The Ophelia Cut (48 page)

Brito pulled out a laser pointer. “Well, we can clearly see the A, B, C, and D points reflected in the pattern here on the scalp. They appear to be exactly the same relative distance from one another and assume the same shape when taken together. In my opinion, the shillelagh depicted in the photo here was used to inflict the injuries in the autopsy photo.”

“What supports that opinion?”

“The shillelagh is not a machine-made object, nor does it appear to have a common configuration such as a jack, a tire iron, or a hammer. The injury had to be caused by either that shillelagh or one exactly like it.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.” Stier turned on his heel with buoyant confidence. “Your witness, Mr. Hardy.”

T
HERE WAS NO
escaping the damaging nature of Brito’s testimony. Hardy knew he could bring up technical objections until he turned blue, but he doubted that he would convince even one juror that the shillelagh was not the murder weapon.

That did not mean he didn’t have to try.

Getting up from his table, Hardy took a moment to glance down at his legal pad, although he didn’t need a reminder of what he was going to say.

“Sergeant Brito,” he said when he arrived in front of the witness, “the reason you say it was the shillelagh or something exactly like it is because in the photo, the shillelagh has four protuberances that appear to match four injuries to the victim’s head. How do you know that those four injuries came from a single blow?”

“Well, I don’t.”

“So any object with a knob could have been used to hit the victim four times, and you’d get the same result, wouldn’t you?”

“In my opinion, that’s extraordinarily unlikely. First, the four injuries aren’t precisely the same, just like the four knobs on the shillelagh are not precisely the same. So you’d have to use four separate objects exactly like the four knobs on the shillelagh and then deliver the blows in precisely the same relative positions as if he’d been struck by the shillelagh.”

“So they’re not exactly the same, but each of those knobs is simply a rounded protuberance, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“It is possible, is it not, that an object with a rounded protuberance like that could have been used to hit the victim four times and left these marks?”

“I can’t say it’s impossible. Most things are possible. In my opinion, it was the shillelagh.”

Hardy knew that it wasn’t much, but it was the best he could do, especially since the experts he’d consulted had all told him the same thing—the murder weapon was the shillelagh or something very much like it.

Hardy took in the jury briefly as he turned to walk to his table—no one was asleep today. Then, as though he’d just remembered something important, he whirled back around. “The shillelagh,” he said, raising a finger. And then he was at his place in front of the witness, to all appearances newly energized. “Sergeant, you’ve described the shillelagh in People’s Number Fifteen and Sixteen in some detail. Size, weight, identifying protrusions, heft, and so on. Tell me, where did the crime scene locate this shillelagh that they brought to you for your analysis?”

“They didn’t.”

“I’m sorry. Could you repeat that?”

“They didn’t.”

“They didn’t locate the shillelagh?”

“No, not that I know of. If they did, they never brought it to me to analyze.”

“Well, then, Sergeant, how did you make your analysis of it?”

Brito hesitated and tried to look behind Hardy to get some kind of a clue from Stier. But there was no help from that quarter.

“I analyzed it using assumptions that could be made from the photograph.”

“But you’ve never seen the actual shillelagh?”

“No.”

“Sergeant, were you present when the picture of Mr. McGuire holding the shillelagh was taken?”

The question sent a ripple of humor through the gallery; even the witness seemed to think it was funny.

“No,” he said, “of course not.”

“So you have never held the shillelagh in that photo or seen it close up or anything like that?”

“That’s correct.”

“So, Sergeant, how do you know it’s real?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’ve been calling the object in the photo a shillelagh, which is a heavy wooden club, correct?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know what the object in the photo is made of?”

Hardy knew that the exchange galled the bejesus out of Stier. Try as they might, the police hadn’t found a single witness from the Little Shamrock who would admit to even having touched the shillelagh Moses kept behind the bar. They would say it was there and that it looked real, but every other question about the shillelagh was met with an indifferent shrug.

Brito said, “It appears in the photo to be an actual shillelagh, so presumably, it’s made out of heavy, hard wood.”

Sometimes Hardy simply loved the theater of the courtroom. Now he went back to his desk, where he’d left his huge lawyer’s briefcase. Opening it to the gasps of the gallery, he withdrew a twenty-inch length of what looked for all the world like Kentucky ash, with a tapered lower end and a distinctive knob on the other end.

When he had shown the exhibit to Stier during pretrial motions, the prosecutor had gone crazy, telling Gomez it was simple fraud, an active attempt to deceive the jury. Hardy countered that it was no such thing; they were not going to claim it was the murder weapon or the object in the photo. All it did was prove that no one could tell from the photograph that Moses McGuire might have had access to what might have been a murder weapon. And Gomez had agreed.

As Hardy walked forward to offer it as an exhibit in evidence, the rumble behind him got loud enough that Gomez lifted her gavel.
Bam bam bam
. “The court will come to order.” Finally, Hardy was standing in front of Brito as the last of the murmuring subsided.

“Sergeant,” he said, “do you recognize this club that I’m holding, Defense B?”

“It looks like the shillelagh, the murder weapon.”

“I’m going to ask you to assume that this is neither the murder weapon nor the object in the photo. Would you agree that it looks like both?”

“Yes.”

“And what, based on your analysis of this visual inspection, would you estimate as the weight of this shillelagh?”

“I’d say somewhere between two and a half and three pounds.”

Hardy handed it to the witness. “Sergeant, holding the shillelagh in your hand, would you estimate its weight?”

Brito was not happy with this development. He glared at Hardy with true contempt. “Two or three ounces,” he said. “It’s a fake.”

“It’s not a fake at all,” Hardy said. “It simply is what it is. Which, Sergeant, would you agree is an object made out of something like Styrofoam that looks like a shillelagh?” Taking it from the witness, he placed it on the evidence table. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear your answer.”

“Yes. It’s an object made out of Styrofoam that looks like a shillelagh.”

“No further questions,” Hardy said, then, to Stier, “Redirect?”

Ugly, on his feet, in clipped tones. “Sergeant Brito, referring to People’s Number Seventeen, the photograph of the victim’s shaved scalp, did you have an opportunity to see the pattern injury on the victim’s head in the coroner’s office?”

“Yes.”

“Did you take the picture of it, seen here in People’s Number Seventeen?”

“I did.”

“Did you edit the photograph in any way?”

“No.”

“So this was a very real pattern injury inflicted by a very real instrument of exactly the kind you’ve described, is it not?”

“Yes, it was.”

“Thank you, Sergeant,” Stier said, shooting a withering look at Hardy. “You may step down.”

B
Y THE END
of lunchtime, Hardy knew little beyond the bare fact of Tony Solaia’s disappearance. Wyatt Hunt had located his apartment building in the Tenderloin and had talked his way inside. The manager had verified that the tenant had come in with another man—“some kind of cowboy”—and the two of them had packed up what little goods Tony had and moved out the day before in the middle of the afternoon. They had a small U-Haul into which Tony pulled his motorcycle. He had left no forwarding address, although the manager suggested that Hunt try the post office, which he did to no avail.

For all intents and purposes, Tony Solaia was gone.

When they got back to court, and no doubt in response to Sergeant Brito’s testimony regarding the shillelagh, Stier called David Wickers.

The drunk from the Shamrock shambled nervously up through the bar rail. His collar-length hair, today combed straight back and tied into a ponytail, retained a trace of its natural blond, which went with his eyebrows and his powder-blue eyes. He wore Sperry Top-Siders, no socks, tan Dockers, a purple shirt with a black leather tie, and a tan corduroy sport coat.

Stier didn’t waste any time. “Mr. Wickers,” he began, “would you call yourself a regular customer at the Little Shamrock bar, owned by the defendant on trial here, Moses McGuire?”

“I guess I would. I’m there most days.”

“How long have you been a regular there?”

A little laugh. “At least as long as I can remember.” He turned to the jury, chuckled again. “Which is about yesterday.”

Gomez gaveled away the courtroom’s response. “Mr. Wickers,” she said, “this is no place for jokes. This is a court of law, not a barroom.”

Dave’s head went down in contrition. “Sorry. I guess I’m a little nervous.”

“Fine. But please answer Mr. Stier’s questions seriously. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am. Sorry.”

“Do you remember the question, Mr. Wickers?” Stier asked.

“Not exactly.”

Another wave of laughter.

“I’ll repeat it. How long have you been a regular at the Little Shamrock?”

“I’d say seven or eight years.”

“On average, how many days of the week do you find yourself there?”

Frowning in concentration, Dave pulled at his collar and tie. “Pretty much every day, if I’m not sick. And sometimes then.”

“So nearly every day, is that right?”

“I’d say so, yeah.”

“And during your many days there, did you have occasion to notice a club, sometimes called a shillelagh, that the defendant kept there?”

“Sure. It was always there, hanging under the bar.”

Dave described the shillelagh with great accuracy and identified it as the club or weapon held by McGuire in People’s #15. “Have you ever held that shillelagh?” Stier asked him.

“No.”

“Nevertheless, from your observations of Mr. McGuire’s handling of it, could you estimate its weight for the jury?”

“I don’t know. Heavy for its size. Maybe three or four pounds.”

Stier paused for a lengthy moment and then, realizing that he’d gotten about all from Mr. Wickers that he was likely to, turned him over to Hardy. Who, because he knew something Stier could not know, bounded up out of his chair like a much younger man.

“Mr. Wickers,” Hardy began, “when you say you are a regular at the Little Shamrock, do you have a regular seat where you usually sit?”

“I sure do, and everybody knows it.”

“And where is that?”

“The stool at the front corner of the bar, by the window.”

“And the bar is L-shaped, is that right?”

“Yeah.”

“And you sit at the corner on the short side, facing the long side of the L, right where it turns?”

“Right.”

“So, just to get this clear; if you’re sitting in your regular seat, you’re looking straight down the long line of the L along the top of the bar, is that right?”

Dave closed his eyes, making sure, then nodded. “Right.”

Hardy paused to let the positioning sink in. He crossed back to his table and picked up his legal pad, which, for once, he was going to use. “Now, you’ve testified that the shillelagh was, and this is a quote, ‘always there, hanging under the bar.’ Is that correct?”

“Sounds like it. That’s where it was.”

“Under the bar? It was under the bar?”

“Yeah, down under by the beer spigots.”

“And those beer spigots are on the long L of the bar, too, are they not?”

“Of course.”

“The bartender doesn’t have to turn around to pull a beer, in other words?”

“Right.”

“The shillelagh is under the bar, by these spigots? You’re sure?”

Dave rolled his eyes. “Come on, already. How many times do I got to say it?”

“Is that a ‘yes’? The shillelagh is under the bar by the spigots?”

A weary sigh. “Yes. All right. Yes.”

“Well, then, Mr. Wickers, tell me this. How do you see the shillelagh under the bar from where you’re sitting on your stool?”

For an instant, Hardy thought Wickers looked uncannily like an intelligent dog, trying to work out the meaning of some obscure phrase like “get the ball.” Finally, he said, “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I mean you’re sitting at the end of the L, looking down the length of the bar along the top of the L. How do you see what’s under the L?”

“Well, it’s always been there.”

“It’s not there now, Mr. Wickers, is it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. We were talking about it being gone.”

“So when was the last time you saw the shillelagh hanging under the beer spigots? A couple of months ago? A year ago?”

“I don’t think it was that long.”

“When was the last time you specifically remember actually seeing the shillelagh hanging under the bar or in the bar at all?”

Wickers closed his eyes again, took a few breaths, pulled at his collar and tie, then opened his eyes and shrugged. “Sorry, but I just can’t say. I don’t remember.”

Stier’s next witness established that when police searched the bar, the shillelagh was nowhere to be found.

A
FTER
G
OMEZ CALLED
the afternoon recess, Amy leaned over in front of Moses and said to Hardy, “What did you put in your cereal this morning? You’re tearing it up in here today.”

Hardy looked around behind them and whispered to her. “With Dave, it’s almost cheating.”

“You know what’s really pathetic?” McGuire put in. “I’ve talked to that guy like two hours every day, five days a week, for the last five years.”