A Plague of Secrets (33 page)

Hardy held out a hand in a behold-the-ass gesture: “Actually, Your Honor, Mr. Stier’s got it exactly backwards. Maya’s innocent until the jury finds her guilty. I think they still teach this in law school in this country.”

Braun had finally lost all pretense of a judicial demeanor. “God damn it! No more!”

But Stier kept on. “Mr. Hardy can split hairs, but I’m confident the court understood what I was saying, Your Honor. And this testimony from Ms. Foreman that Mr. Chiurco maybe used to be called Paco? On what planet does this rise to the level of evidence?”

“The same one,” Hardy shot across at him, “that you landed on when you had Cheryl Biehl testify. I’m just, frankly, stunned that you think you’ve still got a case.”

Stier harrumphed. “To the contrary, Your Honor, since Mr. Chiurco does investigative work for Mr. Hardy’s own law firm, I wouldn’t put it past them to have colluded to put on this entire elaborate charade just so the jury would have to consider an alternate suspect.” Then, directly to Hardy, “So, how do you do it? You give your guy a bonus when this is done for the inconvenience you put him through?”

“That’s the most ridiculous and insulting accusation I’ve heard in all the time I’ve been practicing law, Your Honor. It’s beneath contempt.” Hardy, finally reaching his limit, raised his own voice. “Here’s what I did, Paul. I paid your police department to plant his fingerprint inside the scene of a murder and maybe on the casing from a cartridge at the scene of another murder. What kind of a bonus would you recommend for someone who’s willing to put themselves in prison for life?”

Braun slapped a palm down on her desk. “That exchange, gentlemen, just cost you each a grand. Want to go for another one?”

Hardy, dizzy with adrenaline, fighting to reassert his rationality. “The plain fact, Your Honor, as I said out there, is that Chiurco ought to be under arrest right now. He’s a danger to himself and to the public. The police should be searching his stuff for spatter and Preslee’s place for his DNA. We need to continue this trial at least into next week, or even longer, to let the police finally conduct a real investigation.”

Braun hated this whole thing. She hated Hardy’s provocative and believable theory. She hated Stier’s entire presentation of the case, the sideways involvement of Jerry Glass, Schiff’s sloppy investigating, the political ramifications, the testimony about things that may or may not have happened as much as fifteen years before.

Above all, Braun hated the idea that she might have to tell the jury that this trial might be prolonged another week or even longer. There was no way she could accept a police investigation at this stage into another suspect without dismissing the charges against the current defendant.

“Well, gentlemen,” she began in a cold fury, “it seems we’ve gotten ourselves into-”

At that moment the first gunshot echoed from somewhere close by, inside the building. And they heard a woman scream.

Chiurco didn’t move
from the witness stand for a short while after he’d been dismissed. Things had happened fast, but the judge had told him he could go, so long as he returned to court next Monday morning. He heard the back door of the courtroom open behind him, watched Hardy and Stier march solemnly past him on the way out. Still he didn’t move.

At last, though, since the audience had returned en masse to the gallery-in fact, if anything, with the news of the drama, the crowd had increased-the noise level was gearing up again. The mayor and Fisk and Maya’s husband came forward off their seats and Maya had turned around, the bailiff hovering in hesitation about obeying the judge and bringing her back to the holding cell. Everybody talking about his testimony, what had just come down.

Glitsky and DA Jackman were on their feet, stretching their backs, deep in discussion. Debra Schiff, over at the prosecution table, sat hunched over, head down, fingers at her temples. Chiurco’s boss, Wyatt Hunt, had disappeared behind some other standees, everybody up and talking talking talking.

It was now or never.

Chiurco got to his feet, his shoulders squared, face set. Completely within his rights, he got out of the witness chair and crossed the open courtroom. Opening the bullpen gate, he stepped into the center aisle of the gallery, now clogged up with the overflowing crowd. A reporter grabbed at his elbow and said something, but the world had turned into a blurry tunnel that ended in the doorway about thirty feet away in front of him, and he shook the reporter off, moving forward, moving.

Off to his side, in conversation with Jeff Elliot, his damn wheelchair in the aisle slowing everything down, Hunt and Gina Roake, at first barely noticing him except, now, for Hunt’s double take as he passed. And hearing, as though muffled through water, Wyatt’s cry-“Abe!” Then louder, “Abe!”

Chiurco getting physical in the crush, pushing at someone, getting people out of his way.

“Hey!”

Now, from Hunt, an actual cry. “ABE!”

Chiurco was so close to the door, five or six steps, but still others clogged the way before him, blocking him as they were filing out for the bathroom, a smoke, a phone call, gossip.

He was stuck.

And so he pushed someone else, took another step, kept moving.

But the door was open, and one small Asian female bailiff had come in from her post at the metal detector outside and was now standing by it. Chiurco tried to squeeze around a fat man, couldn’t move him, got a sense of some activity in the rows behind him.

Hunt pushing his own way out? Trying to stop him?

And then, suddenly, Glitsky was standing on his chair, his voice cutting through it all. “Bailiff! Hold that man! Stop that man!”

The judge may have ordered Chiurco released, but Glitsky on his own had the power of arrest, and with the support of Clarence Jackman, standing next to him, he had decided he had heard enough to at least hold Chiurco for further questioning.

But that was not going to happen, not if Chiurco had any say about it, and he did. He was getting out of here. Pushing again now at the heavy body in front of him.

Glitsky’s rasp again. “Mr. Chiurco! Hold up! Bailiff!”

She had come in from the hall to intercept Chiurco as he tried to make it out of the courtroom, but now the same fat man was trying to make it through the door before him and suddenly she was directly in front of him, blocking his way.

Turning around for a glance, Chiurco saw Hunt coming at him out of one eye, Glitsky out of the other, the lieutenant pushing his own way out of his row toward the aisle, pointing at him, desperation in his voice. “That man! The last witness! Hold him there!”

With the fat man still inside, but pushed out of Chiurco’s way, the bailiff was the last obstruction as she now pulled the door shut. But she was so small it was no contest. Chiurco lashed out, struck her a rabbit punch on the side of the neck, and she would have gone down at once except that the fat man saw what had happened and found himself holding her up.

There was nothing else Chiurco could do.

Though San Francisco bailiffs on courtroom duty didn’t carry guns, this particular hallway bailiff was armed because of her duty outside the courtroom by the metal detector. Now, unsnapping her holster, Chiurco grabbed, pulled out her gun, with all of his might tried to push the fat man and the bailiff to one side, then fired a shot into the ceiling.

Someone yelled out. “Down! Everybody get down!”

And a woman screamed.

The fucking fat guy still in his way, Chiurco pushed again, got his hand on the door, and behind him heard a woman’s voice. “Drop it! Drop the gun now!”

And turning, he saw Schiff by the prosecution table, now with her own weapon drawn, on the far side of the bar rail, taking aim at him over the ducking crowd. No time to think, he brought the gun up, his hands together, and squeezed off two quick shots, textbook. The inspector went down, her gun clattering over the floor.

Chiurco turned to finally get out, but another blast from by the defense table exploded the wood on the door just over his head. And Chiurco, looking left, opened fired again at the big man in the business suit standing in the front row who’d perhaps just fired, and who fell back over the rail onto the floor by the defense table.

And revealed the actual second shooter, the other bailiff, standing, holding Schiff’s gun, over where Maya Townshend lay prostrate on top of her shot brother, sheltering him on the tile. The bailiff had his gun extended in a two-handed grip, drawing another bead.

His hands already up in the classic firing position, Chiurco once again fired twice in rapid succession and the bailiff, too, staggered backward, dropped Schiff’s weapon, and fell.

And then someone out of nowhere grabbed Chiurco’s gun arm and chopped viciously at it. The female bailiff, trying again to restrain him, took another swing at his face, a glancing blow, and now he swung his gun at her. It went off accidentally as the fat man clutched at his shoulder and spun around and down to the ground next to them.

Now Chiurco only needed another step and he’d be outside and free, but the damned bailiff woman was holding on to his leg, so he reached down, got an arm around her neck, and pulled her up against him, holding her there, waving his gun threateningly around at the room at anyone who dared raise his or her head.

But to get the door he had no choice. He needed either to release his hostage or lower his weapon.

He couldn’t let go of the hostage, though. She would attack him again.

He had to let down the gun.

Which gave Glitsky, fifteen feet away, and waiting for just such an opportunity, one and only one clear shot.

It was all he needed.

CityTalk

By Jeffrey Elliot

City officials are still trying to piece together how security procedures in the Hall of Justice could have gone so awry as to allow the series of events that last Friday resulted in the deaths of four people, including two law enforcement personnel and City Supervisor Harlen Fisk, and the wounding of another man in one of the city’s courtrooms.

This reporter was present during the events that transpired and can relate that even before court was called into session that morning, a palpable tension reigned in Department 25, the courtroom of Judge Marian Braun, scene of the murder trial of Maya Townshend. Both Mayor Kathryn West, Mrs. Townshend’s aunt, and Fisk, her brother, were present in evident support of the defendant, and the attendant media presence as well as rumors of surprise, last-minute witnesses for the defense had packed the gallery.

Mrs. Townshend had been charged with the murders of Dylan Vogler, the manager of the Bay Beans West coffee shop that she owns, and another past associate of hers, Levon Preslee. The trial to date had focused upon evidence of Mrs. Townshend’s apparent motive for these murders, and experts had opined that it was particularly light on physical evidence implicating the defendant. So when defense attorney Dismas Hardy’s first witness, a fingerprint specialist at the police laboratory, identified one of Hardy’s own investigating team, Craig Chiurco, as having been present at the scene of Preslee’s murder, and perhaps having left a partial fingerprint on the bullet casing at the Vogler murder scene, the gallery grew tense with anticipation of what was to come.

It didn’t have long to wait, as Mr. Hardy briefly questioned one other witness who established Mr. Chiurco’s earlier and previously undisclosed relationship to both Vogler and Preslee, then called Mr. Chiurco. Apparently, not knowing what was taking place in court, he had been waiting outside in the hallway to take the stand. Mr. Hardy’s questions, and Mr. Chiurco’s responses, grew increasingly heated as Hardy tried to tie his associate to these crimes.

In the end, with Chiurco invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, Mr. Hardy accused him point-blank of these murders, and pandemonium broke out in the courtroom. It took Judge Braun several minutes to restore order. Rather than having her bailiffs hold Chiurco for the police, Braun ordered him to consult an attorney and keep himself available for further examination if necessary. At that, the judge and the two lead attorneys left the room to confer in Judge Braun’s chambers, leaving Chiurco unguarded on the witness stand.

A few moments later the folly of Braun’s decision became apparent as Chiurco rose from the stand and started to make his way through the crowd that by now blocked the aisle of the gallery. He had nearly made it to the back door when Lieutenant Glitsky, chief of the city’s homicide department, called out and ordered one of the courtroom bailiffs, Linda Yang, to restrain Chiurco. But the desperate witness-now suddenly revealed as a murder suspect-struggled with the bailiff and managed not only to disarm her but to gain possession of her service weapon and to fire it into the ceiling.

As members of the gallery dropped to the floor or took shelter behind their chairs, homicide sergeant inspector Debra Schiff, who’d been seated at the prosecution table, fired a shot at Chiurco, which he returned, fatally wounding her. In the next few seconds another bailiff, Rolfe Hagen, fired at Chiurco again from inside the bar rail, and in response to that, Chiurco got off a flurry of shots that killed both Supervisor Fisk and bailiff Hagen before Lieutenant Glitsky saw an opening and fired one shot into Chiurco’s chest, killing him. Glitsky has been placed on the automatic administrative leave that follows any officer-involved shooting.

But the violence that could and did erupt with such tragic results even in a guarded courtroom leaves officials pondering a host of questions: Shouldn’t courtroom bailiffs in San Francisco be armed, as they are in every other jurisdiction in California? Or, on the other hand, should guns, even in the hands of police personnel, ever be allowed in courtrooms at all? Is there an adequate number of bailiffs in San Francisco courtrooms? Was Judge Braun negligent in affording a potential murder suspect the opportunity to escape and/or take hostages?

Above all, how was an innocent woman arrested and brought to trial for two murders in a San Francisco courtroom, based on an investigation that could be described, at best, as incompetent, and at worst, as grotesquely negligent?

The evidence of Maya Townshend’s innocence was right in front of the police and the prosecution during this entire investigation. Yet they chose to ignore it in what the unkind might describe as the pursuit of a political vendetta. In this reporter’s opinion it is a travesty that this case was ever allowed to be brought to trial at all.