Almost Mortal

by Chris Leibig

  “Oh, and no big deal,” she said, “but the Post called. They want to talk to you about the case.”

  “The Washington Post called about Scarfrowe? Talk about a slow news day. Which reporter?”

  “Lexi Shapiro. Said she wants a quote from you on whether you think the jury’ll find him guilty of the attempted rape or the attempted purse snatching. I thought it was a stupid question. She doesn’t even have the names of the charges right.”

  “You’re missing the point. Reporters always get the legal shit a little bit wrong. Think big picture. You’ll do the quote. Shapiro is very smart and aggressive, but she’s also pretty honest. You have to make her promise to quote you exactly. Word for word. Call her back right away, and get a pen. Tell her this, exactly this.”

  Sam waited as Amelia shuffled around, presumably searching for a pen and paper.

  “Go.”

  “Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter much which crime the jury convicts him of. Both are serious felonies, and if he gets convicted of either charge, he is going away for a long, long time. Read it back.”

  Amelia read it back with an edge of annoyance in her voice.

  “Sam, that’s the dumbest quote ever. We’re hardly even asking the jury to find him not guilty of either charge. I’ll sound like an idiot.”

  “You know when you won’t look like an idiot, Amelia? When we win. And say long, long time, not just long time. And be sure to make Shapiro read it back to you.”

  Amelia hesitated, and even through the phone Sam could feel her mood shift as she got it.

  “Okay, boss.”

  “One more thing. Who’s the DNA scientist?”

  Amelia shuffled more papers. “J. Kim.”

  “Okay, I’ve got this. Relax.”

  “Thanks, Sam.” Sam could already feel the release of tension in her voice. “By the way, what was up with that chick last night? She practically gave me a therapeutic shoulder massage last night. That was weird.”

  Sam paused. “It’s about to get weirder.”

  He hung up, swung his car into the closest space to the Bennet County jail, ignored the parking meter, and walked quickly up the stairs. After a brief credential check and cursory pat down, he found himself in the attorney-client visiting room, facing a crying, three-hundred-pound African-American woman in a tight jumpsuit.

  “Sherita,” he said, “please relax.”

  “I can’t, Sam. I can’t. I’m losing my shit. Seriously.”

  “I know, I know. I’ll get you out of here before anything happens with Tamela.”

  “You sure? If I don’t get out, my apartment’s fuckin’ history. I’ll be kicked out of public housing. I’ll get fired. They’ll take Tamela away again. Oh God, my mother will send her to DSS if I’m gone more than a coupla days. It’ll be over, Sam. My recovery, everything. I’ll … I’ll … I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  “Stop right there, Sherita,” Sam said softly.

  He reached across the table and grabbed one of her huge hands with both of his. Sherita was a regular client. Always crack. She had been recovering successfully since her last drug program, so he was surprised to hear she had been arrested the day before. Dealing this time, not just possession.

  “Whatever happens, you’ll get through it. I’ll help you.”

  “I’m going to fucking prison. I sold to a cop. You know what the crazy part is? I hadn’t even used yet. I scored three rocks, was walking home, and this dirty-looking fool walks up and offers me triple the price for one rock. Must have watched me score. And you don’t know the half of it.”

  “Triple the going rate? You know better than that.”

  “I know, I know!” She sobbed into her hands.

  “What’s the other half of it?”

  “I’m fuckin’ pregnant. I was about to smoke crack even knowing I was pregnant! I’m a seriously fucked-up person. I was thinking about killing myself this morning.”

  Sam glanced down at her immense waist and torso. They blended into one colossal bulge, only a third of which could hide behind the bolted-down metal table. Some women showed sooner than others. With Sherita, visual observation could never prove it.

  “You sure? How many months?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe four, five?”

  “But you still haven’t used. You’re still in successful recovery. This cop saved you from relapsing by busting you.”

  “I guess so,” Sherita moaned. “Who gives a fuck, Sam? I sold him a rock! I’m a goddamn dealer now. And a terrible mother. Oh dear God.”

  “No, Sherita. You’re not. These kinds of things happen. You have a disease—you’re an addict. And you shouldn’t even be in general population when you’re pregnant. Maybe not even in jail. I can work this.”

  Sam already felt the beginning of a plan. He knew exactly which prosecutor he needed for this one.

  Sam stood. “I gotta finish a trial Thursday. I’ll get you out the next day, at the nine-thirty arraignments. I’m having you drug tested first, a piss test through pretrial services. When they come in, don’t refuse.”

  “Why? I thought it was better to be a user. That’s why I sold, right? That’s the game.”

  “Let me worry about that. And Sherita?” She looked up at him with red, teary eyes. “Has it ever occurred to you that God put that cop in your path last night? To stop you from using? To save your recovery? To save your baby? Working in mysterious ways, you know?”

  She finally smiled, a sassy grin that popped out every now and again.

  “I’ll buy that shit when the motherfucker gets me up outta here.”

  Sam took one of her huge hands again. “You’re not gonna kill yourself, Sherita.”

  “I know. I got a baby comin’.”

  “That’s not why.”

  Sam bounded down the stairs. It didn’t matter whether he or Sherita believed God had turned her into a drug dealer to save her baby. The important part was that Assistant Commonwealth Attorney Sally Ann Richards, an annoyingly outspoken born-again Christian, might believe it. Sally Ann loved to crush the bad guys; she even used the phrase “eye for an eye” in court. But she would love this divine intervention—God working through a vice cop. She thought the world worked that way, angels saving the sinners.

  Sam jumped into his car, pulled out of the jail lot, and headed for the office. He speed dialed a number in his phone. Dr. J.

  “What?” an agitated voice said.

  “Hey there.”

  “What the fuck, Sam?”

  “You sound happy to hear from me.”

  “Hah! Happy to be coming to court tomorrow on this bullshit Scarfrowe case? Hasn’t anyone noticed there’s a serial killer out there? I’ve been working all week on the Ripper case, and they want me to sit around at court all day tomorrow?”

  “I hear you,” Sam said. “My sentiments exactly. What’s the result on Scarfrowe? I may be able to get you out of this.”

  “Partial profile. A mixture. Perfect match at both genetic markers on ten loci. Major dropout on the rest.”

  “A mixture?”

  “More than one person’s DNA on the swab from your guy’s hand. Probably from the last woman he groped. So what? He’s going down anyway, right?”

  “No comment. Listen, call Assistant Commonwealth Attorney Broadas and make sure he knows that you can’t testify that the DNA came from vaginal fluid. It could just as well be sweat, skin cells, snot, saliva, whatever. Tell him the mixture’s weak, there’s lots of dropout, and you’ll have to admit the DNA could have come from Scarfrowe grabbing at the purse. Tell him that if the DNA mixture from the hand swab were vaginal fluid, you’d expect to see a stronger result.”

  “Hmmmmm.” Dr. J’s signature response when suspecting someone may be up to something dodgy.

  “The prosecutor deserves the truth, both the good and the bad. I know he wants you to say it’s vaginal fluid, but you can’t scientifically say that, can you?” Sam already knew the answer to that. The lab simply did
not conduct tests that could really distinguish one bodily fluid, besides blood or semen, from another.

  “No.”

  “I’ll call him five minutes after you do. I’ll get you out of it. But you have to call him now.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Can I meet you later this week?” Sam said. “Pick your brain about a case? Drinks on me.”

  “Friday?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Get me out of court, and you’re on.”

  Sam parked in the office lot and lit a cigarette. He needed to kill five minutes so Dr. J. could talk to Broadas before he did. Broadas would exaggerate the DNA evidence to Sam, overstate the value of the evidence, either because he did not understand DNA or because he understood it a little but was accustomed to the state lab scientists saying pretty much whatever prosecutors wanted them to say. Once Sam called Broadas out on his overstatement, Broadas would agree not to use the last-minute DNA evidence. He would want to save face. Shit, Broadas thought he was going to win the case anyway. Too late, not fair to the defense. How terribly wise and fair Broadas would be. Statesmanlike. Sam could even hear him saying the words.

  Sam felt the brown envelope in his pocket. He pulled it out and carefully removed the sheaf of papers. There were several sections, each sheathed in clear plastic. As he often did with documents prepared by a client, a witness, or an unknown person, he spent a moment looking at the document itself. White, lined paper, well-preserved but crinkled with age, and tight, rather precise, cursive script. First sentence of the paragraph indented. Neat margins. One side only. Each line written to a uniform width. Written in pencil, oddly enough. Numbered pages. No scratch outs, at least not in the first few pages. Pages were neither clipped nor stapled yet neat and square, as if the author had written them on a pad and torn all the pages out later.

  Sam returned the stack to the envelope without reading a word, picked up his phone, and dialed.

  “Broadas here.” The prosecutor spoke in a clipped, manic chirp. Everything was an emergency to him.

  “DNA? The last day of trial. You’re kidding, right?”

  “We’ve got your man, Sam. Vaginal fluid all over his hand. We’ve got him nailed. Purse my ass. You should plead this guy out tomorrow. I’ll give you twenty-five years if you take it now.”

  Sam flicked his cigarette butt out the car window, watching it arc like a tracer in the soft dusk. He took a deep breath, then lowered his rear view mirror and examined his face. His eyes always felt wrinkled late in the day, when the workday was winding down. He stared at himself for a long moment. At his eyes. One brown. One green. Strange days, indeed.

  CHAPTER 4

  FEET UP ON HIS living room coffee table, Sam held a cool glass of ice water to his forehead and began to read. Each entry was dated.

  FEBRUARY 10, 1957

  I begin this manuscript as a brief record of important events on our journey, even as I realize my life could easily end on any given day. True for all of us, but somehow a truth that looms large over me. If I am killed along my path, I suppose it is possible that someone will read this and see it as a historical record of my efforts to understand. I may read this journal years from now and experience it as no more than silliness—of a time when everyone thinks themselves unique, only to realize later that each of us represents only more of the same.

  I was born in June 1942 in Bariloche, Argentina. I think my last name comes from my mother’s choice and really has nothing to do with my nationality. My Argentine countrymen are so very taken with their fancy European heritage. But despite my name, I am no white Italian or blended Spaniard. My mother told me we are part of those special people without a home: the fortunetelling, trick-turning, dice-loading carnies she called Roma and Westerners call Gypsies. We were magical, she said. I can remember sitting on the rim of the sink in our kitchen, my mother holding me close from behind as we looked out the window together at the night sky and the dark mountains. “Shoot for the sky,” she said. “If you miss, at least you’ll land on the mountaintop.” She would squeeze me, and I would laugh.

  I knew early on that our mother was different. She had grown up in the city, in a family of immigrants who worked on a wealthy Italian family’s estate outside Buenos Aires. It was only from a series of poor decisions that she wound up a peasant in Bariloche. Her words: “A series of poor decisions.” I never knew the exact nature of these decisions, but I did notice while very young that others in the slum mockingly called her Virgin Maria. Later, I learned that she indeed had confided to an older woman in the neighborhood that she had never been with a man before arriving in Bariloche—a fact belied by the existence of my older sister, Trinity, and myself.

  My mother made us learn English and speak it in our home. We read magazines and American books she had from childhood. It was fun, reading fancy old magazines. “Don’t mutter this local trash,” she said, speaking of the Indio-Spanish spoken in Bariloche. She made her mouth like mush when she imitated the neighbors’ children speaking. What I remember most is that she always told me I was going to America. That I would need to get out of Bariloche before it was too late. I’ve always had it in my head that America is the mountaintop.

  In some of my earliest memories, my mother walked with me along the dirt roads that crisscrossed amongst the Bariloche shacks. If time permitted, on an afternoon before Miguel returned home, we held hands at the base of the mountain, which sprang towards the sky just outside our barrio. “Slow time,” she would say. “Observe.” That was how she put it. At first I just stood still, pretending the heavens were filling my brain with the secret knowledge she seemed to possess about our surroundings. But soon I learned it was true, and that whether she directed my attention towards a tree, a rock, a dog, or, eventually, our neighbors, she was right. I could see the meanings and histories behind people and things.

  “It is so strong in you, maybe even stronger than in Trinity!” she said. “You must be careful to show no one your gift. People will be afraid of you, maybe even hate you, maybe even kill you, if they know. It’s hard enough to see things you don’t want to see. Mostly you should keep them to yourself. But someday, maybe you will show the world. Maybe you will scream it from the mountaintop. But not until the opportune time.”

  The opportune time. My mother used that phrase only once, but it has always remained in my mind. It makes me feel both hopeful and sad. She thought her opportune time would never come, yet believed mine would.

  “You can endure anything, you’re so strong inside. Like Job from the Great One’s Bible,” my mother said to me one day while we pushed a wheelbarrow of water jugs across Bariloche towards our home, each holding one handle and grunting and laughing along the way. Mischievous, she was, borrowing water from behind the café downtown. “We’ll return the wheelbarrow, of course we will. We’re no thieves.” She smiled at me, sweat running down her brow but doing nothing to dampen her beauty. My mother often referred to God as the Great One, and the Bible as his.

  “Who’s Job?” I said, wanting, of course, to be as strong inside as this Job but needing a point of comparison.

  “The Great One’s servant who was betrayed by him. Despite Job’s faith the Great One ruined his life, and Job fought back. He challenged the Great One. Sued him to expose his injustice.”

  “You mean like in court?”

  “Sort of like that.”

  “Did he win?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Did you just say the Great One was unjust?”

  My mother sighed and put down her side of the wheelbarrow. She was no longer smiling or laughing and clearly meant to end our discussion about Job.

  “This is the sort of thing you must learn on your own, strong one.”

  My sister. One of my saddest memories is when Trinity ran away from home. Or so Miguel said one evening while my mother sat stone still, eating soup and staring blankly away towards the open window of our shack. Trinity was five years older than me, and while my mo
ther and her magic lessons were my truest companions, Trinity would dance and sing and make me laugh when she returned from school each afternoon. She taught me to toy with Miguel by moving his stacks of coins, wine bottles, and other trinkets from one place to another so we could laugh inside while he searched, scratching his head in bafflement at why he could not remember where he put his grubby junk. Trinity also ran with a pack of older children from the barrio, earning my mother’s scolding late at night. Maybe they never knew I heard all of it from my bed.

  “She ran off, and I doubt she’s coming back,” Miguel said. And that was the end of it. My mother just kept staring out the window, one arm hugging her bulging stomach.

  Our little barrio outside Bariloche was all we knew. It was a very poor place, with open sewers and a wooden statue of Jesus on the cross—a place where ten year olds just ran away and stupid drunks could capture magicians. The same year my sister ran away, my mother died during the birth of my younger brother, Paul. I was five. While I had never known a father, Miguel—perhaps Paul’s father—inherited both of us the day she died. I was nervously throwing rocks towards the road when the midwife ran, crying, out of our shack. I remember staring at my mother’s body. It was covered by a sheet on the bed. Miguel, on his knees by the bed, held Paul in one arm. When he saw me in the doorway, he turned towards me.

  “It’s just us now,” he said. I spit on the floor, right in view of my mother’s body. That was how my adult life started. Spitting towards Miguel in a dirt-floored shack, looking at my mother’s dead body, and hearing my little brother’s first cries.

  I realized from a very young age I was different. At first I noticed the peculiarities in my memory. I simply lacked the ability to forget things—big or small. Once I began to socialize with people my age, it became even more obvious. But I soon knew it was much more than just a good memory. People use the term “mindreading” to denote listening to the precise thoughts of another—as if thoughts come through as crisp sentences. Of course, no one actually thinks this way, at least no one in Bariloche. Thoughts are a muddled morass. I would thus not call my gift mindreading, but rather an ability (a curse?) that allows me to see the framework, for lack of a better word, through which a person operates. What a person will or will not do flows from this framework, more like a math equation than anyone would believe.