Jaywalker asked no questions of Ms. Harrington. His rule of thumb was that less was better, and none was even better than less. Too many cross-examiners insisted on making a show of questioning every witness called by an adversary. To Jaywalker, that made no sense at all. If a witness hadn't said anything to hurt his client, why disguise that fact by asking questions? Why not instead highlight it by shrugging and saying that you had no questions?
Joseph Teller
The Tenth Case
Burke called Anthony Mazzini. Mazzini was the super intendent of the building in which Barry Tannenbaum had a penthouse apartment. Around midday, two uni formed police officers had arrived at the building. They'd explained that Mr. Tannenbaum hadn't shown up for work that morning, and that people at his office were con cerned for his welfare. After unsuccessfully trying to reach Tannenbaum by intercom and telephone, Mazzini had taken the officers up to the penthouse. There he'd rung the doorbell and knocked on the door, getting no response. Eventually he'd unlocked it with a passkey. The door hadn't been chained or bolted from the inside, and the alarm had been off. Mazzini had followed the officers inside.
MR. BURKE: Did you find anything unusual?
MR. MAZZINI: Unusual? Yeah, plenty.
There was a ripple of nervous laughter from the jury box.
MR. BURKE: What was it?
MR. MAZZINI: We found Mr. Tannenbaum laying on the kitchen floor in a mess of blood.
Once again, Jaywalker had no questions. Mazzini was actually on his short list of suspects, but he knew that now was no time to go after him. For one thing, the rules of evidence limited cross-examination to those topics covered in direct examination. If Jaywalker wanted to attack the super, he would have to call him later, during the defense case, and, if need be, have him declared a hostile witness. But even beyond that technical consideration, what was he going to do? Come right out and ask Mazzini if he'd murdered Barry and framed Samara?
Burke called Susan Connolly, one of the two 'first officers' to arrive at the scene. Officer Connolly had quickly determined that Tannenbaum was dead, and had probably been dead for a number of hours. She and her partner had established a crime scene, prohibiting any un authorized personnel from entering, and seeing to it that nothing was moved or otherwise disturbed. Then they'd called their precinct commander, who'd told them to wait there until the detectives arrived.
MR. BURKE: Which way was the body facing?
P.O. CONNOLLY: Excuse me?
MR. BURKE: Was the body lying faceup or facedown?
P.O. CONNOLLY: Facedown, mostly.
MR. BURKE: Did either you or your partner ever turn it over?
P.O. CONNOLLY: No, sir.
MR. BURKE: Thank you. No further questions.
At that point Jaywalker decided he might as well take a shot and see if he could raise some questions about the previous witness.
MR. JAYWALKER: What about Mr. Mazzini, the super? What did he do?
P.O. CONNOLLY: He didn't touch him, neither.
MR. JAYWALKER: No, not what he didn't do, what he did do.
P.O. CONNOLLY: When?
MR. JAYWALKER: The entire time he was in the apartment.
P.O. CONNOLLY: I don't know. Stood around, mostly. Looked around.
MR. JAYWALKER: Looked around in various rooms?
P.O. CONNOLLY: I guess so.
MR. JAYWALKER: You yourself stayed with the body, though. Right?
P.O. CONNOLLY: Right, once we'd secured the area and made sure that there was no one else in the apart ment.
MR. JAYWALKER: I see. How long did it take be fore the detectives arrived?
P.O. CONNOLLY: (Refers to memo book)
Twenty-five minutes.
MR. JAYWALKER: When they arrived at the apart ment, did they have much con versation with Mr. Mazzini?
P.O. CONNOLLY: Some. I wouldn't say much.
MR. JAYWALKER: So he was still there?
P.O. CONNOLLY: I'm not sure.
MR. JAYWALKER: Didn't you just tell us the de tectives had some conversation with him when they arrived at the apartment?
(No response)
MR. JAYWALKER: Was Mr. Mazzini still there?
P.O. CONNOLLY: Yes.
MR. JAYWALKER: So by that time, he'd been there a good half an hour, right?
P.O. CONNOLLY: I guess so, right.
MR. JAYWALKER: Like you said, standing around, looking around in various rooms?
P.O. CONNOLLY: Right.
If it wasn't much, at least it was a start. It showed that the super, who had a passkey, had also had full access to the apartment the day after the murder. And that the integ rity of the crime scene had been compromised, a fact that jurors raised on a diet of O.J. and CSI might find troubling.
Then again, what was Jaywalker really doing here? Hoping for the cops to screw up? Waiting for manna to fall from the heavens? It seemed so.
They broke for lunch.
That afternoon Burke led off with Detective Anne Maloney. Maloney was assigned to the Crime Scene Unit, a fact that immediately grabbed the attention of the jury. Having labored for years in almost total obscurity, CSU had almost overnight become the darlings of the department. The agent of change, of course, had been the television set. Programs like CSI, along with myriad spinoffs and com petitors, had thrust the unit into the forefront of police work. These days, if you were to canvas a roomful of twelve- to fourteen-year-olds, you'd likely find that of all the careers the youngsters aspired to, crime scene technician outpolled its nearest competitor by a margin of twenty to thirty per centage points. Kids no longer wanted to be doctors, movie stars, shortstops, firemen or forest rangers; they wanted to be David Caruso or Marg Helgenberger. (Assuming, of course, that they couldn't be the next F antasia.)
Detective Maloney was no American Idol. Plain and a bit on the stocky side, with a pageboy haircut straight out of the fifties, she was all business. She and fellow members of her unit had arrived at the scene at, as she put it, 'fourteen forty-five hours.' Translated for the jury, that was a quarter of three in the afternoon. She'd found that the apartment had been secured by two uniformed patrol officers, who'd es tablished a crime scene, indicated by the presence of familiar yellow-and-black tape at the door to the apartment.
Inside, things had seemed quite orderly, with two excep tions, both in the kitchen. First, there were a half- dozen half-empty cartons of Chinese food spread out on the coun tertop. And then there was the floor. On it was a body, sub sequently identified as that of Barry Tannenbaum.
MR. BURKE: Can you describe the condition of the body for us?
DET. MALONEY: It was dead.
Her understatement drew a few nervous snickers from the jury box.
MR. BURKE: I was actually hoping you could give us a little more detail.
