Page 88 of The Accomplice
Time to gather the threads into a ball. I felt sorry for Mrs. Broder, but Kate’s life was on the line. I had to have hope. That meant I couldn’t hold back.
‘Mrs. Broder, that night, from a well-lit apartment, through leaves and foliage, you briefly saw a couple on the other side of a dark street seventy feet away. And when you saw the picture of Carrie and Daniel Miller in the newspaper or on TV weeks later you knew Daniel Miller had been identified as the man who committed the Nielsen murders, and you put two and two together, made five, and told the police you saw the Millers that night on the street, isn’t that what really happened here ?’
She stammered, stopped, took a breath, said, ‘I don’t agree with that.’
I didn’t give her the chance to elaborate. And White wouldn’t do that either. If he got into specifics, it might get worse. You never ask a question you don’t know the answer to, so he stood, said, ‘Your Honor, no re-exam. There is, however, a deeply troubling matter that I need to address right now.’
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
EDDIE
‘Your Honor,’ began White, ‘two of the prosecution’s eyewitnesses were murdered just days ago. I’m sure this has not escaped the notice of the court.’
‘Your Honor, shouldn’t we have the jury out for this ?’ I asked, before White got as far as prejudicing the twelve souls on my left.
Putting his elbows on the desk, Stoker clasped his hands together and said, ‘I’m not sure what Mr. White is asking me to do. Maybe it would be safer to send the jury home for the day. It’s just after four.’
White said, ‘We would like the jury to read the depositions from those deceased witnesses.’
And there it was. Technically, he hadn’t prejudiced the jury because he gave no hint as to what was in those depositions, but the jury would sure leave thinking the Sandman had removed two key witnesses from his wife’s prosecution. That can’t be good. I had at least got Denise to do my prep for me, and I had no choice now but play my hand.
‘Your Honor, we would object to that course of action. Chester Morris, one of those alleged eyewitnesses, has had an assault and battery arrest on his record for a year now with no sign of a prosecution. In other words, he made a deal to save his license as a doorman in exchange for testifying in this case. Teresa Vasquez had agreed to testify on the condition her mother got a green card and fast-tracked through US citizenship. A representative from my office spoke to Mrs. Vasquez’s mother just today. We can no longer cross-examine these witnesses on those points, so we would object strongly to their depositions being considered by this jury.’
As much of a creep as Stoker clearly was, he was a smart creep. As far as these witnesses went, I was pretty sure they had been lying.
‘You heard Mr. Flynn. I’m afraid that’s a perfectly valid point. We will adjourn ’til nine a.m. tomorrow morning. Have your next witness ready by then, Mr. White.’
The jury got up and were escorted back into their room to get their coats and bags. Stoker rose, and we all stood. Battle was over for the day.
Harry leaned over to me, said, ‘You did well.’
I shook my head. ‘Maybe one or two jurors will think Mrs. Broder is shaky. Maybe not. What do you think ?’
Harry started packing up his pad and pens into a leather satchel, pretending like he didn’t hear me.
‘Harry, what do you think ?’
‘You raised doubt. That’s all you can do.’
I moved in real close, making sure no one else could hear us.
‘I’ll tell you what I think, Harry. We have to win this case for Kate. And I’ll do everything to make sure that happens. But on the flip side of this, we have a client on the run, a victim’s blood on our client’s shirt. Maybe Chester Morris and Teresa Vasquez were playing the DA to get what they want. Maybe they saw something, but I don’t buy it. Mrs. Broder … well, I scored some points, but goddamn it, Harry, that woman is telling the truth. Daniel and Carrie Miller were outside the Nielsens’ the night that family was murdered.’
He froze, his hand still in his satchel. Eyes closed.
‘I know. I believed Carrie too. Now, like you, I’m not so sure. We don’t have the full picture from our client, I know that. But we also don’t have a choice. We’ve got to win this thing, for Kate.’
‘There were two little kids in that house …’ I said, but I couldn’t finish my thought. I didn’t want to. Some truths are too hard to face.
‘So what are you suggesting ? We drop out of the case ? Leave Kate to the Sandman, if she isn’t dead already ?’
‘No, of course not, but that doesn’t mean I’m blind to this. Carrie is hiding something or carrying some kind of guilt. You could see it on her. Maybe she didn’t actively participate in the murders, but she knew. I’m sure sheknew. That’s the only thing that makes sense.’
I wanted to say more, but I saw White headed over to us with a big brown envelope in his hand.
‘As ordered,’ he said. ‘These are the phone records from the tap. None of the information we gleaned from this tap will be used in these criminal proceedings.’
I took the envelope, broke the seal and pulled out half a dozen or so pages of phone records. Calls, numbers, times, call duration – all set out in columns. There were separate bound pages for my phone, Bloch’s, Kate’s and Harry’s. These were only a page long. They sure got onto us fast, but of course they wouldn’t have found anything useful. In fact, I was pretty sure these records would help us.
