several outlets, and as a prisoner your stay was largely
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dependent on a combination of luck and just how many
criminals were waiting their turn before your case came
to the docket. Some ended up on Riker’s Island, but
many, like James Parker, were relegated to the facility
known affectionately as the Tombs.
The Tombs had actually been the name for several
locations over the years, beginning in 1838 back when
it was called the New York Halls of Justice and House
of Detention (or NYHOFJAHOD for short. No wonder
they called it the Tombs).
After numerous successful escapes and the dete
riorating quality of the cells themselves, the old building
was merged with the Criminal Court building on
Franklin Street, separated by what was called the Bridge
of Sighs.
In 1974 much of the old Tombs had finally been shut
down due to health concerns. Currently the Tombs
consists of two facilities connected by a pedestrian
bridge, with a prisoner capacity nearing nine hundred.
Ironically, in 2001 the Tombs were given the official
name of the Bernard B. Kerik Complex, though in 2006
after Kerik pled guilty to ethics violations (including
several violations of infamous book publisher Judith
Regan in an apartment near ground zero that was
supposed to be used for the rescue effort) the moniker
was removed.
Currently my father was awaiting a grand jury
hearing on the charges of first-degree murder. Accord
ing to Amanda, the prosecution was surely in the
process of collecting evidence to convince the jury that
there was “reasonable cause to believe” that my father
might have killed Stephen Gaines. We both admitted the
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likelihood of a trial at this point, so time was becoming
more and more precious. We had interlocked several
pieces, but we couldn’t see the whole puzzle.
The 4 train took us to Canal Street. For some reason,
passing by the massive pillars and intricate scrollwork
adorning the Supreme Court building reminded me I
hadn’t yet served jury duty since arriving in New York
a few years ago. I could already imagine the tremendous
sense of irony I would feel upon signing that jury slip.
Maybe if I was lucky it’d be juror appreciation day. Get
a free coffee mug and everything. Leave this mess with
something memorable.
The Manhattan Criminal Courthouse towered above
the city skyscape, with four towers encircling a larger
center with floors in decreasing size, as though you
were viewing a staircase to the sky. In front were two
massive granite columns, and the whole structure was
designed in an art deco-style.
We entered the lobby through glass doors and made
our way to the security stand. We showed our identifi
cation, which the security guard scrutinized intensely
and matched to his logbook before writing us passes.
After that we passed through a series of metal detectors
and, after a search of my bag and Amanda’s purse, we
were headed toward the Manhattan Detention Complex,
aka the Tombs.
A tall guard in a neatly pressed blue uniform accom
panied us to an elevator that looked like it was built into
a brick wall. I noticed he did not have a gun on his
holster. Instead, there was a Taser, a can of Mace and a
thin cylinder about a half inch in diameter and six inches
long. The guard noticed I was staring at it.
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“Expandable baton,” he said. “Officers have been
complaining about the longer ones for years. They’re
heavy as my mother-in-law and an incredible nuisance.
These puppies are compact and pack a hell of a punch.”
“Can I try it?”
“No.”
We got on the elevator and the guard pressed Down.
We waited just a few moments before the doors opened
up.
“Not a lot of elevator traffic,” I said.
“Anytime I see the elevator going up from the lower
levels and I’m not in it,” he said, “we’ve got problems.”
“I hope that’s not a regular occurrence.”
He didn’t answer me. I’d begun to get used to people
tuning me out.
By staring straight ahead I wasn’t sure if he thought
that was a stupid statement, or one that struck a nerve.
As much as I hated embarrassing myself with silly
comments, I hope it was the former.
Once the elevator opened, the guard led us through
a long, musty tunnel. At the end was a series of metal
bars, not unlike those on an actual jail cell. Beyond we
could see several more guards, and the unmistakable
orange of prison jumpsuits. The guard took a key card
from his pocket, slid it onto a keypad and unlocked the
door. Opening it, the guard ushered us into a smaller
room lined with metal benches. Guards took both of our
bags and patted us down. Guards with shotguns and
handcuffs adorned the walls, their eyes traveling the
length of the room and back again, dispassionate.
Security cameras with weapons.
We sat down at a table at the end of the room. There
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were two other people seated at a table twenty feet from
us. An older balding man wearing an orange prison
jumpsuit, thick glasses and a thick paunch sat, chin in
his hands, while a bejeweled woman many years
younger (with many half-priced plastic surgeries under
her belt) rattled on about something the man couldn’t
have seemed less interested in. In fact, he looked
slightly relieved that he would end the night in his cell
as opposed to in bed next to her.
We sat waiting. I wanted to take Amanda’s hand. Felt
like I needed to hold on to something that was right.
Being here in this place accentuated my simple need to
feel like I was a part of something wholesome and decent.
Amanda represented everything I had in that department.
Soon I heard a jangling of chains, and my father
appeared behind a set of metal doors. Two guards were
poised on either side of him. They looked somewhat
disinterested, but the tense muscles in their forearms
told me differently.
They led him over to our table, hands under his
elbows as he struggled to walk with chains binding
both his wrists and ankles.
Finally he took a seat across from us, and I could see
what this place had done to him.
My father looked pale. Thin, reedy. He was never a
very muscular man, but any tone he had seemed to have
dissipated over the last week. His hair was stringy and
looked unwashed. His eyes wandered around the room.
They looked scared, as though he expected something
or someone to jump out of the shadows.
I wondered just what kind of hell this man was
enduring here
.
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Part of me, and man I wished I didn’t feel this way,
wondered if it was penance.
“Henry, good to see you, son.” He smiled weakly as
he said this, and I knew he meant it. Those were the
warmest words my father had spoken to me since…I
couldn’t recall when. And it was a shame they came
under these circumstances.
“How you holding up?”
He made a psh sound and leaned back. “S’not so bad.
You see all those movies where guys get gang-raped in
the shower and they’re all getting stabbed waiting on
line for food.”
“Nobody’s tried to hurt you, have they?” Amanda
asked.
“No…well, one guy did get stabbed in the shower,
but I didn’t know him.”
My mouth dropped as Amanda looked at me. “We
need to get you out of here,” I said.
“Well, what in the hell is taking you so long?” he
shouted. The other couple turned and started. I heard a
rustling as two guards moved closer. He looked at them
and shrank back. Suddenly the warmth was gone. This
was the man I grew up with. But that didn’t mean he
was a murderer.
“We’re working on it,” I said.
“How’s your attorney?” Amanda asked. “Has he
been to see you regularly?”
“He’s been down here two or three times. How the
heck should I know if he’s any good?” my father
seethed. “I mean, he knows more about this legal stuff
than me, but so does the janitor here. He could be the
smartest damn lawyer in New York or the dumbest and
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I wouldn’t know the difference between him and the
Maytag repairman.”
“What’s his name?” she asked.
“Marvin something. Marvin Fleischman.”
She shook her head. “Don’t know him.”
“Have you spoken to Mom?” I asked.
“Once,” he said. “Her sister drove in from Seattle.”
“She didn’t want to be here?”
“I wouldn’t let her be here,” he said.
“If you’re worried about the money, she could stay
with me,” I said.
“She’s not here because I don’t want her to be. The
house won’t take care of itself. Bills don’t send their
own checks.”
“People can help you and her, Dad.”
“We don’t need people. We’re fine.”
“Clearly.”
“These public defenders,” my father said. “Do they
know their ass from their elbow?”
“Depends,” she replied. “A lot of lawyers go the PD
route because they believe everyone deserves a fair trial
and good representation. Believe it or not, a lot of
lawyers enter the profession for the nobility of it. Of
course, a lot of them go the PD route because it’s a guar
anteed paycheck, as opposed to private practice where
you run the risk of getting stiffed on your bill by a client
who can’t pay. And…” She trailed off.
“And what?” James Parker said.
“And some of them, well, let’s just say that govern
ment work does not always attract the best and the
brightest.” My father slumped into his chair. I got the
feeling he thought this Marvin Fleischman fit the latter
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category. “But seriously, Mr. Parker, every lawyer is dif
ferent. You could get great representation from a PD.”
“So,” I said, “let’s hope you got a guy who graduated
from Harvard Law with a summa cum laude in nobility.”
The noise my dad made said he wasn’t quite expect
ing that to be the case.
“Listen, Dad,” I said, “we’ve found out a lot. About
Stephen, his family. I think he was mixed up in some
pretty bad stuff.”
“You’re telling me. Remember, I knew that mother
of his.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that unless Helen
Gaines was a junkie back in Bend, she’d only gotten
worse. Two peas in a pod, her and James Parker.
I filled him in on what we did know. About Helen
and Beth-Ann Downing. About Rose Keller, and the
Vinnie brigade.
“We need to know more about the night you saw
them,” I said. “We know Helen wanted money from
you, and she told you it was for rehab, but I don’t think
that’s the case. Think about your conversation with
Helen. Specific words. Gestures. Clues that might give
us a lead as to where the money would actually be
going, or what was running through Helen’s mind when
you saw her.”
He rubbed his head, either thinking very hard or
working very hard not to think. “Henry, it was a rough
night. I remember the big things. The gun, this woman
I hadn’t seen in years looking like she was hopped up
on something.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, I’m not a doctor. But her eyes were
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red as all hell and she had a bad cough. That girl was
not in good shape.”
I looked at Amanda. That would jibe with the pos
sibility that Helen was still using.
“Anything else?” I asked.
He tapped his thumb against his cheek, tongue
flicking against his upper lip. “One thing seemed
strange,” he said. “Helen.”
“You mean besides the jitters and the gun? What
about her?”
“She was a mess, but she was scared, too,” my father
said. “And not of me. Kept looking around, like
someone could burst through the door at any moment.
I could tell from her eyes something was wrong. Now,
does that make sense? She wants to check her son into
rehab, seems to me that’d be a cause to have hope, you
know, these two chuckleheads finally getting their act
together. But Helen wasn’t like that. When she didn’t
think I was going to give her the money, she just…
freaked out.”
“Maybe that’s why she took the gun out,” Amanda
said. “She was worried that if she didn’t get the money
from you something terrible was going to happen.”
“What?” my father asked.
“I don’t know, but you’re right about her being
scared. Granted, I’ve never been to rehab, but you’d
think fright isn’t the number-one emotion running
through a mother’s head when helping her son. Unless
she was scared of you. Is that possible?”
“Oh, she was scared of me at the end of the night,
I’ll say that, but this was there when I got to the apart
ment. Something else scared Helen.”
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Amanda said, “I’d be surprised if what scared Helen
didn’t kill her son.”
We both looked at her, knowing she was on the
money.
Turning back to my father, I said, “Please, Dad, think
hard. Did she say anything, anything at all that could
give you
a clue as to what she was afraid of?”
My father raised his head, his eyes red. His breath
ing grew labored. Immediately I recoiled and Amanda
looked at me. I could see my father’s teeth, bared
through his lips. I’d seen this before. It was rage boiling
inside him, ready to explode. It was how he would get
when my mother or I upset him. It was how he looked
before a rampage, before he made us too scared to live
in our own home. It was the rage and confusion of a man
who couldn’t do anything to stop his world from
spinning on an already tilted axis. So all he could do was
force that energy outward onto the people closest to
him.
I watched this from across the table as he simmered
for several minutes. Then the rage subsided, his breath
ing returning to normal. He realized there was nowhere
for the rage to go here. No outlet for it. He was an
animal surrounded by barbed wire.
I finally realized that what it took to subdue my
father was not him seeing the pain he caused others, but
him seeing the pain he could cause himself.
“There was a notepad,” he finally said quietly. “At
one point Helen went to the bathroom. I took a look
around the apartment, just curious. So I see this lined
pad she must have just been writing in.”
“What was on it?” I said.
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“First thing she wrote, weird as hell, was ‘Mexico’
and ‘Europe.’”
“Any specific country in Europe?”
“No, just Europe.”
“Maybe those were rehab spots Helen had in mind.
Cheaper ones since she couldn’t afford the tony places
in the States. What else?”
“Next she wrote ‘$50,000,’ with a question mark
after it.”
“Thirty years’ back child support,” Amanda said.
“That could add up to fifty grand. Maybe that’s what
the number represented.”
“The last word she wrote was—” my father thought
for a moment “—fury.”
“Fury?”
“It was capitalized, like a name. And she underlined
it. A few times. With another question mark at the end.”
“We can guess what the other words represented,” I
said. “But what does the ‘Fury’ mean?” I asked the
question, but a small chime went off in my subcon
scious. Like I’d heard the word before. And not in
relation to its standard usage. Something more specific.
But I couldn’t conjure up just what it was.
“What if,” Amanda said, “they had nothing do to
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