Tragic (27 page)

“Darla Milquetost.”

The courtroom erupted into more laughter as the witness turned even more crimson. “I’d like to explain,” the witness said. “I believe in my haste I may have missed several indicators.”

“Apparently,” Karp replied. “Darla Milquetost is my office manager. Darla, would you stand, please?”

Blushing herself, Milquetost stood as several people around her applauded. “Obviously, Darla is a lovely woman,” Karp noted to more laughter. He looked over at the defense table where Clooney sat with his forehead in his hand, as Bebnev scowled up at the ceiling and DiMarzo looked at the floor, shaking his head.

“I would just like to—”

“Yes, but before you do,” Karp said. “Your Honor, please read the signature on Example C.”

“Ray Guma.”

This time Judge See lightly tapped his gavel to cut short the
laughter as ADA Guma stood and did a little curtsy. Laughing with the others, Karp said, “I believe that’s strike three.”

The witness didn’t try speaking anymore but just sat with her head down as Karp spoke to her again. “I have just one more request. Would you please read the line of poetry written on any one of those pages you have?”

Without looking at her antagonist, the woman cleared her throat. “ ‘False face must hide what false heart doth know.’ ”

Karp looked over at the defense table. “Thank you, no further questions.”

Clooney’s last expert witness was a former NYPD detective and “ballistics expert” who testified that, based on the trajectory of the bullet that had struck Carlotta in the head, he’d concluded that the shooter was a much taller man than Bebnev.

However, Karp nullified him through a series of questions meant to demonstrate that the trajectory was subject to a variety of factors, including the level at which the shooter held the gun, and whether either of the men were standing straight or crouched. The most damaging question to the defense case, however, and one that actually played into the prosecution narrative, was his last. “What if the deceased had been grabbed by his right arm and pulled downward, would that have affected the trajectory?”

“Yes, that could have affected the height and body posture of the victim,” the witness conceded.

The defense expert witnesses had done no damage to the prosecution case and, if anything, had worked against the defense. Karp was much more interested in Clooney’s last three witnesses, starting after lunch with Jackie Corcione.
Here’s another one who looks like he hasn’t been getting much sleep,
Karp thought when the young man settled into the witness chair.
The weak link in the next match, perhaps?

Corcione toed the company line when describing the murder. Two unknown masked men had stepped from the alley and demanded their wallets. “Vince had a gun,” he testified, shaking his
head sadly. “I didn’t know he even owned one. But the guy shot him, first in the chest and then in the head. They grabbed our stuff and ran across the street to a car and took off.”

“Do you recognize any one in this court as either of the men who robbed you and murdered Vince Carlotta?” Clooney asked.

Corcione looked over at the defense table and shook his head. “No. They were wearing ski masks.”

“Did the man who demanded your wallets speak with a notable accent?”

Corcione shook his head. “I don’t remember,” he said, glancing nervously at Bebnev, who smiled. “Everything happened so fast, and to be honest, I’ve blocked some of it out.”

Joey Barros, who followed Corcione to the stand, was no more forthcoming. Hardly expressing any emotion at all as he recounted what happened, he shrugged when he said he couldn’t remember if the shooter had an accent.

“Have you ever seen either of those two men sitting on either end of the defense table?” Clooney asked.

Barros looked over at Bebnev and DiMarzo. His face looked like he’d smelled something distasteful but he shook his head. “Nope. Don’t know ’em.”

Karp hadn’t expected much from Corcione and particularly Barros. But he did watch with interest when Barros stepped down from the witness stand and stopped a few feet from the defense table. For just a moment, he fixed Bebnev and then DiMarzo with a hard glare.

Everyone else may think that’s just anger,
Karp thought when he saw the look,
but I’m betting it’s a warning.

Clooney had then called Vitteli to the stand. This time when the union boss walked into the courtroom, wearing a gray silk suit with a purple handkerchief in the pocket, looked around and saw Karp, he didn’t smirk. His eyes hardened and he quickly shifted his gaze elsewhere. But he found himself looking at T. J. Martindale and
other members of the union who’d supported Vince Carlotta, as well as the attorney Mahlon Gorman.

If anything, the hatred that passed between Vitteli and the other men was even greater than the union boss reserved for Karp after they’d had a confrontation at the DAO a few weeks after Carlotta’s murder. That’s when Karp took another statement from the union boss about events with Kowalski present and then point-blank accused Vitteli to his face. Vitteli’s face had turned crimson with rage as his lawyer announced that they were “through cooperating” and stormed out of the office.

If Charlie only knew about a little conversation I had with Martindale and Gorman the other day,
Karp thought now,
the look would be even uglier.

“Mr. Vitteli, if you’d come forward to be sworn in,” Judge See said, pointing to the witness stand.

Vitteli broke off his stare-down with the union men and, avoiding Karp’s eyes, swaggered up to the stand with his chest out and head up. He smiled at the jurors when he was sworn in and took his seat, at which point he focused on Clooney, who began by asking him to describe the events leading to the murder.

“So given the chance, you might have tried to intervene,” Clooney asked.

“Yeah, maybe, but it happened so quick, all any of us could do was go along with it,” Vitteli said. “It was like, ‘Hands up, this is a robbery!’ ”

“So you did what?”

“I put my hands in the air like this,” Vitteli said, demonstrating.

“Did you say anything?”

“Hell no. I just wanted that gun out of my face.”

“What did Vince Carlotta do?”

“He reached into his pocket. I guess he had a gun,” Vitteli replied. “That’s when the fucker, excuse my French, shot him. Then he shot him again.”

“What happened after that?”

“The guy demanded our wallets and watches. We gave ’em up, and they took off across the street and jumped in the car.”

“You see the car?”

“I don’t remember it,” Vitteli said. “Maybe a sedan, but I don’t know. I was too busy trying to help Vince.”

“How about the men who accosted you?” Clooney asked. “Did you get a good look at them?”

Vitteli shrugged. “Like I said, they was wearing masks. They were big guys, but all I could see was their eyes.”

“Do you recognize the two defendants sitting on either end of the table over there?”

Looking over at the defense table, Vitteli studied each man, then shook his head. “No, I can’t say that I do. But those two ain’t the guys who killed Vince.”

“Why not?”

“One thing is they ain’t big enough,” Vitteli said. “And I don’t think either of the assholes had blue eyes like pumpkin-head over there.”

“And the robber who demanded your wallets and then shot Mr. Carlotta, did he speak with an accent?” Clooney asked.

“Yeah,” Vitteli said slowly, as if it was the first time he’d considered the question. “He sounded Puerto Rican or Mexican, something like that.”

“But not Russian?”

Vitteli furrowed his brow and thought about the question before shaking his head again. “No. I’d say Puerto Rican. You know, singsongy bullshit.”

“Uh, thank you, Mr. Vitteli, no further questions,” Clooney said. He appeared pleased and confident as he walked back to his seat.

Judge See looked at the clock on the wall. “We have about thirty minutes, Mr. Karp,” he said. “Will that be enough time for your cross-examination, or would you like to break and come back and start in the morning?”

“Oh, that should be more than enough time, Your Honor,”
Karp replied as he rose from his seat and walked over to stand alongside the jury as he faced the witness.

Eschewing all pleasantries, Karp moved quickly to take advantage of the opening his opponent had given him. “Mr. Vitteli, you and Vince Carlotta didn’t like each other much, did you?”

Vitteli frowned. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “We butted heads over union business sometimes, if that’s what you mean. But we sort of grew up together in the union, and we got along pretty good.”

“You ran against each other for union president a little over a year ago, is that correct?”

“Yeah, there was an election,” Vitteli said.

“A pretty heated election, right? Some pretty serious accusations thrown back and forth, am I correct?”

“It got a little down and dirty, like the last time you ran for DA, right? But no big deal, that’s just politics.”

“No big deal?” Karp asked, ignoring the dig. “Isn’t it true that Mr. Carlotta and some of his followers accused you of cheating and tampering with the results?”

“Sure, like any sore losers,” Vitteli said and winked at the jurors.

“Sore enough to take a complaint to the U.S. Department of Labor and ask for a federal investigation?”

“Objection!” Clooney shouted, jumping to his feet. “These questions are outside of the scope of direct examination.”

“Your Honor, I’d ask you to take this subject to connection. But if you want, Your Honor, I could recall Mr. Vitteli during the People’s rebuttal case,” Karp said.

“NO WAY, KARP!” Vitteli shouted, standing up in the witness box and waving Clooney off. “I’m here now, ask me anything you want!”

“Objection withdrawn,” Clooney replied meekly.

“Okay, I asked you if Mr. Carlotta was angry enough about the election to take his complaint to the United States Department of
Labor in Washington, D.C., and ask for a federal investigation,” Karp demanded.

“I wouldn’t know nothin’ about that,” Vitteli said.

Karp raised his eyebrows as if surprised. “You wouldn’t know nothin’ about that?”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“You never heard that Vince Carlotta and Mahlon Gorman asked the Labor Department to investigate the election results and their accusations that you committed election fraud?”

“Oh, I thought you asked if the feds actually got involved,” Vitteli shot back. “ ’Cause they didn’t. Vince and his boy went to Washington to complain about that nonsense and got told to take it to the union to settle.”

“That’s right,” Karp said. “And was there a subsequent investigation by the union?”

“Yeah, and nothing came of the allegations,” Vitteli said. “It was all a bunch of crap.”

“Who conducted the investigation?”

“What do you mean who?”

“Who . . . which individuals?”

Again Vitteli hunched his massive shoulders and pursed his lips before answering. “I don’t know . . . been a while, some of the regular members . . .”

“All of them appointed by you, right?”

“By myself and other members of management.”

“Was Joey Barros part of the management and one of the individuals appointed to investigate the claims?”

Vitteli hesitated, then shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Jackie Corcione?”

“No, Jackie’s the chief financial officer for the union and counsel to the president. He sort of sat in on it to give legal advice, but he didn’t vote.”

“How about you?”

“How about me what?” Vitteli played dumb.

“Were you part of the investigation?”

Vitteli tilted his head to the side. “I oversaw it, but I didn’t interfere. That’s the way the rules are set up,” he said.

“So this investigation into Carlotta’s accusations that you committed acts of wrongdoing were conducted by yourself, your closest ‘associates,’ and a few flunkies you appointed?”

“Like I said, I didn’t make the rules.”

“Sort of like asking the fox to investigate why the hens are disappearing, right?”

“If you got something to say, Karp, come out with it,” Vitteli demanded.

“Everything in its time, Mr. Vitteli,” Karp said. He crossed his arms as he walked over to stand in the center of the court well and faced Vitteli. The gallery was silent as the prosecutor and the union boss glared at one another; two big men, physically powerful, and openly hostile. “Isn’t it true that you were seen arguing with Vince Carlotta at Marlon’s on the night of the murder?”

“Actually, my associates Joey Barros and Vince had some words,” Vitteli corrected him.

“And you?”

“Some things was said, maybe, but we worked it out,” Vitteli said. “Ask anybody who was there. We had a disagreement, we got over it, and the rest of the night we enjoyed a few beers, smoked some stogies, and talked about old times.”

“Oh yeah, the good old days,” Karp said, stepping even closer. “Speaking of the good old days, it can be pretty rough on the docks, can’t it?”

Vitteli scowled at the sudden change of direction with Karp’s question but then smiled and nodded. “Yeah, you learn to take care of yourself.”

“It can be pretty dangerous, right?”

“I don’t know. It ain’t Afghanistan.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of dangers from outsiders
who might want to encroach on your turf. Like other unions, or even the mob.”

Vitteli laughed. “You saw
On the Waterfront,
too, eh? It ain’t like the movies, but yeah, you got to be vigilant.”

Stepping forward until he stood only a few feet in front of the stand, Karp rocked back on his heels as he looked up. “Vigilant, that’s a good word. And you’re vigilant, aren’t you, Mr. Vitteli?”

“I try to be.”

“Somebody could have it in for you. Or maybe somebody had it in for Vince Carlotta?”

“You know,” Vitteli said, sitting back in the chair, “I thought of that. What if the guys who did it had it in for Vince in particular?”

“Yeah, what if?” Karp retorted. “He was apparently worried enough to carry a gun, isn’t that true?”