Mission Hill (20 page)

“Her statement is pretty generic,” I say. “She says she's scared but doesn't allege any actual abuse.”

“Probably because there wasn't any,” Kevin says. “He's got two girlfriends and two kids, both about the same age. Marie is his main squeeze—”

I throw him a look.
Puleeze.
“Main squeeze?”

“Primary partner. That sound better?”

“Not really.”

“And he's got this other woman, Helena. Both think she's his special lady.”

“Seriously,
special lady
?”

He smiles and continues. “Helena finds out about Marie, realizes that she's not Ezekiel's one and only. She punishes him by taking out a restraining order and hauling his ass into court.”

Restraining orders can be a lifeline for victims of domestic violence. It takes courage and resolve to get one. Victims have to stand in a public courtroom and tell the judge, a complete stranger, about the most intimate and embarrassing details of their relationships. Sometimes, however, women apply not out of fear but spite. Looks like Helena is one of those women.

Helena lives in a massive public housing complex built in the 1960s. We get out of the car and navigate a maze of cement footpaths until we locate her apartment. We can hear a cartoon playing on the TV from outside the building.
Th-th-th-that's all, folks.

We knock on the reinforced metal door, and within seconds, Helena pulls it open. She steps aside and lets us in. Rail thin, with a lot of energy, she talks a mile a minute, making me wonder what she's on. Her three-year-old daughter, Zara, is planted in front of the television, watching
Looney Tunes
, sipping from a juice box.

Unlike most people we visit, Helena is an over-sharer. We have no problem extracting information from her.

“Zeke told me that he was going to dump that slut,” she says while folding pillowcases from a bottomless pit of laundry. “I actually believed him. What a fool I was.”

“Let me guess, you ran into her in the hospital?” I say.

“My cousin Tanya called, said she heard that Zeke got shot. I took the bus over to BMC to see him. That bitch was there, standing next to his bed, acting like she was his wife or something. I totally busted his ass.”

A hospital emergency room is a cheater's purgatory. Spouses and girlfriends rush to be by their man's side, only to discover that he has another significant other—or others. There's nothing that a bed-bound patient can do to prevent the encounters. Especially if he's in a medically induced coma.

“Do you know where we can find Zeke?” I say.

“Who cares,” she says.

Time is short, so I hit the note that's guaranteed to elicit a response. “How much does he owe you in child support?”

“A lot,” she says, rolling her eyes and releasing an exaggerated exhale. “Do you know how much a box of Pampers costs?”

I have no idea, and at the rate I'm going in the dating department, I'll never have the need to find out.

“How does Zeke get money to you? Does he mail it or deliver it in person?”

“He brings it by when he feels like it.”

“Call him. Tell him that you'll call the cops if he doesn't give you some money.”

“You want me to threaten him?”

“That's not what I said. I just think you should let him know his options.”

Helena is more than happy to comply, and she makes the call that will smoke Ezekiel out of wherever he's holed up. She hangs up and smiles, pleased with her performance.

“He said he'd meet me at the burger place and give me fifty bucks. Like that's gonna make up for everything he owes me.”

“Better than nothing,” I say, rushing her to grab her purse.

She insists on changing her clothes and comes out of the bedroom all sexed up, wearing a low-cut tight T-shirt and leggings. She combs Zara's hair and wipes juice from her face.

We drive over to the Burger Bonanza on State Boulevard, Kevin and I wait in the parking lot while they go inside. I wish I had used the bathroom at Helena's. My bladder is about to burst, but I have an aversion to public restrooms, especially at fast-food joints.

“They're not supposed to be within a hundred feet of each other, which means we're aiding and abetting in the violation of a restraining order,” Kevin says.

“Arrest us,” I say.

When we get inside the restaurant, it's dinnertime, and there's a line at the counter. A dirty mop and bucket are in the corner, next to an overflowing trash barrel. The odor of grease is so strong that I feel like I need to go to Elizabeth Grady and have my pores extracted. I was hungry when I walked in here. I'd planned to get a burger and a bag of fries for the road. Now I'm seriously considering becoming a vegetarian.

A twentysomething woman with smeared lipstick exits the ladies' room. A fiftysomething man who forgot to zip his pants follows behind. I'm definitely going to wait to pee.

When we approach Exekiel, he turns to Helena. “You set me up,” he says.

“Break up with that bitch, then you get to complain,” she says. “Until then, I don't want to hear you flapping your gums.”

I take a seat next to Ezekiel on a plastic chair the color of Bozo the Clown's hair. Kevin remains standing.

“Told you we weren't going away,” Kevin says.

“Look, we need you for a couple of hours tomorrow, that's it. You'll never have to talk to us again.”

“That's what that other dude said after I testified in the grand jury.”

“I know you've been through a lot and that you're scared.”

“Don't try to play me,” he says.

Kevin pretends to stretch his arms but twists his body in a way that shifts his jacket and exposes the handcuffs that are clipped to his belt. Ezekiel gets the point and says uncle.

We take him to the Parker House, where we stash our most reluctant witnesses. The hotel rooms are pricey, but it's in a great location, a couple of blocks from the courthouse. After we get him checked in at the front desk, Kevin escorts him to his room. I stay behind to talk to the manager.

“No charges to Mr. Hogan's room,” I say. “If he wants anything from room service, he'll have to pay for it with the cash we gave him.”

“Don't want to get burned again?” she says.

“Not if I can help it.”

A couple of months ago, one of my witnesses invited six buddies up to his room to eat steak dinners, drink bottles of booze, and watch porn. He charged everything to the room, which we didn't discover until after he checked out. Owen wasn't pleased when he got the bill. Worse, I had to disclose it to the defense attorney, who argued that I was bribing my witness with food and drink.

We make arrangements to come by and get Ezekiel in the morning and escort him over to the courthouse. Kevin arranges for a uniform to stand watch for the night outside his room, in case he has second thoughts.

 

Chapter Thirty-seven

Court resumes for the day, and the jurors file into the courtroom and take their seats. I glance over at Orlando, and he looks back at me, his eyes landing on the side of my neck. This morning, I removed the Band-Aid and a small scab has formed. Orlando smirks and snorts a little air out of his nose, as though laughing at his own inside joke. I turn to the back of the room. Darrius doesn't flash his gold-toothed smile. He just gives me a vacant stare. He's too smart to threaten me in public.

Sal goes into the corridor to summons my next witness. In what feels like an hour, but is actually about a minute, Ezekiel comes hurtling through the courtroom doors. It's hard to tell who is more surprised to see him, Orlando or his lawyer.

Ezekiel looks like a new man, wearing the oxford shirt and green tie that I had Kevin drop off at the Parker House this morning. I keep a pretty extensive supply of clothing in my office. There are shirts and pants in a variety of colors and sizes for both men and women. I also have an assortment of toiletries that I've acquired from the cosmetic counters of Saks and Neimans—soap, shampoo, combs, brushes, and makeup. It's good to be prepared—left to their own devices, witnesses frequently show up for court wearing tattered T-shirts and dirty jeans, looking like they haven't showered in weeks.

Ezekiel wastes no time stepping into the witness box. He sits and leans forward, eager to begin, making it clear that he wants to get out of here as soon as possible. He keeps his gaze on the floor as the clerk swears him in.

“Mr. Hogan, are you in court today under protest?” I say.

I want to give him a chance to let the audience, especially the gangsters, know that this is on me. That it's my fault. He seems to appreciate the gesture and responds by lifting his head and glaring at me.

“I'm here because you threatened to lock me up. I don't want nothing to do with this trial.”

“The record shall reflect that you are an unwilling witness,” I say. “I'd like to draw your attention to last August, the evening that you were shot.”

Under different circumstances, I would work up to this point slowly, milking Ezekiel's testimony for all it's worth, evoking every painful detail about the suffering he's endured and how deeply this crime has impacted his life. I'd ask about his education, work history, family and, most importantly, the severity of his injuries. But I can get this information in through a number of other avenues: witnesses, medical records, and photographs. I want to limit the questions and minimize his exposure. It's the least I can do.

“What had you been doing around the time that you were shot?”

“Partying with friends.”

“One of those friends was the deceased, Jasmine Reed?”

“Objection. Leading.” Blum wants to drag this out, make it as painful as possible.

“I find that the prosecution has laid the foundation,” Judge Volpe says. “Mr. Hogan is a hostile witness and I will permit the use of leading questions.”

Judge Volpe could have made me jump through a few more hoops, but he's cutting me slack. I'm not the only one who wants to get this over with.

“Was Jasmine, the deceased, your friend?”

Ezekiel nods. “Yes.”

“Tell us what happened.”

He sits for a minute, looks at me, and then looks away. Open-ended questions aren't going to work—I have to feed him ones that he can answer with a yes or no.

“A man pulled up in a beige Toyota?”

“Yes.”

“This man had a sawed-off shotgun?”

“Yes.”

“You had never seen him before?”

“Never.”

“You had no axe to grind with him?”

“None.”

After setting the scene, I slow down and take a breath. “The man who shot you and Jasmine and Denny, is he present in this courtroom?”

He drops his head and looks at his feet.

“Yes,” he says.

At this juncture, I need to get him to make the ID, and I can't do it by spoon-feeding him leading questions.

“Please tell us where he's seated and describe an article of clothing that he's wearing.”

I move to the witness box and stand next to Ezekiel, facing out into the audience. I look over at Orlando, daring him to look back at me. Orlando takes the bait and glares at me, shooting venom in my direction. This gives Ezekiel a moment to breathe and do what he has to.

“He's at the table, wearing the purple tie, sitting next to his lawyer,” he says.

I turn to the judge and say as quickly as I can get the words out of my mouth, “Your Honor, may the record reflect that the witness has identified the defendant, Orlando Jones.”

“Yes,” Judge Volpe says. “I find that the witness has made a positive identification.”

Suddenly and without warning, Orlando shouts, “Motherfucker!”

Judge Volpe scans the courtroom, making sure that the court officers are at the ready, and then pounds his gavel.
Bang. Bang. Bang.

“Mr. Jones, settle down. Outbursts like that will not be tolerated—”

Orlando doesn't wait for Judge Volpe to finish his admonition. He jumps out of his chair, extends his arms high in the air, and yells, “This is bullshit. Punk-ass snitch!”

Court officers run to Orlando, but before they reach him, he takes hold of the heavy oak table in front of him, hoists it off the ground, and hurls it in my direction. I'm stunned motionless.

A few pencils fly by, narrowly missing my eye. A cup of water hits my shoulder. I try to duck but the table strikes me head-on, knocking me to the ground. I whack the back of my skull against the floor so hard that I see a flash of light. I think I lose consciousness.

After a few seconds, I pick up my head, lean on my elbows, and open my eyes. Court officers pile onto Orlando and tackle him. Sal races Judge Volpe off the bench and into his chambers and locks the door behind him. A deputy radios for backup. Dotty gets down on her hands and knees and crawls under her stenographer's table. Blum jumps out of the way and hysterically yells at Orlando to calm down. The clerk bolts out a side door and into the stairwell, followed closely by Ezekiel. Reporters snap pictures. Bystanders turn on their cell phone cameras. Harold waves his cane in the air. Jackie Reed starts to pray.

Darrius rushes from the back row and joins the fray. Police officers and two random men from the audience come forward to help. Some struggle to intercept and capture Darrius and others fight to hold Orlando down. Court watchers jockey to get out of the courtroom as more police officers charge in from the hallway.

Finally, Orlando is subdued and dragged out of the courtroom in shackles. Darrius is yanked to his feet and frisked for weapons. A police officer discovers a small folding knife with a red handle tucked in his shoe.

I become aware of Kevin, who is kneeling at my side. I'm not sure how long he's been there. He offers his hand and helps me to my feet. My head is throbbing. My back is sore. A bump is starting to form behind my right ear, and there's a welt on my forearm.