A Cure for Night (5 page)

7

Y
OLANDA MILLER
was not happy to see us. Not that I'd expected her to be, but the degree of her immediate hostility took me by surprise.

She was talking to us from the doorway of her apartment, making no move to let us in. I felt exposed and vulnerable standing in a hallway in the Gardens, but tried to put such thoughts out of my mind.

"I don't got to be talkin' to you," Yolanda said once we'd introduced ourselves.
"The DA told me I ain't got to say nothing to you if I don't want to."

"If necessary we can subpoena you," Myra said. "Did the DA tell
you that?"

"What's that gonna do?"

"If we subpoena you it would mean you'd have to come down to court and talk to us under oath," Myra said matter-of-factly.
"If you didn't show up the judge would issue a warrant for your arrest."

"You gonna arrest me now? For what?"

"I'm not saying we're going to arrest you, Yolanda," Myra said.
"I'm simply telling you what would happen if we were forced to subpoena you and
you didn't comply with the subpoena. I don't want to have to subpoena you at
all. We only have a couple of questions."

"I ain't got nothing to say that's going to help you all. I saw
Strawberry shoot Devin and that white dude."

"I'm not going to try to get you to say anything other than the truth," Myra said.
"I'd just like to know exactly what you saw, step by step. Let's start with
where you were."

"I'd just come out my building to go to the Arab mart down on
Avenue J."

"What's the Arab mart?"

"It's just a deli," Yolanda said with a shrug. "Everybody be
calling it that because it's run by these Arabs. They the only Arabs around
here, what with all the Jews."

"What were you going to get from the deli?" Myra asked, apparently uninterested in exploring Yolanda's lack of political correctness.
"What you care about that for?"

"I don't, really. I just want to make sure I have a full picture,
that's all."

"I got me a little boy. I needed to pick up some milk."

"You were going to get milk?"

"And I needed me some Newports," Yolanda said, drumming the fingers of one hand against the pocket of her jeans while the other hand held her front door.

"So you were going to get milk and cigarettes?"

"True that."

"Did you make it to the deli?"

"I didn't get out the Gardens."

"Okay. So what happened when you left your building?"

"I saw Devin across the way," Yolanda said.

"Did you know Devin?" Myra asked, playing it straight—we needed to know what story Yolanda was going to tell about her relationship with Devin.

"Me and him is together," Yolanda said, not making much out of it. While she was still hostile—her arms folded across her chest, her face tight and expressionless—she seemed to be reasonably forthcoming. But there was something jittery about her too, a nervous energy that seemed to go beyond the fact that we'd barged into her life and started asking questions.

"You're together?" Myra said, feigning surprise. "Meaning you're
dating?"

"Like that, sure."

"I see. How long have you and Devin been together?"

"Few months now," Yolanda said dismissively.

"What was Devin doing when you saw him that night?"

"He was talking to the white dude that got hisself killed."

"You saw the two of them talking together?"

"They was just across the way."

"Could you see Devin's face when you spotted him?"

"Naw," Yolanda said. "I could see the white dude's face, enough to
see he was white, anyway."

"What happened after you saw Devin and the white guy?"

"I was gonna go over there, talk to Devin. Just as I started
walkin' was when Strawberry started shootin'."

"Did you see the shooter before the shots?"

Yolanda shook her head. "I wasn't looking 'round after I saw
Devin. Then I heard a gat sparking, saw Devin and the white dude both go down.
That's when I seen Strawberry. He come running by."

"That's when you first saw the person who'd been shooting? After
the shots had been fired?"

Yolanda was getting a little more agitated, but not as much as I would've expected. While it was obvious that she didn't like talking about the shooting, she was able to do so without losing her composure, which was more than most people would've been capable of. I suspected she would make a decent witness for the prosecution.
"He come running right by me."

"He ran past you?"

"That's right."

"How far away was the person who ran past you?"

"It was Strawberry," Yolanda said, raising her voice slightly. "I
seen him. He wasn't no more than ten feet away."

"Did he still have the gun in his hand when he ran by you?"

"Yeah."

"He did?" Myra said, tilting her head slightly. "You saw the gun
in his hand when he ran by?"

"Where else was it gonna be?" Yolanda said heatedly. "He wasn't
gonna leave it there."

"What I'm asking, Yolanda, is whether you actually saw the gun in his hand," Myra said, keeping her own voice even and speaking slowly, clearly trying to defuse the conversation a little.

"Sure, I saw it when he run by."

"Which hand was it in?"

Yolanda glared at Myra with open hostility. "You trying to trick
me."

"No, I'm not," Myra said. "I'm simply trying to understand what
you saw. Now, if you saw the gun as he ran past, it had to either be on the side
nearest to you or the side farthest from you. Do you remember which it was?"

"You ain't never been around when a gat went off," Yolanda said dismissively.
"The whole thing happen in, like, one second, the shooting, seeing Devin go
down, seeing Strawberry run past me. I wasn't looking for no kinda shit like
what hand he got the gun in."

"So what did you see of the man you saw run by?"

"I seen his face."

"And you'd seen Strawberry before?"

"I'd seen him around here. He do business with Devin."

"What kind of business?"

Yolanda's glare grew even sharper. "You can ask Strawberry that
your own self."

"And had you ever spoken to Strawberry?"

"I ain't got no cause to speak with him. But I seen him in the
Gardens. I seen him enough to recognize him."

"Where specifically had you seen him?"

"I seen him over at Devin's crib."

"You were over at Devin's apartment when Strawberry was there?"

"Time to time."

"Were you in on their deals?"

"Hell, no," Yolanda said, and the way she said it I believed her.
"I don't do that shit."

"Anyone you know ever have problems with Strawberry?"

"You mean, I got a reason to put this on him?" Yolanda asked, shaking her head.
"It ain't like that."

"Did you talk to police the night of the shooting?"

"That's right."

"Did you tell them you'd seen the shooter?"

"I told them I seen Strawberry."

"Did you talk to the police between the night of the shooting and
when you came to view the lineup five days later?"

"Only when that lady detective came by with those pictures she
want me to look at."

This caught my attention: it was the first I'd heard of any photographs. I felt Myra tense beside me. She cocked her head slightly, gazing intently at Yolanda.
"Detective Spanner came to show you pictures?"

Yolanda shrugged. "I don't know her name. The lady detective who
been running the po-po's case."

"What kind of pictures did she show you?"

"She want me to tell her which picture be Strawberry. I tell her I
know him if I see him in person."

"Did you look at the photos?"

"The lady detective show them to me."

"And did you pick out Strawberry?"

"I didn't pick out nobody. I told her I'd know if I see him in
person."

"So you looked at the photos, but you didn't pick anybody out?"

"I pick him out at the lineup. You was there when I pick him out."

Myra smiled broadly. "That's right, Ms. Miller," she said. "I was
there the first time you picked him out."

AS WE
cut across the open space in the center of the Gardens, heading to the apartment that Latrice Wallace shared with her brother, I turned to Myra.
"I'm not sure Yolanda liked us," I said.

"I'm not sure I liked her," Myra replied. "But that was huge just now. That was
Fantasy Island
."

"Because we've never been told anything about a photo array."

"We certainly have not. And we certainly should have. We've got a
way to potentially throw out Yolanda's whole ID of our guy now."

"Really?"

"Absolutely," Myra said. "First of all we have the discovery violation—the DA had an obligation to tell us about the failed ID procedure. Second, the fact that Yolanda couldn't make an ID on the first try casts doubt on the accuracy of any subsequent ID she did make. We'll demand a
Wade
hearing, challenge Yolanda's lineup ID. We get that tossed, the DA's case is in
serious trouble. Plus there's the fact that she admits that she was schtupping
our vic."

"Did you just say 'schtupping'?" I asked.

"My mother taught me that good girls don't say 'fuck,' " Myra said.
"It's too much of a coincidence, though, don't you think?"

"We're back to talking about the case now, right?"

"We're talking about the fact that the state's best witness was fucking the vic," Myra said.
"Was that clear enough?"

"If we got rid of her ID, would that get rid of the whole case?"

"Maybe," Myra said. "Even if it still went forward, I don't see a
way for them to win without Yolanda."

"Sounds like we should write a motion soon."

"I completely agree," Myra said. "Provided that by 'we' you meant
you, and by 'soon' you meant right away."

8

L
ATRICE WALLACE
opened the door of the apartment she shared with her brother, Devin, with the chain on, peering out at us cautiously through the crack. We knew her brother wouldn't be there—he was still in the ICU. Myra introduced us, telling Latrice that we represented Lorenzo Tate and wanted to ask her about what she'd seen that night.

To my surprise, Latrice didn't show any resistance to answering our questions. On the contrary, she seemed resigned to it, as if she'd expected us. It didn't seem to occur to her that she could just refuse to cooperate, and it certainly wasn't in our interest to offer her that option.

Latrice was attractive, as Lorenzo had advertised: she was a thin, self-possessed young woman, with copper-tinted hair flowing halfway down her back. The three of us sat in the stylish living room Latrice shared with her brother, which was filled with better furniture than I had in my apartment. Given the condition of the Gardens generally, and of the building in particular, the apartment seemed completely incongruous. At least until I remembered what Devin Wallace did for a living.

"I just wanted to find out what you actually saw that night," Myra said.
"It's my understanding that you spoke with Lorenzo Tate a few hours before the
shooting; is that right?"

"I talk to him when he come by here."

"What did you two talk about?"

"He ask if Devin be home. I say no. He ask if Devin left money for
him. I say I ain't seen nothing like that. Then he talked some shit."

"What do you mean?"

"He just said some shit 'bout my brother, something like,
'Motherfucker don't know who he's fucking with, but he's going to get his.' "

"What happened next?"

"Strawberry was out."

"And what time was this?"

"Must've been like seven, seven thirty or so, 'cause I'd just
gotten back from work."

"And is that when you usually get home after work?"

" 'Round then, yeah."

"So after Lorenzo left, what did you do then?" Myra asked.

"I went back to what I was doing, cooking up something to eat."

"You didn't call up your brother, try to get ahold of him?"

"I don't get up in Devin's business," Latrice said again. "If my
brother got something he want to say to Strawberry, he knows how to find him."

"Did you see either your brother or Strawberry at any point later
that night?"

Latrice shook her head. "I didn't hear nothing about it till the
police came, telling me 'bout how Devin got himself shot."

"Okay," Myra said. "We don't have to talk about that night
anymore. Just one other thing: do you know Yolanda Miller?"

"Sure I know Yo-Yo. She live right here in the Gardens."

"What was her relationship with your brother?"

"He be with her from time to time, if that's what you asking
'bout."

"They're dating?" Myra asked.

"They hook up, sure."

"Are you friends with Yolanda?"

"Me and her is fine with one another."

"You know her pretty well."

Latrice shrugged. "We both come up here in the Gardens, but
Yo-Yo's got a few years on me. We go back, I guess, but we ain't tight or
nothing."

"Is she somebody you'd trust?"

Latrice jerked her head back like she'd been asked if she was willing to give Yolanda a kidney.
"She never done wrong by me. She was doing awright back when she was with Malik.
Things didn't get messed up for her until after she had his boy."

"Who's Malik?" Myra asked.

"Malik Taylor," Latrice said, as if that would explain something.

"Okay, so who's Malik Taylor?"

"He's from around the way. He and Yolanda were together for a
couple of years, up until she had his boy. Not to say that Malik is like most of
the men in the Gardens—he's awright—but he got up on out of there once that kid
was born."

"Do you know where we can find Malik?"

"He run the sports store up on Flatbush."

"What store is that?"

"Midwood Sports."

"He owns it?"

Latrice laughed at this. "He don't
own
it. He just do the
day-today. You know, like a manager."

"When did he and Yolanda have a son?"

"That was almost two years ago now."

"And has Yolanda not been doing so well since her son was born?"

"I don't know what all go on with her and Malik," Latrice said. The more she talked to us, the more she'd started to actually say things.
"But I know she started getting high, shit like that."

"Yolanda started doing drugs after her son was born?"

Latrice looked away, pursing her lips, clearly regretting telling us.
"Most folks around here get high," she said quickly. "Ain't like that's a big
thing."

"But something changed in Yolanda, didn't it?" Myra asked, equally quick.
"Otherwise you wouldn't have mentioned it."

"It wasn't just the Buddha no more; she was hitting the powder
too. I know 'cause Devin didn't like that shit. He don't like to be 'round
nobody who's into the serious product."

I thought back to Yolanda's jittery presence, the sharp edge that glinted out of her demeanor. A budding coke habit would certainly explain it.

"So you're saying that Yolanda had started doing coke?"

"That's what I just said, ain't it?" Latrice said, a new sharpness in her voice.
"I shouldn't even be talking to you—it's my brother that got shot. You best just
be getting up out of here."

MYRA MANAGED
to keep a poker face until we were safely outside the building, at which point she turned to me and gave me a big grin.
"That moved the ball up the field," she said.

"I didn't have you for a football fan."

"Is that what they do in football?" Myra replied. "I was referring
to one of the DA's prime witnesses punking out the other as a druggie."

"How many yards does that give us?"

"It undermines her entire ID."

"Doing pot or coke wouldn't make you hallucinate."

Myra was clearly losing patience. "Maybe not. But drugs fuck up
your perceptions, certainly, and they sure as hell make you seem pretty
unreliable. Does any of it mean she didn't actually see what she claims to have
seen? Not necessarily. Does it give us a lot of mud to throw on her, dirty up
her clean little eyewitness testimony? Absolutely."

"And that's what matters."

"In law school I took a class with a famous criminal defense
attorney. He had a saying: 'A criminal trial is a search for the truth, but the
defense lawyer isn't a member of the search party.' "