A Killer's Alibi (Philadelphia Legal)

by William L. Myers Jr.

  “She would have been sent to a psychiatric facility for a period and treated. After a time, her doctors would have concluded she was sane enough to be released. There would have been a hearing . . .”

  “And she would have gotten on with her life,” Piper says. “My God.”

  They talk some more, then walk back into the interview room. Darlene is sitting at the table, motionless, her head hanging, all hope drained from her.

  “What happened, after you hit your father?” Susan says.

  Darlene shakes her head slowly. “It’s all fuzzy. I know I let the hammer fall to the floor. I must’ve made my way to the workshop. Like I told you before, I don’t know why I went there, of all places, but I did. Sometime later, I don’t know how long, I heard my mother scream. She must have come home and seen my father. She started shouting my name while she was still inside the house, and then she came outside and ran up to the shop. She wouldn’t come in, just like I told you before, but she talked to me through the window screen. She told me what she and Lois did with the hammers, and what Lois was going to say about seeing me walking toward the house with no blood on me. She said not to admit it was me—even to my lawyer—because even if I was convicted, I might get out of jail someday . . . if I insisted I was innocent. Because of the hammers.”

  Piper glances at Susan, and she knows they’re both thinking the same thing: Cindy’s advice not to come clean about the killing had shut down Darlene’s chances at what would otherwise have been a compelling insanity defense.

  The three of them sit in silence for a long moment, until Darlene looks up.

  “That’s it, then. It’s over for me. I’m going back to Muncy, and that’s where I’ll stay.”

  Piper watches as Susan stands, walks to the door, nods for Piper to follow. When they’re in the hallway again, Susan backs up against the wall, crosses her arms, and closes her eyes.

  34

  TUESDAY, JUNE 18

  Facing the panelists for day two of jury selection, Mick and Vaughn flank Jimmy Nunzio at the counsel table. Lauren Zito sits at the end of the table, to Mick’s right. From time to time, Mick surreptitiously checks his cell phone for word from Piper. She called him last night, terribly upset at having learned that Darlene Dowd did in fact kill her father and that Lois Beal and Darlene’s mother concocted a plan to free her once one of them died. This morning, Mick spoke to Piper and Susan as they were headed to the prison to meet with Darlene. Piper was bereft, and Susan was steaming. He expects by now that Piper and Susan are almost back in Philadelphia, and Darlene Dowd is headed for the women’s prison in Muncy, where she will end her days.

  And here I sit, trying to free this monster by helping him stack a jury that’ll swallow whatever line he’s planning on feeding it.

  The day started with an attack on Dianne Galante, the juror Lauren Zito had had such misgivings about the day before. Overnight, Zito’s team tracked down Galante’s social media accounts and discovered that one of the Italian American organizations she belonged to advocated strongly against movies and television shows that stereotyped Italian Americans as mobsters and thugs. And, true to her stripes, Galante tweeted into the late hours that she’d been chosen for the Nunzio jury, castigating Jimmy Nunzio as, among other things, “a stain” and “blight on all Italian Americans.” She went so far as to predict that when the trial concluded, the Philadelphia Italian community would have one less “bosso-profundo” to be embarrassed about.

  As soon as the commissioner took his seat, Mick was on his feet asking to approach the bench. He brought the printed tweets with him. Pagano fumed and gesticulated, but there was never any question that the commissioner would strike Dianne Galante from the jury panel. He had the court crier bring Galante into the courtroom while the rest of the panel remained outside. Then he chewed her out for fifteen minutes before banishing her from the jury.

  That set them back to four jurors.

  “Mr. McFarland?”

  It’s the commissioner, telling him it’s his turn to question the panelists.

  He rises, smiles at the panel members. He thanks them for their patience, repeats what he said yesterday about not wanting to embarrass anyone, tells them they should only raise their hands if their answer to one of his questions is yes. He promises to follow up for details privately, at sidebar with the commissioner and opposing counsel.

  He reads through the short list of questions Zito prepared. Three or four jurors raise their hands at each question.

  The first person to be called up to sidebar for private questioning is Malcom Dexter, a twentysomething African American. The traditional wisdom among Philly attorneys is that African Americans tend to be more forgiving of the mob. But Dexter raised his hand in response to the question about whether the panelists know anyone who may have been the victim of organized crime.

  Mick watches him approach. He’s well dressed and looks Mick in the eye as he approaches. Mick glances at Lauren Zito, who tilts her head, the signal that he should be careful with this panelist.

  When Dexter is in position at sidebar, with Mick and Pagano on either side of him, the commissioner asks him which question he raised his hand about.

  “It was the one about do I know anyone who may have been the victim of organized crime. I raised my hand because, well, I don’t know for sure, but there was a guy in my neighborhood who supposedly got on the wrong side of Johnny G. . . .”

  Damn it. Mick does his best to keep his expression flat, but inside he’s roiling. There are more stories floating around about Nunzio’s enforcer than there are about Nunzio himself. Stories that end with someone beaten, dead, or missing.

  When Malcom Dexter is finished, Pagano says, “But you don’t know for sure the story about Mr. Giacobetti is true, do you?”

  “Well, I mean, I didn’t see it myself, no. But my friend Eugene, he was right there. He saw it.”

  “Well, that’s what they call hearsay,” Pagano says. “Now, certainly, you can agree that if you’re on the jury, you’d base your decisions only on the evidence presented here in court, right?”

  Mick shakes his head at Pagano’s leading questions. Pagano wants this man on the jury; Dexter would most certainly share with his fellow jurors the story he’s heard about Giacobetti, and hearsay or not, it would become de facto “evidence” against Nunzio.

  Dexter wilts as Pagano stares. “Well, sure. Of course. I would only listen to the evidence.”

  The commissioner turns to Mick. “Questions?”

  “Just two. First, you know that Mr. Giacobetti works for Mr. Nunzio, don’t you?”

  “Everyone knows that.”

  “All right. Now, forget about words like ‘hearsay’ and ‘evidence’ for a minute. You believe in your heart that Johnny G., working for Mr. Nunzio, broke both of those man’s arms and then tossed him into the back of his SUV and drove away.” A statement, not a question.

  “Absolutely.”

  Mick turns to the commissioner. He doesn’t need to say anything.

  “Mr. Dexter,” the commissioner says, “thank you for answering truthfully. Please return to room 101. And don’t talk to any other jurors before you leave.”

  “Nice try,” Mick says to Pagano, who mouths a profane retort.

  The commissioner tells them to knock it off and calls up the next panelist.

  Mick takes a deep breath.

  And the beat goes on.

  Piper reaches to her right and squeezes Darlene’s hand under the table. Darlene is still shaking from the hour she spent on the stand.

  “You did great,” Piper whispers in her ear.

  Darlene was the third witness Susan presented, after Melvin Ott and Lance Newton. Both men did well on direct examination. Judge Iwicki paid close attention to what they had to say, and her eyes widened half a dozen times, including at the points when Ott discussed former police chief Sonny Foster threatening Megan Corbett and the coercive nature of Darlene’s confession. She was equally impressed with New
ton’s testimony establishing that Cindy Dowd’s prints were the ones on the hammer. What really seemed to have an impact on the judge, though, was Darlene’s compelling testimony about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father.

  For his part, Assistant District Attorney Adam Tyson did a workmanlike job on cross, but Piper could tell his heart wasn’t really in it. And the judge could tell, too.

  As Susan rearranges her legal pads, Piper takes the time, once again, to take in the courtroom. It’s a grand venue: a twenty-foot ceiling; chandeliers; recessed lighting; a long, elevated bench supporting four pillars topped by gold leaf, the woodwork an elegant white; three rows of pew seating for spectators. A far cry from the tiny courtrooms in Philadelphia’s Criminal Justice Center, where Mick has tried most of his cases.

  “For our last witness,” Susan says, addressing the court, “we call Megan Corbett.”

  Piper turns to watch Lois Beal/Megan Corbett walk up the aisle. She sees a confused look cross Sonny Foster’s angry face; he’s never heard the name Megan Corbett. The hearing has been an ordeal for him, she knows. He has honored the subpoena and appeared, but he’s grown steadily angrier as the proceedings continue. He’s probably expecting to be called and given the chance to respond to the calumnies heaped on him, but Susan has no intention of putting him on the stand, and Piper doubts the ADA will risk doing so.

  Megan takes the stand, places her hand on the Bible, and swears to tell the truth. At Susan’s suggestion, Megan/Lois called the Philadelphia office of the FBI and dropped the proverbial dime herself. She told them who she was and that she’d be testifying at a hearing in Lehigh County. She also informed the person who took her call that there would be an FBI agent already in attendance, Special Agent Newton, who could take her into custody once it was over. That was an hour ago.

  “Please tell the court your name,” Susan says.

  “My legal name is Megan Corbett.”

  “And what name have you been going by?”

  “For the past few years, I’ve identified myself as Terri Petrini. Before that, for many years, I went by Lois Beal.”

  Sonny Foster is only a few rows behind her; Piper hears him take in a sharp breath.

  “Why the aliases?” Susan asks.

  Megan turns to face the judge. “Because I’m a fugitive from the law. I’ve been on the run since an armored truck was robbed in Palo Alto, California, in 1969. The two men manning the truck were killed in that event.”

  Judge Iwicki’s chiseled jaw drops to her chest. She looks around the courtroom.

  “Bailiff . . . No, wait. Special Agent Newton—”

  “I’m already on it, Your Honor,” Newton interrupts her. “The witness called herself in to the Bureau. Two agents are on their way from Philadelphia. Until they arrive, she will be in my custody.”

  The judge takes a long, cold look at Megan Corbett. Then she turns to Susan.

  “You may proceed. With caution.”

  Susan asks Megan Corbett to walk the judge through her history following the armored-truck heist. As she does so, Piper’s mind drifts back to their meeting with Darlene this morning at the county jail. She sees herself and Susan standing in the hallway, sees Susan’s back against the wall, her arms crossed. She hears herself thinking that this is where Susan tells her that Darlene Dowd is a criminal, and that she must return to prison. Then she sees Susan turn to face her.

  “That poor girl’s mother sat back for years while her father abused her,” Susan said.

  “Her mother tried to make up for it, in the end,” Piper said. “Lois tried to help, too.”

  “And in trying to help her, they blew her only chance at freedom.”

  Susan unwrapped her arms, pushed herself from the wall. “Her only chance until now,” she said. “Until us.”

  Piper watched as Susan turned back to the door, toward Darlene.

  “Fuck it,” Susan said. “Let’s do this.”

  Watching Susan now as the lawyer forces herself to do something she hates in order to save their client, Piper holds her in greater esteem than ever before.

  “Now, Ms. Corbett, tell us about the night Lester Dowd was killed.”

  Piper sees Megan steel herself. Their eyes lock, and for an instant, a look flashes across Megan’s eyes that tells Piper they are thinking the same thing: this will be Megan Corbett’s greatest performance as an actor.

  For the next twenty minutes, Susan stands at the lectern as Megan lays it all out—the story as authored by her and Cindy Dowd fifteen years earlier. The tale in which Cindy was the villain and Megan her accomplice after the fact.

  Judge Iwicki, a prodigious notetaker, doesn’t even lift her pen, remaining laser-focused on Megan Corbett. Looking for the lie, the hole, or maybe something deeper: a way to reconcile the sweet seventy-year-old on the stand with the armored-car killer and accessory after the fact to a wife’s murder of her husband.

  When Megan Corbett is finished, Susan thanks her and turns her over for cross-examination. The young prosecutor opens his questioning with a knife to Megan Corbett’s heart.

  “You say Darlene’s mother told you sometime after the murder that the prints on the hammer were hers? And yet you sat on this for years, allowing an innocent woman to pay for a crime she didn’t commit? You were content to wait until the real murderer died until you came forward?”

  Megan’s face reddens with embarrassment. This will be the hardest part: her decision to sacrifice herself for Darlene—an act of pure heroism in Piper’s eyes—depends, ironically, upon her allowing herself to be seen by the world as weak and selfish.

  She lowers her head. “I will never forgive myself.”

  The look in Iwicki’s ice-blue eyes tells Piper that the judge has no forgiveness in her heart for Megan Corbett, either.

  The prosecutor lets the words hang in the air, then switches gears. “You said you have been on the run since an armored-truck robbery in which two men were killed. Were you, in fact, one of the people who robbed the armored truck?”

  Piper holds her breath and watches as Megan does the same.

  Kathryn Iwicki waits, then forces herself to throw Megan a lifeline. She’d clearly rather not but feels ethically obligated to do so.

  “Ms. Corbett,” the judge says, looking down at Megan from the bench, “you must either answer that question or invoke your Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate yourself.”

  “Oh, of course. Well, then, I’ll take the Fifth. Is that how you say it?”

  “Move on, Mr. Tyson,” she tells the prosecutor.

  The ADA flips through his legal pad and asks a dozen or so questions that appear designed to fill in gaps left by the witness rather than undermine Megan’s credibility.

  “I have nothing further,” Tyson tells the court.

  Judge Iwicki stares at Megan Corbett while the prosecutor takes his seat. Then she looks out into the courtroom.

  “Mr. Newton?”

  The FBI agent stands and walks up to the bar, where he waits for Megan Corbett. She crosses the well of the courtroom, opens the gate, and steps past the bar. There, she turns and puts her hands behind her back so smoothly that Piper thinks she’s probably practiced the move a hundred times. Or had a hundred nightmares in which she was forced to do so.

  Megan sighs deeply and steals a last glance at Darlene Dowd. Piper watches the two women hold each other’s gaze. So much passes between them, it almost breaks her heart.

  Lance Newton walks Megan Corbett to the back of the courtroom, where two grim-faced suit-and-tie types rise from their seats. Newton hands Megan off to them, and all four leave the courtroom.

  The judge pauses. Then, to Susan: “Do you have any more witnesses?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “Mr. Tyson?”

  “The Commonwealth has no witnesses, Your Honor.”

  “What?”

  Piper recognizes Sonny Foster’s voice. She watches as Adam Tyson looks at the former police chief and slowly shakes h
is head. Sonny Foster’s face is beet red.

  “Does Your Honor need to hear argument?” asks Susan.

  “Not unless you or Mr. Tyson feels a burning desire to explain the witnesses’ testimony to me.”

  Susan and Tyson tell Judge Iwicki they are satisfied the court understands the evidence.

  “Very well,” the judge says, standing. “I will consider the motion and make my ruling.”

  The judge starts to turn away, then stops herself and looks down at their table.

  “I won’t take long, Ms. Dowd. You’ve waited far too long as it is.”

  Piper puts her hand to her chest. She turns to Darlene and sees tears in her eyes. They both know. Everyone knows.

  She whispers to Susan, “She’s getting a new trial.”

  “Maybe.” Susan walks over to Adam Tyson. “Do we really need a second trial, Adam? You now know what happened fifteen years ago.”

  The young ADA exhales and nods his head. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  The deputies allow Piper and Susan a few minutes to accept hugs from their client. Then they cuff Darlene and take her away.

  Piper searches the courtroom for Sonny Foster, but he’s long gone. The stenographer packs up her machine and exits through the judge’s door behind the bench, leaving Piper and Susan alone in the courtroom.

  “We did something good here,” Piper says.

  “No, Piper. We did something bad here. Very bad. We just did it for a good reason. Sometimes that has to be enough.”

  35

  FRIDAY, JUNE 21

  Everyone stands as the Honorable Frances McCann takes the bench. Her Honor is thin, with silver hair cut close to her head and steel-blue eyes set in a pale face. She was elected to the bench ten years earlier, after two decades as a career prosecutor. Mick has appeared before her half a dozen times and finds her to be a fair jurist.

  Mick and Vaughn flank Jimmy Nunzio, as they did during jury selection, which took four full days. The first major difficulty was that everyone knew Nunzio. The second reason was that it’s a capital case. Pagano is seeking the death penalty, and many potential jurors had to be stricken because they were frankly unwilling—or too willing—to send a defendant to the needle.