Authors: James Grippando
Jack chuckled, and so did she. It was a nice combination, someone who could crack you up and turn you on at the same time. “Come here, you.”
She went to him, nuzzling up to his neck.
“How long you been traveling?” he asked.
“Seventeen hours.”
“How about a shower?”
“I’m wearing a thong.”
“How about a quick shower?”
She kissed him about the face and said, “How about you shower with me?”
“Hmm. Very tempting, honey. But there’s absolutely no way we’ll get out of there without having sex, and sex in my teeny-tiny shower stall rates right up there with sex on a coffee table. Alluring in theory, but what the hell’s the point when there’s a perfectly good mattress twenty feet away?”
“You’re such a putz.”
“I know. It’s a gift.”
“Get your ass in the shower.”
He smiled and said, “Yes, ma’am.”
J
ack was staring at the final witness for the prosecution. After a night with Rene, he was barely able to keep his eyes open. But it didn’t take long to figure out that the prosecutor had saved the best for last.
Lieutenant Stephen Porter was the lead NCIS investigator on the case against Lindsey Hart. Motive had already been established: Alejandro Pintado and Dr. Vandermeer had painted Lindsey as an unfaithful wife who would gladly make herself a widow, if that’s what it took to get off the naval base and inherit her husband’s family money. The medical examiner had confirmed her opportunity to commit the crime: he placed the time of death before Lindsey left for work, though Jack had chipped away at his guesstimate. The final leg of the murder triangle was the means, which it was the investigator’s chief function to establish.
“Did you consider the possibility of suicide?” the prosecutor asked.
Porter sat up straight, though he was already quite rigid. He was alert, nicely groomed, and smartly dressed in his naval uniform, the antithesis of the typical chain-smoking, burned-out homicide detective on the civilian side. “Yes,” he said. “We considered it. But the fact that the victim’s gun was found with the safety on suggested that it wasn’t suicide. Kind of hard to put on the safety after you kill yourself.”
That drew a reverberation of mild amusement from the crowd.
Torres said, “Did you observe any blood-spray patterns or other evidence to indicate suicide?”
“No, and that’s an important point. When someone takes his own life by firing a bullet into his head at close range, you would normally expect some back spray of blood and other matter onto the victim’s own hand. I saw none with naked eye when I arrived on the scene, and I would add that no microscopic traces were noted in the autopsy report.”
“What about fingerprints? If you are going to rule out suicide, it seems you would want to find some fingerprints on the gun that don’t belong to the victim.”
“We did find one extraneous fingerprint on the handle near the trigger.”
“Did you establish a match for that fingerprint?”
“Yes, we did, with the FBI’s assistance.”
“Can you please tell the jury whose fingerprint it was?”
“It was the right index finger of Lindsey Hart.”
Just that quickly, the prosecution had made its key points: Oscar Pintado’s death was not a suicide, and a fingerprint from Lindsey’s right hand—her firing hand—was on the gun. The only way for the defense to explain it was to put Lindsey on the stand. But they had a long way to go before the explaining would come, if it was to come at all. Lindsey didn’t have to take the stand in her own defense, and Jack wasn’t sure he wanted her to. So he needed to do some serious damage control before they broke for the weekend.
“Lieutenant Porter,” Jack said as he approached the witness, “I’d like to hear more about this lack of back spray that you mentioned. First, let me make sure I understand this. Back spray occurs when a bullet is fired into the victim from extremely close range, correct?”
“That’s right. It’s generally referred to as a close-entry wound.”
“Meaning a few inches or less?”
“Inches, or perhaps no separation at all between the gun and the victim’s skin.”
“We all agree that Captain Pintado suffered a close-entry wound, do we not?”
“No dispute on that.”
“And we also agree that there was no back spray on Captain Pintado’s hands, which weighs against a finding of suicide.”
“That’s correct.”
Jack paused, then took a step closer. “What about Lindsey Hart’s
hands, Lieutenant? You didn’t find any back spray on her hands, did you?”
He shifted in his chair. “No. But it’s organic matter. All it takes is soap and water, and no more back spray.”
“There was none in her hair, on her face, or on her clothes, was there?”
“None that we found. But there was plenty of time for her to shower, change clothes, even dump the blood-stained clothes in the hospital incinerator when she went to work that morning.”
“Lieutenant, are you familiar with blood reagents, such as Luminol or Florescein?”
“Yes. Those are chemicals that react with blood.”
“They can pick up traces of blood that may have been washed away or that are otherwise invisible to the naked eye, isn’t that right?”
“Basically. Luminol turns it green, and Florescein makes it glow under UV light.”
“You didn’t use Luminol or Florescein to connect blood traces to my client, did you?”
“No,” he said, seeming to reach deep for a prepared response. “Chemical reagents can destroy other evidence. So we didn’t use them.”
“Is that the reason you didn’t use them, Lieutenant? Or was it because you knew that the results would only hurt your case against my client?”
“Objection.”
“Sustained,” said the judge. “The witness told you why he didn’t use it. Move on, Mr. Swyteck.”
“What about gunshot residue?” said Jack. “When the gun is fired at such close range, doesn’t gunshot residue often blow back onto the trigger hand?”
“It can, yes. I assume you mean the nitrocellulose powder, which is the propellant that forces the bullet down the barrel.”
“Your investigative team didn’t collect any gunshot residue when it swabbed Lindsey Hart’s hands, did it?”
“No, we didn’t. But again, the weapon involved here is an M9 9 mm Beretta pistol. There’s less residue on the hands with an auto-loader, and it’s much easier to wash off. It might require a couple of scrubbings, but still, all it takes is soap and water.”
Jack went back to his table, and Sofia handed him the investigative report. He flipped through it just long enough to make the prosecutor wonder what he was up to, then he squared himself to the witness and said, “When I read the NCIS final report, Lieutenant, I didn’t see any identification of witnesses who saw the defendant washing her hands.”
“There are none listed.”
“I didn’t see any reference in your report to any abrasions or redness on the defendants’ hands, or any strong soapy odors—anything which might suggest that she’d given her hands a vigorous scrubbing.”
“None were noted.”
“I didn’t see any reference in your report as to whether the basin or tub were even wet, indicating recent usage.”
“The report doesn’t address that,” the lieutenant said, his voice becoming softer.
“I didn’t see any reference in your report to an examination of the plumbing to determine whether blood or other matter had been washed down the drain.”
Again, the lieutenant’s voice dropped. “We didn’t do that.”
“You could have done that, couldn’t you? Your investigative and forensic team could have removed the plumbing and examined the insides of the pipes for traces of blood or gunshot residue.”
“It’s possible.”
“But you didn’t do it?”
“No.”
“So, just to be clear on this. You and your investigative team can’t say one way or the other whether Lindsey Hart was busily scrubbing her hands clean before the police arrived on the scene, can you?”
“No, we can’t.”
“And you and your investigative team can’t say whether any blood or gunshot residue was washed down the drain.”
“No, we can’t.”
“Nonetheless,” he said, his voice rising, his pace quickening, “it’s your position that Lindsey Hart fired a gun into her husband’s head at close range, and then she wiped her hands squeaky clean?”
“Yes.”
“She went to all that trouble—wiped all that blood off her hands, cleaned off every last bit of that gunshot residue—but then she left a
big old fat fingerprint on the murder weapon. Is that your testimony, Lieutenant?”
He paused, obviously uncomfortable with Jack’s spin on it. “It happens,” he said.
“It happens,” Jack said with a tinge of sarcasm. “Thanks, Lieutenant. I think we got it.”
Jack turned his back on the witness and returned to his seat. Lindsey gave him a look of approval, though the worry in her eyes was still evident. It was way too premature to start celebrating, but his point had seemed to register with the jury.
“Mr. Torres,” the judge said, “you may reexamine.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.” He buttoned his coat as he rose, but rather than approaching the witness he remained at his place behind the prosecution’s table. “Very briefly, Lieutenant. You’ve handled a few homicide investigations in your career, have you not?”
“Many, many of them.”
“In your experience as an NCIS investigator, how is it that you’re able to nail those killers who take great pains to cover their tracks?”
“More often than not, it’s because they made just one dumb mistake.”
“Just one?”
“One is all it takes.”
“Like forgetting to wipe a fingerprint off the gun?”
He nodded, then glanced toward the jury and said, “Like forgetting to wipe the gun.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. No further questions.”
The high Jack had felt after his cross-examination had just taken a nosedive. Two of the jurors had even smiled and nodded, as if volunteering to carry the prosecutor’s new mantra all the way back to the deliberations room:
One is all it takes.
The judge said, “The witness may step down. Mr. Torres, do you have any more witnesses to call?”
Torres gave his witness a moment to get clear of the witness stand. He was ready to make a major announcement, and he wanted no distractions to take away from his spotlight. Finally, he said in a firm voice, “Your Honor. The government rests its case.”
“Thank you,” said the judge. All rose as the judge dismissed the
jury. When the last of them had filed out of the courtroom, Lindsey, the lawyers, and spectators settled back into their seats.
The judge made some housekeeping announcements, then looked at Jack. “Mr. Swyteck, should your client choose to put on any evidence in her defense, I suggest you be ready to do so at nine o’clock Monday morning.” He banged his gavel and said, “We’re adjourned.”
“All rise!” cried the bailiff.
The judge exited to his side chambers, and the rumble of the crowd filled the courtroom. Jack turned toward Lindsey and said, “Big weekend ahead, Lindsey. It’s decision time.”
“Decision time for what?”
Jack closed his briefcase and said, “Just about everything.”
T
he reception at Mario’s Market was ice cold.
The trial had come between Jack and his biweekly lesson in Cuban culture from his grandmother, so he was determined to take
Abuela
to the market on Saturday morning. She’d told him ten or eleven times over the telephone that it wasn’t necessary, that it was really okay to skip their little shopping date just this once. Since his return from Cuba, she’d refused to speak about her tearful voice mail message and Jack’s visit to the cemetery. Jack promised not to raise it again, assuring her that this outing was purely for the fun of it. She still seemed wary, but Jack finally persuaded her. After just two minutes inside the store, however, he realized that her reluctance had nothing to do with Jack’s mother and the child she’d lost.
“Do they really have to glare at us like that?” said Jack.
“Not us,
mi vida
. You.”
The outrage in the Cuban community over the possibility of Castro’s soldier as a witness had seemed to peak with the torching of Jack’s Mustang, but the hate mail and vicious attacks on Cuban talk radio had grown steadily since Jack’s grilling of Alejandro Pintado on the witness stand. Having defended death row inmates for his first four years of practice, Jack could deal with critics. But Saturday morning at Mario’s Market wasn’t the faceless fury of strangers whose acceptance Jack neither sought nor needed. These were good people, regular folks,
neighbors who played dominoes with his grandmother in the park. It was the woman behind the deli counter who used to have his coffee ready for him, exactly the way he liked it, before he even asked. It was the cashier selling Lotto tickets who had always insisted that some combination of Jack’s and José Martí’s birthdays was definitely the lucky number. It was the seventy-nine-year-old stock “boy” who would tell Jack about the gunfights on Eighth Street (long before it became “Calle Ocho”) between Batista loyalists and the Castro supporters. And it was the butcher who used to laugh at Jack’s terrible Spanish, tell him that it’s a good thing his mother was from Bejucal because an accent like his wouldn’t even earn him the distinction of “
honorary
Cuban.” Jack expected the backlash from the Cuban community at large, and he was even getting used to some of it. But rejection from these folks was rejection on a whole different level.
“Let’s get some bread,” said Jack.
“I think we should just go home,” said
Abuela.
He could see the pain in her expression, but he wasn’t ready to retreat just yet. He kissed her on the forehead and said, “You wait here. I’ll get the bread and take the dirty looks with me.”
He walked to the end of the aisle and ducked beneath a sign that pointed the way to
PAN CALIENTE
. It was a back area separated from the main store by thick, clear plastic strips that hung in the doorway and kept the heat on the baking side. A man wearing white overalls and a white T-shirt was loading another tray of dough into the oven.
“Antonio, how are you today?”
Antonio was smiling until he connected the voice with the speaker. He turned back to his work, saying nothing as he slid the tray into the hot oven.
“How about a couple of loaves?” said Jack.
Antonio closed the oven door and put the tray aside. “We’re out.”
Jack could see six loaves sitting atop the oven, which was where the just-baked bread was stored and kept warm. It was one of the secrets that helped such a little store sell eight hundred loaves a week.
“Out, huh?” said Jack.
“
Sí
, all gone.”
“What about those?” Jack said, pointing toward the oven.
“Those aren’t for you.”
“Antonio!” a man shouted. Jack turned and saw the owner, Kiko, stepping out of the storage room. He said something quickly in Spanish, too quick for Jack to pick up. But the baker promptly moved away. Kiko grabbed two hot loaves and laid them on the table.
“Sorry about that,” he said.
“It’s okay. I should be the one to apologize. Pretty foolish of me to come here in the middle of a trial like this one.”
Kiko shrugged, as if he couldn’t completely disagree. “It’s an older clientele here, Jack. First generation mostly. Everyone here had their home stolen from them, and most of them know people who ended up in one of Castro’s prisons just because they dared to complain about it. That can make you kind of emotional.”
“I understand that. I’m not trying to stick my finger in anybody’s eye. I’m just…”
“Doing your job?”
Jack looked away. It was the truth, but somehow it didn’t sound like enough. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore.”
Kiko bagged the long loaves and handed them to Jack. “I meant to tell you, I enjoyed that article in yesterday’s paper about you.”
To mark the end of the first week of trial, the
Tribune
had run a feature story on the three main lawyers in the Guantánamo murder case—Jack and Sofia for the defense, and Hector Torres for the prosecution. It noted the Cuban roots of all three lawyers, with special emphasis on Jack, who was known by most people only as the son of a gringo former governor.
“Not too bad, was it?” said Jack. “They actually got everything right for once.”
“Not everything,” said Kiko, his expression turning serious.
“Is there something I should know?” said Jack.
“A lot of gossip passes through this store, but I happened to hear something this week that I thought I should pass along. It’s about your mother.”
“What?”
His voice lowered, as if he were uncomfortable with what he was about to say. “I don’t speak to your
abuela
about her daughter and Bejucal. Her friends have warned me that it’s just something you don’t speak to her about.”
“Her friends are right,” said Jack. He didn’t bother with the specifics.
“Anyway, one of my customers—El Pidio, we call him—he’s a good guy, been coming here for years. He’s also from Bejucal. I don’t think your grandmother knew him, but apparently he knew your mother.”
“Really? Did he say something about her?”
“Well, that’s why I mentioned the newspaper article. There was a twenty-year-old picture of Hector Torres in there. Page twelve, I think. El Pidio swears that when he saw that picture, he was sure that Hector Torres was once engaged to your mother back in Bejucal. Supposedly she broke it off and came to Miami.”
“He must be mistaken. I’ve been told that my mother was—” Jack paused for the right words, not interested in getting into the details of the pregnancy. “She was seriously involved with a local boy when she left Bejucal. So it couldn’t have been Torres. The article said he was from Havana. And I’m sure my grandmother would have recognized the name and said something if it was Hector Torres.”
“According to El Pidio, the boy’s name wasn’t Hector Torres. It was Jorge Bustón.”
Jack was at a loss for words, partly from hearing the name Bustón for the first time, but partly because he didn’t understand. “That doesn’t make sense. If his name was Jorge Bustón, then how does Hector Torres fit into this?”
“Take this for whatever you think it’s worth, Jack. But based on that picture, my friend says he’d bet his whole life savings that Hector Torres was from Bejucal and was in love with your mother.”
“Wait a minute. Is he saying that Torres is…”
“
Sí, sí. Exactamente.
Hector Torres is Jorge Bustón. That’s what he thinks.”
Jack suddenly realized he was crushing the loaves of bread. “That can’t be.”
“You’re probably right. I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure if I should say anything to you or not. The article mentions how Hector Torres and your father have been friends for over thirty years, how Torres helped Harry Swyteck get elected governor, all that stuff. I don’t mean to stir anything up.”
“Don’t worry about it. Thanks for passing along the info. And double thanks for the bread.”
Jack started to walk away, but Kiko caught him and slipped a business card into his hand. On the back was a handwritten number.
“El Pidio’s phone number,” said Kiko. “Like I say, maybe he’s crazy. But maybe he’s not.”
Jack gave a little nod and he stuffed the card in his pocket. Kiko shook his hand firmly, as if to convey that they would speak of this no more. Then Jack left the bakery to track down
Abuela
.