she says.
Loud, angry voices erupt from all sides, and Judge Rothstein has no choice but to finally go through with his threat. He clears the courtroom.
Chapter 98. Loco
LITTLE NIKKI PUTS on quite a show up on the witness stand. Who would have thought the slut had it in her? But after clever-girl Costello gets her to drop Lindgren’s name and her arrest, all hell breaks loose, and Rothstein clears the courtroom and calls it a day.
Everyone spills out into the hot courtyard, and if not for two hundred cops, there would have been a riot then and there. The atmosphere is so messed up and ugly, Rothstein suspends proceedings for an additional twenty-four hours.
So it’s not until Thursday morning that we all file back into the courtroom. Rothstein must think we’re all basically children, because he gives us a stern lecture on the importance of orderly courts in a free society. What a crock, and most of us know it.
Then he turns to Ms. Costello, who calls Marie Scott to the stand.
One look at Scott, I see she’s one of those God-fearing, righteous women you always watch on the TV news after some tragedy happens. You know the type I mean, who somehow keep their shit together no matter what unspeakable thing has just happened.
She’s no spring chicken but her back is straight as a plank. And the slow way she walks up to be sworn in, you’d think she’s here to receive a special award from George Bush.
“What’s your relationship to the defendant, Ms. Scott?” asks Costello.
“I’m proud to say the young man is my grandson,” says Scott, hurling her big voice into the room.
“How long has Dante lived with you?”
“Five years. Ever since Dante’s mother began serving her sentence upstate. Dante’s father had already passed by then.”
“So you’ve raised Dante since then?”
“That’s right, and until these false charges, he’s never gotten into a bit of trouble. Not once.”
The question that always comes into my head when I see a woman like Marie is why, if her shit’s so damn tight, did her kids all turn out so bad? Even if she did a great job with Dante, how come her daughter’s in jail? That holier-than-thou attitude must drive them the other way.
“Where did he live in your place?” asks Costello.
“It’s just the two of us. So he had his own bedroom.”
“Could you describe it for us, Marie?”
“Nothing fancy. He had a bed that was way too small for him, but a good-sized desk and bookshelves on the walls. We couldn’t afford a computer, but he used one at school.”
“What was on those bookshelves?” asks Costello.
“On one wall were the things any high-schooler would have-books, CDs. The other shelf held his basketball stuff. He called it his Dream Wall because that space was dedicated to his dream of playing in the NBA. Of course, he never calls it that, he calls it ‘the League.’”
“What did that wall consist of, Marie?”
“There were five shelves. On the outside went his trophies from the all-star games and the summer camps and being named Suffolk County High School Player of the Year two years in a row.”
“And how about on the inside?”
“That was where he kept his basketball caps. He had all thirty, one for every team in the League. Because that’s the moment he’s living for, when they call out Dante Halleyville in that auditorium in New York City and he walks to the stage and puts one of those caps on.”
“Did he ever wear those hats outside of the house, Marie?” asks Costello.
“Never!” says Scott so loudly that the whole courtroom feels the fury in it, and I don’t need to look at Officer Lindgren to know he’s sweating bullets now.
“He never wore those hats, period! Those hats weren’t for wearing. They were for dreaming. He ordered them by mail, took them out of their box, and placed them on the shelf, but he never put them on. He was superstitious. He didn’t want to put one on until they called him up on that stage and he knew which team he was playing for.”
I hate to admit it, but Lindgren was right. That bitch Costello has gotten too close.
“How long after the murders did the Suffolk County Homicide unit come to your home?”
“The next afternoon.”
“What did they do?”
“Searched Dante’s room, photographed it, dusted for prints. Then they taped it off. I
“Were they the first police to come to your house, Marie?”
“No. That morning an officer from the East Hampton Police Department came over by himself. He said he was looking for Dante and asked if he could take a look in his room.”
About now I get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Did you let him in, Marie?”
“Yes, ma’am. I knew Dante wasn’t involved in these crimes, so I didn’t see the harm. In fact, I thought it would help the police see that he was innocent.”
“Did you go in Dante’s room with the officer?”
“No, I let him in there alone. That’s the way he wanted it.”
Now the crowd is rumbling so much that Rothstein holds up one black-robed arm. Not that it does much good.
“How long was the officer in there?”
“Not long,” says Marie. “Not more than a couple minutes.”
“But long enough to take Dante’s Miami Heat cap off the shelf?” says Costello.
Now three things happen at once-the crowd explodes; the DA shouts, “Objection!”; and Scott drills out, “Yes, ma’am!” with everything she’s got, which is plenty.
“Strike the last question and answer from the record,” Rothstein tells the stenographer, then turns to the smart-ass bitch. “Ms. Costello, consider yourself warned.”
“Marie, do you remember
“Yes, I do. Of course I remember who it was.”
“What was his name?”
“Hugo Lindgren.”
“Hugo Lindgren,” says Costello as if she’s stunned herself. “The same officer who just happened to get the anonymous tip about the gun at the Princess Diner and the call from Nikki Robinson also spent several minutes unattended in Dante’s room? Is that your sworn testimony, Ms. Scott?”
“Yes,” says Scott. “It most certainly is. Hugo Lindgren.”
By now the crowd, at least on my side, is ready to burn the courtroom down, no matter what Rothstein says about civic responsibility.
But it’s Costello, not Rothstein, who gets them to shut up. Because this is where she blows everybody’s mind, including mine.
“Marie Scott will be our only witness, Your Honor,” says Costello, twisting her gaze between the judge and the jury. “Ms. Scott said it all. The defense rests its case.”
Costello’s announcement stuns both sides of the courtroom into silence, and as the lookyloos start to file out deflated and confused, it reminds me of a pay-per-view title fight that gets stopped way too early. But you know
