VC04 - Jury Double (38 page)

DiAngeli leapt up. “Objection!”

“Sustained. Mr. Elihu, you’re on cross. Stick to material raised in direct.”

“But, Your Honor, the witness himself brought up—”

“
Objection sustained
.”

Elihu sighed and faced the witness. “Mr. Williams, did you once take part in an experimental parole program in the state of Texas?”

Mickey Williams nodded. “I was paroled, yes.”

“And did you not break parole by moving to the state of Washington and later to New York?”

“Objection. Irrelevant.”

Elihu wheeled around. “Your Honor, this goes directly to the witness’s credibility.”

“I’m reminding you for the last time, Counselor—you’re on cross. Kindly stick to issues raised in direct.”

Elihu pondered a long moment before putting his next question. “Mr. Williams, didn’t the state of Texas seek to extradite you from New York?”

“Yes, but federal court decided—”

“Objection!”

“Sustained. Mr. Elihu, I don’t want to have to warn you again.”

Elihu flicked a bow of his head toward the bench. He beamed a
trust me
smile to the witness. “Mr. Williams, as a condition of your Texas parole, were you not required to undergo shock treatment?”

DiAngeli jumped up so fast that her chair fell crashing over. “Objection!”

Elihu shouted over her. “In fact, Mr. Williams, haven’t your brain cells been subjected to over sixty electronic scramblings?”

“Objection sustained!” Even Judge Bernheim was shouting now. The fury on her face would have flattened a billboard. “
Mr
.
Elihu, you are a disgrace to your profession
!”

“And isn’t it a disgrace,” Elihu snapped back, “when government agents trowel-feed testimony into the brain of a mental incompetent and showcase him as their star witness? How far has justice in America fallen?”

“Not so far as you’re hoping, Mr. Elihu, because you just got yourself a three-week reservation in the hoosegow. Now, either cross-examine the witness or excuse him. But you will not continue this sadistic grandstanding in my court.”

“Your Honor, on the basis of that remark, I respectfully request that you declare a mistrial.”

“Denied.”

Elihu nodded. He seemed satisfied—more than satisfied. “In that case … I have no further questions to put to this witness.”

Judge Bernheim turned now to the prosecutor. “Ms. diAngeli?”

The man next to Cardozo whispered, “DiAngeli’s gotta rebut those shock treatments.”

Tess diAngeli rose slowly to her feet. “Your Honor, the People rest their case.”

A ripple of murmurs and whispers fanned out through the court.

“Your Honor,” Dotson Elihu cried, “I move for acquittal.”

“What grounds?”

“The People have now rested. By law the court is entitled to enter a verdict of acquittal if the People have failed to prove any element of the crime.”

“Counselor, the court has heard evidence of a quantity and nature clearly sufficient to sustain a verdict of guilty.”

“Your Honor, that’s a prejudicial remark. I move for—”

“Mr. Elihu, this court has just about had it with your nugatory niggling. Motion denied.”

“It’s clear my client can expect no justice in this court. The defense has no recourse but to rest its case.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The defense rests.”

A tidal wave of buzzing and chattering broke through the courtroom. Judge Bernheim, wild as a dog digging for a lost bone, could not find her gavel. “Order!” she screamed. “Order in this court this minute!”

Cardozo had parked his battered green Honda in a Centre Street bus stop; he’d propped his NYPD placard in the windshield to defend against those meter maids who were out to balance the city budget on parking fines. He slid into the driver’s seat, switched on the ignition, and waited.

A crowd surged down the steps of the federal courthouse. Mickey Williams, a shaved head higher than anyone else, moved deliberately through the throng. At the foot of the steps he headed north with an easy, strolling gait. A mike-wielding sob sister from one of the afternoon news shows ran alongside, and they appeared to be having an earnest chat.

Mickey’s head bobbed east on Bayard, and Cardozo leaned on his horn and cut across three lanes of law-abiding vehicles.

Right away the neighborhood changed. The telephones had signs in Chinese and the cash machine at the corner bank had a pagoda roof.

Mickey strolled across Baxter to a little park where five children were screaming Cantonese and playing a game with a Hula Hoop and a red Frisbee. He watched them. He seemed especially interested in the little girl whose polka-dot skirt kept flying up every time she tried to hoop the flying Frisbee. Cardozo was surprised some Chinese parent didn’t send for the local Tongs.

A dark blue Pontiac with a federal license plate nosed to the curb and beeped its horn. A door opened. The driver—a burley man in shirt-sleeves—stepped out. He shouted something. The words didn’t carry, but the angry tone did.

Mickey crossed to the car. The driver handed him a set of keys. They shook hands. Mickey got into the front seat. The door swung shut.

The driver stood on the sidewalk, watching as the Pontiac eased north on Mott. Cardozo eased along three cars behind it.

“In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen of the jury—” Tess diAngeli’s eyes swept slowly across the jurors. “I ask you to imagine those last forty-eight hours of Amalia Briar’s life—that poor, sick, suffering, terrified old lady—as she came face-to-face with terror and death in her own undefended bedroom. Ask yourselves: Would I wish to go through this horror myself? Would I wish this on my mother? Would I wish this on any human being? And unless you can answer
yes
—you owe it to yourselves and to every person and principle you hold sacred—to return a verdict of guilty as charged.”

Traffic congealed to a crawl along the peddler-packed stretch of upper Broadway. Cardozo could see a shifting sliver of the government Pontiac five cars ahead.

At West 106th Street, now christened Duke Ellington Boulevard, the Pontiac swung left, and when Cardozo finally reached the intersection he saw it crawling south on West End. He hooked a sharp left and followed.

There was an eardrum-puncturing blip of siren and a voice on a bullhorn barked, “You in the green Honda—pull over.”

Cardozo glanced over his shoulder. There was no other green Honda in sight, and a blue-and-white police cruiser was spinning its lights at him. He pulled to the curb.

An overweight, mean-looking boy stepped out of the cruiser and ambled to Cardozo’s window. “The sign back there says no left turn eight
A.M.
to eight
P.M.
”

“I’m sorry, Officer, I didn’t see it.”

“Please cut your motor.”

Cardozo didn’t cut his motor. He pulled out his shield case and flipped it open.

The copped blinked. “Sorry, Lieutenant.” He touched the brim of his cap and stepped away.

Cardozo pulled back into traffic. He’d lost sixty seconds, and the light at 104th Street was green, and there was no sign of the blue government Pontiac.

What kind of case requires grants of immunity to the true murderers and conspirators?” Dotson Elihu crossed his arms and glared at the prosecutor. “What kind of a case requires wholesale suppression of genuine evidence and the procurement of false testimony? I’ll tell you.
A frame-up
.”

He turned and placed his hands on the railing of the jury box. His eyes rested darkly on each juror in turn. “Ladies and gentlemen, if this is still a court of law and not an altar of sacrifice to political expedience—then you have no choice in the face of such arrogant, brazen trampling of our constitution but to bring back a verdict of not guilty.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

1:10 P.M.

“I
CAN’T
BELIEVE
WHAT
Elihu did to Mickey Williams.” At a corner table in Eugene’s Patio, Shoshana sliced angrily into a turkey enchilada. “I’ve never seen anything so cruel.”

Anne pushed her fork at her fruit salad. “But he has a point. How reliable can Mickey’s testimony be if he’s had his brain fried?”

Shoshana’s eyes blazed. The skin beneath them looked puffy and tender. “We obviously have different ways of thinking.”

“That’s why there are twelve of us,” Anne said. “Maybe we should talk about something else.”

“The charge against the defendant is conspiracy to commit murder. The charge is
not
murder.” Judge Bernheim had been speaking for almost an hour now, her voice slow and explanatory as a teacher’s. “Bear this distinction in mind. To be guilty of conspiring to murder, there is no need for the murder to actually occur. What is required is that the accused plans to commit murder with at least one coconspirator, and that one of them—not necessarily the accused—takes at least one step toward the realization of that conspiracy. The step can be something as small as a phone call—or the purchase of some item needed in execution of the plan … a screwdriver … a map … or a gun.

“Beware of easy solutions to complex questions. A just verdict cannot be settled by slogans. It demands concentrated attention, much mental work, and above all, patience. God bless you and good luck to you all.”

The jurors took their seats around the table. Each place had a legal pad and ballpoint pen.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury …” Ben Esposito raised his hands, calling for silence. “Before we begin discussing the evidence—it might save time to take a vote and see how close we are to agreement.”

“Secret ballot,” Thelma del Rio said.

Ben’s eyes came up slowly, TV sitcom double-take slow-burn style. “You mean little scraps of paper?”

She nodded. “Little scraps of paper folded over.”

“What’s the point?” said P. C. Cabot, the well-dressed subway motorman.

Thelma’s eyes were tight with determination. “The point is so we can reach a verdict without fear of coercion.”

“Who’s coercing?” Lara Duggan said.

“As a member of a multiple minority,” Thelma said, “I can tell you, the majority always coerces.”

“Right on,” Gloria Weston said.

“This is stupid.” P. C. Cabot’s fingers were drumming on the table. “The minute anyone opens their mouth we’re going to know how they’re voting.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Sitting absolutely erect, Thelma seemed hard and sure of herself, a crusader on the attack. “I want a closed ballot and I have a right to it.”

“You don’t have a right to impose it on everyone else.”

“Excuse me,” Ben said, “but anyone who wants a closed ballot has a right.”

“Oh, yeah?” P. C. Cabot said. “Anyone opposed?”

Seven hands went up.

Anne’s stayed down. She noticed that Shoshana’s stayed down too. Abe da Silva, the bald juror, kept his hand down. So did Donna. And Lara Duggan.

“Doesn’t matter who’s opposed,” Ben said. “Thelma wants it, Thelma’s got a right.” He ripped a sheet of blank paper into twelve strips and passed them counterclockwise. “Keep one and pass the others on. Write your verdict and fold the paper and pass it back.”

Cupping the little ribbon of paper behind her left hand, Anne wrote the words
not guilty
, folded the paper, and passed it to Paco Velez.

Ben dropped the ballots into a brown paper bag, shook it, and emptied them in a little mound on the tabletop. His face was grim as he counted them. “Okay, guys, here’s how we stand. Not guilty—four.”

Anne’s heart jumped.
I’ve got three allies!
Her eyes scanned the table.
Who?

“Guilty—eight. Far as I’m concerned, we’re heading in the right direction. But four of us need a little convincing. Discussion is open.”

“There’s a lot of tape we never got,” Anne said. “Phone tapes, conversation tapes, autopsy tapes.”

“No one mentioned lost
phone
tapes,” P.C. said.

“I thought someone did. Could we look into that?”

Ben grunted. “Anyone else want to look into it?”

“I’d like to look into it,” Anne said, “no matter who else does or doesn’t.”

“That’s your right.” Ben made a note on his pad.

“And what about the phone bill Elihu had?” Abe da Silva said. “The call someone made Labor Day from the Briars’ apartment to the BATF?”

Is Abe an ally?
Anne wondered.

“The alleged phone call,” Ben said. “It was never in evidence.”

“Why not?”

“Because the People have a right to choose how they’ll present their case.”

“What happened to the lady cop?” Lara Duggan said. “How come they wouldn’t let her be recalled?”

And could Lara be one?

“Because she was killed,” Thelma del Rio said.

Abe da Silva scowled. “I didn’t hear anything about a lady cop getting killed.”

“They discussed it in sidebar,” Thelma said. “We aren’t suppose to know.”

“Damn it,” Ben said. “If we’re not supposed to know, don’t tell us.”

“I’d like to see Mickey Williams’s record,” Paco Velez said. “I want to see the kind of person we’re being asked to believe.”

That’s a pro-Corey comment if I ever heard one
, Anne thought.
Paco’s definitely on my side.

“We’re not allowed to know his record,” Abe da Silva said. “That’s prejudicial.”

“He’s a witness,” Anne said, “not a defendant. Besides, the record came up in testimony. I’d like to see it too.”

“All right.” Ben sighed. “We can try to get Mickey’s record.” He went to the door and jiggled the handle. “Hey, bailiff!”

It was five-thirty when Catch Talbot stepped into Cardozo’s office at the precinct. “I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours in precincts and hospitals.” There was something uncertain in his walk, a sort of blinking, I’m-lost-please-help-me confusion. “No one’s seen Toby.”

“Have a seat,” Cardozo said.

“I think I know what happened.” Hunched on the spare chair, Talbot stared straight into Cardozo’s eyes. “Kyra’s responsible.”

“Kyra?” Cardozo didn’t like Talbot’s facial expression, his tone of voice. Because there was no expression, no inflection. It was as though grief or worry or two days of fruitless searching had stupefied the guy and left nothing in his head but the wriggling worms of obsession. Obsessives, Cardozo had found, were impossible to reason with.