Bronx Justice. Joseph Teller
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than that, he didn’t have a clue. Ninety percent of his practice was in Manhattan, which he liked to think of in sports language as his home court. Of course, at this particular stage of his career, the math wasn’t all that hard to do: it didn’t exactly require a calculator to convert nine out of ten cases into a percentage.
He reached the precinct and had the desk officer transfer his call to the squad room. There a detective confirmed that they did indeed have a Darren Kingston locked up. He’d been booked for five separate rapes and would be making court in the morning.
Jaywalker thanked the detective and called Inez back. He told her what he’d been able to find out, and offered to meet her in court at nine o’clock. Before hanging up, he told her not to worry. Like most people, if you woke Jaywalker up in the middle of the night, he could be pretty stupid.
It took him an hour or so, and the continued warmth of his wife’s body pressed up against his own, but he eventually managed to fall back to sleep. He was sure Inez Kingston didn’t.
He had a car back in those days, Jaywalker did. Or sort of. It was an ancient Volkswagen Beetle, its exterior equal parts blue paint and orange rust. The running boards had fallen off, the heater was history, the wipers stuck when they weren’t busy scratching the windshield, and the horn worked if you were lucky enough to happen upon the “sweet spot” of the rim.
But it was transportation, something that came in handy when you’d been forced to flee the city’s rich rents and poor public schools, and move to the suburbs. If Bergenfield, New Jersey, qualified as a suburb. What it was, was a blue-collar, working-class community, where Jaywalker could mow his own lawn, rake his own leaves and shovel his own driveway without being mistaken for a hired man. Even if his wife hoped for better things, it suited him just fine.
Aiming the VW toward the Bronx that following morning, Jaywalker tried to remember what he could about Darren Kingston. He’d been one of Jaywalker’s first clients after he’d left Legal Aid. His mother, Inez, worked at what today is referred to as the Department of Social Services. Back then it was the Welfare Department. Progress, no doubt. One of Inez’s coworkers there was Jaywalker’s sister-in-law. It had been at her suggestion that Inez had called Jaywalker when Darren had gotten into trouble. Along with two other young black men, he’d been arrested for robbing an elderly white man. Although the case had sounded bad at first, it turned out to be pretty harmless. One of the other defendants had done some work for the man and had had a dispute over how much money was owed him. When he went to collect, he brought his friends along. One of his friends being a knife. Seeing as Darren himself hadn’t possessed it, had had very little involvement in the matter and had never been in any sort of trouble before, the charges against him had eventually been dropped.
This time, Jaywalker thought as he maneuvered around the potholes, trash and broken glass of the South Bronx, he was pretty sure things weren’t going to be quite so easy.
Arraignments took place in a dark gray building at 161st Street and Washington Avenue, half a block from the abandoned elevated tracks above Third Avenue. It was one of two buildings that together made up the Bronx Criminal Court. Rumor had it that both had been condemned as unsafe since the early 1950s, and in fact they would finally be abandoned a few years later, replaced by a large modern structure closer to the Grand Concourse.
At the time, however, the decaying building was, for most people, their first encounter with what passed for Bronx justice. The floors were stained and uneven. Where they were supposed to be tiled, whole sections of tiles had been removed. Where they were wood, they were splintered and suffering from years of dry rot. The walls were cracked and paint-chipped, and covered with graffiti that was anti-police, anti-white, anti-black, anti-Hispanic, anti-gay, anti-just about everything. The two elevators took turns being out of order. Rather than guessing, Jaywalker headed for the stairwell. Just before entering, he took a deep gulp of air, then breathed through his mouth as he climbed, in order to block out as much of the stench of old urine as he could.
Reaching the second floor, he recognized Inez Kingston and her husband, Marlin. She was a short, heavyset woman whose pleasant smile and soft West Indian accent masked an inner nervousness and chronic high blood pressure. He was an equally short, wiry man with a face that wore the two-day-old stubble of a nightshift worker for the Transit Department. As accustomed as Inez was to hiding her feelings, Marlin was not, and his face that Wednesday morning was tense and unsmiling.
Jaywalker headed over and greeted them. Inez introduced him to her younger brother, who’d come along for support. Jaywalker asked if anything was new since the night before.
“No,” said Inez, “but the detective’s here. Rendell. He won’t tell us anything, but he did say he’d talk to you. I told him we had a lawyer coming. Was that all right?”
“Yes,” said Jaywalker. “Where is he now?”
“In there.” She pointed to a door. A sign on it warned passersby to keep out.
COMPLAINT ROOM
POLICE OFFICERS ONLY
“Point him out to me when he comes out, okay?”
It didn’t take long. Robert Rendell, all six foot three of him, opened the door and strode out. He was young for a detective, and handsome, with a shock of graying black hair that fell across his forehead. Jaywalker immediately sized him up as a formidable witness. Then he moved to intercept him before he made it to the courtroom.
“Detective Rendell?”
“Yup.”
“My name is Jaywalker. I’m going to be representing Darren Kingston. The family said you might be able to give me a little information. They seem pretty confused.”
“What can I tell you, counselor? I’ve got five CWs—” complaining witnesses, Jaywalker translated mentally “—and everything they say points to your man.”
“Lineups?” Jaywalker probed.
“You’re going to have to talk to the D.A.”
“Jesus,” said Jaywalker, a seriously lapsed Jew. “I’ve known this kid for years.” It was an exaggeration, but a modest one. “Shocks the shit outta you. When did these rapes take place?”
“August, mostly. But I’ve been looking for him for a couple of weeks.”
“Statements?”
“No, nothing really,” said the detective. “Says he’s innocent. Tell you what, counselor. I got one of the girls coming down this morning. She IDs him, or she doesn’t.” He shrugged. “If he’s not the guy, I don’t want him.” With that, he excused himself and walked into the courtroom.
Jaywalker looked at his watch. It was a few minutes after ten. Court was supposed to begin at 9:30 a.m., but the judge hadn’t taken the bench yet. Nothing new there.
Jaywalker took a minute to consider what he had. Rendell hadn’t given him much, but at least he’d added a few more facts to piece into the picture. There were five victims. At least one of them—the one who was on her way to court—apparently hadn’t seen Darren since the incident. Assuming it was Darren. Most of the rapes had occurred in August, a month ago. That could be good. But Rendell’s comment that he’d been looking for Darren sounded bad. It meant that Darren had been positively identified as the result of some sort of investigation. It also suggested that Darren might have been hiding out, trying to avoid arrest. Consciousness of guilt? That there were no admissions was good. If he was guilty, at least Darren had been smart enough to keep his mouth shut.
Already Jaywalker could sense things shaping up as a classic identification case. Five women had been raped. Was Darren Kingston the man who had raped them?
He reported his findings to the family. Then he went into the clerk’s office, filled out a Notice of Appearance and traded it for a copy of the complaint. Computers not yet having arrived in the courthouse, the complaint consisted of a preprinted form with the blanks filled in by someone using an ancient