38

Ella needed to meet with David Slade again, but before she did, she wanted to take one last look at Rachel Quinn. At five, she dressed in a T-shirt, shorts, and running shoes and walked to Rachel Quinn’s office on Water Street. She didn’t bother to disguise herself in any way, as she wasn’t planning to approach Quinn. She was waiting when Quinn left her building, and when Quinn caught a cab, Ella caught one too and followed her back to her apartment. Half an hour later, Quinn left her apartment, did the poop-in-the-bag thing with her dog, walked a mile to the ice cream place, bought a cone, and returned home.

Ella thought about it for a long time, and came to a decision: David Slade was just going to have to live with Rachel Quinn as a witness.

Ella made a reservation at the Hilton in Midtown and texted Slade. Meet me at the Hilton tomorrow at noon.

Slade arrived dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. The first thing he said was, “I’m supposed to be at my son’s baseball game. My wife is not happy.”

Ella had forgotten it was Saturday, but Slade’s domestic problems were the least of her concerns.

“Okay,” she said. “This is the way Toby’s trial is going to go. The prosecutor will call the detectives to the stand and maybe a crime scene tech, and she’ll ask if they can prove Toby was in the bar. They’ll say yes, that they have eyewitnesses who can put him there, as well as his fingerprints. On cross, you’ll ask if they found any physical evidence that Toby murdered Dominic DiNunzio, like a gun or gunshot residue or a shell casing with Toby’s fingerprints on it. They’ll say no. Then you’ll ask—you’ll ask this as many times as you can—if they found any motive for Toby to kill Dominic.

“The prosecutor will then call the witnesses. She’ll ask Jack Morris if Toby was in the bar that evening. He’ll say that Toby was indeed in the bar—something you’re willing to concede—but he’ll also say that he can’t be certain it was Toby who shot Dominic. On cross you’ll show Morris—and the jury—a photo of Carmine Fratello. You’ll ask Morris if Carmine is a frequent customer at McGill’s, and Morris will say yes.”

Slade said, “The prosecutor will object to me showing him Carmine’s picture. She’ll say it’s irrelevant.”

“That’s your problem. Figure out how to deal with the objection. Next the prosecutor will call the barmaid, and her testimony and your cross-examination of her will be identical to the bartender’s.

“Last, the prosecutor will call Rachel Quinn, and she’ll say she saw Toby shoot Dominic, then run past her table. She’ll say she’s positive it was him. On cross, you’ll make her admit that whoever killed Dominic had his back to her when the shooting happened and that she saw the killer only when he ran past her table. You’ll ask her how she can be so sure that the man she saw running in the dim light of the bar was Toby. You’ll hammer the word ‘run.’

“Then it’s your turn. You present your experts, who’ll talk about men being sent to jail because eyewitnesses made mistakes. You show pictures of men who’ve been mistakenly convicted, and how the innocent man doesn’t look anything like the man who committed the crime. Your video expert will show his video proving how difficult it would have been for Rachel Quinn to accurately identify Toby as he went sprinting past her.

“Next you call one of the detectives back to the stand. You ask the detective to confirm that the night Dominic was killed it was raining hard, that at approximately seven-thirty p.m. in March it was dark out, and that Dominic was wearing a trench coat and a hat. You show the jury pictures of dead Dominic sitting there at the table, still wearing his trench coat and his hat.

“Then you call Carmine Fratello to the stand. Carmine will tell about the bad blood between him and Vinnie Caniglia, how Carmine broke Vinnie’s nose in Atlantic City, and how Vinnie threated to kill him and that Dante Bello has been stalking him. You then ask Carmine if he owns a trench coat like Dominic’s, and he says no.”

“No?” Slade said.

“That’s right. Dominic had a Burberry trench coat with a belt. The trench coat owned by Carmine is the same tan color and the same length as Dominic’s, but it’s made by London Fog and doesn’t have a belt. You don’t want the trench coats to be identical. That might smell to the jury. But they don’t have to be identical. On the dark, rainy night Dominic was killed, he was wearing a tan trench coat similar to the one Carmine has. And Dominic was wearing a hat, making it even harder for Dante Bello to be sure it was Carmine Fratello.

“At any rate,” Ella continued, “what happened that night was Dante saw a man he thought was Carmine enter McGill’s. He knew Carmine went to McGill’s all the time, as the bartender testified. So Dante thought it was Carmine who went into McGill’s, then Dante—this criminal, this violent moron who gets drunk and beats people up—decided to kill Carmine. It took him a while to screw up his courage, but he eventually walks into McGill’s—into this dimly lit bar—and up to a man sitting there wearing a trench coat and a hat, shoots him three times, then runs out of the bar.

“Finally, you call Dante to the stand so everyone can see how much he looks like Toby. You put their pictures side by side so the jury can see them, then you have your video expert show their pictures again side by side in the exact lighting that was in the bar that night. You ask Dante about the bad blood between Vinnie and Carmine. You ask Dante if he shot Dominic. Dante will deny it, of course, but who’s going to believe a hood like Dante? If Dante is asked to prove where he was that night, he’s going to say—I know, because I already asked him—that he was at a Knicks game with two of his fellow hoods. But nobody is going to buy that story.”

Slade walked over to a window and looked out, mulling over everything Ella had told him. He could see the top of the Manhattan Bridge from where he stood. Finally he said, “It could work, but I still don’t want Quinn testifying.”

“She’s going to testify, David; get on board with that. I’ve given you enough that a lawyer with your experience and ability can create reasonable doubt when it comes to Toby. They have only one witness who was sure it was Toby. One! You have two witnesses who say they can’t be sure, you have a defendant with no motive, and you have a credible alternative suspect who looks like Toby. And Dante Bello, unlike Toby Rosenthal, is a man with a criminal history.”

“But …”

“David, I’m not going to kill Rachel Quinn, and the only way I can ensure she won’t testify is if I kill her. I already took a significant risk with Esther Behrman, so you’re just going to have to do your job and convince a jury that Dante Bello shot Dominic DiNunzio.”

“I want to remind you,” Slade said, “that our deal was you get the second half of your fee only if I’m satisfied you’ve given me an effective defense. Well, I’m not satisfied.”

Ella had hoped it wouldn’t come to this—but there was no way that Slade, or Henry Rosenthal, wasn’t going to pay her the other million she was owed. She’d worked too hard, and she’d given Quinn a brilliant defense. A first-year law student could create reasonable doubt when it came to Toby Rosenthal.

“David, you are going to pay me. I told you when this all started that my partner and I are not the kind of people you want to renege on. And these witnesses who are now prepared to testify for Toby? Well, I can always make them change their minds.”

Slade didn’t say anything. He just looked at her, the look of a stubborn man used to getting his way—and not one who liked to be threatened.

Tough shit. Ella left him sitting there in the hotel room glowering.

And it was a shame. Ella actually had been in the mood.