Triple Crown

by Felix Francis

  I was pleasantly surprised, and hugely relieved, to find that Tony had sent a lawyer.

  His name was Marty Mandalay and he arrived as I was finishing my breakfast. He was young and brash, with a snazzy three-piece suit and slicked-back black hair, held in place by copious quantities of wax. I wasn’t sure I would have bought a second-hand car from him but his business card stated that he was a graduate of Harvard Law School and I assumed that, in spite of my earlier concerns, Tony wouldn’t have sent me a dud.

  ‘Don’t say anything at the interview,’ Marty instructed seriously in my cell. ‘Nothing at all. I will answer all the questions for you. Got that?’

  ‘OK,’ I said, nodding.

  ‘Not a word,’ Marty reiterated. ‘No matter what I say. Zilch! Keep those lips of yours tightly zipped. And don’t ask to speak to me privately. Trust me. Just sit on your hands and keep schtum. I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘I’ve got the message,’ I assured him.

  ‘Good.’

  This time, the interview was conducted by the same detective as before but with someone from the State Prosecutor’s office sitting alongside him.

  ‘Now, Mr Murphy,’ said the detective, ‘let’s start again from the beginning, shall we? Why did you kill the groom Diego Ríos?’

  I would have thought a simple ‘No comment’ would have been adequate but Marty clearly had other ideas.

  ‘My client, Mr Murphy, exercises his right under the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution not to answer that question on the grounds he might incriminate himself.’

  Marty had told me to keep my lips tightly zipped but, instead, my jaw hung open in surprise. For a start, I wasn’t Mr Murphy, I was Mr Hinkley. And surely one ‘took the Fifth’ only in court, not in a police interview. If I knew that, then my Harvard-trained attorney undoubtedly should have known it as well.

  I wanted to say something – to complain that my lawyer was an idiot – but he had also said to trust him, he knew what he was doing.

  I closed my mouth again and kept it that way.

  The detective, meanwhile, wore a semi-satisfied expression as if he felt he was getting somewhere.

  ‘Why did you kill Federal Special Agent Stephanie Dean?’

  ‘My client exercises his right under the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution not to answer that question on the grounds he might incriminate himself.’ Marty said it again without any trace of emotion in his voice.

  And so the interview progressed.

  Question from the detective, same answer from Marty.

  Neither of them seemed to tire of the game as question after question was answered in identical fashion. I remained seated throughout on Marty’s right, stock-still and stony-faced, while all the time squirming inside at the guilty picture the answers were painting in everyone’s mind, mine included.

  Finally, after about two hours, the detective stood up and went outside with the prosecutor.

  ‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’ I said to Marty.

  He didn’t answer. He just put a finger to his lips, pointed at the mirror to my right and raised his eyebrows.

  Yes. Stupid of me. I understood, all right.

  One-way glass and, no doubt, a microphone picking up everything we said.

  We sat in silence for a good ten minutes, until the prosecutor returned.

  ‘Patrick Sean Murphy,’ he said formally, ‘I am indicting you for the first-degree murders of Diego Manuel Ríos and Stephanie Mary Dean and for the malicious wounding of Robert Earl Wade.’

  He went on to outline the date and time of the alleged crimes, and then he read me some further rights, but I wasn’t really listening.

  First-degree murder.

  There had to be some mistake.

  35

  It wasn’t Diego who made the trip to Rikers Island in chains.

  It was me, as Patrick Sean Murphy.

  I spent a second night in custody, this time in what was appropriately named the ‘County Lockup’, a metal cage made of inch-thick steel bars solidly embedded into the concrete floor and the ceiling.

  I had complained to Marty Mandalay, my so-called lawyer, that, in my opinion, his bizarre replies to the detective’s questions had done nothing but make it more likely I would be indicted for first-degree murder.

  ‘I thought lawyers were meant to help their clients,’ I’d said to him sarcastically.

  ‘Trust me,’ he had replied. And then he’d winked at me, leaving me totally confused. I now wondered if, far from trying to get me released, he had actually been doing his best to get me charged.

  The time seemed to drag on for ever, not helped again by having the bright overhead light blazing away all night. There was an electric fan situated behind a grille in one corner of the cage but either it didn’t work or the staff refused to turn it on when I asked them to.

  Probably the latter.

  I was not the flavour of the month with the lockup staff. ‘Cop killer,’ I heard one of them say to a colleague, so I would clearly receive no acts of kindness from this lot.

  When I’d first arrived from the police station, I had been issued with a faded orange boiler suit with ‘County Lockup’ stencilled on the back in large black letters. Then I had been made to strip naked in the centre of a room full of correctional staff, before being thoroughly examined by them to ensure that I had no drugs, mobile telephones or other contraband hidden in any of my bodily orifices.

  If the process had been designed to totally humiliate the prisoner, then it had succeeded admirably.

  How could this be happening to me? I kept asking myself. I had done nothing wrong. Yet everyone else seemed to think I had, apparently including Tony Andretti. Perhaps I should have used my one permitted telephone call to ring Paul Maldini in London rather than Tony. But the Nassau County cops probably wouldn’t have let me make an international call anyway.

  Was Paul Maldini even aware, I wondered, that one of his senior integrity officers was currently locked up in a New York jail? Somehow I doubted it.

  At around nine in the morning I was told I would be going to an arraignment hearing at the county courthouse.

  I had to stand with my hands behind my back through a gap in the cage door while manacles were applied to my wrists. Then leg irons were placed around each ankle with only a short length of chain between them so I had to hobble.

  ‘Is this all really necessary?’ I asked the uniformed officer as he none-too-gently locked everything in place.

  ‘You’re a Category A prisoner,’ he answered, whatever that meant.

  I suddenly realised that he was more frightened of me than I was of him. I jangled the manacles and made him jump backwards in alarm. It was a minor victory in an otherwise dire situation.

  I was loaded into a prison van for the short journey from the lockup to the courthouse and then escorted by two burly correctional staff to a holding cell in the basement. Here, after about an hour, Marty Mandalay came to see me.

  ‘Just answer yes to your name when asked,’ he said.

  ‘Which name?’ I asked. ‘Patrick Murphy or Jeff Hinkley?’

  ‘Patrick Murphy,’ he said.

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘No buts. Do as I ask and you’ll be out by tonight. Or maybe tomorrow night.’

  ‘Tonight,’ I said firmly. ‘I can’t stand another night of this.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ he said, but I could tell he wasn’t very optimistic. ‘The judge will ask if you want to plead. Say nothing. I will do the talking.’

  ‘How about bail?’ I asked.

  ‘You won’t get it,’ Marty said. ‘Killing a federal law-enforcement officer is a capital offence. Add to that you’re a foreigner, so there’s absolutely no chance of bail and I won’t even ask for it. It will prevent the judge having to deny. Better not to have asked than have it denied.’

  I had to trust his judgement. What else could I do?

  An arraignment hearing was similar to an appearance at a
magistrates’ court in England. It was the start of the legal process.

  The accused was presented before a judge to confirm his or her name and address, and also to ensure that the charges, or indictments, were understood.

  ‘Are you Patrick Sean Murphy, residing on the backside at Belmont Park racetrack?’ asked the judge.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied.

  I wondered if that constituted perjury.

  He then read out the indictments: two counts of murder in the first degree with premeditation and malice aforethought, plus one count of malicious wounding. It didn’t sound at all good.

  ‘Do you understand the indictments?’ the judge asked.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I replied.

  ‘Do you wish to enter a plea?’

  Marty Mandalay stood up next to me.

  ‘Not at this time, Your Honour.’

  The judge paused for a moment, looking at Marty, as if he was waiting for him to apply for a bail hearing.

  He didn’t.

  ‘Remanded to New York City Correctional Department. Next appearance two weeks from today. Take him away.’ The judge banged his gavel to indicate that proceedings were at an end.

  The whole hearing had taken less than five minutes but it hadn’t passed unnoticed by the media, who were squeezed tightly into the courtroom press area. It seemed that I was quite a celebrity.

  But I was not the only newsworthy felon making his first court appearance on that Friday.

  As I was being led away, the defendants in the next case were being brought in. George Raworth and Charlie Hern didn’t take any particular notice of me but I did of them. They also wore matching orange boiler suits but were neither manacled nor chained. They were obviously not Category A prisoners.

  The sight of them cheered me up no end.

  The planned Nassau County Police raid of Raworth’s barn had obviously gone ahead as planned, in spite of the murders, and here was the proof that the two had been indicted, although what for I didn’t know. What would be the charge for cheating one’s way to a Triple Crown? Fraud, maybe.

  No doubt I would find out eventually from Tony Andretti. Assuming that he would get me out of jail as Marty had promised.

  Rikers Island was as foreboding a place as I had ever set foot in.

  The atmosphere was hugely intimidating but that, I realised, was the intention.

  Somehow British jails at least gave the impression that rehabilitation of offenders was the highest priority. Here, it appeared, it was the punishment and dehumanisation of the inmates.

  I was subjected to yet another strip search and my lockup orange boilersuit was exchanged for one of a similar hue with CONVICT in large letters on the back, in spite of the fact that I hadn’t yet been convicted of anything.

  But it was the assault on one’s senses that was the most extreme.

  Everyone seemed to be shouting at once – either the prison officers barking orders, or the unseen unfortunates incarcerated behind the cell doors yelling for attention. And the smell of stale sweat and rancid body odour hung like a fog over everything. It was as much as I could do not to retch.

  I was processed once more – name, address, photo, fingerprints – and then I was finally placed in a stifling cell in the solitary block.

  The cell had two doors, one inside the other. The outer door was solid with only a small glass window while the inner one was made of vertical bars with a single horizontal slot across in the middle.

  I was pushed forward into the cell and the inner door was closed and locked. I then had to put my hands out through the slot in this door to have the manacles removed. The outer door was then slammed shut with a loud clang.

  I almost cried in despair.

  My court appearance had been at eleven but the transport to Rikers had not departed the courthouse until the end of the day’s proceedings. Six others had made the journey with me in the prison van but, sadly, none of the six were George Raworth or Charlie Hern.

  They must have secured bail, I thought. Lucky them.

  I had no watch and there was no clock in the cell. Time dragged.

  I’d been in a cell before but not one like this. If I stood up facing the door and put my arms out to each side, I could easily touch both walls at the same time. At the foot of the narrow bed was a stainless-steel toilet bowl, with no seat, and a small stainless-steel sink, complete with a single cold tap that only worked if you held it down.

  I’d had my fill of stainless steel for one lifetime.

  Opposite the cell door was a small window made of solid glass bricks. It let in the natural light but it was impossible to see through.

  Time dragged some more and, presently, a tray of food was offered through the slit in the inner door. I took the tray and, to my surprise, the food wasn’t too bad, although it was only lukewarm and rather lacking in taste.

  How I longed for a bowl of Bert Squab’s extra-hot chilli con carne at the track kitchen.

  It took me all of two minutes to eat the meal and then I sat on the bed and tried not to think about anything much in particular. It was too depressing.

  My job at the BHA suddenly seemed rather attractive, but anything would be better than this. What would Faye say if she knew where I was? She would certainly have given the prison guards what for about my treatment.

  The square of light in the window slowly faded away to darkness.

  It must be nearly nine o’clock, I thought. Another day gone.

  I lay down on the bed and stared at the concrete ceiling. Amazingly, in spite of the constant bright electric light, I drifted off to sleep.

  I was woken by the outer cell door being opened by two prison officers.

  ‘On your feet, Murphy,’ said one of them loudly. ‘Hands.’

  I put my hands behind my back and out through the slot in the inner door. The manacles were reapplied to my wrists.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I asked.

  ‘You’re being transferred,’ he replied without any further explanation.

  The two officers escorted me from the solitary wing back into the main part of the prison. Oh God, I thought, I’m going to have to share a cell. All those horrific stories of life in American jails came into my mind and a touch of panic came along with them.

  But we didn’t go to any of the other cell blocks. Instead, we headed to the reception area where I had arrived earlier. A clock on the wall showed it was three in the morning.

  ‘Patrick Sean Murphy?’ asked another uniformed officer, consulting a clipboard.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Transfer to Sing Sing Prison.’

  ‘Now?’ I said. ‘But it’s the middle of the night.’

  ‘So?’

  Clearly transfers between prisons at such an hour were not unusual.

  Leg irons were reapplied and I hobbled my way out to the prison van, a blue truck with ‘New York State Department of Corrections’ painted along each side. I was locked into one of its internal cells and I could hear as the engine was started and we set off.

  I didn’t get to Sing Sing.

  Almost immediately we were clear of the Rikers Island prison gates, the cell door was opened.

  ‘Come on,’ said Tony, jangling a bunch of keys at me, ‘let’s get you out of those irons.’

  I almost cried again, this time from relief.

  ‘You took your bloody time,’ I said.

  36

  How an hour can change a man’s life.

  At three o’clock in the morning I had been in leg irons and manacles in one of the most intimidating places on earth yet, by four, I was stretched out in a luxurious leather armchair aboard a US government private jet, en route from LaGuardia Airport in New York to Andrews Base outside Washington, DC.

  I had also swapped the prison-issue orange boilersuit for a check shirt, chinos and slip-on leather brogues that Tony had thoughtfully brought with him from my stash of clothes in his guest-room closet.

  Tony clearly wasn’t eager to tal
k about the happenings in the grandstand on Wednesday evening. Twice he ignored my inquiry about ballistic tests on the bullet that had killed Steffi Dean. It was as if he was somehow embarrassed by it all.

  So I asked him about the other events of the evening instead. ‘How was Diego Ríos found?’

  ‘The horse he was with never turned up at the paddock from the receiving barn.’

  ‘Debenture,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. That’s it. It seems George Raworth sent someone to find out where he was and they found Diego Ríos with a pitchfork through his heart, and the horse still in the stall. Needless to say, the race went ahead without Debenture.’

  And I had wondered in the roof how the old horse was doing.

  ‘I’m surprised it went ahead at all.’

  ‘The others were at the gate before Ríos was found.’

  ‘Tell me about the raid on Raworth’s barn,’ I said.

  ‘It all went like clockwork,’ he replied, smiling broadly. ‘The Nassau County Police turned up with their search warrant and went straight to the barn drug store, as you had suggested. They bagged up everything including the cryo-flask. Raworth and his assistant . . .’

  ‘Charlie Hern?’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘They were both arrested on suspicion of fraud, and of animal cruelty.’

  ‘Animal cruelty?’ I said. ‘That was imaginative.’

  Tony laughed. ‘It was the best we could think of at the time.’

  ‘Unbelievably, I saw them at the Nassau County Courthouse yesterday morning. I was leaving my arraignment hearing as they were coming in for theirs. I presume they both got bail as neither went to Rikers with me.’

  ‘Indeed they did,’ Tony said. ‘A hundred-thousand-dollar bond each, plus a condition that they may not go within five hundred feet of any racetrack or any horse barn. NYRA have moved quickly to revoke his trainer’s licence so he can’t act as a trainer for the Belmont Stakes. His horses have already been transferred to other stables.’