Benny didn’t reply, so Nick continued.
“Which means you are the prime suspect in the murder. You may not know this, but we now have the death penalty in New York and our good governor was elected in part because of his sworn promise to use it. I can’t get you out of here but if you work with me—if you tell me who the woman was who was your accomplice—maybe I can get you life imprisonment.”
Nick watched as the words death penalty and life imprisonment hit Benny like a torpedo to the chest. The little man lost his breath for a minute and started hyperventilating. It wouldn’t be long before he was spilling his guts. But Benny surprised Nick, although he couldn’t keep his mouth shut totally, as Joe Fogarty had advised.
“I’m sorry Nick, I can’t talk to you. I need to see a lawyer. This woman you’re talking about. I don’t know her name or where she came from.”
Nick now had his opening with Benny’s half answer about the woman, and he could easily drive a steel tank through that opening with a barrage of questions. Nobody was better at it than he was. He took one last look at Benny—and saw Jimmy again.
“All right, Benny. If that’s what you want, we’ll get you a lawyer.” Nick stood up and walked out of the room.
Behind the two-way mirror, Tony and Angelo looked at each other in shock.
21
Everybody started to walk with an air of confidence, a swagger, after the team won their fourth game. They felt unbeatable. But it didn’t last long. They lost the very next week to the Redskins by a score of thirteen to twelve. They missed both extra points, and that had cost them the game. They hadn’t made an extra point all season.
“If we could have made just one kick we could have tied the game,” the coach, Joe Sheffield, reminded the team several times afterward. Joe was angry at himself, not the team. He knew he should have worked harder on the kicking game before the season started. Normally he was just trying to field a decent team, not vie for a championship. This year was different. He shared that thought with the team.
“Now, we’re going to have to win every game if we want to make the championship,” he told them. It was the first time that he had mentioned the championship game since the season started—and it certainly got the boys’ attention.
They won the next two games and were tied for the lead going into the last game of the season, against the Tremont Avenue Vikings.
Two teams in the league were consistent winners—the Tremont Avenue Vikings and the Mount Vernon Navajos. Both had great organizations and money behind them. Every year they got new jerseys and their equipment was updated. They leased a team bus for all their away games. The Navajos were tearing up the other division as they usually did. Both teams had that arrogance about them that comes with a winning tradition.
The odds were stacked against a motley crew like the Lexingtons beating both teams in back-to-back games in a three-week period.
The Vikings game started off slow. The Vikings were a running team, and they liked to pound it up the middle. They were finding it hard to run against the heart of the Lexingtons’ run defense, however. It was only a matter of time before they changed their plan of attack.
“Watch the ends,” Frankie O’Connor told everybody in the huddle. “They’ll be testing us outside real soon.”
Sure enough, on the very next play the Vikings halfback came around the left side. He got past Mikey, who was playing outside linebacker, but Rico and Floyd converged on him, catching him at the same time from opposite angles. The hits were clean and hard, but everybody in the vicinity heard a loud snap as the man went down.
“Oh shit, shit, shit,” the guy shrieked. “Get off! Get the fuck off!”
Both Rico and Floyd scrambled to get off, but it was too late. One of the bones in the man’s right leg had snapped just below the knee and was protruding from the skin. It hurt just to look at, and Johnny winced at the sight. Blood was everywhere, and the man lay on the field groaning. The referees stopped the game to call an ambulance.
Meanwhile, somebody brought the guy with the broken leg a beer and a cigarette, and as the wait extended from ten minutes to twenty, another beer and then another. Pretty soon the guy was sitting up talking to his buddies—despite the fact that one part of his leg was going one way and the other part the other way. The bone was still sticking out, but the blood had slowed to a trickle even though nobody had thought to apply a tourniquet.
When the ambulance pulled onto the field, everybody turned to look—except Johnny, whose eyes were riveted on the man with the broken leg. Johnny had seen him drop the cigarette and slump over.
Johnny ran to him. The man was not moving. “He’s unconscious!” Johnny yelled at the top of his lungs. “Tell them to hurry up!”
The emergency guys tried to revive him on the field but couldn’t. They transferred him to a stretcher, put him in the ambulance, and drove off. Before the sound of the siren had faded and the lights were out of sight, the referee blew his whistle and yelled, “Play ball!”
Johnny was bewildered. Football was the last thing on his mind, but he did what everybody else did. He huddled up and got ready for the next play.
“Stay focused,” Frankie told them in the huddle. “They just lost their best guy.”
Even though they had lost their best guy, the Vikings didn’t give up. The game the Lexingtons absolutely needed to win ended in a tie.
They were standing on the sideline listening dejectedly to Joe Sheffield tell them they had “played a hell of a game” when a cop came up to the coach. There were three other cops on the far sideline talking to the Vikings players.
“Hey, Coach, can I talk to you for a minute?” the cop asked, motioning Joe Sheffield to step to the side. Joe looked at him and then at his nameplate, Dan Gillette. Dan was very fat, his face was purple and bloated, and he was breathing heavily from his walk across the field.
“Sure,” Joe said, but he didn’t move away from the team. If something was going to be said, it was going to be said in front of his players
“A player on the other team—I don’t know his name—is dead,” Officer Gillette said casually, like the kid had merely left the field to get a hamburger. He pointed to the other sideline. “Some of his teammates say he died because two of your people hit him illegally.”
“Bullshit!” someone shouted angrily. Joe Sheffield stuck his hand up to quiet them.
“Whoever’s making that accusation is wrong, Officer. It was a clean hit.”
“Maybe so,” Gillette replied. “But I gotta take the two involved in for questioning.” He turned to the team. “Who were the two guys who tackled the dead kid?” If the incident hadn’t been so tragic, Dan Gillette’s attitude and choice of words would have been funny.
Nobody responded.
“I got no takers, huh?” Dan said, looking around at their faces. “Okay, we’ll play it a different way.” He turned toward the far sideline and whistled. Two Viking players came across the field.
“Can you guys pick those two tacklers out?” the fat cop asked when they arrived.
The taller, heavier one pointed right at Floyd. “That nigger back there is definitely one of them.”
“Watch your mouth,” Frankie O’Connor snapped at him. “That cop is gonna be gone in a minute and you’re gonna be dealing with me.” The Vikings player didn’t react to Frankie’s words, although he had to have heard them.
“You!” Gillette yelled, pointing at Floyd. “Come up here. What about the other one?” he said, turning back to the two Vikings as Floyd slowly made his way out of the pack.
They scanned the faces of the Lexingtons. One of them fixed right on Rico. Johnny saw it.
“It was me,” Johnny said, stepping in front of Rico before the Vikings player could say anything. He didn’t know why he did it. Maybe deep down he knew things would go better if he, rather than Rico, went to the station with Floyd.
“No it wasn’t,” Rico said. “It was me.”
“No!” John
ny protested.
Rico grabbed Johnny by the shirt with both hands and pulled him close. “Listen,” he said. “Me and Floyd deal with cops all the time. We know how to get out of this. You—they’ll have you feeling so guilty about this guy dying, you’ll sign a full confession and still be apologizing as they cart you off to prison. Just shut up and let us handle this, okay?”
Rico didn’t wait for a reply. He turned and walked straight up to the cop.
“All right, let’s go down to the station,” Gillette said, motioning to Floyd and Rico. “You boys have some questions to answer.”
22
Charlene Pope—Charlie—had been a certified public accountant at the firm of Harrel and Jackson in New York City for twenty years. She was one of those strange people who truly found the tax code interesting. She loved her work, and she especially loved the firm she was with. All her significant relationships were at Harrel. She’d met her ex-husband there. When they divorced, there was no question that he would be the one who would have to go. Charlie would never leave the firm. She also met her best friend at Harrel—Pat Morgan.
Pat was ten years older than Charlie, but they had common interests. They liked concerts and sports, good books and men—not necessarily in that order. Pat was a runner, Charlie was a swimmer, and both of them were in great shape. Pat was the taller of the two, although Charlie was almost five-six. She had large green eyes that complemented her auburn hair and a smile so warm it could melt an iceberg.
They took long walks together accompanied by Charlie’s dog, Tinkerbell. Charlie was crushed when Pat moved to Florida but made frequent visits. As a senior member of the firm, she had plenty of vacation time stored up. And she loved Bass Creek.
“This place is like going back in time,” Charlie had exclaimed on her initiation morning at Jack and Pat’s special place on the river. “I feel like I’m part of it all—nature, I mean.” She caught the way Jack and Pat smiled at each other. “What? What did I say?”
“You said what we all say,” Pat told her. “That’s why it’s funny. Of course, if you didn’t say it, Jack and I would have to drop you as a friend.” Pat and Jack laughed, but they were half-serious.
Charlie felt like somebody had kicked her in the stomach the day she learned about Pat’s cancer. Denise Nichols, another friend of Pat’s and Charlie’s, worked in Human Resources at Pat’s old accounting firm, and Pat had called to check on her insurance coverage and to make sure the bills would be paid. Even though Pat had been working full-time as a teacher in Bass Creek, she was still considered a “substitute” because she had not received her certification from the state Department of Education. Consequently, she received no benefits from her teaching job.
Pat told Denise she was going to have some major bills but she was fuzzy on the details. Denise suggested Pat send the initial bills to her so she could personally verify the necessity, put them in line for payment, and make sure there were no glitches. When Denise saw the test results, she was shocked. She was almost in tears reading them when Charlie walked into her office to find out if she wanted to go to lunch.
“What’s wrong?” Charlie asked, noticing Denise’s teary eyes. Charlie had to do a little prying and persuading, but finally she got Denise to spill the beans. Try as she might, Denise could not keep the news from Charlie at that moment. Charlie was on the phone with Pat that night.
“I’ll be on the plane tomorrow,” she told Pat. “I just called to let you know I’m coming.”
“Charlie, I’m fine. There’s no need to come.”
“Are you doing chemo?”
“Yeah.”
“When does it start?”
“Monday.”
“Okay, I’ll be there Tuesday. How’s Jack doing?”
“He’s fine. We’re both fine. Really we are.”
“I’ll just have to see for myself. I’ll see you on Tuesday.”
Charlie’s pushiness was a godsend for Jack, who had been faced with a dilemma. He had to file the motion for recusal personally in Miami and wait for the judge to sign the order, no matter how long it took. But he also didn’t dare leave Pat. Even though she looked okay, he knew she wasn’t, and he refused to leave her alone under any circumstances. Charlie’s arrival solved the problem. She was someone he trusted.
He stayed for an hour after Charlie arrived, to visit and catch up. He knew what a private person Pat was and that she hadn’t wanted anybody to know about her illness. Now that Charlie was here, he could tell that she was delighted. They could sit and have tea and talk and maybe take a walk—so far, Pat was feeling no ill effects from her first chemo treatment. And she could tell Charlie her fears—things that he knew she might hide from him. As the two women cheerfully waved good-bye, he felt his burden of concern lighten a little. They seemed to want to get rid of him.
Jack handed the motions for rehearing and recusal and the order of recusal to Judge Hendrick’s secretary and told her he was going to wait until the order of recusal was signed.
“I wouldn’t suggest you do that,” she lectured him, as only a judge’s secretary could do. “He’s got a busy day. He may not even get to it.”
“Well, ma’am, I have a client on death row who is scheduled to be executed in a week, so I’m not going anywhere until the judge looks at these pleadings. You tell him that.”
The judge’s secretary looked taken aback by Jack’s tone. She wasn’t used to being talked to that way by attorneys. It wasn’t Jack’s way either, but he didn’t have time to be polite. “I’ll tell him what you said,” she replied coldly.
“Thank you. I’ll be in the waiting room.”
Every half hour he walked into the judge’s outer office just to let her know he was still there and to remind her, in case she’d forgotten, that this was a pressing matter. Jack suspected that the judge had already looked at the motion, heard from his secretary how rude Jack had been, and was making him wait until the last minute. Some things were just so predictable, even when a man’s life was at stake.
Judge Hendrick called him in at 4:30.
“What is this, Mr. Tobin, some kind of joke? You don’t like my ruling so you move to have me recused?”
“Judge, I waited all afternoon because I need an answer now as to whether you’re going to sign this order or not. I didn’t expect to talk to you, and I’m uncomfortable stating my position on this matter when the state is not present.”
The judge ignored him. “I think your actions are despicable, Counselor. There is a finality to the law, and death-row inmates are not going to get out of their just deserts with shenanigans like this on your part.”
Jack had had just about enough. “Look, there is a motion in front of you and an order. I’ve attached a case from Polk County that is right on point where ten judges recused themselves when a colleague’s competence was questioned. I’ve got a wife at home sick with cancer and a client who is scheduled to be executed next week. With all due respect, Judge, I don’t have time to listen to your petty insults. Now make a decision: either sign the order or don’t.”
Judge Hendrick glared at Jack. There was a long silence while he appeared to be weighing his options. Then he turned toward his office door.
“Martha!” he yelled to his secretary in the other room. His door had remained open during the entire conversation: the judge had wanted a witness. “Get Wofford Benton on the phone.”
Wofford was waiting for the call. Jack had phoned earlier to say he was at the judge’s office, and Wofford had assured him that he would take the call no matter what he was doing.
“He’s on line one,” Martha shouted back to the judge a few moments later.
“Wofford, Arthur Hendrick here. I’ve got a motion for recusal on my desk and an affidavit from you. Mr. Tobin has been here all afternoon and he has been rather insistent. I would say rather insolent as well.”
“Well, Arthur, he’s insistent and probably insolent because a man that I once represented is about to die,” Woffo
rd told his colleague, his voice booming on the loudspeaker phone. “Frankly, it was my idea to file the recusal motion. I made mistakes in that case, and I know you wouldn’t grant a motion for a new trial on that basis. So sign the order and let Mr. Tobin get on his way.”
Five minutes earlier, Arthur Hendrick had no intention of signing the order of recusal. Now he had Jack Tobin standing over him and Wofford Benton—whom he had called—telling him to sign it. He was boxed in pretty good.
Arthur Hendrick sighed heavily. “If you insist . . . and because you insist, Wofford, I’m going to sign this order.”
He hung up the phone, signed the order, and handed it to Jack without ever looking up.
Jack left Judge Hendrick’s office on the run. He had barely enough time to take the order to the clerk of court, file it, get another judge assigned, and take the court file and the motion for rehearing to her office—only to learn that Judge Susan Fletcher had already left for the day.
“Much better!” Wofford told him later that evening. “Susan Fletcher has a good mind and she’s fair. The problem with her is that she’s disorganized and we’ve only got a week. Sometimes it takes her a week to tie her shoes. You’ve got to call her office every day, Jack.”
“Will do, Wofford. I’ll keep you posted.”
Pat and Charlie were having a grand old time back in Bass Creek while Jack was having it out with Arthur Hendrick. Their walk was short, mainly because Pat was tired. Then they sat out on the back porch by the pool drinking tea and catching up.
“How is that new guy you were dating—Ted?” Pat asked.
“Oh, he’s history,” Charlie replied. “It’s a shame how people who really seem promising end up disappointing you. I thought Ted was the real deal—handsome, generous, caring—everything you look for in a man but never seem to find. About week five, the whining started. He had to have everything his own way. And he was so tight his ass squeaked.”
Pat laughed. Charlie had a way with words. “Oh, that’s too bad. With your looks you’ve never been without suitors. Any new prospects since then?”
The Law of Second Chances Page 12
