Jury of One (51 page)

Shelly went to the defense table and handed out copies of the police dispatch, which had been entered into evidence. Then she walked over to the tape recorder, which had been queued up.

“This was the call from Miroballi’s radio at 7:47
P.M.
,” she said. She hit the “Play” button and the voice echoed throughout the room:

“The next transcript, from Sanchez in the patrol car—Squad 13—came at 7:48
P.M.
”

“This final transcript, from ‘Radio 26,’ was Officer Sanchez’s handheld. This call came two minutes later—7:50
P.M.
”

Shelly pointed at the recorder. “According to my client and Ronnie, the shooting happened just after Miroballi called in that the suspect was armed. Not two minutes later. But even if you don’t believe Alex—let’s think about this. Sanchez must have heard the gunshot when he was in the car, right? But he didn’t report shots being fired. He didn’t say a word to dispatch. He didn’t say a thing until he saw
who
had been shot. That’s not only contrary to department policy, but it tells us that Sanchez was leaving the show to his partner. He assumed that
Miroballi
had fired the shot, so he wasn’t going to call in ‘shots fired.’ He was going to let his partner do it.”

She looked at the jury. “When he heard the shot, he assumed it was his partner who had done the shooting. He sat there and did nothing. Then, as even Monica Stoddard told you, Sanchez ‘jogged’ down to the scene. He wasn’t in a hurry. Why not? Your partner is involved in a shoot-out, and you don’t call it in? You don’t sprint to the scene? Not if you know that your partner is planning to rub someone out. No, in that case, you hang back, like Sanchez did. You wait for your
partner
to call in that he shot a suspect. You let your partner take care of everything. He doesn’t want your help, and you don’t want to know. You just stay out of his way.”

Shelly shrugged. “Maybe we should give Sanchez the benefit of the doubt. He didn’t know Alex. He admitted that. He didn’t know Alex. Maybe he assumed Alex was a bad guy. Maybe he thought this was some kind of rough street justice. I’m not a cop and I don’t live in their world. What matters, though, is that Sanchez’s deliberate unwillingness to involve himself in this confrontation proves my point even more. This whole thing was a setup. Miroballi finds the guy he wants to eliminate, and just before he does so—just when he has his target pinned down, helpless and injured in a dark alley—he calls in, ‘Suspect is armed.’”

She flapped her arms. “Sure. Of course. Suspect is armed, so when I shoot him, I can claim self-defense. But what does Miroballi need to make this happen? He needs a second, unregistered firearm. He needs a couple of packets of cocaine. Nothing that would be hard for a cop to get hold of.” She wagged a finger. “That gun that we have seen in this case wasn’t fired, but it was going to be fired. It was going to be fired right after Ray Miroballi killed Alex. He was going to kill Alex, then put a gun in his dead hand and fire it into the wall. Then Miroballi has an airtight justification for killing Alex. He was chasing a perp who was carrying drugs. The perp fired at him. He fired back and killed him. All of this happening in a deserted downtown on a very cold and dark February evening. And if it hadn’t been for Ronnie Masters tossing a bottle to distract him, his plan probably would have worked.”

She flipped her hand. “Let’s go back to Sanchez now. We know he heard a gunshot and did nothing. We know he eventually ‘jogged down’ to the alley. Then, of course, he saw something he never expected to see. He saw his partner lying dead. So then he calls it in. But what about this unregistered firearm sticking out of Ray Miroballi’s belt, or tucked in his jacket, or wherever it was? And what about these packets of cocaine Miroballi brought along to plant?”

She shook her head. “No. No good. Those can’t be found on Miroballi. That wouldn’t just make Miroballi look bad. It would make
Sanchez
look bad. So he tosses them in the general direction of where Alex ran. He tosses the gun. He tosses the cocaine. That story, at least, could sell. Then he waits for the cavalry to arrive.”

She looked at the prosecution. “Mr. Morphew has a rebuttal. He gets the last chance to talk to you. Let’s hear what evidence he has to prove I’m wrong. Because he has no evidence that puts that second gun in Alex’s hand, or Ronnie’s hand. He has absolutely, positively no explanation for that second gun—or for that matter, for the cocaine. What—we’re supposed to believe what Ray Miroballi said? Sanchez didn’t see any cocaine. He knew what his partner was doing. This whole thing was a setup, I’ll say it again, and we know why. Ray Miroballi was undeniably guilty of sex with a minor—a simple DNA test of Ronnie,
Miroballi, and—well, me, would prove that. And he knew that. This is a man who would lose his job, and maybe his wife, and be on the hook for child support. He couldn’t have any of that. Easier just to kill the boy who you think is your son. Kill the boy and get on with your life. And since you’re a cop, it’s easy enough to set the whole thing up.”

She looked down and lowered her volume. “The reason we’re still here—the reason this case is still going on—is that the person who died was a police officer.”

She was referring to the prosecution as well as the judge, who in Shelly’s estimation should have directed a verdict of not guilty after the state closed its case. Judge Dominici lacked the fortitude to make the tough call, and so did Elliot Raycroft.

“But this case has nothing to do with cops. This isn’t about sending a message to police, one way or the other. This is about a man looking to commit a cold-blooded, premeditated execution who happened to wear a blue uniform. And since no one else has the courage to do the right thing, I’m asking you to do it.” She looked at the jurors’ faces. “All of you know that Alex acted in self-defense. But you don’t even have to go that far. All you have to find is that the prosecution has not proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Alex
didn’t
act in self-defense. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is an easy call.”

She walked over to Alex and put her hands on his shoulders. “One man already tried to take away Alex’s life. I’m asking you to give him his life back.”

P
AUL RILEY PUSHED
the remaining half of his dinner away. “Well, Shelly Trotter, I have to tell you that I’ve seen quite a few cases in my time, and heard lots of interesting stories about people’s lives, but—”

“I’m topping the charts.”

“Hey.” He shrugged. “All’s well that ends well.”

It had ended rather well, she would have to say. The jury had returned a verdict of not guilty by reason of self-defense after four hours of deliberations. Alex had slept in his own home for the last two nights. His legal problems were over. He had already pleaded out his drug case with the U.S. Attorney, and now his murder charge was beaten. There was always the possibility that the county attorney would charge him for extorting Ray Miroballi, but there would be no way to make that case. Alex hadn’t admitted to that on the stand. He had testified, when pressed by Dan Morphew, that he had never asked Ray Miroballi for money, and there was no one alive to refute it. And she was relatively sure that the county attorney would never have the appetite to prosecute Alex for that, anyway.

Ronnie Masters had not been entirely forthright in his plea agreement with the county attorney. It was debatable whether he had lied about a material fact, which is what would be required to tear up the plea agreement, but at a minimum he had omitted some important facts, which would be grounds itself. In the end, however, all legal technicalities aside, Ronnie had simply
helped Alex after the fact in a crime for which Alex had been acquitted. And the county attorney had suffered some embarrassment. Elliot Raycroft had informed Shelly yesterday that he considered the matter closed with regard to Ronnie.

Did her father have a hand in that? She had to concede the probability. This was different from dropping the charges in the middle of a cop-killing trial. This was a fairly technical application of the law concerning a broken plea agreement, which was not particularly interesting fodder for the press. The media had been far more fascinated with the facts that Ronnie disclosed on the stand than in whether he had technically played loose with the county attorney. This gave plenty of leeway for Raycroft’s office, and for whatever reason—a political favor, the desire to put the entire affair behind them, or the feeling that the interests of justice did not require charging Ronnie—Raycroft was taking a pass.

“I can’t thank you enough for everything you did, Paul. Your advice. Your firm’s financial support. You have been wonderful.”

He responded in typical fashion, deferring the praise. She saw something more, too. Paul was trying to read between the lines. This, she knew he was thinking, sounded an awful lot like goodbye.

He clapped his hands together. “So what are your plans now?”

She hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I was thinking about going back to the law school.”

“Mm-hmm. That’s where your heart is, I suppose. You could stay with us. Run our pro bono program full-time. Christ knows, we need someone to do it.”

She smiled at him. “That’s very kind of you—”

“Make three times the money and do a lot of the same stuff.”

She looked down. “I think you hit on it. The school is where my heart is.”

That, she was sure, was something Paul Riley could understand. The law was his passion, too, even if it took a different form. She missed that place dearly, she now realized. She missed Rena, the students, their fresh idealism and commitment.

Paul was watching her. There was a sense of loss about him. She imagined that Paul Riley rarely felt vulnerable.

Oh, he really was such a wonderful guy. Beneath that polished exterior were a compassion and tenderness that he had willingly allowed her to see. She had kept him at arm’s length and he had accepted it; he had been patient with her. It was just—just—

Not now.

She had so much time to make up with so many members of her family. She would be thrown into the fire when she returned to the law school. “Paul,” she began, keeping her eyes down, “I want you to know—”

She felt his hand on her wrist. He looked at her with an intensity she had never seen from him.

“Let me in,” he said. “For Christ’s sake,
let me in.
”

She looked up at him sheepishly.

He shook her wrist. “Or tell me you have no feelings for me. That—that I could accept. But this.
This
I can’t accept.”

“What is the ‘this’ you’re referring to?”

“This whole act of yours. This whole thing about keeping everyone at bay. Would you just take your goddamn foot off the brake?”

She put a hand on her chest in defense. “My foot’s on the brake?”

“Hey.” He softened his grip on her wrist. “Look. I see things about you that I didn’t before. You went through some terrible stuff. You experienced some real trauma. You separated from your family. But look at you. Look at what you’ve accomplished, in spite of all that. You’re a talented, beautiful, compassionate, courageous person. You can have so much if you would just come out of that damn shell—”

“I get it, Paul.” She withdrew her wrist from his grasp. “Fear of commitment, I get it.”

“I’m in love with you, Shelly. Don’t ask me why or how, the way you’ve been stiff-arming me. But I am.” He drew his hands back and forth between them. “See what I’m doing here, Counselor? I’m putting myself out there. I’m opening up. I’m taking a chance.” He looked up, held open his palms. “And I don’t see the sky crashing down.”

She realized that her mouth had fallen open. “Well.”

Paul trained a hand in the air. “I—look. I certainly don’t expect
you to return the compliment, Shelly. I’m just saying, Think about it. Just think about what I said and maybe—get back to me. Okay?” He signaled for the check.

The waiter arrived shortly. They knew each other and chatted briefly. The waiter made a joke about his wife and walked away. Paul smiled and watched the waiter leave, probably because he didn’t want to return his focus to the table. “Anyway,” he said. “Enough of the serious talk. I’m sorry, it just sort of came out. This was supposed to be a celebr—”

“I’m a vegetarian,” she said to him.

He didn’t catch her point. “I know that.”

“Yeah, but I don’t even really like seeing other people eat meat.”

He watched her a moment, then chuckled. “I can’t swim.”

“I have a scar like you wouldn’t believe from the Caesarian.”

He pursed his lips. “I don’t like olives on pizza or anything else, but I love them in martinis.”

“I think I snore.”

“How would you know?”

She smiled. “I woke
myself
up once.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I don’t like being judged for liking meat.”

“I have a teenaged son whom I plan to spend a lot of time with.”

“I have a legal practice that is rather demanding as well.”

The waiter arrived, cracked another joke with Paul. He signed the receipt and handed it back with a remark of his own. Somehow, Paul seemed to know that this young man was putting himself through college. He looked back at Shelly with a measure of expectation.

“You really can’t swim?” she asked.

“Just flop around in the water like a drowned kitten.”