Not that what she followed up with was all that anticlimactic. What she did was hand Rabbi Lubovich a set of photographs, each one a glossy, full-color, sixteen-bytwenty-inch portrait of a child, and ask him to match a name to each face. As he did, she took the photo back from him, stuck it onto a large piece of white oak tag she'd earlier propped up on an easel, and affixed the name of the child just beneath his or her photo. By the time she'd finished the exercise, the jurors had two rows of four photos, eight in all, right in front of them. Having earlier been supplied the names of the young victims, they now had the children's faces staring directly at them, begging for justice.
'The People rest,' said Julie Napolitano.
It was barely eleven o'clock, but Justice Hinkley excused the jurors for a long lunch break, telling them that they wouldn't be needed for another three hours. Once they'd filed out of the room, Jaywalker rose and formally made the obligatory motion to dismiss the charges against his client. He didn't bother arguing the point or citing cases. He knew better. And so did Justice Hinkley, who quickly denied his motion, ruling that if anything, the People had presented far more evidence than they'd been required to.
Out in the hallway, he found Amanda and used her cell phone to call Nicky Legs. 'Get a hold of Drake's doctor,' he told him. 'Let him know we may be needing him as early as tomorrow afternoon, or maybe Thursday morning.'
'What's going on?' Amanda asked.
'The prosecution's case is finished,' he told her.
'Finished? Like fell apart?'
In her dreams.
'No,' he said. 'More like completed.'
'What's next?'
'Carter, at two o'clock.'
'Wow,' she said. 'How does it look?'
'You don't want to know. And by the way, thanks for going to my apartment. That was really very sweet of you.'
'Anytime.'
'I've got to go,' he said, pointing to a door that led to the pen area and turning toward it. But she caught his arm.
'You didn't tell him?' she asked. 'Did you?'
'Tell him what?'
'You know. That I admitted I was in the car with him.'
'No,' said Jaywalker. 'I kept you out of it. And Eric, too.'
'Thank you. And the wasp business. Is he still sticking with that?'
'I'll let you know,' said Jaywalker.
'The defense calls Carter Drake.'
Drake rose from his seat at the defense table and made his way to the witness stand. The trooper who'd been sitting directly behind him stayed put, a silly gesture intended to disguise the fact that the defendant was in custody. As if the presence of another trooper, seated by the witness box, didn't give it away. Or the stories about the five million dollars' bail he'd been kept from posting, that had made the front page of the Rockland County Register for weeks and been mentioned regularly on local talk-radio shows.
Jaywalker spent twenty minutes on background, establishing that Drake was a husband, a father and a gainfully employed resident of the state. He did these things not only to introduce his client to the jurors and to attach a few positives to him, but to give Carter a chance to get used to the business of testifying.
Not that they hadn't practiced. Counting the three hours over the lunch break and the six they'd spent the evening before, even after 'Lights out!' had been called, Jaywalker had devoted at least a dozen sessions to fleshing out Carter's story and getting him ready for the worst Abe Firestone could throw at him. For there was no doubt in his mind that Firestone would conduct the cross-examination himself. There was simply too much ego in him, and far too much publicity value in it, for him to pass the job off to David Kaminsky or Julie Napolitano. No, it would be Firestone's show, and Jaywalker had mimicked him in mock cross-examinations, right down to the gruff voice and heavy-handed theatrics.
From talking about his background, Jaywalker brought Drake forward to May 27 of the previous year, and established that he'd spent the day working hard with a client, right over in Nyack.
JAYWALKER: Did you take time out for lunch?
DRAKE: No, we worked right through.
JAYWALKER: You did finally finish, though?
DRAKE: Yes, we finished about four-thirty or so, as I recall.
JAYWALKER: What did you do then?
DRAKE: Gilson, the client, suggested we get a bite to eat and something to drink. I agreed, and told him to pick the spot. I followed him in my car so he wouldn't have to take me back to his office when we were done.
JAYWALKER: And where did you go?
DRAKE: Not far. To a place called the End Zone. It's what they call a sports bar, I guess.
JAYWALKER: Had you ever been there before?
DRAKE: No, never.
Jaywalker allowed himself a peek at the jury box. Things seemed to be going well, so far. It had taken a lot of coaching, but Drake had managed to develop what passed for a pleasant, earnest way of speaking. He was good to look at, well dressed without being showy, and likable. Then again, he hadn't gotten to the part about drinking yet, or killing nine people.
JAYWALKER: What happened once you got to the End Zone?
DRAKE: We found a table and ordered some food. Hot wings, or buffalo wings, I think they call them there. And drinks.
JAYWALKER: Drinks?
DRAKE: Martinis. We each ordered a martini.
JAYWALKER: And what happened next?
DRAKE: The drinks came, the food took a little longer. So we drank the martinis, and by the time the waitress brought the wings to the table, she saw our glasses were near-empty, and asked if we wanted refills. And we said, 'Sure.' And when those came, we drank them, too. And much too fast, as I now know. At the time, though, I didn't notice. Honest, I didn't.
JAYWALKER: Did you order more food?
DRAKE: No, the wings weren't very good. They were deep fried, and I keep reading about how bad fried food is for you.
Great. In a dozen practice sessions, the answer had always been a simple 'No,' or at very worst a 'No, I wasn't all that hungry.' Now, all of a sudden, Drake had felt the irrepressible need to ad lib, and in the process had not only managed to insult the quality of food at a local establishment, but had also offended any KFC aficionados on the jury. And if their waistlines were any indication, there were several likely candidates.
So much for being likable.
JAYWALKER: But I gather the martinis were good?
DRAKE: Unfortunately, they were very good. So I quit after round three.
Another ad lib. By throwing in the part about quitting after round three-which wasn't even responsive to the question Jaywalker had asked-Drake had managed to jump ahead in time, leaving out important events. In spite of all the work the two of them had put in, he was proving to be a very difficult witness.
Jaywalked tried to glide him back a bit without being too obvious about it.
JAYWALKER: Was it still just the two of you at the table?
DRAKE: No. Frank Gilson had called his girlfriend. He's not married. And he'd told her to come join us. And a while later she showed up, along with two of her girlfriends. So it was the five of us at the table. Frank, me, and the three young ladies.
He'd done it again. It was supposed to be friends, not girlfriends. And young women, not young ladies. There were women who took offense at certain expressions. Jaywalker's wife had been one of them. She'd made him be the first lawyer in the city to stop calling jurors 'ladies and gentleman.'
'What am I supposed to call them?' he'd asked her.
