Bury the Lead

36



IF GOD HAD WANTED humans to communicate, he wouldn’t have invented caller ID. But I’m glad that somebody did, because I love it. It’s not the greatest invention of all time, which is to say it’s not quite up there with the point spread and the remote control, but it’s in that still-wonderful second tier, right alongside the cash machine, satellite TV, and light beer.

Combined with the answering machine, caller ID enables me to permanently avoid anyone I don’t want to talk to on the phone, which is most of the world’s population.

The Giants are playing the Dallas Cowboys today, and nothing short of an earthquake above 7.0 is going to get me off the couch. Certainly, a ringing phone won’t do it, though the phone rings repeatedly during the game. One of those times is when I’m making a hurried trip to the bathroom, and I glance at the caller ID. It’s my office number—no doubt Kevin is spending Sunday working—but I don’t pick it up. If it were President Heather Locklear calling from the White House, I wouldn’t pick it up.

The game is a magnificent rarity: an offensive explosion by the Giants that results in a thirty-point victory. As the fourth quarter begins, the camera starts focusing on an obviously upset Jerry Jones, the Cowboys’ owner, fuming on the sidelines. It’s poetry; I’ve hated Jerry Jones ever since he bought the team and fired longtime coach Tom Landry, though I hated Landry as well. I especially hated Jerry because he brought in Jimmy Johnson and immediately started beating the Giants and winning Super Bowls. Today is sweet revenge, and it tastes best hot.

There are two minutes left in the game, and the Giants are running out the clock, despite my screaming admonitions for them to run up the score even more.

The door opens and Laurie comes in. She doesn’t say anything, simply walks to the TV and turns it off.

I’m stunned. “Correct me if I’m wrong, because I must be wrong. But did you just turn off a Giants-Cowboys game?”

“We’ve got a witness,” she says. “Let’s go.”

“A witness to what?” I ask, but she’s already on the way to the car. I stifle the instinct to turn the game back on, and I follow her out the door.

Laurie tells me that Kevin has been trying to reach me all afternoon but that I haven’t been answering my phone. “I didn’t hear it ringing,” I lie. “Tara must have been barking.”

“Right. That Tara can really bark.”

Kevin is waiting for us in my office with a man, probably in his early forties, wearing sneakers, jeans, and a pullover shirt. The man is drinking a beer, interesting only because I don’t keep any in my office. Either he brought his own, or he sent Kevin out to get him one.

Kevin introduces him as Eddie Gardner, a truck driver who travels the country but whose home base is North Jersey. He turns the floor over to Eddie, so that he can repeat for me what he saw.

“It was September fourteenth,” Eddie begins. “I saw a guy pick up a hooker on Market Street in Passaic.”

I look up at Kevin, who nods at my unspoken question, indicating that September 14 was in fact the night Rosalie was killed.

“What were you doing there?”

He smiles with some embarrassment. “Hey, come on, man. What do you think? I had just come back from a two-week haul—that’s how I remember the date—and I had some extra money . . .”

“So you were there as a customer,” I say, stating the obvious.

He shoots a quick glance at Laurie, then nods. “Right. A customer.”

“Who was the guy you saw?” I ask.

He points to the newspaper on the desk, with Lassiter’s picture on the front page. “Him.”

“What time was it?” I ask.

“About one o’clock in the morning.”

“So you were there to pick up a hooker, but you were looking at the other customers?”

“I notice things,” he says.

“And how is it you noticed him?”

“He pulled up in his car, and usually the girl comes over and gets in the car. That’s how it’s done. But this guy leaves his car running and gets out. Then he walks around, trying to figure out who to take, like he’s out shopping, you know? He picks one, and they go back to his car and pull away. It just seemed weird, so I remembered him.”

“Why didn’t you come forward earlier?” Laurie asks.

“I didn’t see the picture until today,” he says. “And I’m on the road a lot, so I hadn’t known there was a murder that night.”

We question Eddie for a while longer, and when we’re finished, he gives us a number at which he can be reached. He’s willing to testify, even though it will cause him some personal embarrassment.

After he leaves, Laurie speaks first. “I don’t believe him.”

“Why?” says Kevin, his surprised tone revealing that he disagrees.

Laurie shakes her head. “I’m not sure. It just seems too easy, too pat.” She turns to me. “What about you?”

“I’ve got some doubts myself,” I say. “But I can’t be any more specific as to why.”

We talk about it some more, and Laurie takes on the responsibility of checking into Eddie’s background. Absent any significant negative discoveries, we agree that his story is credible enough that we have to put him on the stand.

In terms of the impact on our case, it can be enormous. Eddie provides a way to introduce Lassiter into the courtroom. Our alternate theory will be before the jury and might well create the reasonable doubt necessary to get Daniel off.

I have my doubts about Eddie’s veracity, but on its face his story stands up. As a lawyer, I cannot introduce testimony I know to be false, but I do not have to have an affirmative belief in its truth. That is for the jury to decide after they hear our side of the story.

And starting tomorrow they will.