Steve Martini - The Judge

“Is it possible that you were there more than once?”

By now Tony must figure there is some fact feeding this question, perhaps a nosy neighbor who has seen him on more than one occasion.

“I don’t know. Anything’s possible.”

“Indeed.” I say this as I walk away from the podium and Tony, my face toward the jury, an expression that says, “Let’s consider the possibilities.”

“You don’t have any specific recollection of such visits?”

He thinks for a moment, wondering what I may know, considers the safest answer, then says, “No.”

“Well. If you were there, is it fair to assume that these were professional visits and not social calls?”

“Right, they would have been professional.” This seems for Tony the only certainty.

“What would you have been doing there professionally?”

“If I have no specific recollection of being at her apartment, how am I supposed to remember why I might have gone there?” He looks at the jury a little nervously, then laughs, like the logic of this is self-evident.

“Is it possible you might have been there discussing cases?”

“Probably,” he says. “We both worked Vice.”

“Precisely,” I say.

There are certain taboos, questions I cannot ask Tony, that relate to my prior representation, questions of corruption that I skirt.

“When you were there, if you were there”-we continue to play this game-“is it likely you would have gone there with others besides the victim, or would you have been alone?”

“I can’t remember. Probably with others,” he says. This sounds better to Tony, more businesslike.

“Do you know, did the victim, did Ms. Hall, have your home telephone number?”

“How do I know?”

“Did she ever call you at home?”

He makes a face. Tony knows we have access to phone records.

“She might have.”

“Your home number is unlisted, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“So how would she get it unless you gave it to her?”

This stumps him for a moment. Tony in a quandary, darting eyes. Then he says, “She could have gotten it from the department, if she had a business reason.”

“Ah. Policy? To give out your number?”

“Sometimes.” He actually smiles, satisfied with a good answer; he knows I cannot check this out without more time.

“So your number could have been included in her personal phone directory?”

“I don’t know.”

“Unfortunately, nor do we. It seems the pages under the letter A were ripped from that directory.”

Tony looks at me as if this were an accusation. Kline is on his feet, about to object, when I turn it into a question.

“You wouldn’t know how this happened, the pages being ripped out?” I say.

“No. How would I know?”

“I thought it might be something else you forgot,” I tell him.

“Objection.” Kline shoots to his feet.

“Sustained. The jury is to disregard. Mr. Madriani!” says Radovich. He shakes the gavel in my direction. “Are you done with this witness?”

“Not quite, Your Honor.”

“Then get on with it, but be quick.”

“Sergeant Arguillo, can you tell the jury how they came to identify the victim in the alley the night she died?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, as I understand it she was not clothed or carrying any form of identification. How did the police know who she was?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure,” he says.

“But you were on the scene.”

“Right,” he says.

“You didn’t see the body? You never looked at the victim?”

“Maybe from a distance,” he says.

“So how did they identify her?”

“They had some trouble,” he says. “It took a while.”

“How long?”

“A couple of hours,” he says.

“And in the end how did they do it?”

“I think it might have been another cop,” he says. “Somebody from the department who recognized her.”

“But you had worked with the victim in Vice,” I remind him.

“True,” he says. “But I didn’t get a close look.”

The problem for Tony is that he is now victimized by his own conniving. It took time to call Lenore, to have her trek to the victim’s apartment, to look for a note and destroy it. Tony needed time. The only way he could buy it was to keep his colleagues in the dark as to the victim’s identity. Tony kept his cool, stayed mum at the scene, and used his cellular.

“So you waited for two hours in the dark, looking for evidence, knowing that the other officers could not identify the body, and you never thought to take a look yourself?”

“No,” he says.

“Did anybody order you not to look at the body?”

“No.”

“You simply chose not to?”

“Right,” he says. This does not fit the image. A nearly naked young woman, even in death a feast for an army of male eyes, ogling cops from three jurisdictions, and Tony doesn’t take the time to look.

“Were you there in Ms. Hall’s apartment that night?” I ask. “The night she was killed?”

“That’s a lie,” he says. As a witness, Tony is too hot by half.

“Objection. Vague as to time.” Kline understands the question. Tony does not.

He suddenly senses that he has overreacted, but in doing so, has conveyed more than he intended.

“Rephrase the question,” says the judge.

“Sorry,” I say. By now I am smiling at Tony, who is looking red-faced.

“Did you have occasion to visit the victim’s apartment that evening or in the early-morning hours following her murder? In your official capacity?” I add.

“Oh,” says Tony. “Yeah. I was one of the cops-officers-who was directed to the scene after her body was found.”

“After she was identified?”

“Right.”

“And who directed you there?”

“Lieutenant Stobel. He was in charge.”

“And what did you do once you arrived at the apartment?”

“Canvassed for evidence. Talked to neighbors. The usual.”

I turn from him for a moment.

“Can you tell us, Sergeant, how it is that your name came to appear in a note stuck to the victim’s calendar for the date of the murder?”

There is commotion in the courtroom, jostling bodies in the press rows for a better angle to see the witness.

“Objection!” Kline is on his feet as if propelled by a skyrocket. “Assumes facts not in evidence. Outrageous! Can we approach?” he asks the judge.

“Sustained,” says Radovich. “To the bench,” he says, eyes like two blazing coals, aimed at me.

“You,” he points at me before I get there, “are trying my patience,” he says.

“We request an admonishment, before the jury,” says Kline. He’s gauged the judge’s anger and will take advantage where he can get it.

“Where is this going?” asks the judge.

“We have a right to ask whether he met with the victim that night before her death.”

Kline argues that there is no basis in the evidence for such a belief.

“We should be allowed to ask the question,” I insist.

Radovich mulls this momentarily as we both eye him.

“One question,” he finally says, “but no innuendo.”

Before I am back to the rostrum he is giving the admonition. “The jury is to disregard the last question by the defense counsel as if it had never been asked.”

He gives me a nod, like ask your question.

“Sergeant. Did you have a date with the victim, Brittany Hall, on the evening of July fifteenth, the night that she was murdered?”

“No,” he says. Tony seems at a loss as to how to play this, whether indignation or detached professionalism, and so the denial comes off as something less than emphatic.

“Are you sure?” I say.