by Larry Crane
Chapter 39
Joseph Frenzilli sat on one of the many benches spread around the grounds of the Bergen County Courthouse. He had stacked several books on the seat beside him. Smith’s nonfiction account, Brief Against Death, as well as his novel, A Reasonable Doubt, and Calissi’s Counterpoint were all in the stack. He was maybe fifty-five, a little on the rotund side. What he had left of his hair was turning gray. He smiled a lot. Deep creases played out from the sides of his bottomless black eyes.
“I’m so happy I was able to locate you. Everyone else on the original jury seems to have moved,” she said.
“I’m a nut case when it comes to this subject, you know. I’ve followed it like a bloodhound from the beginning.” He rubbed his hands together like a surgeon preparing for a gallbladder operation.
“Did you read a lot about the case before you were put in the jury pool?” she asked.
“I followed it in the paper. If you could read, how could you avoid it? Every day another story. Front page.”
“It didn’t bother the defense that you knew about it?”
“It probably did, but they kept whittling the jury pool down with challenges the whole first day and then the second. Then, by the end of the third day, they more or less gave up trying to find jurors who were completely ignorant of the case. Who knows why lawyers choose people to be jurors by just looking at them and asking a handful of questions?”
“Did you want to be on the jury?” she asked.
Frenzilli said: “I didn’t mind. Oh shit, forget that. I was dying to be on it. I thought I would be a good one. I’m fair and not going to get sucked into a line of bull.”
“Lawyers aren’t necessarily looking for people who want to be on a jury panel,” she said. “Some of them would prefer a couch potato, someone you have to poke with a stick.”
“The legal system isn’t the best, but it’s what we’ve got. Two lawyers squaring off. They want a jury they think is going to see things a certain way. We had to fill out a questionnaire asking everything under the sun.”
“Such as…?” she said.
“Standard questions. Is anyone you know a police officer? Did you go to college? Have you ever bled a lot?” he said.
“Have you?” she asked.
“As a matter of fact, I stuck my fist through a window as a kid. Blood all over the place.”
“Why did they ask that, do you think?”
“It was the defense, I think. They knew blood was going to figure in it a lot, so they had some explaining to do.”
“So, if you’ve done some bleeding, you won’t be as shocked by grisly photos,” she said.
“Right. It’s still a weird question. Lawyers are always calculating what the jury is thinking, rather than just getting the facts out and letting the cards fall. They’re figuring which parts of the story they’re going to reveal.”
“Is that good?” she asked.
“Who knows?” he said. “Personally, I want someone to be in charge. In any story, it helps a lot to be selective. Choose the key points. Don’t wander all over the place, so nobody can figure out what’s going on.”
“What’s your most enduring impression of the trial? What should I call you?” she asked.
“Call me Joe. Everyone does. My impression? I looked at the lawyer’s tables. Calissi, the prosecutor, was very serious and dark and intense. Selser, for the defense, was an older gent. He appeared tired and weak. Was that a ploy to suck in the bleeding hearts among us jurors? I don’t know. Did I care if he was playing to our sympathy? Yes. It’s a murder trial. Forget the play acting. This is serious business. Anyway, at first I couldn’t tell who the defendant was, but because of his age I picked out Smith. He acted like a lawyer himself, scribbling notes continuously and whispering to Selser.”
“What else?”
“Well, the first witnesses were the family of the dead girl. Her sister, mother, and father. They were all weepy, especially the sister. I felt sorry for them.”
“Did you think any witnesses lied?”
“These people are called to testify and don’t have a clue. Okay, some of them are coached, and they parrot back to the lawyer what he wants to hear. But, some get all flustered because they hate the spotlight, and you want to get them off the stand so they can relax like a normal person. I’m saying to myself: leave her alone. You can see she’s dying a thousand deaths up there.”
“Who was that?”
“The mother.”
“But, she was telling the truth,” she said.
“Sure. They’re the best. The ones who were right at the scene at the time. No axe to grind. No pretense.”
“Which witness was lousy?”
“The old man, the medical examiner or the coroner, whatever you want to call him. He was the worst. He was this big old fuzz ball, and he was okay with that. Like, that was what he was supposed to be. There are lots of ways to get your point across. He could just have said: ‘if you’re looking for precision, I don’t have it.’ The prosecutor got what he wanted—an expert witness willing to play the fool,” Frenzilli said. “He was the worst, but ultimately the best.
“They tied him in knots. I didn’t take anything he said as definitive. As it turned out, it didn’t matter. He was a bumbler. And only later did I understand it was purposeful. Rather than try to educate the jury, just let them wonder about it, whatever it is.
“The time of death was impossible to know with any real precision. But the truth was somewhere else. The way it played out, you had to choose who to believe, Smith or his friend Hommell. If you believed Smith, you’d have to say they had the wrong guy up for murder.”
“Did they have the wrong guy?”
“No.”
“How do you know it’s Smith?” I asked.
“Two things. One, he said he saw his friend at the sandpit when there’s no way the kid was there. He didn’t even know where the sandpit was. Selser took it smack in the chops when he thought he had the kid on the ropes on the stand. The kid drove his car full of friends past the sandpit the day after the murder. Selser asked him something like: ‘How did you know the way to the scene of the crime so well, Mr. Hommell?’ The kid fires back: I followed a police car. It was actually hysterically funny to see the air come out of Selser’s balloon. Whoosh. What’s the rule again? Never ask a question you don’t know the answer to. Then there was the guy at the drugstore where the kid worked.”
“You believed the pharmacy manager?”
“Yeah. The kid worked in the pharmacy, no question about it. His boss sent him on an errand to Ridgewood to pick up and pay for some medications. He took the pharmacy station wagon. He was on the way to and from Ridgewood, all during the time Smith admitted he picked up the girl, took her to the sandpit, punched her, got blood all over his pants and socks, ditched her books in the woods, and arrived at his home in the trailer park.”
“You’re really on top of all the testimony, aren’t you?” she said.
“I can’t get it out of my head, especially with all the stuff in the papers saying he’s probably getting out soon.”
“The defense contested Hommell’s testimony about driving to Ridgewood,” she said. “They implied that the pharmacist had a faulty memory.”
“Forget that. The pharmacist was very convincing. He remembered the night like it was yesterday. He even made a bet that Hommell couldn’t get back to the pharmacy before it closed at nine o’clock—and won it. Not only that. The dead girl’s sister testified that she saw Hommell drive by her alone in his own car several minutes after nine. Another witness saw him alone at Pelzer’s Bar at 9:15 p.m.”
“The defense insisted that the pharmacy alibi didn’t hold water. Isn’t that reasonable doubt?”
“Selser fumbled around questioning the pharmacy people for an hour. He wanted to see where they had written down exactly which medications Hommell had picked up. Of course, they hadn’t recorded that. I’m thinking all the while this is a small business here. Th
ey don’t keep detailed records, don’t write down and document every step they take during a business day. These trips to Ridgewood were standard everyday practice. They took at least twenty minutes every time. The pharmacy manager remembered the night perfectly and had even made the bet. You couldn’t get a better witness.”
“Okay. You said you had two things.”
“Yeah. Number two is really number one. Blood. Smith’s pants had the girl’s blood on them. Lots of it. They were soaked through, and he made a half-assed try at explaining how so much of it got on his pants. He said the girl fell on the road and cut her head. He said she was on the ground holding onto his leg. That’s how the blood got on his pants, his shoe, and his sock. It was bullshit, complete and utter bullshit, all the way.
“Another thing: the witness from the crime lab who gave the details about the location of blood, brains, dirt, hair, bone fragments and all that—he said the pants had blood spatter patterns well up on the one leg.1 That means Type O blood went flying through the air and landed on his pants leg. The blood dribbled down making a dumbbell shaped blotch. Nothing the Smith kid said explained how blood could go flying like that. At some point I knew you couldn’t believe a single fucking thing he said. I’m sorry. I’m getting too wound up here. He made it all up. Every last fucking thing. Sorry.”
“What else did he lie about?”
“Are you familiar with the case?” Frenzilli asked, scratching the back of his neck.
“Pretty much,” she said.
“Where else did he lie? Where he got rid of his pants,” he said.
“Why would he lie about that? He admitted his pants were bloody and that he got rid of them and the socks.”
Frenzilli replied with exaggerated patience: “It’s all of a piece. If he didn’t kill the girl, but did get blood on his pants, why did he need to get rid of them at all? There’s a point you reach when you’re hearing all this in the jury box, when you think there’s no way in the world you would ever be in such a pickle. I’m sorry to just use the word pickle is to trivialize what happened. An ordinary person is never in this position of trying to extricate himself from some horrible thing he’s done. At the very least, he has kidnapped a girl and hurt her to the point that she is bleeding like nobody’s business. How much sympathy for him can I have as an ordinary citizen?”
“Come on. It’s obvious. He hoped he could get away with his part in a very bad episode. So, he lied and lied and lied some more.”
“Damage control. I pictured him sitting in his cell conjuring an answer for every question under the sun. Most of them lies.”
“He’s a very nasty character. He’s got blood on his hands but didn’t necessarily go so far as to kill her,” she said. “There are people on this Earth like that. It isn’t an episode of Hawaii Five-0, after all. But as far as it is from the experience of an average person, it might as well be television. You’re a juror and you have to judge. How much of your general impressions of the people involved in this, Smith and a weak lawyer, have conditioned you to doubt him?”
“Ah!” Frenzilli inhaled deeply and went on: “Okay, this is interesting. You’re playing the devil’s advocate. You’re saying that I as a juror have observed the lawyers and the defendant in the case at the very beginning of the trial, and I’ve picked sides before I’ve heard a single word of testimony. From that point on, I’ve disbelieved everything that runs counter to my original mindset. Horse hockey, I say. I’m better than that.”
“But, you’re human,” she said.
“Day one in the jury box, I could go either way on his guilt. I listened carefully and let the case wash over me. I’ve never seen you before in my life, but my guess is you’re bent on showing that the weaknesses of the jury system have put an innocent man on death row.”
“I’m a reporter. I stick with the facts.”
“The man squirmed around like crazy with his answers,” he said. “Okay, here it is. You’re doing now what you accuse me of doing at the trial, cooking the books. You think I was prejudiced.”
“Don’t tell me what I think, Mr. Frenzilli. You brought along some books. Have you read them?”
“What do you think? Of course I read them. Did you? The nonfiction, Brief against Whatever, appeared on the scene out of nowhere and people were amazed. That death row jailbird wrote this? You have to admit, he’s no dummy. The writing was so good you forgot to scrutinize the material. That’s not where the lying began. It’s where he took lying to a new level.”
“He may have just stumbled onto what’s feeding his cause now, don’t you think? The questionable questioning back in ‘57? Would he even be in jail if they didn’t have the statement he made?”
“Maybe not. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. It’s just, could they prove it,” Frenzilli said.
“A novel is not a trivial thing, to sit for months scribbling away. You have to hand it to him. What, 350 pages, hardback? That’s something.”
“But does anyone pick up the book and not know who wrote it? No. Not know that the author’s sitting in a cell next door to the electric chair? No. So, what is it about the book? Is it a candidate for the novel of the month for the lady's club? No. The novel is what the guy who wrote it never stops thinking about: escaping the chair. You know all this,” Frenzilli said.
Dear Hannah, November 18, 1971
Who says the ordinary citizen should be the one who decides between guilt and innocence in a murder trial? And besides that, how does the jury keep from being commandeered by the strongest person in the room when they’re deliberating? Who’s to say who’s a good juror? What kind of person would you want on your jury? Personally I don’t know if I’d choose the smartest person in the room. Give me someone who’s basically been down in the trenches their whole life. They see what they see. They look at the witnesses and the lawyers and they think—I believe that one.But, of course, I don’t want anyone as a juror. I don’t want to be in the position of being tried at all.Don’t get in that position, Sweetie.That’s the key.
Love you to pieces, Mom
* * *
1 Calissi, Counterpoint, 479.
Chapter 40
Agent Chikae Salter approached the classically detailed limestone building facing the reflecting pool as soon as she entered the south gate of the Brookfield Zoo. She pulled open the large glass door of the reptile house and found a seat on a long bench facing the Plexiglas window that provided a close-up view of the large snake enclosure. She plucked an apple from the sack she carried and deftly cut slices with a pocket knife, which she then quartered and slid into her mouth. She would gladly have shared a slice with the largest of the anacondas, but reasoned that they would be far more interested in the live small mammals the keeper would be bringing around presently.
Gilbert Rathskeller entered by the same door. He marched purposefully to the window of the alligator habitat which was also sealed off from the public by a thick Plexiglas window. He joined the crowd of school children milling under the gaze of three obviously bored teachers and pushed to the front where he could see the inert armor-plated creatures lying among the water plants. This had been an excellent place to make contact with Salter over the last several months. They both could see at a glance when it was a good time to get close enough to converse. The children moved on to the small snake enclosure, and Salter approached the alligators.
The two of them stood five feet apart, intently staring into the enclosure, presenting a picture of a pair of visitors to the reptile house, unconnected in any way.
“The taps on the pharmacy and his home are going nowhere,” Salter said. “The pharmacist is making calls but not to anyone we’re interested in. We started watching him at quitting time two weeks ago. He’s used the public phone on the corner across from the store half a dozen times.”
“Call records?” Rathskeller said.
“Three were to his girlfriend down the street, and there were others that didn’t amount to anything. I’m sure yo
u saw the press release through Associated Press.”
“I did. Anything come of it?” Rathskeller asked.
“We just intercepted an envelope sent to the pharmacist’s home. It contained another letter addressed to Celia Armand at Carleton College. No return address on the envelope or the letter, but it was postmarked from a small town in Kentucky. New Concord Post Office.”
“Prints?”
“No luck lifting prints from the envelope or the letter. We sent an undercover agent from Murray to the post office. The bulletin board had some handwritten notices on it. We compared the handwriting to the letter. Bingo. It’s a woman. More than middle-aged. She runs the PO out of the front of her house, a dumpy double-wide.”
“Prints?”
“Yes, from her vehicle. It’s a match. Pinky,” Salter said.
“She doesn’t have the girl?”
“Been watching. It’s not her.”
“What’s the plan?”
“We’re going to approach her officially.”
“Nice work, Chikae. Keep in touch. Thanks.”
“Likewise,” Salter said.
Rathskeller turned and sauntered past the large snake enclosure, then on out the door.
Salter waited five minutes ostensibly enraptured with the sleeping alligators, then turned and meandered to the door.
Chapter 41
The Last Minutes of Victoria Zielinski
Excerpts from the True Crime Novel
Part 2: 8:36-8:45 p.m., March 4, 1957
Myrna knew the rule about boys having to come in the house when they took Vickie out was fine in theory—but Vickie got around it all the time. And what was going out anyway? Lots of times you meet boys in classes or at games or just walking around town after school. Then there was the thing about going with the older guys. They had their own car, and they had enough pocket change to just do things on the spur of the moment. Like Pellingtons’s—you didn’t necessarily have a car to get there but it sure helped if you did. It was so much fun. Everybody hung out there. Taking a ride from one of the older guys was a little scary because she wasn’t supposed to, but if she was heading home anyway what was the harm in getting a ride? Just specify up front that you need to get dropped off a block away from the house.