Authors: James Grippando
T
rial ended midafternoon on Monday so that the judge could deal with an unspecified emergency, perhaps a crucial pretrial hearing in another case, perhaps a teenage daughter who’d locked her keys in the car. Jack stopped by the prosecutor’s office before heading for the parking lot. Torres gave him ten minutes alone, just the two of them.
“What is she looking for?” asked Torres. He was seated behind his desk, not a single scrap of paper on it. He’d obviously swept it clean before allowing the enemy into his office. Jack had always taken the same precaution as a prosecutor. There wasn’t a criminal defense lawyer in the business who couldn’t speed-read upside-down and backward.
“Excuse me?” said Jack from his seat in the armchair.
“Your client. I assume that’s why you’re here. What’s she looking for, manslaughter?”
“I’m not here to deal.”
“Good. Because the best I can do is murder one with life imprisonment. I’ll give up the death penalty.”
“Life’s a long time for an innocent woman.”
Torres let out a deep chuckle.
Jack kept a straight face. “You got the wrong defendant.”
“You got the wrong client.”
“Where’s Lieutenant Damont Johnson?”
Torres worked a pencil through his fingers like a miniature baton. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Funny how his name keeps coming up at trial. Never in a good light. I’d love to give him the opportunity to explain himself.”
“Not a chance.”
“Why are you hiding him?”
“Why are you after him?”
“Because I think he can tell the jury who really killed Oscar Pintado.”
Torres folded his hands atop his desk and looked straight at Jack. “I think the jury already knows who killed Oscar Pintado. Her name is Lindsey Hart.”
“I hear Johnson is in Miami.”
“What of it?”
“Are you holding him for rebuttal, or are you just trying to keep me from getting to him?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“It’s totally my business,” said Jack. “So far, you’ve kept Johnson away from me, and you’ve even managed to keep me from talking to my own—” He stopped himself short of saying “my own son.” “Talking to my client’s own son,” he said, correcting himself. “Those are probably the two key witnesses in the case.”
“You’re free to put the boy on the stand. The judge’s order only prevents you from interviewing him, not calling him as a witness.”
“I don’t think either one of us wants to put the victim’s child on the stand.”
“We gotta do what we gotta do.”
“That’s what I’m telling you: I don’t think I have to go anywhere near the boy, if you’ll give me Johnson.”
He smiled again. “Very creative, Swyteck. For the good of the child, you want me to give you Lieutenant Damont Johnson.”
“There’s no good reason for you to keep Johnson out of this.”
“That may be true. But you’re not giving me a good enough reason to put him in.”
“Brian Pintado isn’t a good enough reason?”
“Not even close.”
Jack scoffed lightly, looked away. “Nice to know you care, Hector.”
“Yeah, yeah. Shame on me for playing to win. If you’ll excuse me now, I have a cross-examination to prepare for. I have a sneaking suspicion
that a guilty defendant may soon be taking the stand in her own defense.”
Jack rose and started toward the door, forcing himself to keep putting one foot in front of the other. He’d come here determined not to let this get personal, but it was the first time he’d been alone with the prosecutor since…he didn’t know how long. Definitely since the eye-opening talk about his mother that he’d had with Kiko at Mario’s Market.
“You ever been to Bejucal?” Jack’s hand was on the knob, but the door was still closed.
The prosecutor’s mouth was open, but no words followed. For a moment, it looked as if Jack had punched him in the chest.
“What?” he said finally.
“Bejucal, Cuba. Have you ever been there?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Ana Maria Fuentes’s son.”
Their eyes locked. Jack had resolved to put Bejucal aside until after the case was over, but something inside him wouldn’t allow it. Maybe it was the fact that they were alone together, and that the meeting had gone badly. Maybe it was the fact that he seemed to have less respect for Torres with each passing day, and the thought of any intimacy between him and his mother was beyond any son’s comprehension. Or maybe he was just curious.
“Sorry, Jack. Never been.”
Neither man looked away. “Just thought I’d check.”
“Glad you did.”
“Me, too.” Jack opened the door and started out.
“Hey, Jack.”
He stopped and turned.
“Say hey to your old man for me.”
Even if Torres wasn’t rubbing the Swyteck noses in some sordid romantic history, the smugness in the prosecutor’s tone made Jack want to bash in that phony smile and kick his teeth in. The Justice Department logo on the wall, however, was a quick reminder that it wasn’t worth it. He said nothing as the left the U.S. attorney’s office and closed the door behind him.
T
he farther Jack’s rental car carried him away from downtown, the more convinced he was that Hector Torres was hiding something about his mother. But he had to put it out of his mind. For now.
The rented sedan provided ample distraction. Each time he pushed the clutch that wasn’t there, reached in vain for the stick shift, anticipated the growl of the engine that was gone for good—it all made him wish that he could have been there for Theo’s “thorough interrogation” of the slug who’d set his Mustang afire. As Jack left the business district and reached the residential high rises on glitzy Brickell Avenue, he switched on the radio. It was preset to a Spanish-language talk station, courtesy of the previous renter. Jack’s latest courtroom “attack” on Alejandro Pintado had set off a new round of Cuban talk-show fireworks, and the name Swyteck was at the center of it. He was glad that he and
Abuela
didn’t share a surname.
“The Pintados are the victims here,” said one caller in Spanish. “Not that
jinetera
who married him.”
Jinetera.
Jack couldn’t translate it. Then he remembered his trip to Cuba, the teenage girl who’d called his room at the Hotel Nacional and told him she could be anyone and do anything he wanted, all he had to do was ask—and pay.
Jinetera
.
Prostitute.
Talk radio brought out the extremists in any language. But Jack was beginning to think that, when all was said and done, the mood
wasn’t going to be much different in the jury room. He had to turn things around.
He checked the clock in the dashboard: four forty-four
P.M.
Tomorrow would be show time for Lindsey, and it was going to take a lot of work to get her ready. Still, Jack had some time to kill before meeting Sofia at the jail for their client’s all-important prep session. He reached for the missing stick shift, cursed his inability to downshift his rental, and pulled a U-turn just before the entrance to Key Biscayne.
In ten minutes he was outside the home of Alejandro Pintado.
He parked the car on the grass beside the sidewalk, but he didn’t get out. At the cul-de-sac at the end of the street, a boy was riding his bicycle. Around and around in circles he went, laughing each time he jerked back on the handlebars. He was trying to pull wheelies. Jack smiled. He had been the king of wheelies when he was ten years old.
The boy was Brian.
He was playing the way Jack used to play, like any other ten-year-old kid, even if the diamond-shaped road sign on the opposite side of the street did announce to the world,
DEAF CHILD PLAYING
. Jack could certainly see the good in warning passing motorists, but he couldn’t deny his own sense of sadness as he wondered how it must have made Brian feel, each time he rode his bike, walked his dog, played in the yard, or simply looked out his bedroom window, to see that big, black-and-yellow reminder of the cruel hand his own birth had dealt him. The blame game was always pointless, especially so in the case of birth defects, but Jack suddenly found himself hoping and praying that if he’d given Brian this weakness, that he’d given him his every strength, too.
A security guard tapped on the glass, ending the reflective moment. Jack rolled down the driver’s-side window.
“You can’t park here,” the guard said in Spanish.
“I’m here to see Alejandro Pintado.”
“He didn’t tell me about any meetings.”
“Tell him that the lawyer for his daughter-in-law would like to speak to him. Off the record.” He glanced down the street again, spotted the boy. “Tell him I want to do everything I can to keep his grandson off the witness stand.”
The guard considered it. “Wait here,” he said, then walked up the sidewalk. Jack waited for him to disappear inside the house, then dialed up Theo on his cell phone.
“Hey, it’s me, Jack. You got any more information on our drug connection?” Jack immediately cringed. He couldn’t believe he’d just said that on a nonsecure cell phone, but Theo was one step ahead of him.
“Uh, yeah, pal. I’ll have that
aspirin
to you by tomorrow morning.”
“Sorry, man.”
“It’s okay. Dumbshit.”
“Seriously, you got any more leads on what we talked about yesterday?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“I’m about to have a little chat with Alejandro Pintado.”
“Wish I could help you.”
“It’s okay. I think we got enough.”
“Enough to what?”
The front door to the house opened, and Alejandro stepped onto the porch. “Bluff,” said Jack into the phone, and then he disconnected.
Jack watched as Pintado crossed the lawn, headed up the driveway, and then climbed into the back of his Mercedes. The security guard came for Jack and led him to Pintado’s car.
“What? Does Mr. Pintado think I bugged my car?”
“No,” the guard said dryly. “But he
knows
you didn’t bug his.”
The guard opened the car door. Jack got inside and sank into the black leather seat. The door closed and the locks clicked shut automatically. Pintado shot him a cool expression from the other side of the car. He still had a distinguished air about him, even if he did seem to have aged just a bit since the commencement of trial.
Pintado said, “Pardon me for not inviting you inside the house, but after the way you treated me in court, my wife probably would have sicced the Dobermans on you.”
“I was afraid you might feel the same way.”
“Oh, I do. I came out only because you said it was about my grandson. Protecting him from this circus is very important to me.”
“To Lindsey as well.”
Pintado shot a look, as if he didn’t quite believe it.
Jack said, “I don’t like getting children involved if I don’t have to.”
“I respect that,” said Pintado.
“How is Brian doing?”
He gave Jack a long look, as if wondering whether he really cared. “Brian’s happy here. Happy as any kid can be who just lost his father.
His grandmother and I are doing the best we can. As soon as this trial’s over, we’re sending him up to a camp in Dunedin for a week or so. It’ll be good for him to be around other hearing-impaired kids who live with parents who can hear. For now, we just try to explain things as they happen.”
“That has to be tough.”
Pintado glanced out the window toward the guard in the driveway. “I’ve had to triple my security since this trial started. It’s one thing for people to dog me all over town, but when they start after my grandson, I feel like cracking some heads.”
“Brian’s being hassled?”
“Last week. Don’t know if it was an overzealous reporter or some pervert who followed Brian to school the other day. Snatched his backpack while he was out on the soccer field. Scared the hell out of us.”
“People get crazy with any big trial. It’s good that you’re taking precautions, but it was probably just a souvenir hunter looking for stuff to sell on eBay.”
“What kind of sicko would want a child’s backpack?”
“The same idiot who hangs out at South Miami restaurants hoping to get his picture taken with O. J. Simpson and his latest girlfriend.”
Pintado shook his head, then showed mild irritation in his tone. “I don’t dislike you personally, but I don’t appreciate the way you came after me on the witness stand.”
“For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think Lindsey was innocent.”
“That’s mostly a Cuban American jury. Attacking me and my family like that, I’d say you pretty much sealed Lindsey’s fate.”
“You’re forgetting that I don’t have to convince the whole jury. I have to give only one of them reasonable doubt.”
“Trust me. That entire jury is ready to ride you and your client out of town on a rail.”
“And I’ll happily go, if that’s what it takes to keep an innocent woman out of jail.”
“What makes you so damn sure she’s innocent?”
“What makes you so sure she’s not?”
“You’ve heard the evidence. The family money she wanted. The extracurricular activities with Lieutenant Johnson. Hell, her fingerprint was on the murder weapon.”
Jack paused, timing his approach. “Mr. Pintado, let me ask you this question. Do you want to find out who killed your son?”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m not. I’m just curious: Doesn’t it bother you that we haven’t heard a word from Lieutenant Johnson?”
He looked away, saying nothing.
Jack said, “Johnson was your source, wasn’t he? He was feeding your son information about Coast Guard routes. And Brothers for Freedom used that information to improve the flow of Cuban rafters to U.S. soil.”
He looked at Jack and said, “I’m not the one on trial here.”
“I couldn’t agree more. That’s why I would have much preferred to have Johnson on the witness stand than you.”
“Look, I just don’t see where you’re going with this. I’m not admitting anything, mind you. But so what if Johnson was leaking Coast Guard information to help us bring Cuban rafters to shore? It doesn’t give anyone a reason to kill my son.”
“No, it doesn’t. Not until you mix drugs into the equation.”
His head snapped. “Drugs? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Think about it. It helped your operation immensely to know when and where Coast Guard cutters would be patrolling certain areas of the Florida Straits. You could tell rafters when to sail, where to sail, when to change course, where to look for help coming to shore. How valuable do you think that same information would be to a drug smuggler?”
“Are you accusing
me
—”
“No,” Jack said firmly. “I’m not accusing anyone yet, because I honestly don’t have the goods. But let me tell you what I think. I think Damont Johnson was taking the same information he gave to you and selling it to drug dealers. I think your son found out about it. And I think it got Oscar killed.”
Pintado’s eyes were as wide as saucers. “That’s the first I’ve heard any such thing.”
“It didn’t come to me until recently. Not until I found out that drug people were the ones who torched my Mustang.”
“Have you gone to the U.S. attorney with this information?”
“It’s not information. It’s a theory. Two-thirds of the way through trial, Torres isn’t interested in helping the defense prove its theories.”
“Why should I be interested?”
“Because a win is a win to an egomaniac like Hector Torres. But his win is your loss. If Lindsey is convicted, the person who killed your son is still walking the streets.”
He took a breath. “This is…this is an awful lot you’ve just unloaded on me.”
“I know it’s late in the game. But I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t have some hope that you’d want to eliminate any possibility that the mother of your only grandson is an innocent woman.”
“What are you asking for?”
“Lieutenant Damont Johnson.”
“What about him?”
“I know he’s in Miami. And I have a feeling you know where Torres is hiding him. Let me get a subpoena on him. Give me a shot at him on the witness stand, and I promise you, I won’t call Brian to testify on his mother’s behalf.”
Pintado glanced out the window, and Jack followed his gaze toward the cul-de-sac at the end of the street, toward Brian racing around on his bicycle. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Swyteck.”
“Will I hear back from you?”
He looked at Jack, answering in the same flat tone. “I said, thanks for your time.”
Pintado flipped a switch that unlocked the car doors, then pointed with a nod toward the handle. Jack opened it and stepped out of the car, taking just one more distant glance at Brian as he closed the door and walked back to his rental.