Two of the waitresses admitted to dating customers, but only when off-duty. Another of Miss Ginger’s many rules. One romance lasted a few months.
The four women on the jury saw through the charade and lost interest. The men were harder to read. Joe Nunzio liked Marlene but soon grew interested in his shoes again. Mr. Dewey had napped through most of the previous testimony, but the ladies held his attention and he followed every word.
By noon of the second day, Burch had portrayed Carousel as virtually a kid-friendly place with wholesome fun for the entire family.
After lunch, he continued his defense with more of the same. Four more ladies came forth and gave similar testimony. They were just hardworking girls serving drinks, trying to make a living. Little of their testimony could be verified. Since no records existed, they could testify to anything, and there was nothing Jesse could do about it. He tried to pin down their names, current addresses, ages, and dates of employment, but even that was difficult.
During a long afternoon recess, Judge Oliphant suggested to Burch that perhaps they had heard enough. Burch said he had more witnesses, more waitresses, but agreed that the jurors were getting tired.
“Will the defendant testify?” Oliphant asked.
“No sir, she will not.”
While Jesse was eager to engage Ginger in a lengthy cross-examination, he was not surprised with Burch’s response. During the nuisance trial, she had been cool and calm on the witness stand, but Jesse had not hammered away at her past. With a jury watching, he was confident he could rattle her and trick her into a bad answer. Burch was concerned enough to keep her off the stand. Besides, it was usually a bad idea to allow the defendant to testify.
Judge Oliphant was suffering low back pain and taking medication that often meddled with his alertness, and he needed a break. He adjourned until the following morning.
As they walked to Jesse’s car in the lot next to the courthouse, he saw something stuck behind a windshield wiper. It was a small white envelope, unmarked. He took it, got in, as did Egan. Keith, ever the rookie, got in the rear seat. Jesse opened the envelope and removed a small white notecard. Someone had written: Joe Nunzio got $2000 cash to vote not guilty.
He gave it to Egan, who read it and handed it over her shoulder. They drove in silence to the law office, cleared out the conference room, and closed the doors.
The first question was whether to tell Judge Oliphant. The note could be a joke, a plant, a prank. Of course, it could also be the truth, but without more proof Oliphant was unlikely to do much. He could quiz each juror individually and try to gauge Nunzio’s body language. But, if he’d taken the money he was not likely to confess.
As always, there were two alternate jurors. If Nunzio was excused, the trial would go on.
Jesse could demand a mistrial, a rare move for the State. If granted, everyone would go home and they would try the case again another day. He doubted, though, that Judge Oliphant would grant one. Mistrials were for defendants, not prosecutors.
After brainstorming for two hours, Jesse decided to do nothing. The jury would get the case early the next morning and they would soon know what, if anything, Nunzio was up to.
* * *
Jesse began his closing argument with a rousing condemnation of the defendant, Miss Ginger, and her house of ill repute. He pitted the testimony of six dedicated law enforcement officers, undercover and in plain clothes, against that of a veritable parade of loose women who also presented themselves to the jury in plain clothes. Imagine what they looked like when they hustled customers and offered them sex.
Burch was up to the task and railed against the cops for sneaking into Carousel with the sole intent of “entrapping” the waitresses into bad behavior. Sure the ladies came from rougher backgrounds and broken homes, but it wasn’t their fault. They were given jobs by the goodness of his client, Miss Ginger, and were well paid for serving drinks.
While Burch paced back and forth like a veteran stage actor, Jesse watched the jurors. It was the only moment in the trial when he could study them full-on without worrying about getting caught sneaking a glance. Joe Nunzio had refused to make eye contact with Jesse during his final summation, but he was watching Burch closely.