Identity- Lost Read online

  CHAPTER 22

  Those first years of living in Arizona led James down a path of secluded isolation and despairing loneliness. As a result, he withdrew deeper and deeper inside himself. James knew he was different from any of his classmates. Not only was he in witness protection, making his true identity lost, but he was black.

  Maricopa County had a black population of less than 50,000—barely 3 percent of the country’s population—James discovered doing research for a school report he titled, “Black Folks in the Valley of the Sun.” He had done the paper as a freshman at Chaparral High School in 1977. His research also told him that by contrast Chicago alone was 20 percent black at that same time, equating to almost 1.5 million blacks in the greater Chicago-land area. No wonder James felt like a fish out of water in Arizona.

  Nor was it any better for the rest of his family. The Overstreet parents had started fighting back in Chicago well before they left their apartment on Ellis Avenue for the suburban safe house. By the time they had settled in their austere home on Caldera Drive in Fountain Hills, Earl and Eva fought nearly every day. The arguments had first become violent when the prosecution team from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office started to lose the murder case against Pick and his gang.

  “Stupid goddamn lawyers,” James had heard his father shout one day from behind a closed bedroom door where he and Eva had gone to take a phone call from ASA Ron Spencer. This particular fight ensued after the defense had blasted lead Homicide Investigator Edward Hanley’s testimony earlier that day in court, concerning his interpretation and description of the escape route of the alleged offenders. The defense lawyer had pointed out how Hanley’s testimony clearly contradicted the version of the prosecution’s own eyewitness—their son, James.

  “You’ve hung my son out there like a fool,” Earl had protested to Spencer on the phone after the day’s court proceedings. “You might as well have given those gang bangers the goddamn rope to lynch him.”

  Eva then expressed her displeasure to Spencer on the phone that the Chicago police had blown the case by never taking James to the scene of the crime and by the police assuming their boy must have been mistaken about the path the killers took after the attack on Fleischman.

  “How could you be so goddamn stupid?” she screamed, her voice coming through the bedroom door.

  James was more shocked, though, at the intensity of the couple’s ensuing arguments and distressed at the constant tension between his parents. During the whole ordeal, James watched his doting mother change into a bitter, uncaring woman. Just as often, he had asked himself the very same questions that she had asked about Chicago PD’s handling of the investigation. James knew Burnham Park better than the police did, she kept saying. He knew every bike path, every park bench, every water fountain, and every entrance to the park between 31st and 55th Streets.

  How could they have screwed this up? he too had wondered.

  From that point forward, the trial, the marriage, and the Overstreet family deteriorated. Once the judge said “not guilty on all counts,” James knew, even at his young age, that something was terribly wrong with the judicial system—a system that could let murderers like Pick and his gang go free. The way he saw it: the gang’s lawyers were smarter than his lawyers.

  He had told the truth. He had volunteered to come forward. He had done the very two things his father had always preached to him he must do in life: tell the truth and never be afraid.

  He had testified against one of the most feared gangs in his neighborhood. Now there would be no way he would ever be safe again in Bronzeville nor in any of the surrounding neighborhoods the gangs controlled. If there was one thing that was certain, it was the gang’s determination to extract retribution for those who turned against them. And, it didn’t matter how long it took. Popping James Overstreet, or anyone in his family—already attempted that day in Hubbard’s Cave during their van ride to O’Hare Airport—would be not a matter of if, but when.

  As he struggled to adjust to life in Arizona, James gravitated toward his favorite sport—baseball. He played on his Little League team in Fountain Hills and then later played ball for the Chaparral High baseball team—the Firebirds. After high school graduation, James chose to attend Arizona State University and commuted there for his four undergrad years. James’s higher education was on the government’s dime since one of the promises made to Earl and Eva after the family was placed into witness protection had been that their children could attend the university in Tempe, Arizona, free of charge, for both undergraduate and graduate degrees.

  James would one day try to walk onto the ASU Sun Devils baseball squad but wouldn’t make the team. He dearly loved the game his father and Manny Fleischman had taught him so much about that he stayed on as an equipment manager. The job enabled him to be around a wide range of different people, something the witness protection folks had always discouraged. They constantly warned his family not to join social groups, since membership would risk exposure. For years, James and his family maintained the lowest of profiles, greatly exaggerating their isolation.

  To insure the family’s compliance, witness protection authorities had always kept a distant but close eye on them and would visit them at irregular intervals. An unassuming, four-door sedan would pull up in front of their house on Caldera Drive and a lone man would get out. He would stride up the family’s walk and ring their doorbell. The man made himself especially conspicuous when he visited, dressing in dark, long-sleeved clothing even on 110 degree days. Sometimes he’d come on a school holiday, James recalled, like Lincoln’s Birthday or Memorial Day, because the children always seemed to be home when the frequent, unannounced visits occurred.

  “Ma’am,” the gentleman would begin, tipping his hat when Eva opened the door. “How are you and your fine family doing today?”

  She would answer “Doin’ okay” or “All right” or some other emotionless, terse answer, standing in the doorway, one hand resting on her hip, the other propped up against the doorjamb like a nightclub bouncer.

  “Well, you just call our twenty-four-hour emergency number if you need anything. Okay, ma’am?”

  He’d always make sure to hand her his card. She’d oblige him by taking it and he’d tip his hat once more. Then he’d be on his way, as quickly as he’d appeared, not to be seen until the next surprise visit.

  “Momma, what’s this one say?” James would ask.

  “Here, look for yourself,” she would answer, passing it to him and walking away, waving her arm in the air. “Put it with the others when you’re done with it.”

  This visitor’s card had read:

  SCOTT SANDSTORM

  Adobe Air Conditioning

  Serving the Valley of the Sun for Over Three Years

  24-Hour Emergency Number

  602-555-9999

  As directed by his mother, James would then stick the card to the left of the door, against the jamb. There it joined about a dozen other similar cards, most fading from the length of time they’d been stuck there without ever being pulled out again. All were on white, heavy cardstock imprinted with slightly raised letters in thick, black ink. Each, though, had a different company name, such as “Valley Sun Screens” or “Desert Landscaping” or “Agave Pool Cleaning” or some other similar-sounding, innocuous Arizona-like business name. Yet, every card had Scott Sandstorm’s name and the same identical phone number on it.

  “Why do they always use a different company but the same guy’s name and phone number?” James wondered his thought aloud so his momma could hear him.

  “Damned if I know,” she’d answer, shaking her head. Then she’d always end by saying, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

  Why do we have to stay in witness protection? Why would anyone still want to come after my family or me? James would ask himself. Who in the hell was going to travel from Chicago to Arizona even if Pick and his gang knew where I was? And who could ever find us in this godforsaken place?

 
; Another sad memory James had was when the entire family went to see a school play in which James’s little sister had a part. Eva had insisted that the family sit in the empty first row in the auditorium. But Earl argued with her, telling her they’d be “too exposed” in front of such a large crowd.

  “Who in the hell is going to recognize us, Earl? Do you see any other black folks from Chicago other than our family here?” Eva waved her arm around the room, bringing attention to herself and her family as she raised her voice to her husband.

  James watched as his parents argued over where they should sit before he blurted out, “Why don’t we all just sit in the middle like everyone else?”

  The boy’s simple yet poignant request quickly put a halt to his parent’s embarrassing actions in front of his classmates, and the family quietly took the center seats.

  As the years went on, these constant eruptions diminished into complete silence between his parents. James knew everyone in his family hated the situation they had been thrust into as a result of his coming forward as a witness to Manny Fleischman’s murder. He could feel and sympathize with their pain even though the final result of their feelings of anger, loneliness, separation, and desperation would be to shun their brother.

  ELEVEN YEARS LATER: AUGUST 13, 1986

  Through the ensuing years, James’s own rage grew, not knowing whom to hate. But he had buried the pain and the anger in a very deep place within his heart.

  Graduating with honors from Arizona State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology, he applied to the university’s fledgling law school. If he could become a lawyer, he thought, then maybe he could prevent what happened to him from ever again happening to anybody. James knew he wanted to be a lawyer from the day Cook County Juvenile Court Judge Cecil B. Parsons found Monroe “Pick” Clarke and his four fellow gangbangers not guilty of the murder of Manny Fleischman. He hated what had occurred to him and his family, forcing them to leave their home in Chicago for their own protection. He hated the fact that his parents had continuously fought about his fateful decision to go to the police station and tell Detectives Hanley and Boscorelli about the tragic event he witnessed in Burnham Park.

  By the time James started his second year at ASU School of Law in the late summer of 1986, he was one of less than a literal handful of blacks enrolled in the young school. Being black, he was admitted under a cloud of assumption and innuendo by fellow students as well as by some faculty and staff. The doubters believed he received some type of special treatment for admittance, perhaps benefiting from an assumed lowering of the qualifications due to the government mandate for equal opportunity.

  To answer the critics and skeptics, James plunged into his studies with an unrelenting tenacity. Even before law school, he placed at the top in every class. But it was during his pursuit of his Juris Doctor where he’d excel. In moot court—where skills in oral advocacy and brief writing are first honed—his efforts were unrivaled. Unflinchingly, he dealt a deft blow to every opponent in his opening remarks, setting a tone from which they never recovered. The preparation of his legal briefs and his organizational skills proved flawless. His unending research for the mock cases turned over every possible stone. He always looked for historical precedents in his student cases, looking to the past to see who had similar cases to his. He relied upon precedent and studied what approach was taken there and, most importantly, whether it failed or succeeded.

  Especially adroit at thinking on his feet, James became a superb listener. Candid about his ignorance of things he didn’t know or understand, he welcomed questions from fellow students. To the chagrin of his opponents, though, he many times used this ignorance to his advantage by transitioning answers to his questions into brilliant insights or questions of his own, weaving them seamlessly into his own oral argument.

  However, more than anything, his persuasive style revealed a deep sense of conviction to his case and to his client—a confidence and a fervor opponents found impossible to overcome. His eye contact with the bench, along with his posture and gestures, mesmerized all who watched him. His precise vocabulary and punctuation, both written and oral, left most opponents and all who observed him in action with the feeling that he had been Harvard trained rather than ASU schooled. This perception would follow him throughout his career. Learning the law consumed the former James Overstreet, but what ultimately drove him to greatness would be his unending desire to find justice for his client.

  If he did have a flaw, it may have been his arrogance, which could consume him as he arduously pursued his case. He was prone to summarily dismiss those who weren’t on his intellectual level by jumping into black, Chicago street slang to make his point—usually under his breath or out of earshot of opposing counsel and the bench. In one particularly exciting collegiate moot court competition, his assignment was to argue the merits of overriding the protection of double jeopardy. As preparation, James buried himself in pages upon pages of court cases where the double jeopardy provision took effect, looking for a way to legally challenge and overturn one of the most basic tenets of the judicial system founded in the Bill of Rights.

  His passion to win, even in a no-win situation such as double jeopardy, brought admiration not only from his law professors but from fellow students. In the mock case, James truly believed he had found a loophole, but when the judge questioned the validity of his argument based upon Fifth Amendment protection, eventually ruling against him, James openly scoffed at the moot court judge’s decision. Fortunately for the young law student, his guttural, street-like utterances occurred out of earshot of the professor presiding over that day’s moot court proceedings. The bench never heard James mutter under his breath, “You’re a silly-assed mother-fuckin’ fool.”

  PART THREE

  PIECING IT TOGETHER

  CHAPTER 23

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2005

  Sitting at his desk a few hours later back in his downtown Phoenix office, Stan Kobe tried to comprehend how he felt after seeing Turner and DeSadier earlier that morning at the Maricopa County Fourth Avenue Jail. As his mind raced, the phone rang. The quick double ring indicated it was an interoffice call. The caller ID display on his telephone read: THOMAS, A.

  Shit. He’s probably heard what I did.

  Stan picked up the phone and answered, “Stan Kobe.”

  “Hey, Stan. Got a minute? I need to discuss something with you.”

  “Sure. Be right there.”

  As Stan hung up, he pulled on each his fingers, cracking the knuckles. They popped loudly as he jerked every joint. A nervous habit he had since childhood, he remembered how his mother hated when he did it, moving methodically from index finger down to pinky. The panicky tick helped distract him from his current worry as to why the big boss wanted to see him. Andrew Thomas, head Maricopa County attorney, only called staff to his office for bad news. Since there were 126 capital cases on the docket, he easily could have been calling Stan to talk about any one of those. But as Stan took the one-minute walk down to Thomas’s office, his instinct told him the head honcho wanted to talk about the two Chicago gang members being held in their custody at the Fourth Avenue Jail.

  “Come in. Come in,” Thomas mouthed to him as he cupped the mouthpiece to the phone he held up to his ear. Thomas motioned with a couple quick tilts of his head for Stan to enter and at the same time pointed to one of the two chairs in front of his desk.

  “Okay, Governor. Yes. No problem. I understand,” Thomas said as he spoke into the phone. “Yes. I understand it’s a matter of homeland security, too. Yes. We’ll make sure it happens. Certainly. Thank you.”

  Thomas hung up. Sitting now, Stan looked him in the eye from across the desk and nervously waited for Thomas to speak.

  “I guess you gathered that was the queen bee,” Thomas said.

  Stan nodded.

  “I don’t like to get calls from her. You know that, right?”

  Stan repeated his nod. He knew Thomas and Arizona Go
vernor Janet Napolitano, political adversaries, rarely spoke.

  “She was calling about those two guys arrested on the Gila Reservation we’re holding over at the 4th Avenue Jail. She wants me to charge them immediately and send them to trial before Illinois moves extradition papers to get them back.”

  “We’ll have to wait on that, boss. They’ve been picked up already. The Gila Rez police has ‘em.”

  Thomas rubbed his chin a few times before leaning forward in his leather chair. He looked Stan in the eye. “Why does Gila have them? Who authorized moving them there?”

  “I did. The tribal police called me and wanted them back, especially since they were caught on the reservation.” Stan hoped his weak excuse would deter further questioning.

  “Really?” Thomas paused before continuing. “Tom Terry tells me he got a call from Detective Hanley down in Chandler. Hanley told him these guys spooked you over at the jail. Is that true?”

  Stan couldn’t believe Brian had called and reported this to Terry, the charging attorney in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. Beyond the fact that he went over Stan’s head, he felt blindsided by his best friend’s betrayal, wondering why he would do such a thing.

  “Hanley’s a cop, not a prosecutor. You want him to try your case?” Stan snapped. He realized this was probably not the best choice of words when speaking with the chief county attorney, but it was too late to reel them back in. If the next words out of Thomas’s mouth were, “You’re fired!” Stan wouldn’t have been surprised.

  “For the moment, I’ll ignore your last remark, Stan. In the meantime, the governor is about to announce a new statewide effort to prevent the smuggling of various types of contraband back and forth across the border. She especially wants us to go after the heavily organized groups conspiring to do this. What the governor asked me—no—what the governor told me during that phone call just now is that she wants this office to prosecute these two guys, and she wants our best, you, handling it.”