Jury of One

40

Joel Lightner and Shelly drove along the city’s west side, past the graffiti-laden buildings and the residential areas that tugged at her heart.

“I’m just not getting much,” said Joel, referring to his attempts to dig up information on Officer Ray Miroballi and his partner, Julio Sanchez. “If Miroballi was working the drug trade, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to deposit huge sums in his bank account.”

She looked at him. “What would you do?”

“I’d either spend it, bury it in my backyard, or hide it in a safe-deposit box.”

Shelly considered that. “Maybe I should subpoena the bank to see if he has a safe-deposit box. Most families do.”

“He does.”

“He does? Then I’ll issue-”

“Not worth your time,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Not worth your time, Counselor.” He looked at her.

Oh. Okay. How Joel Lightner had managed to get a look inside Miroballi’s safe deposit box was not something she cared to know. She might not approve of his tactics generally speaking, but she was heartened to know that she was working with a pro.

“That other thing we discussed,” he said. “Should have an answer soon.”

“Thanks, Joel.”

“I showed Alex’s photo around the open gym at City Athletic,” he said. “Some of the guys knew him. You can imagine, it’s a different group every week. You never know who’s playing when. Used to play there myself, about a thousand years ago.”

“What did they say about Alex?”

“Nice kid. Quiet. Doesn’t call pussy fouls.”

“Good. I’ll try to work that into my opening statement.”

She felt her heartbeat increase as the car pulled over to a curb. Joel nodded down the street to a house with tarnished aluminum siding and a front porch that looked like it had lost a fight with a bulldozer. Joel raised a cell phone to his mouth. “We’re here, Teddy.” Joel waved his hand in exaggerated fashion, and Shelly saw two men in a sedan down the street wave back. Joel listened to the response, which Shelly could only faintly hear through the phone. “Good. Alone? Good. Yeah, sit tight.”

“Our backup,” she assumed.

“It’s probably nothing, Shelly. But why be stupid?” He put away his phone. “Especially if Riley’s footing the bill.”

“Don’t remind me. I feel bad enough.”

“Oh, c’mon now. Riley’s loaded. Besides”-he nudged her-“not for nothing, but I think Paul would hire a small army to protect you.”

“Oh, yeah?” She looked at him. “What’s it to you?”

He held up his hands innocently. “Hey, nothing, ma’am. I just work here.”

She reached for the door and Joel caught her. “Hey, Counselor, for real now. You never know what’s behind a door, know what I mean?”

Shelly had probably visited as many of these homes as Joel. Maybe not under precisely the same circumstances, but she knew what it meant to be unwelcome in these parts.

Joel, who was licensed to carry a firearm, kept one hand near his jacket and looked over the home as he approached. The sun had fallen behind the housing projects to the west, leaving this dilapidated neighborhood in darkness. The temperatures had warmed over the last few days but it was still dropping to near freezing outside.

Joel removed his credentials from his pocket and held them out as he gingerly took the three steps onto the porch. Shelly followed and mimicked his movements. Joel banged on the door with no hesitation or caution, as if he were selling encyclopedias door to door.

Shelly had expected a peek through the window, or a question through the door, but the door opened a moment later. The words that came to mind when she looked at the young man were tough and hard. He had a wide, lanky frame with tight but small biceps that emerged from a sleeveless shirt. His head was shaved bald, the only hair an erratic goatee and bushy eyebrows. He had a fierce stare, narrow eyes, an intense frown.

Joel held up his credentials, which Shelly hadn’t seen. He was a licensed private investigator, of course, but that hardly held sway. She assumed he had something that gave the impression he was still a cop. “Need to talk to you, Eddie,” he said.

“No hablo ingles,” he answered with no expression.

“No?” Joel put down his badge, such as it was. “You ‘hablared’ okay when you went to Southside.”

Eddie Todavia had gone to Southside High School briefly with Alex. It was, as far as Shelly understood it, how they had met. As far as she understood it, these days, had become quite the qualifier.

“Let us in, Eddie. I need a couple of minutes.”

“What-choo need?” he asked, and for the first time he looked at Shelly, spreading his gaze up and down with no embarrassment.

“Eddie, let us in or we come back, and we don’t ask so nice.” He looked at his watch as if he were annoyed and didn’t have time to quibble. “I don’t give a shit what’s inside. No me importa lo que esta adentro. Okay? Solamente para hablar.”

Todavia did not look particularly concerned, save for his instinctive reaction to anything remotely related to law enforcement. He was, after all, a drug dealer. But Shelly had had dozens of clients from these neighborhoods, and out here, in the minds of these boys, there was a presumption of guilt, not innocence. She assumed Todavia was assessing his options, which ranged from zero to none. Presumably, he wasn’t so stupid as to have a mountain of cocaine sitting on his kitchen table.

Joel walked past the boy without invitation, and Shelly followed.

“Sit,” he said to Todavia, pointing to a couch with dirty laundry spilled onto it. The young man-Shelly knew from a police report Joel had obtained that he was nineteen-complied. Shelly and Joel sat on the opposite couch.

“Alex Baniewicz,” Joel said. “Tell me what you know.”

“No lo conozco.”

“Eddie, you speak one more word of Spanish to me and you’ll be wearing a cop’s baton up your ass.”

“You ain’t no cop.”

“Used to be,” said Joel. Shelly hadn’t been sure if Joel would lie about that fact. “I have friends on the force, pal. Amigos. One phone call.” He held up his cell phone.

“Don’t know him, man.”

“You sell him blow. I don’t care about that. I want to know his story.”

“Man, his story.” Todavia leaned forward and laughed. “He was born in a castle and he kissed a frog or something. You mean like that?”

Joel stood up slowly. He eyed the table that was between them, a small wooden thing holding sports magazines and two plastic cups from fast-food restaurants, each of them partially full of soda. “No, that’s not what I mean,” he said. He put the toe of his shoe on the table and tilted it up, so that the contents began to shift toward Todavia.

“Man, why you gotta be like that?”

With those words-or more to the point, with Todavia’s lack of a physical reaction-Shelly could see that Joel had established the upper hand. The boy believed, and probably correctly so, that Joel could make life difficult for him, cop or not.

Joel tilted the table so that everything slid off, including the two cups of cola. Then, for good measure, he pushed the entire table over, so that it toppled at the feet of Eddie Todavia.

Shelly felt her body tense. She assumed that a physical confrontation would not come about, but things had escalated. Truth be told, she wouldn’t mind a shot at this kid. He was the first falling domino that cascaded down to Alex being held for Miroballi’s murder.

“Who does Alex work with?” Joel asked.

“Man, nobody. Alex don’t come with other people.”

“Who do you work with?”

“Me?” Todavia shook his head firmly. “No way, man. No fuckin’ way.”

Nobody in the room could have expected Todavia to part with that information.

“Does Alex know your friends, Eddie? Did you arrange a meet with them?”

“No.” He folded his arms. “Huh-uh.”

“I’ll let you go on the other stuff,” said Joel, removing his firearm from his shoulder holster. “But on this one, I have to be a little more insistent.”

Todavia showed his hands. “Man, I fuckin’ tell you. The man comes to me once a year, maybe, maybe twice a year. We do our business and that’s all. You think I’m gonna let him meet my boys? I’m a businessman, see. We make our deal and that’s all. I don’t know his shit, he don’t know mine.”

“Your friends are C-Street, right?”

“See, man.” He held out the palms of his hands. “So why I’m gonna let this white boy hook up with ’em?”

“You’re not the only one I’m asking,” Joel said, still fondling the weapon. “If I find out Alex was talking to your hermanos, I’m coming back with my friends. Dig?”

“You talkin’ crazy now. Ask, man.” He waved Joel off.

“Tell me about Ray Miroballi, Eddie.”

“Don’t know-”

“He’s a cop, Eddie. You know him.”

“Don’t know no cop Mira-whatever-the-fuck.”

Joel cocked his gun. This did not escape the notice of the young man he was interrogating. Shelly felt herself steel. Surely Joel wouldn’t bluff this far? Surely Eddie Todavia would see this as an over-the-top gesture. But he didn’t. She saw the fear in his eyes. The thought occurred to her, maybe she didn’t know this neighborhood like Joel did.

“Did I load this thing today?” he asked himself. He pointed the gun at the wall off to the side, waved it a bit. “Hard to tell by the weight. Might have a couple of bullets in here.”

“Man, I don’t know no cop with that name.”

“He’s an old partner of mine,” Joel lied, bringing the gun back to his open hand. “He says you know each other.”

“Okay, then whatever he says, man.”

“That’s right,” Joel said. “I did load this thing this morning.” He held the gun upright, then slowly moved the barrel downward in the direction of Todavia.

Todavia’s hands were out in surrender. “Man, I tell you I don’t know this fuckin’ guy. I swear to Christ I don’t know this guy.”

“He says you do, Eddie.”

“Man, I don’t know the name. Maybe I see him, I know him.”

Shelly held her breath. She kept her eyes on Todavia, who kept his eyes on Joel.

Joel dropped the gun to his side. “Okay, Eddie.” He pointed to the window. “You see that car down there? Those are my guys. You move off this couch before I drive away and-”

“Man, go already. I don’t need your fuckin’ shit.”

He was upset. She figured he couldn’t have really thought that Joel would put a bullet in him. But she didn’t know these people nearly as well as she had thought. Maybe they had seen such things happen. In any event, this man’s pride was wounded. She saw the fire return to his eyes the moment that Joel retreated.

Shelly got up to leave. Todavia stood as well and gestured toward her. For a guy who had just had a gun pointed in his face, he rebounded remarkably. Apparently it wasn’t his first time. Or maybe he was just trying to buy back some of his pride. “Hey, li’l lady,” he said to her, “how ’bout you hang back so’s we-”

The distance was about right, about the length of an extended leg thrust. Her precision was not at top form. The heel of her shoe-yes, she had worn gym shoes for just this opportunity-flew into the abdomen of the drug dealer and sent him flying against the couch.

“Not just now, Eddie,” she said. She followed Joel out of the house. They moved briskly to the car and didn’t linger at the curb.

“Remind me not to piss you off.” Joel threw the car into drive and sped off. He nodded to his associates in the sedan as he passed them.

“Don’t supply drugs to my client.”

He looked at her. “You know, Shelly, no one put a gun to Alex’s head.”

Interesting choice of phrase, she thought. And it reminded her of something her father might say. Free will, the favored expression of conservative politicians. Your circumstances are tough? Pull yourself up by the bootstraps and make it happen. Yes, sure that was true to some extent. But when you grew up knowing nothing but absentee parents and gangbangers all around you, you hardly even knew what it was you were supposed to be aiming for. It was a lot easier to pull yourself up when you were attending respectable, and safe, schools, when your friends and parents shared the same aspirations as you.

But Alex didn’t exactly grow up in gangland, so Joel’s point carried a little more weight. In fact, all Alex had to do was look across the dinner table at Ronnie to see the right example.

“Alex went to someone he knew,” she said. “I doubt he has a boatful of friends who sell drugs. He wouldn’t have gone to a stranger. If it weren’t for this piece of garbage, Alex might not be in the mess he’s in.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no. Not always so simple.” Joel-both of them-seemed to relax as they put distance from the neighborhood. They were quiet for a while as they traveled toward more familiar haunts.

“Well, that guy doesn’t help me.”

“No, he doesn’t really back up your idea,” Joel agreed. “He says Alex didn’t know any of his associates, so we can’t put Alex with the Cans. And he didn’t seem to know Miroballi.”

“Miroballi could know him,” she said.

“Sure, that’s true. What’s”-he looked at Shelly-“what’s Alex say about all this?”

“Alex says it was self-defense. He denies all of it.”

“So you don’t trust him.”

“It’s more like I think he has some reason for not telling me everything. I feel like I have to figure it out myself.”

“Don’t fuck around with the C-Street Cans, Shelly.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Well, hear it again. Don’t go busting balls in their camp. Let it go.”

“Let it go, even if I’m right?”

Joel wet his lips. “Your own client won’t even back it up, Counselor. So what do you think is going to happen? You’re going to get YoYo to waltz into court and confess that he decided to have Ray Miroballi whacked?”

Jorge Joaquinto-referred to on the streets as “JoJo” but derisively by law enforcement as “YoYo”-was believed by the government to be the top leader of the Columbus Street Cannibals. Joel had a point here. She had no way of making a Cannibal admit to hitting a police officer, at least not one still wearing his arms.

“So let me get this straight,” she said. “Even if it’s true that this gang killed a cop, made Alex take the fall, and is threatening Alex’s family to keep him quiet-even if all of that’s true, I should let it go.”

“You should be realistic. What, you’re going to put Alex on the stand and treat him as an adverse witness? Cross-examine him? Come on.” He glanced at her. “What’s your great plan?”

“Don’t have one,” she conceded. “But I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do.”

“You’re not going to give up on this.”

“Damn straight.”

Joel pulled the car over at the curb by Shelly’s office. She had another late night ahead of her. She had been working with a forensic pathologist on the distance of the gunshot. She was drafting an appeal of Judge Dominici’s ruling two days ago that she could not make the city police department open its internal investigation to her. And she felt, in many ways, like she was just getting started on this case, constantly starting back up a new hill.

“That kid really thought you might shoot him,” she said. “Just like that, for no reason other than the fact that you weren’t getting the answers you wanted. And I thought I knew their world.”

“Say, Shelly,” Joel called to her as she left the car. She poked her head back in through the passenger’s window. “That was a cheap shot back there. Nice kick, but cheap shot.”

She couldn’t disagree with that. But she had felt less than charitable toward the young man. And the element of surprise was always the most effective weapon of all.