John Dobbyn: Neon Dragon

Humor was not her consuming passion, especially when it interrupted a flow. Personally, I had little else going for me.

Before accepting her invitation, in effect, to get-the-hell-out-of-her-office, I asked for a copy of the coroner’s report on the deceased and a copy of the indictment. She agreed to send a copy of the coroner’s report to my office as soon as one was prepared. The indictment she was delighted to hand over on the spot. No major concession. As defense counsel, I was entitled to both.

Suffolk County Jail is the holding pen for the not-yet-convicted. There was little hope that young Bradley would have any other address pending the trial since bail is almost never granted on a murder-one charge.

I sat in the interviewing room in one of the two chairs that flanked a well-worn wooden table that had listened to the intimate sharing of truths and lies between counsel and every conceivable variety of felon since long before I’d joined the battle on the side of defendants. I’d been there before, and every time, I thanked God for the particular twists and crossroads of life that put me in the chair to the left instead of the right of the door. When the interview ended, I was out of there. The person in the other chair was going back to hell. It could easily have been otherwise.

I knew more about young Bradley than most of the people I’d met in that room. Without much thought over the years, I’d read the articles about the young halfback at Arlington High School running in his father’s footsteps. My interest was more in football than in Bradley, but he did well enough to be a recognizable name, which is an accomplishment for a high-school player.

He played freshman ball for Harvard, but like many high-school hotshots, he could never quite make the jump to the college level. He was given the option to ride the bench as a sophomore, probably out of deference to his father’s record with the Harvard team, but young Bradley chose to opt out. He left the team and all the bonuses that went with it. His life from that point in time to this early February of his junior year was a blank to me, since he was out of my most constant source of information-the Globe sports section.

Most of the prisoners I’d seen come through that door blended with the society-gone-wrong surroundings. I’ve seen sullenness, anger, craftiness, and, worst of all, resignation. But every inch of the six-foot-four-inch body that stood holding out a strong right hand seemed to say, “I don’t belong here!” He was clean looking, with enough sincere humility to counterbalance the self-confidence that goes with an attractive appearance. But there was more to it than that. Something smacked of quality. Maybe I was seeing a reflection of his father, but there was a bright look in his eyes and a gentleness that made me want to win this one for the right reasons.

Introductions were briefly made, and we both sat down.

“Your dad asked me to represent you, Anthony.”

“I know, sir. Thank you.”

It certainly beat “the hell you say!” as a reaction. This kid was beginning to grow on me.

“What happened yesterday, Anthony?”

He gave a slight palms-up gesture. “I wish I knew myself, Mr. Knight.”

“Just tell me what you did.”

“Church in the morning. Back to the house. I live in Dunster House down by the river. I did some reading for a paper. I guess it was about two in the afternoon, a friend of mine came by and suggested we go into Chinatown for dinner and see the Chinese New Year’s.”

“Who’s idea was it, yours or-what’s his name?”

“Terry Blocher. It was his idea, but I was ready to go.”

“OK. Leave in all the details.”

“Well, that’s what we did. We had dinner at the Ming Tree restaurant on Tyler Street. Things were really getting revved up outside. By the time we came out at three thirty, there were fireworks going off everywhere. The street was about an inch deep in firecracker paper. Some people were throwing cherry bombs. It was deafening. Terry had decided when we came in that it was too loud. He said he was going to walk back to Park Street and get the train back to Harvard Square.

“I saw the big cloth lion with people under it coming up to the little Chinese grocery shop across the street. The noise got even louder because the people at the shop lit off big chains of firecrackers in front of the lion. There were drums, cymbals, you couldn’t hear yourself think.”

“Where were you standing in regard to the shop?”

“I guess right in front of it. It’s a narrow street. I was probably ten yards from the shop.”

I figured the estimate was good. Who could judge ten yards better than a former running back?

“Did you see anyone in the window above the front door of the shop?”

He thought for a second.

“There were people at every window on the street. I’m sure there were people there, but nothing stands out.”

“So how long were you there?”

“It’s hard to say. Maybe three or four minutes. The noise was getting to me, too, so I moved down the street toward Beach Street. I just got around the corner, when two policemen stopped me. They told me I was under arrest for murder. The whole thing was unreal. They gave me warnings about the right to remain silent and brought me to the station house.”

I leaned back and looked at him. He was sitting up straight and looking me right in the eye. I liked that. In fact, the more I grew to like about him, the larger the knot grew in the pit of my stomach.

“When you went into Chinatown, did you have a gun with you?”

He looked at me like I’d asked if he’d been dressed in drag. Then he realized that the circumstances made the question seem less ridiculous.

“No. I don’t have a gun.”

I leaned back to keep eye contact.

“They’re charging that an old man in the window above the grocery shop was shot to death just at the time the cloth lion was at the door. Did you see anyone with a gun?”

He shook his head.

“Did you hear anything like a gunshot?”

“Everything sounded like a gunshot.”

“I know. Someone had a great sense of timing. Can you think of any reason why two witnesses might have picked you out of the crowd?”

He leaned forward with his head on his hands. “Almost everyone there was Chinese or maybe Vietnamese. I was about a head taller than anyone and the only one I could see with black skin. I’d be pretty hard to miss.”

“What I meant was did you make any moves that could have been mistaken for firing a gun?”

He shrugged and just shook his head.

I flipped the notebook closed and stood up. He was on his feet too, looking perplexed and making me wish I could walk him right out the door with me.

“Where are they keeping you, Anthony?”

He caught my meaning. He was the son of a judge who had dealt with some of the people with whom he was presently sharing quarters. Jailhouse murders are far too common and easy to cover up in a silent society.

“I’m OK so far. They keep me in a single cell and bring in my meals.”

I jotted my cell-phone number on my card and gave it to him with instructions to call night or day if things changed, even a little bit.

By two o’clock I was back at the office. Bilson, Dawes had the tenth and eleventh floors of a triangular building on Franklin Street. They had grown from the ten partners and five associates I had joined as an associate three years previously to twenty partners and seven associates, piggybacking on the financial success of their corporate clients. Since success breeds success, the partners kept a sharp eye on the gate to let in as new clients only corporate personae on the rise. When Willie Sutton spun off his famous answer to the question of why he robbed banks, he was also laying down a game plan for Bilson, Dawes’s selection of clients: “That’s where the money is.”