The Vendetta Defense

murder!”

“But it is! It is, here! If you tell them that, they will lock you up. Don’t you see?” Judy heard herself shouting in frustration, and she became aware that Bennie had hung up the telephone and was staring at her with disapproval. Judy stopped and looked over. “Uh, hi?”

“Uh, no.” Bennie managed a smile. “You might want to stop screaming at your client.”

Judy relaxed back in the chair. “Good point.”

Pigeon Tony glanced from one lawyer to the other as Bennie came over, pad in hand, sat on the edge of the conference table, and looked down at him.

“Mr. Lucia,” she said, “you and I haven’t talked much during this case because Judy is your lawyer. She is doing a wonderful job for you. She has a defense that the jury can understand and believe in. Depending on what she does tomorrow, she may win this case for you, which is a very difficult thing to do. She is advising you not to testify, and I would listen to her if I were you. You should also know that in the United States very few defendants like you take the stand and testify. I have defended many murder cases and never had a defendant on the stand.”

“Si, si.”

“But as she told you, it is your right to testify if you want to. So here’s what I think. Tonight you sleep on it.” Bennie caught herself in the idiom when Pigeon Tony’s forehead crinkled. “You rest tonight and you can decide tomorrow. If you still want to testify tomorrow, then you and Judy can discuss it again. Okay?”

“Si!” Pigeon Tony said quickly, pumping his head with vigor.

“Judy will discuss it as much as you want to, because it is a very important decision. It is the single most important decision in every defense. And it is your decision. Understand?”

“Si, si.” Pigeon Tony seemed to back down.

Judy exhaled. “Okay, I agree.”

Bennie shot her a look. “It doesn’t matter whether you agree.”

Uh, oh. Judy smiled. “But it’s a good thing that I do, huh? Makes it nicer, all around.”

Bennie rolled her eyes and smiled at Pigeon Tony. “Mr. Lucia, you see, Judy gets a little excited, and she cares about you. Also she’s young. Not like you and me.”

Pigeon Tony burst into laughter. “You young woman, Benedetta!”

“I’m forty-five, sir. I stopped being young forty years ago.” Bennie hopped off the table and nodded at Judy. “Maybe you should order your client some dinner before you start talking business.”

“Okay, sure.” Judy reminded herself she had to do better in the care-and-feeding department. She had even lost custody of her puppy, she was such a bad mother. “Pigeon Tony, you want me to order dinner before we talk?”

“Dinner, si.”

“You want Chinese? You had the plain lo mein.”

Pigeon Tony wrinkled his tan nose. “Bad pasta.”

Judy smiled. “Want pizza?”

“Si, si.”

Judy nodded. It was only the 3,847th time they’d had pizza delivered in the past week. “Okay, pizza it is.” She went to the phone to order when the conference room door opened suddenly, and everybody looked up.

Frank came in and tossed the file on the table, where it slid across the smooth surface. His face was grim but oddly relieved. “My parents were murdered in their truck that night,” he said simply.

Judy’s mouth dropped open. “What do you mean? Didn’t you read the expert’s report?”

“I did. That’s what proves it to me.”

“How? The expert found it was an accident.”

Frank managed a half smile. “But I know something he didn’t.”

Judy put the phone back down in surprise.

Chapter 45

“You may sit down,” Judge Vaughn said as he entered the courtroom and ascended the dais. His manner telegraphed that he was ready to move along, which was just how Judy felt. She couldn’t wait to put on her case, now that she believed she had a winner. But a lot depended on what happened with the Commonwealth’s last witness.

Judy shifted forward on her seat. It had occurred to her, as she worked through last night preparing questions and making phone calls, that the tables had turned in this case. Until this morning it had been Pigeon Tony on trial, but from now on it was Angelo Coluzzi’s turn to be tried for murder. And Judy didn’t want him to get away with it, even in death, though she still didn’t know if she could convict him with the evidence she had. But she had a better chance than before Frank’s discovery. And Judy was glad that it was Frank who had found the key. It was fitting.

She glanced over at Pigeon Tony, who looked intent now that the truth would finally come out about his son’s death. In the front row of the gallery, Frank was on the edge of the pew. The rest of the gallery settled down, with only the reporters and courtroom artists working away. The judge had seated himself and cleared a stack of pleadings from the center of the dais.

“Good morning, Ms. Carrier, Mr. Santoro. Mr. Santoro, you may call your first witness.”

Santoro rose, in a new dark suit with deep vent. “Good morning, Your Honor. The Commonwealth calls Calvin DeWitt to the stand.”

Judy looked back as the door to the courtroom opened and the bailiff escorted in a middle-aged African- American man with a little goatee and rimless glasses. He wore a neatly pressed suit and carried himself with confidence as he walked to the stand, was sworn in, and sat down.

Santoro took his place at the podium. “Mr. DeWitt, please identity yourself for the jury.”

“I am an officer with the Accident Investigation Division, or AID, of the Philadelphia Police Department. I have been with AID for fifteen years, during which time I have investigated over five thousand traffic accidents in Philadelphia County. Basically our mission is to determine how a traffic fatality occurred.”

“Officer DeWitt, what is your training to perform such a complex task?”

“We are schooled in the most modern methods and technology of accident reconstruction, including courses in physics, crash investigation, bridge and highway construction, human anatomy, drug and alcohol impairment in the driver, and computer-animated graphics.”

Santoro nodded. “And do you receive accreditations, sir?”

“We do. We may be certified by ACTAR, which is the Accreditation Commission for Traffic Accident Reconstruction. I am so certified.”

Santoro flipped a page in his legal pad. “Your Honor, I move to have Officer DeWitt qualified as an expert.”

Judy nodded. She needed his testimony, too. “No objection.”

“Granted,” Judge Vaughn said, and Judy cast a glance at the jury. They appeared to be listening quietly, and she hoped they were anticipating the testimony about the accident, after yesterday with Jimmy Bello. Judy had subpoenaed him so he’d be in court today, and he sat coolly near John Coluzzi, who was himself stern-faced.

Santoro addressed the witness. “Officer DeWitt, are you the AID officer who investigated the traffic accident that occurred on January twenty-fifth, involving the deaths of Frank and Gemma Lucia, of Philadelphia?”

“I am.”

“And please describe briefly what you did to investigate that accident?”

Officer DeWitt looked up. “May I refer to my report?”

“Of course.” Santoro located a paper in his stack and distributed copies to Judy and the court personnel, who gave one to the judge. “Your Honor, I wish to move into evidence Commonwealth Exhibit Twenty-three, which is Officer DeWitt’s report of the accident in question.”

“No objection,” Judy said. She set the report aside to signal to the jury that she had seen it already. In fact, she’d memorized it last night, but there was no way she could signal that, as much as she wanted the extra credit.

Officer DeWitt thumbed through his report. “This refreshes my recollection. I visited the accident that night