Without a Hitch (20 page)
Rookie
Philadelphia police officer Paul Webb kicked in the door. Five officers rushed
into the room with their weapons drawn. Their target, Washington Davis
Beaumont, lay face down on a mattress. A pistol rested on the nightstand near
his head. Beaumont made no effort to reach for it.
Sgt. Warner
Russell, a fifteen year veteran, rammed his knee into Beaumont’s back, pinning
him to the bed. “Don’t move motherfucker or I’ll blow your brains out!” yelled
Russell in his heavy Philadelphia accent. He jammed his weapon into Beaumont’s
temple.
“You gonna show
me a warrant?!” Beaumont demanded.
“Shut the fuck
up!” In one fluid motion, Russell holstered his weapon, pulled his handcuffs
from his belt, locked Beaumont’s hands behind his back, picked Beaumont off the
bed, and wiped the sweat from his brow onto the sleeve of his dark-blue uniform
jacket. Russell pushed him toward two other officers. “You’se two take
Beaumont to the cruiser. Rook,” Russell addressed Officer Webb, “search the
other rooms. I’ll search this one.”
“Hey, you can’t
search my place, you ain’t got no subpeonis, offica’,” Beaumont said mockingly.
Russell’s eyes
narrowed, accentuating the crookedness of his face. His right eye sat slightly
lower than the left and his nose and chin were too far to the right, the
aftereffects of several fights. He grabbed Beaumont by the back of the neck
and shoved him against the wall. “Wha’d I tell you,” he growled, before stepping
back and motioning the two officers to take Beaumont out of the apartment.
When they were
gone, Russell closed the front door to keep anyone in the hallway from seeing
what was going on inside. With the door closed, Russell walked over to the
nightstand, opened its top drawer, pulled a large manila envelope from his
jacket and emptied its contents into the drawer. As he did, Webb returned from
searching the filthy kitchen. Out of the corner of his eye, Russell saw Webb
watching him. Russell closed the drawer.
“Hey Rook, why
don’t you check the nightstand,” Russell said, trying but failing to sound
nonchalant. “Beaumont was tryin’ real hard to keep us from looking in there.
Might be something important.”
Webb walked over
to the nightstand and pulled open the drawer. Inside were documents, credit
cards and checkbooks.
“Whoa, hey! You
found his stash! You’ll probably get a commendation for this.”
“I don’t
understand? What’s going on, Russ?” Webb asked. The meekness of his tone betrayed
his lack of confidence when it came to challenging the forceful personality
that was Warner Russell.
“Wha’da you
mean?”
“This wasn’t
here.”
“’Course it was,
right where you’se found it,” Russell suggested unconvincingly.
“But, I saw—”
“You didn’t see nothin’!”
Russell barked, poking his finger in Webb’s face for emphasis. “You made a
good find. Now go back to the cruiser while I seal the room for evidence.”
“Russ, what’s
going on?” Webb’s wavering voice highlighted his deep dismay.
“What does it
look like? We’re taking a piece a’ shit off the streets. Don’t make no
fuckin’ waves partner!” Russell tapped Webb’s chest with two fingers. “You
made a good discovery. Go down to the cruiser. I will talk to you about this
later.” Russell signaled another officer, who had just re-entered the
apartment, to escort Webb downstairs. As they left, Russell called after
them. “Hey, don’t say nothin’ to nobody. Understand!”
An hour later,
Webb sat alone in the police station’s small break room. The other three
chairs were empty. Webb stared at the vending machines. The paper cup in his
hand had been empty for some time. As his eyes moved toward the internal
affairs poster for the hundredth time, his partner appeared, closing and
locking the wood and frosted-glass door behind him.
“There was
nothing in that nightstand, Russ,” Webb said preemptively.
Russell remained
calm. “Look here, Rook. You ain’t been out there as long as I have. You’se
don’t get it yet. This is the way it needs to be. This fucking mook is the
nastiest piece of shit you will ever see in your life. This fucker’s so bad
the devil calls
him
for advice.”
“But Russ, you
can’t frame a guy for something he didn’t do,” Webb replied softly. He
remained seated and stared at the empty cup in his hand.
“You can when
you can’t catch him no other way.” Russell pulled a pack of cigarettes from
his shirt pocket. He lit one before offering the pack to Webb, who declined. He
then tossed his spent match into the garbage can, just below the “No Smoking”
sign. “Sometimes you gotta help the system put a rotten bastard like that
away. Fahgetaboutit, he deserves it.”
“How do you
decide who deserves it?”
“Wha’da you
mean, ‘how do I decide’?!” Russell raised his voice.
Webb shrugged
his shoulders, but still didn’t look up. He barely spoke loud enough for
Russell to hear him. “What I mean is, what gives us the right to—”
Russell
erupted. “What gives me the right?! What gives me the right?! Did you ask me
‘what gives me the right’? This badge gives me the right!” Russell tapped the
silver badge on his chest. “That son of a bitch’s past gives me the right!
That ain’t no fuckin’ choirboy we’re sending up. That is one evil
motherfucker. Every day he stays free is another dead hooker or another kid on
crack. That’s what gives me the right.” Russell took three quick puffs from his
cigarette.
“We can’t make
that decision.”
“Yes we can! Yes
we can!” Russell growled, jabbing his cigarette at Webb for emphasis.
“Why can’t we
let the system work?” Webb’s voice grew louder, but he still lacked confidence
and he still wouldn’t look into Russell’s face.
Russell threw
his hands up in the air. “Let the system work?! It don’t work for guys like
this!”
“Look I agree
too many guys are getting away with murder, but if we start doing this, then
we’re not cops anymore. Let the system take care of him.”
“Oh, fuck that!
This guy is beyond the system, he makes a mockery of the system. If guys like
this keep gettin’ away with their crimes, then there ain’t no system. It’s up
to me and you to make the system work. We protect the system. If that means
we gotta bend the rules now and then to get shit like this off the streets,
then so fuckin’ be it!”
“If he’s such a
bad guy, take him down for the other stuff he’s done.”
“Oh, listen to
the rookie. Don’t you think we tried?! We had him in here for rape five years
ago. The victim vanished. We had him for murder. The witness
died
.
Drugs. The fucking drugs walked out of the station house. Do you understand
me?! They walked out of the Goddamn station house!” Russell waved his
cigarette around the room as he spat out each word.
Webb started to
speak, but stopped himself.
“That piece of
shit killed five people in cold blood! He sells crack to Goddamn school kids!
And you’re worried about a little planted evidence?! Well, fuck you, Officer
Rookie! You’re a cop, and being a cop means making hard choices. Sometimes
you gotta get your hands dirty if you want to keep the streets safe.
Sometimes, you gotta improvise to get trash like him off the street. If that
takes pinning an ID theft on the guy, then so fuckin’ be it. I’ll sleep fine tonight,
knowing I saved somebody’s life and kept somebody’s kid off crack.”
“What about the
real ID thief? He walks?”
Russell laughed.
“Some Arab working in a mailbox store. He starts stealing credit cards and
checks from mailboxes, uses them to buy electronic gear from local stores,
writes bad checks, that sort of thing. One of the stores he hits calls the
fraud boys. They look into it, figure it out. We go to arrest this
towelhead. Only, he skips the country a couple days before we get there. Un-fuckin’-touchable.”
Webb remained silent.
Russell leaned
against a vending machine. “You know, I’ll bet you’se if the public knew about
this, they’d support us ten to one.”
“Then why do it
in secret?” Webb looked at Russell’s eyes for the first time. “Why not just
haul him downtown to the mayor’s office and announce to the world that he’s a
bad man and it’s time we locked him up?”
“Don’t be a
smart ass, Rook. You ain’t earned that right.”
Webb tried to
sip from his empty cup.
Russell pulled
some change from his pocket. “Here, get yourself a coffee.”
“Thanks.”
“Look kid, just
get with the program. It’s for the better. This guy is evil. He needs to be
taken off the street. This is the only way. He’s that special case where the
system needs to be tweaked. You wanna protect people and keep the system
working for everybody else, you gotta do this. Nobody who don’t deserve it is
gonna get hurt by this.”
Webb tossed his
hand out as if to object, but voiced no objection.
“Just sign the
report I left on your desk and put it in the file. That’s all you gotta do.”
Russell put his hand on the door to leave. “Me and you solid, Rook?” Russell
asked over his shoulder, without turning to face Webb.
“Yeah, we’re
solid,” Webb replied quietly.
Corbin parked
his car next to the same stand of trees on the same rural road where he gave
Beckett the duffel bags several months prior. Beckett pulled up alongside
Corbin, leaving six feet between the vehicles. They exited their cars and met
in the middle.
“Tell me why I’m
here?” Corbin demanded without hiding his annoyance. Despite the urgency of
his message to Corbin, Beckett refused to tell Corbin over the phone why they
needed to meet. This infuriated Corbin, who simmered now for three days as he
waited to meet Beckett.
“This,” Beckett
replied, handing Corbin a folded newspaper. He had circled an article about
the arrest of accused identity thief Washington Beaumont. Corbin scanned the
article before handing the paper back to Beckett. It was obvious from the
article that Beaumont was accused, at least in part, of the crimes they
committed.
“Too bad for
him,” Corbin replied indifferently. “What does this have to do with us?”
“We need to do
something.”
“Why?” Corbin
shot back immediately, but still in the same indifferent tone.
Beckett stared
at Corbin in disbelief. “This doesn’t bother you?”
“Not in the
least,” Corbin replied without hesitation. He stood motionless with his arms
folded.
“I’m stunned.
Alex, he’s innocent,” Beckett said in a near-pleading tone.
“Sounds like a
guilty bastard to me.”
“He didn’t do
what they’re saying he did, we did!”
“I don’t care.”
“They’re going
to try him for what
we
did!”
“I don’t care.”
“What are we
supposed to do if they convict him?”
“Then you live
with it, Evan!” Corbin suddenly shouted. “You live with it!”
“No, I won’t! I
can’t let an innocent man go down for my crime.”
“What do you
want from me, Evan?!” Corbin pulled off his sunglasses and glared at Beckett.
“I need your
help. We need to do something,” Beckett pleaded.
A chill ran down
Corbin’s spine. His eyes narrowed and his lips drew back, revealing his
teeth. “What are you suggesting, Evan?”
“I’ve entered my
appearance as his attorney, I’m going to represent him.”
“You what?!”
Corbin exclaimed. His whole body shook, as if he’d absorbed a punch.
“I’m going to
defend him.”
“Have you lost
your fucking mind?!” Corbin’s muscles visibly tensed and his hands formed into
claws as if he intended to choke Beckett, but he didn’t approach him.
Corbin’s outburst
shocked Beckett, but he didn’t back down. “No Alex, I’m seeing things more clearly
now!”
“That’s what
crazy people say, Evan, that everything keeps getting clearer!”
“I’m not arguing
about this, Alex,” Beckett insisted. He paused. “I need your help.”
“Wh. . . what?!”
Corbin laughed in disbelief.
“I need your
help,” Beckett repeated slowly. “If I’m going to get him off, I need your
help.”
“
My
help?!”
“Alex, I need
that big, beautiful brain of yours.”
Corbin’s left
eye twitched. His scowl grew colder, more angry.
“If you don’t
help me, I don’t know that I can get this guy off, but together. . . we can do
this,” Beckett urged.
“And what are
you going to do if you can’t,
Evan
?!” Corbin demanded sharply. His
voice became gruff and his nostrils flared.
Beckett looked
down at the dirt and shrugged his shoulders.
“What are you
going to do then,
Evan
?!” Corbin demanded again. He barely controlled
his rage.
“Then, as you
say. . . I’ll live with it. But if we don’t try to save this guy, I will turn
myself in to save him,” Beckett said in an apologetic tone.
Corbin stopped
breathing.
“I won’t turn
you in, but I will turn myself in,” Beckett continued.
Corbin glanced
over his shoulder at the passenger seat of his car, where his gun lay hidden
beneath a jacket. His anger temporarily blurred his vision. He turned and
leaned his arms against the roof of his car, resting his head on his wrists.
He took a dozen shallow breaths, trying to calm himself.
Beckett didn’t wait
for Corbin to calm down before speaking again. “If you help me, we can get him
off.”
“Have you
thought about your family,
Evan
?” Corbin hissed, without lifting his
head. His voice echoed off the metal roof of the car. “Did you forget all the
evidence points straight at you? You’re going to sacrifice your wife, your
job, your kids, your life for this
fucker
?!”
“None of the
evidence points to me, your plan saw to that. As for this guy, it doesn’t
matter who he is. He didn’t do this, we did. I can’t face my family with that
on my conscience,” Beckett said with great sadness.
“This is fucking
crazy!” Corbin screamed, slapping the roof of his car and walking away from
Beckett. Beckett had never seen Corbin so angry before, no one had. Corbin
put his hands on his knees and took more shallow breaths. “Why are you doing
this?” Corbin asked himself, though he said this aloud.
“Because it’s
the right thing to do. We need to right this wrong.”
“Why do you need
me? You’re the trial attorney, not me?” Corbin asked in a distant, detached
tone, which suggested he was still working this out for himself rather than
speaking to Beckett.
“I need your
mind. I need your organizational skills, your verbal acuity, your writing
skills. I’m not good on paper, you are. If I’m going to get this guy off, I
need you.”
“I’m not
admitted in Pennsylvania,” Corbin said, though his mind was clearly on matters
other than this point.
“I am. I can get
you admitted temporarily through a
pro hac vice
motion.”
Corbin crouched
down and stared at the dirt. Beckett waited silently. Finally, Corbin rose
and walked to his car without looking at Beckett. He climbed into the driver’s
seat and started the engine. He closed the door and stared out the windshield
for several seconds before lowering the driver’s window. He still hadn’t looked
at Beckett, who stood between the two vehicles. Slowly, Corbin slid his hand
under the jacket on the seat next to him. He felt the cold metal of the
pistol. He wrapped his hand around the stock and slid his finger over the
trigger. One round rested in the chamber. Fourteen more were set to follow.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
“I need to think
about this,” Corbin said. His lips were dry.
“There’s a
hearing scheduled on Thursday,” Beckett responded hopefully.
“You’ll have
your answer before then.” With that, he drove off.
The daylight
faded as the sun set. Corbin’s apartment grew darker by the minute. Corbin
sat on his couch, resting one foot on his coffee table. His arms were spread
out straight along the back of the couch. The last ray of sunlight, which lit
up his face, was vanishing. It was the only light left in the room. Alvarez
paced back and forth. He stopped and looked at Corbin.
“Do you think
he’s serious?” Alvarez asked with a mixture of anger and disbelief.
Corbin shrugged
his shoulders, but didn’t speak.
Alvarez continued
pacing. “He’s going to risk himself and us to save some criminal?
Unbelievable! Do you think he’s serious?” he asked a second time.
Corbin shrugged
his shoulders again.
“What the hell
is he thinking? Why would he do this?” Alvarez stopped pacing again and
looked at Corbin. “Are you sure he’s serious?”
Once more, Corbin
shrugged his shoulders.
“Ah ha!” Alvarez
exclaimed, pointing his finger at Corbin. “You’re sure! I
knew
it.”
Alvarez returned to his pacing. “I knew he was unreliable, the way he acted in
Philly. . . but this! Who the hell could have seen this coming?” Alvarez
stopped and stared at the ceiling for several seconds before turning to Corbin
once more. “What did he say about the wallet?”
“He never
mentioned it. And, before you ask, I didn’t ask him either.”
“Why not?”
“I wasn’t
exactly thinking straight.”
“Are you sure
he’s serious?” Alvarez asked again. “Of course you are, or we wouldn’t be
talking about this,” Alvarez answered his own question. “Do you think this is
the smart way to play this?”
Corbin shrugged
his shoulders again.
“Man! What is
it with this guy? Is he just stupid?!”
“No, he thinks
he’s being moral.”
“What’s the
difference?” Alvarez asked bitterly.
“The difference
is he didn’t stumble into this. He chose this path, and we need to realize
he’s likely to choose more wrong paths, not because he’s stupid, but because he
thinks he’s doing the right thing.”
“He wants to go
to jail? That’s what you’re saying? He feels guilty and he wants to be
punished?”
“No. He doesn’t
want to go to jail any more than we do. His only concern is that this guy
doesn’t go down for something we did. If we get the guy off or get him to
plead to something unrelated, then Beckett’s morals are satisfied and this can
all end.”
“Ok, let’s go
over this again. Why play his game? Why help him?”
“I don’t see
that we have a choice. He’s going to do this whether I help him or not. If I
don’t help him, everything is out of our control. But if I agree to help him,
then I can keep an eye on him. I can also probe him to find out exactly what
he’s got on us, like the missing wallet. Once we know more about that, then we
can take appropriate action.”
“. . . and
that’s why we can’t do anything else right now,” Alvarez added, trying to
convince himself of something he already knew to be true.
“Correct.”
“. . . because
we don’t know what he’s got or where he’s hiding it.”
“Correct.”
“. . . and it
would be dangerous for us to do anything until we know.”
“Correct. And
by me being there, helping him, I can watch him. Once we know what we’re
facing, then we reassess what we need to do. Plus, like I said, there’s the
off chance we can get this guy off and Beckett drops the whole thing,” Corbin
added, though his tone demonstrated that he didn’t care about Beaumont’s fate.
“That’s
something I don’t get. How are you two gonna help this guy? I mean, wouldn’t
he be better off with some local attorney, like a public defender?”
“Despite
Hollywood’s portrayal of public defenders as geniuses who forgo money for
principle, most of them are the dregs of law school. A public defender is the
last person you want defending you. Beckett and I can do better than any
public defender this guy will find in Philly.”
“What are you
going to do about your boss?”
“Kak? Nothing.
I’ve got plenty of vacation time built up. I’ll take a couple days this week
to scope out the situation. If the case doesn’t settle, then I’ll take
whatever days I need to prepare for trial.”
“Does you going
increase the danger of us getting caught?”
“It shouldn’t.
The evidence points away from Beckett and me, not toward us. Besides, the
prosecutor wants to convict this guy. He won’t be looking for alternative
suspects, and he’ll never be looking at us.”
“Beckett might
do something stupid, something to tip them off?”
“I’ll watch
him.”
“What if he
tries to turn himself in? What if he confesses?”
“I won’t let
that happen.”
“You know what
that might mean, right?” Alvarez asked cautiously.
Corbin didn’t
respond.
“What, no
argument? You’ve been thinking about this haven’t you.”
“Drop it,”
Corbin finally said.
“And?”
“Drop it.” As
he spoke, the last traces of sunlight faded from the apartment, leaving him
entirely in the dark.
Alvarez strained
to see Corbin. “I’m entitled to know because my future’s on the line. Can you
pull the trigger?”
Corbin didn’t
respond.