Jury of One

by David Ellis

  “The problem with arguing you didn’t shoot Miroballi,” she told him, “is that we have to show that someone else did. And I need your help with that.”

  She was giving him yet another chance to add information. She made a point of emphasizing that the case for Alex being the shooter was largely circumstantial. Other than the word of a homeless man, it simply came to down to the fact that Alex ran into the alley, Miroballi chased him, and Miroballi ended up with a bullet in his head. Yes, sure, Alex was the obvious suspect, but if they could put someone else in that alley, too, the prosecution could do little to show it wasn’t true. She was practically begging him to put a third person in that alley.

  But he wouldn’t. Maybe it was because this third person was a gang member, and Alex was afraid of naming names lest his family be harmed. Or maybe there was no third person, and Alex refused to make up a story. Maybe he was still that nice young boy she saw the first day, dressed in his Sunday best, his long black coat folded in his lap, an honest boy who had made some mistakes but refused to compromise his principles by making up a story just to beat the rap.

  Or maybe—

  She bounced out of her chair, almost tripping over herself in the process.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Alex asked.

  “I—I just thought of something I’m supposed to be doing.” She gathered herself. “I’m sorry, Alex, I just realized I’m supposed to be somewhere.” She looked at her watch for good measure. “I have to go but I’ll be back.”

  She was not entirely sure of her destination, but she felt, for the first time in a long time, that she knew the direction.

  48

  Breaking

  “THIS ISN’T THE kind of thing we should talk about,” said Joel Lightner. They were standing on the porch of Ronnie Masters’s home just after noon. Joel removed a ring of keys from his pocket and tried a couple of them. “They don’t have an alarm, now you’re sure?”

  “I’m sure,” Shelly said. She looked up and down the street.

  The door opened. Shelly walked into the Masters house and moved to the couch. She reached under it and opened the book of photos she had seen Ronnie place there on one of her visits. She went through them quickly and removed two photos of them last winter, when Alex was holding up his daughter, Angela, showing her a snowman that Ronnie had made.

  She went to the closet in the hallway and fished through the hangers. She went to Ronnie’s room and went through everything. She rifled through Ronnie’s drawers, went through his closet, looked under his bed, and almost killed herself tripping over a basketball before she made her way out of his room. “Stupid ball,” she muttered, thinking of the open gym from which Alex had left on the night of the shooting. She was ready to blame the City Athletic Club for holding an open gym that set this whole series of events in motion. She wanted to blame the inventor of the automobile, because it allowed Alex to travel to the west side and get dope from a gangbanger. She was ready to blame everything back to the day he was born—

  Ouch.

  She moved quickly to Alex’s room and gave it the same workover, going through everything, even the laundry that still remained in a ball on the floor of his closet. She stopped for a moment, but only a moment, to see the photograph taped on a mirror on the wall, a small Polaroid of Shelly that Alex had taken one day along the lake when they were walking. She remembered that day. It was winter. He had stopped behind her pretending to tie his shoe, and when she finally turned around impatiently, he hit her in the chest with a snowball.

  “Okay, let’s go,” said Joel, who was eager to leave. They had been inside less than thirty minutes. He wasted no time getting back to the car they had parked down the street and speeding away.

  “You want my opinion?” Joel asked. “Go with self-defense. Your client’s not going to back up anything else.”

  “Probably not. But I’m not letting him rope me in anymore.”

  “I wish I could be more helpful. I can’t find squat on Miroballi. Nothing funny on his finances. Nothing about drugs. Nothing about being sick. I couldn’t get the results of his urine drop at that clinic, but even if I could—what would it prove? We find cocaine in his system, it doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Nothing on Miroballi, nothing on Sanchez,” Shelly summarized. “I have no way of proving that Miroballi had figured out about Alex talking to the feds. I have zilch. Except the word of my client, on trial for murder.”

  She realized that she was giving herself a pep talk, trying to convince herself of the reasonableness of the theory she was formulating.

  “But like I said, Shelly, your client’s not going to go for this.”

  “So I’ll prove it. With or without him.” She looked at the photos of Ronnie and Alex, mugging for the camera, and slipped them back into her bag.

  49

  Switch

  SHELLY PLACED THE photocopy of the police dispatch transcript on her desk, focusing on a portion of the final communication between Officer Julio Sanchez and headquarters:

  RADIO 26: White male, black coat, green cap, headed west—he went through the alley. He’s going to be headed—oh, there’s so much—probably south on—on I guess Donnelly. Maybe north. I don’t know where he went.

  DISPATCH: Stay with your officer, Twenty-six. Stay with him.

  DISPATCH: All units, we have an officer down at the 200 block of South Gentry. That’s a Code Blue. I repeat, this is a Code Blue. Suspect is a white male, late teens or early twenties, black jacket, green cap. Suspect believed to be headed north or south on Donnelly. Suspect is armed. Suspect is armed. We have a Code Blue, officers. Suspect is armed.

  She turned to the copies she had of Joel Lightner’s notes when they spoke with the architect, Monica Stoddard. She had said, speaking of Alex, that she had seen a boy “in a coat and a cap,” according to Joel Lightner, and Shelly remembered this the same way. When talking of where Alex may have hidden a gun, Stoddard noted that he “had pockets in his coat.”

  She looked at the photographs Joel had taken in the evidence room at the County Attorney Technical Unit. There, wrapped in protective plastic, was the black leather jacket that Alex was wearing when he was caught. She held up the photos she had taken from Ronnie’s house, photos of Alex and Ronnie together. And there she saw the same black leather jacket.

  On Ronnie Masters.

  “Every time I’ve ever seen Alex in cold weather,” Shelly said to Joel Lightner, “he’s worn the same long black wool coat he’s wearing in this photograph.”

  “So he wore something different that night.”

  “I don’t think so. Look at what the architect said. Look at what Sanchez said.”

  “A coat,” Joel read along. “A coat.” He looked up at her. “So what’s the difference between a coat and a jacket? It’s interchangeable. Even the dispatch operator called it a ‘jacket.’”

  “Not really, Joel. Not really. You see someone in a long wool garment, you call it a coat. You see someone in a leather garment that stops near the waist, you call it a jacket. It’s a visual thing. The dispatch operator didn’t see anything. He was just relaying information and he confused the terms.”

  Joel sat down in the chair opposite her desk. “You’re going to base your defense on that?”

  “I looked in the closet, Joel. At Ronnie’s place. I looked everywhere, in fact. That wool coat is gone. Nowhere to be found. And Ronnie has been wearing some dinky sweatshirt with a hood every time I’ve seen him. He’d wear that coat if it were around.”

  Joel bit at his fingernails. He was quiet for a moment, allowing for the possibilities.

  “They switched them,” Shelly said. “Ronnie was there that night. Ronnie was there, and after the shooting, he and Alex traded what they were wearing. Not all of it, but the stuff that counted.”

  “The cap,” Joel said.

  “Right. The cap that everyone saw Alex wearing but that was never found. His long coat. His gloves.”

  “The gun,” h
e added.

  She nodded. “Ronnie took the gun and Alex’s cap and gloves and coat, and left with them.”

  “Left Alex, too.”

  “He had to leave Alex behind,” said Shelly. “They knew Alex. Sanchez knew who he was. Alex was never going to escape. But Ronnie could.”

  “And take all the incriminating evidence with him.” Joel straightened in his chair, his investigatory juices flowing. “He takes the coat and gloves and cap—anything that has blood spatterings on them—”

  “—and gunshot residue—”

  “—right, and he leaves. No one knows that he was there.”

  Shelly was pacing now. “And the case against Alex is all the weaker for it. There’s no murder weapon. There’s no gunshot residue on Alex.” She flapped her arms. “It’s the best they can do. The cops are going to get Alex one way or the other, but at least this way they get him without all of the incriminating evidence, like you said.”

  “Christ.” Joel slowly nodded. “That works.”

  “I think it does.”

  “The problem, Shelly, if you’re right—that means Alex pulled the trigger. Alex shot Miroballi, and Ronnie tried to cover it up by removing the gun and the clothes.”

  “Alex shot him,” she agreed. “Right.” She looked out the window of her office.

  “So you’ve got a third person, but he doesn’t help you.”

  “Maybe not. Maybe so.” Like anything else, there were always more ways than one to use certain information. He must have driven his car, she thought. He drove his car to pick up Alex and drove him away—but not too far away—from the crime scene, in the meantime exchanging clothes with Alex.

  Joel looked at his watch. “I hate to run.”

  “No. Go. No problem.”

  “Tomorrow, Shelly? Seven-thirty?”

  “Right. Thanks, Joel.”

  “Sorry about the delay. You said it was high priority.”

  “No, that’s fine, Joel. Really.”

  “You know where you’re going?”

  “Yep.”

  “And you’re anonymous, obviously.”

  “Right. I’ll be invisible.”

  “Definitely.” He gathered his bag and headed for the door.

  “Joel,” she called out. “Put someone on Ronnie?”

  He knocked on the door and nodded. “You read my mind.”

  50

  Conflict

  “NICE TO MEET you.” Shelly offered her hand to the man who stood with the warehouse door propped open. She didn’t offer her name and he didn’t offer his. He led her into the spacious facility, with rows of tall metal cabinets and a twenty-foot ceiling. He moved briskly and she followed him without saying a word.

  “Here you go.” He opened a drawer and pulled it out. His hand moved directly to the tab she was looking for. He had obviously already looked for it and found it. He held his finger on the file until Shelly replaced it with her hand.

  The man whistled as Shelly ran through the file once, then twice. She almost jumped out of her skin as her cell phone rang.

  She looked at the man, who seemed alarmed at any prospect of delay. She held up her finger and answered the phone.

  “Shelly, it’s Joel. Hey, where are you?”

  “You know where I am.”

  “Oh. Oh, right. You find everything you need?”

  “What do you want, Joel?”

  “We got something on Ronnie.”

  “Hang on,” she said. She put down the cell phone, removed a business card and scribbled on the back of it, using her thigh as a backstop. She handed it to the man.

  “Joel didn’t say anything about this,” said the man.

  She pointed to the phone. “You want to talk to him?”

  He sighed and shook the card in his hand. “Is this it?”

  “I promise.” She picked the phone back up. “What is it, Joel?” She began to follow the man as Joel spoke.

  “My guy followed Ronnie. Today was the first day. Pretty good first day.”

  The man stopped and started, then turned down one of the high rows of documents.

  “Ronnie headed out to the west side today.”

  The man tried several drawers, pulling them out and comparing them to the card Shelly had written on.

  “He went to the projects. You know the A-Jar projects?”

  She did. The Eduardo Andujar projects were on the city’s west side, a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood. Shelly had represented some kids from A-Jar.

  The man opened a drawer and held his finger at a space midway through the drawer, wearing a bored expression.

  Shelly balanced the cell phone between her shoulder and cheek and went through them. There was more than one. She rifled through them, forcing herself to move more slowly.

  “We saw him go into this consignment store,” said Joel. “He came out of the alley a few minutes later. Know who he was walking with?”

  She found it. She opened the file slowly.

  “Eddie Todavia,” Joel said over the phone.

  She read the original birth certificate slowly.

  Birth mother: Michelle Ingrid Trotter

  Date of birth: January 10, 1970

  Age: 17

  “Ronnie knew Eddie Todavia from school, too,” Joel continued. “Alex and Ronnie and Todavia all went to school together. We forgot about that. You know what this means?”

  Adopted child: Baby Boy Trotter

  Date of birth: February 19, 1987

  She flipped the page. “I think I do,” she said.

  “It was Ronnie, Shelly. Ronnie was working with Todavia. He was working with the Cannibals.”

  Adoptive parents: Franklin Masters. Date of birth: March 5, 1947. Elaine Masters. Date of birth: March 29, 1950.

  “Ronnie was working with the Cannibals, Shelly. Alex must have told Ronnie he was helping Miroballi take down the Cannibals. And Ronnie killed Miroballi. Alex is afraid to give him up.”

  Adopted child’s given name: Ronald Franklin Masters

  “Are you there, Shelly? You getting this? This is unbeliev—”

  She moved the phone from her ear and turned in the direction of the man, without looking at him. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m done.” She left the man standing there and then brought the phone back up to her ear.

  “—thought he was pulling your leg, Shelly, I really did. I thought your guy was guilty six ways to Sunday. But we’ve got this kid Ronnie now. I have him on tape. We can put him with Todavia and if we keep watching, he’ll probably fuck up some more. Jesus, this is really something.”

  “Sit tight for now,” she found herself instructing Joel as she pushed open the door to the document storage warehouse for the Department of Public Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics.

  “Shelly, what’s up? This is what we’ve been looking for. We finally got him. Ronnie’s your boy, I swear he is.”

  She laughed bitterly and punched out the phone. “He certainly is,” she mumbled into the evening air. She got into her car and drove without thinking. It was several miles before she realized that she had been traveling in the wrong direction.

  51

  Future

  THE NIGHTS A young woman lies awake, stroking her swollen belly, dreaming of the child she will never know. She knows nothing about this child. She can’t even give it a name, for she doesn’t know if it’s a boy or girl. She thinks of gender-neutral names like Pat or Sam, and she plays the games with other shortened names as well. Andy or Andi. Joe or Jo.

  She will not name this child. It will be another family, a family with a lawyer who will meet with the lawyer Daddy has provided. A family who desperately wants a child of their own. She will not know their names. They will know hers. Will they tell the child someday? Will the child know how special it is?

  Will the child be compassionate? Giving? Will she—or he—love life? Live for the moment and prepare for the future? Take chances? Be ambitious?

  She goes to the window and looks out
over Otter Lake. The lake is frozen now, two days after Christmas, a blanket of snow providing a tranquil cover. She longs for the summer days when she would take Grandma Jeannie’s boat and rock with the gentle ebbing of the water, staring up at the stars and thinking of this child.

  Her child will have children—Shelly’s grandchildren—that she will never know. And they will have children. An entire family will come from this child whom she will never know.

  She knows it in a way that a mother who will not raise the child knows it. Yes, the child will be special. It will be intelligent and self-assured and will do great things. She knows these things because she has to know them. They have to be true.

  It will be about two months now, give or take a week. They tell her that the first one usually does not come early. Mid-February, they are saying. She will only have about forty-five more days with her child and then she will say goodbye forever.

  She will not return to Haley. She knows that now. For the same reason she did not return there for Christmas. It is not what everyone thinks. She is not ashamed. She does not care if her friends would snicker or gossip. She does not want to see them anymore. She will move on now and do it her own way. She will stay with her grandmother for her senior year of high school and, if her grades remain on pace, she will get a scholarship to college. She will not live under their roof nor accept their money. Her father will overcome this temporary setback and get what he wants, someday. Attorney general, governor, president—he will find a way. She will not be proud but she will be relieved, because when this happens, she will be free of all debts. And then she will live without them.