...And Never Let HerGo

testimony about polygraphs must not be referred to without a proper foundation. Gerry had been warned and he had forgotten.
    Oteri asked to approach the bench. Maurer requested a mistrial and Oteri backed him up.
    They had been in trial for almost five weeks. And now they might have to start all over.

Chapter Thirty-eight
    M OST OF THE GALLERY and the jury had no warning that the trial might be over, and they ate their lunches unaware of any problems. When they returned at two-thirty that Monday afternoon, Judge Lee had decided that the trial would proceed. He instructed the jurors to disregard Gerry’s last answer.
    Colm Connolly was almost finished with Gerry, and Joe Oteri waited for his turn. Connolly asked Gerry about his boats and the replacement anchor that his brother Joey had found for him.
    “Why did that become necessary?”
    “Because of the newspaper articles that said I sold the boat without an anchor.” Gerry testified that he had given the anchor to Joe Hurley, who was then one of Tom’s attorneys. He had no idea why Hurley wanted it.
    After Connolly played the tape of the statement Gerry had given a year earlier to the grand jury, Gerry agreed that he had signed a plea agreement at that time, “so that I didn’t go to jail.”
    “What did you plead guilty to?” Connolly asked.
    “Misprision of a felony,” Gerry said, “which means that somebody did wrong and [I] didn’t tell [the authorities].”
    Gerry had asked for immunity from prosecution for more than himself. He wanted Joey protected and Marian, too—just in case—and he asked that his best friend not be prosecuted for being a felon who owned guns. He knew that Louie was making his own plea bargain. From the tortured look on Gerry’s face, it was obvious that if it were possible, he would have begged for Tom’s freedom, too.
    Now Connolly elicited the information that Gerry was a longtime substance abuser, who had consumed a gram or two of cocainea week before June 28, 1996. After that ghastly day out in the Atlantic Ocean, he had doubled the grams.
    “Do you know whether you were high on cocaine or any other substance on June 28, 1996?” Connolly asked.
    “When? When I went on the boat ride?”
    “Yes.”
    “No sir,” he said convincingly. “I was not.”
    Gerry had been unable to keep Tom’s secret to himself. It hadn’t been long before he realized that it was Anne Marie Fahey’s foot he saw sinking in the ocean. He had told Louie what happened sometime during the holiday season of 1996, and later, of course, he had confided in his attorney Dan Lyons.
    “The conversation you had with your brother Louie—you can’t recall when it occurred?” Connolly asked.
    “No—not the exact date. We were walking up and down Emma Court.”
    “Do you have any recollection of what Louie was wearing?”
    “Yes.” Gerry shut his eyes, concentrating. “He was wearing a red Mickey Mouse jacket with black leather sleeves.”
    J OE O TERI got to cross-examine Gerry late that same afternoon. The crisp shirt Gerry had begun the day with was rumpled and soaked with sweat. He eyed Oteri warily.
    Oteri began with a patronizing approach. “My name is Joe Oteri. I come from Boston, I tend to speak a little fast, and I have an accent. If you have any problem understanding me, please—time-out—and I’ll stop. OK? May I call you Gerry?”
    “OK.”
    “Call me Joe. OK? Now, Gerry, do you remember the first time you used cocaine?
    “No sir.”
    “Any idea when it was?”
    “Years and years ago.”
    Oteri, of course, wanted the jury to believe that Gerry was so steeped in alcohol and illicit drugs that it was a wonder he remembered his own name, much less any boat ride on the Atlantic Ocean two and a half years ago. He led Gerry skillfully into a discussion of the merits of so many drugs that Judge Lee blinked from time to time: cocaine, marijuana, crank (speed), psilocybin mushrooms, crack, barbiturates (which Gerry said he had no experience with), Valium, Xanax, Placidyl, quaaludes, Percodan, LSD, mescaline, ecstasy.
    Gerry made no attempt to downplay his addictions. The question was whether Oteri had convinced the jury that his brain had long since been reduced to mush.
    But he wasn’t finished with Tom’s little brother. Gerry had another day on the witness stand and Oteri figuratively mopped up the floor with him. It wasn’t difficult; Gerry had no sterling qualities or past good deeds to balance his admissions that he