Overkill

by Joseph Teller

  Judge Wexler declared a brief recess.

  Jaywalker had fully intended to ask Julie about how she’d been chased and threatened by a group of the Raiders five or six days ago. He knew he would be on shaky ground, because technically, that incident had no relevance to the murder charge against her brother. But if he could get it in, it at least showed that there had been, and still was, a bunch of thugs who went around wearing Oakland Raiders jackets and intimidating people.

  But Julie’s testimony, and her brother’s reaction to it, had created a powerful moment right before the recess, a moment in which the depth of Jeremy’s suffering had been revealed in full measure. Jaywalker had no desire to water that down now with a new line of questions that had more to do with Julie than with Jeremy. He also secretly hoped that Katherine Darcy, in cross-examining Julie, would blunder into opening the door to the recent incident. So when they resumed and the jury was brought back in, with the witness once again on the stand, Jaywalker rose and announced he had no further questions of her.

  Which, he knew, created a dilemma for Darcy.

  He watched her closely now as she stood and walked slowly to the lectern, saw from her hesitation that she recognized immediately the trap Jaywalker had set for her. And as she began her examination, he grudgingly gave her credit for not falling into it, as much as he would have liked her to. Still, he wondered if at some point she might not get careless.

  DARCY: You are the defendant’s sister, aren’t you?

  JULIE: Yes.

  DARCY: His twin sister, in fact.

  JULIE: Yes.

  DARCY: Is it fair to say you love your brother?

  JULIE: Yes.

  DARCY: Very much?

  JULIE: Yes.

  DARCY: If he were in serious trouble, would you help him out if you could?

  JULIE: Of course.

  DARCY: Would you lie for him?

  It was one of those questions prosecutors loved to death. If the witness were to say no, the jury would disbelieve her. What sister wouldn’t lie for a brother in serious trouble? Yet if the witness were to say yes, that she would lie, then her own answer would brand her as a perjurer unworthy of belief on the rest of her testimony. In other words, for the questioner it was one of those absolutely irresistible win-win questions, and the problem for the witness was that there seemed no way out of it.

  The problem for Katherine Darcy, on the other hand, was that Jaywalker knew all that stuff, too. So he always—always—made it a habit to prepare his witnesses for the question. However, in the ten minutes the judge had allowed him this morning, he’d neglected to remind Julie Estrada to expect it. Was there any chance she might remember his advice from weeks or months ago? He bit deeply into the inside of his cheek as he listened to Darcy repeat the question.

  DARCY: Would you lie for your twin brother?

  JULIE: You know, I’m pretty sure I would, if it came down to that. But so far, I haven’t had to find out. Everything I’ve said is a hundred percent true, and even you know that.

  Jaywalker had to hold on to the arms of his chair to keep from jumping to his feet and applauding. He couldn’t have come up with as good an answer himself. Though evidently he had, some weeks ago.

  Darcy understandably refused to quit on that note. She asked five or six more questions, but none of them, or the answers they drew, amounted to much. When finally she succeeded in scoring a tiny point by getting Julie to admit she couldn’t remember the exact time frame of the bed-wetting, she quit. That said, Jaywalker had to admire her for her discipline. While he’d burned her on the lying-for-your-twin-brother business, Darcy had continued to steer clear of the even more dangerous territory Jaywalker had hoped she would stumble into. All she would have had to do was ask Julie the same innocuous question she’d put to Carmen—whether she herself had ever witnessed anyone in a Raiders jacket chasing Jeremy—and Julie could have answered, “No, but they chased me last week!” And even if Harold Wexler had let only the first word of the answer stand, Jaywalker’s Jewish half would have smiled and said Dayenu.

  It would have been enough.

  “Call your next witness,” said the judge.

  Jaywalker stood, let a second or two click off the clock, and said, “The defense calls Jeremy Estrada.”

  19

  JEREMY’S STORY

  Even though the jurors had known for a full week that Jeremy would be taking the stand, every one of them locked eyes on the young man as he rose from his seat and began making his way toward the witness stand. There are few moments in a trial that rival the drama that accompanies the announcement that the defendant is about to testify. The delivering of the verdict, certainly, and perhaps the summations of the lawyers. But short of those events, which in this case wouldn’t take place until the following week, Jeremy Estrada taking his place in the witness box was unquestionably the high point of the trial.

  From an early age, we’re conditioned to resolve disputes by hearing from both sides. Try to visualize a scene in which a mother hears a crash coming from the kitchen. Upon investigating, she finds the cookie jar in a hundred pieces on the floor, her two young sons standing equidistant from its remains.

  “Did you do that?” she asks one of them.

  “No,” he says. “Not me.”

  Turning to the other one, she asks, “Did you?”

  Son number two decides to invoke his privilege against self-incrimination, and says nothing. Though only four, he’s read up on constitutional law and knows that his silence may not be used against him.

  So who broke the cookie jar?

  If you say the second boy, the one who refused to deny it, you’re being nothing more nor less than human. We’ve grown to expect that someone accused of a transgression will either admit his guilt or deny it, and that—and here’s the interesting part—for some reason we think that simply by listening to him we’ll be able to judge whether or not he’s telling the truth.

  So Jeremy taking the stand in his own defense promised to be a defining moment for the jurors, most likely the defining moment. They would listen to him as he tried to explain away the evidence that had built up against him over the past five days, and from his answers they would know whether to walk him out the door or ship him off to state prison for the next twenty-five years or more of his life.

  Telling the truth or lying.

  Guilty or not guilty.

  Black or white.

  They could forget about reasonable doubt, ignore which side had the burden of proof, and stop looking for shades of gray. By putting the defendant on the stand, Jaywalker was making it easy for them. Once they heard from Jeremy, they would know.

  Jaywalker, too, knew that was what they were thinking, of course. But long ago, perhaps as long ago as he’d set eyes on Jeremy and heard him say that when he’d shot Victor Quinones he’d been defending himself, he’d known it was a strategy he was going to have to adopt. Carmen hadn’t been there at the fight and the shooting. Frankie the Barber had come all the way from Puerto Rico on his own dime, but he hadn’t been there, either. Nor had Julie, with all her unexpected eloquence. Miranda had been there, but by writing out a statement for the detectives, she’d poisoned herself as a witness.

  Which left only Jeremy.

  So for better or worse, it would be left to him to tell his story, and it would indeed come down to how persuasively he could and would tell it. And now, as he placed one hand on a Bible, raised the other and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, Jaywalker held his breath and prayed for the best. The hundreds of hours of prying Jeremy’s story from him were a thing of the past. The mock examinations and cross-examinations were history. Even Jaywalker’s last piece of advice delivered an hour ago would be forgotten. “Details,” he’d told Jeremy. “We need details. And relax. You can’t hurt yourself up there. You can only help yourself.” It was a lie, of course. But to Jaywalker it was no worse a lie than a doctor prescribing a placebo for his patient and s
aying, “Take one of these for your headaches, but only one, because they’re extra-strength.”

  Jaywalker started off gently with Jeremy, asking him short, easy questions that wouldn’t require any real thought on his part. He wanted to give him a chance to warm up, to get his voice going, to get a feel for the process. He established that Jeremy was nineteen now, but had been barely seventeen two years ago; that he’d been living with his mother and twin sister; and that he’d recently transferred to a new high school, Park East, at 105th Street, which he walked to and from.

  JAYWALKER: How were you doing in school?

  JEREMY: Not so good.

  JAYWALKER: Why is that?

  JEREMY: I have a learning disability. I’m not good with numbers or writing. Also comprehension. School was actually pretty hard for me.

  JAYWALKER: Did you hear Ms. Darcy asking your mother yesterday about your attendance?

  JEREMY: Yes, sir.

  JAYWALKER: And is it true that at times your attendance was poor?

  JEREMY: Yes.

  JAYWALKER: Even before that May?

  JEREMY: Yes.

  JAYWALKER: In addition to going to school, were you doing anything else?

  JEREMY: Yes, I was working.

  JAYWALKER: How old were you when you first started working?

  JEREMY: I’d just turned fourteen.

  Jaywalker had Jeremy describe the jobs he’d held up to that time. He’d worked part-time after school and full-time each summer. The jobs had been in the neighborhood, and he’d been paid in cash, off the books.

  The preliminaries having been dispensed with, it was time to introduce the jurors to Miranda.

  JAYWALKER: Did there come a time that May, Jeremy, when you met somebody?

  JEREMY: Yes, I met this young lady.

  JAYWALKER: Tell us how that happened.

  JEREMY: Well, as I was walking to school one morning along Third Avenue, I passed this flower shop. And I saw her right inside. And even though neither of us said anything, we, like, made eye contact, you know?

  JAYWALKER: What did she look like?

  JEREMY: She was very, very beautiful.

  The day Miranda had been at Jaywalker’s office, he’d thought to take several photographs of her. He wasn’t quite sure why at the time, had even suspected himself of wanting to keep them, so striking-looking she was. Now he drew the best of them from a file, had it marked for identification and handed it Jeremy.

  JAYWALKER: Do you recognize the person in this photograph?

  For a split second all Jeremy could do was stare at it. Jaywalker hadn’t shown it to him before this moment, hadn’t told him he was going to. Sometimes, he felt, you got the best stuff out of your clients by surprising them. Finally Jeremy managed to pry his eyes away from the image and look up. But when he tried to speak, his voice failed him, and he looked as though he was about to cry. But then, Jeremy had these pale blue-gray eyes and often looked like he was close to tears.

  JEREMY: Yes. That’s her.

  JAYWALKER: Did there come a time when you actually met her?

  JEREMY: Yes. It took me a few days, but finally I get up the courage to go inside the shop. I pretend I’m looking to buy some flowers. And someone comes up behind me and says, “Can I help you?” And I turn around and I see her. So I start blushing, I guess, ’cause I’m nervous, kind of like I am now. She asks me if I want some flowers, and I go, “Yes, for my little niece. She’s having a birthday party.” And she says, “Am I invited?” So I say, “Sure.”

  Jaywalker sneaked a look at the jurors, saw they were enthralled. It was as if Jeremy’s embarrassment at telling the story was providing them with a lens through which they could share his nervousness two years ago.

  JAYWALKER: What happened next?

  JEREMY: We talked for a minute. I introduced myself. I said, “My name is Jeremy.” And she said, “Pleased to meet you. I’m Miranda.”

  Jeremy had arranged to meet her at the shop at six o’clock, when she would be getting off from work. Then he’d turned to leave, only to have Miranda stop him and remind him that he’d forgotten to buy flowers for the party. But Jeremy hadn’t had enough money to pay for them, and had been forced to confess that there was no party after all. “I just said it to meet you,” he’d admitted. And she’d told him he hadn’t needed to lie to her and should never do it again. But, she’d said, she would still meet him.

  So Jeremy had picked her up after work. He described how they’d gone for ice cream, walked around and talked. And in the weeks that had followed, they’d seen each other often. They’d done everyday things, going for pizza or to McDonald’s, or for ice cream. There was a little park where they’d sit and talk. Or they’d walk east to the river and look out across the water, watching the boats go by.

  Jaywalker paused briefly before asking his next question. Having woven the spell of the young couple falling in love for the very first time, the moment had come to move on, to break that spell.

  JAYWALKER: Did all go well in your relationship with Miranda, or did it not go well?

  JEREMY: It went well up to a point.

  JAYWALKER: And what happened at that point?

  JEREMY: I noticed this guy who always seemed to be hanging around Miranda.

  JAYWALKER: Can you describe him for us?

  JEREMY: He was kinda dark-skinned. Muscular. And to me he seemed very mean-looking.

  JAYWALKER: Did you ever learn his name?

  JEREMY: Yes, Miranda told me. She said his name was Sandro.

  JAYWALKER: What else did she say about him?

  JEREMY: That he always wanted to go out with her, but that she didn’t want to have anything to do with him or his friends.

  According to Jeremy, Sandro was always surrounded by a gang of six or eight guys who looked to be in their late teens or early twenties. None of them seemed to work or go to school. Several of them sported crude, hand-done tattoos, and a few had “gold decorations” on their front teeth. And even though it was late spring and hot on the avenue, a couple of them still wore black leather jackets with “pictures of stuff” on them.

  JAYWALKER: What kind of stuff?

  JEREMY: They were Oakland Raiders jackets, and they had the face of a man on them, with crossed swords behind it. And the man has like a patch over one eye. It looks kind of like the face you’d see on a pirate flag. It’s meant to be scary, I think.

  JAYWALKER: What would happen when you’d see Sandro and his gang?

  DARCY: Objection to the word “gang.”

  JAYWALKER: It’s the word the witness himself—

  THE COURT: Overruled. The witness did use the term. That said, it will be up to the jurors to determine whether it was a gang or not, should they feel the need to resolve the issue.

  JAYWALKER: Could we have the question read back, please?

  He listened as the court reporter began to reread the question from her stenotype machine. He wanted the jurors to hear the word gang again, but this time from a different, neutral voice that would serve to put an official-sounding imprimatur on it. A little thing? Sure. But Jaywalker deemed it crucial that by the time the jurors began their deliberations, whenever they’d think of Sandro and his group, the word gang would reflexively come to their minds. There was a world of difference, after all, between being harassed by a young man and his friends, and being harassed by a gang. And to Jaywalker’s way of thinking, if you took enough little things just like that and added them all up, they could take a conviction and transform it into an acquittal.

  REPORTER: Question: “What would happen when you would see Sandro and his gang?”

  JEREMY: I’d be walking along, and Sandro would say, “There go that white boy, that—”

  JAYWALKER: Who were they referring to?

  JEREMY: Me.

  JAYWALKER: Did they call you names?

  JEREMY: Yeah, you know.

  JAYWALKER: No, we don’t know. You have to tell us.

  JEREMY: Punk. Cocksucker. Mari
con. Motherfucker. Stuff like that.

  JAYWALKER: What does maricon mean?

  JEREMY: It’s like, “You fucking fag.”

  Jaywalker had him describe some of the things the gang had done. Jeremy described hand motions imitating guns being fired and knives being drawn across throats. He’d been told to “get the fuck out of here,” to “get lost if you know what’s good for you.” And he’d been chased, often at full speed.

  JAYWALKER: Did this pattern continue for a period of time?

  JEREMY: Yes.

  JAYWALKER: As it continued, what was your reaction? What were some of the things you experienced?

  This would be the hard part for Jeremy. Talking about Miranda had been easy. Even talking about what the gang had done or threatened to do had been manageable. But as Jaywalker moved from those areas into the subject of Jeremy’s reactions, he found himself holding his breath between each question he posed and Jeremy’s answer. Because this was the stuff that he’d had such difficulty over so many months prying loose. And despite all the hours lawyer and client had devoted to the process, as he waited for each response, Jaywalker had no real idea what to expect. Would Jeremy recite in riveting detail what he’d gone through that summer, or would he instinctively bend forward and go into a crouch, in order to protect himself from yet more humiliation?