JAYWALKER: Okay. And you say the five of you sat around talking and doing shots of tequila?
FIRESTONE: I object. There's no evidence they were talking.
JAYWALKER: I object to Mr. Firestone's objecting. It's not his witness.
THE COURT: Yes, sustained.
NAPOLITANO: Objection.
JAYWALKER: I'll withdraw the question. Mr. Gilson, did the five of you talk?
GILSON: Yes.
JAYWALKER: And were you sitting around while you did that?
GILSON: Yes.
JAYWALKER: Thank you. Is it fair to say that as the evening wore on, there were a number of glasses on the table.
GILSON: Yes.
JAYWALKER: And it was difficult to tell which glasses belonged to which people?
GILSON: Yes.
JAYWALKER: And who had had how many drinks?
GILSON: Yes, very difficult.
JAYWALKER: So the number you gave Miss Napoli tano earlier was more like an estimate or a guess than an accurate recollection?
GILSON: Correct.
JAYWALKER: Do you recall the actual number of drinks Mr. Drake had?
GILSON: No.
JAYWALKER: Was he talking loudly?
GILSON: No.
JAYWALKER: Acting boisterously?
GILSON: No, not at all.
JAYWALKER: Having trouble speaking or walking?
GILSON: No.
JAYWALKER: Did he at any time strike you as reckless, depraved, indifferent, wicked, perverted, immoral, degenerate, lewd, licen FIRESTONE and NAPOLITANO: Objection, objection.
THE COURT: Sustained.
GILSON: No, not at all.
THE COURT: I said sustained. That means you don't answer the question.
GILSON: Oh. Sorry.
Napolitano called Gilson's girlfriend, Trudy Demarest, to the stand. Her testimony turned out to be pretty much a carbon copy of Gilson's, at least from the point she'd arrived at the End Zone. Nicky Legs had interviewed her, too, so Jaywalker had expected as much. On crossexamination, he focused on the two friends she'd brought along.
JAYWALKER: Rachel Harper. Do you happen to know where she is now?
DEMAREST: She's in California. L.A. She moved out there in September. Couldn't stand the cold.
JAYWALKER: How about Amy Jo? Is her last name O'Keefe, by the way?
DEMAREST: Yes.
JAYWALKER: Do you know where she is?
DEMAREST: Right over there.
(Witness points)
THE COURT: Would counsel approach, please?
Jaywalker was joined by all three prosecutors at the bench. He loved it when that happened. It highlighted the mismatch.
'Why is she sitting in the audience?' Justice Hinkley wanted to know.
'I didn't know she was here,' said Firestone. 'But it is a public courtroom.'
'Thank you for the civics lesson,' said the judge.
'We don't intend to call her,' explained Kaminsky, the law man. 'Her testimony would be merely cumulative.'
Bingo, thought Jaywalker. The prosecution had listed among its witnesses no fewer than twenty-one individuals prepared to testify about the identities of the nine victims, none of which were in question. Yet they were reluctant to call one of the four people who'd been drinking with the defendant, because it would be merely cumulative? Not likely. Amy Jo O'Keefe, who had for some reason refused to talk with Nicky Legs, had to have something to hide.
'Why don't we exclude her,' suggested Jaywalker. 'I might just call her.'
'Step back,' said the judge. Then, to the jurors, 'I think this might be a good time to take our midmorning recess. We'll resume in fifteen minutes. Don't discuss the case.'
When they reconvened, Firestone asked to approach the bench again. But it was Kaminsky who spoke once they got up there. 'We've decided to call Miss O'Keefe after all. Because we failed to exclude her from the courtroom during prior testimony, we wanted to give Mr. Jaywalker an opportunity to be heard, in case he objects.'
'Mr. Jaywalker?' said the judge.
Again, it was one of those moments when he had to think fast. There were three things he could do. First, he could oppose her testifying at all. But he'd already decided that Firestone must have had a reason for not calling her in the first place. Second, he could ask for a sanction against the prosecution, such as the judge's instructing the jurors to regard her testimony with additional scrutiny, since she'd had the benefit of hearing earlier witnesses describing the same events she'd be asked about. But if it turned out that Miss O'Keefe's version of the facts was more favorable to Drake, as Jaywalker strongly suspected it might be, that instruction would boomerang and come back to hurt the defense.
Having set enough traps of his own over the years, Jaywalker recognized one when he saw it. So he picked Door Number Three. 'I appreciate the prosecution's looking out for me,' he said. 'But I have no application regarding the witness.'
'You know I'll issue a cautionary instruction,' said Justice Hinkley, 'if you request it.'
'No, thank you,' said Jaywalker, unable to suppress a wink. 'And I'll assume Mr. Firestone has fulfilled his Brady and Rosario obligations.'
The prosecutors looked at each other blankly. Brady required them to turn over any exculpatory material. Rosario dealt with reports containing prior statements of witnesses.
'Of course,' said Firestone.
'Yes,' said Kaminsky.
'Naturally,' said Napolitano.
Jaywalker couldn't help picturing the three monkeys, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Speak No Evil.
'You may step back,' said the judge. And once they had, 'Call your next witness, Mr. Firestone.'
In describing that witness in its next day's edition, the reporter for the Rockland County Register would put it this way:
Barely five feet tall in heels, Amy Jo O'Keefe weighs 99 pounds, by her own admission. With flaming-red hair, bright green eyes, a button nose and an absolutely irrepressible smile, she's as cute as a firecracker.
What the paper delicately refrained from pointing out was the fact, obvious to everyone in the courtroom, that either Amy Jo had been spectacularly endowed by her Creator, or that a good portion of those ninety-nine pounds consisted of silicone, or at least some material not naturally found in the human body.
FIRESTONE: Is it Miss O'Keefe, or Mrs? Or Ms.?
O'KEEFE: It's Miss.
FIRESTONE: Are you employed, Miss O'Keefe?
O'KEEFE: Yes, I'm a sales rep for Pfizer. That's a pharmaceutical company.
FIRESTONE: Do you recall the late-afternoon and early-evening hours of May 27 of last year?
O'KEEFE: Yes, I do.
