Conviction

by Julia Dahl

  “Just taking a break,” said Saul. “You are well?”

  Naftali sighed. “Zelda took the children to the country last weekend. I should have gone with her.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I should have!”

  Rothstein had a habit of not quite answering questions posed to him.

  “Please,” said Rothstein, shading his eyes from the sun. “Talk inside?”

  Saul did not mind Rothstein—he found the hyper little man’s attempts to ingratiate himself with officers and commanders irritating at times, but appreciated his desire to educate himself about the challenges of policing Crown Heights. What he did not like, however, was being called “rabbi,” and it seemed to Saul that each time he was seen with Rothstein the nickname spread further, dug deeper.

  Saul followed Rothstein through the front doors of the precinct and up the stairs into the waiting room. Rothstein took off his wide-brimmed hat and fanned his face, pulled a bit at the chest of his white oxford shirt.

  “Terrible thing about that family on Troy Avenue. Some days I think perhaps the neighborhood is turning around. And then something like that happens. A little girl!” He shakes his head. “There has been an arrest?”

  Saul nodded again. He could hear Olivetti laughing from behind the swinging door that led to the detectives’ desks.

  “Something to do with gangs? Drugs?”

  “Looks like a family problem. We brought the teenage son in. A witness picked him out of a lineup. And we got a confession.”

  Saying the words made the whole scenario seem more plausible. Most homicide victims were killed by someone they knew. Stash houses were dangerous to bust in on because the people inside tended to be armed, but domestics could be just as risky. Angry husbands and girlfriends and even children went at officers and each other with kitchen knives and baseball bats and all manner of household objects, propelled by years of dysfunction or shame so overwhelming they could barely control themselves. Was it really so far-fetched to think a kid like DeShawn could kill his foster family? They weren’t even his blood.

  Rothstein made a clucking nose and shook his head. “Every little bit you do, Saul. Every little bit. It makes a difference.”

  Saul didn’t respond, and once Rothstein stopped sweating, he bid his fellow yid farewell, and wandered into the back of the precinct to find the shift commander.

  Sandra Michaels was greeted by whistles in the squad room. Like any sane person, she’d taken her jacket off, exposing a high-collared but sleeveless blouse. Olivetti made a big show of pulling out a chair for her, and while she dug into her briefcase, he coughed, prompting snickers from everyone else in the room. She blushed, then looked at her armpits.

  “It’s fucking brutal out there,” she said.

  Of course, the men weren’t snickering at the wet half-moons beneath her arms, they were looking at her nipples.

  “Brutal,” said Olivetti.

  Sandra fanned herself with her hand and pointed her face up toward the vent.

  “Thank God for AC,” she said.

  “Thank God,” said Olivetti.

  Sandra wasn’t stupid. She knew she was being laughed at—she just didn’t know why. Saul watched her eyes scan the room, looking for a clue, then hardening. Back to business.

  “What do you have for me?” she asked.

  Olivetti set a thin file in front of her and explained that it contained DeShawn’s confession, as well as statements from Henrietta Eubanks, Dorothy Norris, and the Davises’ neighbor.

  “Should be a slam-dunk,” he said.

  Sandra glanced through the documents. “Was an adult present while he was being questioned?”

  “You mean other than me?” asked Olivetti.

  “You know what I mean, Detective.”

  “Well, Ms. Michaels, he murdered his foster parents. So, no, they weren’t available to hold his hand while he cried about it.”

  “Could be a problem at the trial,” she said.

  “If anyone can convict him, Sandra, it’s you.”

  The men in the squad room snickered again and Sandra Michaels stood up.

  “I’ll be in touch,” she said, and walked what must have felt like many, many steps to the door.

  Not fifteen minutes after that, the desk sergeant hollered for Olivetti.

  “You back on rotation?”

  “Yup.”

  “Congratulations,” said the sergeant. He handed over a piece of paper with an address on it. “Stabbing on Park Place. One dead, one likely.”

  And they were off. Malcolm, Sabrina, and little Kenya now yesterday’s victims. Their deaths just three more in the city’s annual homicide count. DeShawn just another collar.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Night

  July 7, 1992

  Bushwick, Brooklyn

  He came through with the money: one thousand, cash. As usual, he arrived on foot. Hunny watched him walk up the block from the subway at the corner of Gates Avenue. Or at least that’s where she figured he was coming from. She had no idea where he lived, if he owned a car, had a family. For all she knew he sunk into the center of the earth when he left and popped back up on their nights together.

  He set the money on the sofa and told her to watch as he undressed, then instructed her, as usual, to fold his clothing and set the pile on the coffee table. They did it there in the living room, she bent forward over the sofa and him behind, barely making a sound. The bedsheet curtains she’d nailed above the windows billowed in the hot air. After he finished she went to the bathroom to clean herself, and when she opened the door he was standing, still naked, with a handgun pointed at her face.

  “I should kill you now,” he said. He pushed the barrel against her forehead, then drew it down, over her nose, and pushed it into her mouth. She tasted blood. Was there blood on the gun? Or was it her own? The barrel felt bigger than it looked. Her jaw locked around it. She’d lost two teeth that year and remembered hoping, ridiculously, that the hard steel wouldn’t knock loose any more. It was difficult to see his face with her mouth spread wide, head tilted back, her eyes beginning to water. She felt a little bit of urine run hot down the inside of her leg.

  They stood there, both naked and sweating, for what seemed to Hunny like a very long time. She thought about Gina finding her with her head blown open in the bathroom. She wondered if he’d leave the money and, if so, whether Gina would use any of it to bury her. Her jaw began to tremble. Could it actually come unhinged? Saliva built up in her mouth and her tongue tried to swallow, closing off the back of her throat. She gagged, pulling air in through her nostrils, feeling the wet snot and tears begin to leak out and slide down her face.

  “I should kill you,” he said again. He pulled the gun from her mouth. She coughed and wiped her face with her forearm, her eyes wide, searching his face for a sign of what to do next. Beg? Run? But he was no longer looking at her. She stood as still as she could manage while he dressed, and when he was finished he came to her again, putting the gun beneath her chin this time. He dropped down the safety with his thumb.

  “I won’t be far,” he said.

  He let himself out, and she ran to the window, watching as he walked back toward Gates.

  For years after, she saw him in the profiles of men on the street, on the subway. She’d catch a glimpse and taste the metal in her mouth. It was never him. Or, if it was, he passed without a word or a glance. But the sightings took their toll. In the more than twenty years between the summer day he walked out of her door to the summer day he walked back in, she never once felt safe.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  On Monday morning, while waiting for my assignment, I call Amanda and fill her in on what I learned from the people at Glorious Gospel.

  “Have you talked to DeShawn yet?” she asks.

  “Over the phone.”

  “Do you think he’s full of shit?”

  “No,” I say. “But I guess I don’t know if I’d know, you know?”


  “So, what’s your next move?”

  “I need to try to find the witness. It’s a long shot, but maybe if she’s less sure now that could be something. The issue is that she hasn’t lived at the address I got from the Trib library for years.”

  “Did they run a national search?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I assumed so.”

  “It’s not much more effort, but you have to click a couple more boxes to get non–New York info. Ask them to run it again. If they can’t find it let me know, I’ve got some database access through the Center. You gotta find that witness. If she tells a different story now, that’s a game changer.”

  After we hang up I e-mail the library and have them run a national search on Henrietta Eubanks. Fifteen minutes later they send me a phone number and address in Atlantic City, New Jersey. I tell Iris and she decides it’s the perfect excuse for a weekend road trip.

  “I’m not officially on assignment,” I say. “We’ll have to pay.”

  Iris opens her laptop. “I just saw a Groupon for Atlantic City. They’re practically giving rooms away.” Click-click-click and she finds it. “One hundred fifty bucks for two nights at a hotel called The Coastal. We’ll get a Zipcar and I can just wait outside while you interview her. I’ll be, like, security.”

  I can’t be sure Henrietta is still at the address from the library, but I have better luck getting people to talk to me when I show up in person than when I’m just a voice on the telephone. Plus, Atlantic City could be fun.

  “You could invite your mom,” Iris says when I hand her my credit card to enter into Groupon.

  “My mom?”

  “It might be fun. When was the last time you saw her?”

  It’s been a while. Months, I think. We had brunch in Park Slope one Sunday back in … April? May? When we finally met last year, I initially felt relief. It was like I’d been squinting at her all my life, and now she was in focus and I couldn’t stop staring. Everything I learned about her was thrilling, and I was ready to forgive. She’s endured a lot—being homeless in Maryland, friendless in Israel, shunned by her Brooklyn family, caring for her troubled brother—but instead of these experiences turning her into a gutsy free spirit, Aviva is conservative in middle age, even a little cowed. She leads a quiet life and seems almost allergic to attention. I know she was invited to join the interfaith nonprofit some of the people in and around Roseville established after the shooting. The goal was to create a foundation for understanding between the haredi and their upstate neighbors, and they reached out to a lot of people like Aviva who had left the ultra-Orthodox world. But she never went to a meeting. When I asked her about it, she wrinkled her nose. They have lots of important people. They do not need me. I tried to convince her that her experience in both worlds could be valuable, but I got the sense that she didn’t think she deserved to have her voice heard. I felt bad for her until I realized that she was judging me for thinking that I do. At that last brunch I told her about a story I was reporting on a West Village landlord who planned to tear down a hundred-and-fifty-year-old tavern to build luxury condos.

  “She’s totally dodging my calls,” I’d said, finishing my mimosa. “And she won’t even admit she owns the building. It’s all hidden behind an LLC.”

  “If she does not want to talk to you, why do you keep calling her?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If she owns the building she can do whatever she wants.”

  “She can. But it’s fucked up. F. Scott Fitzgerald used to drink at this place. And Dorothy Parker. It’s history. The neighbors want to preserve it. And the last thing we need is more condos for rich people.”

  Aviva raised her eyebrows.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. It would make me very uncomfortable is all.”

  “What would make you uncomfortable?”

  “Bothering people.”

  “I’m not bothering her. I’m trying to get her to admit the truth. That’s the whole point of my job. If nobody asks people doing shady stuff to explain…” I stopped myself. Aviva was no longer listening; she signaled for the check.

  “We’ve only got one hotel room,” I tell Iris. “Three people is too much. And I seriously doubt she’s into gambling.”

  Iris does not say that neither of us are into gambling, either, which is true. She’s made her point, and she knows when to stop pushing.

  I pick up the Zipcar—a sapphire blue Kia Rio—after my shift on Friday and meet Iris on Canal, a couple blocks from the clogged entrance to the Holland Tunnel. Traffic leaving the city is monstrous, but a few miles out we’re doing sixty. After about two hours, the highway becomes a boulevard lined by crab shacks and board rentals and fishing charters. The air is cooler and the breeze smells of seagulls and sand.

  “There it is!” says Iris, pointing to the glass towers rising in front of us. Atlantic City looks a lot more impressive from afar than up close. Half the storefronts along the first street we turn down are boarded up, and more people on the sidewalks are pushing shopping carts than pulling luggage.

  The plan is to door-knock at Henrietta’s in the morning, so we drive straight to the hotel. The pink neon sign outside and lobby décor (zebra-striped pillows on white leather settees) attempt to convey a kind of art-deco look, but the effort is half-assed. The king-sized bed in our room has an enormous pink pleather headboard that rises halfway to the ceiling. Our window looks out over the parking garage.

  Iris pops the bottle of prosecco I picked up at the wine store down the block from us in Gowanus, and I take a glass into the shower with me. We blow-dry and I borrow a Rag & Bone dress Iris got at a sample sale, then we stroll the boardwalk, lose a few dollars at the slot machines, and spend two hours at a “lounge” sipping cocktails, munching on coconut shrimp and fried calamari, people-watching, and occasionally getting up to dance. Just after midnight, I yawn and Iris laughs.

  “We’re so old!”

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “Honestly, I’m ready to go, too.”

  The next morning, we turn the Rio into the parking lot outside a two-story apartment building about a mile off the main drag. Half a dozen children run around, spraying each other with water guns, squealing and shouting. Two women sit on the curb, drinking from giant 7-Eleven mugs, watching the children and chatting. Spanish music pumps into the air from the open window behind them.

  “The library printout said it was apartment eight,” I say as I turn off the engine.

  “I might fall asleep,” she says. “But I’ll turn my ringer up loud. Call if you need anything. Or scream.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  I climb the concrete exterior staircase and knock on door eight. I see movement at the peephole, and then a woman’s voice.

  “Who is it?”

  I hate introducing myself from behind a door. “Hi,” I say. “My name is Rebekah Roberts. I’m sorry to bother you. Do you have a minute?”

  “I don’t need any subscriptions.”

  “No,” I say. “I’m not … I’m a reporter. I’m looking for a woman named Henrietta Eubanks.”

  A pause, and then I hear the dead bolt turn. The woman who opens the door is wearing black pants and a black polo shirt with TRUMP TAJ MAHAL embroidered on the breast pocket.

  “Hi,” I say. “Are you Henrietta Eubanks?”

  “How’d you get this address?”

  “I … just looked it up. It’s pretty easy nowadays.”

  “What you want?”

  She’s not angry, which is nice. Just suspicious.

  “Sorry, are you Henrietta Eubanks?”

  “I was. I go by Day now. Henrietta Day.”

  “Oh. Okay. But you used to live in Brooklyn?”

  “What’s this about?”

  “I’m looking into an old case, from 1992, in New York.”

  “A case?”

  “A homicide. Three people shot in their home in Crown Heights. You testified that you saw their son leav
e the house that night.”

  Henrietta’s mouth falls open slightly, and she flinches, almost as if I’ve come at her physically.

  “I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”

  For a moment, Henrietta just stares at me. It’s hard to tell how old she is. Fifty, maybe? She has a long face, so oval it’s practically rectangular, and a mole above her left eyebrow. I sense she’s about to slam the door, and am ready to blurt out Are you sure it was DeShawn you saw that night? but instead she steps back, inviting me inside.

  The tiny apartment looks more like a motel suite than a home. The sofa, eating table, bed, and kitchen—a sink and a mini-fridge with a hot plate atop it—all share the same space. The only interior door is for the bathroom. Henrietta takes a pack of Merit cigarettes from the kitchen table and lights one, then stands silent, arms crossed below her heavy breasts, looking at her bare feet.

  “So,” I say, “I’ve been working on a story about the murder of Malcolm and Sabrina Davis, and a little girl, in Crown Heights back in 1992. I guess you were a witness?”

  Henrietta brings her cigarette to her lips, and I can see that she is trembling. She takes a shallow pull, then sits down at the little table. I sit, too.

  “That was a long time ago,” she says, the words coming through her teeth.

  “I know,” I say. “And I’m really sorry to bug you. I got a letter from DeShawn Perkins. He’s the boy—well, man, now—that got convicted.” I pause to see if she recognizes his name. Her lips pull back slightly. It’s not a grimace so much as a brace. Like: what next? Hit me. Make it quick. “He insists he didn’t kill his family. I know lots of people in prison say they didn’t do it, but he didn’t have any history of violence. I talked to one of his lawyers who said she thought the evidence against him was weak. And his girlfriend swears he was with her all night. She says the cops got her confused and the prosecutors didn’t believe her.”

  Henrietta’s face seems as though it is actually losing surface area. It’s almost like she is shrinking as I speak. Her cigarette burns between her fingers, her eyes are unfocused.