No Show of Remorse (8 page)

CHAPTER

12

I
LEFT THE COMMUNITY CENTER
and drove up to Fifty-fifth Street, then east to the Dan Ryan. Rain poured down as though it were the sky's last chance to prove it couldn't be pushed around.

I didn't know the whole story about what happened the night Jimmy Coletta got shot, but what I did know was enough to hurt Jimmy if it came out. That's exactly what he was afraid of. But why would Jimmy—or some others who'd be hurt as bad, or worse—why would they think I'd break open now, after all these years? I'd said right in the petition I filed that I still didn't intend to reveal what my client Marlon Shades told me in confidence. Didn't they know me well enough to—

And then I understood.

Whether they knew me and thought I wouldn't tell wasn't the point. They knew Jimmy Coletta. He was the one they were worried about. He couldn't bring himself to lie to me even when he was angry. If the commission subpoenaed Jimmy and put him under oath he might not be able to get himself to lie, even if telling the truth meant dragging himself down, as well as the others.

I'd filed my petition thinking I'd see whether the supreme court would give my license back even though I still wouldn't tell what my client had told me. If I got the license, fine. If not, so be it. Now it seemed that if there was a hearing, even if I didn't tell what I knew to be the facts behind the shooting at Lonnie Bright's, Jimmy Coletta would.

Did I still want to go forward with the petition? Chances are I wouldn't get my license back. And if Jimmy brought himself and the others down, what purpose would be served? Would it bring “closure” to a bunch of innocent family members who thought they wanted the truth, but who'd only be hurt if they ever heard it? Would it achieve “justice”?

If it was justice I was after, maybe I should see what I could do to keep a hundred million children from going hungry that night while I fumbled around in my refrigerator for another Sam Adams and threw out that half-eaten pizza just because it had a little fuzzy stuff growing on it. “Justice” seemed to be mainly what people wanted it to be, to serve their purposes.

I probably wasn't going to eat that moldy pizza. I probably wasn't going to send a check to Ethiopia—or Englewood, either, for that matter. And I certainly wasn't going to tell myself that flushing Jimmy Coletta down the toilet would bring anyone “closure,” or have a whole lot to do with “justice.”

*   *   *

T
RAFFIC WAS JAMMED
up downtown. I parked illegally and ran inside and called Barney Green from the lobby of his building. I waited five minutes, then went up to his office and picked up a padded envelope he'd left for me at the reception desk. The envelope had my name on it and was stamped:
Attorney-Client-Privileged Material.
I left without seeing Barney or speaking with him or with anyone else.

Five years earlier I'd delivered that envelope to Barney. Inside the envelope was an audiocassette tape, a recording of a conversation I'd had with my client Marlon Shades and his mother. I hadn't told Barney that, but he'd known it was something big time and agreed to keep it safe and out of sight. That had been the day before I was to surrender Marlon, to be questioned as a witness in the cop killing. Marlon was to keep his mouth shut and rely on the fifth amendment. He got scared, though, and skipped. I was taken into custody instead.

Marlon and his mother hadn't known I was recording our conversation. Did that make it illegal? Maybe yes and maybe no. The state eavesdropping statute, and how it was to be interpreted, was pretty unclear at that time. But I'd thought when I did it that, legal or not, the heat was on higher in that case than in anything else I'd ever been involved with, and I'd wanted to hold as many cards as possible.

*   *   *

E
ITHER EXPRESSWAY TRAFFIC MOVED
more quickly than usual through the rain, or else I wasn't paying much attention. Before I knew it I was far north of downtown, near the junction where the Kennedy angles off to the left toward O'Hare and the Edens goes straight north. I stayed to the right, got off at the next exit, and drove to the parking lot of a picnic grove that was part of the Cook County Forest Preserve District.

It was a pretty dismal scene, just three other cars widely spaced along the row of parking slots. I took the end spot, as far from the others as possible, and made it four. Four men sitting alone in four cars and staring out at the rain, maybe some of them listening to the radio. I was probably the only one, though, with a cassette in his tape deck with information that could ruin a whole bunch of people's lives.

CHAPTER

13

I
PUNCHED
Play
and heard my own voice, first with the date and time, then stating I was going out to get Marlon and his mother. Then silence, then the sounds of getting them into my office. I fast-forwarded through the beginning of the interview, to listen again to the part I still knew almost verbatim:

Marlon, how Mr. Foley here s'posed to help you, you won't tell him where you was?

I can't, Mama. I be sittin' up in the shithouse fifty years or somethin'… they don't kill me first. I can't tell him that part.

Dammit, boy, you like to drive me—

Sally Rose, please. Let me talk to him, all right?…
LENGTHY SILENCE
… Marlon, I believe you when you say you had nothing to do with killing anyone. But you have to tell me what happened.

How I know you ain't gonna jus' tell everyone what I say? Shit. You another one of them—

Hush up, boy. This here's your lawyer. He can't tell nobody, 'cause o' that … whatchacallit … priv'lege. Ain't that right, Mr. Foley?

Yes, and—

I ain't tellin' where I was. Y'all don't …
INAUDIBLE
…

You have to speak up, Marlon. My … uh … my hearing's bad. I didn't hear that last part.

Nothin'. I said I ain't tellin' you where I was.

It's up to you, but what your mother says is true. Anything you say here is privileged. The rules say I can't tell. I could lose my license if I did.

Fuck the rules! Rules don't mean shit when—

Marlon! You watch your mouth, boy.

Sorry, Mama, but … but how I know …
INAUDIBLE
… Plus, how I know they ain't gonna change the rules, man? Then they make you tell.

Goddammit, Marlon, I don't care if they erase all the rules, or what they say, or do, or … whatever. I won't tell anyone, that's all. I just won't. Not ever. You have my word on that.

Yeah, but …
INAUDIBLE
…

Well, that's fine. But I won't represent anyone who doesn't trust me. Sorry, Sally Rose, but—

It ain't I don't trust you, man. My mama trusts you, so I guess I do, too. Problem is …
INAUDIBLE
… So I don't know. Maybe … I guess I tell you.

Good. So when Lonnie Bright and Fay Rita and the police officers got shot, where were you? What were you doing?

OK. I'll tell y'all what I was doin'.…
LENGTHY SILENCE
… Shit.

Marlon?

Yeah. OK … I had been stayin' with my uncle—Lonnie, you know?—up at his crib since … I don't know…'bout January. But I wasn't up in there when it happened. The shootin', I mean. I didn't know nothin' about none o' that. When I heard them shots I was …
INAUDIBLE
…

What? You gotta speak up.

I was in the alley, behind Lonnie's place. I was—

Wait. Who was with you? Anyone who can back up your story?

It ain't no story, man. It's the truth. My uncle an' his lady know … but they dead. And … and the only other ones who could back me up ain't gonna do it.

Why are you so sure?

'Cause one of 'em dead, man.

Dead?

Yeah. And two be up in the hospital. And another one … well, I don't know who he is, but he ain't gonna help me any.

Why not?

'Cause he a cop, that's why. Jus' like the others.

You mean four police officers know where you were? Is that what you're saying?

Yeah. Well, it was four of 'em in on it, I think. But at least three I seen. 'Cept one of 'em dead.

Sal Coletta.

Right.

Damn. And his brother? James, is it?

It's Jimmy, far as I know. The one still up in the hospital.

Okay, and another one whose name you don't know?

Right. An' then there was one, like, out in front I think, but I don't—

Marlon, when the shooting happened, what were you doing in the alley?

It was a car there, an' I was … I was unloadin' some shit outta the trunk o' one car and into another.

Some shit? What kinda shit? Drugs, you mean? Heroin? Cocaine? What?

Coke, man. Bags and bags of it. My uncle had made this deal with the cops. It was a lotta shit, man. A whole lot.

And whose car were you taking it from?

It was a unmarked police car, man. One of the cops had pulled it up in the alley. The other one, he had opened—

What other one? Who?

The one they be callin' Jimmy, man … the dude still up in the hospital?… he had opened up the trunk, so Lonnie could check the shit out, man. Then him and two cops went up in the crib, and I was movin' the bags into Lonnie's car, with that Jimmy one watchin' me. I was almost done, man, an' then I heard some shots from upstairs.

And what did you do?

I didn't do nothin'. I didn't even close the trunk shut. I was, like, scared, man. Then this here Jimmy, he told me don't go nowhere and he run up the steps. I mean, I stood there like a second and then I tore ass down the alley and outta there. They bust me on this an' it be my third strike, man. I be up in the shithouse till I be dead, an'— Anyway, that's it, man. That's all of it.

Yeah. Well, that's … uh … that's a lot. But we need to go over it again, okay?

Yeah, awright man, but first I gotta go to the baffroom again.

CHAPTER

14

B
Y THE TIME
I
GOT HOME
it was dark and the storm had spent itself. I'd rewound the tape and sat there in the Forest Preserve for a long time, then listened again and sat there some more. After that I ate a supper I didn't taste at a restaurant I hardly noticed, then rewound the tape again, but didn't play it. It wasn't going to get any better.

The iron gate to the Lady's drive was closed and chained, which it never was. A woman stepped out of the shadows, though, and unlocked the padlock and opened the gate. It was Layla, the Lady's graduate whom I'd met the night before. I drove through and parked the Cavalier half under the wide eaves of the coach house. Farther down the drive, at the Lady's house, the shade was up in one of the attic windows, where I'd never known the shade to be raised before. I stared up, and even though I couldn't see into the darkness beyond the glass, I could feel another graduate sitting up there, staring back down at me.

There was a message on my answering machine from Barney Green's secretary. She'd done a computer search and found an antiques dealer in San Francisco who might have a lead on an Expulso toilet bowl. In the meantime, she said, I better get a plumber to install a substitute. I took a few Polaroid shots of the tank and wrote down the measurements the dealer needed. I'd mail them in the morning.

I threw out the pizza, fretted and moped over a bag of pretzels and at least one beer too many, and went to bed. An hour later, I got up and trudged down to the bathroom in the garage for what I hoped was the last time that night. On my way back up the stairs, I finally came to a decision.

There was only one reason to go ahead with my petition. That was to prove that I couldn't be frightened into dropping it. If I stayed with it and there was a hearing, there'd be testimony about the shooting, its devastating effects on several families, and my continuing refusal to obey the supreme court and cooperate with the police investigation. I was thoroughly convinced now that a hearing would bring the cops' involvement in a drug deal out into the open. Put Jimmy Coletta under oath and he'd tell the truth.

That's why they were trying to bully me into dropping my petition. And Maura Flanagan had told Clark Woolford that if intimidation didn't work, I might not survive for there to be any hearing. Meanwhile, though, Flanagan was pressuring Woolford—bribing him, in fact—not to contest my reinstatement. But why?

With no contest, I'd still have to show I was rehabilitated, but there'd be no testimony from any cops. So there'd be no need to kill me. Maybe Flanagan was trying to do me a favor. Yeah, right. On the other hand, maybe she had her own reasons for not wanting testimony about the shootout at Lonnie Bright's.

There'd be statute of limitations and evidentiary problems, but three people had died—Sal Coletta, Lonnie Bright, and Lonnie's girlfriend, Fay Rita Jackson. So even if the cops hadn't started the shooting, the killings occurred in the commission of a felony, and they might all face felony murder charges. And there's no statute of limitations for murder.