“I know,” he said laughing. “But I got to do the right thing by you. Just a little something on the side.”
“No, Patsy. I can’t accept it. The court is paying me. That’s enough.”
The Crusher looked surprised. “What a lawyer, right?” he said to Philly. He nodded in agreement. “I’ll talk to you, Counselor, all right?”
“Right,” said Marc. He got back in the car.
“Now where?” asked Maria.
“A Hundred and Seventh Street and Fifth Avenue.”
“Why are we in this lousy neighborhood?” Franco asked as he drove through East Harlem. Acrid smells rose in the streets and poured from the buildings. “We could have seen the cook at Toni Wainwright’s.”
“I wanted to see Hattie in her own home,” Marc said.
“How come?”
“I thought it would be better to talk with her away from Toni Wainwright’s. Sometimes it’s easier to get at the real story when the person questioned feels safe, in a familiar atmosphere.”
Maria asked, “You think this Hattie knows the real story?”
“I don’t know. But Hattie is the only person in the world, besides Mrs. Wainwright, who was there to see or hear anything the night Wainwright was killed.”
“As far as we know now,” added Maria. “Remember, we’re still working on our theory that there may have been someone else there who did more than hear what was going on.”
“Right you are,” said Marc. “And besides, Mrs. Wainwright may not be giving us an accurate account of what occurred. She may have been so out of it, she doesn’t actually remember what really happened.”
“Maybe she’s giving us a line,” said Franco.
“That’s also a possibility,” said Marc. “That’s why I wanted to see Hattie away from Mrs. Wainwright’s.”
“Hattie’s house is over there,” said Franco. He pointed to a house on the north side of 107th Street close to Fifth Avenue. He parked the car. A fire hydrant near the corner of Madison was open, and a thick stream of water was flowing from it onto the gutter, coursing rapidly to the sewer. Kids were taking turns holding a large tin can, open at each end in the flowing stream just in time to direct a heavy blast of water at passing cars. In the buildings people were leaning on pillows on their window sills shouting in Spanish or English, urging the kids to flood the cars.
“Here we go again,” said Franco.
Inside Hattie’s building, the acrid smell of urine, garbage, oily cooking, mustiness, humidity, and rotting plaster, broiled to intensity in the summer heat, was almost overpowering.
Marc looked at the mailboxes on the wall to find one with the name Adams. The mailboxes were scarred, scrawled on, bent open to be looted, but there were no names in any of their name slots.
Maria spoke in Spanish to a man in a strap undershirt coming down the stairs. He wore a gold cross on a chain around his neck and a panama hat on his head. He smiled courteously to Maria and pointed over his shoulder up the stairs.
“Up this way,” said Maria.
“Where does she live?” asked Marc.
“Third floor.”
Franco knocked on the door of apartment 3R.
“Who is it?” a woman’s voice muffled through the closed door.
“Marc Conte, Mrs. Wainwright’s lawyer.”
The door was opened as far as the inside chain allowed. A short, heavy-set, Black woman peered out.
“I’m Mister Conte, Mrs. Wainwright’s lawyer,” Marc said. “Are you Hattie Adams?”
She looked at them in silence. “That’s right,” she finally allowed.
“Who is it?” asked a male voice from the background of the apartment.
“Hush,” said Hattie, half turning. “You Miss Toni’s lawyer?” she asked hesitantly, the chain still holding the door shut.
“That’s right,” said Marc. “This is my wife and my investigator. We’d like to talk with you for a couple of minutes. I would have called you at Mrs. Wainwright’s, but they told me you were on vacation.”
Hattie nodded, looked them over again, studied Marc’s face, then looked at Maria and Franco. She slid the chain open. “I guess you are,” she smiled now. “Miss Toni said how her lawyer was nice-looking. You better not say I told you that,” she said chuckling.
Maria looked at Marc with a sly smile.
The room they entered was the kitchen. There was a porcelain-topped table in the center, a refrigerator, a stove, and a sink. Beyond, they could see a living room. A bedroom, separated from the kitchen and living room by a curtain, was off to the side. Through a slit in the bedroom curtain, Marc saw a man brushing his hair in a dresser mirror.
Hattie led the three of them into the living room. She took a newspaper and some magazines off the couch, replaced an antimacassar that had fallen from the arm of the couch, and asked them to sit. She turned off the television.
“How come you want to see me?” asked Hattie.
“I just wanted to ask you a few questions,” said Marc.
The man from the bedroom, dressed in a T-shirt and trousers, scuff slippers without socks, came into the living room.
“This here’s my husband,” said Hattie. “Charles, this is Miss Toni’s lawyer, Mister Conte. And this is his wife, and this is …”
“Franco,” said Franco, shaking hands.
“Can I get you a little something to drink?” asked Charles, lifting his right hand, his thumb and index finger indicating an inch shot.
“Too early in the morning for me,” said Marc.
“Me too,” said Maria.
Franco shook his head.
Charles sat on the couch, next to Hattie, watching. He offered a Benson and Hedges cigarette box to the others. No one wanted to smoke. Charles fitted a cigarette into a plastic holder and lit it.
“Hattie, tell me about the night Mister Wainwright was killed,” said Marc.
She pursed her lips and shrugged. “I can’t tell you much. I was asleep most of the time.”
“Did you hear anything at all?” Marc asked.
She shook her head. “I didn’t hear no talking. I did hear plenty of noises. At first, I thought the dead was coming to take me,” she recalled ominously. “I was in my room, in the back of Miss Toni’s. And I hear this terrible pounding. Then I sat up, and just listened. It was real all right, I said to myself. I put on my robe, and went out through the kitchen into the dining room. I hid behind the door, watching out to where Miss Toni’s room was.”
“Did you see who was doing the pounding?” asked Marc.
“No, it was all over by then.”
“Could you see Mrs. Wainwright’s door?” asked Marc.
“That was all broken in. I couldn’t see nothing beyond it. It was all dark in there.”
“What happened next?”
“Then I heard this here explosion,” Hattie explained. “It was something terrible. I near fell down just from the sound. It was a gun, all right. I got me into the nearest corner and sat on the floor and just stayed there, praying. I hear some movement in there, like footsteps. Didn’t see nothing. I thought, maybe Miss Toni was hurt. So I crawled and looked around the corner. And I still didn’t see nothing. I didn’t even hear nothing no more. So I creeped over there on my hands and knees, over there where the door was broken, and I listened. I called, Miss Toni, Miss Toni. And I heard a man’s voice. I didn’t recognize it to be Mister Bob, ’cause it was kind or more like moaning. He called Zack, Zack. And then …”
“He called what?” Maria asked with sharp surprise.
“Zack. He just said Zack a couple of times,” Hattie repeated. “That was all I heard. Then I ran inside and called the police. That’s all I know.”
Maria looked at Marc, then Franco.
“You didn’t see anyone, or hear anything, other than Mister Wainwright calling Zack?” Marc asked.
“I heard some footsteps, someone walking around just after the explosion.”
“Did you tell all of this to the
police?” Marc asked.
“No.” She shook her head.
“How come?”
“Because I didn’t know if I was supposed to or not. So I just kept quiet. I figured Miss Toni’d get herself a good lawyer—now don’t you tell her I told you she said her lawyer was good-looking. I figured I’d tell the lawyer ’cause I’m not going to get Miss Toni in no more trouble than she’s got.”
“Did the police question you?” asked Marc.
“Sure, that night. They asked all of us all kinds of questions.”
“And you didn’t tell them about the footsteps or the voice calling Zack?”
Hattie shook her head.
“I want to write all of this into a statement for you to sign, Hattie,” said Marc. He took out some large folded pages from his pocket.
“How come she has to sign something?” asked Charles.
“That’s just to save you any more bother,” replied Marc. “Even if a person doesn’t know anything about a case, I like them to sign a statement. This way, I don’t forget what they said, and I don’t have to come back and bother them again.” Marc failed to add that when a potential witness signed a negative statement, that potential witness couldn’t easily change his or her story later on and be helpful to the D.A. with evidence they couldn’t remember for Marc.
Hattie carefully and slowly read the statement Marc prepared. She read it over twice, her lips forming each word as she read, then signed it.
“Okay, Holmes and Watson,” said Marc as they walked down the stairs. “I know neither of you could have come this far down the stairs without already hatching out a scheme. What’s in your heads?”
“You notice how he always makes wisecracks?” said Maria. “But he always asks too.”
“Every time,” agreed Franco.
Marc smiled. “Well, what do you think?”
“I’m more convinced than before that Zack Lord must have had something to do with it,” said Maria. “Wainwright called out his name. He must have been there. It must have been he who shot Wainwright.”
“And how about the walking movement? That’s when Lord slipped out of the room,” Franco added. “We know Toni Wainwright fainted before the explosion. So she wasn’t the one walking around.”
“There was definitely someone else there,” said Maria.
“I must admit we have a little more about another person now,” said Marc. “But as far as Zack Lord is concerned, how did he know that Wainwright was going to go to the apartment? Wainwright wasn’t living there at the time. So how could Lord or anyone else know Wainwright would be there to be killed? And second, how would Lord have gotten into and out of the apartment without being seen? Forget the keys. We know he had a set. But how did he get up to and down from her apartment on the eighteenth floor without someone seeing him?”
“I don’t know,” said Maria. “But what about Wainwright calling out Lord’s name?”
“Didn’t Toni Wainwright already say that when Wainwright came into her room in the dark, he was calling her a whore, and calling for Zack, looking for him in the bed?” said Marc.
Maria nodded thoughtfully.
“How did Wainwright get into the apartment then?” Franco asked. “Mrs. Wainwright told you that Wainwright didn’t have a key. So, somebody had to let him in, right?” He looked at Maria.
“Right,” she answered.
“And we know it wasn’t Mrs. Wainwright or any of her servants,” Franco continued. “So, how did he get in?” He awaited an answer. Marc thought. “Someone with a key could get in and let Wainwright in,” Franco added finally. “That’s how.”
Marc hesitated. “No one saw Lord go in or out of the building.”
“Come on, let’s get out of this hallway,” said Maria, giving in to an urge to hold her nose. “Let’s talk in the car.”
“I think we ought to talk to those elevator guys at Mrs. Wainwright’s apartment,” said Franco. “I still say Lord could have been the one who shot Wainwright.”
“Keep working on it,” said Marc. “But it’s still too much of a blind alley. Too many dead ends with no answers.”
“And too good a possibility to let go,” said Maria.
“How handsome you are, Counselor,” Maria said tauntingly. “Isn’t it nice your clients think you’re handsome?”
“Don’t you?”
“And that’s enough,” she said, still teasing. She put her arm around Marc’s waist. “You’re my baby, remember?”
“I do,” Marc said. “And I will.”
22
Tuesday, August 29, 10:17 A.M.
Marc stood inside a phone booth on the thirteenth floor of the Criminal Courts Building. He had the phone receiver to his ear, listening to Marguerite read off the list of calls he had received in the office this morning. There was nothing urgent. Marc said he would be back in the office as soon as he finished with the Maricyk and Wainwright cases in Part 39.
Justice Arthur Kahn was presiding in Part 39. Usually Justice Kahn sat in the civil term of the Supreme Court. But during the summer months, when the number of civil trials dwindled, judges who usually did not sit in criminal term were rotated there so they could gain experience in criminal matters.
Judge Kahn was tall, and his grayed temples and gold half-glasses contrasted elegantly against black robes. He was the very picture of a man of judicious mien. Which was exactly what he was not. Judge Kahn was a favorite of criminal defense lawyers when pleading clients guilty; he was quite lenient on sentencing. But, Judge Kahn was the last judge sought or desired for trials or hearings; he was ignorant of the law, insecure, impatient, irascible, verging on the paranoid. His elevation to the bench of the New York State Supreme Court was over the disapproval of every Bar association in the City. His wife’s family, however, was well endowed with campaign contributions for the coffers of the Republican Party, and so a judge was made. Or at least someone who was called judge. And that calling to some, is far more important than the position itself.
Marc walked to the front of the courtroom and sat in the first row of seats to wait the call of his cases. Mrs. Wainwright was not in court today. Marc had advised her that her presence wasn’t necessary because the only thing pending in her case today was a motion for a bill of particulars—simply, a further specification of the details of the charges pending against her. Since the courts permitted an indictment to state merely the bare bones of a case—the defendant caused the death of one Lafayette Wainwright on the seventh day of August by shooting him with a gun—Marc had moved to have the D.A. supply further information about the exact time and place of the crime, the type of weapon used, the autopsy report, the ballistics report. If the Wainwright case was going to trial—and Marc was sure it was, at this point—he needed details about the Wainwright death.
Just as Marc knew he would go to trial on the Wainwright case, he also knew he wasn’t going to. trial on the Maricyk case. Seeing Judge Kahn on the bench today, Marc decided to push to have a hearing on Maricyk’s motion to suppress evidence. Not that Marc actually intended to have the hearing. He was using the motion to gain leverage for a lessened charge to which Maricyk might plead.
“And if Your Honor please,” intoned James O’Reilly, the most punctilious of the court clerks, “on line fifteen of the second page of Your Honor’s pleading calendar there appears the name of Oscar Johnson, also known as Ali Al-Kobar, defendant, who is on this occasion representing himself as defendant pro se on a motion to suppress evidence.”
“Come on, come on, Mister O’Reilly,” exclaimed Judge Kahn impatiently. “Let’s do get on with it. We’ve a long calendar to call, and I’m on trial. I have a jury waiting. Let’s do move along.”
Oscar Johnson was escorted from the bull pen by a court officer. He stood at the defense counsel table, his shaved head glistening beneath the court’s lights. He put a portfolio filled with papers and legal books on the table.
“Is your name Oscar Johnson,” asked O’Reilly, “the defendant
named by the People in this indictment, number one thousand four hundred and thirty nine?”
“Mister O’Reilly,” the Judge cut in before Johnson could say anything, “can’t you forget all the rococo language and just call the cases as quickly as possible?” The Judge looked at O’Reilly over the rim of his glasses.
“I shall endeavor to follow Your Honor’s suggestion,” said O’Reilly, rising to his feet.
“Will you please sit back down at your desk, and not take all day with the calendar,” snapped the Judge. “We do not need a dialogue on this too.” The Judge rose, walking around the small confines of his bench platform. He removed his glasses, tossing them on his desk.
“I am merely doing that required by law and the directives of the Appellate Division, Your Honor,” said O’Reilly calmly. “I am merely performing my duty as best I know Your Honor would wish me to, both to protect the record and the defendant.”
“How about the People?” piped in the young assistant District Attorney. He was thin with dark, curly hair.
“And of course, the People,” said O’Reilly. “Shall I proceed, Your Honor?”
“I’d be delighted if you would,” the Judge said.
O’Reilly sat back at his desk. “Is your name, sir, Oscar Johnson, the defendant …”
“Mister O’Reilly,” interrupted the Judge again, his head giving a nervous little tic to one side, “I asked you to call the cases with expedition. And now it seems that the only expedition you have ever heard about is to Africa. Now …” The Judge’s face suddenly grew red with anger. “Is that a smirk I see on your face, Mister O’Reilly?”
“Certainly not, Your Honor,” replied O’Reilly, standing again. “You know that I have nothing but respect for Your Honor and the office that Your Honor so judiciously holds.”
“Now stop that folderol with me, Mister O’Reilly,” the Judge lashed out. “Are you trying to lock horns with me?”
“Certainly not, Your Honor.”
“Well, don’t try to. For I’ll prevail. I assure you of that Mister O’Reilly. I’ll prevail.” The Judge had his hand raised, a ringer pointing ceilingward.
“I’m sure Your Honor would. And I assure Your Honor that I do not have any intentions of so doing.” O’Reilly’s strength lay in the fact that he was civil service and his calling of the calendar was letter perfect according to law and the court regulations. He knew this and so did the Judge.
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