We exchanged contact information with Wendell while he eyed his food.
“You don’t suppose you could, uh, spare any cash?” he asked tentatively as we got up to leave.
“Sorry,” I answered, wishing we could. “You’re a potential witness.”
“Well, do you think I could maybe order more food?” he asked hopefully, talking through a mouthful of cheeseburger.”
“Sure. Enjoy it.”
Back in his car, Chuck made some notes from the interview on the well-worn spiral notepad he always kept in his back pocket. “Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said, closing the pad.
“He sure didn’t take long to look at the photo.”
“I noticed that too. Seemed certain. And boy was he nervous.”
“More nervous than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockin’ chairs,” Chuck added, thickening his southern drawl as we pulled away from the curb.
“Your supply is endless, isn’t it?”
“I got more than you can shake a stick at.”
“Wendell does make Didery seem placid by comparison. Years of drug use, you think?”
“Maybe just raised on concrete. Life on the streets of Oakland will do that to you.”
After Chuck dropped me back at the office, I wrote a memo to the file about our interview with Wendell and drove home with a new outlook on the case. I knew we were a long way from Wendell providing helpful testimony in court. Just getting him to court would be a challenge. Still, things were looking up.
I worked out, made pasta for dinner, and watched a ballgame, with thoughts of tomorrow’s date with Eddy dancing in and out of my mind. Despite my declaration to the contrary, I was certain my anxiety would make a strong appearance at some point. For now, though, I sipped a glass of Pinot Noir and dozed off, thinking of her faded jeans, infectious laugh, and whiffs of jasmine and fresh linens.
With no courtroom obligations on Friday, I organized the ever-expanding Darnell Moore file and I played nine holes with Matt Eisner, my former mentor in the D.A.’s office. He had been a good friend and colleague of my father. Twenty-five years later, we were playing golf once a month, with the loser buying the pitcher of beer.
“How goes the Moore homicide?” he asked, as I lined up a putt on the last hole.
“First, you’re not going to distract me,” I said, eyeing my seven-foot putt. “This is for the win. And second, why would you refer to it as the Moore homicide? No respect for the presumption of innocence.”
“Okay, what would you call it?” he asked in the middle of my backswing and watched as my putt skirted the edge of the hole.
“Your cheating knows no bounds. And of course I’d call it the Barlow homicide, out of respect for the victim.”
He lined up his own putt to win the match, grinning with one eye on me. “Don’t worry,” I said with mock indignation, “I would never stoop so low as to talk in your backswing.”
I cleared my throat instead, and we split the cost of the pitcher.
After a restful night’s sleep, my phone rattled on my nightstand.
—Drinks this evening? There’s a great dive bar near my place—
—Sounds great. Can’t wait to see you—
****
Even as I climbed the steps to her front door, I was excited but confident and serene. This was weird. Momentarily, I contemplated being nervous because I wasn’t nervous.
On each of our three previous meetings, the first sight of her beauty had caught me off-guard. As I stood there, gazing at her now in her doorway, I wondered if it would ever go away.
She was smiling at me, wearing a T-shirt knotted at her waist, linen pants with a draw string, and blue canvas sneakers.
We hugged, a long embrace before we kissed. “I really missed you, Joe.”
“Don’t act so surprised,” I joked. “I have a way of worming my way into your heart.”
“Sounds sort of disgusting, but I know what you mean.”
We held hands on the walk to Bill and Nick’s, a neighborhood bar in the heart of Rockridge. On the way, I noticed for the first of many times the looks I got when I was with her. Other guys on the street would stare at her, which was to be expected. Then they would look at me, almost certainly thinking something like, “How can I be like that guy so I can be with someone like that?” Or perhaps, more like, “Him? Are you kidding me?” I didn’t really care.
Over Dark and Stormies, we talked about her trip and our favorite parts of London. I was beginning to realize that she was rising quickly in the company, recently promoted to the grandiose title of “Vice President of the Americas.”
“The Americas. How very arcanely British. How does it feel to be the V.P. of entire continents?”
“Pretty damn good. Central America is a pain once in a while, though. Actually, the lecture in London made me miss academia. I think I’ll get a resume out to some colleges. Speaking of work, how’s Darnell’s case coming along.”
“A bit better.” I told her about the meeting with the latest witness.
“You know,” I said finishing my second drink, “given how you handled our first kiss, I was sort of surprised you didn’t decide to meet me at the door today in a nighty.”
“Don’t think it didn’t cross my mind.” She gestured at my empty glass. “You want another?”
“No, thanks. I have my, um, performance to think of.”
“I’m assuming you’re referring to the scrabble game we have planned later?”
“Of course.”
We walked back to her home arm in arm as the sun began to dip, casting a glow on our path as we turned east and uphill. She leaned back against me at her door, pressing her curves into me. I held her there, smelling her hair.
Inside, she led me into the bedroom by my belt buckle. She lit two candles on either side of her bed and closed the shades. She removed something from behind her head and shook sandy blonde curls past her shoulders to her breasts, bursting beneath the blue T-shirt. I stepped out of my shoes, prying them off with my toes so I could keep watching her.
I started to unbutton my shirt. “Wait, am I misreading this?” I asked, playfully.
“No more jokes, Turner,” she whispered, pulling her shirt over her head.
Then our bodies and lips met, kissing gently at first, then with eager tongues, breathing each other in with short breaths. Our hands were on each other now, mine moving down past the small of her back, caressing her curves over the smooth linen pants, pulling her firm body against me. Fingernails traced over my bulge as I found the drawstring, her pants falling to the floor.
She unbuckled my belt, pulling me to the bed, where she sat looking up at me with pouty blue eyes. She flipped her hair behind her shoulders. Her hands slid down my thighs, springing me free. Then I felt her soft mouth around me, a murmured groan escaping my lips. “Eddy, wait,” I gasped, feeling the first surge of ecstasy building.
She sucked hard once more before letting go, slipping out of her panties as she reclined on her bed. I lay atop her, kissing her lips, then moving down to her supple, round breasts. She was panting now as I trailed kisses down her stomach, my hands on her hips, feeling them grind against me.
“Joe,” she gasped, and I felt her fingers under my chin, gently moving my face back up toward hers. “I want you,” she whispered between pants, guiding me into her slowly. My hands pressed up from the bed, her hands on my hips as I arched into her. Her lips parted in a delicate gasp of pleasure as I began to thrust harder, her hips rocking under me to our shared rhythm.
She pulled me down to her, her nails on the back of my shoulders as I nuzzled through blonde waves, tasting her soft neck. She straightened her thighs against mine, and I pressed into her firm breasts, both desperate for total contact between our bodies. Our rhythm quickened. Our panting bodies writhed as one, finally exploding in ecstasy, then collapsing together.
Chapter Eighteen
Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ’em, but rememb
er it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.—Harper Lee
Oakland, California 2006
“Plan your work. Work your plan.” He recited the mantra over and over as he strode purposefully toward the house. They were working in the back again, this time digging holes for fenceposts. He had told his twin he was going for a drink of water from the hose at the side of the house.
He waited eight days for his opportunity. Eight long days and eight horrible nights. He knew there was a good chance that Dumbass would be asleep, liking as he did to nap on weekends in the late afternoon. And there he was, as he approached the sliding glass door, lying on his back on the recliner, snuffling that sickening snore. One hand rested on his belly, the other hung to the floor where a can of beer was sweating on the hardwood.
He knew his precious barbell would be there where he kept it, against the wall next to the cinderblock and plywood shelves where he kept his DVDs with pictures of naked people on them. Bending at the waist, he carefully rolled the foot-long weight from the wall. Then, placing his small hands between the black metal disks on the cool chrome bar, he lifted, his back bowing above the weight. It was heavier that he imagined, but he managed to straighten and bring the weight to his chest. All the physical labor had made his slender arms hard and wiry.
“Plan your work. Work your plan,” he whispered to himself.
He balanced on rubbery legs, struggling to control his breathing, edging close to the blue corduroy of the recliner. The next part would be tricky. He needed to jostle Dumbass awake. It was risky, but he needed to see the fear in his face.
“Work your plan,” he whispered again.
Then he bent his knees and hoisted the barbell above his head like an axe, one weight in front of the other. His arms quivered under the strain as he nudged the beefy arm that hung to the floor with his knee. The big man stirred slightly but didn’t awaken. Another nudge with his knee. His shoulders were burning now. Finally, the eyes were opened, staring expressionless for a few seconds before recognition began to wash over his face. The eyes narrowed into a frown, then widened slowly. It was the look of fear he needed.
His quivering arms brought the weight down with all his strength, the awful face below him disappearing behind black metal with a dull crack. Then he was raising the weight again glancing down at the face, now red and gurgling. The weight was lighter above his head now, crashing down again then lifting to reveal more blood and distortion. His small chest was heaving but he couldn’t stop. Not yet.
“Work! Your! Plan!” He blew out the words in heavy breaths, one for each strike.
The face disappeared slowly; the outline of its features barely visible now as the weight found a softer target with every blow. Finally, the face he hated was gone. The bloody barbell thudded to the floor. He picked up the cell phone off the coffee table and bent at the waist, his hands on his knees, catching his breath. His vision blurred by tears, he collapsed to his knees and dialed 911 with small shaking fingers.
Chapter Nineteen
On Monday afternoon, I appeared at the arraignment on the new drug case, then sat on a bench in the hallway outside the clerk’s office, where courtroom assignments for trials were posted a month prior to the first day of trial. As I waited to find out which judge would preside over the Moore case, my thoughts drifted to Eddy. On Saturday, we had held each other for hours talking and laughing before getting up to eat peanut butter sandwiches. In the morning, we had made love again, then walked a block to get coffee.
“Coffees for Joe and Eddy? Joe and Eddy,” the barista had called out over the din of the customers, bringing a smile to our faces. I couldn’t stop thinking of her—her smile, her wit, her body, the way she made me feel.
The trial assignment sheet appeared on the glass door of the clerk’s office, taped from the inside. I traced down the list of trials, listed alphabetically, until my finger stopped on Darnell Moore, then across the ledger to the right. I blinked in disbelief. The trial would be heard by none other than the tower of incompetence himself, Douglas Ludlow.
For years, Ludlow had been stuck hearing traffic and small claims cases, where his ineptitude could do the least damage. Recently though, he started making noises about handling more serious matters. Finally, the presiding judge relented, assigning him civil cases. Now, having assuredly made a mess of things there, he had been cast out by the civil division. I had heard rumors that he would be assigned criminal cases but giving him a homicide case was unconscionable.
“Hi, Joe.” The voice over my shoulder took a second to register as I contemplated the bad news.
“Oh, hi, Cheryl,” I said, finally turning around. “Sorry. How’s my favorite social worker?” I’d met Cheryl Swillinger when I was a young D.A. assigned to the juvenile division.
“Work is as depressing as ever, but I’m engaged!” she said, flashing a ring as she hustled down the hallway.
“Congrats, even though you’re marrying a D.A.,” I called after her.
My eyes returned to the assignment sheet, hoping I had read it wrong, but no luck.
Later that afternoon, the assignment would be formalized in the master calendar department at a readiness conference. I called Matt Eisner. As second in command at the D.A.’s Office, he might have the juice to get the case re-assigned.
“Hey, Matt. What the fuck. Dudlow for the Moore case?”
“Yeah, I saw that. Brutal.”
“Matt, we both know he’ll be way out of his depth. Does he know it’s a homicide case?”
“I doubt if he’s bothered to read the assignment list. He’s currently at a political fundraiser, schmoozing with the same idiots who put him on the bench to begin with.”
“Anything you can do? This is a fucking joke.”
“Not a chance, Joe. Sorry. He’s whined for years and finally got his way.”
I sighed. “Okay, thanks.” I grabbed a hotdog from the stand outside the courthouse and walked into the chaotic master calendar department. The bailiff let me in the lockup to speak to Darnell.
“Hey, Mr. Turner, have you seen my mom in the courtroom?” It was the first time he had greeted me without a smile.
“No, they haven’t let family members in yet.”
“If she comes, I need you to tell her to be careful. Some people in here are thinking I’m going to snitch, …just tell her to watch herself.” His voice was shaky.
“Will do.”
“Also, do I have to appear in the courtroom?”
“No, I can waive your appearance. Listen, Darnell, PC is an option for you in there,” I said, getting up to go.
“No, I’ll be cool,” he said, forcing a smile.
Entering protective custody, or “PC” was a big step for an inmate who grew up in Oakland. The protection of being housed separately from the general population was thought to be its only benefit. Given the logistics of housing, there were fewer privileges and free time. More importantly, it was tantamount to an admission of snitching, which would stay with you forever, in or out of custody.
Back in the courtroom, Chuck was there to drop off subpoena returns. “Moore’s friends are here again, mean-mugs in place.”
“Department 11 is now is session. Please be seated.” The bailiff’s baritone quieted the courtroom as Judge Kramer took the bench with his robe open, wearing khakis and an oxford. A former Public Defender, Kramer was smart, fair, and known for an absolute intolerance of bullshit.
“My reporter has been at it all morning. She won’t be reporting this unless anyone has an objection.” With that, the judge began calling the calendar, assigning cases for trial to begin in one month’s time.
“May it please the Court, Nathaniel Winston Didery for the People of the State of California, Your Honor,” announced the prosecutor as if addressing the House of Lords. “The People announce ready for trial, Your Honor.”
The judge raised one eyebrow above his reading glasses. “Did I mention we weren’t on the record?” he said under his breath, smiling.
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“Joe Turner for Mr. Moore, Your Honor. I’ll waive his appearance. Ready for trial. May we approach briefly.” I didn’t expect Judge Kramer to change the assignment, but I had to try.
The judge covered the microphone as Didery, and I arrived at the bench. “Joe, I’m pretty sure I know what this is about. Unfortunately, I can’t help you.”
“I figured, Judge. It’s just that it’s a homicide case,” I said, hearing myself whine.
“I understand. Mr. Didery, your position?”
“Your Honor,” Didery began, rod up his ass firmly in place, “I don’t believe it’s appropriate for me to weigh in on this matter.”
Judge Kramer blinked slowly. “Sorry, Joe, you got the short straw. My hands are tied.”
“Okay. Thanks, Judge.”
Didery and I retreated to our podiums. “People v. Moore,” the judge announced. “Trial assigned to Department 27, Judge Ludlow. June 7, nine a.m.”
I was thinking of Eddy again on the walk to my car through the dark courtroom parking lot when the three young men I’d seen in court suddenly appeared from the shadows and moved into my path.
“Yo bitch-ass client best hold his muthafuckin’ mudd, yo. He about to get wrecked,” said the short one in the middle, spitting out the words from under the flat brim of a blue Kansas City cap.
Finding little comfort in the fact that I was neither a Cashtown member nor my bitch-ass client, I took a big step in retreat. “I can tell you that Darnell has no intention of—”
“Shut the fuck up, snitch-piece,” he barked, and moved towards me, gesturing with one hand inches from my chest, the other inside his pea coat. “I’ll cap your ass, too, for shits.”
Having obtained a masters in street lingo over the past ten years, I knew that he had warned Darnell against snitching and had threatened to shoot me, the mouthpiece for snitches, just for fun. I stepped back again, this time silently with my open hands facing him, the international symbol for “Please don’t fucking cap my ass.”
The aspiring rapper continued. “Tell bitch-ass D to keep names out his mouth or I’ll kite his ass. Back door parole coming, know what I sayin’?” Then, turning to go, he added, “If you a dump truck and he gotta do all day, then he gotta do all day, yo.”
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