Wrongful Convictions, page 19
“Must be nice,” she sighed.
The door was open so she drove in. There was one other car inside the lot, a black Lexus.
“Now that’s a sexy car.”
Why would someone in this house want this car? It didn’t fit this house at all. A budget sedan in a mansion of a house that clearly had an indoor pool. It also had three levels and this monstrous garage, not to mention a beautiful view of lake Minnetonka that couldn’t be cheap. Tess didn’t know that this was just one of the bays, not really the whole lake.
She pulled the car in, put it in park, turned the key off, left them in the ignition as ordered and got out of the car. Will had turned around at the top of the hill and was waiting for her. She walked up the hill and got in his car.
“Strange a house like this buying a car like that,” she said to Will as she got in.
“Maybe it’s for the guy’s kid.” Will’s answer made sense and she let the issue go.
Another car was coming up the drive. This one was a BMW. Tess peered at the driver and saw a younger woman who bore a strong resemblance to the girl who was with Marcel after the fight. She wondered if it really was her and wanted to go back to get another look but thought better of it. She didn’t want to get in trouble with work, but she thought she might mention it to Marcel when she saw him at Will’s.
Will lived on the North side not to far off of Wirth Parkway, which wasn’t a real long way from Minnetonka. He took 7 back to 169 North and then to 55 back towards the city. It took about twenty minutes to get back to his place, and there was a lot of work to do to prep for the barbeque.
“What time is everyone getting here tonight?” she asked Will when they were still about ten minutes away.
“Shoot, people could be there right now.” Will wasn’t kidding about that. At any given time there were usually between five and ten random people at his house. He had one of those big old houses with a lot of rooms and Will’s personality was such that he attracted everyone. On a fight night there were upwards of thirty people in his place.
“Jayna will be there for sure, she getting the grill going. Probably Bunz, D, Ricky, Travon and his old lady, what’s her name?” He paused. The characters Will knew had nicknames and aliases. No one went by their real name.
Bunz was Benjamin Bundy. He had played quarterback on Will’s junior college team, and now worked for some insurance agency downtown. D was Drashaun Thomas, a guy that lived in the neighborhood. Ricky was Lee Steamboat, one of Bunz’s coworkers. They called him Ricky after some wrestler from the 80’s. Travon, who was actually Travis, was a stuffed shirt of a white boy who Will worked with. They called him Travon so he could at least be a little black. Travon’s old lady was a really nice chick named Sarah or something like that. They were all good people, and Tess liked hanging out with them. Jayna was Will’s girlfriend, or fiance. They had been engaged going on four years now and Tess wasn’t sure she could call the woman a fiancé after all this time.
“What time is Marcel coming over?” she asked, more curious than anything.
“Could be here now, he didn’t say. I am sure he will want to watch the fight.” Tess thought that somewhere inside him, Will hoped that she would hook up with Marcel. She could tell that he really liked Marcel, not that it was a surprise, but Marcel was someone that Will looked up to, and with his personality and stature he didn’t look up to many people.
“Cool.” They pulled in to his driveway and she saw Marcel’s motorcycle parked there, right next to Bunz’ bucket, some sort of Chevy that was about twenty years old. She was excited and a little nervous too.
49
Shannon had just pulled into Joanne’s driveway as the old Firebird with the enormous black man driving pulled out. The front drive was gated, and the other driveway to the back lead straight into a garage that reminded Shannon of a downtown parking ramp. Shannon almost thought she was in the wrong place until she saw Joanne come out of the house into the garage, and wave her in.
It felt a little awkward pulling her car into someone else’s garage but it was so big that it didn’t seem like a run of the mill garage. She pulled in next to the ugly copper Buick that was parked hastily next to a Lexus. Joanne thought it was an odd pair of cars.
“Did you have visitors?” Shannon thumbed the driveway behind her. She risked offending the woman whom she didn’t know very well at all but needed some answers.
“Oh, they were just here to look at the LeSabre I am selling.” Shannon could hear it was an obvious lie and wondered why she was being lied to.
“You’re selling your car?” Shannon followed up.
“Its, uh, not actually mine, it belonged to my aunt who just passed away, we are liquidating her estate, this was hers. I am the executor.” Another lie.
The conversation with Joanne was giving Shannon a real feeling of apprehension as well as suspicion. She didn’t know Joanne all that well, and what she did know was that there was more to this woman than it seemed. What exactly did Joanne know? Shannon decided it was time to change the subject for now, but she would really be interested in taking a further look at this car. She took a quick peek at the license plate, hoping she could remember some of it later. The dealer plate confirmed Joanne’s lies.
“I have our notes from what we found in the Northbird case. Ready to take a look?” She held up a manila folder.
“Come in, let’s eat, we can discuss it over dinner.” Shannon followed the woman out of the garage and up a set of stairs. The doorway entered into a giant kitchen with a granite center island that housed a stovetop and grill. The cabinetry in the kitchen was beautiful and the tile floor complimented exceptionally. How many millions did this cost? More importantly, how did a law professor afford it?
The floor plan of the house was open. The kitchen turned into the dining room separated only by the center island. There was a small oak circular dining table in the dining room with seating for four, though it seemed a little too small for the room. Beyond the dining room was a sitting room. The focal point of the room was a fireplace at the far wall that didn’t look as if it had been lit in twenty years. Around the fireplace there were three uncomfortable looking pieces of furniture and above the fireplace was a wall mounted television. Shannon scanned for exits. An old habit.
Each took a seat at the table. Joanne had provided three cartons of entrees and two of white rice. One Shannon recognized as beef broccoli, the other was a chicken dish she wasn’t familiar with, and the third was fried rice. Shannon absolutely loved fried rice. She slid the file over to Joanne and took a scoop of the rice from the container and put it on her plate, watching Joanne closely. Joanne took a little from each container and topped it off with some white rice. She opened a soy sauce package and sprinkled it over the plate, then opened the envelope.
As she read she took the first few bites of her dinner.
Hell of a poker face. Shannon observed a marked difference in her overall demeanor. She had been caught in the middle of something. Outside Joanne had been sweating, spoke in a fractured tone and minced her words. Now she was as cool as a cucumber. She took note of Joanne’s ability to change faces so easily.
“Tell me about Northbird.”
The two women ate and talked. Shannon explained what they had found; the mystery of Carmody, and the exculpatory statements. She also disclosed the stack of files the PD were concerned about as well. She left out the part about the heavy set man. That was something she wanted to hold onto until she knew more.
Joanne had several questions for her, some of which she was able to answer and some she wasn’t. They discussed the case for about an hour.
“Excuse me, I need to use the restroom.” Shannon politely demanded.
“Through there and to the left.” Joanne pointed to the main entry of house, a spectacular foyer with a staircase leading up on either side. Shannon got up and went into the foyer and made a left. She looked back towards the dining room to ensure she wasn’t visible from the dining room. She went into the bathroom and quickly went through all the drawers and cupboards. She didn’t find anything, as she suspected. She removed the toilet paper from the holder and put it into the tank on the toilet. She then slipped out of the bathroom and headed up the stairs with as much stealth as she could manage.
She could hear Joanne cleaning up in the kitchen and knew she didn’t have a lot of time. She made her way to the master bedroom and quickly shuffled through the drawers in the room, being careful not to disrupt their contacts too much.
50
While Shannon was rifling through Joanne’s drawers, Marcel was at Will’s watching the fight. Will’s crew was all there. Will always traveled with a minimum of five people, but tonight there were closer to twenty. The crowd filled up his living room, spilled into the dining room and those revelers who weren’t into the fight congregating in the kitchen. Will’s living room was large enough to fit two sofas, both were filled. There were a couple women sitting on the floor. One of them had a toddler who was fixated on a ball he was playing with. Those in the dining area had arranged the chairs in order to have a sightline of the television. Will’s living and dining area were separated by large double pocket doors that were broken. One of the doors stuck out of the pocket enough to obstruct the view from that side. Because of this, those folks in the dining room were squished together more than they needed to be. Marcel thought of goldfish.
The first fight of the night featured a middleweight from Boston with an undefeated record taking on a Rafeal Lopez, the man whom Marcel would be fighting in Las Vegas in the spring. Lopez had been in two world title fights; He won the first then relinquished his title in the second. This fight was for the vacant WBA title. If Lopez won. Marcel would be fighting for a world championship. Marcel navigated through the dining area, stepped over bodies and legs and finally made her way to a folding chair in the living room that had been reserved for him. The chair was positioned so that he would have a good view of his opponent, it also meant that others on the sofa behind him had to careen their necks a little to see around him. It wasn’t an issue for anyone.
“Hey, you guys need to shut the fuck up.” Will stood up and faced everyone.
“This is who the champ is fighting next,” he continued on, embarrassing Marcel slightly.
“You’re fighting this guy?” Bunz asked with the excitement of a teenager. Next to Will, Bunz was probably the most star struck by Marcel. Having been a former athlete who didn’t make it as far as he wanted, he had a great admiration for those athletes that had the opportunity to live their dream.
“You gonna be on ESPN?” was the next question. Several more followed. Marcel didn’t have a chance to answer any of them.
“I thought I said to shut up!” Will interrupted them all.
A buzz of excitement rippled through the room. Marcel caught Tess stealing a couple glances at him. He saw her differently tonight. Their first encounter was frantic; she was a familiar stranger. At the gym she was his brother’s girl and he was fourteen years old all over again. Here at Will’s, they were on the same plane. I don’t see her different, he thought. I see myself as an adult now, not a kid brother. There was something else, though, something he wasn’t willing to admit to himself just yet. That seed hiding in the recess of his mind was this: maybe the reason he saw her different was because she was a threat and not the family she had once been.
Marcel was having a hard time focusing on anything but Tess tonight. She was an attractive woman for the most part, though she was showing signs of her age and the effects of a lifetime of poor nutrition. Every time the fight went to a commercial break his eyes would return to her. Had she been overlooked by a lot of other guys? The type of guys from good addresses with good jobs and direction. Though baggy and lined with the beginning of crow’s at the edges, Tess still had magnificent eyes. Couldn’t they see that? Why was it only the corrupted eyes of men like his brother and the chairman could see the beauty in those eyes? They were so deeply brown they were almost black, and there was a spark in them that Marcel could only describe as alive.
Tess wasn’t overweight, but she wasn’t fit like Shannon was either. Shit, what an asshole I am for comparing the two women, he thought. Marcel knew now that he had a crush on Shannon; he was seeing her in places she really wasn’t.
I need to be watching this fight his inner voice spoke.
The fight lasted for only three of the scheduled ten rounds. Lopez exposed the prospect as a bit of a fraud, knocking him down in the first before finally obliterating him in the third. The prospect didn’t have the power or the jaw to contend with a fighter the caliber of Lopez.
The excitement of the fights ending came to a crescendo when the fight was stopped, and as quickly as it built it went silent, with everyone looking wide eyed at Marcel. He was going to fight a guy that had just demolished his opponent in three rounds on ESPN and was now the WBA world middleweight champ.
“He ain’t shit, he is slow and not very accurate. All I have to do is move and counter,” Marcel jockeyed, a move to reassure himself more than anyone else.
“You too quick for him champ,” Will spoke definitively and the rest of the people in the room got in step.
Marcel’s phone rang. Marcel saw that it was Jarvis on the other line and got up from his seat.
“Jarvis.” He held up his phone to let everyone know the reason he was going outside. Marcel went out through the kitchen to the deck in the back of Will’s house and took a seat in one of the patio chairs.
“You see it.” Marcel said, switching the phone on.
Jarvis began talking as the back door to the house opened and Tess came out. She gave Marcel a wink and an approving smile that let him know she wasn’t going to interrupt, that she would wait for him so they could be alone for a little while.
It was the middle of September and the sun had already gone down. It didn’t seem like that long ago that the sun was out until almost ten; it was a sign to all Minnesotans that summer was now over and the cold of winter was almost here. If the sun wasn’t enough, the cool fall air was. The rains that had washed through the day before had carried with them a cold front. The ninety degree weather that had tortured them all summer had given way to a brisk fifty, almost too cold for his bike. He sat there on the deck talking with Jarvis, glad he had a sweatshirt. The street lights were starting to come on. They gave an enchanted quality to the evening.
“I agree,” Marcel finished his conversation with Jarvis and hung up.
“So can you beat him?” Tess asked once Marcel was off the phone.
“Yeah, he is a guy that can be beat, he knows what it is like to lose. I don’t. You can’t put a price on that.” Marcel was feeling more confident after talking with Jarvis.
“Yeah, I think you could kick his ass.” Marcel could see her smile in the dimly lit Minneapolis night.
“Jarvis will have a good game plan.” This was the fact that solidified Marcel’s confidence after the beating he saw on ESPN.
“And what about you, what’s your game plan?” Tess asked him.
“For the fight?” Marcel didn’t think she was talking about the fight.
“No, for life, what are you going to do next?” The question was an honest one, but one he didn’t expect from Tess. As kids none of them really had dreams; they had never talked about the future. That thought made Marcel sad. The truth was none of them had believed they had a future, Marcel included. His brother’s thinking had been correct. Henry hadn’t had a future. The others didn’t either. But now Tess did, and maybe he did too.
“Are you going to keep fighting, be the world champ?” she continued.
Marcel contemplated this question for a while. When he heard it like that, it seemed silly to believe that he, sitting here in North Minneapolis watching a fight on TV at the age of twenty- four, had any hope of ever being an undisputed world champion. Realistically he probably only had a couple years left before his skills started to decline. How many fights could he get in by the time he hit thirty? He would be twenty-five before he fought Lopez.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s only a pipe dream at this point. I mean I am twenty-four years old and don’t have any key fights under my belt.” For the first time in his life he spoke with a raw honesty that he didn’t even use in his inner voice.
“I think you can accomplish anything you put your mind to. Even as a little boy you were a pitbull. You got something in your head and you wouldn’t stop until it was completed.” Marcel could see affection in her eyes.
Marcel didn’t really know what to say, but he didn’t have to.
“And what about this lawyer stuff?”
“I don’t know about being a lawyer. I don’t know if I can sit in an office every day for the rest of my life, looking at computer screens and reading court cases.” The thought of being a lawyer terrified him. It felt like prison. There was something about the rigidness of it all that scared him most. The unchanging scenery, and the inability to control his day that made him question whether or not he could ever practice.
“What? So no Law and Order for you? I hear you got your shit together when it comes to all that courtroom stuff.” He wasn’t sure who that had come from but it was flattering nonetheless.
“I have my moments. It depends on what I am working on, I guess.” He wasn’t lying. There were facets of law that he excelled at without a doubt.
“You got any exciting cases now?” Tess asked.
Marcel’s heart stopped for a moment.
Well, I guess I may as well tell her.
“Yeah, actually I am. I don’t think you are going to believe me when I tell you who it is.” Marcel wasn’t completely sure how she would take it.
“Who?”
