The Vendetta Defense

hands and eased back into the sleek pews, nodding with approval. She could clearly do no wrong. They were a brown-pumps kind of crowd. With a quick glance at Frank, she took her leave and buzzed herself into the door in the plastic divider, standing with her back to it until the last case concluded.

Pigeon Tony’s face popped onto the screen five minutes later, his appearance giving Judy a start. The close- up magnified every line in his tan face, turning wrinkles into fissures in the brown earth of his skin. The confusion furrowing his brow made him look like Methuselah. His round eyes darted back and forth; he was obviously unsure about whether to look into the camera lens, and disoriented and frightened by the procedure. It was impossible to square the helpless image with someone who would intentionally break the neck of another man. She remembered Frank’s words, You know, he can’t even cull out his own pigeons, he won’t kill any of them. But there was no time to puzzle it out now.

Judy moved to counsel table as the public defender stepped deferentially aside. “Your Honor, my name is Judy Carrier and I represent the defendant in this matter, Anthony Lucia,” she said, then sat down.

“So Mr. Lucia has private counsel,” the bail commissioner said noncommittally as he shifted stacks of docket sheets on the dais. Bail commissioners weren’t judges, though this one wore judicial robes, a tie with a collar pin, and the harassed expression of a man who presided over 150 bail cases a day. His light blue eyes looked beleaguered behind tortoiseshell reading glasses. “We’re ready to go, Bailiff. Where’s defendant Anthony Lucia?”

As if on cue, the TV sound burst to life with a crackle, and Pigeon Tony was whispering, “’Allo? ’Allo?”

Judy worried that he couldn’t understand what was happening, and a ripple of unrest ran through the courtroom gallery as soon as they heard his trembling voice over the microphones; the Lucia side of the courtroom stricken at seeing Pigeon Tony in jail, the Coluzzi side furious at seeing him alive. Judy’s mouth went dry.

The bail commissioner remained insulated on his side of the bulletproof plastic. “This is Commonwealth versus Lucia,” he began, reciting the docket number, then looking at the camera facing him, which would transmit his image to a television in Pigeon Tony’s cell. “Mr. Lucia, you have been charged on a general charge of murder, do you understand?”

“’Allo? Who is?” Pigeon Tony kept whispering, squinting at the camera lens.

“Mr. Lucia, this is the bail commissioner speaking to you. I am the judge. Look directly into the camera.” The bail commissioner glared into his camera, posing for a fairly cranky photo op. “Mr. Lucia, do you need an interpreter? We have a Spanish interpreter at your location, I believe.”

Judy shook her head. “Your Honor, he’s Italian. A member of his family could translate if there’s no translator available.”

“No, that wouldn’t be kosher. Let’s see if he gets it. Mr. Lucia,” the bail commissioner said loudly, as if that would help. “Do you understand that you have been charged with murder?”

“Si, si. Murder. Judge? Is judge?” Pigeon Tony still didn’t look at the camera, and Judy’s anxiety segued into fear. If Pigeon Tony understood it was the judge, he might blurt out the truth. Anything he said in open court would be admissible at trial. An admission now could kill him.

Oh, no. Judy’s hand crept toward the black telephone on counsel table, which would connect her directly to Pigeon Tony. She wouldn’t use it unless she had to, since everybody and his dog would hear everything. Pigeon Tony couldn’t be counted on to get any hidden messages, and please don’t confess might tip off the Commonwealth.

“Yes, I am the judge. Excellent, Mr. Lucia.” The bail commissioner looked over his glasses at the prosecutor’s table. “Is the Commonwealth opposing bail in this matter?”

“We are, Your Honor,” answered the prosecutor. Judging from his spiky haircut and black suit, he was a recent law school graduate who had drawn the rotating duty of arraignment court. “As you know, murder is not typically a bailable offense in the county, and this was a particularly heinous murder of an eighty-year-old man. The Commonwealth argues that bail should not be granted.”

Pigeon Tony’s mouth opened as if he were going to speak.

“Your Honor,” Judy said quickly, moving her hand to the phone, “the defense argues that Mr. Lucia is certainly entitled to bail. His criminal record is spotless, and he obviously poses no risk to the population of the city. Nor does he, at almost eighty years of age, pose any flight risk at all.”

“Does he have any roots in the city, Ms. Carrier?” the commissioner asked, from the standard checklist for determining whether bail was appropriate.

“He has significant roots in the city, including his grandson, Frank Lucia, who is fully prepared to meet his bail.” Judy gestured for emphasis at the right side of the gallery, and they started waving back so wildly she wondered if they thought they were on camera, like a studio audience on The Jerry Springer Show. “As you can see, his entire extended family and all his friends support him and are here for this proceeding. He isn’t going anywhere, Judge.”

“Judge? Where judge?” Pigeon Tony began to fidget in his chair, leaning to the side and peering behind the camera. “Judge, you see me?” He tried to get up out of his chair, exposing the handcuffs that locked him there, and Judy couldn’t take it anymore and grabbed the black telephone.

“Mr. Lucia, this is Judy speaking. Pick up the telephone. Answer the telephone,” she said quickly into the receiver. The phone should have been ringing in the special cell, and a second later she heard it, then the hollow sound of the turnkey telling Pigeon Tony to pick up.

“Come?” he asked in confusion, turning off screen to the guard, who finally gave up telling him to pick up and reached across to the ringing phone and picked it up himself. The courtroom TV screen showed a sleeve of tan uniform thrusting a black receiver at Pigeon Tony, and he recoiled as if it were a cobra. With prodding, he reached for the telephone cautiously, only partly because of his handcuffs, and answered it as if he had never answered one before. “Si? Chi e?” he said, keeping his distance from the receiver, and Judy translated immediately. It did sound like Latin!

“This is Judy, Mr. Lucia. Remember me, Judy? Your lawyer?” She had to get them out of court, even TV court, fast. The arraignment had already lasted too long. “Listen to me carefully. Please stay in your seat and answer only the questions the judge asks you.”

“Judy?” Pigeon Tony burst into a grin of recognition. “Is Judy, with big mouth?”

“Yes! Right!” It was the first time she was happy to admit it, and she could see that the gallery was laughing.

The bail commissioner banged his gavel and addressed the prosecutor. “Counsel, given Mr. Lucia’s trouble with the common telephone, I find it hard to believe that he could negotiate the flight schedules of the Philadelphia airport. I find he poses no risk of flight and order bail to be set at twenty-five thousand dollars.” The commissioner faced the camera. “Mr. Lucia, you will be free as soon as your bail is paid. You must come back and appear at your preliminary hearing. Please sign the subpoena regarding your next court appearance. It’s a paper in front of you. Now, get—”

“Judge? Is judge?” Pigeon Tony started saying into his telephone receiver, and Judy went into action, doing what she did best. Talking.

“That’s enough, Mr. Lucia. It’s time to go home. Hang up the phone and you can go home.”

“Judy? Where judge? Now we talk to judge?” Pigeon Tony asked, and Judy’s heart stopped. She was about to start filibustering when the bail commissioner banged his gavel again.

“Mr. Lucia, you and I have done enough talking for one day, and we have a lot of cases to get to. This concludes your arraignment. Please sign the paper in front of you before you go back to your cell. Ask the turnkey to help you if need be, sir.”

Suddenly Pigeon Tony’s face vanished from the screen, which went black, and Judy almost cried with relief. She hung up the phone, grabbed her briefcase, and turned to leave as another defendant materialized on the screen and the public defender reclaimed his desk. She hadn’t been so glad to see a TV show end since Happy Days. And she had won. Pigeon Tony would be set free. The Lucia side of the gallery was on its feet, hugging each other with happiness.

Judy felt almost high as she opened the door in the plastic divider, and Frank, Mr. DiNunzio, the fragrant Tony-From-Down-The-Block LoMonaco, and glasses-wearing Tony Two Feet Pensiera rushed to sweep her up, thanking, hugging, and congratulating her. She had never experienced such emotion, such total love coming from complete strangers, and she found herself caught up in it, laughing with delight, forgetting every last doubt about the case.