Conviction

by Julia Dahl

“I saw the article! You have to be kidding me!”

  “I know,” I say. “I’m sorry I couldn’t run it all by you. I’m so glad you called.”

  “I can’t believe they had those letters all this time! My lawyer said the cops never found nothing.”

  “Well, somebody lied.”

  “Ms. Sanchez is a judge now?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I don’t know if I would have found this stuff if it weren’t for her. She’s on the warpath.” It’s time to tell him about Henrietta. “And there’s something else. I tracked down the eyewitness. The woman who picked you out of a lineup. She’s clean now, and she’s moved to New Jersey and changed her name. She wouldn’t let me quote her, but DeShawn, she says she lied. She says she wasn’t even in Crown Heights that night. She said somebody paid her to make up a story, and she picked you because she just happened to see you in the precinct that night.”

  Silence at the other end of the line.

  “DeShawn?”

  “I’m here. I’m just … she really said she lied?”

  “She did. But I don’t have it on tape. And she says she won’t go to the cops. She’s afraid of this guy who paid her.”

  “Who is he?”

  I could tell him what she told me, but what if Aviva is right? What if Henrietta just said the man who paid her was Jewish to settle some old score? Until I have more than her word, I decide to keep that part to myself.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “She won’t tell me. I’m going to keep trying, though. I’m gonna call her and tell her what we found and basically beg her to come forward.”

  “I don’t even know what to say,” says DeShawn.

  “I’m working on another story for tomorrow. What would you say to them—to the DA—if you could?”

  “I’d say they should all be ashamed of themselves. I was just a kid. I didn’t know nothing. And they’re gonna lie and cheat just to make some case? What the hell? They took my whole life, man. My whole damn life.”

  I scribble the words he says into my notebook, but I wish I could scribble the way he says them. At the beginning of the conversation DeShawn was energized. But after I told him about Henrietta, he deflated. I don’t know what he is thinking, but I know what I’m thinking: the last twenty-two years of his life spent locked in a cage weren’t just some random, awful twist of fate. They were the result of machinations by people for whom the truth of what happened the night someone slaughtered his family was less important than a win—or in Henrietta’s case, some cash. Whatever faith in humanity DeShawn managed to hold on to these past two decades has probably been hard won. This shit—I imagine it’s enough to undermine that entirely.

  “Judge Sanchez thinks there’s a good chance they’ll reopen your case now,” I say, trying to sound hopeful. “I mean, if it’s not prosecutorial misconduct, it’s definitely negligence.” I don’t really know what I’m talking about, and before I can make any more empty promises, a recorded voice breaks into our call and says we have ninety seconds remaining.

  “DeShawn?”

  “I’m here.”

  “I know this is a lot to lay on you.”

  “I been dreaming about something like this for so long. I just … I don’t want to get my hopes up, you know?”

  “Totally,” I say. “But listen, you’ve got people behind you now. The DA’s office knows they fucked up. And I won’t let this drop. Neither will Judge Sanchez.”

  “Okay.”

  “Call me tomorrow? Same time?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Thank you. No matter what happens now. Just this article … thank you.”

  And the line goes dead.

  DeShawn isn’t the first person to thank me for reporting a story—people who loved both Rivka Mendelssohn and Pessie Goldin told me they were grateful someone outside the insular haredi community was looking into their deaths. But Rivka and Pessie were dead. My efforts to bring them justice would never change the essential fact that their lives were over before I’d ever heard their names. DeShawn, on the other hand—if I do this right, he could walk out of prison and live for fifty years in a world he would never have seen had I not opened his letter to Amanda. That feels good.

  I get dressed and brush my teeth, and at a little after ten, I call Saul. He doesn’t pick up.

  “Hey, Saul,” I say to the voice mail. “I just wanted to see if you saw my story today. Give me a call when you can, ’kay?”

  My next call is to Henrietta, but she doesn’t pick up, either. I leave a message, and as I do another call comes in. I click over.

  “Hi, it’s Rebekah.”

  “Rebekah, this is Richard Krakowski at the Kings County DA. I can get you ten minutes with ADA Michaels this afternoon. Come to the third floor at one thirty.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Sandra Michaels looks like shit. She doesn’t appear to have slept, and without the soft Plaza lighting and armor of an elegant suit and professional blow-out, what you notice about her are the prominent tendons in her skinny hands, the hurried eyebrow pencil, the sunspots.

  For a few seconds she doesn’t speak, she just looks at me.

  “Do we know each other?” she asks finally.

  “No,” I say. “I mean … I was at the Plaza the other day.”

  “I know that. That’s what I’m talking about. Did I do something to you?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You did that story about my ex, and now this shit from, what, 1992? Do you have something against me?”

  I don’t bother protesting that I didn’t actually write the story about her ex. I’m the face she associates with it, and splitting that hair will probably aggravate her even more. I decide to focus on DeShawn. “A lot of people are looking into old cases.…”

  “You think I don’t know that!”

  Her face contorts dramatically and without all the makeup she was wearing last week I can see that she’s had work done. The way her face moves doesn’t make sense. The skin beside her eyes scrunches up, but the skin below doesn’t budge. Plastic surgery makes me sad, especially on accomplished women. What does it matter what a prosecutor looks like? Maybe I’ll think differently when I’m thirty. Or fifty. “Just so I’m clear: this isn’t personal? I didn’t prosecute your boyfriend or something?”

  I shake my head, waiting for more hostility, but she changes tack.

  “You’re going to have to give us some time on this,” she says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean we have to figure out what happened.”

  I sense weakness and decide to exploit it. “What happened with what? That the office has been saying the file was destroyed? Or that DeShawn’s attorney says she never saw the evidence inside it?”

  “She says she never saw it. Do you know definitively that it wasn’t in the appeals file?”

  No.

  “Of course not,” she continues.

  “Are you saying you did turn it over?”

  “I’m not saying anything. That’s not true. This is what I’m saying: I have never knowingly withheld evidence in a case. That’s on the record. You can print that. Everything else is off the record. As Richard explained.” She pauses. “You realize this is going to effect the Kendra Yaris case, don’t you?”

  I decide I don’t need to answer.

  “That’s all I’ve got for you,” she says.

  I am dismissed. Outside the courthouse I pull out my phone and am about to call Mike with Sandra Michaels’ quote when I get an incoming call from a 718 number I don’t recognize.

  “This is Rebekah,” I say.

  “Rebekah, this is Dorothy Norris. We spoke last week at Glorious Gospel.”

  “Hi, how are you?”

  “I saw your article this morning. I hadn’t put it together before, but I remembered something that might be useful. Before they died, Malcolm started collecting signatures against a landlord. I don’t remember his name, but he owned several buildings in the neighborhood that w
ere in terrible condition. I think one of Malcolm’s kids from the YMCA might have lived in one. I believe he complained to the landlord in person—on their behalf—but if I recall correctly, he’d been frustrated by the response. Or lack of response.”

  “Do you remember the landlord’s name?”

  “No,” she says. “I’m sorry to say I don’t. But he was Jewish. I remember that because Malcolm didn’t want to tell Pastor Green about it. Like he told you, Red felt it was important for us to get along with our Jewish neighbors, especially after the riots. He was very embarrassed by the way the community behaved. Red does not have much patience for violence or law breaking. Not that I do, either, of course. And Malcolm certainly didn’t. But I suppose we were a little more sympathetic to the frustration, especially among the young people then.”

  “Do you know if Malcolm ever talked to anyone at the city? Maybe made a formal complaint I could look up?”

  “Well, Sabrina worked in the city’s housing department.”

  “She did?”

  “Yes. I don’t know if she was involved, though.”

  “Okay.”

  “If DeShawn really is innocent, my husband and I want to do everything we possibly can do help him.”

  It’s about time, I think.

  I call Mike and fill him in on what DeShawn, Dorothy, and the DA had to say.

  “The vic was collecting signatures against a Jewish landlord?” he asks.

  “She thought so, but she didn’t have a name.”

  “More fucking Jews. You’re like a magnet.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You didn’t find signatures in the box with the letters?”

  “No,” I say.

  “Okay, ask the DA’s office if they know anything about that. What about the witness?”

  “I’ll call her. She’s in Atlantic City,” I remind him, “so I can’t just door-knock.”

  “Okay, Morgan’s more interested in the Michaels angle anyway.” I know. I was in the meeting, too. “Send me whatever you have by four.”

  I end the call and find a Starbucks to start plunking out a draft of what I have so far. I splurge on an enormous Frappuccino and text Saul:

  Just got a tip that Malcolm Davis may have had some sort of conflict with a Jewish landlord before he died. Any thoughts?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  December 1991

  Crown Heights, Brooklyn

  Two months after the man with the tattoos fell into the toilet, Daniel invited Joe to a meeting on Albany Avenue.

  “What sort of meeting?”

  “Wait and see,” said Daniel. “I think you will find it interesting.”

  The apartment was on the top floor of a two-story home. By the time Joe and Daniel arrived there were already four men there. Three were standing at a dining room table eating pastries out of plastic bags. One man sat on the floor, fiddling with a radio.

  “Avi,” said Daniel to the man on the floor, “this is Joe.”

  Avi rose. He was easily six foot three, with broad shoulders and red hair. He shook Joe’s hand and invited him to sit, then called for the rest of the men to gather around the coffee table.

  “Did Daniel explain our mission?”

  Joe shook his head.

  “We came together last year after Shmuli’s sister was attacked.” Avi looked to the dark-haired man sitting on the far end of the sofa. Beneath his beard, Shmuli’s face was red and mountainous with acne. He cast his eyes down when Avi mentioned his sister.

  “I will not offend you with details, but she endured violence no woman should endure. Shmuli’s family contacted the police, but as I am sure you can imagine, they were useless. Shmuli took matters into his own hands several weeks later. His sister was brave enough to return to the street where the incident occurred, and she identified the man. Shmuli followed him home, and the next day Eli and I accompanied him to the address, where we were able to detain the man when he came outside.”

  “Detain?”

  Avi smiled. He leaned sideways and unhooked a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “We did not wait for the police to come get him. We brought him to the police. Not surprisingly, the man was on probation for another crime. He is now off the streets.”

  Avi explained that as students they were not allowed to join the neighborhood’s official shmira, or patrol group. But even if they could, Avi said, the men in the room believed that the assiduously law-abiding shmira were ineffective. Reactive, not proactive; not willing to, as Avi said, “get their hands dirty.”

  “You are new to Crown Heights, yes?” Avi asked.

  Joe nodded.

  “When you read about the riots at home, what did the newspapers say?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did they say that blacks and Jews were fighting? Killing each other?”

  “I think so. I don’t remember exactly.”

  “The newspapers had it all wrong. Jews and blacks weren’t fighting each other. Jews were being attacked. And we didn’t raise a hand! But did that matter? No. The story was that everyone resorted to violence. We were all at fault. Al Sharpton and his people talking about how unfair life is for the blacks. How the police target them and treat the Jews so well. Ha! Who was burning the city? Not Jews! Who was stabbing and beating people in the street? Not Jews!”

  Avi shook his head.

  “No more. The Rebbe says not to raise hands in violence. But if the world already thinks that is what we are doing…” He paused. “You see what I am saying?”

  Joe saw. He stayed at the apartment until very late that night, and volunteered to patrol with the group the next evening. It was December, and Joe’s first experience with temperatures below freezing. The cold made him feel limber and clearheaded. The air was stimulating, like a shot of adrenaline. He met Daniel, Avi, and another man called Barry at the bakery across the street from Isaiah’s office. Daniel handed him a foot-long metal pipe.

  “Don’t start trouble,” Avi said. “But don’t run from it, either.”

  The foursome split into twosomes; Joe and Daniel went west, Avi and Barry east. They would reconvene at midnight. The first hour was uneventful, but Joe felt powerful with the pipe in his jacket. At about seven thirty, they heard glass shatter near the corner of Albany Avenue and Union Street. Two black men ran past. Joe and Daniel started after them, but when the men darted into the traffic on Eastern Parkway, Daniel stopped.

  “It’s not worth the risk going north after dark,” he said. “Even with two of us. They have guns and we don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why don’t we have guns?”

  “Yeah.”

  Daniel, somehow, seemed to be considering this for the first time.

  “I suppose they aren’t very easy to get. And we’re the good guys. Guns are for bad guys.”

  Joe found Daniel’s response ridiculous, but did not say so. They walked back to the street where they had heard the glass break and found a woman standing beside a minivan with two of the windows smashed.

  “Did you catch them?” she asked.

  “No,” said Daniel. “But we will make sure to add this street to our patrol.”

  The woman made a disgusted sound. She peered into the vehicle. “This is the third time since Sukkot these same men have broken into cars on this block. I told my husband not to buy another radio after the last time. It only encourages them!

  “Do you know how many times I have called the police? They don’t even bother to come unless they steal the entire car!”

  The rest of the night was busy. They shouted at three men urinating in public, confronted the drivers of two cars obviously trolling for prostitutes, and, brandishing their pipes, broke up two clear drug deals. At just after 10:00 P.M., a young haredi woman, barely out of her teens by the look of it, came running up to them on President Street. Three men had just attacked her husband and he needed help. When they got to the man he was sitting on the curb, his lip split and his white shirt s
tained with blood. The woman explained that they had been walking home from her parents’ apartment when the men came from behind and grabbed her purse.

  “Ezra went running after them,” she said, breathless. “I screamed for him to stop but…” She looked at her husband, who was rubbing his jaw. “One of the men punched him right in the face and then the other one began to kick him. I screamed and screamed and finally they ran off.”

  “They took our money,” said the man. “And now, with her identification, they know where we live. When will they be back for more?”

  Neither Joe nor Daniel had an answer for him.

  They split up at midnight, and instead of returning home immediately, Joe walked north, toward Eastern Parkway. He hailed a taxicab and told the driver to take him to Bushwick. He was wide awake. Since seeing the prostitute in Isaiah’s building, he had been nearly unable to control his desire for a woman like her. A woman with no dignity; a slab of meat to bite and lick and explode inside of. In the taxi, he put his brimmed hat in his backpack and replaced it with the Dodgers cap he’d brought from California. He directed the driver to a corner a few blocks from the building with the leak in the ceiling. As much as he wanted to knock on the big-breasted woman’s ground-floor door, he knew he had to find someone else, someone who could not connect him to his life in Crown Heights.

  With his backpack over one shoulder, he strolled, scanning the street for women. He walked two blocks up one side of Wilson Avenue, then crossed to the other side and walked the same two blocks in the other direction. He approached a bodega in the middle of the block, its piss-yellow awning torn, its windows fogged with filth and dusty canned goods, a neon Budweiser sign blinking. Outside stood a woman in an oversized military-style coat, her legs bare, feet stuffed into high heels. He slowed.

  “You want a date?” she asked.

  It was that easy.

  Ten minutes later, around the corner and up the stairs into a sparsely furnished apartment, Joe no longer needed to control himself. He pulled down her shirt and squeezed, then sucked, lost, as if in a dream. It was finally real. He told her to take off her shorts, and she did. He told her to get on her knees, and she did. He came in her mouth. He roared, excited by the volume of his voice. Who could hear him now? Who could stop him from doing exactly what he wanted?