The Law of Second Chances

20

After Paul and David picked Benny out in separate lineups, Nick and Tony had him brought down to the basement of the station house for questioning. A uniform cop led him into a rectangular room with mirrors on both sides, one door, and no windows.

Benny had seen enough television shows to know what the mirrors were for and what was going to happen next. He remembered what Joe Fogarty told him: “Shut up and ask for a lawyer.”

The cop sat him down in one of four chairs clustered around a steel table and left him with his hands still cuffed behind his back.

Nick Walsh and Tony Severino were standing in a separate room behind one of the mirrors when Benny and the cop walked into the interrogation room. Their lieutenant, Angelo Amato, was with them. Amato had already determined that Nick would do the questioning alone, and Nick could tell that Tony didn’t take too well to that decision. Tony had found Benny, and Nick knew that Tony thought he should get the honors. At that point, it didn’t matter to Nick who did the questioning. His thinking was about to change.

“The brass upstairs wants this case over yesterday,” Lieutenant Amato told Nick before the detective left to enter the interrogation room.

Nick Walsh was a planner about most things. A good homicide detective had to be able to patiently and methodically build a case, often starting from the minutest details. However, when he walked into a room to question a suspect, Nick did not have a set agenda, a certain style, or even a specific list of questions. He learned in advance everything there was to possibly know about the man he was going to interrogate, and, of course, he knew every detail of the criminal investigation.

Nick’s plan, if someone wanted to call it that, was to start a conversation with the suspect-about anything under the sun-and gradually, when a rapport had been established, get around to the crime at hand. It was a time-consuming process that required a lot of patience, although Nick could be forceful when necessary and was not above making threats. He simply let the circumstances dictate who he was going to be on any particular day.

Benny was a little guy, almost emaciated. There was quite a contrast between Nick with his huge hands and thick forearms and little Benny. Nick knew he had to soften his appearance if he was going to get Benny to open up. He rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt and opened his shirt collar, letting his tie hang loosely around his neck like an unwanted appendage. He walked in the room with his hands in his pockets and a slight smile on his face, although he didn’t overdo it. This was a criminal investigation, after all.

“Mr. Avrile, I’m Detective Nick Walsh,” he said to Benny, who was sitting uncomfortably on the edge of a chair with his hands still cuffed. Before Benny could answer, Nick approached him. “Let me get those cuffs off you,” he said, “so you can be comfortable when we talk.” He reached behind Benny and deftly removed the cuffs. Then he shook Benny’s hand.

“Nice touch,” Tony said to Lieutenant Amato on the other side of the mirror.

“You can call me Nick,” Nick said to Benny.

The last thing Benny expected was to be shaking hands with his interrogator. He had envisoned the room darkening, the overhead lamp being pulled close to the table, and some body knocking him around the place with body shots until he started talking.

“You can call me Benny,” he said to Nick.

“How are you doing, Benny? Are they treating you okay?”

Benny thought he would ask for the moon right away since Nick was being so pleasant. “Not bad. Can you get me out of here, Nick?”

“Sorry, Benny. I can’t do that, but we’ll talk about what I can do for you in a few minutes. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself-where are you from?”

“Well, I was born in Spanish Harlem.”

“Really? So was I-Ninety-seventh and Park.”

“How about that,” Benny replied. “I was born on Ninety-ninth between Third and Lex. My father grew up there but I didn’t live there too long. My mother and father were drug addicts and she split from him after a couple of years, and we lived all over the city until she got strung out and I got put in a foster home.”

“Sounds like an all-American childhood.”

“Yeah. I guess the best I can say is, I survived.” Something happened at that point in the conversation that Nick Walsh had not and could not have anticipated. For some strange reason, as he looked at this skinny little Puerto Rican sitting in that chair trying to pretend he wasn’t scared, he thought of his younger brother Jimmy, and a feeling of both empathy and sorrow for Benny and his plight rushed over him like a tidal wave.

They didn’t look alike at all-Jimmy had been tall and fair-skinned. If anything, Jimmy had been more like Benny’s father-he found his courage and his pleasure at the end of a needle. He was younger than Benny when he died of an overdose.

Nick had interrogated hundreds of drug addicts since Jimmy’s death. Why does this Benny conjure up memories of my brother? he asked himself. Why do I care about this guy? Maybe it was the neighborhood connection, he didn’t know for sure. He tried to put it from his mind.

“Benny, listen to me. You’re not in a strong bargaining position here. I’ve got two eyewitnesses who have picked you out of a lineup and identified you as the person they saw leaning over a man who had just been shot on Seventy-eighth Street and East End Avenue on August twenty-ninth of this year.”

Behind the mirror Angelo Amato and Tony Severino looked at each other in surprise. Nick Walsh did not usually cut to the chase that quickly.

Benny didn’t reply, so Nick continued.

“Which means you are the prime suspect in the murder. You may not know this, but we now have the death penalty in New York and our good governor was elected in part because of his sworn promise to use it. I can’t get you out of here but if you work with me-if you tell me who the woman was who was your accomplice-maybe I can get you life imprisonment.”

Nick watched as the words death penalty and life imprisonment hit Benny like a torpedo to the chest. The little man lost his breath for a minute and started hyperventilating. It wouldn’t be long before he was spilling his guts. But Benny surprised Nick, although he couldn’t keep his mouth shut totally, as Joe Fogarty had advised.

“I’m sorry Nick, I can’t talk to you. I need to see a lawyer. This woman you’re talking about. I don’t know her name or where she came from.”

Nick now had his opening with Benny’s half answer about the woman, and he could easily drive a steel tank through that opening with a barrage of questions. Nobody was better at it than he was. He took one last look at Benny-and saw Jimmy again.

“All right, Benny. If that’s what you want, we’ll get you a lawyer.” Nick stood up and walked out of the room.

Behind the two-way mirror, Tony and Angelo looked at each other in shock.