Stone Cold as-1

by Joel Goldman

  The closer she got, the more she heard Jameer Henderson’s plaintive question echoing in her head. What am I gonna do now? Her creeping sense of dread went viral, and by the time she turned onto his block, her chest was pounding and her heart was breaking.

  When she didn’t see any squad cars or ambulances with flashing lights, she skidded to a stop in the middle of the street. There were no cops, crime scene investigators, or TV trucks set up for live remotes. If Dwayne Reed had murdered Jameer Henderson and his family, investigators would still be on the scene and neighbors would be holding a vigil. But there was none of that. There was only quiet.

  She sat for a moment, letting her pulse slow, wiping off the thin sheen of sweat that had blossomed on her face. Resting her head on the steering wheel, she clasped her hands and said a prayer.

  “Thank you, God.”

  Chapter Eight

  Police Headquarters was located at Eleventh and Locust in a square-cut limestone building erected as part of the same Depression-era public works project that had produced the courthouse. It was one block from Alex’s office on Oak.

  A desk sergeant looked up from his newspaper long enough to grunt and point her to the stairs leading to the second floor, home to the Homicide Unit. Homicide was organized into three squads, 1010, 1020, and 1030, all sharing the same cramped bullpen, battered desks shoved against one another and stacked with open cases, some of them hot, some of them cold.

  Detective Hank Rossi was waiting for her, nursing a cup of coffee, the only one in the bullpen. Tall, rangy, and dark eyed, he was rumored to have a drinking problem. Whether it was true or not, he kept up a perpetual head of steam. In twenty years as a homicide detective, he’d skated past accusations that he’d planted evidence and strong-armed confessions. Quick to use his gun, he’d been involved in more shootings than most detectives over their entire careers, killing four suspects and wounding six others, the prosecuting attorney ruling that each shooting was justified. Criminals were his least favorite people, but defense counsel ran a close second, a status he relished making clear.

  “You’re looking particularly rugged this morning, Counselor,” Rossi said. “Must drive the ladies crazy.”

  Alex neither hid nor broadcast that she was gay and didn’t care who knew or didn’t know. She just lived her life. She didn’t keep her hair short, choose clothes that were more masculine than feminine, and avoid wearing makeup as a gay badge of courage. That’s what she liked, plain and simple, but it made her an easy target for men like Rossi, who were okay with lesbians only as long as they could watch them have sex in a porn movie. She wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of letting him piss her off.

  “Something to think about the next time you polish your pistol. Where’s my client?”

  “Interrogation two.”

  “He’s only been out twelve hours. Who’s he supposed to have killed?”

  “Jermaine Jones,” he said, pointing to a file on his desk bearing the Cold Case stamp.

  “A cold case? You’re joking. How cold is it?”

  “It’s got some hair on it. Jones was a drug dealer in Reed’s neighborhood. They came up together. Could be they had a beef, things got out of hand.”

  Alex shook her head. “Is that all you’ve got? I expected more out of you, like maybe some newly discovered evidence you just planted or a confession you beat out of him.”

  Rossi shrugged. “It’s early in the investigation. Could be something will turn up.”

  “Which means you don’t have anything to hold him on and you’re just jerking him around because you’re pissed off that he was acquitted. You ought to be harassing the jury instead of my client.”

  Rossi stood and squared his shoulders, crowding her. “Wilfred Donaire was my case. I worked it from day one. I know more about it than you could ever hope to know, and I know that your client is guilty. He’s got no business being back on the street.”

  Alex stood her ground. “So the jury hurt your feelings. He was acquitted. Get over it. It’s still an open case. Pretend you’re O.J. and find the real killer. Arresting Dwayne on a bogus murder charge you know you can’t make stick isn’t going to change that.”

  “Maybe not, but it’ll send him a message.”

  “Yeah. What message? That cops like you can harass him whenever they feel like it? I think he’s gotten that message his whole life.”

  “The message is that this isn’t over. That I’m going to be on him from now until his luck runs out, and when it does, I’m going to be right there to take him down.”

  “Well, bully for you, Dirty Harry. In the meantime, I suggest you cut him loose before I make you famous.”

  “Famous? How are you going to make me famous?”

  “I’ll start by calling a press conference on the courthouse steps to announce the lawsuit I’m filing against you for violating my client’s civil rights and anything else I can think of.”

  Rossi glared at her before walking away, muttering, “Goddamn defense whores.”

  He returned a moment later, shoving Dwayne Reed ahead of him, Dwayne stumbling and sporting a rising welt under his left eye to go along with a split lip.

  “What happened to you?” Alex asked him.

  Dwayne’s face hardened. “Slipped and fell takin’ a piss.”

  Alex looked at Rossi, raised eyebrows asking the obvious question.

  “Like he said,” Rossi answered, “he slipped and fell. Happens all the time.”

  “I bet it does. Let’s get out of here, Dwayne, before you have another accident.”

  Alex waited until they were on the street. “I can file a complaint against Rossi, but it will be his word against yours.”

  Dwayne shook his head. “It between him and me.”

  Alex knew that. She also knew that Dwayne believed that relying on the system to protect him would make him a chump and that he would get his payback in his own way and in his own time.

  “Don’t be stupid, Dwayne. You got off this time. Next time you may not be so lucky.”

  He tapped her on the arm. “Girl, luck got nuthin’ to do wit’ it. I had you. That’s all I needed. I do it again, I give you a call, for real.”

  Alex’s stomach clenched. “What do you mean if you do it again? Do what?”

  “What needs doin’.”

  She never asked her clients if they were guilty, because that question depended as much on the facts as on the law. She did ask them what happened, letting them tell her as much or as little as they chose, knowing that they would lie until there was an advantage to telling the truth.

  Dwayne had denied killing Wilfred Donaire from the moment she met him, never wavering even though he didn’t have an alibi. But now she had to break her rule and ask Dwayne the ultimate question.

  “Are you telling me that you murdered Wilfred Donaire?”

  He grinned. “Jury say I didn’t do it. That good enough for me, and I know all about that double jeopardy and attorney-client privilege shit. No way they can come back on me now, and no way you can tell nobody nuthin’. So here’s what’s what. Nigger disrespected me. Can’t let that shit slide.”

  Alex struggled with her clients’ guilt or innocence in every case, compartmentalizing her judgment because it didn’t matter and would only make her job harder if she believed they were guilty. She’d struggled even more with Dwayne’s case, her gut convincing her that he was guilty when the evidence couldn’t. His confession left her holding on to a parking meter, breathless, faint, and speechless.

  “Hey,” Dwayne said. “Don’t be like that. You good at your job, damn good. You saved my ass. I owe you for that. So long as you don’t tell nobody nuthin’, we’re cool. You tell anybody what I say, well, then, that be a serious muthafuckin’ problem. You feel me?”

  He didn’t wait for a response, knowing that the question was more important than the answer. She watched him walk away, disappearing around the corner. When he was gone, she collapsed to her knees, hands braced o
n the curb, and threw up in the street.

  From behind, she felt a hand on her shoulder steadying her and then helping her up. It was Rossi.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  Alex wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Yeah. Just a little wobbly. Must have been something I ate.”

  “That’s bullshit and we both know it. What happened? Did Dwayne find a conscience and confess, or was he just gloating that you got his guilty ass off?”

  She pulled away from his supporting hand, straightening. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Tell you the truth, it would make me sick too. But I’m willing to take that chance. Tell me what he said.”

  “Did you forget about attorney-client privilege?”

  “Fuck that, Counselor. We’re out here on the street, middle of the night, not another soul in sight. Can’t get much more off the record than that. Besides, we can’t charge him again even if he stood on the courthouse steps and shouted for all the world to hear that he murdered Wilfred Donaire.”

  “That’s not what the jury found. Why do you think Kyrie Chapman forced Jameer Henderson to testify against Dwayne?”

  “Who knows? And it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t prove Dwayne didn’t do it,” Rossi said.

  “I didn’t have to prove Dwayne was innocent. Only that there was reasonable doubt.”

  “I was there for your closing argument. You said Kyrie killed Wilfred and used Jameer Henderson to lay it off on Dwayne.”

  “And the jury bought it.”

  “And it’s a load of crap. It’s more likely that Jameer was telling the truth about Dwayne. Kyrie found out what Jameer knew and made him testify against Dwayne.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Who the fuck knows? Maybe he had a beef with him and maybe it was just his idea of fun.”

  “Except Jameer said Kyrie told him what to say, not the other way around.”

  Rossi shrugged. “Like I said. It doesn’t change a thing for me. Dwayne was guilty, and if you didn’t know it before the jury verdict, you sure as hell know it now.”

  Alex took a deep breath, her stomach still churning. “You’ll never hear that from me.”

  Rossi smiled. “I already did. Your statement is lying there in the street. ” He touched his finger to his forehead, giving her a mini-salute. “Have a nice day, Counselor.”

  Chapter Nine

  A week went by and then another and nothing terrible happened to Jameer Henderson or his family. Alex knew that because she drove by their house each morning on her way to work and again on her way home at the end of the day, finding an excuse to swing by on the weekends. What began as an impulse born in a moment of panic became a ritual that eased her worry.

  Though checking the Hendersons’ house was reassuring, she began to fear what might happen if she broke her routine, that her daily drive down their block was all that stood between the Henderson family and catastrophe.

  Two weeks into her routine, she saw Detective Rossi parked across the street in his unmarked car. She felt her burden lighten for a moment, glad that she wasn’t alone in her vigil, until she realized that Rossi wasn’t there to protect Jameer Henderson. He was there because he was hoping Dwayne Reed would go after Jameer Henderson, and when he did, Rossi would be there. She slowed as she passed him, exchanging nods, Rossi giving her another salute.

  “You’ve got to stop driving by the Hendersons’ house,” Bonnie said after she came home that day.

  “Why? I’m not bothering anyone.”

  They were doing the dinner dishes. Bonnie cooked, Alex cleaned, and Quincy got to keep anything that fell on the floor or was left too close to the edge of the table.

  “You have to stop because you’re getting obsessed. You’re practically stalking them.”

  “How can I be stalking them? I haven’t seen a single one of them. At first I thought I was going by too early in the morning. Since it’s still summer and the kids are out of school, I figured they were sleeping in. But I’ve left the office early a few times and I’ve never seen them playing in the yard. And the blinds are always down on all the windows.”

  Bonnie looked at her, eyebrows arched. “And that’s not stalking?”

  “Okay, maybe a little bit. But it’s not enough for a restraining order. Still, it’s weird that I haven’t seen any of them.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying they’re afraid to leave the house.”

  “Afraid of who? Dwayne Reed or Kyrie Chapman?”

  “Either one or both.”

  “If Dwayne had nothing to do with Jameer’s testimony, aren’t you worried he’ll go after Chapman? Why aren’t you checking up on him?”

  “Oh, spare me, Bonnie. Jameer and his family are the victims here. I’m not going to lose any sleep over Kyrie Chapman.”

  “So it’s okay if Dwayne kills Chapman but it’s not okay if he kills Jameer?”

  Alex wrung out her sponge and threw it on the counter. “Of course not! That’s not what I meant!”

  “But it’s what you implied. Look, in the ER we don’t care who the patient is. We only care about what’s wrong with them and how can we make them better.”

  “My world isn’t the ER. Right and wrong, guilt and innocence matter. No matter how you slice it, Kyrie Chapman is one of the bad guys. Jameer Henderson is one of the good guys, and I helped put him in harm’s way.”

  Bonnie sighed, unable to dissuade Alex. “Jameer has to work. You said he’s a barber. Have you tried his shop?”

  “I drove by a couple of times, but I couldn’t get a clear look inside.”

  “Talk to that detective, what’s his name, Rose or something like that. You said he’s still going after Dwayne. Ask him if he knows what’s going on with the Hendersons.”

  “His name is Rossi and I saw him today. He was parked across the street from the Hendersons’ house.”

  “There you go. He’s looking out for them. That’s his job, not yours. Let him do it.”

  “That’s not why he was there. All he cares about is finding some other way to nail Dwayne because he killed Wilfred Donaire.”

  “What? Are you saying Dwayne was guilty? When did that happen?”

  Alex’s face reddened as she stammered. “I. . I. . I never said that. Rossi said it.”

  Bonnie studied her, one eyebrow raised.

  “Don’t give me that look!” Alex said. “Besides, Rossi’s a homophobic asshole. I told you how he arrested Dwayne on a bogus murder charge the day Dwayne was acquitted just to send him a message.”

  “And got you out of bed in the middle of the night. I remember. I woke up to go to the bathroom and you were gone and I panicked. When you finally came home, you looked like the dog had died.”

  “I told you what happened. It was something I ate. Dwayne had nothing to do with it.”

  “Of course not. Why would I think that and why would I worry about you trying to protect the Hendersons from him? What will you do if you see Dwayne attacking Jameer or his family on one of your drive-bys? Jump out of the car and beat the crap out of him? Or shoot him with your finger gun? I don’t think so. From what you’ve told me about Dwayne, he scares the crap out of me, and even if you won’t admit it, I know he scares the crap out of you too.”

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  “Because I know you. I see how you tense up whenever you talk about him, how your voice gets a little shaky. And if you really think he’d do something to the Hendersons and not to you, you’re a fool, and you are nobody’s fool. So do both of us a favor and drop it. Please.”

  Alex didn’t answer, picking up a dirty pan and scrubbing the bottom like she was trying to wear it out.

  Bonnie asked, “Are you listening to me?”

  “No, but I like the sound of your voice.”

  It was how they fought, knowing how far to push each other before using humor to cover their retreat.

  Bonnie kissed h
er on the back of the neck. “At least think about it.”

  “Okay.”

  **

  Alex called Rossi the following morning as she was pulling out of her driveway.

  “See anything interesting yesterday?” she asked.

  “Can’t help you, Counselor,” he said. “You’re on the wrong side of the aisle.”

  “Why were you parked across the street from Henderson’s house?”

  “What were you doing driving down his street-again?”

  Alex hesitated. “I just wanted to. .”

  “Make sure your client hadn’t cut off Jameer’s dick and shoved it down his throat? I don’t blame you, especially after he confessed to you. That’s a lot of weight to carry around the rest of your life, helping a guilty man go free. I can’t imagine what that would be like if he added the Hendersons on top of it, but don’t worry. I’ll let you know if it happens. In the meantime, butt out.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because you may know your way around a courtroom, but you don’t know shit about the street.”

  “My clients are from those streets.”

  “Jameer Henderson isn’t your client. You want to keep him safe, quit drawing so much attention to him with your drive-bys. Dwayne Reed already made you throw up in the street. He isn’t stupid. If he sees you sniffing around Jameer, he may decide it’s time to terminate your attorney-client relationship. Permanently.”

  Chapter Ten

  Alex ignored Bonnie’s plea and Rossi’s warning, though she was afraid of Dwayne, as much because of what he’d done as because of the cavalier and menacing way he’d confessed to her. He had her in a box, but the box was her shield. As long as she kept her mouth shut and as long as he believed that he might one day again need her courtroom prowess, she would be safe. She hoped to leverage her silence and his belief in her skill to persuade him to spare the Hendersons.

  After six weeks, she had picked up the rhythm of the neighborhood. She knew whose kids played in the street, which women tended their gardens, and which old men whiled away the last days of summer rocking on their porches. And she recognized the young toughs, drug dealers who prowled the neighborhood, doing business on street corners, using kids as lookouts and runners.