Part 4: Trial & Aftermath
NYPD arrests Jesus; interrogation by Detective Mueller; transport to county jail; near-constant hallucinations; attorney Kelly advises insanity plea.
“Open up! NYPD!” Shouted a forceful voice from behind the door. Completely taken off guard, Jesus complied without thinking, opening the door to be met with a bull rush of brute force. The officer, a burly young man hardened by The Streets of New York, folded Jesus in half and slammed him against the wall. Not a full minute later, the rest of his apartment was cleared by a breach team, and a recently fired .357 magnum was recovered inside of his bathroom.
Fifteen minutes after the anonymous phone call was placed from a payphone only a ten minute walk from Jesus’ apartment. The team had showed up at his apartment shortly after under the indication of probable cause. The case was a priority. Leroy was a big fish, and with any aquatic life of similar size, there was bound to be bottom feeders. Leroy going down represented a whole slew of problems for people that shined their shoes, and people that invested in money counters alike.
“Who else is here?!” A faceless man shouted, pinning Jesus up against the wall, his left arm painfully bent against his back.
“No- no one,” Jesus stuttered.
“Where is it?!” The man screamed in Jesus’ ear, spittle flying onto his cheek.
“The money! Where is the money?!”
“There- there is no money. I mean I have a wallet with-”
“Bullshit!” The grip on his arm tightened and pushed his hand farther up his back. Jesus cried, pain exploding in his shoulder an inch away from popping out of socket.
“Where the fuck is it?! Don’t play stupid with me.”
“I don’t have any, please, I’m Innocent. I haven’t done anything!” Jesus said.
“Where are the drugs?!” The officer screamed. He sounded like a drill sergeant, only inches away from Jesus’ ear.
“There some weed in the cupboard,” Jesus said. Before he was even done talking, his entire kitchen was being torn apart, every drawer and shelf hastily ransacked.
“We got about half a gram of shake here,” Reported a voice. Jesus’ nose was pressed against the wall. He had no idea which of the officers had said it.
“Where’s the rest of it?” Demanded his captor.
“There is no more. That’s it,” Jesus said. His shoulder felt like it had been dislocated. His heart was beating double barrel into his ears like a kick drum. “Please, I didn’t do anything! I don’t know what this is about!”
“You can tell that to the judge downtown. Pack it up boys, let’s get out of here.”
They put Jesus in a small room, empty except for the two chairs and a table in the center. He was left there for hours- difficult to judge how long because there was not a clock or any instrument to estimate time by. After what seemed like a small nerve-wracking eternity, a clean shaven man in his early thirties with a green checkered tie and pasty white skin entered the room and sat down in the empty chair.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr … Castillo? Am I pronouncing that correctly?”
“Yes, you are,” Jesus replied, nodding.
The man set a manila folder of documents down on the table along with a note pad. “My name is detective Mueller. I just want to ask you a few questions, then hopefully we can both be on our way,”
He said in a friendly, forward tone.
“All right, sounds good,” Jesus replied.
“What did you do yesterday?” He asked.
“Well, I lost my job in the morning, went home, and had a talk with my girlfriend. I guess my ex-girlfriend now, then I stayed at the apartment for the rest of the day.”
“I see,” Mueller said, “Where was it that you worked before you were let go?”
“The Ridgeland Post.”
“That’s where I know you from! I read your column. Can’t believe they’d fire you. Your column is great,” Said Mueller, suddenly enthusiastic.
“They found a better writer,” Jesus said. He hadn’t much time to reflect on the loss of his job, but he suspected that Richard Baxter wasn’t the sole source of his woes.
“Sorry to hear that, Mr. Castillo. Now, if I remember correctly, The Ridgeland Post’s offices are located across the street from a bar. I can’t quite remember the name … ”
“The Rooster,” Jesus answered.
“That’s the place. So you know it?”
“Yeah, I know it. Why?”
The detective scribbled something in his notepad and continued.
“Do you know a man named Leroy White?”
“Yeah, I know Leroy.”
“What was the nature of your relationship with Mr. White?” Mueller asked.
Who can you trust?
“He was your enemy,” Said a harsh, spiteful voice in Jesus’ ear.
“Leroy says, Leroy says, Leroy says … ”
Who can I trust?
“Leroy Says, Leroy says, Leroy says.”
“Sir, do I need to repeat the question?” Mueller said loudly. Jesus focused on his voice.
“No, that’s fine. He was just an acquaintance,” Jesus said.
“You took some time with that answer. Are you sure there’s not more you’d like to say?” Asked Mueller.
“I get headaches sometimes. Sorry about that. And no, I know him in passing … as a friend of a friend,” Jesus said, picking his words carefully.
The detective seemed to buy it. “Did you visit The Rooster at all yesterday?”
“No,” Jesus said.
“Even in passing? Walking by after work, maybe?”
“No, I went straight home.”
“Are you sure you didn’t, say, walk past the stairs that lead down to the bar?” Mueller asked.
Who am I?
“No, I went straight home,” Jesus answered.
“Did you have any sort of problem with Leroy?” Mueller asked.
Who can I trust?
“Not really. He never did anything to me.”
“What do you mean, ‘to me’?” Mueller asked.
“Leroy was a businessman. I’m sure he had enemies. I wasn’t one of them.”
Mueller wrote something else in his notepad.
“I want to ask you a few questions about Andrea.”
Who am I?
“What do you want to know?”
“What was the nature of your relationship?”
“We were dating recently,” Jesus said, “We broke up yesterday.”
“Are you aware that Andrea and Leroy were also dating?”
Jesus’ heart sank into his stomach.
Don’t react. He wants to see you react.
“No, I wasn’t aware of that.”
“You said a moment ago that you had no problems with Mr. White, is that still true?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try and answer the question,” The detective said, leaning in. Jesus could feel ten sets of eyes on him.
“Tell him! Tell him you killed the mother fucker!”
“Don’t tell him anything.”
“You can trust him.”
“Leroy says, Leroy says, Leroy says … ” Sang Andrea over the other voices in his head. He shook them off.
“You’re not real,” He told them. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
“Excuse me?” Said the detective, confused.
“Oh, sorry, it’s nothing. My headaches,” Jesus said.
The detective narrowed his eyes. “How long have you had these headaches?”
“More than a year, I guess.”
“You guess.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Said Jesus.
“Try to be more exact. I use exact data,” The detective said.
“I burned it all down,” Said Rodrigo.
“I can’t be more specific than that.”
The detective pursed his lips and stared at Jesus, waiting for an answer. A beat passed.
“Let’s move on,” He said, and produced a photograph of a handgun from the manila envelope.
“This is a .357 magnum, the same type of gun that was used to kill Leroy early yesterday evening. Do you recognize the weapon?”
Jesus recognized it. It was his.
“This is your home protection policy,” Said Alverez.
“I’m sorry, you said Leroy was killed yesterday?”
“Don’t play stupid with me, Mr. Castillo,” The detective said, changing to a darker, more assertive tone, “We all know why you’re here. Now it’s time to fess up,” He said.
“There are things we can do to make it easier for you if you just tell the truth,” He said.
“I am telling the truth,” Jesus said, “I don’t know anything about Leroy dying, murder or not, and I was not at that Rooster yesterday, and I want to talk to a lawyer.”
“You can’t talk to a lawyer right now.”
“Like hell I can’t. I’ll wait.”
The detective stood up. “Thank you, Mr. Castillo. If there’s anything else you want to tell us, please be forthcoming. It will be much easier for us both that way,” The detective left the room. What felt like half an hour later, an officer came into the room and escorted Jesus to a holding cell with four other detainees. The two youngest black guys were talking animatedly, while the other two, an older black man and a young-looking mixed-race man covered in tattoos, stayed silent. Nobody tried to talk to Jesus, and Jesus didn’t talk to anybody. An hour or two later, the door opened and led in another man.
Some time later, officers came and put everyone on a bus.
“We’re going on to New York County. Yes sir, going home,” The older man told him. Sure enough, the bus pulled into a huge compound surrounded by fences and barbed wire, monitored from turrets by armed guards. It was a fortress with walls that faced inwards, housing some of the most dangerous criminals in the United States.
Jesus was made to wait in a holding cell, then transferred to another holding cell, and to another, spending uncountable hours in each one. It was grueling, and Jesus was already exhausted. Cases of severe mental illness mixed with thugs, a melting pot of the worst society had to offer. Finally, Jesus was led in front of an overweight woman who asked him a series of questions like, “Have you been to jail before?” and, “Are you gay, or dress in women’s clothes?” and, “Do you take medicine on the outside?”
They assigned him a number, strip searched him, made him squat and cough, and tossed him a jumpsuit and a roll of toilet paper. It was well past midnight when Jesus finally found himself in a large, open pod with rows of bunk beds, numbered. He was directed to a top bunk in the center of the room.
Despite being exhausted, the freezing cold of New York winter, unhindered by the jail’s walls, and the insatiable yelling and hollering that persisted through the night made his night restless and fitful. Just as he finally drifted off to sleep, he was woken up for a barely palatable breakfast of oatmeal and something that might have passed as eggs. It was terrible, but Jesus ate readily and fell deeply asleep afterwards.
Finally, the room quieted down until the morning, which was only a couple hours away.
Jesus began to learn the rules of New York County: Who to talk to, who not to talk to, which bathroom stalls to use, when to take showers, how to trade for better food, how to get more clothes, and how the court system worked. He was issued a public defender who met with him barely a week after he arrived at county.
“Hello, my name is Robert Kelly. I’m your court appointed attorney,” The man said.
Who can I trust?
Jesus instinctively looked around, gauging the situation and its possible threats. County had sharpened him, reawakening his animalistic survival instincts. His mental illness had begun to worsen.
The voices were almost constant now. Some angry, some calm. Some helpful, some lying. He tried to block them out. He was in a rectangular room with rows of small circular tables facing the man.
This must be where they do visitations.
Jesus hadn’t had a visitor, nor had he talked to anyone on the outside since he’d arrived there. He hoped to get in contact with Winston, but even that would be risky. Who knows where Winston’s loyalties lay.
Who can I trust?
Jesus studied the man in front of him. A cheap suit, round glasses, the stubble of a five ‘O clock shadow. He looked the part of who he was presenting himself as. Jesus looked directly into the man’s eyes, testing his resolve. Instead of looking away, he began on his spiel.
“My job is to represent you in court and ensure that you get the best possible chance at a good sentence, if convicted,” Kelly said. He spoke in a Brooklyn accent.
Must be a native.
“Okay,” Said Jesus.
“First, I need you to sign some forms confirming that I will represent you in front of a criminal court. Because this is a murder case, it will pass over general sessions. Once you sign, all of our communications will be confidential,” The man handed him a paper. Jesus looked it over. It appeared to be a contract of representation. Standard boiler plate legal mumbo-jumbo. Jesus signed it and returned it to Kelly, who briefly reviewed his signatures.
“Now, I need you to tell me exactly what happened, what really happened,” He said. Jesus told him exactly what he had told the detective. Kelly didn’t look pleased. “It’s important that you’re honest with me so I can help you to the greatest extent of my abilities. We have a confidentiality agreement, which you just signed, so you can tell me what really happened.”
“That is what really happened. I didn’t kill Leroy. I was at home the entire time,” Jesus said, but as he said it, he began to doubt his own words.
Who can I trust? Maybe not even myself.
“There is one thing,” Jesus said, “Sometimes I hear voices. Sometimes I see things that aren’t there.”
“You fool! Now he knows.”
“Maybe he can help.”
“That’s good. So maybe you killed him, but didn’t do it knowingly,” The lawyer said.
“I’m not saying I killed anyone.”
“Look, they have your gun. They’re going to take this to trial, and they’re going to get a conviction. Your boy Leroy was a very well-connected guy. This little incident made a lot of noise.
They’ll be trying to play hardball. They might seek a life sentence. Now, I’m going to help you, but I’m not a miracle worker. You have no alibi, and I’ll tell you something: if I was a betting man, which I’m not, but if I was, when they get the ballistics back on that gun that you happened to buy a couple days ago, they’re going to find a match with the ballistics from the crime scene. Like I said, I’m not a miracle worker. You got to give me something to work with. This, this voices thing is what we need. We can plead insanity with this one. We won’t be able to get you off, but maybe we can get you a significantly lower sentence.”
Jesus sat back and thought about what the lawyer had to say. It made sense from a legal perspective, but raised a troubling question. Had he really gone crazy and killed Leroy? Was he capable of totally breaking his grip on reality and doing something like that without even remembering? Could he trust his own memory?
“Okay,” Jesus said.
“Now tell me, when did the voices start?” Kelly asked.
“To answer that, I have to tell you about my life,” Jesus said.
“Alright, shoot,” Kelly said.
Jesus started from the beginning. “I’m from a small town in Mexico called Nueva Casa. One day we were playing soccer, and this guy called Rodrigo walked up … ”
Kelly listened intently to Jesus’ story, stopping him from time to time to ask clarifying questions as Jesus brought him up to speed on the chain of events that had led him out of Nueva Casa, through Baja Leai, and into New York, with a focus on The Rooster and the host of characters surrounding it, scrawling notes onto a book that lay in front of him. After he was done, Kelly asked him more questions centering on the time of the murder.
“Are you certain that there’s no one who can confirm where you were that day? A neighbor, perhaps?” He asked.
Jesus thought of Andrea, then shook his head.
“Well, I’ll give you some idea of what is going to happen. Normally, you would be given a bail hearing, but in this case, the judge has denied bail altogether. He did this because you’re considered a flight risk because you’re a foreigner. That, and the seriousness of your charges contributed to the judge’s decision,” He said. Then, he leaned in a little bit, “Between you and me, there’s an inside game going on here. Someone wants to see you put away for this, but it’s my job to make sure you have a fighting chance.”
Kelly straightened his back up and continued, “Your case will go in front of a grand jury, where you will be, no doubt, indicted. This can take a few months, during which time, you’ll be waiting in county. I wish there was something I could do to get you out of here. I’ve already filed a motion to appeal the judge’s decision not to issue a bond, but I doubt it will go anywhere. Usually those things are final.”
Jesus nodded, mentally following along.
“A month or so after that, you’ll get an arraignment, a formal reading of your charges. There, I can file for discovery so that we can begin seeing the state’s case against you and building our case. The state will most likely offer you a plea deal a couple months after the arraignment. At that time, we will be able to sit down and look at your options.”
“Do you think that you can get me off?” Jesus said. “I mean, I am innocent.”
“It doesn’t matter if you’re innocent or not, what matters is what we can prove in court, and right now it doesn’t look great,” He said.
“What I do feel confident about, however, is that we can work with the insanity angle, if you’re willing to work with that. I’ll have to do some research,” He began packing his items.
“When will we meet again?” Jesus asked.
“At the arraignment, if not before,” Kelly said, “In the meantime, do some thinking about what happened. Maybe there’s something you forgot that we can use.”