Conviction

by Julia Dahl

  “What? Shoot? I didn’t shoot … what are you talking about?”

  “You fucking shot your mama and daddy and that baby girl dead. I know you did it. You know you did it. And the woman who just picked you out of that lineup knows you did it.”

  DeShawn doesn’t remember a lot about the rest of the conversation with the cop. He knows he said he didn’t shoot them. He knows he said it over and over and over again. He knows he said he wasn’t at home. And he knows he said LaToya’s name. He didn’t want to but he did. None of it felt real. He has no idea how long he was in the little room crying, screaming, pleading, explaining, but he does remember the way the cop looked at him. Like the words he was saying weren’t even English. After a while, the cop, disgusted, apparently, with DeShawn’s unwillingness to confess to the slaughter of his parents and little Kenya, rose and left the room. While he was gone, DeShawn, his lower body sticky and cold with urine, tried to focus his mind. Could Malcolm and Sabrina really be dead? Where was Ontario? The cop hadn’t said a word about his little brother. Maybe it was all some sort of test. Like that Scared Straight program on TV. Maybe Malcolm thought the only way to get DeShawn’s attention, to get him back to right, was to do something dramatic. That had to be it. His foster parents weren’t gang members. They didn’t sell drugs. They weren’t the kind of people who got gunned down in their home. This cop was fucking with him. He’d open the door and Malcolm and Sabrina would be there to take him home. He had to hand it to them—it wasn’t the worst plan in the world. He imagined his bedroom, how he’d been complaining that since Kenya came he had to share with Ontario. Shit. He’d sleep on the floor for a month after this. All he wanted was a pillow.

  But when the cop came back, he was alone, carrying a tape recorder.

  “We’ve got your brother in the next room, DeShawn.”

  “Ontario?”

  “You got another brother?”

  DeShawn shook his head.

  “Both of you are starting to piss me off. The only fingerprints on your parents’ doorknob are yours and Ontario’s. That’s just a fact. If you’re saying you weren’t there, that you didn’t do this, we’re looking at him.”

  “He’s nine years old!”

  The cop shrugged, put the tape recorder on the table. “You think a nine-year-old can’t pull a trigger on three sleeping people? I’ve seen kids younger than that kill their abusers.”

  “He wasn’t abused!”

  “Then why did you do it?!” The cop’s voice cracked. A high-pitched blast blowing at his face. DeShawn’s chest felt like an empty tin drum. His heart a solid rock rattling around. He wanted to stand, to leave, to run, but he could barely feel his legs. Did they even work anymore?

  “I…”

  “You already told us you were there last night, DeShawn. We know you ran out of your house. Did you run out because you’d just shot your family? Or did you run out because your little brother did? Did you run out because you were afraid? Tell me now. If he did it, you can’t protect him. We’ll break him sooner or later. Probably sooner. He doesn’t look too tough.”

  DeShawn squinted. He was dehydrated. His eyes burning, his stomach in turmoil. He farted loudly. The detective looked disgusted. This man couldn’t possibly think Ontario had murdered Malcolm and Sabrina and Kenya. This had to be some sort of test. Maybe Malcolm wanted to see if he was loyal to the family before he decided to kick him out. Malcolm was always bothering him about spending more time with Ontario. He said DeShawn had a chance to be a role model, to stand up for Ontario, to make his life better.

  “Ontario didn’t do nothing.”

  “So it was you.”

  “I’m not saying…”

  “Which was it?”

  “Ontario is a good kid!”

  The detective glared at DeShawn and for a moment the teenager readied himself for a smack across the face. But then the man’s expression changed. He sat down and pulled his chair up close to the table. Instead of looking menacing, he looked weary. He leaned toward DeShawn like he was about to tell him a secret. DeShawn prepared for the truth of the ruse to come out.

  “Just admit you did it, DeShawn. You admit it, you make everything better for yourself. You’ll feel better. I promise. You’re still a minor. You show remorse, tell the judge Malcolm Davis was touching you, hitting you, whatever. You’ll only get a few years. Ten, tops. You’ll be out in your twenties. You’ll be a young man. You’re a strong kid. You’ll survive inside. Ontario? You keep saying it wasn’t you, and he’s going away. And let me tell you—kids like him don’t do well inside. He’ll never be the same. They’ll eat him alive. The guards in juvi got reps. They like to play with the young ones.…”

  “Stop it!”

  “I’m telling you how it is, son. How it’s gonna be for your brother if you don’t man up here.”

  “I know what you’re doing,” DeShawn said, his voice a whine, a plea.

  “What am I doing?”

  “You’re trying to … you’re trying to scare me. I get it.” The cop pressed a button on the tape recorder. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I fucked up.”

  “It’s okay, son. Everybody makes mistakes. You’re sorry?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I need you to say it, DeShawn. Then this will all be over.”

  “It wasn’t Ontario.”

  “It was you that killed your parents?”

  DeShawn let his head nod. Any second now, he thought. He imagined Sabrina enfolding him in her soft arms. He imagined the cocoa scent of the buttery yellow cream she put on her skin. He imagined drifting off to sleep in his bottom bunk, the sounds of her and Ontario cooking in the kitchen. Pots and pans and the little radio playing Stevie Wonder.

  “I need you to say it, DeShawn. It was you that killed your parents.”

  “It was me.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I am outside City Hall waiting for a press conference about asbestos in schools to begin when my phone rings showing a blocked number.

  “You have a call from an inmate at Coxsackie Correctional Facility,” says an automated voice.

  I accept the charges, pull out my notebook, and find half a bench beneath a tree just away from the crowd.

  “Hello?”

  “Rebekah? This is DeShawn Perkins. I got your letter.”

  “Hi, DeShawn. How are you?”

  “Doing good, thanks. And yourself?”

  His voice is so upbeat I almost laugh.

  “I’m okay. Thanks for calling.”

  “Thank you. You said you saw Ontario? How’s he doing? He doing okay?”

  “He seems good,” I say. “He’s married. They have two little girls. And he’s a chef.”

  “Man, that makes me feel good. He was a sweet kid, but you never know. Every once in a while I’d see somebody in here that looked like him. Pheew. Did a number on me, you know? I was really hoping he’d stay outside. Give him my best, will you? Tell him I’m always thinking about him.”

  “Sure,” I say. I decide not to tell him Ontario seems pretty convinced he killed their family.

  “So you think you might write about my case?” he asks.

  “I’d like to try.” Do I say I know one of the cops who arrested him? “I talked to LaToya and she was pretty adamant that you were together the night they died. But she said she never testified. Did you tell your lawyer about her?”

  “I told everybody. But they just thought I was trying to cover my ass. At first I didn’t want to get her involved. They had me all turned around. I didn’t know what I was saying. I just wanted to go home.”

  “Did they tell you if they ever interviewed her?”

  “The cops didn’t tell me shit. I asked my lawyer about it a bunch of times before the trial. He kept putting me off, and then he was like, oh yeah, she changed her story so she’s some kind of ‘unreliable witness.’”

  “In your letter you said the detective tricked you into confessing. Was anyone else there? Did they record the int
erview?”

  “He pressed record right at the very end. All he got on tape was me saying, yeah, I did it.”

  “And no one was there with you?”

  “Nah,” says DeShawn.

  “I’d love to talk to your lawyers,” I say. “You said in your letter they weren’t very effective.”

  “My first one was like a hundred years old. He dropped dead, and I got a young guy. We only met one time before the trial. And the prosecutor lady, the one that’s all up in the news now, she was really good. My guy was bush league compared to her. My appeals lawyer was better. She tried to argue I had ineffective counsel, but the judge was focused on the confession. And the witness.”

  “What do you remember about the witness?”

  “She was a crackhead,” he says. “She must have been confused. But she stuck with her story.”

  “Is there anything else I should know? Anything that might, I don’t know, point to someone else who could have done it?”

  “Someone was threatening Malcolm and Sabrina.”

  “How do you know?”

  “For a couple weeks before they died somebody kept calling the house. Calling and hanging up. And there was some graffiti, too. Malcolm never figured out what that was about. Then one day I came home from school before anybody else was home. The mail lady used to drop the letters through the slot in the door and there was one that didn’t have a stamp on it. I remember thinking it was weird, so I opened it and it had cutout letters. You know like a ransom note in the movies? It said something like ‘I’m watching you.’ I asked Malcolm later but he wouldn’t tell me anything. He tried to play it off like it was a prank from his kids at the Y, but I know Sabrina was scared.”

  “And you told your lawyers about it?”

  “Yeah. But they said the cops didn’t find anything.”

  “Did you testify?”

  “I wanted to, but my lawyers both said it was a bad idea. They said the DA would trip me up and make me look even more guilty.”

  An automated voice breaks in: “You have one minute left on your call.”

  “I’ll call your old lawyers,” I say, rushing. “Maybe call me back in a couple days? Is what you sent me all you have on the case?”

  “There’s a couple more things, motions and stuff.”

  “Great, send that.”

  He agrees, and I give him the address for the Trib.

  “You didn’t ask if I did it,” he says.

  He’s right. Somehow it seems … inappropriate. But that’s ridiculous.

  “Did you?” I ask.

  “No. I swear. They offered me twenty years if I pleaded guilty. They were like, you’ll be out before you’re forty. I’d be free now. But I wouldn’t do it. I’m not a killer. I would never hurt Sabrina and Malcolm. They were the only family I had.”

  I don’t necessarily believe him and I don’t necessarily not believe him. The uncertainty, I realize, is both totally unacceptable and totally unavoidable. No attorney, no judge, no juror can ever really know if the person they are dooming to prison—or releasing onto the streets—did the crime they are accused of. I suppose one of the nice things about being a reporter is that you don’t have to make that decision in the same way. You find facts, you reveal them, others take action (or don’t). It’s a potent but limited position. Our power comes in the choice of focus. I picked DeShawn because of Saul, not the merits of his plea. I have to remember not to let that cloud my judgment, either way.

  The automated voice comes back. “Your call has been terminated.”

  According to the file DeShawn sent Amanda, a lawyer named Bob Haverford was the man who originally defended him in court. I search around on LinkedIn and find that the Bob Haverford who worked at Brooklyn’s Legal Aid Society from 1990–1993 is now a “principle” at Haverford & Haverford Associates, a real estate company on Long Island. According to his profile, Haverford attended Hofstra University, then CUNY Law. He is the vice president of the Suffolk County chapter of the New York Real Estate Professionals Association and was voted “Broker of the Year” by the same chapter in 2006.

  The Haverford & Haverford Web site lists his office and cell number. There is still no sign of anyone official at the asbestos press conference, so I try the cell and he picks up on the first ring.

  “Haverford!”

  “Hi,” I say. “Is this Bob Haverford?”

  “Sure is. What can I do for you?”

  “My name is Rebekah Roberts. I’m a reporter with the New York Tribune.”

  “Love the Trib! Only paper worth reading.”

  I’ve lost respect for him already.

  “Thanks,” I say. “I’m actually calling about an old client of yours. DeShawn Perkins?”

  “Shawn what?”

  “DeShawn. You defended him on a triple murder back in 1992.”

  Silence.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m here,” says Haverford. “Hold on.” I hear a car door slam. “Okay. What can I help you with?”

  “Well, I was hoping I could talk to you a little about the case.”

  “That was more than twenty years ago.”

  “I know,” I say. “Are you practicing law anymore?”

  “No.”

  “I spoke with DeShawn earlier today, and he said you only met once before his trial. Is that right?”

  “Are you really writing an article about this?”

  “Maybe,” I say.

  “Well, I don’t want to be quoted.”

  “Right now I’m just looking for information. DeShawn says he’s innocent, and I talked to a woman who says she was with him that night but that the cops didn’t believe her.”

  “You’re asking me to remember one case twenty years ago.”

  “It was a pretty big case. Three people shot in their bed. A three-year-old.”

  He sighs. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m on my way to a showing. This isn’t a good time.”

  “Fine. I’ll call you back. Or we can meet. Whatever works.”

  “I’ve got your number now,” he says. “I’ll be in touch.”

  He hangs up just as the Schools Chancellor and half a dozen Department of Education staffers make their way to the podium. Yadda yadda we will investigate yadda yadda we will mitigate yadda yadda yadda. I call Mike with the relevant yaddas, and while I wait for another assignment, I get on Google and discover that I actually know DeShawn’s appeals attorney, Theresa Sanchez. Or rather, I’ve interviewed her. Now a judge, Sanchez worked as a prosecutor in the Kings County DA’s office after her time as a public defense attorney. Since 2008 she’s presided over the Brooklyn Community Justice Center, which is where I met her last year when I was helping one of the Sunday reporters get information for a story about alternative courts. Usually, when I am sent to cover trials or observe hearings around the city, it is a sobering assignment. The people waiting outside the courtroom are curled over nervous legs on benches, huddled in corners, whispering into cell phones, snapping at children, biting their nails, adjusting ill-fitting suits, and scrutinizing the contents of thin folders as if inside they might find the solution to the predicament that landed them there. The muffled weeping and strained conversations echo along the wide, mirthless hallways.

  The Justice Center, by contrast, felt more like a YMCA than a courthouse. They have a day care center for people appearing before the court, and my tour guide let me peek into one of the classrooms used for GED prep, computer literacy, and various other educational opportunities that defendants are “sentenced” to take part in. The halls are decorated with framed children’s drawings and thank-you letters from people who passed through the court. Photographs of smiling men and women with their arms draped around Judge Sanchez, giving the thumbs-up sign as they pose picking up trash or delivering food or painting over graffiti while wearing “Brooklyn Community Justice Center” T-shirts.

  When I called to schedule an interview, Judge Sanchez invited me not just to observe an hour of the court’
s session, but to sit with her behind the bench, so she could chat with me about the various cases before her. The Center didn’t handle felonies, she told me, so most of what she saw were drug cases, plus some theft, prostitution, and “quality of life” violations like urinating in public and bicycling on the sidewalk. I remember being astonished by Judge Sanchez’s demeanor; she spoke to the people who appeared before her like a social worker. She asked them what they needed to stay out of trouble, and when they spoke—even when they rambled a bit—she listened. She was no pushover, though. Near the end of my hour, a man with a star tattooed on his nose was called to stand.

  “This guy is a regular,” she said, swiveling back toward me, pointing to his file. “Usually it’s drugs, but today it’s misdemeanor assault. He served time for attempted murder in the nineties. And he hasn’t shown up to any of the interventions we set up for him.”

  She swiveled back and, despite the wild-haired man’s twitchy pleas, sentenced him to three months in jail and two years probation, adding drug counseling as part of his post-release plan.

  “It can take ten, twenty times for some people to get clean,” she told me after a guard escorted the man out. “Not everybody can do it. We’ve lost people. But you can’t stop giving them chances.”

  I call the main number for the Justice Center and introduce myself, reminding the woman on the phone that I visited last year and saying I’m interested in talking to the judge about an old murder case.

  “Just a minute. I’ll check if she’s available.”

  Less than a minute later, Judge Theresa Sanchez picks up.

  “Rebekah, how are you?”

  “I’m good,” I say.

  “One of my staff gave me your piece on Roseville in American Voice,” she says. “You write beautifully.”