Broken (24 page)

“We looked everywhere. We did not find a murder weapon,” she replied.

“And in the absence of a weapon at the scene of the crime—considering that the defendant was discovered at the scene, did you pursue another avenue of investigation?”

“The house, the yard, even the surrounding area was thoroughly searched. But no weapon was found.”

“Let me repeat the question,” said Hammerstein, “Did you pursue another avenue of investigation?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Detective Miller’s voice was soaked in sarcasm. “The defendant was found crouched under the hall steps and screaming hysterically minutes after the murder.”

“So that means she did it?” snapped Hammerstein. “You just jumped to the first conclusion and let it go at that!”

“Objection!”

“Sustained.”

“I’m finished with this witness,” said Hammerstein and walked back to the defense table shaking his head.

Hammerstein drummed his fingers on the defense table as District Attorney Tom Simon directed the bailiff to set up a tripod. The tripod would be used to display poster-board sketches of the body’s position and wounds. Moments later the tall, somewhat unkempt, multi-degreed forensic pathologist, Dr. Philip Houston, was sworn in. Before beginning his questioning, Tom Simon repeatedly slapped a pointer in his hand while strutting before the jury, as though he were somehow responsible for the scientific expertise about to be presented.

Hammerstein’s theory was that someone had entered through the back door, killed Walter, and then left the same way he had come in. The prosecution claimed that no such someone existed. Simon claimed that Anna Mae had gone downstairs, murder weapon in hand, killed Walter, and disposed of the weapon. She then went back into the hallway and deliberately positioned herself under the second floor steps. There she began screaming as though she had just arrived and had seen the murderer, or at least the bloody body. When the police came, she claimed that she didn’t remember anything.

If Tom Simon could prove that the killer had entered the kitchen from the inside hallway door, that would add credibility to his circumstantial evidence case.

As the questioning moved ahead, Hammerstein began scribbling notes on his yellow legal pad. At first he wasn’t impressed with Houston’s testimony. It didn’t take a genius to determine that it was the blow to Walter’s head, the one that cracked his skull, which finally killed him. Then Dr. Houston got up from the witness chair. He towered over Tom Simon as he took the pointer from his hand and used it to indicate how, in his opinion, the murderer was in the kitchen-to-hall doorway when the fatal blow was struck.

Hammerstein was drawing a stick figure replica on display, when Anna Mae doubled over in pain. He glanced at her. “You okay?”

She nodded.

Ivan was becoming increasingly concerned about his client’s health. He considered asking for a recess, but continued scrawling arrows this way and that around the stick figure. Fifteen minutes later, when Philip Houston concluded his testimony, Hammerstein, legal pad in hand, approached the witness.

“How long, Dr. Houston, have you been the forensic pathologist for Allegheny County?”

“One year, eight months,” said Houston.

“And during that time, how many cases similar to this one have you worked on?”

“No two cases are exactly alike,” the witness said.

“I didn’t ask you if you worked on a case that was ‘the same as.’ I asked how many ‘similar cases.’”

“I would have to go through my files to answer that.”

“You mean that in one year and eight months you can’t remember if you worked on a case where the victim was axed to death?”

“Objection.”

“Sustained.”

The pathologist straightened his back to display his full height, which, if he were standing, would have been markedly taller than the tall defense attorney. “I assume that is not a question.”

Hammerstein paused, looked at the jury, and tossed the legal pad on the defense table. He then turned to Houston. “In this particular case, you could be wrong, couldn’t you?”

“If there was a possibility of my being wrong, I would have said so.”

Hammerstein glanced at Anna Mae who appeared to be struggling with her stomach pain. Again he considered asking for a recess, but he decided not to stop the momentum. Hammerstein led Houston to admit that he had stated in court that a woman’s fatal blow to the head had been the result of falling down fifteen concrete steps. Two days after Houston had testified, the woman’s husband confessed that he had hit his wife with the corner of a brass trophy, then dragged her to the pool area and threw her down the steps. The woman was dead before the fall.

“So,” said Hammerstein, “Can we presume that the final blow to Walter’s head possibly…possibly could have been inflicted by someone who had entered through the back door?”

With his face expressionless, but his eyes alive with anger, Houston said through clenched teeth, “I suppose it’s possible.”

“Could you please speak a little louder,” said Hammerstein.

“I suppose it’s possible!”

Hammerstein glanced at Simon, whose face was white, “Thank you. I have no more questions, Dr. Houston.” An elaborate emphasis on the word, ‘doctor.’

*              *              *

In the conference room, during lunch break, Hammerstein brought Anna Mae a Zantac to quiet her raging stomach. Although she felt better, she pushed away the ham sandwich delivered from the deli, content to sip on the vanilla milkshake. Eventually, she asked Ivan to ask Olga if she could find something else for her to wear. The simple beige dress the matron was kind enough to press each evening was dirty, and Anna Mae had lost five more pounds, causing it to hang like a sack. Ivan said it looked fine. But what do men know.

At 1:30, Anna Mae took her seat at the defense table. It seemed as though the trial was dragging on forever. It had started on Monday morning and it was now only Thursday afternoon. Ivan had said that it was moving along quickly for a murder trial. The prosecution had two more witnesses and they would testify today. Tomorrow, Friday, the defense would begin.

Anna Mae watched the jury file in. The homemaker looked tired. The teacher was chatting with the businessman as though they were at a cocktail party rather than a murder trial. The steelworker, who had seemed bored all morning, now sat with his eyes closed and his head nodding.

Under the defense table, Anna Mae squeezed her hands together so tightly they burned. She hoped she was wrong, thinking that the jury, those twelve people who would soon determine how she would spend the rest of her life, looked bored.

“The Commonwealth calls Dr. Henry C. Connely.”

Anna Mae studied the court psychiatrist as he was being sworn in. He was in his early fifties, very short and very thin, and wearing a perfectly fitted dark brown suit and rimless glasses. He had a full head of coal black hair—not one strand out of place. Having sworn to tell the truth, he sat in the witness chair, squared his shoulders, stretched his undersized body to the maximum, and primly folded his hands on his lap.

Tom Simon approached the witness with his usual actor’s flair. Anna Mae suppressed a smile as she recalled Hammerstein’s pet name for the prosecutor—the little red lizard. Then she remembered what JD had told her.

Could it be…

As Dr. Connely recited his impressive list of medical and psychiatric degrees, Anna Mae watched Tom Simon. He did display something in his strut that reminded her of George Siminoski. However, that’s where the similarity ended.

Was JD wrong? What had happened to the fat little boy with the thick glasses? The smartest kid in school? Where was the pimply teenager with the big nose? Why had no one seen him in the valley since he left for the university? Could he have so totally altered his appearance that he was now unrecognizable?

In front of her, the questions and testimony continued to drone on as Anna Mae’s thoughts went back to that stifling Friday night in 1965, the night of Stanley’s sixteenth birthday party. Vague memories of the obnoxious George Siminoski cornering her under the hall steps drifted through her mind. She remembered that she had a brief blackout then awakened in church. She remembered leaving the church and passing Vinko’s market, and George hiding in the alley, waiting for her.

Joey was there. Joey actually hit George! And then—oh yes—George shouted at her. ‘I’m getting out of this filthy town. But I’ll get you!’ He had pointed his fat finger at her, threatening, ‘If it takes the rest of my life I’ll get you!’

Anna Mae’s disturbing memories quickly vanished when she heard Hammerstein mumble under his breath, “son-of-a-bitch!”

She glanced at Dr. Connely, who was saying, “…and not only is it my professional opinion that the defendant is lying, Anna Mae McBride clearly exhibits sociopathic tendencies.”

Simon, facing the jury with his usual self-assured demeanor, let the statement sink in. He then said to the doctor, “Would you please explain ‘sociopath’ in layman’s terms.”

“Anna Mae is a borderline sociopath,” replied the doctor straightening his already perfect tie. “By that I mean she has antisocial tendencies. She doesn’t relate well to others and doesn’t quite fit in. Also, there’s a matter of conscience. A sociopath makes no distinction between right and wrong. Therefore, if she tells a lie, she can be quite convincing. She does not react to her own dishonesty as a normal person would. I suspect she could pass a lie detector test even if she’s guilty.”

“Objection!” Hammerstein was on his feet.

“Dr. Connely! You know better than that,” scowled the judge. “Strike that last remark.”

“I apologize, Your Honor,” said the doctor. “I only meant the comment rhetorically.”

“Bullshit!” said Hammerstein.

Judge Wittier’s face was scarlet. “Use that language in my courtroom again,” he said to Hammerstein, “and you’ll be trying this case from a jail cell.” He then addressed the prosecutor, “And one more outlandish remark from any of your witnesses and I’ll throw out the entire testimony.”

Judge Wittier then cleared his throat, shuffled some papers, and checked to see if his half-glasses were still perched on top of his head. When his face finally returned to its normal flesh tone, he said to Simon, “Do you have any more questions for this witness?”

Tom Simon thought for a moment “No Sir, Your Honor.” He then walked to the prosecution table and sat down.

“You can step down,” said the judge to the doctor.

“Your Honor?” said Hammerstein stepping forward.

“Oh! Yes. I’m sorry. Stay where you are!”

For a few seconds Dr. Connely didn’t know whether he should sit or stand. At last he lowered himself back into the witness chair and adjusted his glasses.

“Counselor?” said the judge.

“I only have three questions,” said Hammerstein.

“Proceed.”

“Did you get paid for your performance? Ah…I mean testimony?”

Simon jumped up but before he could object, Judge Wittier waved him down.

“Yes,” said the court’s psychiatrist.

“And how much time did you spend with the defendant?”

The doctor brushed an invisible strand of black hair from his forehead and said, “About three hours.”

“Good!” said Hammerstein. “And did you get paid for your three hour examination of the defendant?”

“Yes. I did.”

“That’s good. I’m glad to hear that,” said Hammerstein. “I have no more questions for this witness.”

When Hammerstein returned to the defense table, Anna Mae whispered frantically, “Is that it? Aren’t you gonna do something about what he said?”

“Shhhh. Trust me.”

Next, Sarah Lipinski was sworn in. Anna Mae tried not to look at her aunt. But it was impossible. Sarah seemed as though she had aged ten years. Her drab brown hair was teased into an outdated, fifties hairstyle. She had gained weight and her heavily rouged cheeks were plump above her fleshy, double chin. She was wearing her coffee colored pants suit. It had once fit perfectly, but was now so snug that the shoulder pads lifted every time she moved her arms. Anna Mae’s heart went out to this woman who had been like a mother to her.

Sarah shifted nervously as Tom Simon approached. “Mrs. Lipinski, what was your relationship to the victim?”

Sarah looked at Anna Mae, her eyes narrowed with unbridled anger. She leaned into the microphone and said harshly, “He…Walter is my—Walter was my husband.”

Anna Mae cringed. All through these torturous months she had wondered about Sarah’s feelings. Her aunt never visited her at the jail. She hadn’t even sent a note of encouragement. Ivan always avoided the subject and none of Anna Mae’s visitors—not Angelo, not David, not Father John, not one person would tell her anything about Sarah’s emotional state, nor would they say whether or not Sarah thought she was guilty. But now she knew. The one person she desperately wanted to believe in her innocence did not believe her. Her Aunt Sarah believed she had killed Walter.

For the next twenty minutes, Anna Mae struggled to remain composed as she listened to Sarah’s shocking testimony—a fabricated, yet heart-wrenching story of how she and Walter had lovingly taken baby Anna Mae into their home when her promiscuous mother, Becky McBride, had practically left her on their doorstep.

Ivan scribbled on his legal pad and slid it in front of Anna Mae.
Don’t worry. I’ll deal with this.

When Sarah finished painting the outrageous picture of the Lipinski’s loving parenting, Simon went to the prosecution table to review his notes. While walking back to his witness, he paused before the jury to enlist their support for what was to come. Then, facing Sarah, he asked, “Would you say that the defendant, Anna Mae McBride, is a nice young lady?”

“Not all the time,” said Sarah.

“And would you tell the court of a time when she wasn’t so nice?”

“I couldn’t believe it!” she replied, sounding as though she were reading a script. “But then again, I shouldn’t have been surprised. My niece, Anna Mae, at her cousin Stanley’s funeral—she was laughing! She stood right next to Stanley’s casket and laughed like she was at some kind of party. It was horrible. The director had to ask her to leave!”