The Vendetta Defense

Bennie looked over. “No hugging, though. Lawyers don’t hug.”

“Agreed,” Judy said. She was too happy to stop smiling. She felt great. It was a miracle. She had to have been a galley slave in a former life to cash in on this karmic payload.

Then Pigeon Tony emerged from Frank’s arms, his brown eyes bright. “I talk to judge now,” he said, and Judy’s good mood vanished.

“You don’t have to. It’s over.”

Pigeon Tony turned slowly, shaking his head. “No. I talk to judge. I talk to judge now.” A surprised Frank stood behind him, but Judy was aghast. He couldn’t mean it. This wasn’t happening.

“Pigeon Tony, we’re ready to go to the jury now, just as it is.”

“No! You say, today I say. I say. I go to judge. I tell truth!”

Judy wasn’t hearing this. Maybe he didn’t understand, even though she’d explained it 236,345 times. “Let me explain. Again. I have proved that Angelo Coluzzi hated you, and that you and he were in a small room together for maybe five minutes. During this time Angelo Coluzzi’s neck got broken, but I proved that that could have happened easily in a man his age, in even a scuffle.”

“I broke! I did!”

Judy checked her urge to grab Pigeon Tony by his scrawny little neck and shake some sense into him. “But the only proof they have that you started the fight and not Coluzzi is that somebody who never heard you speak heard you yell, ‘I’m gonna kill you,’ in Italian.”

“Me! I said! I did! But no e murder!”

Judy wanted to kill him, in English. “But they can’t prove that, and they haven’t. They lost. I bet you ten to one that the jury is going to come back for you, Pigeon Tony.”

“I tell judge! I tell them! I tell about Silvana! And tomatoes! And kiss!”

Judy’s head began to throb. Tomatoes and kisses wouldn’t do it, in a court of law. Maybe if she explained more. “I am going to argue to the jury in my closing that it’s just as likely that you pushed Angelo Coluzzi in self- defense as that you attacked him. That is demonstrably true.”

“What means mons—?”

Judy was losing patience. “It’s true, leave it at that. In addition, we have also proved, fairly conclusively, that Angelo Coluzzi and Jimmy Bello killed your son and daughter-in-law by throwing a Molotov cocktail in their truck, which set fire to their cab and caused what everybody thought was an accident.” Judy knew she was talking too fast for Pigeon Tony to follow, but she couldn’t stop herself. He was threatening to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Never mind that he could end up dead. “And if the jury thinks Coluzzi really killed your son, and not just that you believe it for no reason, then they will feel less sympathetic for him and less inclined to convict you for his murder. Don’t you get it? Shut up and win!”

Frank had gone white, his hands on his grandfather’s shoulders. “Judy, you’re hollering at him.”

“I have every right to holler at him! I’m trying to save his fucking life!” Judy shouted, and realized she had lost it. She didn’t need the expression on Bennie’s face to tell her, but it was there just the same.

Bennie was holding up her hand, like a stop sign. “Judy, enough. You’re upset. Get a grip.” She turned to Frank, almost formally. “Frank, does your grandfather understand what Judy is saying? Because she’s right.”

“I know he does. He understands more than people think.”

“I don’t want to take any chances. His life is at stake, and my liability. I want you to explain to him everything Judy just said, in Italian. And tell him if he chooses to testify, tell him he does so against his attorney’s advice.”

“Fair enough,” Frank said. “But I’m telling you. He understands fine. He just doesn’t agree.”

“I no agree!” Pigeon Tony chorused.

Frank began speaking to Pigeon Tony in rapid Italian, and Judy watched, feeling utterly helpless. She couldn’t believe it was happening. Her emotions went from complete frustration to stone cold fear. She looked at Frank and Pigeon Tony, then to Bennie. Was Bennie going to let this happen? “Bennie, they could kill him! They could give him the death penalty!”

“I know that.” Bennie was calm, which only made Judy crazier.

“We can’t just let him walk into it!” In the background was the sound of Italian, too musical for the grim occasion.

“We have to, if that’s what he wants.”

Frank looked up, grimly, his hands on his grandfather’s arm. “He wants to do it. He wants to tell the truth. He wants his day in court. He says he’s innocent, and he wants the jury to find that he’s innocent.”

“What’s the difference?” Judy exploded at Pigeon Tony, but Frank answered for him.

“You know what it is. He doesn’t want to think he got away with murder, because to him, it’s not murder. It’s not just that he’s not guilty—he’s innocent.”

“Then it’s done,” Bennie said simply, cutting Judy off with a chop and checking her watch. “We have two minutes until we go in.”

Judy couldn’t stop shaking her head. She grabbed Pigeon Tony by both of his hands. “Pigeon Tony, do you understand that after you testify, Mr. Santoro can ask you questions? All sorts of questions?”

“Si, si.” Pigeon Tony nodded, unfazed.

“Mr. Santoro will not be nice to you, he will be very mean. He will try to make you look like a very bad man. He will ask you, ‘How did you murder him?’ He will say, ‘Tell the jury exactly how you broke poor Angelo Coluzzi’s neck.’”

“I tell. I kill. No murder.”

“It will be awful! Santoro will tear you apart! He can keep you up there for days! You hardly even speak the language!” Judy wanted to cry, but she had to keep a tenuous grip or she couldn’t save him. “The jury won’t like what you say! They will say, ‘This man is a killer. Let’s give him the death penalty. Put him to death!’”

“Si, si.” Pigeon Tony half smiled, and his eyes, hooded with age, met Judy’s with a sort of serenity. Behind them Judy saw a strength she hadn’t noticed before, but also a folly. The bravest men got themselves killed. The pioneer was the one with the arrows in his chest.

“Pigeon Tony, please don’t.” If she had to beg, she would. “I am begging you.”

“Judy, no worry.” Pigeon Tony squeezed her hands. “You ask questions, inna court? Si? ”

Judy blinked back tears. She couldn’t imagine it. She would have to take him through it on direct examination. “Yes,” she said, but her eyes filled up anyway. She didn’t want to see him dead, or even in prison. She didn’t know it until now, but she loved him.

“Ask me, I tell Silvana. Ask baby Frank. Ask tomato. Ask how Silvana die, inna stable. I tell. Like before, yesterday. I tell.”

Judy remembered. She had been transported by his stories. But she wasn’t a jury. And nothing had been at stake, least of all Pigeon Tony’s life. A tear rolled down her cheek, and she let go of his hand to brush it away.

“Everything okay, you see, Judy. Judge see. Jury see. Alla people see. Say me, how you see Silvana, Pigeon Tony?”

Judy’s lips trembled and she couldn’t speak. Bennie had fallen silent.

Frank sighed audibly. “Juries can do whatever they want, can’t they, Judy?” he asked.

Judy wasn’t holding any false hope. “At least they can’t kill him twice.”

Bennie shot her a disapproving look. “Yes, Frank. Your counsel should be telling you that there is something called jury nullification, which means the jury simply ignores the law and does what it thinks is just. It happened first a long time ago in the Old South, where white juries wouldn’t convict white men who lynched black men. Since then it has occurred, only rarely, in mercy killing and domestic abuse cases. But it is very rare.”

“Very rare,” Judy echoed. “Like winning-the-lottery rare.”

“Andiamo!” cried Pigeon Tony abruptly, clapping his hands together in excitement. His eyes were shining and his face was bright, and for a minute he looked positively victorious.

Judy knew it couldn’t last.

Chapter 47