Judy couldn’t know that after she left, Bennie spent a long time staring at the computer screen, unable to write a single word.
Chapter 7
The press thronged outside the Criminal Justice Center, spilling off the curb and onto Filbert Street, a colonial street wide enough to accommodate only a single horse and buggy, not reporters and their egos. Both blocked traffic, waiting for something to happen, chatting in the sunshine and blowing puffs of cigarette smoke into the clear air. Judy wondered what case they were feeding on this time.
“There she is!” a photographer with a light meter around his neck shouted, turning to Judy. “Ms. Carrier, just one shot!” “Over here, Ms. Carrier!”
Judy was surprised but didn’t break stride. She couldn’t, in Bennie’s too-big pumps. She hurried ahead, dragging her heels across the cobblestones, feeling like a kid dressing up as a lawyer, in case anybody missed the point. Her thoughts raced ahead. How did the press know about the case? Why did they care? They were all turning to her. Reporters flicked aside their cigarettes. Cameramen hoisted video cameras to their shoulders. Stringers surged toward her with notebooks in hand. She put her head down and wobbled through the crowd as it rushed to meet her.
“Ms. Carrier, is Bennie Rosato on this case for Tony Lucia?” “Ms. Carrier, is he guilty or innocent?” “Judy, is Mary DiNunzio gonna work with you on the case?” “Ms. Carrier, the Coluzzi family is already on record as saying your client’s the killer. Any comment?”
Judy plowed shakily ahead, taking a bead on the brass revolving door at the courthouse entrance. It wasn’t the worst thing to be swarmed by reporters. Bennie and Mary never liked it, but Judy had played coed rugby in her time. Reporters jostled her, but she jostled them back. Justice as contact sport. She got bumped in the arm by a TV camera but didn’t stop to flip the bird. It might not look professional on tape.
“Ms. Carrier, what do you think about the Commonwealth’s evidence?” “Will Mr. Lucia plead guilty?” “Do you think he’ll get bail?”
“No comment!” Judy shouted, hustling toward the entrance. Over the door the stained-glass mural caught the sunlight in vivid yellows, blues, and golds, but she didn’t pause to enjoy it as she usually did. She had a pigeon to defend, and from the research she had done, it was iffy whether he’d get bail. The case law was against it; her only hope was his age and record. The reporters bumped her around and shouted questions she wouldn’t answer, to the amusement of a blue sea of cops in summer uniforms, waiting by the door to be called to testify. A couple of civilians stood nearest the door with them, and Judy had almost tottered to the threshold when she felt a strong hand on her arm and looked over in irritation.
“No comment,” she said, but the man with the grip on her arm didn’t look like a reporter. He was middle-aged and heavyset, with greased hair and a polyester polo shirt. His eyes were brown slits and his expression looked distinctly unfriendly to Judy. “Let go of my arm,” she said, wrenching it free.
“Just wanted to say hello to you, Miss Carrier.” He smiled for the cameras. Judy heard the whining of motor drives and the whirring of videotape recording the moment. “My name’s John Coluzzi. My father was Angelo Coluzzi. You heard of him. He was murdered by your client.”
Judy flushed. There was nothing she could say. It was all true. Her face felt aflame.
“He broke my father’s neck, Miss Carrier. Snapped it like it was one of his birds.”
Judy’s mouth went dry. Was that how Pigeon Tony had done it? It seemed inconceivable.
“I come down here to see what kind of piece-of-shit lawyer you were. You oughta be ashamed of yourself,” Coluzzi said, almost spitting in fresh sorrow, and Judy fumbled for words she felt compelled to say, because the cameras were watching them. Her client’s life was at stake, and this tape could be Film at 11.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Coluzzi,” she said, and broke away, hurrying for the entrance to the courthouse. Not knowing who was the bad guy, Angelo Coluzzi or Pigeon Tony.
And feeling suddenly that she was worse than both of them put together.
The arraignment courtroom in the basement of the Criminal Justice Center defied the TV stereotype of how a courtroom should look, ironically because it was a TV studio. Philadelphia, like most major American cities, had recently adopted arraignment by television, so that the arraignment courtroom had become a stage set, the same width but only half as long as the conventional courtroom. The bar of the court was separated from the gallery by a wall-to-wall span of soundproof glass, and hidden microphones carried the judge’s words to the gallery, though not vice versa.
The courtroom contained the typical judge’s dais and counsel tables, but a huge television near the dais dominated the room. The only program playing was The Defendant Show. Each defendant appeared in huge close-up on the monitor while the charges against him were read, and he got only three minutes of face time, less than the average bank of commercials. Defendants appeared one after the next, sometimes thirty in a row, and when they were finished, the bail commissioner could be heard to say, “Get off the screen.”
Judy, entering the slick courtroom set, shuddered at the sight. Not only was it bizarre, it was unconstitutional; if the defendant wanted to consult with his lawyer, he could do so only by a special telephone in the cell, and his guard would hear anything he said. Likewise, if she wanted to advise him, she could use the phone, but the entire courtroom—including the bail commissioner, her opponent the Commonwealth, and even the gallery— could hear everything she said. Judy thought it violated the right to counsel, but nobody was asking her or had the money to bring a test case against the procedure, which had gained nationwide acceptance in all its variations. The government had gotten away with it only because arraignments were considered a routine criminal procedure, but to Judy no procedure was routine if somebody lost his liberty.
She walked down the aisle, her ankles hurting and her feeling of unease intensifying. The gallery was oddly packed, with spectators sitting shoulder to shoulder, jammed together in light clothes. Why was everybody here? Could this really be for her case? And who had told the reporters to come? She flashed on John Coluzzi outside the courthouse and felt her own face grow hot. Then she thought of Bennie and what she’d said, If you don’t believe in him, Lucia doesn’t have a chance.
Judy shook it off as she caught Frank’s eye in the front row on the right. Turning only slightly in his seat, his jeans jacket replaced by a corduroy sport jacket, he smiled with the tension of the moment, his dark eyes obviously pained. In contrast, Mr. DiNunzio sat next to him in the front row with a group of older men, and when he spotted her, started pumping his hand with an enthusiasm usually reserved for the President of the United States. In a better mood Judy would have laughed.
She strode toward them, noticing that every head on the right turned toward her. At first she thought it was her brown pumps attracting the attention, until she realized that spectators on that side of the gallery—old men, women, young children, and family of all kinds—were gazing at her adoringly, as if she were a bride coming down an aisle. Evidently word had spread that she was defending Pigeon Tony, and the whole village had turned out. Luckily Judy reached the bar of the court before anybody burst into applause.
Mr. DiNunzio rose to his heavy orthopedic shoes and hugged her instantly, squeezing Frank’s head between them. “Judy, I’m so happy to see you. Thank you so much,” he said, though the words got trapped somewhere in Judy’s hair.
“That’s okay, Mr. DiNunzio. Everything is going be okay.” She was thinking just the opposite, but she said it reflexively, breathing in his smell of scented mothballs and fresh starch, and patting his back through the wool sweater he wore no matter what season. It was brown, as they all were, a lumpy cardigan that felt to Judy like a security blanket, even though he wasn’t even her father. Under it he had on a white shirt with a knotted tie and old-fashioned brown pants, and Judy had the sense that it was his church clothes. She gentled him back into the pew. “Just sit down and leave it to me. We’re on the case officially now.”