Dante's Wood Page 7

  “The victim is already dead, so her safety is no longer an issue. I’m not sure whether the state will claim it, but if you could testify he’s not dangerous—”

  “I can.”

  “Or a serial killer.”

  “He doesn’t fit that profile, either.”

  “Good. That plus the fact that he lives with his parents and is usually heavily supervised should be enough to get him released on some amount.”

  I remembered suddenly what Nate had said earlier, about the victim being one of the workers at the center. Charlie’s being involved made even less sense if it was someone he knew. “Hallie,” I said, “do you know the victim’s name?”

  “Yes. I have it in my notes here somewhere.” She began to flip through a paper pad while Nate, Judith, and I waited. “Here we go.”

  I think I must have known all along.

  “Sparrow,” Hallie said at last. “Shannon Sparrow.”

  Six

  Judith fainted dead on the spot. I didn’t understand what was happening at first, only that something hard cracked the table like a bowling ball hitting an alley. “Judith!” Nate shouted. Suddenly seats were being shoved back, people were leaping to their feet, and everyone was talking over one another. Hallie dialed for the office nurse and one of the other lawyers went for damp towels and smelling salts. Nate asked for help getting Judith into a prone position on the carpet and asked for cushions to elevate her head. He spoke Judith’s name over and over. I didn’t offer to help, thinking I’d only get in the way.

  Did it mean something that the dead woman was Shannon? I didn’t want to admit there was a connection, and yet . . . I hastily reviewed my meeting with the Dickersons six months earlier. Judith had been insistent about her suspicions, but there didn’t seem to be any concrete evidence to support them. I had questioned Charlie thoroughly. There were no signs he was being molested by Shannon—or anyone else for that matter—and the anxiety his parents had brought him to see me about ceased soon afterwards. Six months had passed, it was true, but it was fantastic to think that anything had changed, especially with Judith watching over Charlie so closely. It had to be coincidence. Charlie must have stumbled onto Shannon’s corpse after she was dead, or else been a witness to her killing. Either possibility would explain the state in which he was found, which I recognized as a dissociative reaction to trauma. And his words to the police officer—“she won’t wake up anymore”—were consistent with his immature concept of death, the same way he had described the passing of his pet to me. I began to relax slightly.

  Judith had revived and was now weeping quietly.

  Hallie said to her, “You seemed more than a little upset just now when I mentioned the victim’s name. Were you and she friends?”

  “Certainly not.”

  But Nate was quick to cut that line of inquiry short. “My wife and Ms. Sparrow had a few disagreements over my son. Nothing serious and nothing that need concern you.” I took this as a signal I was to keep quiet too. Though I had some misgivings about the wisdom of holding anything back, I was professionally bound to respect his wishes.

  “But Charlie knew her?” Hallie pressed.

  Nate said, “Yes, of course. I’m sure Alice Lowe told you she was his art teacher.”

  “She mentioned the victim worked at the center, but I didn’t realize Charlie was one of her students.”

  Hallie’s questions were interrupted by the sudden ringing of her cell phone. Nate continued to comfort Judith while Hallie spoke in clipped syllables to the caller.

  “OK. Uh-huh. Central Bond Court tomorrow. Yup. We’ll be there. And thanks, Hector. I owe you one.” She rang off and said, “Good news. Bail hearing tomorrow afternoon.”

  Nate asked, “Will we be allowed to see my son before the hearing?”

  “No,” Hallie answered. “He’ll be in one of the holding pens in the basement. They’ll only bring him up when his case is called, but you can watch from the spectator section. I’d advise you to go home and get a good night’s rest. There’s nothing you can do now except bring a check. And pray.”

  The Cook County Criminal Courthouse at Twenty-sixth and Cali­fornia occupies half a block in a neighborhood populated by grocerias, discount stores, and loan-shark establishments. Immediately to the south stands the huge county jail complex, cozily referred to as a “campus” by the Sheriff’s Office website I’d listened to the night before. Charlie would be housed in one of ten buildings there, in a cell with a cot, a sink, and a steel toilet. Prisoners awaiting bail hearings were transported in shackles through a tunnel that led from the complex to the courthouse, where they waited their turn to be judged in groups of a hundred or more. Hallie told me they started with the DUIs and other less serious felonies first, so we could expect to be there most of the afternoon.

  I’d been in the courthouse once before, for jury duty, and remembered it as a building much taller than its neighbors, with Greek temple embellishments and an aura of hopelessness. The bleak impression carried over to the interior. Everywhere I turned there were corrections officers with thick waists and lawyers in cut-rate suits pushing steel carts overrun with files. Toward the end of the day, I was almost seated as an alternate in a capital trial. I had felt pity for the defendant, a skinny young man looking like a scarecrow in his cavernous jumpsuit, and was relieved when the prosecutor asked to exclude me, apparently not liking my replies to some of his questions about free will.

  When I arrived at noon on the day of Charlie’s hearing, the line to get through the security checkpoint was several layers deep. While I waited I heard babies wailing and mothers reprimanding their youngsters, loud conversations about domestic matters, the beat of hip hop emanating from headsets. I didn’t need my eyes to tell me nearly everyone around me was poor. We were only a few miles south of the Loop, but travel there could have been the voyage of the Beagle as far as my companions were concerned. Yet no one complained of the long wait and I was treated with more friendly camaraderie than I was accustomed to. A man smelling of garlic and menthol nudged me forward when the line moved ahead, and someone else showed me where to put my phone, keys, and change at the metal detector.

  The day before I’d remained at Hallie’s office for several hours following the Dickersons’ departure, going over the ground rules for being a witness. I was to dress conservatively, but not expensively. “If you’ve got a Rolex, leave it at home,” Hallie told me. “Check,” I replied. On direct, I was to follow her prompts and cues but not go on for so long that my answers looked staged. On cross, I was to be truthful and polite, answer yes or no whenever possible, and never, ever volunteer information. “And don’t argue with the prosecutor,” Hallie said. “Leave the arguing to me.” She put me through some sample questions, showed me how I could be roughed up if I forgot instructions. My glib tongue proved to be an asset as a witness and I admit the practice session whetted my appetite for the real thing. Hallie apparently approved of what she heard because at the end she said, “You’ll do.”

  As we had arranged, Hallie was waiting for me by the courtroom door.

  “Over here, Mark,” she called when I approached. I passed through a swiftly moving current of bodies to get to her.

  “Sorry, I should have told you about the line to get in,” she apologized.

  “It did feel like The Ten Commandments back there, but I made it through without scars. Have you heard anything new?”

  “Only that Tony Di Marco has the case and will be making a personal appearance this afternoon.”

  “Di Marco?”

  “A former colleague. His coming down here isn’t a good development. Usually they leave it to one of the junior assistants to cover bond hearings. He’s a real heartthrob with the ladies—judges and jurors alike. Looks like a charming pirate. But missing the Johnny Depp heart of gold. I want you to watch your step with him. He’s known for carving up witnesses like a Sunday roast.”

  “I’ll try to stay on his blunt side.”


  With the proceedings not yet underway the courtroom was filled with the clamor of loud conversation. From the way the sound fed back to my ears I could tell the room was spacious and high-ceilinged. Hallie must have done her blind Miss Manners homework because as soon as we were through the door she offered me her arm. I grasped her elbow from behind and we went to the clerk’s desk in front to file an appearance.

  “What about him?” the clerk asked, cracking gum.

  “Witness,” Hallie said.

  “He’ll have to sign in too. Can he write his name?”

  “Only if someone spells it for him,” I said to no one in particular.

  Hallie kicked me in the shin. “Of course he can,” she told the clerk. “Another rule,” she whispered to me after I’d signed and we’d moved away, “no sarcasm.”

  Hallie steered me to a bench in the defense lawyers’ section and described the setup. Behind a glass partition to our rear was the spectator section, in which the Dickersons were already waiting. In front of us a pair of counsel tables, and farther on, an elevated bench and witness box. The courtroom was used exclusively for bond hearings, so there was no seating area for jurors. Most of the defendants would “appear” for their hearings via closed-circuit television. The monitor faced the bench and was visible only to the judge. While detainees waited for their cases to be called they were crammed into cells in the basement intended to hold no more than twenty-five inmates at a time. If they were indigent and couldn’t afford counsel, they would have a minute or two to talk to an investigator from the Public Defender’s office, who would take down information about their case through the cell door. Afterward it would be relayed to the single PD working the courtroom upstairs. During the hearings prisoners would be unable to communicate with their counsel, or even see them on the camera.

  Charlie was lucky, in a skewed sense. Because he was being held for a violent felony he was entitled to be physically present in the courtroom for his hearing.

  Suddenly a voice bellowed “All rise,” and the courtroom grew hushed. The judge, apparently a heavyset man, thumped up to the dais and settled himself down. Without a minute’s delay, the proceedings began.

  I don’t know what I had been expecting. Nail-biting drama and oratorical brilliance, I guess. But it wasn’t anything like Law & Order. For the most part the Assistant State’s Attorney spoke in a low register, as though he were a journeyman in the building trades reporting on a failed circuit breaker or clogged sink. This problem citizen will require a deposit of $500, he might have been saying. No, I’m afraid this one is beyond repair.

  At the start of each hearing the prosecutor presented a brief summary of the charges, inevitably followed by the judge declaring, “Probable cause to detain. Background?” Generally, the background took all of thirty seconds. If the offense was slight and the defendant was a first timer, he walked on an “I Bond,” or personal recognizance. More serious charges or a list of priors merited amounts in the four figures and upward. Most of them involved drug offenses. If the defendant attempted to say anything he was quickly silenced by the judge, whose name was Francis Connor. He didn’t seem as much a harsh man as a tired one who had seen too much.

  It went on this way for more than three hours, human fates decided in little more time than it takes to flip a coin. If the quality of mercy wasn’t strained by what I was hearing it was only because it was already as worn and flabby as an old fan belt.

  “Dickerson,” the clerk called at last, followed by a case number. I snapped to attention and gripped my cane. I recognized Charlie’s distinctive shuffle as he was brought in. I tried to make him out, but I couldn’t distinguish him from the other dusky figures gathered near the front of the room. Hallie rose and strode over to join them. A new voice I presumed to be Di Marco’s drawled, “Afternoon, Judge,” from the prosecution section on my right.

  “Charge?” the judge asked. “Murder two,” Di Marco said. “For the record, I am tendering to the court and defense counsel a verified petition under Code Section One-Ten-Six stating that the defendant is charged with a felony for which a sentence of imprisonment without probation may be imposed and that defendant’s admission to bail poses a real and present threat to the physical safety of a person or persons. State accordingly requests that bail be denied.”

  “May I have a few moments to review the petition, Your Honor?” Hallie asked.

  “Certainly, Counsel,” the judge said. The courtroom was still for a few minutes.

  A rustling of paper from the bench announced when Judge Connor thought it was time to get on with things. He had started to say, “A presumption of guilt having been established . . .” when Hallie interrupted him.

  “I apologize, Your Honor, but it sounded like you’d begun to rule. May I be heard?”

  Judge Connor said, “You intend to contradict the State’s petition, Ms. Sanchez? How? Defendant says he did it.”

  “Your Honor, Mr. Dickerson has an IQ of forty-five, which is well below the threshold of normal intelligence. He was held for nearly five hours yesterday before his parents were informed he was in custody. During that time there was no one to assist him in understanding his rights, nor was he permitted to contact a lawyer. When I was finally allowed to meet with him—only briefly I might add—near the end of the day, he could not explain what he was being charged with. He had no idea what he had signed and I am informed can barely read.”

  “Is she moving to suppress the confession, Judge?” Di Marco broke in. “Defendant waived his Miranda rights. And a motion to suppress is not a proper subject of a bail hearing.”

  “I am not formally challenging the confession at this time,” Hallie countered quickly. “Not when I haven’t even seen the tape of what preceded it. I can only imagine how the police got him to agree. But I am asking that the so-called confession be afforded little weight in considering whether the prosecution has established a presumption of guilt sufficient to deny bail. I understand the police have been unable to find the murder weapon, suggesting the victim was killed by an unknown assailant who fled the scene when my client startled him in the act of stabbing her. There is no physical evidence linking Mr. Dickerson to the crime beyond the fact that he was the first to discover the victim’s body in a public alley through which scores of civilians pass each day—”

  “He was found soaked in the victim’s blood, Judge,” Di Marco said. “And she was known to him. A teacher at his school and a beautiful young woman. It doesn’t get more physical than that.”

  Someone tittered in the spectator seating behind me.

  “Order,” Judge Connor said mildly. “I have to agree with Mr. Di Marco. All we’re discussing here is pretrial detention. You can raise lack of evidence at the preliminary hearing.”

  Hallie said, “Pretrial detention would be psychologically devastating to my client—like locking up a five-year old in Stateville penitentiary. And the State has failed to show that Mr. Dickerson is a danger to anyone, much less the community at large.”

  During all this I couldn’t tell what Charlie was doing, only that he hadn’t made a sound.

  Di Marco said, “State has agreed to protective custody for the defendant. He’ll be well treated. Not that he seems to lack the ability to defend himself. As for danger to the public safety, the charge speaks for itself. The defendant hacked one of his teachers to death in broad daylight.”

  Hallie interjected, “That’s pure speculation. The State has no witnesses to the victim’s killing.”

  “I wasn’t finished,” Di Marco said. “And the murder bears the same signature as others in the area that have been widely reported upon in the press—four other young women, healthcare workers, brutally stabbed on their way to work like the victim here. Police are currently doing fiber and DNA analysis to confirm their belief the defendant was responsible for these other killings as well.”

  Hallie interrupted heatedly. “This is the first I’ve heard of my client being charged for other murders. They’r
e not even alluded to in the State’s petition to deny bail.”

  “I only got wind of the development this morning,” Di Marco apologized insincerely. “The medical examiner found the stab wounds to the other decedents’ chests to be substantially similar to the ones inflicted on Ms. Sparrow—the victim here—and conceivably caused by the same instrument.”

  “Which wasn’t found on or anywhere near my client. Really, Your Honor, the State’s argument is completely improper. My client can’t be held without bail for crimes he hasn’t been charged with.”

  “I’m not suggesting he should,” Di Marco retorted, “merely that the Court may properly take into consideration the risk to the community if a suspected serial killer is allowed to return to the streets to murder again. It will only take a few days to run the forensics. If there’s no probable cause to charge the defendant with these other crimes, Ms. Sanchez can seek reconsideration of the court’s decision. But if the defendant is freed and another young life is tragically ended as a consequence . . . well, I wouldn’t want that on my conscience.”

  Hallie had just begun to offer me as a witness when Judge Connor cut her off.

  “That’s enough. We’re not going to try the entire case this afternoon. I find the State has met its burden under the statute. Bail is denied.”

  Above the din that followed I heard Charlie asking in a lost voice, “Can I go home now?”

  Out in the corridor, Hallie barely had time to hiss “That sonofabitch!” before she was overrun by a group of reporters: “Ms. Sanchez, can you confirm that your client is a suspect in the Surgeon killings? Is it true that he has an IQ of only forty-five . . .” Through the noise I vaguely perceived Nate hurrying Judith away from the video cameras and down the corridor.

  I moved off to the side and tried to blend into the woodwork. I was struggling with my temper and didn’t want to attract the notice of the squawking newsmen. Even in our justice system, could anyone seriously believe a retarded eighteen-year-old had carried out a series of meticulous murders and then evaded police capture for the better part of a year? Surely Judge Connor had seen through Di Marco’s argument. Yet he had agreed to lock up a boy who might have been a kindergartener for all his mental years. What would Charlie do during the long hours alone in his prison cell? And worse, how would he protect himself from the company he would be keeping, hardened predators who would tag him in an instant as being slow-witted? It seemed a travesty, yet if Hallie was right, one that was repeated in courtrooms all over the country every day.