“And he was found by police officers in the deceased’s apartment with the murder weapon and he subsequently confessed to killing Mr. Geraldo?”
“Yes.”
“I appreciate you’re not a lawyer, but you’ve investigated a number of homicides and seen plenty of murder trials. If a suspect was found in an apartment with the deceased and the murder weapon at his feet, in this case an actual smoking gun, he wouldn’t have much of a defense, now, would he?”
Martinez forced back a smile and said, “He might if you’re defending him, Mr. Flynn.”
The jury sniggered. They liked the cop. I had to go lightly.
“Given your experience with murder trials, a man in that position might do or say anything to get a lighter sentence.”
“It’s possible.”
“And there was no forensic evidence found at the crime scene that in any way linked this murder to the defendant?”
“No. Just the one-ruble bill found in the possession of Witness X.”
“The defendant’s fingerprints were not on that bill, correct?”
“The only discernible fingerprints came from Witness X and the custody officer who booked him in. All other fingerprints were obscured by the prints of those individuals.”
“I’m sorry, Officer Martinez. You actually mean, ‘No. The defendant’s fingerprints were not found on the one-ruble bill.’ Isn’t that right?”
“The defendant’s fingerprints were not found.”
“Officer, the NYPD have secured convictions in the past with partial palm prints. Isn’t that correct?”
“I believe so.”
“The defendant’s palm prints were not found on the bill.”
“No, they were not.”
“So there’s no forensic evidence to suggest that Olek Volchek even touched this bill?”
Martinez looked at Miriam. She couldn’t give him any help.
“That’s correct.”
“No further questions.”
By no means a killer cross. Even so, I’d accomplished all that I could. Given an hour or so, I might’ve done better, but I didn’t have time.
“No redirect,” said Miriam.
I whispered to Volchek, “What type of Mercedes is Uri driving?”
“White, S-Class.”
The cop thanked the judge and stood to vacate the witness box. At moments like this, when one witness is excused and another is called, the judge, the lawyers, the crowd, take it as a little break—like a new batter stepping up to home plate. Arturas sat behind me and to my right. I leaned left, palmed Kennedy’s cell, and typed a text message to Jimmy: I made a deal with Volchek. Amy will be in a white Merc, S-Class, parked somewhere around the court building. Don’t make a move until I say so. But be ready to take her on my signal.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
“Ms. Sullivan, are we to have your next witness?” said Judge Pike.
“Yes, Your Honor. The people call Nikki Blundell.”
A beautiful young woman with pale skin got up from the public seats and began making her way to the stand. She wore long, flowing black slacks and a cream blouse, her auburn hair tied up in a bun. Tall and athletic, she moved quickly and gracefully. Miriam would likely take thirty minutes with her. I ran to Miriam just as the nightclub dancer opened the half door to the witness stand.
“Why don’t we cut to the chase? Forget about the dancer. Just call Witness X, and let’s get this over with.”
“She’s next on my list, Eddie. You’ll have to wait for my star man.”
“Lead her evidence. I won’t object. Just get things moving,” I said.
Ordinarily, the prosecution can’t ask their witnesses any leading questions. I needed things to move fast, and Miriam would gladly take the opportunity to lead the witness through her best points, making sure Nikki hit all the right notes.
While I stood beside Miriam, I felt Kennedy’s cell phone vibrate. With my back to Arturas, I checked the messages—a reply from Jimmy. I’ll be waiting. I’m sending the Lizard to watch your back.
While the nightclub dancer took the oath, I tapped out a discreet reply. There is a gun in a trash can near the basement elevators.
Miriam got straight to it.
“Ms. Blundell, you’re a dancer at the Sirocco Club on 12th Street?”
“Yes.”
Nikki Blundell appeared elegant and spoke without much of an accent. I thought that Miriam must have spent a good deal of time picking out clothes for this witness to make her look professional and not at all like a typical nightclub dancer.
“And what do you do when you’re not working at the Sirocco Club?”
“I’m a law student at Columbia.”
I’d been expecting Nikki Blundell to be a pretty, if slightly trashy young girl I could handle easily. No way was I expecting this; Nikki Blundell suddenly became the kind of semi-professional witness that jurors love.
“You’ve worked at the Sirocco Club for two years now?”
“That’s correct.”
“Seems a little unusual—law student and erotic dancer?”
The crowd liked that one. The jury looked a little embarrassed, but they smiled and drew closer to hear the answer.
“Well, I’m a pole dancer, and the style is more exotic than erotic, actually. It’s tasteful.” She turned to the jury for the last part of her answer. “Actually, I learned how to pole dance at a night class in the community hall next door to my church. A lot of girls do it these days for fitness. It’s a really good workout, and the tips are fantastic. I’m paying my own way through law school. I couldn’t make that kind of money waiting tables. My dad—he’s the pastor of the church—well, he’s okay with it, so I figure, why not?”
The jury exchanged nods with one another. Even some of the ladies wearing crucifixes smiled and shrugged their shoulders. Any mileage I could’ve gained out of Nikki Blundell’s line of work just went south, permanently.
“Ms. Blundell, I’m going to refer you back to the night in question, around two years ago, April fourth. You were working in the club that night and you saw something?”
“Yeah. I’d just finished my routine, and I saw a camera flash from the crowd. That got my attention. Customers aren’t allowed to take pictures in the club—manager’s rules. So the flash was a big deal, and I wanted to see who had taken the picture.”
“And what did you see?”
“Oh, I saw the defendant, that man over there.” She pointed to Volchek. “I saw him clearly. He got into a fight with another guy—the guy who must have taken the picture. There was a lot of pushing and shoving; then they separated.”
“How certain are you that one of the men you saw was the defendant?”
Nikki looked at the jury, nodded her head, and said, “I’d swear my life on it. It was one hundred percent the defendant. He started the fight. It looked as though he wanted to kill the other guy. It was him, no doubt about it.”
A great answer, and Miriam paused, letting the jury chew on it for a second or two. Some of the jurors exchanged glances with one another. Nikki was proving to be a big hit with the jury.
“How far away were you from the defendant and the other man?”
“I’d say around seventy feet.”
“When you saw the fight, did you recognize the man with the camera?”
I underlined the word “camera” in my notes. It gave me an idea on how to handle Little Benny and buy me a little alone time with Volchek.
“Not at that time, but about a week later, I saw his picture in the paper. The article said his name was Mario Geraldo and that he’d been murdered the day after I saw him being attacked in the club. I felt just awful, so I called the police.”
“You subsequently attended the police precinct and you were shown some photographs of individuals who may or may not have been the man you saw attacking Mario Geraldo that night. Do you remember?”
“Yeah. I went through a bunch of them until I saw the picture of the man who had
attacked the victim.”
Miriam held up a photograph of Volchek. NYPD carry photos of every suspected gang leader in the city.
“And was this the photograph that you picked out?”
“Yes. That’s the man who attacked the guy with the camera.”
“Let the record show that the witness identified a photograph of the defendant, Olek Volchek.”
Another pause for effect.
“Ms. Blundell, the defendant might make the case that this was a crowded nightclub. How is it that you saw this happen so clearly?”
“Because I was on stage, so I had a bird’s-eye view of the whole club. In fact, I had the best view in the whole place. I had, like, an elevated position.”
“Ms. Blundell, you say this fight occurred on the night of April fourth, just twenty-four hours before Mario Geraldo, the victim in this case, was murdered. What makes you so sure what you saw actually happened on that particular date?”
“Oh, that’s easy. It was my grandma’s birthday the next day. I remember going home after my shift and staying up till five a.m. baking her birthday cake.”
Miriam turned away from the witness, winked at me, then took her seat with the rest of the prosecution team. I checked over my notes.
“She’s damn good,” said Volchek.
“She’s toast in twelve questions,” I said.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
“Ms. Blundell, how much did you have to drink that night of April fourth?”
I wanted to get the hard question out of the way first.
She leaned toward the jury with her answer, as if it were a private matter, just between them.
“The manager brings a bottle of champagne to the dressing room, for all the girls, before we go on stage. So I had maybe one glass?”
“You said you were perhaps seventy feet away from the two men you saw fighting; could you have been eighty, ninety, a hundred feet away?”
“No, not as far as that. I’d say eighty feet maximum.”
“The Sirocco Club would be like most other nightclubs in that part of town—bright and well lit?”
She laughed, covered her mouth with her hand, and batted her eyelashes at the jury.
“No. Of course not. It was dark.”
“But you were well lit. You’re one of their big stars; you would have maybe two or three spotlights on you?”
“Four, actually. No, wait—yeah, I think it’s four.”
“And the Sirocco holds how many people? Two, three thousand?”
“April fourth was a Friday night, so the club would’ve been full. Yeah. I’d say a couple thousand easy, but I saw what I saw. Like I said, it was the camera flash that drew my attention. I saw that man, the defendant, attacking Mr. Geraldo. I saw him clearly.”
She’d been well schooled to hammer home her identification of the defendant at every available opportunity.
“So let me get this straight; you’ve consumed alcohol, you’re presumably pretty tired because you’ve just finished your routine, you have four big, bright spotlights shining directly into your face, and eighty feet away, in the dark, in the middle of a couple thousand people, you’re able to see the defendant clearly?”
Nikki Blundell uncrossed her legs, crossed them again, blinked rapidly for a few seconds, looked at the jury, and said, “Yes.”
A couple of the jurors sat back and folded their arms; they were beginning to question their first impressions of Nikki Blundell.
“You didn’t think too much about this fight at the time; it was only after you read the article in the paper that ran a picture of Mr. Geraldo that you contacted the police. That was your evidence, correct?”
“That’s correct.”
“This article?” I said, holding up a copy of the New York Times article that I’d read the night before in one of the files. The page was folded in half, and I let the witness and the jury see the masthead, the picture of Mario, and the headline. MOB LINK TO MURDER.
“Yes. That’s the article.”
“You said in your direct examination that at the precinct you picked out a photo of the defendant and identified him as the man who had a fight with the victim, but you had no other reason to pick him out other than your memory of what you saw on April fourth at the club, right?”
“Right.”
“You had never seen a photograph of the defendant before?”
“No. Of course not. I’d never seen a photograph of him before.”
I flipped the newspaper, letting the witness and the jury see the photo below the fold: the photograph of Volchek coming out of the courthouse, having been arraigned for the murder.
“Let the record show that the article the witness accepts that she read before contacting the police carries a photograph of the defendant, Olek Volchek,” I said, careful not to actually ask the witness about this directly and give her a chance to explain herself.
Holding a photo taken at the crime scene in my hand, I asked, “When you saw the defendant in the huge crowd, in the dark, eighty feet away, with four spotlights aimed at your face, did he have a beard, like he has today, or was he clean shaven?”
My dad’s old trick again. She saw the back of the photo in my hand and bit her lip. For all she knew, I had CCTV images of Volchek leaving the club that same night. She didn’t know if he was clean shaven or not, and who could blame her? Details like that escape most eyewitnesses, even honest ones. She had to be careful, as I’d already caught her out with the newspaper article.
“I don’t know. I was too far away.”
I bent over and made a note of the answer on my legal pad, repeating it loudly and slowly, for the jury’s benefit, as I wrote it down. “I—don’t—know—I—was—too—far—away. Just one more question, Ms. Blundell. After you finish law school, will you be applying for a position at the district attorney’s office?”
“I haven’t thought about that,” she said.
Even if that were true, it wouldn’t stop the jury thinking about it.
“Thank you, Ms. Blundell.”
Some members of the jury looked sternly at Miriam, like she’d just wasted their time.
“Redirect?” said Judge Pike.
Miriam shook her head. As Nikki left the witness box, she gave Miriam a half smile. The prosecutor didn’t return it.
“Your Honor, we call Witness X,” said Miriam.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
The court guard opened the side door on the right-hand wall, about six feet behind the witness stand. A security guard wearing a black flat cap waited outside the door. He came in, followed by a man in a good-looking suit. The guard unlocked the handcuffs and took them from the wrists of the witness.
Volchek held the detonator in his hand, making sure Arturas saw it there. Witness X was a small, well-presented man. As he came forward onto the witness stand, I took a long look at him, at his eyes and his mouth. I recognized that face. Although smaller and younger than Arturas, he bore his brother’s harsh features. I looked over my shoulder and saw Arturas smiling at his little brother. The smile was different from the cold grin that Arturas usually wore. I got the sense that it was a knowing smile.
Benny was in on the plan.
The court clerk offered the witness a choice: to swear an oath on the Bible or to affirm. Benny chose the Bible, took it in his right hand, and began reading from the card. Benny finished the oath and sat down with Her Honor’s permission.
I checked my watch: twenty minutes till noon.
If I let Miriam take Little Benny through his direct examination, my time would run out before I’d even asked a question. I’d had a couple of ideas on how to handle this problem, but that one little word—“camera”—in Nikki Blundell’s direct examination had given me the best idea.
All I needed was for Miriam to give me a way in. If I was lucky, she might give me a chance with her first question, her settler. Then she would do the rest of the work for me.
Miriam stood and asked her first question, an in
nocuous hello-and-welcome-to-the-trial kind of question. I held my breath as she put down her notes, looked at the witness, and popped it right out.
“Is it okay if I call you Mr. X?”
I got to my feet fast, my hand in the air. “Objection, Your Honor.”
Miriam recoiled in confusion and then quickly replaced that with anger. Her voice took on a thick staccato rhythm, and each syllable made her loathing for me abundantly clear.
“Your Honor, I have until now put up with Mr. Flynn’s behavior, but this is inexcusable. He can’t possibly object to me asking that question.”
Judge Pike, who until that outburst from the prosecutor looked at me like I’d just pissed on the floor, suddenly flashed a silent rebuke at Miriam by tipping her glasses to the end of her nose and gazing over the rims at her, as if to say, I handle the assholes in this court, thank you, Ms. Sullivan.
“Mr. Flynn, what’re you doing? You can’t object to that question. Overruled. Please sit down and keep quiet unless you have a valid objection,” said Judge Pike.
I wasn’t finished.
“Your Honor, I can object to this question, and if Your Honor will permit me, I would like to explain why.” I needed a little time to let the judge understand. Before she could object again, I went straight into it.
“Your Honor, a man or woman, in a United States court, has the right to know and face their accuser. This is enshrined in the Sixth Amendment. I have a motion for the court in respect of this issue.”
A look of sheer incredulity spread over Gabriella Pike’s face. She turned to Miriam as if asking for help, for somebody to have a little bit of common sense.
“I cannot understand why Mr. Flynn is only bringing this up now, Your Honor. This witness has been on the list for months. Mr. Flynn had ample time for legal argument on objection. I invite Your Honor to dismiss this motion.”
She was getting better, “inviting” instead of “demanding.”
“I think, Mr. Flynn, that you should’ve raised this point earlier. But, as you have raised the point at this crucial stage, I shall have to rise and let my clerk find the relevant case law. I’ll sit again in five minutes. The jury will not be required to listen to this legal argument. We’ll send for the jury when we’re ready to resume the evidence. I presume, Ms. Sullivan, considering the heart of this issue is whether or not Witness X will be able to maintain his anonymity, that you wish Mr. Flynn’s motion to be heard in camera?”
The Defense: A Novel Page 27