The Death of Friends

by Michael Nava

  “I’ll take the deal if you’ll stipulate there’s a factual basis to dismiss the charge.”

  It took a moment for it to sink in. Then she sputtered, “What! You want me to go on the record and say he’s innocent?”

  “We haven’t started the trial,” I said. “Jeopardy hasn’t attached. You could keep hauling him into court for the rest of his life.”

  “But he did it,” she said.

  “For what it’s worth, I don’t think he did,” I replied. “But regardless, I don’t want you going after him again.”

  “That’s better than he’d get if you won the damn motion,” she said.

  “That’s the deal.”

  She got up. “I have to talk to some people, but for the record, I’ll advise against it because it’s bullshit. He killed a Superior Court judge. That’s death penalty territory. I’d take the damn thing to trial with nothing before I agreed to let him walk.”

  “Apparently, that’s not your decision to make,” I said.

  “I’ll see you in court,” she replied, and stormed out of the room.

  Fifteen minutes later, she was back in the courtroom, just as Torres-Jones was about to take the bench. She was not alone. There was a serious suit with her, pallid and gray-haired, hatchet man written all over him. I recognized him as William Goar, second-in-command in the D.A.’s office, a lifer who’d already outlasted half a dozen D.A.s. He walked over to me.

  “Counsel,” he said, extending his hand perfunctorily.

  “Do we have a deal?” I asked him, ignoring it.

  “Two conditions,” he said. “We do it in chambers and you agree not to make any statements to the press.”

  “Agreed,” I said.

  “Fine,” he replied, and walked away.

  The bailiff announced the judge. She did a double-take when she saw Goar, then settled in her chair and called the case.

  “William Goar for the People, Your Honor,” Goar said. “May we approach the bench?”

  “Yes,” she said. He made her nervous. I couldn’t blame her, he only lacked a scythe to be the Dark Angel himself.

  “Your Honor,” he said, “we’ve agreed to a disposition of this case, but we’d prefer to discuss the terms in chambers.”

  “With the reporter,” I chimed in.

  “Of course,” Goar said.

  “Are you going to give me a hint?” she asked, irritably.

  “Dismissal,” he said, flatly.

  “Give me five minutes, then come back,” she said.

  While we waited, I explained to Zack what was about to happen, but it was too much for him to take in, and I left him with a confused expression on his face when I followed Goar and Lang back to chambers, the reporter trailing along with her machine.

  Torres-Jones’s chambers had a lived-in look, pictures on the walls, a colorful area rug covering the fecal brown carpeting beneath it, a coffee machine and a collection of mugs on the credenza, a vase filled with yellow roses on the corner of her desk. Out of her robe, in a brown pants suit and flat shoes, she looked more like the president of the PTA than a judge. She offered us coffee. We all politely declined.

  “Well, what’s the deal?” she asked.

  “This part doesn’t need to be on the record,” Goar instructed the reporter, whose hands hovered just above the keys of her machine. Torres-Jones cast a sour look in his direction, but said nothing. “The deal is, counsel here withdraws his motion and we ask for a dismissal in the interests of justice.”

  “After stipulating that a factual basis exists for it,” I reminded him.

  “Yeah,” he said. “We do that part back here, then you dismiss the case in open court.”

  “Are you serious?” she asked.

  “This comes from the District Attorney himself,” Goar said.

  “What makes you think I’d go along with something like that?” she demanded. “It’s totally irregular.”

  Goar grimaced. “These are standard motions.”

  “It’s a backroom deal,” she said. “Look, why don’t we do it the right way? I’m going to grant the motion to suppress—I don’t see what else I can do after yesterday—and then we proceed to the prelim.”

  “If you grant the motion,” Goar said, “we can’t proceed on the prelim.”

  “Fine,” she said, “then I won’t bind the defendant over and the charge is dismissed.”

  “There are certain problems with that,” Goar said quietly.

  “Like what, Mr. Goar?”

  “Let’s start with yours,” he said, just as quietly. “You become the judge who suppressed evidence in a high-profile murder case. The police department will have to contend with an officer who perjured herself and the District Attorney will come out looking like he suborned it.”

  Clearly taken aback, Torres-Jones stared at him without speaking.

  “Your Honor,” I said, “I realize this is unusual, but the defense is willing to go along.”

  “Of course you are,” Goar said crisply. “That’s not the point. The point is the criminal justice system in this city has taken enough hits in the last ten years without all of us going out there and admitting that we fucked up again. The DA. wants this done as quietly as possible.”

  “And what about Detective McBeth?” the judge demanded.

  “She will be dealt with,” Goar replied.

  “If you stipulate to a factual basis for the dismissal,” Torres-Jones said, “you’re stopped from ever charging the defendant again.”

  “We understand that,” Goar said.

  “And that’s all right with you?” she said incredulously. “They found the damned weapon in his apartment.”

  “Which evidence you are about to suppress,” Goar pointed out.

  For a moment, no one said anything, until the judge broke the silence. “When I dismiss the charge in open court,” she said, “I’ll make it clear I’m doing so at the request of the People.”

  “You can cover your ass any way you have to,” Goar said.

  “Counsel, I could hold you in contempt for that,” she replied.

  “My apologies to the court,” he said, indifferently. “The People will stipulate that the dismissal is at their request. May we proceed?”

  Torres-Jones glanced at the reporter. “We’re on the record.”

  When we cut our deal in chambers, we all filed back out into the courtroom and waited for Torres-Jones to come out.

  “Not a bad day’s work for you,” Goar said to me.

  “Why did McBeth do it?” I asked him.

  “Who cares?” he replied. “She’s history.”

  Lang spoke for the first time since we’d talked in the jury room. “There was a call, but she didn’t trust it, so she decided, just this once, to bend the rules.”

  “So she went into Zack’s apartment, confirmed that the obelisk and the clothes were there, then wrote up her affidavit.”

  “That’s right,” she replied.

  “What did Mrs. Chandler tell you yesterday afternoon?”

  “About the key,” she said.

  “The key?”

  “You didn’t know? Oh, what the hell. It doesn’t matter. She gave McBeth her husband’s keys. One of them was to your guy’s apartment. That’s how McBeth got in.”

  “Bay knew about that?”

  “No,” Lang said. “McBeth told her she needed the keys for prints. After Mrs. Chandler heard the boy’s testimony, she figured it out and felt she had to tell me.”

  “I see,” I said.

  The bailiff called us to order. Torres-Jones took the bench. “People versus Bowen,” she said. “The defendant is presented in court and represented by counsel, Mr. Rios. The People are represented by Ms. Lang and Mr. Goar. Pursuant to our discussion in chambers, and at the People’s request, the information is dismissed in the interests of justice. Mr. Goar?”

  “The People stipulate that the dismissal is at their request.”

  “There was no bail set in this case,”
the judge said. “Therefore, the defendant is ordered to be released forthwith. The court stands in recess.”

  “What does that mean?” Zack whispered.

  “It means you’re free,” I said.

  He began to weep.

  I had trouble sleeping that night.

  The case was over. My client was free—back in his apartment, no doubt, picking up the shreds of his life. Yet I didn’t feel the elation that usually came after I’d successfully defended a case. There were too many loose ends and they continued to drift in and out of my consciousness. One thing I was sure about. The way the case had ended would effectively close the investigation into Chris’s murder, since the police would assume that Zack had killed him. No one would be going after Joey Chandler.

  Zack free, Joey safe, everybody happy.

  24

  IT WAS TWO WEEKS before I could think about the case again, because Josh went back into the hospital complaining of kidney pain. As had so often happened in the past, he had borne it stoically until it reached a critical stage and his kidneys were irretrievably damaged, but that was not the worst news. Dr. Singh had located the cause of the damage and asked me to be present when he talked to Josh. We were in the same room we had been in the last time he was hospitalized. Beneath the bed coverings, Josh was thinner and more frail than ever, hardly more than a stick figure. He was on a Demerol drip while another line carried antivirals into him, a third, liquid nutrition, and a fourth removed his wastes. His world had shrunk to the confines of his bed. He slept most of the time. When he was awake he was either drugged or in excruciating pain. For some reason his hands and feet were swollen and his skin was yellowish and rough. I scarcely recognized him, but the image of him wired to that bed kept me awake at night, night after night.

  “Hello, love,” I said, kissing his forehead. “How do you feel today?”

  “Okay,” he said.

  His eyes were clearer than they’d been the day before, a sign that he was going easy on the Demerol.

  “Singh said he wanted to talk to us,” I said. “These flowers need fresh water.”

  I could feel his eyes following me as I took the vase of white roses from the bedstand and went into the bathroom to change the water. I avoided looking into the mirror, afraid of what I’d see on my face, fatigue, grief, confusion.

  “Thank you,” he said, when I returned. “They smell nice.”

  “Have your parents been in this morning?”

  “Mom’s coming later,” he said. “My sisters are coming.”

  I nodded. His sisters lived in Sacramento and Denver. His mother had called them and told them to come say their good-byes.

  “This is it,” he said.

  I sat down in a chair beside the bed and held his hand. Singh came in. Crisply, he took Josh’s pulse, examined his vital signs and chatted with him about how he felt. Then he sat down at the edge of the bed and looked at both of us.

  Without a preface, he said, “The damage to your kidneys is the result of the foscavir.”

  I ran through the various medications, trying to remember what foscavir was for, but Josh got there first.

  “For my eyes,” he said.

  Singh nodded. “That’s right, for the CMV. It has this effect on many patients,” he said. “You’ve got to stop taking it intravenously.”

  “I’ll go blind,” Josh replied, quietly.

  “No,” Singh said, “there are a couple of other ways we can administer it. We could implant it or we could inject directly into your eyes, using a pediatric needle.”

  “Wait,” I said. “You mean you’d stick a needle into his eyes?”

  “It sounds barbaric,” Singh said, “but it’s not as bad as all that. Implants would be better. Either way, we get the drug to the source of the virus and minimize any further damage to his kidneys.”

  “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” Josh said.

  “I’m sorry, Josh,” Singh replied.

  “What about the damage that’s already been done?” I asked.

  Singh launched into an explanation of what was required to keep Josh’s kidneys from failing. He was in midsentence when Josh cut him.

  “No more,” he said, in the stubborn tone I recognized as his final word on any subject. “I want off all the drugs.”

  In the ensuing silence, the implication slowly crept up on me. His immune system was destroyed and he was fighting or vulnerable to any number of viruses or infections that, without the drugs, would ravage him. As if it was possible he could be ravaged any further.

  Singh looked at me, questioningly.

  “It’s Josh’s decision,” I said.

  “I want to go home,” Josh said, the forcefulness gone from his voice. “To Henry’s.”

  In his gentlest voice, Singh said, “You know without the drugs, you won’t have much time.”

  “How much?” Josh rasped.

  “Weeks,” Singh replied. “Days.”

  Josh said, “I want this to be over.”

  He squeezed my hands and closed his eyes. In a few minutes, he was asleep.

  “Come outside for a moment,” Singh said. I got up and followed him to the hall. “Are you up to this, Henry?”

  “Of course I am,” I said, irritably. “What do you think, I’m going to let him die in here?”

  He touched my arm and replied, “Excuse me for saying this, but you look terrible.”

  “I haven’t been able to sleep,” I said. “I’ll sleep better if he’s with me.”

  “He’ll need full-time nursing.”

  “I’ll arrange it,” I said.

  Singh nodded. “All right. Once we get him some nursing, I’ll arrange his release. Actually, going off his meds may be a good idea at this point. He might even rally a bit once they work their way out of his system and you’ll have him back for a while. But only for a while.”

  I closed my eyes against the tears and said, “I’ll take whatever I can get.”

  So I brought him home. The days that followed were hectic, as I tried to adjust myself to the demands of his sickness, including the constant flow of people in and out of the house, nurses, his family, friends. As Singh predicted, once the extremely toxic drugs he was taking passed through his body, he regained some of his mental acuity and he even felt better physically than he had in a long time, though he remained very weak. Although it was now late November, the weather remained mild and he spent as much time as he could on the terrace. I brought my work outside and sat with him, or read to him or watched him as he dozed. Not that it was always so serene. He’d wake in the middle of the night, disoriented and frightened, and I’d have to calm him down. Or he’d stumble out of bed and fall and wake me with his cries. There were days when the pain was so intense he’d lash out at me or threaten to kill himself, after all, and other days when he was rendered mute by depression. As for me, I realized I was not as prepared as I thought for his death; that at some level, I did not believe he would really die. Now, the actuality of it washed over me like a cold wave and left me numb with shock.

  One morning, we were sitting on the terrace, and he said, “What really happened to your friend, the judge?”

  “Chris Chandler?” I hadn’t thought about the case in weeks.

  He pulled an old, bulky sweater around him. “You got that guy off. Zack? If he didn’t kill him, who did?”

  “I can’t prove it, but I think it was his son.”

  “His son,” Josh repeated. “His own son killed him because he was a fag. Why do you think they hate us so much, Henry?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think I’ll ever know.”

  “The worst thing about it is you start to think maybe they’re right to hate you.”

  “You don’t believe that, do you?”

  He frowned. “The guy who infected me wasn’t some crazy fundie, Henry. He was another fag.”

  “It wasn’t intentional,” I said.

  “How do you know?” he replied. �
��Maybe he knew he was HIV when we had sex, but he figured we deserved it for being queer.”

  “That may happen,” I conceded, “but I’d like to think it’s rare.”

  “Maybe, but you have to admit gay men can treat each other with as much contempt as straights do.”

  “Who do you think we learned it from,” I said. “There’s a line from a poem by Auden, ‘Those to whom evil is done/Do evil in return.’ We’re not immune. It takes incredible strength to withstand hatred without internalizing some of it.”

  “Or acting it out,” Josh said.

  “Why are you thinking about this?”

  He looked out to the canyon, gathering his thoughts. “I’m dying,” he said, “and the man who’s responsible for it was also gay. I’m not saying I’m not responsible, too,” he added quickly. “But the bottom line is another gay man did this to me.”

  “What about the gay man who loves you,” I said.

  He looked at me tenderly. “That’s what’s keeping me alive.”

  A couple of days later, I had to go to court for a hearing in an old case of mine on which the Court of Appeals had reversed the sentence because the trial judge had made a technical error the first time around. It took the judge ten minutes to correct his mistake and resentence my client to exactly the same term. On my way out of the courtroom, I saw Yolanda McBeth sitting by herself in the back row. I glanced away and kept walking, but halfway to the elevator, I heard her call my name. I stopped, turned and waited for her to catch up with me.

  With a faint smile, she said, “You could at least have said hello.”

  “Did you really want me to? What are you doing here?”

  “I’m still a cop,” she said. “Suspended without pay until they figure out what to do with me. Meanwhile, I still have to show up on my cases, not that I’m worth much as a witness since word got around about what you did to me.”