“Ms. Glover will be here when we need her.”
“Perhaps she recanted her recantation, Judge,” Moretti said, one hand on his client’s shoulder, snickering at me across the aisle.
“Which will make your cross even more devastating than I’ve been prepping for,” I said to Moretti, not loud enough for the judge to hear. “The threats didn’t work, Gino. Just FYI.”
“What did you say, Ms. Cooper?” Fleming cupped her hand to her ear.
“I apologize, Your Honor. I had forgotten to tell Gino something I wanted him to know before we got started.”
My adversary and I went back a long way together. I was sure he was aware that Estevez had sent threats to his former girlfriend through someone who had visited him at Rikers Island, but I didn’t want to burn Moretti by putting that on the record.
“Did I hear the word threat?” Fleming asked.
“Ms. Cooper couldn’t help herself, Judge,” Moretti said. “She’s been threatening to have her favorite detectives break my legs if I show her up in the courtroom. Looks like I’m in for the big hurt. That’s all that was.”
Fleming’s scowl suggested she didn’t believe Moretti. “Do you want to move the case, Ms. Cooper?”
“The People are ready for trial,” I said.
“The defense is ready.”
Fleming nodded to the captain of the court officers. “I’ve got a panel of a hundred and fifty prospective jurors waiting in the hallway. Any other housekeeping before I bring them in?”
Gino Moretti and I both shook our heads.
I settled into my chair, resisting the opportunity to turn and look over the dozens of citizens who had responded to their jury duty summons. There would be no more than ten or so in business clothes, another thirty in casual dress, and the majority wearing gear so sloppy and threadbare-and often so odorous-that it appeared court proceedings had lost all the dignity in which they had been cloaked for centuries.
Moretti had turned his chair almost a hundred and eighty degrees, less for the purpose of sizing up the jury pool than for trying to charm them with a welcoming grin, a cheesy suggestion that he wouldn’t be seated next to anyone except an innocent man.
“Nothing to eat or drink in the courtroom,” the captain called out from the railing behind me. “Except for water. All newspapers and materials must be put away. Turn off your cell phones and devices. No e-mailing, calling, or texting. Take your seats, please.”
Moretti stood up and positioned himself behind Antonio Estevez, using the moment to give him a friendly pat on the back, leaning to whisper into his ear. The faked intimacy would feed jurors the idea that my adversary really liked his client-touched him and talked to him and shared a secret from the rest of us. He’d probably just told the experienced criminal to keep his mouth shut from this moment on and resist the temptation to do anything stupid in front of the people who would decide his fate.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Janet Fleming. I’m a justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, presiding in Part 53 of the criminal term.”
The judge rose, circled her chair, and leaned on its high leather back as she addressed the prospective jurors. She compensated for her short stature by wearing stiletto heels, which got everyone’s attention whenever she walked on the elevated wooden platform that held the bench. Fleming pulled back one side of her black robe-placing her hand on her hip-to make sure the group saw the colorful dress that clung to the outline of her body.
I glanced at my watch. Almost three o’clock and I’d had no word from anyone in my office. Fleming was going to steamroll forward with selection. Jeopardy would not attach until the twelfth juror was sworn in, but that could happen by noon tomorrow.
I zoned out on the judge’s introductory remarks and came back to the case at hand only when she told the group that her clerk would now read the names of prospective jurors to take their seats in the jury box.
The clerk cranked the handle of the metal cylinder on the corner of her desk. The stub of each summons had been placed inside, and all were mixed together as they rolled over and over again. She let go of the handle, reached in, and removed a piece of paper, calling the name of the first individual and following it with thirteen others-which filled even the seats allotted for two alternates.
The usual commotion ensued. Those who had just settled into the long pews and heard their names announced picked up their backpacks and tote bags and scuttled past their neighbors to get to the center aisle and head for the jury box.
A middle-aged woman carrying four shopping bags and dressed for anything but success tried to detour away from the path set by the court officers to approach the bench. One of them put his arm out to stop her.
“But I have to tell the judge something.”
“I’ll take you in turn, madam,” Fleming called out in her sternest voice. She liked to keep tight control of her courtroom.
“But I don’t want to say what I’m going to say to you in public,” the woman whined.
“I’ll give you the opportunity to talk to us privately. Do as we tell you for now.”
The woman reluctantly trudged to the box and took her seat in the number eight position.
Fleming began her general jury instructions. She introduced Gino and me, directing each of us to stand and spin around so that everyone in the room could see us.
She told them that the indictment contained eight counts, but that it was just a piece of paper, and that the defendant’s innocence was presumed at this point.
I could hear juror number eight murmur to the group, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. That’s what an indictment means.” I assumed that she was on a mission to get herself excused and knew exactly which buttons to push.
“The top count with which Mr. Estevez is charged,” Fleming continued, “is Section 230.34 of the Penal Law: Sex Trafficking.”
Prospective juror number eight gasped audibly and slumped down in her seat. “Oh, my God. I knew he looked like a pervert. He oughta get the chair.”
This time, Gino Moretti heard her.
“Judge Fleming, I’d like to approach the bench with Ms. Cooper.”
He reached there before I could push back and get to my feet.
“What is it with you, Moretti?” the judge asked, cupping her hand over her mouth so the jurors couldn’t hear her.
“You’ve got a whack job in the box and she’s going to poison the well if you don’t remove her right now,” he said. “Didn’t you hear her?”
He repeated the second statement she made and I filled in the first.
Fleming slammed her gavel on the desktop. “The lady in the number eight seat, you’re excused.”
“Who, me? But I want to see you, Your Honor. I want to tell you what my issue is.”
“Just follow the court officer. Before you wind up with a bigger problem than you think you have now. And zip your mouth while you’re on your way out.”
Fleming took the summons stub from the clerk, looked at the name, and ordered her to have the woman removed from all future service.
“You ladies and gentlemen in the audience, raise your hand if you heard anything that woman said,” the judge said.
Not one hand went up.
“Those of you in the jury box,” she said, waving her glasses back and forth over the two rows of stunned spectators who had been within earshot of the woman, “you’re all excused with my gratitude. See you in six years.”
Before they could gather their belongings and follow the crazy lady out of the room, the heavy doors creaked open again.
“You caught a break, Alex,” Fleming said to me. “Did you coach her? Is she part of your stalling-for-time routine?”
“Beyond my doing, Your Honor, but I like her thinking.”
“Well, speak of the devil,” Moretti said. “Detective Michael Chapman, Manhattan North Homicide. We got a body I don’t know about?”