And this one, completing a Sunday of e-mails:
Sunday, July 28, 7:12 PM
Subj: Seriously this is important
From: “Alexa M. Himmel” ‹AMHimmel@Intercast.com›
To: “Jason Kolarich” ‹Kolarich@TaskerKolarich.com›
I just had some GREEK food and thought you’d think that was funny. Are you laughing? You’re probably laughing AT me not WITH me. Ha ha ha poor Alexa the fucked up girl.
Anwyay, I just thought of something that could be seriously bad for you and I want to make sure you’re protected so please call me just for that and nothing else, no more explanations or anything else but I’m not kidding.
The prosecutor takes a moment, allowing the jury to drink in everything they’ve seen so far, a portrait of a troubled woman, smarting desperately from a breakup.
“Take you to the following day, Monday, July twenty-ninth of this year,” says Katie O’Connor. “The day before Ms. Himmel was murdered. Did you recover any e-mails from Ms. Himmel to the defendant on that day?”
He did, of course, an e-mail from Monday morning:
Monday, July 29, 9:13 AM
Subj: I wasn’t kidding
From: “Alexa M. Himmel” ‹AMHimmel@Intercast.com›
To: “Jason Kolarich” ‹Kolarich@TaskerKolarich.com›
I know you’re awake. I know you’re reading this.
I wasn’t kidding. If you don’t get in touch with me your going to be seriously fucked.
“At this time, Your Honor, I’d like to return to the video interview,” says Katie O’Connor.
She starts off right where she stopped. Back to Detective Cromartie asking me about the state of my relationship with Alexa at the time she died:
“So just to be clear, Jason, just so there’s no misunderstandings, you and Alexa were together as of today? You guys were still a couple?”
“Yeah, of course,” I say.
“Had you been together for, say, the past week?”
“Yeah.”
“The past two weeks?”
“Yeah. We’d been together.”
“Your relationship was fine. At the time she died, your relationship was good?”
“Our relationship was fine,” I say to Cromartie. “Our relationship was good.”
Katie O’Connor stops the tape. I maintain my I’m innocent expression, staring straight ahead, trying to show no emotion. It isn’t easy. It isn’t easy to be caught in a lie in front of a roomful of people. Especially when twelve of those people are deciding your fate.
I’m a liar. No one in this room has any doubt. And why lie? Because I’m guilty, right? That’s how people think. As a prosecutor, I routinely relied on that bias. When I caught a defendant in a lie, I would harp on it in closing argument ad nauseam. But I never agreed with that presumption myself. There are many reasons that people lie. Why is telling a lie, in the heat of a criminal inquiry, limited to people who are guilty of the crime?
“Let’s go back to the e-mails, Lieutenant,” says O’Connor.
She is working in chronological order. Logically, the right decision.
But tactically, as well. She is saving the best for last.
58
Shauna
“Lieutenant Krueger,” says Katie O’Connor, “did you recover any e-mails from Ms. Himmel to the defendant on the date of Tuesday, July thirtieth? The day of her murder?”
“I did. I recovered an e-mail with content and with an attachment.”
The prosecutor puts that e-mail on the board for the jury:
Tuesday, July 30, 9:01 AM
Subj: I REALLY wasn’t kidding
From: “Alexa M. Himmel” ‹AMHimmel@Intercast.com›
To: “Jason Kolarich” ‹Kolarich@TaskerKolarich.com›
Hi, there. Hope you’re well. I’m really concerned about the attached letter getting out. Maybe we can put our heads together and figure out how to prevent it. But if you keep ignoring me then I guess there’s nothing i can do. . .
‹ BAD.Letter.pdf ›
“You said there was an attachment?”
“Yes,” says Krueger. “You can see at the bottom of the printout of the e-mail. A document entitled ‘BAD Letter,’ in portable document format, or PDF as most people know it, was attached to this e-mail.”
“Did you print out a copy of that PDF document?”
“I did.”
“People’s Fourteen,” says O’Connor. “Is People’s Fourteen a true and accurate copy of the document attached to that e-mail?”
“Yes, it is.”
The jury is now looking at the letter Alexa attached to that e-maiclass="underline"
To: The Board of Attorney Discipline
Subject: Jason Kolarich, Attorney ID # 14719251
I am writing to report an attorney named Jason Kolarich, currently practicing at the law firm of Tasker and Kolarich. Jason has become addicted to a painkiller called oxycodone. It has hampered his ability to practice law, I fear to the detriment of his clients. He has lost a good deal of weight, and his behavior has become erratic. I am not a lawyer, so I don’t know if the drugs have stopped him from defending his clients properly. I don’t know if there are rules governing this, but I thought the state’s board that regulates lawyers should know about this.
More than anything, I think a client, before they hire a lawyer, should know if that lawyer is a drug addict.
I am afraid to sign this letter, but I hope you will look into it.
“Lieutenant, do you know whether this letter was ever sent to the state’s Board of Attorney Discipline?”
“I don’t know one way or the other,” says Krueger. “All I know is that, the following evening, Ms. Himmel was murdered.”
I could object, but I don’t. The jurors wouldn’t notice, anyway. Several of them, while stopping short of nodding enthusiastically or making throat-slashing gestures, indicate the impact this evidence has had on them. Eyebrows go up. Lips part. One of the guys in the front row, having craned forward throughout the showing of the e-mails, falls back in his chair, glances at his neighbor. I can imagine the bubble over his head: Well, our deliberations won’t take long, will they?
I can hardly blame them. It doesn’t get more damning than this. Alexa had become more than just an ex-girlfriend with separation anxiety. Now she was someone who was going to ruin Jason professionally if he didn’t take her back. And roughly twelve hours later, she was shot in the back with Jason’s gun, while standing in Jason’s living room.
At the podium, O’Connor takes her time, flipping through her notes, pretending to locate her next line of questioning when, in fact, she just wants that letter to sit up on the screen for as long as possible.
“Lieutenant, sending an e-mail is one thing. It’s another thing whether the intended recipient of that e-mail actually received it. Did you investigate whether the defendant had, in fact, received or opened these e-mails we’ve discussed?”
“I did. The defendant gave us permission to access his laptop. In addition, we issued subpoenas to review the e-mails sent to and by the defendant on his e-mail account.” Lieutenant Krueger takes the jury through that process. It was a thorny one, involving Judge Bialek, because an attorney’s e-mails include many confidential communications with clients.
“We were able to determine the date and time that each e-mail was opened,” Krueger explains.