City Dark(54)
“We’ll see,” Aideen said. “I’ve got to run down a few things.”
“Can I ask you . . . ,” Mimi started, then trailed off.
“How I got this dog of a case?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve known Joe a long time. We worked together, and he helped pull me through a bad time when my husband was dying. It kind of fell into my lap otherwise.”
“I’m sorry about your husband.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m sorry about your client too,” Mimi said, as if also commenting on a person who had died. “He seems like a likable guy. I don’t know if I was surprised when the blood came back to him, but he doesn’t seem like the type who would do these things.”
“I’m hoping he isn’t.”
“He is,” Mimi said with a polite but cold air of finality. “He’s a nice guy; he held it together for a long time. But there was something underneath. Something undetonated but ready to go off. Twice last month, it did.”
“Like a time bomb, I know. I’ve heard that.”
“I can’t look at evidence like this and think anything else.”
Aideen nodded and slid the DNA report into her briefcase. “Understood.”
“I hope he’s paying you, at least.”
“He’s doing what they all do when they’re white and middle aged,” Aideen said. She was a bit unsure if that was appropriate, but Mimi had a reputation of being pretty down to earth.
“Borrowed against the house,” Mimi said.
“Yep. His only asset. So, yeah, I’m retained. He could do better, though. I think half the reason I’m on it is because it looks so hopeless.”
“Oh, I know a few hustlers who would take it on. They’d really clean him out, though.”
“It’s a hell of a way to start a defense practice,” Aideen said. “Thanks again. I hope we can keep it this friendly.”
“Do what you have to do,” Mimi said and offered her hand. “Discovery will be on time. I don’t go in for tricks.”
“Probably no need for tricks on this one, but thanks. Listen, would you hold off on an indictment if I waive 180.80?” By this, Aideen meant waiving the statutory requirement that a defendant in custody be indicted within roughly five days.
“As long as he stays at Rikers, sure. Just get me the paperwork today or tomorrow.”
“Thanks. It’ll buy me some time.”
“Good luck with whatever that time is for,” Mimi said as Aideen stood to leave and gathered her briefcase and purse.
“Hope springs eternal. Take care.”
CHAPTER 45
Friday, August 18, 2017
Anna M. Kross Center, Rikers Island East River in the Bronx 10:17 a.m.
“Yo, DeSantos,” a familiar voice, low and smooth, called out. Lying on his narrow bed on the common floor of the dormitory, Joe set his book down. It was Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, which, among other things, advised that suicide was an honorable end in certain circumstances. Joe wasn’t suicidal, though. He was further from suicidal than he had been in weeks.
“Hey, Kamal.”
Kamal was about thirty-five, muscular and dark complected with strong features and quick, smart eyes. He was the closest Joe had to a friend in Rikers. He sat down on the next cot over and intertwined his fingers. Like many Black inmates, he wore a do-rag. “What do you know about educational law? I mean . . . things kids should be entitled to if they’re disabled.”
“I know a little,” he said, sitting up to face Kamal in a mirrored position. There were ways of showing respect in Rikers, and Joe had picked up on them with an ease that surprised him. “If it’s okay to ask, is this about your nephew?”
Kamal nodded, a cloud over his face. “Yeah. My sister’s getting him screened, but it looks like autism.”
“I’m sorry.”
Kamal shrugged. “Just a thing. She’ll get through it.”
“How old is he again?”
“Three.”
“Early intervention is important,” Joe said. “There are resources—more than the schools will admit having if you don’t push it. Give me a day or two and I’ll give you some ideas and some people she can talk to. My uncle raised me, and he was a city social worker. He had ways of navigating the system that still apply.”
Kamal seemed to absorb this, then gave a clipped nod, which Joe took as a communication of thanks. He lifted his chin in a “so long” manner and turned away.
Contrary to what Joe had thought when he first met with Aideen, guys at Kross did care that he was a lawyer, and for the most part it was working to his advantage. He wasn’t cozy with the inmates who seemed to run the place—shadowy figures on the upper floor who seemed to come and go from cells at will and at all hours—but he was visited regularly by men asking for help with motions and appeals. Joe obliged and asked nothing in return. Mostly Black except for one or two Latino men, the inmates were folksy and plainspoken. The Latino guys stuck together and took counsel mostly from within. Some of the guys he helped reminded him of old clients. Some of colleagues. Some of cops.
With the fog of his first miserable days in Rikers receding, he was finding himself able to do more than simply endure. It’s not that he could or would make light of the terrible things all around him, or the horrors he only heard echoes of from the shadows. There was incessant noise: talking, screaming, jailhouse rapping, fighting sometimes. If he slept at all, it was mostly during the day. The food was awful. The boredom was stifling. In short, it was bleak, but he was quickly learning that all states of mind could be products of perspective as much as circumstance.