“Sustained.”
“You don’t want your husband to go back to jail, do you?”
“I object, Your Honor.”
“Sustained.”
“I have no further questions,” Sandro said, walking to his chair.
“Let’s see what Ellis does now,” Sam whispered as Sandro sat. “He’ll have to let her explain why she lied to the police.”
Ellis requestioned Mrs. Salerno. She testified that her reason for lying to the police on the day of the shooting was fear of “getting involved.” That was the whole, the only, the easily testified reason. Ellis had no further questions. Siakos had none. Sandro rose.
“May I have one or two questions, Your Honor?”
“You may.”
“Mrs. Salerno, you’ve told the jury you lied so many times because you didn’t want to get involved?”
“That’s right.”
“And giving the police a positive statement, describing the man on the fire escape, his clothing, even the shoes he wore, going to the police station at night, speaking to the D.A., is not getting involved?”
“Objection as argumentative,” Ellis said, half-rising.
“Sustained.”
“Did you ever, Mrs. Salerno, tell the police you knew nothing about this case so you wouldn’t get involved?”
“No.”
“No further questions,” Sandro returned to the counsel table.
“Your next witness, Mr. Ellis,” said the judge.
Ellis called Roger Snider to the stand. As Snider was being sworn, Sandro looked toward the spectators. He saw Mike Rivera sitting in the front row. Mike nodded to Sandro.
Snider spoke very quietly, softly, wrapped in sorrow. The court was very still as he almost whispered his testimony. He testified that on July 3rd, 1967, he and Lauria were sent to investigate a reported prowler at 155 Stanton Street. He testified that a woman in 152 Rivington Street, the building directly across the rear yard from 153 Stanton Street, pointed to the roof. Snider said he had called to Lauria to go slowly while he, Snider, went into the building and up the interior stairs. When he reached approximately the second landing, Snider said, he heard a fusillade of shots. He dashed the rest of the way to the roof and found Lauria lying in a pool of blood.
The judge called a luncheon recess.
“Your Honor, may we again approach the bench?” asked Sam.
“Surely.”
“Now, Your Honor, I want to renew my application to have the jury go to the scene of the crime to see the premises firsthand. I realize you initially denied this motion, but now, after Mrs. Salerno’s testimony, I believe there’s more reason to go there.”
The judge looked at Ellis.
“Your Honor, I’m not generally in favor of such trips. However, since we seem to be getting more bogged down in what could and what couldn’t be seen, perhaps it might serve some purpose to have the jurors see the area for themselves. It’s up to you, of course, Judge.”
“Let’s go into chambers and discuss this, gentlemen,” said Judge Porta, rising. The lawyers followed him through the side door into the rear corridor. A court officer opened the heavy door to the robing chambers.
Judge Porta sat at the desk. He lit a cigarette, inviting the attorneys to smoke if they wished. Sam and Siakos sat on a leather couch. Ellis sat on a chair next to the judge’s desk. Sandro stood, leaning against a window that overlooked Columbus Park.
“I don’t usually permit the jury to visit the scene of the crime,” said the judge. “It’s too hard to control what they see. It’s almost impossible to show them the physical scene exactly as it was.”
“We could restrict them to the hallway where Mrs. Santos said she saw Hernandez,” Sam suggested. “She saw the pictures we took and said it appeared to be the same as when she saw Hernandez.”
“We could do that,” the judge nodded.
“Why not let them go into the backyard and see the rear facade of the building?” Sandro added. “The fire escape and the building are certainly still the same.”
“That’s pretty easily controlled, Judge,” Sam said, lighting a cigar in a big billow of smoke.
“We’d better talk fast, before Sam fumigates this place,” Judge Porta interjected. “What do you say, David?”
“If we can keep the situation controlled, staying in certain restricted areas, going to the scene could be beneficial. Frankly, I’ve never been there myself, and sometimes I get a little confused.”
“Looking at that hallway where Mrs. Santos says she was seems all right,” said the judge. “And the backyard. Maybe even the roof. However, I won’t let them look out the window from which Mrs. Salerno said she saw the man on the fire escape. Who knows what the lighting conditions actually were that day? It’s dangerous to try and re-create that. Could be very prejudicial one way or the other.”
“But that’s an essential element of Mrs. Salerno’s testimony,” Sandro protested.
“True, but we’re simply not going to be able to duplicate what appeared on July third, 1967. We have no choice on that.”
“Then we are definitely going there, Your Honor?” Ellis asked.
The judge nodded. “Unless there’s some strong objection, David. I think we can obtain a salutary result. Do you agree, gentlemen?”
The attorneys nodded.
“I’ll have to get the clerk to hire a bus so we can go there in some semblance of order. Maybe we can get a picnic lunch somewhere, and after we go to the scene, we’ll go the Central Park and have a game of Softball.” The judge was smiling.
“We’ll have one defendant on each team,” Siakos said. Ellis snorted. The others laughed.
“Let me work out the details with the clerk,” said the judge, rising. “Perhaps we could go next Wednesday morning. We’ll meet here, and take the bus to Stanton Street.” Judge Porta crushed his cigarette in the ashtray and moved toward the door. “Lunchtime, gentlemen. We’ll resume at two thirty.”
For lunch, Sam, Sandro, and Mike went to Giambone’s Italian Restaurant on Mulberry Street, directly across Columbus Park from the courthouse.
“Come on, let’s tear off that sad puss of Snider’s,” Mike urged. “He’s a phony. Now he says he was only at the second landing.”
“I disagreed with you before,” said Sam, “and I disagree even more now that Snider’s testifying. You see how sad he is, how not one sound is heard in the courtroom when he speaks? The jury’d think it sacrilegious to attack him.”
“Unless we could prove it,” Sandro added.
“Right. Unless we could prove it. And we can’t. And it won’t help us to antagonize the jury. We’ve got a lot of really good stuff to use.”
Mike was disappointed. “We’ll get it. We’ll get more,” he assured them.
During the afternoon session, Snider was cross-examined without any forceful attack. Siakos and Sam each finished with him in short order, his version of the last few minutes before Lauria’s death remaining unchanged.
The next witness for the people was Detective Thomas Mullaly. Sandro and Mike and Sam all perked up at the thought of Mullaly’s having to stay in one place without slithering into the shadows. Mullaly, tall and broad, his thinning red hair combed neatly from a part an inch above his left ear across the top of his head, stood and was sworn.
Mullaly testified that he had been in the station house on July 3rd, 1967, when a call came in that a Patrolman Lauria had been shot. He and a Detective Johnson were the first detectives to respond. The only uniformed men at the scene before them were Snider and two other policemen from a radio car in the area.
Mullaly testified he arrived at the roof of 153 Stanton Street about 2:45 P.M. and saw Lauria lying face down in a pool of blood. Lauria appeared not be be breathing and was apparently dead. Mullaly saw personal property strewn about near the front of the roof—a radio, a television set, a purse, some tickets to an amusement park, and a woman’s glove. Mullaly testified he helped remove Lauria’s body from t
he roof to the hallway below to await the doctor. While Mullaly was there, he noticed the door to Apartment 5B was slightly ajar. The door jamb was broken and lying on the floor. With Detective Johnson, he entered Apartment 5B. It appeared to have been ransacked. After about five minutes of investigation there, Mullaly testified, he returned to the street. A 1961 Chevrolet, double-parked in front of 160 Stanton Street, was brought to his attention. It seemed suspicious that the car was left with the window on the driver’s side wide open, despite the rain. Mullaly investigated and determined that the car belonged to a junky who lived on the top floor of 163 Stanton Street. Mullaly went to the apartment and there saw Hernandez for the first time.
Hernandez was fully dressed and was wearing a hat. He was sweating profusely. Hernandez told him he had not been out of the house and had not been driving the car; a friend had driven it. Mullaly said he had touched Hernandez’s jacket. It was wet. He requested Hernandez to accompany him down to the street. Mullaly said that any lie at this point was highly suspicious, particularly since burglars often leave cars double-parked outside the site of their burglaries for a quick getaway. Mullaly testified that Hernandez had originally told him he had lent the car to a friend by the name of Lopez. Then, according to Mullaly, when asked if Lopez was Negro, Hernandez changed his story, saying that a white Puerto Rican borrowed the car. These suspicious statements caused Mullaly to be keenly interested in Hernandez.
Once in the street, Mullaly asked Hernandez to open the trunk of his car. It contained a cheap red valise filled with men’s clothing. Also in the valise was a bankbook in the name of one José Arce. Mullaly said that Hernandez told him the clothing belonged to a friend, but he couldn’t remember his name.
At about 3:50, Mullaly testified, he heard shouting from 161 Stanton Street. He ran there, leaving Hernandez in the custody of a uniformed policeman. In that building, under a staircase on the ground floor, he saw a revolver.
At the stairway, he saw that a door leading to the cellar was ajar. He said he went out and searched the cellar, but there was nothing or no one there. Mullaly said he returned to the street and took Hernandez to the station house. On the way, Mullaly said, Hernandez told him more about his activities that day.
Hernandez, once at the station house, reverted to the story about not having been out of the house all day. He said again that a person named Lopez had been driving his car. Hernandez said he could show the police where Lopez lived. Several policemen, including Mullaly, took Hernandez to Second Street where Hernandez pointed out a house. Lopez was not at home. Hernandez was returned to the station house and was again questioned. It was then about 5:10 P.M.
Ellis asked Mullaly to continue. Mullaly said that at about 5:30 P.M., Crispin Lopez, the person Hernandez had said was driving the car, was brought in. The police soon determined that Lopez had been at work all day. They showed him to Hernandez. Mullaly testified that at this point Hernandez was taken to a locker room on the third floor of the precinct because the crowd in the offices below was too great to continue the interrogation. In the locker room, Hernandez admitted lying about the car. He said that he had been driving the car and had met a friend.
“Your Honor,” Ellis said, “I believe this is now the proper time for any voir dire relating to the defendant Hernandez.”
“Very well.” Judge Porta swiveled toward the jury. “Ladies and gentlemen, at this point we are going to have a voir dire, which will concern itself with the voluntariness, or lack of it, of any alleged statement made by the defendant Hernandez. Now, the term voir dire, although French, comes to us from English common law. Literally it means to say true. In modern practice, it refers to a procedure to determine the truth in a particular matter. The truth we are seeking here is whether any such statement is admissible as evidence. The voir dire is not concerned with the truth of such statement, but only with the methods of obtaining it. Our law is that even if a statement be true, but was involuntary, was coerced by force or fear or threat of force, it cannot be accepted as legal evidence. That is our law.” The judge turned to Siakos and nodded. Siakos walked toward the witness stand.
“Detective Mullaly,” he asked, “did you strike the defendant Hernandez in the face when you went into his apartment, when you first asked him about the car?”
“Did I hit him, Counselor? Certainly not.”
“Did you strike the defendant at any time?”
“No, Counselor.”
Mullaly testified in answer to Siakos’s further questions that the third-floor locker room to which Hernandez had been taken was used exclusively by uniformed patrolmen. He said he had never asked Hernandez a specific question about the murder of the policeman or, except for the double-parked car, about anything that happened that day on Stanton Street. Everything Hernandez said, according to Mullaly, was voluntary, without prompting or questioning. In the locker room, Hernandez was sitting in a chair, without handcuffs, during the entire investigation. Mullaly testified that Detective Johnson, Detective Jablonsky, and Detective Tracy were also in the locker room, but that he personally conducted the proceedings and the taking of the statement. Lieutenant Garcia, in charge of detectives in the precinct, never entered the locker room.
By 6 P.M., Mullaly testified, Hernandez had made his entire statement. Mullaly then took Hernandez to the clerical office, next to Lieutenant Garcia’s office, where he sat in a chair. Mullaly said that neither he nor anyone else questioned Hernandez after 6 P.M. At approximately 9 P.M., Mullaly and other detectives went to Brooklyn with Hernandez, looking for Alvarado. Alvarado was not there.
Siakos asked for the memorandum book in which Mullaly recorded his activities of the evening and early morning of the third and fourth of July. Ellis opened a red folder on his table and took a notebook from it. He handed it to Siakos. Ellis said that only the first eight pages of the pad contained the material at which Siakos now had the right to look. The judge nodded. A rubber band was inserted around the book so that only the first eight pages could be turned and read. Siakos began to read the notes.
“We’ll recess for the day at this point,” said the judge. “Remember, jurors, don’t discuss this case. Ten fifteen.”
When the judge and jury had left the courtroom, Sandro, Sam, and Siakos sat at the counsel table and read the first eight pages of Mullaly’s memo book. Ellis hovered nearby to make sure that they did not turn to the ninth page. The memo book was not an official memo book of the police department. It was a secretary’s dictation pad. It contained the same story Mullaly had just recited on the stand, almost verbatim.
CHAPTER IX
The usual tables in the Two Steps Down Inn were filled. It was 6 P.M., and Sal Angeletti was seated in the back. Several men, some with faces now familiar to Sandro, were sitting at the table near the front door. Sitting with Sal were three men, engrossed in a quiet discussion. Sal winked and smiled momentarily at Sandro. He told the waiter to take care of him.
Sandro sat at a side table alone and ordered a drink. The jukebox was wafting Neapolitan songs into the air. Didn’t anyone in Italy except the Neapolitans have any songs, Sandro wondered. He had never heard of anyone singing a romantic Genoese or Barese song. Sandro was halfway through his second drink when Sal finished his business. He motioned Sandro to join him.
“Hello, Sandro,” Sal said, shaking hands. “Still lookin’ great.”
“Hello, Sal, how’re you doing?”
“What’s the use of kicking, right?” He shrugged and bit into his cigar. “All these guys come around, all in trouble. Sal, help me here. Sal, help me there. And no money, ya know what I mean? Nobody’s got any money today. You read all these bullshit stories about this phony syndicate that they make up in the papers, even in books. Everybody, even he’s not connected, the guy that goes for the pizza, is supposed to have a million bucks. I’ll take half, they give it to me. The bullshit they sell people so they can get elected, those goddamn politician bastards. They put all this bullshit out to frighten the people o
ut of their taxes.” Sal puffed his cigar. “You got a problem, Sandro?”
“No problem, Sal. Just wanted to keep in touch about that case I have on the East Side.”
Sal nodded. “You want a drink?”
“I’ve already got one, thanks.” Sandro raised his glass. “Salute.”
“Drink hearty.” Sal nodded his head to some unspoken thought. “You know, another thing, these goddamn politicians, they got no balls. They let the niggers push them all over the place. You go around this neighborhood, it used to be quiet. No trouble here. We won’t let it. Women can walk the street at night. Now, you take these goddamn niggers, they carry knives, guns. If we carry guns, we get arrested. They carry guns, they get told to move on. The cops don’t want no trouble with the niggers. That’s the politicians’ fault. Takin’ the cops’ balls away cause they ain’t got none themself. Ah, what the hell. Let’s make some money. The hell with the cops and the niggers.”
Funsi, the owner of the Two Steps Down, walked quickly over to Sal’s table.
“Sal,” he said, “you remember that fellow Ferdinand Balsa? I told you he owes that money for a big tab he run up?”
“Yeah, right, Freddy Balsa. He’s with Louie Bags from Brooklyn. He’s okay.”
“He’s over here now. I just saw him go down the street. He keeps telling me he’s got the shorts.”
“Well, that’s okay, Funsi. Some of these guys take a little time to get their money together, you know?”
“I know, Sal, but this guy’s really been trying to con me out of it for six months now. I mean, six months? First he tells me he don’t have it this week. Then I should charge less money. Then he says the food’s not so good, so he don’t want to pay. He’s trying to stiff me.”
“Oh, yeah, a wise guy? How much does he owe you?”
“Two hundred. The bill goes back six months.”
“Hey, Tony, come here a minute,” Sal called toward the front table. A tall, heavyset man with a stolid, fleshy face walked back. “Tony, go out in the street and get that kid from Brooklyn. Tell him I want to see him over here, right away. Tell him in a hurry, okay?”
PART 35 Page 30