PART 35

by John Nicholas Iannuzzi

  They walked outside. Sam relighted a cigar. One of the courtroom buffs, a tall, lean, gray-haired Irishman, came over to them.

  “You’re doing all right now,” he said. “I wouldn’t believe a station house confession on a bet. Now the lieutenant is spilling the beans on them.”

  “Not after he comes out again,” added a gray-haired woman, another of the buffs, who was standing next to the Irishman. Sam smiled and nodded. “They’ll fix him up good before he comes back.” Sandro returned to the courtroom.

  The stenographer from the morning session was in court within twenty minutes with the typed testimony. He gave copies to all counsel and the judge. Lieutenant Garcia again took the stand. Siakos rose to face him. He asked the lieutenant where he had been just before getting back on the stand.

  “In the witness room, right outside.”

  “Was anyone in there with you?”

  “Other detectives.”

  “Did Mr. Ellis walk into the room?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “Mr. Ellis, will you rise, please.” Ellis was reluctant. He looked at the judge. The judge nodded. Ellis was annoyed as he rose. “This is Mr. Ellis. Was he in the witness room with you just now?”

  The lieutenant pursed his lips, uncrossed and recrossed his legs. “He might have been.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Ellis.” Siakos stared incredulously at the lieutenant.

  “Lieutenant, this morning I asked you the following question.” Siakos read from the typed minutes, “‘How many times would you say that, after six o’clock, he denied flatly having had anything to do with this crime?’ You answered: ‘Once or twice, perhaps three times.’ Do you recall that?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do you now tell this court and jury that you meant that he had denied only having shot the patrolman?”

  “That’s correct, sir.” Garcia cleared his throat.

  “Lieutenant, I’ll ask you now the same question I asked you this morning. Did he deny to you flatly that he had anything to do with this crime?”

  “What he denied to me, sir, was the killing of the policeman—”

  “Yes or no, please, to my question.”

  Ellis objected to restricting the lieutenant to yes or no. He suggested the lieutenant might not be able to answer completely by just yes or no.

  “Objection,” said Sam, rising. “The witness hasn’t indicated any problem in answering. Mr. Ellis should not prompt the witness into confusion.”

  “If the lieutenant can’t answer yes or no, he should give a full answer,” the judge allowed.

  “Your Honor, will you ask the lieutenant whether he can answer yes or no,” Siakos suggested.

  “No, sir,” replied the lieutenant, who was Ellis’s quick student.

  “You may give a full answer.”

  “Officer, do you mean you do not understand my question?” said Siakos.

  “Your Honor,” said Ellis, jumping to his feet, “the court has said the lieutenant may give a full answer.”

  “That’s right. The lieutenant hasn’t answered your first question yet, Mr. Siakos.”

  “Will you give the full answer as directed by the court, Lieutenant?” Ellis, still standing, directed the witness.

  “I withdraw the question, Your Honor,” Siakos interrupted. He stood staring at Ellis. Ellis sat.

  “Officer, did you understand the last question I asked about the denials?”

  “My understanding of the last question, sir, the way you put it to me—”

  “No. Did you understand it, is all I would like to know.”

  The lieutenant sat quietly, studying Siakos. “I understood your last question.”

  “I’ll ask it again. You don’t have to answer. I just want to know whether you understand this question. Did he, Hernandez, deny to you sometimes that he had anything to do with this crime? Is there anything you do not understand in that question?”

  “There is nothing that I don’t understand in that question.”

  “You understand every word?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Do you understand the whole import of the sentence?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The thought?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Siakos looked at his notes momentarily.

  “The lieutenant’s ready for him now,” Sam said.

  “No further questions,” Siakos said, turning to his seat.

  Sandro sighed in relief.

  Ellis stood. He asked the lieutenant to repeat the questions he had asked Hernandez. He was going to rehabilitate his witness.

  Sam objected. “Your Honor, this is not proper in the voir dire. The voir dire would have no purpose if the lieutenant were allowed now to tell what he elicited from Hernandez when we’ve objected to any statements as involuntary. That’s why you granted this voir dire—to determine the admissibility of such statements.”

  “I join in the objection, Your Honor,” said Siakos.

  “And I grant your application. It is not part of the voir dire. Any other questions, Mr. Ellis?”

  Ellis unwrinkled his nose and looked a little flustered. “None, Your Honor.” He returned to his seat.

  The judge recessed court until the morning. Siakos, Sam, and Sandro were pleased with their day.

  CHAPTER XIII

  Mike and Sandro stood before Alvarado’s rooming house. Even as the bright sun began to descend into the evening sky, birds were chirping joyfully for the coming spring. Sandro wondered if the birds that rested in the coping of the surrounding buildings realized that this was a shabby, drab neighborhood. It made him think of Christ’s parable of the birds of the field. God took care of them and saw to it that they did not hunger.

  “Let’s ring the super’s bell. Jenny said she’d be here about this time,” said Sandro as Mike preceded him down the three steps to the door beneath the stoop. Shortly, Jenny came to the door.

  “Oh, hello.” She opened the gate and asked them in. Inside were the usual walls without pictures, the linoleum floor, the flowered couch. A votive lamp flickered at the feet of a Madonna.

  “I was glad you called, Jenny. Can we talk to Jorge?” Sandro asked.

  She shook her head. “I spoke to my father, and I can’t help it, but he says there’s no way that Jorge can help you.”

  “Well, perhaps we can just talk to him, even by telephone.”

  “No, my father said that that’s impossible. Look, Jorge’s got his own trouble.”

  “What happened?” asked Mike.

  “It wasn’t his fault, really, but it doesn’t matter whose fault it was, I guess. See, my brother and his wife don’t live together, you know?”

  “Your brother Jorge?”

  “No, my other brother, Philip. He’s younger. Anyway, my brother’s got this girl friend.”

  “Where does your brother live?” Mike asked.

  “I can’t tell you those things. I’m trying to help you all I can, but I just can’t tell you some things.”

  “That’s okay, Jenny. You don’t have to tell us anything if you don’t want,” said Sandro. He motioned to Mike to take it easy.

  “No, that’s all right. At least I can tell why I can’t get Jorge to help you. I mean, you’re a lawyer, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Anyway, this girl friend is a tramp, if you ask me. She’s nothing, ugly too. But my brother likes her. And she’s got some other guy seeing her, and one day Philip goes there and finds this out, and he starts yelling and arguing, and this guy hits Philip with a lead pipe and makes his head bleed. Well, Jorge has always protected Philip, and when he heard what happened, he went over to the girl’s apartment and gave her a good beating.”

  “Jorge can’t just be running from an assault charge. I mean, the most that could happen is that a judge would warn him not to go near the girl again.”

  “No, her other boy friend. Jorge killed him,” Jenny said, shrugging.

  Sandro exc
hanged glances with Mike.

  “How’d he do that?” Mike queried.

  “After he gave the girl a beating, this other guy comes looking for Jorge. Jorge tells him he don’t have any argument with him. The girl wanted him, and he could have her. But this guy starts a fight. He pulls a knife. Jorge had a gun. And he tells the guy, ‘Don’t come any closer, I don’t want to use this thing.’ And the guy says: ‘You won’t use that on a man. All you can do is beat up on women.’ And he comes closer. And Jorge tells him to keep away. And this guy says, ‘You ain’t usin’ that on me, baby.’ And he’s shaking this knife, moving closer. And Jorge tells him, ‘I’m warning you, don’t come any closer.’ And the guy does, and Jorge shoots one shot, and hits him in the heart. And then he has to run away. The cops are still looking for him. The cops come around maybe once a week, twice a week. They ask me for him. I tell them I don’t know where he is. But you know,” she shrugged.

  “It doesn’t sound like murder,” said Sandro.

  “Yeah, but Jorge’s got a record. Not for killing. But, well, he got some trouble from before, and that won’t help him.”

  “I guess that’s it then,” said Mike.

  “If we can help Jorge out, just give us a ring, Jenny,” Sandro said.

  “Sure. But what can you do, you know?” She smiled bitterly and shrugged. And what was there to do, Sandro wondered.

  Sandro and Mike rode the elevator to the twenty-second floor. The building was the middle-income cooperative where Mike lived.

  Mike’s wife, Rose, met them at the door.

  “So you’re the one who kidnapped Mike.”

  “See, I told you it wasn’t a blonde,” Mike said to her as they entered the apartment.

  “There must be some mistake,” Sandro was unable to suppress a grin. “I never saw this man before he dragged me here and said his wife would kill him unless he produced an alibi for a lot of late nights.”

  Mike fixed a Scotch for Sandro and himself. They talked easily for a few minutes until Mike’s wife excused herself to go back to the kitchen. Sandro stood by the picture window in the living room, looking downtown along the East River.

  “Can you see Williamsburg from here?” he asked.

  “I’ve seen enough of it.” Mike was sitting in a green upholstered wing chair.

  “This is a lovely apartment,” Sandro said, settling himself on the couch. He placed his glass on a coaster on the coffee table and looked around at the wallpaper that had been chosen to blend with the draperies and the upholstery, at the pastoral prints on the wall behind Mike.

  “Thanks,” Mike said, with some pride. “Rose is my decorator. For my usual ten percent I’ll let her tell you what to do with your place.”

  “Daddy.” A girl of about seventeen came into the room, with an armload of books.

  “Linda, say hello to Mr. Luca.”

  Mike’s daughter smiled shyly. “Hello. You working on that case again tonight?”

  “You know about it, too?” Sandro smiled back.

  “That’s all Daddy talks about—Alvarado, Mullaly, Snider.” She turned to Mike. “Daddy, do you mind if I go down to Margie’s house tonight to study? We want to get some review work done.”

  “Sure, if you’ve had your dinner, and your mother says it’s okay.” He beamed at her as she gathered her coat.

  “I don’t want to sound like a boasting father, or anything,” he said after she left, “but she’s going to Marymount next year, on a scholarship.”

  “She takes after Rose, I imagine.”

  “Very funny. She really is bright, though.”

  “That’s a great school.”

  “Supposed to be one of the best,” Mike agreed. “It was funny, you know. They had a social, all the families and the new students got together. She was so happy, so proud. I felt a little strange, though. You know, we kid about it and all, but there are still a lot of people around who think that Puerto Ricans are just one species of monkey. I mean, the kids don’t feel it. They’re all friends. But their parents are another thing. We’re introduced and we look at each other, and we know—if it wasn’t for the kids, we wouldn’t even be speaking. And the kids, they get along so great. They don’t even know it’s going on.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Mike. Nobody’ll push you around.”

  “You kidding? I’ve been pushed around plenty. I paid the dues.”

  “Forty years ago,” Sandro said, sipping at his drink, “the Italians and the Jews went through it. Some still are going through it. And before them the Irish, and the Germans. We were all greenhorns when we got here.”

  “Not to hear some people. Now that they’ve been here thirty, forty years, they act like it never happened, like the other guy on the way up is a freak.”

  “Well, the next guy on the way up will probably get a tough time from some very American Puerto Rican.”

  “Yeah, guys like Soto, who forget where it all came from.”

  “Dinner is served,” Rose Rivera announced, coming back into the living room.

  “Let’s see what that fine tailored suit looks like when you’ve got your stomach all full of some great paella,” said Mike. They sat down at the dining room table, absorbing the pungent aroma.

  CHAPTER XIV

  Tuesday, April 9th, 1968

  Ellis called Mullaly back to the stand as his second witness on the voir dire. Mullaly testified that at no time did he strike, beat, punch, kick, or hit Hernandez or see anyone else doing so. He denied that Hernandez ever admitted having shot Lauria. He acknowledged that he saw Mrs. Hernandez in the station house about 6:30 P.M. on July 3rd. He testified that the last time he saw her was when he took her home about 12:30 A.M. He said he left her there.

  “Detective Mullaly,” Siakos asked as his first question on cross-examination, “you realize, of course, that you are under oath to tell the truth?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you never asked Hernandez a question in relation to the crime?”

  “No, Counselor. He told me.”

  Siakos started through the prosecution story that Hernandez had made a voluntary statement. He cut it short, however, rather than continue pounding the story into the jury. Siakos turned the witness over to Sam Bemer.

  “Would you ever strike a prisoner, Officer?” Bemer inquired.

  “Only in defense of my life, Counselor,” Mullaly answered placidly.

  “Is it a crime of assault even for a policeman to unjustifiably strike a prisoner?”

  “Yes, sir, I believe it is.”

  “And would you admit committing this crime, if in fact you did assault Mr. Hernandez or Mr. Alvarado?”

  “I’ve sworn to tell the truth, Counselor. I would have to.”

  Sam stared at Mullaly. Mullaly stared back. Sam had no further questions.

  Ellis next called the bullnecked Detective Johnson to the stand. Johnson sat sheathed in all his muscled bulk, the whites of his eyes contrasting against his black skin as his eyes studied the lawyers and the jury. Both defendants watched him curiously, cautiously.

  Johnson testified he saw Hernandez on four separate occasions at the station house, but saw no one strike, beat, punch, kick, or hit Hernandez. Nor, certainly, had he done any such thing. Siakos cross-examined briefly.

  Ellis next called the tall, beer-bellied Detective Jablonsky. If Johnson was a bull of a man, Jablonsky was an elephant. He was uncomely, but great strength lay beneath that bulk. His testimony echoed Johnson’s and Mullaly’s verbatim. They could have testified together, in harmony. The judge recessed for lunch after Jablonsky left the stand.

  During lunch, Mike joined Sam and Sandro at Happy’s Café. He told them how he had just gone to the apartment on 119th Street where Hernandez had pulled the burglary job on July 3rd, to interview the two men who lived there. They had not been at home, although the names on the mailboxes showed that they still lived there. Mike had left a note asking them to call him at his office.

  “Have someth
ing to eat, Mike,” said Sam.

  “No, thanks, Sam. I’ll just have a drink. I had something to eat uptown.”

  “I guess Ellis’ll finish up his voir dire this afternoon, Sam,” said Sandro. “He’ll finish up with the detectives.”

  “Yeah, then he’ll start right in again with the direct evidence leading up to Alvarado’s statement.”

  “Did anything come out about the cops taking Hernandez’s wife home that night in the station house? And that bit about the two squad cars and the gang-bang?” Mike asked.

  “No,” replied Sandro. “As a matter of fact, Mullaly was on the stand this morning and testified he took her home about twelve thirty, the early morning of July fourth. He said he searched the apartment and left her there.”

  Mike laughed. “Well, he’s been getting into everything else in this case. Why not Mrs. Hernandez too?”

  Sam laughed. “No, she’s testified they just brought her home to have the apartment searched and brought her right back to the station house in time to see Mullaly give Alvarado a karate chop in the face.”

  “Those are two different stories. Why should somebody lie about something like that?” asked Mike.

  “Because the cops want to place her in her apartment at one thirty so she couldn’t have seen any karate chop, that’s why,” Sam said.

  Mike nodded. “Oh well, too bad we haven’t come up with the gang-bang between the Anglo-Saxons and the Puerto Ricans.” He shrugged. “It’s a racy theory, though. You know what I mean?”

  “One more crummy joke like that and I’ll have Happy cut you off from the firewater,” Sandro said.

  In the afternoon, Ellis called Detective John Tracy of the Manhattan South Homicide Squad. Tracy was tall and thin, his features sharp-lined and alert. According to Alvarado, it had been Tracy who tried to stop the other detectives from continuing to beat him.

  Ellis again posed his perfunctory questions about whether, at any time, Tracy or anyone in his presence had punched, kicked, or hit Hernandez. Tracy said he had seen nothing of the sort. Tracy testified that he had helped interview Hernandez, but at no time did he or anyone else ask Hernandez questions relating to the crime.