VC04 - Jury Double

by Edward Stewart

  Corey gazed at his lawyer a long, refusing moment. “I won’t allow it. I will not betray a disciple.”

  “Ex-disciple.”

  “Mickey’s strayed, but he’s not lost.”

  “What the hell do you think he’s doing to you? He’s a killer, and in case you haven’t noticed, it’s you he’s killing. You owe him nothing! Only one of you can get out of this—you, or Mickey. My job is to make sure it’s you.”

  Corey quietly folded his hands on the table. “Did Jesus cast Judas out?”

  “Core—we’re talking about you, not Jesus. There’s a difference, or hadn’t you noticed?”

  Corey’s expression was suddenly ferocious. “If you use anything on that tape to attack Mickey, I’ll fire you on the spot and take over my own defense.”

  “Then you’re going to spend the rest of your life behind bars.”

  Corey smiled. He wasn’t giving it much, but it was still a recognizable smile. “Not necessarily.”

  “Bull! Look at those jurors. They hate your guts. They hate your fancy clothes and your salon-cut hair and they hate your cockamamy serenity.”

  “All we need is one juror holding out for acquittal.”

  “No juror is going to be idiot enough to do that.”

  “Don’t be so sure. God moves in mysterious ways.”

  “Leave the Almighty out of this—He’s not taking the stand.”

  “And neither is this tape.” Corey seized the cassette and smashed it open against the edge of the table. Like a child destroying a doll, he ripped out handfuls of magnetic tape.

  Elihu watched in disbelief. “Core, I’ve always known you were a lot of things. … But till this moment I never thought you were an idiot. You just committed suicide.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  2:30 P.M.

  CARDOZO WATCHED DOTSON ELIHU draw in a deep breath, bracing himself for an escalation of hostilities.

  “Mr. Williams—why did you wait fifty-three hours between killing John Briar and killing his wife?”

  “Because Corey said ‘Kill Johnny at one A.M. Saturday morning and kill Amalia six A.M. Monday.’”

  The times struck Cardozo as oddly precise and oddly pointless. Why fifty-three hours when all the will required was forty-eight? Had Mickey and Corey synchronized watches Friday evening at the sound of a starter’s pistol?

  “But isn’t it a fact that Dr. Lyle did not order you to kill Amalia Briar? Isn’t it a fact that Dr. Lyle did not order you to kill John Briar?”

  Mickey’s brow wrinkled. “No, sir. Corey told me to kill them.”

  “Isn’t it a fact that John and Amalia Briar were both alive Sunday morning? Didn’t they die natural deaths Sunday evening?”

  Mickey shook his head. “No.”

  It was an obvious strategy, Cardozo reflected; undermine the state’s case by blasting the witness with alternate scenarios, and hope one or two jurors find them credible. He checked the jury box to see if any of the jurors were buying it. Several were frowning, and Kyra Talbot was shaking her head.

  “Isn’t it a fact that Monday night, before the police questioned you about the murders, you and other persons”—Elihu stared a moment at the prosecutor—“worked out the whole story of Dr. Lyle hypnotizing you?”

  “Objection.” Tess diAngeli sighed. “Mr. Williams was never arrested for these murders.”

  “An astonishing oversight!” Elihu spat.

  “Objection sustained.” Judge Bernheim gazed down at the defense attorney. “Tonight, Mr. Elihu, you are a guest of the federal prison system. Proceed.”

  “I appreciate the hospitality, Your Honor.” A sly half-smile twinkled. “Mr. Williams, did you not make a phone call from the Briars’ apartment to the BATF at seven forty-one Monday evening? And did you not talk to your government handlers until eight fifty-nine P.M.?”

  “That’s not true.”

  Cardozo watched Elihu’s face go through the motions of perplexity. He strode to the defense table and snatched up a document that looked, from twenty feet away, very much like a Nynex phone bill. “Mr. Williams—Yolanda Lopez has testified that she made only one phone call from the Briars’ apartment—a call to the BATF Saturday morning. Yet the Briars’ Nynex record for Monday, September seventh, shows a call made that evening to the BATF, lasting well over an hour. If you didn’t make the call and your friend Yolanda Lopez didn’t, then who did? The corpse of John Briar?”

  Canny old bastard, Cardozo thought.

  Mickey sat as though he had been struck, rigid and red-faced, brown eyes bulging with pinprick pupils. “I don’t … I didn’t see … I mean, I …”

  Cardozo saw that this was exactly the reaction Elihu had been probing for: panic and confusion. Mickey’s eyes flicked an appeal toward the prosecutor.

  “Objection.” Tess diAngeli sprang to her feet. “That alleged phone record was not raised in direct and it’s never been offered in evidence.”

  “Sustained.”

  Elihu threw a glance toward the jury: See what I have to put up with for the sake of justice? “Mr. Williams, isn’t it a fact that BATF instructed you to suffocate John and Amalia Briar’s dead bodies with a pillow?”

  Mickey blinked. The shift of subject seemed to have thrown him. “No, sir.”

  Elihu thumped a hand on the witness box. Cardozo could feel him closing in now. He had bracketed his quarry and he was centered on it and the next question would shake it from the bush.

  “In exchange for the testimony you give in this trial, hasn’t the BATF promised you immunity from charges arising from your admissions?”

  “Objection!”

  “Sustained.”

  “No, sir,” Mickey Williams said, “the BATF hasn’t promised me immunity from anything.”

  Judge Bernheim glanced toward the witness. “Mr. Williams, please do not answer a question when I have sustained an objection. The answer will be struck and the jurors will disregard it.”

  “Mr. Williams,” Elihu said, “has any agency of the federal government offered judicial lenience in exchange for your delivering their scripted testimony in this trial?”

  “Objection!”

  “Sustained.”

  “Your Honor,” Elihu shouted, “this jury is being kept in the dark as to the true nature of the government’s witnesses in this trial! There is not a word in their case that has not been suborned, scripted, and paid for!”

  “Counselor—you are one millimeter away from being the government’s guest for a week! That will be enough!”

  Dotson Elihu moved away from the witness stand and slowly turned. “Mr. Williams … you said you were given a choice of joining Corey Lyle’s group or going to prison for a crime you’d committed three times. Could you tell us what that crime was?”

  DiAngeli leapt up. “Objection!”

  “Sustained. Mr. Elihu, you’re on cross. Stick to material raised in direct.”

  “But, Your Honor, the witness himself brought up—”

  “Objection sustained.”

  Elihu sighed and faced the witness. “Mr. Williams, did you once take part in an experimental parole program in the state of Texas?”

  Mickey Williams nodded. “I was paroled, yes.”

  “And did you not break parole by moving to the state of Washington and later to New York?”

  “Objection. Irrelevant.”

  Elihu wheeled around. “Your Honor, this goes directly to the witness’s credibility.”

  “I’m reminding you for the last time, Counselor—you’re on cross. Kindly stick to issues raised in direct.”

  Elihu pondered a long moment before putting his next question. “Mr. Williams, didn’t the state of Texas seek to extradite you from New York?”

  “Yes, but federal court decided—”

  “Objection!”

  “Sustained. Mr. Elihu, I don’t want to have to warn you again.”

  Elihu flicked a bow of his head toward the bench. He beamed a trust me smile to the witness. “Mr. Wi
lliams, as a condition of your Texas parole, were you not required to undergo shock treatment?”

  DiAngeli jumped up so fast that her chair fell crashing over. “Objection!”

  Elihu shouted over her. “In fact, Mr. Williams, haven’t your brain cells been subjected to over sixty electronic scramblings?”

  “Objection sustained!” Even Judge Bernheim was shouting now. The fury on her face would have flattened a billboard. “Mr. Elihu, you are a disgrace to your profession!”

  “And isn’t it a disgrace,” Elihu snapped back, “when government agents trowel-feed testimony into the brain of a mental incompetent and showcase him as their star witness? How far has justice in America fallen?”

  “Not so far as you’re hoping, Mr. Elihu, because you just got yourself a three-week reservation in the hoosegow. Now, either cross-examine the witness or excuse him. But you will not continue this sadistic grandstanding in my court.”

  “Your Honor, on the basis of that remark, I respectfully request that you declare a mistrial.”

  “Denied.”

  Elihu nodded. He seemed satisfied—more than satisfied. “In that case … I have no further questions to put to this witness.”

  Judge Bernheim turned now to the prosecutor. “Ms. diAngeli?”

  The man next to Cardozo whispered, “DiAngeli’s gotta rebut those shock treatments.”

  Tess diAngeli rose slowly to her feet. “Your Honor, the People rest their case.”

  A ripple of murmurs and whispers fanned out through the court.

  “Your Honor,” Dotson Elihu cried, “I move for acquittal.”

  “What grounds?”

  “The People have now rested. By law the court is entitled to enter a verdict of acquittal if the People have failed to prove any element of the crime.”

  “Counselor, the court has heard evidence of a quantity and nature clearly sufficient to sustain a verdict of guilty.”

  “Your Honor, that’s a prejudicial remark. I move for—”

  “Mr. Elihu, this court has just about had it with your nugatory niggling. Motion denied.”

  “It’s clear my client can expect no justice in this court. The defense has no recourse but to rest its case.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The defense rests.”

  A tidal wave of buzzing and chattering broke through the courtroom. Judge Bernheim, wild as a dog digging for a lost bone, could not find her gavel. “Order!” she screamed. “Order in this court this minute!”

  Cardozo had parked his battered green Honda in a Centre Street bus stop; he’d propped his NYPD placard in the windshield to defend against those meter maids who were out to balance the city budget on parking fines. He slid into the driver’s seat, switched on the ignition, and waited.

  A crowd surged down the steps of the federal courthouse. Mickey Williams, a shaved head higher than anyone else, moved deliberately through the throng. At the foot of the steps he headed north with an easy, strolling gait. A mike-wielding sob sister from one of the afternoon news shows ran alongside, and they appeared to be having an earnest chat.

  Mickey’s head bobbed east on Bayard, and Cardozo leaned on his horn and cut across three lanes of law-abiding vehicles.

  Right away the neighborhood changed. The telephones had signs in Chinese and the cash machine at the corner bank had a pagoda roof.

  Mickey strolled across Baxter to a little park where five children were screaming Cantonese and playing a game with a Hula Hoop and a red Frisbee. He watched them. He seemed especially interested in the little girl whose polka-dot skirt kept flying up every time she tried to hoop the flying Frisbee. Cardozo was surprised some Chinese parent didn’t send for the local Tongs.

  A dark blue Pontiac with a federal license plate nosed to the curb and beeped its horn. A door opened. The driver—a burley man in shirt-sleeves—stepped out. He shouted something. The words didn’t carry, but the angry tone did.

  Mickey crossed to the car. The driver handed him a set of keys. They shook hands. Mickey got into the front seat. The door swung shut.

  The driver stood on the sidewalk, watching as the Pontiac eased north on Mott. Cardozo eased along three cars behind it.

  “In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen of the jury—” Tess diAngeli’s eyes swept slowly across the jurors. “I ask you to imagine those last forty-eight hours of Amalia Briar’s life—that poor, sick, suffering, terrified old lady—as she came face-to-face with terror and death in her own undefended bedroom. Ask yourselves: Would I wish to go through this horror myself? Would I wish this on my mother? Would I wish this on any human being? And unless you can answer yes—you owe it to yourselves and to every person and principle you hold sacred—to return a verdict of guilty as charged.”

  Traffic congealed to a crawl along the peddler-packed stretch of upper Broadway. Cardozo could see a shifting sliver of the government Pontiac five cars ahead.

  At West 106th Street, now christened Duke Ellington Boulevard, the Pontiac swung left, and when Cardozo finally reached the intersection he saw it crawling south on West End. He hooked a sharp left and followed.

  There was an eardrum-puncturing blip of siren and a voice on a bullhorn barked, “You in the green Honda—pull over.”

  Cardozo glanced over his shoulder. There was no other green Honda in sight, and a blue-and-white police cruiser was spinning its lights at him. He pulled to the curb.

  An overweight, mean-looking boy stepped out of the cruiser and ambled to Cardozo’s window. “The sign back there says no left turn eight A.M. to eight P.M.”

  “I’m sorry, Officer, I didn’t see it.”

  “Please cut your motor.”

  Cardozo didn’t cut his motor. He pulled out his shield case and flipped it open.

  The copped blinked. “Sorry, Lieutenant.” He touched the brim of his cap and stepped away.

  Cardozo pulled back into traffic. He’d lost sixty seconds, and the light at 104th Street was green, and there was no sign of the blue government Pontiac.

  What kind of case requires grants of immunity to the true murderers and conspirators?” Dotson Elihu crossed his arms and glared at the prosecutor. “What kind of a case requires wholesale suppression of genuine evidence and the procurement of false testimony? I’ll tell you. A frame-up.”

  He turned and placed his hands on the railing of the jury box. His eyes rested darkly on each juror in turn. “Ladies and gentlemen, if this is still a court of law and not an altar of sacrifice to political expedience—then you have no choice in the face of such arrogant, brazen trampling of our constitution but to bring back a verdict of not guilty.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  1:10 P.M.

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE WHAT Elihu did to Mickey Williams.” At a corner table in Eugene’s Patio, Shoshana sliced angrily into a turkey enchilada. “I’ve never seen anything so cruel.”

  Anne pushed her fork at her fruit salad. “But he has a point. How reliable can Mickey’s testimony be if he’s had his brain fried?”

  Shoshana’s eyes blazed. The skin beneath them looked puffy and tender. “We obviously have different ways of thinking.”

  “That’s why there are twelve of us,” Anne said. “Maybe we should talk about something else.”

  “The charge against the defendant is conspiracy to commit murder. The charge is not murder.” Judge Bernheim had been speaking for almost an hour now, her voice slow and explanatory as a teacher’s. “Bear this distinction in mind. To be guilty of conspiring to murder, there is no need for the murder to actually occur. What is required is that the accused plans to commit murder with at least one coconspirator, and that one of them—not necessarily the accused—takes at least one step toward the realization of that conspiracy. The step can be something as small as a phone call—or the purchase of some item needed in execution of the plan … a screwdriver … a map … or a gun.

  “Beware of easy solutions to complex questions. A just verdict cannot be settled by slogans. It demands
concentrated attention, much mental work, and above all, patience. God bless you and good luck to you all.”

  The jurors took their seats around the table. Each place had a legal pad and ballpoint pen.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury …” Ben Esposito raised his hands, calling for silence. “Before we begin discussing the evidence—it might save time to take a vote and see how close we are to agreement.”

  “Secret ballot,” Thelma del Rio said.

  Ben’s eyes came up slowly, TV sitcom double-take slow-burn style. “You mean little scraps of paper?”

  She nodded. “Little scraps of paper folded over.”

  “What’s the point?” said P. C. Cabot, the well-dressed subway motorman.

  Thelma’s eyes were tight with determination. “The point is so we can reach a verdict without fear of coercion.”

  “Who’s coercing?” Lara Duggan said.

  “As a member of a multiple minority,” Thelma said, “I can tell you, the majority always coerces.”

  “Right on,” Gloria Weston said.

  “This is stupid.” P. C. Cabot’s fingers were drumming on the table. “The minute anyone opens their mouth we’re going to know how they’re voting.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” Sitting absolutely erect, Thelma seemed hard and sure of herself, a crusader on the attack. “I want a closed ballot and I have a right to it.”

  “You don’t have a right to impose it on everyone else.”

  “Excuse me,” Ben said, “but anyone who wants a closed ballot has a right.”

  “Oh, yeah?” P. C. Cabot said. “Anyone opposed?”

  Seven hands went up.

  Anne’s stayed down. She noticed that Shoshana’s stayed down too. Abe da Silva, the bald juror, kept his hand down. So did Donna. And Lara Duggan.

  “Doesn’t matter who’s opposed,” Ben said. “Thelma wants it, Thelma’s got a right.” He ripped a sheet of blank paper into twelve strips and passed them counterclockwise. “Keep one and pass the others on. Write your verdict and fold the paper and pass it back.”

  Cupping the little ribbon of paper behind her left hand, Anne wrote the words not guilty, folded the paper, and passed it to Paco Velez.