Part 20 (2/2)
”Ten-four, loo.”
Within seconds, Daryl Johnson returns. Johnson is a short, overweight black man long renowned for his deadpan expression. This time, however, his heavy jowls are lifted by an extension of his lips unrelated to a smile. ”That mope locked up back there? I mean, it's none of my business, but who does he belong to?”
”Me,” Russo responds. ”Why?”
”Because he's dead is why. Because somebody caved in his f.u.c.king skull.”
The evidence implicating David Lodge in the death of Clarence Spott is compelling, as Ted Savio explains in the course of a fateful meeting on Rikers Island several months later. Ted Savio is Lodge's attorney, provided gratis gratis by the PBA. by the PBA.
Although Savio's advice is perfectly reasonable, Lodge is nevertheless reluctant to accept it. Lodge has been ninety days without a drink and the ordeal of cold turkey withdrawal has produced in him a nearly feral sense of caution. Alone in his cell day after day, he has become as untrusting as an animal caught in a snare. At times, especially at night, the urge to escape the inescapable pushes him to the brink of uncontrolled panic. At other times, he drops into a black hole of despair that leaves him barely able to respond to the demands of his keepers.
”You gotta face the facts here, Dave,” Savio patiently explains, ”which, I note, are lined up against you. You can't even account for your movements.”
”I had a blackout. It wasn't the first time.”
”You say that like you maybe lost your concentration for a minute. Meanwhile, they found you pa.s.sed out in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Holding a bottle in your hands.”
”I knew that's where it was kept,” Lodge admits. ”But just because I was drunk doesn't mean I killed Spott.”
”You had the victim's blood on your uniform and your blood was found on the victim.”
”That could've happened when we subdued the mutt.”
”We?”
”Me and my partner.”
”Dave, your partner didn't have a drop of blood on him.” Savio makes an unsuccessful attempt at eye contact with his client, then continues. ”What you need to do here is see the big picture. Dante Russo told Lieutenant Whitlock that he had to pull you off Clarence Spott. He said this before the body was found, he repeated it to a Grand Jury, he'll testify to it in open court. That's enough to bury you all by itself, even without Officer Anthony Szarek's testimony.
”The Broom,” Lodge moans. ”I'm being done in by the f.u.c.king Broom.”
”The Broom?”
”Szarek, he's a couple years short of a thirty-year pension and the job's carrying him. He spends most of his tour sweeping the precinct. That bottle they found me with? That was his.”
”Well, Broom or not, Szarek's gonna say that he was present when you and Rus...o...b..ought Spott to the holding cells, that he heard Russo tell you to go to the hospital, that he watched Russo walk away ...”
”Stop sayin' his name.” Lodge raises a fist to his shoulder as if about to deliver a punch. ”f.u.c.king Dante Russo. If I could just get to him, just for a minute.”
”What'd you think? That you and your partner would go down with the s.h.i.+p together? Maybe holding hands? Well, Dave, it's time for you to start using your head.”
Lodge draws a deep breath, then glances around the room. Gray concrete floor, green cinder-block walls, a table bolted to the floor, plastic chairs on metal legs. And that's it. The room where he confers with his attorney is as barren as his cell, as barren as the message his attorney delivers.
”Face the facts, Dave. Take the plea. It's not gonna get any better and it could be withdrawn.”
”Man-one?”
”That's right, first-degree manslaughter. You take the deal, you'll be out in seven years. On the other hand, you go to trial, find yourself convicted of second-degree murder, you could be lookin' at twenty-five to life. Right now you're thirty seven years old. You can do the seven years and still have a reason to live when you're released.”
Though Lodge believes his lawyer, he still can't bring himself to accept Savio's counsel. At times over the past months, he's literally banged his head against the wall in an effort to jog his memory. Drunk or sober, he feels no guilt about the parts he can vaguely recall. Yeah, he tuned Spott up. He must have because he remembers Russo driving to a heavily industrial section of Greenpoint, north of Flus.h.i.+ng Avenue, remembers turning onto Bogart Street where it dead-ends against the railroad tracks, remembers yanking Spott out of the backseat. Spott had resisted despite the cuffs.
But Spott deserved his punishment. He'd committed a crime familiar to every member of every police force in the world: Contempt of Cop. You didn't run from cops, you didn't disrespect them with your big mouth, and you never, under any circ.u.mstances, hit them. If you did, you paid a price.
That was it, though, the full extent as far as Lodge was concerned. To the best of his knowledge, he'd never beaten a prisoner with any weapon but his hands. Never.
”What if I'm innocent?” he finally asks his lawyer.
”What if there's a million black people residing in Brooklyn who already think you're guilty?”
One week later, suspended Police Officer David Lodge appears before Justice Harold Roth in Part 70 of the Criminal Term of Brooklyn Supreme Court. Lodge is the last piece of business on Roth's calendar late this Friday afternoon. It's a cameo shot, posed in front of the raised dais where Roth sits-Lodge, his lawyer Savio, and the deputy chief of the District Attorney's Homicide Bureau-n.o.body is in the audience in the cavernous courtroom.
Justice Roth is not one to smile unduly or waste words. ”Well, counsellor?”
”Yes, your honor,” Savio marshalls his words. ”My client has authorized me to withdraw his previously entered plea of not guilty and now offers to plead guilty to manslaughter in the first degree, a cla.s.s-C violent felony, under the first count of the indictment, in satisfaction of the entire indictment.” Savio stops then, but does not look at Lodge, who is three feet to his right, standing ram-rod straight, staring fixedly at the judge. Lodge heard not a word Savio said.
”Is that what you want to do, Mr. Lodge?” Roth asks, not unkindly.
Mister Lodge. The words rock him like a blow to the body. Yet he remains transfixed, mute. The words rock him like a blow to the body. Yet he remains transfixed, mute.
A full minute has pa.s.sed. Roth has had enough. ”Come up.”
The lawyers hasten up to the bench, huddling with Roth at the sidebar. Savio earnestly explains that his client is unable to admit guilt because he was in the throes of an alcoholic blackout when he allegedly bludgeoned the victim, and so has no memory of the event. After several minutes of back-and-forth, Roth ends the debate.
”He can have an Alford-Serrano. Alford-Serrano. Step back.” Step back.”
At Lodge's side, Savio explains their good fortune. In an Alford-Serrano Alford-Serrano plea-normally reserved for the insane-Roth will simply ask Lodge if he is pleading guilty because Lodge believes that the evidence is such that he will be found guilty at trial. Savio whispers urgently in Lodge's ear, an Iago to his Oth.e.l.lo. plea-normally reserved for the insane-Roth will simply ask Lodge if he is pleading guilty because Lodge believes that the evidence is such that he will be found guilty at trial. Savio whispers urgently in Lodge's ear, an Iago to his Oth.e.l.lo.
Suddenly, David Lodge's body goes slack, his gaze falters. Lodge has an epiphany. He sees the faces of all the skells he'd ever arrested who'd whined innocent, and for the only time in his life he's flooded with a compa.s.sion, till the fear takes hold-the fear of a small child upon awaking alone in the dark in an empty house.
PART IV.
Backwater Brooklyn
TRIPLE HARRISON.
BY M MAGGIE E ESTEP.
East New York She was wearing her t-s.h.i.+rt but she'd shed her jeans and her bleach-stained panties. She had me pinned down by the shoulders and her long dirty hair was tickling my cheeks as she hovered over me. I kept trying to look into her eyes but she had her face turned away. Even though her body was doing things to mine, she didn't want me seeing what her eyes thought about it.
”Stella.” I said her name but she wouldn't look at me. She took one hand off my shoulder and started raking her fingernails down my chest a little too violently.
”Hey, that hurts, girl,” I warned, trying to grab at her hand.
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