The Staked Goat - Jeremiah Healy (3 page)

I became aware of people shuffling their feet a
little distance away from us, and I turned to look at them. The
Coopers. In their Sunday best and scared.

I whipped my head back to Nancy. "Did you call
them?"
1
She
turned the way I had. "No, who are . . . oh, the Coopers, huh?"
.

I nodded.

"Must have been D'Amico's lawyer, though what
help they'll be . . ."

“
I'm going to calm them down. See you inside."

"You've got some time. You're witness number
three, right after Weeks."

I went up to the Coopers and took Emily's
out-stretched hand. She mustered a smile.

"Why are you here?"

Jesse produced a paper from his inside jacket pocket
and unfolded it carefully. "We got this. Last night. It was
late, so we didn't want to call you."

It was a subpoena. The signature of the issuing
notary public was illegible, but it looked to be in proper form.

"A surly man in a porkpie hat brought it,"
said Emily. "Along with this." She held open an envelope
with some currency in it.

"That's your witness fee, Emily," I said.
"You can keep that."

Jesse's hands shook as he refolded the subpoena.
"What do they want us for?"

"I don't know," I said as the court
officer, uniformed and side-armed, boomed, "Trial session, trial
session, court coming in."

I guided the Coopers into the courtroom. We sat on
the left-hand side of the middle aisle, halfway back. On our side of
the courtroom was the prosecutor's table, near the as-yet empty jury
box. Nancy and a tall, fiftyish man with red-gray hair were
conferring. The D'Amico family sat on the right-hand side of the
aisle, several rows in front of us but still behind the defense
table, at which Smolina sat scribbling on a legal pad. Friend of the
Bride, Friend of the Groom.

A clerk of court was shuffling papers in front of the
bench, and a stenographer was assembling her miniature transcriber to
his right. A side door opened, and two court officers brought in a
cuffed Joey D'Amico. He wore a dark blue suit, white shirt, and dark
tie. He'd had a haircut but looked pale as a ghost after his six
months in jail.

The officers led him to the defense table, unshackled
him, and took up positions to his right and behind. At least his
lawyer had had sense enough to move that his client not be seated in
the dock. The dock is a square, isolated, and elevated box which some
say gives jurors a pejorative impression of the dangerousness of the
defendant whose fate they decide.

The judge was announced and entered from a different
side door. I did not recognize him, but he was about sixty,
white-haired, and judgelike. D'Amico's case was called by the clerk.
Nancy, her compatriot (who did not introduce himself), and Smolina
approached the bench and exchanged preliminaries. The judge asked for
witness lists. Nancy handed the prosecution's to the clerk. Smolina,
looking perplexed, excused himself and scurried back to his table. He
began flipping nervously through his file. Joey looked back at Marco,
whose head was down and shaking left to right. Smolina closed his
file, apologized to the judge, and said that his only witnesses would
be several members of the D'Amico family and "Jessy” and
"Emma" Cooper. The judge lectured Smolina on the need for
full names and addresses now so they could be read to the jury during
selection. Smolina said of course, of course but . . .

At which point Marco stood up and said, "Judge,
if it'll help, I can give you everybody's name and address."

The judge was off—balance for a moment, then said,
"Who are you?"

"I'm Marco D'Amico, the defendant's brother, and
I live at 767 Hanover Street, North End." Marco went on to list
his other family and a priest, speaking the names and addresses
slowly enough for the clerk to transcribe them. Marco concluded by
saying, "And by the way, the first names of the Coopers are
Jesse and Emily and they live at 230 Beech Street, Dorchester."

I felt Emily tense and shudder beside me as we all
realized Marco had their names and address memorized. When Marco
finished, the judge thanked him and told Smolina he should be as
prepared as his witnesses. As Marco sat back down, he turned his head
toward us and smiled unpleasantly. I could sense Jesse and Emily
grasping each other's hands a little harder. I was thinking of
Marco's throat.

The trial, or more accurately Smolina's attempted
defense, was laughable. The jury was picked within twenty minutes,
Smolina forgetting which side got to challenge prospective jurors
first. Nancy's superior, whose name was McClean, made an opening
statement that persuaded half the jurors without seeming to press
them. Smolina waived an opening, and several jurors looked at each
other with surprise. McClean presented my contact, who barely arrived
in time, and Smolina asked him no questions.

McClean then put on Harvey Weeks, a miserable, flabby
man, with a bald head and horn-rimmed glasses. Weeks described his
retention of Joey. Smolina objected a few times, unsuccessfully. Then
Smolina cross-examined Weeks, with McClean objecting frequently and
usually successfully. The judge even began to suggest questions to
Smolina ("Mr. Smolina, why don't you ask him . . .") to try
to move the case along. Smo1ina's thrust seemed to be toward getting
Weeks to say he'd hired someone other than Joey.

When Weeks left the stand, I was called. I told my
story in response to McClean's nicely paced questions. I'd had a year
of evening division law school, and I'd been in a lot of courtrooms
for Empire, but McClean was the best I'd ever seen. Why he was taking
something around forty thousand from the DA instead of four or five
times that from a downtown civil litigation firm was beyond me.

When Smolina began his cross-examination, the defense
"strategy" began to unfold. He was trying to create the
impression that I was the arsonist Weeks had hired, and that D'Amico
had been in the neighborhood, seen the open window and gone in to
investigate, only to be framed by me. Instead of objecting, McClean
let Smolina go on, and I sensed that the jury was nearly as
incredulous as I was. After Smolina finished, McClean on redirect
asked me one question. "Have you ever been convicted of a crime,
Mr. Cuddy?"

I said, "No."

"Thank you," McClean said, smiling at
Smolina, "no further questi0ns."

After I left the stand, the police lab expert
testified.

As he described the blood-and-hair evidence, I tried
to sort out McClean's strategy. I guessed that McClean felt Smolina's
version of the arson plot held no hope unless Joey confirmed it. If
Joey testified, however, McClean would impeach him with his prior
convictions and then argue "Who should you believe" to the
jury.

Smolina declined cross-examination of the lab expert
and the judge called luncheon recess. The Coopers and I went across
the courtyard to a stand-up place. The Coopers wanted only coffee. As
I ate a sandwich, I turned the case over and over in my mind. I
couldn't see any way out for Joey.

Neither, apparently, could the jury. After lunch, the
defense presented only family and priest as character witnesses, no
Joey or Coopers. McClean waived cross-examination, and both attorneys
made closing arguments. The case actually went to the jury that
afternoon, and a guilty verdict was returned within an hour.

After the jury went into deliberation, I offered to
drive the Coopers home, but they said they wanted to stay for the
verdict, that they felt they should. After the verdict, I offered
again, but they resisted because of the traffic I would hit. I
insisted, and they still refused. I was half glad they did, because
as Emily kissed my cheek and Jesse shook my hand, I wanted to speak
with Nancy Meagher.

A courtroom when a judge has left the bench is like a
bus stop at a madhouse. Joey had started crying after the verdict and
was now nearly hysterical as the two officers recuffed him. Marco was
calling Smolina an asshole and a third officer was telling Marco to
take it outside. Joey's mother was wailing into a hanky and rocking
back and forth in the embrace of her husband.

I was almost to Nancy Meagher when Marco finished his
piece and stormed out of the courtroom. I doubt he noticed me. I
decided to follow him, though, to be sure the Coopers had gotten
enough of a start.

They hadn't.

As I came out of the courtroom door, Marco was near
the elevators. He had Jesse by the jacket front, pushing him against
the wall and yelling "nigger”' at him and "whore" at
Emily. Six or eight people were standing around. Marco looked pretty
imposing, and nobody helped.

I came up behind Marco and said, "Take your hand
off his jacket or I'll take your hand off your arm."

Marco slammed Jesse against the wall and came for me.
He swung a roundhouse right at my head. I stepped under and slightly
outside of it, whipping my right elbow forward and up into his
right-hand rib cage. I stepped again, this time past him, slamming
the edge of my right hand just above his right kidney. He gave a
strangled cry and sank to his knees, both hands trying to feel all
his right side, front and back, at once.

I figured I had very little time before the
authorities would arrive, so I leaned over Marco. I pulled him by his
hair up to communion level on his knees, and said between my teeth,
"If you so much as look cross-eyed at these folks again, your
family loses its other son."

I felt a hand on my arm. It was Nancy. A growing
crowd of onlookers began to encircle us. A burly court officer
bustled up behind her with his hand on the butt of his
still-holstered revolver.

I let go of Marco, and Nancy said over her shoulder,
"It's all right, Frank. I saw it. Self-defense."

Frank nodded and began gesturing calmly, dispersing
the crowd.

I thanked Nancy, who asked Jesse and Emily if they
wished to press charges. They didn't. I told the Coopers I was
driving them home. They offered no arguments this time.

I saw the Coopers locked up tight at their house.
Jesse assured me he had a shotgun and would use it if necessary.
Emily said she would be sure to call me if they saw Marco.

I got back into my car, a '73 Fiat 124 sport sedan,
my '63 Renault Caravelle finally having blown an unobtainable part.
It was only 5:45, and A1 had told me 8:30. Between testifying and
Marco, my shirt was pitted out, so I drove back to my apartment,
getting the first break of the day in the form of a parking space
right out front. I walked up to my third floor one-bedroom and
checked my telephone tape machine. Three hang-ups, no messages. I
stripped and did push-ups, sit-ups, and other exercises for an hour.

I showered and had a hunk of Vienna bread and Gouda
cheese to quell my growing appetite. I washed it down with the first
of many screwdrivers that night. I listened to a side of Rachmaninoff
with another drink. I finally pulled on a blue shirt, burgundy
sweater, and gray tweed sports coat with dark gray slacks.

At 8:00 I went downstairs and drove to the Midtown
Motor Inn. I circled through the packed parking area and left my car
on Huntington Avenue. I walked back to the Inn and spotted a
college-aged kid in an ill-fitting, uniformlike orange blazer behind
the front desk.

"Good evening, sir. May I help you?"

"Yes. Could you buzz Mr. Sachs' room and tell
him Mr. Cuddy is here?"

"Certainly." I thought the "certainly"
was from a training manual and that the kid would have been more
comfortable with "yeah, sure." In any case, he flipped
through a View-dex card holder and picked up the telephone, dialing
four digits. He waited ten seconds, then hung up and dialed again. He
shook his I head, hung up, and came back to me.

"I'm sorry, sir, but he doesn't answer."

I checked my watch. It was 8:20.

"Well," I said, "I'm a little early.
Can I get a drink somewhere?"

"Certain1y," again and gesturing, "Our
lounge is right through there. Would you like me to leave a message
for Mr. Sachs to join you?"

"If I could have a piece of paper."

"Certainly." He slid a message pad and Bic
pen to me. I wrote, "If I had to wait for you, guess where?"
I decided it sounded arch, so I crumpled it and wrote, "I'm in
the bar." I folded it and gave it to the kid, who stuck it in a
slot with 304 under it. I went past a bank of pay phones with
swing-up directories and into the lounge.

It was dark and nearly empty. A pianist was playing
gamely in a corner. A fortyish waitress in black mesh tights brought
me a screwdriver. Two half-bagged jerks were hitting on a couple of
secretaries with adventures centering around the wholesale hardware
game in Wichita. Just as I was thinking of buying a newspaper, the
barman turned the lights down another notch.

I was nearly finished with my second drink. My watch
said 9:10. The secretaries had split, and the salesmen from Wichita
began singing their version of "I Gotta Be Me." The piano
player looked like he wished he had been born tone-deaf. I drained my
glass, paid my check, and walked back to the lobby.