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He came out about twenty minutes later and dropped across from me in the booth, reeking of fried foods, his white top wet at the sleeves and stained with various colors.
Ke
“I’m Jason Kolarich,” I said, though he already knew that. “You were expecting me?”
“Okay,” he said, nodding compliantly but not making eye contact.
“You talked to our friend?”
“Didn’t talk to nobody, boss.”
Right. That would be the story, obviously. “You were at that apartment building on the night of September 21, 2006?”
“Okay.”
“Can you tell me who you were with?” I already had that information, too, courtesy of our mutual friend Smith.
“Jax and Clay,” said Sanders.
“Jackson Moore and Jimmy Clay?”
“Right, okay.” Still nodding.
“And they’ll say you left them about nine-thirty that night?”
“Okay.”
Leaving Sanders with sufficient time to attempt a robbery of, say, a guy who lived two floors up named Griffin Perlini, a mousy little guy who’d be an easy mark, though something might have gone wrong, see, and instead he ended up popping the guy between the eyes. That would be my story to the jury, of course. Ke
“Do you deny you left your friends at nine-thirty that night?”
“Not sayin’, okay.”
Right. “Did you leave your friends on the second floor of that building, head up two flights to Griffin Perlini’s apartment?”
“Not sayin’.”
“Did you attempt to rob him?”
“Not sayin’.”
“And when he struggled, did you shoot him between the eyes?”
“Not sayin’.” He shook his head. “No sir, not sayin’.”
“Did you then run out of the building?”
“Not sayin’.”
“Were you wearing a leather bomber jacket and green stocking cap? Not saying,” I answered for him.
“Not sayin’,” he agreed.
Smith had worked this out with Ke
But Ke
Sanders pulled up his sleeve and scratched the dry skin on his arm. This man had been malnourished his entire life, from the baloney-on-white in the local lockups to the inedible garbage that is prison food. This guy started with nothing and would end up that way.
“This is ridiculous,” I said.
“No.” For the first time, Ke
He needed this, he was saying. He was being rewarded handsomely for giving himself up as a scapegoat. I could follow my conscience and my preppy-white-boy guilt, but Ke
“Please,” he said, eyes averted again, nodding insistently. “Please, sir.”
And in the end, Ke
“Okay.” I slipped him my card. “The prosecution’s going to want to talk to you,” I said. “That will happen soon. You’ll probably be testifying even before trial.”
“Okay, yeah. Good, okay.”
“I—have to take this picture,” I said. He knew I’d need to do this.
I had a digital camera I’d given to Talia two Christmases ago. She was the photographer in the family, but I wasn’t completely useless. I snapped Ke
“I need you to look at something,” I told him.
42
I FOUND TOMMY BUTCHER at the work site in Deemer Park where Butcher Construction was erecting a new facility for the city park district. I don’t recall what previously existed, what had been torn down, but the replacement building was a massive structure, big enough to house indoor te
Men on scaffolding were working on the building’s facade, while others moved in and out of the building through an opening that, one day, would house double doors. Tommy Butcher was surveying their work while he spoke on a walkie-talkie. I caught his eye and he looked away casually, then did a double-take to return to me. He waved to me as he tried to get off his radio. “Okay, Russ, write up the change order and we can decide later. You gotta make a record with these fuckin’ guys, understand me? Now, this isn’t coming from the old man. The old man isn’t working this. It’s coming from me.” He clipped the radio to his belt and gestured in the direction of the building. “These people are go
“The park district?”
He nodded. “Everything’s our fault with these guys. These guys write up the worst specs you’ve ever seen, but we’re supposed to read everyone’s minds. Every time we talk, we gotta make our record with those people.”
“Sounds like someone who’s afraid of a lawsuit.”
He looked at me. “Oh, they’ll sue us. That’s a given. It’s just a question of how much we can get back in a counterclaim.”
So much of the business world is like this now. Litigation is just another cost of doing business, no different than payroll and insurance and bribes to city inspectors. “So, Mr. Butcher—”
“Tommy.”
“Tommy, I have a photo for you to look at.”
He drew back. “No fuckin’ foolin’? You found this guy?”
I struggled with that—or pretended to. “I’d rather not, uh, put ideas in your head.”
The message was clear enough. “You found him,” he repeated.
“Can you just take a look?”
Butcher glanced around before he leaned into me. “Mr. Kolarich, I saw this guy a year ago, ru
“Tom—”
“Listen, I saw a guy. I told you that. A black guy. That’s the God’s honest. You tell me you did some digging, you found the guy, I say great. You tellin’ me you got your man? Then it’s the guy I saw. You tell me it’s not your man, then it can’t be the guy I saw. Right?”
I deflated. I couldn’t believe I was even having this conversation. The process was being turned on its head. Usually, Ke
“Hey, look,” he continued, raising his hands, “you got a client who did right by his sister, sounds to me like. Guy killed his sister, so he kills that guy. Me, I might do the same thing. But if it’s me on trial, and there was a black guy barreling out of that building with a gun in his belt, I’d want someone to step up and say so. So I’ll say so. Believe me, I got a hell of lot better things to be doin’ than goin’ to court. But I’ll do it, if you found the guy.”