Good Lookin'

by T. L. Bequette

  “No, thank you.”

  Didery was in full smirk for the jury. “Sir, do you own a cane gun?”

  “No.”

  “Have you even heard of one?”

  “No.”

  “Did you have any idea what time Darnell Moore was going to drive through that intersection that day?”

  “No.”

  “When you said you had learned some phrases, does that mean that you understand the spoken language when someone is speaking to you?”

  “No.”

  “How many shots did you hear, Mr. Jakes.”

  “I heard two. They seemed really loud. Then I heard a bunch of other shots that were not as loud.”

  This guy was unbelievable. Was he taunting me again? Were the first two shots louder because he fired them? This would make sense. First the two shots that killed Barlow, then Darnell’s ten shots in the air.

  Didery clearly didn’t know what to make of the answer. “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  As Jakes hobbled down from the witness stand, I had no idea what the jury was thinking. The cross examination had gone well enough, but I knew my theory was Swiss cheese, especially compared to the prosecution’s case against Darnell.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” began Ludlow. “The defense has one more witness. As we discussed, we will not be in session tomorrow. We will reconvene Thursday morning, complete the evidence and hear closing arguments. Thank you.”

  ****

  Damon’s heart pounded in his ears, a cadence syncopated with echoes of his footsteps on the tile floor of the long jail hallway. He couldn’t believe he was heading back into the jail, but he needed to do this for Jesse. His twin had almost died, and he was mad at himself for not taking action sooner. He should have pressured Joe to let him out. He had asked politely, but he hadn’t pleaded. And what had he been doing working on the case? The case was the reason why Jesse was in custody in the first place. He’d been selfish —trying to impress the attorney while his brother suffered in jail. It had almost cost Jesse his life.

  And now his twin was back in that pod, a sitting duck for his assassin. Jesse would be in there at least another two nights, even longer if there was another delay. Damon owed his life to his twin: his family, the fun in college, his career. Everything.

  And Jesse was right. Damon didn’t understand why he wouldn’t seek protection in jail, but that didn’t matter. He needed to get him out of that pod. Damon didn’t look forward to what he knew was coming. He’d never laid a hand on Jesse, not in anger. He knew he was still healing from the attack, but these were desperate times.

  He arrived at the door with “Contact Visit” painted in black stenciled letters and pushed a button to its right. The door with the small window of opaque glass buzzed open and he went inside the windowless room, took off his jacket, and waited for the arrival of his twin.

  Jesse entered the interview room followed closely by a deputy. As twins, they had always sensed each other’s feelings—joy, sadness or, like now, pent up hostility.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” Jesse looked menacingly at Damon, while the deputy removed his handcuffs. “Ain’t you supposed to be a law student. How is it you can’t get me the fuck out of here?”

  The deputy looked at Damon. “You all right in here?”

  Damon nodded, and the deputy was gone, his footsteps fading as he retreated down the hallway. Jesse stood rubbing his wrists, then walked behind Damon, smiling as he removed his twin’s jacket off the back of his chair.

  “Let’s do this, D. I know you’ve wanted to smack me around before,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “God knows I have.”

  Damon stood, hands at his sides, and approached his twin. He was shaking and felt a pit in his stomach. Jesse turned away and tossed the coat upwards with both hands, hanging it over the video camera mounted in the corner of the ceiling. Damon’s hands were still down when Jesse spun around, his fist catching his twin flush in the nose.

  ****

  After the jury was excused, Ludlow announced a fifteen-minute recess before the jury instruction conference in his chambers. I texted with Eddy. We were planning a getaway in the wine country after the trial, and I had left the details to her. If there was a guilty verdict, I wondered if I could go.

  “Gentlemen,” Ludlow said, waving us in from the doorway of his chambers. “I’ve read your requested jury instructions. Let’s make this brief.” Didery and I sat on the leather sofa as Ludlow collapsed in his chair behind his desk, reclining to stare at the ceiling. “I didn’t see any discrepancies except for one of you asked for the Aiding and Abetting instruction.”

  “That was me, Your Honor,” said Didery. “Obviously, it applies. I assume Mr. Turner must have just neglected to include it in his proposed instructions.”

  “No, actually, I don’t think the instruction is appropriate.” I knew full well the instruction was appropriate. If given, it would allow the jury to convict Darnell of murder even if he wasn’t the shooter. Now, it was my turn to take advantage of Ludlow’s incompetence.

  “You can’t be serious, Joe. You know the instruction applies,” Didery whined, then addressed the judge. “Your Honor, if the jury finds that Moore was the driver and someone else was the shooter, then he’s guilty on an aiding and abetting theory.” Didery shot me a plaintive look, knowing that quoting the law to Ludlow was a losing battle.

  “Your Honor, the prosecution’s theory from the beginning of the trial has been that my client was the shooter. The prosecution is now, all of a sudden, switching theories? It’s an ambush!” I said dramatically, slamming my legal pad on the floor.

  Didery rolled his eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me, Turner. You know full well that the instruction applies.”

  Ludlow was losing patience. “I warned you two to sort this out before today!”

  “Your Honor. Let’s be real,” I told him. “The prosecution’s case is airtight and unfortunately, my client will be on his way to prison soon whether or not you give the Aiding and Abetting instruction. But if you do give the instruction, there will certainly be an appeal. Frankly, I’m surprised that Mr. Didery believes the instruction is worth jeopardizing his conviction.”

  My argument would have been valid if there was any chance of a successful appeal. Where the likelihood of conviction was strong, judges often shied away from jury instructions that might form the basis of an appeal for the defense. In this case, however, an appeal would be unthinkable because the instruction applied. But I was preying on Ludlow’s incompetence and insecurity. His decisions had been reversed on appeal in record numbers, so he was vulnerable to my argument.

  Didery began to panic, realizing that Ludlow was actually contemplating not giving the Aiding and Abetting instruction. “Your Honor, please. This is absurd. It is perfectly appropriate for me to argue to the jury that Mr. Moore was the shooter, but on the off chance that he was merely the driver, he’s still guilty of murder. It’s called arguing in the alternative. It happens all the time!”

  “Your Honor, if you give this instruction, I will begin drafting the appeal now.”

  Ludlow put his elbows on his desk and covered his face with both hands. His worst nightmare was at hand. A legal decision. After several seconds, he stood. “Mr. Didery, as Mr. Turner points out, this instruction is not essential to your case. You’ve proven that Moore was the shooter six ways from Sunday.”

  “Your Honor, please. Let me brief the issue this afternoon. I’ll spell it out for you.” I cringed, as his words hung in the air. Didery had gone too far. We knew Ludlow was incompetent; he knew that we knew. You just couldn’t say it. The prosecutor hung his head, knowing he had no chance to win the argument now.

  The judge stood, glaring at Didery. “I need nothing spelled out for me! I’ve made my decision. I will not be giving the Aiding and Abetting instruction. Now if you gentlemen will excuse me, I have some work to do,” he said, grabbing a random book from his bookshelf.

&nbs
p; “Tough one,” I chided Didery, as we packed up our files in the courtroom.

  “That was a joke, Turner, and you know it.”

  Joke or not, it was a significant victory. Now, to convict Darnell of murder, the prosecution would have to prove that he was the shooter.

  ****

  The two deputy sheriffs were playing poker in their guard station when they heard the panic buzzer from the interview room. They hadn’t noticed the camera to the room had gone black. They arrived to find Damon and Jesse grappling on the floor, cursing each other as they wrestled on the cold cement.

  The deputies pulled them apart, flinging the inmate against the wall before handcuffing him. Jesse’s body was sore. He was pretty sure the wound in his side was seeping, but he was determined not to show it.

  “You don’t fight bad for a suit.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  The twins traded a quick smile as Damon was escorted out of the room.

  ****

  As I sat at my desk after court, I admitted having secretly harbored high hopes for the E&J market’s long-anticipated surveillance video that captured the inside of the market. Perhaps Bedrossian would be caught on the video, saying, “I couldn’t see a damn thing without my glasses,” or in light of recent events, Elijah Jakes would be caught reloading his cane gun.

  But it was not to be. The footage showed only the area surrounding the counter. At one point, what looked like the top of Bedrossian’s head was seen in the foreground flashing across the screen after gunshots rang out.

  I heard the office door open in the lobby. “Hi, Damon, Joe’s in his office.” I heard Lawanda’s greeting shortly before my door was pushed open.

  I glanced up. “Have a seat, Damon. I’m just finishing up here. Hey, nice hair-cut.”

  I looked up from my files, focusing on him for the first time. If it weren’t for his eyes, I may not have noticed. If I would have looked closely, I may have seen that his button-down fit more loosely in the shoulders and that his khakis had to be cinched at the waist. Physically, though, the discrepancies would have gone unnoticed. But it was his sad, sunken eyes that had the realization washing over me moments before he spoke.

  “Hi, Joe. It’s Jesse.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  A man can condemn his enemies, but it’s wiser to know them.―Harper Lee

  As Chuck and I rode out to the crime scene on Wednesday afternoon, I thought back to Damon’s request for the contact visit and wondered how long the twins had been planning this. I’d been careful not to ask Jesse how they’d pulled it off. As a rule, the less I knew about felony escapes, the better. I had simply treated Jesse as a witness who appeared in my office preparing for trial. And as it turned out, he had been remarkably forthcoming.

  “Okay, here’s what happened,” he’d said simply, before describing exactly what he had seen on the day of the shooting.

  Chuck eased Ma to a stop across the street from the E&J on Eighth Street, two houses down from the murder scene. I had filled Chuck in last night and we had agreed that Jesse’s story could be supported by confirming a few facts with some photos at the crime scene.

  “Keep your head on a swivel, Chuck.” We sat in the jalopy with its top down, surveying the area. If Jesse was right, there was a potential for real danger.

  “Joe, there’s something I’ve got to tell you,” he said dramatically, peering out through his car’s filthy windshield. “I’ve never shot anybody before.”

  “You’re quoting movie lines at a time like this?”

  Apart from a homeless man and his shopping cart, moving along the sidewalk toward the E&J, the area was deserted. The market’s front door was closed, a makeshift “Closed” sign hung from a nail on the boarded-up front window.

  Across the street at 454 West Eighth, the blue Victorian appeared vacant. Chuck and I walked to the sidewalk where Cleveland Barlow had perished. I had spent so much time staring at photos of the yard, I felt like I recognized every weed. The yard was still strewn with empty malt liquor cans, bottles, cigarette stubs and rolling papers. A strand of yellow police tape, probably left over from the murder, its end wrapped in a slat of the picket fence, fluttered in the breeze.

  Chuck had set up on one knee, directly across the street from the E&J, his camera pointed toward the market when two shots cracked the afternoon silence, their fire-cracker pops merged with a metallic ricochet off a street sign not two feet above our heads.

  I dropped to the ground on instinct, but that didn’t seem right, so I was up again, sprinting to the car with Chuck. I dove in the back seat and Chuck was on the gas, plowing through plastic garbage bins in a sweeping U-turn as I buried myself in the floorboard. I stayed there for several minutes, catching my breath as we slalomed through the streets of west Oakland.

  “That was awful,” I called from the backseat once my breathing had returned to normal.

  “Yeah, if he wanted us dead, we’d be dead,” Chuck said, with a dry mouth.

  “Yeah. He hit the street sign as a warning.”

  We rode in silence until we reached my office. “Looks like Jesse told the truth,” Chuck said, parking on the street behind my car.

  “Looks that way. Did you happen to get any photos?”

  “No, but I’ll figure something out. You know Churchill said nothing in life is more exhilarating than being shot at without result.”

  I just shook my head. “See you tomorrow, Chuck.” Still shaky when I got home, I poured myself a stiff gin and tonic, outlined a direct examination of my star witness, and outlined my closing argument. Assuming Jesse showed up to Court and managed to seem reasonably credible with the jury, he would give the defense hope.

  Before bed, I considered my professional ethical duties. I certainly had no obligation to report Jesse’s appearance in my office. For all I knew, the jail had mistakenly released him. Even if I assumed an escape, I had no affirmative duty to report the crime.

  I telephoned the jail, cancelling “Jesse Wendell’s” transportation for his court appearance tomorrow morning. Jesse wasn’t there, after all, so it wasn’t necessary. The witness warrant would be withdrawn after he testified, then presumably the jail would release him, or rather, the inmate who was occupying his cell.

  I thought of Damon, about to spend his second night in jail. I assumed he was in there, anyway, having taken the place of his twin. I recalled how much he hated jail and thought about how much he must care for his twin brother.

  Chuck greeted me in Department 27 when I arrived. “I didn’t get any photos taken because, well, I was being shot at, but through the magic of the GPS on the Internet…” he said, presenting me with a folder of color images. “I emailed them to you so you can pull them up on the big screen in court.”

  “I’ll never call you a Luddite again. Thanks!”

  “I saw our boy outside. Good luck.”

  I realized I hadn’t been the least bit worried about Jesse showing up.

  Three weeks into the trial, dozens of calls to order had done nothing to mute the exuberance of Deputy Hartag’s morning rendition. There was a spring in Ludlow’s step as he ascended the bench, his crimson face betraying his previous-day’s activity.

  Didery stipulated to the translation of Bedrossian’s remarks on the 911 tape, so I entered the transcript into evidence.

  “Mr. Turner, your final witness,” Ludlow said after saying good morning to the jury.

  “Thank you, Your Honor. The defense calls Jesse Wendell.”

  The courtroom’s double doors opened, and Jesse strolled down the aisle, cautiously peering about. Didery, immersed in his notes, did a double take upon seeing the witness in civilian clothes. What the fuck? he mouthed.

  I gave him a shrug as Jesse took the oath.

  “Mr. Wendell, where do you reside?” I asked from the podium.

  “I live in Oakland. Currently, I’m homeless. I usually stay with friends.”

  “And for how long have you lived in Oakland?”r />
  “I was raised in the foster care system all over the bay area. Mostly in Oakland.”

  “Have you ever been convicted of a crime.”

  “Yes. When I was ten, I was convicted of murder.”

  I didn’t look at the jury but felt them shifting in their seats. “And how old are you now?”

  “I’m twenty-three, sir.”

  “How about other criminal offenses?”

  “Since I’ve been out, some drug offenses, petty theft.”

  “Do you recall the events of March twenty-second of this year?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you recall seeing a shooting?”

  “I do.”

  “And where were you when you witnessed the shooting?”

  “I was on the corner of Eighth and Maybeck in Oakland.”

  I cued up the E&J surveillance video of the intersection that showed Jesse at the intersection just before the green sedan drove past him. “Do you recognize yourself in that video?”

  “Yes.”

  “What were you doing in the area, Mr. Wendell.”

  “I, uh, was going to try to buy some weed.”

  “And what did you see?”

  “I saw a green car coming toward me on Eighth. It was an older model sedan—the one you saw in the video. I saw some young guys on the sidewalk in front of the house across the street from me on the corner. When the car got to the intersection, I heard shooting and saw one of the young guys fall.”

  “From your standpoint, could you see if the driver of the green car had a gun?”

  “Yes, the driver had a gun.”

  “Did you see the driver shoot his gun out of the car?”

  “Yes. He stuck the gun out of the car and fired a lot of shots straight up in the air.”

  “What happened next?”

  “The green car drove past me on Eighth.”

  “Mr. Wendell, did you see anyone else shooting that day?”

  Jessed looked down at me from the witness stand. Then I saw his green eyes shift to his right, in line with Darnell behind me at the counsel table. The courtroom was silent as he sighed audibly into the microphone. “Yes, sir. Right before the driver shot up in the air, I saw someone shooting out of the second-floor window of the market across the street. He had a rifle.”