Innocence On Trial

by Rick Bowers

  The phone rang. Laura picked it up to hear the familiar, automated voice: “This is New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. You have a collect call from… inmate Edward Nash at the… Attica Correctional Facility in… Attica, New York. Do you accept the charges?”

  “Yes.” Pause. “Eddie?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have good news.”

  She filled him in on all the developments, including the image of the bloodstained towel. “It could have the real killer’s DNA on it.”

  “Fan-fucking-tastic!” Eddie exclaimed. “Freedom’s coming!”

  “Eddie.” Laura wanted more information about his background. She wanted more insight into his childhood influences. “Eddie,” she said. “Tell me about Eden, New York.”

  52

  Eddie’s mind drifted back to his hometown. “Eden was no paradise,” he told her from the small, glass-enclosed inmate phone room in D-Block.

  The once prosperous mill town had been on the decline, ever since the closing of the ironworks and fish canneries on Lake Erie in the ‘80s. By the time Eddie came along, life was hard for most everyone in the remote village on the far edge of western New York. But, no one in the rural enclave had it worse than the three percent of the population that happened to be African-American. The black families had fled the big cities of Buffalo and Rochester for a simpler life in the country, only to run into a harsh backlash from many of their white neighbors. For Eddie, growing up poor and black in a white town had been one long endurance test as he navigated a maze of racial slurs, bigoted attitudes, and backward thinking.

  “I was always being picked up by the cops and pressured to confess to some bullshit charge, or implicate a friend. It seemed that every little thing—a stolen bike or shoplifted toy—started with a visit to the Nash place.”

  “Go on.”

  “I got used to hearing racist shit from white kids—and their parents—until I had to turn off the noise. I learned to ignore the fools and misfits. I stopped seeing color and just saw people.”

  In fact, he’d made a conscious effort to survive in redneck Eden, New York. He avoided the haters and steered clear of trouble. In middle school, he hung with a band of free-spirited kids who had no time for skin color, race, ethnicity, or any of the categories that occupied the minds of most people. “To these kids, as long as you were cool, you were in. So, I became the coolest of the cool. The leader of the pack. We were all living on the edge in that hopeless town. Except, we didn’t know it was hopeless. We thought every place was like Eden.”

  Eddie recalled his old haunt with a sense of nostalgia. “Our crew hung out at this abandoned mental asylum. I’ll never forget it. The Angel’s Gate Mental Asylum for the Permanently Insane. What a name, right? We made up this game called ‘Doctor Lunatic.’ We pretended to give each other lobotomies. Then, we walked around like brain-dead zombies, out for fresh blood. Just kids. Having fun.”

  “A mental asylum was your playground?”

  “Yep. Picture this grand, three-story, stone estate home—this country mansion that housed mental patients back in the day. We used to go out to the abandoned house at night and make believe ghosts were floating around. One time, I picked through the old children’s ward. I found this filthy, one-eyed, stuffed gorilla. I took it home and put it on my shelf. I swear, one night, the damn thing winked at me—with its one eye.”

  Laura cringed.

  “What else do you want to know? Nash asked. “I got nothing to hide. How many different ways can I say it? Eden was a shithole.”

  “That’s good for now,” Laura said. “We’ll pick it up on the next call.”

  “When are you coming back to Attica?”

  “I’m not coming this time, Eddie.” Her voice softened. “I’m sending you a friend.”

  ***

  Laura leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes, and relived the conversation. She knew what he was talking about. She’d spent plenty of time in those struggling towns, and the rural outback. Her time in college, screening applicants for pro bono legal appeals, had taken her to prisons and jails across the state. Her work as an innocence attorney had taken her to dozens of small cities and towns, plagued by joblessness and poverty, and a surge in opiate addiction. The nice homes and good schools had gone to ruin. The railcars had rusted in shut-down switchyards. Boarded-up shops cried out for the wrecking ball. The drunks wasted away in the bars; the meth heads gathered down by the tracks; the old-timers paraded down Main Street in their walkers; the pimple-faced kids took suicide prevention classes at the middle school.

  And, although New Yorkers hated to admit it, racism flourished. In its own way, the bigotry was as bad as it was in any part of the Deep South.

  She also knew about those mental hospitals. There were scores of those old, shut-down institutions throughout upstate New York. Back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, the high-priced shrinks in Manhattan sent the real crazies up-country for “the treatment,” which meant lobotomies or electroshock therapy. After The New York Times exposed the abuse, the worst places were closed down but never demolished.

  Someone was going to have to check this one out.

  53

  In the cramped prison conference room, the beleaguered convict stared across the table at the stylish PI.

  “Charles Steel.” The PI smiled. “Private investigator.”

  “Eddie Nash,” the con replied. “Convicted murderer.”

  Eddie wore his green work shirt over a white tee. Charles Steel, dreadlocks flicking his shoulders, sported a black leather jacket with a colorful tribal pattern stitched above the front pocket.

  “Welcome to Attica,” Eddie joked. “Garden spot of the state.”

  “I’d say it’s nice to be here, but…”

  “Seriously.” Eddie looked down at his shackled hands, before reestablishing eye contact. “Thanks for coming. I appreciate all your work.”

  “Save the gratitude. Thank me when you’re home free.”

  Eddie smiled at the thought. “What’s the latest? What are you finding out?”

  Charles scanned the room before leaning in and whispering, “I’ve been running the financials on your friend, the amazing Detective Peter Demario. He owns a brick colonial in Eden, and a beach house on the river. Nice dock for his twenty-two-foot powerboat. Pays alimony to two exes and supports four kids. The guy is living high on a meager detective’s salary.”

  “He’s crooked,” Eddie whispered back. “You guys can nail him in court.”

  Charles twisted his smile into a smirk. “Nope. His crooked dealings are not directly linked to your case. The trial judge will rule that it’s irrelevant and prejudicial. We’ll have to show how Demario coerced the confession and fucked with the evidence.”

  “We can do that. Easy.”

  “Yes, we can. No problem.”

  “What about the evidence?” Eddie asked. “What have you found?”

  “The good detective was not the only one faking the goods. The police lab was just as much a part of the frame job. The tire track evidence is bogus. Your mix-and-match truck tires were different from the matching casts taken at the crime scene.”

  “Finally,” Eddie exhaled. “I told my public defender that, and he said it didn’t matter.”

  “The hair samples were bogus, too. The microscopic tests conducted by the police lab showed a 99.999% probability that the three hairs found on the victim came from you. We ran our own DNA tests on the same samples that proved the hairs belonged to Erin, the victim.”

  “Damn it.” Eddie dropped his shackled hands on the desktop. “I knew it.”

  “We’re still stumped on those urine samples taken from the victim’s body.”

  Eddie shook his head in disgust. “The ones that supposedly prove I pissed on the corpse?”

  “Yeah. Those. The lab te
sts showed the urine on her upper torso had traces of your DNA in it.”

  “How’d they pull that off?

  “Not sure yet. Still working it.”

  “Okay.”

  “What about the towel?” Eddie asked. “The one with the bloodstains.”

  “We’re still looking for it. Hopefully, the cops didn’t burn it.”

  “The towel will tell the story.” Eddie’s voice grew stronger with a matter-of-fact tone. “No way my blood is on that towel.”

  Charles leaned back in his chair, shifting gears. “Tell me about Jimmy Dean Bernadi.”

  “Former bouncer at the Bottoms Up. Former boyfriend of Erin Lambert. Bad news dude. Mean son of a bitch. Haven’t laid eyes on him since the trial. Not sure where he is.”

  “Jimmy Dean Bernadi,” Charles mused. “Next on my hit list.”

  “Be careful,” Eddie warned. “Very careful.”

  Charles filled Eddie in on more details of the investigation. “More tests refuting the police account. Certain evidence that the cops were trying to intimidate the good guys. No progress in IDing the real killer.” Then, he changed the subject altogether. He wanted to get to know Eddie a little better. “So, you’re a writer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you write?”

  “Poetry,” Eddie replied. “Bad poetry.”

  “Can’t be that bad.”

  “Just finished a lyric for a rapper over in B-Block.”

  “No shit?”

  Eddie closed his eyes and recited:

  “You’re arrested and tried

  Justice is denied

  Prison is proscribed

  Tears are cried

  Gates opened wide

  Your senses are deprived

  Your brain got fried

  And you go dead inside.”

  54

  Laura drove down a long, straight ribbon of highway toward the western frontier of New York State. The focal point of the case was moving back to the rural enclaves, east of Lake Erie. The proximity to the crime scene, witnesses, and trial venue made it ground zero for State of New York v. Edward Thomas Nash II.

  Laura admired the view as the Mustang passed farmland and pine woods. She watched as the snowcapped mountains gave way to rolling hills, and the rolling hills gave way to barren fields. She saw deer in the woods, hawks on the wing, and dappled sunlight on the icy, roadside streams. She passed rivers, lakes, and towns with rich histories and Native American names. Chautauqua. Allegheny. Seneca. Mohawk. It wasn’t easy, but she passed up many chances to stop for local delicacies at roadside eateries. Tomato pie—thick pizza with the cheese under the sauce—or grape pie made from native Concords.

  Laura spotted a mud-smeared sign, rising from an icy drainage ditch: “Welcome to Eden.” She continued past the old farmhouses and ramshackle barns on Burnt Mansion Road, before turning onto Commerce Boulevard, a four-lane stretch of fast food joints, used car lots, thrift stores, tattoo parlors, and bail bondsmen.

  Welcome to paradise.

  She pulled onto a dead-end road and stopped at a white, clapboard house–24 Lost River Road. The paint on the small house was peeling. The shutters hung loose. The shingles were shifting on the roof. The front porch needed new planks.

  Laura stepped onto the uneven porch boards and knocked on the door, pushing back her hair as she waited. After a long moment, the screen door opened, revealing a thin, older, black woman in a floral-print smock.

  “Hello, Mrs. Nash.”

  “Miss Tobias! I’ve been expecting you. And call me Cassie.”

  Laura smiled.

  Cassandra Nash stepped outside and threw her arms around Laura. After the long embrace, Cassie took Laura’s hands, pulling her through the threshold, then engulfing her on the other side with a second long embrace. “Thank you for coming. I’ve heard all about you. Thank you for all you’ve done for my son. Eddie sings your praises all the time.”

  “No, no, no,” Laura protested. “Just doing my job. Eddie deserves it. What’s happened to him is a shame. It’s an honor to be representing him. We’re doing everything in our power to get him out.”

  “You’re pouring your heart and soul into this. God bless you.”

  “I believe in Eddie.”

  “Eddie believes in you.”

  “I’m doing my best.” Laura looked into her warm, brown eyes. “It’s looking good at the moment. We have a strong case, and it’s getting stronger all the time. Still a long way to go, though.”

  Mrs. Nash led her through the old-fashioned kitchen to a worn sofa in the living room. Sitting together, they talked about the case, and the importance of hope. Cassie retrieved an old photo album from a nearby shelf and guided Laura through the pictures. Eddie as a baby. Eddie chasing his two sisters in the backyard. Eddie at the lake with a fishing pole. Eddie with his first car. Eddie on the front porch with his arms around his father. His dad had died several years ago from cancer, and Cassie had carried on alone. She’d remortgaged the house to pay for Eddie’s appeal. She’d tapped her savings to send him cash for the commissary. She’d made dozens of trips to that Godforsaken prison. Now, she was fighting off death and waiting for the truth to emerge.

  Laura looked up from the scrapbook and saw the pain in the woman’s eyes. She also saw the intelligence and resilience.

  A tear welled up, but Cassie ignored it. “I can’t think about much of anything, except Eddie. I pray that God will put all this right.”

  “You’ve been there for Eddie,” Laura said. “He needs you now more than ever. The jury needs to see that his family is standing behind him.”

  Cassie wiped another tear. “I’ll be there.”

  Of course, Laura knew about the hardships facing the scattered African-American population in the remote reaches of western New York. It wasn’t that she believed these rural backwaters were any more or less racist than anyplace else. But, she’d read news account after news account of dreadful incidents in these small towns. Police violence. Attacks. She’d read a study that singled out the region as the most hostile place in the entire country for blacks. On a percentage basis, the most racist Google searches—using the N-word—came from rural western New York. Then, there was the infamous YouTube video from Cheektowaga. It captured a white woman, hurling racial slurs at a black shopper in a Dollar Store parking lot. There was also the city councilman who sent out the mass email calling Michelle Obama a “chimpanzee in high heels.”

  There was something gurgling right below the surface around these parts.

  55

  Eddie saw his mother, reaching out to him. Her luminous form was bathed in the radiant light of countless stars. Her open arms beckoned like the expansive wings of a guardian angel. Her soft, brown complexion glowed like a teenaged girl’s, while her dancing eyes sparkled like gems from the heavens. Eddie was flooded with a sense of peace and wellbeing as he heard her voice, as sweet and pure as the soloist in a glorious choir, inviting him into the beyond. “Come home, son.” A rush of warmth rolled over him, melting the chains of the cruel present. Reaching out to her, he felt like a lost five-year-old who had just been found.

  Eddie rose and floated from his thin, worn, prison mattress, then drifted through the stone walls and razor wire, watching the cons, guards, crazies, and corrupted fade away, like bad memories better forgotten. In the shifting shadows of his dream, Eddie saw the faces of his brother, sisters, friends, kind neighbors, long-forgotten childhood playmates, high school renegades, and smiling service buddies. The people of his past were dressed in fine, new clothes, forming a welcoming line of beaming smiles and hearty laughter.

  In the hazy distance, he saw her. She was beautiful. She was vibrant. She was young. Erin Lambert was the very essence of life. Erin Lambert was healed.

  “I love you, Erin,” he said.

  “I lov
e you, Eddie,” she replied.

  Falling deeper into the dream, Eddie switched to standing on a green hillside, overlooking a lush valley. He gazed up into the forgiving eyes of Reverend Richard Garret, the towering minister from the church he’d attended with his mom as a child. Eddie touched the man of God’s golden, silk robe, grasped his immense, powerful hand, and took in his words: “You have risen. It’s a miracle. Hallelujah!”

  “Hallelujah!” Eddie responded. “Hallelujah.”

  “You’ve been resurrected,” the minister went on. “Your time of grace begins now. Hallelujah!”

  Then, he heard a distant proclamation:

  “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.”

  “Yes.”

  “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

  The dream was real. The dream was right. His suffering was gone. The Word had been true all along.

  Eddie Nash had found the light.

  56

  The light went out.

  Eddie was cold and alone. Lost in darkness. Eddie was not back in the darkness of his cell. He had been cast into an endless space of nothingness. His mother was gone. His friends were gone. Reverend Garret was gone. Had his dream transformed into a nightmare? Or had he been swallowed up by Hell? Had the love turned to hate? Or had it never existed? Had madness taken over? Or had it had its grip on him all along? Had the devil himself come to claim his black heart? Did the beast know his secrets? Had Satan sentenced him to an eternal life sentence in the most horrible prison of all?

  A voice called out to him: “Eddie. I know you.” It had to be him. The Evil One. The self-indulgent, fallen angel with a vendetta against his Creator. The voice whispered, “I know the truth.”

  Then, Eddie saw her face—her skull. It was lifeless and insect-ravaged. Erin Lambert smiled at him from the grave.