One Man's Paradise

by Douglas Corleone

  Nikki calls me eccentric, but it’s really just that in the fifteen years I’ve lived on my own, I haven’t learned to take care of myself very well. I don’t like cleaning, so I have a cleaning woman in my home once a week. I don’t like washing dishes, so I only use paper plates and plastic utensils. I don’t like pumping gas, so I travel twenty miles out of the way to go to the only full-service gas station I’ve found on the island. But that a girl like Nikki stays with me tells me at least some good must come along with all the bad.

  Tonight Nikki and I are at the Ala Moana Center, Hawaii’s world-famous open-air shopping mall. I reluctantly agreed to the distraction after convincing myself I could do absolutely nothing further to prepare myself for tomorrow’s witness.

  I am standing next to a rack of bikini tops at Maui WaterWear as Nikki models swimsuits, which she wants to bring with her on our upcoming trip to Kauai. I am growing increasingly uncomfortable, and probably getting somewhat red in the face. Not because of Nikki; I’ve seen all there is to see of her. But three other hot women are trying on two-piece bathing suits themselves, and it is a little more than a man on trial can stand.

  A leggy strawberry blonde in an orange two-piece string bikini prances around the store like a gazelle in heat. My eyes become transfixed and I am helpless to look away. Nikki steps out of the dressing room in a blue-gray two-piece and catches me midglare.

  “Do you like what you see?” she scoffs.

  Think, Corvelli, think. “Not at all. I was just thinking someone should get that girl something to eat.” Smooooooth.

  “Don’t bullshit me, Kevin! If you want a haole, then go get yourself a haole!”

  Nikki is making a scene in the small store, and I feel a foot tall. The leggy strawberry-blond gazelle stops in her tracks. The salesclerks stop ringing at the register. The doors to the dressing rooms open and heads pop out. All eyes are on us.

  My cell phone starts ringing, and for the first time I can remember, I’m glad to hear it sing. I dig into my pants pocket as Nikki huffs and puffs and returns to the dressing room. I pull the phone from my pocket and read the caller ID. The call is from a number I don’t recognize, and my first instinct is to hit IGNORE. But the call is from the 201 area code, the area code I know represents an area of northern New Jersey.

  I open the phone and put it to my ear. “Speak.”

  “Is this Mr. Corvelli?” a woman’s voice asks.

  “Yes, this is he.”

  “You don’t know me, but I may be able to help you.”

  “I’m already very happy with my wireless phone service. Thank you anyway.”

  “No,” she says, before I can snap the phone closed. “I may be able to help you win Joey’s case.”

  “Who is this?”

  There is silence for nearly a minute on her end of the phone. I don’t want to push for the name and have her hang up scared.

  “I understand you’re looking for Paolo,” she finally says.

  Nikki has finished her quick change and is back at my side. I don’t like for her to listen in on my conversations, but at this point I can say or do little. Together, we step out of the store and back into the mall.

  “Paolo Nicoletti?” I ask.

  “Yes. Him.”

  “As a matter of fact, my investigator has been trying to trace Mr. Nicoletti’s whereabouts. We would like to ask him a few questions.”

  “Well, I’m sure Paolo won’t be very forthcoming with answers, but maybe if you find him, you’ll learn what you need to know.”

  “Is Paolo here on the island of Oahu?” I ask.

  “He is. He’s holed up at a hotel.”

  “We’ve already checked with every hotel on Oahu, and he’s not registered as a guest at any of them.”

  “He’s using a fake name. He’s registered under the name Victor Trozzo.”

  “Do you know where he’s staying?”

  There is another long pause. “The Pacific Edgewater in Waikiki.”

  A million questions flood my mind, but I don’t know how long I can keep this woman on the phone.

  “Why are you helping me?” I ask.

  “Because I know that Joey didn’t kill that girl.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Paolo knew that Shannon Douglas was working for the Feds.”

  My mind is racing. I can’t even prove Shannon was working for the Feds, let alone that anyone from the Fiordano family knew about her employment. I need to know who this woman is without asking her directly.

  “Why do you want to help Joey?”

  “Because, I love him.”

  “You love him?”

  “Of course, I love him,” she says, her voice cracking in the beginnings of a cry. “My name is Marie. I’m Joey’s aunt.”

  “So you know this Paolo Nicoletti well?”

  “Yeah. You could say that.”

  “How well?” Though I think I already know the answer.

  “Too well. I’m married to the son of a bitch twenty-six years.”

  The line goes dead, and I snap the phone closed. I take a seat on one of the mall benches, and Nikki sits silent at my side.

  I speed-dial Flan and he picks up on the first ring.

  “We’ve got Nicoletti,” I say. “He’s using the alias Victor Trozzo, and he’s staying at the Pacific Edgewater. Remember, we just need evidence that he was here on Oahu when Shannon was killed.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “There’s more, Flan. He knew Shannon was working for the Feds.”

  “Son of a bitch! Nicoletti is our killer! How did you get all this?”

  “His wife.”

  “His wife sold him out? Shit, she sounds just like my ex-wife.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “But she has more of a motive than just fucking her husband over.”

  “Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

  “She’s also Joey’s aunt,” I say. “Flan, be careful. This guy is a lot more dangerous than Carlie Douglas.”

  “Hey, Kev, you didn’t see Carlie when she pulled out the handcuffs. You weren’t there in that hotel room when she whipped me with my own belt.”

  “Well, at least I can be thankful for that.”

  I snap the phone closed and look at Nikki. I’m hoping she’ll stand up and say, “Meet me at Macy’s in a half hour,” or some shit like that. But she just sits there, silent, making me feel bad.

  I chew through the nail of my right index finger and speed-dial Jake. He answers on the fifth ring.

  “Jake, I’ve got some interesting news.”

  “I missed the Astros going to the World Series when I first came out here,” he slurs. “Can you believe that?”

  Jake’s drunk.

  “Jake, listen to me.”

  “Forty-five years I waited for the Astros to go to the big dance, and I missed it.”

  “Jake, we found Nicoletti.”

  “Do you listen to Johnny Cash?”

  “Jake, did you hear what I just told you?”

  Now Jake is mumbling the lyrics to “Cocaine Blues.”

  “Jake!”

  “I like that Alison Kelly, son. You were too hard on her today.”

  “Well, you’ll get to see her again when she testifies at trial, Jake.”

  “Kevin, do you know that you’re like a son to me?”

  “I know that, Jake. It’s late. Get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning at the courthouse.”

  “Did I ever tell you that I have—”

  I snap the phone closed before he can utter another word.

  Nikki tells me she’d like to go home, and I’m quick to oblige. We step out of the mall and into the night, where my orange Jeep glows under the artificial light in the parking lot.

  The ride to Kailua seems longer than usual, probably because Nikki won’t speak. I’m not sure whether she is angrier about the leggy strawberry blonde or the phone calls, so I don’t know which to apologize for.

  “I’m sorry about tonight.” That s
hould cover it all.

  She nods but says nothing.

  “The case will be over soon.”

  If nothing else, one thing about Nikki is clear. She does not like sharing me. Not with mermaid bartenders who like silk ties. Not with leggy strawberry blondes who prance around like gazelles. Not even with young men from New Jersey facing life imprisonment for crimes they insist they did not commit.

  “Winning this trial means a lot to you,” she says.

  “Yes, it does. If my client is really innocent, which I somehow believe he is, it will eat away at me forever if he has to rot in prison. I may never know the truth, but not knowing will be just as bad. If there’s even a chance he’s innocent, he has to be set free. The problem is that a good many juries have difficulty grasping that concept, the concept of reasonable doubt.”

  “If you can show that this other guy you were talking about on the phone may have done it, will your client be set free?”

  “That’s the gist of it,” I say, pulling into Nikki’s gravel driveway.

  “Would they put this other guy in jail and give him a trial?”

  “Probably not without a full confession. There’s little chance at this point of anyone else being tried for this murder.”

  “So, even if your client goes free, the police won’t look for the real killer?”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “The police will continue to insist that they had the real killer, and they’ll close the case. The prosecutors will blame the not-guilty verdict on bad investigative technique by the police. The police will blame the verdict on bad lawyering by the prosecuting attorneys. The public will blame the verdict on an incompetent jury.”

  “They won’t give you any of the credit?”

  I laugh. “Hell no.”

  “Kevin, you work so hard, so many hours. You put yourself in danger. The media portrays you as a shark. Your clients are usually bad people, who are completely ungrateful for all you do for them. Why do you do this? Why do you continue to practice criminal defense?”

  “Nikki, some people are just made for this shit.”

  CHAPTER 37

  “The prosecution calls Detective John Tatupu to the stand.”

  Tatupu is the criminal defense attorney’s worst nightmare: a good cop. Born to full-blooded Hawaiian parents on Molokai and raised in the poorer sections of Oahu, he overcame a speech impediment to become a highly decorated officer with the Honolulu Police Department. Tall, well built, with boyish good looks and distinguished gray hair, he has the female jurors’ attention before uttering a word. Well dressed and as articulate as any police officer I’ve ever met, he will make a formidable witness.

  Word is that Tatupu is a genuinely good man, who has stood up in the face of corruption, risking his career and his own safety to preserve the integrity of the department. He is friendly and polite, and worse yet, he exudes sincerity. All of this makes my job more difficult. My job is to discredit him on cross-examination, to criticize his techniques and undermine his experience, to put into question his virtue and decency. I have gone toe-to-toe with a lot of cops. The bad ones make it easy, even fun. Nothing is sweeter than embarrassing a bad cop on the stand. But grilling a good cop is like giving a small child the middle finger. It makes you feel like shit, and everyone in the room hates you for it.

  Dapper Don Watanabe walks Tatupu through the preliminaries while Jake takes a nap at the counsel table. I assure Joey that it’s all part of the plan, but that I can’t discuss the plan with him until the trial’s over. Luckily for us, Jake doesn’t snore.

  The body, Tatupu says, was discovered at dawn by a group of early-morning surfers at the far end of Waikiki Beach, near Diamond Head. One of the surfers called Emergency Services from his cell phone. Tatupu, who was at the Honolulu Police Department’s Waikiki service station, was the first officer on the scene, less than three minutes from the time the call came in.

  Tatupu checked the victim for a pulse, although there clearly was no need. The color and feel of her skin told Tatupu that the girl was already long dead. Paramedics arrived and made the formal pronouncement at 6:27 a.m.

  A crowd quickly gathered, and Tatupu immediately directed his team to secure the crime scene by roping off a small portion of the beach. The crowd proved difficult to disperse, but his team controlled the crowd and prevented any unnecessary moving of things and walking about.

  Photographs were taken of the victim and the surrounding area. Gasps resonate from the jury box as a picture of Shannon’s bloodied corpse is passed around like some Fabergé egg at a second-grade show-and-tell.

  Footprints were evidently washed away by the tide. The only fresh prints in the sand were those of the surfers that discovered Shannon’s body.

  The murder weapon was a bloodstained piece of reef. Discovered by Tatupu a few feet from the body, it contained no usable prints.

  The lifeguard station, also swept for fingerprints, yielded only those of the two lifeguards who had complete access to it. However, during a follow-up investigation, police technicians discovered a single, full lip print on the inside Plexiglas of the station.

  A pair of sneakers, believed to belong to the defendant, was discovered hidden behind some plant life near the scene of the crime. Lab results conclusively showed that the shoes contained traces of the victim’s blood. Furthermore, video from the Hawaiian Sands hotel clearly showed that the defendant left the hotel in bright white Nike sneakers and returned in a pair of black flip-flops.

  Tatupu was put in charge of the investigation. He quickly learned that the victim had spent the evening between two bars, Margaritaville and the Bleu Sharq. He interviewed the bartenders at both spots and learned that the victim was last seen leaving the Bleu Sharq at approximately 2:45 a.m. with a local man named Palani Kanno.

  Tatupu questioned Palani, who admitted to having sex with the victim and getting into an argument, resulting in a physical altercation. Palani stated that he left her for the Waikiki Winds hotel, where he worked as a doorman. And that when he left her, she was very much alive.

  Palani was cleared as a suspect after his story of going to the Waikiki Winds to buy marijuana and then taking over a shift was confirmed by witnesses and video from the hotel’s surveillance cameras. And after witnesses, a pair of honeymooners, came forward and attested to seeing the victim alive, though bruised and bleeding, at a time after Palani had already begun to work his shift.

  Once Palani was cleared as a suspect, Tatupu continued his investigation by contacting friends and family members of the victim through local law enforcement back East. A young woman by the name of Cindy DuFrain admitted to police that she informed the victim’s ex-boyfriend Joseph Gianforte Jr. of the victim’s destination a short time after dropping Shannon off at the airport.

  Tatupu soon learned that the defendant took a flight from Newark shortly thereafter and arrived in Honolulu just hours after Shannon.

  Surveillance cameras at the Hawaiian Sands hotel captured the defendant leaving his hotel in the early evening and returning shortly before sunrise. Another camera at the Kapiolani Surf Hotel put the defendant in close proximity to the crime scene less than one hour before Palani left the victim on the beach.

  Tatupu and his department followed all other leads, including a professor from the victim’s law school named Jim Catus. The professor volunteered to police that he was in Honolulu to meet with the victim, and that he arrived a day earlier than she expected. The professor also admitted to seeing the victim with another man, and later soliciting a prostitute at the Leilani Inn.

  Yes, Tatupu and his department followed all leads, but in the end, all roads led to the defendant.

  Dapper Don’s direct examination of Detective Tatupu lasts for more than three hours. During those three hours, as Jake napped and Joey sat in fear, I made a decision. I would not risk losing credibility with the jury by pursuing half-cocked theories about the professor, or Palani hopping on his moped to finish off his victim. I would not purs
ue the motiveless J. J. Fitzpatrick or the Fed-protected Tony Bitch-Tits and Lazy Eye Sal. I would, instead, do what I did in the trial of People versus Brandon Glenn. I would follow my gut instinct and pursue only the one suspect that I knew had both motive and opportunity. The one suspect who could conjure in the minds of this jury a certain reasonable doubt. I would pursue only Paolo “Small Paul” Nicoletti, alias Victor Trozzo.

  The courtroom is restless as Dapper Don takes his seat. Narita calls for order in the courtroom. He bangs his gavel, awakening Jake with a start.

  “Mr. Corvelli,” says Narita from the bench, “it is nearly time to break for lunch. Would you like to begin your cross-examination of Detective Tatupu after the recess, or would you prefer to start and stop?”

  “Your Honor,” I say, “my cross-examination of the detective will be very brief. If it pleases the Court, I’d like to conduct my cross-examination now.”

  A collective groan comes from the courtroom, and Narita bangs his gavel again. I don’t eat lunch when I’m on trial. My stomach is too tied in knots. But I’m sure the jury is bored and hungry, so I do my best to sweeten the deal, even though I know I am out of line.

  “Judge, perhaps if I finish before lunch, the jury can have the rest of the day off?”

  Grudgingly, Narita and Watanabe agree. I walk to the podium and check my watch. Twelve oh two.

  “Good afternoon, Detective.”

  “Good afternoon, Counselor.”

  “I’m curious. Approximately how many homicides occur each year on the island of Oahu?”

  “I would say approximately twenty, give or take.”

  “Only twenty?” I comment, neither asking for nor getting a response. Ordinarily, I would hammer this point home. Homicide detectives get relatively little action here on the islands, making them inevitably less experienced than most urban homicide detectives. Ordinarily, I would remark about the hundreds of homicides in New York City each year. But the jury loves this guy. I can see it in their eyes. Attacking him would only alienate them from me, and it would do my client no good. I’ll let the jury make the inference on their own.