Say yes, schmuck, he thought. We need a black face at our table.
“Yeah, I’ll do it,” Norman Windsor said. As if he had any choice. He knew the politics involved. He reached across the table and shook Helena’s hand. “Let’s kick ass, lady.”
“That’s what I do for a living,” she answered him.
A FEW BLOCKS AWAY, in the Public Defender’s offices, a similar process was taking place. Walcott’s own office was too small, so the meeting took place in what passed for their conference room, a large storage space in the basement where decades of old files were kept.
There were no windows in this decrepit mausoleum. The lights were old flickering hanging fixtures in wire cages. The crappy, inadequate ventilation came from two overhead fans that moved the tepid air around, blowing papers onto the floor more than cooling things down. The room was hot and muggy, the walls leaked moisture. People sweated freely; after fifteen minutes you felt like you were in a Turkish bath.
Walcott hated this space. Tempers flared easily, things got personal. But there were times when he had to get everyone together in the same room. This was one of those times.
Besides Walcott, Wyatt, and Josephine, every single senior lawyer in the Public Defender’s office had crammed into this space, two dozen advocates for the public welfare and their own ambitions.
Wyatt was seated near the head of the table, to Walcott’s right. Josephine was squeezed in next to him, their chairs touching.
“You haven’t met most of the team, have you?” Walcott asked Wyatt.
Wyatt looked around. None of the faces were familiar. “No, not yet,” he answered easily. “But I’m looking forward to it.”
No one smiled back. He didn’t expect anyone to.
“That’ll come,” Walcott said. “Right now we’ve got a situation on our hands.”
“We’ve got a crisis is what we’ve got. A disaster if we don’t get our shit together muy pronto.” The voice came from the other end of the table.
Wyatt didn’t feel comfortable; even though his jacket was off, he was sweating. You can’t think straight under physical conditions like these, he thought. More important than any physical discomfort was the resentment toward him from the lawyers in this room; he was the outsider, the invader.
Tough shit. He had come here to do a job and that’s what he was going to do.
He got up from his seat and walked the length of the table to where the man who had spoken out was sitting. The man was middle-aged, rumpled, overweight but solid. He looked like a junior high football coach.
“Wyatt Matthews,” he said, offering his hand.
The man, startled by Wyatt’s temerity, shook his hand before he realized what was happening. “Josh Dancer,” he said.
“Good to meet you, Josh.” Wyatt walked back the length of the table and took his seat.
“This is not a disaster, Josh, or anything like it.” Walcott took charge. “We’ve got a case here and we’re going to win it, and when we do, we’re going to be heroes.”
“If we win this,” a second voice, another middle-aged man’s, said, “we sure as hell aren’t gonna be heroes. More like pariahs, you ask me.”
“What’re you talking about?” Walcott asked testily.
“Young black kid? Got a juvie record an inch thick? You walk this kid, the public’s gonna roast your ass.”
Others murmured agreement.
“Even if he’s innocent?” Walcott asked Dancer.
“Like O.J. was in the criminal case?” the speaker shot back. This man, like several of the lawyers in the room, was black. “How many people’re happy about that?”
This was true, Wyatt thought. Moira had been outraged by the process in the Simpson criminal trial, and had felt a sense of relief when the civil verdict came down on the side of the Goldmans and the Browns. Why would anyone defend him? she and others had asked at the time. She was going to be asking him the same question about Marvin White—and taking the answer personally. He knew that, and dreaded it.
“Anyway, this case has already been tried in the press all over the damn country,” a third lawyer said.
“So what?” Walcott said. “Does that mean you think he’s guilty? Beyond a reasonable doubt? What do you know about this, Larry?”
“I’m just saying it’s going to be an uphill struggle,” Larry, the man who had spoken up, pointed out.
“All our cases are,” Walcott said. “That’s why the DA has a ninety percent conviction rate.” He exhaled through his nostrils. “Okay.” He looked around the room, avoiding Wyatt. “How are we going to divvy this up?”
“What does that mean?” Wyatt asked immediately.
Walcott turned to him. “You’re not trying this case,” he told Wyatt bluntly.
“What?”
“You’re not a trial lawyer. You’ve never tried a criminal case in your life.”
“I’ve tried dozens of cases. For millions of dollars. Billions.”
“Who gives a shit about any of that crap?” Dancer was on his feet now. “I’ve been in this office almost twenty years, paying my dues. I’m a good lawyer—I could go into the private sector and make much more money than I do here. I’m in this job for the same reasons the rest of you are—the indigent need good lawyers, more than most defendants. And I’m an action junkie, I admit it. So if you think I’m gonna sit back and let some hot-shit silk-stocking lawyer from the outside come in and steal this from under our noses, you’ve got another think coming.” He thumped the table for emphasis. “This belongs to one of us. Not him,” he said, pointing a meaty finger at Wyatt.
Walcott made a time-out signal with his hands. “Let’s calm down, everyone.” He turned to Wyatt. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”
Wyatt took a deep breath before he responded. “Well, I’m sorry, too,” he said. “But this man is my client. That relationship has already been established. That’s protocol, that’s the way the law is practiced everywhere I know. If I wanted to turn it over to someone else, that would be a different story. But right now this is my case, my client.” He looked down the length of the table. “And I, for one, am not about to give up on him before I even start.” He turned to Walcott. “A few days ago you were telling me what a brilliant job I was doing! Well, I’m the same lawyer I was then.” He stood up. “I didn’t give up a multimillion-dollar practice to push papers around down here,” he said aggressively. “I came because I have skills and talents you need. And I’m going to use them. On this case.”
“I make those decisions,” Walcott answered him stiffly. The man was trembling, he was so angry. Wyatt wished he hadn’t thrown down the gauntlet so nakedly; but this was a power game, at which he was a master.
“I’m going to give this serious thought,” Walcott told the assemblage. “We’ll meet again tomorrow and make our decisions. My decision,” he added for Wyatt’s benefit.
Wyatt and Josephine were in a bar a few blocks from their offices. A no-frills place where people came to drink and talk after a day’s work. Hard liquor and beer—he didn’t see three wineglasses.
“It’s funny,” Wyatt said, looking around, “in all the years I’ve worked downtown I’ve never been in here.” He was drinking Johnny Black on the rocks with a water back.
“This is a cop bar,” Josephine said. “Cops, prosecutors, defenders. Like goes to like.” She took a sip from her margarita. “Where do you drink, hang out?”
“I’m a member of the University Club.” He felt a tickle of discomfort, telling her that.
“Very uptown,” she teased him. Leaning in closer, she said, “Listen, Wyatt. You are a winner and these people aren’t. You know that better than me. The Public Defender’s office has a loser mentality, especially with high-profile cases like this one. And especially with people at the bottom of the food chain, like Marvin White. Even the black guys in the department hate clients like him; they think of him as one more piece-of-shit nigger without a future.”
He looked shar
ply at her.
“Hey, it’s their word, not mine. I don’t use words like that. You hear it all the time, all the time. Especially from the black lawyers. That’s what they call people like Marvin. They hate people like him.”
“You won’t hear it from me,” he said with genuine anger.
“Or me either again, okay?” She could feel the heat of his passion.
“Okay.” He smiled at her.
“What it really is, they’re scared,” she confided.
“Of what?”
“Of ‘there but for the grace of God.’ ” She finished her drink. “I’m going to have one more, for the road. Can I buy you one?” she asked.
“I’ll join you, but I’m buying.”
“Okay. This time.” She caught the waitress’s eye, pointed at their glasses, and twirled her finger. “The thing is,” she said, “I know what they’re talking about.”
“About what?”
“ ‘There but for the grace of God.’ That’s me. That’s how I feel. That’s why I know how scared you can get, and how much that hurts.”
MOIRA WAS LATE GETTING home (not that she was on a compelling timetable). She’d had lunch with some friends at a new French bistro out on Highway 83 and lingered with them over coffee and dessert until after three. They were old companions from college she didn’t see very much anymore; their husbands, while successful, weren’t in Wyatt’s stratum, and over the years they’d drifted apart. But once or twice a year they got together and talked about their lives, their kids, old times and new.
After she’d finally left the restaurant she had gone by the new bookstore site. The lawyer (not Wyatt’s firm—they’d be too expensive, and anyway she wanted this to be all hers, so they had hired a local attorney who was perfectly adequate) was preparing the lease. She and Cissy would be signing it next week. She’d had butterflies in her stomach, standing in the parking lot and looking at the vacant shop, visualizing what it would look like when it was full of books and CDs and people.
After that she’d dropped by her tailor’s to have a pair of slacks altered, which had taken longer than she’d anticipated, and then she had stopped at a few specialty shops to pick up certain things the supermarket didn’t carry—a particular type of wine she wanted to have with dinner tonight, some bagels for breakfast tomorrow. It was already dark when she drove down the road toward home.
She was actually past the Spragues’ house when out of the corner of her eye she saw the For Sale sign planted in the grass next to the driveway. She hit the brakes, backed up until she was level with their driveway, and turned her car in, pulling up in front.
There were lights on inside. She walked up to the front door and rang the bell.
The door, secured by a chain, swung open a few cautious inches, Ted Sprague peered out at her.
“Oh, Moira, it’s you,” he exclaimed with relief. “Hold on a second.” He closed the door so that he could unlatch the chain, then opened it fully.
“How’s Enid?” Moira asked, feeling guilty; she hadn’t been over to check on the older woman’s condition since the night of the shooting.
“She’s okay. She’s doing fine. Come on in.” He stepped aside so she could enter. “She’s in the den watching the news.”
“I can only stay for a minute,” Moira said apologetically.
“Hi, Moira,” Enid called out from inside the house. “Come look at my scars.”
Enid was sitting in a wing chair, her slippered feet propped up on a brocaded ottoman. “Do you want something to drink?” she asked. Holding up a flute of champagne, “I’m into the good stuff. I’m pampering myself these days.”
“As well you should,” her husband asserted stoutly.
“No, thanks,” Moira demurred. “I can only stay a minute. I wanted to check up, find out how you’re doing.” Her elderly neighbor didn’t look good. She’d aged five years since she’d been shot.
“I’m still ticking.” The older woman smiled. “I was lucky. Another inch and I wouldn’t be here.”
“Yes.” Moira didn’t know what else to say about that. “You’re selling your house,” she said instead, almost blurting it out.
“Yep,” Ted confirmed. “We’re flying the coop. Moving out to California. Carmel. Golf every day, and no shoveling snow.”
“That’ll be awful, losing you as neighbors.” Moira was genuinely upset at the prospect. “But I guess you’ve outgrown this; or it’s outgrown you, more accurately.”
Enid shook her head. “I thought I’d live in this house until the day I died. Which I almost did.” She shivered reflexively, poured herself some more champagne from a bottle sitting in an ice bucket at her elbow. “I don’t feel safe here anymore,” she said. “I’m afraid of what’s going on, all around us.”
“I can understand that,” Moira sympathized.
“You think you can,” Ted corrected her sternly. “But until it’s actually happened to you, you don’t really know.”
“I guess that’s true,” Moira said defensively. She didn’t want to be here anymore—there was a smell of decay in the air, emotional more than physical. She leaned over and kissed the older woman’s cheek. “I’ll try and stop in on you tomorrow.”
“That would be nice.” Enid looked up at Moira. “You know, there’s only one thing I really regret about this horrible incident.”
“What’s that?” Moira asked.
“That I didn’t shoot the bastards when I had the chance.”
She looked up at Moira from the comfort and security of her armchair. “If you ever find yourself in a similar situation,” she warned the younger woman, “don’t ever make that mistake.”
“The Spragues are selling their house.”
Wyatt nodded. “I saw the sign. I wonder what they’re asking.”
“They’re afraid of living here anymore.”
“Probably about a million two, a million three, wouldn’t you say?”
“Old people shouldn’t be afraid like that. Not in their own homes. Nobody should be.”
“Although I heard the housing market’s going up again, finally. It’s a good place, they could maybe ask a million five. It doesn’t matter,” he went on, “a couple hundred thou one way or the other won’t mean much to them. Is Michaela going to be home for dinner? I hardly ever see her anymore.”
He’d gotten home later than he’d wanted—his one more with Josephine had turned out to be two more, with a lot of conversation wrapped around the drinks. The case primarily, but a few personal things, too, not only from her but from him as well; he had been surprised that he had talked about himself to someone he didn’t know that well. Josephine was a good listener; they had an easy camaraderie. You either have that with somebody right off or you don’t, he thought.
“She’s already had dinner. She went to the library. Group study time.” She looked sharply at him. “You haven’t heard a word I said.”
“Michaela had dinner. She’s at the library. I heard that.” He was uncorking the bottle of wine she had bought.
“About why the Spragues are moving.”
He looked at her calmly. “I know why they’re moving.”
“Doesn’t it concern you?” she asked, her voice rising.
“No, and it shouldn’t concern you, either.”
“How could it not?”
“Because what happened to them could have happened anywhere in this country. Anywhere in the world, for that matter. What do you think, this neighborhood’s going to be a hot spot for robberies all of a sudden?”
“That’s my whole point, Wyatt! That’s what I’m afraid of.”
They were in the living room, waiting for Cloris to warm up the dinner that had been prepared to be eaten an hour ago. He pulled the cork with a loud pop. Pouring two glasses, he handed one to her. “Well, it isn’t happening here, not this moment, so take it easy, okay?” He clinked glasses with her. “How was the rest of your day?”
She told him about her lunch and about going
to the bookstore site, how good it felt that it was actually going to happen. “And you?” she asked, trying to keep it light. “How go the wars down there wherever it is you’re fighting them these days?”
“The head of the Public Defender’s office wants to take me off the case,” he told her glumly.
“Finally,” she said brightly. “Rationality returns.”
“I’m not giving it up.”
The glass from which she was about to drink stopped halfway to her lips. “Oh, Wyatt. Why?”
“Because it’s what I want to do. What have I been talking about for the last month if not this? I thought you were behind me on this.”
“Where did you ever get that idea?”
“Because you’ve always been behind me, on everything.”
“And I am, but for God’s sake, not this—this is going to be an absolute quagmire. This is going to be one of those awful cases where the lawyers are on TV every day, and the press is going to be snooping around our house, everything. We’ll be in The National Enquirer!”
“Don’t get hysterical, Moira. I’m defending a man who’s been accused of a crime. It’s what I’ve been doing the last twenty-five years.”
“A kid from the ghetto who raped and killed seven women!” she screamed. “That is not what you have been doing the last twenty-five years!”
He set his glass down. “Which bugs you more? That he’s accused of these crimes—and I say ‘accused’ deliberately; so far he hasn’t been convicted of anything, in case you’ve forgotten—or that he’s ‘from the ghetto,’ as you so elegantly put it?”
“Don’t try to guilt-trip me. You know what I’m talking about.”
“This is part and parcel of what happened next door, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she answered firmly.
“And the fact that this kid is black—is that a component?”
She stared at him. “Are you saying I’m a racist? I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”
Cloris stuck her head into the room and coughed discreetly. “Dinner is on the table,” she said. She disappeared immediately.
Key Witness Page 17
