Authors: David Ellis
The hearing had gone about as she expected. The judges—three of them, all political types from the city—had focused on the fact that the internal report had not been completed. The city’s Freedom of Information Act exempted preliminary internal investigations from disclosure. “Do you contest that this report is still preliminary?” one of the judges asked before Shelly had barely said her name. And of course, she could not dispute it. Her principal argument was that Alex Baniewicz’s right to a fair trial trumped a nondisclosure law on general policy grounds. “But if the report is preliminary, how do we know it contains accurate, complete information?” asked another judge. “Isn’t that the reason FOIA exempts it? Because the information is not yet reliable.”
“I don’t care so much about their conclusions as their underlying facts,” Shelly had said. “And even if they’re not reliable, proven facts, that’s up to me to investigate. Let me take the ball
and run with it. But if they can throw a blanket over this and drag it out until after my client has gone to trial—”
“Do you have any evidence that the police department is stalling?” asked the same judge.
Of course she did not.
The third judge piped in. She had been in front of this one before; he had a reputation for dozing off on the bench. “Why can’t you discover the same information that the police department can discover?”
“They have power I don’t have,” Shelly had argued. “They tell a police officer to talk, and the officer has to talk. I can’t depose these officers, and they don’t want to talk to me.”
“But you can subpoena them for trial.”
“For trial?” Shelly had thrown up her arms. “Then I have to interview these officers for the first time in front of the jury.”
After the half-hour argument, Shelly knew she had lost. When the police department’s attorney went through his presentation, the judges hardly touched him. She would make a request to the state supreme court, but they wouldn’t agree to hear this case.
Shelly, dressing for an ordinary day in mid-May, was cold standing with two reporters, arguing her cause outside the courthouse. The sun was out but it was just over forty degrees. When she left them, she turned on her cell phone and called Joel Lightner.
“I think it was ‘Manuel,’ Joel. The kid who helped the cops break into my house.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing. He didn’t say a word.”
“So how can you possibly make that assumption?”
Shelly almost walked into an oncoming car. She stepped back to the curb but got a splash from the tire. “I think he was checking up on me,” she said. “He was worried about what had happened to me. He felt bad.”
“And he waited two months to call.”
“Just check it out, Joel. Okay?”
“I will. I’ll get a consent form to you. This is your phone, so we don’t need a subpoena.”
“Great.”
“And, Shelly? If this kid is calling you now, maybe that means there’s a
reason
to worry.”
“Wonderful.” She hung up the phone and braced herself against the wind. Ronnie was coming to her office today to help manage the growing pile of material for her. He would make photocopies, organize and catalogue files, run any errands she needed. Shelly probably could have used the firm’s paralegals, but she felt like a bit of a freeloader as it was—the deal she had worked out was rather lopsided in her favor—and Ronnie seemed so eager to lend a hand in whatever way he could.
She saw him. He was walking north on Donnelly toward her. He stopped as he got to the alley and looked in. She turned and walked toward him, but he didn’t see her. He was looking into the alley. And then he disappeared into it.
She quickened her pace, once again narrowly avoiding an oncoming vehicle. It was after four o’clock now, so the streets were just beginning to fill with people. She walked up to the alley and peeked in. Ronnie Masters was squatting down near the west end. Slowly, he got up and looked around. Then he turned in her direction and began to pace.
She had pulled back in time, she thought, so Ronnie didn’t see her. Now she turned and walked into the alley.
Ronnie stopped. “Oh, hey.”
“Hey yourself.” She gestured behind her. “Saw you back there.”
Ronnie had already turned back around. He pointed back at the area where he had been on his haunches. Shelly saw a piece of the pavement that had splintered badly, a fragment that had popped up.
“That must be where Alex tripped,” he said.
“Tripped.” She didn’t know anything about Alex tripping.
“Yeah, when he messed up his knee.”
“I didn’t know Alex messed up his knee,” she said. “I didn’t know he tripped.”
Ronnie looked at her. This meant that Ronnie had been talking to Alex about the case. She had already warned him that their conversations could be recorded, legally, by the authorities. She assumed that this particular talk had taken place before
her warning to him. And she wasn’t up for scolding at the moment; she was more concerned with why everyone seemed to know more about this case than she.
“He fell while he was running?” Shelly asked.
“You don’t know this?”
“No, as a matter of fact, I don’t. I didn’t notice a limp or anything.”
“Well, you know how it is when you bang up your knee. For five minutes, you think you’ll never walk again, then it’s fine.”
They walked to her office. Ronnie was still wearing that ratty hooded sweatshirt for warmth. She dearly wanted to buy him something warmer, but she knew he would not react well to the offer. He was a proud young man, she could see. And besides, it would warm up soon enough.
She could see the weight of the last two months in Ronnie’s eyes, which were puffy and dark. He seemed like a boy who kept a lot to himself—like his “brother,” Alex, but in a different way. Alex, at least before the shooting, radiated an optimistic glow. Ronnie seemed darker. Two boys who essentially grew up together but were different.
They reached the office, and Shelly put him to work. He sat on the floor of her office and began to place things in their proper places, which was no small chore. Shelly was no neat freak. Quite the opposite. Her office typically was chaotic. She had made a point to do better this time, with this case, but there were only so many new tricks she could teach herself.
“Christ, you’re messy,” he said, as if she needed the tip.
She smirked at him and poured over her notes again. She thought of the alley, of the fact that Alex had apparently fallen and hurt himself. Why hadn’t he mentioned that? What else didn’t she know? No, it was not exactly a crucial detail, but it made Shelly wonder about the completeness of her own understanding of events that night.
“You two got a communication problem,” Ronnie said, as if he were reading her mind.
“Tell me about it. I have to learn information from you.”
He stopped what he was doing and looked at her. “You don’t plan on—after this is over. You don’t really plan on being a part of things, do you?”
“That’s not true.” She felt her hair rise. “That’s not true at all.”
“Well, you’re treating him like a criminal, Shelly. It’s like you find out you’re related to him and you like him
less.
”
She sighed. “Ronnie, I’ve told—”
“You know he used to talk about you? When he was younger? He used to wonder what was wrong with him. He wondered what was so bad about him that made you give him away.”
She set down the report.
“I know it must’ve been tough, Shelly. But it hasn’t been easy for
him,
either.”
She brought her hands to her face. “What do you want me to say, Ronnie?”
He looked up at her. “I want you to act like he wasn’t an accident. Or a mistake.” He got up from his work, wiped at his hands. He left under the guise of needing some things from the supply room.
Shelly had a headache. She was, she realized, getting tired of apologizing. If Alex didn’t beat these charges, it wouldn’t matter whether she accepted him into her life, or she into his. She had every right to be focusing on his defense.
Her phone rang. It was Dan Morphew, the prosecutor.
“Seventy years, Counselor. Let’s make this go away. I need to get back to all that paperwork they give me these days.”
“I can’t buy that, Dan. Not even close.”
“Think on it,” he said. “Let’s keep talking.”
Shelly stared at the receiver a moment before hanging up.
W
HILE SHE WAITED
to see Alex, Shelly opened the small package delivered from the prosecution. The prosecution had to go first and disclose its witnesses. Shelly had two days thereafter to disclose hers. Neither party was required to accurately predict whom they would call as the trial evolved, but each party had to identify potential witnesses or risk having the judge exclude their testimony. So the rule was, throw in everyone who could even conceivably touch upon the case; leave out witnesses at your peril.
The prosecution would call Officer Julio Sanchez, Miro’s partner, as a witness to the crime. The two eyewitnesses, Monica Stoddard and Joseph Slattery, were listed. The prosecution listed Dr. Mitra Agarwal, the county’s chief deputy medical examiner, to testify as to cause of death and the distance between Miroballi and Alex at the time of the shooting. Detective Alberto Montes, with whom Shelly had spoken at the police station that night, would testify about the investigation and about some of the testing performed on the suspect. Other than that, Morphew would only call people to testify as to chain of custody to show that various pieces of evidence were properly handled and preserved.
It would be a straightforward prosecution, which was exactly how Assistant County Attorney Dan Morphew wanted it. Nothing fancy or complicated. No doubt that Alex was there, no doubt that Alex was the shooter. Morphew would have the opportunity
to supplement this list once she disclosed her witnesses, because Shelly was pleading an affirmative defense, but he probably could do all he needed to do with Officer Sanchez.
What would happen, she wondered, when the F.B.I. closed in on the dirty cops, when the sting became public? Morphew would be caught flat-footed. Or did he have some inkling now? Had he discussed things with the federal prosecutors? Is
that
what prompted his offer of seventy years?
That was a possibility. And not one that the F.B.I. would confirm, even if she bothered to ask.
Shelly also would identify Officer Sanchez. She would disclose Officer Brian O’Sullivan, the officer who first arrived on the scene after Miroballi was shot and who had canvassed the crime scene. She disclosed Ronnie Masters but kept the description of his testimony deliberately vague, which she found interesting about herself, because she realized that Ronnie would probably say just about anything to help Alex. She might consider naming the man who supplied drugs to Alex, Edward Todavia, but the jury was still out on that one; by doing that, Morphew would go to Todavia immediately, read his sheet, and figure out that he was probably connected to the cocaine that Alex had that night. She did the boilerplate as well, identifying any and all witnesses mentioned in any of the materials produced by the prosecution or before the grand jury.
And for the heck of it, she would throw in the names of Ray Miroballi’s brothers, Tony and Reggie.
She wished she could trade sides with Dan Morphew. He had cops, good eyewitnesses, an accomplished forensic pathologist. She had a hostile cop, a kid who was obviously biased (and probably wouldn’t testify, anyway), and down the road, perhaps, federal prosecutors and special agents who were not exactly friendly to her cause, who in fact had told her informally that she would never be able to prove that Miroballi was forcing Alex to work for him.
Alex was brought in. He needed a haircut, she realized, which made her think of his appearance at trial. He would need a couple of suits, or at least sport coats, and clean shirts and at least two ties.
The guard locked Alex’s wrists down to the table and patted
his shoulder. “Thanks, Joe,” said Alex. It was the same old story now with Alex. She was beginning to forget the Alex she had first known, the sunny disposition and wry sense of humor. This was Alex now. One part scared, two parts hardened, bracing himself for every day that he spent inside and preparing for a long stay. She couldn’t even fathom the erosion to one’s psyche from being confined, from wearing shackles whenever one consorted with outsiders. He would never be the same, she realized with a pang of regret. No matter what happened next. He would never get this time back, and he would never get this time completely out of his system.
“How’s your knee?” she asked.
“My knee?”
“I didn’t know you had tripped, Alex. When you were running from Miroballi that night.”
“Oh. Well, yeah. I guess it didn’t seem too important.”
“Oh, it probably isn’t,” she said. “But you shouldn’t be making those judgments. You have to tell me everything. This might not be such a big deal, but it makes me wonder what else you have left out.”
“I haven’t left anything out.” He played with his fingers. “So tell me how things are going.”
Shelly had always been honest to a fault with her clients. She remembered feeling, as a child, that she wasn’t given enough credit by adults. So she gave Alex her best assessment of the self-defense case and the “innocence” case. Alex seemed distressed as he listened, and Shelly thought that maybe he could use a dose of that emotion. He needed to hear her say, in a coherent presentation, how weak his case looked.
“The problem with arguing you didn’t shoot Miroballi,” she told him, “is that we have to show that someone else did. And I need your help with that.”
She was giving him yet another chance to add information. She made a point of emphasizing that the case for Alex being the shooter was largely circumstantial. Other than the word of a homeless man, it simply came to down to the fact that Alex ran into the alley, Miroballi chased him, and Miroballi ended up with a bullet in his head. Yes, sure, Alex was the obvious suspect, but if they could put someone else in that alley, too, the
prosecution could do little to show it wasn’t true. She was practically begging him to put a third person in that alley.