“Did you ever overhear any conversations Mr. Bello had with Angelo Coluzzi?”
“Puh-lenty.” Marlene chuckled. “Jimmy was on the phone with Angelo all the time, taking orders.”
“Do you recall that Mr. Bello had a conversation with Mr. Coluzzi on the evening of January twenty-fifth, the evening that Frank and Gemma Lucia were killed in their truck?”
“I do.”
“And where were you when this conversation occurred?”
“I was in the kitchen doin’ my reports for my business, and he was on the kitchen phone.”
Judy flipped her legal pad to her notes of the tapes. After she had found out about the gasoline in the truck fire last night, she had gone back to her notes of the tapes. Then she had called Marlene and told her about the note and the gasoline fire. Only one thing could explain both, and only Marlene could explain that one thing. “And what did you hear Mr. Bello say?”
“Objection, hearsay,” Santoro said, but Judy would have begged if she had to.
“Your Honor, it’s coming in for the fact that he said it, so it’s not hearsay.”
“Overruled,” Judge Vaughn said, motioning Santoro into his seat at counsel table.
Judy skimmed her notes. “You may answer, Ms. Bello. What did you hear Mr. Bello say to Mr. Coluzzi on the night of January twenty-fifth?”
“It sounded like they were making a date for Jimmy to pick Angelo up, since he was his driver, and I heard Jimmy say to Angelo, ‘I’ll bring the Coke.’”
“And what did that mean to you?”
“It was like code they used, the two of ’em.”
“Code for what?”
“It meant, ‘I’ll bring a Molotov cocktail.’”
“Objection!” Santoro bolted out of his chair. “Relevance and extremely prejudicial! Your Honor!”
Judy was desperate. She needed this one piece of evidence. “Your Honor, this is absolutely relevant to the death of the defendant’s son and daughter in-law.”
“But it has nothing to do with the death of Angelo Coluzzi, Your Honor!”
Judge Vaughn shifted forward on the dais, his expression concerned. “I want to hear what this witness has to say, Mr. Santoro,” he announced, and Judy knew from his tone it had nothing to do with Marlene’s charms. He turned to her. “Ms. Bello, it is incumbent upon the Court to warn you that you may be making a statement which could incriminate you, since tapping a telephone conversation without a party’s knowledge and consent is unlawful in this Commonwealth. Are you represented by counsel at this proceeding?”
Marlene smiled shakily. “I already talked to a lawyer. He’s sittin’ in the back, and I’m ready to deal with whatever they do to me. I lived with Jimmy Bello, I can live with prison.”
Judge Vaughn hid his smile with a respectful nod. “Fine, Ms. Bello.” He pointed at Judy. “Ms. Carrier, do go on.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Judy said, then stole a glance at the jury out of the corner of her eye. Each one was listening, many leaning forward urgently. Judy turned to Marlene. “Ms. Bello, what is a Molotov cocktail, by the way?”
Santoro threw up his arms. “Your Honor, is the witness a qualified expert on incendiary devices now?”
On the stand Marlene burst into laughter. “I’m from South Philly, pal. You think I don’t know from Molotov cocktails?”
“Overruled,” Judge Vaughn said, glaring Santoro into his chair. “Please answer the question, Ms. Bello.”
“Sure thing.” Marlene brushed a sprayed curl from her eye. “A Molotov cocktail’s a bottle with gasoline in it, and you put a rag in it and light it. Then you throw the bottle and it breaks and makes a gasoline fire.”
Bingo. Judy would have felt happy, but the words “gasoline fire” made her shudder. The Lucias had been burned alive. What a way to die. And what must Frank be feeling? She couldn’t look at him and stayed focused on Marlene. “Ms. Bello, what time did Mr. Bello leave the house that night?”
“I know it was late, maybe about nine-thirty at night.”
“Did he tell you where he was going?”
“No, just that he was going to pick up Angelo.”
“And did he bring the Coke with him when he left?”
Marlene wet her glossy lips. “I’ll tell you what I saw him do that night, after they talked. He took a Coke out of the fridge, in one of those glass bottles he always bought. Then he emptied it out in the sink. The whole bottle. Without even sippin’ it.”
Judy paused as the jury reacted. “Did he leave the house with the empty bottle, Ms. Bello?”
“Yeh.” Marlene bit her lip. “I didn’t say anything, but I should have. I knew he was up to no good but I didn’t think he’d kill somebody with it, least of all the Lucias.”
Suddenly Judy felt for her, for the Lucias, for Frank and Pigeon Tony, even for Jimmy Bello and the Coluzzis. So much death, so much killing. She gripped the side of the podium. “Ms. Bello, why didn’t you come forward to the police with this information before now?”
“I didn’t put it together until you called last night and told me about the gasoline, in the diesel truck. I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” Marlene turned directly to Frank and Pigeon Tony, her eyes glistening. “I really am so sorry.”
Judy held back her emotion. She was almost home free. She had done it. Proved who murdered the Lucias. Raised reasonable doubt about the Coluzzi murder. She felt her knees go weak, from exhaustion and relief and sheer joy.
Crak! Crak! Crak! banged the gavel suddenly, and Judge Vaughn began shouting, his eyes filled with alarm at the gallery. “Order! Order! Stop that man!”
Judy stood stunned. Pigeon Tony grabbed her arm in surprise. Santoro was on his feet, his face a mask of dismay. The bailiff reached for a telephone. The court stenographer cried, “Holy God!”
The gallery had erupted behind the bulletproof divide. Jimmy Bello was making a break for it, barreling full steam toward the exit doors. Frank was running after him, his tie flying. A cadre of court security charged behind them both. Spectators leaped out of the way in fear. Reporters scribbled like mad. Artists couldn’t sketch fast enough. Behind the bulletproof plastic, the scene was an action movie on mute.
Crak! Crak! Crak! Judge Vaughn kept banging the gavel. “Security! Security! Bailiff, call downstairs!”
Bello hit the double door at speed, with Frank and court security right on his heels. There was no way he would get out of the courthouse. There were layers of cops, police personnel, and courthouse security between him and the elevators, much less the exit downstairs. Bello’s only hope was that the cops got him.
Before Frank did.
The judge had declared a lunch recess, but nobody in the courthouse conference room was interested in food. Judy held Frank close, unembarrassed even in front of Bennie and Pigeon Tony. She breathed in the smells of him, the sweat from the dash after Jimmy Bello, and the fresh grief at his parents’ death. His corduroy jacket was soft in her arms, though his sleeve had been ripped in the melee. Judy hung on until Frank broke the embrace and wiped his bruised cheek. “At least we got Bello,” Frank said, his voice soft.
“We sure did.” Judy grinned. “One of the cops told me they’ll hold him for questioning. I turned over copies of my file and asked the expert to send the wreck over to police impoundment, so they have something to go on.”
“Think they’ll charge him?”
“We won’t let ’em rest until they do, will we?” Judy peered at Frank’s bruise. “How’s that feel?”
“Okay. After I tackled him, he kicked out. But I got a few good licks in.” Frank straightened up and actually broke into a smile. “The bailiff let me be the one to bring him down.”
“Good,” Judy said, meaning it. “What better use for my tax dollars?”
Frank smiled, then hugged Pigeon Tony, rocking him slightly. The little old man seemed to burrow into Frank’s broad chest, and Frank flashed Judy a grin over his grandfather’s bald head. “You and Bennie can hug now. I
think we won.”
Judy laughed. “I think so, too.”
Bennie looked over. “No hugging, though. Lawyers don’t hug.”
“Agreed,” Judy said. She was too happy to stop smiling. She felt great. It was a miracle. She had to have been a galley slave in a former life to cash in on this karmic payload.
Then Pigeon Tony emerged from Frank’s arms, his brown eyes bright. “I talk to judge now,” he said, and Judy’s good mood vanished.
“You don’t have to. It’s over.”
Pigeon Tony turned slowly, shaking his head. “No. I talk to judge. I talk to judge now.” A surprised Frank stood behind him, but Judy was aghast. He couldn’t mean it. This wasn’t happening.
“Pigeon Tony, we’re ready to go to the jury now, just as it is.”
“No! You say, today I say. I say. I go to judge. I tell truth!”
Judy wasn’t hearing this. Maybe he didn’t understand, even though she’d explained it 236,345 times. “Let me explain. Again. I have proved that Angelo Coluzzi hated you, and that you and he were in a small room together for maybe five minutes. During this time Angelo Coluzzi’s neck got broken, but I proved that that could have happened easily in a man his age, in even a scuffle.”
“I broke! I did!”
Judy checked her urge to grab Pigeon Tony by his scrawny little neck and shake some sense into him. “But the only proof they have that you started the fight and not Coluzzi is that somebody who never heard you speak heard you yell, ‘I’m gonna kill you,’ in Italian.”
“Me! I said! I did! But no é murder!”
Judy wanted to kill him, in English. “But they can’t prove that, and they haven’t. They lost. I bet you ten to one that the jury is going to come back for you, Pigeon Tony.”
“I tell judge! I tell them! I tell about Silvana! And tomatoes! And kiss!”
Judy’s head began to throb. Tomatoes and kisses wouldn’t do it, in a court of law. Maybe if she explained more. “I am going to argue to the jury in my closing that it’s just as likely that you pushed Angelo Coluzzi in self-defense as that you attacked him. That is demonstrably true.”
“What means mons—?”
Judy was losing patience. “It’s true, leave it at that. In addition, we have also proved, fairly conclusively, that Angelo Coluzzi and Jimmy Bello killed your son and daughter-in-law by throwing a Molotov cocktail in their truck, which set fire to their cab and caused what everybody thought was an accident.” Judy knew she was talking too fast for Pigeon Tony to follow, but she couldn’t stop herself. He was threatening to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Never mind that he could end up dead. “And if the jury thinks Coluzzi really killed your son, and not just that you believe it for no reason, then they will feel less sympathetic for him and less inclined to convict you for his murder. Don’t you get it? Shut up and win!”
Frank had gone white, his hands on his grandfather’s shoulders. “Judy, you’re hollering at him.”
“I have every right to holler at him! I’m trying to save his fucking life!” Judy shouted, and realized she had lost it. She didn’t need the expression on Bennie’s face to tell her, but it was there just the same.
Bennie was holding up her hand, like a stop sign. “Judy, enough. You’re upset. Get a grip.” She turned to Frank, almost formally. “Frank, does your grandfather understand what Judy is saying? Because she’s right.”
“I know he does. He understands more than people think.”
“I don’t want to take any chances. His life is at stake, and my liability. I want you to explain to him everything Judy just said, in Italian. And tell him if he chooses to testify, tell him he does so against his attorney’s advice.”
“Fair enough,” Frank said. “But I’m telling you. He understands fine. He just doesn’t agree.”
“I no agree!” Pigeon Tony chorused.
Frank began speaking to Pigeon Tony in rapid Italian, and Judy watched, feeling utterly helpless. She couldn’t believe it was happening. Her emotions went from complete frustration to stone cold fear. She looked at Frank and Pigeon Tony, then to Bennie. Was Bennie going to let this happen? “Bennie, they could kill him! They could give him the death penalty!”
“I know that.” Bennie was calm, which only made Judy crazier.
“We can’t just let him walk into it!” In the background was the sound of Italian, too musical for the grim occasion.
“We have to, if that’s what he wants.”
Frank looked up, grimly, his hands on his grandfather’s arm. “He wants to do it. He wants to tell the truth. He wants his day in court. He says he’s innocent, and he wants the jury to find that he’s innocent.”
“What’s the difference?” Judy exploded at Pigeon Tony, but Frank answered for him.
“You know what it is. He doesn’t want to think he got away with murder, because to him, it’s not murder. It’s not just that he’s not guilty—he’s innocent.”
“Then it’s done,” Bennie said simply, cutting Judy off with a chop and checking her watch. “We have two minutes until we go in.”
Judy couldn’t stop shaking her head. She grabbed Pigeon Tony by both of his hands. “Pigeon Tony, do you understand that after you testify, Mr. Santoro can ask you questions? All sorts of questions?”
“Si, si.” Pigeon Tony nodded, unfazed.
“Mr. Santoro will not be nice to you, he will be very mean. He will try to make you look like a very bad man. He will ask you, ‘How did you murder him?’ He will say, ‘Tell the jury exactly how you broke poor Angelo Coluzzi’s neck.’”
“I tell. I kill. No murder.”
“It will be awful! Santoro will tear you apart! He can keep you up there for days! You hardly even speak the language!” Judy wanted to cry, but she had to keep a tenuous grip or she couldn’t save him. “The jury won’t like what you say! They will say, ‘This man is a killer. Let’s give him the death penalty. Put him to death!’”
“Si, si.” Pigeon Tony half smiled, and his eyes, hooded with age, met Judy’s with a sort of serenity. Behind them Judy saw a strength she hadn’t noticed before, but also a folly. The bravest men got themselves killed. The pioneer was the one with the arrows in his chest.
“Pigeon Tony, please don’t.” If she had to beg, she would. “I am begging you.”
“Judy, no worry.” Pigeon Tony squeezed her hands. “You ask questions, inna court? Si?”
Judy blinked back tears. She couldn’t imagine it. She would have to take him through it on direct examination. “Yes,” she said, but her eyes filled up anyway. She didn’t want to see him dead, or even in prison. She didn’t know it until now, but she loved him.
“Ask me, I tell Silvana. Ask baby Frank. Ask tomato. Ask how Silvana die, inna stable. I tell. Like before, yesterday. I tell.”
Judy remembered. She had been transported by his stories. But she wasn’t a jury. And nothing had been at stake, least of all Pigeon Tony’s life. A tear rolled down her cheek, and she let go of his hand to brush it away.
“Everything okay, you see, Judy. Judge see. Jury see. Alla people see. Say me, how you see Silvana, Pigeon Tony?”
Judy’s lips trembled and she couldn’t speak. Bennie had fallen silent.
Frank sighed audibly. “Juries can do whatever they want, can’t they, Judy?” he asked.
Judy wasn’t holding any false hope. “At least they can’t kill him twice.”
Bennie shot her a disapproving look. “Yes, Frank. Your counsel should be telling you that there is something called jury nullification, which means the jury simply ignores the law and does what it thinks is just. It happened first a long time ago in the Old South, where white juries wouldn’t convict white men who lynched black men. Since then it has occurred, only rarely, in mercy killing and domestic abuse cases. But it is very rare.”
“Very rare,” Judy echoed. “Like winning-the-lottery rare.”
“Andiamo!” cried Pigeon Tony abruptly, clapping his hands together in excitement. His eyes
were shining and his face was bright, and for a minute he looked positively victorious.
Judy knew it couldn’t last.
Chapter 47
“Pardon me, Ms. Carrier?” Judge Vaughn asked, trying to hide his astonishment as court resumed after the recess. Even the judge’s eyebrows curled like question marks. Tugging at his robes, he leaned over the dais, as if he had heard Judy wrong. “What did you say, counsel?”
“The defense calls Anthony Lucia to the stand, Your Honor,” Judy repeated, and Judge Vaughn blinked in surprise. Judicial decorum prevented his commenting, That’s what I thought you said, bozo.
Santoro wasn’t half as polite. At the prosecutor’s table he didn’t bother to hide his glee. He was smiling and alert, rejuvenated after the melee with Jimmy Bello. Santoro had gone from the nadir to the zenith faster than you can say vocabulary words. If he took fake notes he could write, WHAT ARE YOU, STUPID?
Pigeon Tony rose next to Judy at counsel table, and she helped him to the witness stand, where he sat down behind the Bible and was sworn in by a rather startled clerk. Judy returned to the podium, holding her head high and trying to regain her professionalism after the waterworks in the conference room. If Pigeon Tony was determined to do this, she was determined to mitigate the damage, even if this murder trial had become an assisted suicide.
Judy took the podium, gripped the edges, and found herself face-to-face with the tiny man who looked like a bird, in the cage that was the witness box. Her throat caught at the sight and she remembered the day she had first met him. How cute he was.
How little. She prayed the jury would see him that way. It was almost all he had going for him, and she started feeling emotional again.
“Judy?” Pigeon Tony whispered from the witness stand, and the jury reacted with soft laughter. Even the court personnel were smiling.
Only Judy was on the verge of tears, looking at him. Nobody would tell him it was against the rules to talk to your lawyer from the box. He was on his own now. His fate was his own, and his karma. Judy believed in it, and it gave her heart. If anybody’s past could redeem his future, it was Pigeon Tony’s. But his lawyer still couldn’t chase the tears from her eyes.
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