Overkill Read online

  I deemed that shot to have been the fatal one.

  A polite way, if Jaywalker understood correctly, of saying that Victor Quinones had died as a result of having a combination of metal and bone churn through his brain. Not too different from having had the Roto-Rooter man clean an ever-widening path through his skull, from front to back. But if that wasn’t bad enough, the worst was still to come. Darcy wanted to know if Dr. Kaplan was able to say how close the gun had been to the victim’s head when the fatal shot had been fired.

  KAPLAN: I’m able to say it was quite close.

  DARCY: What evidence did you see that supports that conclusion?

  KAPLAN: The scalp was lifted off the skull enough so as to cause radial tearing around the edge of the wound.

  DARCY: You used the words “quite close.” Are you able to give us a medical opinion as to just how close that shot was fired from the front of Victor Quinones’s head?

  KAPLAN: Yes. What I found was consistent with a distance of anywhere from maybe a quarter of an inch to four or five inches.

  Jaywalker had known for months that that detail was coming, not only from his own reading of the autopsy report, but from picking the brain of a friend who happened to be a pathologist. Still, as prepared as he was for it, and as ready as he ever would be to cross-examine on it, he knew he wouldn’t be able to seriously challenge Dr. Kaplan’s conclusion. Sometimes the truth is just that, and when delivered from the mouth of a bright, articulate witness with no interest in the outcome of the case, it tends to sparkle. Which on most days Jaywalker would agree was a wonderful thing.

  Just not right now.

  Because this particular bit of truth, that Jeremy Estrada had delivered the coup de grace at point-blank range, was every bit as devastating in its way as the fact that Victor Quinones had run forty-five feet before stumbling, looking up and seeing the gun pointed squarely between his eyes. It took only a furtive glance in the direction of the jurors to tell Jaywalker that their rapt attention and grim faces added up to no good for the defense.

  And Darcy still wasn’t finished with Dr. Kaplan. She got him to agree that the nonfatal wound could have been sustained while the victim was in a crouched position, bent forward, with the shooter firing at him from directly in front of him. Finally Darcy asked her witness if, following the fatal shot—the one to the head—Victor Quinones would have been able to run or walk a distance of forty-five feet.

  KAPLAN: In my opinion, that would have been virtually impossible. In all likelihood, the victim would have lost consciousness immediately or almost immediately.

  DARCY: Would he have been able to talk? Specifically, to beg for his life?

  KAPLAN: In my opinion, no and no. Given the damage to the left hemisphere of the brain, which controls speech, the shot would have made it all but impossible for him to speak. And I would go so far as say that given the extent of the injuries, it would have been equally impossible for him to have formed the thought of begging, convert that thought into words, and utter those words. It’s my opinion that once the victim sustained that wound, he wouldn’t have been able to do much of anything other than to collapse and die shortly afterward.

  Or, as Bill Russell might have put it, the chances that Victor had sustained the fatal wound where he and Jeremy had struggled over the gun, and then had either walked or run forty-five feet before collapsing—as Jeremy seemed to be telling Jaywalker—were slim and none.

  From there Darcy drew Dr. Kaplan’s attention to a minor injury he’d noted in the autopsy report, a fresh cut Victor Quinones had sustained to the inside of his mouth.

  DARCY: In your opinion, was that cut consistent with the victim’s having bitten his lip when his head was dropped to pavement?

  KAPLAN: Yes, it was.

  And with that last little tidbit, Katherine Darcy thanked her witness and sat down.

  If the cross-examiner is smart enough to ask no questions of the witness who hasn’t hurt his client, what does he do with the witness who’s absolutely demolished him? That was the question on Jaywalker’s mind as he stood up now. Complicating his problem was the nature of Dr. Kaplan himself: not only had his testimony been devastating and his credentials impeccable, but his manner had been absolutely engaging. He’d instructed the jury without speaking down to them, had demonstrated an expertise uninfected by ego, and had restricted his opinions to those areas where he felt qualified to draw conclusions. As a result, he’d not only come off as objective and informative; he’d also ended up being thoroughly likeable.

  So Jaywalker knew there was no way he could go after Dr. Kaplan the way, say, that he’d laid into Detective Fortune. At the same time, he knew he had to question the man. To leave him alone would have been tantamount to an admission of defeat, given how devastating the doctor’s testimony had been. But understanding that the most he could hope to accomplish was to score a point here or establish a fact there, Jaywalker knew he needed to lower his sights. In other words, rather than attacking Kaplan, he needed to adopt him as his own witness. Sometimes cross-examination can be a little bit like playground politics: if another kid looks too big to beat up, try getting him to join your side.

  He began with the issue of the position of Victor Quinones’s body at the moment he’d sustained the first, nonlethal wound. Jaywalker felt it was the weakest part of Dr. Kaplan’s testimony, not because Kaplan himself had overreached, but because Katherine Darcy had tried to get too much out of him by asking him if Victor “could have sustained” the wound while bent forward in a crouched position.

  JAYWALKER: Would you agree that it’s every bit as likely that this wound was sustained while Mr. Quinones was standing up straight and struggling over the gun, which was chest high and pointed straight downward?

  KAPLAN: Yes, I would.

  JAYWALKER: That could just as easily explain the entrance wound just below the chest, the shallow trajectory, the exit wound on the abdominal wall, and even the hip wound?

  KAPLAN: Yes, sir. That is correct.

  JAYWALKER: And the gun could have been quite close to the entrance wound?

  KAPLAN: It could have been. Yes, sir.

  JAYWALKER: Nothing in your findings rules that out. Correct?

  KAPLAN: That is correct.

  From there Jaywalker moved on to the victim’s physical appearance. He wanted the jury to hear that Victor had been physically fit and presumably an equal match with Jeremy in a fistfight. Also that he’d been menacing-looking, and as ugly as Jeremy was handsome. While that fact might have lacked relevance in a technical sense, Jaywalker was nevertheless banking on it to affect the jurors. When you were fighting to keep someone out of prison for the rest of his life or pretty close to it, you looked for every advantage you could find, and you didn’t let the technical stuff get in your way.

  JAYWALKER: I see from the autopsy report that you described Mr. Quinones as about five-nine, well developed and fairly muscular? Is that your recollection?

  KAPLAN: Yes, it is.

  JAYWALKER: Any facial hair?

  KAPLAN: A thin, wispy mustache and chin whiskers.

  Jaywalker walked over to the prosecution table and asked Katherine Darcy for the autopsy photos. From the half dozen she handed him, he picked out one taken of the victim’s face in which the entrance wound showed the least. Victor had had rather heavy eyebrows, and the wound was right between them, where they met just above his nose. His eyes were closed in the photo, and if you didn’t know better, you might have thought he was sleeping. But his mouth was open, and the “windowpanes” were visible on his teeth, and his cheeks were pockmarked from what looked like old acne scars.

  Jaywalker had the photo marked for identification, then handed it to the witness.

  JAYWALKER: Is that a fair representation of what Mr. Quinones looked like?

  KAPLAN: Yes, it is.

  JAYWALKER: I offer the photo into evidence as Defendant’s Exhibit A.

  DARCY: No objection.

  THE COURT: Recei
ved.

  Which meant that the jurors would be able to look at the exhibit themselves. Whiskers, windowpanes, pockmarks and all.

  JAYWALKER: Can you tell us what those things are on Mr. Quinones’s teeth?

  KAPLAN: Those are called windowpanes.

  JAYWALKER: What are windowpanes?

  KAPLAN: They’re decorative coverings that are placed over the teeth, with a cutout vignette. Sometimes the cutout is a box or a circle, sometimes a heart or a star. It’s my understanding that they’re purely decorative, rather than for any dental necessity. And they covered three of Mr. Quinones’s teeth.

  JAYWALKER: And in this particular case, what kind of finish was on the windowpanes?

  KAPLAN: They were gold.

  Jaywalker turned to the toxicology and serology reports, and brought out the fact that Victor Quinones had had both ethanol and opiates in his system. From the .11 blood-alcohol reading, he was able to get Dr. Kaplan to estimate the number of drinks Victor had consumed at five or six. And it had still been morning when he died. But the doctor had no way of quantifying the amount of opiates he’d taken.

  JAYWALKER: And when we say opiates, what drug is the first one that comes to your mind?

  KAPLAN: Heroin. Although it could have been dilaudid, or something like that. But heroin would be the most likely candidate.

  It was time to get down to the most devastating area of Dr. Kaplan’s testimony, his opinion that the fatal shot had been fired at a distance of no more than four or five inches from Victor’s head. Jaywalker knew he wasn’t going to be able to get the witness to reverse himself on that conclusion, but he wanted to at least show that the basis for it was a fairly narrow one.

  JAYWALKER: Are you familiar with the term “muzzle stamp”?

  KAPLAN: Yes, I am.

  JAYWALKER: What’s a muzzle stamp?

  KAPLAN: A muzzle stamp occurs if the gun is placed against the skin when it’s fired, and the pressure and heat of the gasses coming out with the bullet cause an impression. That impression will show up on the skin as a contusion, a black-and-blue mark. And in size and shape it will be identical to the muzzle, the end of the barrel of the gun. Again, it occurs only when the gun is held against the skin, particularly if it’s held against it tightly.

  JAYWALKER: Did you find any evidence of a muzzle stamp in this case?

  KAPLAN: No. But I wouldn’t have expected to, because the point of entry was largely covered by the hair of his eyebrows.

  JAYWALKER: Hair singes rather easily, doesn’t it?

  KAPLAN: It can, yes.

  JAYWALKER: Any singing of the eyebrows in this case?

  KAPLAN: No, sir.

  JAYWALKER: What is “stippling”?

  KAPLAN: Stippling is the term for little dots caused by tiny blood vessels—known as capillaries—breaking. It, too, is an indication that the shot was fired at close range.

  JAYWALKER: Any stippling around the head wound?

  KAPLAN: No, sir.

  JAYWALKER: What is “fouling”?

  KAPLAN: Fouling is the unburned powder that comes out of the muzzle. It would leave a grayish discoloration, if you were within close range. Though it could be washed off at the hospital, in the emergency room.

  JAYWALKER: Any evidence of fouling in this case?

  KAPLAN: No, sir.

  JAYWALKER: So just to recap. With respect to the fatal wound, you found absolutely no evidence of a muzzle stamp, no singed hair, no stippling and no fouling. Do I have that right?

  KAPLAN: You do.

  There was one last area Jaywalker wanted to explore with the witness. Katherine Darcy had made a point of having Dr. Kaplan testify that a cut he’d noticed inside the victim’s mouth had been consistent with his having bitten his lip when his head had been dropped to the ground, presumably after Jeremy had shot him between the eyes.

  JAYWALKER: Let’s talk about this term “consistent with” for a moment.

  KAPLAN: Okay.

  JAYWALKER: All that “consistent with” means is you can’t rule it out. Right?

  KAPLAN: That is correct.

  JAYWALKER: In other words, it’s one of perhaps any number of possibilities that you can’t eliminate.

  KAPLAN: True.

  JAYWALKER: Is there anything at all in the findings you saw that tells you Mr. Quinones’s head was ever picked up and dropped?

  KAPLAN: No.

  JAYWALKER: Were you ever informed that Mr. Quinones had been in a fistfight immediately prior to his death?

  KAPLAN: I don’t believe I was.

  JAYWALKER: Is this cut to his mouth every bit as consistent with his having taken a good right-handed punch to that area of the mouth as it is with anything else?

  KAPLAN: Yes, sir. It’s consistent with absolutely anything that would have caused the tooth to bite through the lip.

  JAYWALKER: Thank you.

  And with that Jaywalker let him go. Despite his having been able to score a few points on cross, he knew that Dr. Kaplan had been a pivotal witness for the prosecution. And the fact that Katherine Darcy didn’t feel any need to get up and rehabilitate him on redirect examination underscored what Jaywalker already knew: the witness’s conclusion that the head shot had been fired from inches away—or even less—wasn’t really in doubt and was something the jurors would be hearing much more of during Darcy’s summation.

  Between direct and cross, Seymour Kaplan’s testimony had taken over two hours, and by the time he stepped down from the witness stand it was nearly five o’clock. Judge Wexler recessed for the day. “And I know you’ll be disappointed to hear this,” he told the jurors, “but tomorrow is my calendar day. That means I’ll be spending the morning dealing with other cases, ones that aren’t on trial. As a result, your presence won’t be required until two-fifteen in the afternoon. But don’t let my generosity lull you into being late. I’m told by the Department of Corrections that there are plenty of vacancies on Rikers Island.”

  Vintage Wexler, taking what promised to be a beautiful free morning in mid-May and turning it into a threat of jail time.

  Even with the next day’s late start, that evening was a busy one for Jaywalker. Not that they all weren’t when he was on trial. But once they resumed Wednesday afternoon, Katherine Darcy would announce that the People were resting their case. That meant it would be the defense’s turn.

  In exchange for Darcy’s agreement to permit Jeremy’s mother and sister to remain in the courtroom during the testimony of the prosecution witnesses, Jaywalker had promised to call them first, and it was a promise he intended to keep. Carmen had been steadfast in her refusal to allow her daughter to testify, and Jaywalker had neither seen Julie nor spoken with her since she’d been chased and threatened by the Raiders. As a result, following Carmen’s testimony he would be putting Francisco Zapata on the stand. True to his word, Frankie the Barber had flown in from Puerto Rico over the weekend, and Jaywalker now arranged to meet both Carmen and him at the courthouse at noon, to go over their testimony one last time.

  After them, of course, would be Jeremy. And it was only fitting that he should be the trial’s final witness. In a very real sense, all those who preceded him on the stand—the grieving father, the three eyewitnesses, the police officers, the crime-scene detective and the medical examiner, and even the defense’s own witnesses—were nothing but a preface to the main act. The case wasn’t about Victor Quinones or his father, or Teresa Morales or Regina Fortune or Seymour Kaplan. No, it was about Jeremy, about his falling in love, paying a terrible price for having done so, and finally fighting back. Tomorrow afternoon his mother and his barber would set the stage for him. And then, most likely Thursday morning, the jurors would hear what this case was really about.

  They would hear Jeremy’s story.

  17

  THE PROBLEM AND THE ACCIDENT

  As things turned out on Wednesday, Judge Wexler’s calendar spilled over into the afternoon session, and it was after three o’clock before the trial resumed
. Jaywalker regarded the delay as a minor blessing. For one thing, it gave him an additional hour to make sure that Carmen and Frankie the Barber were fully prepared to testify. Not that that they wouldn’t have been without it; he’d already spent hours with each of them. But there was prepared, and then there was Jaywalker prepared.

  Beyond that, the delay made it all but certain that Jeremy wouldn’t be taking the stand until Thursday morning. That was good for several reasons. It would give Jaywalker an opportunity to reconcile Jeremy’s version of the facts with anything unexpected his mother or Frankie might say. And it would mean that in all likelihood Jeremy’s testimony would begin and end on a single day, rather than being broken up and spread out over two days. Not only would that enhance his story, at the same time it would deprive Katherine Darcy of the luxury of an overnight between Jaywalker’s direct examination and her cross.

  It was little things like that, Jaywalker knew, that could affect the outcome of a close case. What worried him right now, however, were those last three words: a close case. Because as prepared as his witnesses were, not one of them was going to be able to tell the jury much of anything about the fatal shot. Carmen and Frankie because they hadn’t been there, and Jeremy because even though he had been and didn’t dispute the fact that he’d fired it, it seemed he had no real recollection of doing so.

  Carmen Estrada didn’t so much walk to the witness stand as waddle. She promised to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in a voice so low and gravelly that Jaywalker abandoned the lectern in favor of standing back by the wooden rail that separated the front of the courtroom from the spectator section. Years of experience had taught him that the farther he stood from the witness, the more that witness would be forced to raise his or her voice. If that didn’t work, he’d try cupping a hand behind one ear, in an exaggerated parody of deafness. And if all else failed, he’d badger and bully his witness into speaking more loudly. That last technique usually did the trick and often created an extra measure of sympathy for the poor witness.