“The prosecutor wants him to plead to three years.”
Corbin furrowed his brow. “That seems a little optimistic on their part. Do you think they’d take two years?”
“It doesn’t matter!” Beckett blurted out. “I’m not letting Beaumont plead guilty to anything we did.”
“What if he wants to?!” Corbin retorted.
“Forget it. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, Beaumont brought this on himself and our crimes are only tangential to his. I don’t accept that.” Beckett rose and stared out the window. “I’m not letting him go down for our crimes, even if they’re mixed in with his own. He’s innocent, and if you’re just here to talk me out of this, then you should leave now. I’m serious about doing the right thing.”
“He may not be guilty, but he’s hardly innocent. Have you read his file?”
Beckett shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what he’s done in the past. I’m only concerned with what he’s accused of now.”
“It does matter. If you’re going to throw your life away for the guy, then you need to understand who he is.”
“I know he’s a bad guy, but right and wrong don’t depend on who gets hurt.”
“Sometimes they do, Evan,” Corbin growled.
“No, Alex, they don’t.”
Corbin flipped through his notes. “Did you know your friend Beaumont deals crack to school kids?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Tell that to the parents. Did you know your friend Beaumont killed two women, at the same time?” Beckett opened his mouth to speak, but Corbin cut him off. “He raped one before killing her. The other one, his girlfriend, he brought along to watch the rape. Then he shot her, right after he shot the woman he raped.”
“Then they should have charged him with murder.”
“Oh, they did. They’ve charged him with all kinds of things, but witnesses have a habit of vanishing before they can testify against him. Take Manuel Lopez. Manuel, a day laborer, had the misfortune of seeing Beaumont leave the scene of the aforementioned double homicide. Two days after his name became known to Beaumont, Manuel disappeared. Manuel reappeared in the river a week later. They’d broken most of his bones with a lead pipe before dumping him into the river to drown.”
“I’m sorry the system doesn’t always work, but maybe if the cops did their jobs a little better, he would already be behind bars. Our suspicion that he’s bad doesn’t give us the right to let him take the fall for our crimes. No matter what he did or what we think he did, this, what’s happening now, isn’t right.”
“Wait a minute,” Corbin protested.
“No. Allowing him to be punished for our crimes is wrong, and we can’t hide behind his prior actions to justify our failure to take responsibility for our own.”
Corbin took a deep breath. “Has it dawned on you that sometimes, maybe just maybe, doing the right thing means letting something wrong happen?”
They stared at each other silently.
“You can’t do good by doing evil,” Beckett finally said. “Right is right. Wrong is wrong. Right and wrong depend on what you do, not who you do it to.”
“Sometimes it does, Evan,” Corbin replied bitterly.
“No, Alex, it never does. We don’t have the right to judge this man.”
“The hell we don’t!”
Both men glared at each other until Beckett turned away.
“Alex, I want you to understand, this isn’t about Beaumont. This is about reconciling ourselves to our consciences and to a higher power.”
“Fair enough,” Corbin replied. “But I want you to understand who you’re protecting.”
“I do.” Beckett picked up the file from his desk. “Are you ready to meet Beaumont? He should be back at jail by now.”
“Can’t wait.” Corbin rolled his eyes. “Before we meet him though, tell me this: what if Beaumont pleads guilty to the other crimes and the charges related to our crimes get dismissed. Will that satisfy you?”
Beckett put his fingers to his lips and stared at his desk. “Yes.”
The visitation room, like the rest of the jail, smelled like a high school locker room. The room itself was small, six feet by six feet, with a door at the front and the back. The walls were cinderblock, except the front wall, which was Plexiglas to allow the guards to observe what happened in the room. Crammed into this room was a small plastic table and three tiny plastic chairs which looked like they belonged at a middle school.
“This is fucking bullshit! I ain’t pleadin’ to no deal,” Beaumont said emphatically, dashing any hope he would take a plea deal. He plopped down in the plastic chair. His wrists and ankles were shackled.
“That’s fine,” Beckett replied. “I had an ethical obligation to let you know they offered a deal. They want you to serve-”
“No! Fuck no! No deal. I said ‘no deal’,” Beaumont barked in cadence.
“All right, you have the right to reject their deal.”
“’Course I got the right. I know my rights.” Beaumont frowned at Corbin. “You still here?”
“Where else would I be?” Corbin replied indifferently.
“Back at yo’ foundation.”
By this time, Beckett had warned Corbin to expect Beaumont to question his story about belonging to a foundation which represents people who are unfairly targeted by the police.
“I’m here to help you,” Corbin said without conviction.
“I ain’t never heard of no foundation.”
“You’ve never heard of the Magna Carta either, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. You want us to leave?” Corbin’s tone made it clear he didn’t care whether or not they continued to represent Beaumont.
“They’ve got a lot of evidence against you,” Beckett interjected, trying to change the topic before Corbin changed Beaumont’s mind about letting them represent him. He spread the file out across the table.
“Yeah, well that’s bullshit,” Beaumont replied with great hostility.
“Drop the act, partner. We’re here to help you,” Corbin shot back.
“Whoa! Everybody calm down,” Beckett commanded, placing his hand in the air between Corbin and Beaumont. “Beaumont, we’re here to help you. Just tell us your side.”
“There ain’t no side, man! Cops set me up.”
“Give me a break,” Corbin said, rolling his eyes.
“Give you a break?! You ain’t the one got the man kickin’ down yo’ door, waving his standard issue in yo’ face. Cops been on me for years.”
“Oh bull! I’ve seen the evidence. You’re guilty as hell. The jury’s gonna beg to convict you.”
“Calm down guys, this isn’t helping,” Beckett said. “I believe you, Beaumont.”
“Don’t gimme that!” Beaumont exploded again. “I ain’t no fool. You don’t believe me. You just here to punch some ticket.”
“That’s not true. I honestly believe you. That’s why we’re here.”
Beaumont stared at Beckett for several seconds. Then he lowered his voice and said, “The cops set me up. I did not do this thing.”
“Tell us what happened.”
“I didn’t do nothin’. First I heard about this identity shit, that cop come blastin’ into my place, jam his piece into the back of my head, and start beatin’ me while his buddies laughed. Then they drop all this evidence and haul my ass off.”
Beckett picked up Corbin’s notes and flipped through several pages. “Where were you on June 14?”
“Let me check my day planner,” Beaumont replied sarcastically. “How am I supposed to know where I was on June 14th? Do you know where you was on June 14th?”
“I do,” Corbin said, followed by a short cynical laugh. June 14th was the day Beckett and Alvarez opened the accounts.
Beckett shot Corbin a nasty look before refocusing on Beaumont. “Have you ever been in Penn Bancorp?”