Steve Martini - Shadow of Power

“What would make you think that?” she says.

“I get to ask the questions. You get to answer them,” says Tuchio. “Is it possible that Mr. Diggs declined to testify?”

“No,” she says.

“Do you know that to be a fact?” he asks.

“Well, no, I don’t know it, but I know Herman-”

“So you haven’t discussed this with Mr. Diggs, whether they asked him to testify here today and what he may have said?”

“No. We’ve been busy,” she says.

Tuchio can be sure that this was a tactical decision made by Harry and me. He could also be certain that we wouldn’t share the rationale for this decision with Jennifer, for the very reason that if he asked her on the stand as he has, she would be able to say truthfully that she didn’t know why she was here instead of Herman. Why force your witness to tell jurors to their face that you’re trying to manipulate them?

Besides the fact that she discovered the envelope on the floor, something Herman couldn’t testify to, is the simple fact that with a majority of women on the jury, she is the sympathetic witness, a woman on the stand testifying before women on the jury. Tuchio would have to use more restraint in the manner in which he attacked her on cross.

So now he feels free to damage us in other ways, planting the false seed, the innuendo, that perhaps Herman knew something, maybe about the way in which the letter and the hairs arrived at our office, and that therefore he either declined or was not permitted by Harry and me to testify.

When I look over, Harry is already working his cell phone under the table, sending a text message to Herman, telling him to come on over and join the party.

“Since you’re not sure about the answer to that one, let me ask another question,” says Tuchio. “When Mr. Madriani opened the envelope on his desk that morning-Monday, I believe-I think you testified that he pulled the bloody letter out of the envelope with a large pair of tweezers, not his hand, is that correct?”

“That’s right.”

“Why did he do this?”

Jennifer gives him a quizzical look. “I don’t understand the question.”

“What I mean is, when you open an envelope, don’t you usually just reach in and take out whatever’s inside? I mean, unless you think there’s a bomb, or a snake, or a bloody letter in there, why would you go and get a pair of forceps before you even reached inside with your hand?”

“I think I testified that he did reach inside,” she says.

“But he didn’t take it out, not with his hand, did he?”

Jennifer hesitates.

“Did he?” he says. Tuchio knows I didn’t, because my prints were not on the letter when the crime lab examined it.

“No. I think he may-”

“You’ve answered the question,” he says. “The answer is no. So let me ask you a different question.” He’s starting to get into a rhythm. “I know you’re not a lawyer,” he says. “But you have worked on this case, right?”

“To some extent.”

“You know what it’s about, most of the evidence, right?”

“Some of it.”

“Well, you know about the mysterious missing item?” As he says this, Tuchio turns and looks back at me.

When she doesn’t answer, he looks back to her. “The bloody letter?” he clarifies it for her.

“Yes.”

“And the hair evidence, the strands of hair in the bathroom and on the chair at the scene.”

“I know what I’ve read in the papers,” she says. Jennifer’s getting cautious now.

“That would be enough,” he says. “If someone wanted to plant evidence-say, slip it under a lawyer’s door, an item that was taken from the scene of a murder in order to show that the person who was charged didn’t do the crime, and let’s say there was evidence, clear, conclusive evidence that the defendant had in fact been at the scene of the crime-wouldn’t that present a problem?”

“I guess I’m not following,” says Jennifer.

“What I mean is, if we know that the defendant was at the scene and that the item was taken from the scene, doesn’t it stand to reason that the defendant could have taken it in the first place, and if so, how does that clear him?”

“I’m going to object, Your Honor. Hypothetical questions. Counsel is asking the witness to speculate. She’s not a lawyer. She’s not a crime-scene-reconstruction expert.”

“No, but she is here testifying as to how the envelope arrived at their office. The question doesn’t go to her expertise, it goes to credibility. If she doesn’t understand what may be happening here, then maybe she’s in the clear.”

What Tuchio is saying is maybe Jennifer thinks she is telling the truth and that she’s being used, on the stand, for this reason.

“Overruled,” says Quinn. “I’ll allow it.”

Tuchio restates the question without mentioning names. How could Carl be exonerated, cleared by the sudden and mysterious appearance of an item that was at the scene, when we know that Carl was at the scene?

“Well, if he didn’t have the item when he was arrested and he’s been in jail, how could he-”

“Deliver the item to your office?” Tuchio finishes the question for her. “Easy. He could have handed it off to someone else. A friend, a family member, a lawyer,” he says.

Jennifer shakes her head. “No. No…no.”

“How would you know?” he says. “Are you familiar with every item, every scrap of paper, every scintilla and wisp of evidence in the files at your office? Do you know what’s in everybody’s desk drawers or for that matter what they might have in their possession outside of the office?”

“How could I?” she says. “That’s not possible.”

Harry is leaning back in his chair, running his hands through his hair, trying to catch her attention, get her to take a deep breath and to stop.

“My point exactly. All you actually know is what you’ve seen. Isn’t that so?”

“That’s all anybody knows,” she says.

“Precisely.”

“No,” she says. “That can’t…no. And what about the hair?” she says.

I glance over, and Harry rolls his eyes.

“Ah, now we get to the nub,” he says. “The hair, isn’t that convenient?”

She looks at him but doesn’t answer.

“I mean, once you realize that simply producing the item taken from the scene isn’t going to do the trick, that you need something more, isn’t it convenient that this something more, whatever it is, just happens to be in the same envelope?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Well, isn’t it? Convenient, I mean?”

“I don’t know,” she says.

“Well then, let me ask you one final question. Who stands to benefit the most from the items in the envelope that were slipped under your office door in the middle of the night? That should be an easy one,” he says.

She looks at him.

“Come on now, isn’t the answer obvious? Who else could possibly benefit? It’s the defendant, Carl Arnsberg, Mr. Madriani’s client, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” His voice goes up a full octave from the first word to the last.

“I suppose,” she says.

“You suppose?”

“Yes.”

The next day, to avoid the media crush downstairs, Quinn allows Harry and me to slip out for lunch using the elevator reserved for judges and high court personnel, located in a back corridor behind chambers.

Jennifer’s testimony regarding the package slipped under our door has resparked the electronic media’s attention gap. Secrecy, “the bloody letter” wrapped in a possible scandal, how it turned up in our office-it now has them salivating.

By the time Harry, Herman, and I meet up at the pub downtown for lunch, news updates from the trial are going head-to-head with primary election returns.