“Who?”
“One of the three people my client is accused of murdering,” I say, “along with Mr. Carson’s wife and daughter.”
“Can’t say I had the pleasure,” Blum says. “But sometimes I can’t even remember things I think I can still remember.” He puts out his hands, helplessly. “You know what they say? Getting old isn’t for sissies.”
“Did Hank Carson owe you gambling money at the time of his death?”
“Like some bet him and me made?” he asks. “Why would I bet with somebody I don’t know?”
“Despite what you say is your inability to remember things, Mr. Blum, isn’t it true that Hank Carson was a million dollars in debt to you at the time of his death?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Are you sure about that?” I ask.
I am walking now, across to where the clerk of the court is sitting, and reach for the plastic case with an old-fashioned compact disc inside.
“Your Honor,” I say, “as both you and Ms. Welsh know, this disc was already entered into evidence, before court began today, as Exhibit DX-1. And I would now like the court’s permission to play its contents on the large screen I’m going to ask the clerk to wheel out here, so the jury can see.”
“The court has already acknowledged that you can play it, Ms. Smith,” Judge Horton says.
“I just wanted it on the record, sir.”
I turn to Katherine Welsh. “Does esteemed counsel have any objections?”
“You and I both know they’ve already been lodged in chambers,” Welsh says, clearly resigned to what she knows is about to happen, unable to stop it.
The screen is wheeled to the center of the room. The clerk inserts the DVD into the laptop in front of her.
“May I?” I say to the clerk.
She nods.
Then I hit Play.
ONE HUNDRED THREE
IT TAKES A FEW seconds for the technology to kick in.
But then, in front of Katherine Welsh and Judge Michael Horton and the jury and maybe even God Herself, an image of Sonny Blum appears on the big screen, remarkably clear, reclining in the BarcaLounger in the living room of his safe house in Barnes Landing, one that pretty much turned out to be the opposite of safe for him.
This is the video that Jimmy had made with the tiny 1080P HD recorder, almost invisible to the naked eye, that a local seamstress in Sag Harbor had carefully sewn into the interlockingNYof Jimmy’s Yankee cap—the camera he used to record his conversation with Blum the night he served Blum with his subpoena, in another small miracle of technology.
It was the recorder he’d tested out at the bar with his bartender Kenny before heading over to Gardiners Bay.
“Just out of curiosity,”we hear Jimmy saying now,“how much did the late Mr. Carson owe you?”
Blum:“A million, give or take a few thousand.”
Jimmy:“Lot of money.”
Blum:“He’s lucky something unfortunate didn’t happen to him sooner.”
Now I make a big show of leaning over and hitting Pause on the clerk’s laptop, freezing the image of Sanford (Sonny) Blum.
“Could you possibly be referring to something unfortunate like his whole family being shot in cold blood, Mr. Blum?”
Blum is shaking his head, furiously, eyes closed.
