Authors: James Grippando
“No problem, boss.”
Sofia glanced through the rear window to check out the crowd they’d left behind. “Wow. I feel like a celebrity.”
“Get used to it,” said Jack.
“Does this mean there’ll be groupies?” said Theo.
Jack rolled his eyes. “Just drive, Theo.”
Theo managed to catch a string of green lights, and the car seemed to jump onto the expressway as they hit the on ramp. In minutes they were cruising down I-95, away from downtown Miami, and then over to Key Biscayne via the Rickenbacker Causeway.
Key Biscayne was like another world, which was why Jack lived there. It was an island paradise, practically within the shadows of Miami’s skyscrapers, yet far enough removed from the chaos that he could enjoy the city views without being constantly reminded of work.
They rode in silence until Jack could decompress. There was no one better than Theo at figuring out when Jack was ready to talk, and by the same token, there was no one more blatant about not giving a shit whether Jack was ready to talk or not.
“So, how’d it go?” said Theo.
“How did it look?” said Jack.
“Like the
los quinces
party from hell,” said Theo.
Sofia chuckled, recalling her own special fifteenth-birthday bash, which had been completely overdone in the grandest of Cuban traditions.
Jack wasn’t laughing. He was focused on the emergency vehicles at the end of the otherwise quiet residential street. Two yellow fire trucks were blocking traffic. A tangle of rock-hard fire hoses were strewn across the wet pavement. Firefighters stood at the ready around the taped-off perimeter, and a menacing plume of black smoke billowed upward from the south side of the street. A team of four was aiming a fully activated hose and dousing an automobile with a powerful stream of water. Jack nearly gasped. The emergency was directly in front of his house.
“Shit!” said Theo. “That’s your Mustang, Jack!”
Theo slammed on the brakes. The three of them jumped out of the sedan and ran to the edge of the street. Some onlookers had already gathered on the sidewalk. Jack pushed his way past them, but a police officer stopped him cold.
“That’s my car!” said Jack.
The cop shrugged. “You mean
was
your car. Nothing you can do for it now, pal. Just stay back.”
Jack couldn’t move. He’d bought that old car with his first few paychecks out of law school. It was the only thing he’d gotten in his divorce from Cindy. It was the one thing in his lonely life that could pull him out of the office and force him, literally, to take the scenic route.
And now it was a flaming hot shell of charred metal.
He glanced at Theo, and he’d never seen such sadness in his friend’s eyes. He was the only person on the planet who had loved that Mustang even more than Jack.
Jack stared in disbelief, saying nothing. Then he noticed something in the driveway alongside the car. He was watching from across the street, so he couldn’t make it out at first. But after cutting the glare with his sunglasses he could plainly see that someone had spray-painted a message in red letters on the asphalt, presumably before they’d torched
the vehicle. It took Jack a moment to read the upside-down letters, and then finally it clicked.
C
ASTRO
L
OVER
was all it said.
Theo looked at him and said, “Son of a gun, the fun has begun.”
The flames began to falter. The firefighters had the blaze under control, and they were just a few hundred gallons of water away from turning a spectacular bonfire into worthless remains.
“Yeah,” said Jack. “Sure looks that way.”
T
he United States of America calls Alejandro Pintado.”
With those ominous words from U.S. attorney Hector Torres, the case against Lindsey Hart was officially in high gear.
It had taken three days to select a jury. With over fifty percent of the county’s population foreign-born, everything about Miami was a mix, and juries were no different. Not even Sigmund Freud could have divined the psychological interplay of race, culture, language, and politics. As a defense lawyer, you didn’t try to be everything to everybody. You simply created enough reasonable doubt so that there was
something
for
somebody
to cling to, which was exactly the way Jack had played it during jury selection and his opening statement.
Now, it was show time.
“Mr. Pintado, please approach,” said the judge.
A sea of heads turned as the victim’s father made his way toward the witness box. The trial was in the central courtroom, which was filled to capacity. The Mediterranean-style surroundings were impressive, with stone arches, frescoed ceilings, and plenty of high-polished mahogany. Only the center courtroom had a public seating area large enough to accommodate the overwhelming media interest. Despite the murmuring crowd of spectators, Jack could hear his client sigh in the seat beside him. She’d seemed dazed since the bailiff called the case at nine
A.M.
sharp. Jack understood. Nothing was more unsettling than to hear the words
“The United States of America versus”
followed by your own name.
Jack gave her hand a little squeeze. It was ice cold.
“I do,” said Pintado, promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
“Please be seated,” the judge said.
Pintado settled into the witness stand, which was situated opposite the jury. Judge Garcia was perched between the witness and the jury, a commanding figure in his own right, very judicial and even scholarly in his appearance and demeanor. Pintado was one of those rare witnesses who seemed to command even greater deference. Jack could see the respect and admiration in the eyes of several jurors.
“Good morning,” the prosecutor said as he approached the witness. “First, let me express my condolences to you and Mrs. Pintado for the loss of your son.”
“Thank you.” The jury followed his gaze toward his wife in the first row of public seating. She was an attractive woman, smartly dressed, but her face spoke of many sleepless nights of grieving.
Predictably enough, the testimony began with the witness’s impressive background—his childhood in Cuba, his harrowing raft trip to Miami, his first job as a dishwasher, and his rise to fame as owner of a successful chain of Cuban restaurants. The prosecutor then steered him toward more pertinent matters.
“Mr. Pintado, would you please tell us about your son?”
He seemed to sigh at the size of the question. Pintado did not come across as the kind of man who was easily shaken, but his voice quaked just a bit as he answered. “Oscar was the kind of son every parent wants. He was a good boy, a good student in school. At Columbus High he was president of his senior class and played quarterback on the football team. We wanted him to go to college, but we were all very proud of him when he joined the Marines.”
“Did he eventually go to college?”
“Yes. Right away, the Marine Corps recognized him as officer material. They steered him right, and he got his bachelor of science degree from the University of Miami. With honors, I might add. Then he went back in the corps on the junior officer track.”
“It sounds like you loved your son very much.”
“His mother and I both did. All our children, we love more than anything in the world.”
“How long was Oscar stationed at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba?”
“He made captain when he was transferred there. I’d say approximately four years ago.”
“And he lived with his wife and son on the base, correct?
“That’s correct.”
“Can you tell us, sir, what kind of a father Oscar was?”
“He was absolutely terrific. His son is ten years old now. He lives with his grandmother and me. Brian is always asking about his father.”
“Does he ask about his mother?”
Pintado speared his first glance in Lindsey’s direction, but he didn’t make direct eye contact. “Almost never.”
The dagger wasn’t even directed at him, yet Jack felt it. Lindsey leaned toward him and whispered, “That’s so not true. See how he lies?”
The prosecutor asked, “What kind of a husband was Oscar?”
“He was a good husband. I have to say that he loved his wife very much.”
“Based upon your own personal observations, would you say that she loved him?”
His lower lip protruded, the chin wrinkled. “No.”
“Why do you say that?”
“From the very beginning, I felt that Lindsey was more interested in the Pintado family money than in Oscar.”
Jack knew where this was headed, and he probably could have objected, but there was little to be gained by playing to the jury as an obstructionist lawyer who wouldn’t even let a grieving father talk about his son.
The prosecutor said, “Did anything specific happen in the recent past to shape your views that Lindsey was after the family money?”
“Oscar had a trust fund. The money kicked in three years ago, on his thirty-fifth birthday.”
“I hate to probe into your family finances, sir. But how much money are we talking about?”
He paused, then said, “It was in the millions.”
“I suppose that buys a lot of beer nuts over at the officers’ club in Guantánamo.”
“That was exactly the point. There was really no place to spend that kind of money at Guantánamo. Oscar was a soldier. He lived like
every other soldier.” Again, he shot a quick glare at Lindsey. “And his wife lived like every other soldier’s wife.”
“What was their house like in Guantánamo? The physical structure, I mean.”
“It was very modest. Built in the 1940s, I believe. Eleven hundred square feet. No garage, just a little car port on the side.”
“Do you know how long your son planned to live there?”
“I suppose he could have been transferred to another base. But he was just a few birthdays away from twenty years with the Marines, and he had every intention of finishing out his career at Guantánamo.”
“How do you know that?”
“We talked about it in connection with Brian’s schooling. The military has never been willing to provide a Sign Exact English interpreter for Brian’s classroom, so I called in some favors to find a good civilian interpreter who was willing to live on the base at the family’s expense. It was long-term, at least until Brian started high school.”
“So, for Oscar and Lindsey, that seven-bedroom dream home on the waterfront was at least a few years away.”
“That’s true. But Oscar could wait. He loved serving his country. He was a soldier, and he was happy to keep the money in the bank until his job was done.”
“Was Lindsey happy?
He glanced toward the jury, then back. “Maybe you should ask her.”
“Thank you. No further questions,” said Torres.
Jack rose and said, “I’d like a sidebar, Your Honor.”
The judge waved the lawyers forward, and they huddled behind the bench on the side farthest from the jury. Jack said, “Judge, that last question and answer should make your skin crawl. It was so obviously choreographed to elicit the response Mr. Pintado gave: ‘Maybe you should ask Lindsey.’ The defendant is under no obligation to testify. It’s completely inappropriate for Mr. Torres to use his own witnesses to plant a seed in the minds of jurors that my client needs to explain herself on the witness stand.”
“I don’t know what Mr. Swyteck is talking about, Judge. I simply asked a question, and the witness answered as best he could.”
“Oh, please,” said Jack. “You’re talking to a former prosecutor. Are
you trying to tell me that you ended the examination of your very first witness with a question that you didn’t know the answer to?”
“All right, that’s enough,” said the judge. “I think Mr. Swyteck has a point. Watch yourself, Mr. Torres.”
“No problem, Judge.” As they turned and headed back to their places, Torres whispered in a voice only Jack could hear, “Didn’t know you were so afraid to put Lindsey up there, Jack.”
“Didn’t know you were so afraid to try and get a conviction without her,” said Jack.
The prosecutor returned to his seat. Jack took his position before the witness. Cross-examining a local legend like Alejandro Pintado would be difficult under any circumstance. The fact that he was the victim’s father made Jack’s job even tougher.
“Mr. Pintado, I also would like to express my sympathy to you and your family.”
The witness looked back at him coldly, no verbal response. Jack moved on. “I want to ask you about this trust agreement you mentioned.”
“What about it?”
“That trust was established exclusively for your son. Not for him and his wife. Am I correct?”
“That’s right.”
“You never had any discussions with Lindsey about that trust, did you?”
“No. Lindsey and I didn’t talk about money.”
“You never sent her a copy of the trust instrument, did you?”
“No, of course not.”
“You never heard her having any discussions about the trust.”
“You mean with Oscar?”
“I mean with anyone.”
Pintado thought for a moment, as if he was beginning to pick up Jack’s implication. “No. Never heard her talk about it.”
Jack would have liked to knock his point home and finish with a question like, So, as far as you know, Lindsey never even knew about Oscar’s trust. But he knew he’d probably get an answer like, Actually, Mr. Swyteck, my lawyer tells me that Lindsey called his office to ask about the trust four times a day for six weeks prior to Oscar’s death.
Jack figured he’d leave well enough alone.
“Mr. Pintado, let’s shift gears and talk about you for a minute. I understand that you’re the founder and president of Brothers for Freedom.”
“That’s correct. One of my proudest achievements.”
“Congratulations, sir. For the benefit of those in this courtroom who have never heard of it, how would you describe the purpose of your organization?”
“We fly humanitarian missions over the Straits of Florida in search of people trying to leave Cuba. Once we find them, we do everything within our legal rights to help bring them to safety in Florida.”
Jack noticed three of the jurors nodding their heads in silent approval. It was hard not to admire what he was doing. But it was Jack’s job to discredit him anyway.
“Mr. Pintado, I have here a copy of a newspaper article that appeared on page two-A of the
Miami Tribune
some eleven months ago. It talks about your role in Brothers for Freedom. Do you recall speaking to a reporter before this article appeared?”
“Yes.”
“The article quotes you as follows: ‘We don’t want to be part of the Coast Guard’s new agenda, which is to send Cubans back to Cuba. They have become Castro’s border patrol.’ ”
Jack let the quote hang in the air. The silence in the courtroom was palpable.
“Yes, those were my words,” said Pintado.
“You made that statement because the U.S. Coast Guard’s current policy toward any Cuban refugees intercepted at sea is to return them to Cuba. Am I right?”
“That’s right.”
“That policy made you angry, did it not?”
“Of course it did. We’re talking about sending people back to Fidel Castro, a ruthless murderer who once put a man on trial and executed him within five days of his return to Cuba. Many others are sitting in Castro’s prisons, and their only crime is that they left Cuba in search of freedom and got stopped by the U.S. Coast Guard before reaching U.S. soil.”
“I understand. So, the very idea that the Coast Guard would return rafters to Cuba made you and a lot of other people angry.”
“Many, many people. That’s right.”
“It made your son angry, too, right?”
“Yes, it did.”
“Is it fair to say that Captain Pintado felt the same way you did about the U.S. Coast Guard?”
“Objection,” said the prosecutor. “There’s no evidence that Captain Pintado ever referred to the U.S. Coast Guard as Castro’s border patrol.”
“Overruled. The witness may answer.”
Pintado said, “On this particular issue, yes. I would say that my son felt the same as I did.”
“Did he make his views known at the naval base?”
Pintado paused, careful with his response. “I would hope not. There were hundreds of Coast Guard sailors stationed at Guantánamo.”
“Yes. Hundreds. Which means, sir, that in the largest newspaper in the Coast Guard’s Seventh District—which includes Miami and Guantánamo Bay—you called three thousand of your son’s next-door neighbors ‘Castro’s border patrol.’ ”
“Objection,” said the prosecutor. “Asked and answered.”
It was the kind of objection Jack welcomed, as it only underscored Pintado’s earlier response. “Yes, I guess it was asked and answered,” said Jack. He squared himself to the witness and said, “Let me ask you this, sir: Is it fair to say that your ‘Castro’s border patrol’ comment incited anger among Coast Guard personnel?”
Again, Pintado seemed cautious to agree with anything Jack said, but he couldn’t deny this. “It made some people angry, sure.”
Jack went back to his table, and Sofia handed him another exhibit. “In fact, let me read to you one of the many angry responses to your ‘Castro’s border patrol’ comment. This is an actual letter to the editor that was printed in the
Miami Tribune
three days after your quote appeared in the newspaper. It reads, ‘Dear Editor: As a World War Two Coast Guard veteran, I am outraged by Mr. Pintado’s reference to our branch of service as ‘Castro’s border patrol.’ I spent three years of my life on a destroyer in the South Pacific trying to outrun Japanese torpedos. I saw my friends literally blown out of the water as they transported American troops to the beaches on D day. If Mr. Pintado thinks that the Coast Guard works for a vicious dictator like Fidel Castro, then I volunteer to reenlist for duty so that I can personally transport Mr. Pintado back to Cuba.’ ”