Keyshia and Clyde (24 page)

“Just tell me why, Ceasar? Why would you do that to your own brothers when you said you loved them?” Ceasar's head hung low, and he still didn't answer.

“Ceasar, I'm fucking talking to you, answer my goddamn question!”

“Because I didn't want anything to happen to Clyde, that's why I did it!” Keyshia was stunned as Ceasar looked at her with pleading eyes. “I found out who that Black Sam was and got scared, so I had to do something to protect Clyde, Keyshia.”

“But you said that you had the rest of the money to cover us. You lied?”

Ceasar nodded shamefully. “Sonny brought the idea to me earlier when I went to him about that Black Sam mess. He told me the only way they could come up with that kind of money was to do a bank job. But I looked at him like he was crazy. Then Martha started calling me, telling me that these gangsters was coming by the house looking for Clyde, which wound up being a lie, and I got scared.” Keyshia shifted from foot to foot because she still felt a certain amount of guilt about being just as much to blame for the incident.

Ceasar continued, “She was the one who was telling me about Clyde running around doing petty robberies and risking his life in the process and that it would be impossible to come up with that kind of money. She said he was too proud to say anything. That's when I went back to Sonny and told him that I was willing to”—Ceasar turned his head uncomfortably—“help him rob my bank.”

There was a long silence. “Did you have anything to do with Black Sam and his people getting murdered, Ceasar?” Keyshia asked softly.

Ceasar lifted his head slowly and stared at her. “No, but I found out the real reason Sonny and Wolf killed them. When I went to see Sonny on a visit, he told me that he killed them for you!” Keyshia began to grow weak in the knees and sat down. “Sonny said when he had the sit-down with Black Sam and his people, the deal was only for Clyde's life. They told Sonny that after they finalized the deal by getting them their money”—he put his head down—“they were going to kill you and your family.” Keyshia was emotionally drained from hearing how close she and her family had come to dying, and she began to shake.

“But,” Ceasar continued, “Sonny found out how much Clyde really loved you, and that's when he decided to kill all of them.”

“Then why would you still want to rob the bank, Ceasar? You could have just kept the money we had for Black Sam if that was the case.”

“I did!” Ceasar said with vigor. “I was going to give the money back to you and Clyde, but Martha must have found out, and since she wasn't getting nothing out of it, she must have convinced Sonny to still do it. And that's when she set me up and called me to come to her house that morning, claiming something had happened to Sonny and to get there quick.” Keyshia felt exhausted from all the new information she had just received after all these years.

“Keyshia, what happens now? Does it affect Clyde's case or . . . ?”

She looked at him and knew he was wondering if he would be involved now. She shook her head and said, “I don't know. I mean, it doesn't affect him getting out or nothing because I'm the only one who knows that you had anything to do with it.” She saw Ceasar take a relieved breath.

“It does mess up my plan for getting Martha tied to the case like I wanted to do. I can't put her on the stand now that I know she might get you involved with this bank shit to save her neck.”

“I'm sorry for not telling you about this earlier, Keyshia. Martha fucked me over and I just had to accept it. Now we can't even pay her ass back.”

She placed her hand on Ceasar's and said, “That's okay, we just have to find another angle to tie her into all of this, that's all.”

“How? I might have blown our chance,” he said, disgusted with himself.

“Not really. We just have to get Sonny to implicate her as an accessory to the robbery.”

Ceasar frowned. “Keyshia, I'm telling you right now that will never happen. Sonny would rather do fifty years before he told on Martha. She is the closest thing to a mother he ever had, and Sonny is fiercely loyal to family. In his eyes, Martha can do no wrong.”

“Ceasar, when you pull the wool off a sheep's eyes, what they are going to see are wolves. All we got to do is get Sonny to see her for who she really is.”

“How are you gonna do that?” asked Ceasar.

Keyshia smiled. “Clyde taught me a long time ago to always have a plan B. It's a long shot, but if my female intuition is right, she will get a rise out of the entire courtroom.”

Chapter 38
_______________

After the appellate court determined errors in the proceedings of the lower court in Clyde's case, he was granted a new trial. Keyshia spent countless hours at the office preparing for it. Jury selection was in two weeks, and opening statements would take place soon after.

Keyshia continued to work not only on the case, but on T. Bernard, who began to take a special interest in his new, hardworking intern. He no longer looked at Keyshia as a lowly young intern that he would try to bed; he began to respect her for her work ethic and passion for law. He would see Keyshia in the research room when he got to work in the morning and would see her when he left well into the night. Unknown to him and everyone else in the office, Keyshia was on a mission: Get her man out of jail or die trying. Instead of using weapons this time, she would use her mind—her mind was now her nine!

The trial was in one week, and T. Bernard Williams had gathered his team to discuss strategies. All the investigators presented background information on everyone affiliated with the case, such as witnesses, bank employees, coconspirators, and so on. These people would receive subpoenas. Keyshia smiled when she saw Ceasar's name. She knew that the government had confiscated the hundred and thirty thousand dollars and would use it as evidence. The money had been introduced as evidence in Clyde's first trial, and because neither Clyde nor Ceasar was able to explain how they had come by it, it had ultimately helped to seal Clyde's fate. Keyshia anticipated this problem would arise again and had already made plans to offset it, but she would need help.

She saw that Sonny had not been subpoenaed because he was considered a hostile witness. This was a problem because she needed Sonny on the stand to admit that Martha had been the mastermind and architect behind the robbery, even though she would need to figure out how to force Sonny's hand to get him to do so.

“Mr. Williams, may I have a word with you?” Keyshia said as she peeked into his office.

“Come in, Ms. Simmons,” he said, taking off his glasses.

“I believe there is another conspirator in the Barker case.”

T. Bernard rubbed his eyes and leaned back in his leather chair. He knew from experience that many up-and-coming interns became overzealous, and he wondered how he was going to tell Keyshia, his star intern, to leave the courtroom theories to the seasoned professionals. He liked Keyshia and didn't want to deflate her enthusiasm for hard work and her vigor, so he indulged her.

“What proof do you have?” he asked, trying to appear interested.

“We could get the brother who is incarcerated to tell us who else was involved.”

T. Bernard began to laugh aloud. “His brother is almost in his seventh year of a ten-year sentence with only three to go and you think he will rat on his brother after all these years? I don't think so.”

“I didn't say anything about him ratting on his brother; I'm talking about the person who set everything up—his stepmother.”

T. Bernard was thrown off guard, and Keyshia knew she had him rattled. “That's right, I found out through a reliable source close to the defendants that Martha Woods, who raised both boys, was the actual ringleader of the bank robbery.”

T. Bernard stared at Keyshia grimly and asked, “Does this reliable source that you mentioned have a name?”

Keyshia paused to build up his anticipation and then said, “Ceasar Barker, their oldest brother!”

T. Bernard leaned back in his chair and rubbed his beard. Keyshia knew she had him on the ropes and dropped the bomb: “Here are pictures dated five days prior to the robbery of her entering the same bank where the robbery occurred.” She handed him the pictures.

He studied them silently, then tossed them on the desk. “Circumstantial; it doesn't prove anything. She could have come there to visit the brother who worked there.”

Keyshia was prepared and threw another folder on his desk. She smiled and said, “She has priors. She's been arrested on racketeering charges in both 1968 and 1971, but was never charged because of lack of evidence. She was also arrested on embezzlement and credit card fraud in 1974, for which she served four years of an eight-year sentence in prison after she agreed to assist the government and testify against her coconspirators. And then”—Keyshia savored the moment—“in 1981, three years after she was released from prison, she was arrested for, you guessed it, conspiring to commit federal bank robbery.” Keyshia proudly handed him the entire folder, and T. Bernard flipped through each page.

“Her boyfriend at the time was”—Keyshia opened up another file—“Rodney Walters. He and three other men were charged with robbing twelve other banks in the county of Manhattan over an eleven-month period. During the last robbery, the men fatally shot a security guard. Ms. Woods, once again, was offered an out since she was only the getaway driver and was granted full immunity if she testified against the men, who all received life sentences with no possibility of parole.”

T. Bernard simply sat and stared at the folder on his desk. “There's no way to tie her into this case,” he finally said. “Unless . . .”

“Unless,” Keyshia said quickly, “one of the defendants testifies against her.”

T. Bernard stood up and shook his head. “It won't work because Ceasar Barker was never charged in the robbery, and only one of the defendants would be able to connect her to the case, and that is very unlikely and puts us back at square one.”

“Sonny Barker will testify against her,” Keyshia said compellingly.

T. Bernard just scratched his head and said, “How?”

He listened to everything Keyshia told him and was impressed at how thorough she had been as she showed him documents, records, and police files. He had to admit that it was a long shot, but he was willing to take a chance to serve justice. He stared at the mound of evidence that Keyshia had piled on his desk and began to process it.

“How do we get her to take the stand? We can't subpoena her and ask her about her past; the judge won't allow it.”

“If she is called to the stand by the defense and asked to be a character witness, you can. According to his last transcripts, she testified as a character witness at Barker's trial, and they are calling her again.” Keyshia presented him with the defense attorney's witness list.

He stared at the list. Then he gave her a sly smile and said, “Looks like we are ready for court, Ms. Simmons.”

It was Sunday and one day before the trial. Keyshia's stomach churned as she took the train upstate to visit Mrs. Barker at the nursing home. Over the last seven years, she, Ceasar, and little Clyde had been visiting her regularly, and they had grown close enough that Keyshia would feel her grip her hand from time to time, a sign that she always kept to herself because she didn't want to give Ceasar any false hope. Keyshia spent many visits painting her nails or braiding her hair to try to make her feel better. Even when Ceasar was unable to make it, she still went on her own to visit and read to Mrs. Barker from her favorite book,
Harlem Girl Lost.

Keyshia told Ceasar that she needed to make this particular visit alone and asked if he could watch Clyde, Jr. for her. Ceasar agreed. He knew whenever Keyshia went on what seemed to him a baffling quest, it was always for the good of others—mainly for his brother Clyde—and that's why he loved her so.

As always, when Keyshia walked into her room, Mrs. Barker sat in the chair by the window, staring earnestly toward the heavens. Keyshia forced herself not to break down as she approached her and greeted her as she always did.

“Hey, Ma, how you been doing this week?” Keyshia rubbed her hands and gave her a reassuring smile. She looked at Mrs. Barker's frayed corn rows and said, “Oh, it looks like you are due for a touch-up.”

Keyshia went into her bag and pulled out a jar of grease, a brush, and some combs and began to undo the braids. As Keyshia greased her scalp and braided her hair, she talked about everything under the sun, from Mrs. Barker's grandson, to her three sons, to current events and even the weather. Keyshia had spoken to her like this for years even though she was unsure if Mrs. Barker understood her. Then one day as Keyshia was preparing to leave, she had asked Mrs. Barker if she was going to be okay. To Keyshia's surprise, Mrs. Barker had given her a faint smile and nod. Keyshia had turned around to see if Ceasar had seen it, but he was busy with his nephew. Keyshia had stared back at Mrs. Barker and smiled. More and more, little things began to happen, and Keyshia just let it flow and was simply honored to have a “thing” between them.

After Keyshia finished her hair, she pulled out
Harlem Girl Lost,
which seemed to be Mrs. Barker's favorite novel also. Keyshia began reading it. She came to an emotional part of the book and couldn't continue reading any further; she began to break down. All the pressure that she had been carrying on her shoulders for years had become too heavy, and she burst. She fell to the floor and buried her head in Mrs. Barker's lap and began telling her the tearful truth.

“I can't go on anymore, Mrs. Barker, I just can't! Everything is so bad. Tomorrow is Clyde's trial, and I'm scared that if we don't win this time he will be hit with even more time because I want to act like a damn lawyer!” Keyshia began to grow hysterical. “If he loses, what am I going to say? What am I going to do? They already took him from me for over seven years now, and I miss him, Mrs. Barker, I miss him so bad!” Keyshia lifted her head and looked at her future mother-in-law through a puddle of tears. “You are the only chance he got, Mrs. Barker, his only chance.” Keyshia gritted her teeth and yelled, “That damn Martha ruined both your sons' lives, Mrs. Barker. They need you, they both need you. I need you! Please, please help me. I miss your son so, so much, and I don't think I can go on if he loses at trial! I don't think I could take it.” Terror was in Keyshia's eyes as she pleaded on bended knees with Mrs. Barker. Keyshia looked for a sign from her, but she continued to stare blankly and remained silent. All hope was lost, and Keyshia squeezed her hand and cried as if life would surely end.

But then she looked up, and what she saw amazed her.