Eight in the Box (6 page)

CHAPTER 14

C
onnie sat at the far end of the conference room watching Andi
Norton as she practiced her opening statement. She faltered a few times, and whenever she paused she mumbled a deadening “um…” Still, he had to test her ability to concentrate under stressful conditions. Better for her to panic now than in front of the jury. Connie looked around the room—the bored juror routine. Andi stopped mid-sentence. From the corner of his eye he saw her scrambling to collect her thoughts, finally shaking her head in frustration. “What’s wrong?” he asked innocently.

“You know what’s wrong,” she hissed at him. “Why did you do that to me?”

“You need to focus on your case and nothing else. You can’t worry about what the jurors or the judge are doing. If someone comes into the courtroom during the trial, you don’t turn to see who it is, even if it’s the DA himself.”

“Connie, give me a break,” she said. “I’m not even a goddamn lawyer and I’m about to start a trial.” Her face flushed with intensity.

“I love the emotion you show, but you need to tone it down a bit or you’re going to turn the jurors off. This is a drug case, not a murder.”

“I’m so scared my hands are shaking.” She held her hands out for him. “Can you see that?”

He took her hands and gave them a gentle squeeze. “I can’t see it. And if I can’t see it standing this close to you, no one else can see it. How about some pointers to help calm you down? First, let’s talk about your case. This is a marijuana distribution case, right? The defendant sold a dime bag to an undercover cop, a misdemeanor. That’s not the crime of the century, is it?”

“No.”

“The defendant has no record, so even if you convict him, he’ll probably get probation. Correct?” He was asking her leading questions the same way he’d control a defense witness during a cross-examination.

“Correct.”

Her shoulders had loosened up and the redness in her face had mellowed.

He continued to hold her hands and looked into her eyes. “The way I see it, whatever happens, this case isn’t exactly Sacco and Vanzetti. I understand it’s tough standing up in front of a jury for the first time. What about the first time you did an arraignment or argued a motion in front of a judge?”

“I was nervous.”

“Do you still get the jitters when you argue a motion?”

“Nothing I can’t deal with.”

“Because you’ve gotten used to it. You realize that you know more law than some of the judges. The jury doesn’t know
anything
about the law. They know even less about the facts of your case. Aside from standing up in front of a bunch of strangers, you have nothing to be nervous about.”

“I’ll trust you on that,” she said, “because right now I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

“One more tip to get you into a rhythm at the beginning of the trial: Once the judge tells me I can begin my opening, I take a deep breath and a sip of water. I stand up and slowly push my chair back in to the table.” Connie demonstrated for her. “This little ritual—I know it doesn’t seem like much—gives me a second to pull my thoughts together. The jury is focused on me and nothing else in that courtroom. They’re watching me, and I’m performing some simple movements that I can’t screw up. They see how calm and poised I am, and I haven’t said a word yet.”

“Eventually you have to say something. That’s when I’m going to look like an idiot.”

“You’re not, because the next thing you’re going to do is introduce yourself and tell the jurors what your role is in the trial. Now, you’re talking, but you’re saying something familiar. You can’t mess it up. Before you know it, you’re talking to the jury. From that point on it’s simple: You tell them a story. You explain the facts of the case the same way you explained them to me a few minutes ago. Then you’re examining witnesses, doing a closing argument and the case is over, just like that.” Connie snapped his fingers. “Did you practice your opening and closing last night?”

“Yes, while I was lying in bed.”

“That’ll have to do for today, but from now on you should do it in front of the mirror or just stand in your apartment and imagine you’re in the courtroom. Pretend the couch is the jury box and the TV is the judge, that kind of thing. Either way is good, but I think the mirror works best when you’re first starting out. There’s nothing tougher than watching yourself talk into a mirror.”

“Now I feel like I’m going to screw up.”

“You’ll be fine for your opening. Just tell the story to the jury. The closing is more important. We can work on that at lunch. I’ll be second-seating you, anyway, so if you run into any problems, I’ll jump in. But you’re not going to run into any problems, are you?”

“No,” she said, smiling.

He nodded. “It’s only been a couple of years since I had my first trial, so I know how hard it is. The key is to jump in there and get started, because once you’re on your feet getting into
your
case—and remember, you’re the one that knows every little detail of it—you won’t have time to be nervous. We’re like actors waiting for our stage call. Once we hit the boards, you can’t hold us back.”

CHAPTER 15

“G
ood news!” Mooney shouted in Angel’s ear. Like many of the
pre–cell phone generation, Mooney shouted into the phone like he was talking to someone in the next room. “I’m at New Balance in Brighton. The irregulars are called factory seconds. This is the only place in the city that sells them. They’re pulling all their credit card sales for me.”

“What if he paid cash?”

“Then we get nothing. I’ll fax the list of names over to the office. Run their BOPs and Triple I them. Let’s see if anyone has a record instate or out.”

“How far back are they going? He could have bought the sneakers months ago.”

“The shoe is a model they put out last month.”

“What about security cameras?” Alves asked. “Do they video the register sales?”

“Yes. But they tape over them every couple of weeks. I need you to check with McCarthy’s credit card companies to see if she bought anything here. Same thing for Hayes. And call Walter McCarthy to see if he can meet me at the house again. Apologize for being such a pain in his ass. Tell him we’re looking for any receipts from New Balance. Maybe that’s where this guy locked onto her.”

“That’s a long shot, isn’t it, Sarge?”

“Everything’s a long shot at this point. Just fuckin’ do it,” Mooney snapped. “We need to look at every link we have to this guy. And tell McCarthy I’ll meet him at the house in an hour. I’ll catch up with you later to see how it’s going with the list.”

“Got it,” Alves said.

“Anything else?” Mooney asked.

“Yeah, some bad news. I heard back from the lab. There were no obvious extraneous hairs or fibers anywhere in the McCarthy house. The dryer vent didn’t turn up anything either. All they found was a lot of lint that’ll be impossible to sort through. No fabric or human cells on the jagged edges of the sheet-metal dryer vent cover. They’re going to keep sifting through the lint, but Eunice didn’t sound enthusiastic.”

Mooney grunted. “I’ll touch base with you later,” he said.

Alves caught the edge of disappointment and urgency in his sergeant’s voice. Mooney was in investigation overdrive. The man was under pressure, both from outside—the commissioner and the mayor—and from within. He seemed to be holding himself responsible for the murders. Angel thought—and not for the first time—that he would never be as driven as Mooney.

CHAPTER 16

T
he defense attorney was already an hour late. Connie was irritated,
but he could see that the long wait in the hall outside the trial session was starting to wear on Andi. She kept adjusting her hair, flipping it back, pulling it forward over her shoulder. The defense attorney was sure to get a lecture from Judge Davis for showing up late on trial day. Good enough for him. “Stay loose.” He touched her shoulder. “This could be a defense tactic to rattle you.”

“Connie.” He turned to see Brendan Sullivan. Brendan had been the rookie prosecutor in the office before Monica Hughes was hired. He had grown up on the streets of South Boston, a product of the D Street projects, one of the toughest public-housing developments in the city. A true Southie boy who had never left home except to go away to college. Connie admired his intelligence, his quick wit and his vicious sense of humor. And nobody put in more time working up a case than Brendan. Like everyone from Southie, Brendan was also politically connected. His influence was a direct line to the DA himself, and he made a point of letting everyone know that he couldn’t lose his job unless he got caught, as he liked to say, with a dead hooker in the trunk of his car.

“What’s up?” Connie said.

“You got a minute?” Brendan waved Connie away from Andi. “I’ve got a case with an old friend, Peter Fitzpatrick.”

Connie smiled. “The state senator’s son?”

“The one and only. We grew up together. Just joined his dad’s law firm. Wants to make a name for himself, impress the old man. He’s trying to pressure me to take care of him on a case.”

“Want me to handle it for you?” Connie asked. “I don’t mind, if you feel uncomfortable telling him to fuck off.”

“I don’t want you to do my job. I’ve been around here long enough to handle things on my own. I just want to make sure I’m doing the right thing.”

“Go with your gut. If he was really your friend, he wouldn’t put you in this posi—”

“Hey, Sully.”

Connie turned to see a tall, beefy, red-faced Peter Fitzpatrick coming out of the second session. The man’s gym membership had obviously expired some time ago.

“Let him know how things work around here,” Connie said under his breath, through a forced smile of greeting. “Tell him that you don’t hand out favors.” Connie could feel the muscles in his jaw tensing up. The thought of someone using a friendship, trying to curry favor, using political connections for personal gain—all of it went against everything he believed in, everything the system stood for.

Brendan stepped toward Fitzpatrick to shake hands. He was just as tall as the senator’s son, but Brendan was thick with muscle, not bloat.

“C’mon, Sully, do me this one,” Connie heard Fitzpatrick say.

“You know I can’t do that, Pete,” Brendan said. “I have to treat every defendant the same, no matter who his lawyer is.”

“It’s not like that, Sully. My client’s not a bad guy. If he gets a conviction, it’ll end his career. He’s a union carpenter. Needs his car and license to get to work. A cocaine distribution and they’ll yank his license. It’s a felony conviction. Sully, he shared some coke with a friend and an undercover saw it go down. I’m just asking you to cut him some slack and break it down to a straight possession, a misdemeanor. Then maybe I can get the judge to let him plead to sufficient facts. I don’t want him to end up with a guilty on his record.”

The two men exchanged a few words Connie couldn’t make out, and then he heard Brendan, his voice louder, firmer. “This is a legitimate distribution case. It doesn’t matter if he sold the stuff or shared it, it’s still a distribution. How can I reduce it to a possession?”

“In order to
distribute
it, he had to have
possessed
it first. It’s not illogical.”

“I can’t believe you said that with a straight face.” Brendan shook his head. “If my supervisor found out I did something like that for an old friend from Southie, she’d stick me in arraignments for a year. If the judge figured it out…”

Connie admired how Brendan looked directly at Peter Fitzpatrick, how he kept his hand on the man’s elbow, how he sounded pained to deliver the bad news. Here was a man who knew how to avoid an ugly confrontation. Most of all, he was a man of principle.

“Sully, I’ve never asked you for anything before,” Fitzpatrick said.

“I like it that way.” Brendan let go of Fitzpatrick’s elbow and took a step back.

“This guy is popular in the union.” Fitzpatrick nodded his head toward his client—a tense, wiry man, uncomfortable with his combed hair and his shirt and tie—who had come out of the courtroom and was standing by the balcony glaring at them.

“Gee, I wonder why?” Brendan said sarcastically.

“It’s not because of the drugs. He’s not a dealer. He’s a regular guy with a habit. And the union leaders like him.
They
actually hired me to help the kid out. They want him to get help. If I can get him off without a guilty, it makes me look good. The guys at the union are going to hear about what a nice job I did. Bring more work in for me and the old man.”

“You’re not the one that’s going to lose your career.”

“But it’s not going to make you look bad for your boss or for the judge either. They’ll think you’re being reasonable.”

“Sorry, Pete,” Brendan said firmly. Connie could see that he felt bad saying no to a friend.

“C’mon, Brendan,” Fitzpatrick said, almost begging. “Do the right thing. He’s not the typical guy you see in this court. He’s like you and me, just a ham-’n’-egger tryin’ to make a living.”

“Do the right thing?” Brendan asked, angry now.

Connie could see it in the stiffening of Brendan’s back, the way his neck reddened. Their voices were edging louder. Connie imagined what would have happened if these two had met for a school yard fight. He figured that on size and strength alone, Brendan would have taken Fitzpatrick out with one punch. Andi caught Connie’s attention and gestured that she was going to the water cooler. She didn’t need the stress of watching two lawyers brawling in the hallway before her first trial.

“He’s like you and me?” Brendan asked. “What’s that supposed to mean? He’s white so he deserves a break?” Brendan shot a look at the client who lounged against the wall, looking like he wanted nothing more than to light up a cigarette and toss back a beer. “I’m not giving your guy special treatment because he’s white or because you represent him. I’ll offer him a guilty finding with a year of probation, same thing I’d offer anyone who walked into this court.”

Fitzpatrick’s whole demeanor shifted. “Now I get it,” he said. “All of a sudden, you’re a true believer. I think maybe you forgot where you came from.”

“I grew up in the projects, not in some mansion overlooking Castle Island. You don’t know where the fuck I came from, so don’t ever pull that shit on me. I gave you an offer. Take it or leave it.”

“You can shove your offer up your ass, Brendan.”

“Good. Let’s pick a trial date. That is, if you have the balls to actually try a case instead of just begging for a break.” Brendan turned and walked toward the courtroom.

Fitzpatrick hunkered with his client, the man gesturing wildly at the bad news.

When Connie looked back toward Andi, he saw that she’d spotted the defense attorney that’d kept them waiting. She took a few steps toward the man, her hand extended in a greeting. Good strategy. Don’t show how pissed you are about the little head game of being late.

He’d have to remember to tell Brendan what a smooth job he’d done, handling Peter Fitzpatrick.