Key Witness (84 page)

Had they once been closer in how they saw the world, and over the years suffered an erosion, a slow, imperceptibly widening chasm? Or had the differences always been there, papered over by the comfort of their circumstances?

That cover wasn’t there anymore.

H
E SAT IN HIS STUDY,
going over his paperwork yet again. Was there anything in this mountain of print he could use, or were his entire case and Marvin White’s life going to come down to whether or not Lieutenant Doris Blake had helped Dwayne Thompson invent the goods on Marvin? The odds seemed astronomically long, especially since the good lieutenant seemed to have flown the coop; but it was the only play he had left. Those two incidents involving computer misuse stood out like neon signs in Vegas: the records showing that Marlow had downloaded the Alley Slasher files onto his computer, which Marlow had flatly denied, which meant that unless it was a clerical mistake, someone else had, under his name; and Blake’s bar exam score being altered, almost certainly via phone-line computer contact.

That Burnside character, the one Violet had spotted. He would have been perfect, except for that one indispensable detail of being in jail during one of the murders. Maybe they had gotten the dates confused, or something. Anything.

He scrounged through his files until he found Burnside’s jail record of when he’d been in. The dates were there, in irrefutable black and white—booked in on date X, released on date Y. Forty-five days, like Angelo had said. Murder number four had occurred on day twenty-eight after Burnside entered the facility.

He mulled over Burnside’s sheet again. This man, this serial rapist, would have been a perfect fit, except for that jail time.

Was there something missing?

The notation, written in ballpoint and smudged from handling so it was almost illegible, was under the section headed “Work Detail: See attached.”

There was nothing attached.

The deputy sheriff clerking at the jail’s record desk knew Wyatt so well by now he didn’t even have him go through the formal process of showing ID. “This is a copy,” he told Wyatt. “Let me go find the original.”

He came back five minutes later, a three-by-five card in his hand. There was both typing and handwriting on the card, some signatures. “You want me to make you a copy?”

“I’d appreciate it.”

T
HE WRECKING YARD WAS
an entire city block square, bounded on one side by the river. Thousands of old cars, flattened like metal pancakes, were stacked on top of each other, a dozen or more in a pile. Trucks rumbled in with old scrap, barges tied up alongside the long dock, buttressed up against the pilings, unloading and loading cargo.

Wyatt stood in the small, cramped manager’s shack, talking to the foreman, their heads huddled together. He had the copy of the three-by-five card in his hand. The foreman pointed to something on the card and nodded. Wyatt pumped his hand vigorously, ran out of the shack, jumped into his Jaguar, and left rubber leaving the yard.

R
ICHARD AND LOUIS PARKED
Richard’s dilapidated old Honda Accord down the block from the Four Deuces. They got out and stood on the sidewalk, surveying the scene. Although it was night, almost eleven, the street was teeming with pedestrian traffic: people getting out of their hot, stuffy apartments, people going to bars where it was air-conditioned. Standing there next to Richard’s banged-up wheels, they felt a keen sense of estrangement, danger, excitement, and pure fear-energy. This was 44th St. Gang territory, and they were most definitely persona non grata.

“You sure this is the only way to do it?” Louis asked, eyes darting about apprehensively, dragging heavily on a cigarette.

“Ain’t the best idea in the. world,” Richard agreed, “but it is a sure thing.”

“Sure thing gettin’ the shit kicked outa us.”

“We got to get arrested, man. A split lip ain’t no big thing.”

Striding down the block, they pushed through the swinging doors into the Four Deuces, and were spotted before they reached the bar, which wasn’t far from the door. “What the fuck you doin’ in here?” called out an angry voice from somewhere back in the room. “This 44th Street territory, mo’fuckers. Get the fuck outa here.”

They ignored the voice and leaned into the bartender, a tough-looking older woman. “Couple of Miller Lites,” Louis growled.

“I ain’t serving you,” the woman answered him in an ugly voice. “Get your black asses outa here. I don’t need the kind of trouble you’re bringing.”

“Give us our beers and we won’t be no trouble,” Louis answered. He was talking to the woman, but he was keeping an eye on his back through the full-length back-bar mirror. Richard was standing with his own back to the bar, checking things out.

Louis took a deep breath, “Who in here can give me a good ass-rimming?” He asked the bartender in a voice loud enough to carry the length of the room. “I heard all these 44th Street dudes like it that way.”

It happened immediately—fists, knives, chairs. Richard and Louis were ready; they stood shoulder to shoulder and stoically took the enemy on. The woman bartender was dialing 911 before the first bottle broke, and the cops were there in less than two minutes.

The damage wasn’t that bad, considering the hatred between the warring parties and Louis’s bow-shot. Dexter’s men were beat up, and some of the 44th St. guys were, too. No serious injuries—no guns had been drawn. A few chairs broken, glass bottles smashed behind the bar, the usual dust-up residue.

The two were arrested for disorderly conduct. After spending the night in a holding cell, they were brought before a magistrate in the morning. Although their bail was set low, since it was a relatively minor offense, they chose not to post. They were remanded to the custody of the sheriff to await trial. By one-thirty in the afternoon they had gone through the formal bookkeeping process and were assigned to a cellblock.

It was hot inside the jail—every inmate who wasn’t considered a threat to the population was allowed out. Marvin White and Dwayne Thompson weren’t among those afforded this privilege, of course (for very different reasons), but almost all the other prisoners were.

How the fight got started, no one knew. Most likely an argument over hogging time in the weight area. All of a sudden Richard and another prisoner, a white guy, got into it big-time. Richard was banged up pretty good, but the white dude got the worst of it. By the time some of the trustees and guards were able to pull them off each other he had several teeth knocked out, possibly some broken ribs, and numerous bruises and contusions.

They were both brought to the infirmary for treatment. Samples of blood were drawn from each man, a precaution to make sure neither man was HIV-positive. The blood samples were labeled and sent to a certified lab for testing.

Since no one knew (or was willing to come forward to tell) who had instigated the fight, neither man was charged with the assault. It was noted on their records, and could be used against them if the authorities decided they wanted to, although generally, if a prisoner kept his nose clean for the rest of his stay, they let things go. The jail was badly overcrowded, and keeping a man in for fighting was a waste of time, resources, and space.

Richard’s punishment was confinement to his cellblock; Elvis Burnside was kept in the infirmary overnight for observation, although he insisted he was fine.

D
ORIS BLAKE HADN’T SHOWN
up for work again and she hadn’t called in, either. Calls to her condominium were taken by her answering machine.

The marshal went back three days in a row. The same response—nothing. Newspapers were piled up in front of the door, and her mail slot was overflowing. There was no record of her traveling on any scheduled airline, train, or bus.

They finally located her Toyota Camry late Saturday afternoon. It was parked in the far corner of the lot, away from her assigned space. It had a thin coating of dust on it, as if it had been parked there for some time.

Complying with a court order, the manager of the complex unlocked her door with his master key. The marshal and two members of the sheriff’s IAD team, wearing latex gloves to prevent contamination, opened the door and went inside.

The apartment had been closed up tight, and the air-conditioning was off. It was like being in an oven; close to 130 degrees, and the stench was overpowering. All three men involuntarily gagged, their hands going to their mouths and noses. They staggered outside. Then they called for backup.

Doris Blake’s huge body—naked, immensely bloated, the top two-thirds paler than marble, the bottom portion purple-black with settled blood—was sprawled out in her bathtub. The barrel of her .357 automatic was still stuck into the corner of her mouth, the hand that pulled the trigger frozen onto the gun butt. The back of her head and most of her brains were splattered against the back tile wall, over the faucets.

Her suicide note, found propped up on her bedside table, was a plaintive, pathetic cry for understanding and forgiveness:

Dwayne Thompson was my lover. Because of my blind love for him, the only man who ever returned my love, I compromised my position as a guardian of the people’s trust. I do not deserve to be a lawyer; nor do I deserve to be a police officer, because I have broken the law. That I did it out of love makes no difference. The one thing I never did, however, was let Dwayne use my computer to get evidence against Marvin White or any other prisoner. Please forgive Dwayne for helping me, and please forgive me. Unless you have never known love, you cannot understand why I acted as I did.

(Signed) Doris Blake.

They searched the place high and low, but her computer was not to be found.

Judge Grant, reached at a restaurant where he was having dinner, immediately ordered the letter to be sealed. It would not be made public or admitted into evidence unless the contents of her computer, when and if it was found, revealed that it had been used to obtain information directly related to the trial.

Wyatt was at home when he got the call from Josephine informing him of the suicide.

He was struck dumb. “That’s horrible.”

“I know,” she said softly.

“That poor, sad woman.” He pressed the cradle of the phone to his forehead. “I’m responsible for this.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she answered sharply. “She was an adult, she knew what she was getting into when she took up with Thompson.”

He sighed. “I suppose.”

“It’s true,” Josephine insisted. “You can’t beat yourself up over something like this. He used her, she let him, and she couldn’t face the consequences.”

“You’re right. Still, I feel … something.”

“The computer. We have to find it,” she reminded him. “That’s the important thing.”

“It wasn’t in her apartment? They tossed it?”

“Thoroughly—her car, too.”

“Maybe she threw it away,” he half joked.

“You think she’d do that?”

“I was skywriting, but when you think about it, it makes sense, doesn’t it? She knows she’s not going to have any more use for it, and she doesn’t want to leave a piece of incriminating evidence behind.”

“Which means it could be in any trash can in the city. Good luck finding that.”

“Or it could be right under our noses.” He was getting excited. “She testified that she hadn’t brought it to work since she’d taken her bar exam. Okay, let’s say she lied and brought it in for Thompson, hacker extraordinaire, to use. He uses it for what he needs—”

She cut in, finishing his thought: “—accessing the files and using Marlow’s name and ID—”

“—and she takes it back home!” he finished up. “And it sits there, in her house, until she rushes home from work, barricades the place, and eats her gun.”

“But gets rid of her computer first,” Josephine thought out loud.

“Someplace close,” he prompted her. “Very close. She was tipped off the marshal was coming to serve her and she wanted everything done before he got there.”

She was on his wavelength, as always. “I’ve wondered what it would be like, being one of those bag ladies who live out of trash cans.”

“Be careful,” he cautioned her.

“Of what? I’m looking for a ring my feeble old mother threw away by mistake. A family heirloom.” She laughed over the phone. “Don’t worry. I won’t embarrass you.”

T
HERE WAS A TORRENTIAL
downpour all Sunday morning and well into the afternoon, and when evening came and it was over and had moved on, the weather broke. While it was still humid, the temperature was cooler, and the misery index wasn’t nearly as oppressive as it had been. People felt optimistic again.

The workweek had begun. Monday morning, nine o’clock. What remained of the cast of characters was in place. Wyatt sat at the defense table, Marvin stiff and upright next to him, Jonnie Rae and her brood in the first row behind. Dexter was still in the hospital and Louis and Richard were in jail. Across the aisle, Abramowitz and her team sat smugly in their places, waiting to see if Wyatt had one last gasp, one final, implausible straw to grasp at before he went down. Judge Grant was moments away from making his entrance.

The heavy rain had kept Josephine from going through the trash cans and Dumpsters in Blake’s condo complex. Since she had to be in the courtroom to help Wyatt, Angelo had been enlisted to do the dirty work.

Wyatt leaned over to Josephine. “Any news yet from Angelo?”

She shook her head, pointed to the beeper on her belt. “He’ll call me if he finds anything.”

Grant entered the courtroom, strode purposefully to the dais, and took his seat. “Bring the jury in, please,” he instructed the bailiff.

The jurors filed in. Their expressions were blank—they didn’t know anything about Blake’s suicide or the missing computer.

“Call your witness,” Grant instructed Wyatt.

Wyatt nodded to the clerk, who read aloud from her witness sheet. “Call Dr. Gloria Lynch.”

Abramowitz stood up. “This witness was not identified to us as part of discovery, Your Honor.”

Before Grant could say anything, Wyatt gave his reason. “We weren’t planning on using this witness, Your Honor,” he said. “But new evidence has just come to us that compels her testifying. I think that when you hear what she has to say you’ll agree with me.”