[Damien Harrington 01.0] The Alibi

by Rachel Sinclair

  Nate, for his part, was still quite close to his mother. He came down the stairs and gave Sarah a hug. “Hi mom,” he said. “Dad said that you were coming over and making dinner with us.”

  “I am,” Sarah said, holding Nate close. “And we’re going to find a show on HBO or NetFlix that we can all watch together.”

  I followed Sarah into the kitchen and put on an apron as I sharpened my knives. I chopped up an onion rapidly, and then chopped up some other vegetables that we were going to have in our salad.

  “I always admired you for your chopping ability,” Sarah said with a laugh. “I never could figure out where you learned to chop like a pro.”

  “Oh, I watched my share of cooking shows,” I said as I put the onions into a hot skillet. “I’m a guy, but I’ve always wanted to cook for myself, so I learned how. Plus, I knew that chicks really dig guys who cook.”

  Sarah laughed as she wrapped her arms around my waist. “I don’t know about chicks in general, but I know that I really dig at least one guy who cooks.”

  I was starting to respond to her flirtatious moves. When I first started hanging out with her, I wouldn’t respond at all. When she would put her hand on my knee, I would remove it. When she would wrap her arms around me, I wouldn’t do the same with her. But, lately, I was warming to her.

  I turned around, a spoon in my hand, and let her taste the sauce that I was making. “Mmmmm, delicious,” she said, “but I was supposed to make dinner, not you. How did you start chopping and cooking and not me?”

  “I like to help,” I said.

  “Well, move over,” she said, “I’m going to take over.”

  She brought the chicken out of the package and put it in the pan with the onions, garlic and oil. “So,” she said, “how did it go today?”

  “Okay, I guess. We picked a jury. I got several women on the panel that I think might be sympathetic to our defense.”

  “You’re going with self-defense, right?”

  “Right,” I said. “I mean, it was self-defense.” I didn’t tell Sarah the truth about Gina’s case. I figured that I still didn’t entirely trust her, and, if something happened, and Sarah and I ended up not getting back together, I didn’t want to give her something to hold over my head. I could just imagine telling her the truth, and her going to the Bar and telling them what I did. She would probably do that if I pissed her off enough. “But let’s not talk about that tonight. I would like to leave the stress of my trial at the courthouse and not bring it home.”

  “Point taken.” She looked toward Amelia’s bedroom. “Is Amelia ever going to stop hating me?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, I do know. I think that she will. But you have to understand, she’s very hurt. She knows that you wanted her to die. I mean, I know that you didn’t want her to die, you wanted her to stop suffering, but she’s six. She doesn’t know the difference. So, for the time being, she’s hurt. She’ll come around.”

  “Maybe we can do some family counseling,” Sarah said. “Do you think that would help?”

  “I think that it would,” I said. “It certainly couldn’t hurt.”

  “How is she?” Sarah asked. “I’ve been talking to her doctors, and they all tell me that she’s out of the woods for now. She’s in remission. Do you think that’s true? Do you think that she’s really going to beat this thing?”

  “I do. I do. Of course, we can’t declare that she’s cured until she’s cancer free for five years, so we have a long way to go, really. But, for now, it seems like that bone marrow transplant might have done the trick. Her body hasn’t rejected it, and it seems like this new bone marrow is doing what it’s supposed to – help her body fight off the cancer. My fingers are crossed, and, even though I’m not a religious man, I have been praying for her lately.”

  That night, we ate our dinner and found a movie to watch. Sarah and I sat on the couch together under a blanket, just like we used to, and the kids sat on the floor. It was nice, just like old times, and I almost forgot that I was in the middle of a trial. Not just any trial, but a trial with enormous consequences for the best friend I ever had.

  I almost forgot about my trial.

  Almost.

  Chapter 20

  The next day, it was time to face the music. Ally had her witnesses lined up, and she was going to be extremely aggressive in showing that Gina killed Vittorio in cold blood. I knew that, and I was prepared for it. Even so, I knew that breaking down her witnesses wasn’t going to be easy. Nothing in this job was ever easy, and this trial was going to be no different.

  The first witness she called was Officer Hanley. He was the officer who interrogated Gina at the station, therefore he was the most relevant police officer that Gina was going to call.

  Officer Hanley approached the bench. He was a younger guy, 30-something, with short brown hair and a stiff way of walking. He was tall and imposing and spoke in a baritone voice. I knew why Officer Hanley was brought in to question Gina – he was the guy that the force brought in for a lot of women, because he had a certain amount of charm with them. He usually played the role of the “good cop,” the guy who is polite and sincere and soft-spoken. The guy who would say things like “ma’am, just tell us the truth. Tell us the truth, and I promise you, I’ll go to the prosecutor and ask her to go easy on you.” That was the kind of cop he was.

  I wondered if Ally was also going to call Officer Hanley’s interrogation partner, Officer Maddox. Officer Maddox played the part of the “bad cop.” Where Officer Hanley would be all sweet and polite and accommodating, Officer Maddox would come in and threaten and bully and get belligerent. They were quite the team, those two, and, together, they knew how to break down most witnesses.

  But they didn’t break down Gina.

  Officer Hanley was sworn in and he sat down.

  “Could you please state your name for the record,” Ally said.

  “Officer John Hanley,” he said.

  “And Officer Hanley, you are currently a police officer on the Kansas City Police Department, is that right?”

  “Right.” He nodded his head.

  “And Officer Hanley, did you get the chance to question a woman by the name of Gina Degrazio?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you question her?”

  “She was brought into the station after the murder of her husband, Vittorio Degrazio.”

  “Was she under arrest at the time that you spoke with her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was she informed that she was under arrest at the time that you spoke with her?”

  “Yes. She was read her Miranda Rights and she was informed by the officer who picked her up at her house that she was under arrest for Mr. Degrazio’s murder.”

  “I see.” Ally nodded her head. “So, she was brought into the station and you and Officer Maddox questioned her. What was her demeanor when she was brought in?”

  “Calm. She didn’t try to fight with me, didn’t try to engage me in conversation. She simply said that she wanted an attorney from the second she was brought into the interrogation room.”

  “So, she didn’t try to tell you that Mr. Degrazio was threatening her or that she feared for her life or any of that, right?”

  “Right. She didn’t say any of that. She just said that she wanted an attorney and we stopped questioning her right away.”

  “Now, you’ve been a police officer for the force for how many years?”

  “I’m a 15-year veteran,” he said. “I joined the force when I was 21.”

  “And how many years have you been doing interrogation work?”

  “For five years, ma’am.”

  “And how many interrogations have you done over the years?”

  “About 200.”

  “About 200.” Ally nodded and put her hand on her chin, like she was thinking. “And how many times have you questioned a suspect and had them tell you that they were protecting themselves when they killed the person that you were
questioning them about?”

  “At least 20 times, ma’am.”

  “In your experience, have you ever encountered somebody who just wouldn’t speak to you, and you later on found out that person had a self-defense claim?”

  “No, ma’am. Not to my knowledge, no.”

  “So, every time you’ve interrogated somebody who ended up pleading self-defense, that person told you in your initial interrogation?”

  “Yes, ma’am. To the best of my knowledge, that statement is true.”

  “So, is it unusual, to you, that Ms. Degrazio would now be sitting here, pleading self-defense, when she didn’t say a word to you about killing Mr. Degrazio to save her life?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I do think that is unusual.”

  “Because people who have killed in self-defense have always told you that that was the case, right?”

  “Right. To the best of my knowledge, that is correct.”

  “I have nothing further.”

  I stood up, knowing that I was going to be able rip this guy’s story to shreds, and I was anxious to do so. “Officer Hanley,” I began, “you just told Ms. Hughes that you know of no case where you’ve questioned somebody on a murder, and that person had a self-defense claim, but didn’t tell you about that from the beginning. Is that right?”

  “Yes, that is what I testified.”

  “So, after you’ve interrogated somebody, you’ve followed them and their case right to the end, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And you’ve done that 100% of the time?”

  “Well, no, I guess I haven’t.”

  “You mean that there have been a few cases where you just lost track of what happened to the person after you interrogated them?”

  “There have been a few, yes. I’m a very busy person, and I do many interrogations.”

  “In fact, the only times that you followed a case from interrogation to the conclusion are the cases where you were called to testify, isn’t that right?”

  He nodded his head. “That’s right.”

  “Which means that you only keep track of what happens with an accused person when the case goes to trial, isn’t that right?”

  “Generally, yes.”

  “So, how many cases did you actually track from start to finish, then, over the past five years?”

  “I would say about 20 cases.”

  “So, you’ve interrogated approximately 200 witnesses over the years, yet you have only tracked about 10% of those cases from start to finish, then?”

  “Well, I work with the prosecutors on every case that I interrogate and charge. But I don’t usually end up working the cases from start to finish, so I’m probably out of the loop with a lot of them.”

  “So, then, you don’t really know if there were some accused individuals who didn’t tell you that their lives were being threatened at the time that they killed somebody, yet went on to have a self-defense claim anyhow, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes, I guess that’s right.”

  I was satisfied that I got the answer from Officer Hanley that I was looking for, so I decided just to rest. “I have nothing further for this witness.”

  I sat down. “Counselor, do you have any redirect?” Judge Reiner asked Ally.

  “Yes, your honor,” she said, standing up and approaching Officer Hanley. “Officer Hanley, you indicated that you work with the prosecutors on all the cases that you interrogate, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes, that is correct. I work with all of them.”

  “I have nothing further.”

  “Mr. Harrington, any re-cross?”

  “No, your honor.” I figured that I got out of him what I needed, and there wasn’t a reason to go back in and keep on beating the point.

  After Officer Hanley testified, Ally called her ballistics expert and the Medical Examiner, Dr. Prorock. There wasn’t anything that these witnesses testified to that I found remotely relevant. After all, I had stipulated with Ally that Gina killed Vittorio. I didn’t see what these people could tell the jury that was helpful. I didn’t have any questions for these people for that reason alone.

  Ally also showed the crime scene photos, and the Medical Examiner testified on what happened to Vittorio. She said that Vittorio was shot once in the chest, and that this was a kill-shot. The bullet hit his heart and death was instantaneous. I didn’t object to the photos, even if they were irrelevant, because they weren’t all that gruesome. There really wasn’t that much blood, because the bullet hit the heart and that meant that there wasn’t much bleeding.

  It was her next witness that I was going to have to break down mercilessly.

  She called Enzo Degrazio to the stand.

  Chapter 21

  Enzo came in the door, dressed in a leather jacket, jeans, and a t-shirt. He was wearing dark sunglasses, as if he thought that he was the coolest person in the room. He was also wearing a hat, just like he was wearing when he came to my office to meet me.

  He sat down at the witness stand, his stance just as casual as when he was in my office.

  “Mr. Degrazio,” Judge Reiner said, “could you please respect the court and remove your hat and your sunglasses?”

  Enzo shrugged and took off his hat, but didn’t take off his sunglasses.

  “Mr. Degrazio,” Judge Reiner said, “please remove your sunglasses.”

  Enzo sighed and took off the shades. On his right eye was a large black shiner. That eye was also swollen shut. “Yeah, I don’t look so pretty right now,” he said, looking at the people in the jury. “I’ve had a rough couple of days.”

  The jury laughed lightly and Enzo smiled broadly. I could see that he was having fun.

  Have fun right now. You won’t be after I get through with you.

  “Can you please state your name for the record,” Ally said after Enzo was sworn in.

  “Enzo Degrazio, man,” he said. “I’m the brother of the late, great Vittorio Degrazio, may he rest in peace.” He crossed his chest and took out his cross necklace and kissed it. “Sorry, I just miss my twin brother so much.”

  I had to suppress laughter at his acting job. I wasn’t fooled by him, and I hoped that nobody else was, either.

  “Enzo Degrazio. As you said, you’re the brother of Vittorio Degrazio, isn’t that right?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. That’s what I just said, isn’t it?”

  “That is. Now, are you familiar with Gina Degrazio?”

  “Yeah, man, I know her. She stayed with me after she murdered my brother.”

  “She stayed with you after she murdered Vittorio Degrazio?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t know that she had killed him at the time, man, she just came to my house and told me that she wanted to get away from him. She said that they were having fights, but my brother had always told me that she started all their fights.”

  “Okay, back up a bit. Now, you just said that your brother and Gina got into fights habitually?”

  “Yeah, man. They did, like, all the time.”

  “And that Gina was the one who started all the fights?”

  “Yeah. My poor brother, he was abused by Gina. He was a good guy, a really good guy, but Gina ran all over him, man. She attacked him and hit him all the time. Came after him with a baseball bat, gave him a couple of good whacks all the time. Broke his knee more than once.”

  I suddenly realized that the Medical Examiner was more interesting to me. In fact, I was going to have to call him back to the stand and I was going to have to ask him if it was true that Vittorio had broken bones.

  “Broke his knee more than once?”

  “Yeah, man, broke his knee a few times. He was put into the hospital a few times.”

  I sighed. Vittorio had never been in the hospital. Tom Garrett did a thorough check and he didn’t find that Vittorio had ever been in the hospital for anything. Which was surprising enough in itself, considering the guy was a mobster. The problem was, there wasn’t a way to prove that he had never bee
n in the hospital. That would be proving a negative, which is always impossible to do.

  That was another way of approaching this guy – get him to admit that his brother was a mobster, and that would be an alternative explanation for Vittorio’s injuries, assuming that Vittorio actually was hurt.

  “To your knowledge, did Vittorio Degrazio ever beat on Gina Degrazio?”

  “No, man. Not at all. My brother was a peaceable man, may he rest in peace.” He crossed himself again and kissed his crucifix again. “I know that he is looking down on me right now, man, and I still feel him in my heart. Right here.” He made a fist and put it to his heart. “Right here, man. I carry him right here.”

  “Now, Gina Degrazio’s claim is that she had to kill Vittorio Degrazio because he was strangling her with a belt and she had to kill him, or else she would be dead. Do you believe that?”

  “No, I don’t believe that. Not for a second.”

  “And why don’t you believe that?”

  “Because Gina told me, man. She told me that she was going to kill my brother. She told me that she had found out that this mobster, this Francesco Veraldi guy, was offering money for my brother’s head, and she wanted in on that action. She owed this other mobster, this guy that she was sleeping with, he’s in the joint now, name’s Joey Caruso, a million dollars and she had to pay up or else. So, she killed my brother to get the money to pay Joey. And that’s what I know.”

  “I have nothing further.”

  I sighed loudly, signaling the jury how exasperated I was by having to cross-examine this tool. “Mr Degrazio,” I said, standing up. “Isn’t it true that you’ve been in prison yourself? In fact, haven’t you been in prison many times before?”

  “Yeah, I’ve been to the joint a time or two. Trumped up charges, man, I had to take the fall for some other guys who were the real criminals, not me.”

  “Which was it?”

  “Which was what?”