Conviction

by Julia Dahl

  “Abel recommended it.”

  Bodies adjusted on the bed.

  “You want a little lovin’?” asked Sabrina.

  “Not really,” said Malcolm. “I’m just…”

  “It’s fine.”

  “I love you.”

  “I know you do.”

  “I can’t stop worrying about him.”

  “I think he’s going to be okay,” said Sabrina.

  “The way he’s been speaking to you…”

  “He’s testing us, Malcolm.”

  Malcolm sighed. More adjustments on the bed. Quiet. After about ten minutes, the bedside lights switched off.

  “I love you,” said Malcolm again.

  “I love you.”

  He needed to wait until they were asleep, so he lay there in the dark, listening to them breathe. He would shoot Malcolm first, then Sabrina. When he heard the snoring, his stomach clenched. It was time. And then there was a scream. It came from down the hall.

  “I’ll go,” said Sabrina.

  “Just bring her in,” said Malcolm.

  Sabrina climbed out of the bed and Joe realized he would have to kill the girl, too. She was young, yes, but it was possible she could tell the police something. Even that he was white would be enough to contradict the story Hunny would tell. And what kind of life would she have anyway, with both parents dead? She would probably never recover. It was, he decided, the right thing to do, under the circumstances.

  The little girl and the woman came back. Soon, he heard the snoring again, and decided it was time. He crawled along the carpet slowly, staying low as he emerged from beneath the bed on Malcolm’s side. He came to all fours, and then stood, taking relief in the breeze blown by the fan, the cool against his sweat-soaked T-shirt. He aimed the weapon inches from Malcolm’s head, face turned toward his wife, mouth slightly open. The bullet entered just in front of his ear, blowing his head apart. Sabrina sat up, sucking air. She turned his way, eyes wide. He aimed at her chest. Two shots and she fell back, slumped over. The little girl dove toward the end of the bed. There was less of her to aim at. Joe jumped to meet her before she could climb down. She stopped and stared up at him. There was a blond princess on her sleeping shirt.

  “This is just a dream,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”

  He pointed the weapon at her face, closed his eyes, and pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  July–September 1992

  Crown Heights, Brooklyn; Fort Jackson, South Carolina

  The Davis murders did not make the front pages. The morning after the bodies would have been discovered, Joe bought a copy of the Trib at a bodega down the street from his apartment and found the article on page four: “Three Dead in Savage Crown Heights Home Invasion.”

  The article said that police were interviewing a “person of interest.” The next day, the paper reported that the Davises’ teenage son was in custody. A day after that, the paper said the boy confessed, and that police had a witness who saw him leaving the scene. Each of these days, Joe went to the Kingston Avenue office ready for Isaiah to congratulate him. He did not expect a celebration, of course, but a nod. An acknowledgment. He had done his job. Yet Isaiah said nothing. Joe knew the landlord read the newspaper, and a triple murder in the neighborhood—even if it was on a black block—should have caught his attention, especially once he read the victims’ names.

  Finally, on the day the newspaper covered the funerals, Joe brought a copy to the office and laid it on Isaiah’s desk.

  “You have been reading the articles?” he asked.

  Isaiah was silent.

  “Everything is taken care of,” said Joe. He opened the newspaper to the page where he’d slid the signatures from Malcolm’s bedside table.

  Isaiah looked up, and their eyes met. Joe saw immediately that the landlord was not pleased.

  “There is no need to worry,” said Joe. “The son confessed.”

  “Never come to this office again,” said Isaiah. “If I were you, I would leave New York.”

  * * *

  Joe withdrew what was left in his bank account that afternoon and took a taxi to Bushwick to get drunk and look for Hunny. He told the bartender he’d just been fired, and she poured them both a shot of whiskey.

  “To new opportunities,” she said.

  “Yeah,” said Joe. “New opportunities.”

  By nightfall, he’d forgotten about Hunny. He hailed a cab back to Crown Heights and walked through the streets for the last time, alternately mumbling and shouting about Chabad being full of phonies and cowards and idiots. How he got back to his apartment, he didn’t remember, but the next morning he packed a bag and got a hotel room near Port Authority. He slept all day, then followed the crowds toward Times Square at night. And right there, in the center of it all, was the military recruiting station.

  The whole process took less than an hour. Two days later, he took the ASVAB. When his score came back the Army recruiter told him that if he passed a background check he could start basic training in South Carolina in two weeks.

  “Anything going to come up on the check?” asked the recruiter.

  “I was expelled from school for fighting,” he said.

  “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

  Basic training was more difficult than he expected. What bothered him was not the physical exertion—he had no problem stretching his body’s limits—but the demands from his trainers. A year earlier—six months, even—he would not have felt the need to challenge the men barking orders at him. A year earlier, he would have accepted, even respected, the chain of command. He would have found pleasure in keeping his clothing and his bunk tidy, in pleasing his superiors, in conquering obstacles. But what he’d done in the Davises’ bedroom changed him. He was more than just a rule follower. More than just a deviant looking for a place to park his problems. He was a man of action. He didn’t want to be told what to do anymore. He could survive on his own.

  Six weeks into training his marksmanship instructor criticized his shot grouping.

  “Where’s your control, Weiss?”

  Joe turned and looked the man in the eye, then raised his rifle and fired it inches from the instructor’s head.

  “I’m better up close.”

  In the brig, he met Lawrence Franklin. Lawrence had gotten court marshaled for driving drunk on post and taking a swing at the officer who cuffed him.

  “Fuck this shit,” Lawrence said during one of their first nights sharing a cell. “We got skills. Come with me back to Chicago and we can make some real money.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  “You can’t print that picture without warning him,” says Iris.

  We’re on our third round at the cocktail bar down the block. The bartender (excuse me, mixologist), a lanky white boy from California with a man bun and Gothic script tattooed across his collarbone, wants to fuck Iris, so he’s making us elaborate drinks, one after the other. Iris is sipping at a stemless champagne flute with pomegranate seeds floating in it; mine is pisco-something. Dinner is the free popcorn.

  “I could,” I say. “I almost did. If I hadn’t recognized him I would have brought the printout to the office three hours ago and it would be online right now.”

  “But you did recognize him. You have more information, so you have a different responsibility.”

  “My responsibility is to the truth,” I kick back. “Saul broke into that file. At the very least he tampered with evidence.”

  “You don’t know that for sure. You don’t have any photos of that.”

  I would respond, but instead I launch into a coughing fit. The popcorn is peppered almost maliciously. Mixologist brings a glass of water as I right myself, wipe my eyes.

  “I’m kind of surprised you’re so ready to turn on him,” says Iris.

  “I’m not turning on him. He lied to me. Again. He was like, I barely remember this case. And he made me feel like shit for questioning him. But DeShawn didn’t
kill his family. Henrietta proves that.”

  “You’re sure you believe her?”

  “Why is it so hard to believe that I believe her?”

  “It’s just such a crazy story. And she’s obviously good at lying. She convinced a jury and Sandra Michaels and everybody.”

  “I don’t get the sense they took much convincing, you know? There were a couple murders every single day just in Brooklyn back then. Now there’s one in the whole city, if that. I bet they were like, cool, we got a witness, we got a confession, onto the next.”

  “I don’t see how you confess if you didn’t do it,” she says, then puts her hand up. “I know, I know. The Central Park Whatever, but seriously. Would you ever say you murdered three people if you didn’t? I mean, that’s insane.”

  “The fact that your privileged ass can’t imagine doing it doesn’t mean someone else wouldn’t.”

  Iris rolls her eyes. “Fine. Fine. Even if Saul lied, even if he somehow fucked with the case, shouldn’t you give him a chance to explain before you put him on blast to the whole city? Journalism 101. Get both sides of the story.”

  “Running the photo doesn’t necessarily ID him,” I say.

  “You’re saying you’re going to give the Trib the photo and not tell them you know who it is?”

  “I don’t know! I mean, I guess I have to tell them, right?”

  “Probably. But talk to Saul first. Just get it over with. Call him now.”

  She picks up my phone, plugs in my passcode.

  “Stop,” I say, snatching it back. “I will.”

  “Your mom will understand.”

  “I don’t think she will,” I say, my voice quieter. “I’m trying, I really am. But she thinks I’m spoiled. And selfish.”

  “Well,” says Iris, “she doesn’t really know you. And if you keep avoiding her she never will.”

  I don’t respond.

  “You need to try to look at it from her point of view. She’s gotta be dealing with a shitload of guilt every time she sees you. I’m not saying she doesn’t deserve it. It’s just…”

  “We don’t have to talk about it,” I say. What I mean is, I don’t want to talk about it.

  “You need to call him.”

  I suck the last of my cocktail through the little black straw.

  Mixologist appears immediately. “Call who?”

  “Tell her to call him,” says Iris.

  “Call him,” he says.

  “Tell her you won’t make her another drink until she calls him.”

  “I won’t make you another drink until you call him.”

  Does he think this makes him attractive?

  “I don’t need another drink,” I say.

  “Just do it,” says Iris. She actually pokes me with her finger.

  “Do it,” says the mixologist.

  “Fucking Christ,” I say. “Fine.”

  * * *

  The story Saul tells is reasonable. Wrong and fucked up, but reasonable. When he is finished talking, his face is red. He hasn’t looked me in the eye since I walked into his apartment, where he summoned me promising to reimburse the late-night livery cab fare.

  “Why didn’t you just give the evidence to me?” I ask.

  “Because I was trying to stay out of it.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense! You can’t really have thought you could sneak that stuff into the file and no one would notice. And what about Sandra Michaels? You’re cool with her just getting blamed?”

  “She’ll be fine,” says Saul. “She is very powerful now. She has lots of friends. And it is just one case. There are many possible explanations for something like this.”

  I am, for the first time I can remember, stunned to silence. He was just going to let her take the fall.

  “You don’t have to use my name to tell your story,” says Saul.

  “Saul, you are my story. An innocent man has been in prison more than half his life because the cop working his case buried evidence in a fucking box in his apartment!”

  “That is not the only reason he is in prison.”

  “Saul…”

  He stands up abruptly, knocking a mug of coffee onto the carpet. We both stare at the floor, watching the brown stain spread.

  “I am not proud of what I did, Rebekah. I am asking you … They will reopen every case I ever worked on.”

  “Maybe they should! How many other times did you do this?”

  Saul raises his eyes to me. “None. I give you my word. The day that woman from evidence gave me those letters was the most terrible day of my life, Rebekah. I had just killed a man. My relationship with my son was over.” He pauses. “He was afraid of me. Can you imagine? No, you do not have children, so you cannot. But please try. He did not want to see me because he had been convinced that I was a threat to him. Me—his father. I would have died for him, suffered for him. And when he learned what I had done. That I had taken a life … I knew Fraidy would never let him see me after that. It was the perfect excuse. Your tatty is a killer. Forget him.”

  Saul waves his hands in front of him like he is trying to flick something off them. It’s a gesture I know well: trying to fling the pain inside out.

  “I have to run the photo,” I say. “It’s not just about you.”

  Saul does not respond.

  “Someone will probably recognize you.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “It’s only a matter of time, Saul. I can’t believe you thought you’d get away with it.”

  “I took a chance,” he said. “In my experience, security cameras in public buildings in this borough are nonfunctioning at least half the time.”

  I almost laugh. Almost.

  “Before you make your decision I want you to come with me somewhere,” he says.

  “Where?”

  “Crown Heights.”

  * * *

  Saul and I step off the elevator on the third floor of the Crown Heights Jewish Council just after noon the next day. A receptionist shows us into Naftali Rothstein’s office, where two men are waiting.

  “I was hoping we could meet alone,” says Saul.

  “You and Daniel are here to discuss the same problem,” says Naftali. He looks at me. “This is Daniel Grunwald. He runs the Crown Heights Shmira.”

  “Shmira?” I ask.

  “It is like the shomrim,” says Saul. “A different word for the patrol group.”

  “We are off the record, Miss Roberts,” says Naftali.

  Figures.

  “Fine,” I say, thinking, as always, build trust now, get quotes later.

  “Do you remember a man named Joseph Weiss?” asks Naftali.

  Saul shakes his head.

  “There is no reason you should,” says Daniel. “He was only in the community about a year.”

  “Joseph?” I ask. Then look at Saul. “Joe.”

  “What?” asks Naftali.

  “Last weekend I went to Atlantic City and talked to the only witness in the Davis murders. She told me that a Jewish man named Joe paid her a thousand dollars to lie and say she saw a black kid running out of their house that night. Could it be the same person?”

  Daniel breathes in deeply through his nose. “Yes,” he says.

  For the next twenty minutes, Daniel tells us about “Joe from California” who worked for his uncle Isaiah, a landlord, from September 1991 to July 1992.

  I hear the word landlord and look at Saul. If this Isaiah instructed Joe to kill the Davises to stop their investigation into his business, the story I write is going to confirm every ugly stereotype about Jews imaginable. This is exactly the kind of shit that got nine utterly innocent Jewish students and teachers slaughtered in Roseville last year. What if Ontario, or DeShawn, or even Toya—people whose lives are divided entirely by what happened before the Davis murders and what happened after—get it in their head to get some revenge? It’s easy to get a gun in Brooklyn. It’s easy to find a Jew on the street.

  When Daniel finishes sp
eaking, Naftali looks at Saul, whose face has gone white.

  “I know what you are thinking. Yes, Isaiah Grunwald was the man who asked for the Davis file. He lied to me, apparently, about his relationship with the family. Obviously, if I had known he might be involved in some way … if I had even suspected…”

  Saul lets him trail off. “I should not have handed it over in the first place.”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask.

  “There is nothing we can do about that now,” said Naftali. “I’ve asked the yeshiva to look for any paperwork they have on Joseph. Daniel wants to go to the police. I would like to speak with Isaiah first.”

  “Why?” I ask. “He’s the one who benefited from their deaths, right?”

  Naftali and Daniel look at me.

  “What do you mean, benefited?” asks Naftali.

  “A friend of the Davises told me that before they died Malcolm and Sabrina were trying to get the housing department to investigate a landlord.”

  Naftali looks at Daniel. “Did you know about this?”

  Daniel nods.

  “And yet you said nothing,” says Saul.

  “Do you remember what it was like here in 1992?” says Daniel, raising his voice. “Can you imagine what would have happened if a chassidish man was accused of slaughtering a black family? Jewish blood would have run in the streets!”

  I raise my eyebrows, which upsets Daniel.

  “You think you are so smart. You have no idea what we were dealing with then. Now it is fashionable to live here. When this happened you could not give away a home in Crown Heights. My uncle…”

  “Daniel,” says Naftali.

  “No. No. My uncle invested in this neighborhood. He may have made some mistakes but…” Daniel stops himself. “When this happened, I was not certain that Joe—or my uncle—was involved.”

  “And now?” asks Saul.

  “Now,” he pauses, “now I wish I had not been so careless. Or so blind.”

  Naftali clears his throat. “We are not certain this man committed these murders. And we are definitely not certain Isaiah was involved. If this is just a coincidence, I do not want to bring unnecessary scrutiny to the community. Joseph is a very common name.”