“So you do.”
The door opened, the officer, a towering black man, led Jimmy Martin into the room, cupping Jimmy’s elbow in his massive hand. He had a good six inches and fifty pounds on Jimmy, his gray uniform and dark skin a sharp contrast to Jimmy’s orange jumpsuit and pasty complexion.
Jimmy was nondescript, the way so many people are, his features even and bland. Comb his brown hair back, dress him in a blue suit and he could have been a bank vice president though he looked just as at home wearing the latest in jailhouse fashion. His clothes outlined him, but he filled in the empty spaces when he opened his mouth.
“You be nice to these people, Jimmy,” the officer said.
Jimmy shook off the officer’s touch, his flat expression in place. “I don’t need you to tell me shit, nigger.”
The officer cuffed him on the back of the head. “Mind your manners, Jimmy. You don’t want these people getting the wrong idea about you. And, don’t forget, you and me got a long walk back to the men’s dorm. Lot of places along the way a man can slip and fall, especially the sorry shape this place is in.” The officer looked at us, smiling. “Don’t worry about me and Jimmy. We got an understanding. I’ll be right outside if you folks need anything.”
Kate waited for the officer to leave before walking toward Jimmy, her hand extended, Jimmy’s red, puffy eyes darting from her to me and back to her, his arms at his side, clenching his fists. She waited, her hand outstretched, Jimmy studying it like it was a hot poker before giving in and slowly raising his. Kate took hold, not letting go.
“Jimmy, I’m Kate Scranton. Thank you for agreeing to talk to me. Let’s sit down and figure out how I can help you.”
Chapter Twenty-three
She set up a miniature video camera mounted on an eight-inch tripod, aiming the lens at Jimmy.
“What’s that for?” he asked.
“So I don’t have to take notes,” Kate answered.
That wasn’t the only reason. I knew Kate would study the video later, breaking it down frame by frame, deciphering Jimmy’s involuntary expressions, deciding whether to believe him.
We sat in a semicircle around a gray hard-plastic coffee table, Kate and I flanking Jimmy. He fidgeted, trying to find a safe place for his hands, locking them in his armpits. The chairs looked sturdier than they were, each of us sinking into the sagging cushions. Kate leaned back, legs extended, shoulders soft, her hands in her lap. His posture said he was tense, uncertain, while hers was open, reassuring, telling him she wouldn’t bite. I followed her lead, my legs crossed at the ankles, hands resting on the arms of my chair.
“Looks like you could use a good night’s sleep,” she said.
Jimmy licked his lower lip like he was searching for a cigarette and didn’t answer.
“I hear the beds are made of cold steel and you can floss your teeth with the mattresses.”
A closed, hard smile creased his mouth. “It’s jail. It ain’t the Ritz.”
“I don’t know how you stand the smell, living with all those people on top of you, especially with that officer putting his hands on you and treating you like a child.”
He narrowed his eyes, his back stiffening. “I can do the time.”
“I’m sure you can, but why do it if you don’t have to?”
He stared at her, taking short breaths before answering. “I told my lawyer and I told your friend there and I’m telling you. I’ll do the time. I got nothing to say about my kids.”
Kate leaned forward, her hands clamped on her knees. “And I’m not going to ask what happened to your children.”
He straightened and dropped his hands onto the armrests. “Then what do you want?”
“You’re going to trial on the theft charge. My job is to make sure the jury that decides whether you go free or go to prison is on your side.”
He rolled his eyes. “Now how you gonna do that? Who the hell is gonna be on my side?”
Kate smiled. “The economy is in a shambles. Millions of people have lost jobs they are never going to get back, and the money they put away for retirement, they would have been better off burying it in a tin can in their backyard. They’re angry and scared, but they don’t have the nerve to do more about it than stick their heads out the window and scream that they can’t take it anymore. You’d be surprised how many of them wish they had the balls to do what you did to support their family.”
He smirked. “They caught me with some copper. Don’t mean I stole it.”
“When the police arrested you, you were driving a truck loaded with five thousand dollars worth of copper tubing and wire they traced to a construction site. You claim you paid cash for the copper to someone who gave you a phony name and address and, so far, the police can’t find him. That’s like the drug dealer who claims someone planted crack in a condom and stuck it up his ass. You want to ride that horse to the finish line, that’s your choice. But, if you want a fighting chance, you’ll work with me.”
“So what can you do about it?”
“My job is to figure out which jurors will hurt you and which ones will help you. Ethan Bonner can keep a lot of the bad ones off the jury, maybe not all of them but maybe enough to give you a shot at acquittal or a hung jury.”
“My lawyer said the jury was supposed to be fair and impartial.”
“The more people want to serve on a jury, the more they think they can do that, but half the time, they don’t even know they’re prejudiced against short people, fat people, or people who part their hair on the right instead of the left. They decide guilt or innocence without being aware of all the subtle things that go into their decision. You need an edge, and I’m your edge, that is, if you let me.”
He nodded, turning to me. “What about him? He works for my wife. What’s he doing here?”
“He’s my edge. He’ll find out what we need to know about the people in the jury pool, all the stuff that isn’t on the questionnaire the court makes them fill out.”
He squinted at me, and I nodded in reply, backing Kate up, wondering where she was going.
“Why would my wife let him help us?”
When he referred to the two of them as us, I knew that Kate had him. She sat back, knowing it too.
“Now why do you think your future former wife would want to keep you out of jail?”
Jimmy thought for a moment, his eyes widening when he figured out the answer. He shook his head, offering his first real smile. “Alimony.”
“Bingo,” Kate said.
“I’m not paying her one goddamn cent!”
“If you’re making twelve cents an hour scrubbing the penitentiary bathroom floor, you’re right. At least if you’re out on the street making a decent wage, you’ll have something worth fighting over.”
He smiled again. His uneven teeth were stained with tobacco and coffee, his grin crooked and dirty. I was wrong to think that a blue suit was all he needed to pass for a banker. Everything you needed to know about Jimmy Martin was right in front of you each time he opened his mouth. He rubbed his hands together.
“Okay, then. Where do we start?”
“It all starts with you, Jimmy,” Kate said. “If Ethan is going to sell you to the jury, I need to know everything there is to know about you. When were you born?”
She got him started, and it was hard to get him to stop. He told her about growing up in Northeast, how his father had smacked him and his brother around; how he’d stumbled through high school, barely graduating; enlisting in the Marines, doing two tours in the first Gulf War, getting in enough trouble that they offered him an honorable discharge in return for his promise not to re-enlist; and finally pulled himself together working construction, mostly residential, drywall and carpentry, some electrical and plumbing, whatever needed doing. He bragged about all the women he’d known, marveling how Peggy had somehow worn him down until he gave in and married her.
“And the next thing you knew, you had two kids and the party was over,” she said.
