Bad Lawyer (5 page)

I walked into the kitchen, poured myself a cup of coffee, then returned to the living room and took my customary seat on an overstuffed chair against the wall. The furniture in our home may have come by way of R. H. Macy’s instead of Roche Bobois, but it matched nicely and was uniformly comfortable. A high-backed sofa and two chairs, cherry tables with brass lamps, a tough, springy carpet, even a cushioned rocker near the window. All by way of a foolish credit officer approached on a very busy Labor Day weekend. Before that it’d been Salvation Army thrift stores and broken springs in the butt.

The wall behind me was covered with old photographs, stiff portraits of men, women and children, of marriages, funerals, engagements. These were my maternal relatives, the photos discovered among Magda’s things when I closed the house in Sheepshead Bay. I’d taken them out, put them in a box on the top shelf of the linen closet where Julie had found them several years later.

“This is your life, your past,” she’d explained as she tapped picture hooks into the plasterboard. “You should be proud of it.”

At the time, I didn’t see the point, since I had dozens of cousins, aunts, and uncles living in the New York suburbs, and rarely saw them. But I wasn’t stupid enough to stop her and I eventually figured it out. In some ways, like my mother, I was more tied to the dead than the living.

Caleb’s Alabama family surrounded the door on the far wall. Some of the figures were formally posed, but most of the photos had been snapped with an ancient Brownie. An old white church, its steeple canted to the left, formed the background for half the photographs.

“Sid?”

I looked up to find Julie standing in front of me, a quizzical smile playing with the edges of her mouth. She was holding one hand out, as if offering me the brown-edged leaves that lay in her palm.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t get your hopes up too high.”

I crossed my legs, pulled at my coffee, silently conceded the insight. “I’ll admit it looks too much like a big break to be true. Carlo Buscetta for a prosecutor, the story already in the papers, fresh bruises on the client, a history of abuse …”

“And a quarter pound of cocaine.” Julie crumpled the leaves in her hand, dropped them into an ashtray, lit a Newport. “You can’t make Priscilla Sweet into a virgin martyr.”

“I can’t? Julie, give me a bank of video cameras and I’ll revise her image. Hell, I’ll make her into Joan of Arc.”

“Not with five thousand dollars.”

She turned and strolled into the kitchen, her movements graceful, almost languid. As if despite four years of sobriety, she still carried a full load of heroin somewhere in her flesh. Maybe that was why she liked plants so much.

I was in the kitchen, folding blueberries into a bowl of pancake batter when Caleb came in thirty minutes later. “Where you at, boss?” he called.

“In the kitchen. Making your breakfast.”

His head appeared in the doorway a moment later. “Julie here?”

“She’s taking a shower.”

“Yeah?” Caleb looked around as if checking to make sure I wasn’t lying. “Well, I got Byron’s yellow sheet. Priscilla’s, too.” He tossed an envelope onto the desk and took a seat. “Cost me fifty bucks. Shit, I can remember when I was able to open doors with just a smile.”

I filled a mug with coffee and set it on the table in front of him. “So, what’s the bad news?”

“Byron got out of prison thirteen months ago. Coming off a two year mandatory for selling a half ounce to a narc.”

“Seems to run in the family.” I began to drop pancake batter into a hot frying pan. “And the good news?”

“In 1994, Byron was charged with first degree assault after he attacked his wife in public. Eventually, he pled guilty to third degree assault and spent eight months at Rikers. Improving his attitude, no doubt.”

I slid a spatula under the edge of a pancake, began to work it in a circle. “Any other violence on the sheet?”

“Nothing.”

Julie, her coarse blond hair flying in all directions, picked that moment to come into the kitchen. Later, she would mousse her hair into submission, but for now, in our company, she was content to look like an owl clipped with a pair of hedge shears.

I flipped the pancakes, took down three plates, went to the refrigerator for syrup and butter while Caleb filled Julie in. When he was finished, she put her finger directly on the essential point.

“Priscilla was outside while her husband was in prison? That’s the way it went?”

“Right,” Caleb said, “by the time she finished her sentence, Byron was already in prison.”

“And the assault. That took place before either one of them went upstate?”

“Right again.”

“And she took him back when he got out?”

I dropped a plate in front of Caleb, another in front of Julie. “Enough negativity. It’s time to eat.”

Caleb folded his hands and bowed his head. “Thank you Lord Jesus for the food on my plate and for all the good things that come my way.”

I think he did it to irritate me, but if so, I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response. “The both of you, you’re missing something important. Priscilla Sweet has no drug busts, no busts of any kind, after her release from prison. It was Byron who brought drugs into the household.” I put my hand over my heart. “Yes, Byron the Beater, who forced my poor, brutalized client back into a life of crime.”

“You’re really worried about the cocaine?”

“I’m worried a jury will want to convict her for
something,
that they’ll work out a compromise and go with drug possession.”

Caleb held up a loaded fork, looked at it for a moment, popped it into his mouth. “I couldn’t get to Shawn McLearry or any of the other suits working the case. They were gone for the weekend. But I did speak with one of the uniforms who responded to the 911 call, a Spanish boy name of Alfonso Rodriguez. He told me the wound was through-and-through, that forensics pulled a slug out of the chair. He said Byron was definitely in that chair when she blew him away.”

“Maybe he was getting up,” Julie mused. “Maybe he threatened her and was coming out of the chair. I’d say Priscilla had reason to believe he’d carry through.”

“Whatta ya say we get to work?” I said. “See what the day brings?”

“I was hopin’ the day would bring me a little sleep, boss,” Caleb responded. “Seein’ as I been up since three o’clock this morning.”

“Fine, take a nap. But I want you to be there when I visit my client this afternoon, use some of that cop radar to pick out the lies. Also, I’m gonna ask for a list of potential witnesses to Byron’s abuse. Better if you should put the list together yourself, since you’ll most likely be interviewing them.”

He nodded once, then went back to his breakfast.

“Julie, I want you to get the film developed, then call Phoebe Morris, see if she’s interested in a set of photos and a copy of Byron Sweet’s bona fides.”

“You’re not gonna meet with her personally?”

I shook my head. “What I’m thinking is that you’ll get along with her better than I can.” That was another thing about Julie. Caleb as well. They were, the both of them, absolutely reliable. The media war to come would be vicious, with both sides leaking information. We needed to get it right the first time, and I handed the job to Julie without a second thought. “If Phoebe runs those photographs in
Newsday,
the other papers will follow along. Ditto for the networks.” I waved my fork in a rising spiral. “Remember, it’s up to us to keep the story alive until we go to trial. We do that, we’re not gonna have to worry about paying the rent. Ever again. This I promise you.”

C
ALEB WENT OFF TO
catch his nap almost as soon as he’d shoveled the last of his breakfast into his mouth. He had a knack for falling asleep at will, a knack Julie would have killed to possess. Fortunately for Caleb, it was Julie’s turn to do the dishes and as she chose obligation over jealousy, he went to his rest unscathed. I sat at the table, watched her work for a few minutes while I finished my second mug of coffee, then went back to an office consisting of a scarred wooden desk, a three-drawer file cabinet, a telephone-answering machine with a mind of its own, and a manual Smith-Corona typewriter. All squeezed into a windowless corner of my bedroom.

I sat down at the desk, picked up the phone, punched out Thelma Barrow’s number.

“Hello?” Her voice was thin, wavering slightly in pitch, the voice of someone (or so I thought at the time) perpetually expecting bad news.

“Sid Kaplan here.”

“Did you see Priscilla?”

“As I said I would, Mrs. Barrow.”

“She’s being punished for something. She couldn’t call me. That’s why I didn’t know.”

I pushed the chair back, put my feet on the desk, stared at a photo of my son, David. “Well, I did see Priscilla, but I haven’t decided to take the case.”

“Mr. Kaplan, please …”

“See, I’ve got this big problem. It seems my client and her mother began our relationship by lying to me.”

“I never …”

“Yeah, you
did,
you did lie to me. I asked you what Priscilla was charged with, remember?”

“Yes.” She sounded genuinely puzzled.

“And you never mentioned the cocaine. That’s called a lie of omission.” She started to mumble some excuse, but I cut her off. “Don’t tell me you forgot, or you didn’t think it was important. Nobody forgets ten-to-life. Or feels it doesn’t matter.”

She was silent for a moment, as if trying to make a decision, then said, “You’re very rude, Mr. Kaplan.”

“Please, call me Sid.”

That brought another pause. “I don’t …”

“My problem is that your daughter
also
lied to me. My problem is that you both lied about something you both knew I’d discover. My problem is that you lied about money.”

“Money?” Her voice contained equal measures of outrage and surprise.

“Drug cases are won or lost at preliminary hearings, Mrs. Barrow, and your daughter knows it. The evidence has to be excluded or the jury convicts.” I dropped my feet to the carpet and leaned forward. “That means I’ll have to make appearances in court, write and file briefs, do research or hire someone else to do it.” I let my voice drop. “Five thousand doesn’t begin to cover my time and expenses. Doesn’t even
begin
.’”

“Mr. Kaplan …”

“Sid.”

“Look, Sid, if you think I was trying to …” She hesitated long enough for me to wonder if she’d been about to use the phrase
Jew you down.
“… chisel, you’re wrong. I don’t know anything about cases or trials. For goodness sake, I’m a widow from Queens. My husband, Joe, owned a hardware store in Middle Village.”

“So you’re saying, the other times Priscilla was busted, you didn’t get involved?”

“No, I’m not saying that.”

“Then you know.” I kept my voice flat. It was time to move on, give her something to play with. “Mrs. Barrow, did you ever witness Byron’s abuse? Personally?”

“Call me Thelma.” She giggled, the sound remote, like the release of a held breath. “And, yes, I did. It happened shortly before my husband died. Priscilla came to the house one night, beaten so badly I couldn’t look her in the face. The next morning, while we were eating breakfast, Byron appeared out of nowhere. He knocked Prissy off her chair, then dragged her out. I mean literally, Sid. He dragged her out by the hair and forced her into his car.”

She was angry now, and I could easily imagine her sitting in the witness box, her eyes overflowing, her lower jaw trembling.

“Did anybody else see this happen?”

“My husband, like I just told you.”

I started to say, “Anybody
alive,”
but caught myself in time. “Someone else who can testify, Thelma.”

“Only my neighbor, Gennaro Cassadina. But I don’t think …See, Mister Cassadina’s eighty-five and he doesn’t always remember everything.”

“That’s all right. I’ll definitely be out to see him. Now …” Sudden changes of topic are part and parcel of every courtroom lawyer’s technique. Cop interrogators, incidentally, employ the same device, especially when circumstances preclude the use of balled fists. “Now, there
is
something I wanted to ask you about, Thelma.”

“Yes?” Her voice hardened, as if she’d decided not to go down without a fight.

“Do you remember when your daughter came out on parole?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I don’t know if I’ve got this right, but I’m looking at Byron’s rap sheet and it seems like he was in prison at the time.” I hesitated, but when she didn’t jump at the bait, I decided to make it as plain as I could. “See, the jury’s gonna want to know why she took him back after three years of living apart. And the prosecutor’s gonna say they were two drug dealers who had a falling out.”

“Maybe he forced her.”

“Maybe?” I swiveled the chair in a half-circle and looked out the window. Drops of cold January rain speckled the glass. The gray spongy mist beyond was so dense I couldn’t see the building across the street. “Mrs. Barrow, are you going to visit your daughter today?”

“Yes, in about an hour.” She paused, then asked, “Will you be seeing Priscilla?” Her voice was tentative, like she wasn’t certain she had a right to ask questions.

“I’ll be over this afternoon. What I want you to do in the meantime is bring up this question of Byron’s parole and why your daughter let him back into her life. Give her a chance to think about it before I get there.”

I hung up a moment later, went into the kitchen, filled a mug with coffee, then returned to my office. The next job, as I saw it, was to clear the deck. I had three clients at the time, mutts, one and all, who’d somehow managed to scrape up the cost of an informed plea bargain. Or, at least, that’s what I’d thought when I’d taken them on. Unfortunately, one of the bunch, a Hell’s Kitchen drug dealer named Owen Shaughnessy, was making noises like he wanted to go to trial. Never mind the fact that he’d sold three ounces of heroin to an undercover cop. Never mind the fact that the transaction had been recorded on both video and audio tape. Never mind the fact that, given his record, he’d get an extra ten years in prison for his refusal to accept the state’s more-than-generous offer of two-to-six. Owen Shaughnessy felt he’d purchased the right to jury trial with his lousy two grand, that he was entitled.