Part 36 (2/2)
”Sounds about the right amount of time. Let's get on with it.” Muriel, crowding my elbow there in chambers, protested, but the judge finally flashed me a poisonous smile and said, ”Call your next witness, Counselor, before La Bella Cubana comes up with something makes me change my mind.”
Back in the courtroom, when his honor had ascended the throne and the bailiff had called for order, I dropped down in a wooden chair next to Darryl and said, ”The defense calls Michael Stanzi.”
Mike Stanzi, the JSO ballistics expert, was still working at the same job. I had his official report in front of me, as well as the pages of his thirteen-year-old trial testimony. He was a man of forty-five, with curly gray hair, a big mustache, and a pleasant demeanor.
”Mr. Stanzi, tell us briefly what you observed on the morning of December 6, 1978, when you reached the Zide estate and had a good look around.”
No secret about that. Stanzi had observed a corpse with two bullet holes. The rounds were from a .38-caliber revolver. A third shot from the same weapon had struck the wall on the far side of the living room from the terrace and embedded itself there in the Swedish oak paneling.
”About how high up in the wall was that bullet hole, sir?”
He glanced at his papers. ”My official report says eleven feet seven inches.”
”You found no other spent rounds?”
”No, I didn't.”
”And you never found the gun?”
”Never.”
”Then it's possible that more than three shots were fired from that thirty-eight-caliber pistol, isn't it?”
”Well, I suppose it's theoretically possible, but we didn't find any evidence of that.”
”Did you look outside the house?”
”No, because it was just lawn and trees out there, and the pistol had been fired by someone who was facing the house from the direction of the terrace.”
”Is that a fact?”
”Yes, sir, that's a fact.”
”But how did you know that to be a fact?”
Stanzi smiled, patronizing me. ”Because we knew that the perpetrators had been standing on the terrace and fired toward the room. And that was confirmed by the bullet we found in the woodwork on the far wall.”
”Mr. Stanzi, think about that a moment. Did you know the perpetrators had been standing on the terrace and firing into the room, or did you just a.s.sume it?”
”Well, as I said, there was the spent bullet in the woodwork. And I was told by a fellow officer that the bullets had been fired from the terrace.”
”Which fellow officer told you that?”
”I believe it was Sergeant Nickerson, when we arrived.”
”So you really didn't know, you simply took his word for it, right?”
”Yes ... but there was the evidence of the bullet in the woodwork.”
”That evidence,” I said, ”told you that one bullet had been fired in a specific direction. It didn't tell you that the bullet had been fired from the terrace, did it?”
Stanzi shrugged. ”Well, no. All right.”
”The bullet in the woodwork didn't tell you anything about the bullets that had struck Mr. Zide, or any bullets that might have been fired from inside the room in the direction of the lawn-did it?”
”There weren't any other bullets out there,” Stanzi said smugly.
”How do you know that?”
”Because there were only three shots fired, and those rounds were all accounted for.”
”And how did you know that?”
”Sergeant Nickerson informed me.”
”Did Floyd Nickerson tell you he was there and heard three shots? Only three shots?”
Muriel objected. This was hearsay, a statement made out of court that couldn't be confirmed.
”Your Honor,” I said, ”we're not offering it for the truth of the matter but as to why Mr. Stanzi believed what he believed when he conducted his investigation.”
”In that case I'll allow it,” Judge Fleming said. He seemed interested.
”Mr. Stanzi?”
”No, Floyd Nickerson didn't say he was there and heard the shots. I can't remember how he knew there were three shots. But he knew it. He was positive.”
”Did he say he'd spoken to witnesses who were present when the shots were fired?”
”He may have. I really don't remember.”
I believed him. I was sure Nickerson had been deliberately vague. Nickerson! Nickerson was the key, and Nickerson was dead.
”Did you or anyone else conduct a paraffin test of the hands and face of Darryl Morgan?”
”Yes, I did.”
”And of William Smith down at the morgue?”
”I did that too.”
”With what results?”
”Negative. But that didn't mean that neither of them fired a gun. It's only proof if there is paraffin. If there's none, it doesn't really tell you anything. People can wear gloves, they can hold a weapon at arm's length. And we didn't have the weapon, so we couldn't tell if it normally threw off blowback or left residue when it was discharged.”
<script>