Chapter 17 Eddie

17

Eddie

I had started leaving my car in the garage.

Too easy for somebody to hide a device in or on the car some place where I wouldn't find it. Car bombs are a lot more sophisticated than they used to be. Getting down on your knees and glancing under the body, or even popping the hood and searching for suspicious bulges, wires or boxes, didn't work any more. There was an Armenian in Queens who took out a rival boss with six beads of C4 threaded on an insulated wire, hooked up to a waterproof miniature cell-phone receiver and then fed into the gas tank of a Lincoln Navigator. The resulting explosion put a six-foot-deep crater in the blacktop and launched the Lincoln through a semi hauling six hundred live chickens. The city spent two days cleaning burnt metal, blood and feathers off a quarter-mile of the street.

I took the subway and watched my back.

It had been two weeks since the NYPD wiped out two hitmen from one of the more violent motorcycle gangs out of New Jersey. No more tails. No eyes on me from parked cars outside the office, nor outside my apartment. I imagined Sergeant Gray had put the word out to cool things down, at least for a while. He would've had heat from the brass for sitting in a patrol car with his partner with their radios turned off, twelve feet from two heavily armed bikers in a pick-up truck.

If he was smart, he would call off the hit. Cancel the paper on me and forget about it.

Unfortunately, I didn't think he was too clever. Even if he had some brain cells to spare, it was personal now. I'd made him look like a fool in front of his brother officers and his crew. He'd probably convinced his boss, Buchanan, that I was a threat. Now, I was a severe pain in the ass.

It was only a matter of time before somebody else came calling at my door.

I walked the four blocks from the subway to my office. It was coming up on ten in the morning when I climbed the stairs and made for my desk. I stopped. Denise was on the phone, listening. She gestured toward Kate's office. Harry and Bloch were with Kate, standing around her desk. I pushed open her door and heard a voice coming from her cell phone. It was Al Parish.

‘What's going on?' I asked.

‘Hi, Eddie,' said Parish. ‘Just to quickly bring you up to speed. John isn't doing so well. He got a letter this morning, signed by all of his neighbors. They asked him to move out. He's probably lost his career too. This is all becoming too much for him. We need to do something.'

‘You want a meeting, Al? I could give him the talk again,' said Kate.

‘I think you got him this far, Kate,' said Al. ‘But I'm not sure he's got a lot left in the tank. His kid is getting harassed in school. Alison says the neighbors cross the street instead of passing her on the sidewalk. Is there anything we can do to move this case along? I think things would be better if we could give them a trial date.'

‘We don't have a trial date,' said Kate. ‘And we're not close to being ready yet.'

Al said, ‘I know, I know. I was just wondering if we could somehow get a trial date. Then at least there's an end point for John and his family. That would help. I just . . . I just don't know how long he can hang in there.'

‘Okay, Al. We hear you. Leave it with us and we'll see if there's some way to grease the wheels,' I said.

Al thanked us, hung up.

‘Even if we could get an early trial date, we're not ready,' said Kate.

‘I know, but we can be ready. Bloch, any updates on finding us a ballistics expert?' I asked.

Bloch said, ‘I got the last refusal this morning. That list of experts you gave me, everyone turned us down.'

‘Why?' asked Harry.

‘They all said the same thing,' said Bloch.

‘Conflict of interest?' I asked.

Bloch slowly nodded.

District Attorney Castro was dirty, narcissistic and power-hungry, but that didn't make him stupid.

‘Castro carpet-bombed the field,' I said.

As well as briefing the top ballistic expert in the country and securing him as a prosecution witness, he'd also sent prosecution papers to another five of the most respected ballistics experts. The only people with enough experience and credibility to challenge the prosecution expert were also paid by Castro to read the case materials. That meant they had knowledge of the case, potentially confidential knowledge and therefore couldn't act for the defense. It would be a conflict of interest.

‘The DA's case hangs on that ballistics report and the DNA report,' said Kate. ‘If he proves the gun that fired the rounds which killed Margaret Blakemore was found in our client's closet with his DNA on it, then that's it. We need our own heavyweight ballistics expert to challenge that testimony. Without it, we're done. What are we going to do?'

‘I don't know,' I said. ‘I haven't had enough coffee yet.'

They all stood in silence, staring at me.

‘What are you waiting for? Go get coffee,' said Harry.

I left them in Kate's office, ignored the ton of files and paperwork on my desk and made for the coffee machine. It came from my old office. The timer no longer worked, and the hot plate wasn't as hot as it used to be, but, on the plus side, I had never cleaned it. Didn't matter what kind of blend you put in, all the coffee that filtered into the bun flask tasted the same. I liked it that way.

No one else used this machine but me. I brewed a pot. Drank half of it quickly.

I put down my cup. Found that I was absently twirling a pen in my hand – tumbling it between my fingers and over my knuckles. It helped me think.

The pen stopped moving. I went back into Kate's office.

All three of them were still in there, waiting for me. Harry was going through the discovery documents we'd received from Castro. He picked up a page, and a curious look crept over his features.

‘What's this latent-print expert's report from Mr. Bude?' asked Harry.

‘It's a dud,' said Kate. ‘There was a palm print on the gun. They couldn't match it to our client – said it was only a partial print and not enough for identification.'

Harry rubbed the top of his head. He often did this when he was thinking. Like he was Aladdin rubbing a lamp and hoping a genie, or an ingenious idea, might pop out at any moment.

‘Let me see that DNA analysis,' said Harry. Kate moved files on the desk, handed the report to Harry.

‘Look at this,' he said, and gave the report back to Kate.

‘What am I looking at here, Harry? It's the DNA analyst's report. It confirms the DNA found on the gun belongs to John Jackson.'

‘Yes, but look where they took the sample from.'

I moved beside Kate, read the preamble to the DNA report.

‘He got the DNA from the partial palm print on the lifting tape, not from the gun itself,' said Kate.

Due to the advances in DNA analysis, forensic techs can now extract DNA samples from the tape that lifts palm prints or fingerprints, rather than swabbing the object upon which the print was found.

‘So what?' I said. ‘Does it matter if he took the DNA from the gun or the partial palm print? The print expert says the latent partial print is a palm, and it's too small an area for comparison.'

‘Now you're thinking logically,' said Harry. ‘That's the mistake. Think about it. Why do we have this palm print report in the first place? It doesn't help Castro.'

‘He has to call the latent-print expert because the DNA came from the print on the lifting tape. He needs the print expert to testify that he took that print from the gun. If he wants to use the DNA evidence, he has to use the palm-print evidence.'

‘Exactly,' said Harry. ‘Otherwise, Castro would bury this latent-print report, like he's buried some of the statements we haven't seen yet. There's something here. Something important, but I can't see it yet.'

‘I'm not sure I follow, Harry.'

‘How is it possible that someone can leave their DNA behind in a palm print, but that same palm print doesn't match their palm. That's like me touching this desk,' and at this point Harry placed his hand on the desk. ‘So I leave behind my DNA, which is extracted from the print tape, but I don't leave behind my actual palm print? That's not possible. Something doesn't make sense here.'

‘It makes sense if there's not enough of the palm print to analyze for comparison purposes,' said Kate.

‘You mean, it makes sense if we believe Castro,' I said.

‘There's something in this,' said Bloch.

Kate said, ‘Maybe, but right now Castro has a rational explanation, and we don't. That means we don't have shit to throw. Keep thinking, Harry. But try to find a way to get the statements that he hasn't yet given us. I bet the cops interviewed Todd Ellis and Brett Bale. It was the talk of the neighborhood that they were involved with the victim. I've filed a discovery motion, but Castro can kick that can down the road for months.'

Harry looked at me, said, ‘Eddie, have you had enough coffee yet?'

I nodded, said, ‘I have a plan to get those interviews of Ellis and Bale too. It's not perfect, but it should work. Harry, go talk to some of your brother judges.'

‘They're not my brothers any longer. I'm retired, remember?'

‘You still have some friends in there. Are any of them trustworthy? I mean, could they keep a secret?'

‘Maybe one or two. The rest are just like other lawyers – gossips.'

‘Great, go talk to the gossips. The looser their tongues are, the better. Tell them John Jackson is starting to crack. He can't handle the thought of a public trial and against all our advice he wants to plead the case down to manslaughter, or murder two. We know he's innocent, but he wants to plead anyway. Ask for their guidance. Tell them you're struggling with this – it's a moral and ethical weight on your mind. Plus, you want to make sure your ass is covered in case he changes his mind once he's spent a year in Sing Sing, and then decides to sue his lawyers.'

Harry looked at me quizzically.

‘Kate, you go see Castro. Tell him we're not impressed by him scorching the earth for decent ballistic expert witnesses and we're going to need time to find one. Tell him we want to put this trial on the back burner for as long as possible. Tell him we're investigating possible romantic links between two alternative suspects and the victim. Don't ask him to put the trial off as a favor. I want you to basically beg him for as much time as he can give us.'

‘Why me?' asked Kate.

‘Because you're a straight shooter and he doesn't trust me.'

‘Hang on a second,' said Kate. ‘Al Parish thinks we need to get this case on as soon as possible. How does this help? Isn't that the opposite of what our client wants?'

‘Exactly,' I said. ‘Castro will hear the rumors from the judges that our client can't face a trial and is thinking of making a deal. If you convince him we want to delay, that matches up with the rumors Harry has spread around. Castro will move heaven and earth to screw up our defense and get this case to trial quickly in order to put as much pressure as possible on Jackson, in the hope it forces him into taking a plea. I'd bet my life Ellis and Bale told the cops they were at the party all night, and at the time of the murder they had nothing to do with Margaret Blakemore. Those statements, on the face of it, blow our alternative-suspect theory out of the water. We'll get a trial date within six to eight weeks and those statements within twenty-four hours.'

‘Six weeks? We're not going to be ready for trial in six months ,' said Harry.

‘We'll be prepared. We're not going to get a decent ballistics expert even if we waited two years. So it doesn't matter. Castro will cut corners too. That gives us a fighting chance. Let's do it. Bloch, you're with me.'

‘Where are we going?' she asked.

‘The DA has the murder weapon in our client's house. Our client's DNA on the gun. He has all the evidence in the world apart from one thing. He doesn't have a story to tell the jury. There's no motive for John Jackson to murder Margaret Blakemore. We're going to go find the real story behind this case.'