by David Ellis
Her heart skipped a beat. Something within her stirred. She was missing something. Better put, she was looking for something and couldn’t find it. She closed her eyes and tried to relax. When you’re searching for something, it’s easier to look at everything than to look for that one particular thing. So she let the images come to her and absorbed them as best she could, using all of her senses. Alex in the park with Ray Miroballi on two separate occasions. A boy leaving the City Athletic Club in a long coat and cap. Ronnie and Alex in the photos with Angela. The view from the south of the crime scene, the nineteenth floor looking down on bodies and tops of heads. The surveillance photos of Ronnie with Eddie Todavia. The basketball in Ronnie’s room, that she had tripped over. Alex’s words to Shelly about Ronnie, a year ago. He saved my life once. Ronnie had come to Alex’s rescue after Alex and his drunken freshmen buddies had hot-wired the wrong guy’s car. What had Ronnie done to help Alex? Taken a beating for him? Killed the bad guy? It didn’t matter. The point was, Alex felt he owed Ronnie his life.
She opened the folders. She read over the police report and Joel’s notes of their conversations with the eyewitnesses, Monica Stoddard and Joseph Slattery. She tapped her own memory about her conversations with Sanchez and the others.
She leapt to her feet. She closed her eyes and worked it through. Yes.
Yes?
They hadn’t switched jackets that night, after all.
She dialed Joel’s cell phone before she could stop herself.
They had switched identities.
“Joel, it’s Shelly. Remember when you went to the City Athletic Club on open gym night? You showed Alex’s photo around?”
“Yeah. What’s today—Tuesday? You want me to go back tomorrow night?”
“Yes,” she said. “But show them Ronnie’s photo.”
64
Messenger
“RONNIE WAS THE drug dealer,” Shelly said into the Dictaphone. She had never used the transcription device before, felt odd holding a small tape recorder to her mouth. It came with her office supplies, and she felt the need to speak out loud and bounce her thoughts off someone. She couldn’t go to Paul. She couldn’t go to anyone. So she would go to herself. She would play the tape back later and see how it sounded.
“We know Ronnie has been seen with Eddie Todavia,” she continued, pacing around her office. She had closed the door for privacy. “We know that there were drugs in the car behind their house. We have assumed they belonged to Alex. Maybe—maybe Alex and Ronnie both were dealers.”
She touched the wall, a piece of peeling paint that was giving way to gravity. Truth was like gravity, a law professor had once said. In the end, both prevail. Shelly had always found that professor annoying.
“Ronnie was the confidential informant,” she said. “He must have been busted by Miroballi and flipped.” She held her breath. “But he worked with the Cannibals, so he didn’t want to be seen with a cop. So he sent Alex. Alex was feeding information to Miroballi. Sanchez was right about that. But the information was coming from Ronnie.”
She clicked off the recorder and said a silent prayer. She stared at the tiny device a moment. She considered throwing it out the window, if she could even get the window open. Then she set it on “Record” again.
“When the feds saw Alex with Miroballi, they busted him. Alex couldn’t give up Ronnie. No way he’d do that. But then the feds start talking about Miroballi and selling drugs, and using Alex to catch Miroballi. So what can Alex do? He can’t give up Ronnie. So he takes their bait. He says, yeah, Miroballi was making me sell drugs for him.”
Yes. The F.B.I. had never really trusted Alex, and now she knew why. Their instincts had been accurate. He had been screwing with them.
“So somehow, Miroballi starts suspecting that Ronnie hasn’t been straight with him. Or that Ronnie is telling the Cannibals about him. Something. So he goes to find the person who has been playing around with him. He goes to find the snitch who, he thinks, has turned on him.”
She looked at the door. How much she wished she could walk out that door and leave this case behind her.
“He went to find Ronnie,” she said. “Ronnie, who was returning from a game of basketball at the open gym. Wearing a cap and a long black coat. He had his back to Sanchez the whole time. Sanchez probably never saw him. The other witnesses sure didn’t. Why the black coat, which Alex normally wore? We don’t know. Probably, because he was the only one going out that night, and the long coat was warmer than that leather jacket. These two shared everything else. They probably shared coats, too.”
She moved back to her chair and collapsed in it. “Ronnie shot Miroballi. And Alex got there, too late, and helped Ronnie escape. Alex figured that he wouldn’t look too bad as a suspect because he hadn’t fired the weapon. So Ronnie left with the gun and his bloody clothes. Alex stayed behind, because he hadn’t fired the gun and didn’t have blood on his clothes. He took the hit for his brother, for the boy to whom he owes his life.”
She sighed. “But if Alex thinks he won’t be implicated, he’s wrong. Turns out, Alex did get a little bit of blood on himself, probably from contact with Ronnie. And it turned out that Miroballi’s partner, Sanchez, didn’t know about Ronnie. The only person he knew about was the guy Ronnie was sending to give information to Miroballi—Alex. Alex was the person who had met with Miroballi in the park—meetings that Sanchez watched from his car. Sanchez has probably never heard the name Ronnie Masters. So now Alex goes from not looking guilty to having Miroballi’s blood on himself and being identified as Miroballi’s snitch.”
She clicked off the recorder. She felt uncomfortably warm. Her heart was drumming. Her stomach was a barren wasteland of acid. She desperately needed something in her system but couldn’t even consider the thought. She lifted the Dictaphone back to her mouth. “We don’t know the details. Did Ronnie shoot in self-defense? Was Miroballi going to kill him? Or did Ronnie commit this murder on behalf of the Cannibals? It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because Ronnie’s not my client and I don’t have to prove any—”
Her throat closed on her. Yes, it was all finally coming together. It all made sense, and suddenly nothing made sense. She couldn’t implicate her own flesh and blood in a cop’s murder, but she couldn’t imagine how she could let this pass, either. Not now. She had solved the puzzle, she was sure of it, and it exonerated her client. And she couldn’t use it because her client wouldn’t let her, would contradict her, in fact, by taking the witness stand and denying Ronnie’s participation.
And she didn’t want to use the information.
She felt a draft and drew her arms around herself. She desperately wanted to go for a run but she was in courtroom attire and low heels, and she probably couldn’t have made it far anyway, from lack of sleep and poor nutrition. She tried to map out the turns this case had taken and how it had all come to this. This, she decided, was her punishment. She needed a priest, like Paul Riley had said. Or a philosopher. A theologian. She considered flipping a coin. Heads, my client goes down. Tails, my son does. All of these momentary diversions as the mind worked at warp speed were preferable to a reality that she wanted so desperately to avoid.
She removed the tape from the Dictaphone, dropped it to the floor, and smashed it to pieces with her heel.
65
Angles
SHELLY REMOVED THE Daily Watch from the newspaper stand at the bus stop. She skipped the front page and went straight to Metro, where she would expect to see coverage of the trial yesterday. She reacted audibly to the headline.
DEFENSE BLAMES DRUG DEALER IN MIROBALLI TRIAL
She laughed, because she didn’t know how else to respond, and touched her eyes. The reporter, not surprisingly, had missed the subtlety and just taken out portions of quotes from the cross-examination. Yes, she had alluded to Todavia’s guilt, but that was hardly the highlight.
Still, this was interesting. If this was how a reporter viewed the evidence presented yesterday, is
that how the jurors saw it, too? For all of her posturing on Todavia’s reliability, did they walk away thinking she was accusing him of murder? She wondered if any of the jurors would violate their oath, intentionally or otherwise, and catch that headline. Would they have the same reaction Shelly did?
For someone whose ultimate goal here was to argue self-defense, this was not the impression she was trying to give. Was she still pleading self-defense?
God, what a case. She longed for the easy stuff again, the school disciplinary cases, the civil lawsuits, even the juvenile stuff, where one’s assignment was largely straightforward.
She forced some breakfast down her throat in the court cafeteria below the courthouse. She drained two cartons of orange juice but barely touched the grapefruit or toast. She read the entire article only because it was possible that some of the jurors had done the same, and she wanted to know what might taint their opinions.
The reporter expressed surprise at the turning of the tables on Todavia, after the defense had notified the prosecution of a self-defense theory. The first day of trial was entertaining theater, said the writer, ranging from a damning opening statement to one particularly humorous episode to a tough cross-examination of the admitted drug dealer.
Little of substance, other than the reporter’s complete misreading of her strategy. She tapped the table and headed up to the lobby of the courthouse. She saw a camera crew and a news reporter pacing in circles. She had almost slipped past when the man called to her. She refused comment but she couldn’t exactly run; she was in a line for the metal detectors. Used to be, lawyers could flash their credentials and get past all that, but security-conscious officials would have none of that now. Everyone got checked.
So she was a captive audience. The reporter threw several questions at her as she looked into the lights and saw the red button light up on the camera. She muttered a couple of professional pleasantries, but he wouldn’t leave.
“Are you giving up on self-defense?” No comment. “Do you think someone else killed Officer Miroballi?” No comment.
“Are you supporting your father’s re-election campaign?”
She looked at the reporter and smiled. “That’s my business.”
Finally, it was her turn through the metal detector, and she was on her way to the courtroom at eight-thirty. Alex was seated in his chair. He looked positively dreadful. Cleaned-up and appropriate, sure, but up close, the purple circles beneath his bloodshot eyes had darkened.
She patted him on the shoulder. “You clean up nice,” she told him.
He looked at her and flashed a glimpse of his old self. “Death row chic,” he said, tugging his suit collar.
“Hey, come on now.”
Shelly looked over her notes one last time. Alex had his pad of paper out as well. He had taken notes and slipped the occasional comment or question to Shelly. She invited his participation. If he was anything like her, he had to feel like he was doing something.
The courtroom was just as blue as the day before, possibly more so. She sensed that some of the police officers in the front rows were different from yesterday. She imagined that it was considered an off-duty obligation to attend the slain officer’s trial.
Sophia Miroballi walked in with her mother, presumably, just before nine, but a space had been kept open for her. Notably absent was any familial representation from the defendant’s family. Elaine Masters—Laney—worked the day shift and probably had difficulty moving it around. That assumed she had tried to make such arrangements. Shelly couldn’t be sure of that. She had adopted Ronnie late in life—typical for attorney adoptions—and her husband had died, leaving her and Ronnie with little in terms of financial support. Laney, in rather dire straits herself, had taken on another boy, Alex, which said something about the kindness in her heart. But somewhere along the way, she had lost control. Laney had turned to booze. Shelly was not unsympathetic but, for Christ’s sake, the woman could offer a modicum of support for Alex right now.
Dan Morphew rushed in just under the bell. He seemed harried, and he was taking it out on his two assistants. Why the long face? She felt a bit of relief, regardless. Always nice to see your adversary sweating. She tried to watch him without watching. He was whispering something quite serious to a young assistant, and then he pointed at Shelly.
The jury entered the room and took their seats. Shelly wore her pleasant face. Morphew hardly even looked up when he spoke to the judge. “Call Monica Stoddard,” he said.
The witness walked into the room and caught some attention from the audience. She was tall and athletic and not unattractive. She was dressed her best in a blue suit and heels, simple jewelry. She seemed nervous as she was administered her oath. Many people were when they got in that box.
“Good morning, ma’am,” said Morphew, making it to the podium with a notepad. “Please state your name and spell your last name for the record.”
He took her through her job description and background. He seemed to spend a little too much time on her education and positions as an architect over the years. He was building her up so she could buttress the testimony of a homeless person, the only other eyewitness to the shooting. Finally, Morphew made it to the building where she worked, the Forrester Insurance Building, which was across the street and to the south of the alley where the shooting occurred. She was working late in her office on the nineteenth floor. He took her to the relevant date and time.
“I saw a boy running from a police officer. He was wearing a coat and a cap.” She was using her finger to point at her imaginary view. “He ran into the alley and the officer was behind. The officer was not as fast.”
“Go on,” Morphew urged.
“Well, the boy disappeared out of my view. The officer made it to the alley and stopped somewhere in there, but still in my view.”
“You couldn’t see the entire alley from your window?”
“No. The officer ran for just a couple of seconds. Well, here.” She adjusted in her seat. “He stopped first at the very front of the alley. Like, still on the sidewalk. He had a radio in his hand and I think he said something into it. Then he walked a few steps. He didn’t go that far.”
It didn’t seem that Morphew had prepared this testimony very well. That seemed odd. She was not a critical witness, but still. What had been occupying Morphew’s time since yesterday at trial?
“Then tell us what you saw.”
“I saw the officer talking. I mean, I couldn’t hear anything. But he seemed like he was talking to someone. Then he seemed to jerk, kind of, and then I saw him fly backward and fall on the ground. He’d been”—she ran a hand across her face.
“He’d been shot in the face?”
She closed her eyes. “Yes.”
“Ma’am, you mentioned that the officer had a handheld radio in his hand.”
“Yes.”
“What about his other hand?”
“I think it was free. He wasn’t holding anything.”
No. Shelly checked her notes on that. No.
“What about when he was talking to whoever it was—did he do anything different with that hand then?”
“Not as far as I could see, no.”
“And you could—well, that’s fine. That’s fine. Now, did this officer do anything, at any time here, that you would perceive as threatening or aggressive?”
Shelly thought to object but she would lose, and that would highlight the testimony.
“I didn’t see him do anything like that, no.”
“Did you ever see this officer, at any time, draw his weapon?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“And did these events take place in the city, county, and state in which this courthouse is located?”
“Yes, they did.”
Morphew nodded. “That’s all I have, your Honor.”
Shelly had little for this witness. She stood at her chair. “Good morning, Ms. Stoddard. I’m Shelly Trotter. We’ve met before.”
“Yes. Good morning.”
“Just a few questions. You couldn’t see this other person, whom the officer was chasing?”
“No, not once he went far enough in the alley.”
She put her hand on Alex’s shoulder. “You can’t identify this young man as the person who was running, can you?”
“No, I can’t.”
“Your view wasn’t sufficient to see his face.”
“My angle wasn’t, no.”
“Sure.” She moved away from Alex now, toward the podium. She didn’t want to discuss this other person while standing next to Alex. “This boy, once he left your line of sight, he never came back into your sight.”
“That’s right.”
“So you couldn’t tell us whether, for example, he had his hands up?”
“No, I couldn’t.”
“You don’t know what kind of a conversation they had.”
“No.”
“Or even if they had a conversation.”
“That’s right.”
“The part of the alley you couldn’t see—you can’t tell us how many people were in that alley, can you?”
Alex’s head whipped around at her. She avoided his stare.
“How many people?” The witness grimaced. “Other than that one boy I saw, no.”
“There could have been more than one person out of your sight line and you wouldn’t know.”
“That’s right. I would have no idea.”
Alex cleared his throat, still directing arrows at her with his eyes.
“Your Honor,” Shelly said, “one quick moment with my client?”
The judge nodded.
Shelly walked over. Alex got out of his chair and put his mouth to her ear. “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to show that she doesn’t know anything.”
