Hostile Witness

I took the envelope and ran like hell.

49

IT WAS BIG NEWS the next morning. The police had been summoned by a mysterious 911 call and had found him lying in the rain, his throat slashed. The official statement was that Charles Lamb, 43, unmarried, of Northeast Philadelphia, press secretary to City Councilman Jimmy Moore, had been found murdered at Washington Square. No motive for the killing was yet known and there were no suspects. He was survived by only his mother, Co

Chester was mute with suffering, his pain marked only in a redness about his eyes, a tightness in his lips. I told him I was sorry and he shrugged me away, but I could see the hurt. I hadn’t known before that they had been so close. Jimmy chose to vocalize his feelings, telling the press how valued a member of his team Chuckie had been. “This crime,” he said on the steps of the courthouse, the start of his speech timed with precision so as to be captured live by the television cameras, “will only increase my determination to continue my crusade. I have experienced many tragedies in my life, and this is still one more. But whoever thinks they can deter me from my cause, whoever thinks they can halt my progress, whoever thinks they can threaten or bully or kill my good work is deeply mistaken. We go on, we keep fighting, the dealers of death will be beaten and we will be victorious, and those like Chuckie Lamb, who were martyred in the struggle, will for always be remembered as heroes.”

Jimmy Moore, I figured, had wasted no time in grabbing himself another speechwriter.

Chuckie Lamb had neither been indicted nor intended to be called as a witness for either side, so his murder had no real impact on the trial. Judge Gimbel suggested, in light of the death of someone so close to the councilman, that we adjourn until tomorrow and Eggert readily agreed, but Jimmy Moore stood up in the courtroom and stated that he was ready to testify that very day.

“You want to testify today?” asked the judge.

“Yes, sir,” said Jimmy Moore. “Mr. Lamb would have wanted the trial to continue so that I can get this shoddy affair over with as soon as possible and direct my full attention once again to the business of the people.”

“That’s fine, Councilman Moore,” said the judge.

And so the jury was brought in and Prescott stood. “The defense,” he said, “calls Councilman James Douglas Moore to the stand.”

Jimmy Moore had not spent a career riling up constituents and making impromptu political speeches without learning a thing or two about how to work a crowd, whether it be a thousand supporters on an election-eve rally or twelve jurors and two alternates with his future under their thumbs. I knew what his story would be, that he was the unwitting victim of the fiendish Chester Conca

Under Prescott’s gentle questioning Moore spelled out his defense in clear and angry sentences. No, he did not illegally extort money from Michael Ruffing. Yes, he had helped with Ruffing’s development plan in City Council because it was a good plan, and yes, he expected campaign contributions for such help, but that was the way the world worked in politics. “It’s the American system,” said Jimmy Moore, “and God bless the American system. God bless America.” No, he had not known of the $250,000 given to Conca

He told them about Veronica in a quiet voice, dripping with abashment. Yes, he’d had a mistress. Her name was Veronica Ashland. She had been a college student hooked on crack. He had pulled her out of a crack house he had been closing down in West Philadelphia and had personally brought her to a drug rehabilitation center. After saving her life he felt some responsibility to her and visited her in the treatment center. She was getting healthier, learning to live without drugs, and between them a friendship blossomed that turned into something more. He was sorry for the pain it had caused his wife, his family, it had happened and he was sorry and now it was over. “But I am truly bitter,” he said, “toward my deceitful aide who has sought to use my painful relationship with this poor girl against me.”

He saved his bitterest vitriol, of course, for Chet Conca

When his direct examination was finished, there was an emotional silence in the courtroom. Prescott stood at the podium, eyes down, letting the silence hang there and intensify. I looked at the jury and they were split. Half were looking at Jimmy with sympathy and affection and admiration. The other half were staring at Chet Conca