Flashpoint by Barnes Linda;

Author:Barnes, Linda;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2018-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY

Pickets walked the pavement outside the jail. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a well-organized demonstration. One heavy-set black man wearing a navy suit braced a sandwich board that read FREE SISTER GWEN! across his broad shoulders. Two slight, dark-skinned women in scarlet choir robes waved placards: POOR IS NO CRIME and NATURAL CAUSES: ARREST A BLACK. Shoppers and businessmen gave them a wide berth.

Years ago, white Charles Stuart shot and killed his white, pregnant wife in the Mission Hill section of Boston, ten minutes after they attended a preparing-for-childbirth class at nearby Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Though badly wounded, he struggled to give the cops a description of the black man in a jogging suit who’d done the deed. The BPD bought it, ran a civil-rights-stomping manhunt through the black community that resonates to this day. Months later, caught in a vise of accusations, Chuckie jumped to his death off the Tobin Bridge.

The district attorney, the police department brass, all the suits had to know Gwen’s arrest might rake up old resentments. A videographer shot film, which naturally led to increased fervor, a snatch of a gospel song. Impressed by the music or the color of the robes, a news photographer snapped stills.

I walked through Haymarket toward Government Center. The wind caught my hair and for a few seconds I thought I could smell the ocean. Then a traffic light changed and the salty tang was replaced by exhaust fumes.

“Well, hey, let’s do some brainstorming on this,” Henry Fine, the public defender, suggested twenty minutes later.

His gray suit had marched off the rack at a bargain outlet and looked like it still might have a wire hanger stuck up the back. His thin tie was an assertive red. He had a tanned, angular face, topped with gingery curls.

“So, hey, brainstorming,” he went on. “I don’t have a lot of time for this today. You mind answering a question? How you figure she should dress? For court appearances?”

“I’m wasted as a wardrobe consultant.” My confidence in Gwen’s acquittal at the bar was rapidly ebbing.

“Okay, yeah. You’re an investigator, right?”

“You ran background on me, right?” No way a lawyer would put me next to Gwen without doing a cursory check.

“Look.” His narrow shoulders elevated, then lowered abruptly. The knot in his tie was slightly off center. “I knew the client’s enthusiastic about putting you on the team, but the department doesn’t have funds to pay outside help.”

“Really?” The public defenders’ office always pays. Not well, not in a timely manner, but the check eventually hits the mail. “High-profile case like this? No funds? Wouldn’t that make a news flash?”

In the ensuing silence, I settled myself in my creaky chair, indicating that I wasn’t about to leave.

His mouth tightened. “So, did your interview suggest an area of investigation?”

My desire to confide in Henry Fine was low. I didn’t have much feeling for his skill as a litigator, but he’d already lied to me about money and we’d barely met.

“What

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