“Could you write her address and telephone number down for me now?”
“It’s Fifteen Demeter Avenue,” she said while writing on a piece of paper. “And this is her telephone number.” She handed the paper to Nick.
“You must know her pretty well—you didn’t have to look up her number.”
“I’m good with numbers. Now are we done?”
“Just a few more things,” Nick told her. He leaned forward in his chair. “During the course of our investigation we’ve learned that you had a woman staying with you a few days before Carl was murdered. Would that have been Ms. Verbinski?”
She hesitated momentarily. “No, it wasn’t Barbara.”
“Was this somebody else another friend, or a companion—”
“Just what are you implying, Detective?”
“I’m not implying anything, ma’am. I’m just asking a question.”
“Well then, yes, she was a friend.”
Nick had the commitment he needed. Now he could go to work. “Okay, she was a friend. What was her name?”
Angie didn’t hesitate. Nick knew she wouldn’t. Not yet. “Lois,” she replied.
“Lois what?”
“Barton. Lois Barton.”
“And how long have you and Lois known each other?”
“A while.”
“What does that mean—months, years?”
“Years, we’ve known each other for years. We’re good friends. Now if you two will just leave me alone, I need to get finished with my packing and get out of here.”
“I understand,” Nick said. “Just a couple more questions. Where does Lois live?”
Angie hesitated for the second time. Nick caught it right away. So did Tony, even though he didn’t seem to be concentrating all that hard on what she was saying. He was still trying to figure out if she was wearing a bra or not.
“Queens,” Angie finally replied.
“Where in Queens?”
“I don’t know. I can’t remember her address.”
“I guess she’s not as good a friend as Barbara?”
“No, she’s not.”
“How about her telephone number?”
“I don’t remember that either.”
“Do you have it written down?”
“Somewhere.”
“Could you get it for us?”
“Not right now.” Angie stood up abruptly. “Look, I’ve got work to do here. I’d like to sit around and chat but I don’t have time.”
Neither Nick nor Tony moved. “We’ll be leaving in a minute,” Nick said, maintaining his soft, calm tone. “Where does Lois work?”
Angie slumped back on the couch. “I don’t know. I don’t know,” she replied, and then she started to cry.
Nick waited a minute or so, then continued in the same tone.
“Angie, Tony and I are professionals. We’re not here to judge you. We’re investigating a murder and you are a witness in that murder investigation. We’re going to find the truth eventually, and if you don’t give it to us you may subject yourself to criminal penalties. I know you were not involved in this murder. So I’m advising you for your own good—tell us everything.”
Angie stared at her lap, silently crying. Tony, the other professional in the room, waited anxiously to hear the exotic details of Angie and Lois Barton’s relationship. Nick had broken her down very quickly and very skillfully. Most cops would have tried to intimidate her and would have gotten nowhere.
“You have no idea what it’s like being alone all the time,” Angie began when she had composed herself somewhat. “I couldn’t bring another man into the picture. That wouldn’t work. I met Lois at a local bar a couple of weeks before Carl’s murder. We went out a few times together before I invited her home. It was nice—much nicer than I thought it was going to be. I’d never been with a woman before. It seemed to be going so well. Then she just disappeared a few days before Carl was killed.”
“When was the last time you saw her?” Nick asked.
“It was at a bar called the Crooked Fence. It’s not far from here. I yelled at some creep who was trying to come on to me, and he left the bar and she left the bar right after him. I never saw her again.”
“Did she go after him?”
“I don’t know. She just said, ‘I’ll be right back’ and left.” Nick took Ralph Giglio’s sketch out of his pocket and placed it in front of Angie. “Do you recognize this man at all?”
Angie looked at the sketch and shrugged her shoulders. “No, not offhand.”
“Could he have been the man at the bar that you yelled at?”
“He could have been. To tell you the truth, I never really looked at the guy. I just told him to get lost. If he walked in this room right now, I probably wouldn’t recognize him.”
“Anything else that you can tell us that might help us in this investigation?”
“No, I don’t think so.” She seemed calmer now. “Wait a minute.” She sat up straight. “There was one other thing. I didn’t realize it until the next afternoon when I went shopping, but one of my credit cards was missing. I immediately called the credit card company and canceled it.”
Nick stole a glance at Tony to see if he’d caught the significance.
“Can you give us an old bill so we can get the card number?” he asked.
“Sure, I have it right here.” She started shuffling through some papers on the coffee table in front of her. “Here it is.” She handed a single piece of paper to Nick, who passed it over to Tony.
Nick turned back to her. “Angie, just one more question, I promise. Did you ever tell Lois about Carl?”
Angie hesitated once more. Nick waited. There was no need to go through his criminal penalties speech again. She was a sharp girl. She got it.
“I think I may have,” she finally told him.
“Did you tell her about the money and how he brought it?”
“I think so. She’d asked me how I could afford such a nice place. I was trying to be honest.”
Nick thanked her for her time as he and Tony stood up to leave. He needed to go back to the office and methodically fit the puzzle pieces together, but it appeared that Angie’s female lover might have been an accomplice in Carl Robertson’s death. He brought it up with Tony once they were in the car and moving.
“Run that credit card as soon as we get back.”
“Will do,” Tony replied. “How come you didn’t ask her to come down to the station to look at some pictures—see if she could identify the broad?”
“I figured it could wait a day or two. We pressured her enough today.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“So they were a team—the woman and this guy Paul and David identified.”
“It seems that way,” said Tony. “She got the information, he pulled the job. But why kill Robertson?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he tried to grab the gun?”
“There was no evidence of a struggle.”
“We’ll probably never know exactly what happened. Things just don’t add up, though. If they were a team, and if the shooter and the guy at the bar are the same person, what the hell was all that about at the bar—her running out after him? It doesn’t make sense.”
Tony didn’t have an answer for that one. And clearly, at the moment, neither did Nick.
15
Gregory Brown, one of the new black guys from north of the Ninety-sixth Street line of demarcation, was the fastest player on the team—maybe the fastest player the Lexingtons had ever had. Joe Sheffield, the coach, installed him as running back after his very first practice. Floyd Peters, another black kid, and Luis “Rico” Melendez, the Puerto Rican, were neck and neck in the sprints and a close second to Gregory. The next fastest was the biggest surprise—Johnny Tobin. Johnny had grown into his body in the last year, going from a gangly youth to a more coordinated, muscular athlete. As a consequence, his reflexes were quicker and he was a lot faster.
After thr
ee weeks of practicing and scrimmaging, the positions were set. Johnny secured a starting spot in the defensive backfield with Floyd Peters and Rico Melendez. Although he was speedy enough to stay with most receivers, Johnny initially had no idea how to play defensive back. Rico and Floyd took him under their wing.
“You gotta practice differently than the rest of the team,” Floyd told him. “You gotta practice running backwards and sideways without looking where you’re going.”
The three of them would go off by themselves and practice running backward on their toes and sideways with cross steps at full speed. They didn’t have the luxury of a defensive backfield coach so they coached themselves—at least, Rico and Floyd coached Johnny. He didn’t know where they’d learned their skills, but Rico and Floyd knew how to play. Floyd was Johnny’s height but thin and wiry. He could twist and turn his body in fluid motions like a ballet dancer. Rico was short, quick, and tough.
Rico was the tactician, and he worked Johnny every day on the fundamentals of playing defensive back. Floyd taught him how to make plays without getting hurt.
“If you want to last in this league, don’t meet everybody head on like that maniac,” Floyd said one day, pointing at Rico. “Catch them at an angle. If you hit a man from the side he goes down a lot easier and it’s a lot easier on you. Just don’t forget to wrap your arms—that’s the key. You gotta play tough but you gotta be smart about it too.”
Rico constantly pushed Johnny to be more aggressive.
“You got a nickname?” Rico asked him the Thursday before the first game.
“Kinda.”
“What is it?”
“They sometimes call me the Mayor of Lexington Avenue.”
“You? Why do they do that?”
“It’s a long story.”
Rico didn’t have time for a story. He was too busy teaching. “I call myself the Rico Kid. You know why?”
“Why?” Johnny asked.
“Because I have my turf, and nobody’s coming into the Rico Kid’s territory without getting hurt. You understand?”
Johnny nodded hesitantly. Rico filled in the blanks. “When we line up in the game on Saturday, you’ll be on the right side—you’ll always be on the right side. I’ll be on the left and Floyd will be in the middle. When you’re out there on that right side, you look at that field in front of you right up to the line of scrimmage and you say to yourself, ‘This is the Mayor’s turf. I own this place. Nobody’s catching a ball in here. Nobody’s coming in here without getting hurt.’ You got that?”
Johnny nodded. “I got it. But you’re not going to call me the Mayor from now on, are you? It’s a little embarrassing.”
“I hear you, man. I’ll tell you what. Off the field I’ll call you Johnny, but on the field you’re the Mayor. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough.”
The first game was at McCombs Dam Park across from Yankee Stadium. Their opponents were the Bronx Bears, whose uniforms matched those of the Chicago Bears—black shirts and white pants. They were big, and Johnny could tell they weren’t sticklers for the rules. They were all grown men in their late twenties and thirties.
The Lexingtons won the toss and elected to receive. Johnny was on the kick return team. Gregory Brown and Floyd stood back by the end zone ready to catch the ball, and Johnny and Rico were ten yards in front of them with Mikey and his brother Eddie; ten yards ahead of them were the linemen. It was a formation they had practiced for the first time on Thursday, for about five minutes. Johnny’s assignment was to find somebody to block after either Gregory or Floyd caught the ball. He was standing out there in his clean white jersey, nervous as hell, butterflies in his stomach, waiting for the referee to start the game. He tried to think about nothing else but finding a man to block.
The referee blew the whistle, the Bears kicker started toward the ball, and his teammates in unison began running downfield. Then the ball was in the air. At first Johnny kept his eyes on the wave of players coming down the field. He was supposed to pick up the ball’s line of flight so he could set up his block, so he briefly glanced up. But something was wrong: the ball wasn’t going over his head to the two guys back by the end zone. The kick was short, way short, and it was coming right at him. And so was everybody on the other team.
There was no time to think. He concentrated first on catching the ball, something Floyd had drilled into his head: “Catch it first, then look to see where you’re gonna run. If you don’t catch it, running is not going to be your problem.” Keeping his eyes glued to the ball, Johnny extended his hands and pulled it into his gut. Only then did he shift his gaze to the field in front of him.
The sideline looked open so he headed straight up the field. Johnny saw Doug Kline and Frankie O’Connor ahead of him, watched as they threw their blocks and then cut the opposite way into the hole they had cleared. Johnny got through, but there was nobody to block the next wave of tacklers. He tried to outrun them and did for another ten yards before he was brought down hard. In the pile, somebody punched him in the stomach. Somebody else welcomed him to opening day in the city league: “Pull that shit again, kid, and we’ll break your leg.” Johnny smiled to himself. Last year he would have been scared shitless. This year he was amused. The butterflies were gone.
He had gained thirty yards on the play. Everybody slapped him on the pads when he reached the sideline. “Way to go, Johnny.” “Good run, man!” It was a nice feeling. Rico and Floyd were the most excited. “The Mayor owns this turf!” Rico shouted.
On the next play, Gregory Brown sprinted around the left end for a touchdown. The game turned out to be a defensive struggle after that. The Lexingtons held the Bears scoreless and won six to nothing.
They celebrated that night at the Carlow East, one of the neighborhood bars. Johnny was the only one on the team who wasn’t eighteen. In fact, he had just turned seventeen that month.
“We can’t go drinking without the Mayor,” Frankie said when Johnny pointed out that he wasn’t legal. “Hell, he set up the winning touchdown.” Johnny felt like a million bucks.
The Carlow had a long bar to the right as you walked in the door. Halfway down the bar on the left was the men’s room. They walked in as a group and headed for the far end of the bar. As they passed the men’s room, Johnny slipped in. He stayed there while Mary McKenna, the bar owner, checked everybody’s identification. Ten minutes later, Jimmy Walsh, the white kid from north of Ninety-sixth Street, came in and handed Johnny his driver’s license. The hope was that Mary wouldn’t notice that she hadn’t proofed Johnny, but if she did, he’d have Jimmy’s license; they looked enough alike for it to work.
The plan worked. Mary never did card Johnny, probably because she was too distracted by the makeup of the group and the reaction it was receiving from the other patrons. Even though the whole team didn’t show up, there were still three blacks and a Puerto Rican in an Irish bar. The regular patrons didn’t take kindly to that, and there were some grumblings down the bar soon after the boys arrived. Johnny watched as Frankie O’Connor took over. He walked up and down the bar telling everybody about how the Lexingtons, the neighborhood team, had just won their first game and how they were going to make the neighborhood proud by winning the city championship.
Pretty soon the whole bar was laughing and toasting the Lexingtons. The Carlow East had gone color-blind.
16
Hope was not something that flourished in the dim gray atmosphere of Florida’s death row. Hope could be as painful as execution itself. But that was exactly what Jack brought to Henry Wilson as they sat across from each other in the same room where they first met with the two guards in the corners behind Henry. Hope came in the form of a rough draft of a motion for a new trial and copies of the affidavits of Wofford Benton, Ted Griffin, and Anthony Webster. Henry pored over the documents, leaving Jack to sit, wait, and wonder if Henry was going to grab that last ray of hope that he was offering. Finally Henry spoke.
“This is very good w
ork, Counselor. In no time, you have uncovered evidence that nobody else could find—in seventeen years. But there are problems, aren’t there?”
“Yes,” Jack replied. He felt that Henry was baiting him a little.
“Let’s talk about the problems,” Henry began. “You’re not going to win on ineffective assistance of counsel. Nor are you going to win on newly discovered evidence.”
Jack wasn’t totally shocked. He knew death-row inmates had a lot of time on their hands, and many of them read court cases. It was the analysis—the direct, incisive pinpointing of the problems—that was surprising. “You’re right,” he replied. “We’re not going to win on ineffective assistance of counsel because—”
Henry interrupted him. “Because the case law is against you. This kind of mistake by defense counsel isn’t going to do it.”
“That’s right. And it’s probably not newly discovered evidence because—”
“—because my attorney could have found all of this evidence seventeen years ago if he had done his job correctly.”
Jack reluctantly had to agree. “You’re right again. So what we have left is . . .” Jack paused to see if Henry Wilson could answer the most important question.
“A Brady violation,” Henry said without hesitation. Jack looked at him in disbelief. In 1963, the Supreme Court of the United States had decided the case of Brady v. Maryland, which held that the state had a duty to disclose evidence favorable to the accused, and if the failure to disclose such evidence deprived the accused of a fair trial, then the accused was entitled to a new trial. It had taken Jack days of research to find the Brady decision and to realize it was Henry’s only realistic hope.
“What?” Henry finally asked Jack. “You’re speechless? What do you think I’ve been doing here for the last seventeen years, twiddling my thumbs? I knew the prosecutor held back stuff. I just needed somebody to find that evidence. I’ve read Brady so many times the ink on the pages is worn. I knew as the years rolled by that a Brady violation was going to be my only shot.”
“It’s still a long shot,” Jack warned. “A judge has to determine that you were deprived of a fair trial, and that’s a subjective evaluation.”
The Law of Second Chances Page 9