Fishtown: A Jack Regan/Izzy Ichowitz Novel

by Neal Goldstein

  Chapter 17

  April 1987

  “Ladies and gentlemen, court is back in session. Detective Ichowitz is recalled to the witness stand. Detective, you are still under oath. Mr. Coratelli, the witness has been turned over to you for cross examination.”

  “Thank you your honor,” Coratelli said as he moved to the lectern with a yellow pad in hand. “Good afternoon Detective,” he gave the witness an insincere smile. “I’d like to go over a few points you covered in your direct examination.”

  For the next two and a half hours Coratelli questioned Ichowitz challenging every aspect of the detective’s direct testimony without even once looking down at his notes. The cross examination was more like a fencing duel than an inquiry. The lawyer was unrelenting in his attack; always lunging, seeking an opening to cut the witness’ credibility, and the police officer parrying, in an effort not to be impaled and carted off the stand.

  “Detective, my client maintains that he knows nothing about the bodies that were found in the church cellar. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “He told you that the bodies the police found in the cellar could not be Jinjing Lee or Bayani Sukarto, because they had escaped. Isn’t that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “He told you that Jerry Kastanski knew he was holding the women captive and helped them escape.”

  “Counselor, yes that’s what the defendant claims, but our investigation established that the bodies buried in the cellar were Lee and Sukarto,” Ichowitz responded.

  “And how do you know the bodies buried in the church were Lee and Sukarto?”

  “They were last seen driving away in the defendant’s car.”

  “But there’s no physical evidence, no fingerprints or dental records that establish the identities of the bodies?”

  “No sir.”

  “So would it be fair to say that if Lee and Sukarto somehow got out of the cellar two other women were buried there?”

  “Counselor, we carefully investigated the defendant’s allegations and we determined they lacked merit. We found no evidence that anyone saw the victims leave the church. No evidence supports the defendant’s claim that Mr. Kastanski knew he was holding them captive.”

  For the next half hour Coratelli tried to shake the detective’s narrative that none of the defendant’s allegations were credible.

  “Detective, didn’t Mr. Heilman tell you where Jerry Kastanski took Lee and Sukarto after he took them from the church?”

  “Yes. He claimed Kastanski had taken them to an apartment at 2700 Nooris Street, but that was only after he first denied knowing the location. We went to that location, and no one saw them there. Mr. Coratelli, each of the defendant’s allegations, including his claim that Jerry Kastanski and his mother were involved in the murders, all of it was thoroughly investigated, and none of it could be substantiated.”

  “Maybe you didn’t try hard enough.”

  “Objection!”

  “Sustained.”

  “Thank you detective. No further questions your honor.”

  “Very well, does the Commonwealth have any redirect?”

  “No your honor, the Commonwealth rests.”

  “It’s now 4:30, we’ll adjourn for the day. Mr. Coratelli be prepared to proceed with your case tomorrow morning.”

  “Deputy, may I have a word with my client before you return him to his cell?” Coratelli asked the deputy in charge of transporting Heilman back to prison.

  “Sure Vito, the bus doesn’t leave until 5.”

  The deputies led Heilman to a room adjacent to the courtroom and left the defendant and his attorney alone.

  The pressure of the trial had taken its toll on him. Heilman looked especially disheveled, and agitated. His hair was greasy and hung down the sides of his face; his skin had taken on the yellowish tinge they called prison pallor. Heilman’s eyes darted back and forth from Coratelli to the door, to the ceiling, and back as if searching for something. “I didn’t kill the women in the cellar,” he said when the deputies left the room.

  “So you have told me since the day I agreed to take your case,” Coratelli replied. “Mr. Heilman, we need to decide if you are going to testify tomorrow.”

  A look of desperation crossed his face, “Do I have to?”

  “No. No you do not.”

  “What will happen if I don’t?”

  “We’ll rest our case and argue that the Commonwealth has not sustained the burden of proof necessary to convict you; that there is reasonable doubt that you are guilty of the murders.”

  “What should I do?”

  Coratelli believed Heilman had to counter the Commonwealth’s evidence regarding Kastanski’s denial that he had helped the victims escape. Coratelli’s cross-examination of Kastanski exposed the young man as a weak witness for the prosecution. Although he had scored some points when he cross-examined the detective, it wasn’t enough to invalidate the investigation of Heilman’s allegations.

  “I think you need to take the stand to show the jurors that no matter what you did with the other women you held captive, you did not kill the women the Commonwealth claims.”

  Heilman averted his eyes from the attorney, “But the prosecutor will ask me about all the things I did to those women, won’t he?”

  “Of course, but if you make the admissions in your direct examination like we planned his cross examination will be meaningless.”

  “But if I admit I did those things, why would the jury believe I didn’t kill the whores?”

  “Because you told me you didn’t.”

  Heilman said nothing.

  “Why don’t you think it over tonight and you can let me know what you decide in the morning,” Coratelli said his voice soft and soothing.

  “I didn’t kill those women in the cellar,” Heilman repeated.

  “Yes that’s what you’ve told me.”

  The next morning when the deputies removed his client’s handcuffs and leg shackles Coratelli asked, “So have you decided?”

  “I’ll testify.”

  “Mr. Coratelli, are you ready to proceed?”

  “Yes Your Honor.”

  “Call your witness.”

  “The defense calls Aron Heilman.”

  The jurors watched as the defendant slowly made his way to the witness stand.

  Coratelli studied the jurors’ reaction. For three weeks Heilman sat silently as the witnesses for the Commonwealth chronicled the defendant’s repeated acts of depravity and cruelty on his captives. Coratelli anticipated the jurors’ negative perception of his client and realized that at this juncture, the judge’s admonition of the presumption of innocence at the outset of the trial had succumbed to the weight of the prosecution’s evidence.

  “Mr. Heilman you heard the testimony of the three women you held captive in the cellar of your church. Was it accurate?”

  Heilman looked down at his hands that rested in his lap. “Yes. Everything they said was true.”

  Coratelli could tell from their reaction that the jurors were surprised both at the defendant’s admission and at the mellow timber of his voice.

  “Miss Mosato testified that you raped her repeatedly over the course of several days, and forced her to watch you rape Miss McGowan, and that you beat both of them and fed them dog food. Did that happen?”

  “Yes I did all of those things,” he replied again without looking up at the jury.

  Coratelli took Heilman through each of the allegations of abuse, all of which the defendant acknowledged.

  The jurors listened intently to the litany of allegations and admissions. Coratelli could read the change in their reaction from initial hostility and disgust to confusion, as they tried to comprehend what the defendant and his attorney were doing. If the defendant was conceding that he had tortu
red these women, was he also going to admit he committed the murders?

  Coratelli stood directly before the jury with his back to the defendant as he asked the next series of questions.

  “Did you also hold Jinjing Lee and Bayani Sukarto captive in the church cellar?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you rape and beat them?”

  “Yes.”

  The jurors now directed their attention to the attorney. Coratelli turned to the witness.

  “Did you kill them and bury their bodies in the cellar?”

  Heilman lifted his head and looked directly at the jury, just as his attorney had coached him. “No I did not.”

  “Did you know that bodies had been buried there?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know who killed Lee and Sukarto?”

  Coratelli waited for the answer. He had coached his client to respond to his questions without hesitation. He turned back to the witness and noted that he had also diverted his eyes from the jury. What the hell was he doing?

  “Mr. Heilman, do you know who killed Jinjing Lee and Bayani Sukarto?”

  Again there was the slightest hesitation, “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “Jerry Kastanski.”

  “But according to the police their investigation cleared him. Why should the jury believe you?”

  “He was the only other person who had the keys to the Church. He took the whores, I mean the girls, out of the cellar.”

  “Do you know where he took them?”

  Again the hesitation.

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. He took them to an apartment on Norris Street. I told the police; but they didn’t believe me.”

  Coratelli’s strategy rendered the District Attorney’s cross-examination of Heilman anti-climatic. The defendant had already admitted to the torture and rape of his victims and the jurors’ lack of interest in that line of inquiry was apparent. No matter how he tried, the prosecutor could not shake the defendant’s denial that he had murdered Lee and Sukarto and buried their bodies in the church cellar as charged.

  The closing arguments were predictable. Coratelli realized that the only hope of acquittal rested on the jurors’ belief that Heilman had testified honestly and that his claim that he had not murdered Lee and Sukarto was true. But why had Heilman hesitated when he asked him who the killer was, and about the location to which Kastanski had taken the women? He had consistently maintained that he had not killed the women and buried them in the cellar of the church. He could not be that good a liar, or could he?

  Chapter 18

  The Present

  Louis Delgado shook his head as he read the forensic laboratory report on the four bodies discovered at the Fishtown construction site. “Jesus Christ,” he said out loud even though no one was in his office. He called Larry Jackson and told him the lab’s findings.

  “What the fuck?” Jackson responded to the news.

  “Are you going to tell Izzy, or should I?” Delgado asked.

  Jackson exhaled deeply and said, “Fax me the report. I’ll tell him after I call the commissioner.”

  Jackson gave the commissioner the results of the DNA analysis.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure the report says what it says.”

  “This is going to be messy.”

  “Agreed; sir with your permission I’d like to share this with Izzy.”

  “Certainly; I’ll have my staff prepare a press release.”

  “Louis Delgado got the forensics back on the Fishtown bodies. The samples he sent to the lab linked two of the remains to Jinjing Lee and Bayani Sukarto. There was no match for the other two.”

  “Oh my god, do you know what that means?” Ichowitz replied.

  “Yes.”

  After he disconnected the call Ichowitz tried to assimilate the information Jackson had just given him. If two of the bodies from the construction site in Fishtown were Jinjing Lee and Bayani Sukarto, how did they get there? Had Heilman been telling the truth when he denied killing and burying Lee and Sukarto? If Lee and Sukarto had not been buried in the cellar of the Church of the Ministries of God, who had been buried there? Had Heilman killed them too?Heilman had been sitting on death row all this time. He had been convicted of murdering Lee and Sukarto and burying them in the cellar of his church. Would the DNA evidence get him a new trial?

  Shona Cohen awoke with a smile to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee every morning. Her apartment was above The Perfect Cup, Fishtown’s funky coffee shop on Frankford Avenue. “Good morning Carrie,” Bill Myers greeted her as she walked in. He smiled as she made her way behind the counter and put the Perfect Cup apron on.

  “Got you something,” he said and handed her a vintage Phillies baseball cap. “After all, I can’t have one of my baristas wearing a Mets cap. It’s bad for business; the locals aren’t particularly fond of the team from up north.”

  She smiled as she removed the offending cap and replaced it with the new one. “How do I look,” she asked.

  “Like you belong here,” he replied.

  “Thanks,” she said and gave him a hug.

  Bill Myers was a sixty-five year old widower who owned the coffee shop. It had been his wife’s dream. When she was first diagnosed with breast cancer, they rented the empty store on Frankford Avenue and opened the shop. He thought it would it would be good therapy, and in fact it was, for a time. Her doctors told him the coffee shop had given his wife a renewed lease on life.

  They had been married for thirty years, and were unable to have children, so they treated the young men and women who worked in the shop like their family. Shortly after his wife died, his principal barista quit to return to school. Bill was all alone and trying to carry on, forcing himself to greet his customers with a brave front. When Carrie moved in and applied for the job, he was grateful to find such a qualified replacement. In a short time she became an indispensable part of the operation and he began to rely more and more on this beautiful young woman. Shona also cherished their relationship and found excuses to spend more time with Miller. Without either of them realizing it, these two lonely souls had bonded.

  She had never experienced anything like this before. The old man made absolutely no demands on her. He accepted her for the person she purported to be. Whenever their conversations turned to areas she choose not to discuss, he respected her privacy and never pressed. For the first time in her life she truly felt the warmth of a relationship with another human being.

  Ichowitz took a seat at the back of the courtroom and watched Coratelli spar with the young Assistant DA over the defense’s motion to exclude the testimony of one of the Commonwealth’s witnesses. According to the DA, Martison’s assistant would testify that the babies the defendant had delivered were alive at birth. Coratelli argued that the witness was not qualified to present that evidence. Izzy could read the frustration on his godson’s face, as he sat there while the two attorneys spared with each other. Regan was not the primary attorney assigned to the trial and court etiquette allowed only one lawyer from each side to participate in open court.

  This issue was crucial to the prosecution. If the babies were not alive at birth the multiple murder charges would have to be dismissed by the judge. It wasn’t as simple as seeing a newborn crying and squirming. None of the witnesses had seen such obvious signs of life. Ichowitz marveled at Coratelli’s presentation, never once raising his voice, constantly redirecting the judge’s attention to the absence of qualifications of the prosecution’s witness to proffer her opinion. His opponent was seriously overmatched.

  “Counsel approach.” Judge James Matthews waived the attorneys to the bench on the opposite side from the jury box. Coratelli, Young and Regan along with the court stenographer huddled together as the judge whispered his remarks. From their facial expressions, Ichow
itz concluded that neither side was satisfied with the judge’s ruling.

  “Step back,” the judge said and turned to the jury. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have advised counsel that I will review the legal authority both sides have provided with regard to the issue that counsel has argued for the past forty-five minutes and announce a ruling this afternoon. Court will be recessed until 2 PM.”

  Ichowitz approached Coratelli and Regan as they collected their trial materials.

  “Bored with retirement already?” Coratelli asked.

  “I don’t think I’ve had much of a chance to actually be retired yet,” he replied. “I wanted to share some news I just found out about.”

  When they entered one of the anterooms, he told them about the DNA results on the bodies found at the construction site. “Aron Heilman was convicted and he’s been sitting on death row for the last 25 years. And now it turns out that the bodies buried in the church were not Lee and Sukarto.”

  Coratelli smiled and said, “You and I have discussed this case many times. As I recall, it was the first time we were on opposing sides,” he paused. “My friend, don’t be upset, Heilman is a sadist and a psychopath. He tortured the three women who testified at his trial. I’ve no doubt he committed many more acts of depravity and victimized others we don’t know about.”

  “But Vito, didn’t he deny murdering the women found buried in the church cellar?”

  Coratelli nodded.

  “But he was convicted of killing them,” Ichowitz replied.

  Jack Regan who listened to the exchange interjected, “No Izzy, he was convicted of murdering Lee and Sukarto. The fact that the bodies discovered at the church turned out to be other victims, doesn’t conclusively prove he didn’t do it.”