Preston nods and backs out of the room again.
“Put your gun down, Lee,” Mills says.
“I prefer not to until we reach a resolution,” she replies. “Your Pal Al is not going free after what he’s done.”
“If what you’re saying is true, the congressman will be brought to justice and I will do whatever I can to help you. I promise.”
“No!” the woman cries and raises the gun. She points it to the kitchen, then shoots out a back window. Glass explodes. “No, no, no!”
The tantrum is enough of a distraction to get Powell in the room, where she dives for Leighton’s legs and tackles the woman to the floor. The gun rolls a few feet away.
“Cuff her, Myers,” Mills says.
Powell sits Leighton against the wall. Myers clasps the handcuffs. Tears pour down the woman’s face. She sobs loudly but says nothing.
“What about me?” the congressman asks. “How about letting me out of here?”
Mills kneels in front of him. “Sorry, Al. But you’re not going anywhere.”
The man snarls. “What do you mean? You don’t believe the claims of a raving lunatic, do you?”
“Maybe I do.”
“Get these fucking handcuffs off me,” he growls.
Mills turns to Leighton and asks about the key.
“In the kitchen,” she says. “In the silverware drawer. To the left of the sink.”
Mills motions to Preston.
“You know how hard it was to cuff him while holding a gun to his head?” Leighton cries.
“Actually, I do,” Mills says. “It sometimes comes with the terrain.”
“You can’t keep me here,” Torento insists. “You have no probable cause.”
“The murder of Kimberly Harrington is not my case nor is it my jurisdiction. That will be for the FBI to decide, but I’m keeping you here because you’re a witness,” Mills tells him. “You’re the primary witness to what happened here today. You’ll need to give us a full statement. We want to hear everything Ms. Leighton did to you, said to you, and told you about her other alleged victims.”
“But—but, wait, I have an event tonight,” the man pleads. “Isn’t that right, honey?”
Jennifer Torento glares at her husband and says nothing.
“I do,” he insists. “I need to be at a fundraiser.”
“Not going to happen,” Mills advises him. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”
“Jen,” the congressman screeches, “don’t just stand there. Call my lawyer. Do something.”
“Fuck you,” she tells her husband.
Meanwhile, Mills switches places with Powell. He sits on the floor opposite Leighton and explains that he’s arresting her for the deaths of Davis Klink, Barry Schultz, and Joe Gaffing Jr. He says other charges will be pending against her regarding Al Torento. He does a formal reading of her rights. She doesn’t look at him. There’s something about her brokenness that he can feel. “Whether or not you remain silent, Lee, I want to help you,” he tells her. “And I promise you I can, but you have to tell me everything that happened in Mexico twenty-five years ago.”
She shrugs. She’s on the verge of a nod.
“I absolutely want to hear your story,” he says like a shrink, like a brother, like a coconspirator. “I’m going to take you back to headquarters.”
The woman lowers her trembling chin and sobs again.
Mills feels the presence of someone at his back. He turns. It’s Jennifer Torento standing over him. “Ma’am, I really need you to wait outside. Okay?”
She kneels beside him and looks at Leighton. “I just want to tell Ms. Leighton that she’s going to need a good lawyer. And I’m going to find her one.”
The congressman protests with a bounce of the chair to which he remains bound. “You’re going to do what?” he seethes at his wife.
“I’m getting her a lawyer, Al.”
Leighton, suddenly tearless and placid, says, “I don’t care what happens to me.”
“But I do,” says the wife of Congressman Al Torento.
39
On Mills’s desk are printouts of what he considers the most critical excerpts of Lee Leighton’s videotaped statement, edited—to the best of his ability—and transcribed in narrative rather than interview format. He and Special Agent Henderson Garcia, legal attaché, had been talking on Skype for days and poring over the information. Mills, to take the graveyard case to the county attorney, and Garcia, to present a possible case against Alan Torento to the Mexican authorities. The latter would prove far more difficult. But the ball’s rolling, as homicide sergeant Jake Woods likes to say, and he likes to say a lot these days about Mills’s work on the case. Mills shares the credit with his team, but it doesn’t seem to matter to Woods; no more graves should be turning up in the Valley of the Sun. That’s a huge political sigh of relief, even if the Phoenix Police Department could be the downfall of a sitting congressman. Yet no one seems to be jumping to Torento’s defense, so perhaps Al wasn’t such a great pal, after all.
Mills reads through the excerpts one final time before sharing them, along with other evidence, with the county attorney by way of Jake Woods.
VIDEOTAPED STATEMENT OF LEE LEIGHTON:
TRANSCRIPT EXCERPTS
Edited by: Detective Alex Mills, Homicide
Case No.: C-FF-H-XXXXXXX
(A) CIRCUMSTANCES
Kimmy [Harrington] and I were roommates at Northern Arizona University. It was our junior year, and we were best friends. We heard about a spring break trip to Cancun, Mexico. Kimberly had to beg her parents to go. My parents were fine with it.
I remember it like it was yesterday. Why wouldn’t I? It was the worst thing to ever happen in my life, and my life has never been the same since. I think there were seventy-five students on our segment alone. But there were tons of other companies doing tours down there. It was like an invasion. Everyone was drunk or high or both, and there was music day and night.
Kimmy and I first met the boys at a bar in town around midnight, maybe a little later, but it wasn’t quite one o’clock, because I remember around one o’clock I said I wanted to go back to the hotel, and everybody started shouting me down and calling me a buzzkill, because we were already wasted. Anyway, I really wanted to go back to the hotel, so Kim finally said, “Let’s go and bring the guys with us; we can party in the room.” And I was, like, “Sure, fine.” So we get back there, and Barry [Schultz] passes out on one of the beds. And Joey [Gaffing ], whose uncle and dad are supposedly running the tour, is sitting on the floor, smoking a joint. And Davis [Klink] and me are kind of getting, you know, physical. I’m not proud of any of this. But I was nineteen. The next thing I know Davis is on top of me, and I was consenting at first, but then I heard Kim arguing with someone and I tried to push Davis off, but he wouldn’t get off, and I said, “Something’s wrong with Kim, get off me,” but he wouldn’t, so I tried to roll out from under him, but he pinned me and he ripped off my clothes, and that’s when I kneed him in the balls and he rolled over and called me a cunt. Meanwhile, Kimmy is still yelling, and I find her out on the balcony with Al [Torento], and he’s calling her a cocktease and saying, “You better suck my dick; you brought me back here, and I could be with any chick right now at any of those parties.” I remember this vividly because this was probably the worst example of frat-boy behavior I’d ever seen. So I walked onto the balcony, and I said, “Shut up, Al, leave her alone.” But keep in mind, there was a ton of music. There was music blasting from the other rooms, and there was all this music coming from a party on the beach, like one of those mariachi bands or something, and we could hardly hear each other. But I screamed so loud when I saw him slap Kimberly in the face. She just looked dazed, so I got in Al’s face and said, “Get the fuck out of here,” and he pushed me hard, and my head almost went through the glass door; then Kimberly turned to Al and said, “Why did you hit me, you fucking asshole?” And he said something like, “All I asked for was a fucking blo
wjob. You’re making me miss out on all the fun out there; I could have any girl I want.” And she said, and she’s really screaming now, like drunk screaming, “Then go get any girl you want because I wouldn’t blow you even if I was in the mood, because I don’t waste my time on tiny dicks.”
That’s when he went into a rage, and he slammed her head into the balcony railing. And I was yelling, “Stay away from her, stay away from her, stay away from her.” But he pushed her again. She was trying to steady herself, but instead she just leaned her whole upper body over the railing like a rag doll, as if she was going to throw up, and over she went. If she was screaming, no one could hear her because there was just too much music and rowdiness. It was like watching a murder in a silent movie.
(B) DISPOSITION OF BODY
I figured she was dead, but I didn’t know for sure. We were on the eleventh floor. I couldn’t see how she’d survive a fall like that. So we rushed downstairs. All of us. Her body was in the bushes. There was nobody around. There were all these parties going on down at the beach, kids going wild like there was nothing wrong. [Not decipherable. Subject is sobbing.]
Al says we got to get her out of here. And Barry is all panicked and keeps saying, “What happened? What happened? What happened?” And Al tells him to shut up, and Davis says we have to move her someplace. And Al says, “Throw her in the ocean,” and I start screaming, and Joey covered my mouth with his hand, and I couldn’t break free. And he says he has a big carton in his room that’s full of badges and T-shirts and some other trip items from the company, and he lets me go while he and Barry go get the box. I tried to get away, but Al grabbed me, and I will never forget what he said. He said, “If you do anything stupid, we’ll dump you right along with her.” I knew right then that he was serious. “You do exactly what you’re told or you’ll end up dead right alongside Kimmy,” he said. I was terrified. I had my camera, one of those disposable ones. I was taking pictures of us at the bar and then in the room before everything got ugly. So I had grabbed it and tried to snap pictures when no one was looking, but I didn’t have a flash, so most of them didn’t come out, but some did, and I still have them.
Barry and Joey came back with the box, just like they were carrying supplies to set up an event for the next day. It was probably about two a.m. by then. Then Al and Davis slide the box into the bushes, lift up Kimmy, and put her inside. Then the two of them carry her on their shoulders to the parking lot. It looked like a coffin, really. But no one seemed to notice. Anyone who might have seen us on the way was probably as wasted as we were. [Sobbing.]
(C) TRANSPORTATION OF BODY
Joey’s dad had rented a minivan for the tour staff, so once we reached the parking lot the guys stuffed Kim inside the cargo area in the back, and then everybody got in the van. They made me ride in the back seat, closest to Kim, and I was losing my mind. I couldn’t breathe. I begged them to let me go. I promised I wouldn’t say a thing. But they weren’t listening to me. That’s when all the fighting started. Davis blaming Al for everything, and Joey saying none of them should have ever come back to the hotel because they weren’t even on our tour. Barry wanted to back out and go to the police, and Al said something like he’d kill Barry before he’d end up in a Mexican prison. And Davis started crying like, “I have my whole life ahead of me. I can’t throw it away on this. I’m going to business school.” And Al said, “You won’t throw away anything if we do this right.” And I can’t remember much else about who said what, but I remember them coming to blows. There were fists flying. College boys crying. Then we took off. I tried to observe everything. When I could snap pictures without being noticed, I did. Joey was the only one of the guys who had been to Mexico before, but he said he really didn’t know anywhere else but Cancun. This was long before the days of GPS. So, Al just says, “Drive.” And Joey drives. Al, who’s sitting shotgun, basically navigates us as far outside Cancun as we can get until the road turned completely black, no lights, nothing, and we had no idea where we were going. Davis is screaming, “Where are we going? Where are we going?” I kept hoping Kimmy would jump out of the box and say, “What the hell is going on?” I wanted that desperately, but I knew better. My stomach was in knots. The first road sign we saw out on that deserted highway said, “Playa del Carmen.” I made notes in my head. I think I’d heard it was another tourist area. Anyway, it was maybe an hour before we hit Playa del Carmen, and the boys said it was too dangerous because all of a sudden there were hotels and bars and we were back in civilization. They needed someplace deserted. And I started panicking, thinking we’re going to be driving all over Mexico all night and we’ll probably get pulled over and killed by some bandits. But at least, driving through Playa del Carmen, I could see for sure that we were right along the coastline. I remember making mental notes of all the signs we saw after that, just to get my bearings. A sign for Akumal came next. In all the years since, I’ve confirmed this ride from hell by studying road maps for that part of Mexico. That’s why I know it was Akumal. I don’t remember how close we were, because I can’t remember the numbers on the sign—it could have been twenty kilometers or thirty—but it was the next major town we’d hit. I think maybe we’d been driving for about an hour when I said I needed to get out of the car and throw up. Barry said he had to do the same. Joey nearly swerved into a ditch. I could hear Kimberly shifting in the back. I bolted from the van, crossed the street—Barry wasn’t too far to my side—and puked. Al stumbled out of the van and ordered us to come back. Barry complied. I refused. I ran along the roadway; it was rocky, and I remember there was a steep embankment. Then Al storms across the road, coming after me. And he’s screaming at me. I’m not as fast as him, so he starts gaining, and just before he’s about to grab me, Joey drives the van right between us and nearly runs Al off the embankment. I wish he had. I should’ve pushed him.
(D) DISPOSAL OF BODY
Joey jumps out of the van and says, “We’re not going any further.” And Al says, “Why not?” Al wanted to go to Tulum. So Davis explained that Tulum might be farther away, but it’s not a deserted area, far from it, with tourists coming to see the ruins. But Al said it would be cool to bury a body at the ruins; you know it would freak everybody out if it was ever found. Yes, he said “cool.” And he was laughing. But Davis reminded him that the whole point was to leave the body someplace it would never be found.
Barry said it was too bad we didn’t have a boat so they could have dumped her at sea. And Al said maybe they could steal a boat. There were plenty of boats up and down the coast. But Joey said her body would likely wash up someday. Then he said, “That’s it, everyone in the van; we’re leaving the body somewhere around here.” He drove for maybe another mile until it was really dark again, and I remember we took a left somewhere, like we were heading closer to the water, ’cause you could smell the ocean air like you were practically on the beach. One thing I noticed when we turned onto the street that leads to the beach was a small sign that said, “Hurricane Evacuation Route,” in Spanish. I remember it’s the very first one of these signs after the sign for Akumal. I don’t know if it’s still there, but it was at the intersection of the main road and that small street. I’ll never forget that. I always hoped I’d go back there someday and find her body. But these men wouldn’t let me out of their sight. Anyway, we took the left off the main road, then drove maybe five minutes down this tiny street and came to a dead end. We all got out of the van and saw the sea was right below us. The moon had come out from behind the clouds, and we saw several different walkways to the beach below. Joey pointed to one, and we followed. It was more like a tunnel between the cliffs than a walkway. And the beach below was actually not a beach. It was just a thin strip of mud and sand where the water hit the rocks, not a swimming beach anyway. Davis said that’s even better, better chance Kim would get no visitors here. I tried to take some pictures when nobody was looking, but none of them came out because it was so dark, even with the moonlight. Barry says, “We obvi
ously can’t bury her in the sand or else she’ll just be dragged out with the tide and wash up somewhere else.” And Al says, “If the sea gulls don’t get to her first.” I wanted to kill him right then. Then one of the guys, I think it was Davis, says he found a spot in the tunnel between the beach and the road. The walls of the tunnel had these holes and craters on both sides. Davis climbed into one of the bigger holes and said, “She can go in here, and we can pack her in with sand and mud and close the whole thing up with rocks.”
The other guys thought it sounded perfect, and I think they all even gave each other high fives, until Al pointed out they’d need a shovel to dig up the mud and the sand and the rocks. And he asked Joey, “You got a shovel in the van?” And Joey said, “No, why would I have a shovel?” And Al said, “Go find one.” So, Joey takes off, and I remember sinking to my knees in the sand, kind of giving up at that point, you know, sort of surrendering because I knew there was nothing I could do. But, I also remember that it was at that precise moment when I resolved to get even. I couldn’t imagine how or when, but I wanted these guys to pay. In the most violent way, I wanted them to pay.
Joey comes back about, I don’t know, twenty-five minutes later with a shovel. He’s got a big smile on his face, and he said he stole it from the back of a bodega, or something. Everyone kind of clapped, but no one else had a big smile on his face. And then I watched them bury her. But they picked a different hole, a bigger one than the hole Davis had found. But the idea was the same. They took the carton out of the van, kind of handing it off, two at it a time, until they got it down the tunnel, and then they all lifted it up to the ledge. It took at least an hour for them to get enough sand and mud and rocks up there. Some of the boulders were so big four of the guys together had to lift them. I’ll never forget the sounds of them digging and packing her in the hole, like they were building her some kind of fortress.
Dig Your Grave Page 40