AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That’s probably true,” the officer muttered. “I’ll never understand.”
“I’m not surprised,” Corrado quipped. “Comprehension doesn’t seem to be your strong suit.”
The officer ignored the jab as he locked the cell and walked away. Finally alone, Corrado lay on the hard, thin mattress and once again draped his arm over his eyes. Silence surrounded him, blanketing him in peace as sleep took him away.
When he resurfaced, the pounding in his head had dulled. He sat up and glanced toward the door at the same time the slot in it opened, an officer’s voice carrying through. “Mail call.”
He slid in two envelopes that fell to the floor, both already opened. He wasn’t surprised. His mail was routinely checked, confiscated for days and read countless times in an attempt to find some hidden message they would never find.
Not because there wasn’t one . . . because they weren’t smart enough to decipher their code.
“Heard it’s your birthday,” the officer said. “That true?”
“Yes.”
The officer laughed. “Solitary confinement—hell of a birthday present.”
Corrado stood and grabbed the mail when the slot closed. The first was a simple birthday card from his wife, plain blue with no sappy message inside. He eyed the second envelope curiously before pulling out the sheet of paper. It was short, the message scribbled in messy pen.
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I went to work,
How ‘bout you?
P.S.—I thought violets were purple, not blue. Color me surprised. Thinking I need some tutoring—the hands-on type.
He read it twice, surprised the message made it through security. The note wasn’t signed, the return address sketchy, but he knew exactly who it had come from.
Corrado had no pen and paper, so he couldn’t reply yet, but he knew exactly what he’d say:
Flowers come in every color, but some aren’t meant to be picked. Enjoy the view, but don’t try to plant any of your seeds in my garden. I’d hate to see you piled high with fertilizer.
31
On the first day of spring, March 20, trucks and vans packed the streets surrounding the Dirksen Federal Building in downtown Chicago. The sun shone brightly, the afternoon warm as trees grew lush and flowers bloomed. The way it felt on the twelfth floor of the building, though, you wouldn’t know things flourished outside.
Under the dim lighting of the courtroom, Corrado sat behind the long defendant’s table, hands clasped in front of him, tie hanging sloppily around his neck. His wife hadn’t been there that morning to fix it as he dressed in a room not far from where he sat. The air was frigid in temperature and feeling. Despite having lived in Chicago for decades, he still wasn’t used to the cold.
He didn’t shiver, though. He refused to appear weak.
UNITED STATES V. CORRADO MORETTI
DAY ONE
The courtroom was packed, not an empty seat anywhere to be found. Corrado had surveyed the spectators when he was ushered in, spotting Celia in the back with her nephew, Dominic. Besides them, he saw little in the way of friendly faces. No family, no friends, no La Cosa Nostra . . . victims and their relatives crammed the frozen room, sucking up all of the oxygen.
Corrado could feel their hostility ghosting across his skin.
He didn’t care what they thought, though. The only opinions that mattered to him belonged to the twelve people stuffed into the secluded box along the side. Eight men and four women, housed in a dingy hotel for the duration of the trial, guarded twenty-four hours a day.
It was the first time Corrado had been given a sequestered jury. The judge was afraid he would bribe his way out of trouble or ultimately hurt someone to get his way. If it didn’t annoy him so much, having to rely on a genuine outcome, he might have been flattered by their fear.
Sitting back in his chair, Corrado leaned toward his lawyer. “Doesn’t the fact that they’re locking the jury away with armed guards prejudice them against me?”
“Not any more prejudiced than they already were,” he replied. “They came into this believing you’re a monster. Our job is to humanize you.”
