Authors: James Grippando
I
t would forever remain a mystery, Jack figured. He was standing at the bathroom sink in Sofia’s house, his hands dripping wet. His ex-wife used to have the same puzzling habit, always stocking the guest bathroom with linen-and-lace hand towels that were frilly enough for royalty and about as absorbent as Teflon. He’d always suspected that the towels you were actually
supposed
to use were hidden away in some secret drawer that only people who were raised “properly” knew how to find. He just didn’t get it. One of life’s little enigmas.
He wiped his hands on his pants.
“Jack, should I pour you some coffee?” Sofia asked from outside the closed door.
“Thanks, good idea,” he said.
He was bracing himself against the countertop, palms down and elbows straight as he stared wearily at his reflection in the mirror. The in-prison prep session with Lindsey had delivered more than its usual share of surprises. They could have spent all night with her, but the guard had allowed them only an additional fifteen minutes beyond the end of visitation. Jack had hoped to get a good night’s sleep before putting Lindsey on the stand, but he and Sofia had left the jailhouse with the same realization. They had a lot of work to do.
“I’m making espresso,” said Sofia. Jack could tell she was no longer right outside the door but was shouting from somewhere near the kitchen. “You want some, or you still want coffee?”
“Double espresso,” Jack shouted back.
It was funny how eighteen-hour workdays and late-night trial preparation bred such familiarity between coworkers. Sofia was actually carrying on a conversation with him while he was in the bathroom. For all she knew, he was seated on the proverbial throne, yet it didn’t seem to faze her. Not even his ex-wife used to talk to him through the bathroom door, except for that one time.
Honey, hurry up, I’m ovulating!
As it turned out, the world was probably a better place for his decision to go right ahead and finish that
Sports Illustrated
article about Dan Marino and his record-setting passing season.
Jack was still staring into the mirror. He looked exhausted, bordering on burnout. Trials were always draining, but few lawyers had ever handled during their career a murder trial in which the stakes were as personal as they were for Jack in this one. Brian was his son, and no matter how much Jack tried to play that down as a mere biological fact, he couldn’t erase it as irrelevant. So what if the law of adoption regarded him as insignificant? It had meaning
to him
, and so long as it had meaning, it mattered not only whether Lindsey was acquitted or convicted, but also whether she was truly guilty or truly innocent. The trial was nearing an end, and for all the ups and downs, ins and outs, he still didn’t know whom to believe.
And tonight’s session hadn’t helped any.
He splashed cold water on his face, then again took stock of himself in the mirror.
It seemed like light-years ago, but earlier that same evening he’d been on a definite roll. His drug-running theory had finally gelled in his mind, and he was even beginning to believe it. It seemed entirely plausible that Lindsey had been right all along. Her husband had been murdered because he knew the wrong thing about the wrong person. Her theory seemed to fit nicely with his latest thinking that Captain Pintado had uncovered a connection between his Coast Guard source and a drug-smuggling scheme.
Then Lindsey dumped on him all over again.
“There’s something you should know,” Lindsey told him. She was seated on the opposite side of the table, dressed in prison coveralls. Her voice was flat, her expression grave.
“What?” asked Jack.
“There’s a good reason my fingerprint was found on Oscar’s gun.”
“Right. You said it was because you and Oscar had shot the gun previously in target practice.”
She shook her head. “That’s not it.”
Jack had the definite feeling that she was about to tell him something he should have heard much earlier. “All right. Tell me how your print really got there.”
Her shoulders slumped, she looked down at the table. “You know how we’ve talked in the past about how Oscar’s gun was found with the safety on, which meant his death probably wasn’t suicide?”
“Yes.”
There was a long silence, then finally she said quietly, “I was the one who put on the safety.”
J
ack kept one eye on the jury as his client passed before the judge and took a seat in the witness stand. He’d been wrong about jurors before, but it didn’t take a mind reader to see that Lindsey had a long way to go with this group.
Lindsey appeared somewhat nervous, which was to be expected, but it didn’t prevent her from capturing exactly the right look. Jack and Sofia had choreographed her image right down to the tiny American flag on the lapel of her navy blue business suit. Sofia had helped with her hair in the rest room, a conservative twist suitable for a single mother. They didn’t want to overdo it with a too-traditional, Laura Ashley–inspired matronly look—that just wasn’t Lindsey—but Jack had definite guidelines. Two-inch heels or less. No cleavage. No flashy jewelry; pearls preferred. Easy on the makeup. Tell the truth.
That last one was his only remaining worry.
“Good morning,” said Jack. “Would you please introduce yourself to the jury?”
“My name is Lindsey Hart. I was married for twelve years to Captain Oscar Pintado, United States Marine Corps.”
“Did you and Captain Pintado have any children?”
“We were unable to conceive, so we adopted a baby boy. Brian is ten years old now.”
“Would you say you were a happy family?”
She hesitated, considering it. “We were at one time. For several years, yes, we were very happy.”
“When did things start to change?”
“When Oscar was transferred to the naval station at Guantánamo. About four years ago.”
“What was it about Guantánamo that had such a negative impact on your family?”
“I don’t think it was anything specific about Guantánamo. Oscar simply started to change.”
“How so?”
“Brian and I seemed to become less important to him.”
“Was there something or someone else who became more important?”
“His friends, I would say.”
“Any friend in particular?”
“Lieutenant Damont Johnson. He was with the Coast Guard. He was Oscar’s best friend.”
“Did you get along with Lieutenant Johnson?”
She averted her eyes. “No. Not in the least.”
“Ms. Hart, you’ve heard testimony about a possible relationship you may have had with your husband’s best friend. Did you have any kind of relationship with Lieutenant Johnson?”
“Yes.”
Jack softened his tone, but it didn’t make the question any easier. “Was that relationship sexual in nature?”
“It was entirely sexual.”
That raised a few eyebrows, including the judge’s. Jack asked, “How long did this relationship go on?”
“Over a six-month period, I’d say.”
“During that period, how often did you have sex with Lieutenant Johnson?”
She lowered her eyes and said, “As often as Oscar told me to.”
If jaw-droppings could make a sound, there would have been a cacophony from the gallery of spectators. Jack let the answer settle upon the jurors, then said, “Tell us about the first time you and Lieutenant Johnson had sex.”
“I’ve never had any recollection of it.”
“You mean you’ve forgotten it?”
“Not in the sense that I once remembered and have now forgotten it. From the day it happened, I’ve never had any memory of it.”
“Were you conscious when it happened?”
“No. I had been drugged.”
“How do you know it occurred?”
“I know my body. I know when I’ve had sex. And if there was any doubt, Oscar showed me the photographs he took.”
“Photographs of you and Lieutenant Johnson having sex?”
“Yes.”
Again, Jack paused. The packed courtroom seemed to take a collective breath. Jack said, “You say you were drugged. How do you know you were drugged?”
“Because one moment I was feeling fine. Then Oscar brought me a glass of wine. I drank just half of it, and I’d never felt like that before. Dizzy, disoriented. Then I passed out. When I woke up, my body felt so strange. The only thing I can compare it to is when I had my appendix out and I came to after the anesthesia. And then…”
“Then what?”
“Then Oscar showed me the photographs.”
“The ones of you and his friend having sex?”
Her eyes were beginning to well. Her voice shook as she said, “Yes.”
Jack gave her a moment to compose herself. “Do you know who gave you the drug?”
“I assume it was—”
“Objection. The witness is clearly speculating.”
“Sustained.”
Jack asked, “Did you drug yourself?”
“No.”
“So someone else gave it to you?”
“Clearly.”
“Do you know what kind of drug it was?”
“No. I don’t.”
“Getting back these photographs of you and Lieutenant Johnson, when your husband showed you those photographs, was Lieutenant Johnson with him?”
“No. It was just Oscar and me.”
“Do you know who took the photographs?”
“All I can say is that when Oscar showed them to me, they were still on his digital camera. They weren’t developed or printed out. He brought them up electronically on the LCD display.”
“How did that make you feel, when you saw those photographs?”
Her eyes clouded over, and she reached for a tissue. “I was drugged and violated by my husband’s best friend. And my husband took photographs. How do you think it made me feel?”
He gave her more time. “I’m sorry I have to ask these questions,” said Jack. “Just a few more on this. Do you know what happened to those digital photographs?”
“No. Lord knows I searched the house for that camera. I wanted to destroy the images. But I never did find anything.”
“Before this happened, would you describe your sexual relationship with your husband as normal?”
“No,” she said, her voice quaking.
“I’m not prying for too much detail, but I have to ask this. What about it was not normal?”
She pulled herself together, took a breath. “After we were unable to conceive, Oscar took it as a blow to his manhood. It was a slow process, but he never really recovered. It was so irrational.” She paused as if searching for strength to continue. “I felt so much anger coming from him every time we were intimate. It was a perversion of the Marine mentality, that if you suck it up and try harder, you’ll succeed. But finally he had to accept that there was something wrong. We weren’t going to have our own child. And like I say, that realization was a real blow to him. As time went on—I’m talking years, now—it became more and more difficult for him to…perform.”
“When this incident with Lieutenant Johnson took place, did you have any sexual relationship at all with your husband?”
“No,” she said, staring down into her tissue. “Unless you call hiding in the closet and snapping photographs of your wife with another man a ‘relationship.’ ”
“What did your husband do with these photographs?”
“He kept them.”
“Do you know why?”
“He told me that—”
“Objection,” said Torres. “We’re getting into hearsay.”
Jack said, “Judge, the testimony is offered simply to prove that the witness felt threatened. It’s not offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted.”
The judge made a face. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed
when it came to evidentiary matters such as hearsay, and Jack had given him just enough to scare him away from excluding the testimony. “Overruled. The witness may answer.”
Lindsey said, “Oscar told me that if I didn’t continue to have sex with Lieutenant Johnson, he would divorce me and use the photographs to take Brian away from me. Prove I was an unfit mother, having sex with another man in my own bedroom while my deaf child slept in the next room.”
“But the photographs showed that you were unconscious, didn’t they?”
“It was hard to tell in the photographs. Lots of women close their eyes at some point while having sex.”
“So what did you do?”
“I did what he wanted me to do.” Her voice was barely audible.
The judge said, “Ms. Hart, you’ll have to speak up.”
“I did what he wanted me to do,” she said. “I continued to have sex with Lieutenant Johnson.”
“Were you drugged on those occasions?”
“No.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“I didn’t see a choice. I didn’t want to lose my son.”
“Are you saying that you were prepared to do this for the rest of your life?”
“No. But you have to understand. Oscar was from a very powerful family. He was a respected Marine on a military base. My word against his wasn’t going to add up to much. Until I could figure something out and find help from someone I could trust, I had to go along with it.”
“So, when that Cuban soldier came into this courtroom and testified that he saw you and Lieutenant Johnson together, that could very well have happened?”
“If he saw anything, he saw me yielding to my husband’s threats. I was just going along with it.”
Jack nodded, as if satisfied. But in his own mind, he couldn’t help juxtaposing her “going along with it” against the soldier’s “going at it like a couple of porn stars.” Thankfully, those words never made it before the jury. “Ms. Hart, did you observe any impact that this ‘threesome,’ I’ll call it, was having on the friendship between your husband and Lieutenant Johnson?”
“Toward the end, I did.”
“What happened?”
“Lieutenant Johnson started showing up at my house alone, when Oscar wasn’t there.”
“Did you have sex with him when your husband wasn’t there?”
“No, never.”
“Did you tell your husband about Lieutenant Johnson’s extra visits?”
“Yes.”
“What was his reaction?”
“He was very angry. He told me that if he ever caught me and Lieutenant Johnson together, he’d kill us both.”
“So it was okay to be with Lieutenant Johnson only so long as your husband was there to watch.”
“Yeah. He was very much into control.”
“Did you ever observe your husband have any cross words with Lieutenant Johnson over this?”
“Only once, and they took it outside. I’m not sure what was said.”
“After this argument between the two men, did Lieutenant Johnson continue to come around, uninvited, so to speak?”
“No. He didn’t.”
“Did you tell your husband this?”
“No. In fact I told him the opposite. I told him that Johnson was continuing to come over asking for sex, just the two of us, no one taking pictures.”
“You lied to him?”
“Yes. I was desperate. I saw a way out. If Oscar got mad at Johnson, I thought it might be the end of this nightmare.”
“What happened after that?”
“I don’t know.”
“How soon after that did your husband turn up dead?”
“Objection,” said Torres. “The question unfairly implies there’s some linkage between the two.”
“What kind of objection is that?” said the judge. “Overruled. The witness shall answer.”
“Oscar was dead less than two weeks later.”
Jack said, “Ms. Hart, you didn’t tell anyone about the things your husband forced you to do with Lieutenant Johnson. Not even the police.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I was ashamed of it. I didn’t think anyone would ever understand how trapped I felt. Mostly, I didn’t want Brian ever to know it.”
Jack listened like a lawyer, but her last answer hit him like a father. They’d rehearsed her testimony beforehand, but it was far different now, inside a packed courtroom with hundreds of sets of eyes and ears absorbing every detail. All those intimate secrets that Lindsey was too ashamed to share with anyone—even with her own lawyer, until it was almost too late—could now be gobbled up by any slob who could read a newspaper. It wouldn’t happen today, maybe not even next month or next year. But someday, Brian would know everything.
Jack said, “Let’s talk now about the specific morning of your husband’s death. How did the day begin for you?”
“Like any other. I was sleeping in Brian’s room when my alarm clock/radio went off.”
“You normally slept with your son?”
“I did, ever since the thing with Lieutenant Johnson started.”
“Did you check on your husband at all?”
“I wouldn’t say I checked on him. He was sleeping in the bed when I went to the master to take a shower and get my clothes.”
“Are you sure he was alive?”
“Yes. He was snoring.”
“So you showered, dressed, then what?”
“Grabbed a banana and went to work.”
“What time?”
“Usual time. Five-thirty. I worked at the hospital, and I liked the early shift, because I got home in time to meet Brian after school.”
“Did everything go as usual at work?”
“Yes, until Brian sent me a digital page. It was almost six
A.M.
”
“What was the message?”
“It said, ‘Mom, come home, now!’ The word ‘now’ was in all capital letters. And there were three exclamation points.”
“What did you do?”
“I hurried home.”
“Did you call the police?”
“No. I’d gotten messages like this before. Usually it was Brian getting mad because his father punished him, or was making him do pushups
before school, something like that. I didn’t want to involve the police. Oscar would have been furious with me.”
“What did you find when you got home?”
“Brian was in his room, crying. He has some verbal ability, even though he’s deaf, but he was way too shaken to come up with words. In sign he told me to check in the master bedroom. So I went.”
“What did you find?”
“Oscar. He was in the bed, and there was a lot of blood on the sheets and pillow. I ran to him, knelt at his side. I could see that he’d been shot in the head. It was…” Her eyes closed, then opened. “It was an awful-looking wound. He had no pulse, wasn’t breathing. I knew he was dead.”
“What did you do?”
“I called the police.”
“Anything else?”
“It was all such a blur. But I remember…I remember seeing his gun on the floor next to the bed.”
“Did you touch it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She looked at the jury and said, “I put the safety on the gun.”
A low murmur swept across the courtroom. The prosecutor looked puzzled, and several jurors straightened in their seats. The significance of the safety being on or off—homicide versus suicide—seemed to have been lost on no one.