by David Ellis
They were at a celebratory dinner—Alex’s idea—after Shelly had represented him at his disciplinary hearing. As it turned out, Shelly felt that her presence had hardly been necessary; the school administrators were quite fond of Alex and simply wanted to give him a brief, in-school suspension for his hallway fight.
“What’s it like, then?” she asked. “How is your method of drug dealing different from everyone else’s?”
Shelly expected hemming and hawing, rationales and excuses, reluctantly imparted nuggets of information. But Alex, without hesitation, laid out his story for her. There were a couple of guys at work, he said—professionals, investment bankers at McHenry Stern, where Alex worked as a runner, a mailboy. “Smart, educated, rich guys,” he said. “More money in a week than I’ve ever seen.” They partied, these gentlemen, did some cocaine on the weekends as recreation. “Five, six grams a week, tops,” Alex promised. “It’s side money for me. That’s it. It’s not like I work the streets or anything. I don’t sell it to junkies or children or anything. I’m, like, a middleman.”
“That’s an awful risk,” Shelly said, “for a little side money. What do you need that money for?”
“For Angela,” he answered easily.
“Angela’s your girlfriend?”
“Angela’s my daughter.”
The door to the room was solid wood, inscribed with the block letter C. Detective Montes pushed it open and allowed Shelly in. The detective walked over to a wire cage inside the room, where Alex Baniewicz sat on a steel bench bolted to the floor. The bench was centered so that one couldn’t use the wall as a backrest. There was little opportunity for comfort, which, apparently, was the point.
When Alex stood, she got her first full look at him and drew back. It was what she expected but it wasn’t, in some way; maybe there was no way to prepare oneself. His face, typically cast in an amused grin, was now clouded in grief and pain. Everything, in fact, was off—the coloring of his face, the life in his eyes, the line of his mouth, his posture. He was pale. His hair was oily and disheveled. He hadn’t shaved, probably hadn’t bathed since his arrest. He looked entirely out of place.
Little outward signs of a physical struggle. His cheek was bruised, his hands were scraped, but that wasn’t bad for someone accused of shooting a cop. Shelly thought that she’d like to see his ribs. Cops greatly preferred the midsection. Less visible and easier to explain away. That was one of the advantages of a one-piece jumpsuit like the one Alex wore—it would be difficult to take stock of bruises to the body. She could imagine their reaction when they came upon Alex, the boy they were sure had killed one of their own. She’d heard each officer was entitled to one “free one” if a suspect fled or resisted, a pop to the side of the head or the stomach; her mind raced at what might be fair game for a suspect who shot a cop.
“If we could get some privacy,” said Shelly to Detective Montes.
The detective reached for Alex and put him in a chair, locked his handcuffs down onto a small metal ring bolted to the steel table. “I’m ten feet from this door,” he cautioned. She wasn’t sure if the point was to warn Alex or assure Shelly.
She took the other chair, across from Alex. She fought back emotion, looking at a shadow of the boy she’d grown to like so much. A boy with so much potential, a young father with plans for college, a job—so much hope, suddenly looking at no future at all.
He was stopping. He’d promised.
“Alex,” she said softly. “You didn’t talk to them, did you?”
He shook his head no, without looking at her. That was something at least, that Alex had kept his mouth shut. Most of the kids Shelly represented were accustomed to talking their way out of jams and took every opportunity to explain their situation to the police, almost always worsening their position in the process. She recalled Simien Carlyle, who at age fifteen was the driver for three older boys who held up a convenience store and shot one of the clerks in the process. Simien explained to the police—truthfully, in Shelly’s opinion—that he didn’t know his co-conspirators had a gun, much less that they planned to use it. By the time Shelly reached the boy, it was too late to explain to him that, by virtue of the law of accountability, Simien’s admission to being the driver was the same thing as admitting he’d pulled the trigger.
“Not a word?” Shelly confirmed. “There was never a tape recorder or video camera? You never talked even to someone in another cell or anything?”
“I didn’t say anything,” said Alex, looking at her. “I’ve seen enough television.” He smiled briefly, and Shelly’s heart ached. This boy did not belong here. Not this one.
Shelly didn’t know where to start. Her throat was full. She swallowed hard and thought about what she could say. Her options ranged from asking him how he was holding up to offering him a mint. Nothing seemed to make sense.
“I’ll help you any way I can,” she said quietly.
Alex remained still, his eyes downcast. When he spoke, his voice was drained of the typical resonance, the enthusiastic inflection. It was the shaky, weakened, deflated voice of a boy who had been beyond terror and back. “Talk to Ronnie,” he said. “And Mary Ellen. Can you do that? Tell them I’m—basically okay. Ronnie must be flipping out.”
She had so many questions. He was walking the streets with drugs? A weapon? He shot a police officer?
“Do you want to tell me?” she asked.
“Not now.” That was not a surprising answer. Not now had become Alex’s slogan of late, at least with Shelly. She didn’t know what had happened. They had been friends. He had confided in her. He was going to quit. He was going to find a way to support his daughter and attend college at the same time. And then—nothing. He shut her out. Didn’t return phone calls. Heartfelt, probing conversations replaced with distant small talk. What had happened over the last few months? Could she have helped him? Could she have prevented this?
“I want you to listen to me,” she said, trying to overcome a tremble in her voice. “There is no such thing as casual conversation in here. Everything you say, they are listening, and they will use it against you. Don’t talk to the guards. Don’t talk to someone in the cell next to you. They’ll try all those tricks, Alex, and they’re allowed to do it.”
“Don’t talk,” he repeated. “I can handle that.”
“I’ll go see Ronnie. And we’ll figure something out.”
After a few choice words for Detective Montes, reminding him that her client now had a lawyer and would not answer questions, she made it out of the police station. She exhaled as if she had been holding her breath for the last hour. She felt so helpless and confused. This simply didn’t make sense. Alex Baniewicz—if she knew this boy at all, if she had even the slightest ability to read a person’s character—could not have shot a police officer or anyone else.
There were a handful of reporters outside the police station. Print media, she thought; they weren’t made-up and had no microphones. They knew her name, which meant that they had contacts inside who gave up the name of the lawyer who had signed in to visit the cop killer. She begged off comment, which was tougher than she’d have thought.
She eventually crossed the street to the parking garage. She had parked on the ground level and saw, even before she entered, two men sitting in a car with their eyes on her. They eased out of their sedan and moved near her car.
Shelly sized them up, their build, any infirmities, which hand was dominant, her proximity to cars, people, a weapon. One was tall with thinning blond hair, a soft stomach, wouldn’t withstand a kick to the midsection. The shorter guy was muscle-bound, stronger than Shelly; she’d have to go for the face. She looked into her car quickly, then unlocked the driver-side door for easy access. Her fingers laced through her keys until her fist held several metal spikes. Then she straightened up and looked them in the eye. Always look them in the eye.
But they were no threat. They were two grim-looking men but they weren’t looking for a fight. The taller one, i
n fact, seemed to sense Shelly’s trepidation and raised a hand. He even addressed her by name, which told her all she needed to know. They knew her name and knew she was here.
“Special Agent Donovan Peters,” said the tall man. He nodded toward his shorter colleague, the weight lifter. “This is Assistant United States Attorney Jerod Romero.”
She held out her hand for their credentials. After she verified their authenticity—as best she could, anyway—she looked up at them. “Okay. What do you want?”
But she knew the answer, and she was beginning to understand more than a few things. They wanted to talk about Alex. She was about to learn why she hadn’t heard from Alex for the last several months.
4
Never
SEE THE PERFECT family. She sees it from the threshold of the kitchen, looking in on the family after she has excused herself from dinner. Not feeling well, she told them, which was certainly true, but instead of taking the stairs to her room, she has sneaked back to look in on them.
How can she tell them?
The four of them are there. Edgar, the eldest, seven years her senior, who has graduated from school out east and is now completing a master’s degree in public policy, looking more like Daddy every day, the same thick, cereal-colored hair, prominent nose, squared jaw. He sounds like Daddy, too, if you close your eyes and listen. Thomas, still an undergraduate out east as well, takes after Mother, a smaller nose, darker eyes, wispy light hair. Mother is there as well—Abby is her name—her sweet, round face and soothing voice, her blond cropped hair, watching Daddy with such dreams in her sparkling green eyes.
And Daddy, so proud as he watches his boys, as he dreams of greater things. He is a strong man raising strong men—and a lovely young daughter, a sweet, innocent little daughter! So aggressive and confident in all he does, the conviction with which he speaks, the old-school discipline with the boys, even the way he eats—mixing all of his food together, “like a dog’s breakfast,” before shoveling it all into his mouth.
It has been four weeks since it happened. Twenty-eight days. The incident in the city. The rape, yes, it was rape, no matter what anyone said! And now this. Four weeks, two positive home tests, one missed period. She is only sixteen years old and this.
How can she tell them? How, when her brothers are talking about master’s degrees and girlfriends, her father has some exciting news of his own, her mother is so proud of all the men in her family?
The answer is obvious. She can’t tell them. Not ever. They will never, they can never, ever know that the baby girl of the family, the darling princess, is pregnant.
5
Pinch
“WE PICKED UP Alex Baniewicz in December of last year.” Special Agent Donovan Peters pushed a file in front of Shelly. They were sitting in the federal building downtown, in a small conference room with a view of the state courthouse. The room, she thought, was quintessentially government—cheap furniture, modest artwork that seemingly was placed there only because something was supposed to go on the wall, thin carpeting of no discernible color.
Shelly opened the manila file before her. Her heart sank as she viewed a mug shot of Alex, a black-and-white photo clipped to one side of the file. A summary report written by another federal agent was on the opposite page, explaining that, on December 5, 2003, Alex Gerhard Baniewicz was arrested in possession of seventy-four grams of powder cocaine.
She closed her eyes. Oh, how it must look to the government. Seventy-four grams of cocaine! He looked like your run-of-the-mill purveyor of drugs. She wanted to come forth with excuses, that Alex only sold small quantities to some wealthy professionals, not children or junkies. She imagined that Alex had made the same excuses to the federal authorities. The excuses, of course, were no excuses at all. And worse yet, Shelly realized with a shot to her gut, she couldn’t even be sure they were true.
“You didn’t know,” Peters said to Shelly.
No, she certainly did not know. She thought back to the time she had spent with Alex over the last year, tried to connect conversations and dinners to specific dates. It all made sense. Beginning of December, end of November—that had been when Alex cut off contact with her. She could recall nothing since December 5, with the exception of her trip to his house in early January this year, after she hadn’t heard from him for six weeks. She could see from the way he had looked at her then—or rather, hadn’t looked at her, had cast his eyes downward, stuffed his hands in his pocket, as he’d stood in the doorway of his house. Something had happened. He wouldn’t tell her what. Just some things I gotta take care of, he’d said then. You shouldn’t be here, he’d warned. What could Shelly do? She couldn’t make him tell her. All she could do was offer to help.
“I take it he cut a deal,” she said, realizing that she was exposing her ignorance. But that was the least of her worries. She felt so many things at the moment, including a betrayal that these men seemed to know more about Alex than she did.
The prosecutor, Jerod Romero, looked stronger with his coat off. He was an intense man. He was standing behind Peters with his arms folded. “He cooperated, yes.”
That was common enough. Catch a drug dealer and flip him, use him to catch people higher up on the chain. She looked through the file and found it, the letter of cooperation. In a circumstance like this, the U.S. Attorney’s office didn’t usually arrest and charge the suspect, because if they did, they would be required to put him before a judge in less than twenty-four hours for an initial appearance. That would expose the arrestee publicly, which was precisely the opposite of what the federal government wanted if they were going to use the suspect as an undercover informant. Instead, the U.S. Attorney’s office had signed Alex to a letter of cooperation, in which he was informed that he was the target of a federal investigation and that he might later be arrested and charged with possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance. Alex, through the letter, agreed to cooperate and was guaranteed only that such cooperation, if it came to fruition, would be made known to the judge at his sentencing. Alex also had to agree not to violate any local, state, or federal law during this time—except, of course, under circumstances controlled by the feds—and to inform the federal government if he was going to leave the jurisdiction.
She moved the file away and looked at the men. “Okay. So?”
Romero began to pace. “So, we are in the midst of an operation that is bearing fruit. We expect to bring dozens of indictments.”
“But we’re not ready,” said Peters.
Shelly’s heart raced. Dozens of indictments? That didn’t jibe. Alex only had a couple of contacts at work to whom he sold drugs. Those people, and maybe Alex’s supplier, didn’t add up to dozens of indictments. “Okay,” she repeated. “So?”
Romero leaned onto the table, facing her. “So it’s bad enough that he’s out of operation now. We’ve already lost a valuable asset out there. We were hoping to contain the damage.”
Shelly nodded. “Okay, I’m a slow learner. You don’t want Alex testifying in open court that he is working for the G. Anyone who’s been in contact with Alex will know they’ve been targets.”
Peters, the F.B.I. agent, lifted a shoulder, as if Shelly were only half right. “It could endanger the whole operation. It could place the lives of undercover federal agents at risk.”
“That’s what I don’t get,” said Shelly. “What does the one have to do with the other? What does your federal investigation have to do with the shooting of this police off—”
She froze. The men across from her, now both seated, cast glances at each other and then at her. They were calculating what to reveal, and they seemed to understand that Shelly had figured it out herself. They also had probably calculated, correctly so, that she could get much of this information from her client, Alex Baniewicz.
“Cops,” she said. “You guys were investigating cops. A drug ring of cops.” She stuck an index finger into the table. “Including this one here. The one Alex is accuse
d of shooting.”
Romero opened his hands, then brought them together.
“Alex was helping you take down a dirty cop.” She looked at them for confirmation. Their lack of a response was sufficient. “And—this cop found out, didn’t he? He found out Alex was working for you and he tried to silence him.” She looked at them again. “Am I getting warm?”
“That’s all speculation,” said Peters. “Every single thing that you have said, Counsel, cannot be proven. But we certainly expect that you might say it in court.”
Romero concurred. “We were assuming you’d be pleading self-defense.”
Shelly got out of her chair. She felt a surge of hope mixed with her confusion. She was playing catch-up but she was getting the picture now, and there might be a way out of this. Maybe. But it wasn’t going to happen right now. So she would keep mum about her intentions. This was time to be gathering, not giving, information.
“Has your client spoken with the police?” asked Peters.
She shook her head no. “He won’t.”
“That’s very important to us,” he said. “I need to know if my guys on the street are safe. If your client is flapping his mouth and word spreads, my guys are sitting ducks—”
“He’s not talking. He won’t.”
“We need your word on that,” said Jerod Romero. “Everything we’ve told you.”
Shelly looked out the window. “You need a lot from us, Mr. Romero. And it doesn’t come free. Let’s start talking about a deal, right now. And not just on this drug bust. I want a deal on this cop-shooting, too. I want the whole thing.”
“Understand that this is sensitive ground,” said the prosecutor. “The assistant county attorneys can be pretty tight with cops. We have to be very choosy about whom we share this with.”