Text 7 thicker than water

(condensed)

Vernon Wedge didn't want to see the old man. Olga, his secretary, gave Blesker a sub-zero reception, but he sat on in the attorney’s waiting room. His shoulders were rigid, his crooked fingers interlaced, his chalky face a portrait of stubbornness and determination. Finally, Vernon had to yield.

“Sit down, Mr. Blesker,” he said wearily, pointing to the leather chair in his office. “I know why you're here; my phone’s been ringing all morning.” The old man looked befuddled. “Please,” he said. “I just come about my boy ...”

“Yes, I’ve read the newspaper. And I suppose you think your kid’s innocent?”

“He is!”

“Naturally. You’re his father. Have you talked to him since it happened?”

“I came from the prison this morning. They’re not treating him good. He looks skinny.”

“He’s only been in custody a few days, Mr. Blesker. I doubt if they’re starving him. Look,” Vernon said testily, “your boy is accused of knifing another kid in the street. That’s what happened. You know how many witnesses there are? You know the kind of evidence the district attorney has?”

“I know he’s innocent,” the old man said. “That’s what I know. Benjy’s a good, serious boy.”

“Sure,” Vernon frowned. “They’re all good boys, Mr. Blesker, until they start running with a street pack. Then they’re something else.” He was almost shouting now. “Mr. Blesker, the State will pick an attorney for your son.”

“I have money,” Blesker whispered. “The family, we all got together. I run a fuel oil business; I’m selling the big truck. I can pay what you ask, Mr. Wedge.”

“It's not a question of money —”

“Then it’s a question of what?” The old man was suddenly truculent. “Whether he’s guilty or not? You decided that already, Mr. Wedge?”

Vernon couldn’t meet the challenge, it was too close to the truth. He had prejudged the case from the newspaper stories, and knew from the accounts that this was one client he could live without. His record was too good. What was worse, he had lost his last client. Every criminal lawyer is allowed a few adverse verdicts; but two in a row?

“Mr. Blesker,” he said miserably, “will you tell me why you picked me?”

“Because I heard you were good.”

“Do you know what happened in my last case?”

Obstinate: “I heard you were good, Mr. Wedge.”

“You told every reporter in town that you intended hiring me. That puts me in a very compromising position. And you, too. Do you know how it’ll look if I turn you down? Like I think your boy is guilty, that the case is hopeless.”

“I didn’t mean any harm,” the old man said fumblingly. “I just wanted to get the best for Benjy.” He was getting teary. “Don’t turn me down, Mr. Wedge.”

Vernon knew a lost cause when he saw one; perhaps he had known from the start how this interview would end. His voice softened.

“I didn’t say your boy is guilty, Mr. Blesker. All I say is that he’s got a bad case. A very bad case.”

Motionless, the old man waited. “All right,” Vernon sighed. “I’ll think it over.”

The police blotter had Benjy Blesker’s age down as seventeen. He looked

younger. The frightened eyes gave him a look of youthful bewilderment. Vernon wasn't taken in by it; he had seen many innocent-looking, baby-faced, but ice-hearted killers.

The boy’s cell was clean, and Benjy bore no marks of ill-treatment. When Vernon walked in, he asked him for a cigarette. Vernon hesitated, then shrugged and offered the pack. “Why not?” he said. “If you're old enough to be here ...”

Benjy lit up and dropped a tough mask over his boyish features. “You the lawyer my old man hired?”

“That's right. My name's Vernon Wedge.”

“When do I get out of here?”

“You don’t, not until the trial. They’ve refused bail.”

“When’s the trial?”

“Don’t rush it,” Vernon growled. “And don’t think this is going to be easy.”

Benjy leaned back, casual. “I didn’t cut that guy,” he said evenly. “I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

Vernon grunted, and pulled a sheet of handwritten notes out of his pocket.

“You admitted that you knew Kenny Tarcher.”

“Sure I knew him. We went to Manual Trades² together.”

“Kenny was a member of a gang called the Aces. You ever ran with them?”

“With that bunch?” Benjy sneered, and blew a column of smoke. “I was a Baron. The Barons don’t take up with those bums.”

“Never mind,” Vernon snapped. “We can talk about your social life later. You were a Baron and Kenny was an Ace, so that made you natural enemies. You had a rumble last month, and this Kenny Tarcher beat up on you pretty good. Don’t give me any arguments about this, it’s ancient history.”

Benjy’s mouth was quivering. “Look, Mr. Wedge, we don’t have that kind of gang. You know Mr. Knapp —”

“The youth worker? I’ve just come from him.”

“He’ll tell you about the Barons, Mr. Wedge. We’re not a bunch of hoods. We got a basketball team and everything.”

Vernon smothered a smile. “Why do you carry a knife, Benjy?”

“It's no switchblade, Mr. Wedge. It’s more like a boy scout knife; I mean, they sell ’em all over. I use it for whittlin’ and stuff like that.”

“Whittling?” It was hard to hide the sneer. The end of Benjy’s cigarette flared, as did his temper.

“Look, whose side are you on. I didn’t stick Kenny, somebody else did!”

“Take it easy. I’m not making accusations, kid; that’s the court’s job. Now sit back and relax. I’m going over the story, from the police side, and then you can tell me where they’re wrong. Every little thing, understand?”

Benjy swallowed hard. Then he nodded.

“It was ten minutes to midnight on June 21,” Vernon said, watching him.

“You and two other guys were walking down Thurmond Street. Kenny came out of a building on Thurmond. You bumped into each other, and there was some horseplay. The next thing that happens, you and your pals start running down the street. Kenny falls down and tries to crawl to the stoop of the house. There were two people on the steps. They saw you running. They saw Kenny die, right in front of them. He had an eight-inch gash in his stomach ... Ten minutes later, the cops caught up with you in your old man’s fuel supply store on Chester Street. The knife was still in your pocket.” He paused.

“I didn’t cut him,” the boy said grimly. “All the rest of that stuff, that’s true.”

“Who were the other two guys with you?"

“I never saw ’em before. I met ’em in the movies.”

“Don’t give me that!”

“What the hell do you want from me?” Benjy bellowed. “I tell you I don’t know those guys! One of them must have done it, I didn’t! When I saw he was hurt, I ran. That’s all it was!”

“You had the knife —”

“I didn’t use it!”

“That knife is Exhibit A,” the lawyer said. “You know that, don’t you? The witnesses saw you holding it —”

“Leave me alone! You ain’t here to help me!”

“I am, Benjy. But the only way you can be helped is to cop a plea¹. I want you to plead guilty. Believe me, it’s the only sensible thing to do. You put this case to a jury, and I swear you’ll be spending the rest of your life in a cage. Plead guilty, and the worst you’ll get is twenty years. That’s not so bad as it sounds; you’ll be eligible for parole in five.”

“I won’t do it!” Benjy screamed. “I'm innocent! I’m not goin’ to jail for something I didn’t do!”

Vernon sighed. The corners of his mouth softened, and he dropped a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Listen,” he said gently. “I really want to help you, son.”

For a moment, Benjy was still. Then he threw off the arm of sympathy, and snarled at the attorney: “I’m not your son! I’ve got a father!”

Like father, like son, Vernon thought wryly, looking at the mulish mouth and marble eyes of the old man. He was sure Blesker had a softer side. Under other circumstances, he would smile and tell jokes and hum old-country tunes. Now, faced with the lawyer’s blunt advice, he was hard as a rock.

“You’ve got to talk some sense into him,” Vernon said. “He doesn’t know what’s good for him. If he pleads guilty to murder in the second degree, the judge will be lenient.”

“But he goes to prison? For something he didn’t do?”

“You’re his father, Mr. Blesker. You’re ignoring facts.”

“The facts are wrong!” Blesker put his fists on his knees and pounded them once. When he looked up again, there was a new mood in his eyes. “You tell me something, Mr. Wedge … You don’t like to lose cases, am I right? That’s what they say about you … So if my boy pleads guilty, you lose nothing. You still have your good record, right?”

Unable to refute this accurate estimate of his inner thoughts, Vernon tried to summon up an angry denial and failed. He shrugged his shoulders.

“All right,” he said grudgingly. “So we plead Not Guilty. I’ll do everything I can to make it stick.”

Blesker examined his face for signs of sincerity. He seemed satisfied.

Vernon came to the courtroom on the opening day with a heart as heavy as his briefcase. Surprisingly, the first day didn’t go badly. Judge Angus Dwight had been assigned to the bench. In spite of his sour look, Vernon knew him to be scrupulously fair and sneakily sentimental. Wickers, the prosecuting attorney, was a golden-haired Adonis with a theatrical delivery, a keen mind and an appeal for the ladies. Fortunately, the impaneled jurors were men with only two exceptions, and they were women far past the age of coquetry. During the first hour, Wickers’ facetiousness in his opening remarks drew a rebuke from the judge concerning the seriousness of the affair; Vernon’s hopes lifted a notch.

But it was his only good day. On the second afternoon, Wickers called a man named Sol Dankers to the witness chair.

“Mr. Dankers,” he said smoothly, “you were present at the time of Kenneth Tarcher’s slaying, isn’t that so?”

“That’s right,” Dankers said heavily. “I was sittin’ on the stoop, when these kids started foolin’ around. Next thing I know, one of ’em’s stumblin’ to the stoop, bleedin’ like a pig. He drops dead right at the feet of me and my Missus. And I seen that boy, the one over there, runnin’ away with a knife in his hand.”

Then it was Vernon’s turn.

“Mr. Dankers, is it true your eyesight is impaired?”

“True enough. I’m sixty-two, son, wait ’til you’re my age.”

He drew a laugh and a rap of the gavel.

“It was almost midnight on a street not particularly well lit. Yet you saw a knife —” he pointed to the table where Exhibit A rested — “that knife, in Benjamin Blesker’s hand?”

“It was sort of flashin’ in the light, if you know what I mean. But to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have noticed it if Mrs. Dankers hadn’t said, ‘Look at that boy, he’s got a knife!’”

The crowd buzzed, and Vernon frowned at the inadvertent hearsay testimony. The damage was done; he didn’t even bother to voice a complaint. Mrs. Dankers testified next; there was nothing wrong with her eyes, she said stoutly, and she knew a knife when she saw one.

But it was the third witness who did the most harm. He was Marty Knapp, a dedicated youth worker serving the neighbourhood.

“No, Benjy isn’t a bad kid,” he said thoughtfully. “But he has a temper. And he never forgave Kenny Tarcher for the beating he gave him.”

“Then, in your opinion,” Wickers said triumphantly, “this might have been a grudge killing? Not just a sudden assault, but a deliberate, cold-blooded —”

Vernon was on his feet, shouting objections. Judge Dwight took his side at once, but the impression was indelible in the collective mind of the jury. When Vernon sat down again, he felt as forlorn as Benjy Blesker looked.

On the eve of the fourth day, he went to see him.

“What do you say, Benjy?” he said quietly. “You see the way things are going? I’m pulling out the whole bag of tricks, but I’m not fooling anybody.”

“Try harder!” Benjy snapped.

“If I knew how to work miracles, I’d work one. Look, this state doesn’t like to hang kids, but it’s happened before —”

“Hang?” the boy said incredulously. “You’re crazy!”

“If you get life, you know what that means? Even if you get pa­roled in twenty years, you’ll be thirty-seven years old, almost middle-aged, with a record.”

There were tears flooding Benjy’s eyes. It was the first sign of a crumbling defense, and the lawyer moved in swiftly.

“Plead guilty,” he said earnestly. “Plead guilty Benjy, it’s not too late.”

The boy’s head snapped up.

“No!” he screamed. “I didn’t do it!”

There was a week-end hiatus before the trial resumed. Vernon Wedge spent the time thinking. It was the old man’s fault, he thought bitterly. It was old man Blesker who was behind all the trouble. His faith in Benjy was the indomitable, obstinate faith of the fanatic. Even if the boy was guilty, concern for his father would prevent him from admitting the truth.

It was then that the idea was born. …

He found Dr. Hagerty in the basement laboratory of the hospital. He was a white-haired man with shoulders rounded from years of bending over microscopes, and he smelt vaguely of sulphur. He turned out to be ignorant of the trial. Vernon summed up the facts briefly, and then talked about blood.

“Were there no benzidine tests made?” Hagerty said quickly.

“Yes,” Vernon admitted, “and the test proved negative. There weren’t any bloodstains on the knife, you understand, it was clean. The prosecution claims that all traces were wiped or washed off. It’s never been much of an issue up till now. But I once heard you talk about a more sensitive test …”

“There is,” Hagerty grunted. “Benzidine is the standard blood test in this city, but there’s another one. But it’s not always employed. It’s called the reduced phenol-phthalein test, and, depending on a couple of factors, it might be just what you’re looking for.”

“What factors?”

“The quality of the blade material, for one thing. And even if the metal is porous enough to retain microscopic particles of blood, it may be impossible to determine whose. Even if your boy ever cut his finger … If there were bloodstains on it from years ago, this test would show it up.”

“Thank you,” Vernon said humbly. “You’ve saved my life, Doc.”

“Your life?” Hagerty asked dryly.

When Vernon entered Benjу’s cell, the boy was reading a pulp magazine with

intense concentration. He seemed detached, disinterested. Vernon understood it; he had seen this rupture before in the mood of the condemned.

“Listen to me,” he said harshly. “Listen well. I’ve got an idea that might save you, but I have to know the truth. There’s a test. A test that can determine whether or not there was ever blood on that knife of yours.”

“So?”

“If you stabbed that boy, a solution is going to turn pink and you can kiss your freedom good-by. What’s more, if you ever cut anybody with that knife, even yourself, it’ll turn pink. So, was there ever blood on that knife?”

“No! It was brand new. I never cut anybody with it.”

“This is scientific stuff, boy, don’t think you can fool a test tube!”

“I said it’s clean!”

“Okay. We’ll see how clean it is. And God help you if you lied to me.”

On Monday, Wickers rose to make his final peroration. He was bland-faced, a picture of confidence. Vernon looked at the vacant faces of the jurors, waiting for their emotional rubdown. But he wasn’t going to allow it.

He stood up, and addressed Judge Dwight.

“Your Honor, something occurred over the weekend which I consider of paramount importance to this case. I ask the court’s permission to introduce new evidence.”

“Objection,” Wickers said calmly. “The defense has had sufficient time for the introduction of evidence. I suggest this is a delaying tactic.”

Vernon looked defeated, but he was only playing possum. Judge Dwight prompted him: “What sort of evidence, Mr. Wedge?”

“It’s a demonstration, your Honor,” he said weakly. “In my opinion, it will clearly establish my client’s guilt or innocence. But if the court rules —”

“Very well, Mr. Wedge, you may proceed.”

Quickly, Vernon undid the clasps of the black box, in front of him. He removed the wide-mouthed beaker, and then the foil lid that covered it. He brought the murky solution to the bench that held the trial exhibits.

“This, your Honor, is a chemical solution specifically formulated for the detection of blood.”

The courtroom buzzed; on the prosecution’s side of the room, there was a hurried consultation.

Vernon faced the jurors.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Exhibit A in this case is the knife which presumably killed Kenneth Tarcher. This is the knife which was in the possession of Benjamin Blesker the night of the slaying. Yet not one shred of testimony has been heard during this trial concerning the vital factor of blood.”

He picked up the knife, and sprung the long, shining blade.

“This knife!” he said, waving it in the air. “Look at it carefully. It has never left the court’s possession since my client’s arrest. Yet this clean, shiny blade can still tell a story of guilt or innocence. For as every biochemist knows, there is an infallible test which can determine whether an object of such porous metal has ever been stained with even one drop of blood. Ladies and gentlemen, I intend to prove once and for all whether I have been defending a boy falsely accused, or a lying murderer. I intend to dip this blade in the solution. If it turns pink — you must punish him for his guilt. If it remains clear — you must do what is just, and set him free.”

Slowly, he brought the knife down.

“Your Honor! Objection!” Wickers was on his feet, and Vernon halted.

“This performance is irrelevant, immaterial and completely improper!” Wickers whirled to the jury. “At no time during this trial has the prosecution denied the absence of blood on Benjamin Blesker’s knife. Any so-called ‘test’ that corroborates this is completely gratuitous, and is intended as pure theatrics to mislead the jury, I demand this farcical demonstration be stopped!”

There was a moment’s silence. Vernon looked up at the judge hopefully, waiting. Dwight folded his hands.

“Mr. Wedge, I’m afraid you're not in a position to qualify as an expert in forensic chemistry. And, as Mr. Wickers says, mere corroboration of the police laboratory report is gratuitous evidence that cannot be properly admitted. Therefore, the objection is sustained.”

“But your Honor —”

“Sustained,” Judge Dwight said gravely. “You cannot make the test.”

His summation was the briefest of his career.

“I believe this because of a test I was not permitted to make. This boy knew that the results of this test might have condemned him, yet he told me to proceed. No guilty man would have allowed it; no innocent man would have had it any other way.”

The jury was out less than an hour. When they returned, they declared that Benjamin Blesker was innocent.

Vernon was permitted the use of an adjoining chamber for a meeting with his client. It wasn't a victory celebration. The boy seemed stunned, and the happiness in old man Blesker’s face looked more like sorrow. When the lawyer entered the room, he stood up shakily and held out his hand.

“God bless you,” he whispered. “Bless you for what you did.”

“I didn’t come to be congratulated,” Vernon said coldly. “I wanted to see you both for another reason.”

The bailiff entered, and placed the beaker on the desk. When he left, Vernon took the knife out of his pocket, and put it down beside the beaker. The old man picked it up, and looked at the weapon as if he had never seen it before.

“Wickers was right,” Vernon said flatly. “What I did out there was theatrics. I did not want to make the demonstration; I counted on the prosecution halting it.”

“You didn’t want to make the test?” Blesker said blankly.

“I could have gotten an expert, a real one, like Doc Hagerty. But I didn’t want to take the chance; if this stuff had turned red ...” He looked at the beaker and frowned. “No,” he said. “The risk was too great. If Wickers had played along, I would have been forced to do it. But I figured they would object, and the jury would be impressed the right way. They were, thank God. But now there’s something we have to do. Something to satisfy us all.”

Vernon looked at the boy. Benjy wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“I still don’t know the truth,” the lawyer said. “I don’t know it, and neither do you. Only Benjy here knows it. Give me the knife, Mr. Blesker. We’re going to make the test the judge wouldn’t allow. For our own sakes.”

“But why?” the old man cried. “What difference does it make?”

“Because I want to know! Even if you don’t, Mr. Blesker. Give me the knife.”

Blesker picked up the knife. He touched its cool blade thoughtfully. Then, slowly, he drew the blade deliberately across the back of his hand. The sharp edge bit deep. Blood welled like a crimson river in the cut and stained his hand, his cuff, his sleeve, the surface of the desk. He looked at the wound sadly, indifferently, and then handed the dripping weapon to the attorney.

“Make your test,” he said dreamily. “Make your test now, Mr. Wedge.”

And as Vernon stared at him, he removed a crumpled handkerchief from his pocket and wound it about his injured hand. Then he took his son's arm, and they left the room together.

(by Henry Slesar)