The Vendetta Defense raa-8

by Lisa Scottoline

  “Ms. Carrier?” Judge Vaughn said, moving his hand from underneath his chin.

  “Sorry, Your Honor.” Judy wiped her eyes and bit her lips to control their tremor. God! What an idiot! She was a lawyer! In a courtroom! Ask a question, dufus! “Mr. Lucia, please tell the jury where you are from, originally,” she blurted out, then realized it was only the stupidest question in the world.

  Pigeon Tony turned slightly toward the jury, as relaxed as if he were conversing over Cynar in a piazza café. “I am from Italy,” he said. “Abruzzo, Italy. You know, Italy?” He pronounced it Eeetaly, his accent flavoring his words as strongly as sweet basil, and the front row of the jury smiled collectively. One juror, an older schoolteacher in the front, even nodded. Judy remembered she was Italian and had family that were Abruzzese. Most of the Italians in South Philly were Abruzzese.

  Judy wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She had to get it together. “And Pigeon Tony—wait, can I call him Pigeon Tony?” Judy wondered aloud, but didn’t wait for the judge to rule. Why the hell not? Her motto had always been, Don’t ask permission, apologize later. She was making up her own rules as she went along. After all, she had already called an expert witness whose conclusion she disagreed with. It was a slippery slope.

  “Sure,” Pigeon Tony answered with a grin. “Alla people, alla people here calla me Pigeon Tony.” He looked up at Judge Vaughn, who had been peering at him from behind his knuckles with a mixture of bewilderment and delight, neither of which Pigeon Tony noticed. “I have pigeons. Birds, you know, birds?

  They race, my birds. The Old Man, he come back. Soon. This, I know.”

  “That’s nice,” Judge Vaughn said politely, then hunched toward Pigeon Tony. “Mr. Lucia—”

  “Calla me Pigeon Tony! Alla people calla me Pigeon Tony! Even judge!”

  Judge Vaughn laughed. “Okay, Pigeon Tony, I heard you say that you are from Italy. Do you feel the need for a translator? We can have one brought in here very quickly.”

  “No, Judge. I no need. I know. I hear. I unnerstand.” Pigeon Tony pointed to his temple. Judy wanted to cover her face with her hands, but the jury burst into laughter.

  “Uh, Pigeon Tony,” Judy said, but when she had his attention, was too upset to think of a question. Talk about a slow start. She tried to remember her client’s coaching in the conference room. Every lawyer needs a smart client, to give them advice. Everything okay, you see, Judy. Alla people see. Say me, how you see Silvana, Pigeon Tony? Judy translated. “Pigeon Tony, please tell the jury how you met your wife, Silvana.”

  Pigeon Tony swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving like an elevator. “I was young, but a man, I go to race. In Mascoli, with birds. You know, Mascoli?” He paused, and only when one of the jurors shook his head no, did he respond. “Is city, near Veramo, where Pigeon Tony live. Mascoli big city.” He spread his arms wide, which for his wingspan meant three feet. “Rich city. Not like Veramo. Veramo small, very small city. Alla farmer, in Veramo. You know, farmer?”

  The front row nodded and smiled. Yes, they knew farmer. Santoro was frowning. Judy made a real note on her legal pad, trying to recall the stories Pigeon Tony had told her the other day, and at other times. FIRST KISS, WITH TOMATOES. PICNIC IN THE WOODS. FIRST REAL KISS. THE DAY AT THE TORNADO.

  On the stand, Pigeon Tony was saying, “I see Silvana, onna cart, and her hair, it shines. Shines in the sun! Only dark, brown. Soft. Like earth. Rich.” He rubbed his fingers together, crumbling imaginary soil in his hands. “So beautiful. A woman, like earth she is beautiful!”

  Judy noticed that the front row of the jury, five of them older women, were engrossed in what Pigeon Tony was saying. Santoro’s frown had grown deeper. It got Judy thinking. If Santoro was hating it, maybe it was good. Maybe there was hope. She made another note. THE DAY PIGEON TONY KILLED ANGELO COLUZZI.

  Then again, maybe not.

  After three hours of direct testimony of Pigeon Tony, Judy was down to her least favorite story. The others had gone in beautifully, but this one couldn’t. She straightened at the podium and let it rip. “Pigeon Tony, let’s begin with you walking into the back room of the pigeon-racing club on the morning of April seventeenth. Where was Angelo Coluzzi when you came into the room?”

  “Near shelf.”

  Judy didn’t bother to fetch the exhibit. They were beyond exhibits now. Beyond laws. “Did you know Mr. Coluzzi was in the room when you opened the door?”

  “No.”

  “So you were surprised to see him?”

  “Si, si.”

  “You mean, yes?”

  “Yes.” The word sounded strange coming from Pigeon Tony’s mouth, and he managed to stretch it to two syllables, like Yays-a.

  Judy thought about the best way to couch the story. “You opened the door, and Mr. Coluzzi said something to you, didn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did Mr. Coluzzi say to you?”

  “He laugh. He say, ‘Look who come in! A buffoon! A weakling! A coward!’”

  On the dais, Judge Vaughn was listening alertly. The court personnel, who usually did paperwork while court was in session, were listening, too. Santoro was taking rapid notes. Judy didn’t have to see the gallery to know what it looked like. She kept her focus on Pigeon Tony.

  “Please explain to the jury why he said that, Pigeon Tony.”

  His face flushed. “I no avenge Silvana. I go to America. I no make vendetta.”

  Judy thought it might be time for the short course. Vendettas 101. “What was wrong with that?” “Man must honor vendetta, must take eye for eye.” The schoolteacher on the jury gave a slight nod, and Judy knew she had at least one vote. Maybe the schoolteacher would be foreperson, please God. Judy kept an eye on the jury as she asked the next question. “Pigeon Tony, why didn’t you honor the vendetta? Why didn’t you take an eye for an eye?”

  “I no want to kill,” he answered, after a moment. “I no want to kill nobody, never.” He turned to jury. “I grow olives, in Italy. Tomatoes. Zucchini. I no want to kill. I grow.”

  Judy breathed a relieved sigh. “What did you do next, after Mr. Coluzzi called you a coward?”

  “I say to Coluzzi, you pig. You scum. You worse coward than me, for you kill defenseless woman.” Pigeon Tony turned to the jury. “My wife, Silvana,” he said, needlessly. Judy knew the jurors would never forget his account of the day he found Silvana in the stable, with his little son standing behind him. Two in the front row had wept openly.

  “Then what did Mr. Coluzzi say to you?”

  “He say, ‘You are a stupid, you are too dumb to see I destroy you. I kill your son and his wife, too. I kill them in truck and soon I kill Frank and you will have nothing.’” Pigeon Tony trembled, newly anguished, and several of the jurors gasped. The schoolteacher’s eyes narrowed with Abruzzese anger. Even Judge Vaughn shifted in his leather chair.

  “Then what happened?”

  “My heart is so full, and I say, ‘I kill you,’and I run and I push him. I run at him, fast. I no think, I run, and I push, I shove. I no can believe how hard! He falls and shelf fall, and I make noise, and alla things offa shelves.”

  Judy focused on something she hadn’t before. “So, the scream was you, and not Mr. Coluzzi?”

  “Si, si. Yes, and alla people come in—Tony, Feet, Fat Jimmy. They say, ‘You break his neck,’and I see, é vero, I break his neck!”

  Judy paused. It was death, after all, and it deserved its moment. It wouldn’t serve Pigeon Tony to gloss over it, and he looked stricken on the stand. The jurors’faces were uniformly grave and several of them were looking toward the gallery. Nobody had to tell Judy that Coluzzi’s widow and family would be crying. She had to deal with it.

  “Pigeon Tony, are you saying, in open court, that you broke Mr. Coluzzi’s neck?”

  “Yes.”

  “In your opinion, was that murder?”

  Santoro was on his feet. “Objection! Your Honor, the witness is not a lawyer. His opinion a
bout whether his act constitutes murder is a conclusion of law, irrelevant and prejudicial!”

  Judy shook her head. “Your Honor, the defendant is entitled to state his own personal belief about his own actions. His state of mind is always at issue in a criminal case.”

  Judge Vaughn mulled it over, looking from one lawyer to the next, then returning to Judy. “You may proceed. Objection overruled.”

  “Pigeon Tony,” Judy said, facing him directly. “Is it murder?”

  “No! Is killing, no is murder. Is no murder because Coluzzi kill my wife, Silvana. And my son and his wife, Gemma.”

  Judy watched the jury, but they didn’t react one way or the other. There was nothing left to tell. That was it. Pigeon Tony had told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. She hoped to God it didn’t kill him. But a detail was nagging at her.

  “Pigeon Tony, I have one last question. In the back room, after you pushed Mr. Coluzzi, why did you scream?”

  Pigeon Tony blinked. “I no know,” he answered quietly.

  But Judy did. “You don’t know?”

  “No.”

  Judy let it go, for now. “I have no further questions. Thank you, Pigeon Tony.”

  “Prego, Judy,” he said with a polite nod, but this time the jury remained unsmiling.

  She left the podium only reluctantly, aching inside as she took her seat at counsel table. She had done the best she could, and so had Pigeon Tony. There was no way she could predict what the jury would do. It would depend on how Pigeon Tony held up on cross-examination. Santoro was already on his feet with his notes and stalking to the podium, filled with the righteous anger that was regulation-issue to prosecutors. But this time, even Judy thought it was justified.

  She tried to relax in her chair. The only thing harder than assisting a suicide was watching one.

  In slow motion.

  Santoro glared from the podium at Pigeon Tony. “Mr. Lucia, is it your testimony that you believe Angelo Coluzzi killed your wife?”

  “Si, si.” Pigeon Tony straightened in his chair, which still brought him only six inches over the microphone. “Yes.”

  “Did you report this to the Italian authorities?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did they bring charges against Angelo Coluzzi for this alleged murder?”

  “No. No do nothing.”

  Santoro raised a warning finger. “Confine your answers to yes or a no, Mr. Lucia, do you understand?”

  “Sure.” Pigeon Tony nodded, and Santoro clenched his teeth.

  “So the Italian police brought no charges against Angelo Coluzzi?”

  “Coluzzi the police.”

  “Mr. Lucia!” Santoro shouted so loudly that Pigeon Tony startled at the witness stand. “Only yes or no is proper! Do you understand me?”

  Pigeon Tony fell silent.

  “Do you understand me? Answer the question!”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want a translator? Yes or no, Mr. Lucia!”

  “No.”

  On the dais Judge Vaughn shifted in his leather chair, and Judy considered objecting but made herself stop when she saw the jury’s reaction. A few eased back in their seats, which she read— she hoped correctly—as distancing themselves from the scene. If Santoro was going to yell at Pigeon Tony, maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing for the jury to see. For the jurors who liked him, it would increase their sympathy. For the jurors who hated him, at least they see him get some comeuppance. It was in Pigeon

  Tony’s interests for Judy to shut up, so she did.

  “I’ll ask again, Mr. Lucia, you do understand me, don’t you!”

  “Yes.” Pigeon Tony’s face fell, deep parentheses around a mouth that loved a smile, fissures on a forehead remarkably unfurrowed most of the time. The browbeating changed Pigeon Tony’s demeanor on the stand, and to Judy’s eye he seemed to shrink, his shoulders sloping, his eyes becoming opaque and guarded. Pigeon Tony knuckled under on the spot, and Judy wondered if it was an ingrained response, from growing up under Fascist rule.

  If anything, it encouraged Santoro. “Now, I’ll ask this again,” he said, his tone stern. “The Italian authorities ruled your wife’s death an accident, did they not?”

  “Yes,” Pigeon Tony answered quietly.

  “They came to your house and investigated her death, did they not!”

  “Yes.”

  “And they decided that it was an accident, did they not!”

  “Yes.”

  “They decided that she fell from the hayloft, didn’t they!”

  “Yes.”

  Santoro’s fingers tightened around the podium. “Now, your wife died sixty years ago, isn’t that right!”

  “Yes.”

  “And you loved your wife very much!”

  Pigeon Tony’s eyes fluttered. “Yes.”

  “And you thought she was a wonderful mother!”

  “Yes.”

  “And for sixty years, you have hated Angelo Coluzzi, because you believe he killed your wife, isn’t that true!”

  “Yes.”

  “You have hated him because you believe he took your wife from you and the mother from your child!”

  “Yes.”

  Judy bit her lip not to object. Her client was being berated before her eyes, all of it legally. She could see that it was wearing Pigeon Tony down. She didn’t know how much more he could take. She had to suppress her best instinct as a lawyer to protect her client. She picked up her pencil to take fake notes, but couldn’t write anything remotely funny.

  “Mr. Lucia, isn’t it true, haven’t you wished, for every day of the past sixty years, that you could kill Angelo Coluzzi?”

  Pigeon Tony thought a minute. “Yes.”

  “You thought Angelo Coluzzi deserved to die?”

  “Yes.”

  Santoro leaned over the podium, his fingers tight on its veneer edges. “Mr. Lucia, please move forward in time to the present day, if you can. With reference to the murder at issue here, which you have admitted committing—”

  “Objection,” Judy said, half rising. “Your Honor, again, whether Pigeon Tony’s act constitutes murder is for the jury, not Mr. Santoro, to decide. Pigeon Tony’s state of mind is relevant, not Mr. Santoro’s.”

  Santoro’s brown eyes widened in personal offense. “He did it, Your Honor! An intentional killing! He admitted as much!”

  Judge Vaughn motioned to both lawyers to come toward the bench. “No speaking objections, counsel. Please approach, now,” he said gravely, and they complied. He addressed only Judy, the full weight of his blue-eyed intelligence boring into her. “Ms. Carrier, I am going to overrule Mr. Santoro’s objection, for the time being, because your analysis is legally correct.”

  Santoro scoffed under his breath, but it didn’t stop Judge Vaughn.

  “But I warn you, Ms. Carrier,” the judge continued, pointing a finger like a gun at her, “if you are going for a jury nullification here, be forewarned. If you make one improper reference in a question, objection, or closing argument, which suggests in any way that these jurors ignore the law, I will hold you in contempt, dismiss this jury, and declare a mistrial. So watch your step. For your sake, and for your client’s.”

  “Yes, sir.” Judy didn’t want a mistrial. She didn’t know if Pigeon Tony could go through another trial. “Thank you.”

  “Thank you,” Santoro said quickly, and he returned to his podium while Judy walked to counsel table. It was one of the longest walks she’d ever taken. Her knees felt weak again. She wobbled in her pumps. Had they moved the table when she turned her back? She took her seat and pushed her pad away. She should have prevented this from happening. She should never have let Pigeon Tony take the stand.

  Santoro cleared his throat. “Mr. Lucia, please answer yes or no to the following questions, as before. Do you understand!”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, there came a time, on April seventeenth of this year, when you went to the pigeon-racing club and opened the
door to the back room, isn’t that right!”

  “Yes.”

  “And isn’t it true that you rushed at Angelo Coluzzi and grabbed him by the shoulders and whipped his back with such violent force as to break his neck from his very shoulders!”

  “Yes.”

  Santoro didn’t break stride. “When you ran at him, you intended to kill him, did you not!”

  “Yes.”

  “You knew you were going to kill him!”

  “Yes.”

  “You wanted to kill him!”

  “Yes.”

  “You hoped you could kill him!”

  “Yes.”

  “You had wanted to kill him for sixty years!”

  “Yes.”

  Santoro stopped suddenly. The courtroom was utterly quiet. Judy, the judge, and the jury all waited for the next question. “Well, you did,” Santoro said, very quietly.

  Judy rose to object, then shut her mouth. It would look heartless. But she finished rising and went to the podium. If Santoro was finished, it was time for redirect.

  Judge Vaughn seemed to come out of a reverie, and, like everybody, he was visualizing the awful scene in the back room and looking at Pigeon Tony with new, cold eyes. “Mr. Santoro, do you have any further questions?” the judge asked crisply.

  “No, Your Honor,” Santoro answered, and Judy went forward.

  “I have a single question on redirect, Your Honor,” she said.

  “Good,” Judge Vaughn replied grimly, which Judy took as a bad sign. Santoro’s cross had hit home. He had emphasized all the worst parts of Pigeon Tony’s story. The jury looked restless and unhappy. She couldn’t hope to bring them back to the warmth they’d felt for him when he started testifying. There was only one thing she could do, but it needed to be done, and she didn’t know if she could get it from Pigeon Tony.

  She cleared her throat. “Pigeon Tony, I have one question for you.”

  On the stand, Pigeon Tony raised his small chin, but his eyes remained opaque.

  “Pigeon Tony, are you sorry that Angelo Coluzzi is dead?”

  Pigeon Tony breathed shallowly, his concave chest rising once, then twice. His mouth moved into a firm, tiny line, and he blinked once, then twice. “Yes, I am sorry,” he said softly.