Mission Flats

47

‘You probably think there’s some grave injustice going on here.’

‘I don’t know exactly what to think, Mr Lowery’

‘That’s a politic answer. Are you being politic with me, Chief Truman?’ Lowery was standing at the window with his back to Kelly and me. But with this question he twisted to face me, coiling at the waist as if his handmade shoes were nailed to the floor. ‘Or are you being honest?’

‘Honest, sir.’

‘I’m not sure I believe you. I have a sneaking suspicion you know more than you’re saying.’

Lowery returned his attention to the window. Before him was the downtown skyline with City Hall in the foreground and a wall of office towers behind it. The view from the District Attorney’s office was fine, with three TVs to keep an eye on things. It occurred to me that Lyndon Johnson famously watched three TVs at once. Maybe Lowery was aware of that.

‘The rube is running a con on the city slickers,’ Lowery ruminated. ‘Well, it serves us right, I suppose, after what we put you through.’ He sighed. ‘Chief Truman, I want you to understand my position.’

‘You don’t owe me any explanations, Mr Lowery.’

‘You’re right — I don’t owe you anything. It’s not about owing. It’s about responsibility, Chief Truman. You were in the archives this morning fishing around in the Trudell file.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I presume you think there’s some connection to Danziger’s murder.’

‘There might be.’

‘There might be. I see. You don’t think Braxton did it?’

‘I’m not 100-percent certain, no.’

‘Did you expect to be 100-percent certain?’

‘Ideally’

He thought it over. ‘Ben, I’m an old trial lawyer, and at the end of every trial, do you know what the judge tells the jury? He tells them they must find the defendant guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Think about that, “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Not beyond all doubt; beyond a reasonable doubt. See, there is never 100-percent certainty. Doubt is built into the system. It is a wonderful system but it is administered by humans, so there will always be doubt and error. We have to accept that. We have no choice. None of us has a monopoly on the truth, none of us has a window to the past. We look at the evidence, we make our best guess, and we pray we’ve done the right thing. It’s an awesome responsibility, Ben.’

‘It is, sir.’

‘We pick the man we’re going to accuse, and then it doesn’t matter if we’re 100-percent sure or only 51-percent sure. Once we choose our man, once we choose our version of the case, that becomes our gospel, that becomes the one true faith.’

‘Yes, sir.’

I glanced at Kelly, who was seated in the leather chair beside my own. He stared up at the ceiling as if balancing an object on his nose. A little wisenheimer smirk played around his mouth. The District Attorney might have been droning on about the Treaty of Ghent or the reproductive habits of Galapagos tortoises, for all Kelly cared.

‘You have some doubts that Harold Braxton is guilty, Chief Truman?’

‘I do.’

‘Let them go.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Let them go. Braxton is the one.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I know because I’ve been doing this a long time. There’s enough evidence here to convict Braxton three times over for killing Bobby Danziger. Hell, I’ve won cases that weren’t half as strong. You don’t need the Trudell case. Just let it go. Believe me, it’s a cleaner case without going back and dredging up a ten-year-old case that has nothing to do with this. It’s cleaner for the jury and it’s better for this city.’ The District Attorney turned to face me, to gauge my reaction. ‘What we do here has a political dimension, Ben. Surely you understand that. Right now the races in this city get along beautifully. Crime is down across the board, the police are respected, African-American communities are doing better than they ever have. Meanwhile in other cities, New York, L.A., the police are distrusted — no, they’re hated. It’s a political decision, Ben, and I mean that in the best, noblest sense.

‘Now, when I present my findings — and even if the case is prosecuted in Maine, I’m going to have to tell the people of this city something — I’m going to tell the public just what the evidence shows: that this was Braxton and no one else. I’m not going to drag up the past.’

‘The past is always getting dragged up, sir.’

‘Ben, I’m asking you to forget the Trudell case. Leave it alone. Ten years ago, that case split the city in two. It hit every button: black defendant, white police victim. Now it’s just sitting there like a big vat of gasoline, Ben. For the sake of this city, don’t throw a match in the gasoline.’

John Kelly said, ‘I think we understand.’ He managed somehow to inject the faintest undertone of fuck you. He’d seen Andrew Lowerys come and go; this one would pass too. Kelly stood and said, ‘Let’s go, Ben.’

Lowery turned his back on us again to look out over the city. He shook his head. ‘It’s always just below the surface.’

Outside the courthouse an African-American kid played a makeshift set of drums. He sat on a milk crate with an array of plastic buckets in front of him plus a few metal objects (an ice tray, a cookie sheet) for cymbals. The beat was insistent, joyous. I could not help thinking it was more eloquent and more honest than anything Lowery had just told us — closer to the true heartbeat of the city.

Kelly and I found ourselves, inevitably, pacing to that beat.

‘What did you make of all that, Ben Truman?’

‘It was bullshit.’

‘Precisely You are my prize pupil. That was one-hundred-proof, high-octane bullshit. Now, why would Lowery not want us poking around the Trudell case?’

‘Because there’s something he wants kept quiet.’

‘I’d say that’s a very good theory. Perhaps it’s time we paid another visit to Julio Vega. He knows more than he’s given us.’

We did not know it, but it was already too late. Julio Vega was dead.