The Victim (66 page)

“
It’s over now.”

“
Don’t do this, Lola. You can still make it right. Now it’s your turn to come clean. Give my daughter back to me. Get an innocent man out of prison. C’mon, you can do this.”

She held her arms out straight, making a cross of her body. Head tilted back, she closed her eyes, looking oddly angelic in the backsplash of the helicopter beam. Board stiff, she rocked back on her heels, falling out of view behind the wall. Anton ran to the ledge, watching her body do backflips through the air until she landed with a resonant smack on the concrete. The crowd jumped back; a few let out screams.

Three DHS agents jogged over, one keeping his AR-15 on Vicki, while another FlexCuffed her hands behind her back. Anton figured it was a temporary detention, a hold that would be lifted once they questioned Anton and learned that she had shot Bryan in defense of his life.

A soft cry caught his attention. It was coming from the Mercedes. He opened the rear passenger door and saw Charley worming around in a car seat, rubbing her slow-waking eyes with her balled little fists.

He pulled her out of the car seat and held her to his chest, kissing the top of her head, trying to hold back the tears. A DHS agent approached, glanced over the ledge. Blood leaked out of Lola’s ears, nose, and mouth. Her skull was like a shattered egg.

Anton held his daughter close, jostling her in his arms.

The DHS agent looked at him. “You know her?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Huh.” He held his AR-15 at port arms, nodding at the body five stories below. A pool of blood spread around her head, streaming along the contours of the walkway, dripping off into the grass. “She have a name?”

“
Lola Munson.”

“
Well…Lola Munson’s dead now, ain’t she?”

Anton shook his head. “Nah. Lola Munson’s been dead for a long time.”

CHAPTER 78

Two weeks after the trial, life seemed to be resuming its normal speed. At least anything that felt normal, but
normal
was certainly relative these days. Normal wasn’t sleeping on Jack’s living room sofa, living out of a suitcase. Normal was sleeping in his own bed, next to his wife with his nearly one-year-old daughter in the other room. Normal was everything before.

The Blog, the local news stations, and the
Herald
had settled down in the aftermath of Morales’s unprecedented move of locking a public courtroom and refusing to transcribe testimony. It had only fueled the fire of speculation. Fortunately, Judge Morales had imposed a six-month gag order restricting all of the jurors, court staff, and parties involved from discussing the case. She had also had the court file sealed.

In a way, Morales had railroaded the state. By refusing to transcribe Anton’s testimony, she had given Bryan a built-in appellate remedy, had the jury decided to convict despite Anton’s confession. Without so much as batting an eye, the Third District Court of Appeal would have tossed the case back to Morales’s division, reversed and remanded on account of the fact that the testimony of a key defense witness was missing from the record.

The state had no choice but to dismiss the case.

No charges were filed against Vicki Brandt. Homeland Security referred the case to the State Attorney’s Office, but Florida’s Stand Your Ground law extended to those who use lethal force to defend the lives of others. Eleven witnesses, including Anton and Vicki, told investigators that Bryan Avery was in the process of trying to strike Anton with his car when Vicki fired. While many speculated why Vicki had followed Bryan to the airport with a loaded handgun in her car, the shooting—regardless of her motive—was legally justifiable.

Records obtained by subpoena from the long-defunct Miles of Mountains, Incorporated, confirmed that in the fall of 2002, Bryan Avery was sent to Flagstaff for a ninety-day wilderness program. The records also confirmed that he was in the same ninety-day program as Kelsie McEvoy, Evan Rangel, and Lola Munson.

A technician took the fingerprints of Lola Munson as she lay on a cold steel table in the Medical Examiners Office. Those standards were compared against the ones from the Flagstaff shoplifting judgment. No surprise, there was a match. A DNA swab taken from the inside of her cheek was compared against a stored DNA sample that had been taken from her uncle, Frank Wheaton. As a multiple felon, his DNA was on file through CODIS—the Combined DNA Index System. Sufficient genetic markers present in both samples confirmed their relationship.

There was no question that Daniella Avery was actually Lola Munson.

Jack faxed a copy of the lab results to the US Attorney’s Office in Phoenix along with a motion to vacate judgment and sentence. After about a week of reviewing the lab’s findings and conducting their own follow-up, the federal government stipulated to the motion, which was granted by the court. The guilty verdict and life sentence imposed upon Osvaldo Garcia were thrown out and he was immediately released from federal custody.

In a broader sense, life was resuming some normalcy. What was wrong had been made right, or so it seemed. Still, Anton was stopping by the house every night to see Charley but he was leaving shortly after, not welcome to stay over. His interactions with Gina had been cordial but cold, their status as man and wife had been relegated to that of co-parents. As many times as he had told her he was sorry, he just didn’t see her letting up.

He sat at his desk, staring at the clock in the upper right-hand corner of his computer screen. 3:04 p.m.
Jesus, five o’clock couldn’t come fast enough.
He had a stack of files he was purposefully neglecting and a dozen Post-Its stuck to his computer monitor, reminding him of deadlines and phone calls he needed to make. The work he had to get done.

A crashing sound jolted him to an upright posture. He heard a woman scream—Yessenia—and he sprinted for the door. The clatter of footfalls on the floor, at least a dozen of them.

The boot hit the door plumb center. It splintered off the jamb until the deadbolt crashed through the wood. Five men dressed in black tactical gear and helmets carrying MP5s spilled into his office.

He backed up, hands raised. A strong hand grabbed his collar and tossed him to the ground with one firm tug. He felt a sharp pain as a knee dropped onto his spine. Face pressed against the floor, he felt a burn in his shoulder as his arm was yanked behind his back. He felt the tingle of cold handcuffs on his skin, clicked down hard until the ratchets dug into his wrist bones.

He was pulled effortlessly to his feet. By the time he got his bearings, his vision cleared enough for him to read the writing stitched into their tactical vests.

us marshal
.

“
What is this?” Anton asked, being forcibly ushered out of his office. Yessenia watched from her desk, her hand covering her mouth.

“
It ain’t us, kid,” the deputy marshal to his left said, leading him by the elbow through the lobby and out to the elevators. “Arrest warrant out of Gila County, Arizona. Two counts of second-degree murder.”

CHAPTER 79

The Honorable Edgar Ptomey had been a staple in Gila County jurisprudence since lawyers wore polyester. It was a different time, back then. In thirty-four years on the bench, he thought he had seen it all. Until now.

The sixty-seven-year-old Superior Court judge adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses, trying to focus on the small type in a letter written on behalf of the man he was about to sentence. It was one of about fifty. The accused was a young man, a lawyer no less. Could have been Ed Ptomey thirty-five years earlier.

He scratched his white beard, the sound of which was caught by the microphone on the bench, echoing through the courtroom like sandpaper on wood. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

“
I must say, I am indeed moved.” His voice was low and soothing, carrying just a hint of an outdated rural lilt that had long been watered down by East Coast transplants and urban sprawl. He tapped the stack of letters—written by prominent attorneys, judges, former law professors, friends and family. At least two inches high. “I gotta tell you, Mr. Mackey. You got a lot of folks out there who sure care an awful lot ’bout you.”

Anton stood in the jury box, wearing the orange jumper of a Gila County Jail inmate. His hands were cuffed in the front, hooked to a belly chain that fell loosely to the floor, securing his ankle restraints. He felt soft around the middle from all that starchy jail food. His bedraggled hair coupled with a month’s worth of growth on his face made him look like someone you’d see asking for change on the street. Just a few months earlier, he was young, happily married with an infant daughter, pulling down good money in a respected profession.

He didn’t fight the Florida Bar in their disciplinary action against him. Since he knew that he was going to be pleading guilty in his criminal case, it would have been an exercise in futility to continue to deny wrongdoing. He voluntarily accepted disbarment.

He kept his chin up, trying to remain composed, but he understood firsthand why so many inmates hung their heads. It was embarrassing. In his periphery, he could see his mom and dad, seated in the first row of the gallery. A lifetime of proud parent moments gone with one impulsive snap decision. Were people back home talking about him? Sure they were. The San Fernando Valley gossip mill was no doubt alive and well.

Didja hear about Tom and Judith Mackey’s son?
they’d say, dropping their voices, looking over each shoulder.
Yeah, the lawyer? A shame, isn’t it?

Gina sat in the front row holding Charley, who was asleep. The divorce papers had been served upon him a week earlier when a sheriff’s deputy brought them to his cell. Anton knew it wasn’t Gina’s style to add insult to injury, but having known a few divorce attorneys over the years, he presumed it was their idea to have him served while he was in custody.

Anton had waived extradition to Arizona and was transported to Gila County. Jack had immediately agreed to represent Anton
pro bono
. Jack wasn’t licensed to practice law in state court in Arizona. But upon a recommendation, Jack teamed up with a local defense attorney to whom he threw a few bucks so that he could be admitted
pro hoc vice
, a temporary authorization that allows an out-of-state lawyer to represent a defendant.

The trial lawyer in Jack had tried to get Anton to reconsider a guilty plea. Jack argued that there was no physical evidence, no eyewitnesses, and a surreptitiously recorded confession that could have easily been deemed the product of duress. Given the undisputed fact that Lola Munson, in collusion with Bryan Avery, had kidnapped Charlotte, a jury could reasonably believe that the confession was made at the behest of the kidnapper and that any father in a similar situation would have done the same thing.

Anton said no. First off, he wasn’t about to put his fate in the hands of a jury. He knew better. Secondly, it was more personal than that. He was tired of the lies and the sleepless nights. As terrifying has it had been, the moment the marshals slapped the cuffs on him, an unearthly sense of calm overtook him, as if his survival instincts had suddenly consumed his conscious brain. He didn’t have to hide anymore or lie or jump every time he heard a knock on the door. For the first time in over eleven years, he was free.

With Osvaldo Garcia’s release from prison and the dismissal of his charges, Anton’s lack of criminal record, and professional track record, there were enough humanitarian bargaining chips to mitigate what Anton had been told was normally a fourteen-year sentence.

Jack and the Deputy County Attorney stood at the prosecution table, discussing the particulars of the plea. Anton leaned toward them, trying to hear the discussion, but he was confident that he already knew what was going to happen.

Ryan Billingsley, the DCA handling Anton’s case, had agreed to dismiss the second-degree murder indictment and file an information charging two counts of manslaughter, a class two felony. With no priors, Anton’s charges could be reclassified as non-dangerous offenses based on the fact that the fire was intended to destroy evidence of an accidental homicide—not meant to kill the people inside of it. It was a stretch, but nobody wanted any blood. Evan Rangel’s family couldn’t be located and Kelsie McEvoy’s mother had consented to the plea. Anton watched the DCA as he talked to Jack, nodding along, his brow scrunched with prosecutorial intensity. Billingsley was in his late twenties, a graduate of ASU Law. Just a few short years ago, his life and Anton’s would have been indistinguishable.