Authors: James Grippando
A
lejandro Pintado was searching for good news. Literally.
As usual, his search had taken him over the Straits of Florida, a band of water some ninety miles wide that connected the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean, that separated Key West from Cuba, that divided freedom from tyranny. For more than four decades Cubans had fled Fidel Castro’s oppressive communist regime in makeshift rafts, leaky boats, or even patched-up inner tubes. They risked their lives on the high seas, many of them making it to the United States, many others succumbing to tropical storms and walls of water, blistering sun and dehydration, or sunken vessels and hungry sharks. It was a tragedy that Alejandro had seen unfold with his own eyes, starting with his first mission in 1992. He’d made two passes over a small boat. On the first, he counted nine bodies strewn this way and that, as if they had simply collapsed. His second time around a woman stirred at the bow, barely able to raise her arm. She never moved again. As best the Coast Guard could tell, a storm had washed their water and supplies overboard on the first night of their journey. In desperation they drank seawater. There were no survivors. It was no wonder that, to the exile community in Miami, the Straits of Florida were known as the Cuban Private Cemetery.
Despite the danger, they kept coming. So long as they were out there, Alejandro Pintado was determined to keep looking.
“Key West, this is Brother One,” he said, speaking into his radio transmitter. “I have a visual.”
“Copy that,” came the reply.
Alejandro pushed forward on the yoke and dropped to an altitude of five hundred feet, his old single-engine Cessna whining as it picked up speed. The scene on the open waters below him was a familiar one, but it still made his heart race. Six-to eight-foot seas, foamy white caps breaking against a vast ocean as blue as midnight, a thing of beauty if it weren’t so dangerous. A small raft rising to the top of each swell, then disappearing between them, the white canvas sail tattered from winds much stronger than most rafters could anticipate. The craft was overloaded, of course, packed with three children, five women—one of them holding an infant—and six men. Some were standing, having spotted the plane, waving the oars frantically to get the pilot’s attention.
You are almost home
, thought Alejandro, smiling to himself.
His aircraft continued to descend. Three hundred feet. Two hundred. The rafters were jumping up and down, shouting with joy, as Alejandro sped past them. He waved from the cockpit, then began to circle around.
“Key West, this is Brother One,” he said. “Looks like a happy group. Fairly good shape, considering.”
Alejandro had definitely seen worse. He’d started in the early nineties as a pilot with Brothers to the Rescue, a group of Cuban exiles who formed their own search-and-rescue missions after a nine-year-old boy died of dehydration on his journey from Cuba. Not everyone agreed with the organization’s hard-line anti-Castro stance, but it won international praise for an amazing recovery record. On average, the group saved one person every two hours of flight time, sparing thousands who might otherwise have perished at sea in their journey to freedom. The organization’s focus seemed to shift, however, after Cuban MiGs shot down two of its planes in 1996. More and more resources went toward printing and distributing anti-Casto leaflets. That was when Alejandro broke off and formed his own group, Brothers for Freedom. Eventually, the better-known Brothers to the Rescue would stop flying altogether. But Alejandro had vowed never to give up. Rescue missions were costly, and private donations were hard to come by, so he used his own money. Brothers for Freedom—and the search for a free Cuba—went on.
“Brother One, this is Key West. Do you have a location yet?”
“Copy that. Let me make one more pass and—” He stared out the
window toward the horizon, his anger rising at the unmistakable sight of a vessel headed toward the rafters. “Forget it,” Alejandro said into the radio. “Coast Guard’s on its way.”
Alejandro could hear the disappointment in his own voice, and it seemed ironic even to him. In the early years, the sight of the Coast Guard was a blessing. In fact, he would have radioed for the Coast Guard upon sighting a raft. All that changed with the shift in U.S. immigration policy in 1996. Rafters intercepted at sea were no longer brought to the United States. They were either routed to another country or returned to Cuba. And if they went back to Cuba, it could mean five years in Castro’s prison.
“Dirty sons of bitches got another one,” said Alejandro.
“Sorry, Alejandro. You headed back?”
“Affirmative.”
“Okay. By the way, I got a phone call about twenty minutes ago. There’s a lawyer headed down from Miami to see you. His name is Jack Swyteck.”
Alejandro adjusted his headset, making sure he’d heard correctly. “Swyteck? Any relation to Harry Swyteck, the former governor?”
“I believe it’s his son.”
“What does he want?”
“He said it’s a legal matter. About your son.”
Alejandro’s throat tightened. Several weeks had passed since he’d received the kind of news that no parent should have to hear, but it still felt like yesterday. “How is he involved in this?”
“He was calling on behalf of Lindsey.”
Lindsey. Lindsey
Hart
. The Anglo daughter-in-law who in twelve years of marriage had never taken her husband’s Hispanic surname. “Don’t tell me that woman has gone out and hired herself the son of the former governor,” said Alejandro.
“I’m not sure. I got the sense he wants to talk to you before he takes her case. I told him to come by around two o’clock.”
Alejandro didn’t answer.
The radio crackled. “You want me to call him back and tell him to get lost?”
“No,” said Alejandro. “I’ll meet with him. I think he should hear what I have to say.”
“Copy that. Be safe, Alejandro.”
“Roger. See you in about forty minutes.”
Alejandro stole one last look at the rafters below, his heart sinking as he watched them waving frantically at the rescue plane overhead. Surely they were convinced that they’d reached freedom’s doorstep, that in a few hours they’d be safe and dry in the United States of America. But the U.S. Coast Guard had other designs, and once the border patrol interdicted rafters at sea, there was nothing Alejandro or anyone else could do. It sickened him to turn his plane away, knowing that their brief moment of hope would evaporate as his Cessna disappeared from sight.
Alejandro’s hand trembled as he reached inside his collar. Hanging around his neck was a gold medallion of the Virgin of Charity of El Cobre, the patron saint of Cuba, a good-luck charm of sorts that Cuban relatives in Miami often sent to their relatives in Cuba to keep them safe on their journey to freedom. He’d worn it on his own crossing of the straits in a rowboat, thirty years earlier.
Sadly, he gave the medallion a kiss and headed home to Key West.
I
love this car,” said Theo.
Jack glowered from the passenger seat. “It’s mine, and it’s not for sale.”
Theo slammed it into gear, and the car nearly leapt from the pavement.
It was a good four hours from Miami to Key West, three if Theo was driving, and he had insisted on it. Owning a thirty-year-old Mustang convertible had its drawbacks, but a drive through the Keys was something any car lover lived for. Mile after mile, U.S. 1 was a scenic ribbon of asphalt that connected one Florida Key to the next, slicing through turquoise waters and one-stoplight towns that seemed to sprout from the mangroves. Plenty of warm sunshine on your face, amazing blue skies, a sea breeze like velvet. The deal was that Theo would drive down and Jack would drive back. A fair compromise, Jack figured, if for nothing else than the sheer entertainment value of having Theo come along.
“What did you say?” asked Jack. Theo’s mouth was moving, but it was drowned out by the rumble of the engine and whistle of the wind.
Theo shouted, “If you won’t sell your wheels, at least leave ’em to me.”
“What do you mean, ‘leave’?”
“In your will, dude.”
“I don’t even have a will.”
“A lawyer with no will? That’s like a hooker with no condoms.”
“What do I need a will for? I’m a single guy with no kids.”
They exchanged glances, as if Jack’s mention of “no kids” suddenly had a footnote next to it.
“Screw the will,” said Theo. “Take it with you. God would love this car.”
Jack turned back to his reading. Before leaving Miami, he’d jumped on-line and pulled down some background information about the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, just enough to know what he was talking about when he interviewed Lindsey’s father-in-law. Theo left him alone until they reached the Stockton Bridge, about a mile from Key West International Airport.
“So, you gonna have to go to Camp Geronimo?”
“Guantánamo, not Geronimo. It’s a naval base, not an Indian burial ground.”
“How is it we got a naval base in Cuba anyway?”
Jack checked one of the web pages he’d printed. “Says here we lease it.”
“Castro is our landlord?”
“Technically, yes.”
“Shit, what does a guy like Castro do if you’re late on the rent? Kill your entire family?”
“Actually, he’s never cashed one of our rent checks. The lease was signed long before he came into power, and he refuses to recognize it as valid.”
“Guess he’s not about to try and evict us.”
“Not unless he wants a made-in-America boot up his communist ass.”
“So we stay there for free. But for how long?”
“The lease says we can stay there as long as we want.”
“Damn. Whoever drafted that document must be in the lawyers’ hall of fame.”
They entered the airport off Roosevelt Road and headed toward the general aviation hangars, following the instructions that Jack had gotten over the telephone. A security guard directed them to a fenced parking area. The Brothers for Freedom office was a little box at one of the end hangars that barely had enough room for a desk and two chairs. The man inside escorted them toward the tarmac. A flock of hungry seagulls followed them. Just three feet above sea level, Key West International
was notorious for its birds, many of which met the aeronautical version of the Veg-O-Matic with the constant coming and going of prop planes. Jack and Theo passed several rows of private aircraft, everything from seaplanes to Learjets. Finally they spotted Alejandro Pintado tending to his reliable old Cessna. Jack probably could have found the plane without any help at all, as it seemed to be held together by bumper stickers that proclaimed such telling messages as
FREE CUBA, NO CASTRO, NO PROBLEM
, and
I DON’T BELIEVE THE
MIAMI TRIBUNE
—the latter being a swipe at the “liberal media,” which sometimes criticized the tactics of exiles when it came to fighting Castro.
“Mr. Pintado?” said Jack.
A portly man with silver hair dropped his cleaning rag in the bucket, then emerged from beneath the wing. “You must be Jack Swyteck.”
“That’s right.”
“Who’s your friend here? Barry Bonds on steroids?”
“This is—”
“Mikhail Baryshnikov,” said Theo, shaking hands.
“My investigator, Theo Knight.”
Alejandro did his best to get his chest out, but the belly was still more prominent. “I hear you want to defend my daughter-in-law.”
“I’m considering it,” said Jack. “Can we sit down and talk?”
“I don’t think that’s necessary. This isn’t going to take long.”
Jack rocked on his heels. More hostile than he’d hoped. “First of all, I want to say that I’m very sorry about your son.”
“Then why do you want to represent the woman who killed him?”
“Mainly because I haven’t come to the conclusion that she did it.”
“That pretty much makes you the only one.”
“Is there something you can tell me, maybe enlighten me a little?”
Pintado glanced suspiciously at Theo, then back at Jack. “I’m not going to tell you two jokers anything. You aren’t here to help me. All you want to do is get her off.”
“Mr. Pintado, I’m not going to lie to you. I’ve represented some guilty people before. But this is an unusual case for me. I’m being completely honest when I say that I have no interest in representing Lindsey Hart if she’s guilty.”
“Good. Then you should fold your tent right now and go home.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve met Lindsey. She’s raised some serious questions in my mind. Lindsey says she’s being framed. She thinks the NCIS report is a cover-up.”
“She’s been saying that for weeks. What else
can
she say?”
“So, you don’t buy into the theory that your son may have been murdered by someone with a hidden agenda?”
“What are you implying?”
“Nothing. I’m just asking a question.”
“I am sick and tired of people suggesting that my son was murdered because of the life of resistance I’ve led. It is not my fault that my son was killed.”
Jack was taken aback by the defensiveness. “Look, I didn’t come here to lay blame on anyone.”
“I think you did. So let me clear this up right now. I know why Lindsey killed my son.”
A commercial jet cruised overhead, the deafening screech of its engines seeming to punctuate the man’s words. Finally, the noise subsided, and they could talk again.
“You want to tell me why she did it?” said Jack.
“It’s pretty obvious, really, once you know something about me, my family. I came to this country in a rowboat, not a penny to my name. My first job was washing dishes at the Biscayne Cafeteria. Twenty years later I was a millionaire, owner of thirty-seven restaurants. You’ve heard of them, no? Los Platos de Pintado.”
“I’ve eaten there,” said Jack. He knew the Pintado success story, too. It was printed on the back of the menu, including the quaint explanation of how the chain bore a tongue-in-cheek name that harkened back to his humble beginnings as a dishwasher: Los Platos de Pintado meant “Pintado’s dishes.”
Theo said, “Your restaurants are great, dude. But what’s that got to do with your son’s death?”
“It’s not the restaurants. It’s the money. We may not show it, but I’ve made a lot of it. Each of my children has a trust fund. I don’t want to get into specifics, but the principal is seven figures.”
“That’s big bucks,” said Jack.
“More money than most people can handle, if you ask me. So my children earn interest only starting at age twenty-one. The principal is theirs to keep when they turn thirty-five.”
“So your son was a millionaire?” said Jack.
“Yes. For almost three years.” He lowered his eyes and said, “He would have been thirty-eight next month.”
“So, you think Lindsey killed him because…”
“Because they didn’t live like millionaires. Oscar was a lot like me. Money wasn’t that important. He wanted to serve his country. Six months ago, he signed on for another stint at Guantánamo.”
“Interesting,” said Jack. “Lindsey was married to a millionaire who lived the simple life of a soldier on a military base.”
“That’s correct. So long as he was alive.”
“And if he was dead?”
“She could live anywhere she wanted, with enough money in the bank to live any way she wanted to live.”
Jack stood silent for a moment, thinking.
Pintado’s eyes narrowed as he said, “And I guess she can afford to go hire herself a pretty fancy lawyer, too.”
Jack said, “I’m not in this case for the money.”
“Yeah, right.”
Jack heard the crank of an engine. Another private plane slowly emerged from the hangar, its whirling propellers practically invisible.
Pintado grabbed his flight bag, threw it over his shoulder. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got another flight plan to chart out.”
“One more thing,” said Jack.
“Enough,” he said, waving him off. “I’ve already told you more than I should.”
“I was just wondering about your grandson.”
That got his attention. “What about him?”
“Since you’re so convinced of Lindsey’s guilt, how do you feel about Brian staying with her?”
Pintado’s eyes closed, then opened, as if he needed to blink back his anger. “You can’t imagine how that makes me feel.”
Jack studied the old man’s pained expression, then looked off toward the runway. “You might be surprised,” he said quietly. “Thanks again for your time, sir.”