A House on Liberty Street

by Neil Turner

  When Dempsey finishes, Mike pipes up. “I have new information that bears on this discussion, Your Honor.”

  Mitton, who seems fed up with the bickering, waves Mike on. “Pray tell, Counselor.”

  “News outlets have reported that Andy O’Reilly Junior has been arrested for the attempted murder of Pat O’Toole. He will be tried in adult court.”

  All eyes in the courtroom settle on Pat.

  “I assume the state’s attorney’s office is aware of this?” Mitton asks Dempsey.

  “I didn’t know.”

  “The objection is overruled. You may finish your answer, Mrs. Novak.”

  “Thank you, Judge,” she replies. “Now that Andy Junior’s been arrested for trying to kill Mr. Valenti’s son and Miss O’Toole, there’s no reason to protect him from the truth.” She looks at Papa. “When I look at what the village has done to this poor man and his family, how could I sit by and not speak up?”

  I’m surprised when Dempsey and Perez don’t challenge the statement, which allows Fiona Novak to twist the knife a little deeper.

  “Francesco Valenti’s probably lucky to be here today,” she adds. “I imagine Andy was at his barbaric worst when he went out there that night.”

  “Nothing more for this witness,” Perez snaps.

  Mike declines to re-cross the witness. What more could she possibly say to help us?

  “How many more witnesses do you have?” Mitton asks after Fiona leaves the courtroom.

  “We need to consult on that, Your Honor,” Mike replies.

  Mitton glances at his watch. “We’ll adjourn for thirty minutes and resume at ten-thirty.”

  “I’ll see the attorneys at sidebar,” he announces after the jury files out and the courtroom begins to empty. Once we gather, he looks Dempsey in the eye. “Your plea for an emergency stay has arrived. I had a glance at it while Mrs. Novak was on the stand. I’ll see all of you in my chambers in twenty minutes to announce my decision.”

  “So, what have we accomplished?” I ask Mike when we’re alone outside the courthouse.

  “Everyone now knows Andrew O’Reilly was an asshole. His death was no great loss. Maybe the jury will believe he messed up the screen door. That doesn’t absolve Francesco for murdering the lousy sonofabitch.”

  “Point taken, but the jury might buy into the idea that O’Reilly was on a steroid bender that night.”

  “We’re not there yet,” Mike sighs.

  Twenty minutes later, Judge Mitton rules against the prosecution’s request. Dempsey huffily retorts that his office will take the matter to appellate court.

  Mitton shrugs. “That’s your prerogative, Counselor. Now let’s get back to work.” He spends the next five minutes brow-beating Dempsey into stipulating to the authenticity of the photo, arguing that it might play to their advantage if the appellate courts rule against him.

  When court reconvenes, Mike calls Brittany to the stand. A pair of easels face the witness and the jury. One holds a blow-up of my picture of Brittany in front of the screen door, the post-shooting photo of it sits on the other. Each is covered with a sheet of manilla paper.

  After the preliminaries are complete, Mike uncovers the post-shooting photo. “Have you seen this picture before, Brittany?”

  “Yes.”

  “Here in court?”

  “Yes.”

  “Had you ever seen this picture before I showed it during my opening statement yesterday morning?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever seen the door in this condition?”

  “Not until yesterday.”

  Mike uncovers the picture from her phone. “Was this picture taken with your cell phone?”

  “Yes. Dad took it just before we left the house the night of the shooting,” Brittany replies, prompting gasps throughout the courtroom.

  “So, approximately an hour before the shooting took place.” He then has her explain how she first realized the significance of her photo when she saw the door ‘after’ picture yesterday during his opening statement. Judge Mitton informs the jury that the defense and prosecution have stipulated to the authenticity of the photo. If any jurors still doubted that an altercation took place at our front door on September seventeenth, they should be convinced of it now.

  Given the stipulation about the picture, Dempsey doesn’t have much to cross-examine Brittany about. He’s reduced to hammering away at the slender crack afforded to him when she can’t swear to a certainty that her cell phone has been in her possession every minute of every day since she first activated it. If it wasn’t in her hand at all times, maybe Dempsey can sow some semblance of doubt in the minds of the jury.

  Then he goes a step too far. “If I were to ask if you had your phone with you on any given day, how often would you have to admit that you simply don’t know, Miss Valenti?”

  “Days I don’t remember having it?”

  “Correct.”

  “Oh, I’ve had it every day, Mr. Dempsey. There was, like, this one morning when I thought I’d lost it for a few minutes, but I left it in my jeans pocket when I threw them in the laundry. I live on that thing. It’s my lifeline to everyone I know.”

  Dempsey is stumped. Seeing that, Brittany forges ahead to help out. “You can look, Mr. Dempsey. I send messages to my Dad and friends every day. Instagram, too.”

  Dempsey throws in the towel. “Nothing more for this witness, Your Honor.”

  After Brittany departs the witness stand, Mitton calls the lunch recess.

  Mike and I make a beeline for his Public Defender office and gobble down a couple of Italian grinder sandwiches while discussing how we should wind up Papa’s defense. We feel we’ve shown that Andy O’Reilly was a thug and that he, not Papa, was the person most likely to have been the ticking time bomb that exploded on the evening of September seventeenth.

  “Is that enough to push the jury to consider manslaughter or, better still, self-defense?” I ask.

  “Self-defense?” Mike exclaims with an expression of utter disbelief.

  “Why not? We haven’t heard from Sandy Russo yet.”

  Mike throws his hands up in exasperation. “We have no idea what she’ll say!”

  “I think we have a shot at this, Mike.”

  “Putting on a self-defense case would be malpractice. We may have cracked the door open for a manslaughter plea deal.”

  “Papa won’t go to jail, Mike.”

  “The hell does that mean? It’s not his call.”

  “You need to talk to him.”

  He stares back at me, shakes his head, and plucks his briefcase off the desk. “I don’t know what the hell has gotten into you two, but let’s go.”

  Papa is shown into the attorney-client room ten minutes later. Mike makes his case. "You see the danger here, Francesco?”

  Papa withdraws into himself for a moment. We fall silent while he works through whatever is on his mind.

  Then Mike’s cell buzzes. “Luke Geffen,” he announces after looking at the caller ID. He takes the call and spends most of it grunting and nodding. He disconnects and takes a deep breath. “At the risk of further encouraging you two, Luke just talked to Beau Smith, the Tribune’s source for the steroid and weightlifting story. He’s decided to testify, after all. His stories about O’Reilly abusing his family and being chased out of Cedar Heights PD will be inflammatory as hell.”

  Papa looks vindicated. I haven’t mentioned his bombshell admission about killing his sister’s kidnapper, which I’m sure was intended for my ears only. It’s a wild card that scares the hell out me. I look from him to Mike and then level my eyes on my father. “If we can convince the jury that O’Reilly provoked you into fearing for your safety before you shot him, we may be able to argue self-defense.”

  “Then I no go to jail?” Papa asks.

  “If we can convince the jury.” I explain the possibilities of Sandy Russo’s testimony, how it may have the potential to help or hurt our case. “We may have to put you on t
he stand to make that case, Papa.”

  Mike is appalled at what he’s hearing. He turns a searing look on me before telling Papa, “That’s extremely high risk, Francesco. We don’t need to decide just yet.”

  “Is best,” Papa says after a moment. “I think Anthony is right. O’Reilly scare me so I shoot. This is truth.”

  Mike looks to me for support.

  “It’s dicey, Papa,” I say softly, horrified that my earlier enthusiasm for him testifying may end up walking Papa into a disaster of epic proportions. I should have known I’d mess things up. “We can’t put you up there unless we have evidence to support your story and the jury is convinced that you’re not prone to violence,” I add pointedly, hoping he understands my oblique warning about the danger of disclosing what happened in Italy all those years ago.

  Mike repeats his malpractice outburst.

  Papa breaks the ensuing silence by reaching out to lay his hand alongside Mike’s cheek. “Michael,” he says soothingly, “I no want to live in this place. Better to die than live like animal.” His beseeching eyes linger on Mike’s for a long moment. “Capisci?”

  “I hope you’re not about to get your father killed by filling his head with pie in the sky bullshit,” Mike snaps at me as we depart.

  I envision a fitting epitaph for my gravestone: One spectacular fuck up after another.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  There is a one-hour delay after lunch. Luke Geffen is bringing Beau Smith to court while Dempsey fulminates in Judge Mitton’s chambers about “yet another defense ploy to sidestep discovery rules.” Mitton listens to how Smith came to land on our witness list at the last minute. He accepts Mike’s explanation and says we can put Smith on the stand.

  When Dempsey continues to argue, Mitton stops him. “You chose to designate this a priority case, Mr. Dempsey. I’m mindful of the pressure that puts on the defense team and that you made this a priority case for exactly that reason. I intend to make sure Mr. Valenti is afforded due process, even if it gets a little messy due to time constraints. Understood?”

  Dempsey’s lips tighten into a straight line. He replies with a curt nod.

  It does my heart good to see Mitton giving the sonofabitch a good dressing down. Damned if old Myron isn’t growing on me.

  The judge turns to Mike. “Hurry things along, Mr. Williams.”

  Mike calls Beau Smith and prompts him to share his recollections of the time he spent with O’Reilly on the Cedar Heights PD, complete with the unsavory details of their carousing. They explore O’Reilly’s stint as a fellow gym member of Smith’s and dig into the details of O’Reilly’s rampant steroid use. Smith is able to go into detail about O’Reilly’s penchant for pyramiding—stacking and cycling different steroids to maximize the effects. He even relates an episode of O’Reilly experiencing roid rage. Perez subjects Smith to a brutal cross-examination that would discourage anyone from inviting him out for a beer but fails to impeach his testimony. Smith is on and off the stand in thirty minutes. The jury listened intently. I think it went well.

  Time to roll the dice one more time. After wiping my palms on my pants, I get to my feet and announce, “The defense calls Sandra Vaccaro Russo.”

  At our request, Judge Mitton had Sandy taken into custody and delivered to the court this morning. With Brittany’s picture of the screen door in play and yet another account of O’Reilly’s volatility fresh in the minds of the jurors, evidence of an altercation between O’Reilly and Papa would be invaluable. We’re gambling that Sandy will provide it. Given her refusal to cooperate with the court or anyone else, Mitton has granted us permission to treat her as a hostile witness. As I watch Sandy escorted to the witness stand and sworn in, I feel queasy in the pit of my stomach. Yes, this is a girl I grew up with, but I’m not her favorite person. I hope Mike is making the right call in having me question her.

  Even though the hostile witness designation gives me plenty of latitude to work Sandy over in search of the truth, I decide to ease my way into the questioning. Maybe she’ll be cooperative, maybe not, but the optics will be better if the jurors witness her making a deliberate decision to be uncooperative.

  After establishing that Sandy grew up next door and was having dinner with her parents on the night of the shooting, I lob my first softball. “Did you make a statement to the police about the shooting that took place outside Forty-seven Liberty Street on the evening of September seventeenth?”

  “I did.”

  “Can you tell us when the police questioned you?”

  “The next morning.”

  I arch an eyebrow to signify surprise. “Not at your parents’ on the night of the shooting?” Subtext: What were the police doing that night if not talking to the people next door? What kind of shoddy investigation took place?

  “I guess I’d gone home by the time they rang the bell,” Sandy replies. She’s perched alertly on the edge of her seat with her hands resting primly in her lap.

  “I see. Where did you make the statement?”

  “At my house.”

  “Did the police tell you they were taking a formal statement?”

  “Yes, they did.”

  Ah, but they didn’t. I’ll circle back to that later. “Did you witness the shooting, Mrs. Russo?”

  “I did not.”

  I hold eye contact with her in hopes of establishing a little rapport. She’s been surprisingly agreeable so far. “Would you mind telling us what you told the police the morning after the shooting?”

  She’s clearly surprised by the question. “They still haven’t given you my statement?”

  I notice a couple of jurors frown. I stifle a fist pump and lament, “I’m afraid not, Mrs. Russo. Perhaps you would be kind enough to tell us what you told the police?”

  She fidgets in her seat and looks down into her lap when she answers. It’s her first sign of discomfort. “I remember clearly.”

  Tread carefully, Valenti. “Do you need a moment? Perhaps a drink of water?”

  Sandy’s eyes rise to mine in appreciation. “Please,” she murmurs. The bailiff directs her to a bottle of water tucked away in a corner shelf of the witness box.

  I let Sandy take a sip and resettle herself. “When you’re ready to continue, please tell us what happened.”

  “Just like I told the police?”

  “Yes, please. As best you can remember. I understand that you didn’t see what was happening next door?”

  “That’s right. It started raining hard right after dinner. I couldn’t remember if I’d closed my car windows, so I ran outside to check. That’s when I heard what was happening next door.”

  I ease a step closer to the witness box and ask a simple question that totally unnerves me because I have no idea how she’ll answer. “Will you please tell us about that?”

  “Well, I could hear Andy yelling.”

  “By Andy, do you mean Deputy O’Reilly?”

  “Right.” She’s addressing me directly, as if I’m the only other person in the room with her. Maybe it helps steady her nerves.

  I smile encouragingly. “You were acquainted with O’Reilly?”

  “In school. We were in some of the same classes. His son is in some of my daughter’s classes at school this year. At least he was until they arrested him.”

  “Were you friends with Deputy O’Reilly?”

  “No. I saw him around the school sometimes.”

  “So you knew who he was.”

  “Right.” A look of distaste crosses Sandy’s face. At the memory of O’Reilly? I resist the impulse to probe further; there’s already more than enough uncertainty about what she might say.

  “You know Francesco Valenti.”

  “He’s been my parents’ neighbor as long as I can remember.”

  “You would recognize his voice?”

  “Sure. I heard him that night.”

  “You’re certain the people you heard were Francesco Valenti and Andrew O’Reilly?”

  “I am.”<
br />
  “How would you classify your relationship with Mr. Valenti?”

  “We’ve been neighbors forever. He’s always been nice to my family. My parents are friends with him.”

  “Francesco Valenti is a good neighbor?”

  She nods firmly. “Yes. And a good man.”

  “Did you see him on the night of the shooting?”

  “He waved at me from the porch when I arrived at my parents’. I didn’t see him again after that.”

  “Did you see Deputy O’Reilly?”

  “I did. I saw Andy pull up in front of your—the Valenti’s house. You can’t see their front door from our front step. There’s a hedge.”

  “Deputy O’Reilly arrived in a police cruiser?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see him get out of his car?”

  “I did.”

  “Did you speak with him?”

  “No, I was still in the house when he arrived. Andy walked up the driveway toward the Valenti’s front door. I remember wondering what the police were doing next door and hoped everything was okay.”

  “What happened next?”

  “I went to get my coat and keys and went outside. Andy was yelling and banging on the front door. Really pounding it.”

  “And then?”

  “Mr. Valenti answered the door and said, ‘What’s this?’ or something like that.”

  “You were close enough to hear clearly?”

  She nods. “Yes. Our driveways are side by side. I was fifteen or twenty feet away.”

  “Go on.”

  “Andy and Mr. Valenti argued.”

  I take a deep breath and plunge deeper into the unknown. “Tell us about the argument, as accurately as you can.”

  “Bad language and all?”

  “Please.”

  “Andy did most of the talking… shouting, actually. He was very loud and aggressive.”

  “Was this normal behavior for O’Reilly, so far as you knew him?”

  Sandy nods. “I guess. He was a bully all through high school. Grade school, too. Guess he never changed much.”