Sing Prison is situated at the town of Ossining, thirty miles upstate of Manhattan on the east bank of the Hudson River, overlooking the Tappan Zee and Haverstraw Bay.
Jennifer went up by bus. She had telephoned the assistant warden and he had made arrangements for her to see Abraham Wilson, who was being held in solitary confinement.
During the bus ride, Jennifer was filled with a sense of purpose she had not felt in a long time. She was on her way to Sing Sing to meet a possible client charged with murder. This was the kind of case she had studied for, prepared herself for. She felt like a lawyer for the first time in a year, and yet she knew she was being unrealistic. She was not on her way to see a client. She was on her way to tell a man she could not represent him. She could not afford to become involved in a highly publicized case that she had no chance of winning.
Abraham Wilson would have to find someone else to defend him.
A dilapidated taxi took Jennifer from the bus station to the penitentiary, situated on seventy acres of land near the river. Jennifer rang the bell at the side entrance and a guard opened the door, checked off her name against his list, and directed her to the assistant warden’s office.
The assistant warden was a large, square man with an old-fashioned military haircut and an acne-pitted face. His name was Howard Patterson.
‘I would appreciate anything you can tell me about Abraham Wilson,’ Jennifer began.
‘If you’re looking for comfort, you’re not going to get it here.’ Patterson glanced at the dossier on the desk in front of him. ‘Wilson’s been in and out of prisons all his life. He was caught stealing cars when he was eleven, arrested on a mugging charge when he was thirteen, picked up for rape when he was fifteen, became a pimp at eighteen, served a sentence for putting one of his girls in the hospital …’ He leafed through the dossier. ‘You name it – stabbings, armed robbery and finally the big time – murder.’
It was a depressing recital.
Jennifer asked, ‘Is there any chance that Abraham Wilson didn’t kill Raymond Thorpe?’
‘Forget it. Wilson’s the first to admit it, but it wouldn’t make any difference even if he denied it. We’ve got a hundred and twenty witnesses.’
‘May I see Mr Wilson?’
Howard Patterson rose to his feet. ‘Sure, but you’re wasting your time.’
Abraham Wilson was the ugliest human being Jennifer Parker had ever seen. He was coal-black, with a nose that had been broken in several places, missing front teeth and tiny, shifty eyes set in a knife-scarred face. He was about six feet four inches and powerfully built. He had huge flat feet which made him lumber. If Jennifer had searched for one word to describe Abraham Wilson, it would have been menacing. She could imagine the effect this man would have on a jury.
Abraham Wilson and Jennifer were seated in a high-security visiting room, a thick wire mesh between them, a guard standing at the door. Wilson had just been taken out of solitary confinement and his beady eyes kept blinking against the light. If Jennifer had come to this meeting feeling she would probably not want to handle this case, after seeing Abraham Wilson she was positive. Merely sitting opposite him she could feel the hatred spewing out of the man.
Jennifer opened the conversation by saying, ‘My name is Jennifer Parker. I’m an attorney. Father Ryan asked me to see you.’
Abraham Wilson spat through the screen, spraying Jennifer with saliva. ‘That mothafuckin’ do-gooder.’
It’s a wonderful beginning, Jennifer thought. She carefully refrained from wiping the saliva from her face. ‘Is there anything you need here, Mr Wilson?’
He gave her a toothless smile. ‘A piece of ass, baby. You innersted?’
She ignored that. ‘Do you want to tell me what happened?’
‘Hey, you lookin’ for my life story, you gotta pay me for it. I gonna sell it for da movin’ pitchurs. Maybe I’ll star in it mysef.’
The anger coming out of him was frightening. All Jennifer wanted was to get out of there. The assistant warden had been right. She was wasting her time.
‘I’m afraid there’s really nothing I can do to help you unless you help me, Mr Wilson. I promised Father Ryan I would at least come and talk to you.’
Abraham Wilson gave her a toothless grin again. ‘That’s mighty white of ya, sweetheart. Ya sure ya don’t wanna change your mind ’bout that piece of ass?’
Jennifer rose to her feet. She had had enough. ‘Do you hate everybody?’
‘Tell ya what, doll, you crawl inta my skin and I’ll crawl inta yours, and then you’n me’ll rap ’bout hate.’
Jennifer stood there, looking into that ugly black face, digesting what he had said, and then she slowly sat down. ‘Do you want to tell me your side of the story, Abraham?’
He stared into her eyes, saying nothing. Jennifer waited, watching him, wondering what it must be like to wear that scarred black skin. She wondered how many scars were hidden inside the man.
The two of them sat there in a long silence. Finally, Abraham Wilson said, ‘I killed the somabitch.’
‘Why did you kill him?’
He shrugged. ‘The motha’ was comin’ at me with this great big butcher knife, and –’
‘Don’t con me. Prisoners don’t walk around carrying butcher knives.’
Wilson’s face tightened and he said, ‘Get the fuck outa here, lady. I din’t sen’ for ya.’ He rose to his feet. ‘An’ don’t come round heah botherin’ me no more, you heah? I’m a busy man.’
He turned and walked over to the guard. A moment later they were both gone. That was that. Jennifer could at least tell Father Ryan that she had talked to the man. There was nothing further she could do.
A guard let Jennifer out of the building. She started across the courtyard toward the main gate, thinking about Abraham Wilson and her reaction to him. She disliked the man and, because of that, she was doing something she had no right to do: She was judging him. She had already pronounced him guilty and he had not yet had a trial. Perhaps someone had attacked him, not with a knife, of course, but with a rock or a brick. Jennifer stopped and stood there indecisively. Every instinct told her to go back to Manhattan and forget about Abraham Wilson.
Jennifer turned and walked back to the assistant warden’s office.
‘He’s a hard case,’ Howard Patterson said. ‘When we can, we try rehabilitation instead of punishment, but Abraham Wilson’s too far gone. The only thing that will calm him down is the electric chair.’
What a weird piece of logic, Jennifer thought. ‘He told me the man he killed attacked him with a butcher knife.’
‘I guess that’s possible.’
The answer startled her. ‘What do you mean, ‘that’s possible’? Are you saying a convict in here could get possession of a knife? A butcher knife?’
Howard Patterson shrugged. ‘Miss Parker, we have twelve hundred and forty convicts in this place, and some of them are men of great ingenuity. Come on. I’ll show you something.’
Patterson led Jennifer down a long corridor to a locked door. He selected a key from a large keyring, opened the door and turned on the light. Jennifer followed him into a small, bare room with built-in shelves.
‘This is where we keep the prisoners’ box of goodies.’ He walked over to a large box and lifted the lid.
Jennifer stared down into the box unbelievingly.
She looked up at Howard Patterson and said, ‘I want to see my client again.’