“Jessica Fellini took out one of the two Ishi hunting arrows that she had placed in a second quiver the night before, after removing them from the case in the Fellini study. That second quiver normally held spare target arrows, but that morning it also held two very sharp hunting arrows. She shot one into the back of Marco Fellini. Then, when she suddenly realized that a hot-air balloon was hovering near the rooftop archery run, and that the person in the basket underneath the balloon had witnessed her murderous act, she shot the other arrow at the balloonist.”
Zoran then provided evidence to the jury that Hans Reiniger, the Swiss balloonist, had indeed been shot by Jessica Ware. “The proof was the arrow found in Hans Reiniger. It was identical to the arrow removed from Marco Fellini.
“At that point,” Zoran elaborated, “only two Ishi hunting arrows had been removed from the collection of Ishi artifacts stored in the display case in the study of Marco Fellini. Those were the arrows used to kill Marco Fellini and to wound Hans Reiniger grievously.
“Later, Sophia Fellini and Jessica Ware removed more distinctive hunting arrows from the Ishi areas being displayed at the National Arts Club. Those arrows from the National Arts Club were the arrows that were shot at Dan Riley and myself.”
Zoran returned to where he had been sitting next to Dan and Yoko. “I trust that was clear?” he said in a low voice to Yoko.
“Impeccable,” she said. “Now everyone knows who was our eye wit—the person who saw the murder.”
“Yes,” Zoran said. “The eye witness was the balloonist, Hans Reiniger.”
Dan nudged Yoko. “Your turn, Yoko.”
Yoko took the stand to explain how her specialized knowledge had uncovered Jessica Ware’s motive. “It’s all in the eyes,” she explained, telling of Jessica Ware’s eye exam a few months earlier by herself and Dr. E. Robert Bertolli. the optometrist from Connecticut who came to New York to assist at the college clinic when they were short-staffed. “Ebob and I…I mean, Dr. Bertolli and I both noted that Jessica Ware’s pupils were very tiny, less than 3 millimeters in diameter, and unresponsive to light, which is a certain indication of opiate usage. I asked Ms. Ware whether she was on any pain medication, and she said she wasn’t.
“When Jessica Ware became a suspect in Marco Fellini’s murder, I checked further and found out that she had suffered a leg fracture while skiing in Idaho more than a year ago. Her doctor prescribed OxyContin, a powerful opiate, for pain. According to the doctor, her initial 30-day prescription had been refilled only once, the maximum he would prescribe because of the opiate’s addictiveness, and we could find no other prescriptions for OxyContin from other physicians in the city. We—that is, the NYPD—concluded that Jessica Ware was either obtaining pills on the street or through the Internet. We traced her credit card charges and discovered that the latter was the case, as my colleagues have already discussed.
“Once we established that Jessica Ware was using OxyContin illicitly, we had to ask ourselves, ‘So what?’ Many people use illicit drugs, but most of them don’t kill their employer as a result. Fortunately, Sophia Fellini had made that connection for us by referring to her suspicions of her husband’s assistants, Jessica Ware and Iona Duncan, especially regarding the verification of the authenticity of the jade figurine of a hunting scene with two archers that had been offered to Marco Fellini by Bernadem Collections in Switzerland. So we followed up on that.”
“What did you find?” the prosecutor asked Yoko.
“We had the Seattle Police Department interview Curtis Schoenfeld and Jamilla Rodrigo, the two experts on jade artworks, whom Jessica Ware had located. Both admitted to attesting falsely to the figurine’s authenticity in exchange for a cash payment of $50,000 each from Jessica Ware. At that point, we knew that Jessica Ware knew all along that the figurine provided by Bernadem was a fake, and that she had arranged with Bernardem to sell the fake to Marco Fellini so that Jessica would get funds to support her OxyContin habit. Marco Fellini paid half a million dollars for the figurine and subsequently sold it for one and a quarter million. Jessica falsified the accounts so that she was able to keep two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for herself and pay Bernardem the same amount.
“Obviously,” Yoko concluded, “Sophia Fellini knew of Jessica’s addiction to opiates and when she also discovered the accounting fraud she used that knowledge to persuade Jessica Ware to kill her husband—because both of them would stand to gain. Jessica could keep her job, working for Sophia Fellini, and Sophia Fellini would be rid of her husband, whose infidelities she could no longer tolerate.
“I should add that we have not been able to find Mr. Bernardem in Switzerland, but Interpol is now involved and we expect that Bernadem soon will be brought to justice.”
To Yoko, her final moments on the stand were the most fulfilling. She was able to describe exactly how she and Zoran had finally captured and arrested Sophia Fellini and Jessica Ware in Central Park. She was pleased the prosecutor had saved her account of the arrest for last, resting the State’s case after the jury had heard her account—an account that appeared verbatim in the next day’s Times. Now, Yoko was not only a civilian consultant to the NYPD, but the only optometrist who’d made an arrest for the one-three. As far as she knew, her mentor and colleague, Dr. Forkiotis, had never arrested anyone.
Throughout Dan’s, Zoran’s and Yoko’s testimony and their cross-examination by the defense attorney, Sophia Fellini was calm and impassive. Jessica Ware, on the other hand, trembled and cried as, fact by incriminating fact, the story of the cold-blooded planning that ended in such brutal actions was revealed. Jessica’s testimony was brief, but it landed like a bombshell, vaporizing every particle of sympathy toward the widow Fellini.
“Yes, it’s true,” Jessica Ware said. “I shot Marco Fellini, because Sophia threatened to turn me in to the authorities. Then, when I saw that hot-air balloon overhead, and that man looking down at me, I knew he’d seen the terrible thing I’d done and I…I lost it. I aimed another arrow and shot at him. I can never forgive myself, I have nightmares, terrible bloodstained dreams. Sophia knew I couldn’t stomach the killing.” She paused. The courtroom waited, hushed. Jessica took a deep breath. “But I did not shoot the Detective when we were in the tunnel. That was Sophia.”
“You heard Sophia congratulate Jessica,” Yoko whispered to Dan.
“Cunning,” Dan said.
Jessica finished her testimony. “I thought Sophia was going to shoot at Dr. Kamimura…so I pushed her ahead of me down the tunnel. Suddenly, Sophia wheeled around and aimed at the Detective. As she released the arrow, she called out my name, congratulating me. I didn’t know what to think or do, I just dragged Sophia away.”
National interest in the case heated to sizzling point, a stew rich with the kind of ingredients that held a jaded public’s interest. Paparazzi flocked to the courthouse. Photojournalists brought zoom lenses, glitterati came to be seen and photographed. The murder trial of Sophia Fellini and her co-conspirator Jessica Ware had it all.
Weapons? Arcane bows and arrows.
Victims? A wild assortment of individuals who ran the gamut from appealing to nauseating. A fat-cat plutocrat whose philanthropy hid his remorseless acquisition of heirlooms stained with blood spilled by Nazi and Fascist sadists, including his own grandfather. A handsome young detective, one of New York’s Finest, chained to dialysis while awaiting a kidney donor. And the detective’s squeeze, an attractive young civilian consultant to the 13th Precinct, an optometrist whose behavioral approach to vision care, virtually unheard of before the case, had helped solve the case.
The apprehension of the evil-doers? A director of B movies couldn’t have staged it any better: horses in Central Park, a doctor of optometry chasing Sophia Fellini on foot, culminating in the doctor slapping handcuffs on the evil widow.
Yet the one person who utterly captivated a worldwide audience hadn’t even appeared in the courtroom: Hans Reiniger, the Gypsy who still lay in a coma. Like the murd
ered art dealer and the young detective on dialysis, he too had been shot with an antique hunting arrow and had suffered massive injuries. After the release of Hans’ letter by his attorney, Hans’ friends on several continents stepped forward to attest to his good character. Hans’ faking of the permit to fly his hot-air balloon was, in the eyes of the public, completely understandable, commendable even.
Indeed, Hans Reiniger’s story, published in the New York Times after his lawyer had authenticated Hans’ tell-all letter, had been a sensation. Not only had Hans dared to float a hot-air balloon over lower Manhattan on a quest to avenge the wrong done to his family by the Nazis, and in particular by Dr. Josef Mengele, he had been on a holy quest to retrieve a sacred family relic stolen from his Gypsy grandmother, a crystal ball obtained by the art dealer Marco Fellini, who treasured it because his own grandfather had helped Mussolini rid Italy of the “Gypsy menace.”
That Hans Reiniger had planned to kill Marco Fellini to honor a pledge made to his dead wife added just that much more icing to an already rich and delicious cake, and the media ate it up, repeatedly regurgitating it for their readers.
Hans Reiniger intrigued citizens and media equally, thanks to Rupert Murdoch’s mouthpieces. Fox News Channel, spawned in 1996, aired daily interviews with so-called authorities, their pronouncements lingering long after the conclusion of the trial. So long as Hans Reiniger clung to life, he would remain top-of-the-hour news to Fox.
The New York Post, a 1976 Murdoch purchase, pontificated daily about the deprivations endured by minorities like Gypsies, endlessly reminding its readers that fairness and equality were the rights of all—even as Murdoch’s minions met with politicians behind closed doors, brokering deals so his businesses would pay what some cognoscenti estimated was an income tax of 7 per cent on revenues of billions.
The once-staid Times of London, acquired by Murdoch in 1981, editorialized on the possibility that the balloonist would join Dr. Yoko Kamimura as a civilian consultant to the 13th Precinct. “The dedication and fearlessness of Hans Reiniger are qualities well suited to public service.”
“I can visualize it now,” Yoko said to Dan after reading that particular suggestion in the Times of London while they waited for the jury’s verdict. “Hans and I leading balloon patrols across the city. Can’t you just see the terror in the eyes of the bad guys as our red, white and blue balloons approach?”
Even as they laughed at the absurd notion, Yoko wondered what would happen if Hans woke from his coma. Now it was more like, “when” Hans woke up. What would the Gypsy face? So many friends in so many countries had come to his support. Perhaps the idea she and Dan had laughed about wasn’t too far off the mark.
The jury absorbed the lengthy presentations from the prosecution and the defense, fascinated by the contrast between the two defendants accused of murder: the pretty young woman, so distraught by her actions, and the elegant older woman, so completely detached and dispassionate, almost uninterested in the proceedings.
They listened to witness after witness. Jessica Ware’s attorney called an expert witness, a psychiatrist, who explained at great length how Sophia Fellini’s coercion had pressured Jessica beyond normal human limits, so unwisely influencing her choices.
For his part, Sophia Fellini’s lawyer countered with his own special witness, another for-hire psychiatrist, who expounded passionately on Sophia’s dead husband’s infidelities, how the wife’s suffering had been so grievous, how she had borne the brunt of the work of the gallery while her husband jaunted around the country with lovers on whom he lavished money and attention.
Although the prosecutor had leapt to his feet to remind the court (and the jury) that Sophia Fellini’s so-called insanity had included meticulous planning, the defense’s psychiatrist insisted that the widow had been pushed to the point of madness.
The jury didn’t buy it.
Their verdict was as swift as any arrow, landing precisely where the prosecutor had aimed it: Guilty on all counts. The widow received thirty years. The assistant, although she had been the one whose arrows had killed one man and severely wounded another, received twenty years. The jury knew who was the bigger culprit: Sophia Fellini. Had they been able to sentence the biggest culprit in the case, Marco Fellini, they would have given him life. But someone had already beaten them to that satisfaction.
The judge banged for order as cheers erupted in the courtroom.
“So that’s what Hans meant,” Yoko whispered to Dan as they stood, waiting to leave the courtroom so Zoran would not have to mingle with the crowd.
“What?”
“Look at Jessica.”
“Yeah, She’s bawling. Big old crocodile tears. She’s been doing that for days. So what?”
“Look at her hair, those auburn curls.”
“So?”
“Hans Reiniger, when he crashed, I distinctly remember he said, ‘red.’ He was referring to Jessica’s red hair.”
“You’re quite the detective, but that’s not admissible evidence, Yoko.”
Zoran, who was on the other side of Dan, leaned towards Yoko, careful not to get too close to Dan.
“However, that is an excellent deduction. Although I abhor the habit Sergeant Baldoni has of giving everyone nicknames, some quite absurd, you truly deserve yours, Dr. Kamimura, or should I say, ‘She who sees all.’”
Dan groaned. “Zoran, Vinnie and I have managed to keep that a secret ‘til now.”
Yoko smiled in satisfaction. At last, she’d learned her nickname. Now she’d truly arrived. Had Zoran deliberately avoided saying “Vinnie” because it was a contraction? Probably.
“Wow,” Yoko said. “This is my lucky day. Not only did I get to listen to the jury give their verdict and the judge pronounce sentence that’s so well deserved.” She smiled at Dan. “But I also got to find out my nickname.”
Zoran shrugged. “If you remember, I suggested some time ago that I was certain the wrongdoers would face justice.”
“True, Zoran,” Yoko agreed.
“Now that we know who figured out who saw the murder—you, my dear, ‘she who sees all,’” Dan said, grinning at Yoko, “I willingly give credit where credit’s due.”
The three joined the tail end of the crowd slowly filing out of the courtroom.
“Isn’t there one loose end?” Yoko said as they inched along with the crowd slowly filing out of the courtroom.
“Loose end?” Zoran repeated in surprise.
“Hans, the Gypsy balloonist. What will happen if––when––he comes out of the coma?”
“He’ll face some sort of trial,” Dan said. “But with the support he’s received already, so many people coming forward to testify to his good character, the charges he face may not be so serious.”
“When you think about it, he didn’t commit any crime, other than faking a permit to fly a balloon over Manhattan,” Yoko said.
“He did fly the balloon, and that wasn’t legal,” Dan said thoughtfully. “But Jessica beat him to the actual deed, even though he said, or wrote, that he wanted to kill Marco Fellini.”
“We’ll have to wait and see,” Yoko said.
Zoran nodded thoughtfully.
Not far away, in a pure white room in a Manhattan hospital, a man’s eyelids fluttered open. He blinked. His startlingly blue eyes scanned the room.
“Brigitta, he said. “I’m here. Where are you, my love?”
Postscript to the Reader
Elements of Truth
Protagonist Yoko Kamimura is a practitioner of behavioral optometry, a specialty in the field of optometry that is available in more than forty countries. It is a valuable health care that has helped countless individuals whose eyesight was excellent but whose vision was not. Among them, a roll call of professional and amateur sports teams that includes the New York Yankees, Seattle Mariners, Chicago Black Hawks, San Francisco 49ers and U.S. Olympic medalists.
Eye Wit has real behavioral optometrists as well as the fictional chara
cter of Dr. Yoko Kamimura. The real ones include Dr. Elliott Forrest, Dr. Gus Forkiotis (a nationally recognized Expert Witness who lectured on vision at the Connecticut State Police Academy for decades), Dr. E. Robert Bertolli (also a decades-long lecturer at the Connecticut State Police Academy), Dr. Beth Bazin and Dr. Beth Ballinger. SUNY is one of twenty colleges in the U.S. offering postdoctoral degrees in this specialty. The Executive Director of the OEP Foundation, Robert Williams, is real and ever tireless in behalf of behavioral optometry. We encourage readers to contact http://www.oepf.org for more information about this valuable optometric specialty.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, the OCD of Detective Zoran Zeissing, is a fact of life for many. It is estimated that one in fifty adults in the US alone has OCD.
The Friends Meeting House on Gramercy Park South was empty for many years and was indeed part of the Underground Railroad. It and many other places with secret rooms are referred to in code in spirituals like “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” The Friends Meeting House building is now the Brotherhood Synagogue.
Hans Reiniger, our Romani Gypsy, is a fictitious character, but the depictions of how Gypsies were treated before, during, and after World War II are as accurate as we could make them.
We offer special thanks to Ronald Lee, Romani Canadian journalist, author, lecturer on the Romani Diaspora at the New College at the University of Toronto, and founding member of the Roma Community Center in Toronto––for his thorough review of our manuscript and his many incisive suggestions, especially regarding Romani culture, tradition, names and language. We hope our readers will visit his fascinating website: http://kopachi.com/index.html.
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