The Good Lawyer: A Novel (14 page)

“Was the baby with her?”

“In a little stroller…a little carriage. I held the door for her.”

“What was the baby like?” I was probing his feelings for the victims, hoping he would not pick up on it. Beads of sweat tingled on my forehead and I asked myself what it was I feared most: that I was sitting across from a diabolical killer, or that I wasn’t, and if so, that he deserved a much better lawyer than me—especially since he was about to become the number one target of prosecution and the subject of the most torrential negative publicity the Bronx had seen in decades.

A headache was beginning in my eyes.

Jefferson still seemed to be searching for words to describe the infant girl. “She was cute…tiny…wrapped in white blankets. She wasn’t big enough to walk. Like she was just a few months old.”

“Was she crying when you saw her?” Maybe that’s why he killed her that night. A baby’s cries could sound like a siren to someone not used to them, no less a maniacal rapist.

“I never heard her cry. She was just goo-gooin’, stuff like that.”

“What about Grace? What was she like?”

“I told you. Nice.”

“What did she look like?”

“Pretty. Very pretty. Looked pretty good too for just havin’ a baby.”

“Did you ever think maybe, you know, since she was so nice, you…stood a chance with her?”

“You mean like as a boyfriend or somethin’?”

“Yeah.”

“You kiddin’? I’m a janitor. I live in the basement next to the boiler room. She’s a cop’s ex-wife. I’m black. She’s white. Besides, I wasn’t interested.”

“Because she was white?”

“No.” Oscar frowned with displeasure.

I figured he was on to me. I didn’t want a calculated answer so I pressed him again. “Why? Why weren’t you interested in her?”

He looked at me as if I just missed a solar eclipse on a cloudless day. “Because I’m gay.”

I was stunned. “You mean you’re homosexual?”

“No. I’m just a very happy fuckin’ guy. Yeah, I’m a homosexual.”

“So you’re gay…gay.” I repeated this a few more times as I absorbed the ramifications of this simple revelation. “Have you ever been with a woman? How long have you been gay?” I was rambling—grateful Oscar wasn’t the most worldly of men, because I must have sounded idiotic.

“Always, I suppose. I mean, I liked girls—they were nice and all—but they never, you know, excited me.”

“Have you ever tried to have sex with a woman?”

“When I was fifteen but…she was fifteen too and neither of us really wanted to. I was kind of relieved.”

“So you’ve never had sex with a woman?”

“Never.”

I sat back in my chair and studied Oscar for a bit, then sprung my next question.

“Would you take a lie detector test?”

“Sure. I’ll take it today! Will they let me out when I pass it?” He seemed so thrilled at the prospect I braced myself for an awkward hug that didn’t come.

“I’ll set it up. The Administrative Judge will have to sign the order while you’re still detained.” A glow remained on his face. “Listen, Oscar. Even though you’re only charged with burglary, the police and the D.A. believe you’re the Spiderman rapist, and killer of Grace and her baby. I’m sure the prosecutor will mention this in court. This will mean you won’t be going home today.” His expression soured and his teeth clenched. “Also, don’t expect a big show from me this morning. You’re not being released no matter what I say. Even though there’s only a burglary charge against you, the judge will set a bail neither of us could ever make. Now we both have to play it cool and not get upset no matter what happens out there. OK?”

“Are you goin’ to tell everyone out there I’m gay?”

“I don’t think it would do much good today, Oscar.”

Chapter 27

T
he steel door slammed shut behind me—in prejudgment, like an ominous prevaricator, and I wasn’t sure what smelled worse, the courtroom or the detention area.

Almost everyone in attendance was still damp from the morning’s downpour, me included. A restless mix of reporters, court personnel, and pedestrians packed the courtroom pews, but what bothered me most was the blank stare from every police officer in the room.

When several court officers entered from the clerk’s office the courtroom became conspicuously quiet and the traffic on Sherman Avenue could be heard two floors below. It was an adults only crowd. Attorneys in attendance were talking in whispers.

I sat down on the defense side of the courtroom and considered the squall of hostility soon to be unleashed at my client. I thought about the interview with Oscar Jefferson, and his exuberance over the prospect of taking a polygraph.

Repolla was sitting in the second row on the right side of the courtroom, the defense side, scribbling notes in a tiny pad. He looked up and smirked at me. I winked back nervously as the Bridgman yelled, “All rise!” and Judge Preston Shefflin strutted out of chambers and up to the bench.

The audience rose and sat like dutiful churchgoers.

I stood before the court, and in seconds Jefferson was stationed beside me, three officers in triangular formation behind him. For the first time I felt uncomfortable with my back to the crowd.

Preston Shefflin had been a criminal defense lawyer for over twenty-five years before taking the bench on a mayoral appointment to fill a slot vacated by a retiring judge from Queens Supreme. Shefflin had long been a member of the Queens County Democratic Club. One would think all those years on the defense side would have imbued him with at least some defense-oriented judicial perspective. Not so. If the first twenty-five years had been for the defense, the next twenty-five would be for the prosecution.

He peered down at me over reading glasses, his gaunt face and sunken eyes giving him an almost skeletal appearance.

I waived the perfunctory reading of the rights and charges, as I always had, and noticed the assistant prosecutor was none other than Paul Ventura, Chief Assistant D.A. of the Supreme Court Bureau and one hell of a trial man. This was a clear message to the court, the crowd, and the legions of police watching and waiting, that when a cop’s kid is killed, the Bronx D.A. will send in his best man to seek swift and certain justice. Never mind that the only charge was a mere burglary.

Robert Cantor was sitting by the defense tables. His eyes offered what little support they could. Repolla’s presence, two rows back, served as a constant reminder of why I had taken this case. I now felt ashamed it was only to return a favor.

“How do you plead, Mr. Jefferson?” Shefflin asked, sounding like a Roman emperor offering a condemned man a moment to beg for mercy before the lions were let loose to tear him limb from limb.

“Don’t say a word,” I whispered quickly in Jefferson’s ear.

This was just a grandstand play to the press. In Criminal Court it was completely unnecessary to enter a plea. All defendants at arraignment were presumed to plead not guilty. If a plea agreement were reached in advance, then and only then would a guilty plea be entered. Otherwise a defendant remained silent. I had not prepared my client for this. A more experienced lawyer would have.

“My client pleads not guilty to this single burglary charge,” I said, “the only charge before the court at this time, and to any charge the District Attorney’s Office may or may not bring in the future.” The breathless silence in the room made my voice seem garish. Perspiration was building under my arms and across my chest. The room was starting to feel like a furnace.

Ventura, out of the crowd’s line of sight, shot a wry smile my way.

Only forty years old, Ventura tailored a trim figure under a four hundred dollar Armani suit—an unusual touch of class for an assistant D.A. form the Bronx. His small eyes and nose made him look more Waspy than Italian. Add a light olive complexion, and you had a look of universal appeal, which no doubt contributed greatly to his success as a trial lawyer.

Shefflin sneered at the not guilty plea. I was certain he would have loved to get Oscar talking with a little Q and A that would have made one great headline. “
No Nonsense Judge Lashes Into Baby Killer
.”

“Let’s hear you on bail, Mr. Ventura,” Shefflin ordered.

I started to feel like I was in that small southern town I often daydreamed about, where the politics of small minds and big bats governed. The court officer to my left was looking more and more like Sheriff Buford Pusser.

Ventura kept his application short. Years of experience had no doubt taught him the less said the better, particularly when you’re riding the crest of a monster wave. Keeping Jefferson in jail long enough for the police and his investigators to make a case for the grand jury on the rape and murders wouldn’t be difficult under the circumstances.

“The locket found in the defendant’s apartment seals shut any hope for acquittal,” he said with a level professional air. “The investigation into the horrendous murders that took place in the same apartment that had been burglarized, and the defendant’s suspect status in the Spiderman rape cases that have been terrorizing the citizens of Bronx County in recent months cannot be ignored.”

I had to give Ventura credit. Without saying one word more than he had to, he’d all but secured an order of remand without bail. Since Shefflin’s mind was made up when he read the morning paper, this left me with the forlorn task of merely making a record.

Before ordering my response, Shefflin asked Ventura for his bail demand.

When Ventura didn’t answer right away, it hit me. He had such little faith in a case against Jefferson for the rape and murders he was hoping not to have to make a record at all.

I glanced at my nemesis. He looked uncomfortable in his tailor-made suit.

“The People ask for fifty thousand dollars bail, unless the court sees fit to remand the defendant.”

Ventura had too much integrity to play to the crowd on a mere burglary charge, so he simply asked for a bail he knew Jefferson could not make. It was then up to Shefflin, as a torrential rain continued to fall unmercifully on the South Bronx, to be the one to call for a remand.

“Do you have anything to say in response, Mr. Mannino?” Shefflin asked impatiently.

“I most certainly do have something to say, Your Honor.“ I felt my shoulders stiffen then relax. “All that is before this court today is a burglary charge. My client has been in custody for a day and a half, being questioned for crimes he did not commit, at the hands of police officers whose tactics included punches to his kidneys and blows to the back of his head with a telephone book. My client has no prior record for sexual assaults, no history or the kind of background that could remotely lead one to conclude he is capable of committing the crimes for which he is being investigated. He stands before you today not for stealing a locket. He’s the janitor. He has the key to the apartment. For there to be a burglary he would have had to enter the apartment with the intent to commit a crime. Does anyone in their right mind believe the janitor went in to steal a ten-dollar locket and yet left behind cash, jewelry and other more valuable items like a television set, stereo and VCR? And then to beat all, he kept the locket on his night table in his basement apartment in the same building. The absurdity is irrefutable. And the locket case, at worst, is a misdemeanor petit larceny.”

Shefflin twisted in his chair and scowled. He had heard enough.

“Defendant’s remanded. Call the next case.”

“Remanded!” I shouted. “The D.A. didn’t even ask for a remand! This Court’s obviously out to make Bronx Criminal Court history! You just remanded a man for a petit larceny, and a bogus one at that!”

“This case is about more than petit larceny!” Shefflin shouted back.

“Then why hasn’t my client been charged with more?”

The three officers had begun ushering Jefferson back into detention. His hands were trembling and a look of desperation was on his face. I don’t think my tirade was making him feel any better. Robert Cantor rose and took a few steps in my direction, then stepped aside while Jefferson and the officers passed. I was not through with Shefflin.

“Proof? Evidence? All the things a case resulting in a remand is supposed to be about are absent here!”

“That’s enough, Mr. Mannino!” Shefflin was beet red.

“No it’s not, not as long as I can bring a writ of habeas corpus for unlawful detention!”

Cantor grabbed my left arm. Jefferson was gone from the courtroom. The steel detention room door slammed shut in a courtroom dead silent, except for the banter of an irate judge and an attorney on the brink of being held in contempt.

“That’s enough,” Cantor whispered in a harsh tone. “You did good, the best you could, now shut up and sit down.”

Grateful for the interruption, I took a deep breath and calmed as Cantor’s fingers dug into my forearm. Shefflin would get the last word.

“One more peep out of you, Mr. Mannino and you’ll follow your client right through that door.”

The courtroom broke into applause. Cantor gripped me tighter.

“Let go of me, damn it,” I whispered back. “I’m done.”