Wrongful Convictions, page 15
Marcel got out into the parking lot and jumped on his bike. He hit the electric start and the machine roared to life. Marcel twisted the throttle a couple of times before kicking the bike into gear and pulling out of the parking lot, not bothering to check for traffic. He got out to Snelling and headed south. He continued to accelerate as he drove, paying no mind to neither traffic nor stop lights. By the time he got to 94 he was traveling eighty-five miles an hour.
He slowed enough to make the hard right turn onto 94 West, and in seconds had surpassed eighty-five and was quickly approaching one hundred. Through downtown Minneapolis the needle buried at one seventy-five and everything became a blur, including the highway patrol officer, who knew better than to even try and pursue him. A call was put in, but it was no use. By the time the patrol was in a position to cut him off, he had long since passed. At the speed he traveled, it only took him thirty minutes to get to St. Cloud. He exited into downtown and pulled into Burger King. He couldn’t remember ever having fast food; he thought it was possible when he lived with his grandfather but he wasn’t sure.He went in and ordered a bacon cheeseburger and fries.
He dug out his phone and sent a text.
FEEL LIKE TAKING A DRIVE" the message appeared on his phone.
SURE WHERE? was the response.
NORTH He hit enter then added a follow up MEET ME IN ST CLOUD.
36
“Shannon, there is a whole lot about me you don’t know.” Marcel spoke first.
It took Shannon about about an hour to make it to St. Cloud. Marcel had sat at Burger King contemplating his life thus far, and where it was going to go from there. He came to no clear answers.
“I kind of gathered that from the fight,” She responded.
“Yeah, what did you gather?” Marcel was curious, he assumed that she was talking about his ink, but wanted to be sure.
“So the tattoos…,” she trailed off not knowing quite how to put it.
“Are gang tattoos.” The honesty was cathartic.
“I grew up on the Leech Lake Reservation. My dad went to prison for killing my mom. All I had growing up was my brother, Henry, who was a member of the Native Mob Vice Lords. I never really knew anything else.” Admitting it felt strange to him. He had never said those words out loud before. This made it real which is probably why he hadn’t ever said any of this out loud before. He was ashamed.
“And now?” Shannon continued the questioning.
“My brother was murdered when I was fourteen years old. I didn’t have anyone left in Minnesota, so I was put on a bus and sent to live with my grandfather in Colorado. He died a few years later, and Jarvis took me in. Jarvis and my grandfather were pretty close through the gym.” It wasn’t really an answer to the question.
Marcel didn’t really know the answer to her question. It was his belief that once you were part of the crew you were part of the crew for life. Now, however, there was no crew, there was only Marcel and Tess. There were several cemetery plots up north that were the final resting places for the crew. They were all gone now. If they were all gone, was it still possible to be one of them? That being said, he would never deny his brother. His brother, who had been dead for more than a decade. His brother, who he missed so badly and held so dear.
Shannon remained silent.
“Jarvis was from Minneapolis. When I got accepted to law school, he suggested we move back together. I could continue training while I went to school, but that isn’t very interesting. What you want to hear about is what happened in Joanne’s office.” Marcel was getting uncomfortable with narrating his life.
“My brother was my whole world, but he made all kinds of bad decisions. The gang was just one of them. The gang wasn’t like the Trey-Trey crips or anything; we weren’t a criminal syndicate. We were a family. We looked out for each other, sold some weed to make money, partied, and didn’t allow anyone to fuck with us. It was pretty unorganized stuff, but I guess that made us all more dangerous.” Marcel wondered if this was a lie of omission. He thought it was and thought it was best to be honest now and not have his integrity questioned later.
“At least it made my brother more dangerous. He was involved in a stabbing at a party where a kid was killed. My brother did it; I wasn’t there but I knew he did it. The next day he got out of town to let things cool off. Everyone thought he was in Minneapolis, but he wasn’t. He was staying with some of our people in Duluth. He should have stayed longer. No one knew he was there. He was putting together some cash to get me and him out of Minnesota for good. He came up to get me, but before we could leave, he was murdered. He was outside our trailer when this guy came up and shot him in the head. I didn’t see it actually happen. When I heard the shot, I came running and saw my brother laying on the sidewalk. He was bleeding all over the place. There was so much blood, and it looked like half his head was missing. I will never forget that sight. There was a man, or I guess a teenager running away with a gun in his hand. I didn’t think I would ever forget that face, either. I picked a man out of a lineup; I was sure that he was the guy I saw. I testified at trial, and the guy was convicted. His name was Ken Northbird.”
Marcel paused and took a deep breath. He was keeping it together a lot better than he thought he would. The story he had told was mostly true. He left out a few things that he was never going to tell anyone, but the gist of the story was the best he could remember it.
The lights on the side of the road were mostly gone. They had passed a train just out of Little Falls and now darkness enveloped the countryside. Shannon drove and said nothing the whole trip. Marcel had talked because he had something to say. Now it was time for him to finish the tale.
“Ken Northbird is the client who Joanne asked us to work on next.” Marcel looked at Shannon. All the blood had left her face and she looked incredibly pale.
Shannon didn’t speak and Marcel figured she didn’t know what to say. They sat in silence for the next twenty miles.
“Wow.” Shannon finally spoke, breaking the silence.
“Yeah, I guess that says it all.”
“Marcel, I am sorry that happened to your brother. I am also sorry that you had to go through that, and I am sorry that you have to deal with all this again.” Shannon’s voice had changed. It sounded real? Did that mean other things she said weren’t real? A warning beacon went off in Marcel’s head but quickly faded out. Compassion. That is what he heard. That is what he wanted to hear.
“Thanks.” But gratitude wasn’t what he was experiencing.
“So Northbird is claiming to be innocent?” Shannon asked.
“Yeah, and Joanne said he wants me on board with it.” Marcel answered.
“Could you have been wrong about the ID of the killer?” It was a valid question given everything that had transpired in the last four hours.
“I don’t know.” Though he did know, he knew for sure. If he closed his eyes right now he could see the picture in his head. The scene was like a movie playing in the highest definition possible, but could it all have been wrong. The memory of something that never happened. Was that possible?
“I mean, for sixteen years I have believed that this guy killed my brother; I went from confusion, to hatred, to forgiveness and now this gets sprung on me. My initial reaction is remorse. I mean shit, it’s entirely possible that I am the reason an innocent man has spent the better part of his life in a maximum security prison hundreds of miles away from his family, and that is really the hard part to get a hold on.”
This was Marcel at his most vulnerable. Here he was a former gang member, a pro boxer, who only a week ago had pummeled a man in short order in front of a few thousand people, and here he was conflicted about a piece of trash like Ken Northbird rotting in a cell. He had changed, though. He was not the same person he was all those years ago. He had moved passed vengeance. He was a better person, wasn’t he? But didn’t he build up a hatred for his opponents in the moments leading up to a fight? Wasn’t that the same thing he did back then? There were two parts of him tearing each other apart. There was the old Marcel, angry and violent, and there was the new man he wanted so desperately to be. Which one was the fraud?
“How convincing is the evidence?”
“Shannon, I was an angry kid filled with rage; Ken was a rival gang member. I was fourteen years old when my brother’s murder took place right before my eyes. I had lived a short, violent life at that point. I didn’t know right from wrong. The person I was…” He trailed off.
He hadn’t stuck around to hear Joanne lay out her case. He had enough evidence within himself to know that Ken Northbird just might be innocent of the crime he was convicted of. That didn’t make Ken Northbird innocent, but perhaps if Marcel allowed himself to let go of everything from his past the man he wanted to be could win the war going on inside him.
There was another long silence in the car. They were deep in the Chippewa forest north of Brainerd now and it was very dark. Over the last two hours he had come to terms with his past, and now he feared what would happen next.
37
Joanne had never actually brokered a drug deal before. She knew that Milton had been using their company to launder money for a drug business but she herself had never gotten any deeper than white collar criminal. The closest she got was putting clients in touch with sellers. She hadn’t been in touch with her own supplier in quite a while. She had stashed enough pills to where she was able to get by for quite a while. That stash was gone; she had taken the last couple pills before her trip to Texas. Now she had a lot of fish to fry. First she needed to get back in touch with her supplier, then she had to find a way to get the drugs to Colorado without getting pinched by any local cops.
Ken Northbird was in a hell of a predicament. He was being squeezed by a crooked C.O. over his last pinch, which just so happened to be dope out of her vending machines. The C.O. would give Ken up unless Ken turned his business over to the CO If Ken refused, his chance at a new trial was gone. The vending machines were a problem personally for Joanne. Somehow Ken had gotten information on her as well. A shitstorm could be prevented though. All she had to do was get the drugs to the corrections officer. Joanne, however, was not about to pack them in a bag and take them on a plane or put them in the trunk of a car and drive them out there. Joanne could not be caught by any local law enforcement; she needed insolation. Ken had offered her a solution. That was where up and comer Marcel came in. It was a brilliant plan, really. She would maintain her distance to the whole operation. She would set Marcel up in a hotel paid for by the A-I-I. Marcel would then be responsible for delivering the package. If the package was intercepted, she would have no connection to it. Marcel would be the fall guy, and his prior connection with Ken would be enough to keep any suspicious eyes off her. The C.O. would never have to know who she was. Marcel would be an unknowing front man for the whole operation. The challenge would be getting Marcel to bring the package to the C.O. no questions asked. She would cross that bridge when she came to it. For now, she had another issue to deal with.
Her first order of business was to reconnect with her supplier. It was a fairly innocuous process. Anyone watching on the outside would have no idea what she was doing. Her contact was a bartender in Dinkytown. He had a permanent ad on Craigslist selling all sorts of stuff, from furniture to used cars. Joanne would go into the bar, order a drink, and tell the man she was interested in one of the items depending on how much she needed. He would ask her how much she was willing to pay, and the deal would be done. The whole process was basic 1L contracts, offer and acceptance. The second part of the process was for her to stop somewhere to pick up the package. With the amount of weight she needed, she was in the market for a used car. The location was a dealership up in Blaine where she would deliver the payment. The car would then be delivered to a location after she left it at the dealership. It was the same process Milton had used with American Vending out of Rapid City, SD. American Vending would package the dope and deliver it to the vending machines at the prisons they serviced. This deal would be slightly different. With Milton clinging to life in some hospital out west, American Vending was no longer viable. Did she dare having the dope delivered to her house? She thought maybe she should have it addressed to Dr. Cockslinger at her address. That way if anything went down she could plead ignorance and put it on her ex-husband. This made her laugh.
She went into her kitchen, this time not even considering her ex-husband's past indiscretions. Instead she was solely focused on her keys; she couldn’t remember where she had put them when she had gotten home from her meeting with Tavian and Marcel. They weren’t on the granite countertop where she had anticipated them being.
“Shit,” She muttered to the empty house
Oh hell, I came in through the garage. Is my brain that polluted? she thought, remembering she had entered the house through the attached garage and likely left them on the stand right by the entrance from said garage. She headed to the back of the house and sure as shit, there where the keys. Praise the Lord.
She opened the door that lead down to the garage. The garage was below the house. There were spaces for ten cars in the underground, bunker-like garage. Her ex had been a car collector. Now that he was gone, the garage sat mostly empty. Joanne usually parked her Lexus in front of the house in the driveway. She had no idea why she had parked in the garage last night. Things like that were happening more and more to her. Unusual acts without motive. She knew that this was part and parcel to the drug abuse. Her brain was becoming rewired. Or fried.
She pulled the Lexus out of the driveway and headed into Minneapolis. She was so preoccupied that she didn’t see the Ford Taurus two driveways down from her own. In the driver’s seat was Tavian; he had been waiting for her. When she drove passed, he pulled out and followed.
It took her about twenty minutes to make it over to Dinkytown, which was in the northwest part of Minneapolis, and made up of the businesses that surround the U of M. School was in session so parking was difficult. She did find a lot north of the football stadium about nine blocks from the bar and parked. Tavian circled the block. He kept an eye on her from the car, and found a meter considerably closer. Joanne continued walking, oblivious to the fact she was being watched.
She entered the bar and was not surprised to see she was the only patron; it was only 10:30AM. The bartender was a familiar face. It was the man she had dealt with in the past, and he certainly recognized her.
“Hillary, good seeing you again. What can I get for you?” He called her by the alias she used. No sense putting her real name out there for this guy to know.
“Greyhound.” She wasn’t a drinker but the unusual drink was part of the deal.
“Like to see a menu?” He set the drink in front of her.
“Umm no, I am interested in your car that’s for sale.”
“What are you looking to spend?” The man spoke with a thick Welsh accent.
“One hundred”
The barkeep shot her a puzzled look. Joanne had been a good customer but no high roller. Usually putting down between five hundred and a thousand dollars at a purchase. Joanne knew he was trying to determine if she meant one hundred or one hundred thousand. She was too small to be buying a hundred thousand and was much too big a fiend to only be buying one hundred.
“I am looking for a big car.”
His look changed from confusion to concern just like that. A number that big was out of the ordinary. In this game, anything out of the ordinary was suspicious.
“That’s a lot of car, sure you don’t want something a little smaller?” he responded
“I am retiring. This will be the last car I am going to buy. I want to make sure I get exactly what I need.” Good grief, she thought. in what other business would you have to beg someone to take your damn money?
“I got something up at Blaine Auto. Stop by this afternoon, they will take care of you.” The Welsh bartender surrendered his suspicion only because Joanne had been their biggest customer for years.
“That’ll be four-fifty for the drink.” He nodded to the untouched drink in front of her.
She pulled out a five dollar bill and left it on the bar, got up and left. She never noticed Tavian, who was now outside the bar surveilling her.
“Car’s that big can be dangerous. You don’t operate them right, anything can happen,” The welshmen warned as she left.
Fuck yourself, she thought.
38
Marcel and Shannon spent the night in Walker. The next morning they got up early and drove out to Onigum to see some of the places Marcel used to run around as a kid. The trailer he lived in was still there, but it had pretty much fallen in on itself. They visited the spot where his brother had been murdered. Marcel recreated the event, looking down the street at his brother’s killer. He could remember it so vividly though all the trees were now bigger. Some of the trees he remembered were gone, and some new ones had popped up. The cycle of life continuing as if he had never existed.
Marcel took off on a jog about the same pace as the killer while Shannon stood where he had been all those years ago. At one point he turned, as the killer had done. Marcel believed the shooter wanted to check and see if the man he shot was moving. Marcel circled back to Shannon, and they compared notes discussing what was and was not visible.
The morning was mentally and emotionally draining for Marcel. Inside he was a mixture of sadness, anger, fear and regret. Though everything that was running through his mind was deeply personal, he couldn’t help but wonder what was going on in Shannon’s head through all this. Here she was watching him relive the worst moment of his life and she stood there holding back whatever emotion was inside of her. The way she talked, the way she carried herself it was like it was just another day at the office. Marcel couldn’t help but wonder if she was putting on this display of strength to help him to be stronger. Maybe, he thought it had to do with upbringing. Maybe the security of a good family provided her with the tools to control her emotions in a way that he never could. He wondered, but wasn’t ready to ask.
