Cons, Scams, and Grifts

Twenty-six

“All rise,” said the bailiff.

It was 10:00 A.M. that same Friday morning, and Judge Anthony Valenti strode into the courtroom with his black robes billowing. He made a very impressive figure. Giselle noted his stern visage with a sinking heart.

At the prosecution table were Ellen Winslett, the marks of her beating still showing plainly; her husband, Garth, in a suit and ill-knotted tie; and a young, very handsome man Giselle took to be the prosecutor. Ellen was hollow-eyed and big as a house, as if ready to go into labor right there in the courtroom.

She visibly started, as if from fear, when Kearny took his place at the defense table with Hec Tranquillini. Giselle was the only other person in court on the side of the angels.

Among the scattered spectators was Big John Wiley and a rather flashy — and fleshy — version of Ellen, also blond. Obviously Wiley’s wife, Eloise. Also that creep Deputy Willis Franks of the San Mateo Sheriff’s Department. And half a dozen print and TV reporters, obviously tipped off by the prosecution.

Valenti cast stern glances around the courtroom over the top of his rimless glasses.

“This is not a trial. It is a preliminary evidentiary hearing to determine whether, in my view, the prosecution has sufficient evidence to bind the defendant over for trial. Only the prosecution can present evidence, which the defense can challenge only under the usual rules of cross-examination.”

Dan and Hec looked, if not relaxed, like men confident of a favorable outcome. But Giselle felt herself getting tense.

“I want no grandstanding by either counsel, and I trust I can count on the members of the press to keep this courtroom decorous. Mr. Scarbrough, are you ready to proceed?”

“I am, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Tranquillini?”

“Ready for the defense, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Prosecutor, call your first witness.”

Scarbrough cast significant glances at the reporters and then was on his feet in his splendidly fitted $2,000 suit. Giselle figured his tie must have cost at least $100. Must have family money. Well, Stanford...

“The state calls Mr. John Wiley to the stand.”

“John Wiley,” intoned the bailiff.

Big John took the stand and was sworn, confirming in Giselle’s mind Hec’s theory that Big John had created the whole scenario. He had lots to say about the day of the great dealership raid. He made DKA sound like Quantrill’s Raiders who, on a lootin’ and burnin’ and rapin’ and pillagin’ day in August 1863, sacked Lawrence, Kansas, and left a sole survivor, a boy named David Schamle, hiding in a cornfield.

“Kearny and his goons were very unprofessional, nasty as hell. But no repoman is going to push me around!”

“They only push women around,” agreed Scarbrough softly.

“Objection!”

“Sustained.”

Scarbrough said, almost indifferently, “Your witness.”

“At the time you spoke with Mr. Kearny,” said Hec, “didn’t you offer him several hundred dollars in cash to let you hold back a number of cars that you said had already been sold—”

“Certainly not!” exclaimed a hugely offended Big John.

Scarbrough was on his feet, screaming. “I object, I object, I object! This infamous suggestion, these sleazy courtroom tactics, are just what we can expect from these big-city scavengers who think they can—”

“Objection overruled. You brought up the conversation yourself on direct, Mr. Scarbrough. The question may be impolite but it is proper cross-examination. Proceed, Mr. Tranquillini.”

Hec said, “Your Honor, on second thought, I move that the entire testimony of this witness be stricken as incompetent and irrelevant.”

“On what grounds?” yelped Scarbrough, caught off guard.

“He wasn’t even in Pacifica on the day in question.”

“His testimony covers the originating incident and goes to the defendant’s character. I’ll have to allow it to stand.”

Hec shrugged, sighed, and sat down wordlessly.

“Deputy Sheriff Willis Franks to the stand, please.”

Franks and his pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey mustache came up to be sworn in. Scarbrough had coached him well: no drama, no half-derogatory adjectives Hec could seize on. And above all, no mention of handcuffs. Mr. Scarbrough had told him, he said, to go to San Francisco, serve an arrest warrant on the defendant, and bring him back to San Mateo County. He had done so. Period.

“Your witness.”

“In what way did you bring the defendant to San Mateo from San Francisco?”

“In my squad car.”

There was a ripple of laughter in the court. Hec nodded.

“I see. And what happened at the San Mateo County line?”

“I stopped for a red light.”

There was a burst of real guffaws this time, quelled only by the judge’s fierce glare at the spectators.

“After the light changed and you crossed the San Mateo County line, Sergeant, didn’t you stop the car and—”

“Objection, Your Honor!” sang out Scarbrough. “No conversation has been reported here, and nothing about stopping the car was brought out on direct.”

“Sustained,” said the judge. “The defense cannot elicit evidence not directly referred to in the prosecution’s case.”

Hec, looking very crestfallen, sighed and sat down.

Giselle was worried. There were other things he could have tried to get into the record — the tight handcuffs, the non-notification of counsel of the arrest. Why didn’t he insist?

“The prosecution calls Mr. Garth Winslett to the stand.”

Winslett heaved himself to his feet and strode self-righteously forward. He raised his big right hand to be sworn. He had also been coached. He was ready.

“On the day that the assault occur—”

“Objection. Alleged assault.”

“On the day of the alleged assault, did you have occasion to return home at about two-thirty in the afternoon?”

“Yeah, I’d been buyin’ PVC pipe and exterior ply for—”

Scarbrough said piously, “Please limit yourself to answering my questions.”

“Oh, uh, yeah. I come home around two-thirty. I saw this pickup coming up Palmetto, didn’t think nothing of it. But he had a car on his towbar looked a lot like the ’62 ’Vette my brother-in-law had asked me to keep in the garage until those creep repossessors—”

“Mr. Scarbrough,” snapped the judge, forestalling Hec. “Control your witness or I will.”

“I’m sorry, Your Honor. It won’t happen again.” He turned back to Winslett. “You noted truck and driver very carefully?”

“I sure did.” Winslett pointed at Dan Kearny. “It was him, right there, that’s who was behind the wheel.”

Hec didn’t challenge; he was conferring with Kearny as if this testimony had been a heavy blow to them. Giselle felt scared: Dan might go to jail on these trumped-up charges.

Scarbrough milked the moment. “What did you do then?”

“I knew I’d left that car in the garage with the door locked, and I knew my pregnant wife was home alone, so I rushed down the hill. The garage door was split from top to bottom, like he’d took an axe to it. Inside I found my wife laying on the cement floor. She’d been attacked and was all messed up...”

Scarbrough turned to the bench.

“Your Honor, at this time we would like to introduce into evidence a series of Polaroid photos of the garage door and have them labeled as Prosecution Exhibit One. At the time of Mrs. Winslett’s testimony, we will introduce photos of her condition when her husband found her.”

“So ordered.”

Back to the witness. “What did you do then, Mr. Winslett?”

“I took the pictures and then me and Ellen drove up to San Francisco to confront Kearny face-to-face. But his office said he wasn’t in. He was afraid to look me in the eye—”

This time it was Scarbrough who restrained his own witness.

“Only what you know, Mr. Winslett, not what you believe.” He turned to Hec with the hint of a bow. “Your witness.”

Hec shambled up to the witness stand.

“When you drove past the Kearny Associates truck with the Corvette on the towbar, how far away from it were you?”

“He was in one lane, I was in the other. Eight, ten feet.”

“You have testified that seeing the car on the towbar was what directed your attention to the truck in the first place—”

“Well, yeah, sure, but—”

“So when you tried to see the driver, you were several car-lengths behind the truck. How can you be so sure that—”

“It was him all right! I’ll never forget his face.”

Hec seemed stymied. He turned elsewhere.

“You have testified that you found your garage door split from top to bottom, and found your wife, badly beaten, lying on the garage floor. What did you do then?”

“I already said. I took pictures of the door and of her.”

“You didn’t seek medical aid for her?”

“Objection!”

“You brought it up on direct.”

“Overruled.”

“You found Mrs. Winslett at two-thirty in the afternoon?”

“I’ve already said I did.”

“And you took your Polaroid pictures of the garage door and of your wife, and without seeking any medical aid for her you rushed off to the city, and—”

“Have it your way,” Winslett snapped angrily.

“I will. You arrived there, according to the DKA log-in records which I have right here, at five-thirty-seven P.M.. Over three hours to drive a dozen miles? During that time, what did you do apart from not take your wife to the hospital? Did you have a meeting with your brother-in-law, John Wiley, and did he suggest—”

“Objection!” Scarbrough was on his feet bouncing around as he realized his witness was in trouble. “Defense can’t introduce that company log-in sheet as evidence.”

After a long considering pause, Valenti said, “Sustained.”

Hec blew out a long breath and waved his hand in dismissal.

Judge Valenti said regretfully, “I had hoped to have this matter concluded this morning, but we have run into the hour of the lunch recess. Court will reconvene at two-thirty.”

“All rise,” said the bailiff.