Conviction

by Julia Dahl

  “I better get back.”

  “Thanks for talking,” I say. I give him my card, which is a generic New York Tribune card with my name and cell number hand-written on the back. “If you think of anything, call me.”

  * * *

  That night, Iris and I order Indian food from the new place across the street. We eat and watch an episode of The Real Housewives of Somewhere. At 10:00 P.M I go into my room and start drafting a letter to DeShawn.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Evening

  July 5, 1992

  Crown Heights, Brooklyn

  Saul and Olivetti found DeShawn at St. John’s Park at dusk. He’d been arrested that spring for shoplifting, so they had a recent photo, and as the park started to empty out—families home for bath-time and bed, good kids to do the homework they’d neglected over the holiday weekend—DeShawn and his buddies were still fooling around on the court. Saul and Olivetti approached, and Olivetti called out.

  “DeShawn Perkins.”

  The boys turned. “Who’s asking?” said one, but DeShawn was already running. He was fast, but Saul was faster. He’d taken up running when he got into the academy, afraid of how far behind his classmates he would be in physical conditioning. Yeshiva boys didn’t take gym, and exercise—beyond a Shabbos walk—wasn’t thought worth pursuing. The mind, not the body, was important to Hashem. The running helped as things fell apart with Frieda. Last year, Saul placed ninth in the department’s 5K. He caught DeShawn by the collar less than two blocks away, on the street in front of the precinct. Dumb kid had practically run through the station’s doors. They stumbled forward together, DeShawn crashing to his knees on the sidewalk. Olivetti came jogging behind, chuckling.

  “Bad move, bro. Bad move.”

  “Why did you run, DeShawn?” asked Saul, bringing him to his feet.

  DeShawn’s knees were bleeding. Olivetti took out his handcuffs.

  “What’d I do?” asked DeShawn.

  “You ran.”

  “That ain’t against the law.”

  “Fuck it ain’t,” said Olivetti. “Resisting arrest.”

  “You arresting me for that? Running?”

  Olivetti closed the cuffs around DeShawn’s wrists.

  “You got needles in here?” he asked as he patted the teenager down. “Am I gonna poke myself?”

  “Nah, man. I ain’t no junkie.”

  “Oh, you ain’t, ain’t you?” said Olivetti, pulling a dime bag of weed out of DeShawn’s front pocket.

  “I want a lawyer,” said the boy.

  Olivetti laughed.

  “Where were you last night, DeShawn?” asked Saul.

  “What you care?”

  “Answer his question, asshole.”

  “With some a’ my peeps. Watching the fireworks. Hanging out.”

  “What time you get home?”

  “Why?”

  “Answer the question,” said Olivetti.

  “I don’t know, man. Right around midnight.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m fucking sure.”

  “Whoa, watch your mouth there, boy. Officer Katz is being real nice to you.”

  “Whatever.”

  Olivetti grabbed DeShawn’s cuffed arms and shoved him through the front door of the 77th precinct, right past the witness.

  * * *

  She had come in alone two hours before. Wait here, they told her when she said she wanted to talk to whoever was in charge of the Troy Avenue murder case. She sat on the bench across from the desk sergeant, skinny arms and legs braided together, leaning forward and tearing at her cuticles with burnt fingertips. Her flip-flops were two sizes too big, and looking down she decided she’d buy some new shoes—sexy shoes—with the money he was paying. A hundred dollars when she agreed, and nine hundred more when it was done. It would take months to earn that tricking.

  After an hour, she went outside and found a cigarette on the sidewalk, smoked what was left. She found another. An officer walking in tossed a copy of the Trib in the garbage can just outside the doors. She picked it up and brought it inside. Sure was a lot of shit going down. She read about a big fire at a warehouse in Williamsburg, and a shoot-out in McCarren Park. She read that the saxophone-playing man trying to be president was coming to town and planned to eat at a Harlem restaurant. She read about Rodney King getting out of the hospital. Poor bastard. A cop shot her daddy in 1979. He was stealing a car, and when they rolled up behind him with their lights he jumped out and ran. He died in the street, her mama said. Like the dog he was. She has only a handful of memories: the time he brought a red tin bucket of popcorn for Christmas—or maybe it was Valentine’s Day—and her mama let him stay for supper. The time she saw him passed out in the alleyway off Myrtle Avenue and kept on walking. His big white socks and his long arms. The time he carried her on his shoulders all the way up the stairs and she brushed her hands along the hallway ceiling like she was a giant.

  Her mama said it wasn’t the cops that killed him, it was the heroin. But Henrietta blamed the cops. And now, here she was, waiting to help them out. But really she was helping herself. That was what she had to remember.

  A cop with a little Jewish hat came to get her.

  “My name is Officer Katz,” he said. “Come on back.”

  In the interview room he asked if she wanted something to drink.

  “You got Dr Pepper?”

  He brought her a Dr Pepper. She opened it and drank, waited for him to ask a question.

  “What can I do for you?” he said finally.

  “You working that case then?”

  “Which case?”

  “Those people that got killed on Troy.”

  He nodded.

  “I saw somebody running out a’ they house last night. Running fast. And I saw a gun in his hand.”

  “You know the family?”

  She shook her head.

  “How did you know it was their house?”

  “I didn’t. But this morning I saw all them cops. I asked around.”

  “You live in the neighborhood?”

  Again, she shook her head.

  “But you just happened to be on Troy Avenue?”

  She nodded.

  “What time was this?”

  “One or two.” She wasn’t supposed to be too specific.

  “And what did this person you saw running out of the house look like?”

  “He was a black guy.”

  “Tall? Short? Skinny? Fat?”

  “He was going pretty fast. Not fat, though. Not too tall.”

  “What about the gun?”

  “What about it?”

  “What kind of gun was it?”

  “I don’t know guns. The kind you can carry in your hand.”

  “What hand was he holding it in?”

  “Right. His right hand.”

  “You’re sure it was a gun?”

  She nodded.

  “You remember what he was wearing?”

  She squinted, looked at the ceiling like she was thinking. “Basketball shorts. And a T-shirt.”

  “What color?”

  “Like I said, he was running.”

  “Which way did he run?”

  “Away from me.”

  “Toward Atlantic or Eastern Parkway?”

  She picked one. “Atlantic.”

  “Where do you live?”

  Pause. Was this a trick? She decided to tell the truth. “Bushwick.”

  “But you stayed in Crown Heights all night?”

  “I was with some friends.”

  “Names?”

  “We ain’t close. We just hang sometimes.”

  “And you hung all night?”

  “Huh?”

  “You said you saw the police this morning.”

  “Yeah. Right. Yeah.”

  “This person you saw. Do you think you could identify him?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Anything else you want to tell me?”

 
; “Like what?”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “No.”

  He stood up. “Wait here.” She waited, and when he returned he asked her to write down what she saw on a yellow notepad and sign it.

  “I need your full name and address and phone number,” he said. “When I run you, am I gonna find a record?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  Hunny couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a pen in her hand. In school they made her write with her right hand and she was terrible at it. She leaned over the notepad and wrote: I saw a black man run out of the house on Troy Avenue after the fireworks. He was carrying a gun. He ran toward Atlantic.

  She gave him the piece of paper, and he disappeared again. While she waited, she thought about that hit her roommate, Gina, had waiting. Soon she’d have enough money to buy rock for months and months and months. She imagined a backpack full of rock. Imagined pouring it onto the bed and rolling around in it.

  The officer came back with the typed statement.

  “Read it over. Make sure it’s right. Make sure the address and phone number are right.”

  She looked at the paper, nodded.

  “Sign here,” he said. “We’ll be in touch.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Night

  July 5, 1992

  Crown Heights, Brooklyn

  After three hours in the interview room, DeShawn started to get nervous. Maybe this wasn’t about his curfew. The pot was bad, but they ran after him before they found it in his pocket. He rolled back through the last few days in his mind. Had he done anything else they could violate him for? LaToya. Was it statutory rape if they were both underage? Toya wouldn’t tell her mom’s boyfriend she was with him—she’d be in for worse than him if she did—but maybe Winston followed her or something. Maybe he saw them leaving Michael’s apartment this morning together. They should have walked out separately. He was just so sleepy and happy that he didn’t think of it. Neither did she. He’d never actually spoken to Winston Lawrence, but he saw him around the Albany Houses sometimes. Before they were a couple, DeShawn used to hang out in one of the courtyards, hoping to catch Toya coming or going; bump into her casual-like. Winston was the kind of man Malcolm was afraid DeShawn would turn into: entitled and mean; a hustler with kids by who knows how many different women. Living off his girlfriend’s welfare checks and whatever cash he could make selling dope or loosies or stolen electronics. Toya told him once she thought Winston had been a pimp when he was younger. She said he commented about her body constantly, “joking” that if she didn’t make it as a runner she could make good money stripping. DeShawn asked her why she didn’t tell her mom about it, but Toya said she did. She doesn’t believe me, she said. She thinks I’m just trying to make trouble because Winston’s strict. DeShawn wanted to introduce Toya to Malcolm and Sabrina, but he hadn’t found the right time. He knew they’d like her—everybody liked her. He hoped if they saw a girl like her wanted to be with him, maybe they’d see that he wasn’t so bad after all. That he was worth keeping.

  DeShawn leaned forward in the hard metal chair, shoulders bowed over and arms crossed at the elbows, pressed between his legs. Malcolm and Sabrina had talked to him about his rights and stuff, but he never really absorbed the details. He knew he was supposed to be polite, and he knew he wasn’t supposed to run. He remembered the part about asking for a lawyer. But he’d have to call Malcolm to get a lawyer. And he was already in deep shit with Malcolm. He shouldn’t have said those things about Sabrina. Being a mom was the most important thing in the world to her. But the way she looked at him when the school called and said he’d been suspended for stealing money from a teacher’s desk drawer (Five dollars! So he could buy LaToya a fucking slice after school!) made him so mad he started spewing ugliness he knew would hurt her.

  “Why are you so surprised?” he yelled that night at home. “God didn’t want you to be a mom. But you go taking other people’s kids anyway thinking you gonna save us? Fuck that. Look what you done.”

  Malcolm didn’t hit him—he never hit him—but for a second DeShawn thought he might. That was more than a month ago but the words he said still sat in every seat in the apartment. It was as if they were stenciled on the walls. God didn’t want you to be a mom. He heard Malcolm and Sabrina whispering about him at night. Heard them saying maybe taking Kenya in was a mistake. Maybe DeShawn was too volatile. Maybe she was unsafe around him. That pissed him off, too. They thought he was gonna hurt a little girl? What did they think he was? He might be a fuck-up but he wasn’t a monster. Where were they even getting that from? He’d never hurt anybody in his life.

  After he got booked for the petty theft at school there were a whole bunch of new rules. He had a curfew, and was subject to random drug tests. But it had been weeks and he hadn’t heard a thing. Now all of a sudden they come chase him down? Had Malcolm and Sabrina called his juvenile probation officer because he didn’t come home last night? Sabrina was always talking about how important it was for DeShawn to stay out of “the system”; would they really have dropped a dime like that? It had to be Toya’s step-dad. Had to be.

  After another hour, the cop who cuffed him entered the room.

  “What’s this all about?” asked DeShawn, trying to sound tough, like he knew his rights and was ready to assert them.

  “My name is Detective Pete Olivetti, son. I’m gonna ask you a few simple questions and you’re going to tell me the truth. Got it?”

  DeShawn didn’t answer.

  “I didn’t hear you.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  “Where were you last night, DeShawn?”

  “Home.”

  “Home on Troy Avenue?”

  “I only got one home.”

  The cop smirked.

  “What? Somebody saying something different?” What was the worst that could happen for a curfew violation? It wasn’t worth getting Toya in trouble.

  “Nope,” he said.

  “Can I go now?”

  The cop laughed. “Nah, son,” he said, affecting a slight accent he probably thought was funny. “We just getting started.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Night

  July 5, 1992

  Crown Heights, Brooklyn

  “She’s left three messages since six,” said the desk sergeant, handing Saul three slips of paper with the words Katz and wife written on them.

  “Thank you,” said Saul.

  It was almost 11:00 P.M. when he finished with the witness. The 4-to-12 was starting to trickle in with collars of their own, and Olivetti had his feet up on his desk, finishing a sandwich from the filthy bodega across the street. Saul wouldn’t buy a coffee there, let alone allow the sweaty workers to touch his food. He didn’t keep kosher anymore, but he wasn’t stupid. Olivetti was fresh-eyed; as animate as if it was the first twenty minutes of his shift, not six hours after he should’ve gone home. He was keeping the kid in an interview room. With no parents to complain, Saul wouldn’t be surprised if DeShawn was still there when he came back in the morning. Olivetti liked to let them sit and stew; get angry and scared and hungry and generally as uncomfortable as possible. Olivetti was popular with everyone in the precinct except the maintenance staff, who had to clean up the urine when the detective wouldn’t let his suspects use the bathroom. One kid he picked up for stealing cars took a shit in the corner of Interview Two last year. Olivetti made him stay in the room with it for nine hours until he finally gave up two buddies.

  “What’d the crackhead have to say?” asked Olivetti.

  “She says she saw a black man with a gun run out of the Davis house last night around one.”

  “Really.” Olivetti kicked his legs down to the floor, wiped the crumbs off his shirt.

  “She a neighborhood girl?”

  Saul shook his head. “Address in Bushwick. Said she was with friends but wouldn’t give me names.”

  “She got a record?”

  Saul nodded.

 
“Let’s bring her in for a lineup. She still here?”

  “I let her go.”

  The desk sergeant came back.

  “It’s your wife again,” he said. “Line two. Can you pick up? She kinda scares me.”

  Olivetti chuckled. Most of the men in the precinct complained about their wives and ex-wives. But as miserable as Fraidy made him, Saul felt even more miserable when he spoke about their troubles. The failure of his marriage was a failure he was responsible for; he understood that. He had been a different man—barely a man at nineteen, but nonetheless—when she was sanctified to him before Hashem and the community. It was his loss of faith that had turned her desperate and petty. He could not fault her for wanting to keep her family together, but as the years went by and she made no concessions to reality, it was clear to him that her behavior was at least as damaging to Binyamin as his own. He was beginning to lose patience.

  Saul picked up a phone as close to the far end of the room as possible and pressed the blinking white button.

  “Fraidy,” he said.

  “Your son has something he wants to tell you.”

  “Has something happened?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  “You left three messages,” he said. “Is everything all right? Is he hurt?”

  “He is suffering! He has no father!”

  Saul closed his eyes.

  “He wants you to come speak to him right now.”

  “He has school tomorrow, yes? He should be asleep by now.”

  “What do you know!”

  “May I speak with him, please?”

  “You may speak with him when you get here.”

  She hung up the phone. His ears felt hot and his breath was shallow. He would go to her. He always did.

  “Don’t sweat it,” said Olivetti. He was up from his desk now, folding a strip of gum into his mouth. “Patrol just called in a body on Pacific. I’ll be here all night. The lineup’ll have to wait. I’ll keep the kid till the morning. Maybe he’ll wise up and tell us what we already know.”

  “You think he’s the shooter?”

  “He ran. That shows a guilty conscience. And something like this you always look close to home. Shit was personal. I’ll run checks on the mom and dad—see if they have any past we need to know about, but my money’s on the kid. Call it intuition. I’ll tell him this witness is coming and send some uniforms for her in the morning. Give him some time to decide if he’s gonna cooperate or not.”