Sleepers

by Lorenzo Carcaterra

  Michael knew that Judge Weisman’s initial take on John and Tommy would be one of disdain, a response that would be further fueled by the facts of the case. Michael also knew that the evidence against the two defendants would be so heavy that combined with their history of violence, it would prod Weisman to try to avoid a trial. He expected Weisman to pressure both sides to work out a plea-bargain agreement.

  Three times the judge privately asked both counsels for such an agreement and three times they refused. John and Tommy stuck to their not-guilty plea and the judge stuck to holding them without bail. Michael insisted that the people, as represented by his office, would want these men prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. As the case entered the jury-selection phase, Judge Weisman did not appear pleased.

  At no time during those early weeks in that uncomfortable courtroom did Michael give any indication of what he planned to do. He interviewed and selected his jury carefully, as well as any young assistant district attorney would, asking all pertinent questions, attempting to weed out, as honestly as possible, any juror he felt would not or could not deliver a fair verdict. Both counsels settled on a jury of eight men and four women. One of the women was Hispanic, as were two of the men. Two other men were black. Three jurors, two men and a woman, were Irish.

  When mentioning the defendants, Michael always referred to them by their names to establish their identities and so move them beyond a pair of anonymous faces. He insisted that prospective jurors gaze at the two men on trial while he catalogued their reputations and asked anyone fearful of those reputations not to feel compelled to serve. John and Tommy always made a point of looking at Michael, but he carefully averted their gaze, not willing to take the chance that some spectator would notice even a hint of their relationship.

  Michael’s vision on where he wanted this case to go was very clear.

  He was aiming for a guilty.

  A charge of guilty against the Wilkinson Home for Boys; a charge of guilty against Sean Nokes, Adam Styler, Henry Addison, and Ralph Ferguson.

  Michael sat impassively through Danny O’Connor’s unemotional opening statement, listening to the grizzly voiced attorney refer to John and Tommy as two innocent pawns, quickly arrested and just as quickly prosecuted on the slightest threads of evidence. O’Connor would prove, he insisted, beyond any reasonable doubt, that John Reilly and Thomas Marcano did not kill Sean Nokes on the night in question. That, in fact, they were nowhere near the Shamrock Pub at the time of the shooting.

  No one was impressed by O’Connor’s performance, least of all Judge Weisman, who fidgeted throughout the fifteen minutes it took for his statement. The few reporters covering the case, scattered through the front rows, stopped taking notes after O’Connor’s initial remarks. Veteran spectators, accustomed to more volatile defense attorneys, shook their heads in boredom.

  “He’s not exactly Perry Mason,” Carol whispered.

  “He got their names right,” I said. “For him, that’s a great start. Besides, if he wins this case, he’ll be bigger than Perry Mason.”

  Michael stood up, unbuttoned his suit jacket, and walked in front of his table, toward the jury box. He had his hands in his pockets and a friendly smile on his face.

  “Good morning,” he said to the jurors. “My name is Michael Sullivan and I am an assistant district attorney for the county of Manhattan. My job, like most jobs, I suppose, seems, on the surface, an easy one. I have to prove to you and only to you that the two men who stand accused killed a man named Sean Nokes in cold blood, without any apparent motive. I will present to you evidence and offer into account testimony to prove that. I will place them at the scene of the crime. I will bring witnesses to the stand who will confirm that they were there on that deadly night. I will present to you enough facts so you can then go into the jury room and come out with a clear decision that’s beyond a reasonable doubt. Now, I know you all know what that means, since you probably watch as much TV as I do.”

  Three of the women on the jury smiled and one of the men, a postal employee from the Upper West Side, laughed out loud. “I hear that,” he said, pointing a finger at Michael.

  “Let me remind one and all that this is a courtroom,” Judge Weisman said in a somber tone. “Not a living room. With that in mind, will the jurors please refrain from making any further comments.”

  “My fault, your honor,” Michael said, turning to face the judge. “I gave the impression that a response was required. It won’t happen again.”

  “I’m sure it won’t, counselor,” the judge said, relaxing his tone. “Proceed.”

  “Look at their faces,” I said to Carol, nudging her attention toward the jury box. “Their eyes. They’re falling in love with him.”

  “That’s not a hard thing to do,” Carol said.

  “The past history of these two young men is not important and not an issue in this case,” Michael said, turning back to the jury, his hands on the wood barrier, his eyes moving from face to face. “Violent or peaceful, criminal or honest, saints or sinners. None of it matters. What does matter is what happened on the night of the murder. If I can prove to you that these two men were the men who walked in, had two drinks, and shot Sean Nokes dead, then I expect no less than a guilty verdict. If I can’t do that, if I can’t put them there, put the guns in their hands, put the body before them and make you firmly believe that they pulled the triggers, then the weight of guilt is cleanly off your shoulders and on mine. If that happens, I will have failed to do my job. But I will do my best not to fail you and not to fail to find the truth. I will do my best to seek justice. And I know you will too.”

  10

  I WAS TWENTY minutes late. I had told Carol to meet me in front of the church at six, but had lost track of time kneeling in prayer in one of the back pews in Sacred Heart. I walked out of the church and saw her sitting on the steps, the collar of her leather jacket lifted against the strong winds whipping up from the river.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I said. “I was lighting candles.”

  “Now you’ve got St. Jude in on this too,” Carol said. “Anybody else?”

  “Just one more,” I said.

  “We supposed to meet up with him here?” Carol asked.

  “No. He’s waitin’ for us at his place.”

  “Which is where?”

  “Which is there,” I said, pointing a finger at the redbrick building next to the church. “The rectory.”

  “Oh, my God!” Carol said, her eyes opened wide. “Oh, my God!”

  “Not quite,” I said. “But it’s as close as I could come on short notice.”

  FATHER BOBBY SAT in a recliner in his small, book-lined first floor room, his back to a slightly opened window. He lit a cigarette and took a deep drag, letting the smoke out his nose. He held a bottle of Pepsi in his right hand. Carol sat across from him, her legs crossed, elbow on her knee, chin in the palm of her hand.

  I sat on a windowsill in the corner of the room that looked down on the school yard, hands in my pockets, my back brushing white lace curtains.

  “How was court today?” Father Bobby asked, his voice tired.

  “Like the first round of a fight,” I said. “Everybody just feeling each other out.”

  “How do the boys look?”

  “Like they wished they were someplace else,” Carol said. “I think that’s how we all felt.”

  “I’ve been in this parish nearly twenty years,” Father Bobby said, flicking cigarette ash into his empty bottle of soda. “Seen a lot of boys grow into men. And I’ve seen too many die or end up in jail for most of their lives. I’ve cried over all of them. But this one, this one’s been the hardest. This one’s cost me every prayer I know.”

  Father Bobby knew that it wasn’t the streets that had chilled John Reilly and Thomas Marcano. And it wasn’t the allure of drugs or gangs that led them to stray. You couldn’t blame their fall on the harsh truth of Hell’s Kitchen. There was only one place to blame.

  “Y
ou did what you could, Father,” I said. “Helped me. Michael too. We’d all be on trial today, wasn’t for you.”

  “It’s the sheep that strays that you most want back,” Father Bobby said.

  “It’s not too late, Father,” I said, moving away from the window and closer to his side. “We still have a chance to bring in a couple of stray sheep. One last chance.”

  “Is that one chance legal?” Father Bobby asked.

  “Last chances never are,” I said.

  “Is King Benny behind this?”

  “He’s in it,” I said. “But he’s not calling the shots.”

  “Who is?”

  “Michael,” I said.

  Father Bobby took a deep breath and leaned forward in his chair.

  “There’s a bottle of Dewar’s in the middle drawer of my desk,” Father Bobby said. “I think we’re going to need some.”

  I TOLD FATHER Bobby everything. If he was going to be involved, he deserved to know what he was getting into. If he wasn’t going to help, I still trusted him enough to know that the truth would move no farther than his room.

  “I should’ve smelled it,” Father Bobby said. “The minute Michael went for the case, I should have figured something was up.”

  “It’s a good plan,” I said. “Mikey’s got it all covered. Every base you look at, he’s got it covered.”

  “Not every base, Shakes,” Father Bobby said. “You’re still short something, or else you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Don’t shit a shitter,” I said with a smile.

  “That’s right. So, spill it. Where do you come up short?”

  “A witness,” I said. “Somebody to take the stand and say they were with John and Tommy the night of the murder.”

  “And you figured a priest would be perfect?” Father Bobby said.

  “Not just any priest,” I said.

  “You’re asking me to lie,” Father Bobby said. “Asking me to swear to God and then to lie.”

  “I’m asking you to help two of your boys,” I said. “Help them stay out of jail for the rest of their lives.”

  “Did they kill Nokes?” Father Bobby asked. “Did they walk into the pub and kill him like they say?”

  “Yes,” I said. “They killed him. Exactly like they say.”

  Father Bobby stood up and paced the small room, his hands rubbing against the sides of his legs. He was still dressed in the black street garments of a priest, short-sleeve shirt under his jacket, keys rattling in a side pocket.

  “This is some favor you’re asking me,” Father Bobby said, stopping in the center of the room, staring at me and Carol.

  “We know, Father,” Carol said.

  “No,” Father Bobby said. “I don’t think you do.”

  “You always said if there was ever anything I needed to come and ask you,” I said.

  “I was thinking more along the lines of Yankee tickets,” Father Bobby said.

  “I don’t need Yankee tickets, Father,” I said. “I need a witness.”

  Father Bobby undid the top button of his shirt and peeled out the Roman collar beneath it. He held the collar in both hands.

  “This is my life,” Father Bobby said, holding up the collar. “It’s all I’ve got. I’ve given everything to it. Everything. Now, you two come walking in here with some plan that asks me to throw it away. To throw it away so two murderers can walk free. To kill again. And you ask me that as a favor.”

  “Two lives should be worth more than a Roman collar,” I said.

  “What about the life that was taken, Shakes?” Father Bobby asked, standing inches from my face. “What’s that worth?”

  “To me, nothing,” I said.

  “Why not, Shakes?” Father Bobby asked. “Tell me.”

  I sat in the chair next to the desk, Father Bobby and Carol on the other end of the room. I stared at the shelves crammed with the books I had read as a child and the many more I wanted to read. I held an empty glass in my hand, struggling to recall the faces and images that had, for so long, been safely buried.

  Faces and images I never wanted to believe were real.

  I sat in that chair and told Father Bobby what was in my heart. It was the first and only time I had ever told anyone—until then—exactly what the life of Sean Nokes was worth.

  I spoke for more than an hour, my words weighed with anger and urgency, letting Father Bobby and Carol know the things I never thought I would be telling anyone. To Father Bobby, it was a shock, a jolt of pain straight to his heart. Carol had been close enough to Michael and John to suspect, but the specifics stunned her, made her sit bolt upright and took her breath away.

  I told them about the Wilkinson Home for Boys.

  I told them about the torture, the beatings, the humiliation.

  I told them about the rapes.

  I told them about four frightened boys who cried themselves to sleep and who prayed to Father Bobby’s God for help that never came. I told them about endless nights spent staring into darkness, rats owning the corners, keys rattling jail cell locks, nightsticks swinging high in the air, a guard’s grip, a boy’s scream.

  I told them everything.

  And when I was done, Carol said quietly, in almost a whisper, “Now you tell me, Father. What would a good priest do?”

  Father Bobby stared straight ahead, as he had for the past hour, only his eyes registering any change. He blew out a mouthful of breath and then looked toward the ceiling, his hands resting on the soft edges of his chair.

  “It’s getting late,” he finally said. “You should go. You both look tired.”

  He stood up and placed a hand on my arm.

  “I’ve got a decision to make,” Father Bobby said. “All I can do is pray that it’s the right one.”

  “It will be, Father,” I said. “Whichever way you go.”

  “The boys were on target about you,” Father Bobby said, reaching out for Carol and holding her in his arms.

  “About what?” Carol asked, lifting her head.

  “They always said you had balls,” Father Bobby said. “And they were right.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Carol said. “Especially coming from a priest.”

  11

  MICHAEL SMILED AT the witness, a dark-haired, handsome woman from New Jersey. She had her legs crossed under the chair, her skirt pleated, her white blouse buttoned to the throat. Her hands were folded on her lap.

  “Mrs. Salinas, how often have you had dinner at the Shamrock Pub?” he asked.

  “Just that one night,” she answered, her voice assured, speaking in the manner of a woman with nothing to hide.

  “What night would that be?” Michael asked.

  “The night of the murder,” she said.

  “What time did you get there?”

  “Near seven-thirty,” Mrs. Salinas said. “I met a friend for dinner.”

  “What’s the name of your friend?”

  “David,” she said. “David Carson.”

  “Who was the first to arrive?”

  “I was,” she said. “But only by a couple of minutes.”

  “You waited for Mr. Carson outside?”

  “No,” she said. “By the coatrack. As I said, it wasn’t much of a wait.”

  “Okay,” Michael said. “You and Mr. Carson go in, sit down, order a drink, start catching up on your day. That right?”

  “Pretty much,” Mrs. Salinas said. “We hadn’t seen each other for a few weeks. David had been away on a business trip.”

  “Who decided to eat at the Shamrock Pub?”

  “I did.”

  “Why?”

  “I read about it in a magazine,” she said. “They said it was colorful.”

  “And was it?”

  “Up until the shooting,” Mrs. Salinas said.

  I looked over at the defense table and caught a smirk from John and a smile from Tommy. Their lawyer, head down, was furiously scrawling notes on a legal pad.

  “What’s he tak
ing notes for?” Carol whispered. “He knows the questions he’s supposed to ask.”

  “Maybe he forgot them,” I said. “Left them on a barstool.”

  “She’s good,” Carol said, indicating Mrs. Salinas.

  “We want her to be,” I said.

  “Had Mr. Carson ever been there before?” Michael asked now. “With or without you?”

  “No,” she said. “It was the first time for both of us.”

  “Where were you seated, Mrs. Salinas?”

  “In a booth,” she said. “The one closest to the door.”

  “Was that by choice?”

  “Yes,” she said. “All but one of the booths was free, so we could have sat anywhere. But David likes fresh air and I don’t mind it either.”

  “Do you remember what you ordered?”

  “I asked for the lamb chops,” she said. “It was one of the specialties mentioned in the magazine. David had his usual.”

  “For those of us not familiar with Mr. Carson’s eating habits, could you tell us what his usual consists of?” Michael asked, throwing Mrs. Salinas a wide smile.

  “Steak,” she said. “David always orders steak, baked potato, and a tossed salad.”

  “Did you have anything to drink?”

  “We ordered a bottle of red wine,” Mrs. Salinas said. “A Chianti, I believe.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Yes,” she said. “That’s all.”

  “Did you notice the number of people in the pub?”

  “There were only a few scattered about,” she said. “It was quiet. A good place to meet someone and talk.”

  “Did you notice the victim, Sean Nokes?”

  “No,” she said. “I did not.”

  “You didn’t even see him when you walked in?” Michael asked.

  “No,” she said. “Our table was right near the coat check and I didn’t bother looking around.”

  “Your attentions were focused on Mr. Carson,” Michael said.

  “Yes, they were,” Mrs. Salinas said. “As I said, I hadn’t seen him for a while.”

  “Which way were you facing?” Michael asked. “Which side of the booth were you sitting on?”