The Mayor of Lexington Avenue jt-1

by James Sheehan

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Jimmy nodded to the judge. He then proceeded to have Jack tell the jury how long he had been practicing and how he became state attorney of Cobb County. Jack told only the essential details.

  “You represented Rudy Kelly, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you represented him in his appeal to the Supreme Court? His third appeal, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you not raise all the arguments that you have raised in this courtroom-the separate rape file, the confession, Geronimo Cruz?”

  “No, I did not. Your Honor, if I could explain?”

  “Proceed, Mr. Tobin.”

  “The issue before the Supreme Court was whether Rudy was innocent or guilty. The actions of these two men, the defendants in this trial, were only an issue to the extent they affected Rudy’s innocence or guilt. I did not have Geronimo Cruz’s confession at the time. I did not know of the 1988 letter when I went before the Supreme Court-and I did not know it had been hidden. That was everything, you see. Once we had Cruz, we had his DNA and we got a confession and the case against Rudy fell apart. Once we got Cruz, we could see clearly what these men had done.”

  At that moment Clay Evans wanted to strangle Jimmy. He had argued until he was blue in the face against putting Jack Tobin on the stand.

  “This guy will eat you for breakfast, Jimmy.”

  “No he won’t. I can handle him.” In the end, Jimmy had been too forceful. Clay had relented. Now, as he sat in the courtroom listening to Jack, he knew what a serious mistake he had made. One question and Jack had summarized the case against him and Brume.

  Jimmy ignored Jack’s answer.

  “Isn’t it true that you took the state attorney’s job for the sole purpose of prosecuting these two public servants?” Jimmy motioned to the two rather hunched figures glowering at him from the defense table.

  “No, and if I could explain, Your Honor?”

  The judge practically chuckled. “Go ahead, Mr. Tobin.”

  “I had spoken to Maria Lopez before I took the job and she had told me about the 1988 letter from the Del Rio police so I knew they had hidden something and I planned to investigate that when I took office. I hadn’t spoken to Cruz before I became the state attorney and I did not have his DNA sample, so I did not know that he was the killer until after I became the state attorney. Would I have taken the job if Rudy had been released? Probably not. I will admit I was obsessed with finding out all the facts about why an innocent young man was killed by the state and prosecuting those who were responsible. I planned to do that.”

  “And you didn’t tell the governor about those plans, did you?”

  “No.”

  “And that was the primary reason you took the state attorney’s job?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it the sole reason?”

  “I’d say so. I’d already agreed to take the position before I even knew about Rudy, but after Rudy’s death I only took this job to investigate what happened to him and, if it was criminal, to prosecute those responsible.”

  “No further questions.” Jimmy shot Clay a look of vindication. He’d told him his goal was to show that Jack had taken the state attorney’s position under false pretenses, and Jack had said pretty much what Jimmy had predicted he would, among other things. It was the effect of those other things-the fact that Jack was searching for justice for an innocent man-that Jimmy didn’t quite understand and that Clay saw written all over the jurors’ faces. He glared back at Jimmy, who at this point he wanted to kill.

  “Call your next witness,” the judge told Jimmy.

  “The defense calls Wesley Brume.”

  Jimmy steered away from any questions about how Rudy’s confession was obtained. He had Wesley tell the jury how many years he had been a faithful servant for the Bass Creek police department and the many positions he’d held, then he went right to the point.

  “Do you recall ever receiving a letter from the Del Rio police department?”

  “No, sir. I didn’t know there was a Del Rio until I heard the name in this courtroom.”

  “If you had received a letter from the Del Rio police department mentioning a person named Geronimo in 1988, would you remember it?”

  “Yes, I would.”

  “So what you’re saying is-the ‘facts’ that Maria Lopez testified to never happened?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “No further questions.”

  “Your witness,” the judge said, looking like he was ready to grab a bag of popcorn and enjoy the show.

  Jack had been waiting for this moment for quite some time. For some reason, as he walked up to the podium, a memory from his younger years popped into his head. He had been the victim then and his friends had confronted the slime that had tried to violate his life. He remembered Mikey’s older brother Danny leaning over assistant scoutmaster Daly, a hunting knife at his throat, and telling him, “And now you’re going to disappear.” He looked at the pudgy detective sitting in the witness box and he remembered what this man alone had done to Rudy. It was time to make Wesley Brume disappear.

  He started by reminding the jury of the Grunt’s past credibility problems.

  “Mr. Brume, you were present when Bill Yates testified that he told you not to talk to Rudy without his mother being present?”

  “Yes, I recall that.”

  “Do you still maintain that he didn’t tell you that?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you heard Mr. Dragone testify that you threatened him with the health department?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you still maintain that you didn’t do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you heard Ms. Lopez testify that Rudy’s mother, Elena, came to the police station to stop your interrogation of her son at 3:16 p.m. on January 24, 1986. It’s in her notes, she wrote the time down. Do you remember her testimony?”

  “Yes, I heard her testify to that.”

  “And your notes from your own records reveal that you began your interrogation at 3:18 p.m., is that accurate?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you still maintain that when Elena arrived at the station, you were almost done with your interrogation of Rudy?”

  “When I knew she was there-yes.”

  “I’m not sure I understand your answer.”

  “She may have been there and I didn’t know about it.”

  “So you dispute Ms. Lopez’s testimony that she called back immediately to let you know Elena was there?”

  “I dispute everything Ms. Lopez says.”

  “Now, you said something on direct which I found very interesting-you said you would have remembered a letter in 1988 if it had mentioned a person named Geronimo, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that because a person named Geronimo was a witness in the Rudy Kelly case and had disappeared?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what would you have done if you had seen a letter from Del Rio identifying a Geronimo from Bass Creek as a rapist and a murderer? Would you have contacted the Del Rio police department?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Would you have contacted Mr. Evans?”

  “Either him or somebody in his office. I can’t say I positively would have contacted him.”

  “But you never received this 1988 letter?”

  “No.”

  “No further questions.”

  Jimmy DiCarlo finished his sterling defense with Philip Sheridan, a police sergeant with the Del Rio police department.

  “What was your position in the police department in 1988, Sergeant?”

  “I was in charge of records.”

  “If an inquiry letter to another department was sent by your department in 1988 inquiring about a suspect, who would have sent that letter?”

  “I would have.”

  “Do you have any record of an inquiry letter being sent to the Bass Creek police depa
rtment in 1988?”

  “No. And I searched our records thoroughly.”

  “And do you have any personal recollection of sending a letter to the Bass Creek police department?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “No further questions.”

  “Cross, Mr. Tobin?”

  “No, Judge, but I would request that this witness stick around. I may want to call him on rebuttal.”

  “Very well. Mr. Sheridan, if you could wait in the witness room, we may be calling you momentarily. It won’t be long. Any more witnesses, Mr. DiCarlo?”

  Jimmy checked with Clay Evans one last time, hoping Clay would relent and take the stand. But Clay shook him off. There was no way he was subjecting himself to cross-examination by Jack Tobin.

  “No more witnesses, Your Honor. The defense rests.”

  “Any rebuttal, Mr. Tobin?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Call your first rebuttal witness.”

  “The state calls Del Shorter.”

  Clay Evans could feel the Grunt squirming next to him. He at least felt somewhat vindicated because he knew the Grunt had lied to him. Somewhere along the way, Brume had learned that Del Shorter was working against them but he had kept that from Clay. Jack Tobin had been waiting for both of them to testify so he could bring Del Shorter out to crucify them. Clay had saved himself from the humiliation of being torn apart by Jack on the stand, but from little else. This trial had been a nightmare. Jimmy DiCarlo’s defense had been the worst he had ever seen and now Jack was bringing Del Shorter out as the coup de grace. Clay thought of his decision to hire Jimmy DiCarlo and pay him $200,000 and his second decision to pay $250,000 to assassinate Jack. Never has anybody paid so much for so little. .

  “I’m retired and I’ve been living in Utah for the last ten years,” Del told the jury.

  Jack skipped over the story of how he’d found Del. It wasn’t of interest to the jury. He had hired two people to go through all of Tracey’s telephone messages for the month before she died. Through a painstaking process, they’d discovered one of the calls was made from the home of Del Shorter’s sister in Stuart. Jack made the visit himself. It was not unlike the visit he had made to Maria Lopez the first time. The sister admitted that Del had visited and, in a fit of conscience, he had contacted Tracey James, but when she was killed he got scared and went back to Utah-which is where the Grunt had expected him to remain forever.

  “In 1986, I was Wesley Brume’s partner.”

  He proceeded to pound Wesley and, where he could, Clay into the ground as he responded to Jack’s questions.

  “Officer Brume sent me out on January 24, 1986, to meet with Elena Kelly and to keep her occupied while he interrogated her son. When she caught on to what I was doing, she demanded to see her son. I told her she wasn’t a lawyer.”

  In response to questions about the rape file, Del admitted his own complicity.

  “We knew we were hiding the semen evidence. That’s why we created the rape file. There was no evidence of rape. Wes wasn’t smart enough to come up with the idea himself. He told me about it immediately after a meeting with Clay Evans. . The coroner was in on it. He had to be.”

  The final blow was the 1988 letter, but even at this stage-even though he had made Jimmy look like a fool so many times-Jack held a little back so Jimmy could step right into it on cross.

  “I knew about the letter. I saw it when Maria showed it to Mr. Brume. They knew it would blow their case. Evans was up for a federal judgeship at the time, and Brume was hoping when that happened something good would happen for him, which it did.”

  Jimmy DiCarlo had nothing to lose on cross. He went after Del Shorter with a vengeance.

  “So you were part of this-this criminal activity-is that what you’re telling this jury?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I presume you told Mr. Tobin all about your participation before today?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you have not been prosecuted for any crimes, have you?”

  “No.”

  “Even though, if you had come forward at any time about what you knew, you could have stopped Rudy Kelly’s execution?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are as much responsible for his death as anybody, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Maybe even more so.”

  “I don’t understand your question?”

  “You took the call from Maria Lopez on January 24, 1986. You made the decision not to tell Wesley Brume that Rudy’s mother was out there demanding to see her son. You made the decision to stall her!”

  “I did not! I did not!”

  “And you were the one who came up with the idea of a separate rape file!”

  “I did not!”

  “Oh no? Why is the rape investigative file signed by you? Why does it state, and I quote: ‘It is the opinion of this investigator that this rape investigation should be separate from the murder investigation’?”

  “I don’t know. Probably because Brume wanted it that way.”

  “Or you wanted it that way.”

  Jimmy was actually making some headway. Jack was enjoying it because he knew what was coming. Clay Evans had given up. He knew the ballgame was over and that Jimmy was simply no match for Jack. He had made a bad choice and he had paid dearly for it. At least now, at the end, he could sit back and watch Jimmy’s evisceration.

  “You knew Jack Tobin was getting close, so you got with your friend Maria Lopez and you made up this 1988 letter from the Del Rio police department and you fed it to Mr. Tobin so you wouldn’t be prosecuted.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “There was never any letter, Mr. Shorter, and you know it.”

  “That’s not true, Mr. DiCarlo, I have a copy right here. I made a copy of it and kept it. I’m not sure why. Maybe just because I thought I might need it someday.”

  Jimmy DiCarlo wasn’t sure he’d heard the answer right. At that moment, Clay Evans wanted to shoot this incompetent oaf with whom he had entrusted his life.

  Del Shorter produced a document from his jacket pocket and held it out to Jimmy, who didn’t even want to go near it.

  “Take the letter, Mr. DiCarlo,” Judge Stanton said softly. Jimmy finally took the letter.

  “You could have typed this letter yesterday. The signature is unreadable,” Jimmy said after a quick glance. Questions had long ago gone by the wayside.

  “I didn’t,” Del countered.

  “And you don’t know if Wesley Brume ever talked to Clay Evans about this letter, do you?”

  “No.”

  “No further questions.” Jimmy tossed the letter onto the podium dismissively and walked back to his table acting as if he had decimated Del Shorter on cross. He didn’t even hear Jack call Philip Sheridan back to the stand.

  “Mr. Sheridan, I have a letter here purported to be from your police department dated June 16, 1988. The signature is kind of hard to read. Could you take a look at it and see if you could identify the signature?” Jack handed the letter to Philip Sheridan.

  “That’s my signature,” Sheridan replied after examining the letter.

  “And did your department normally send out letters like this when you believed a suspect came from another state?”

  “All the time.”

  “How long do you keep those letters?”

  “It all depends. We have what we call a ‘pending file.’ If the letter isn’t answered, it stays in the pending file and is purged after three years. If it is answered, it becomes part of the criminal investigative file and is not purged.”

  “So, now that you have identified your signature on that copy, can you re-create for us what happened with this letter?”

  “Sure. We probably sent it out and never received an answer and after three years purged it from our files. That’s why I testified that I had no record of such a letter.”

  “Thank you, Officer Sheridan. No further questions, Your Honor
.”

  Jack had the letter marked and admitted into evidence over Jimmy’s strenuous objection.

  “Redirect?” the judge asked, almost smiling. Jimmy had finally gotten the picture.

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “Any more witnesses, Mr. Tobin?”

  “No, Your Honor. The prosecution rests.”

  Jimmy was up before Jack had finished. “We renew our Motion for Acquittal, Your Honor.” There were actually some chuckles from the spectators and the press row.

  “It’s 11:30 right now,” the judge said, looking at his watch. “I’m going to dismiss the jury for lunch and we’ll discuss the Motion for Acquittal.” The judge turned to the jury. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to give you a long lunch. You don’t have to be back until 1:30, at which time you’ll hear closing arguments. I suspect that you will be deliberating by the end of the day. Remember all my admonitions to you. Do not talk about the case to anyone or among yourselves. Enjoy your lunch.”

  “Okay,” the judge started after the jury had filed out, “I’m going to give it to you short and sweet so you have time to digest it over lunch and to modify your closing arguments if necessary. I’m dismissing the case against Clay Evans.” A low murmur spread through the courtroom. Judge Stanton ignored it. “Mr. Evans was the prosecutor in the Kelly case. As such, he enjoyed absolute immunity. The only possible way he could be criminally responsible for Rudy Kelly’s murder is if, after the prosecution was completed, he participated in some illegal scheme to have Rudy Kelly executed. I listened carefully to all the testimony and there is no evidence that Mr. Evans even knew about the 1988 letter from the Del Rio police department. Maria Lopez, the state’s best witness on this issue, said she had no real proof that Wesley Brume even talked to Clay Evans about this letter. Mr. Shorter also admitted that he had no proof that Brume told Evans about the letter. Without this critical nexus, I must dismiss this case against Mr. Evans.

  “As for Mr. Brume, he has limited immunity and there is ample evidence against him to send this case to the jury.

  “That’s it. That’s my ruling. Mr. Evans, you are free to go. I’ll see the rest of you at 1:30 sharp.”

  Jimmy was ecstatic. He went to shake Clay Evans’s hand but thought better of it when Clay glared at him.