Robert Tanenbaum - Counterplay

Karp allowed the jury to digest what they’d just heard before asking his follow-up question. “So if Dante Coletta testified that he saw Jeff Kaplan shoot Teresa Stavros only once, it’s fair to say he was mistaken?”

“Correct, Mr. Karp, then Mr. Coletta was mistaken. The deceased was shot twice in the head,” Gates said.

“Is there anything else you can tell us in regard to there being two bullet wounds so close together as to be visible only with the aid of a microscope?”

“Yes. It indicates that the deceased was lying down. She wasn’t moving and was probably unconscious or even already dead.”

Karp looked at Anderson expecting an objection, but the defense counsel seemed to be doodling on his notepad. “How did you reach that conclusion?”

“If, for instance, the deceased was standing when she was shot, it would be very difficult to place the second bullet in almost the same spot.”

Karp held his fingers out a few feet from the dressmaker’s dummy. “Even from such a close distance?”

“I suppose anything’s possible,” Gates said. “But highly unlikely. There’s a certain amount of recoil, even in a small gun fired in quick succession. The chances of hitting the same spot even on a nonmoving target would be astronomical. But the deceased would have been moving. According to Mr. Coletta’s testimony, she had turned and was walking away from Mr. Kaplan. Also, the first bullet would have rocked her head forward and she would have probably started to fall as well.”

“Would it be fair to say then that Mrs. Stavros, while unconscious or dead, was executed with two shots to the head?”

“Objection. Counsel knows it’s speculative and he’s using loaded words to sway the jury.”

“Sustained. Mr. Karp, would you like to rephrase your question?”

Karp acted as if he were giving it some thought. “No thank you, Your Honor. I have no further questions for Dr. Gates.”

Again, Anderson’s questions seemed designed more to take up time than to win any points with the jury. In fact, from Karp’s point of view, all he did was reinforce Gates’s testimony.

After breaking for lunch, at which time Guma and Karp discussed trying to speed things up as it was so evident that Anderson wanted to slow them down, Guma recalled Zachary Stavros. But not before Karp replaced the sheet over the dressmaker’s dummy.

“I believe you testified earlier in the trial that you have never read the reports regarding the exhumation of your mother’s remains or subsequent reports by forensic investigators, is that true?” Guma asked.

“Yes,” Zachary said, shaking his head. “Like I said, you asked me not to, and I don’t have a way to get the reports.”

“Has anybody ever told you what is in the reports?”

“No. You said I have to wait until the trial is over.”

Guma approached Zachary and handed him several sheets of paper. “I am handing you letters, marked collectively People’s Exhibit 17A to F, addressed to Dr. Donald Craig and dated February of this year. Did you write these letters?”

“Yes, they’re letters I wrote to Dr. Craig. He asked me to write down any memories of my mother that came to me after the initial sessions when I was hypnotized.”

“Zachary, you’ll see on the first page I handed you some text that I’ve highlighted in yellow. Would you read that, please?”

“Yes,” Zachary said, clearing his throat. “It says, ‘I can even remember what my mother was wearing that night-it was a blue, silk or some other material like that, shirt or maybe a dress. Very loose. I liked how cool it felt on my cheek. And I liked the buttons, which were shiny.’ ”

Guma looked at Karp who stood and walked over to the dressmaker’s dummy. Karp gently pulled the sheet off.

“Does this look familiar?” Guma asked.

Zachary sobbed and nodded.

Gently, Lussman began to remind him, “Sorry, but you’ll need to-”

“Yes, it’s my mother’s shirt,” he blurted out and began to cry.

“I’m sorry, Zachary, that was a tough thing to do to you,” Guma said, his own voice husky. “This isn’t your mother’s shirt. It’s a replica. Your mother was buried with her shirt.”

Guma turned to the judge, fighting the tears in his own eyes. “I have no further questions.”

Lussman nodded and looked at Anderson, who had his face in his hands. “Mr. Anderson, do you intend to question the witness?”

Anderson looked at his watch. One o’clock. Closings could take a couple hours, maybe less. The jury might get the case. Stavros is going down for this, he thought, and if he does before Monday, I might as well go jump in that grave in his backyard. I have to stall. “May I approach the bench?”

“By all means,” Lussman said.

With Guma and Karp present, Anderson angrily hissed, “They’ve been sandbagging me with their ‘late-arriving’ evidence and witnesses. All of this could have been presented during their case in chief.”

“Nonsense, this only became necessary when you put a witness on the stand who I think you knew was lying,” Guma shot back.

“You’re accusing me of a pretty serious offense, Mr. Guma!” Anderson snarled.

“Handsome is as handsome does, Anderson,” Guma retorted. “Let’s get to closing arguments and see who the jury believes. Then Mr. Stavros can spend the weekend behind bars where he belongs!”

“Mr. Guma, Mr. Anderson, let’s keep this civil,” Lussman said.

Anderson held whatever he was about to say to Guma and turned to the judge. “I am obviously going to have to digest what we’ve all heard here today and perhaps make an application for surrebuttal to recall Mr. Coletta to explain the divergence in theories here.”

“Explain why he perjured himself, you mean?” Guma said.

“Your Honor, at the very least, I need some reflective time to respond in my summation to this new turn of events. Please, in the interest of fairness to my client, I’m asking for a small delay until Monday morning,” Anderson said. “We’ll still have the case to the jury by noon, if not before.”

Lussman looked at the lawyers in front of him. The prosecution had obviously torn the defense to pieces, but Stavros still deserved the benefit of the doubt. He was still innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt…. For a few more hours anyway. “Okay, Mr. Anderson, you have the weekend. Gentlemen, return to your seats.”

Fifteen minutes later, Karp and Guma were alone in the courtroom. “Something’s going on with Anderson,” Karp said. “It’s almost like I can put a finger on it, but not quite.”

“Yeah, know what you mean,” Guma said. “This isn’t about one more weekend of freedom. He was sweating bullets to get this trial delayed until Monday. I wish I knew what he was up to.”

Karp looked at the dressmaker’s dummy and suddenly the words of an old saw popped into his head. “Sometimes it is the blind who see what the sighted cannot though it is right in front of him.” Yes, it’s right in front of me, he thought, but I can’t see it.

Karp leaned against the window of his office, looking down on the sidewalk outside the Criminal Courts building. His thoughts drifted to Zachary Stavros’s comments months back about wishing he could be any one of the people on the sidewalk except himself.

Do you ever wish that, Karp? he asked himself. Do you ever wish you could choose to be one of those other people on the sidewalk? A cowboy visiting from New Mexico? A professional basketball player with the Knicks? A Navy officer? At one time or another in his life, he’d wanted to be one of those three. But that wasn’t what Zachary was saying, was it, Karp? He said he’d trade places with anybody else down there. The bum. The messenger boy on the bicycle. The madman. Or, God forbid, a defense lawyer!