Mick doesn’t even bother to object.
“Did there come a point when you, as the lead detective on the case, learned the results of the analysis of Mr. Nunzio’s phone?”
“Yes. A few days after the crime, I was provided a copy of the CSU report on it. The defendant received a call at 9:22 p.m. The call lasted about thirty seconds. A second call, lasting one minute and forty seconds, was placed from his phone at 9:58.”
“Did you learn where the first call came from? Or to whom the second call was placed?”
“No, both involved burner phones. Nunzio’s own phone was also a burner.”
Pagano pauses. “Did you continue to try to speak with Mr. Giacobetti and Ms. Nunzio?”
“Yes. But the daughter disappeared from the hospital after about two days. And no one seemed to have any idea where Giacobetti was, at least until he was shot outside the defendant’s office and taken to the hospital.”
“Did you speak with him there?”
“Mr. McFarland had lawyers parked in his hospital room, and they wouldn’t let us.”
Pagano shakes his head disapprovingly. “How about Frank Valiante? Did he ever make himself available to speak with you about the enmity between him and the defendant?”
“He wouldn’t talk to us any more than Nunzio would. Then he allegedly shot himself, right about the same time his younger son and his whole crew mysteriously disappeared.”
Tredesco slowly turns his head toward Nunzio, and the jury follows with their eyes. The message is clear: Nunzio was somehow behind Frank Valiante’s death and the disappearance and likely killing of his men.
Mick considers objecting but decides doing so would only make the point that much stronger.
“Detective, would you please summarize the results of your investigation, and place them in a timeline?”
“Sure. At 9:22 p.m., on the evening of April tenth, while at his office on Crescent Drive in the Naval Yard, the defendant received a call on his burner phone from another burner phone. Three minutes later, at approximately 9:25 p.m., the defendant and John Giacobetti were seen running from the building and toward the parking lot by the security guard in the building next door. At 9:58 p.m., the defendant placed a call from his burner phone to a third burner phone. Shortly after 10:00 p.m., patrolmen Piccone and Trumbull noticed a car parked outside a supposedly abandoned building off Admiral Peary Way and then drove up to investigate. When they arrived, they found a Cadillac Escalade, which turned out to be owned by a company registered with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Corporation Bureau as being owned by Modern Innovations, Inc., the same name on the door of Mr. Nunzio’s office. While standing by the Escalade, Officers Piccone and Trumbull heard a woman crying inside the building, and they saw a light coming through a busted door and doorframe. They immediately entered the building and observed a young woman, who turned out to be Christina Nunzio, sitting on the floor and cradling the body of Antonio Valiante. They observed a large cut wound in Valiante’s throat and fresh blood coming from that wound. They also observed cut wounds to the victim’s wrists and ankles, and two sets of plasticuffs nearby on the floor. After a few seconds, they noticed the defendant, James Nunzio, standing twenty feet away, holding a knife and covered in blood. CSU forensics identified the blood on the knife, and on the defendant, and on the floor and carpet, as that of the decedent, Antonio Valiante. CSU forensics also determined that the only fingerprints on the knife belonged to the defendant.
“The forensic blood and DNA evidence, and the records of Nunzio’s cell phone, of course, came in later, after the arrest.”
“Once you obtained the phone records, what was your operating theory?”
“That Nunzio had one or more of his guys following Antonio Valiante, hoping to catch him when he was vulnerable. They tailed Valiante and Nunzio’s daughter to the warehouse and called Nunzio, who raced there with the intent to kill Valiante. Based on that intent, the homicide charges were upgraded to murder one.”
Mick takes note that Pagano doesn’t bring up the second call on Nunzio’s burner, the one he placed himself while he was at the warehouse. He thinks that’s odd, given that Pagano mentioned the call in his opening statement.
“In your investigation, did you find any evidence to discount or disprove this?”
“No.”
“Any evidence the call to Nunzio’s cell phone came from someone other than an agent of James Nunzio?”
“No.”
“Any evidence that Nunzio’s purpose in going to the warehouse was anything other than to kill Valiante?”
Mick stands. “Objection. All of this is speculation—unsupported opinion disguised as questions pretending to inquire as to actual evidence.”
“It’s a close call, but I’ll overrule the objection,” says Judge McCann. “To be fair about it, you’ll be allowed to engage in reciprocal questioning on cross-examination.” Turning to Tredesco, she says, “The witness may answer the question.”
“I uncovered no evidence that Nunzio’s reason for going to the warehouse was to do anything else but take the life of the decedent.”
The judge calls a quick break so she can take an important phone call, telling everyone to remain seated until she returns. Ten minutes later, she resumes the bench and tells Pagano to continue. He asks Tredesco a few more cleanup questions, then tells the judge he’s finished.
Mick waits for Pagano to take his seat. Then he stands and walks toward the witness stand.
“Detective Tredesco, you testified that your partner in the investigation for this case was Greg Lott. Is he here today?”
“No. We’re no longer partners.”
“How long was he your partner?”
“About two months. Up to a few weeks ago.”
“Who was your partner before Detective Lott?”
“That would’ve been Detective Smith. William.”
“How long was he your partner?”
“About three months.”
“And before Detective Smith?”
“Detective Milone. Stephen.”
“How long did he last with you?”
Pagano is on his feet. “Objection, Your Honor.”
“Sustained. Mr. McFarland, you know better.”
He apologizes, then turns to the jury and smiles. They all smile back. He couldn’t pull that type of move on a witness the jury liked, but there was no danger of that with Tredesco.
“You say that once Mr. Nunzio’s lawyer arrived, you and Detective Lott returned to the crime scene? And CSU was already cleaning up?”
“Yes.”
“How long did you have Mr. Nunzio wait in the interrogation room before you came in to talk to him and he told you he wanted a lawyer?”
“Well, I had a lot of paperwork to do, in opening the case, before I could talk to the defendant.”
“How long?”
Tredesco’s eyes narrow. “About three hours.”
“So Mr. Nunzio sat in the little interrogation room in bloody clothes for three hours?”
“I suppose.”
“Did you bring him any water? Ask him if he needed a bathroom break?”
“No, and I didn’t call over to the Ritz to bring him room service, either.”
The judge sighs and leans toward the witness. “Just answer the question.”
“The answer is no. I didn’t bring him water or let him go to the bathroom.”
“And why should you, right? I mean, you’d already convicted him of first-degree murder, in your mind.”
Tredesco crosses his arms and raises his chin in indignation. “I didn’t convict him of anything. That’s the jury’s job.”
“Detective Tredesco, you were asked on direct about your ‘operating theory’ about who placed the call to Mr. Nunzio’s cell phone and what Mr. Nunzio’s purpose was in going to the warehouse. And you said you found no evidence to contradict your theories. You remember those questions?”
“Yes.”
“Did you
find any evidence to support your theory about who it was that called Mr. Nunzio?”
“I mean, it’s common sense. Whoever called him knew the number of his anonymous burner phone, so it had to be one of his guys.”
“Which one?”
Tredesco shrugs.
“You don’t know because you never connected the phone that placed the call with any specific person, did you?”
Tredesco shrugs again.
“Answer the question, Detective. Do you or do you not know the identity of the person who called Mr. Nunzio?”
Tredesco shifts on his seat. “I do not know the person by name, no.”
Mick pauses, turns back to the counsel table, and pretends to look at his notes. Remembering what Christina told him outside the Nunzio mansion—about the bullshit her father fed her to get Valiante to the warehouse—he asks, “Is it possible that Mr. Nunzio’s purpose in going to the warehouse was to make peace with Antonio Valiante?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Answer the question.”
Tredesco exhales loudly. “No, in my opinion, it is not possible.”
“Did you interview any witness who told you that Mr. Nunzio had expressed a purpose that was something other than reaching an accord, making a deal, with Antonio Valiante?”
Tredesco stares. “I mean, the proof is in the pudding. He killed the guy. He didn’t take him to The Hague and sign a treaty.”
Mick hears the laughter from the gallery and sees some of the jurors chuckling, but he presses on.
“Just as things aren’t always as they seem, things don’t always turn out as you plan, right, Detective?”
“I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“In your so-called investigation, did you consider that Mr. Nunzio went to the warehouse with a hope to make peace but things didn’t turn out as he’d planned?”
“Things turned out as he made them turn out.”
Mick ignores the answer and says, “You’re aware that Mr. Nunzio was in possession of the pistol when he went to the warehouse?”
“Absolutely.”
“And yet, despite your theory that he went to the warehouse to kill Mr. Valiante, he obviously did not enter the warehouse with his gun blazing?”
“I don’t know what he did.”
“The gun had not been fired, there were no bullets found at the warehouse, and no powder residue on the defendant, isn’t that true?”
“Sure, but so what?”
“If Mr. Nunzio had intended to kill Mr. Valiante, he certainly would have used his readily available gun, not a knife.”
Tredesco scolds him with a shake of the head. “He brought the gun to subdue the victim. Then, once he was subdued and secured with the plasticuffs, he went to work with the knife.”
Mick blinks. That is a plausible answer to the gun issue. Damn.
“Doesn’t it seem more plausible that Nunzio brought the gun because he couldn’t be certain what he was walking into? And that Valiante pulled the knife on him once he was there? That they fought and Valiante ended up dead?”
“What seems plausible to me, counselor, from everything I learned in my investigation, and from what I already knew about your client, is that Valiante was horning in on Nunzio’s home turf and shtupping his daughter at the same time and had to be taught a lesson—up close and personal.”
They go back and forth, neither giving an inch, until the judge tells Mick to move on.
“Let’s talk for a few moments about John Giacobetti. Do you know who he is?”
“Everyone in law enforcement knows Johnny Giacobetti.”
“He was at the warehouse with Mr. Nunzio, wasn’t he?”
“We found no evidence of that. And since we couldn’t talk to him—”
“You’re referring to when he was in the hospital?”
“In the hospital and guarded by your associate there, Mr. Coburn, and your other associate, the woman.”
“Guarded because he’d been shot. And heavily sedated.”
“He wasn’t sedated when he skipped out. And I assume he hasn’t been sedated in all the weeks since. But I haven’t seen him come to the station to tell us what happened that night.”
Mick moves on. He lost the last point. Simple as that.
“If Mr. Giacobetti was at the warehouse that night, isn’t it possible that he and Valiante got into a struggle?”
“No, it’s not.”
“How can you be sure of that?”
Tredesco leans forward and smiles. “I’m sure because Tony Valiante ended up cut, not broken into pieces and tied up like a soft pretzel.”
The laughter is quite loud, and Mick can see that even the jury is laughing with, not at, Tredesco. The dirtbag detective is beating him. Badly.
“And,” Tredesco continues, though there’s no question, “only one person had blood on his shoes—the defendant. I just can’t see Giacobetti taking off his shoes and tiptoeing through the tulips and out the back door.”
He and Tredesco go at it for another fifteen minutes, during which he gets the detective to admit that he doesn’t know the identity of the person to whom Nunzio placed the call from his burner phone. Apart from that, all Mick can do is score some minor points and get Tredesco to make some snide remarks that renew the jurors’ distaste for him. But whether the jurors like Tredesco or not, Mick can see that he hasn’t put any real cracks in the man’s testimony or in the prosecution’s case.
Mick finishes, and Pagano stands.
“Detective, you were asked about the second call, the four-minute call the defendant placed from his burner phone at the warehouse. You testified you don’t know who was at the other end of that call.”
“For the same reason I don’t know who called the defendant: because Mr. Nunzio hasn’t shared that little secret.”
Mick is on his feet. “Objection—”
“Nothing further,” Pagano says, turning away from the witness.
“Sustained,” the judge rules.
“But I know why he called,” Tredesco says, his voice rising. “He called for someone to come and clean up the mess.”
“Objection!” Mick shouts so loudly his voice cracks.
He glares at Tredesco, who smiles back at him, his own eyes gleaming. Now he knows why Pagano hadn’t brought up the second call on direct; he and Tredesco had worked out the “cleanup” scenario and decided to end the detective’s testimony with it.
Judge McCann sustains the objection, but the damage has been done.
“Mr. Pagano,” the judge says, turning toward the prosecutor, “it’s 4:30. There’s time to start your next witness.”
“Your Honor, the Commonwealth rests.”
This surprises Mick. Pagano is ending the week strong, and the jury will have all weekend to chew on the strengths of the prosecution’s case. But the smart play for Pagano would be to present at least one final witness on Monday, to start next week strong as well, reinforce his bond with the jury. Keeping his case open would also force the defense to spend time—drain resources—preparing to cross-examine potential prosecution witnesses. By resting now, Pagano is freeing the defense to focus on its own case. And it defines the boundaries of the prosecution’s evidence, giving the defense precise knowledge of the opposing evidence as it prepares over the weekend.
Once again, Mick can’t help but suspect that Pagano’s up to something. Most likely some surprise move that will catch the defense off guard and seal Nunzio’s fate.
39
FRIDAY, JUNE 21–SUNDAY, JUNE 23
Judge McCann calls it a day and has the jurors sent back to their hotel, where they will remain sequestered until the end of the trial. As the courtroom clears, Mick visits Nunzio in the holding cell.
“Your thoughts?” Nunzio asks. His tone is chipper, but Mick can see worry lurking behind his dark eyes.
“I’m thinking that all I did today was toss lobs for Pagano to hit out of the ballpark.”
Nunzio does
n’t respond.
“You ready to tell me our endgame yet?”
The crime lord takes a deep breath, studies Mick for a moment. “You familiar with the story of the rock and the water? There was a small pool of water at the top of a hill, held back by a rock. One day the rock gets dislodged, and it and the water start down the hill. The rock says to the water, ‘Let’s race,’ and it then rolls on ahead, straight down, and fast. The water descends in a trickle, and along the way it goes around everything in its path. It goes around trees and boulders and debris. Halfway down, it sees the rock lodged against a fallen tree, unable to move. But the water goes around the fallen tree and keeps on moving down the hill, to the bottom.”
Nunzio pauses, shrugs.
“The rock couldn’t change its shape to adjust to its environment. Its shape was set in stone, so to speak. But the water was malleable. It accommodated itself to its environment. It yielded to everything and was therefore stopped by nothing.”
“More of your Sun Tzu bullshit?”
They stare at each other until Mick gets it.
Of course.
“The reason you haven’t told me your story is because you don’t know what it is.”
The mobster smiles. “So you were paying attention.”
“What happens now?”
“We feed the data into the machine and see what it spits out.”
“From rocks and water to computers . . . you got metaphors galore but not much of a defense.”
Nunzio shrugs him off. “Talk to Rachel and Lauren. They’ll give you the answer as soon as it’s ready.”
“The answer,” Mick says flatly.
“The road map, down the hill.”
Mick stands. “I figured the jury was your ace in the hole. But I thought you’d come at them along more traditional lines—bribes or threats. Not hire jury experts to read their minds and feed them a line they’re hungry for.”
“It’s the twenty-first century, Mick. Get with the times.”
The meeting with the trial team back at the office is a short one. Somehow, Rachel and Lauren know about his conversation with Nunzio, and they tell him to sit tight; they’ll reach out when they’re ready, give him his battle plan. They won’t say what they’ll be doing in the meantime, but he suspects their plan is to run a bunch of scenarios past a full mock jury. He wonders where they’ll do it. Probably some hotel conference room.
A Killer's Alibi (Philadelphia Legal) Page 35