Chapter 55
Eddie
In a strange way, I like jail cells.
It’s quiet. There are no distractions.
I have time to think.
I was pretty sure I had most of this case figured out.
It seemed clear to me that the paint team Bloch took out at the Hamptons house was involved in the murder of the woman known as Molly Green. Maybe they were planning on moving her body, to make it look like a disappearance, and that was why they painted over the bloodstains on her wall.
That was a rational explanation, but this case defied logic on so many levels.
There was more to it. Much more.
As I lay on a concrete bench in the cell, I looked up at the wall beside me. It was covered in graffiti. Gang tags, names of former occupants of this cell, trial dates, band names and slogans, some of it in ballpoint pen, but mostly it was scratched into the surface.
I put my hand on the wall, closed my eyes and let my mind wander.
Something was bubbling to the surface of my consciousness. Something that had been working there for a while. I turned my head away from the wall to the chipped cream paint on the cell bars and door. Beyond them, in the hallway, I saw a notice to prisoners pinned up on the wall. Jailhouse rules.
I sat up.
I had an idea.
Footsteps were coming down that hallway.
Harry Ford leaned over and peered through the bars at me.
‘You’re spending more time in a jail cell than a courtroom these days,’ he said.
‘I wish I did have more time in here. I think better.’
A Department of Corrections officer joined Harry outside my cell. He took a thick bunch of keys from his belt and unlocked the door.
‘Judge says you’ll have cooled off by now,’ said the CO.
I got up, grabbed my jacket and left the confines of the cell. As we walked down the hallway, I slipped my jacket on, asked Harry for his cell phone.
‘You’ll get yours back in a second,’ he said.
‘Can’t wait that long,’ I said.
He handed me his phone. I dialed Bloch’s number from his contacts.
‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘The van that the paint crew arrived in. You said there was all kinds of kit in the back, paint buckets, tarpaulin, rubber sheets. Do you remember seeing any pictures in there?’
‘Pictures?’
‘Framed pictures. Ask Bill Kennedy to get his agents to send you photos of the contents of the back of the van. The Monet picture you saw in Molly’s apartment looked to you like it didn’t belong. Do you remember?’
‘I remember. They must’ve put it there to help hide the paint job.’
‘They weren’t trying to hide the bloodstains, Bloch. How’s Raymond doing with the DNA samples from the Hamptons?’
‘I talked to him an hour ago. He just got the dried scrapings processed and they’re in the rapid DNA testing machine now. He should get results in an hour or two and then it’ll take another few hours at least to upload and search on the DNA databases.’
‘Tell him to put a hold on it for now. There’s something more important. Get him over to Molly’s apartment again and sweep that wall.’
‘We swept the wall with the black light – there was nothing more to see.’
‘I don’t need you to sweep with the UV light. I need you to use a metal detector.’
I hung up, giving Harry back his phone as we got to the end of the hallway and the CO’s station.
They gave me back my personal items with my phone, money and my father’s Saint Christopher medal, which I wore every day.
The only time I took it off was when I was in a jail cell, which was increasingly too often.
‘The judge is going to ask you to apologize to her in front of the jury,’ said Harry. ‘If you don’t, it might be easier just to give me your stuff and I’ll hold on to it while you spend the night here.’
‘Who is Riley calling next?’
‘We’ve got Geoff Gilbert, Patrick’s campaign manager. I think he’s just going to call him as a representative witness to establish bad blood between Vanessa and the victim. Then it’s the forensics officer, then Ben Larkin, and last should be Patrick Vanderpool.’
‘Then let’s get through this as fast as possible. I have no choice now but to blow up Larkin. I’ll ask him if he’s been paid to target Vanessa and when he denies it, I’ll try to use the audio recording from Taco Bell.’
‘You think the judge will allow that?’
‘Clandestine recordings can be tricky at the best of times. With this judge, I doubt it. But we have to try.’
‘Your Honor, I apologize for my remarks,’ I said.
Riley was practically rubbing his hands.
The jury watched somewhat impassively. But I noticed that three jurors in the front row were leaning forward, listening intently to this exchange.
I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I only needed one juror to have reasonable doubt, but it certainly gave me the impression they were at least interested in the dynamic between me and the judge.
Harry had his head in his hands, but he was peeking at me between his fingers. Our client was stony-faced, as we’d asked her to be.
‘Is that all?’ asked Judge Tanner with a little hot sauce poured onto her tone. She was clearly still pissed at me.
There’s a long line of judges that I’ve pissed off. They’re at the back of a longer line of police officers and district attorneys. To me, that was a source of pride.
‘I apologize if my remarks offended you,’ I said.
This wasn’t exactly a good apology. Not my best, but definitely not my worst, as my ex-wife could attest.
She slowly tapped her pen on her desk and stared at me. The three jurors watched closely.
I stared back.
I smiled.
This didn’t go down well.
She shook her head, turned to Riley and said, ‘Call your next witness.’
The political consultant, Geoff Gilbert, wasn’t the type of guy you wanted in your corner.
He wore an expensive, tailored suit, a bespoke blue shirt, navy tie, handmade shoes and a Rolex hung off his hairy wrist. His beard was neat and trimmed, as were his eyebrows and his coiffured hair.
He gave the appearance of a guy pretending to be rich, even though I was quite sure he was a rich man.
The money didn’t suit him. It looked like he’d stolen what he was wearing.
Taking his time, Riley led Gilbert through establishing testimony for the jury, questions designed to elicit who Gilbert was, what he did for Patrick Vanderpool and who else worked on the campaign, including Molly Green.
‘It was clear from the way she spoke to Molly that Vanessa hated her,’ said Gilbert.
‘She was jealous of a young beautiful woman being around her husband so much. Not that anything ever happened between Molly and Patrick, of course not. But that didn’t stop Vanessa’s insane jealousy.
I overheard her once, Vanessa, that is, threatening Molly.
She told her to stay away from her husband. ’
‘Did you form the impression that this was a threat?’
‘You’re damn right it was,’ said Geoff.
‘No further questions.’
‘You want to do this one?’ I asked Harry.
‘Sure. I was thinking short and sweet. A one-two combination punch?’ he said. Harry often thought of cross-examination like a boxing match.
‘Go for it.’
That’s what all the greats do. Young inexperienced lawyers have legal pads filled with questions for every witness in a trial.
They’re trained to do it. The fact that they charge by the hour is only partly responsible.
Often, they ask witnesses lots of questions out of fear of missing out some important detail.
They forget that sometimes it doesn’t matter what the answer is to the question. Sometimes the question is way more important than any answer.
Harry rose to his feet.
Threw a left.
‘How much do you earn working on Patrick Vanderpool’s campaign?’ asked Harry.
Gilbert looked toward Riley, then the judge. He was waiting for an objection. His earnings weren’t relevant in his mind. No objection came from Riley, who was still wary of wading into unknown waters with an objection he wasn’t sure about. Just in case it came back to bite him.
‘Do I have to answer that?’ asked Gilbert.
The judge nodded.
‘Four point three million dollars a year,’ he said, and cast his eyes down toward his knees and brushed some imaginary fluff from his pants. Like he wanted to brush away the question.
Two of the jurors visibly reacted to that by making O shapes with their lips. That’s a lot of money.
Harry threw his right.
‘Who pays you that salary?’ asked Harry.
This time, Gilbert had nowhere to hide so he just answered fast.
‘Patrick Vanderpool.’
He was waiting for another question.
Harry announced, ‘That’s all I need to hear. Thank you, Mr. Gilbert.’
TKO.
Gilbert looked around, puzzled and a little alarmed. That was it. He was expecting to be in the witness box for hours, to be contradicted, to be called a liar, a real battle.
He got none of it.
The jury heard this guy was paid millions of dollars and nobody is going to sabotage that kind of meal ticket. And Harry’s final dismissal of the witness, ‘That’s all I need to hear,’ had painted a clear and precise picture for the jury.
Damn, he was good. He should’ve done this whole trial.
‘Members of the jury,’ said the judge, ‘whether a witness is in the employment of someone else who is involved in this case is neither here nor there, and does not affect the truthfulness of their answers. You understand?’
Of the three jurors in the front row who had watched my apology to the judge, one of them, a lady in a blue sweater, raised her hand.
‘Yes?’ asked the judge. ‘Do you have a question? Just whisper it to the jury keeper if you wouldn’t mind.’
The jury keeper came forward and the lady in the sweater whispered something. The jury keeper, a woman of about the same age, smiled and nodded.
‘Well?’ asked the judge.
The jury keeper said, ‘The juror asked if she and her fellow jurors get to decide the verdict, or if it’s your decision, Your Honor?’
Judge Tanner looked directly at the juror, said, ‘The jury gives the verdict, as I explained to you at the beginning of the trial.’