“Someone did kill those young men on Beach Road. And in that Brooklyn apartment. Murdered them in cold blood. Whoever committed these horrible crimes will eventually be apprehended and brought to justice, but that person was not and could not have been Dante Halleyville.
“So I ask you to listen carefully and dispassionately and critically to everything presented to you in this courtroom. Don’t let anyone but yourself decide how strong or weak the prosecution’s case is. I have faith that you can and will do that. Thanks.”
When Tom turns away from the jury, three hundred bodies readjust themselves in their seats. In addition to the rustling, you can almost feel the surprise, and it runs from Judge Rothstein in his pulpit to the last beer-bellied cop leaning against the far wall. This inexperienced lawyer, with mediocre credentials and crap grades, can handle himself in a courtroom.
Chapter 91. Kate
TOM SITS, AND Melvin Howard, Ioli’s assistant DA, stands. Howard is a tall, thin man in his early fifties with a trimmed salt-and-pepper beard and antique wire-rimmed spectacles. He’s also African American, and none of these things is coincidental.
For the same transparently cynical reasons that my old firm chose me to help Randall Kane fend off sexual harassment charges brought by his female employees, the prosecution has selected a black man, with the mild-mannered appearance of a college professor, to prosecute Dante Halleyville. The selection is an attempt to tell the jury that this case is not about race, but about crime, a vicious murder that should outrage blacks as much as whites.
And just because this strategy is obvious and self-serving doesn’t mean it won’t work.
“In addition to listening,” Melvin Howard begins as he tapes a twelve-by-fourteen-inch color photograph to a large easel set up directly in front of the jury, “I’m afraid you’re going to have to look too.”
He slowly attaches three more photographs to the easel-and when he steps out of the way, the jurors push back in their chairs, trying to get as far away from the lurid images as possible.
“These are crime scene photographs of each of the four victims, and it’s your sworn duty not to look away.”
Caught in the white light of the flash, the skin of the victims is a ghostly white; the lips blue-gray; the raw, burned edges where the bullets entered the foreheads orange; the ample blood that poured down into eyes and cheeks, over chins and down the necks of shirts a deep maroon, a red so deep it looks almost black.
“This man here, with the bullet hole between his eyes, is Eric Feifer. He was twenty-three years of age, and before the defendant executed him on August thirtieth, Mr. Feifer was a professional-level surfer.
“This young man is Robert Walco, also twenty-three. While other kids were going to college and business school, he put in ten-hour days with a shovel. The result of his sweat and labor was a successful landscaping business he owned with his dad, Richard Walco.
“And this is Patrick Roche, twenty-five, a painter who paid the bills by moonlighting as a bartender, and whose good nature earned him the affection of just about everyone who knew him.
“Finally, this is Michael Walker, and no matter what else you might say about him, he was seventeen years old, a high school senior.
“Don’t look away. The victims couldn’t. The killer and his accomplice wouldn’t let them. In fact, the killer took sadistic pleasure in making sure that each of these four victims saw exactly what was happening to them as they were shot at such close range that the barrel of the gun singed the skin of their foreheads.
“And the killer got exactly what he wanted because you can still read the shock and the fear and the pain in their eyes.
“In ten years, I’ve prosecuted eleven murder cases, but I’ve never seen crime scene photographs like these. I’ve never seen head-on executions like these. And I’ve never seen eyes like these either. Ladies and gentlemen, don’t assume this is run-of-the-mill horror. This is very different. This is what evil looks like up close.”
Then Melvin Howard turns away from the jury and stares directly at Dante.
Chapter 92. Tom
ON THIS STIFLING early June morning, with the temperature on its way to the midnineties, the state initiates its pursuit of justice by calling drug-dealer Artis LaFontaine’s former girlfriend, Mammy Richardson, to the stand. Mammy was at the basketball court when Feif and Dante came to blows. She saw it all.
A large, pretty woman in her early thirties, Mammy cut a striking figure at Wilson ’s estate last summer, and as strong rays slant in through the courtroom’s only window, she steps into the booth in a cream-colored pantsuit that she fills to bursting.
“Directing your attention to last August thirtieth, Ms. Richardson, do you recall where you were that afternoon?”
“Watching a basketball game at Smitty Wilson’s estate,” says Richardson, clearly enjoying her cameo, a trill of excitement in her voice.
“Could you tell us who was playing in this game?”
“Young fellas from Bridgehampton taking on an older squad from Montauk.”
“Was it a friendly game?”
“I wouldn’t say that. Way both squads were going at it, you’d think it was game seven of the NBA finals.”
“Ms. Richardson, do you have any idea why a weekend pickup game would be so intense?”
“Objection!” snapped Kate. “The witness isn’t a mind reader.”
“Sustained.”
“Ms. Richardson, were the players on the Bridgehampton squad all African American?”
“Yeah,” says Richardson.
“And the Montauk team?”
“White.”
“Which team won the game, Ms. Richardson?”
“The white fellas.”
“And then what happened, Ms. Richardson?”
“That’s when the trouble happened. Some of the Montauk guys started showboating. One of the Bridgehampton fellas didn’t appreciate it. He shoved somebody. They shoved back. Before anyone could calm things down, one of the victims and the defendant were throwing down.”
“Throwing down?” asks Howard, feigning ignorance.
Richardson flashes him a look. “You know, scrapping.”
“How far away were you sitting from the court, Ms. Richardson?”
“Closer than I am to the jury right now.”
“About how big was Eric Feifer?”
“Six feet, and skinny. One hundred seventy pounds, tops.”
“You’ve got a pretty good eye, Ms. Richardson. According to the coroner’s report, Eric Feifer was five eleven and weighed one hundred sixty-three pounds. And the defendant?”
“Anyone can see, he’s got some size on him.”
“Six foot nine inches and two hundred fifty-five pounds to be exact. How did Eric Feifer do in the fight?”
“That skinny white boy could fight. He put a whupping on Dante.”
“What happened next?”
“Michael Walker, one of Dante’s teammates, ran to his car and came back with a gun. Which he put upside Eric Feifer’s head.”
“How far away did he hold the gun from Eric Feifer’s head?”
“He pressed it right up against it. Just like those pictures showed.”
“Objection,” shouts Kate like a fan screaming at the refs about a bad call. “Your Honor, the witness has clearly been coached and has no right or authority to equate what she saw to the pictures taken of the crime scene. This is grounds for a mistrial.”
“The jury will disregard Ms. Richardson’s last remark, and the stenographer will expunge it from the record.”
Howard moves on. “Then what happened, Ms. Richardson?”
“ Walker put the gun down.”
“Did Michael Walker say anything?”
“Objection, Your Honor,” says Kate, increasingly exasperated. “This is nothing but hearsay.”
“Overruled,” says Rothstein.
“What did Michael Walker say, Ms. Richardson?”
“‘This shit ain’t over, white boy. Not by a long shot.’”
“No further questions, Your Honor,” says Howard, and Kate is already up out of her chair.