pretty bad, and he was trying to hold her down. I arrived on the scene and ordered her to get down, so I could cuff her.”
“Officer McShea, when you say the defendant was ‘struggling pretty bad,’ what exactly do you mean?”
“She was kicking, biting, and punching with her arms. She struggled on the ground and kept kicking upward at my partner, in the groin area. I was shouting, ‘Get down, get down,’ but she wouldn’t listen. Before I got her cuffed, she tried to get up and run away again.”
“Did the defendant say anything to you while you were handcuffing her?” Hilliard asked, and Bennie’s ears pricked up.
“Objection!” she said, rising quickly. “The question calls for hearsay, Your Honor.”
“It’s not hearsay, it’s coming in for the truth, and it’s an admission anyway,” Hilliard said, and Bennie knew she couldn’t discuss this in front of the jury.
“May we approach, Your Honor?” Bennie asked, and Judge Guthrie motioned them forward. She hustled to the bench and waited until Hilliard reached it. “Your Honor, this is hearsay.”
“If it’s an admission, it comes in, Ms. Rosato. You know the rules.”
“There was no testimony about any admission at the preliminary hearing. Whatever this admission is, it should have been supplied to the defense, and it wasn’t.”
“Your Honor,” Hilliard piped up, “the Commonwealth was under no obligation to offer each and every statement to the defense, and Ms. Rosato has total access to her client. She could have asked her.”
Bennie gripped the beveled edge of the dais. “But, Your Honor-”
“I’ve already ruled,” Judge Guthrie interrupted, shaking his head. “The statement is admissible.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Hilliard said, and returned to counsel table. Bennie did the same, her face betraying none of the anxiety she felt as she sat down next to Connolly. An admission could be lethal to the defense.
Hilliard walked over to the witness stand. “Officer McShea, what did the defendant say to you when you arrested her?”
Officer McShea spoke clearly into the microphone. “While I was cuffing her, she said she did it, and she offered us money to let her go. She offered us thirty thousand dollars apiece and when we said no, she upped it to a hundred.”
Silence fell in the courtroom, as if the trial had suddenly stalled in a pocket of dead air. An older juror in the front row leaned back in her chair and a young woman next to her blinked. The black librarian scowled at Connolly, who was scribbling a note to Bennie on her legal pad. Connolly wrote, I BEGGED THEM NOT TO KILL ME. Bennie skimmed the note without comment. All she could think was, they just did.
“Officer McShea,” Hilliard continued, “is it your testimony, then, that the defendant confessed and attempted to bribe you not to take her into custody?”
“Yes.”
“And you refused?”
“Of course. When we didn’t accept, she demanded a lawyer.”
Hilliard paused to let it sink in. “Officer McShea, permit me to take you back a minute, in the events of that night. When you first saw the defendant running down Trose Street, did you see anything in the defendant’s hand?”
“Yes, she was holding a white bag. Plastic, like you get at the Acme. Or, I should say, my wife gets at the Acme. I can’t take the credit when she does the work.” McShea smiled, as did the women in the front row of the jury. Connolly shifted next to Bennie, but didn’t say anything.
“Now Officer McShea, fast-forward to when you and Officer Reston were arresting her. Was she still carrying the white plastic bag?”
“No. The defendant had nothing in her hand when I cuffed her.”
“So the white plastic bag vanished when the defendant came out of the alley, is that correct?”
“Objection,” Bennie said. “The district attorney is testifying, Your Honor.”
“Overruled,” Judge Guthrie barked, and addressed the witness. “Officer McShea, would you answer the question, please?”
“The plastic bag was in her hand when the defendant ran into the alley and it wasn’t there when we arrested her.”
“When did you next see that bag, Officer McShea?” Hilliard asked.
“We took the defendant into custody, locked her in the squad car, and went looking for the plastic bag. We both saw her go into the alley with it and come out without it, so we knew pretty well where it had to be. I’m smarter than I look.”
Hilliard smiled and leaned on the witness box, so close to the cop he was practically in his seat. It wasn’t Hilliard’s handicap, it was his way of vouching for the cop, so common Bennie thought of it as the D.A. lap dance. “Officer McShea,” he said, “tell the jury the results of your search.”
“Officer Reston and I searched the alley in the middle of the block, toward the west end. In the alley was a Dumpster, from the construction across the street. We searched the Dumpster and in it we found a white plastic bag, like the one I saw in the defendant’s hand.”
“Did you find anything inside the bag?”
“Yes. A woman’s gray sweatshirt. It had blood all over it. It was still wet and warm.”
Hilliard picked up a tagged white bag from the evidence table and moved it into evidence. Bennie watched as the jurors craned their necks at the dark streaks on the crumpled sweatshirt, which could only be blood. “Officer McShea, I’m holding Exhibit C-12 and C-13. Is this the white bag and the sweatshirt you found?”
The cop stretched out a hand for the clothes bag and examined it through the plastic, turning it over. “Yes.”
“Now, Officer McShea, you testified that you found the sweatshirt, C- 13, in the Dumpster in the alley. Was the Dumpster full or empty?”
“Pretty full, lots of construction trash. Boards, rubble, and whatnot.”
“Did you have to dig in the trash to find this sweatshirt?”
“No. It was right on top of the other trash.”
“Was it concealed there?”
“Not at all.”
Bennie eyed the jurors. To a one, they were engrossed in the story. McShea’s testimony was easily understood, absolutely incriminating, and totally false. She’d have to handle him with care on cross.
“Officer McShea,” Hilliard asked, “by the way, did you or your partner find the murder weapon in the alley?”
“No, we didn’t. To the best of my knowledge, the murder weapon was never recovered.”
“I see.” Hilliard paused. “Did there come a time when you and your partner took the defendant down to the Roundhouse, the police administration building, in the squad car?”
“Yes, sure.”
“When you took the defendant to the Roundhouse, was she visibly upset or crying over the death of her lover, Detective Della Porta?”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Bennie said. “Does Mr. Hilliard mean other than the witness has already described? People show their grief in many different ways.” Her mother’s face materialized suddenly in her mind’s eye.
“Rephrase the question,” Judge Guthrie said, leaning back again. He arranged his robe around him and patted the gathered stitching that ringed his robe like a yoke.
“Officer McShea,” Hilliard asked, “was the defendant crying when you took her to the Roundhouse?”
“No, but a couple of us were,” McShea said, bitterness tainting his tone, and Bennie knew instantly that the jury would be reminded that the murdered man was a fallen policeman. She had to find a way to let them know what their hero had hidden under his floor.
“I have no further questions. Your witness, Ms. Rosato,” Hilliard said, his tone grave. “Thank you.”
Hilliard gathered his papers at the podium as Bennie stepped from behind counsel table, buttoned her suit jacket, and shook off her mother’s image. She had to prove to the jury something that adults should already have known. There really was no Santa Claus.
