pay for a lawyer to put my boy in jail instead of gettin’ him out like you should have done.”

  “Mrs. Hopkins …” I began, but the line was dead. I could sue her for my fee, I supposed, but I knew I wouldn’t. She’d suffer enough, I knew, riding the bus upstate once a month to see Terrell.

  I put down the phone with an exasperated clank. One more of life’s disappointments I had to deal with alone, I thought. Once upon a time, I’d have rushed straight into Nathan’s office or Flaherty’s cubicle at Legal Aid, poured out my tale of woe and received sympathetic advice. Or at least a smile and a reminder that it was, after all, a tough business.

  All through the court day, my one thought was of sleep. But even after the pleas were taken, the cases adjourned, the clients seen, I wasn’t on my way home to sink into the blessed warmth of my flannel sheets. Instead, I was riding the subway to lower Manhattan to visit the law firm that represented Richard Bower’s Services for Children, the agency bent on removing Arnette Pearson’s kids. Today, if I could keep my eyelids open, I’d see all the records in the case. I hoped there’d be something in the piles of papers that would help Arnette; otherwise, I’d be better off going home to bed.

  By a stroke of irony, the firm was located in the black building with the orange cube in front. It seemed as though years instead of days had passed since I’d met Elliott Pilcher there. Now that Lessek and Bellfield were under arrest, Elliott seemed a minor character, a walk-on in the drama of Linda Ritchie.

  The firm was huge; I walked through a rabbit warren of cubbyholes, each painted pearl-gray with a maroon trim on the woodwork. The secretary I was following deposited me in a sizable law library, brought out a sheaf of papers about the size of the national debt, and asked if I wanted coffee. I nodded with eager gratitude, then opened the file.

  The most recent reports were on top. I learned that the twins took classes with the Alvin Ailey school; Kwaku was regarded as a potential dancer, while Kwame came along to be with his brother. His talent was for basketball.

  I flashed to Arnette, living in an SRO hotel in Brooklyn Heights. Sure, she’d get a bigger place if she had her kids, but could she send Kwaku to dance class, buy basketball shoes for Kwame? Could she give them the other extras they got from their foster parents—a nice home in Queens, schools where the teachers actually taught, classmates who thought achievement was a good idea, not something to be put down? I frowned as I thought of Kwaku fighting his way to his dance classes, of Kwame’s basketball shoes being stolen from him at knifepoint. That was the reality behind the only life Arnette Pearson could give her kids.

  I finished my coffee and turned to the next report. No dance classes here. Instead, I had Jomo’s arrest record, Tanika’s history of running away, and a detailed account of a fight between Kamisha and her new foster mother’s niece. The end result was that the new foster mother, who’d had the kids for less than three months, had already petitioned the agency to remove them from her home. It was clear that the only reason the agency was holding off was that it looked better in Family Court to have all three older kids in one home. As soon as the agency won its case, the kids would be split—just as Mickey Dechter had predicted.

  Another cup of coffee and two hundred pages later, my eyelids were getting very heavy. My eyes felt like pickled onions and I could hardly see the words that swam in front of me. I had pages of notes, all of them depressing. I was down to the earliest reports, before the twins were born.

  And there it was. On March 14, 1976, Arnette Pearson begged her social worker for help. “Recipient made a request,” the report noted in welfarese, “for a homemaker to help her with her children. Recipient feels she is under a lot of pressure and may have to leave children alone if she is not assisted in the home.” There was a big red DENIED stamp over the report. But Arnette had asked and the agency had not responded. How could they go into court and convince a judge they’d done everything they could to “strengthen the natural family” when they’d denied Arnette Pearson a homemaker?

  Reverently, I lifted the paper and put it on a small pile to be Xeroxed by the secretary. If only, I found myself thinking, someone had listened to Arnette Pearson, if only she’d received a small part of the help, financial and otherwise, that the agency had given the foster parents, maybe she’d still have her kids.

  The thought nagged at me all the way home. The subway cars rattled, “if only”; I switched from the A train to the F at Jay Street and thought “if only.” I climbed the steps at the Bergen Street Station, pulling myself up by the banister, my head throbbing “if only.”

  If only I could go to bed! I needed sleep so badly it hurt. I could see myself climbing into my loft bed and losing myself in the warmth of my quilted comforter, but it wasn’t to be. I had a four o’clock appointment with Marcy Sheldon and Dawn for a strategy session.

  I could see them in my waiting room, sitting on separate couches, each reading a magazine. I schooled my features into a welcoming smile and walked through the door. Marcy greeted me with a nod and put down the New Yorker. Dawn neatly folded the tennis magazine she’d brought with
her and put it into her knapsack. They followed me silently into my office.

  Coats were taken, coffee was poured, and we all sat expectantly, waiting for someone to take the lead. It was, I knew, my job, but I was too tired to begin. Marcy Sheldon stepped into the breach, her voice cool.

  “I’ve looked into several schools,” she began, “and there’s one in particular that would be especially good for Dawn. It’s a Quaker school and has a very good reputation for sports as well as academics. They don’t usually take new students in mid-term, but they said they’d make an exception for Dawn.”

  “Sounds good,” I replied noncommittally. “It’s in Manhattan, I suppose.”

  There was a distinct hesitation before Marcy clipped out her reply. “No,” she said briskly, “it’s near Oneonta.”

  “My God,” I blurted out, exhaustion having destroyed all the tact cells in my brain, “that’s way the hell upstate.”

  “It’s a boarding school, of course,” Marcy snapped.

  “Are you crazy?” I was by now too angry as well as too tired to be polite. “Do you think a Brooklyn Family Court judge is going to give you custody of a child just so you can stick her in a boarding school somewhere?”

  Marcy’s face went white. Her lips tightened, and she spaced her words very carefully. “Briarwood is a very good school.”

  “I don’t care if it’s Harvard,” I shot back. “Look”—I spread my hands, trying for a more professional demeanor—“I’m talking as a lawyer here. We have to be realistic. I know Judge Bettinger, and I know he won’t buy it. You go into his courtroom talking boarding school and you’ll end up visiting Dawn on Sundays while she lives with Mrs. Ritchie. Is that what you want?”

  “I do,” a low, passionate voice cut in. I turned, surprised, to see Dawn, her face determined and her fists clenched. She shot her aunt a look of pure hatred, then fixed me with a direct stare. “I want to live with Grandma Ritchie,” she announced.

  20

  Although Dawn dropped her bombshell in a deliberately disciplined tone that echoed her aunt’s, she accompanied it with a defiant toss of her head. The pose in which she sat was definitely rebellious teenager, yet underneath I sensed a child who’d been too badly hurt by too many people.

  I was dimly aware that I’d handled the situation unprofessionally. Oh, the advice I’d given Marcy had been sound enough; I knew damned well Bettinger would deny us custody if Marcy proposed a boarding school in court. But the way I’d lashed out at her had been personal, not professional. It had been Dawn’s friend speaking, not Marcy’s lawyer. I promised myself I’d keep my roles straight in the future.

  It wasn’t easy. Dawn’s on-edge, ready-for-a-fight look was belied by her pallor, and the twisting, biting lips that showed her fear. What she needed was Marcy’s arms around her, Marcy reassuring her that she was wanted, that the boarding school had been a bad idea. What she got instead was flat denial. “No,” Marcy announced, fumbling in her purse for a cigarette. “You don’t really want to live with that woman. You’re just saying that because you’re angry.”

  “Don’t tell me what I want,” Dawn replied with studied insolence. “You don’t care what I want. You just want me out of the way. That’s why you want to put me in some shitty school.”

  “You know I don’t like you using that kind of language,” Marcy protested.

  “You’re not my mother!” Dawn countered, her lower lip thrust out. “She let me talk any way I want, so you can’t tell me what to do!”

  “If I’m going to be your guardian—” Marcy began. I could have told her she was asking for it.

  “But you’re not!” Dawn crowed in triumph. Yet her tone was brittle, and tears seemed closer than she would have admitted. “Is she, Cass? You said the judge wouldn’t let her send me to that shitty school.”

  “Briarwood is a lovely place,” Marcy replied. Her eyes had the pleading sincerity she used to sell her public-relations campaigns. “Miss Farley says the tennis program is excellent. She’s really looking forward to having you there.”

  I felt like I was losing control of the situation. Dawn was trying to use me against my own client, and Marcy was conducting a product promotion on a hurt twelve-year-old. On top of all that, my head throbbed, my eyes hurt, and my reflexes were as sound as old rubber bands.

  “I can’t believe,” Marcy went on, her tone more-in-sorrow-than-anger, “that you want to throw away a good opportunity to go and live with that silly old bitch in Bensonhurst.”

  “Who’s using bad language now?” Dawn taunted.

  “I want you to have the best,” Marcy said, reaching out her hands to where Dawn sat. “Your mother would have wanted it too, I’m sure of it. To get a good education, prepare for a good job. Meet the right kind of friends. I’m doing it for your own good.”

  “Bullshit!” Dawn cried, echoing my own thoughts. Her voice cracked, and the tears began to flow. “You don’t care about me! All you want is to get me out of the way so you can spend all your time at your stupid office and not feel guilty about leaving me alone!” Tears coursed down her cheeks and she caught her breath in gusty sobs that shook her whole frame. “You’re just like my mom, only she left me alone so she could go out with guys. You leave me alone to go to your shitty office.”

  Dawn’s next words were hard to understand. She buried her head in her arms like a little kid and sobbed her heart out. I finally understood one of the broken phrases that tumbled out of her. “I want my daddy,” she wailed.

  That got me on my feet. Guiding Dawn out of her chair, I led her upstairs, murmuring soothing but empty words. I had her lie down on my couch, put a box of Kleenex and a glass of water by her side, and went back downstairs to tell Marcy exactly what I thought of her.

  But I had to do it as a lawyer. Angry as I was, quick to identify with Dawn’s feelings of hurt and rejection, it was not my place to rake Marcy Sheldon over the coals as a bad aunt; I could counsel her only as a client about to make a strategic blunder.

  “I meant what I said, Marcy,” I began, taking my place behind the desk. “Judge Bettinger isn’t going to give you custody so you can put Dawn in a boarding school. It’s just not in the cards. Not in Brooklyn.”

  “Can we get the case transferred to Manhattan?” Marcy asked coolly.

  “It’s possible,” I admitted with reluctance. “Manhattan judges are more sophisticated. They might agree that Dawn’s educational needs would be served by a school like Briarwood. But there’s more to it than that. What about Mrs. Ritchie’s visitation rights? Or Brad’s, when he gets out of jail?”

  “When he gets out?” Marcy’s tone was sharp. “Don’t you mean if?”

  I waved away the point. “Whatever. What I’m saying is that Dawn needs more than just a good school. What she needs—especially now—is to feel a part of someone’s life, to feel important to and loved by somebody close to her.” The lawyer stepped out of the room while the human being pleaded. “She needs you, Marcy, not Briarwood.”

  My thoughts flew back to the day Linda was buried. For all the phone calls and drinks dates that made up the fabric of her life, Marcy Sheldon had stood alone as her only sister entered the ground. No friend or lover had appeared to support her. Was that the truth of her life, I wondered, that she had, at the end, only “contacts”? Did she feed off her business life as a substitute for intimacy?

  Marcy gazed out my window for a minute or two, taking in the cars creeping along Court Street, the black-edged city snowdrifts, the Middle Eastern restaurant across the street. Then she spoke. “It’s easy for you to talk,” she said. “It’s not your problem.”

  “God, I’m glad Dawn’s not here to hear this,” I exploded. “All she is to you is a problem? Marcy, answer me one question. Why do you want custody? Just to spite Ma Ritchie? Because if so, let me tell you one thing right now. That’s not good enough. Not for me. I can’t represent you if that’s what—”

  “What would you do?” Marcy interrupted with a hoarse sho
ut. Her face was distorted with anger; the mask was off. “What the hell would Cass Jameson, Miss Self-righteous, do if all of a sudden, after twenty years of living alone, you had a twelve-year-old girl on your hands? Would you close up your law office and go on welfare so you could stay home and play house with her?”

  “Nobody’s talking welfare here,” I shouted back. “Don’t set up straw men and then knock them down. If you’ve got the money for a boarding school, then you’ve got the money for a housekeeper or something.” I caught my breath and remembered Ma Ritchie’s promise to be there when Dawn came home from school. A housekeeper might not appeal to the good judge any more than a boarding school, I realized. Marcy was right; the choices were tough.

  I tried a fallback position. “Do you really have to work so many hours a week?” I asked, in a gentler tone.

  “If I want to be the best, I do,” came the reply. Her dark brown eyes gazed steadily at me, willing me to see her as she wanted to be seen: competent professional taking her future into her own hands, seeking no favors from the world. But there was something else, a hidden force that puzzled me until I recalled the last time Marcy and I had talked. I remembered the little girl who’d seen her mother abused and abandoned, her sister turned into a spoiled princess by a daddy indifferent to herself. What lay behind Marcy Sheldon’s cold calculation was naked fear.

  “It’s not schools, is it, Marcy?” I asked softly. “And it’s not really the number of hours you work. After all, you could work seven days a week for all I care, if you’d only turn to Dawn just once and tell her you love her. But that’s just what you can’t do. You can’t let Dawn or anyone else get close to you or they might see how vulnerable you really are.”

  Marcy sucked her cigarette, eyes staring blankly at the window. From the corner of one eye, a tear crept down her cheek. “Get fucked,” she muttered.