Nate Rosen Investigates

by Ron Levitsky

  Rosen laid a hand gently on the boy’s shoulder. “How about walking me back to the car?”

  Stevie shrugged. “Okay.”

  They walked past the line of cars, Rosen’s hand still on the boy’s shoulder, as it had been that day the previous summer when he’d sprained his ankle in Belle Gates’s field.

  “Before leaving, I wanted to apologize,” Rosen said.

  “What for?”

  “Ever since I came to Bear Coat, I’ve been pretty rough on you. Believing in your grandfather’s innocence, I was looking for the . . . guilty person.”

  “You mean murderer.”

  “That’s right. For a while, I thought it might’ve been you.”

  Stevie nodded. “I know. Because I cut Mr. Gates the day of the murder—that’s why his blood was on Grandfather’s shirt. And because I cut you that night in the car on the way back from Deadwood, you thought I coulda killed somebody.”

  “And because everyone, including your mother and grandfather, wanted to protect you.”

  “I said, it’s okay.”

  They had reached Andi’s car. Taking his hand from Stevie’s shoulder, Rosen crossed his arms and waited for the boy to look at him.

  “It’s not okay. I should never have suspected you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because of what your grandfather once told me, the story of Stone Boy.” When Stevie’s eyes narrowed, Rosen said, “You know the story.”

  “Yeah, but what’s it got to do with anything?”

  “As your grandfather once told me, the story teaches that man is capable of both the greatest good and the greatest evil. He said you’d learned the lesson well. When you stabbed Albert Gates—and me, for that matter—it was to protect your grandfather, just as Stone Boy set out on his adventures to protect his family. Murdering Gates behind his back—no true Lakota warrior would do that. Would your grandfather or Tom have done something like that?”

  Stevie shook his head.

  “Neither would you.”

  “But the way some say the story ends, Stone Boy destroys his family, because he hunts and kills the animals for no reason—just for the fun of it. Just because he thought he could get away with it, like . . .” He stopped suddenly and stared at the ground.

  “That’s right, like Jack Keeshin. Maybe you’re a little mixed up, maybe the medication and Dr. Hartrey’s counseling have helped you, but I think your grandfather had already set you on the right path. I think now your mother knows that too.”

  It was the first time that Rosen had seen Stevie smile, and in that smile, he saw the face of the boy’s grandfather.

  “Mom’s gonna make a small tipi and watch over Uncle Will’s soul, until it’s ready to climb up to the Milky Way. That’s the old way, you know, the way of our people.”

  “Yes,” Rosen said, “so I’ve heard.”

  Just then, Andi walked up to the car and slung her camera into the back seat.

  “Hope I’m not interrupting any important guy talk, but we’d better get going, if you want to arrive in Chicago by tomorrow afternoon.”

  Rosen shook the boy’s hand. “Take care of your mom.”

  “I will.”

  Andi hugged Stevie tightly. “Don’t take any crap from anybody. You’re okay. You have your mom bring you to Chicago, and I’ll show you the town. Well see the Bulls, the Sox—”

  “Cubs,” Rosen blurted. “The Cubs.”

  Pulling out from the line of cars, Andi drove up Saul’s ridge, the Mercury’s muffler rumbling in the cold air.

  “I thought you’d like to see the ridge one more time.”

  They climbed for a few minutes toward the clouds, then Andi stopped in front of the sweat lodge. She kept the motor running while Rosen got out.

  He walked to the vision pit, which had filled with several inches of snow, and from there to the small pile, also frosted, where the remains of White Bear had been reburied. Standing beside the grave marker, he imagined the bones slowly decaying, returning to the earth from which they had been sustained in life. In the spring something new might grow, sustained by those very bones.

  He felt a warm breeze bringing a faint scent of something green; no, that was only his imagination. It was much too early for spring. Yet, back at the house, he’d seen a new beginning for Tom, Grace, and Stevie.

  “Life goes on,” he whispered to himself, and remembered Sarah’s invitation, when they’d talked on Tuesday.

  “We’re going to this neat restaurant . . . Wish you could come.”

  “We’re” had included Bess and her new husband, Shelly.

  As Rosen returned to the car, Andi shifted gears. “All set?”

  He nodded, settling into the seat as the Mercury cruised down the dirt road that led to the highway. Looking back once at the ridge and the Black Hills looming in the distance, he asked, “Are you doing anything Saturday night? There’s some people I’d like you to meet.”

  THE INNOCENCE THAT KILLS

  For Jin and Rachel

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Acknowledgments

  The author wishes to thank the following people: Father Kevin Feeney of Saint Sylvester’s Church, Sonia Levitsky for her knowledge of Spanish and the Dominican culture, Officer Bill Lustig and the Northfield Police Department, Rafael Sanchez for the tour of Chicago’s neighborhoods, Dick Verbeke and the Lake Forest Police Department, and Holly Weindorf for a glimpse into the human side of podiatry.

  I went up the bitter mountain

  seeking flowers where they whiten

  half asleep and half awake

  among the crags.

  When I came down with my burden,

  in the middle of the meadow I found her,

  and frantically covered her

  with a shower of white lilies.

  But without looking at the whiteness

  she said to me, “This time bring back

  only flowers that are red.

  I cannot go beyond the meadow.”

  I scaled the rocks with deer

  and sought the flowers of madness,

  those that grow so red they seemed

  to live and die of redness.

  When I descended happily trembling,

  I gave them as my offering,

  and she became as water

  That from a wounded deer turns bloody.

  —from “The Flowers of the Air”

  by Gabriela Mistral

  Chapter One

  Rosen wanted the two boys locked away in darkness for the rest of their lives. Whatever their psychiatrists might someday learn couldn’t change what happened—what they’d done. Rosen wanted to hate them like everyone else in the courtroom, but he couldn’t. He was their lawyer.

  He sat beside them at the defense table, near the small door that let the prisoners in one by one, like cockroaches shaken from a bottle. The State of Illinois considered his clients “men” because they were nineteen, but they looked like any of a thousand black kids locked up in the Cook County jails, wearing prison khaki shirts with “D.O.C.,” Department of Corrections, stenciled down a pants leg. Only what they had done set them apart.

  Did the two boys really understand what they’d done? If they’d shown the slightest remorse, perhaps Rosen could’ve justified his actions in court
during the past few days. But they’d sat quietly bored, as if the proceedings were one long Sunday church service that had to be endured.

  The assistant state’s attorney, a thin, earnest man with longish hair, was giving closing arguments at his podium before the judge. He slowly recounted the brutality against Denae Tyler, each sentence punctuated by outcries from the victim’s family and friends. How, one evening six months ago in Evanston, the two boys had lured their neighbor, a fourteen-year-old black girl, into their car. How they’d driven to one of the boy’s homes, gone into the basement, raped her and, when she’d cried too loudly, bashed in her skull with a baseball bat. How they’d finished watching a sitcom on TV, stuffed her into the trunk of the car and driven around for an hour before dumping her body into Lake Michigan, then gone for ribs. How the police stopped them on the way home and searched the car, finding bloodstains and one of the girl’s shoes. How one of the boys confessed with a shrug.

  “. . . like he’d squashed a bug, instead of the life of an innocent young girl.”

  “My baby!”

  Rosen glanced at the victim’s mother, a big woman with stooped shoulders and soft brown eyes, before once again looking down at the table. The prosecutor recounted the evidence and confessions quickly—too quickly, as if the judge might be tricked into confusing justice with the law. But that would never happen.

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” the prosecutor mumbled and looked at his notes. He was ashamed too, but for a different reason.

  After a few minutes of silence, the judge, a florid man with wisps of white hair and steel-rimmed glasses, motioned the defendants to the other podium. Rosen accompanied the two boys, who clasped their hands behind their backs (as all prisoners did). Three policemen stood guard behind them.

  The judge seemed about to begin, when he removed his glasses for a moment and, blinking hard, sighed.

  “I’ve sat in judgment in hundreds of cases and heard, I fear, enough acts of senseless cruelty to shake one’s faith in the basic decency of man. This is such a crime. To take Denae Tyler, a young innocent girl, who through no fault of her own . . .”

  Shaking his head, Rosen felt his stomach tighten. Cruel enough what these two boys had done, but the judge was only making it harder on the dead girl’s family by giving them hope.

  He droned on. “Certainly there is no doubt that the defendants committed this heinous crime. The testimonies of the arresting officers, the preponderance of evidence, one of the defendant’s confession—all lead to the obvious conclusion of guilt.”

  Rosen gripped the podium. Go ahead, tell them! Tell her family what we’ve all done!

  “However, there are certain rules the police must follow in gathering evidence, as defense counsel so ably pointed out during his cross-examination of the arresting officers.”

  And the judge catalogued all the errors the police had made. Most importantly, they’d stopped the defendants’ car for no reason. “Going to rattle the monkeys in their cage.” That’s what they’d told the dispatcher—that’s what she’d finally admitted under Rosen’s grilling. Or the witness he’d found, an old man in an alley, who’d seen one policeman put a gun to the boy’s head, after the trunk was open, to force a confession.

  Again the judge removed his glasses—was he ashamed to see how the decent people in court would react to what he was about to say?

  “The United States Supreme Court has recently given the police more latitude in gathering evidence, even in some cases evidence that has been obtained without probable cause but in good faith. I wish this were such a case, but it is not. As defense counsel correctly pointed out, the police acted with wanton disregard for the defendants’ rights under the Fourth Amendment. I have no choice but to dismiss the charges against them and order their release from custody. Court is adjourned.”

  The only sound was the judge shuffling his papers together before hurrying from the bench. Only when the defendants, neither of whom even blinked at the verdict, were escorted back through the narrow door, did those in court fully realize what the judge had said. They wailed as if the girl’s body were laid before them once again. And then they raged—against the boys, the court, and Rosen.

  “I’ll kill ’em—see them comin’ round the neighborhood! Swear to God I’ll kill ’em both!”

  “Oh, my baby, my little girl!”

  “God damn Jew lawyer!”

  “I’ll kill ’em!”

  The police, who had guarded the defendants, now turned to guard Rosen.

  “My baby!”

  The girl’s mother lurched forward and almost collapsed in the aisle. Two men grabbed the woman, while a television camera recorded her misery. Once again Rosen felt sick, stuffing the papers into his briefcase. When someone touched his arm, it flew up to protect his face.

  “Nice job, Counselor.”

  Standing across the table, Elgin Hermes almost smiled. His skin was the color and texture of milk chocolate. In his fifties, he looked ten years younger; only the few gray hairs around the temples and in his mustache hinted at his true age. Hermes’ eyes, dark and piercing, were made more intense by his wide cheekbones. A charcoal three-piece suit gloved his lean, muscular body. Putting a hand on Rosen’s shoulder, he revealed a diamond-studded cuff link.

  “I’m very pleased.” His voice, a deep baritone, was made for the stage.

  Rosen snapped his briefcase shut. “It’s nice somebody is. Maybe you can explain why to Denae Tyler’s family.”

  “I’d like to try. Maybe in time they’ll understand that what we did here is important. You understand the significance.”

  “Sure. It doesn’t make it any easier.”

  A young woman with curly black hair pointed a microphone in his face and turned him toward a camera. “Angelina Mella, WGN News. I’m here, at the Cook County Circuit Court in suburban Skokie, with defense attorney Nathan Rosen. Mr. Rosen, as a member of the Washington-based civil liberties group the Committee to Defend the Constitution, can you tell us the significance of your victory today in court?”

  Behind the reporter, the victim’s family still shouted its disbelief. Rosen rubbed his eyes. He forced himself to mumble something about the Fourth Amendment and the people’s right against illegal searches.

  “Thank you,” the reporter said. “Standing beside Mr. Rosen is Elgin Hermes, President of Hermes Communications, one of the largest African-American media corporations in the country. I understand that you personally retained the services of Mr. Rosen’s organization.”

  “That’s correct, Angelina. First let me say, like any decent human being, I grieve for the poor innocent girl who died and for her family, just as I have nothing but disgust for the defendants. Under normal criminal procedure, they would have been duly convicted and, no doubt, sentenced to death. But just as guilty are the arresting officers who thought that the two men were fair game, because they were black—because they were ‘monkeys.’”

  “Isn’t it true that both your business and home are in Chicago, yet this crime occurred in suburban Evanston?”

  “It’s about time people realized that police racism is not just happening in Chicago. I’m glad this trial was held in the suburbs, so that everyone in this county, in this nation, rich and poor alike, can finally realize . . .”

  The words grew more political but resounded, in Hermes’ rich baritone, with the pathos of Othello. Rosen wanted to listen—wanted his actions justified, but all he could hear were the sobs of the dead girl’s mother. He looked to where she’d been, then blinked hard.

  “My God.”

  He broke away from the reporter and ran through the crowd. “Sarah!”

  “Daddy?”

  “What’re you doing here?”

  She seemed bewildered, eyes not quite focused. Gripping her hand, he led her down one of the rows. She wore faded jeans and the Georgetown Hoya sweatshirt he’d brought as a present last year. Her thick black hair was cut short and styled into a flip, like her mother’s. It made he
r look far more womanly than a fifteen-year-old should, especially with the earrings and makeup.

  At that moment, however, she was the scared five-year-old who’d come running into their bedroom at the sound of thunder, to burrow under the covers between him and Bess. Her hand felt small and damp, as it had those dark nights. Listening to the gentle breathing of his daughter and wife as they fell back to sleep was one of the good memories.

  “Sarah?”

  Her jaw trembled, but she didn’t cry. Sarah never cried anymore, Bess said. Not since the divorce.

  “We came to see you try the case. I’ve never seen you in court before.”

  “‘We’? Where’s your mother?”

  “No, not Mom.”

  “It’s Wednesday. What about school?”

  “School’s only a half day, because of rehearsal for tonight’s performance. Nina and I didn’t need to practice, so we took the bus down. Oh Daddy, why did they let those two men go?”

  “Your mother never should’ve let you come.”

  He noticed another teenager in the row directly behind his daughter. The girl looked about Sarah’s age and was almost as pretty, but darker—probably Latino.

  She said, “I’m Sarah’s friend, Nina Melendez.” She smiled shyly, and the dimples made her even prettier.

  Suddenly someone shoved Rosen into Sarah. The dead girl’s uncle, a burly man with a lantern jaw and eyebrows like scouring pads, pulled Rosen toward him. Another reporter leaned in with his microphone.

  “How the hell could you do that!” the uncle shouted. “How could you get those animals off after what they did to my sister’s little girl!” He grabbed for Sarah, who shrank against the wall. “What if somebody was to take this here girl and—”

  “Leave her alone!” Rosen pushed the man’s hand away, and they struggled between the benches, knocking down the reporter. His microphone clattered along the floor.

  The uncle suddenly jerked backward, stumbling over the reporter and falling into the aisle. He’d been pulled away by a well-dressed young black man, who had sauntered beside Sarah’s friend. He was as tall as Rosen but broader. When the young man smiled and offered his hand, the resemblance was so strong that Rosen could’ve guessed his next words.