Beach Road (22 page)

“That’s why they left a cap that had no trace of Dante’s sweat or hair oil on the band. They left a hat
at the crime scene that
had never been worn.

If Dante had gone off that night to kill his best friend, would he pick the brightest, reddest cap in his
collection? And in a year, the prosecution hasn’t been able to find one person, not one, who saw a
nearly seven-foot man in a bright-red cap on the streets of New York City that night. Of course they
didn’t. He wasn’t on the street that night.

“So what really happened? Who are the killers.

“Someone or some group of people connected to the drug trade that was conducted so brazenly at Mr.
Wilson’s estate last summer killed those three young men. They opportunistically framed Dante
Halleyville. They killed Michael Walker too, but in the process they made serious mistakes. Killers almost
always do.

“A hat that Dante had never worn at a crime scene. A gun planted in a Dumpster in a way that makes no
sense. And then, the biggest blunder-leaning way too heavily on one crooked cop.”
At that, the whole room squirms, particularly the men in blue standing shoulder to shoulder along all four
walls.

“Are we really expected to believe it’s a
coincidence
that the same cop who received the so-called anonymous tip about the gun in the Dumpster also got
the call from Nikki Robinson when she came up with her ridiculous fabrication of rape? And this is the
same cop who arrested her for possession? And the same cop who was left alone in Dante’s bedroom
with those hats.

Please.

“But for all the mistakes the killers made, one calculation proved to be spot on-which is that the police
would be quick to believe that a black teenager, even one with no history of violence and the prospect of
being a top selection in the NBA draft, would throw it all away because he lost a meaningless pickup
basketball game and got hit by a harmless punch. Why? Because that’s what black teenagers do, right?
They go off for no reason.

“From the beginning of this trial, the prosecution has gone out of its way to talk about race. They told
you about a basketball game in which, God forbid, one team was made up of black players and the
other white players. They made sure you heard about a scared teenage kid who said, ‘
This ain’t over, white boy.

‘ That’s because at the core of the prosecution’s case is the assumption that black teenagers are so
fragile and insecure that anything can set them off on a murderous rampage.

“I know Dante Halleyville, and there’s nothing fragile about his personality or character. When his older
brother veered into crime, he stayed in school and worked on his game. When his mother lost her battle
with drug addiction, he stayed in school and worked on his game, and now he’s stood up to almost a year
in a maximum-security jail for a crime he didn’t commit.

“In this case, as in so many others, race is nothing but a smoke screen. I know you’re not going to be
distracted or misled. You’re going to see the prosecution’s case for what it is. Because there is not one
piece of credible evidence connecting Dante to these murders, you’re going to come to the only
conclusion you can-which is that the prosecution has
proved nothing
beyond a reasonable doubt.

“And then,
Madam Forewoman,
you’re going to say the two words that Dante Halleyville has being waiting to hear for a year-
not guilty.

“If you don’t do that, you will be helping the murderers get away with
a fifth
murder, the murder of a remarkable young man, a very good friend of mine named Dante
Halleyville.”

Kate
TOM COLLAPSES IN his chair, and the jurors stare at him stone-faced. Five of the jurors are African
Americans and eight are women, but talking about race is a risk, particularly to a jury that’s mostly white.

Howard can’t wait to make us pay for it. “Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Melvin Howard. I’m fifty-
two years of age, and to the best of my knowledge, I’ve been black the whole time.

“In Alabama, where my people are from, my grandparents were the grandchildren of slaves, and when my
parents were coming up, black people couldn’t use the same bathrooms as white folks or eat at the same
restaurants. But none of that disgraceful history has one iota to do with Dante Halleyville or this trial, and
Mr. Dunleavy knows it.”
Tom didn’t say it did. In fact, he was saying the opposite, but Howard is twisting it anyway, doing
whatever he thinks will work. But all that matters is how it plays to the twelve folks in the good seats, and
when I look in their eyes I can’t read a thing. I’m proud of what Tom has done, but I’m nervous too.

“Race and police corruption?” asks Howard sarcastically. “Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Now where have I
heard that before?” And then he looks at the end of the press row where Ronnie Montgomery is sitting and
holds his mock stare.

“Oh, now I remember. It was from the tabloid trial of the century, the murder trial of Lorenzo Lewis. About
the only thing missing is a snappy little slogan, like ‘if the hat’s too red, their case is dead.’
“But how many people still think Lorenzo’s innocent today? Not even his golfing buddies in Arizona. So
don’t let yourself be conned like that jury, ladies and gentlemen, unless you want to be remembered the
same way.

“Now is the time for you to see through the nonsense and the imaginative conspiracy theories and focus on
the evidence. For starters, we got a murder weapon with Michael Walker’s prints all over it, recovered at a
Southampton diner three hours after Dante Halleyville stops there. Although the defense tried very hard to
put words in his mouth, Dr. Ewald Olson, one of the nation’s top forensic scientists, has testified those
prints could only belong to Michael Walker, and that gun killed all four of those young men.

“Now let me say something about a highly decorated East Hampton police officer named Hugo
Lindgren.” In Riverhead every other family has a relative who’s a cop or corrections officer, and Howard
is about to appeal directly to their defensive loyalties.

“By irresponsibly dragging his reputation through the mud, they have impugned not only an officer who
has earned seventeen commendations in his nine years on the force, but by extension all policemen and
corrections officers who risk their lives every day so that we can go about our business in safety.

“According to the defense, it’s evidence of a conspiracy that one cop should be so involved in every
aspect of the biggest murder case in East Hampton in a hundred years. Good cops like Lindgren spend
their whole career waiting for cases like this. It’s only natural that he would become obsessed with it.
And remember, the East Hampton PD is a small unit, so for one officer to be involved a couple of
times over the course of an investigation is hardly suspicious. It’s surprising to me
his name didn’t come up more often.

“The defense, in its desperation, has said a couple other things that are simply untrue and need to be
corrected.

“One is that it’s suspicious that the call about the gun came from the pay phone at the Princess Diner.
Maybe most of us have cell phones now, but what if the caller was a busboy working the overnight
shift at the restaurant that night for minimum wage? Not everyone can afford a cell phone. The
second is the implication that the gun was found after the defendant told police he had been to the
diner that night and that the defendant volunteered that information. Neither is true. Lindgren was
nowhere near the room where the defendant was interviewed, and the police found out Halleyville had
been at the diner
after
the gun was found.

“Bear in mind, also, that the one person who places that officer in Dante’s room is Dante’s grandmother
Marie Scott. Marie Scott may be a very good woman, and I’m sure she is, and she swore to tell this court
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help her, God. But she’s also a human being, and
who of us can say with any certainty exactly what they would do or say to save the life of their flesh and
blood?”
Howard is sweating at least as much as Tom, but when he stops it’s only for a drink of water.

“And there’s an important part of this case that the defense hasn’t even attempted to discredit or obscure,
which is that on the morning before the murders, Michael Walker got a gun out of Dante’s car, brought it
onto T. Smitty Wilson’s basketball court, and put it up against the head of one of the victims, Eric Feifer.
As the witness told you, he didn’t just aim the weapon at Eric Feifer, he put the tip of the barrel right up
against his head, and you’ve seen those grisly photographs so you know how close the killer held the gun to
the victims’ heads when the shots were fired. And before Walker temporarily put that gun down, he
announced, ‘This ain’t over, white boy, not by a long shot.’ Before the actual murder, there was a dress
rehearsal to which fourteen men and women were invited.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a pretty simple case. You’ve got two defendants at the murder scene;
you’ve got a murder weapon containing the fingerprints of one of them; you’ve got a hat with
fingerprints that connects the defendant to the second murder scene.

And now, thanks to the courage of Nikki Robinson, you have a powerful motive-revenge for a brutal
rape.

“I want to thank all of you for the focus and commitment you have shown already. And thanks in
advance for the concentration you will bring to the work that is still left. You’re almost home, ladies
and gentlemen. Please, don’t take your eye off the ball now.

Dante Halleyville is guilty of murder. If you value your safety and the safety of your loved ones, do
not set him free.

”

Kate
FOR A COUPLE of quiet minutes spectators linger in their seats like moviegoers reading the closing credits.
“We love you, Dante,” shouts Marie as two sheriffs approach the defense table to take him away. “It’s
almost over, baby.”
“Yeah,” a guy in paint-splattered overalls calls from the door, “and then you fry!”
Tom and I shake Dante’s hand, which is still quivering; then the sheriffs put him back in handcuffs and
lead him to the steel-cage elevator that will take him to the holding cell in the basement. On the opposite
side of the room, another pair of sheriffs escorts the jury out a second door and walks them to a waiting
bus. The bus will take them a quarter of a mile down the road to a Ramada Inn, where they’ll spend the
weekend on the eleventh floor, sequestered from one another and the rest of the world.

After the jury’s bus pulls out, Tom and I slip out the same back door and hustle across the parking lot to
where Clarence has left us his cab.

As we roll out the back exit in the yellow station wagon, TV reporters and other press are still waiting for us
in front. By the time they realize what’s happened, we’re halfway to Sunrise Highway.

Neither of us says a whole lot during the drive home. Exhaustion is part of the reason, but mostly it’s
shyness, or something like that. Suddenly alone together again, we’re not sure how to act. Actually,
I’m thinking about the old days, when we were younger. During our senior year in high school, Tom
and I saw each other just about every day-
beach bums forever.

It was pretty much the same way through college, and I went to almost all of Tom’s home games
when he was at St. John’s. That’s why the breakup was such a shocker for me. I still didn’t know if I
was over the hurt.

Anyway, when Tom pulls into Macklin’s driveway and I quickly get out of the car, I can read the
disappointment in his eyes.

I’m feeling it too, but I’m so bone tired I need to get to my room before I collapse. I unbutton my skirt
before I reach the top of the steep stairs, pull the shades, and crawl into bed.

The relief at finding myself horizontal between clean white sheets lasts a minute. Then my mind hits
Rewind and Play and the second-guessing starts. Did Tom have to mention race? Were we right not to put
Dante on the stand? Why was I so easy on Nikki? I should have shredded her. How hard could we really
have been trying if we didn’t track down Loco? Who are we kidding-thinking we could win this case.

Then sleep, the loveliest gift a person ever gave herself, pulls the black curtain down.

When I sit up in bed again, awakened by what sounds like a woodpecker tapping against a pane of glass,
it’s three thirty in the morning. I’ve been asleep for more than nine hours.

There’s another
click
on the glass, and then another
click,
and I climb out of bed and step groggily to the window.

I fumble for the shade, give one little tug, and it flies past my face up toward the ceiling.

Standing in the backyard, a bicycle lying at his feet, and about to throw another pebble at the window, is
the only boy who’s ever broken my heart.

When Tom’s face breaks into a grin, I realize I’m naked.

Tom
HOW CAN AN ex-NBA player miss a target the size of a door less than fifteen feet away? The pebble
bounces off the siding, hits the edge of the gutter, and lands in the grass near my feet.

I scoop another little piece of Mack’s driveway out of my pocket and try again. This time I actually hit the
window, and then I hit it again.

I’m wondering how many direct hits it’s going to take when the shade flies up and Kate stands at the
window, the moonlight shining on her freckled shoulders and full breasts. After a couple interminable
seconds, Kate lifts a finger to her lips and smiles, and I can breathe again, at least until the back door
swings open and she steps outside barefoot in cutoff shorts and a Led Zeppelin T-shirt.

We tiptoe past the
National Enquirer
photographer asleep in his rented Toyota and walk down the middle of a sleeping Montauk street
toward the beach. We leave our shoes under the bench behind the East Deck and cut through the
dunes.