A Killer's Alibi (Philadelphia Legal)

by William L. Myers Jr.

  That night, after Gabby goes to bed, he vents his frustrations to Piper.

  “I know exactly what Rachel Nunzio and Lauren Zito are going to do. They’ll write up a handful of fictional accounts that incorporate all the facts that have come out at trial so far and run them past some mock jury and see how the fake jurors react. Then they’ll hand me whichever story works best and order me to run with it—or else.”

  “They’re going to make you suborn perjury.”

  He sees that the perjury play makes Piper uncomfortable, and he knows why: That’s what she and Susan just did in the Dowd case. They sold a frank lie to the court. Something Piper is exquisitely aware of.

  “At least there was nobility in the Dowd case,” Mick says. “You and Susan broke all the rules, but you did it to save someone deserving.”

  “There are probably a lot of people out there who’d disagree about how deserving Darlene was.”

  “Well, I’m not one of them. I don’t think she deserves to be in prison.”

  She agrees and tells him that she, Susan, and Darlene are still waiting to hear back from the court. “Every day that passes makes me more nervous the judge will change her mind and deny our motion,” she says.

  He tells her that’s not going to happen, and they switch topics and finish their wine. When they go upstairs for bed, Piper surprises him.

  “I want to come in when you read to Gabby tonight,” she says.

  “I already read with her, when I put her to bed.”

  “But sometimes you read to her after she’s asleep, too. Tonight, let’s do it together.”

  They brush their teeth and change, then sit together on Gabrielle’s bed. Mick reaches out for Piper’s hand, and they watch Gabby breathe for a while.

  “She’s growing up so fast,” Piper says.

  He nods. “She’ll be a teenager soon.”

  “She won’t want to hear anything we have to say.”

  The remark causes his mind to jump back to the night he happened upon Christina Nunzio, sitting in the dark on the porch at the lodge.

  He looks at Piper. “Probably. But let’s make sure we hear what she says. Not close our ears to her, or our eyes.”

  Piper looks at him, confused.

  “Never mind,” he says. “I’m just tired.”

  He opens the Harry Potter book, hands it to her.

  “Start here.”

  It’s an unusually hot Sunday afternoon, temperatures hovering in the high eighties. Mick and Piper are sitting at the table on the back patio, drinking adult lemonades and watching Gabby dance circles around Tommy in their backyard. Tommy, sweating and breathing heavily, is positioned between Gabby and a soccer net. She glances up at Mick and Piper and winks, then dribbles the soccer ball past Tommy with ease and drills it into the net.

  “You better take a break,” Mick calls to his brother with a smile.

  “Come up and have some lemonade,” Piper says.

  “Five more minutes,” Tommy yells. “Forget the lemonade, though. I’ll need a cold beer.”

  Piper goes inside to the refrigerator as Mick’s cell phone rings.

  “Mick.” It’s Rachel Nunzio. “Check your email.”

  He bolts out of his chair and races into the house, to his home office. He opens the laptop on his desk and boots it up. There’s an email from Lauren Zito in his in-box. He clicks it open and finds a fifteen-page script—the questions he’s to ask and the answers the witness will give.

  “Christina.” He says the name aloud.

  Tommy and Piper both appear in the doorway.

  “What’s up?” Tommy asks as they enter and stand before his desk.

  “The Nunzios finally figured out their play,” he says. “I’m to call one witness: Christina.”

  “Damn,” Tommy says. “I didn’t think Jimmy would use her.”

  “Why? Because she’s his daughter? The prick used her to lure Valiante to the warehouse, what started this whole thing. Now he’s going to use her to try to save his ass from prison.”

  “I can’t believe her mother doesn’t put a stop to it,” Piper says.

  “Are you kidding? She’s as bad as Nunzio. This,” he adds, holding up the pages, “is her work. Her and that psycho jury-whisperer they hired.”

  “What are you going to do?” Tommy asks.

  Mick glances at the photograph of Gabby on his desk. In a silver frame, it shows her in her soccer uniform, holding the ball, with a huge smile on her face. He closes his eyes.

  This is so fucked-up.

  “I’m going to play the only card the Nunzios gave me. The Queen of Clubs.”

  40

  MONDAY, JUNE 24

  The courtroom is full, and Nunzio is already at the defense table when Mick enters and takes his seat. He’s told Vaughn to sit in the spectators’ gallery next to Rachel Nunzio and Lauren Zito and keep tabs on them.

  He pulls his legal pad from his leather satchel and waits for the judge to take the bench. His hands folded in front of him, he stares straight ahead. He hasn’t greeted his client. The judge is long in entering the courtroom, and he grows impatient. Finally, Mick turns slightly toward Nunzio and asks under his breath, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  Nunzio doesn’t answer, just clenches his fists.

  “She’s your daughter, for God’s sake. Not a sacrificial lamb.”

  Nunzio turns to him. There is death in his eyes. “You have no idea what sacrifices are being made here.”

  Mick doesn’t know what to say.

  Nunzio leans toward him, almost imperceptibly. “Just play your part.”

  He turns around, catches Rachel and Lauren Zito both staring at him. He narrows his eyes and turns back around. He hates them all.

  Judge McCann appears from behind the bench, and the court crier announces her. Once the judge is seated, the bailiff brings in the jurors. Mick watches them walk to the jury box and take their seats. Only a few of the jurors look back at him. None of them smiles. Aaron Burnett keeps his eyes on Nunzio.

  “Mr. McFarland, call your first witness,” the judge says from the bench.

  “The defense calls Christina Nunzio.”

  “Objection! Objection!” Pagano is on his feet and racing toward the bench. “I’d like a sidebar.”

  McCann calls Mick up and asks Pagano what his objection is.

  “I was told the daughter wouldn’t be a witness! I expressly asked, and defense counsel told me he wasn’t presenting her.”

  “Is that true, Mr. McFarland?”

  “No. Mr. Pagano approached me and my client just before his opening on Friday and told Mr. Nunzio that he’d subpoenaed his daughter. Mr. Nunzio, as a father, was upset and simply said, ‘You’re not getting Christina.’ At no point did I say that I wasn’t going to present Christina Nunzio as a witness in my case in chief.”

  Pagano’s face is red with rage. “But, but—”

  “Mr. McFarland,” the judge asks, “is Ms. Nunzio’s name on your witness list?”

  “Everyone and his brother is on the defendant’s witness list!” says Pagano.

  “Yes, Your Honor, Ms. Nunzio is on my list,” Mick says.

  “That’s it, then. She can testify. Have her take the stand.”

  Mick and Pagano turn away from the bench.

  “This is bullshit,” Pagano mutters.

  The door at the rear of the courtroom opens, and everyone turns to watch Christina make her appearance.

  Mick takes her in as she passes by the jury box. She looks ghastly. Her face is pale and drawn with fatigue. She carries herself with the slow and careful gait of someone navigating a boat deck in rough seas. So different from the sure-footed gazelle who schooled Gabby on soccer. Mick wonders whether she’s on medication, or whether Rachel and Lauren Zito worked her to exhaustion as they drilled her on her lines. Or whether it’s simply that it has all finally caught up with her: witnessing her father murder her lover; the pathological control both of her parents have exercised o
ver her throughout her life; the gilded cage she’s grown up in, paid for with blood spilled by generations of her mob family. He might have suspected it’s all a performance, except that Christina’s endured so much for so long that it only makes sense she’d be broken in the end.

  “Would you like some water?” the judge asks solicitously after Christina assumes the stand and is sworn in.

  “Yes, please, Your Honor,” Christina says, her voice barely above a whisper.

  The bailiff pours her a glass from a pitcher, and everyone waits for her to take a sip and ready herself.

  “Mr. McFarland?”

  “Thank you, Your Honor. Ms. Nunzio, are you the daughter of the defendant, James Nunzio?”

  “Yes. I am. His daughter.” Her words are halting and nervous.

  “And how old are you?”

  “I’m twenty-five.”

  “Christina, do you know what your father does for a living?”

  She looks down, in embarrassment, and lowers her voice. “I think so. I know what I’ve read. And I’ve . . . I’ve overheard things.”

  “Did any of the things you read, or overheard, play a part in what happened on April tenth of this year?”

  She takes a deep breath. “Yes.”

  “Tell us.”

  “I knew my father’s . . . family . . . was at odds with another family, because of what Tony . . . what Antonio Valiante was doing.”

  “When you say your father’s ‘family,’ do you mean the Giansante crime family? And the other family is the Savonna family?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was your understanding of what Antonio Valiante was doing?”

  “He was coming into my father’s territory.”

  Mick pauses. “And what did you hear about how your father’s ‘family’ was taking this?”

  “Objection!” Pagano shouts. “This is all hearsay. Out-of-court statements.”

  “No, Your Honor,” Mick says. “I’m not asking what she heard to determine truth, only to establish that she heard them and that they spoke to her motivation.”

  The judge overrules the objection, and Pagano throws down his pen.

  “Mr. Pagano.” It’s the judge, leaning over the bench. “Pick up the pen.”

  “What?”

  “Pick. Up. The. Pen.”

  Pagano’s eyes flare as he does so.

  “Now. Lay down the pen. Gently.”

  He complies, and Mick can see it takes all of Pagano’s self-control not to throw it at the judge.

  “Thank you. Now, Mr. McFarland, please proceed.”

  “Christina, what did you hear about how your father and his people felt about Mr. Valiante’s invasion of their territory?”

  “There was talk of a war. Not that my father wanted it, but that he was worried there would be one.”

  Mick nods. “Now, let’s talk about Antonio Valiante.”

  At the mention of his name, Christina seems to shrink into herself, and Mick knows that everyone in the courtroom can see she’s in pain. He alone knows that part of it must be her having to go along with the bullshit script she’s being forced to act out.

  “You knew who he was? That he was in the same line of work as your father?”

  “Yes.”

  “And as you already testified, you knew about the enmity between Mr. Valiante’s people and your father’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you knew about the personal enmity between Antonio and your father?”

  She glances at Nunzio, her eyes filled with sadness. “Yes.”

  “And yet you were dating Antonio?”

  She turns to her father again. “I fell in love with him.”

  Mick lets the words hang in the air.

  “He made me laugh,” Christina starts up again. “There was so always much stress, so much tension in my family. Everyone so serious. For as long as I could remember. But Tony was lighthearted. He joked around, made me laugh. And he listened to me. He understood me.”

  Mick follows Christina’s eyes back to her father, and he sees Nunzio’s face tighten.

  Christina takes another sip of water.

  “Now, Christina, please tell the jury what happened on the night of April tenth.”

  “A sidebar, please, Your Honor.” It’s Pagano.

  Mick glances at the jury on the way to the bench. They know they’re at the crux of the whole case, and they’re not happy about Pagano’s delays. He’s surprised that Pagano is behaving this way; Christina’s testimony will be all the more impactful for the delays. Pagano must really be sweating.

  At sidebar, Pagano looks up at the judge and says, “Can defense counsel be told to stop calling her Christina? She’s not ten.”

  Judge McCann nods. “He’s right, Mr. McFarland. Don’t refer to the witness by her first name.”

  Mick and the prosecutor return to their respective tables, and he continues his questioning.

  “The night of April tenth. Tell the jury what happened.”

  “Like I said, I had heard talk of a war. I was afraid a lot of people would get hurt. That Tony would get hurt. Or my father. I thought . . . I thought if only I could bring my father and Tony together, they could work something out . . .” She lowers her head.

  Mick lets the word hang for a moment, then asks, “What did you do?”

  “Tony’s father insisted he not go anywhere without bodyguards. But Tony hated it, and sometimes we would sneak away together for a few hours by ourselves. Tony convinced the bodyguards not to tell his father. That night was one of those times. Tony and I went to the warehouse to be alone.” She takes a drink of water, and Mick can see that her hand is shaking.

  “My father’s office was only a mile away. I figured it was an opportunity to try to bring him and Tony together. So I called my father.”

  “The call to his cell phone that night, at 9:22—that was you?”

  Christina nods, and the courtroom stirs. One of the central mysteries of the case has just been solved. Mick glances over at Pagano, who sits as still as a rock, paralyzed by fury.

  “I told my father where I was, and that I was with Tony. I told him they should meet with no one else around, and this would be the perfect time. He was upset, but he said he’d come right over. He didn’t tell me he was going to bring Johnny.” She shakes her head. “The next thing I knew, Johnny came crashing through the front door, and my father came in through the back. Tony thought I’d set him up. He grabbed me and started cursing at me.” Christina’s eyes well up, and tears begin sliding down her face. “Johnny pulled Tony off me and tied him up with the plastic things—”

  “The plasticuffs?”

  She nods. “He gagged him, too. Then my father got in my face, and he started yelling. He said Tony was just using me. How could I be so naïve?”

  Here, Christina looks at the defense table, where Jimmy sits with his head bowed and his eyes closed.

  “I tried to get him to calm down. I explained again that I just wanted him and Tony to talk so they could find a way to prevent a war. But my father wasn’t listening. He started pacing around the room, shaking his head, trying to figure out what to do. Johnny asked if he should take care of Tony, and I started crying because I knew what that meant. But my father said no. He wasn’t to be harmed.”

  Christina starts to hyperventilate, and Judge McCann asks her if she’d like a minute. She nods, and everyone waits for her to regain her composure.

  “What happened next?” Mick finally asks.

  “My father told Johnny to leave, to go to ‘our place’ and call the men there, get ready in case something bad went down. There were vans parked out back, and my father must have seen them when he came in because he told Johnny to leave their car and take one of the vans. Johnny left, and my father came over and stood by Tony.”

  “What was Tony doing?”

  “He was screaming through his gag and trying to break out of the restraints. My father told him to calm down. He said if he kept a coo
l head, everyone would get out of this okay. Then my father told me he was going to make a call.”

  “Did he say who he was going to call?”

  Pagano objects on grounds of hearsay. The judge overrules him.

  “He said he was going to call Tony’s father, see if he could fix things so that no one got hurt.”

  Mick pauses to let the jury consider this. He hears murmuring in the courtroom. A second mystery of the case—who Nunzio called from the warehouse—has been solved.

  “Tell us what happened next.”

  Christina takes a deep breath.

  “My father went out back, and I sat on the couch near Tony. He was looking up at me, from the floor. There was so much pain in his eyes, and fear. He thought I’d betrayed him, and he thought my father was going to come back and kill him. I told him I just wanted peace, just wanted him and my father to talk, and that he would be all right. But then I thought about it and I . . . I wasn’t sure what my father was going to do. I was afraid he’d kill Tony after all. Tony kept a small knife in his boot, and I pulled it out and told him I’d cut him free if he promised just to leave, to run away. He nodded, so I cut the cuffs.”

  Mick glances around. The courtroom is perfectly still. Everyone is sitting forward, motionless, hanging on Christina’s words.

  “Tony stood up just as my father came in through the front door. Tony grabbed the knife from me and ran at my father. My father grabbed Tony’s knife arm, and Tony grabbed my father’s other arm. They struggled like that, standing up. Tony was crazy by then. He kept telling my father, ‘I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!’ And I knew he might if it went on long enough, because Tony was strong.

  “They were moving as they were struggling, and they came to the carpet. They both went down, and I started screaming. I turned away and closed my eyes. And the next thing I heard was Tony choking. I opened my eyes and looked over and . . . and . . .”

  Christina’s face is white. She looks like she’s ready to faint or throw up.