CHAPTER FIVE
Jayson waited patiently in the tiny conference room at the Suffolk County Jail, located in downtown Boston. The off-white walls, harsh overhead lighting, and sparse furniture—a table and two chairs—gave the space a sterile feel. The facility faced the Charles River and had opened in 1990. The architects had designed it with a contemporary look relying more on thick glass rather than iron bars for security. However, in the space where Jayson sat, the upper third of two doors on opposite sides of the room contained the only glass available. One door led to the outside section, where visitors checked in and underwent processing. The other door led deeper into the building where the detainees were housed.
Jayson had sat in similar rooms throughout the facility many times. He had met men—and even a few women—accused of various crimes, including offenses of notorious depravity and cruelty. Most of the clients he met at the jail were indigent. Affluent people could raise money for bail. Accused white-collar criminals, through their attorneys, made arrangements to turn themselves in with assurance they would be released after being fingerprinted and booked. They would appear later at their arraignments—usually two days following their arrest—dressed in business attire and constantly glancing at their watches because they had other appointments that day.
Jayson’s clientele included the indigent and the affluent, although over the past few years he had represented many more of the latter. Alleged embezzlers paid significant retainers up front. Accused drug dealers could also be especially generous, not uncommonly doling out their retainers in cash. Jayson had found it increasingly difficult to represent indigent clients because he was incapable of merely going through the motions for those who had little money. He usually worked seventy to eighty hours a week, including weekend work at home, so his per-hour rate dropped precipitously for a poor client.
He took very seriously the law’s requirement that both the rich and the poor be given a fair trial, and that the state must prove the guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt. He believed every client deserved his best efforts. As far as Jayson was concerned, Brian Stone had a legal presumption of innocence unless and until twelve impartial jurors declared him guilty. He also took very seriously his obligation to prevent them from reaching such a verdict.
Jayson reached into his briefcase, grabbed a fresh legal pad and a couple of folders, and dropped them on the table. He eased his hand inside the pocket of his suit and retrieved a gold-plated pen engraved with his initials. He examined the pen and snickered, remembering he had received the expensive gift several years before from a grateful client with a long history of arrests for shoplifting. Jayson had helped the woman beat the rap on a technicality. The note accompanying the pen had read, “Thanks for everything. Just a little something I picked up and thought you would like.”
Primed and ready to go, Jayson glanced at the door leading into the detainees’ unit like a racecar driver waiting for the green light. The door was opened and two clean-shaven white men stepped into the room: a little man in a blue jail uniform escorted by a short but husky jail officer. The hairy-armed, middle-aged officer wore a white, short-sleeved shirt and clutched a large set of keys in his right hand. He bid Jayson good afternoon. Jayson returned his greeting.
“We know this is the first meeting for you two, so take all the time you need—within reason,” the officer said.
“Thank you,” Jayson replied. He watched the man leave and after hearing the familiar sound of the door being locked, extended his hand to Stone. “I’m Jayson Cook, your new attorney.” Stone shook Jayson’s hand without apparent reservation or emotion. Jayson pointed at the table. “Sit down. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Stone took his position at the table, exposing his right profile to the inside door. Jayson sat with his back to the same door, as was his practice. Just in case a detainee became violent, he’d be able to jump out of his seat, backpedal to the door and bang on it, summoning immediate intervention from the jail officers. In his entire career as an attorney, however, such action had never been necessary.
“So,” Stone opened, “at last we meet. I’ve been looking forward to this.” His Arkansas drawl filled the room like the heat and humidity in his home state during July.
Jayson raised his eyebrows. “You have?”
“Yes,” Stone declared. “Well, given my situation, at this point I’m glad to be meeting anybody.” His face remained stoic in spite of his apparent attempt at levity.
Jayson etched a slight smile on his face. “Well, I’m glad you’ve been able to keep your sense of humor.” He dangled his pen over the pad, prepared to write. “Is there anything I can do for you? Call a member of your family, perhaps?” He always opened with that offer to establish himself as someone willing to help. He half expected his short, twenty-five-year-old, baby-face client to ask for a glass of milk.
Stone shook his head. “Thank you, no. I’m afraid I have no family these days.”
Jayson set his pen on top of the paper. “Well, is there anything you need? Are they treating you alright here?”
Stone shrugged. “They’re keeping me in the Protective Custody Unit for my own safety. My fellow ‘residents’ are mostly suspected informants and child molesters. But generally everybody leaves me alone and I do the same. The story of my life, Mr. Cook.”
“Okay,” Jayson said. “May I call you Brian?” His client nodded. “Call me Jayson, with a Y.” He picked up his pen again. “Tell me, Brian. About three weeks ago Judge O’Hare asked me to take this case. He said that you and two public defenders hadn’t gotten on very well. I’d like to know what happened and why you specifically asked for me.”
Stone winced, showing the first sign of emotion. “What happened, Jayson with a Y, is that both of them hated the sight of me,” he declared calmly and shook his finger. “The first one, that woman, she could barely make eye contact with me. And she kept telling me to plead guilty.” He held up two fingers and continued. “The same with the second one, the curly-haired man who looked barely old enough to shave. He acted the same way. They kept advising me to plead guilty. Didn’t want the air they were breathing polluted by having to sit next to me. Neither of them had the time or interest to even listen to what I had to say.”
Jayson listened. The man hadn’t presented himself the way he had anticipated. Stone had no college education but appeared to be intelligent. Despite his thick accent, he didn’t fit the profile of the stereotypical redneck racist. Jayson decided it would serve no purpose to defend the public defenders. “Okay. Where do I fit in? Why ask for me?”
Stone shifted in his chair. “Because you’re a respected man in this town, counselor. Mr. Morgan said you fought for his rights and the church even after you got stuck with the case when that Jew lawyer took sick.”
“Professor Greenberg.”
“What?”
“His name is Professor Seth Greenberg. And I never would have gotten involved if he hadn’t asked me.”
“Right.” Stone held up his hands. “Now don’t get me wrong. We don’t have anything against you people—or Jews either. We just think things would be better if everybody just keeps to their own and stop mixing.”
Jayson nodded. “I see.” He had no interest in pursuing the discussion but resolved to keep his client away from the sound bite-hungry media under all circumstances. He could just see Stone’s sentiments as they would look on the local evening news. “Well, Brian,” he continued, “the fact is, I’m your lawyer and you can be assured I’m going to do everything I can to see to it that all of your rights are protected and you’re treated fairly throughout this process.” He paged through the papers inside a folder. “I understand you’ve been denied bail and have been here for about a year and a half.”
“Yeah. That judge says I might take off if I was released, so they’re keeping me here.” Stone widened his eyes. “Any chance you can get me out on bail?”
“Do you have any way to raise money? A car or something you
can sell?”
Stone chuckled. “If I had any money, would I be needing a free lawyer?”
“What I’m trying to tell you is I could file a motion for a bail hearing,” Jayson replied, “but what would be the point if the judge reduced your bail to say, a hundred thousand dollars, which is the least he would set it? You’d have to come up with ten percent of that to be released.” He sorted through his papers and found the public defender’s notes on Stone’s two previous bail hearings. “Getting bail would be a long shot anyway. You’ve got no job anymore. No money. No family. In the court’s mind you have no ties; nothing to keep you here.” Jayson slipped the paper back into the folder. “Better to spend our energy on your defense.”
Stone shrugged again. “Well, no harm asking.”
Jayson pointed at the ceiling. “Now here are a few important rules I’m sure you already heard from your previous lawyers. First, watch what you say here. Don’t tell anyone anything you wouldn’t want to see on the news the next day. Talk about the weather, the Red Sox’s chances this year, some TV model’s big boobs, whatever, but don’t reveal anything about your case or anything you and I talk about, and don’t volunteer information about yourself or your political views. You’d be surprised what the district attorney can use against you later on. Understand?”
“It’s not like I make a whole lot of friends wherever I go,” Stone answered dryly.
“Speaking of that,” Jayson said, “is there anybody who’d be willing to speak on your behalf? A friend you made when you were working at the hospital or someone back home or a girlfriend or somebody?”
Stone shook his head. “No, nobody.”
“There must be someone you’ve connected with over the—”
“What part of ‘nobody’ don’t you understand?”
Jayson held up his hands. “Okay, okay. I’m just looking for something, anything that might help.” He made a mental note to explore Stone’s personal life more closely when he got back to the office. The man’s inability to form close relationships clearly caused him great distress. Jayson had seen it many times—loners seething with anger, blaming everyone else for their situation rather than themselves. These were the types who set fires, committed rape, vandalized property—and perhaps planted bombs.
Stone sighed. “I learned long time ago not to depend on anyone. Don’t get too close to people, you know? They only make fun or let you down or betray you.”
Jayson nodded. “It’s okay for now. If you think of someone, let me know.”
“You’ll be the first.”
“Let’s move on,” Jayson suggested. “Tell me about what happened when the police stopped your car.”
Stone scrunched up his face. “Don’t you want to know if I’m guilty or innocent?”
Jayson shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me. What is important is what the state can prove. From what I can tell, they’ve built a very solid case, but it’s entirely circumstantial. There are no witnesses who can testify they saw you plant the bomb.” He tapped on the table with his pen. “Their whole case rests on your unpopular political beliefs, the map allegedly retrieved from your car and a church bulletin that allegedly places you inside the church sometime before the explosion. But the law says you’re innocent until the state proves otherwise.”
Stone looked the room over and stretched out his arms. “I’ll keep that in mind when I go back to my cell.” He dropped his arms. “Okay, what do you want to know about when the police stopped me?”
“Just what happened.”
“Well, I was driving north on Washington Street, you know, right near Dedham, and—”
“What time was it?”
“About nine, maybe nine-thirty in the evening.”
“Coming from where?”
“A meeting with some friends.”
Jayson took a deep breath. “We don’t have time to waste, Brian. You don’t have any friends. Who were you with?”
Stone’s tensed up his face. “Mr. Morgan and some guys from the church.”
“Oh, that bunch. Go on.”
“Well, I’m driving and the police just pull me over.”
“Why?”
“They say I weaved close to the center line and didn’t come to a complete stop before I turned right at a red light.”
“Did you?”
“No, because the light was green, not red,” Stone insisted. “Then these two cops stand, one on each side of the car. They shine their flashlights into the car and ask me for my driver’s license and stuff, you know. Then they tell me to get out. One of them, the older white guy gives me a sobriety test; you know, recite the alphabet, close my eyes, hold out my hands and touch my nose, then—”
“Had you been drinking?”
“Just one beer. That’s all.”
“Did you tell the officers that?”
Stone looked embarrassed. “Well, they asked, so I told them the truth. I guess looking back I shouldn’t have.”
Jayson continued to write. “That’s okay. Keep going.”
“Then the other one, the um, how do your people say?” He smirked. “The African American female?” He paused, clearly enjoying himself, and continued. “She gives the older white guy a piece of paper and whispers something to him, and he holds it up in his hand and says, ‘Well, look what we found sitting on the front seat in plain view!’”
Jayson chose to ignore Stone’s baiting. “Let me guess, a hand-drawn map of a neighborhood in Roxbury with details about the perimeter of the Mount Calvary Baptist Church.”
Stone pointed at Jayson. “I can explain.”
Jayson held up his hands. “Not yet. What I want to know is did you draw that map all by yourself? Just yes or no only, please.”
“Yes.”
“And was the map sitting on the passenger seat in plain view?”
Stone balled up his fist. “No, it was in the glove box.”
Jayson paused to organize his thoughts. “Okay, I want to know about the church bulletin, but before I do let me tell you about a client I once had.”
Stone looked puzzled. “Okay, if you say so.”
Jayson scratched his hairless chin. “There was this kid accused of murder. He was a member of a gang. He was charged as an adult with killing another boy, a member of a rival gang. There was evidence indicating my client had been in the boy’s apartment. See, he had in his possession the victim’s prized possession—a home run baseball the victim had caught and gotten autographed at a Red Sox game when he was a kid.”
“Didn’t that pretty much close the deal?” Stone asked. “I mean, they could place him at the scene of the crime and all.”
Jayson shook his head. “It would have if we’d gone into court and swore he was never in the apartment. We couldn’t deny my client had been in the apartment, but we tried to plant reasonable doubt into the jurors’ minds. My client admitted he had been there, but explained that he hadn’t been involved in the murder. He had broken into the apartment earlier that day and taken the ball as an admittedly mean-spirited prank.”
“And they bought it?”
Jayson nodded. “Fortunately, the victim had been furious about the theft and had called two people, cussing about it. We called them as witnesses.”
“What happened? To your client, I mean?”
“The prosecutors argued the boy must have returned later and killed the other boy, but the jury found him not guilty.”
Stone cackled. “I knew you were a smart one!”
Jayson frowned. “A smart one?”
Stone winced. “I didn’t mean nothing by it. You’re the last person I want angry with me. I mean, my life’s in your hands.”
Jayson leaned forward. “Like I said, I’m your lawyer and will do everything I can to afford you every legal protection our system offers. But I’m also an officer of the court. I can’t suborn perjury.”
This time Stone frowned. “What’s that?”
“I can’t put someone on the witness stand
if I know he or she is going to lie under oath,” Jayson answered. “My point is if we go into court and say you don’t know anything about the church, had never been there, so on and so forth, the only thing that’s gonna keep a jury from bringing in a quick guilty verdict is if they were looking forward to a fancy meal paid for by the state.” He leaned closer and stared at Stone. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?” He waited, aware the next move had to be Stone’s. He had gone as far as he could without actually coaching the young man on what to say.
Both men sat quietly for a few seconds. Stone rolled his eyeballs from side to side. A jail officer checked the room through the door behind Jayson and quickly disappeared. Stone glanced at the officer then returned his attention to his attorney. Finally, he cleared his throat and answered. “Yeah, I think so.”
Jayson nodded. He recognized the two men had reached an uneasy alliance, built on a shared goal. Stone wanted a fierce advocate who would fight for his life. Jayson wanted to win. He shook his pen. “Good. Now let’s move on to the search warrant.”
“Do you think I should testify?” Stone asked. He scratched his head, which was covered with a thick mop of short black hair.
“Absolutely not,” Jayson replied, his voice slightly elevated. “If you get on that witness stand the prosecutor will tear you apart and there’d be nothing I could do to prevent it.”
“But we don’t have any kind of defense,” Stone protested. “If I can’t testify, what witnesses can our side put on?” His voice indicated anxiety and fear.
Jayson leaned even closer and whispered. “Brian, if this does go to trial, we’re not going to put on any witnesses at all.”
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Guilt by Association Page 6