Joseph Teller - The Tenth Case

MR. BURKE: Can you tell us what you did after being assigned to the case?

DET. BONFIGLIO: Me and my partner, Eddie Torres, we went to the apartment where the body got found. The first officers were there. They'd estab lished a crime scene. CSU was there, dustin' an' liftin' prints, takin' photos, an' doin' some other stuff.

Bonfiglio had examined the body and satisfied himself that he was looking at a murder victim, stabbed in the chest and, judging from the amount of blood, through the heart. He'd conferred with the various other officers and detectives on the scene, who told him they'd recovered no weapon. He pro ceeded to conduct his own search, being careful to not touch or disturb anything unnecessarily. He found no knife or other implement that he believed had been used in the crime.

Generally, the apartment was neat and orderly. There were some Chinese food containers on the kitchen counter, with leftovers that were cold, but not yet spoiled. There were no signs of a forced break-in, a ransacking, or any kind of a struggle.

MR. BURKE: What did you do next?

DET. BONFIGLIO: I conducted a canvass of the surrounding apartments. Specifickly, I interviewed a Mrs. Benita Gristede, in Penthouse B, a Mr. Charles Robbins, in Penthouse C, and two occupants of the apartment directly beneath Mr. Tannenbaum. Lemme see, yeah. Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin, Chester and Lois.

MR. BURKE: Were any of those individuals able to tell you anything you considered significant?

Jaywalker resisted the urge to object, even though the question called for hearsay testimony. He knew from the detective's reports that only Benita Gristede had had anything to offer, and she was on Burke's witness list, anyway. So he let it go.

DET. BONFIGLIO: Yeah. Ms. Gristede did.

MR. BURKE: What did you do once you'd completed your canvass of the neighboring apartments?

DET. BONFIGLIO: Me an' my partner, we went back downstairs to the lobby, and we conversed with the doorman and the super. And I ast them to call the doorman who'd been on duty the night before an' have him come in. An' they did that.

MR. BURKE: And did there come a time when he arrived?

DET. BONFIGLIO: Yeah.

MR. BURKE: Do you recall his name?

DET. BONFIGLIO: Jussaminit. (Reviews notes) Yeah, Jose Lugo.

MR. BURKE: And did you have a conversa tion with Mr. Lugo?

DET. BONFIGLIO: Yeah.

MR. BURKE: Your Honor, may we ap proach?

THE COURT: Yes, come up.

Up at the bench, Burke explained that at this point he wanted to interrupt the witness's testimony in order to take that of the two individuals who'd supplied him with infor mation, first Ms. Gristede, and then Mr. Lugo. Jaywalker objected but gave no reason. If pressed, he would have had to say that anything that was good for Burke had to be bad for him and his client, and that, furthermore, he was still pissed off at Burke for having lied about Detective Bon figlio's unavailability on Friday.

"Your objection is overruled," said Judge Sobel. "I'll give you the option of cross-examining the witness now on what he's said so far, or reserving it all for later."

"Later," said Jaywalker, still in sulk mode.

The judge explained to the jurors what they were going to do, excused the witness and declared a fifteen-minute recess. Once the jurors had been escorted out of the room, he called the lawyers back up to the bench.

"Has there been an offer in this case?" he asked.

So it was starting. Matthew Sobel wasn't a meddler. Unlike some judges, he allowed lawyers to try their cases and pretty much refrained from attempting to bludgeon plea bargains out of them. But his question now, as gentle and as deferential as it was, spoke volumes compared to what others might have said-and had.

Why are we trying this case?

Can't you guys work something out here?

Doesn't your client know she's looking at twenty-five to life?

And Jaywalker's personal favorite, the impartial, And you can tell her I said she's going to get every last day of it after the jury convicts her.

Now, even Matthew Sobel was beginning to wonder. Jaywalker might have succeeded in throwing some sand in the jurors' eyes with his This-case-is-so-strong-my-client must-be-innocent opening statement, but he hadn't fooled the judge, not for a minute. And the worst part was that the truly damaging evidence was yet to come. Wait until Sobel heard the testimony about Samara's lies, the stuff found in her apartment, and the timing and the amount of that little life insurance policy.

"My client is innocent," said Jaywalker. Not only did his words sound foolish even to himself, they also violated one of his cardinal principles. It was okay to say that his client says she's innocent, or maintains her innocence, or even insists she's innocent. But as soon as you said that she was innocent, stating it as a fact, you were vouching for her. And not having been in Barry Tannenbaum's apartment that evening a year and a half ago, Jaywalker was certainly in no position to be vouching for Samara.

Burke raised his palms upward, his way of explaining that Jaywalker's comment had said it all. Even if he'd con sidered offering Samara something less than murder, how could he, given her continuing claim of innocence?

Unpersuaded by such logic, Judge Sobel pressed on. "Would you consider a Man One," he asked Burke, "with a substantial sentence? I mean, I'd have a range of up to twenty-five years."

Jaywalker spoke up before Burke could answer. "My client is innocent," he said again, trying to make it sound a little more convincing this time.

But it didn't.

Benita Gristede was a small woman in her seventies or eighties, who looked as though she might have come over on the Mayflower. Having outlived her husband, she was the sole occupant of Penthouse B, the apartment that shared a common wall with Penthouse A, Barry Tannenbaum's apart ment. On the evening of Barry's death, Mrs. Gristede had heard the sounds of an argument between a man and a woman in the adjoining apartment. She'd recognized the man's voice as that of her neighbor, Mr. Tannenbaum. The woman's voice, she was every bit as certain, had been that of his wife, known to Mrs. Gristede as Sam. The argument had occurred shortly before eight o'clock, toward the very end of that evening's episode of the game show Wheel of Fortune.

MR. BURKE: How is it that you recall that?

MRS. GRISTEDE: I recall that because the arguing was so loud, I had to turn the volume up in order to hear the TV.

MR. BURKE: Were you able to hear what the argument was about?

MRS. GRISTEDE: You mean the words?

MR. BURKE: Yes, the words.

MRS. GRISTEDE: No. Just that they were very loud.

MR. BURKE: The following day, did a detec tive come by and ask you some questions?

MRS. GRISTEDE: You mean the eye-talian one?

MR. BURKE: Yes.

MRS. GRISTEDE: Yes, he did. And I told him exactly what I'm telling you.

On cross-examination, Jaywalker purposefully mum bled his first question to Mrs. Gristede, so she'd have to say she couldn't hear him. Burke objected, and Judge Sobel had to make a record of it, adding that he'd had trouble hearing it, as well. He asked the court reporter to read it back.

COURT REPORTER: Sorry, I didn't get it, either. It had been stunts like that that had landed Jaywalker in front of the disciplinary committee. Well, like that and a lot worse. Still, he wasn't quite ready to let the hearing thing go.

MR. JAYWALKER: You do wear a hearing aid, though?

MRS. GRISTEDE: I most certainly do not.

MR. JAYWALKER: Would you say your hearing's quite good, in fact?

MRS. GRISTEDE: I certainly would. Probably better than yours.

Laughter from the jury box, at his expense. Never a good omen.

MR. JAYWALKER: Yet you never heard a scream that evening, did you?