A Moment of Silence: Midnight III (The Midnight Series Book 3) (47 page)

“How did you know what they were up to?” she said, jumping right into what she thought was an opening up on my part.

“Easy,” I said. “Because they made up the false resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, assaulting a police officer, and rioting charges in the first place. If they were desperate enough to make up those false charges, then I was sure that they wanted me locked up in a cell either way.”

“You also are aware that a court date has been set concerning those ‘minor charges’?”

“Yes, next Wednesday, September twenty-fourth at nine a.m. I received the paperwork from the court. The CO delivered it to me in the box,” I confirmed.

“Jordan.” She spoke my false name aloud like the jailers never did. In here I’m a number, a number in a count. “What are you expecting to happen?” she asked me, cleverly reshaping her strategy to open me up.

“My grandfather,” I said with false emotion, “without my help, he has probably already passed away.” I was playing on the identity I had invented for Jordan Mann. I did not want to say or do the typical things to my attorney that she was used to hearing and seeing from her hundreds of clients. I wouldn’t beg her to get me released. I wouldn’t pressure her to work on my behalf or seem too eager about anything in particular. The truth is, by now I was certain that Chiasa had done everything that I asked her to do regarding my Umma and my sister. And I was certain that Umma, having received my letter almost two months ago, cooperated with Chiasa. Therefore
my women, all of them, were safe and out of the reach of interference from all police, investigators, and authorities
Insha’Allah
. So there was nothing left for me to do, other than to maneuver these legal situations and to win the smallest amount of time possible for the sentencing of whatever charges they managed to convict me of.

I wanted my lawyer, instead of trying to hear a confidential confession from me, to change her approach and lay out in front of me every single detail regarding my case to date. I wanted to know what was being said in these private conversations with these lawyers and judges and police and politicians. I wanted to know what they were insinuating or working towards charging me with. I wanted her to show me all of the news and/or magazine clippings where my case was mentioned or analyzed, the same way she did before when we met in the hospital. Yet even though I like her, I refused to ask her. I had grown uncomfortable in the victim-defendant position, and more uncomfortable with her cast as my savior. I knew she knew a lot more than she was saying. Instead of her trying to drag information out of me little by little, I wanted her to stop hiding what she already knew and lay it out clearly. I believed that was her purpose in interacting with me at all. I believed that was the reason Allah sent her to me.

She checked her Timex. “Detective Baldassari maintains to this day that you, Jordan, confessed to the murder of Lance Polite. He’s got some connections and a pretty good reputation. He’s been helping the prosecutor even though he’s from a different precinct and not a homicide detective. I met with him and the prosecutor separately. Their investigation, however, has not uncovered any solid evidence to support or charge you with manslaughter or murder one. Astoundingly, to date, they have no witnesses to a murder that was committed in the presence of potentially thousands of people.” She exhaled exasperation.

“So here’s the ‘worst first,’ as you put it. The prosecutor still wants to charge you with the crime of murder.” She leaned back, folded her arms before her, and searched me for an impulse—anger,
fear, tears, an outburst, or even a slight shift in my body language. I didn’t give her one, though.

“He has to deliver a culprit to satisfy the state senator,” she said sternly, letting me know that even if it seemed unjust, it was likely to happen. “I had lunch with the state senator as well. I shared my file and all of the information I had gathered on Lance Polite with him. I wanted to convince him that Lance Polite was not the ‘poster-boy violent crime victim,’ that he, a state senator, should want to get behind. I let him know my exact sentiments, that he as a human being should not align himself with an offender like Lance even though I understand why this murderer has to be apprehended and charged,” she said passionately.

“Now, I do and I can and I will represent you; however, you need to tell me and show me that you understand that this very serious matter could blow in either direction. It’s an established, respected police detective’s word against yours. There’s a photograph of a faceless black male youth in a hoodie, committing the murder. They will stand you up, have you in a hoodie posing in the courtroom, and although you and every other well-built male your age would look the same in that pose, they will convince the jury that you are their guy. And I’ve seen and tried other cases where the prosecution had flimsy to no real evidence, but because of the climate of the country and the fears and mind state of the jury members, a conviction accompanied by a very severe sentencing was handed down.” She paused.

“There are no words in English, Yiddish, or Hebrew to describe the look on the face of a defendant in such cases where it seemed obvious that there was little to no evidence, when the head juror stands up and says that one-million-ton word,
guilty
,” she said, dropping her arms to her sides.

“You said that I was working against you. What did you mean by that?” I asked her.

“By withholding yourself from me, it hurts your case. You have not identified any of your friends who could and would be willing
to say good things about you, or the names of a couple of schoolteachers who could testify to your good character and conduct. You haven’t named a pastor who knows you and saw you in church even once on Easter! You say you have no relatives who could come forward and share with the court how loving and supportive you’ve been in the family. You have not even provided me with your home address or presented any neighbors who could testify on your behalf that they have lived next door to you, seen you coming and going, taking care of your grandfather and doing good things. Not one person who would say, ‘this young man is not capable of committing this crime!’ ” She took a breath.

“And you are still not saying anything!” She gave me a deep stare. “I can feel that you are good because I am good at that sort of thing. But feelings and my masterful intuition are not admissible in a court of law. They mean nothing. They’re meaningless,” she said, exhaling again and throwing herself back into her chair, her arms flopping at her sides and her legs extended straight out.

“Maybe your sister was right about me being evil,” I said, testing how certain my lawyer is about me, and measuring how much pressure she would take before breaking and turning on me. I knew her sister was closer to her than any human. I found it odd that she would go against the sister who she seemed to love more than her own life.

“My sister does not think that you are evil. She knows that you are good. She was the first to say so right after we both met you at the courthouse. It’s just that my sister believes you are guilty. She can’t forgive anyone for murder no matter the circumstance.” Then Lawyer Ayn leaned forward and the volume of her voice dropped down very low. “She doesn’t believe in revenge, but I do.” She leaned back and straightened her posture into the chair.

“And I am the one who is a lawyer. Lawyers believe that everyone has the right to a defense, and that’s what I am here to do for you. Please trust me.”

Thick-skinned, I confirmed it, and was glad I asked her the
loaded question. My mind was speeding, my thoughts piling up in layers. Then I was asking myself,
but is an untaped and false confession admissible?
She didn’t know how to interpret my silence. The more silent I was, the more she tried to convince me to talk. I caught the feeling that she planned to visit me today and give it her best, most passionate and honest shot, but that if it failed, she would bow out. I didn’t want that to happen.

“I spent the first few days after we saw each other at the hospital trying to get those resisting arrest and all of those ‘cover charges’ dropped. I painted you as the misunderstood African-American youth for whom I had documented medical records that revealed that you had been abused and suffered injuries at the hands of the police, who held you for an illegal and inordinate six days of questioning without a parent, lawyer, or an arraignment. A young man whose urine was tested and clean, and whose eyes were clear. Then as soon as you got to Rikers, you end up in the box where the most unruly, violent, and difficult prisoners are held,” she said. “What’s with the fighting?”

“Men fight,” I responded. I wasn’t trying to be arrogant or ignorant. But I wasn’t about to recount to her detail by detail who said what, who did what, and what I did and what exactly happened after my Rikers arrival.

“Why aren’t you speaking up?” Why is someone so intelligent not using his voice at the most critical time in his life? Why aren’t you confiding in me? Would you prefer that I leave?” Then she admitted, “I saw the tape.”

“What tape?” I asked.

“The riot in the Robert N. Donovan Center here at Rikers was caught on camera.”

Everything is on secret camera
, I thought to myself.
If they could film it, why couldn’t they prevent it from happening or stop it before the bleeding bodies began to pile up, before the beatings and the pepper spray had everybody gagging and choking?

“You should have called me and told me what happened. I gave
you my business card. If you have never in your life memorized a phone number, my number was the one to memorize! If you had called me, then perhaps I would not have been embarrassed painting you as an angel and a literate, scholarly, well-mannered person, and then hearing the prosecutor tell me, while cutting into the bloody steak he ordered, that you had an in-house hearing and had been convicted of a ‘Tier Three’ violation and had been confined to the box for three months, which is the maximum,” she said with attitude.

“If you saw the tape, then you knew,” I answered.

“No! I didn’t know until the prosecutor told me. I got one-upped! Then I requested the footage to verify exactly what had happened. After weeks of red tape, an authority finally allowed me to view it. This is exactly what I mean when I say that you are working against me,” she said softly, but powerfully proving her point.

“I could have used that tape at your in-house hearing. I could have convinced them not to send you into twenty-three-hour lockup.” Then she paused to stare at me, like she was waiting for me to say a specific something. Straightening herself, she brought her face in towards me and quietly said, “You did good! I saw that your role in that riot was saving the lives of two or three fellow inmates, and moving the weapons out of reach before another violent crime could have been committed with a homemade knife and also with a chair. I will attempt to enter that footage as evidence at your trial to show the jury your active compassion.

“Jordan, you will have to appear before the grand jury. The murder charge in the violent death of Lance Polite will be handed down by the grand jury in court and added to your current cover charges. They are fighting to try you as an adult.” She looked at me to measure if I felt the weight of the bad news.

“A trial date will be set. If you want me to continue to represent you, you will absolutely need to confide in me in great and specific detail. We must prepare for trial.” Her words hit me hard. These were the words she should have said up front. This was the “first worst.” This was the matter that could get me twenty-five to life.

“Jordan, if you want to plead the fifth and remain silent, you are perfectly within your rights to do so. At the murder trial, I can arrange so that you do not even have to testify. I’ll keep you off the stand. But be silent with the court, with the prosecution, but not with me. Anything you say to me is said in confidence, by law—attorney-client privilege. I can’t repeat what you confide in me,” she said, pleading.

“And what do you think?” I asked her.

“I think if you and I don’t work together closely, these guys are going to paint you as a monster, fan the flames of race, the fear of the young black male, and they are going to convince the grand jury, the trial jury, and the public that they need to be protected from you. I think the prosecution, the police, and the politicians are way too confident to be essentially empty-handed in terms of evidence. I think they have the nerve to offer you a plea deal when they have nothing but a fabricated confession that you deny ever having made and they cannot confirm or produce on paper or tape or film. It’s an insult to you. And, it’s a huge insult to me, your attorney!”

“A plea deal?” I repeated.

“Yes, it’s ridiculous, I know.”

“What exactly is it?” I asked calmly.

“The prosecutor says if you confess to manslaughter two, they’ll drop all of the other charges against you and you’ll serve five and a half to seven years. That’s the offer.”

My mind showed me a photo of the Rikers rule book. It was the section on good behavior cutting a third off of a prisoner’s sentence. I heard my second wife’s soft voice saying, “Seven years, that’s too long.” She had said that to me back in my Brooklyn apartment on the same day as the murder. But I calculated that if I copped to five and a half to seven, I could potentially get out in three years, or a little less.

“You’re quiet again,” my attorney said. “Are you actually interested in the plea deal? Why should you confess and accept the plea
deal when you have maintained from the beginning that you never confessed to this crime?”

I knew she just wanted to hear everything in my own words, even the things I was sure she already knew the answers to, including my reasons.

“You said you saw the tape of the riot,” I reminded her.

“What’s that got to do with the plea deal?” she asked me swiftly. “Those are two separate matters. One was an in-jail hearing; this trial you’re facing is in the official court of law.”

“Either the authorities at Rikers saw the tape and ignored completely what they saw, or they did not even bother to watch the tape. Still, they tried me and convicted me and placed me in the box for the maximum. Not only me, they ‘boxed’ everybody who was there, no matter what they did and didn’t do. And of course everybody was there. We were all locked in and could not have been anywhere else at the time. They just swept us up and boxed us. That means that in this new trial, which I understand is in a different building and separate courtroom, they could charge me with murder without having any real evidence. You said that yourself. Same as in my jail hearing, they could ignore what is revealed in the courtroom because of politics or fears, the same way the Rikers authorities ignored what they clearly saw on the tape. A jury could convict me of murder, even though they actually had serious doubts about it, no evidence, and like you told me before, they could convict me and then sentence me to twenty-five years to life, or execute me like they did the girl in Ohio. Only thing that we know for sure is they want a culprit and they have me, so I’m that guy. Mathematics say that five and a half to seven years is a better deal for me. If it’s an offer and it’s guaranteed in writing, and if it can’t be altered or taken back and it’s the only guarantee they’re giving concerning the outcome, I’ll take it,” I said.