Key Witness

by J. F. Freedman

  “I haven’t seen you before,” Arcaro squinted. Even though he wore glasses he was nearsighted. “Are you licensed to practice law in this state?” He cackled at his bad joke; his bailiff and the court stenographer chuckled dutifully, by rote.

  “I haven’t had the privilege of being in your court, Your Honor,” Wyatt smiled pleasantly. “And yes, I do have my license.”

  Arcaro’s bailiff walked to the bench and whispered into the judge’s ear. Arcaro leaned over, listening.

  He looked up. “You’re Wyatt Matthews?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  A murmur went up in the courtroom, particularly among the other lawyers who hadn’t been paying attention; they all had their own problems to deal with.

  Arcaro gaveled for quiet, leaned back in his high chair. He looked down at the docket sheet in front of him. “Is there more to this defendant than I think there is?”

  “I don’t know what you think he is, Your Honor. He’s being defended by the office of the Public Defender, who I’m working for.”

  The judge leaned forward. “I’ll be damned.” He shook his head. “What is a man of your status and reputation doing working for the PD, if I may ask?”

  “My firm has an ongoing commitment to do pro bono work through the Public Defender’s office,” Wyatt answered smoothly, “and we decided it was time someone other than a new associate ate at the public trough. Since I’ve been wanting to try my hand at criminal-defense law, I volunteered.”

  “Well, you sure picked the right place to do it,” the judge said, laughing nasally. “It’s refreshing to see an attorney of your stature getting his hands dirty, although I suspect it’s a vanity move and you’ll be back where you belong sooner than you expected. But in any case, good luck, son.”

  You’re wrong, you old fart. You’re going to see so much of me you’ll get sick of my face.

  “Thank you, Your Honor.”

  The second case Wyatt had been given was possession with intent to sell. He asked for and received a seventy-two-hour continuance so he could go over the case with his client and review the charges.

  “You’re not doing too bad,” Josephine backhand-complimented him as they sat in the hallway, waiting for the third case to come up. It was still before lunch.

  “Thanks.” Needling and put-down seemed to be the way everyone dealt with each other around here. “Did you expect I wouldn’t?”

  “I didn’t know what to expect.”

  “I’m not here on an ego trip.”

  She studied his face for a minute. “Most lawyers spend their whole lives trying to get to where you are,” she told him. “And almost none of them make it. How come you’re doing this?”

  “You can get tired of anything. Even champagne and lobster would get old if you ate them every day.”

  “If you say so. But I’d be happy to try.”

  “You’ll get your chance someday.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not where I’m going. I can’t afford to think that way.”

  “What kind of mentality is that?” He was already liking her; this defeatist attitude upset him.

  “A realistic one. Look, I might get it together and become a lawyer someday, but the odds are against it. I’m already the first woman in my family to go to college, let alone graduate. But if I ever do become a lawyer I’ll be a good one,” she added defiantly. “I’ve seen enough lame attorneys to know I could do better.”

  “You’ve certainly impressed me.”

  “Thanks. Glad to be of help.” She stuck her head into the courtroom, came back out. “You’re up next.”

  “Your Honor,” Wyatt addressed the court, “I’ve been informed that my client”—he glanced at the arrest sheet—“Marvin White, is in the infirmary at the county jail, recovering from wounds he sustained during his alleged crime.”

  “Have you had a chance to meet with him yet?”

  “No, Your Honor. I got the case this morning and I’ve been in court all that time. I’m planning to interview him at the jail as soon as I’m freed up here.”

  “You do that,” the judge told him. He flipped through his calendar. “Report to this court by Thursday morning as to his condition and when he’ll be able to appear.” He banged his gavel down, hard. “Next case.”

  BECAUSE MARVIN WAS STILL laid up, his ass swaddled in bandages, Wyatt couldn’t meet with him in a regular attorney-client room, so the jail authorities agreed for them to meet in the infirmary, after lunch. Wyatt went alone—Josephine had to go back to the office, where she had a mountain of work for her other lawyers.

  While he was waiting to be cleared and sent down, Wyatt glanced at a summary report on Marvin’s juvenile record. He’d read the entire file later, when he had a few free hours.

  It was depressing reading.

  Dropped out of school in tenth grade, having been kept back twice. IQ 95, within the normal range, but with severe learning disabilities, particularly dyslexia—for all intents and purposes functionally illiterate. Black. Father unknown. Grew up in the projects. First arrested when in third grade—shoplifting. A few years later committed arson (set fire to his classroom with the teacher inside—young Marvin had locked her in. She’d had to jump from a second-story window, and broke both ankles—that was the end of her teaching days, and brought with it an additional charge of battery).

  At seventeen Marvin White had seven arrests, three convictions, done time in the county work camp, juvenile hall, the state reform school.

  “Follow me.”

  Wyatt looked up from his seat in the waiting room. A guard was beckoning him. He went inside the bars.

  The main area of the infirmary was busy with inmates getting treated for various ailments, but Marvin was the only bed patient. A significant number were openly homosexual, Wyatt noticed—some of them aggressively so. If he hadn’t known they were all men (female prisoners had their own facility, two floors up), he would have sworn some of them were women. Their problems were almost exclusively drug and AIDS related—some were openly dying; you could see the life draining out of them right before your eyes.

  Wyatt felt a sense of uneasiness around all these inmates. Despite all his experience, this was a side of the law and of life he’d rarely been exposed to.

  He sat on the bed next to Marvin’s. The curtains had been drawn to give the appearance of privacy; but if anyone had wanted to listen in, they could.

  “My name’s Wyatt Matthews,” he said by way of introduction. “I’m going to be your lawyer.”

  “My mother hire you?” the boy asked suspiciously, looking up at Wyatt through veiled eyes. The kid was eighteen, legally a man—in the eyes of the law a man who would be tried as an adult and sent to prison if convicted. To Wyatt’s eye, however, this was a boy, only a little older than his daughter.

  “No. The city appointed me. Is there a particular lawyer your mother would want to hire for you? Have you talked with her about this?”

  “Fuck, no.” Marvin turned his eyes away from Wyatt and stared up at the ceiling. “What you want to talk to me about?” His eyes darted to Wyatt for a second, then resumed their blank upward stare.

  “The crime you’re accused of would be a good start, for openers.” He felt a surge of annoyance—you got your ass in a sling, kid, and I’m trying to help you, so don’t come on so salty with me. “This is a serious accusation, Marvin. You could go to jail for several years if you’re convicted. I’m going to try to keep you out of prison, if I can. But if you’re not willing to help me, then I’m not going to be much good for you.”

  The kid looked away, as if conducting an inner debate. Then he turned and faced Wyatt, propping himself on his elbows, grimacing as he shifted his weight.

  “What you want to know?”

  “Let’s start with the basics. What’s your name?”

  “Marvin. White.”

  “Any middle name?”

  “No.”

  “You’re eighteen? You just had yo
ur birthday?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you live at home?”

  Marvin fidgeted.

  “You don’t live at home? Are you living somewhere else? With a friend, a girlfriend? On the streets? Where?”

  “Here and there.” The answer was low, almost a whisper.

  Wyatt had a hunch. “Your mother doesn’t know about your being arrested yet, does she? You haven’t talked to her since this happened, have you?”

  “She knows. The police told her. When I was up at the hospital.”

  “So she saw you in the hospital? Before they brought you here?”

  Marvin turned to him again. “They called her. She didn’t come. She ain’t gonna come.”

  “Why won’t she come to see you?”

  “ ’Cause she don’t truck with no lawbreakers,” Marvin stated defiantly.

  He was going to have to meet the mother. Find out what she knew, what was going on with her son in general, and enlist her to support Marvin. A strong family front would help with his defense.

  “Have you ever been arrested before?” The file only contained Marvin’s juvenile offenses, nothing as an adult.

  “Shit, yes.”

  “As an adult, not a juvenile.”

  “How could I be? I just turned eighteen, you already know that. What difference does it make?”

  “If you have no record as an adult, that works in our favor.”

  Marvin nodded. “This was my first one. As a adult,” he added.

  “Tell me about it,” Wyatt said. “From the beginning.”

  Marvin looked at him. “From the beginning like how?”

  “Everything that happened from the time you decided to do it until the time you were caught.” He paused—was he supposed to ask whether or not Marvin had tried to rob the store? In his own practice he never directly asked his clients if they were guilty because he wanted to conduct the most aggressive defense he could, and knowing a client was guilty hurt the cause—ethically you couldn’t put him on the stand to say he didn’t do it. But he didn’t know how that worked in this field.

  He wished Josephine was here now, so he could quiz her. He’d better save that question for later.

  Marvin broke his chain of thought. “Like when I first started thinking about it, or when I set out to actually do it?”

  That statement in itself was a quasi admission of guilt, Wyatt thought. “Let me put it another way,” he said. “Tell me about what happened that day—from the time you first went by that store.”

  Marvin’s brow furrowed. Whether he was trying to recall what had happened, or, on the other hand, deciding whether or not to confide in this strange man who had all of a sudden shown up and said he was his lawyer, Wyatt couldn’t tell. “You a private lawyer?” Marvin asked.

  “Yes.” Wyatt explained: “I’m working for the Public Defender’s office. Private lawyers do that, because there aren’t enough staff public defenders to handle all the clients—like you.”

  Marvin’s face lit up. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

  “I didn’t think of it. Does it matter?”

  “Hell yes, it matters!” His smile broadened. “I got me a private lawyer. All right!”

  “Does that mean you’ll talk to me now? Tell me what happened?”

  “Yeah, man. I’ll talk to you.”

  Marvin began laying out what happened, from when he had first noticed the store, on his delivery route. That had been about a year and a half ago, when he’d begun his job. How it looked like a busy little store, with shitty security. And then later, when he’d figured out it was a numbers drop and that the cops on the beat were in on that, they knew it was going down and they let it ride, even played a number themselves from time to time, and ate free.

  This is good, Wyatt thought, writing it all down. If this was true and he could document it, it could be embarrassing to the police and the prosecutor’s office, and help in structuring a good deal with the DA.

  He hadn’t thought anything about it for a long time, Marvin went on, because he didn’t have a weapon to use, and also because it was right in the middle of his delivery job and he could get spotted in the neighborhood. But then his homie had given him the stolen gun, and he had been fired from his job. A bullshit firing—he had done right by his boss, his boss had scapegoated him because he—the boss—had fucked up, and he needed to blame someone, and Marvin was low man on the totem pole.

  Wyatt jotted a note to find out about the gun, which was now in police custody. And he would interview Marvin’s former boss to get his side of the story to see if the boss had anything good to say about Marvin.

  So now he had a gun, and he wasn’t going to be in that neighborhood anymore, it wasn’t his territory, he didn’t like it around there, too many damn Asians with shitty attitudes. Do the deed and vanish into the crowd.

  “So I checked it out,” Marvin said, “and I figured the best day to do it. Night, I had to do it at night, when it wasn’t crowded and I could get away easier. So then I went down there and looked it over again, to make certain. You got to have a plan with shit like this, you can’t just go running in someplace and start waving a gun around.”

  A plan, Wyatt thought. Pretty sad plan if this is how it ended up.

  “Okay,” he prodded. “Go on.”

  “I went in and bought a pack of smokes, checking it out inside one more time. It was more crowded than I wanted, I didn’t want nobody in there, ’cause I didn’t want nobody to get hurt. Except the Korean behind the counter, and I didn’t want to hurt him, either. But if he made a play, then I was prepared to.”

  “If it was too crowded, then why did you try it?” Wyatt asked.

  “I didn’t—right then. I paid for my merchandise and walked away.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Walked away a couple blocks. So I wouldn’t be loitering right outside the store and get the guy suspicious.”

  “So you smoked a couple of cigarettes. How long did that take?”

  “I smoked one cigarette, man. Didn’t even finish that. I don’t smoke tobacco, it was something to buy, so’s he wouldn’t get suspicious. I only lit that one up so I’d have something to do with my hands.”

  “You were scared.”

  Marvin flared. “Fuck, no, I wasn’t scared. Scared of some jive-ass Korean? No. I was nervous. There’s a big difference. You want to be a little nervous when you do a job, so you’re on your toes.”

  Wyatt was making notes. “Keep going,” he said.

  So Marvin went back, and this time the store was empty, of customers, and it was time to do or die. He went in, showed his weapon, told the storekeeper it was a robbery, and got him to take the money out of the register.

  So much for worrying about his guilt or innocence. He’s laying it all out—for the prosecution.

  It was certain now that this case would never go to trial. He couldn’t put Marvin on the stand. If they were lucky, they could make him a halfway acceptable deal with the DA.

  “And then?” he asked. “How is it he came to shoot you, if you were holding a gun on him?”

  “I told him I wanted the numbers money he kept hidden. He wouldn’t give it up. It was like if I didn’t shoot him for it, I wasn’t going to get it.”

  “So you turned and ran.”

  Marvin shot up in his bed. “Fuck, no! My piece jammed. I’d’ve done that motherfucker in a heartbeat!”

  “Shh,” Wyatt cautioned him. “Keep your voice down. When did he fire his shotgun?”

  “How should I know, man? I was running for my sorry-ass life. I never did see it.” He paused, then grimaced. “I heard it, and felt it. But I never did see it.” He rolled his eyes toward Wyatt. “I should’ve done the fucker. The next time, I’ll have me a gun that works.”

  Count your blessings, Wyatt thought as he packed up his notes. A load of shot in the ass is a lot easier to recover from than a charge of murder.

  DWAYNE EXCHANGED HIS JAI
L issue for. hospital whites. Immediately, he felt better. He looked good in white.

  “You’ve done hospital work before, I assume?” the head nurse, a civilian, peevishly asked Dwayne. The head nurse was a pencil-mustached prissy little twerp who ran a tight ship. He didn’t like the idea that some new inmate, who was only going to be with them for a couple of weeks anyway, had not only been assigned to “his” infirmary, but would be sleeping in it. But he wasn’t about to buck Lieutenant Blake’s orders. He was physically afraid of her, as were many others, inmates and deputies alike.

  “Yes,” Dwayne answered calmly, not responding to the gibe. “I was a lab tech in the army.”

  “Have you been trained to change dressings? Clean infected wounds?”

  Dwayne nodded.

  “Well, I guess we can find some use for you,” the head nurse grudgingly allowed. “Make sure you stay out of the pharmaceutical supplies,” he warned Dwayne. “I run a tight inventory. If anything is unaccounted for, I’ll know it.”

  “I’m clean there,” Dwayne assured him.

  For the next hour, wearing latex gloves and a facial mask, Dwayne swabbed cuts, sores, and abrasions from sick inmates and transferred them to petri dishes, two to a dish. He also made cultures from sputum and sperm. Containing the spread of VD (HIV being the most deadly, along with common clap, herpes, and syphilis) was one of the jail’s primary health missions.

  “You’re okay with cleaning and changing an open wound?” the head nurse asked Dwayne again, after the last of the cultures had been finished and put in the refrigerator.

  “No problem,” Dwayne answered.

  “There’s one in the back who needs changing,” the head nurse smirked. “You’ll find the supplies you need in the cabinet over the sink.”

  Dwayne got a package of sterile bandages, some cotton swabs, a tube of salve, and a bottle of antiseptic from the cabinet and walked to the back, the bed ward. The lone inmate, a young black kid, was lying propped up in bed, watching a Roadrunner cartoon on the small black-and-white television that was bolted high on the wall.

  “Afternoon, stud,” he said to the kid. “Time to change your dressing.”