other things the police found with Tom: her purse, her cell phone, her necklace with the clasp broken, presumably yanked from her neck. Wendy brought each of these out individually, as if item after item implicated him ever further. I, on the other hand, would try to make them a package deal in the jury’s mind-if one link failed, the whole chain did.
She completed her opening statement in twenty minutes. Her case was pretty simple and straightforward.
“She didn’t mention the confession,” said Shauna.
Right. She was saving it. Understating her case. That was Wendy’s style. It would be a pleasant surprise, I guess.
The judge gave me the opportunity to give my opening. I’d already indicated that I would defer my opening until the defense case, because I wanted the element of surprise. I had lost Sergeant Hilton as a witness, but I had an idea as to how I could still use Dr. Sofian Baraniq, my expert. It was a gamble, but it was all I had.
“I’d like to defer my opening,” I told the judge. On balance, I thought, it was still the smart play.
I looked behind me. I caught Aunt Deidre’s eye, but that wasn’t the one I was looking for. I found him in the back row of the courtroom: Special Agent Lee Tucker of the FBI.
“Judge, I wonder if we could take a short break,” I said. We’d gotten a late start today, and it was coming up on eleven, so he probably wouldn’t give it to me. Lee would have to wait.
“Let’s try to get in a witness before lunch,” said the judge. “Ms. Kotowski?”
Wendy Kotowski stood.
“The state calls Officer Francis Crespo,” she said.
70
Officer Francis Crespo was a ten-year veteran of the city police department. He was built like a brick house and had dark features and a mustache. He was one of the patrolmen in the area when reports came in of the shooting on Gehringer Street.
“We weren’t the first to arrive,” he explained. “But we got the nod when the call came through about a sighting of a homeless man running through Franzen Park with a gun.”
“You ‘got the nod’?” Wendy asked.
“We were dispatched by the detective-in-charge on the scene to investigate. My patrol and Officer Downing’s. Cars eighteen and twenty-three.”
“Go on, Officer.”
“My partner and I proceeded by vehicle to Franzen Park.”
“Why a vehicle?” Wendy asked. “Wasn’t Franzen Park just a block away?”
“That’s correct, ma’am, but it’s a city block wide and long. So the northeast end of the park was a quarter- mile away. It made sense to drive there and be mobile by vehicle once there.”
“Fair enough, Officer. Where did you travel?”
“Officer Downing’s patrol took the south end of the park, and my partner and I searched the north end. When we searched behind the park district building, we found an individual sitting between two dumpsters. He had-”
“Excuse me, Officer. Do you see that person in court today?”
“That’s correct, ma’am. It was the defendant, seated there.” He pointed at Tom.
“Stipulate to identification,” I said.
“Go on, Officer.”
“Ma’am, he-the defendant had a purse in his lap and was rummaging through it. I shined my Maglite-my flashlight-I put my flashlight beam on him and announced my office. I saw to his immediate left a firearm sitting in the grass. A Glock pistol. My partner and I drew our weapons. I told the subject to raise his hands where I could see them.”
“His hands were in the purse?”
“That’s correct.”
“What did he do when you told him to raise his hands?”
“For a moment, nothing. I ordered him again to remove his hands from the purse. He did not.”
“But then-”
“But then his right hand came free and he looked up into the flashlight beam. His gun was to his left, so he wasn’t a threat to go for that weapon.”
He was covering his ass here.
“And then in one very quick motion, he lifted a two-by-four sitting next to him and threw it at me. Kind of a boomerang throw. He hit me in the chest and knocked my flashlight out of my hand.”
“And what happened next?”
“I fell backward, ma’am, and my partner had been circling around me from behind, so I fell into her.”
“The defendant got away on foot?” Wendy said, helpfully.
“That’s correct, ma’am. It’s embarrassing. But he got away. He ran west, and we chased him. He jumped the fence and ran north on Gehringer Street for approximately three blocks. We had radioed for backup, and two squad cars cut him off.”
“And then what happened?”
“The subject-the defendant-dropped to his knees and put his hands behind his head.”
“You took him into custody.”
“That’s correct, ma’am.”
Wendy took the officer through the retrieval of the evidence-the murder weapon, the purse, the necklace. They also found where Tom “lived,” so to speak, in Franzen Park, but they didn’t find anything related to the case there. Finally, she questioned him on the process of submitting the evidence at the police station.
The direct was finished at a quarter to noon. I was eager to talk to Lee Tucker, so I hoped the judge would recess.
“Cross-examination, Mr. Kolarich?” he asked.
“It will take us past the hour, Your Honor.”
“Cross-examination, Mr. Kolarich?” he repeated.
I got to my feet. A searing pain shot through my knee. I liked to move around the courtroom as I cross, but today it would be painful.
“Officer, in your search after arrest, you ultimately found that my client had a small living area staked out in the park, didn’t you? Blankets, some canned foods, that kind of thing.”
“That’s correct, sir.”
“And Tom’s living space was on the southwest corner of that park, true?”
“That’s right.”
“It was right up against the fences, right? The southern and western fences? That corner?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The corner nearest the crime scene.”
“That… That would be correct, sir.”
I looked at the jury. “Less than a block from the crime scene.”
“Correct.”
I realized this cut both ways. It might make a crime of opportunity more likely. Tom was hanging out where he lived, saw someone and robbed her. But it also went to my theory.
“Someone walking, or let’s say jogging-someone jogging from the crime scene to the southwest corner of Franzen Park-could get there in seconds, right? Less than a minute?”
Officer Crespo gave that some thought. “No more than a minute, probably.”
“Someone could have robbed Kathy Rubinkowski after killing her and, in less than a minute, dumped those items and the murder weapon basically over a fence and into Tom Stoller’s lap.”
“Objection.” Wendy Kotowski got to her feet. “Calls for speculation.”
The judge removed his glasses and wiped them with a cloth. “The witness will answer.”
