Arnold Hayward

Arnold Hayward is the lawyer representing Fonny in his effort to challenge the rape case that has kept him in prison. Through Hayward, the novel brings legal procedure into the family’s daily life: meetings, witness searches, money, restricted access, and delay all shape what the family can hope to do. His advocacy is committed, but he does not disguise how little control he has over the process.

Identity and Introduction

Hayward is found for Tish through a settlement house that has had to deal with lawyers. When Tish and Sharon Rivers meet him at his office on a Monday evening, he is about thirty-seven by Tish’s estimate, very tall and large, with gentle brown eyes and thinning brown hair. He stands to greet them, seats Sharon in a large chair and Tish in a smaller one, then sits behind his desk.

Tish finds him difficult to feel comfortable with, though she recognizes that her unease may come from the strain of the situation rather than from anything Hayward has done. She is not comfortable with anyone at this point, and a lawyer is no exception. That guarded first impression persists alongside her dependence on his work: she fears that criticizing him could mean having to find another lawyer, who might be worse.

Counsel to Fonny and His Family

At their meeting, Hayward asks how Fonny is doing. Tish initially experiences the question as almost foolish: Fonny is in prison and trying to endure it. She also understands that his condition matters to the case and that Hayward needs to know what life in prison is doing to him. Her answer is that he hates being there but is trying not to let it break him. Sharon asks when they can get him out, making plain that the legal question is inseparable from the family’s longing for his return.

Hayward tells them he is doing all he can to get Fonny back as quickly as possible. He also acknowledges the family’s attachment: Sharon explains that they liked having Fonny around and miss him. The reassurance does not amount to a promise of release. Hayward identifies the refusal of Victoria Rogers to reconsider her testimony as the greatest obstacle, then adds that she has disappeared. His explanation makes the family’s hopes contingent on locating a witness as well as challenging the existing case.

Strategy and Legal Obstacles

Hayward tells Tish that the truth of a case does not matter; what matters is who wins. He clarifies that he believes Fonny is innocent and would not have taken the case otherwise. He says he knows Officer Bell is racist and a liar, and that he has said so to Bell directly. In his assessment, the District Attorney’s Office is worse.

The defense account depends in part on Tish and Fonny having been together in the Bank Street room with their old friend Daniel Carty. Hayward warns that Tish and Fonny’s testimony counts for nothing in the case as he sees it. Daniel, meanwhile, has been arrested by the District Attorney’s Office and is being held incommunicado; Hayward says he has not been permitted to see him. He considers this treatment unlawful and believes the authorities intend to pressure Daniel to change his testimony, particularly because Daniel has a record. Hayward presents that pressure as his assessment, not as something he can prove, and suspects it may also explain Victoria Rogers’s disappearance.

Finding Victoria would require special investigators, and Hayward makes clear that this means additional expense. Sharon immediately recognizes the consequence for the family’s finances. Hayward’s sorrowful response does not remove that barrier: the effort to pursue the witness is entangled with the family’s ability to pay for it.

Delay, Work, and Narrative Significance

Hayward frames the immediate task as trying to buy time. For Tish, that phrase opens onto the lived cost of delay: Fonny is doing time in prison while their baby is expected in six months. His incarceration and the pregnancy advance together, so every postponement consumes a portion of their shared future. Hayward is not the cause of that delay, but his meetings and explanations reveal how the legal case makes time itself a condition the family must endure.

When the prosecution’s principal witness can no longer be found, the case’s prospects shift, but not into certainty. Daniel remains a possible source of support for the defense, yet the family cannot see him or even know where to look. He has been transferred to an upstate prison, and Hayward is checking on the transfer and remains on the case. The family plans to ask for the charge to be dropped and the case dismissed, while preparing to settle for bail if the state agrees and they can raise the money. Hayward’s role is thus neither that of a triumphant rescuer nor a detached functionary: he is a working advocate whose efforts are real, but whose options are narrowed by witness disappearance, restricted access, cost, and the prosecution’s control of the process.