“You knew that some of your friends were seen protesting out in front of the hotel?” I ask. “The cops have them on videotape.”
“Yeah. I knew they were there. I didn’t know about no videotape.”
“Did you talk with them about Scarborough before he was killed?”
“We might have.”
“Did you or didn’t you?” I ask.
“Sure. Why shouldn’t we? No law against talking.”
“What did you talk about? What did you say?” Harry now bores in.
“We…we talked about the fact he was an agitator, causin’ problems, stirrin’ up trouble.”
“ Scarborough?”
“Yeah. We got enough problems,” he says. “Mexicans crossin’ the border by the millions. Politicians sayin’ we can’t get ’ em out. Illegals marchin’ in the streets, carryin’ Mexican flags, tellin’ us they own the country. Then this guy comes outta nowhere, with this book, trying to get the blacks all riled up so he can start the Civil War over again. Only this time he wants to put us in chains.”
“And who is ‘us’?” says Harry.
“The white people,” says Arnsberg.
“And this is what you talked about with your friends?” I ask.
“Yeah. He was a troublemaker. You asked me, so I told ya. If you wanna know the truth, as far as I’m concerned, he got what he deserved.”
One thing is certain. Come trial, Arnsberg is not likely to be his own best witness.
“So you talked about this with your friends when? How long before Scarborough was killed?” I ask.
“I can’t remember exactly.”
“How many times did you talk with other people about Scarborough?”
“I don’t know. I can’t remember. Maybe a couple,” he says.
“Twice?” says Harry.
“I don’t know. Do you always know how many times you talked to somebody about something?”
Harry wants a list of names, the people Arnsberg may have talked to in the days leading up to the murder, the places where they met, whether it was on the phone or in person, and how many witnesses were present.
“So we talked about him. Doesn’t make me a killer.”
“Ah, yes,” says Harry, “but there’s the rub. You don’t get to decide who the killer is. The jury does that. And I can guarantee you that they will be positively riveted by any information concerning things you might have said about Mr. Scarborough to others, especially in the period right before he was killed. They’re funny about that. Juries, I mean.”
The kid doesn’t seem to like Harry’s sense of humor. I suppose it too much resembles lectures he’s gotten at school and in other places of authority.
He turns to me. “The guy was stirring up crowds everywhere he went. You saw the news,” says Arnsberg. “Way he was going, sooner or later somebody was gonna nail him.”
“There again you have a problem,” says Harry. “He wasn’t, as you say, ‘nailed’ somewhere else. This particular hammering took place in the hotel where you happened to work, and according to the cops all the evidence points to you being the last person in that room with him.”
This from his own lawyer. The look on the kid’s face is a mix of anger and fear. “I thought you were here to help me,” he says.
“We’re tryin’, son. But you have to give us the tools,” says Harry.
“You got a cigarette?” Arnsberg looks at me.
“I don’t smoke.”
“Me neither,” Harry lies.
People v. Arnsberg is the kind of case that is made up of hard circumstance, assorted pieces of physical evidence, and the fact that the defendant fits the expected profile of the killer like a fat man in stretch pants. Whether he did it or not, he can be seen to possess the kind of insane motive that is easy to peddle to an inner-city jury-blind hatred based on race. In fact, the evidence came at them so fast that the cops fell over themselves in a blind rush to arrest the defendant.
To listen to the media, Arnsberg didn’t kill a person of color. He did something worse. He killed their self-appointed messenger, in this case a lawyer, author, and celebrity, all the ingredients to whip up a hot story, except for sex, and they’re relying on innuendo for that one. The media mavens are now calling the case the “San Diego Slavery Slaying,” and they’re camped all over it, 24/7.
“I talked to my dad. He says you can get me off.” This the kid directs at me.
“We’ll do whatever we can. But there are no guarantees. We can’t do anything unless we know everything. That means everything you know. If you withhold information from us, even something you might not think is important…then you’re just wasting our time. You can bet the cops will find out about it-that is, if they don’t already know-and when they start dropping surprises on us in court, there will be nothing I or anyone else can do to help you. Understand?”
He swallows, then nods, not something hip or cool, but vigorous, like someone who suddenly realizes that the threads of security, whatever it is that tethers him to this life, are far thinner than he ever realized. “Yeah. I told you everything I know. Really,” he says. “I didn’t do it. I swear.”
“All right.” We lecture him on jailhouse etiquette, not to talk to anyone-guards, cellmates, even family-about events in the case. Anything told to them can be repeated in testimony on the stand. Even family members can be forced to testify against him. “You talk only to us, Harry or myself, that’s it.”
“Somebody in the jail wants to talk about the weather, fine. Sports, feel free. But anything having to do with your case, with Scarborough, with race relations in general, you’re a mute,” says Harry. “If you have to, swallow your tongue. If we’re in trial and somebody asks how it went in court, you don’t know.”
“I understand,” he says. “I talk to nobody. Only the two of you.”
“And your buddies, the ones you may have talked to before the event, don’t talk to them at all,” says Harry. “As far as you’re concerned, they don’t exist. If they come visiting during hours, you don’t want to see them, and you don’t want to be seen talking to them.”
“What do I tell them?”
“You don’t tell them anything. If they call the jail and want to talk to you, you don’t take the call. If they show up in the visiting room and you see them, you don’t sit down. You turn and you walk. Anything you tell them can be used against you. It can be twisted for whatever reason and end up being your word against theirs as to what was said. Worse than that,” says Harry, “the cops may be listening in. Friends have been known to wear wires. Just figure that if any of these old friends show up to give you moral support, and you talk to them, you may as well have a heart-to-heart with the D.A., because you probably are.”
He nods nervously, in the stark realization that he is alone, a dying man in a desert, with only me and Harry to toss him the occasional drop of water.
Harry and I start collecting our papers and notes, the photos go back into my briefcase.
“I need to know one thing,” says Arnsberg.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“They aren’t serious? They don’t really wanna…well, you know…”
I stop with the briefcase and look at him. “No, I don’t.”
“I mean, they’re not gonna really execute me?” he says. “They’re sayin’ that just to put pressure. Right? They’re thinking squeeze hard enough and I’ll do a deal. That’s it, isn’t it? Sure. That’s gotta be it. Scare me and they figure I’ll confess, tell ’em I did something I didn’t do. I can understand that. I mean, I won’t do it. I mean, confess to something I didn’t do. But I understand it. It makes sense.” In half a second, his eyes flash from me to Harry and back again.
At this moment I wish his father were not my friend, that instead I was dealing with the child of a stranger, where my only psychic connection to the outcome would be just the blood that ordinarily oozes from my pores whenever I stand with a client to hear a verdict.