The Vendetta Defense Read online

  Judy tried to collect her thoughts. This was serious stuff. She had never asked to represent a client before, especially one who was guilty. It felt like the onset of adulthood, but maybe growing up didn’t mean automatically resisting everything Bennie said. Judy flashed on her first image of Pigeon Tony, so small in the overlarge prison jumpsuit. Then the granite memorial to the Lucias, so eloquent in its dark silence. And finally Frank’s grief at the site.

  “Well?”

  Judy took a deep breath. “If what they tell me is true, then there is an injustice here, and I think I want to help Pigeon Tony. I mean, if it’s true, he’s an old man who had a lifelong heartache. He tried to set it aside, and that effort ended up in the death of his own son and daughter-in-law. He chose peace, and all he got was war. Most people who kill are bad men. Instead, Pigeon Tony seems like a good man, who killed someone.” Judy heard herself, and only then did she realize that that was how she felt. Insight wasn’t her strong suit, but she was learning, and a new certainty steeled her. “Even if you fire me, I’ll still take the case.”

  “You would?”

  “Yes.”

  Bennie stood stock-still. The crease in her forehead relaxed, and the angry redness ebbed from her cheeks. Judy hoped it wasn’t the peace that comes over bosses before they shitcan you.

  “Please don’t fire me, by the way. I couldn’t find another firm that would let me dress as funny.”

  Bennie laughed softly and sat down in her deep chair. “Oh, well.”

  “Does this mean I can keep him?”

  Bennie didn’t answer but picked up a coffee mug from her desk, which read I CAN SMELL FEAR. Judy was pretty sure it was a joke. Bennie tilted it to peek inside. “Empty. What else can go wrong?”

  “I’ll take care of him. I’ll walk him every day.”

  Bennie half smiled, gazing into the empty mug as if coffee would materialize through an act of sheer will. “Can Lucia afford us?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

  “Of course you didn’t.”

  “I’ll find out, if you let me keep him.”

  The coffee mug clattered to an upright position. “All right, fine. You win, but you’ll do it under my supervision.”

  “Wahoo!”

  “Hold your applause.” Bennie waved her into silence. “You’ll report to me at every stage of the proceedings.”

  “Agreed.”

  “You’ll still be responsible for your other matters. You have that antitrust article to do—get a draft to me on time. The journal editor told me they’ve been waiting on it to cite-check. Don’t screw around.” Bennie thought a minute. “As I recall, you have seven other fairly active cases, all civil. They have to be worked, just as before. Those clients were there first and they didn’t kill anybody.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Bennie ignored it. “Finally, since you didn’t bother to see if Lucia could pay for your services, your services to him are free. That means the time you spend on this matter is your own. You bill none of it, to him or to me. That’ll teach you.”

  It took Judy aback, but she saw the rightness of it. “Fair enough. My money where my mouth is.”

  “And you’re on a short leash. Stay in touch on every decision. That’s your final punishment for showing initiative. You have to spend time with me.”

  “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” Judy said, then ducked as a pencil came flying at her.

  “Don’t press your luck, Carrier. This firm is doing better than when we started. You ain’t the only law review editor in the sea. Now get out of my office. One of us has to make some money.” Bennie hit a key on her keyboard, opening her e-mail, and Judy rose happily, despite the situation. She had gotten the case, even if she’d have to work her ass off. But there was a problem, and it nagged at her.

  “One last question. What do I do about representing a guilty defendant?”

  “Why are you asking me?” Bennie didn’t look away from her e-mail. “You took the case, you have to answer it for yourself.”

  Judy blinked at the sharpness of the response. So much for bonding. “Uh, well, I mean, I know he’s entitled to a defense, but I also know he’s guilty. It bothers me, even though it’s not supposed to, as a legal matter.”

  “You always were academic, Carrier, so here’s the short course.” Bennie clicked away, responding to one e-mail after another. “Under the Code of Professional Responsibility, your only ethical constraint is that you can’t put him up on the stand and elicit that he’s innocent if you know he’s guilty. That’s suborning perjury, essentially permitting a known falsehood to go to the court. And obviously, Code or no, I wouldn’t represent to the jury in your opening or closing that he’s innocent.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “I didn’t think so. You’re a lousy liar anyway. I don’t know how you got out of law school.” Bennie hit “send” and opened the next e-mail, and Judy suddenly didn’t know how to talk to her.

  “I meant more . . . as an emotional matter. Have you ever represented a guilty defendant?”

  “I did in the old days, when I took mostly murder cases. Frankly, it’s why I got out.” Bennie’s large hands covered the keyboard as she typed another response, giving no indication she remembered that anybody else shared the room.

  “So how did you handle it?” Judy asked anyway. “Defending the principle, not the person? Innocent until proven guilty?”

  “It doesn’t matter how I dealt with it,” Bennie answered, typing away. “It only matters how you deal with it. You want to defend a guilty man? Do it your way.”

  Judy detected a change in Bennie’s voice. It softened, though she still didn’t look up from her computer. “Can you give me a hint or is that against the rules?”

  Her fingers poised expertly over the keyboard, Bennie raised her eyes, and Judy was surprised to see them filled with concern, not indifference. “I told you, don’t argue what you don’t believe in. The converse is also true. Do you believe in him?”

  “I think so.”

  “Figure it out. Figure out if he’s guilty or innocent, in your own mind. But don’t analyze it as a legal matter or an academic question. That’s too abstract, too safe. Don’t be a judge, there’ll be a judge there already. He’s the one in black. You be the advocate.”

  Judy was understanding. She knew she tended to be a little academic. It had gotten her A’s in law school, but nowhere else. “But let’s say that I decide that he’s innocent, in my own mind. What good does that do him?”

  “It will help you build a defense. If you believe in him, your conviction will carry through to the judge and the jury. In your voice, in your manner, in everything you do. If you don’t believe in him, Lucia doesn’t have a chance.” Bennie’s attention returned to her monitor. “And you’re the worst thing that ever happened to him.”

  The words shut Judy down, and she stood rooted for a minute, listening to the quiet tapping of the keys. Outside the door, phones rang and lawyers yapped, but the workaday sounds receded. Judy had the sinking feeling she had bitten off more than she could chew—and she had one of the biggest mouths in the city.

  “Don’t you have an arraignment to go to?” Bennie asked, breaking the silence. “It’s tough to get bail for murder. Wear a suit jacket over your dress. And lose the shoes. You can borrow my brown pumps from the closet in reception. I got a whole second wardrobe in there. You’re welcome to all of it.”

  Judy checked her watch. It was almost three. She had to get downtown. She’d have to set aside her angst and her clogs. She murmured a hurried thank-you and let herself out of the office as Bennie returned to her e-mail.

  Judy couldn’t know that after she left, Bennie spent a long time staring at the computer screen, unable to write a single word.

  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 a
nd 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 videocameras 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.”

  “Thank God. Thank you. And my wife, she says to tell you hello. She stayed home today, with Mary.” He sounded apologetic and seemed not to realize that the spectators in the gallery were craning their necks to overhear their conversati
on. “She wished she could be here, you know that. They both do. But Judy, you understand.”

  “Of course I do, my goodness. And thanks for taking such wonderful care of my best friend.” Out of the corner of her eye Judy checked the television monitor, but it wasn’t showing Pigeon Tony yet. The face of a young black woman filled the screen, and she was tearful. Her lawyer, a public defender, argued her case for bail on the other side of the plastic divider, his mouth moving like a TV on mute.

  “I want you to meet my friends, Judy,” Mr. DiNunzio said, turning to his right. Beside him sat a row of men easily his age or in their eighties. They were dressed remarkably like him, with sweaters over white shirts and thin ties left over from a working life in a different era. Mr. DiNunzio waved a wrinkled hand at the man closest to him, who was shaped like a friendly meatball. “This here is my friend Tony LoMonaco from down the block. He knows Pigeon Tony from the club.”

  “The club?” Judy doubted it was the kind of club her parents meant when they said “the club.”

  “The pigeon-racing club, you know,” Mr. DiNunzio said, and Judy remembered.

  “Of course. Happy to meet you, Mr. LoMonaco.” She shook his hand, catching a whiff of the cigar smoke that clung to his clothes, and surmised that he was Tony-From-Down-The-Block of cigar-buying fame.

  Judy itched to finish the pleasantries. She had an arraignment to prepare for, at least mentally, and an unusual case of courtroom jitters. The encounter with John Coluzzi had rattled her, and her peripheral vision had found him sitting in the front row of the gallery on the left side of the courtroom. A shorter man sitting next to him struck a similarly hostile pose, and Judy figured he must be John’s brother, Marco, whom Frank had told her about. The two men, John the heavier of the two, anchored the grim-faced crowd around them, with whom she was obviously unpopular. If the right side of the courtroom was the Lucia cheering section, the left was the Coluzzi clan, sitting side by side with only a carpeted courtroom aisle between them, like a modern-day Maginot Line.