“Let’s begin, people,” Judge Maniloff said, from the sleek, modern dais with a gray marble front. Judge Randy Maniloff, a middle-aged gold-spectacled judge, had been picked by computer for the hearing, but Judy preferred to think it was her lawyer karma at work. Maniloff was one of the smartest judges on the municipal court bench, which heard preliminary hearings on murder cases and held misdemeanor trials. He wouldn’t be the ultimate trial judge, but he’d be fair at this level. “We have a crowded docket today for a change, and we can’t waste any time.” He banged a gavel loosely. “This is the matter of Commonwealth versus Lucia. Who’s here for the Commonwealth?”
“Joseph Santoro for the Commonwealth, Your Honor,” said the district attorney, and he stood up. He was on the short side but powerfully built, with dark wavy hair and a black walrusy mustache. Santoro was the top assistant in the D.A.’s office, which was undoubtedly why he was picked for this high-profile case. His Italian surname wouldn’t hurt either. Judy resigned herself to being a minority for the duration.
Judge Maniloff acknowledged Judy, swiveling in his black leather chair. “I see we have Ms. Carrier here for defendant Anthony Lucia. Welcome, Ms. Carrier.” He smiled pleasantly, and Judy stood up briefly.
“Thank you, Your Honor.”
“Now that we’re all friends, Mr. Santoro, call your first witness,” Judge Maniloff said. He turned his attention to some papers on the dais, as Santoro stood up again.
“The Commonwealth will present just two witnesses today, Your Honor, and we would first call James Bello to the stand,” he said, and in the front row the heavyset man from the funeral home wedged himself from the right side of John Coluzzi, moved with difficulty down the pew, and came before the bar of court. He took the witness stand heavily and was sworn in as the D.A. took the fake walnut podium between counsel tables.
“Mr. Bello,” Santoro said, “please state your name and address for the record.”
“My name’s James Bello, but they call me Fat Jimmy,” he said matter-of-factly, though Judy wasn’t sure it was what Santoro had been looking for.
“And your address?”
He rattled it off.
“Fine, Mr. Bello. Let’s move directly to the morning of Friday, April seventeenth. Were you present at about eight twenty-three
A.M. at 712 Cotner Street in South Philadelphia?”
“Yeh.” Bello wore a black knit shirt with suit pants, and his thick wrist bore a gold Rolex. His lips were puffy, his nose a pockmarked bulb, and his eyes large, round, and unforgettable if they were glaring at you in a funeral home. If he recognized Judy, it didn’t show.
“And that address is a clubhouse for a pigeon-racing combine, correct?”
“Yeh.”
Judy opened her legal pad to a fresh page and shifted forward on her seat. At a preliminary hearing the Commonwealth had to prove only a prima facie case of murder, and the D.A. would have more than enough in this case. The hardest punches at a prelim were thrown beneath the surface, because the Commonwealth was trying to reveal as little as possible about its case, and the defense was trying to find out as much as possible. It was a legal fistfight, and only apparently civilized.
“Mr. Bello, please tell the court who else was present in the clubhouse on the day in question.”
“Mr. Tony LoMonaco, Mr. Tony Pensiera. Angelo Coluzzi was in the back room, and Mr. Tony Lucia, the defendant, went in there, too.”
“Was anybody else in the back room except for Mr. Coluzzi and Mr. Lucia?”
“No, Angelo and me opened the place that morning. He was the only one back there until Tony went in.”
Santoro nodded. “Mr. Bello, please tell the court what happened next, if you would.”
“Sure, yeh.” Bello cleared his throat of smoker’s phlegm. “Mr. Lucia went in the back room and there was a scream, and then we heard like a crash. And we went in and there was Angelo dead on the floor and Tony, Mr. Lucia, was standing over him, all worked up.”
Judy held her breath to know what Bello had heard, or what he’d claim he heard.
Santoro shifted closer to the microphone at the podium. “Mr. Bello, you said you heard yelling. What did you hear?”
“I heard yelling, in English and Italian.”
“Do you know who was doing the yelling?”
“Mr. Lucia.”
“Mr. Bello, what did you hear Mr. Lucia yell?”
“He yelled, ‘I’m gonna kill you.’”
Judy made a note, only apparently calmly. It would be home run evidence at trial. Worse, it was true.
“Mr. Bello, did defendant Lucia yell this in English or in Italian?”
“In Italian. Definitely, Italian.”
“And you understand Italian?”
“Very well. Been speakin’ it since I was a kid. Now, Angelo, he didn’t like to speak it. He wanted the old ways behind him. He wanted to be a real American. He didn’t have no accent either. Hardly.”
Santoro nodded, his soft chin wrinkling into his stiff white collar. “So you are sure it was Mr. Lucia’s voice and not Angelo Coluzzi’s?”
“I know Angelo’s voice and also, he’s the one who ended up dead.”
Santoro didn’t blink. “Then what did you do, Mr. Bello?”
“I got up and ran into the back room and there was Angelo, lyin’ on the ground, with the shelves over him and a big mess onna floor. I checked Angelo out but he didn’t have no pulse and his head was lying funny.”
“Where was the defendant at this time?”
“Standin’over Angelo.”
“What did Mr. Pensiera and Mr. LoMonaco do then?”
“Objection as to relevance,” Judy said for the record, but Judge Maniloff overruled her.
“They said to Mr. Lucia, ‘Let’s get outta here,’ and they got him out and they left.”
“Then what did you do?”
“I called 911 and they came and took Angelo away, and that was that.”
Judy made a note. It was the least emotional account of a murder she could imagine. Santoro would have to offer Fat Jimmy a dozen ravioli to shed a tear or two at trial, but for the time being the D.A. nodded in satisfaction, returned to counsel table, and sat down.
“I have no further questions, Your Honor,”he said, and he didn’t need any.
Judy stood up to pick Fat Jimmy’s brain for cross-examination, though she couldn’t win here anyway, and as a defense lawyer, wouldn’t want to. If the defense won at a preliminary hearing, the Commonwealth could rearrest the defendant and retry him, because double jeopardy hadn’t yet attached. Not that winning anything was in the cards today. Judy approached the podium.
“Mr. Bello,”she began, “describe where you were sitting when you allegedly heard Mr. Lucia yell, ‘I’m gonna kill you.’”
“I just come into the room from the bathroom, and sat down at the bar, when I saw Mr. LoMonaco and Mr. Pensiera. They told me that Pigeon Tony, Mr. Lucia, had gone in the back room.”
Judy recalled the layout of the racing club. “So you were at the bar.”
“Right.”
“How far is the bar from the back room?”
“About ten feet.”
“Which seat were you sitting in at the bar?”
“In the middle.”
“Were you having a drink?”
“I was gonna but I didn’t get to.”
“What was the drink?”
“Coffee.”
Judy made a note. It was good to take notes in court because it made you look as if you were getting somewhere. This note said NICE GOING, BUCKO. “Anything alcoholic in the coffee?”
“No.”
Judy made another note. OUTTA THE PARK, LOSER. “Now, you said you heard yelling. Did you hear anything else other than Mr. Lucia allegedly yelling, ‘I’m going to kill you’?”