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‘Jesus H. Christ!’
‘Would you tell me what the charges are?’
‘Hold on. I’ll find her ticket. Luna Tarner. That’s a hot one … here we are. Pross. Picked up by CWAC, down below.’
‘Quack?’
‘You’re new around here, huh? CWAC is the City-Wide Anti-Crime unit. A pross is a hooker, and down below is south of Forty-Second Street. Capish?’
‘Capish.’
Night court depressed Jennifer. It was filled with a human tide that ceaselessly surged in and out, washed up on the shores of justice.
There were more than a hundred and fifty cases heard each night. There were whores and transvestites, stinking, battered drunks and drug addicts. There were Puerto Ricans and Mexicans and Jews and Irish and Greeks and Italians, and they were accused of rape and theft and possession of guns or dope or assault or prostitution. And they all had one thing in common: They were poor. They were poor and defeated and lost. They were the dregs, the misfits whom the affluent society had passed by. A large proportion of them came from Central Harlem, and because there was no more room in the prison system, all but the most serious offenders were dismissed or fined. They returned home to St Nicholas Avenue and Morningside and Manhattan Avenues, where in three and one-half square miles there lived two hundred and thirty-three thousand blacks, eight thousand Puerto Ricans, and an estimated one million rats.
The majority of clients who came to Jennifer’s office were people who had been ground down by poverty, the system, themselves. They were people who had long since surrendered. Jennifer found that their fears fed her self-confidence. She did not feel superior to them. She certainly could not hold herself up as a shining example of success, and yet she knew there was one big difference between her and her clients: She would never give up.
Ken Bailey introduced Jennifer to Father Francis Joseph Ryan. Father Ryan was in his late fifties, a radiant, vital man with crisp gray-and-black hair that curled about his ears. He was always in serious need of a haircut. Jennifer liked him at once.
From time to time, when one of his parishioners would disappear, Father Ryan would come to Ken and enlist his services. Invariably, Ken would find the errant husband, wife, daughter or son. There would never be a charge.
‘It’s a down payment on heaven,’ Ken would explain.
One afternoon when Jennifer was alone Father Ryan dropped by the office.
‘Ken’s out, Father Ryan. He won’t be back today.’
‘It’s really you I wanted to see, Jennifer,’ Father Ryan said. He sat down in the uncomfortable old wooden chair in front of Jennifer’s desk. ‘I have a friend who has a bit of a problem.’
That was the way he always started out with Ken.
‘Yes, Father?’
‘She’s an elderly parishioner, and the poor dear’s having trouble getting her Social Security payments. She moved into my neighborhood a few months ago and some damned computer lost all her records, may it rust in hell.’
‘I see.’
‘I knew you would,’ Father Ryan said, getting to his feet. ‘I’m afraid there won’t be any money in it for you.’
Jennifer smiled. ‘Don’t worry about that. I’ll try to straighten things out.’
She had thought it would be a simple matter, but it had taken her almost three days to get the computer reprogrammed.
One morning a month later, Father Ryan walked into Jennifer’s office and said, ‘I hate to bother you, my dear, but I have a friend who has a bit of a problem. I’m afraid he has no –’ He hesitated.
‘– Money,’ Jennifer guessed.
‘Ah! That’s it. Exactly. But the poor fellow needs help badly.’
‘All right. Tell me about him.’
‘His name is Abraham. Abraham Wilson. He’s the son of one of my parishioners. Abraham is serving a life sentence in Sing Sing for killing a liquor store owner during a holdup.’
‘If he was convicted and is serving his sentence, I don’t see how I can help. Father.’
Father Ryan looked at Jennifer and sighed. ‘That’s not his problem.’
‘It isn’t?’
‘No. A few weeks ago Abraham killed another man – a fellow prisoner named Raymond Thorpe. They’re going to try him for murder, and go for the death penalty.’
Jennifer had read something about the case. ‘If I remember correctly, he beat the man to death.’
‘So they say.’
Jennifer picked up a pad and a pen. ‘Do you know if there were any witnesses?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘How many?’
‘Oh, a hundred or so. It happened in the prison yard, you see.’
‘Terrific. What is it you want me to do?’
Father Ryan said simply, ‘Help Abraham.’
Jennifer put down her pen. ‘Father, it’s going to take your Boss to help him.’ She sat back in her chair. ‘He’s going in with three strikes against him. He’s black, he’s a convicted murderer, and he killed another man in front of a hundred witnesses. Assuming he did it, there just aren’t any grounds for defense. If another prisoner was threatening him, there were guards he could have asked to help him. Instead, he took the law into his own hands. There isn’t a jury in the world that wouldn’t convict him.’
‘He’s still a fellow human being. Would you just talk to him?’
Jennifer sighed. ‘I’ll talk to him if you want me to, but I won’t make any commitment.’
Father Ryan nodded. ‘I understand. It would probably mean a great deal of publicity.’
They were both thinking the same thing. Abraham Wilson was not the only one who had strikes against him.
Sing Sing Prison is situated at the town of Ossining, thirty miles upstate of Manhattan on the east bank of the Hudson River, overlooking the Tappan Zee and Haverstraw Bay.
Jennifer went up by bus. She had telephoned the assistant warden and he had made arrangements for her to see Abraham Wilson, who was being held in solitary confinement.
During the bus ride, Jennifer was filled with a sense of purpose she had not felt in a long time. She was on her way to Sing Sing to meet a possible client charged with murder. This was the kind of case she had studied for, prepared herself for. She felt like a lawyer for the first time in a year, and yet she knew she was being unrealistic. She was not on her way to see a client. She was on her way to tell a man she could not represent him. She could not afford to become involved in a highly publicized case that she had no chance of winning.
Abraham Wilson would have to find someone else to defend him.
A dilapidated taxi took Jennifer from the bus station to the penitentiary, situated on seventy acres of land near the river. Jennifer rang the bell at the side entrance and a guard opened the door, checked off her name against his list, and directed her to the assistant warden’s office.
The assistant warden was a large, square man with an old-fashioned military haircut and an acne-pitted face. His name was Howard Patterson.
‘I would appreciate anything you can tell me about Abraham Wilson,’ Jennifer began.
‘If you’re looking for comfort, you’re not going to get it here.’ Patterson glanced at the dossier on the desk in front of him. ‘Wilson’s been in and out of prisons all his life. He was caught stealing cars when he was eleven, arrested on a mugging charge when he was thirteen, picked up for rape when he was fifteen, became a pimp at eighteen, served a sentence for putting one of his girls in the hospital …’ He leafed through the dossier. ‘You name it – stabbings, armed robbery and finally the big time – murder.’
It was a depressing recital.
Jennifer asked, ‘Is there any chance that Abraham Wilson didn’t kill Raymond Thorpe?’
‘Forget it. Wilson’s the first to admit it, but it wouldn’t make any difference even if he denied it. We’ve got a hundred and twenty witnesses.’
‘May I see Mr Wilson?’
Howard Patterson rose to his feet. ‘Sure, but you’re wasting your time.’
Abraham Wilson was the ugliest human being Jennifer Parker had ever seen. He was coal-black, with a nose that had been broken in several places, missing front teeth and tiny, shifty eyes set in a knife-scarred face. He was about six feet four inches and powerfully built. He had huge flat feet which made him lumber. If Jennifer had searched for one word to describe Abraham Wilson, it would have been menacing. She could imagine the effect this man would have on a jury.
Abraham Wilson and Jennifer were seated in a high-security visiting room, a thick wire mesh between them, a guard standing at the door. Wilson had just been taken out of solitary confinement and his beady eyes kept blinking against the light. If Jennifer had come to this meeting feeling she would probably not want to handle this case, after seeing Abraham Wilson she was positive. Merely sitting opposite him she could feel the hatred spewing out of the man.
Jennifer opened the conversation by saying, ‘My name is Jennifer Parker. I’m an attorney. Father Ryan asked me to see you.’
Abraham Wilson spat through the screen, spraying Jennifer with saliva. ‘That mothafuckin’ do-gooder.’
It’s a wonderful beginning, Jennifer thought. She carefully refrained from wiping the saliva from her face. ‘Is there anything you need here, Mr Wilson?’
He gave her a toothless smile. ‘A piece of ass, baby. You innersted?’
She ignored that. ‘Do you want to tell me what happened?’
‘Hey, you lookin’ for my life story, you gotta pay me for it. I gonna sell it for da movin’ pitchurs. Maybe I’ll star in it mysef.’
The anger coming out of him was frightening. All Jennifer wanted was to get out of there. The assistant warden had been right. She was wasting her time.
‘I’m afraid there’s really nothing I can do to help you unless you help me, Mr Wilson. I promised Father Ryan I would at least come and talk to you.’
Abraham Wilson gave her a toothless grin again. ‘That’s mighty white of ya, sweetheart. Ya sure ya don’t wanna change your mind ’bout that piece of ass?’
Jennifer rose to her feet. She had had enough. ‘Do you hate everybody?’
‘Tell ya what, doll, you crawl inta my skin and I’ll crawl inta yours, and then you’n me’ll rap ’bout hate.’
Jennifer stood there, looking into that ugly black face, digesting what he had said, and then she slowly sat down. ‘Do you want to tell me your side of the story, Abraham?’
He stared into her eyes, saying nothing. Jennifer waited, watching him, wondering what it must be like to wear that scarred black skin. She wondered how many scars were hidden inside the man.
The two of them sat there in a long silence. Finally, Abraham Wilson said, ‘I killed the somabitch.’
‘Why did you kill him?’
He shrugged. ‘The motha’ was comin’ at me with this great big butcher knife, and –’
‘Don’t con me. Prisoners don’t walk around carrying butcher knives.’
Wilson’s face tightened and he said, ‘Get the fuck outa here, lady. I din’t sen’ for ya.’ He rose to his feet. ‘An’ don’t come round heah botherin’ me no more, you heah? I’m a busy man.’
He turned and walked over to the guard. A moment later they were both gone. That was that. Jennifer could at least tell Father Ryan that she had talked to the man. There was nothing further she could do.
A guard let Jennifer out of the building. She started across the courtyard toward the main gate, thinking about Abraham Wilson and her reaction to him. She disliked the man and, because of that, she was doing something she had no right to do: She was judging him. She had already pronounced him guilty and he had not yet had a trial. Perhaps someone had attacked him, not with a knife, of course, but with a rock or a brick. Jennifer stopped and stood there indecisively. Every instinct told her to go back to Manhattan and forget about Abraham Wilson.
Jennifer turned and walked back to the assistant warden’s office.
‘He’s a hard case,’ Howard Patterson said. ‘When we can, we try rehabilitation instead of punishment, but Abraham Wilson’s too far gone. The only thing that will calm him down is the electric chair.’
What a weird piece of logic, Jennifer thought. ‘He told me the man he killed attacked him with a butcher knife.’
‘I guess that’s possible.’
The answer startled her. ‘What do you mean, ‘that’s possible’? Are you saying a convict in here could get possession of a knife? A butcher knife?’
Howard Patterson shrugged. ‘Miss Parker, we have twelve hundred and forty convicts in this place, and some of them are men of great ingenuity. Come on. I’ll show you something.’
Patterson led Jennifer down a long corridor to a locked door. He selected a key from a large keyring, opened the door and turned on the light. Jennifer followed him into a small, bare room with built-in shelves.
‘This is where we keep the prisoners’ box of goodies.’ He walked over to a large box and lifted the lid.
Jennifer stared down into the box unbelievingly.
She looked up at Howard Patterson and said, ‘I want to see my client again.’
Chapter Six (#ulink_b62f879b-bc2f-5316-80b3-a70b51c80ed3)
Jennifer prepared for Abraham Wilson’s trial as she had never prepared for anything before in her life. She spent endless hours in the law library checking for procedures and defenses, and with her client, drawing from him every scrap of information she could. It was no easy task. From the beginning, Wilson was truculent and sarcastic.
‘You wanna know about me, honey? I got my first fuck when I was ten. How ole was you?’
Jennifer forced herself to ignore his hatred and his contempt, for she was aware that they covered up a deep fear. And so Jennifer persisted, demanding to know what Wilson’s early life was like, what his parents were like, what had shaped the boy into the man. Over a period of weeks, Abraham Wilson’s reluctance gave way to interest, and his interest finally gave way to fascination. He had never before had reason to think of himself in terms of what kind of person he was, or why.
Jennifer’s prodding questions began to arouse memories, some merely unpleasant, others unbearably painful. Several times during the sessions when Jennifer was questioning Abraham Wilson about his father, who had regularly given him savage beatings, Wilson would order Jennifer to leave him alone. She left, but she always returned.
If Jennifer had had little personal life before, she now had none. When she was not with Abraham Wilson, she was at her office, seven days a week, from early morning until long after midnight, reading everything she could find about the crimes of murder and manslaughter, voluntary and involuntary. She studied hundreds of appellate court decisions, briefs, affidavits, exhibits, motions, transcripts. She pored over files on intent and premeditation, self-defense, double jeopardy, and temporary insanity.
She studied ways to get the charge reduced to manslaughter.
Abraham had not planned to kill the man. But would a jury believe that? Particularly a local jury. The townspeople hated the prisoners in their midst. Jennifer moved for a change of venue, and it was granted. The trial would be held in Manhattan.
Jennifer had an important decision to make: Should she allow Abraham Wilson to testify? He presented a forbidding figure, but if the jurors were able to hear his side of the story from his own lips, they might have some sympathy for him. The problem was that putting Abraham Wilson on the stand would allow the prosecution to reveal Wilson’s background and past record, including the previous murder he had committed.
Jennifer wondered which one of the assistant district attorneys Di Silva would assign to be her adversary. There were half a dozen very good ones who prosecuted murder trials, and Jennifer familiarized herself with their techniques.
She spent as much time as possible at Sing Sing, looking over the scene of the killing in the recreation yard, talking to guards and Abraham, and she interviewed dozens of convicts who had witnessed the killing.
