No Defense (29 page)

“Yes, that’s what we discovered.”

“And yet you claim his accusation in the
Evers case wasn’t intentionally false?”

“I just don’t know, one way or the other,”
Dorr said.

“Why did you rely on him for anything after
that troubling incident occurred?”

“Objection,” Junior said. “The witness
hasn’t testified the incident was troubling.”

“Was it?” Chip asked.

“Yes,” Dorr said. “But we needed anything we
could get out of the Deep South in those days. You know, I’m sure,
that most people who are willing to inform on other people aren’t
the most upstanding citizens, but law enforcement needs their
help.”

“You mean you were desperate?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that.”

“Let me ask it another way: Would Dean Reese
have been your first choice for a reliable source of
information?”

“No. But he wouldn’t have been my last,
either.”

“But you had other problems with him, didn’t
you? In fact, didn’t Dean Reese have a reputation for violence and
drunkenness?”

“There was some talk along those lines.”

Chip picked up a piece of paper from the
pile next to his yellow pad. “Didn’t you once say, Mr. Dorr
...”

Junior stood up. “Mr. Reese has been accused
today of nearly every sin in the Bible. He is not on trial,
however, and I think this collateral attack on him has gone far
enough. Could Mr. Tuckahoe just get on with the case at hand?”

“The State can’t rely on Reese for its
entire case and then try to deny the defense its only avenue for
assessing his truth and veracity,” Chip said. He looked ready for a
fistfight, bouncing slightly off one foot, then the other.

“Dean Reese is not our entire case. Just one
little piece of it, as you will see.” Junior seemed very smug.

“I doubt that,” Chip said.

“You may proceed, Mr. Tuckahoe,” Judge
McNabb said.

“Didn’t you say in 1963 that ‘Dean Reese has
a reputation for being an extremely unstable alcoholic known for
violent and unpredictable behavior’? Aren’t those your exact
words?” Chip asked, holding up the paper and waving it for
emphasis.

“Yes. They are.”

“Isn’t that why the FBI didn’t push this
case in 1963? Because it was too embarrassed to go ahead with a
case based on the testimony of a drunken liar who killed himself?”
Chip asked. “Just as the State today should be embarrassed by this
case?”

“Objection,” Junior said. “He’s arguing his
case, not questioning the witness.”

“Sustained.”

Chip shook his head. His look, like the
question he’d just asked, suggested that he couldn’t imagine what
would motivate anyone to rely on Dean Reese to indict a man for
murder.

I just hoped Judge McNabb agreed with that
assessment, which required him to disregard the horrors revealed
earlier that day by the tape.

“Just one more thing,” Chip said. “Wouldn’t
you agree, Mr. Dorr, that there is less intact evidence today than
there was in 1963? After all, not only is your witness still dead,
but the gun, the shells, the wadding, and the shot are all lost,
and fifteen years have elapsed, fifteen years during which memories
inevitably have deteriorated.”

“That’s true.”

“So it’s fair to say, isn’t it, that this is
a much, much weaker case than the one the FBI chose not to pursue
in 1963?”

“Objection,” Junior said. “This witness is
not qualified to comment on the strengths or weaknesses of this
case. That is Your Honor’s jurisdiction.”

“And I’m sure His Honor knows well the only
correct answer to that question. I have nothing further,” Chip
said.

A few minutes later we were outside the
courthouse for the afternoon break. The sudden lunchtime storm had
left as quickly as it had come. I’d looked for Mother when we left
the courtroom but couldn’t find her, so I followed Daddy and Chip
outside to the ledge around the fountain. Since the day of the
courthouse dedication, when Jessie had thrown in her penny,
hundreds of others had followed, and the bottom of the fountain was
half covered with the copper-colored discs.

For the first time since this mess began, my
father looked worried. He pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket,
unwrapped it, and then just sat there, too distracted to light
it.

“What do you think?” I asked him.

“I don’t like it,” he said.

“What did you write on Chip’s yellow pad
after you heard the tape recording?” I asked.

“I wrote the same thing I’ve been telling
all of you this whole time-that Reese was a lying son of a
bitch-and I asked Chip if he thought anyone would believe him,” my
father said.

“Do you, Chip?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I sure hope not, but it’s a
hard call to make. At least now maybe you’ll reconsider your
position on testifying, Newell,” Chip said hopefully.

Daddy shook his head.

Was he telling Chip no, or did I detect the
possibility of change, the slightest suggestion that Daddy might
finally be fed up with this and be willing to take matters into his
own hands and explain away what we’d all just heard?

If not, maybe tomorrow I’d take a Valium or
two before I came to court.

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

When court reconvened following the afternoon
break, Junior called Ray Bartozzi, the FBI firearms identification
expert, as a State witness. He was a tall, heavy, middle-aged man
with a thick black mustache dotted with gray hair.

“I’ll stipulate that Mr. Bartozzi is
qualified as an expert in firearms identification, Your Honor,”
Chip said. “But I move that you not allow his testimony because the
gun as well as the shells and shot about which the witness plans to
testify are lost in the FBI’s storage facilities. The prosecution’s
case seems to rest entirely on dead men and misplaced
evidence.”

“Once again, Mr. Tuckahoe, I must deny your
motion,” Judge McNabb said. “Mr. Bartozzi is here and you can
cross-examine him about anything he says on direct. There is no
jury to worry about and, as in the case of the tape, I will
carefully weigh the probative value of the testimony and the
impact, if any, of the missing evidence.”

I was beginning to see that my father’s
tactical decision to waive his right to a jury trial had more
negative consequences than I’d understood.

After a few preliminaries, Junior began to
question Bartozzi about the case at hand. The witness chewed
nervously on his mustache as he listened to each question.

“Were you ever asked as part of your
official duties to examine a Winchester Model 21 Custom shotgun and
certain shell casings, wadding, and shot?”

“Yes, I was.”

“When?”

“On August 30, 1963.”

“Tell us about the circumstances of that
examination, please,” Junior said.

“Special Agent Dorr came to the bureau
laboratory on August 30, 1963, with two plastic bags of evidence.
One contained five shell casings and two pieces of wadding, and the
other contained pellets of shot. Dorr also gave me the Winchester
gun. He’d marked and tagged everything, and I added my initials to
each piece.”

“Why do you remember these events so
clearly?”

“Because that gun was a beautiful and very
expensive shotgun, and because of the circumstances of the murders
we were investigating. It was unusual to have so much physical
evidence in a civil rights murder.”

“Were you asked to perform any tests?”

“Yes. I was requested to examine the shell
casings, the shot, and the wadding, and determine, if possible,
whether they had been ejected from the Winchester shotgun.”

“Did the items in the evidence bags and the
Winchester shotgun remain in your custody from the time Agent Dorr
gave them to you until you performed your examinations on
them?”

“Yes.”

“What happened to them thereafter?”

“I sent them to storage when the case was
closed. When we tried to locate them over the last months, we
couldn’t.”

“Is it possible they ever will be
located?”

“Possible, but unlikely. We’ve undertaken a
very extensive search.”

“Did you make any notes respecting the tests
that you performed on the items given to you by Agent Dorr?”Junior
asked.

“Yes,” Bartozzi said. “I wrote a report, as
I always did. Reports were required on every test.”

“Do you have that report?”

“Yes.”

“Is it necessary for you to refer to that
report to refresh your memory as to the tests you performed on the
shotgun, the shells, the wadding, and the shot Agent Dorr gave
you?”

“Yes, it is.”

Junior showed the report to Chip and gave it
back to Bartozzi.

“Before we get to the report and the details
of the tests, let’s get a few definitions out of the way so
everyone can understand your testimony, Mr. Bartozzi. Please define
a shotgun shell,” Junior said.

“It consists of a cartridge case with a
brass head and a tube of either plastic or paper, primer-usually
center-fire-propellant powder charge, projectiles-usually shot-and
wads.”

“What is shot?”

“A small spherical mass of round metal,
usually made of lead alloyed with other metals. Each shell contains
a number of these balls, which are discharged at the same time when
fired.”

“Can you tell us how shotguns are
classified?”

“By gauge. The gauge is the number of
spherical balls of pure lead, each exactly fitting the bore, that
equal one pound.”

“And the wads or wadding?”

“That’s the paper or plastic material that
keeps the powder and the shot pellets in position inside the
shell.”

“Is it possible to determine whether a
particular shot came from a particular shotgun?”

“No. Unlike other firearms, a shotgun is a
smooth-bored weapon. The shot isn’t marked by the barrel of the gun
the way a bullet from a rifle or a handgun is, thus we’re unable to
tell what load of shot came from what barrel. We can only tell what
number the shot is.”

“Is it possible, Mr. Bartozzi, to determine
whether a particular wadding came from a particular shotgun?”

“Not usually. We can often determine if the
wadding is the same make as that used in a particular gun and we
can determine the gauge of the gun from which the wadding
came.”

“What were you were able to conclude from
your examination of the wadding given to you by Agent Dorr on
August 30,” Junior asked.

“I determined that the wadding was fired
from a twelvegauge shotgun.”

“And what were you able to conclude from
your examination of the shot Agent Dorr turned over to you?”

“I determined that the shot was number-one
shot. The loaded shell in the Winchester Model 21 Custom when Agent
Dorr gave it to me was number-one shot also.”

“Is it possible to determine whether a
particular shell casing was ejected from a particular firearm?”

“Yes.”

“How can this be done?”

“By comparing the markings on the casing
suspected to have been ejected by a particular gun with the
markings on a casing that has been ejected in a test-firing from
the same gun.”

“Was that done with the shotgun Agent Dorr
gave you?”

“Yes, it was.”

“What did you find?”

“I was able to match the test casings with
two of the shell casings given to me by Agent Dorr based on the
firing-pin marks on one and the extractor marks on the other.”

“What are the firing-pin marks?”

“A firing pin is the pin that strikes the
cartridge primer, or cap, in the breech mechanism of a firearm. The
tip of the firing pin left the same irregular impression on the
test casings as it had on one of the casings Agent Dorr gave
me.”

“What are the extractor marks?”

“The extractor is that part of the weapon
that removes the shell casing from the chamber after the weapon has
been fired. The spring-loaded extractor is forced over the rim of
the casing at the instant the shell is loaded into the chamber,
leaving distinctive markings. The extractor marks on one of the
casings Agent Dorr gave me matched the extractor marks on the test
casing.”

“As a result of your comparison of the shell
casings given to you by Agent Dorr with the casings that you
obtained by testfiring the shotgun given to you by Agent Dorr, were
you able to form any opinion as to whether the casings were ejected
by the Winchester shotgun?” Junior asked.

“Yes, I was,” Bartozzi answered.

“What is that opinion?”

“Two of the casings Agent Dorr turned over
to me were ejected from the Winchester Model21 Custom shotgun.”

“Thank you, Mr. Bartozzi. No further
questions,” Junior said.

Chip stood up next to the defense table. He
looked down at his yellow pad and read for a moment, then he picked
up one of his pencils and held each end with his fingers.