Retribution (45 page)

‘The trunk? The Jaguar had been left at a repair shop for two days prior to being picked up by Mr Bantling on September nineteenth. It was out of his care, custody, and control. He never even looked in the trunk before tossing his overnight bag in the backseat and heading to the airport on scheduled business that night. And he’ll prove that, too, although he is, again, under no obligation to prove anything.

‘Please note that not one single fingerprint, hair, fiber, scratch, stain, or substance has been found on the body of Anna Prado that links her death to Mr Bantling. And although he is not on trial here today for the murders of any other women, and has not been charged with any other crime, let it be known that there is absolutely no physical evidence linking Mr Bantling with even one of those other ten women. Not a fingerprint or hair, not a fiber, not a stain, not a scratch. Not a drop of DNA. Not one shred of physical evidence to those women. Not one.’

‘Objection,’ C.J. said, rising in her seat. ‘The facts of any other investigation have not been made part of this case. They are irrelevant.

‘Sustained.’

But the damage had already been done. Lourdes had made sure that the jury knew that there was nothing connecting Bantling to those other murders. Nothing at all.

Lourdes caught the eye of one woman who had before turned away from her prying stare. The woman was now nodding ever so slightly at Lourdes’s words, while looking Bill Bantling over curiously. C.J. could practically hear her thought spring from her head:
He doesn’t look like a serial killer.
Bantling smiled slightly at the woman and she smiled back, sheepishly looking away.

‘The damning chain is not so damning now, is it, ladies and gentlemen? The movie is not so good. So don’t be so amazed by special effects and bloody evidence and the evil words
serial killer
on the front page of the
Miami Herald.
Remember the oath you took as jurors, and… well, don’t buy your ticket to this movie just yet.’

On those words, Lourdes sat down in the silent, stunned courtroom. Her client covered her hand with his in a sign of his appreciation, while a perfectly staged crocodile tear fell from his eye.

And C.J. realized that her case was in big trouble.

73

‘Jesus Christ, how could you not have known, C.J.?’ Tigler paced her office, nervously running his hand over the top of his head. ‘We look like a bunch of fucking law students in moot court doing their first trial!’

‘Jerry, I didn’t know. He didn’t engage in discovery. We thought we had it all locked down; obviously not.’

‘The man’s car was in a garage for two days before the murder and the special task force, a task force of highly experienced detectives, mind you, could not have found that out unless someone told them to make sure to look?’ Tigler’s face was red. C.J. had never seen him this angry before.

‘Just the fact that it was in a garage before he drove it does not make him innocent. He was still driving his car with a dead girl in the trunk.’

‘No. But it does make us look like bloodthirsty prosecutors who’ll skip out on doing their homework just to nail a name on a serial killer and throw the terrified public a scapegoat. We look like amateurs and I don’t appreciate looking like an amateur, especially in an election year.’

‘I’ll work it out, Jerry. I’m meeting with Detective Alvarez and Agent Falconetti in ten minutes. I’ll work it out.’

‘I hope so, C.J. Because even the feds won’t touch this guy now. Tom de la Flors backed off the indictment when he heard the news. He feels the case warrants
further investigation before a potentially innocent man is indicted on circumstantial facts.’ He stopped his pacing and wiped his hands on his pants. ‘Damn. We look like fools.’

‘I’ll work it out, Jerry.’

‘I trusted you with this case, C.J. You had better work it out, that’s all I can say.’ He straightened the toupee on his sweaty head, and reached for the doorknob, ‘And we better be doing all we can to make sure that we don’t put a needle in the arm of an innocent man.’

The door closed behind him with a loud bang. A few seconds later a light tap sounded, and the door opened again. Manny stuck his head in.

‘Your boss looks like shit. I think he’s gonna drop, C.J.’

‘That’ll make two of us.’

Manny walked into the room, followed a few seconds later by Dominick. Everyone looked at each other for a few seconds.

‘What the hell happened, guys?’ C.J. finally said, her hands spread on her desk, her voice exasperated. ‘How did we not know about this auto-repair place? Where exactly was he during the ten to fourteen hours before Anna Prado’s body was found?’

‘C.J., you know he never talked to us. He screamed for his lawyer before we even got off the causeway. No discovery, either,’ Dominick said in a low voice, obviously trying hard to control his temper. ‘We’ve talked to three hundred people. He wasn’t with any of them on September eighteenth or nineteenth. And there was no reason to think the Jag would be at a garage – it’s brand new.’

‘He’s planned this all along. To get us to this point and

then make us look like fools in front of the jury. I should have seen it coming, because it’s been Lourdes’s MO in the past – trial by ambush. I just didn’t think she’d try it with this one because the stakes are so high. Because the evidence was so airtight…’

‘Hey, she basically just accused me of manufacturing evidence to get an arrest. How do you think that makes me feel, C.J.?’ Dominick angrily erupted, his voice booming. ‘You know, you’re not the only one working hard here to keep this guy behind bars.’

Manny tried to smooth things over in as soft a voice as the Bear could muster. ‘Counselor, we’re pulling everything, talking to every garage within a five-mile radius –’

‘Make it ten. We need to find that garage. See if anyone saw anything.’

‘Fine. Ten miles. We’re going back out and talking to the witnesses again. Every associate he’s had in Miami that we know of…’

‘You’d better work fast, because Judge Chaskel is determined to move this along. He’s starting early every morning and ending late every night. We don’t have much time.’

‘Well then, we’re going to have to wait and see what he’s got when he presents his case,’ Dominick said.

‘By then it might be too late, Dominick. If the jury thinks we don’t have what it takes, and worse yet, that we’ve been holding back, they’ll let him walk. He can’t walk. I won’t let him!’ As before, she could feel the small cracks in her fragile façade that had been glued back together with years of therapy begin to separate and splinter, spreading slowly and fanning out in all directions. She pulled her hands through her hair, hoping
to hold her thoughts together. Dominick was watching her intently.

Watching her unravel Watching her come apart before his very eyes.

‘I need to look at all his records. Everything. I need to find out what it is he is going to spring on us. And I need to find it out before he puts his case on,’ she said aloud, but mainly to herself.

She looked up from her desk at both of them, watching her. The heavy silence was sobering.

‘Don’t you see? He planned this all along,’ she said finally, her voice a shaking, raspy whisper. We’ve been ambushed. And I never even saw it coming…

74

The ring of his cell phone played the musical score of Taps, and it immediately brought Dominick out of his deep sleep on the couch. The movie
Midnight Run
had been replaced on the television by an infomercial for a complete hair-removal system. He stared for a moment at the phone, blinking several times to make sure he was not still dreaming.

‘Falconetti,’ he said, flipping open the Nextel.

‘Who’s DR?’ the voice on the other end demanded.

‘What? C.J., is that you?’ He rubbed his eyes, looking around his apartment for a clock. ‘What time is it?’

‘One
A.M
. Who is DR? What is DR?’

‘What are you talking about? Where are you?’

‘I’m at the office. I’ve just spent the last four hours going through Bantling’s old date books and his business journals that were seized in the search warrants, and the initials DR keep popping up sporadically throughout 1999 and this year, without any other identifying info. In fact, there was a reference to DR the day before Anna Prado disappeared and then again the day before Bantling was arrested. Did you see that?’

‘Yes, of course. We looked into it. Interviewed everyone we could find that had those initials. Nothing came up. We don’t know who or what or where it stands for.’

‘Same thing goes with at least three of the victims. Two days to a week before they disappear, there’s a DR notation. What the hell is that?’

‘It could be anything. It could be nothing. I don’t know. What, is Manny not home?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I haven’t heard from you in almost two weeks, and I know you call him when you need something, so I assume you are calling because he’s not in.’ His sarcasm was met with silence on the other end.

‘Yeah. I just thought DR might be something we missed,’ she said, purposely ignoring what he had just said. ‘Maybe someplace we haven’t looked before. Maybe it’s a place he goes to, where he’s stashed –’

We’ve already been down that road, and I think you have us grasping at straws. It’s late.’

More silence. The perfect opportunity for her to hang up, he thought. But she surprised him when she stayed on the line, and her voice softened. ‘I’m sorry about yesterday, in my office. I shouldn’t have lost my temper with you. I guess I’m just a little anxious about where Lourdes is going with all this.’

‘Look, we all know the man’s a nut. Throwing us off is a thrill for him. A high. That’s why he didn’t demand discovery. He wanted to make us look bad, like he outsmarted us. If he were innocent, he would have talked from day one and supplied us information that could prove his innocence. This is all a game to him, C.J. Remember that. Don’t let him get under your skin, because that’s what he wants.’

‘You did well today, on both direct and cross, in court. I wanted to tell you that, but you left so quickly. Lourdes didn’t shake your tree.’

‘God knows she tried. She did, however, manage to paint me as a desperate cop on the edge of losing his
career if he doesn’t solve this case. Tell me, do I appear desperate to you?’

‘No. Remember, I’
m
the one who called you.’

He laughed. ‘Do you think the jury bought it?’

‘No. Actually, I think you handled yourself well.’

‘How did Chavez do?’ Potential witnesses for either side were not allowed in the courtroom during the trial so that their own testimony would not be influenced by listening to the testimony of others.

‘Not much better than the motion to suppress. After that last slice of humble pie that Lourdes force-fed him, he toned down the arrogance by a few degrees. But even though his testimony was definitely more polished this time, it was also obviously more rehearsed, so in reality we gained nothing.’

‘What did the jury think?’

‘That he’s either evasive or stupid. Maybe both. They definitely picked up on the tension. Lourdes and he were like plaid and stripes at the school prom: They clashed from the get-go.’

C.J. did not share with Dominick how Lourdes had again led Chavez to the dangerous waters of his previous testimony, with the same vague references to the rookie’s ulterior motives for the initial stop of the Jaguar. And how C.J. had felt the perspiration form on her brow and lip, her heart in her throat waiting for the next question to come. The question to end all questions.

The tip.
Did Lourdes really know about it, or had she been bluffing? Would she use it? Did she, too, have the 911 tape? Better yet, did she know who the caller was? Could C.J. expect the raspy voice to make an appearance as a defense witness later on, coming through the
courtroom doors like an evil Matlock witness, here to ruin her case with his surprise testimony?

But once again, Lourdes had pushed the stubborn Chavez only so far, backing off suddenly, and leaving the jury with the taste that there was something more to the rookie’s story. And C.J. had felt the heavy weight of fear slowly ease off her chest.

‘How much more do you have left?’

‘The ME, crime scene, Masterson for the porno tapes. Maybe two, three more days. Probably after the New Year, but you never know with this judge. It might be tomorrow.’

‘You weren’t kidding that Chaskel moves fast. He’s done more in a week than most judges do in a month. Especially on a capital. What time are you starting?’

‘Eight. We wrapped yesterday and today after nine. The jury is pissed. It’s ruined their holidays. I fear they’re blaming me, and I certainly wasn’t the one who chose to try a murder during this most wonderful time of the year.’

‘How was your Christmas?’ Their conversation had softened, lapsed back into the familiar. It was almost painful, how much he missed her.

‘Okay,’ she lied. ‘Tibby got me a fur ball. A big one. Yours?’

‘Good,’ he lied. ‘Manny got me nothing. He got himself a hickey, though. And in the true spirit of Christmas, I think he gave a couple, too.’

‘Really? Not to you, I hope.’

‘No. But I think your secretary will be wearing turtle-necks this week.’

‘Oh God. Men are so blind.’

‘Yes. Yes, we are.’

She said nothing, but he thought he heard her sniffle.

‘Is Tigler over his mad?’ he asked, breaking the silence, feeling bad about that last cheap shot.

‘Nope. Not until I win, which by the day is looking shakier.’

He heard the quiver in her voice, the same anxious sound it held the other day in her office when she had called him and Manny in on the carpet. ‘How are you holding up?’ he asked softly. ‘Are you okay? Do you want me to come ov –’

But she quickly broke him off, knowing what he was going to suggest.’Look, I’ll let you get back to bed,’ she said quickly as the tears welled, and her voice started to choke. ‘Sorry I woke you. Good night.’

She hung the phone up on him, and he knew she was crying. Crying alone in the darkness of her deserted office in downtown Shitsville. He stood up from the couch and walked his apartment, wide awake now.