Steve Martini - Shadow of Power

Tuchio tells the court that any additional questioning along this line will compel the witness to disclose the existence of Agent Henoch and the government’s undercover investigation. Quinn agrees. This is out of bounds, and I find myself back in front of the witness exploring other areas of discussion.

These quickly dry up. Under questioning, Gross admits that he is one of the founding members of the Posse, but as he said earlier, this is all behind him.

He concedes that Carl was not formally a member of the Aryan Posse. But then, as if to take this back with the other hand, he adds that the defendant was called on several occasions and invited to attend Posse events.

“Whenever he was invited, he always seemed to show up at these events. And he enjoyed himself,” says Gross.

If I go any further along this line, I will invite Tuchio on redirect to get into these outings and to explore whether perhaps the Posse was into late-night cross burnings and hooded gatherings. Tuchio would then tell the jury that this would explain the nature of the rage visited on Scarborough’s body.

So I turn to the only thing left that is available, Gross’s invention on the stand.

“Mr. Gross, let me ask you a question. Haven’t you ever heard people use the phrase ‘I’ll hammer him’ or ‘I’ll hammer them’ as a figure of speech, something someone might say in a kind of macho way?”

“No.”

“Seriously? You’ve never heard it used like that?”

He shakes his head.

“You have to answer out loud,” says the judge.

“No. I already told him.”

“Come on, Mr. Gross, surely you’ve been around enough bars that you’ve heard people use that term before?”

“I don’t think so,” he says. “Not till I heard your client say it.”

“Have you ever watched a baseball game, Mr. Gross?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you ever heard an announcer say after a home run, ‘He really hammered that ball’?”

“I don’t know. If I heard it, I don’t remember it,” he says. Gross isn’t going to give an inch on this.

“Well, let me ask you then, have you ever heard anyone say, ‘I’m gonna nail him’?”

“Oh, I’ve heard that,” he says.

“Well then, let me ask you, when you heard that ‘I’m gonna nail him,’ did you really think that the person who said it was actually going to go out and get a nail and nail it or drive it into the person he was talking about?”

“Probably not,” he says. “But I never heard anybody say ‘I’m gonna hammer ’im’ before I heard him say it.”

“Your Honor, may the record reflect that the witness is referring to the defendant?” says Tuchio.

“So ordered,” says the judge.

“Since you watch baseball-You do, don’t you?”

“Sometimes,” he says. “Not very often.”

“I suppose it is pretty hard to balance that forty-inch screen on your motorcycle when you’re out there riding with the Aryan Posse, isn’t it?”

“Objection,” says Tuchio.

“It’s a fair question, Your Honor.”

Quinn smiles. “Overruled. You can answer the question.”

“I’ve never done that,” says Gross.

“When you were a kid, when you were growing up, I assume you watched baseball then, maybe even played it a little?”

“Then I did, yeah.”

“Good. Then you must remember a player-because he was big-time, very famous, well known, a major home-run hitter. In fact, he held the record for most career home runs for many years. A player named Hank Aaron?”

“Yeah.”

“Well then, you must remember his nickname?”

“No.”

“You don’t remember Hammerin’ Hank Aaron?”

He looks at me. “Yeah, but he was hittin’ baseballs, not heads,” he says.

“Move to strike, Your Honor.”

“Strike the witness’s last statement,” says Quinn. “The jury will disregard it.”

“Your Honor, we have no further use for this witness.” I turn and start back toward my chair.

“Mr. Tuchio, any redirect?” says the judge.

“No, Your Honor.”

“The witness is excused,” says Quinn. “Then we can either think about a break, or perhaps if it’s short, you can call your next witness.”

“Your Honor, the people have no further witnesses. The state rests its case.”

With Tuchio’s words my knees nearly buckle under me as I’m heading toward the table. The look on Harry’s face matches my own-thinly veiled terror. Wednesday, not even the end of the day, a week early, and Tuchio wraps his case. Quinn will expect my opening statement to the jury in the morning, outlining our evidence, our theory, and what we intend to prove. Without some way to talk about the shadowed leather and the missing letter, we have no case.

In the judge’s chambers, we argue tooth and nail, asking Quinn, begging him for time.

“Mr. Madriani.” Quinn is holding up both hands, palms out. “I warned everyone at the beginning of trial, no delays, no continuances.”

We make an offer of proof, I tell him about the letter and what we know, the information from Trisha Scott and Bonguard, Scarborough’s agent.

Quinn remembers seeing the videotape of Bonguard’s appearance on Leno. He has vague recollections regarding the mention of some historic letter, but nothing more.

Tuchio is sitting on the couch against the wall, relaxed, taking the whole thing in, watching Harry and me bleed all over the judge’s desk. If he is surprised by any of the information regarding the missing Jefferson Letter, you wouldn’t know it by looking at him. He doesn’t even look up when I mention the name Arthur Ginnis, though Quinn does a double take.

“You’re talking about the Justice Ginnis?” he says.

“Your Honor,” Harry wades in, “if you would just…if you would take just a couple of minutes to look at something.” Harry is feeling around in his briefcase.

“I have no time for this,” says Quinn.

Harry dances around the desk toward the judge’s desktop computer behind his chair.

Quinn is waving him off. “It’s not going to do you any good.”

I hand him a stapled sheaf of papers a quarter inch thick.

“What’s this?”

“That’s a transcript,” I tell him.

While he is talking to me, Harry is loading the DVD into the judge’s computer.

“A transcript of what?” Quinn looks at the pages now stuck in his hand.

“It’s a transcript, Your Honor, verbatim. The audio on what you’re about to see is not very good. But that”-Harry points to the stapled pages-“is word for word.”

“Word for word of what?” asks the judge again.

“This.” As Harry says it, the judge swings around in his chair to face the computer monitor.

“Where did you get that?” This is the first comment from Tuchio since we’ve entered the judge’s chambers.

That Tuchio by now would have seen the video of Ginnis and Scarborough played out over the table in the restaurant comes as no surprise. The evidence clerk would have made sure that a copy of the DVD was sent to his office the moment Jennifer left the property room. Unless I miss my bet, it is the reason that Tuchio wrapped his case and dropped the ball into our court so early. He knows there is something out there. He is gambling that we haven’t had time to find it. And as bets go, this is not a long shot. What surprises Tuchio is the transcript. There’s no way we could have sent the disk out to a lab and gotten a transcript back in the few days since Jennifer found it. For the moment I ignore his question.

For all of his hesitancy, Quinn is now turned in his chair with his back to us and seems riveted by the video the instant the familiar face appears on the screen. At first he tries to listen, and then he starts reading, turning pages.