Jury of One

49

Shelly placed the photocopy of the police dispatch transcript on her desk, focusing on a portion of the final communication between Officer Julio Sanchez and headquarters:

RADIO 26: White male, black coat, green cap, headed west-he went through the alley. He’s going to be headed-oh, there’s so much-probably south on-on I guess Donnelly. Maybe north. I don’t know where he went.

DISPATCH: Stay with your officer, Twenty-six. Stay with him.

DISPATCH: All units, we have an officer down at the 200 block of South Gentry. That’s a Code Blue. I repeat, this is a Code Blue. Suspect is a white male, late teens or early twenties, black jacket, green cap. Suspect believed to be headed north or south on Donnelly. Suspect is armed. Suspect is armed. We have a Code Blue, officers. Suspect is armed.

She turned to the copies she had of Joel Lightner’s notes when they spoke with the architect, Monica Stoddard. She had said, speaking of Alex, that she had seen a boy “in a coat and a cap,” according to Joel Lightner, and Shelly remembered this the same way. When talking of where Alex may have hidden a gun, Stoddard noted that he “had pockets in his coat.”

She looked at the photographs Joel had taken in the evidence room at the County Attorney Technical Unit. There, wrapped in protective plastic, was the black leather jacket that Alex was wearing when he was caught. She held up the photos she had taken from Ronnie’s house, photos of Alex and Ronnie together. And there she saw the same black leather jacket.

On Ronnie Masters.

“Every time I’ve ever seen Alex in cold weather,” Shelly said to Joel Lightner, “he’s worn the same long black wool coat he’s wearing in this photograph.”

“So he wore something different that night.”

“I don’t think so. Look at what the architect said. Look at what Sanchez said.”

“A coat,” Joel read along. “A coat.” He looked up at her. “So what’s the difference between a coat and a jacket? It’s interchangeable. Even the dispatch operator called it a ‘jacket.’”

“Not really, Joel. Not really. You see someone in a long wool garment, you call it a coat. You see someone in a leather garment that stops near the waist, you call it a jacket. It’s a visual thing. The dispatch operator didn’t see anything. He was just relaying information and he confused the terms.”

Joel sat down in the chair opposite her desk. “You’re going to base your defense on that?”

“I looked in the closet, Joel. At Ronnie’s place. I looked everywhere, in fact. That wool coat is gone. Nowhere to be found. And Ronnie has been wearing some dinky sweatshirt with a hood every time I’ve seen him. He’d wear that coat if it were around.”

Joel bit at his fingernails. He was quiet for a moment, allowing for the possibilities.

“They switched them,” Shelly said. “Ronnie was there that night. Ronnie was there, and after the shooting, he and Alex traded what they were wearing. Not all of it, but the stuff that counted.”

“The cap,” Joel said.

“Right. The cap that everyone saw Alex wearing but that was never found. His long coat. His gloves.”

“The gun,” he added.

She nodded. “Ronnie took the gun and Alex’s cap and gloves and coat, and left with them.”

“Left Alex, too.”

“He had to leave Alex behind,” said Shelly. “They knew Alex. Sanchez knew who he was. Alex was never going to escape. But Ronnie could.”

“And take all the incriminating evidence with him.” Joel straightened in his chair, his investigatory juices flowing. “He takes the coat and gloves and cap-anything that has blood spatterings on them-”

“-and gunshot residue-”

“-right, and he leaves. No one knows that he was there.”

Shelly was pacing now. “And the case against Alex is all the weaker for it. There’s no murder weapon. There’s no gunshot residue on Alex.” She flapped her arms. “It’s the best they can do. The cops are going to get Alex one way or the other, but at least this way they get him without all of the incriminating evidence, like you said.”

“Christ.” Joel slowly nodded. “That works.”

“I think it does.”

“The problem, Shelly, if you’re right-that means Alex pulled the trigger. Alex shot Miroballi, and Ronnie tried to cover it up by removing the gun and the clothes.”

“Alex shot him,” she agreed. “Right.” She looked out the window of her office.

“So you’ve got a third person, but he doesn’t help you.”

“Maybe not. Maybe so.” Like anything else, there were always more ways than one to use certain information. He must have driven his car, she thought. He drove his car to pick up Alex and drove him away-but not too far away-from the crime scene, in the meantime exchanging clothes with Alex.

Joel looked at his watch. “I hate to run.”

“No. Go. No problem.”

“Tomorrow, Shelly? Seven-thirty?”

“Right. Thanks, Joel.”

“Sorry about the delay. You said it was high priority.”

“No, that’s fine, Joel. Really.”

“You know where you’re going?”

“Yep.”

“And you’re anonymous, obviously.”

“Right. I’ll be invisible.”

“Definitely.” He gathered his bag and headed for the door.

“Joel,” she called out. “Put someone on Ronnie?”

He knocked on the door and nodded. “You read my mind.”