Law Stories

Marianne has a friend named Jan whom we both admire, probably for the same reasons but not necessarily. We’d actually have to talk with one another to figure that out and we don’t do all that much talking. Intuiting and presuming, yes, and probably quite right in our conclusions, but one never knows. Jan was diagnosed with MS when she was in her late thirties. She’d had four kids by then and her husband, who couldn’t bear such a potent dose of reality, or didn’t share our view of Jan’s admirable character, had left her and their kids for a younger woman he met at his gym. I’d heard they moved to Florida but I didn’t get that involved. Only Marianne telling me from time to time that “that asshole Robert” had done something, or failed to do something that really hurt Jan and pissed Marianne off. I listened, but not too closely
Jan keeps body and soul together by sheer dint of effort that one can only stand in awe of. She is the executive director of a food bank. Raises money. Supervises staff. Keeps her Board happy. Raises the four kids, two of whom are in grade school and two in high school. Good kids too.
“I’m moving into a hotel room for a couple of weeks,” I tell Marianne.
“Right, no problem,” Marianne says. “You don’t need to explain to me what this is all about. You just move out for some unspecified period of time and you don’t have to bother telling me why, or what it’s about. You’re a nut case Joseph. You know that? I don’t want you going anywhere. And why should I?”
A good question my dear, a very good question. “Something has come up at work that has me frightened for my safety. I can’t run away. I don’t want to live at home and put you and the kids at personal risk. I just thought it would be safer.”
She looks at me trying to assess if what I am saying is real or true, if there is another woman, or another explanation. She is genuinely puzzled and not happy.
“Marianne, I just can’t explain this to you, and the less you know the better. You just have to trust me on this one.”
“No, Joe, that’s not going to work. It’s not the way this marriage and this relationship work. It is unacceptable.”

After we’ve fallen into bed together there is a haze that comes over the room. My mind itself seems hazy or drugged. Everything slows down. We kiss each other softly. Familiarly. I like her smell. I touch her everywhere I can: between her toes, between her thighs. She moans. I am far more into her pleasure than mine, playing her instrument. Ladies first, a philosophy that is always rewarded.

I came home after a typically hard days work and as I turned on the light saw that someone had been in the apartment and trashed it, she tells me. I grabbed the phone and called 911. I reported it as a break in. I wasn’t really scared, but I am terribly annoyed. And now I’ve got to deal with police asking questions and digging around in my apartment, she implies. “I do not have a gun. I do not have illegal drugs. The bathroom, bedroom, and kitchen were reasonably clean before my uninvited visitor messed the place up,” she tells me. “My bedroom window is open. Whoever came in came in that way. Nothing seems missing. I did a quick check of my jewelry. It all seems to be here.

I do not tell the cute cop I looked for notes or for something broken. There was nothing out of place. I turned on the TV to distract me and then immediately turned it off. I pace around the apartment trying to figure out what this means and come up with nothing. Bobby, I think to myself immediately, the son of a bitch. It had to be Bobby. I can’t call him. I won’t call him. I’ll change the damn locks, put bars on the windows. Maybe he did keep a key I think, but what did he want here?

The doorbell rings. I check myself in the mirror. I laugh at myself for doing so. Nonetheless I catch myself thinking I look good. I laugh at myself for that too. I’m smiling when I open the door.

Two cops are standing there in plain clothes. One of them is incredibly handsome. I notice him right away. He looks me straight in the face and says, “Ms. Lance?”

“I’m Connie Lance,” I say.

“May we come in? We’re responding to a call of a break in. I’m Sergeant Taffeta. This is my partner Officer Rowe.” He lifts the badge he is holding and brings it up to eye level. “Come in,” I say. And of course they do.

When I sit down on the couch I notice him looking at my legs. It is such a funny dance we dance. He looks at my legs. I catch him looking at my legs. I pull my skirt down though it moves very little. I look at his left hand. There is a wedding ring on his fourth finger. I catch myself letting out my breath.

My Move.

I’ve seen nothing that calls out clue, nothing that makes any sense, and one thing that doesn’t make sense, Captain Herrick’s card. I make a formal report: name, age, phone-number, time of break in, employer. Maybe she’s a receptionist at Channel Five. I do not let on that I know she’s half of the local news anchor. I give her my business card, with the slightly raised blue embossed lettering. I do not say anything about Herrick’s card. Why should I? Let’s let this one marinate a little bit and see where it goes.

Herrick calls me into his office in the morning. I like this already.

“Heard you investigated the Lance break in last evening,” he says.

“That I did, sir.”

“Anything worthwhile,” he asks.

“Couldn’t figure out a thing,” I say.

“I know her personally,” he tells me. “She called me this morning to let me know about it. What did they take,” he asks.

“Nothing that I could tell, Chief. I didn’t stay around that long. Rowe and I were at the end of our shift. I wrote up an initial report and went home.”

I do not say I saw his card in her bathroom vanity draw. Why should I?

“How do you know her?”

“Oh she’s interviewed me once or twice. Nothing much. But I’d like to work this one thoroughly and quickly, makes us look good with the media. Brownie points.”

“Well, I’ll give it what I can.”

“No, actually,” he says, “I’d like to work this one myself.”

“Sure chief, just let me know if I can help.”

One plus one equals three already.

It’s not that I don’t love my wife. I do. Dearly. But I’m bored and hungry and don’t know what to do about it. I’m impatient and willing to take chances emotionally. Life’s a gamble and I’m a gambler. I’m still a kid at heart is what I actually tell myself. Even though I’m already forty-two years old, have two children of my own, and am a police officer sworn to uphold the law with a badge and a gun, I’m a kid. I’ve cheated on Marianne more than once, more than twice, broken my vows to her, someone I actually love. It always hurts me when I do it. And I always promise myself I won’t do it again. But if history is any indicator I wouldn’t bet on my marital fidelity. And I know each time I screw around it creates more problems for me than it is worth, hurts me more than it helps, but I don’t seem able to curb my behavior or appetites in this regard. My partner Eddie told me it was evidence of an addictive personality. Maybe. But I don’t smoke, or drink, or do illegal drugs. So what am I addicted to anyhow, Eddie, I ask him?

“I don’t know, Joe, the rush, I think,” he says, “the new pussy, the risk, the unknown. You’re a whacko my friend. Pure and simple.”

I’m a cop, a detective actually. I like being a police officer. I take it seriously. It excites me. Being a detective is good for me and I’m good for it. It’s where I want to be. I worked my way up to detective. I’m proud of myself. Think of myself as one of the good guys. I like that, even imagine I make a contribution to the general welfare of society: maintain the peace, bust the criminals, keep the streets safe for women and children, freedom and democracy. You know.

I make enough money to maintain our family and go on small vacations. Marianne doesn’t have to work though she does. Says she likes the opportunity it gives her to be outside the house. I could retire in ten years if I want to. Maybe I’ll go to law school then I tell myself. Who knows? The captain trusts me. And I think he’s right to trust me. My partner Eddie trusts me. And he’s also right to trust me. Hey, I am a trustworthy police officer. And I’d like a guy like me to be my partner too. I’d even like me as a husband if it weren’t for the cheating. In fact I’d be a completely honest man if it weren’t for the cheating. At least I’m an honest cop. At least I think I am.

My kids are my pride and joy. They mean everything to me. I don’t even know how to explain it. I just get overwhelmed with emotion when I think of them. I know that sounds corny and trite, but I mean it. I love them too much for their own good. I always wanted kids, as long as I can remember. As a kid I wanted kids. And I can’t bear the thought of anyone or anything hurting them. So why do I take these chances, why do I play around with my marriage to Marianne?

It happens like this. I go out to investigate a burglary. The victim is a local TV reporter. She is a reasonably attractive woman, not gorgeous, but suave and sophisticated looking. She goes to a gym judging by her arms, by the cross trainer shoes in the corner of her living room, by the gym bag on the floor by her bed. I’m paid to observe. She has a great body and good teeth. And she doesn’t even see me, at least at first she doesn’t. She’s just focused on how inconvenient it is to be have come home and find she’s been broken into. Everything is all hurry up and business to her. She lives in a nicely decorated little ranch out in West Roxbury. Makes at least three hundred thousand a year I guess. Is wearing a lacey white bra that shows through her clean linen blouse. Has on stockings and three-inch heels. Has just come home from work and found her apartment wrecked. Called 911. Eddie and I were in the neighborhood working a series of B and Es. We get the call. There is the possibility of fresh leads and we are at her house in five minutes, before the crime scene guys, before the fingerprint and photography guys. I like it that way whenever I can. First on the crime scene is the best way to see a crime scene, with fresh clear eyes and no one else’s mess.

“This is how I think they got in,” she says showing me the opened window in the master bedroom at the rear of the house. It has one of those old wooden window latches with an arm lock on the top that turn into a matching lock on the bottom window frame. The latches appear to be perfectly in place.

“Do you leave that window unlocked regularly,” I ask?

“No, I’m actually compulsive about locking it,” she says, “Although I honestly don’t remember for sure when the last time I opened or locked it was.”

“Is anything missing from your house?” I ask. “Or are you just a messy housekeeper?”

“I don’t know yet,” she says, “nothing obvious.”

“’Nothing obvious,’” I repeat, “that’s going to be the name of my police procedures manual or my first novel.” I smile at my own wisecrack.

There is always something obvious at all crime scenes, something that provides the clear path or clue to further information. Sometimes you just don’t see it or can’t add up all the pieces. And I surely don’t see it in this apartment, not yet, and besides which, I don’t know what it is I’m looking for other than an elusive clue. Isn’t that the way it is?

“How do I actually know you guys are cops?” she asks me with a kind of surprised afterthought look on her face. I remember we’re in plain clothes.

“Could it be that we showed you our badges when we walked in and said that we were responding to a 911 call of a robbery and got here about five minutes after your call?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Well then,” I say, “let’s do the specifics here if you don’t mind,” and without waiting for an answer I ask her “first, of all, do you live here alone?”

And she’s actually defensive about this, or frightened, or self-conscious. Something. Her eyes shift a little, like she doesn’t want me to know. And why might that be?

“I live here alone,” she says flatly.

“Does anyone else have a key?”

“Just my cleaning lady.”

“No boyfriends with keys, ex-boyfriends with keys, friends, relatives, handymen?”

“No one. And what does a key matter, isn’t it obvious they came in through the window?”

“It’s not obvious to me,” I say.

“Do you mind if I sit down,” she asks.

“Lady, it’s your house,” I say. “Suit yourself.”

She sits down on her sofa. It seems totally natural that I should watch her skirt ride up her thigh as she sinks into the sofa. And when I look in her eyes she has caught me looking at her skirt.

I linger there a few seconds. There’s nothing wrong with looking at a lady’s legs where I come from, especially if she wants you to look at them, even if ever so ambivalently.

“Mind if I take a look around,” I ask.

“It’s your duty to do so,” she says.

I browse around her apartment in the casual way that works for me, not really knowing what I am looking for, but attentive to detail. I notice nothing unusual at first. I am in the bathroom opening and closing draws peeking at hair dryers, face creams, nail files and diaphragms, when the business card laying in the draw with the lipsticks catches my eye. Every officer in the Boston police department is given business cards. They’re nice to have. You can always leave one with someone who you hope wants to know how to reach you. The lettering is blue and quite distinctive, a little raised on the card, embossed is how I think it’s referred to, with the town emblem in the lower right hand corner. They were so familiar to me that I reached in and picked it up. It’s a little dirty and stained and has been in someone’s pocket or in this draw for some time. “Captain Drew Herrick,” this one reads. Now why in the world did she have Herrick’s card in her bathroom vanity draw, I wonder. There are dozens of innocent explanations, and one or two salacious ones. I file it away for later consideration. That’s what detectives do, you know.

The first time I spoke with her was by phone, in mid-September. I remember the Red Sox had just lost a critical game to the Yankees. Pedro Martinez had thrown eight brilliant innings and the Sox had scored no runs. They lost one zip. I got to the office early Monday morning after my run and before I even closed the door, Katrina, the paralegal from hell, yelled out from the library, “Someone looking for a good lawyer, I told her to try another number, pick up on line two.” A little joke about my competency made over our technologically sophisticated intercom.

“Todd Benjamin,” I said into the phone.

“Mr. Benjamin, I’m looking for a lawyer.”

“Yes.”

“You’re a lawyer, right?”

It always starts this way, very sharp on the probing repartee.

“Yes I am ma’am, how can I help you?”

“Well where do I start? It’s such a long story and I’m not sure what to do.”

“Why don’t you just try to tell me what you want to tell me about how you hope a lawyer can help you.” I yawn, barely containing my impatience.

“Well, I had a little accident the other day and I saw your name in the Yellow Pages and want to know if you can help me.”

“Maybe I can, and maybe I can’t ma’am, but I have to know what it is you’re talking about. What kind of accident was it? Where did it happen? How did it happen?”

“Well, you see, I was waiting for the bus when this guy came up to the bus stop in a big truck and asked if I wanted a ride. And I sort of knew him, or had seen him around, so I got in. And then we drive somewhere I didn’t want to go. I know the city, and he is way the hell away from where I was going, and I tell him “stop and let me out.” But he didn’t. So I opened the door and he grabbed onto my belt and then he let go of my belt and sort of pushed me and I fell out of the truck and the rear tires ran over my ankle.”

“Tell me your name please.”

“Yvonne.”

“Yvonne what?”

“Smith.”

“And where do you live, Ms. Smith?”

“Well, you see, I’m calling from the hospital, and I had to have two operations, and I don’t think I’m going be able to keep my apartment, and I’m going to have to live up with my mother again, and I don’t want to.”

“And what is your mother’s address?”

“How much is this going to cost me, mister lawyer?”

“Nothing Ms. Smith. The way I work on accident cases like yours is that I don’t charge anything for my time and effort unless I’m successful in recovering money for my client. And if I do recover money for you, then I get one third of the money we recover and you get two thirds of the money, but if we get nothing then my time, advice, and effort cost you nothing. Now tell me, did the police investigate the accident?”

“Well, yes and no.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well they came to my hospital room to talk to me.”

“I see. And did the police also come to the scene of the accident?”

“Well, that I don’t know, you see I was hurt pretty bad and the ambulance came and took me to the City Hospital before they was any police there at all that I know of.”

“And who called the ambulance if you know?”

“Well I don’t, you see.”

“Alright, I understand Ms. Smith, Yvonne. A case like yours can get complicated fast, even though it’s only an auto accident. And I think, if I’m hearing you correctly, that you’d like to get some money to pay your medical bills and to compensate you for the pain and the injuries you’ve suffered in this accident. Am I right?”

“You got that right.”

“Right. And there are just so many things that can go wrong in a case of this kind that would make it hard for you to collect that money, just so many things, that you really must retain a lawyer. Whether its me or some one else, its important that you have legal counsel representing you, making sure that you get the money you deserve, that you don’t say anything that hurts your case, that the insurance company, if there is one, treats you fairly.”

“Oh, I understand that. I’ve been hurt before. I want the money. And I’ve decided already, you’re my lawyer, mister.”

“Thank you, Ms. Smith. Okay, to start working on your case I will need you to sign certain documents. One is a contingent fee agreement which confirms there will be no fee due me from you if I am unable to successfully recover money for you but that if I do help you recover money I will be paid the one third fee we discussed.”

“That’s fair.”

“And, of course, I also need a medical release, so that I can get your medical records from City Hospital, or from any other place where you may receive treatment.”

“That’s fair too. So when are you coming out to see me?”

“Well, what I’d actually like to do Ms. Smith, Yvonne, is to send my investigator, James Crawford, out to meet with you. Mr. Crawford will have the papers for you to sign, he can get some additional information from you, and he will then get us a copy of the police report.”

“That sounds good.”

“Good. Now promise me that except for me and Mr. Crawford you will not talk to anyone else about this case, that is about your accident, the circumstances giving rise to your accident, how you are feeling in regard to the injuries you suffered in the accident or anything related to you accident.”

“Well, of course I did talk to the police.”

“Yes. Well in the future tell anyone who wants to talk with you about the accident, even the police, that you are represented by counsel and can’t talk to them without talking to me first. What is it you said to the police?”

“Well, like I told you, I told them I was waiting for the bus and that I went for a ride with this guy, Jeff I think his name was, and that I wanted to get out of the truck, and he didn’t want to let me get out of the truck, and then he sort of pushed me out, and the rear wheels ran over my ankle and busted it badly.”

“Alright Yvonne, please understand something. If what the man who drove the truck did was an intentional act, that is, if he purposely pushed or shoved you out of this truck, then your chances of recovering against his, or the truck owner’s insurance policy, assuming there is such a policy, are one thing. But if you just fell out of the truck, and the accident was a result of the truck driver or truck owner’s negligence, their lack of due care under the circumstances, that’s what we mean by negligence, then you probably will be able to recover. You understand the difference? Because to my mind it is important for you not to say you got pushed out of the truck. Do you understand me?”

Oh I could go on. And I do. What a life this lawyering is.

Lawstory- 02 – Yvonne

I drive to Yvonne mother’s home through neighborhoods I haven’t been in for years, streets that haven’t changed a bit, one, two, and three family houses, some boarded up, shingled, every one, once a working class neighborhood, now just poor, yards with fences and dogs barking behind them, nobody on the street in daylight.

I stand on the porch and knock at the door of the first floor apartment. I hear someone coming down the hall on crutches. “She’s a looker,” Crawford had said to me, but I’m still unprepared for the stark beauty of Yvonne Smith. A junkie no doubt, probably a sometime whore, twenty-five or six perhaps. Angry. Or is it only guarded? Skinny. Sexy. Five foot seven maybe, with gorgeous dark skin, dark eyes, and tight straight hair pulled back in a bun. A loose black shirt is buttoned up to the middle of her sternum between her breasts. I see her taught nipples when she leans over on her crutches. I note the tingling in my lips. I remember the story a doctor friend told me of how he compulsively peeked down his female patients’ shirts and stared down their blouses even after he’d completed their physical exams.

Yvonne’s wearing impossibly tight jeans cut off below the knee on the right leg so she can get them on over her cast. Bare footed. Her toenails are painted red. The skin on her face glistens. She wears no makeup. Her lips are full. She sticks the tip of her tongue out between them when she’s thinking. Who is this person, I have the space to wonder. Where is she from? What is she really like?

“Come on in mister lawyerman, I thought you’d never come by to visit me.”

“Well, I couldn’t get you to come to my office. And you said you had to see me or you’d go to another lawyer. And the court hearing for the fellow who was driving the pickup that ran over you is this Thursday. And I know you’ve been talking to the people from the district attorney’s office. And you’re going to give testimony under oath. So here I am.”

“Come in then. Let’s go to the kitchen and sit down, please.”

I follow her down an empty hallway, past a closed bedroom door on the right. There are no posters or pictures on the hallway wall. The light from the kitchen guides me.

“Pardon the mess. This here’s my mother.”

“Ma’am. Pleased to meet you.”

“Same here.”

“Nice little apartment,” I say.

“Oh not really,” says Yvonne’s mother, “but kind of you to say. I can never get the maintenance people to do anything”

There are so few clients who connect with me on a real level and here are two women who I sense are talking with me as straight as if we were long time friends.

“You want some instant coffee Mr. Benjamin?”

“Please call me Todd. No thanks. I really haven’t got a lot of time, but I did bring a copy of the police report and I’d like to go over it with you.”

“Well that’s fine, but I want a coffee. Say momma would you pour me some hot water please into this cup?”

“Sure, Sugar.”

“Okay, go ahead mister lawyerman, your time is more valuable than mine’s.”

I let that slide.

“Well, here are the police reports,” I say, pulling the folded photocopies from the inner pocket of my suit jacket. “And here is the interesting part from the first one. You see here where it says ‘description of accident’ how it says … no better let me read it to you. ‘Officers on routine patrol in the B104 car receive radio call of woman down on Seaver at Forest. Twenty-six year old black female in obvious distress laying in roadway crying with manifest ankle injuries. Victim states she was thrown from truck and tires ran her over. Called 911. EMT’s arrived for transport to City Hospital.'”

“Yeah, well that’s what happened. It did.”

“I believe you, but what I want to focus on here is the phrase ‘victim states she was thrown from truck.’ But before we do that let me also read you what officer Collins said after his visit with you at the hospital.”

“Victim, Yvonne Smith, age 26, states she was waiting for bus when picked up by unknown stranger. States driver, black male, six one, 180 pounds, 30 years old, light skin, baseball hat, no recalled scars, stopped and offered ride. Says she wanted to go to Brookside and he headed toward downtown. Tried to get out and he wouldn’t let her. Pushed on door of moving vehicle. Fell out landing on right shoulder and run over by rear tires. Could ID.”

“Interesting, no?” I say. “Because in this report it says, ‘pushed on door of moving vehicle and fell out,’ which makes it hard to place the blame squarely on the driver.”

“Well, but that’s exactly what happened. I told you.”

“I understand that’s exactly what happened, and I don’t want you to lie, but remember what I told you, that if it wasn’t an accident you won’t recover any money. If you’re interested in pursuing a criminal complaint it’s one thing, and we would treat that differently, and you wouldn’t need me as your lawyer. But if what we’re trying to do is recover money then this has to have been an accident. Now couldn’t you have just leaned against the door and it sprang open and you fell out.”

“Well, that’s exactly what happened.”

“Or maybe you were partially out the door when he accelerated and took off and that caused you to fall.”

“Yeah, well it was like that also.”

“Good.” I say. And then I say some more.

Lawstory- 03 –

I’ve had my offices in the same building for twenty years. Don’t ask me why, it just happened that way. The building is squeezed in next to some big old department stores, not far from the red-light district, and surrounded by the downtown building boom. It’s amazing what happens when yuppie urban planners and real estate developers turn old cobblestone streets into a mall. I’m on the fourth floor in a corner office. Really sort of nice once you’re inside. Cool in color, awake to the street below, oriental rugs, a framed print of the Constitution given to me as a Christmas gift by my young partner in crime, an infrared photo of Cape Cod from space, a lithograph of the port of Boston in the eighteen hundreds, the picture of F.D.R. that adorned the vestibule to my parent’s apartment in Newark.

When I got out of law-school I was forty years old and not such a desirable commodity. I’d worked as a hospital administrator for years and there were simply no law jobs for forty year old freshmen lawyers with a background in hospital administration. So when I was finally offered a position paying less than half of what I made at the hospital I took it and worked for nine months with an in-house insurance defense outfit. I felt I really had no choice. And I learned a lot. That firm was a little like being in a MASH army field hospital. There were lots of cases needing attention, thousands of cases, with more coming in all the time. American Field Insurance Group represented mostly taxi companies. The insurance side of the company had actually been established fifty years ago when the immigrant founder of the taxi companies got tired of paying someone else for his mandatory auto insurance premiums. So he started his own insurance company. And then he bought garages and parking lots and real estate and before you knew it he was ninety years old, many times over a millionaire, and the proud possessor of the first nickel he had ever earned or stolen.

Lawstory- 04 –

It’s one of those days. I’m up at six A.M. and out in my car in the fifteen-degree morning and at exercise class by seven. The heat in the studio didn’t work. I could see my breath indoors. The instructor’s nipples were firmly pressing against her tee shirt for the entire hour. Not that I noticed. I was in the office with a bagel and juice by nine. The phone rang. And rang. And didn’t stop ringing until five in the afternoon when I forwarded my calls to the answering service. That kind of day, when the phone is never out of my ear and I never leave my chair except to visit the men’s room. People come in to visit without appointments. Old clients. New clients. I sense the business is booming. Not that I’m making money, thank you, just that business is booming. I put people off. I don’t take their calls. Prisoners call collect to talk about anything with someone outside. Stockbrokers. Relatives. Friends. Old clients. Claim adjusters. I tell Katrina to say I’m out of the office. “I hate lying,” she says, “I’m going to go to hell for this Todd. I want a raise.” I beg people to call me later in the week. “I don’t want to blow you off, Charlie, but I’m having one of those Mondays. You’ll call back mid week, okay? Promise? Take care.” I triaged my calls. I attended only to potential new clients. There are a dozen new client calls if there are any. Katrina brings in the mail she’s opened by ten a.m. I never finish reading it before leaving at nine that night. I see my son in his bed being read to by his loyal lovely mother just as his eyes closed. These are the bread and butter days. I don’t really mind them, except when they preclude my other pleasures and endeavors. Most of all I remember perking up when I hear it is Yvonne calling. I can smell her too, “Please, Mr. Lawyerman. I been busted. Please come get me out of here.”

Lawstory- 05 –

I find out Yvonne is held on one hundred thousand dollars bail. It might as well have been one hundred million. She might as well have been held without bail. I ultimately have the amount of bail imposed reviewed at every level of the system, magistrate, trial judge, appellate judge. One hundred K it is; murder not being treated lightly by the courts in any season.

I visit the county jail early on Tuesday, the new jail, the Holiday Inn of jails. Not like the old jail, the catacombs of jails. Call it what you will, they both smell of piss and ammonia.

First I sign in as a lawyer at the front desk. Then I lock all my belongings except a pen and some legal papers in a metal gym locker. Then I am passed through the trap. My hand is stamped, so even if I want to switch clothes with the convict and stay in his place he still can’t just switch from his orange county jail uniform to my gray striped lawyers uniform and walk out to freedom. Need that infrared stamp thank you.

Now locked inside with only my pen I await the elevator. There are video cameras and monitors mounted in the corners of every wall and hallway. There are video cameras in the elevator. On the sixth floor there are still more cameras and more ammonia. At the end of the gleaming institutional hallway is a guard station where I present myself. I am ushered into the attorney visiting room from one side of the hallway. She is ushered in from the other side, the prisoners’ dormitory side. The doors are locked. There is a bell to ring if we want to be let out.

She looks sallow. Tired. Frightened. Caged. “Thanks for coming to see me,” she says. “Its okay,” I reply, “its my job.” The government it turns out has absolutely no evidence against Yvonne other than her confession. Oh, and there’s a dead man. And he was her pimp. Yvonne’s confession is damning but open to diverse interpretation and analysis. She was arrested by Detective Wormly, the famous Black, street smart, bearded Wormly. The Wormly with the big gold cross hanging down his chest and no sympathy. The long suffering, cynical, tired, but incorruptible Wormly who tracked her down and didn’t even ask for a sexual favor.

“I just want to be out of here so badly. I want to see my daughter. I want to go home. I don’t sleep good here. I hate it.”

I feel her pain and imagine my own. I remember the frightened little boy sent to camp against his will crying in terror and helpless humiliation, ” I want to go home.”

I am staring into her eyes. She meets my gaze. We both hesitate to look away. I wonder how many levels of conversation and unexpressed thought we manage on automatic pilot at once. There is our focus on the likely trial, on strategy and hope. There is talk of her unfreedom with remembrances of pain present and pain past. The longing to be somewhere other than where you are. Slavery. I imagine her past. I imagine her physical and mentally pleasure and pain. I remember my past. I realize I am no longer looking in her eyes but staring at my hands. I wonder if she is thinking about her past. About me. The realization that we are caged behind a series of real metal doors and secure locks comes to me again. That I will at a time more or less within my control walk out the doors, out of the building, into the sweet free air, while she will remain behind, perhaps forever, trapped with the scent of ammonia. I am aware she is a woman, a sexual being. I wonder about her sexually. About her sexual past. In my mind I see her naked. I see her breasts, her nipples, her bush of pubic hair. I imagine her shaved. These thoughts follow one another; commingle with one another. Only seconds of silence pass. I worry about disease, about AIDS, and cancer. Wonder if she wonders about me.

Lawstory- 06 – The Suffolk County Courthouse

I enter the Suffolk County Courthouse. Court officers looking at women are lazily scanning the metal detector. This is definitely not federal court. The old courthouse is absolutely an amazing building and every time I walk into it I feel as sense of awe. I know it’s corny, but I do. The courtyard has the first fourteen amendments to the Constitution cemented into it as a walkway leading to the stairs leading to the entrance to the courthouse. Big bronze Roman numerals are embedded in the concrete. It is like the tablets with the Ten Commandments on them, Sometimes I walk around them out of respect for the law, not wanting to trample the high and revered principles they espouse. Other times I walk right across them. Intentionally. Sometimes I feel I am trampling on the law because it is so irrational and unjust. At other times I feel the message and intent of the law being seared into the soles of my feet. I am inhaling the law into my body. From the roots to the brains, traversing my body like blood.

Paul Digiaccomo is one of the nicer court officers. Can’t be more than five foot three inches tall. Waddles when he walks. Easily, or not so easily, weighs more than three hundred pounds. Once I watched as he dieted for months down to a very reasonable one eighty. It was amazing to see him shrinking before my eyes every day I came to court. He was on a liquid diet. I remember him being so proud of himself. And then in no time at all, literally no time, a month maybe, he was back up to three twenty. Don’t ask me how it happened. Too much pasta I think. But Paulie’s smile is still real. Every day it is real. He’s not one of these “good morning, counselor” guys. It’s “Hi, Todd, how ya doin’?” Every day. To everyone.

“Who’s in the First Session, Paulie?”

“Burns,” he says and he groans.

“She’s a piece of work now, isn’t she,” Digiacomo says, “a lesbian, which I don’t care about one way or the other, but man is she also not a very pleasant person, a down right ignorant person, if you ask me, can’t make her mind up half the time, I swear I don’t know how she gets dressed in the morning, and besides that she’s ugly, but hey, that’s just one man’s opinion.”

“Thanks for the encouraging words,” I say.

I sit in the jury box with the comfortable seats waiting for our case to be called. Time passes. Lots of time. I schmooze with other attorneys who come in and out of the session on status conferences. I read back copies of appellate court decisions. I marvel at the stupendous waste of time, at the arcane process for the processing of criminal defendants through the system. The wheels grind slowly and frankly only partially fine.

Yvonne comes up into the dock. I go to stand next to her. Our case is called. The prosecutor says the police responded to a shooting and found Vernald Jackson, aged twenty-two, sometimes pimp and full time punk dead in Yvonne’s apartment. There are three bullet holes in poor Vernald’s back. His sneakers are untied. The homicide detectives at the scene think the loss of life is no big deal. It is finding the preps, completing the puzzle, filling in the colors, that turns them on. Find the bad guy. Get more scum off the street. Just doing their job. All of this takes two minutes. We plead not guilty. It is a capital case. The defendant has a history of defaults. Bail reduction is denied. A pre trial conference date is set.

Then the next case is called.

7.

Yvonne tells me the following story. It is the story she told the police. Perhaps she didn’t remember my telling her not to talk to anyone.

The police found her at her girlfriend’s apartment. They took her downtown to the lockup on “suspicion of murder.” They read her the Miranda warnings. They offered her a lawyer. They told her things would go better for her if she told them the truth. They told her they knew she didn’t shoot Vernald. Then they turned on the tape recorder. They read her the Miranda warnings again. They told her she could have a lawyer, that they would stop asking her questions any time she wished to. They asked if she knew she was being recorded and if she was giving her permission for them to record her testimony voluntarily, and freely, and without threat or coercion or promise. And she nodded her head yes. And they said, “You have to answer audibly, Yvonne, because the tape recorder does not pick up your nods. Is you answer to my last question ‘yes’?” And she answered, “Yes.” The trap doors closed.

The police asked her to tell them if she knew what had happened to Vernald. And she told them. Gave them what they wanted, her tape recorded statement. Sealed her fate.

She had been at the apartment with Vernald and he was beating her. Not viciously enough to draw blood, or to send her to the hospital as he had, just smacking her around, slapping her in the face, punching her in the arms, squeezing her breasts painfully. He kicked her in the ass. He hit her across the mouth with his backhand.

She had been up all night taking tricks downtown. Gave a guy a blowjob in his car. Went down for a guy in another car. Let some funny looking dude from the suburbs unbutton her blouse, unhook her brassiere, rub her breasts, lay his head on her breasts. She jerked him off. He was afraid of disease he said. She had a beer or two. A snort of cocaine. Nothing much. Just trying to pass the time. She worked alone. Came home at about five. Caught a little sleep until Vernald woke up and wanted company and just started messing with her. Was in one of his unfathomable rages. Told her “get outta bed, bitch,” and when she didn’t pulled her out naked. She wrapped the sheet around her. Held it to her with her arms tucked inside. Vernald hit her. Hit her again. Stormed around the apartment. Threw an empty beer can at her. Called her “cunt.” Called her, “whore.” Said she was a no good black bitch. Said she was holding money back on him. Opened the window and took all her clothing that had been laying on the side of the bed and threw it into the street.

She was pissed. Angry. Pulled on a pair of Vernald’s jeans, his floppy old gray sweatshirt and her high heels and was out the door. “Fuck you, Vernald, you bastard,” she said.

When she’d gotten out onto the to street she’d run into her brother, Allen.

“What the fuck happened to you, Yvonne,” he’d asked her. She told him.

“I’m gonna get my gun and scare the shit out of that fucking bastard,” Allen said.

So Yvonne and Allen go down the street to where Allen’s gun is hidden. The rest is history.

8.

Her calls from jail pain me, baffle me. One day she was nice and appreciative and sweet. “I appreciate how you are trying to help me,” she’d say. And the next day her calls were cold and suspicious of me. I could feel it in her voice from the first hello. She didn’t trust me. Thought I was ripping her off. Couldn’t or wouldn’t understand why things were taking as long as they were taking. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you,” she’d say, “I should just report you to the Board of Bar Overseers.” And, of course, I would get angry and hurt, without critical distance. I should have been saying, “I understand why you feel that way. I’ve tried to explain it to you before, and I will try to explain it to you again if you’d like. The law is not fair. And it’s hard to hear that. I know how you feel. And you are not wrong to be feeling what you feel. But there is nothing we can do about it at this time. We have done everything we can. Now we just have to wait. There is nothing further that can be done at this instant. Not by anyone. Not F. Lee Bailey, or Johnny Cochran. We’re held here.” Not like I haven’t said this before. Instead I say, “Look, if you don’t trust me find another lawyer. I am doing everything I possibly can for you. You’re the one going behind my back; talking to people you shouldn’t be talking to, making matters more complicated. I have nothing more to say to you. Call if you can be nice or leave me alone.” Did we say fifty nine year old lawyer here or did we say nine-year-old boy?

9.

I’m talking to a seventy five year old woman with an intense Yiddish accent. “Oy, I vuz in such a terrible fall. At Temple I vuz. Und I cracked mine hip. A real fracture. Five days vus in the hospital. Und then they transferred me to a rehabilitation center, so called, and I got in mine mouth an infection und before I left vus missing mine partial. Twelve hundred dollars cost me the partial. Can you help me?”

10.

The Columbian woman with three kids in talking to me across my desk. Her three kids are nice enough, but very distracted, impatient and bored. The mother is here because her six year old has been modestly injured in an auto accident. My job includes helping her to find treatment for the boy’s ongoing discomfort and pain. Most medical providers I know of do not like to treat young children. I call up a physical therapist who practices near where the woman and her children live. I ask if he’ll treat a young child.

“How young?” he asks.

“Seven going on eight,” I answer.

“But she’s only six,” the woman whispers across the desk.

I put my hand over the mouthpiece. “Please,” I whisper.

“But I’m a Christian,” she says.

“Mommy, all Lawyers are liars,” her six year old eight year old says.

I look at him, playfully surprised. “How do you know that,” I ask him.

“I saw it on television.”

“And you believe everything you see on television?”

“Yeah,” he says

11.

Samuel has been working for me for three years now. I’d met him when he was an aide at Metropolitan State Hospital in Waltham, Massachusetts in the fall of 1980. There were about a dozen aides who worked on the wards as trustees. All were men serving life without parole sentences for first-degree murder. All were let out of prison for six hours each weekday on an unpaid work release programs.

Samuel had been born Black and poor in Virginia, one of seven children. It really is no excuse. After high school he’d joined the U.S. Coast Guard, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but he was a bit of a misfit, smarter than the others, and not just a little lost. It was while in the Coast Guard that he began hanging out in Boston: women, a little smoke, nothing to do, and nowhere to go. Adrift. He and his best friend, Digger, decided to stick up the bar at the Holiday Inn on Massachusetts Ave. outside Central Square in Cambridge one November after midnight. It was ill conceived and more impulsive than well reasoned. They waited until the bar was empty. They nursed their beers. The bar tender served them a last round. Digger pulled out a pistol. Sam claims he didn’t know Digger was even carrying. The bar tender drew a gun. They each fired and the bartender was dead. He had a wife and two young children. Sam was shot in the exchange of fire and ran bleeding from the bar. They’d taken all of two hundred dollars. The FBI knew who he was immediately by his fingerprints on the beer bottles. He became a fugitive and was successfully a fugitive for years. Traveled in fear but without incident. When they finally caught him the Middlesex County prosecutors offered to give him a second-degree murder sentence if he were to plead guilty and give them the name of his accomplice and best friend. Fifteen years to life seemed as long as life then. The disloyalty was too unbearable. He took the case to trial and lost, as he knew he must. There simply was no alternative. And in the end he found himself in state’s prison for the remainder of his natural life without the possibility of parole.

12.

Met State, right? 1980. You can’t really imagine what it was like and how its face changed with the passage of years and seasons. I took that job simultaneously with beginning law school nights, right after falling out of the tree and dislocating my right elbow, right after meeting Lynne, right after Steven’s father died. But here I go again, back to World War II, back to the Bronx and Brooklyn, back to the old countries, back to the cave. Never should have been in that tree.

Metropolitan State Hospital was huge, immense, occupied hundreds of acres of incredibly beautiful pastures and woodlands in the suburbs just outside of Boston. There was a history to the place and old photographs and archives to document it. It was one half do-good social services for the chronically mentally ill and one half Bedlam. Whoever build the hospital had been inspired by an era of plenty and hope and kindness. Of a largess that seems by today’s lights boundless. The physicians were the royalty of this medieval estate. Their flocks and charges were the abandoned mentally ill. The staff was the peasantry who minded the flock. Sometimes it was benign, even healing. Sometimes it was blackjacks and straightjackets. Some times it was all lobotomies, or electroshock, brains in formaldehyde in jars, and a potter’s field for the unnamed dead.

13.

You’re always paranoid as a trial lawyer, at least you should be. Indeed, if you’re not paranoid as a trial lawyer you’re not doing something right. The entire legal system is based on adversarial and conflictual relationships, the myth being that by throwing two people with opposing views into an arena that the truth will emerge victorious. I don’t think it works that way, but I also really don’t know a better way to resolve conflicts. And neither do you. So if you’re not paranoid, if you’re not worried someone is trying to best you as a lawyer, you dramatically increase your odds of being hurt. I didn’t quite understand this when I started practicing law, but it is intensely and essentially true. And I learned the lesson quickly.

One of the amazing things about these adversarial relationships in the law is that they do not really have to be antagonistic. Oh, they may well be and often are, but it is not integral to the practice. Think of boxers trying to beat one another, to hurt one another, to score the most points, or knock the other man senseless. Yet when the fight is over the two fighters shake hands with one another, honored that their adversary had given all that he had to the battle, win or lose, so too football or soccer games. Give it your all and shake hands at the end of the game. Someday you may be back in the arena with that very same now on your team. What goes around comes around.

“So don’t yell at me,” I tell the lawyer on the other end of the phone line. “And don’t be snooty either. If you think that’s efficacious in front of a jury feel free to do so, but you and I are just talking to one another and there is no way you can bully or threaten me. Just cite the law and the facts correctly and give me your perspective or spin as to the merits of your position without the dramatics. We’re talking probabilities here. Of course I understand the weakness in my case. I’d be a complete idiot if I didn’t see the weaknesses of my position. The absolutely best offense in the law is a defense. I get it. But don’t try to bully me into submission, because, unless you’re an absolute rookie, you know that no case is a guaranteed winner or a guaranteed loser and the best we can usually do for our clients is reach some understanding regarding the realistic odds and a more of less fair outcome. So do me a favor, imagine I know the weaknesses of my case, and know them well, and help us along by acknowledging that you understand the strengths of my case and the weakness of yours.” Hey, that’s my rap.

It is the coin of my realm and separates the wheat from the chaff. Any lawyer who says he has never lost a case, or can guarantee the outcome of a case, just hasn’t put in the time. Or has a connection that is very dirty. And I hate dirt. That’s why I try so hard to be honest. I know that sounds like a bit of an oxymoron coming from a lawyer, but it’s not. I know the other lawyer will bend the truth to gain a victory, will stretch the rules, and will take advantage of loopholes and of my ignorance. I do the same. We call that a clean fight, a fight that follows established rules of conduct. It is when the fight isn’t clean that the greatest danger arises for the advocate.

All this talk about relationships between lawyers does not necessarily apply to the lawyer’s clients who may lie and cheat all the time in the name of self-protection and disclosure and the lawyer may never know. Indeed, if you don’t want to know, don’t ask. With the police the rules of the game become even stranger. Police are professional witnesses, like paid expert witnesses. They have a position and a goal and will go to extremes to achieve it. It is jokingly called “testilying” and it goes on all the time, because the police do not like to lose, because they are self righteous and because they know right from wrong and have a sharp sense of what “justice” is, and it may not be what happens in a courtroom.

14.

The jury is out for about two hours. It is a good sign. How could they conceivably convict someone of first degree murder in such a short time. The evidence is not complex. She gave the statement. Where is the evidence of her shared intent. I take hope.

The court officers bring Yvonne back into the courtroom. They take off her handcuffs and she sits on my right side closest to the jury box. Judge McDermott comes out onto the bench. The court officer announces that the jury is entering the courtroom.

“Will the jurors and the defendant please remain standing,” he says. It is the custom.

“Have the jurors reached a verdict?” asks the clerk, and they nod affirmatively.

“Will the court officer please hand me the verdict slip.”

The court officer walks up to the foreperson and takes the verdict slip from her. She hands the paper to the clerk. The clerk hands it to the judge. The judge takes out his reading glasses and reads the verdict to himself and makes sure it is signed and filled in properly. He hands it back to the clerk. The clerk hands it back to the foreperson. It is such an elaborate dance routine.

“Ladies and gentleman of the jury,” reads the clerk, “on indictment number seven one six nine four three zero charging the defendant Yvonne Smith with murder in the first degree what says the jury, guilty or not guilty, madam forelady?”

“Guilty,” says the foreperson.

“Guilty of what,” asks the clerk.

“Guilty of murder in the first degree,” says the forelady.

Yvonne’s scream is never forgotten.

I tell the jurors that the Government just hasn’t proven its case against Yvonne. And I believe it.
“Where is there any evidence, let alone proof beyond a reasonable doubt, what Ms. Smith’s mental state was on the evening Mr. Rauther was shot? Seriously. I’m asking this quite seriously. What proof is there of mental state? What inferences can be drawn? What evidence do you have of shared intent whatsoever?
This is not a complex case ladies and gentlemen. Even taking the evidence offered by the Government at its face value, since, in essence it is entirely and solely the confession of Ms. Smith and hence words out of her own mouth. And what does she say? She says, ‘I went with my brother. I was with him when he got a gun. I went back to the apartment with him. I was there when he shot Dwayne Rauther.’
Please ladies and gentlemen, no one here is condoning the fate that befell Mr. Rauther. It was wrong. But it was neither at Ms. Smith’s hand nor by her will. She was present and that is all the Government has shown. And being present at the scene of a crime is no crime. The judge will tell you that in his instructions. The Government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Ms. Smith shared Mr. Rauther’s intent. And there is absolutely no evidence of that either.

I really like my partner, Eddie Vicarro. It’s like we were made for each other. I like that feeling, that two people who have found each other are people who were meant to have found one another. I’ve felt that way about Marianne, forever I think. Eddie and I see each other off the job too. Some cops say that it’s not a good idea to mix business and pleasure, but that makes no sense to me. We have a lot to talk about, we share certain interests, and we see a slices of the world in ways almost no one other than a police office sees it. So who am I going to talk to? We have crazy schedules. We have the same days off. Give me a break. The one thing that upsets me about Eddie is that he likes to smoke pot. I’m not a humongous moralist, but I don’t do illegal drugs, and I really don’t think police officers ought to break the law. I guess I’m naïve, because there is no shortage of policemen who smoke, which is so ludicrous, but it’s just the way it is. And I believe society is ambivalent about marijuana use anyhow, very different than it is about cocaine, or heroin, or driving drunk. I mean, if you’re a cop and you get busted driving drunk, you’re screwed. And if you’re as cop and you’re caught stealing it’s the same as if you’re John Q. Citizen. Well, to be completely honest, maybe that’s not always true, ‘cause obviously if a cop busts anyone he has a lot of discretion about how far he wants to take it. You know, the first call after a confrontation between an officer and a citizen – whether that citizen is another cop, a priest, or a wise assed punk – that first call belongs to the officer and he can bust the person or he can give out a warning and walk away.

Eddie is also much more of a street guy than I am. He grew up in Charlestown. But he can’t hang out with his friends from Charlestown, because he can’t be himself in front of them, he has to protect himself. And they can’t be themselves in front of him, precisely for the same reason.

Eddie and I do things with our kids together. We catch a movie together. But we never go out with our wives together, that’s a bad combination. Marianne and Angie. No way.

We made the bust in a single-family ranch house on the edge of town. It was not very high tech bust, nor a very high drama bust, at least at the start. We’d gotten a warrant issued that afternoon based on what we told the court was reliable informant information. And, in fact, it was good information and the warrant was good for twenty-four hours. We went in at night, around 2:00 P.M., in plain clothes, with our guns drawn. The man and the woman were asleep in a double bed. We flipped on the bedroom light, “Police,” I yelled, “don’t move or you’re dead.” And they didn’t.

The guy said “what the fuck.”

The girl said, “Oh my god.”

I said, “Not another word, not one fucking word, unless I ask you a question, got it.” I displayed my badge. I had my weapon pointed at their heads. They nodded yes.

Eddie went into the kitchen and gathered up a scale and about a pound of pot in a plastic bag in a shoebox. He came back into the bedroom with the items proudly displayed in each hand.

“Lookie, lookie,” he said. “This is more than enough marijuana to support distribution and we are, my friends, well within a thousand yards of a school zone, hence I would say that each of you is about to do a mandatory deuce and a half, no time off for good behavior, serving every day by day by miserable fucking day in state prison. Too bad, too bad, my darlings, no more sex, no more pot, no more Starbucks. Now don’t make uncle Eddie work too hard, where’s the weapons and where’s the cash?”

“There are no weapons, I swear to Christ,” said the guy. “The cash is in my pants, and a sock in the middle draw, and Angie’s purse. Cut us some slack guys, please.”

“Okay, rule one, if I find cash anywhere else I’m gonna hurt you.”

“No no, I’ve told you the truth, just cut us some slack.”

“You are each under arrest,” I said, “you have the right to remain silent, you have the right to a lawyer, if you cannot afford a lawyer a lawyer will be appointed to represent you. Anything you say can and will be used against you. Got it? Good. Speak at your own peril. Where’d you get the dope?”

“Some guy in a car. I don’t know who he is. It was set up for me by a guy I know.”

“Okay, but not very helpful, why not get dressed, both of you, and take a little ride with us downtown.”

“Come on, man, cut us a little slack.”

“And why might we do that? I mean what have you done for us lately. A bust’s a bust. We get brownie points in our jackets. We get promoted.”

“Hey, just take the shit but don’t take us. Pull the weed off the street, smoke a little yourselves if it’s your trip, jack us off for the money, but leave us alone. We’ll leave town. We’ll not say word one. ‘The bust was a bust’ you’ll say.”

He laughed at his own joke. He was cool and smooth and there was nothing about him I liked. The woman looked pathetic, smushed down hair, no make up, bathrobe, hung over, haggard.

Eddie gathered up the cash. He counted out over two thousand dollars. I was ready to roust them. “Get dressed and then I’m going to cuff you,” I said.

“Check this out,” the guy continued. “We go to trial and I say it was all her shit, that I was just knowingly present, which is not a crime the last time I looked. She says ‘it was all his shit,’ that she’d just gotten here to spend the night. The prosecutor argues joint venture. The defense attorney argues reasonable doubt. It’s a coin toss. Why bother?”

I hate this weasel. I really do, but Eddie is waving at me with his firearm, like get over here closer so we can talk.

“I say we let ‘em go. Who gives a fuck,” he says to me.

“I don’t get it partner. What’s the point? Why are we doing it?”

Eddie shakes the box of dope, the sock with the money. He winks.

“Boys and girls,” he says, “here’s the deal. First you give us the name rank and serial number of the guy who helped you set up this buy. Where we can find him. What he looks like. Everything you know about him, and not any ‘just some guy’ bullshit. Second, we hold this evidence in a very safe place, this evidence with both of your prints all over it, for a long time. Any time we want to make you, you’re ours. Any time. You understand that, right? So in light of that exposure to consequences too dire to risk, you do both in fact leave our lovely town. And I don’t mean casually or over time. I mean you pack your bags, you take what money you have out of the bank, you do not kiss your friends and relatives goodbye, you just leave. People will understand. They know who you are. Call from the road. Say what comes naturally. But do not set foot in this town again. Ever. ‘Cause if we see you here, out comes the evidence and away you go. Understood?”

They nod. The guy says, “I need a little cash, man.” The woman said, “I got kids. I need time.”

Eddie says to me, “Fuck them, Guiseppe, they don’t seem to comprehend the generosity of our offer or the gravity of their circumstances, they’re too fuckin’ stupid to save, cuff ‘em and let’s just take ‘em downtown.”

“Okay, okay,” says the guy. “Angie, please, we’ll set up in Florida. It’s warm there. We’ll send for the kids. Please, Angie, I can’t do time again. Please.”

She was crying. “You really are a stupid shit,” she says.

He gives us his seller’s name, rank and serial number. If it’s true and accurate or not no one knows. Yet.

“You will be out of this house before noon. You will be out of this town before sundown. If I see either of your sorry asses, ever, I will bust you no questions asked and take you down. Hard. No further questions asked, no further questions answered,” Eddie says. “Now we’re out of here. You best pray we never see you again.”

Eddie and I walk out of the door into the cool of night. We get into the car. Eddie drives. We leave the neighborhood and are out onto East Fifth moving in light to negligible traffic.

“What was that,” I yelled at him. “What did we just do and how are we going to undo it? I just don’t get it. I don’t get you. That’s not our M.O. It’s certainly not my M.O. You’ve compromised me. You’ve put me in a terrible place. You showed ridiculous judgment. I can’t understand how I went along with that stupid play. What were you thinking?” It reminded me of things that would happen to me as a kid, but not as an adult, not as a cop. I was Mr. Clean, Mr. Straight and Narrow. It’s how I kept things together. I didn’t do things that could get me in trouble or that broke the rules. I was nervous and pissed off.

Eddie sat there quietly with his eyes on the road, but you could tell he was excited and alert. After a minute he said, “I figured it all out, Roger. It’s simple and I want your help. We just made an extra thousand dollars each. I need the money. I’m throwing the dope in the river. The scumbags are out of town and not likely to return. The dope is not smoked or sold to little kids or grandmothers. You and I are a thousand dollars tax free richer and the world is a better place. No harm. No foul.”

“You are a stupid shit, amigo. You broke the law. You compromised me. It is a nightmare to me, a lose lose situation, a situation in which I have to pay for your fucking stupidity. I am appalled at you, Eddie. No shit. Appalled. No friend treats another friend like that. You are a bullshit guy, a coercive, impulsive shit. Just go fuck yourself, ‘cause you’ve already fucked me.” What really pisses me off is that there is no sweet or easy out and I know it. It is like the fox with his leg caught in the steel jawed trap. I’m gonna have to chew off my own foot to have any prayer of getting out alive. I sit in the car. The city passes by at night and in the mist.

(… explain why )

The fire occurs on the morning after Thanksgiving night. Monique has dropped her beloved four year old Andre off at his grandmother’s house to sleep for the evening with his other cousins and his father who lives there in a room in the basement where he keeps guns and fucks strangers. At midnight Andre’s father goes out with friends. A high tech portable space heater sits on top of a washing machine in the basement and ignites some fabric there. The fire is fed by the air that is drawn into the house through an opened garage door opened next to the illegal basement bedroom, and the home is promptly engulfed in flame and smoke. Six people jump from second floor windows because the smoke and heat coming up the stairwell is too intense. Two are injured. An infant is thrown from the second floor and survives without a scratch. Andre and his ten year old cousin, asleep in the living room on the first floor, are asphyxiated and die.

Monique learns of the fire when awaked by a phone call from friends and rushes to the scene

Her calls really pained me. One day she was thankful and sweet. “I appreciate how you are trying to help me, Todd,” she’d say. The very next day she was as cold and suspicious as she’d been sweet. I could hear it in her first hello. She didn’t trust me, thought I was ripping her off, couldn’t or wouldn’t understand why things were taking as long as they were. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you,” she’d say, “I should just report you to the Board of Bar Overseers.” And, of course, I would feel myself grow angry and hurt, without any critical distance. I should have said, “I understand why you feel that way. I’ll try to explain what’s happening again if you’d like. The law isn’t fair. It’s hard to hear that, I know. You’re not wrong to feel the way you feel. It’s hard being in lock up and not knowing what will happen next. But there is nothing we can do about it at this time. We’ve done everything we can. We just have to wait. There is nothing further that can be done, not at this time, not by anyone, not F. Lee Bailey, or Johnny Cochran. We’re held here awaiting forensic results and our next court date. Period.” I’ve said this before, more than once.

Instead of being my best self, however, exasperation takes over and I tell her, “Look, if you don’t trust me then find another lawyer. I am doing everything I possibly can for you. You’re the one going behind my back; talking to people you shouldn’t be talking to, making matters more complicated. I have nothing more to say to you. Call if you can be nice or leave me alone.”

Are we dealing with a fifty nine year old lawyer here or a nine-year-old boy? Maybe both.

Her Grandfather

Her grandfather called to say he wanted to discuss his granddaughter’s case and I tried to get rid of him. He couldn’t help me and I didn’t have time.

“You know I can’t talk about a client’s case with anyone without my client’s permission,” I said.

“Well, I’ll just talk to you,” he replied.

“Okay, but can’t we do that over the phone,” I asked.

“No, this is something I want to do in person, Mr. Benjamin. Please, sir, this is my granddaughter whose life is in your hands. I want to see you.”

So, of course, I said yes, and here he was, one of these old guys who evoke warm feelings in me the minute I see them. It’s something in their deep mellifluous soft voices, the grip of their hands, the way they look you in the eye, the years and years of history, dignity, and determination etched into their faces. Does every older man remind me of my father? You know in that first moment of appraisal and recognition you are in the presence of beauty and grace borne of long years on the planet and it evokes your immediate respect. You sit back in your chair. You feel your breathing change. There is time to talk after all.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Treadaway,” you say. “Please, have a seat. Make yourself comfortable. How can I be of help to you?”

“Well, Mr. Todd, I don’t know as you can be of any help to me, unless it’s my granddaughter you are aiming to help. You see, Yvonne is my youngest girl’s youngest child and I’ve always been partial to both her mother and herself. Her mother, that’s my Ernestine, I loved her dearly, but she died soon after Yvonne was born and Ms. Treadaway and myself we raised Yvonne from when she was little. Sweet child she was, I tell you that. Used to climb up onto my lap in that huge old chair we kept in the kitchen and just stoke my face and pet me like I was her big old doll. Poke around at my face. Pull it. Push my nose this way and that. Pull the curls of my nappy hair right out till they was long. Flip my ears back and forth. Look me right in the eye. Put her nose right next to my nose so I could smell that sweet milky dew on her breath. God, she was a wonderful child. You understand don’t you? You have children of your own, Mr. Benjamin?”

“Yes, I do understand Mr. Treadaway.”

“I’ve lived in these so called united states of America all my life, Mr. Benjamin. What can I tell you? As an adult I was free to leave and I clearly did not, notwithstanding the temptation and the pain of life here. I’m an American, Mr. Benjamin, and I am as proud of that fact as I am to be Black. I served in what white historians call World War II. And I served proudly. It’s funny how those who shape our language also shape people’s sense of reality. You’ve noticed that I take it. You understand what I mean? I mean sixty million African people, men, women, and children, were ripped from their homes and families and forced to live in the most horrific and degrading conditions for centuries, treated worse than dogs, an entire continent raped and enslaved for centuries, and it is called a “peculiar institution.” Lord god that hurts and makes me crazy. And then when fifty thousand American young men, mostly white boys all, get killed between 1941 and 1945 it is called ‘the Great War, the war to end all wars.’ I ask you.”

I notice his hair and his face as he talks. I notice his long fingers. His eyes never leave me and mine never leave his. It is a deep, comfortable moment, a reminder of rich earth and fertile humus.

“But how can I be of assistance to you today?” I ask.

“You represent my granddaughter, Mr. Benjamin. That’s right isn’t it? Her family loves her. I love her. I want to be sure you know that. I wanted to see the man who has my baby’s fate in his hands. I wanted to remind you that I care very much what happens to Yvonne, that I stand here watching you and praying for you. I want you to know I am beholden to no man, Mr. Benjamin, but that I stand deeply in your debt. We are all somebody’s children, Mr. Benjamin, and deep as you care about your children, that’s how deeply I love and care about Yvonne.”