17
Thursday morning brought a light freezing rain to the
Northeast. Maybe, Jaywalker decided, Justice Hinkley hadn't been lying after all. Maybe she'd just gotten her timing wrong. Which wasn't to say she might not make it in a future life as a weather forecaster, one of those daring souls who were forever putting their reputations on the line by boldly predicting a fifty percent chance of showers.
Thursday morning also brought the End Zone wit nesses. First up was a man named Frank Gilson. Gilson was the client Carter Drake had worked with in Nyack earlier on the day of the incident. Jaywalker had known
Gilson would be called, not only from the reports turned over to him by Firestone, but from a letter of apology
Gilson had sent Drake, through Amanda. He felt terrible about testifying against his business associate and friend, but he had been given little choice by the prosecutors, who'd said he could either take the stand or thirty days for contempt. He'd decided to take the stand.
Julie Napolitano did the honors.
NAPOLITANO: Did you have a meeting with the defen dant on May 27 of last year?
GILSON: I did.
NAPOLITANO: Where was that meeting?
GILSON: At my office in Nyack.
NAPOLITANO: What time did that meeting begin?
GILSON: About ten, ten-thirty in the morning.
NAPOLITANO: And when did it end?
GILSON: Maybe four-fifteen.
NAPOLITANO: What did you do at that point?
GILSON: We'd skipped lunch, and we were both hungry and thirsty. So I suggested we go get something to eat and drink, and Carter agreed.
NAPOLITANO: Where did you go?
GILSON: We went to a place called the End Zone, also in Nyack. It's what they call a sports bar. Good food, good drinks, nice crowd. We found a table, sat down and ordered.
NAPOLITANO: Was it just the two of you?
GILSON: At first it was. After a while, I called up a friend of mine and suggested she come over and join us.
NAPOLITANO: Can you tell us her name?
GILSON: Trudy, Trudy Demarest.
NAPOLITANO: By the way, Mr. Gilson, are you married?
GILSON: No, I'm not.
Gilson described how Trudy, along with two of her girlfriends, had joined them at the End Zone. As the evening wore on, they gradually switched from martinis and buffalo wings to shots of tequila.
NAPOLITANO: Over the course of the afternoon and evening, did you have an opportunity to observe how much the defendant had to drink?
GILSON: I certainly wasn't keeping count, if that's what you mean.
NAPOLITANO: We've discussed this before, haven't we, Mr. Gilson?
JAYWALKER: Objection.
THE COURT: Sustained. Please rephrase the question.
NAPOLITANO: What is your best recollection as to the number of drinks the defendant had at the End Zone?
GILSON: I would say he had two or three martinis. After the girls showed up, well, there were a lot of glasses on the table, and honestly, it was hard to tell who had how many.
NAPOLITANO: Do you recall testifying before the grand jury in June of last year?
JAYWALKER: Objection.
THE COURT: Overruled.
GILSON: Yes.
NAPOLITANO: Do you recall Mr. Firestone asking you how many shots of tequila you saw Carter Drake drink?
GILSON: Yes.
NAPOLITANO: Do you recall answering, 'I'm not sure. Five, six, seven. Something like that'? Do you recall say ing that, under oath?
GILSON: Yes.
NAPOLITANO: Was that testimony accurate then?
GILSON: Yes.
NAPOLITANO: Is it accurate today?
GILSON: I guess so.
NAPOLITANO: You guess so?
GILSON: Yes, it's accurate.
If Gilson had been trying to avoid hurting Drake, and Jaywalker was pretty sure he had been, his reticence had had precisely the opposite effect. It was bad enough to be damned by your enemies. When your friends testified against you, it got much worse. And ironically, it was Gilson's genuine reluctance-based on his obvious loyalty to Drake, trumped only by the threat of jail-that branded his testimony with a capital T for Truth.
Julie Napolitano spent another twenty minutes with Gilson. He admitted that he'd had almost as much to drink as Drake had that day, and that neither of them had eaten anything other than a few buffalo wings, and that had been early on. Yes, he had to admit, he would have considered himself drunk.
He remembered a young man showing up to drive Drake home, or so he assumed. But he was unable to describe the young man. Shown a photograph of Eric Drake, the most that he could state was, 'That looks sort of like him.'
'I'll stipulate,' said Jaywalker, 'that it was indeed my client's son who showed up.' No use making a mystery of it. He didn't need the jurors speculating that the young man was some gay teenage lover, or something like that. Drake had enough strikes against him as it was.
Nicky Legs had interviewed Gilson months ago, and Jaywalker knew there was little to be gained from crossexamining him. Still, he couldn't very well ask nothing. Gilson had hurt Drake too much.
JAYWALKER: The two young women who showed up with Trudy. Do you happen to remember their names?
GILSON: Yes. One was Rachel Harper. The other was Amy Jo something, a redhead. I don't recall her last name. I'd never met her before.
JAYWALKER: Does the name Amy Jo O'Keefe refresh your recollection?
It had actually taken both Jaywalker and Nicky Legs an awful lot of work to come up with the last name. Way back at the time of Firestone's three-carton-discovery bombardment, it had been apparent that three women had joined Drake and Gilson at their table that evening. But for some reason, only two of them-Trudy Demarest and Rachel Harper-seemed to have names. Stuff like that tended to make Jaywalker suspicious, so suspicious that he'd not only made a written note of the fact, but had deemed the omission worthy of gold-nugget status. Eventually, Nicky had succeeded in identifying the woman as Amy Jo O'Keefe, but he'd gotten no further; she hadn't agreed to talk to him. So at that point, Jaywalker still considered her important, though if asked, he couldn't have said why.
GILSON: That might have been it. I'm not sure. They did call her 'Irish,' though. You know, as a nickname.
