The man passing judgment on Marvin was his former boss, Artis Livonius. He spoke with a pronounced accent, the English of one who had taken it up in his teens or later, long after he was at home in another language. He and Wyatt were in the back of Livonius’s cleaning establishment, amid the noise of the pressing tables, industrial-sized washers and dryers, and dry-cleaning machines. Livonius had a small work area tucked away in the corner, where a Macintosh computer sat on an old beat-up wooden desk. The room was steamy from all the machines running full blast; Wyatt had taken his coat off and loosened his tie.
Livonius extracted a large jar of kosher dill pickles from a small cube refrigerator tucked in between his desk and the back door, extracted one from the brine, and bit into it, taking half the fullness in one large mouthful. He held the jar out to Wyatt, who shook his head. “No, thanks. I’ve already had lunch. Looks good, though.”
“Salt,” the owner confided. “It gets muggy in here and you’re on your feet all day, you cramp up in the legs if you don’t keep your salt intake up. Better than salt tablets. It’s an old Lithuanian trick. Pickles and salted herring, the national dishes of Lithuania.”
You learn something new every day, Wyatt thought. There were definite perks to practicing law bargain-basement style. One night you’re cruising the mean streets with a teenage drug lord and another morning you’re learning about the national dishes of Lithuania.
Before coming uptown to see Livonius, Wyatt had spent the morning with Josephine, hunkered down in their own private gulag, outlining his strategy—where he wanted to go, how, and when. Josephine had sat across the desk from him, taking copious notes as he talked it out in an almost stream-of-consciousness flow.
Ticking off on his fingers: “We’re going to find this woman Marvin was supposedly with on the night of one of the old murders, if she actually exists. We’re going to talk to everyone Marvin knows, to see if anyone has a good alibi for him for some other time. We’re going to get with his employer and trace his delivery route to see how that matches up with the murderer’s timetable. We’re going to go to every one of those murder sites, to see if there’s anything there we can use. And we are going to learn everything we can about Dwayne Thompson. He’s the state’s case. If we can find something to discredit him, we’ll blow them out of the water.”
He was enjoying being out on the street, investigating on his own, which he’d never done in his life—it had always been done for him. Making his own case, meeting the people where they worked and lived, seeing it all firsthand. It felt more real doing it this way, less removed. He was connecting more.
Livonius polished off the rest of his king-sized pickle with one bite. Wiping his massive hands on his smock, he said, “So. What do you want from me?”
“You know about Marvin, of course.”
The dry cleaner shook his head sadly. “Unbelievable,” he uttered.
“What’s unbelievable, Mr. Livonius?”
“That the poor bastard’s in jail, what else?”
“It’s not unbelievable that he might have committed these crimes?”
The man snorted a short harsh laugh. “I didn’t say that. I think it’s unlikely, but …” He shrugged again. “Who knows? He was capable of robbing from me, a man who took him under his wing and tried to teach him right from wrong. But rape? Murder? I think Marvin’s out of his league there.”
Wyatt wanted to believe that, too; but he couldn’t. He had seen the tape with his own two eyes, he’d seen Marvin White try to shoot a man. If Marvin’s gun hadn’t jammed he would have, and he would be facing a murder charge he couldn’t possibly find a way to beat.
That tape was Alex Pagano’s hole card. If Pagano felt his back was to the wall—that the case was slipping away from him at some point deep in the trial—he would use it. He would take a piece of the police department down to get his conviction, without thinking twice about it.
“I know Marvin stole from you,” Wyatt said to the proprietor, “and you fired him over it, which is completely understandable. But putting that aside—if you can, which I know is asking a lot—how did you feel about Marvin? Until you caught him stealing did you like him? Tolerate him?”
The man leaned against a large dry-cleaning machine that was humming away. All around the room, women in smocks were sorting laundry, operating pressing machines, folding and bundling. Most of them looked like they were Mexican, Wyatt noticed. Probably illegal.
“I liked him okay. He’s a likable kid in some ways. Oh, he’s a slacker, a petty thief, and a punk, and like I said, he was lazy, which is the worst crime in the world in my book—but he was no fool. He could have amounted to something. That’s what I said to him, many times. ‘Marvin,’ I said, ‘you can have a career here. This is a good business, dry cleaning. You could learn the trade and someday you could start your own business. Own your piece of the rock.’ ” Another shrug. “He never listened. Long-range planning, honest work, they weren’t part of his outlook. Look,” he said, his voice becoming passionate, “I came here from Lithuania, when the Communists ran it. I had nothing, no language here, didn’t know nobody. And here I am today, I own my own business, I pay taxes. These colored kids, they have no drive, no sense of responsibility. It’s ‘gimme gimme gimme.’ They should live in Lithuania the way it was, they’d sing a different tune.” He shook his head and spat on the floor.
Wyatt flipped through his reporter-sized notebook. “He was your delivery man.”
“One of them. I got two. Too much work for one, we deliver all over the city. Private and commercial both.”
“He drove a truck?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes he took the bus, or the subway. I always gave him money for the fare,” he said quickly.
“Do you recall if he was ever in the particular areas where the murders took place, when they took place? Like he had a particular delivery to make at a certain address that was close to a murder, around the time it would have occurred?”
“He must have been. He was all over the west side every day.”
“What about night?”
Livonius shook his head. “Not during working hours. We don’t deliver at night.”
“Some of the murders—most of them—took place at night. Which stands to reason, since prostitutes work more at night.”
“They work in the daytime, too,” Livonius contradicted him. “Go outside and drive two blocks down the street. You’ll get solicited.”
Wyatt knew that was true. He had seen several hookers on his way here. “So Marvin would have had to come back to this part of the city after work, if he was going to kill a prostitute at night.”
“He wouldn’t come back,” Livonius asserted. “A kid like him, black. He isn’t comfortable hanging around somewhere that ain’t his place. He was a homeboy—didn’t feel comfortable outside his own area.” He cracked a couple of huge knuckles. “In some of these areas a black man sticks out like a two-headed baby. These krauts and Poles and other eastern Europeans that live in these neighborhoods, they don’t like black people, especially black men.” He shook his head. “If Marvin had been in those places after dark, he would have stayed after work, done what he had to do, and gotten out of there.”
That was a positive—a small one. “I’m trying to establish alibis for Marvin. Is there any way you could remember, or check up in your records or whatever, a time when it would have been improbable, or better yet, impossible for Marvin to have been in the area where one of the killings took place, when it did? Like he was home sick, or at school, on vacation, anything like that?”
Livonius frowned. “I don’t think I could remember anything that exact,” he said. “He worked after school and on the weekends until he quit school, then he worked during the regular day. People like him don’t take vacations,” he added.
“I don’t mean a regular vacation,” Wyatt said, regretting his choice of words. Of course people like Marvin didn’t take vacations. People like Marvin and Jonnie Rae could bar
ely pay the rent—which was why dealing drugs or robbing numbers drops didn’t seem as wrong to them as it did to people in better economic circumstances: people like Livonius, and him. “But maybe he was out of town—visiting a relative, something like that.”
“No.”
This guy wasn’t much help: “What about your records? Wouldn’t you have records of when deliveries were made, and to whom? Something I could use to cross-check against the times of the murders. Maybe one of the customers Marvin delivered to on those days would have some kind of alibi for Marvin. Like he went over after work and helped move furniture or something.” Or spent the night in one of the lady customers’ beds.
“I don’t know,” Livonius said reluctantly. “My customers aren’t going to want to be disturbed with this. It’s already hurt my business, my customers finding out that vicious killer was delivering their dry cleaning. Especially my female customers. That he was in their house with them, alone.”
He knows about Marvin’s reputed sexual escapades, Wyatt flashed. Or has a damn strong suspicion. “Did any of your female customers ever complain to you that Marvin acted inappropriately toward them. Threateningly, or sexually?”
The man looked away. I’ve touched a nerve, Wyatt thought. That story Dexter had told him, which he had taken with a large dose of salt, was starting to become more plausible.
“No,” Livonius admitted reluctantly. “No one ever complained about that.”
“Then doesn’t it make sense that if he never threatened one of your women customers, physically or sexually, that he wouldn’t do it elsewhere? If he wanted to rape and kill women, his job delivering for you would be perfect. He would be alone with helpless women, over and over. But you never had a complaint, not one.”
Livonius went through some inner turmoil—Wyatt could see it playing on his florid face. Finally, he opened up. “Marvin wouldn’t have to rape women. He had all the women he could handle. He was shtupping plenty of ladies on his route, especially the older gals who are working overtime to hang on to their looks. They call me up for delivery and they got this baby-doll little voice.” His deep voice rose in falsetto: “Oh, by the way, will you make sure Marvin does the delivery? Your other driver, he doesn’t know the area so good, I have to wait for him too much.” Dropping back into his own speech: “Like it was an afterthought, just came into their heads. My other driver, Luis, who covered for Marvin when he was a no-show, he’s a humpback greaseball with garlic on his breath, no teeth, a woman would never get twenty feet near him. But he’s an honest man, he works hard. And if Marvin was out that day they’d say, ‘It can wait until tomorrow.’ So Marvin would take over their dry cleaning and a twenty-minute delivery would take an hour and a half. And he’d have a nice, juicy tip.” His face darkened. “Which made me even madder, when I caught the lazy schwartzer ripping me off. The tips weren’t enough, he had to steal my profits.”
“I’d like a list of the names and addresses of the customers Marvin made deliveries to on the days of the murders,” Wyatt said. “I’m sure you have records of that on your computer. We could punch them up right now, I’ll bet.” He started to move toward Livonius’s desk.
The big man danced around him, blocking his way. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. My customers don’t want to get involved, like I told you. Screwing the colored delivery boy, I don’t think they want anyone to know that. Especially their misters.”
Wyatt took a step back. “Mr. Livonius. I don’t want to cause you any problems. And I appreciate your having seen me on such short notice, especially under these circumstances. But those records could be important to our case, and I need them. Now you can let me look at them with you—unofficially—or I can get a warrant for them. And if I have to do that, it will become a public spectacle. I’m sure your female customers won’t welcome that.” Whether or not he could obtain a warrant for this fishing expedition was dubious, but this man wouldn’t know that, he guessed.
His hunch was right—Livonius glowered, then gave in. “I’ll go back through my records and make up a list for you of whatever I can find. Give me your fax number.”
Wyatt hadn’t memorized his new fax number yet. He had to look it up on a card he had in his wallet.
“I’ll get it to you tomorrow,” Livonius promised him grudgingly. “I’ll work on it tonight, after I close up. Right now I’m too busy.”
“Sure, that’s fine. I appreciate this, Mr. Livonius. And so does Marvin.”
Livonius coughed derisively. “Marvin. He don’t appreciate nothing. He stole from me, in case you forgot. His own boss, who treated him good. No, sir. Marvin screws up everything that comes across his path. That’s why he’s in this trouble.”
SECURITY WAS ULTRATIGHT. THE jail personnel knew who Wyatt was, but he nevertheless had to show his driver’s license and another piece of ID, sign in, have his briefcase pawed through, clear a metal detector, then pass two sets of chambers with locked doors at either end to get to his client.
Except for when he would have to make an appearance in court, Marvin was now confined to the cellblock on his floor. He got to exercise one hour a day, watch television two hours a day, take a ten-minute shower every other day, and talk on the telephone as much as he wanted, but only to approved callers: Wyatt; Walcott and other designated members of the Public Defender’s office, including Josephine; his mother and siblings; and a small group of friends whose names had been submitted to the court and cleared by Judge Grant. Wyatt, other people on the PD staff, and his mother were the only visitors he could see whenever he wanted. All others had to be approved in advance for each individual visit.
Surprisingly (to Wyatt), Dexter had been one of the friends approved to send and receive telephone calls.
“It’s because he doesn’t have a record as an adult—yet,” Walcott had explained to Wyatt when the two of them went over the list. “And let’s get real—Grant isn’t going to be a prick on the small stuff. He’ll save the shitty rulings for where it’ll really hurt us.”
Wyatt had spent a few minutes with Walcott that morning, filling him in on what he was doing. The briefing went well, considering their somewhat adversarial relationship. As Wyatt was wrapping it up he mentioned his trip to Sullivan Houses, which had led to his meeting with Dexter and pointed him in new directions. But when Walcott realized that Wyatt had actually gone down there his countenance darkened, and he became visibly upset.
“What was the point of that?” he asked, his voice and body language showing a lack of sympathy for the undertaking.
Wyatt was taken aback. “To talk to the mother on her home ground. And to get the lay of the land. This is not the kind of world I live in, not remotely. I can do a better job for my client if I know where he’s coming from.”
“You’re a lawyer, not a social worker.”
“I know that. Do you have a problem with my going down there?” And if you do, so what? It’s none of your business—I’m his lawyer, not you.
“You need to prepare his defense. You don’t need to become a part of his life. You’re his lawyer, not his fairy godfather.”
Wyatt looked at him. “Is there a hidden agenda I don’t know about? What’s your real objection to what I did?”
Walcott squared his shoulders. “We’re swamped in this office. You start working this extracurricular stuff, it gets around. Then every petty criminal will want that kind of attention, and we don’t have the manpower to provide it.”
“This is a capital case. I’m going to turn over every rock I can,” Wyatt said. “I’m building trust by going down there, and making valuable connections I couldn’t make otherwise. This boy Dexter would never have come to the office, but when he saw me in his own backyard he decided he could confide in me. These people are suspicious of us; you know that. Anything I can do to alleviate that, I’m going to. It can only help.”
Walcott threw up his hands. “Do it your way. You’re going to whether or not I approve. But if any of this backfires on
you, you’d better be ready to take the blast. Alone.”
A small concrete-walled dayroom at the end of the cellblock, painted a washed-out puke green, had been requisitioned for use as a visiting room, specifically for Marvin. It was a windowless room and the door was solid steel, with only a peephole at eye level for guards to look in. There was a television camera positioned high in one corner with a fish-eye lens to capture the entire room, but sound was not recorded.
The first time Wyatt saw the camera he flashed back to the one he had discovered in the Korean market that Marvin had tried to rob. Anticipating his objection, since he was new to the criminal-justice system, one of the deputy wardens explained the reason for the camera. “We have to make sure nothing funky goes on, for your protection as much as ours. We’ve had family members or friends slip inmates drugs, weapons, everything you can think of. Lawyers, too. The camera keeps everyone clean, removes temptation. There’s no sound, an outside agency sweeps the place every week. The last thing we want is to get some scumbag’s conviction thrown out because we violated his rights.”
Wyatt and Marvin sat across from each other at the small metal table in the center of the room.
“What about this woman?” Wyatt asked his client. “Do you remember her name?”
Marvin shook his head. “Nah, man,” he mumbled.
Wyatt cocked a dubious eye. “How many women on your route did you spend the night with? There couldn’t have been that many.”
“There wasn’t. I just don’t remember. It was like, what, a year ago or more? I can’t remember these different women, they’re just … you know … women. I fucked some of them. So what?”
Key Witness Page 26
