A Case of Redemption (15 page)

We waited forty-five minutes for L.D. to arrive. When he finally appeared, he was wearing the same gray prison garb he had on the last time we'd visited Rikers, and he was shackled around the ankles and handcuffed behind his back, just like when he entered and left court. The guard who accompanied him into the room, a large man whose only visible hair was a black goatee, unlocked the handcuffs, but, again, just like in court, the ankle shackles remained in place.

“I'm going to be right outside the door,” the guard said to me.

“Thank you,” I replied, probably not the proper response, given that Nina and I shouldn't be afraid to be in a room alone with our client.

After the guard left and shut the door, L.D. extended his hand to me. “Merry Christmas,” he said with a broad smile. “I'm so glad that I got to see you guys today. I'm hoping Mercedes brings Brianna, but I know she ain't gonna. Christmas in here ain't fuckin' Christmas, you know what I mean?”

Nina and I each nodded, although it was obvious that neither of us really had any idea what it was like to spend Christmas in jail. At least not from the inmate point of view.

“Really nice for you to visit me when you got your own families. Did your little girl like her presents?”

My initial impulse was to continue the lie. A simple “yes” would have done it, but then I would be locked in to lying about Alexa for the duration, and I didn't think I could do that.

“I should have told you when we met the last time, L.D. My daughter died in a car accident. About eighteen months ago. Her mother, my wife, died too.”

I could see the shock on his face, which caused me to smile at him, my effort to ease his pain and mask my own. With L.D., it didn't seem to work as it usually did with others. L.D.'s eyes actually welled up.

“Fuck,” he said, and then he wiped his eyes.

Here he was, clad in the canvas gray prison jumpsuit, his legs chained together, denied his freedom, perhaps for the rest of his life—and if he was to be believed, all for a crime that he did not commit—and yet he felt sorry for me. And then I realized that he was right to do so. Certainly, if given the choice, I'd trade places with him in a second, all too glad to be imprisoned if it meant that Sarah and Alexa were alive somewhere—even if it meant that I had no idea where they were on Christmas.

“We have some things to discuss with you that are quite serious,
L.D.,” I said, perhaps too abruptly. The thought of my circumstances being worse than his was simply more than I could bear, and I wanted to get back on surer footing.

“First thing is that we met with Matt Brooks. He told us that your real name is Calvin Mayberry. That the whole Legally Dead backstory is a work of fiction.”

L.D. chortled. “Fucking Brooks, can't even remember my goddamn name. It's Calvin
Merriwether
.”

Damn. Our client was the liar. A little Occam's razor right there.

With all the seriousness I could muster, I said, “L.D., this isn't funny. You have to tell us the truth. About
everything
, okay? Or we can't represent you effectively.”

“I know. I know. You gotta understand, and I know it sounds like some crazy shit, but I ain't Calvin no more. And I get that I should have told you because you guys are my lawyers and so I need to tell you everything, but ain't no thing. Everybody in show business uses a made-up name. You think Eminem is that dude's real name? Or Fitty's?”

“This is different, though,” Nina said. “Those guys didn't also change their real names. Fifty Cent is Curtis something, right? And Eminem called one of his albums
Marshall Mathers
.”

“That shit is all Brooks,” L.D. said. “He said Calvin's gotta be dead and I gotta start over from scratch. Otherwise, you know, somebody would figure it out.”

“Let me make sure I have this right,” I said. “The rapper Legally Dead, who survived four gunshots, is really a kid from the burbs who never got shot? And you're saying that this was all Matt Brooks's doing?”

“Look,” L.D. said, now sounding as serious as me, “it's true that I was never a gang member, and I was never shot and left for legally dead. But I am an artist and a musician, and as a part of my art, I play that role. And I do it twenty-four/seven.”

“This is a major problem for us,” I said with a shake of my head. “The prosecution thinks you're Nelson Patterson.”

“So?”

“So the prosecution produced a juvenile detention record for Nelson Patterson,” Nina said.

She pulled a red accordion folder out of her briefcase. Within it she had arranged the key documents, each separated by a manila file folder. She handed L.D. the one with the tab marked “Juvie Records.”

“Any idea who this is?” I asked.

L.D. studied the picture. After a few seconds of reflection he said, “Beats the hell out of me. Ain't me, though.”

“I take it that Calvin Merriwether has no priors?”

“Always made honor roll, man,” L.D. said with a smile.

“And you really have no idea who this other Nelson Patterson is?” Nina asked.

“Already told you. Never heard a him.”

I knew from Nina's body language, the way her arms were folded across her chest, that she wasn't buying it. “This is an awfully big coincidence,” she said. “Out of nowhere, the police just happen to pull the rap sheet of some guy named Nelson Patterson who was involved in a shooting just like the one Matt Brooks made up, at around the same general time frame, and this guy was about the same age as L.D. would have been then. And the real Nelson Patterson, this guy in the mug shot, he's never come forward and said that he's the guy who was shot and left for legally dead? I mean, c'mon.”

“It's not that far-fetched,” I said. “I bet you that somebody in Brooks's organization, or maybe even him personally, knew of this Nelson Patterson's story, and that's why they offered it up to L.D. Maybe they paid the real Nelson Patterson off, and that's why he's never come forward. Or maybe they knew he was dead. You know, there was this character in a Paul Newman movie called
The Hustler
named Minnesota Fats, who was this pool hustler. Totally fiction. But then this real-life guy, who was a real good pool player, and happened
to be overweight, started calling himself Minnesota Fats, and soon enough, people just assumed that he was the guy the movie was based on. He made millions because people thought he was that character. I don't even think the guy was from Minnesota.”

She nodded, the nonverbal equivalent of “I hear you.”

“But,” I continued, “no matter what the explanation, we're still left with something of an ethical dilemma here, L.D. Do we tell Lisa Kaplan that she's got the wrong Nelson Patterson? Do we tell her that your name isn't Nelson Patterson?”

“No,” he said vehemently. “No fucking way.”

“Did you legally change your name?” I asked, and then rattled off a few more questions before giving him the opportunity to answer the first one. “What's your driver's license say? Social Security card? What name do you file your taxes under?”

“Whoa,” he said with a laugh. “Brooks handled all that shit for me. Maybe I signed some forms, but I don't know anything about that stuff. I got no license and I never made any money, so there was never no taxes needed to be filed.”

“I don't think we have to do anything about the name,” Nina said. “Isn't it on them if they call him the wrong name?”

She was right, but only to a point. “Maybe in the first instance,” I said, “but it's definitely going to be an issue if L.D. testifies. The first thing they say is ‘Please state your name for the record.' What name is he going to give? And if he says Nelson Patterson, isn't that a lie, and won't we be guilty of suborning perjury?”

“It's the name I go by, man,” L.D. said. “It fuckin'
is
who I am. And after all this shit is over, Imma go back to being Legally Dead. There ain't no life for me as Calvin Merriwether. The truth is, I rather be in here as Legally Dead than out there as Calvin Merriwether.”

I looked over at Nina to see if she had anything further she wanted to add. Her expression registered that she was as concerned as me. She looked like she was smelling something bad, which in a way she was.

Recognizing that we weren't going anywhere on this, I said, “Among the other evidence the prosecution provided us with were a few pubic hairs in Roxanne's bed. There was no DNA material on the hairs, so they couldn't do the analysis you see on TV where they definitively determine whose hair it is, but they're from a Caucasian, which rules you out.”

“But it could very well be Roxanne's hair,” Nina quickly added.

“We've hired an expert,” I began to explain, “a guy named Marty Popofsky. He's fresh out of the medical examiner's office and he'll do some analysis of the hair. We're hoping he'll give us an opinion as to whether the pubic hairs really belonged to Roxanne.”

L.D. looked like he was somewhere else for the moment. Try as I might, I had no idea what was running through his head. Did he prefer that the alleged love of his life be cheating on him if it helped prove he was innocent of murder? Did he already know about her infidelity, and was that why he'd killed her? Or was he hoping that it all wasn't true, and that she had been faithful to him up to the end?

“What if they're not hers?” he asked in a weak voice. “Can you find out whose they are?”

“I don't know,” I said. “If we had someone's pubic hair to compare it to, we might be able to get an opinion out of our expert about the likelihood of a match. You have any idea who?”

“Nah,” he said flatly. “I'd be the last fucking dude to know.”

“We're going to do our best to find out who this other guy might be,” I said. “But you need to know going in that it's a risky proposition for us. There's definitely an upside to it. If there was someone else Roxanne was romantically involved with, we can point to that person as another suspect. And because we'd be the ones finding this other guy, and not the prosecution, we'll be able to score some points there, too.”

“But,” Nina chimed in, “it'll help the prosecution, too, because it brings a jealousy angle into it that they don't have right now. It basically gives them motive on a silver platter.”

“How can that be if I didn't know there was another guy?”

I was tempted to laugh, although I knew he was being sincere. Why defendants think that because they say it, everyone believes it's true, I'll never know.

“L.D., no matter what you say, the prosecution will claim that you did know. It'll be your word against theirs.”

“I don't know shit about some other guy,” L.D. said.

“I hear you, L.D.,” I said. “I do.”

I turned to Nina, who offered a subtle shrug. The pubic hair subject exhausted, it was time to get to the most serious issue.

“Okay, let's move on. So . . . we also met with Marcus Jackson,” I said without emotion, and then waited a beat to see if L.D. would provide some indication that he knew what we'd been told. He didn't so much as flinch, however.

“He told us that you confessed to killing Roxanne,” Nina said in a similarly emotionless tone.

Legally Dead's response was a hearty laugh. It couldn't have been more misplaced.

“Do you find this funny?” I asked.

“If you believe him, then yeah, I find that pretty fuckin' hilarious. I've already told you guys,
I didn't kill her
. So that pretty much means I didn't confess, don't it?”

“With all respect, L.D., you also told us that your name was Nelson Patterson, and that wasn't true. So we're kind of in a gray area about how much to believe what you tell us.”

“That's not the same fucking thing and you know it,” he said with a flash of anger. “I wanted you guys because I thought you believed in me. If you don't, then fuck you both.”

“L.D . . . . I think I need to give you what is a pretty standard speech in the criminal defense business. It goes something like this: as your counsel, we have an ethical duty to represent you zealously without regard to whether you're innocent or guilty—”

He held out his hand like a traffic cop, telling me to stop.

In a calmer voice, he said, “I know what you're going to say. I do. But I need
you
to hear
me
. I didn't kill Roxanne.” I started to say something, but he interrupted me again. “Please, let me finish.” I nodded that the floor remained his. “I know you're gonna give me that lawyer bullshit that you don't care if I'm guilty because you got a job to do. But what I'm sayin' is that I
want
you to care. I'm innocent and I need you to believe me. If I can't get you two to believe in me, some jury sure won't.”

“Any idea why Marcus Jackson would lie to us?” Nina said this sharply, almost too much so, given L.D.'s heartfelt denial.

“No” was all he said.

“How'd you find Marcus Jackson, anyway?” I asked.

“Brooks got him for me. Like day one. I told him, I don't need no lawyer, but he said the boyfriend was always prime suspect, and with ‘A-Rod' . . . well, I could see how it was gonna look, right?”

I took a deep measure of L.D. For a reason I couldn't quite comprehend, I believed him. The “A-Rod” song, the whole Calvin Merriwether thing, even Jackson telling us that he'd confessed, didn't change my view. I honestly believed that he was innocent of this crime.

Then again, I'd truly believed in Darrius Macy's innocence, and so my radar on this sort of thing was hardly what one would call foolproof.

A
t four o'clock Christmas Day, I was with Nina in her brother's living room along with Rich's wife, Deb, who had been Sarah's best friend, drinking a seltzer. Rich had offered me a glass of the same twenty-year-old Johnnie Walker Blue I'd had at their Christmas party a little more than a week before, but I declined. In part, that was because I didn't want to give Nina an excuse to renege on her promise of a later scotch, but also because I couldn't deny the benefits of my new sobriety. I hadn't had a drink since agreeing to take on L.D., and I could feel my mind and body beginning to respond.