Burners - A Jack Daniels/Alex Chapa Mystery

by Henry Perez

  “I don’t know for sure, I was across the street. What is that? Maybe thirty, forty feet?”

  “Well, you’re about halfway there. Would you believe it’s exactly seventy-two feet from the doorway of your store, where you’ve testified that you were standing, to Laserquick’s front door?” Milledge approached the jury box and made eye-contact with each of us. “That’s thirty-yards. You must have excellent vision.”

  Despite being a man of limited ability within his profession, Milledge was doing a better than a fair job of putting the heat on the ex-marine.

  But what did it matter whether or not Luzinsky had actually made out the individual rust spots on the two cans that were resting on the table in front of us? The defense had conceded the duffle bag belonged to Beniquez, and if the kid was walking around with gas cans in the vicinity of a fire, then maybe Jerry Rossiter was wrong.

  Milledge fired off a few more questions, and generated two more objections from Lipscomb, in a vain attempt to shake Luzinsky’s certainty about what he’d seen. He took a few swipes at the man’s credibility, and pressed him about his relationship with the deceased.

  “We were cordial, not friends, you know, but we waved to each other now and then. We were good.”

  When Milledge finally dismissed Luzinsky, the man bolted to his feet, as quickly as someone his size could actually bolt, and hastily got off the stand. I watched him walk back toward the gallery, wondering whether he’d look over at the jury, or try to make eye-contact with Lipscomb.

  But his gaze was locked on someone else. As Luzinsky made his way back to his seat in the third row he exchanged glances with Alice Braun. The two kept looking at one another, then turning away, only to reconnect like a magnet to steel.

  I decided to keep an eye on Luzinsky and the widow, and was still watching them when Lipscomb called her next witness to the stand.

  After an awkward breakfast where the Hauppdorf’s stared at us without saying anything, Phin drove with me to the courthouse. At first, he was going to come in with me and watch from the gallery, but then he saw the cruisers and press trucks parked in front of the century old courthouse. Besides, there was a metal detector at the entrance, and he wouldn’t have been able to get his gun in. I had to leave mine in the car. Instead, Phin watched from outside, looking for anything suspicious.

  When I walked into the building I was struck by how empty it was except for the dozen or so people milling around the entrance to the courtroom where the Beniquez trial was being held. It was unlike any courthouse I’d ever been in during a major trial.

  “We’re a small community,” Lebanon explained as he tried to tame his hair with one hand while flipping through a cell phone with the other. “With our resources being as limited as they are, I thought it best to shuffle the schedule around so that this was the only case of any significance being held in the courthouse this morning.”

  I nodded like I cared, which I didn’t, and asked, “So you promised I’d be the first witness called, that’s still the case, right?”

  He was still poking at his phone.

  “Reception in here is lousy. I’m one of the few people who are allowed to have a cell in the courtroom and it doesn’t do me much good anyhow. You did check yours at the metal detectors, didn’t you?”

  Again, I nodded. “When will I be called?”

  “Third, I believe. Maybe fourth.”

  “That’s not what you told me—”

  Lebanon snapped. “Look, Officer Daniels—”

  “Lieutenant.”

  “Fine, Lieutenant, we’ve already shifted our witness list around to accommodate you, now I would appreciate it if you’d get with the program,” Lebanon said and walked away.

  I was poised to tear into him, but knew it wouldn’t do me much good. Officers James and Lewis were huddled near the door to the courtroom. I walked by them and slipped inside. In the past, when I’ve testified in trials, I’ve waited outside of the courtroom until they called me to the stand. But I was tired from lack of sleep, and still a little edgy. So I sat down, and no one told me I couldn’t.

  The courtroom was nearly full, but I found a seat in the second row from back, next to a reporter and behind a tall Hispanic male who I made for a member of the defendant’s family. Chapa was staring at me from the jury box while trying to pretend he was listening to something a female juror was saying to him.

  Why the hell was he grinning at me? Was Chapa actually happy to be here?

  I reviewed my deposition in my head as the first witness, a tall male named Luzinsky, gave testimony that he’d seen the accused around the print shop just before the fire. There was a discussion of some old gas cans, but that was of little interest to me. I was there to recite what little I knew about this case and then get on with my life.

  As Luzinsky stepped down from the stand and took a seat near the front of the gallery, I took in a deep breath and tried to find comfort in the knowledge that there was only one more witness ahead of me. I failed, but then came the first piece of good news I’d gotten in the past two days.

  “The prosecution calls Lieutenant Jacqueline Daniels to the stand.”

  The lead prosecutor, Anna Lipscomb, was tall and blonde, wearing a smart gray pantsuit and a no-nonsense expression. The bailiff, a hunched elderly man who looked old enough to have worked when Christ was tried, swore me in. I stepped around the railing, sat in the uncomfortable wooden chair and looked out over the courtroom.

  I noticed Chapa, his demeanor relaxed but his eyes alert. A few seats away from him, a juror with exceptionally big ears stared at me with a leer that was off-putting. Officers James and Webster were near the back of the gallery, flanked by reporters. In the front row was a dour-faced Hispanic who I took to be Tony’s father.

  “State your name and profession.”

  “My name is Jacqueline Daniels, I’m a Homicide Lieutenant in Chicago’s 26th District.”

  “How long have you been a police officer?”

  “For over twenty years.”

  “Have you been involved with murder trials before?”

  “Extensively.”

  “So you’re no stranger to being on the stand?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Could you take a guess at how many times your testimony has lead to convictions?”

  The defense attorney leapt to his feet. “Objection, relevance.”

  Judge Malvo seemed to startle himself awake. He made a small groan, but before he could answer, Lipscomb cut in.

  “We’re establishing the integrity of the witness, your honor. Lieutenant Daniels is a professional, and her past performance is relevant.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll overrule. You can answer the question, Lieutenant.”

  “Dozens of times,” I said. “Possibly hundreds.”

  “So tell us where you were on the day of the fire at the Laserquick print shop on Main Street.”

  “My fiancée and I came to Birch Grove for a mini-vacation. We were walking east down Main Street at four-forty-six p.m., and we stopped into Dirty McCann’s sports bar to have a drink.”

  “How can you be so sure of the time?”

  “I rechecked. Right as we were entering the bar, I got a call from my partner. The phone call was time stamped.”

  “How long were you at the bar?”

  “About twenty minutes. Long enough for us each to finish a beer. Then my boyfriend went to the washroom just as most of the bar patrons rushed outside. I followed them, wondering what was happening. Immediately I heard sirens, and saw what I learned was the Laserquick print shop, across the street, about forty meters away. It was on fire.”

  “When did you see the defendant?”

  Now it was the defense’s turn. “Objection, leading,”

  Malvo responded with a little more urgency this time. “Sounds that way to me. Sustained,” he groaned.

  “Can you tell us what happened prior to you entering Dirty McCann’s?”

  “A minute befor
e entering the bar, a teenage male ran by us on the sidewalk. He actually bumped me, and dropped his duffle bag. I made eye-contact with him as he picked it up.”

  “What was he wearing?”

  “Blue jeans and a red top. His duffle bag was green.”

  “Is that teenage male in the courtroom today?”

  “He is.” I pointed without being asked. “It was Tony Beniquez.”

  Chatter from the gallery. I watched reporters furiously scribble in their notepads.

  “What would you judge Mr. Beniquez’s emotional state as at the time?”

  “Objection, Your Honor. The witness is not a psychologist.”

  “Withdrawn. Can you describe Mr. Beniquez’s actions and mannerisms?”

  “He appeared to be in a hurry,” I said. “And he looked a bit frantic.” I made it a point to stare at the defense attorney before he could open his mouth. “And I’ve arrested enough perps to recognize frantic when I see it.”

  “Was that the only time you saw Mr. Beniquez that day?”

  “No. He was among the group of people watching the fire.”

  “What happened next?”

  “The fire department and the police arrived very quickly, within about a minute. I watched two firefighters break into the print shop, and very soon after they pulled out a body, who I later learned was the victim, Dennis Braun.”

  Lipscomb walked back to the prosecutor’s table and flipped open a file.

  “Let’s talk about Tony Beniquez during the fire. Did he still have his duffle bag with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “But the gas cans,” she pointed to the evidence table, “you didn’t see those, is that correct?”

  “All I saw was the bag. He never opened it while I was watching.”

  “So you did not see them in his hands, as Mr. Luzinsky testified.”

  “No, I did not.”

  She turned to the jury. “Which meant they were already back inside the duffle bag where the officers found them.”

  I hesitated, staring at the defense attorney again. But he didn’t cry speculation.

  “I don’t know whether they were in there or not, but the bag did appear to be containing something. I could tell by the way the strap hung on his shoulder.”

  “So the cans could very well have been in there?”

  “The bag appeared to be full, but—”

  “And you never saw Beniquez put anything else in the duffle bag.”

  “That’s correct. But I already stated—”

  “And you stated that there was something in the duffle bag that could have been gas cans.”

  “I stated,” I said, louder than before, “that the bag appeared to be full. I didn’t say—”

  “Lieutenant Daniels, you were here earlier when it was shown that the cans do indeed fit inside the duffle bag.”

  I blew out a breath. “Yes.”

  “And they fit quite easily, yes?”

  “They fit, yes.”

  “And that is the duffle bag you saw, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it within the realm of possibility that the cans were in there both times when you saw the defendant?”

  Again I waited for the speculation objection, but it didn’t come. Was the defense attorney asleep? I looked at Malvo, and the judge certainly appeared to be.

  “Yes,” I reluctantly said.

  “No further questions,” Lipscomb said, turned her back to me and returned to her seat behind the prosecution table.

  I understood what Lipscomb was doing with me. She wanted the jury to believe the cans were in the bag. But I never saw the cans in the bag, and didn’t like words being put in my mouth. Even if Tony was guilty, and the cans were in the bag, I hadn’t seen them and would never testify that I had. But I wasn’t sure I’d conveyed that message.

  I still had no idea if Tony Beniquez did it or didn’t do it. But so far he was getting, in my learned opinion, and inadequate defense. Hopefully his team would step it up during the cross-examinations.

  Milledge stood up. “No questions, your Honor.”

  “You’re excused, Lieutenant Daniels,” Malvo said.

  As I walked down from the stand, I managed to meet eyes with Alex Chapa. He had a look of surprise on his face, and I saw him mouth the words what the hell.

  No kidding. A few minutes ago, I was eager to get out of the courtroom. Not to run home—I didn’t take kindly to threats. But I wanted to do a bit more investigating with Phin, maybe try to track down the locksmith.

  But now I had no choice. I had to wait around to see what happened next.

  A boy’s life was at stake. And through no fault of my own, I might have just convicted him.

  Jack shrugged when I looked at her. I was trying to process what had just happened, and wondering if they shouldn’t just cart Tony Beniquez off to prison right now—Go straight to jail, do not pass GO, do not collect anything other than an orange jumper, an inmate number, and a life sentence.

  That’s exactly what was going to happen if the defense didn’t get up to speed in a hurry. Maybe Tony was guilty. Maybe he wasn’t. Didn’t matter either way if his side wasn’t ready to put up a fight.

  I was also trying to figure out what it was that Jack had wanted to say on the stand, and why she was still sitting, fuming, in the back of the courtroom when she could have left. I wasn’t the only one. The guy with the enormous ears—again, I assumed it was half of a pair, but as a reporter I could not verify that—was weirdly fixated on Jack. He’d been staring at her from the moment she was called to the stand and was still glaring at her now, while the attorneys for both sides held a whispered discussion with Judge Malvo.

  As soon as the party broke up, Lipscomb called Officer Nicholas James to the stand. James looked like a thug in the sort of expensive suit that would wrinkle the instant I pulled it off the rack. Check that—no way the suit he was wearing had ever seen a rack.

  He was thick all over, not fat, solid. Former military? Or maybe military wannabe. I’d met a few of those during my ill-fated trek with The Wisconsin Free Rangers. But those guys were comical, in a way. This guy I would not turn my back on.

  James unbuttoned his suit and slid into the witness chair in one slick movement. He’d done this before. And enjoyed it.

  Lipscomb stood and began.

  “Please state your name and occupation.”

  “Nicholas James, Officer with the Birch Grove Police Department.”

  “Can you describe the events that occurred during the afternoon of the Laserquick fire?”

  “My partner, Emmanuel Lewis, and I responded to a 206 called in by an anonymous tipster at the address in question. When we arrived on the scene in the alley behind it, at approximately five-ten p.m., we found the establishment to be on fire. As we pulled up I noticed a male in jeans and a red T-shirt, carrying a duffel bag, fleeing from the scene. We met Fire Chief Homer Davis on the scene, and he and another firefighter proceeded to break through the front door and enter the establishment. Two minutes later, the firefighters reappeared, dragging the corpse of the victim, Dennis Braun.”

  I was certain Officer James had said more stuff after revealing that his partner was named Emanuel Lewis. I knew this because I saw his lips moving. But I was fixated on the image of the little dude from Webster starting a new career as a suburban cop. How had Duane Wormley, the Record’s fluff piece maven, missed this human interest story? I scanned the courtroom for Emmanuel and settled on the only African American in the gallery.

  Damn. Webster got big.

  I semi-heard Lipscomb ask, “What happened next?”

  “I was scanning the gathered crowd. It is often the case that an arsonist will stick around to watch the result of his efforts. So when I spotted a male in a red T-shirt, carrying a duffel bag, I alerted my partner. As I covered him, my partner rushed across the street, and proceeded to take down and arrest Mr. Beniquez on suspicion of arson and murder.”

  “You read him
his rights?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Did you then check the contents of his duffel bag?”

  “We did.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Two empty gasoline cans.”

  The gallery, and the jurors around me, began to murmur. Bob looked back at me and whispered, “This is getting good, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t respond, but it was.

  “Are the cans you found in the possession of Mr. Beniquez the ones entered as Exhibit A?” Lipscomb continued.

  “Yes, they are.”

  More rumbles from the crowd. I looked over at Jack, who was sitting in the back of the courtroom, arms crossed. Then I turned my attention to the defendant’s father, who had stood up from his seat. I wasn’t sure whether the judge or prosecutor had noticed, because they didn’t say anything as Carlos Beniquez walked forward, crouched when he reached the railing that separated the folks in the gallery from the main players, and removed a wooden panel about the size of a cutting board.

  Now everyone was watching the self-made, hard-working carpenter as he stood and flashed a handgun he’d produced from the gaping hole where the panel used to be.

  He was trembling just a little.

  “Your gun,” he said, pointing his weapon evenly at the surprised bailiff. “Take it out and put it on the floor, or I start shooting.” He cleared his throat, and spoke again, louder this time. “If anyone tries to leave, I will shoot them.”

  The bailiff took his gun from its holster, his withered hands shaking, as he placed it on the floor.

  Carlos walked over, picked up the gun, and shoved it into the waistband of his slacks.

  I saw Jack instinctively reach for a weapon that wasn’t under her armpit and come back with an empty hand.

  No one tried to leave the courtroom.

  Rather than fear, the first thing I felt was astonishment.

  The defendant’s father was pointing his gun at the jury, doing a slow, steady sweep.

  But how did he get a weapon? How could he have stashed it in court?

  I glanced first at Officer James on the stand, then at Officer Lewis in the gallery, both unarmed, probably because shoulder holsters would ruin the lines of their expensive, tailored suits.