Redemption (15 page)

When we finished lunch and made our way back to the court, Rudge put Detective Hull on the stand. He covered all of what Annabelle had testified to, and then Rudge began to weave his net: “Did you have the lipstick on the fax paper analyzed, Detective Hull?”

“Yes, sir. I brought it to the forensics department at Manhattan South. They confirmed that it was Autumn.”

“I have here their report,” Rudge said, handing a sheet of paper to Hull. “Do you recognize it?”

“Yes, this is it.”

Rudge entered it as evidence, and then he asked Hull, “What was your next step in this investigation, Detective Hull?”

“The pistol, which as I said was lying on the sheet of fax paper. I picked it up, using a pencil, and gave it a cursory examination. I saw no fingerprints. Neither did the fingerprint man from Manhattan South, who arrived while we were still in the office. He wrapped the pistol in a plastic bag and took that and the fax paper to the forensics department at Manhattan South. Since this was late night—or early morning, to be exact—he said that they would study the fingerprints in the office the following day. Mr. Hopper's body was taken to pathology for autopsy.”

“Did you check the registration on the pistol?”

“Not that night. But the following day, Manhattan South reported that the pistol was registered to Professor Isaac Goldman, and that it had been purchased by him on the ninth of December in the year 1977. They also analyzed the lipstick on the fax paper and reported that it was Autumn, manufactured by Devlon. We ascertained that Mrs. Elizabeth Hopper, the divorced wife of William Sedgwick Hopper, had been residing at the same address as Professor Goldman, to whom the gun was registered. We—and when I say ‘we,' I include my partner in the investigation, Detective Joseph Flannery—well, we decided that at this point in time, we had sufficient evidence to obtain a search warrant, which we obtained from Judge Lyman Ferguson, at the Superior Court. We then went to the residence of Professor Goldman and made our search.”

He then went on to relate the details of the search and the arrest of Liz.

“After the arrest of Mrs. Hopper, did you question the other women who worked at the offices of Garson, Weeds and Anderson?”

“We questioned all of them.”

“How many women were involved in your investigation? I mean, how many women worked for Garson, Weeds and Anderson?”

“Twenty-two.”

“And did you question all of them?”

“Yes, we did. We discovered that only four of them had any more than the most casual contact with the deceased. We felt that all of them had proof of their movements that night.”

“Did you check out these proofs, as you call them?”

“We did, and we concluded that it would have been impossible for any of them to have been in the Omnibus Building that night at ten o'clock, which forensics had placed as the time of Mr. Hopper's death.”

“How did you determine that Mrs. Hopper was able to be at the Omnibus Building at ten o'clock on the evening of May twenty-fourth?”

Hull was proud of the methods of the New York Police Department. He told the jury how he and his partner, Detective Flannery, had timed the trip to Wall Street and back and then had canvassed my neighborhood drugstores to find out which one I patronized and had gotten my prescription for Temazepam.

“I have been assured,” Hull said, “that in a tablet of twenty milligrams, Temazepam promotes sound sleep. Such was the conclusion of Dr. Vinelli at the Manhattan South testing lab.”

Judge Kilpatrick looked at Sarah for an objection, but she shrugged. “I'm sure it does,” Sarah said.

“And what did you conclude from this?” Rudge asked.

Now Sarah objected, but mildly. “I am sure Mr. Rudge knows better than to ask a question that calls for a conclusion by asking in advance for a conclusion.”

Muted laughter from around the court and from Liz as well, who whispered to me, “She's ragging him, Ike. He's so angry!”

Liz was right. Rudge was a dominating, aggressive prosecutor, and Sarah was puncturing his ego. This kind of defender was new to him.

“Phrase your question another way,” the judge said.

“What did you do next?” Rudge asked, changing direction.

“Detective Flannery and me, we emptied the rubbish can that was just inside the back door. There we found a piece of paper, which was folded back and forth until it was large enough to prevent the back door from closing. It had dirt on the outside fold that matched the dirt on the door sill. This was the result of laboratory tests.”

Rudge then offered the folded piece of paper as testimony, and it was passed around for the jury to see.

“Is the paper exactly as you found it?” from Rudge.

“Oh, yes. We were exceptionally careful with it. You will notice the sharpness of the fold in the center of the final fold. That's where the door and the paper came together.”

Hull went on to expound on his theory: When I was sound asleep, Liz had slipped out of the apartment and had taken the elevator down to the basement. According to Hull, she had then fixed the basement door to reopen, using the folded sheet of paper he had presented as evidence. She had previously arranged with Hopper to meet her at the door to the Omnibus Building and thus admit her. She had used my gun, readily available to her, to kill Hopper, after forcing him to write the check. She had acted out of hatred and her need for revenge.

It did not come out exactly that way. Twice, Judge Kilpatrick called us up to the bench, disturbed by Sarah's unwillingness to object to this testimony; and three times he took upon himself the task of ordering the court recorder to expunge it.

“Needless to say, I am disturbed by your attitude,” he told Sarah. And to Rudge, “Certainly, you know better than to have a witness make your closing argument. I am willing to give you leeway, Mr. Rudge, but this is too much. You will confine your questions to what Detective Hull has knowledge of, not his speculations.”

Rudge stated his right to recall Detective Hull, and then Kilpatrick asked whether Sarah had cross-examination.

“Oh, but I do, Your Honor,” Sarah said. She rose, walked across to the jury box, nodded at the jurors, and then, turning halfway, asked Hull, “When you first entered the crime scene and looked at all the elements, you expressed the feeling that a man had killed Mr. Hopper. Did you not?”

“Well—” he hesitated. “I wouldn't say that.”

“What would you say, Detective?”

“One naturally thinks of the murderer as a man.”

“Oh, one does? Then how is it that I have defended so many battered women who killed their husbands?”

“I suppose it's different in Harlem. This is Wall Street.”

“According to the testimony of Officer Schwartz, she decided it was a woman, exercising, as she put it, her woman's intuition. Is that not so?”

“Yes.”

“So the murderer became a woman?”

“We felt that she had made a reasonable guess,” Hull said.

“You do a great deal of guessing, Detective Hull, do you not?”

“We try not to guess. We go after evidence.”

“How did you determine that the gun that killed Mr. Hopper was the same gun you found on the desk?”

“We sent the gun to Manhattan South. The bullet was taken from the corpse. Manhattan South matched them.”

“I see. Detective, you have heard the phrase ‘guns travel' used by the police. Would you please tell the jury what that phrase means?”

Hull glanced at Rudge, who nodded, and then Hull said, “It means that after a perpetrator uses a gun, he sells it to someone else or dumps it.”

“Now, how many murders were committed in 1995 with a twenty-two caliber pistol?”

Rudge objected, but Kilpatrick said he would allow it if Sarah connected it. Hull answered that he did not know the figure.

“Ten, twenty, a hundred?”

“I don't know.”

“If I told you that it was well over three hundred, would that sound reasonable?”

“I suppose so.”

“And did you ask forensics at Manhattan South or the FBI to try a match between the bullets from these many other murders with the bullet that killed Mr. Hopper?”

“I saw no reason to. We had the gun and the bullet, and we traced the gun to the suspect.”

“But as you testified, the gun belonged to Professor Goldman, who stated that it was stolen. He is not the suspect, is he?”

“No, he is not.”

“And you testified that he stated that the gun might well have been stolen months or years before. Is that not so?”

“Yes.”

“So, isn't it possible that for the past several years, this same gun might have killed another person before it came into the possession of the murderer—”

Rudge rose to object, but the judge said that it was a reasonable question and that he would allow it.

“I don't know,” Hull replied.

“You should know, Detective. It's your business to know. Now, is it or is it not a reasonable presumption?”

I began to feel that Hull did not know what to make of Sarah. Here was this tall black woman using him, and evidently he did not enjoy being used. He was losing his calm and certainty.

“Answer the question,” the judge said.

“I suppose so,” Hull admitted.

“And if this crime had taken place in the 33rd or 34th precinct, or in the 79th, for example,”—Sarah turned to the jury—“high homicide precincts, all of them”—and back to Hull—“if this had been the case, they would have sent a complex of the bullet to both the FBI and to forensics for matching, would they not?”

“I work in the first precinct.”

“What does your answer mean? Does it mean that if a complex of the bullet had been sent out for matching, this trial might not have taken place?”

Before Hull could answer, Rudge rose to object, and the judge agreed that Sarah was stretching it too far. “Keep to the facts, Ms. Morton.”

“There are no facts,” Sarah said gently.

“That's quite enough, Ms. Morton. Don't push it.”

“I'm sorry, Your Honor.”

She walked back to the table and riffled through her pile of papers. The judge asked her whether she had finished her cross-examination.

“Not quite, Your Honor,” turning back to Hull. “Tell me, Detective, did you consult a pharmacologist as to the exact nature and effect of Temazepam, taken in doses of twenty milligrams?”

“We discussed it with the pharmacist who filled the prescription for Professor Goldman.”

“And what did he tell you?”

Rudge objected, arguing that the defense could call the pharmacist as a witness, if they so desired.

“Ms. Morton?” the judge asked.

“It goes to the credibility of Detective Hull's investigation, Your Honor.”

“I'll allow it,” the judge agreed.

“Well, Detective?”

“He said it was a sleeping pill.”

“Did he say what sort of sleeping pill?”

“At this level, a mild one.”

“Detective Hull, did you ask Professor Goldman whether he had taken a sleeping pill that Friday night?”

“No, but his prescription read whenever he had difficulty sleeping.”

“More intuition,” Sarah said, smiling slightly. “But here is my question. Mr. Hopper was killed Friday night. Five days later, with only four intervening days, you arrested Elizabeth Hopper. You testified that twenty-two women worked at the offices of Garson, Weeds and Anderson. Now I have great admiration for the New York City plain-clothes force, but is it possible that you tracked down these twenty-two women, just you and Detective Flannery, in these four days, considering that two were weekend days, Saturday and Sunday?”

Hull hesitated for a long moment before he said, “No, we didn't speak to all of them in the four days.”

“Ah, then perhaps Manhattan South assigned a special task force to help you?”

“No. Detective Flannery and I did the interviewing.”

“All twenty-two?”

“Well—” Hull hesitated, and then put his foot into Sarah's trap. “No, not all twenty-two. He had a girlfriend in Boston, and we spoke to the Boston Police. She had an ironclad alibi. We didn't speak to her then.”

“And the twenty-two women at Garson, Weeds and Anderson?”

“Like I said, not all twenty-two.”

“Why not all twenty-two?”

“Well, you know, before the arrest of Mrs. Hopper, we questioned the most likely ones.”

“And how did you decide which were most likely?”

“But eventually we questioned all of them.”

“You haven't answered my question,” Sarah said sharply.

“Well, you know, women who he, I mean Hopper, would have been attracted to. He had a reputation of being a womanizer. We put off questioning the older women, and there were three Afro-American women—”

“Who could not have been attractive enough to interest Mr. Hopper,” Sarah said sarcastically. “Is that what you were going to say?”

Hull shook his head without answering.

“I have no other questions for this witness,” Sarah said, her voice tinged with contempt.

Rudge's next witness was Abel Johnson, the superintendent at my Riverside Drive building. He was a large, good-natured black man. He took the witness stand and the oath, then grinned at me and Liz.

“Mr. Johnson,” Rudge said, “would you tell the jury where you work?”

“I'm the superintendent at the building where Professor Goldman lives.”

“And how long have you been superintendent at this building?”

“Eighteen years. It's a good job.”

“And I'm sure you do it well. Now, do you watch television?”

“I sure do. I'm not much of a newspaper reader. I usually watch the six o'clock news on ABC and the ten o'clock news on Channel 11.”

“Were you watching the news on Saturday, May twenty-fifth?”