“Twice. Although either one would have been plenty.”
Hardy saw the effect this small sentence had on the jury, as a couple of the members actually flinched, imagining the moment.
“And again,” Stier went on, “you said the blows were struck by a bladed object. Can you explain what you mean by that?”
Over the next ten minutes Stier and Strout nailed down all the details of the attack on Levon Preslee-the damage done and use of the dull edge of the cleaver, the attack from directly behind the unsuspecting and probably stoned victim. No surprise, Preslee’s blood tested positive for THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. Overall, Hardy thought, the effect of the testimony painted a coherent scenario of two apparent friends sharing a doob and then one of them going behind the other and launching a premeditated, grisly, and murderous attack.
That is in fact what had happened, and Hardy couldn’t think of a spin in the world that would do any good for his client. He also knew that there was no way he could control Strout, or stop him from delivering those little asides that had such a visceral impact on the jury. So he passed the witness.
Glitsky sat on the corner of Bracco’s desk in the large room that the homicide detail worked out of. Darrel himself was in his normal chair at his desk, while his partner, Debra Schiff, was three flights downstairs delivering her testimony in the trial of Maya Townshend.
“It’ll bite you,” Glitsky said.
“I don’t care. I’m doing it.”
“I don’t see what it’ll get you.”
“Peace of mind. Very important for job satisfaction.”
Glitsky sighed. “What’s the exact wording you’re going with?”
Bracco looked down at the TR-26.5, the department form that cops were supposed to fill out to explain away their parking tickets. Under Alternative Parking Considered but Not Utilized, he read aloud what he’d written: “Leave car on mayor’s lawn with siren on and lights flashing. Walk three miles to crime scene.”
“They’ll flay you.”
“Oh, well.” Bracco sat back. “No guts, no glory. Maybe they’ll realize the absurdity of all of this.”
“Sure,” Glitsky said. “That’ll probably happen. But meanwhile, why are you even here?”
“As opposed to?”
“Downstairs. I thought you guys were testifying on Townshend today.”
“Schiff. Stier wanted her first.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. DA strategy. Maybe she’s a better witness.”
“In what way?”
“I don’t know, Abe. More passionate, maybe.”
The corner of Glitsky’s mouth turned up. “With Jerry Glass, you mean?”
“Maybe a little of that.” Bracco stood up and stretched, now closer to eye-to-eye with his lieutenant. “She’s probably more convincing than I’d be anyway. I don’t blame Stier putting her on. I would too.”
“And not you?”
“As I said, maybe later. But maybe not at all.” He hesitated, then shrugged. “Either way, it doesn’t matter. She’ll do fine. She’s a true believer.”
“I hope you’re not telling me at this stage, after the trial’s started, that you don’t believe in the case you guys have built.”
“It’s not so much that…”
“That sounds like it’s still some part of it.”
Bracco’s eyes scanned the large room, over Glitsky’s shoulder, around behind them. Nobody else was around. It was safe to talk. “I don’t have any real doubt she did it, Abe. Maya, I mean. But from the time Debra went out and talked to Glass…” Hesitating, Bracco made a face.
“What?”
“You ever notice there’s this mind-set among certain law enforcement people-I mean we’ve all seen it a hundred times-I just haven’t had it run into one of my cases before. Where anybody who has money and knows a criminal, then that person’s a criminal too.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen that. In fact, I’ve thought it. You know why?”
“Because it’s true?”
“Maybe more than you’d think, Darrel.”
Bracco rolled his shoulders. “But not always, huh?”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying what I started with. That Debra’s probably a better witness. Hardy might be able to eat me up on cross, whereas he won’t touch Debra, who buys everything Jerry Glass is selling. So does Stier.”
“And you don’t?”
Another pause. Then, in a more quiet register, “I don’t want to rat my partner, Abe. She got the collar.”
“I thought you both got the collar.”
“If you get technical, okay.”
“I don’t care about technical. Was there something wrong with the arrest?”
“No. I was there. It was righteous enough. I just… if it was me, I think I would have waited a little, that’s all. Maybe go to a DA and see if he’d fly it for the grand jury. But Debra just got the news about the fingerprint ID on the doorknob and stepped in.”
Glitsky had seen this before too. A relatively inexperienced cop would sometimes arrest a suspect before he or she had built a solid case based on the evidence. Occasionally, this was warranted, as when the suspect was a danger to witnesses or an immediate flight risk and had to be detained until someone could check more facts. Or when someone flat out confessed.
But more often, the best case protocol was as Bracco suggested-build the case and present it to the district attorney, who then-if the evidence was compelling-would get a warrant or get it in front of the grand jury. The alternative was that an inspector could simply go and make the arrest. And only then would the DA’s office review the case to see if it would be charged.
“So what happened on this one?” Glitsky asked.
“I didn’t think it was enough at the time,” Darrel said, “and Debra and I had words about it, but what could we do? It was a done deal. And then, hey, of course Maya gets held to answer at the prelim, right? So we got it. It was going to trial. We had other cases. I stopped thinking about it.”
“But you’ve still got questions?”
“Not really questions, no.” Bracco shook his head. “And not really about whether Maya’s guilty. I mean, who else? And with her motive and connections to both these guys? Just that she knew both of them, they were squeezing her. She’s a liar. It just totally works.”
“But?”
“But I think we could have built Stier a better case. Now it’s all this other stuff with the forfeitures and political heat. So Maya’s a rich person who knows criminals, therefore she’s a criminal, and if she’s a criminal, then she probably did these guys. I just don’t want to have to hold all that together on the stand, that’s all, when I don’t think we’ve got the evidence to back it up. Debra’ll be way better at it.”
That same morning in Chinatown the mood was strained at The Hunt Club.
Tamara Dade sat red-eyed at her computer, unspeaking, unsmiling. Wyatt Hunt had stopped by one of the local bakeries on the way in and had brought a bag of hot, fresh-from-the-oven cha sui bao, the delicious pork-filled buns that were a rare treat and Tamara’s favorite food on earth, and she told him she wasn’t hungry.
After twenty minutes back in his office Hunt stood and opened the door back to the reception area. “Tam,” he said gently, “have you heard from Craig?”
She half turned to face him. “He called in sick.”
“Sick?” This was decidedly unusual. Sickness wasn’t really an acceptable part of the culture of Hunt’s business. “What’s he got? Tam? Hey. Are you okay?”
Clearly, she wasn’t. After the merest glance at her boss, and again without a word or a look back, she rose from her chair and walked out the main door. This led both down to Grant Street outside and to the bathroom, and Hunt wasn’t at all sure whether she’d be back until he realized she hadn’t taken her purse.
So leaving the door between reception and his office open in case she wanted to come in and talk to him, he went back to his desk, picked up his telephone, and punched some numbers.
“Hey, Wes.”
“Hey yourself.”