Untitled (29 page)

  Kelly sat with Rashad, Leslie Reed, and Mbutu as the voir dire took place. The words
voir dire
mean literally "to speak the truth," as potential jurors are asked questions to see if they are fit for service.

  Mbutu looked a little sickly and ashen. Marshall remembered that he'd had some ailment and also had recently gone on a hunger strike, like the old civil rights leaders. His organization was really going to extremes to recruit members and reestablish its power, Marshall thought.

  Marshall kept in mind that in this capital case, each side had twenty peremptory challenges to jurors. He could excuse a potential juror for cause, such as bias or prejudice, but forfeited a challenge when he removed one without cause. The battlefield in jury selection was to get rid of an unsympathetic juror for cause without using a precious challenge. It was a somewhat silly game that was part skill and part intuition.

  On the first day of selection, Marshall had used only six peremptory challenges. Rashad had used eight, but only four jurors had been chosen so far, and they were all white. Three men and one woman.

  They needed a twelve-juror panel and six alternates. Marshall's biggest problem was finding a black juror who didn't have some prejudice against Farrel Douglas. There weren't a lot of black jurors in the pool, and if Marshall dumped them, Langworthy would put a stop to it. He was not going to let this case proceed with an all-white jury.

  Kelly controlled the process for the defendant. She frowned, whispered, and chuckled as the jurors were questioned. The three jurors who looked good for Marshall had been dumped by Rashad at Kelly's direction. She was good, he thought, and as the pool thinned out, he wished he had a consultant of his own. But Toby frowned on such practices. Defense attorneys got to use the tricks of the trade, but the government had to make do with the occasional jury selection seminar and the truth.

  In many cases, the jury pool was depleted to the point where the case had to make do with the losers who were left. Marshall didn't want to get into this situation. He needed quality people to understand the complexity of the case.

  A black businesswoman took the stand. Marshall noticed that she wore only a wedding band and no other jewelry. A good sign of conservatism, he thought. She was about thirtyfive and good-looking. She walked with a straight back, her head held high. This could mean a strong personality, the kind that influenced crowds.

  "State your name," asked Marshall.

  "Debra Gibson-Chandler," said the woman.

  A hyphenate, thought Marshall. That could mean independence or some bias against men. Feminism was a desirable trait, but too much of anything made you a bad juror. Chemin had chosen to hyphenate, a fact that had always pissed him off just a little.

  "What do you do for a living?"

  "I'm an accountant for Dipolle and Meyers."

  "Are you married or single?"

  "Married eight years with three kids," she said with pride.

  "Do you have any knowledge of this case, ma'am?"

  "Of course I do." She looked a little annoyed at the question.

"Have you formulated any opinion about the case?"

"No."

"Did you know Justice Douglas?"

"Yes, I mean I knew of his work."

"Did you like Farrel Douglas?"

  Debra took a second. She thought about the question, then:

  "I didn't know him personally, but I assume you mean as a judge."

  "Yes, that's what I mean," said Marshall.

  "He seemed to be a good man, a smart one."

  Marshall tried not to show the happiness he felt. Having a conservative black juror in a case like this would help him. The whites on the panel would tend to listen to her because of her race. Marshall asked a few more well-placed questions, which Debra answered with aplomb. Once you were sure you liked a juror, you had to ask defensive questions in anticipation of a challenge for cause.

  "Thank you, Ms. Chandler. The government has no objection to this juror."

  Kelly whispered to Rashad, who rose and approached Debra.

  "Ms. Chandler, is it?"

  "Yes."

  "Would you classify yourself as a conservative?"

  "Objection!" said Marshall.

  "You know better, Mr. Rashad," said Langworthy.

  "Sorry, Your Honor," said Rashad.

  The question was not appropriate, but it had not been asked to get an answer. Kelly was watching Debra's expression, looking for a reaction she could read. Rashad immediately went back to Kelly, who whispered to him urgently.

  "Ms. Chandler," said Rashad, "have you read about this case?"

  "Yes, in the newspapers."

  "Watched coverage on the news?"

  "Some, but not much."

  "Did you know Farrel Douglas wrote a book?"

  "No."

"Are you surprised he'd written a book?"

"No. He was a judge, an intelligent man."

  Rashad thought a moment. "Your Honor, may this juror be excused a moment?" asked Rashad.

  Langworthy asked Debra to leave. She did, looking a little confused.

  "We move to dismiss this juror for cause," said Rashad.

  "On what grounds?" asked Marshall.

  "What is the cause?" asked Langworthy.

  "Bias," said Rashad. "This juror obviously is a Douglas fan."

  "I don't see that," said Marshall. "Does not hating a man make you a fan?"

  "She has read about him, she characterized him as intelligent. She's obviously a supporter, and ready to convict anyone accused of killing him."

  "Nonsense, Your Honor," said Marshall. "If the defense doesn't want Ms. Chandler, let them use a challenge, but this is the thinnest of arguments so far."

  Marshall was calling them out. Rashad was getting low on challenges, and this was a black juror. If Langworthy gave this to him, he'd have to give Marshall something else down the road. With eight jurors left to pick, wasting a challenge on this potential juror would be foolish. Chandler wasn't clearly biased for either side.

  "Sorry," said Langworthy. "I don't see any bias. You don't want her, use a challenge."

  Rashad went back and talked with Kelly.

  "We'll allow the juror," said Rashad.

  Marshall was shocked. What was this latest game about? Clearly they felt threatened by Debra, and if that was the case, why not dump her? Kelly smiled at Marshall as he looked over.

  They pressed on, person after person. Soon, Marshall's head was spinning from the monotony of asking the same questions. Voir dire wasn't really about finding bias. It was about finding
acceptable
bias. Everyone brought bias to a case. It was the nature of human beings to choose sides. What you didn't want was a juror with a bias rooted in prejudice or ignorance.

  Late in the afternoon, after adding two more jurors to the panel, Langworthy started to look tired. They added another white woman and a white male. Marshall was down to six challenges, and Rashad had only four with half a jury picked.

  "We'll call it a day," said Langworthy.

  The session broke up. April Kelly looked smug as she shook hands with Rashad. Leslie Reed seemed cool toward April. Maybe she didn't like jury consultants, or maybe it was personal. The media had been making much of Reed's wardrobe, her colorful suits and short skirts. Perhaps she didn't like having another woman on the team.

  Marshall and his team left. Ryder looked worried as they walked down the hallway.

  "Something up, Bob?" asked Marshall.

  "Yes, I think they're up to something," said Ryder.

  "I don't know what it could be," said Marshall.

  "They should have bounced that Chandler woman," said Roberta.

  "Yeah, she was cool, but clearly a more conservative kind of person," said Walter.

  "I felt that too," said Marshall. "But maybe this was their screwup. Ms. Chandler is a strong person, and she feels like a good choice for us."

  Marshall and the team went back into the office. Agent Sommers was coming out of Nate Williams's office. She looked upset, and Marshall hoped that he was not in dutch with her again. He walked over to them and had the strange feeling that he'd done it before. He hated those feelings of déjà vu. They always led to something bad.

  "What's up?" asked Marshall.

  "We've had a tragedy," said Sommers. "Nothing involving our case, but you probably want to know."

  Marshall's heart sped up. It was Chemin, he thought. Something had happened to her. But why would the FBI be interested in that?

  "It's Jessica Cole," said Nate. "She's been killed."

D
anny watched Chemin as she got in her car and drove away from the drugstore. He'd followed some simple leads and found out that she was staying with her friend, some woman named Rochelle Sheppard.

  Chemin was living with the woman but had not been into work in a while. She'd called in sick for several days, and no one was the wiser. Danny supposed that Chemin just needed some rest. If he caught Vinny doing some guy, he'd need a mental health day too. Of course, the guy would need a coffin, he thought.

  Danny tailed Chemin around the city, following her from the plaza on Livernois and Seven Mile. He tried to keep his mind on following her and from the wreck his life had become. The job he was doing for Marshall helped, but his head was still filled with images of the man he'd beaten and the damning headline in the newspapers.

  Chemin headed north across Eight Mile Road into Southfield, a trendy suburb filled with affluent blacks. "Detroit North" was what the locals called Southfield these days. The sky was overcast, and a cold wind whipped across the city. It felt a little like Chicago, Danny thought absently.

  His mind wandered back to his problem as he drove along. All he'd done was beat some scumbag who had it coming. Shit like that happened every day. The robber was a lifetime criminal asshole named Tyrell Stevens. He was a small-time thief and drug user who'd tried to graduate to the big time by bagging a goddamned restaurant. He needed his ass kicked for being stupid. Stevens was headed for an attempted murder case for the robbery and a possible life sentence. Why anyone would care about that waste of skin was beyond Danny's comprehension.

  
"Danny, you are not a black man . . ."

  Marshall's words came back to him. His friend was right. Racial politics was a reality he could not escape. The city was mostly black and struggled financially. Even though it was at the start of an economic comeback, it was still a town that fought for its municipal dignity, a city that counted its homeless in order to keep its population above the magic one million number. In such a place, a white cop who beat a black man might as well put a bull's-eye on his forehead.

  But if he was not a black man, then he didn't know what the hell he was. He was a Catholic, but so were many blacks in the city. His father was into their Irish heritage but didn't really press the point at home. And all of his older relatives had always stressed that they were
American f
irst.

  He'd been steeped in the culture, seduced by the soul of blackness. He felt powerful, fearless, and righteous when he thought of himself. The concerns of the black community were his concerns, and the politics were his also. If some other white had beaten that robber, his first thought might have been that the cop was some kind of racist. Only because he was special did Danny think the rules did not apply to him.

  When he looked in the mirror, the face on the other side didn't seem right. It didn't fit what was inside his head and his heart. Maybe he wasn't a black man, but he certainly wasn't just a white man either.

  Vinny was taking the situation as well as she could. She was working again, so there wasn't a lot of time for her to berate him about what had happened. She had told him many times that if he didn't control his temper, he'd regret it. Women could be a pain in the ass for always being right about everything.

  Chemin turned into a professional complex and quickly exited her car. Danny drove by and parked in a fast-food joint down the block near Eleven Mile.

  He got out of his car and walked over to the building. The cold wind attacked him as he did. That first blast of cold air was always the worst when you got out of a warm car.

  The building was a two-story complex that housed a lot of medical professionals. He hoped that Chemin was okay. Maybe the stress of seeing her husband with another woman had caused some sort of physical ailment.

  He couldn't believe that Marshall had cheated. He knew that all men entertained these thoughts. Hell, he did all the time, but he never thought Marshall would cross the line. Although, he reasoned, if anyone had a right to get a piece of ass, it was Marshall. Chemin had cut him off so badly that no one would blame him.

  Danny went into the lobby of the building and walked up to the security officer. There was a sign-in sheet on a counter. Danny moved to the guard, a skinny, bespectacled man. The man eyed Danny suspiciously and shifted in his seat. Danny didn't like this. The man was probably one of the police academy rejects who took this job in order to feel like a cop.

  "Wha'sup?" Danny said.

  "Can I help you?" asked the security guard. He had that hollow, pseudoauthoritative tone that all rent-a-cops use.

  "Looking for a Dr. Kismazz," said Danny. He smiled.

  "No doctor here by that name."

  "Oh, really, I must have the wrong address." Danny checked the sign-in sheet.

  "There's another complex across the street," said the guard. "Try that one."

  "Right," said Danny. Then he walked away. Danny chuckled softly. "Kismazz" was an old neighborhood joke for "kiss my ass." He remembered how he and Marshall used to say it to other kids and laugh like hell. The guard had no idea that he'd been insulted, but it was funny to Danny just the same. He stopped by the tenants' roster on the way out and took a peek at the doctor that Chemin had signed in to see. Danny stopped on the name "Dr. Claudia Wellbourne—Psychoanalyst."