An Engineered Injustice (Philadelphia Legal)

by Myers, Jr. , William L.

  Vaughn pauses to watch Delia Smick considering the issue. Politically, the smart thing to do would be to keep Eddy in prison until his trial. Hell, politically, Delia Smick would be best served by ordering Eddy’s keepers at the roundhouse to string him up right now, in his cell. But maybe, as a wife and mother, she’s feeling empathy for Eddy’s own wife and newborn.

  “Mr. Coburn, you say that your client lacks the means to flee? How would he raise money for bail, were I to set it?” Without waiting for Vaughn to answer, she looks through the Plexiglas. “Are any members of Mr. Coburn’s family present?”

  Frank Coburn shoots immediately to his feet. “I’m his father, Your Honor. And we’ll put our house up.” Vaughn’s own father, John, rises, too. He doesn’t speak, but Vaughn knows that his parents would put up their own home, if need be. Vaughn glances at Jimmy Nutzo and feels a shiver of dread.

  There’s no way I can let them bet all their money on Eddy’s showing up for trial, because if he’s released, he’ll disappear long before he ever makes it to court.

  “Very well,” says the magistrate. “What I’m going to do here is to set bail at one million dollars.”

  Christina Wesley protests, but Delia Smick refuses to change her mind. At this point, the magistrate gives her speech about the right to a preliminary hearing, and Vaughn tells her that his client does indeed want a preliminary hearing. Smick sets the date for Friday, August 1, eight days hence.

  After the hearing, Vaughn stands with his family in the waiting area as everyone else clears the room. James Nunzio makes a point of catching Vaughn’s eye before he leaves. When Vaughn is alone with his family, Frank and John Coburn tell him that they’ll start making the arrangements for Eddy’s bail. Vaughn nods but doesn’t say anything to this, telling them instead that he’s going down to the Roundhouse to talk to Eddy before they load him onto the bus for the trip to county lockup.

  Vaughn does his best to reassure them, especially his aunt Claire, whom he promised Eddy wouldn’t go back to prison. He keeps his voice strong, tries to project an image of confidence. But in Frank and John Coburn’s eyes, he sees their awareness of the truth. Eddy’s in big trouble, and Vaughn is flailing helplessly.

  An hour later, Vaughn is sitting with Eddy in a cell in the Roundhouse. He explains to his cousin that he’ll be taken by bus to the county prison, Curran-Fromhold, in Northeast Philadelphia.

  “That’s where they’ll keep you until the preliminary hearing. At the hearing, the prosecutor has to present testimony and other evidence sufficient to convince the judge to hold you over for trial.”

  The word trial seems to strike Eddy hard. The reality of what he’s facing is sinking in.

  “The judge set bail,” Eddy says. “She said a million dollars. But I only have to come up with a part of that, right? Like ten percent? My parents could borrow against the house.”

  Vaughn pauses before answering. This is going to be very hard. “The magistrate set it as straight bail, so you would need the full amount, in cash or secured by real estate. Your parents, and my own, could put their houses up as collateral. And your father’s gym, and my dad’s bar. There’s enough property to cover the bail.”

  Eddy brightens, but Vaughn raises his hand. “But that would be a mistake.”

  “A mistake for me to get out of jail?”

  Vaughn sighs. “You know that James Nunzio’s son was on that train, don’t you?”

  Eddy stares.

  “Nunzio was sitting in the spectator’s section today. Watching the arraignment.”

  Eddy’s mouth slowly opens.

  “You can’t be out on the street, Ed.”

  “What are you saying? He’s going to kill me?”

  It’s Vaughn’s turn to stare.

  “Jesus.” Eddy lowers his head, puts it into his hands. “I’m fucked. Kate, too. And little Emma.”

  “There’s time between now and the trial. To investigate. Find evidence that it wasn’t your fault.”

  “Was it my fault? I don’t even know anymore.”

  “I’m going to be working on it night and day, Ed. If there’s information out there that will clear you, I’ll find it.”

  His hands now covering his face, Eddy slowly shakes his head. “I can’t let my baby grow up without a father, Vaughn. You have to find a way. You have to . . .” Eddy’s voice trails off.

  22

  THURSDAY, JULY 24, CONTINUED

  By the time Vaughn gets back to the office, it’s close to four o’clock. From behind the reception desk, Angie looks up, her eyes filled with concern. “We heard what happened. It’s all over the news. Mick is in his office. He said he wanted to see you as soon as you got in.”

  Vaughn closes and then reopens his eyes. He hasn’t called in since Eddy’s arrest, and he knows Mick is going to be angry at him. He also knows there’s a good chance that Mick and Susan will order him to drop the case, tell him to refer Eddy to another attorney. Representing his cousin will require vast amounts of attorney time and the outlay of large amounts of cash, none of which Eddy can cover. Susan likely wants to see Eddy sent to jail for a long time. Vaughn has no idea how he’s going to convince his bosses to let him move forward.

  “There’s a box on your desk,” Angie says, pulling him from his thoughts. “Your uncle dropped it off about an hour ago.”

  Vaughn takes a deep breath and walks back to his office. He sits down behind his desk and pulls the box toward him. Made of brown cardboard, old and dented, the box is tied shut with twine. Vaughn wonders where his uncle has kept the box all these years. The gym? His garage? A bedroom closet?

  Vaughn unties the twine and lifts off the lid. And there they are: his old sixteen-ounce Everlast training gloves. Black. Always black. Eddy always used red. Vaughn inspects the gloves, smells the leather, which is cracked from use and age and sweat. Holding them now stirs something deep inside him.

  A few minutes later, Vaughn enters Mick’s office carrying the gloves. He lowers himself into one of the visitor’s chairs. Susan is in the other. Tommy is leaning against the window.

  “Whose gloves?” asks Tommy.

  “Mine, from a long time ago,” Vaughn answers.

  “This about Eddy?” asks Mick.

  Vaughn nods, and exhales. He tells them how he and Eddy grew up close and got into boxing together. Then he tells them the same story that he told Erin, the tale that made her look at him differently.

  “The night before Eddy stood in front of the judge, there was a knock at my parents’ door. It was my uncle Frank, Eddy’s father. My dad called me into the living room, and the two of them sat me down. My dad had put my boxing gloves on the coffee table. My uncle looked at them, then looked at me, and then he . . .”

  Vaughn would never forget the look in Frank’s eyes.

  “He told me that there was never a chance Eddy was going to rat me out. ‘That’s not how we do things in this family,’ he said.

  “‘But now there’s a debt,’ my father said. ‘You owe your cousin. Your aunt Claire and uncle Frank, too.’ Then he picked up the gloves, handed them to my uncle. ‘These gloves are your chit. There ever comes a time he hands them back to you—he, or anyone in the family—you honor your debt. Whatever you have to do. Whatever it takes.’”

  Vaughn looks down at the gloves. After a while, he looks up at Mick, then at Susan. “I know you don’t want me to represent my cousin in the criminal case. And given how much I feel like I’ve botched things so far, a part of me would love to hand his defense over to someone else. But I can’t leave Eddy hanging in the wind, and I won’t turn him over to someone else. I have to stick by my cousin. No matter the price. If that means I have to leave the firm, I’ll do it, and I won’t complain or raise a fuss. I live pretty simply, and I’ve got some money socked away. Enough to support myself for a couple of years. As for the costs of defense—expert witnesses, court costs, subpoena fees—my family will find a way to raise the money. That’s it. Now you know. I’m sorry.”r />
  Vaughn stands and turns to leave.

  “Where are you goin’?” It’s Tommy’s voice, low and gravelly.

  Vaughn turns back. He stands and watches as something passes between Tommy and Mick.

  So much goes on beneath the surface with those two.

  “Family doesn’t abandon family,” says Mick. “You’re sticking by your cousin. And you’re staying here. As for the costs of defense, Susan and I came into a windfall from the Hanson case. We’ve barely touched it, and it’s more than enough to cover Eddy’s defense.”

  Vaughn looks at Susan. She stares back at him, bites her lower lip, and nods. “Just make damn sure you don’t do anything to shame this firm.”

  Ten minutes later, Vaughn leaves Mick’s office, his stomach still fluttering, hands shaking. He feels like he’s just boxed ten rounds. He calls his uncle Frank to arrange a meeting at the gym. Before he can leave the office, though, Vaughn has hours of catch-up work to do on his other cases. He’s there until after nine.

  On the drive to Northeast Philly, Vaughn recalls attending Eddy’s sentencing. The hearing took more than an hour, during which Vaughn sat between his uncle and his father. Eddy sat at a table in front of them with his attorney.

  At a podium at the front of the courtroom, just below the bench, Eddy officially pled guilty to the charge of involuntary manslaughter. Vaughn could tell that his cousin was nervous; Eddy kept shifting on his feet, and his voice wavered. While Eddy talked, his mother gripped her husband’s forearm. Frank covered Claire’s hand with his own and gently patted it. Vaughn knew his uncle was trying to stay strong for his wife, but he sensed something go out of the man as he watched his only son stand before the judge and admit to a serious crime.

  The worst part for Vaughn was when they took his cousin away. Eddy looked back at his parents, and Vaughn could see anguish in his eyes. And fear. He only glanced at Vaughn for an instant. But an instant was all it took. Vaughn has never been able to find the word for what he saw on his cousin’s face, but it ran him through like a sword. If he hadn’t been sitting, he might have fallen in pain. That’s how deeply it cut.

  After the sentencing, Vaughn, burning with shame, stayed in the building while his and Eddy’s parents left the courthouse. He sat in the hall outside the courtroom for a long time. Eventually he got up and walked into another courtroom. Inside, a nineteen-year-old defendant was being tried for assault. Listening to the charging officer’s testimony, Vaughn was quickly convinced the defendant was a bad seed. Then the defense attorney went to work. In a matter of minutes, it became clear that the cop had a hard-on for the kid. It was also obvious that the officer’s animus was rooted in bad blood between him the defendant’s father, a result of something that had happened over a woman. For years, this same officer had arrested the defendant multiple times . . . for disturbing the peace, creating a nuisance and other minor—and, it became plain, trumped-up—charges. Time after time, the kid had been hauled into court, made to stand in front of a judge, and deflect the legal blows thrown at him by this one rogue cop. The prosecution tried to paint the defendant as a predator who made the city’s streets a dangerous place. But, in fact, it was the cop who made the streets unsafe for the young kid.

  A classic David-and-Goliath story. Except in this tale, the kid had a giant of his own: his relentless defense attorney. He gave the kid in court what he could never have out on the streets—a fair fight.

  It was then and there that Vaughn decided to become a lawyer.

  Vaughn parks the Jeep in front of his uncle’s gym and walks inside. It’s dark, but Vaughn can see the light on in his uncle’s tiny office. He knocks on the door frame and takes one of the two beat-up chairs as Frank turns his own chair to face him. He knows his uncle has been making plans to raise Eddy’s bail, and Frank clearly thinks he’s there to start walking him through the process. In fact, he’s here to shut it down.

  “I’ve spoken with Eddy,” Vaughn starts. “I told him what I have to tell you now. He has to stay inside until the trial.”

  Frank’s face turns scarlet, and Vaughn can tell he’s about to lay into him. Vaughn raises his hand. “Uncle Frank, please. Just listen.”

  His uncle sits back, and Vaughn tells him everything that’s transpired with Jimmy Nunzio.

  “It’d be easier for Nunzio to get to Eddy in jail than outside, with us,” his uncle argues. “We could protect him. I could protect him. Hide him.”

  “Maybe. But he found him once already, and if he does it again, there’ll be collateral damage. A friend or family member who Eddy holes up with. Or a separate attack on one of us, just because.”

  Frank pushes and Vaughn pushes back. They go at it until Vaughn says what he was hoping not to have to. “If Nunzio gets Eddy on the street, he’ll make him disappear. He won’t show up for his preliminary hearing, and your bail will be forfeit. You’ll lose everything.”

  Frank’s shoulder’s slump, and Vaughn knows he finally gets it. “But if he’s whacked inside, there’ll be a body.”

  Frank’s face turns gray, and Vaughn thinks this is the first time he’s ever seen his uncle afraid.

  Frank leans forward, steeples his huge hands, and rests his forehead on them. “How did it come to this?”

  23

  FRIDAY, JULY 25

  Well after midnight, Vaughn sits in the ring, his back against the ropes, wearing only his suit pants and training gloves. His uncle left the gym an hour earlier, and Vaughn immediately went to work on the heavy bag. He punched himself out, then practiced visualization and footwork in the ring. He’s exhausted now, and drenched with sweat. The two front windows are open, but the July night air is stifling. Vaughn has the overhead lights turned out, but the gym glows pale with moonlight washing through the skylight.

  Vaughn moves away from the ropes, sits cross-legged, and focuses on his breathing. He tries to clear his head, but worry and fear push their way inside. It won’t be enough for him to simply stand by his cousin and fight for him. Frank Coburn made that clear.

  “My bosses have agreed to let me keep representing Eddy,” he told his uncle before the older man left him alone. “And I’m going to. Whatever happens—trial, appeal, retrial—I’m going to stand by Eddy. I got the gloves . . . and the message.”

  Frank Coburn stood in the doorway of his office. He looked down at Vaughn, still in the chair. “That’s not the message, son. Yes, you’ll stand with Eddy, fight the full twelve rounds. But that won’t make things even for leaving him before.”

  Vaughn stared up at his uncle.

  “Those gloves have been gathering interest, Vaughn. For sixteen years. If you think that just sticking around this time is going to pay your debt, you’re wrong. You have to win, son. You have to find a way to get Eddy out of this mess. You have to save him.”

  Vaughn looked into Frank Coburn’s flat steel-blue eyes and opened his mouth, but nothing came out. What could he say? Sorry, Uncle Frank, can’t make any promises. First rule of lawyering. Of course not. And besides, he knows his uncle is right. What he owes his cousin is nothing less than victory. And with it, salvation. He owes Eddy the life he’d struggled so long to rebuild after Vaughn left him wrapped around that tree on Kelly Drive.

  Vaughn stands and climbs through the ropes. He takes off his gloves, puts on his shirt, socks, and shoes, then makes his way to the stairs leading to the roof. From the top of the building, he can see in the distance the towers of Center City: One and Two Liberty Place, the two Comcast towers, Mellon Bank Center, and the Cira Centre buildings.

  Vaughn stares at the structures for a long time. Despite their cheery, colored lights, the towers seem cold. And their size is less evocative of grandeur than of bigness. They don’t tower; they loom. And it strikes Vaughn that what the buildings stand for is power. The type of power held by men like Benjamin Balzac and Geoffrey Day, and the district attorney/would-be mayor whom they pressured and probably bribed into bringing charges against Eddy.

  “Who
can stand against the likes of us?” the towers seem to ask.

  “Who can beat us?” boast the Days and Balzacs and their political cronies.

  Vaughn takes a deep breath. “Fuck you,” he says aloud. “I can.”

  Twenty minutes later, Vaughn is in his Jeep heading south on I-95. His cell rings, and he wonders who’s calling him at 1:30 in the morning. He glances down at the phone, sees that it’s Erin. He’s been ducking her calls all day—he’s been ducking everyone’s calls—and he debates whether to answer now. But given the hour, her reason for calling may be too important to put off.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “You have to get over here right away.” Erin’s tone is serious, even strained.

  “What’s wrong? Are you all right?”

  “I can’t explain over the phone. My friend Laurie Mitzner is here. The one who works for Balzac. She brought something. You have to see it.”

  “Is it something good? Will it help Eddy?”

  “If it’s what I think it is, it’s not good at all. It’s horrible. But it might help your cousin. Just get here as fast as you can.” And with that, Erin hangs up.

  By the time he knocks on Erin’s door, Vaughn’s heart is racing. He cannot imagine what Laurie might have that could help Eddy, or what could be as terrible as Erin thinks it is.

  Erin opens the door, then immediately turns and walks into the living room. Laurie is sitting on the sofa. A pretty woman with dark hair and olive skin, Laurie’s eyes are red—and afraid. Vaughn sees at once that she’s a wreck.

  Vaughn sits next to Laurie on the couch, takes her hands in his. “Tell me what’s wrong,” he says.

  “It’s the crash,” Laurie answers, her voice quavering. “He had a video of it. Balzac. I saved it on my phone.”