Authors: John Nicholas Iannuzzi
“I don't.” He looked at Sandro and Mike. His eyes spoke things he did not say; he wouldn't remember even if he could. He eyed them with distrust.
“It's very important. A man's life may be at stake, and if you remember, it's most important that you tell us,” Sandro urged.
“I know, but I can't help you. I don't remember that guy. I never saw him before.”
“Were you working that day?” Mike asked in Spanish.
“What day was that?” he asked. Someone walked into the store. “Excuse me,” the salesman said, with evident relief. The new customer was a soldier who had a date that evening and was looking for accessories for his mufti. He wanted a gray shirt and gray socks to match. The young man took some boxes from the back. As he passed Sandro and Mike, he stopped.
“I'm very busy. I was working that day, but I still don't remember that guy. If I did, I'd tell you. You can be sure of that.” He started to move away.
“Who else was working that day? Someone shorter than yourself?” Sandro asked.
“My uncle. But he's not here now.”
“When will he be here?”
“I don't know,” he called from across the store as he unboxed socks to match the gray shirt the soldier was admiring. “He's in Puerto Rico now.”
Mike looked at Sandro. “Son of a bitch,” he whispered.
“Okay, thanks anyway,” Sandro said curtly. “If you happen to recall, or if you hear from your uncle, will you get in touch with me?” Sandro handed the young man a card.
“Sure, sure.”
Mike and Sandro walked back to the car.
“I'll bet that bastard knows,” said Mike.
“I happen to agree with you. But there's nothing we can do about it. He says he doesn't remember. We haven't got a grand jury to summon him to, nor a subpoena to require him to talk under oath like the district attorney has. We're stuck with it.” Sandro got into the car and slammed the door shut.
CHAPTER XXX
The motion-picture image moving across the screen in Sandro's office was climbing back up the fire escape. It disappeared onto the roof of the tenement.
“Let's watch the entire sequence again,” said Sandro, reversing the film. Mike was sitting on the couch. Sandro started the film again. On the screen the image of Shorts started to move from the roof of 153 Stanton Street onto the fire-escape platform, descending from right to left. At the bottom of the steps, the figure on the screen turned away from the camera and toward the building, then walked sideways along the platform to the window of Apartment 5B.
Sandro clicked the stopwatch in his hand. “It took four seconds from the time Shorts stepped from the roof until he reached the bottom of the steps,” Sandro announced. “Then he turned toward the buildingâhis back to the yardsâin order to walk on the fire escape, behind the steps. He bent to open the window.”
“I could only see his face as he walked down the steps,” said Mike. “For four seconds.”
“Right. And on the way down, he turned away from the camera. On the way up, he turned toward it,” said Sandro.
“All together, then,” Mike paused, adding, “his face was visible for about ten seconds.”
“No.” Sandro shook his head.
“What do you mean no? We just counted it.”
Sandro again reversed the film. “Watch.” Once again Shorts started from the roof onto the platform. Sandro stopped the film. “See how his face is obscured by the handrail?”
“Hey, you're right,” said Mike. “I didn't even notice those bars across the face before.”
“Okay,” Sandro smiled. “Now pay attention. As Shorts went up and down the steps, his face was visible
only
in profile.”
“Right,” Mike said.
“Behind the steps, of course,” Sandro pointed out, “he couldn't be seen at all.”
“Then, actually, there's only about two seconds when the guy could have been seen full face. At the bottom of the stairs and partially at the top.”
“Exactly,” Sandro agreed.
The intercom buzzed. Sandro turned on the lights and picked up the phone.
“Mr. Bemer is here,” Elizabeth announced.
“Send him right in.”
Sam came in and shook hands with Mike, then turned to Sandro.
“What brings you here, Sam?” Sandro asked.
“I just saw Ellis in court. He said he's ready, wants to start the Huntley hearing and then the picking of the Alvarado jury the beginning of next week.”
“What's a Huntley hearing?” Mike asked.
“That's where the judge hears evidence about the confessions they're supposed to have,” Sam replied. “If Ellis can prove they were voluntary, they'll be admitted into evidence for the trial.”
“What about that severance?” Sandro asked. “We don't even know whether we can have a trial separate from Hernandez.”
“That's why I'm here. Ellis told me the decision against us is in the mail this morning. I called my office, and it wasn't there. So I came here.”
“I didn't get it either.”
“It just came in the second mail. I asked your girl, and she said she just got it.” Sam handed Sandro an envelope.
Sandro slit it open. It contained the court order denying their motion.
“So now there's nothing to stop us from starting a full trial next week,” said Sam. “Are we ready?”
“You tell me, Sam. Mike and I were just looking at some films we took in the rear yard. Let's finish them, and then we can talk it over.”
Sandro turned off the light and turned on the projector. Once again, Shorts stepped from the roof onto the fire escape. Sandro went through the timing with Sam.
“Only problem with the film,” said Sandro, turning the light on again, “is that the famous Italian woman isn't going to testify. After we shot this, Mike got a statement from her saying that she can't identify the man on the fire escape.”
“Maybe we can enter it in the New York Film Festival as neorealism,” Mike suggested.
“We may need it anyway,” said Sam, nodding, puffing his cigar. “Keep it.”
“What for?” Sandro asked.
“Right now, nothing. But when you investigate a case like this, just gather as much information as possible, and store it away like a squirrel stores nuts for the winter. You never know what the D.A. is going to turn up, and you may have saved just what you need for counterattack. For instance, Ellis's got to have a case here. I'm sure I've said it before, he may not be fireworks or fancy footwork, but if you step into his bear trap, brother, you'll never walk again. And neither will Alvarado.”
“What do you figure he has, Sam?” asked Mike.
“We won't find out until the trial. That's why you should follow every lead, even if it leads to a blind alley. You never know when that blind alley opens up.”
“As for any other possible eyewitnesses,” said Sandro, “they can only come from the rear yard.”
“What about the front of the building, the roof?” asked Sam.
“The roof can't be seen from the buildings across the street in front. On one side of it is a blank brick wall. And the killer ran over the other side to escape. I'm sure nobody was standing there.”
“He'd be dead meat,” Sam said. “The interior should be no problem. Being inside a building isn't a crime, unless someone can connect you directly to the shooting. And if the D.A. has someone who can connect you directly to the shooting, why worry about someone who just saw you in the building?”
“Right, Sam. That's why we only have to worry about the rear. Now here's something else. We've been talking about getting large still photographs of guys who look like Alvarado. I was thinking we could use them in the back of the courtroom to test a witness's powers of observation. What do you think?”
Sam was just chomping off a straggly end of his cigar. He lifted it off his tongue with the tip of an index finger.
“Dangerous,” he said, putting the strand of tobacco in the ashtray.
“How are they dangerous?”
“Identifying this guy through the dirty windows, the fire escape, across the yard, in the rain, all that, sounds impossible. Anybody who testifies to a positive identification through all that, the jury'll look a little funny at them. Now, supposing you put up these pictures in the back of the court. And the witness can't really tell Alvarado from a hole in the wall. But he has to point out one of the pictures. He can't just sit there. So he points, like he's aiming a dart at a telephone book. And he points at the right one. By mistake. At that point, Alvarado's dead. If the witness just happens, just happens, to be right, you've helped buttress his original identification. Why take the chance?”
“No contest, Sam,” Sandro agreed. “You're right.”
“The only thing the D.A. seems to have,” Mike said, “are those confessions.”
“Do you think we can knock them out at the Huntley hearing, Sam?”
“All we can do is play them by ear,” said Sam. “The confessions rise or fall on the cross-examination.”
“But Alvarado says he was beaten,” said Mike.
“Okay, we have a shot with the medical stuff when we put it together. But don't kid yourself, when a cop testifies you confessed, that's real trouble, whether you did or not.”
“If a guy didn't actually confess, what the hell difference does it make what a cop says?” asked Mike.
“All the difference in the world.” Sam paused to puff at his cigar. “The cop says he heard the defendant confess. The defendant says he didn't. Now, who's the jury going to believe?”
“The cop, I guess.” Mike nodded reluctantly.
“You bet your ass,” Sam assured him. “It's hard to prove someone didn't hear something. Hearing can't be measured, weighed. I say I heard something. How can you say I didn't?”
Mike didn't seem to like that.
“Jurors are just ordinary people,” Sam continued. “They hear a cop say one thing, the defendant say another. And if they have to decide, they'll go for the cop every time. Thank God, most cops have some decency in them.”
“Yeah,” Mike scoffed.
“More important are our alibi witnesses, Sandro. Will they stand up?”
“They'll hold up, Sam. We'll prepare them to stand up to the juggernaut,” said Sandro. “I just hope we can get them all to court.”
“And when they do get there, we have to hope they don't get slaughtered by Ellis,” added Sam. “Let's go through the alibi, Sandro.”
“Okay. First we have Annie Mae Cooper. She says Alvarado was in the Associated Five & Ten about, say, one fifteen, one twenty, the afternoon of July third.”
“Okay,” acknowledged Sam.
“The assistant manager of the store, Phil Gruberger, supports her story. He remembers okaying her changing the hundred-dollar bill, and he remembers her coming to talk to him the day after July fourth and showing him Alvarado's picture in the paper.”
“Then what?” asked Sam.
“After he left the store, Alvarado bought a belt. But the guy in the store won't help us. We should be okay without him though.”
“Next,” said Sam.
“Next, we have Pablo Torres from the Velez Restaurant who says Alvarado ate there. He says Alvarado came in about one forty-five, somewhere after the lunch crowd, and before two. Alvarado took about twenty minutes to eat.”
“That means he left about two ten, two fifteen, at the very latest,” Mike said.
“These people have to be sure about these times,” Sam said.
“We'll have them prepared. We'll go over it with them,” Sandro assured him.
“Okay. I'll rely on you for that.”
“You getting skeptical of me in your old age, Sam?”
“No,” Sam smiled. “I just want to remind you.”
“Okay. The last alibi witness is the barber, Francisco Moreno. He says Alvarado came into his shop about two twenty-five, two thirty. He gave him a haircut and trimmed his moustache. Alvarado left about two fifty.”
“I don't know how Ellis'll get around that if the witnesses stand up,” said Sam. He was nodding appreciatively.
“I wish there was some real evidence we could use to prove the haircut, bolster the barber's story,” said Sandro.
“Don't need it. I'd like to have motion pictures of Alvarado getting a haircut too,” said Sam, “but we can be satisfied with what we have. It's enough.”
“That's it,” exclaimed Mike, snapping his fingers. “We
can
get motion pictures. Everyone we talked to saw this thing on TV the next day. The TV stations have pictures of Alvarado a couple of hours after he was arrested.”
“He's right, Sam. What the hell have we been thinking about? We can subpoena the newsreel film from the TV stations.”
“Fabulous,” said Sam. He was smiling, shaking his head admiringly. “You fellows are really working on this. Of course, they might have tossed out that film by this time. Let's not get too carried away until we check it out. But even if they don't have them, we've still got a great case. Does that about wrap it up?”
“Sam,” Sandro began, “Mike has come up with a theory about the killing. Perhaps we can prove someone else actually shot the cop.”
“Let's hear,” said Sam, studying them both.
“Well, in our investigation we came up with all sorts of strange thingsâlike Mullaly trying to pump us for information.”
“You should be glad he did,” replied Sam. “I never heard of a D.A. getting so sucked in that he didn't move to have you reveal your alibi. That's the best thing we've got going for us.”
“Well, this guy Mullaly was, as Mike puts it, under every rock we turned over.”
“What's this theory,”asked Sam, “if Mullaly's been doing his job, and trying to screw us up? That isn't against the law, by the way.”
“We timed the routes of the two cops, Lauria and Snider, with a stopwatch,” said Sandro. “Mike ran their routes to the roof consecutively.”