Hit List - Lawrence Block [94]
“Somebody screwed up the warrant,” a woman said. “Fruit of the poisoned tree.”
The mention of fruit aroused Mr. Bittner. “You had to go to the bathroom,” he said to Mrs. Estévez. “And now there’s nothing to eat.”
“Hey, man, what was she supposed to do?”
“I’m sorry,” Bittner said. “I have low blood sugar, I get cranky.”
“Then why didn’t you tell the bailiff to leave the sandwiches?”
On and on, Keller thought. On and on and on.
There was a knock, and before they could respond the bailiff let himself in. “Judge wants to know how you’re doing,” he said. “If you think you’re getting close to a verdict.”
“We’re doing okay,” the foreman said.
“Well, not to rush you,” the bailiff said, “but it’s four o’clock already, so you got an hour if you want to get home tonight. If you don’t reach a verdict by five you get sequestered for the night. That means you spend the night in a hotel at the city’s expense. It’s a decent place, but it’s not the Waldorf. My opinion, you’d probably be more comfortable in your own homes.”
“What about food?” Bittner demanded.
“Meals will be provided at the hotel.”
“I mean now.”
The bailiff gave him a look and left the room.
“More comfortable in our own homes,” said the large woman, the one who’d called Gloria “girl.” “Translation: Get off your butt and come up with a verdict. Anybody think he didn’t do it?”
“That’s not the question,” Gloria said. “The question—“
“—is did he prove it. You think I don’t know that? We been saying it all day long and not getting noplace. So how about my question? Is there anybody here thinks he didn’t do it?”
No one else answered, so Keller said, “Did the man ever receive stolen property? I would say yes. Did he ever sell stolen property? Yes again. Did he sell it to a cop? Did he sell this particular stolen article to this particular cop? I could believe that and still not believe the state proved its case.”
“Beyond a reasonable doubt,” someone murmured.
“But I don’t know that I do believe it,” he went on. “It comes down to the same question all the time. Do we believe Mapes?”
“Even if Mapes stretched the truth some—“
“If Mapes isn’t telling the truth, there’s no case. And if Mapes is lying, there isn’t even a crime.”
“He’s a police officer,” someone said, “and the ones I’ve known have been pretty decent and honest, but there’s something about him that seems a little shifty.”
“Now that’s funny,” someone else said, “because my experience is cops lie all the time, but he impresses me as a real straightforward young man.”
“That property clerk was lying.”
“Yeah, I’m with you on that one.”
“Took home a camcorder to tape his kid’s party. That don’t mean the evidence got tainted about the VCR.”
“And it doesn’t mean Mapes lied.”
“Doesn’t mean he didn’t, either.”
At a quarter to five Morgan Freeman polled them again, informally this time, going around the room. By the time it got to Keller there were six voting to convict and three voting to acquit. Keller figured it didn’t matter, they weren’t going home that night no matter how he voted, but he had to say something. “Guilty,” he said.
“Not guilty,” said the woman to his left.
So it evened out. Last time they’d done this, Keller had been for acquittal, the woman to his left for conviction. Now Morgan Freeman voted to convict, and they were eight to four, with fifteen minutes left to work it out.
“Okay,” the foreman said. “I don’t say we’re deadlocked, not by any means. It’s just taking us a little while to sort things out. It’s whether or not a man goes to prison, and we don’t need to rush ourselves. Looks like we’re going to spend the night in a hotel.”
There was some grumbling, but Keller thought it seemed pretty good-natured. These people were New Yorkers, after all. You had to expect a certain amount of grumbling.
Twenty-three
* * *
The hotel was a Days Inn in Queens, not far from JFK. It