Beach Road Page 7

When I walk in, Krauss is at his desk in front of his laptop. He cups one hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and says, “Suffolk County coroner.”

  “They just went through my report,” he says after hanging up, “and are pretty sure that the same gun that killed Walker was also used in the three Hampton homicides on Labor Day weekend.”

  Then Krauss grabs his long yellow pad, comes over to where I’m standing next to Walker, and, wielding a stained Hunan Village chopstick for a pointer, takes me on a dead man’s tour.

  The crispness and intensity of Krauss’s delivery hasn’t softened in nine years, and if anything, his enthusiasm for gleaning secrets from a corpse has only increased. He starts with the exact size and location of the entrance and exit wounds, and the angle at which the bullet traveled. Reading from his notes, he describes the caliber, make, and casing of the bullet picked out of the plaster from behind the bed, and says all three are consistent with the weapon and silencer recovered by police in Long Island.

  “I put the time of death at early in the morning of September eleventh,” he says, “very early in the morning, approximately four a.m.”

  “Approximately?”

  “Yeah,” says Krauss, with a twinkle in his eyes. “Could have been four thirty. All his blood work and the amount of dilation of his pupils indicate someone who’d been in a deep sleep right up to the moment he was shot.”

  “Hell of a way to wake up,” I say.

  “I’d prefer a kiss from J-Lo,” says Krauss.

  “So Walker wasn’t the one watching the tube?”

  “Not unless he left it on.”

  “Also, we found a basketball cap on the floor of the closet, where it looked like someone was searching for something. The hat’s barely been worn and is about three sizes too big for this guy here.”

  “Isn’t that how they wear everything now?”

  “Jeans, coats, sweatshirts, but not hats. And none of Mr. Walker’s prints are on it. Maybe if we’re really lucky, it was left by the shooter.

  “That’s all you got for me, Cliffy?”

  “One last thing. The rat who snacked on Walker’s big toe—a black Norwegian, four to six pounds, female, pregnant.”

  “Why’s it always got to be a black rat, Krauss? Why never a white one?”

  One thing, just for the record. That description of Cliffy’s wife—pure bullshit. Her name is Emily, and she’s a sweetheart.

  Chapter 38

  Marie Scott

  LAST WEEK THIS very same Riverhead courtroom was filled with a sickening indifference. It is even worse now. It turns my stomach inside out.

  Today the room’s bursting with reporters, family and friends of the victims, and, more than anything else, a lust for blood. The parents of the three dead boys stare at me with powerful hatred, and Lucinda Walker, Michael’s mom, who I’ve known since she was a grade-school student at Saint Vincent’s, looks at me as if she doesn’t know what to think. I feel so bad for Lucinda. I cried for her last night. Deep down she must realize Dante would no more kill Michael than Michael would kill Dante, but there’s so much hurt in her eyes that I look away and squeeze Clarence’s arm and rub the embossed leather cover of my Bible.

  The spectators crane their necks and gawk as my grandson Dante, in handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit, is led to that bare table with nothing but a water pitcher in the middle of it. They stir with anticipation or whatever as a booming voice intones, “The State of New York versus Dante Halleyville” as if it were the ring announcement before a disgusting boxing match. Dante looks so scared and sad up there it breaks my heart. I need to go and hug him but I can’t, and that makes me feel almost as bad.

  The electricity builds as the judge leans into his microphone and says, “The state of New York charges Mr. Halleyville with a fourth count of first-degree murder.” Then the judge asks, “How does the defendant plead?”

  Dante’s court lawyer says, “Not guilty.” But it’s as if he has said nothing at all. No one seems to believe him, or even listen to the man. Until this very moment, I don’t think I believed that a trial could ever really happen, but now I know it can.

  The crowd’s only interest is the district attorney, and now that white man, so young he can’t possibly understand what he’s saying, so forgive him, Lord, addresses the judge.

  “Your Honor,” he says, “in light of the heinous nature of the original crimes and the wanton disregard the defendant displayed in executing his accomplice, just as he did in the first three execution-style murders, the state of New York has no choice but to seek the ultimate penalty available to defend its citizens. In this case, the prosecution takes the extraordinary step of seeking the death penalty.”

  I nearly collapse, but I won’t let myself fall in front of all these people. The state of New York wants to murder my grandson! Lord, it’s as simple as that. The state wants to murder my miraculous grandson who is as innocent as your own son, Jesus Christ, and the crowd thrills, THRILLS, to these terrible words. If they could, or if it were fifty years ago, they’d surely drag Dante from his chair and pull him out of this so-called courtroom and hang him from the nearest tree.

  Lord, help me, and please help Dante in his terrible time of need.

  I look at Clarence, and then I look at Mr. Dunleavy. “Please help us,” I say to him. “Please help Dante. He didn’t kill those boys.”

  Chapter 39

  Tom

  IF YOU’VE NEVER seen a live media courtroom circus, consider yourself lucky.

  Vans from all the TV networks and the big cable shows have been double-lined outside the courtroom building all day, and everywhere I look a correspondent is summoning the required fake gravitas to describe the ins and outs of such a high-profile death-penalty case.

  I can’t get away from the courthouse fast enough. Eyes cast downward, I thread my way through the crowded parking lot, trying to avoid an encounter with people I’ve known my whole life.

  I’m so eager to get into my car, I don’t notice Clarence in the front seat until my key is almost in the ignition. He’s shattered, sobbing into the back of his hand.

  “They want to kill him, Tom. He’ll never get a fair trial. You see what it’s like in there.”

  “Clarence, come back to my place tonight. I could use the company,” I tell him.

  “I’m not after your sympathy, Tom. I’m here to ask you to be Dante’s lawyer.”

  “Clarence, I haven’t been in a courtroom in over a year. Even then I was nothing special.”

  “That’s because you never tried, Tom. Not like you did playing ball. Put your mind to it, I believe you can do anything well. Folks like you. They listen to you.”

  “Just because Dante’s lawyer is older doesn’t mean he’s not doing a good job,” I say. “Besides, he’s Marie’s choice.”

  Clarence shakes his head. “Marie wants you, Tom. She told me to ask. If you were on trial for murder, would you want that guy representing you? Or if your son was on trial? Be real with me.”

  “I’m being real, Clarence. I can’t be Dante’s lawyer. The answer is no. I’m sorry.”

  As soon as the words are out of my mouth, Clarence opens the door and pulls himself out of the seat. “You’re a big disappointment, Tom. Not that I should be surprised. It’s been that way for years.”

  Chapter 40

  Tom

  HIGHLY AGITATED NOW, I drive to Jeff’s house. I need to talk to somebody I trust—because I am thinking about being Dante’s lawyer. I need somebody to talk me out of my craziness.

  Ten years ago my brother bought just about the last affordable house in Montauk. I loaned him the down payment from my signing bonus, and now the house is worth five times what he paid. That doesn’t make us geniuses. Anything you bought then has gone through the roof. It’s sweet in this case, however, because Jeff’s wife had just left him for, as she put it, “not being sufficiently ambitious.” Now Jeff and his three kids are living in a house worth more than a million dollars.


  When she ran out on my brother, Lizbeth assumed she’d be getting Sean, Leslie, and Mickey. But Jeff dug in and hired one of the best lawyers out here. The lawyer, a friend of mine named Mary Warner, pointed out, among other things, that except in football season, Jeff was home by three thirty every day and had summers off, and to everyone’s amazement, the judge awarded Jeff full custody of the three kids.

  Sean, the oldest, just turned twenty-five, and when I pull into the driveway, he’s in the garage lifting weights. The two of us talk for a couple of minutes; then he starts breaking my chops.

  “So, Uncle,” he asks between reps, “how’s it make you feel to be the least popular person in Montauk?”

  “The old man around?” I ask.

  “He’s not back yet. The first game of the year against Patchogue is two weeks away.”

  “I guess I’ll head over to the high school then. I need to talk to him.”

  “You spot me on my bench before you go?”

  I’ve got a soft spot for Sean, maybe because he reminds me a little of myself. Because he’s the oldest, the divorce fell hardest on him. And he had that “son of the coach” crap in school, which is why despite being a natural athlete, he never went out for a high school team.

  The last couple years Sean’s been lifting weights. Maybe he wants to look good in his lifeguard chair, or make a point to his old man. Well, now he’s making a point with me because he doesn’t stop adding black rings until he’s got 160 pounds on each end. Add the weight of the bar, that’s over 350, and Sean can’t weigh more than 170.

  “You sure you’re ready for this?” I ask, looking down at his fiercely determined face.

  “One way to find out.”

  The son of a gun lifts it twelve times, and a huge grin rushes across his beet-red face.

  “Thanks for nothing, Uncle Tommy.”

  “My pleasure. Okay if I tell the old man how impressive you are?”

  “Nah. It’ll only get him talking about all my wasted potential.”

  “Don’t feel bad, Sean. For us Dunleavys, squandered talent is a family tradition.”

  Chapter 41

  Tom

  I’VE BEEN BACK in town three years, and this is my first visit to the old high school. Truth is, I’d rather have a root canal than go to a reunion, but as I step onto the freshly waxed gym floor, the memories rush back all the same. Nothing’s changed too much. Same fiberglass backboards. Same wooden-plank bleachers. Same smell of Lysol. I kind of love it, actually.

  Jeff’s office is just above the locker room, and a very small step up in terms of accommodations and aroma. He sits in the corner, Celtic-green sneakers up on his metal desk, staring at a game film projected on the white cinder-block wall. The black-and-white images and the purr of the projector and the dust motes caught in the air make me feel as if I’ve fallen into a time warp.

  “Got a game plan, Parcells?” Jeff has always worshipped Parcells and even looks like him a little.

  “I was about to ask you the same thing, baby brother. What I hear, you need a plan more than me. An escape plan.”

  “You could be right.”

  There’s a punt on the screen, and the pigskin seems to hang forever in the fall air.

  “All I did was help a scared kid turn himself in,” I say to Jeff. I don’t tell him that I’ve been asked to represent that kid. Or that I’m actually considering it.

  “What about Walco, Rochie, and Feifer? You don’t think they were scared? I don’t get what you’re up to, Tom.”

  “I’m not sure I do either. I think it has something to do with meeting Dante’s grandmother. Seeing where they lived, how they lived. Oh, and one other small detail—the kid didn’t do it.”

  Jeff doesn’t seem to hear me, but maybe he does because he flicks off the projector.

  “Between you and me,” he says, “season hasn’t started and I’m already sick to death of football. Let’s grab a beer, bro.”

  “See, there’s a plan,” I say, and grin, but Jeff doesn’t smile back.

  Chapter 42

  Tom

  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Jeff stops in Amagansett and parks in the lot behind McKendrick’s, the one bar most likely to be full of townies on a Wednesday night. But I guess that’s the point. Or the plan. Make peace with the locals?

  We enter through the back door and grab a booth by the pool table, so it takes a minute or so for the place to fall silent.

  When Jeff is sure that everyone knows we’re here, he sends me to the bar for our beer. He wants me to see exactly what I could be getting myself into, wants me to feel the hate up close and personal.

  Chucky Watkins, a crazy Irish laborer who used to work for Walco now and then, is sitting at a table as I shoulder my way to the bar. “Guess you’re afraid to come here without your football-coach chaperone?”

  “Kev,” I say, ignoring Watkins, “a pitcher of Bass when you get a chance.”

  “When you get a chance, Kev,” says Pete Zacannino, mocking me from the corner. By the way, a week ago, every face in this room was a pretty good friend of mine.

  Kevin, who’s a particularly good guy, hands me the beer and two mugs, and I’m ferrying back to the table when Martell, another former pal, sticks out his foot, causing half my pitcher to spill onto the floor. Snorts of laughter erupt from one end of the bar to the other.

  “You all right, Tom?” asks Jeff from the back booth. A week ago, with Jeff or alone, I’d have cracked the pitcher over Martell’s skull if only to see what would happen next.

  “No problem, Jeff,” I shout back at the room. “I just seem to have spilled a little of our beer, and I’m going to go back to the bar now and ask Kev if he would be so kind as to refill it.”

  When I finally get back to our booth, Jeff takes an enormous gulp of beer and says, “Welcome to your new life, buddy.”

  I know what Jeff’s trying to do, and I love him for it. But for some reason, knee-jerk contrariness or just blind stupidity, it must not sink in. Because three beers later, I stand up and unplug the jukebox in the middle of a Stones song. Then, with a full mug in my left hand, I address the multitudes.

  “I’m glad all you rednecks are here tonight because I have an announcement. As you all apparently know, I helped Dante Halleyville turn himself in. In the process, I’ve gotten to know him and his grandmother Marie. And guess what? I like and admire them both a hell of a lot. Because of that and other reasons, I’ve decided to represent him. You heard correct. I’m going to be Dante Halleyville’s lawyer, and as his lawyer, I’ll do everything I can to get him off. Thanks very much for coming. Good night. And get home safely.”

  A couple of seconds later, Chucky Watkins and Martell come at me. Something goes off inside me, and this is a side of Tom Dunleavy most of these guys know. I hit Watkins full in the face with the beer mug, and he goes down like a shot and stays down. I think his nose is broken. It could be worse.

  “C’mon!” I yell at Martell, but he just backs away from me. I may not be Dante Halleyville’s size, but I’m six three and over two hundred, and I know how to scrap.

  “C’mon! Anybody!” I yell at the other cowards in the room. “Take your best shot! Somebody?”

  But only Jeff comes forward. He tucks me under his beefy arm and pushes me toward the back door.

  “Same old Tommy,” he says, once we’re in his truck. “Same hothead.”

  I stare out the windshield, still steaming as Jeff steps on the gas and we roar out of the parking lot.

  “Not at all,” I say. “I’ve mellowed.”

  Chapter 43

  Tom

  THE NEXT DAY, at the Riverhead Correctional Facility, I place my wallet, watch, and keys in a small locker, then step through a series of heavy barred doors, one clanging shut behind me as another slides open in front.

  The difference between the life of a visitor and those locked inside is so vast it chills me to the bone. It’s like crossing from the land of the living into the land of the dead. Or
having a day pass to hell.

  To the right, a long, hopeless corridor leads to the various wings of the overflowing fifteen-hundred-bed jail.

  I’m led to the left into a warren of airless little rooms set aside for inmates and their lawyers.

  I wait patiently in one of them until Dante is led into the room. He’s been inside a little less than a week but already seems harder and more distant. There’s no trace of a smile.

  But then he clasps my hand and bumps my chest and says, “Good to see you, Tom. It means a lot.”

  “It means a lot to me too, Dante,” I say, surprisingly touched by his greeting. “I need the work.”

  “That’s what Clarence says.” And his two-hundred-watt smile finally cracks through the shell. This kid is no murderer. Anyone should be able to see that, even the local police.

  I really do need the work too. It feels like the first day of high school as I take out a new pack of legal pads and a box of pens.

  “Other than the fact that I will believe everything you tell me,” I say, “today’s going to be like being in that box with the detectives, because we’re going through that day and that night again and again. And we’re doing it until every detail you can remember is on these pads.”

  I have him start by telling me everything he knows about Kevin Sledge, Gary McCauley, and Dave Bond, his three other teammates that day. He tells me where they live, work, and hang out. He gives me their cell phone numbers and tells me how to track them down if they try to avoid me.

  “All have been in some scrapes,” says Dante, “but that doesn’t mean much where I’m from. McCauley’s on probation for drugs, and Bond served ten months right in here for armed robbery. But the real gangster is Kevin, who has never spent a day in jail.”

  “How did they react to Michael pulling the gun?”

  “They thought it was wack. Even Kevin.”

  We talk about what happened the night of the murder. Unfortunately, his grandmother was visiting relatives in Brooklyn, so she hadn’t seen him before or after the shootings. Dante swears to me that he didn’t know where Michael Walker was hiding.