The Borzoi Killings

by Paul Batista

  Ang Tien asked, “Who are they?”

  “How the fuck do I know?” Halsey asked. “Sit on this until I tell you what to do.”

  Ang Tien was very obedient. “Sure, Detective. It’s easy to save. I’ll give it to you when you need it.”

  23.

  Margaret Harding, in a soft voice, said, “Can we talk, Raquel?”

  They had just finished a brief, routine appearance in court. Raquel was surprised by the question. Since the last meeting with Harding and Richie Lupo, Raquel experienced something she hadn’t allowed herself to feel in years: she was angry with them, and she took their attitude personally, as an affront to her. It was Raquel’s style not to engage in angry exchanges, not to try to intimidate other lawyers by screaming at them, and not to conduct herself as anything other than a calm, determined, dignified lawyer. It was a rare approach for a lawyer anywhere, and particularly rare in New York. She found she was more effective when she didn’t allow herself to be antagonized or insulted. Her crafty mother, born in Italy, had told her, “You can kill with kindness, Raquel, and if you stay calm you’ll live longer.” So her lingering anger and resentment had unsettled her for several days; the disquieting feelings had just started to lift when Harding spoke to her.

  “Margaret, certainly, let’s talk,” Raquel said, almost brightly, as if they were agreeing to have coffee together. “Theresa will join us.”

  Standing attentively nearby, Theresa Bui looked surprised but pleased. Over the last several weeks Raquel had recruited her into the work of defending Juan Suarez. Theresa was diligent and orderly; she was also a gifted writer who crafted skillful and effective letters, affidavits, and briefs. This skill was important in any case, and especially so in a case such as this one: CBS had already done a half hour broadcast, Murder in the Hamptons, about the case. Everything Raquel did was scrutinized. All the court filings were lodged electronically with the court. And as soon as they were filed the Internet lit up with the news. The reactions for “comments” routinely vilified her.

  Raquel always told her students that, even for a dynamic trial lawyer, writing was ninety-five percent of the work a lawyer did. The time a trial lawyer spent in a courtroom was a fraction of her time devoted to writing in the office. “Five percent inspiration,” Raquel told her Columbia students, “ninety-five percent perspiration.” For Raquel, having Theresa working with her lessened some of the burden, and in any event Raquel had mentored other women lawyers over the years.

  And Raquel recruited Theresa because she liked her. Although Theresa had initially acted as if she were in awe of Raquel—and she was—she soon let her guard down. Theresa moved in a world of people under thirty-five, a world Raquel didn’t really know but wanted to know because it seemed to be fun. Theresa lived on the lower East Side, she was attractive, she had many casual and serious friends, she went to clubs, she knew everything there was to know about social media. And she saw that Raquel Rematti, although famous, had few friends and needed them since, as Theresa knew, she was in the early stages, of recovery from a dreadful disease, no matter how robust she seemed.

  With the heels of her stylish high-heeled shoes clicking on the floor, Margaret Harding led them to a door with a sign reading Jury Deliberating. The room was empty, as it almost always was. She sat down at the head of a long table. Raquel and Theresa sat to her right.

  “Thanks for coming in,” Margaret said.

  “Thanks for asking us.” Raquel smiled at her. “What can we do for you?”

  Margaret placed a thin valise on the table. She slid out of it three large glossy pictures that resembled the promotional headshots actors once used before the Internet. “My guess is,” she said, “that you can’t know much about Juan Suarez except for what he tells you. He seems to have come out of nowhere and to be no one in particular. His wife, or whoever she was, is gone. The kids are gone. Not one of the immigrants who seem to have known him will talk to us. No one even knows his real name. He might, I suppose, have told you all those things. But I doubt it. He’s a liar.”

  Raquel, who was never going to tell anyone what she discussed with Juan Suarez or any other client, smiled at Margaret, not reacting to the word liar.

  “We think we know a little bit more about him now. We have an experienced and effective lead detective on this case, Bo Halsey. He’s been very curious and he’s drilled down. Halsey knows how to do that—MP in the Army, detective in New York City before he came out here. He called on contacts he developed with the DEA.”

  Raquel was now really interested. The world was awash in drugs, but the DEA only had the resources to follow credible leads. If the DEA had information on Juan Suarez, it could be interesting. She said, “I’m going to ask Theresa to take notes. Is that okay with you?”

  “Sure,” Margaret answered. “It’s probably a good idea. The DEA contacts were productive. A few days ago Halsey received a report and pictures. Let me tell you, Raquel, the pictures bear an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Suarez. But they were taken of a man known to the DEA as Anibal Vaz. Not so long ago he was followed to and through those after-hours clubs in downtown Manhattan. Anibal Vaz was a very well-dressed, well-placed drug dealer, says the DEA. They were on the brink of picking him up in the city, but he just vanished. They think he was working for a guy named Oscar and that Oscar somehow, through some turncoat law enforcement agents, found out that Anibal Vaz was about to be picked up, and made Anibal Vaz vanish before he could talk.”

  Raquel continued to wait. Theresa was writing on her notepad.

  “I wanted to share these pictures with you,” Margaret said, fanning the photographs out in front of Raquel and Theresa.

  Raquel looked at the three pictures. The first depicted a serious-looking man in the midst of wildly dancing people. It was taken at that instant when a revolving strobe light illuminated him and the men and women around him. He was Hispanic and handsome, but could have been virtually any handsome Hispanic man, not necessarily Juan Suarez. The second showed the same man, in profile, about to walk into a unisex bathroom from which men and women were entering and leaving. The man was closer to the lens than in the first picture, but still at least twenty feet away. It was obvious as he stood near other people that the man was tall, as was Juan Suarez.

  The third picture was certainly of Juan—full face, close, as if he were posing for it—but with no context. It was impossible to know where it was taken: nobody was around him and there was no recognizable background. He did appear to be wearing the same expensive black shirt as the man in the other pictures.

  As she slid the three photographs back to Margaret Harding, Raquel said, “Pictures can be deceiving. I can’t tell who the gay blade at the party is in the first two pictures. The third is a nice headshot of Juan Suarez.”

  “Obviously the DEA and now we know more about the context of those pictures. They may not be the only ones we have.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me who took these pictures and when. Or give me the other pictures you have.”

  “Not today.”

  After a pause, Theresa asked, “So what do you want from us?”

  Margaret Harding was surprised that it was Theresa Bui who spoke. But the question itself didn’t surprise her. “Obviously,” Margaret said, “we want cooperation from him. The DEA would like to know who he knows and who he worked for. They are in the business of rolling up drug distribution rings. If Mr. Vaz, or Mr. Suarez, knows who a man named Oscar is and where Oscar is, then the DEA may want to urge us to do something for Mr. Suarez.”

  Raquel said, “Let’s assume Juan knows this Oscar . . .”

  “We don’t have to assume. There’s a surveillance tape from a Starbucks on Montauk Highway that shows Oscar and Juan talking.”

  Raquel never allowed herself to be deflected from a question and was too experienced to reveal any surprise. “So let’s assume Juan can help the DEA, what does that do for you? You and Richie are not in the business of rolling up drug rings. You’
re in the business of getting a conviction for murder. And, although I shouldn’t say it this way, you have the most sensational murder of the century so far and an accused man who says he’s innocent. Let’s assume he pleads guilty to a lesser murder charge and helps to bring down a drug ring. What plea deal involving murder or manslaughter can lighten up his sentence in exchange for exposing a drug ring?” Raquel paused, staring at Margaret Harding. “Where’s my incentive to give you any cooperation at all if I can’t expect anything important in return?”

  Both of them loved engaging in this game. It was a world of suggestions, of tentative concepts and of negotiating options that might not exist. “You’re right,” Margaret said, “I could care less about drugs. You put it exactly as it is, Raquel. My office is in the business of getting murder convictions. But even when there’s only one murder, and we have only one dead man, and only one defendant, we want to get multiple convictions when we can.”

  “Margaret, I don’t think you will even get one. At least not Juan Suarez.”

  Margaret laughed lightly. “This is what I love about our business. I see black and you see white. And at the end of the day, unlike most situations in life, we get to learn whether it’s black or white. Who wins and who doesn’t. We have no doubt that we will nail Anibal Vaz.”

  “Thank God,” Raquel answered, almost smiling, “Juan Suarez wins. It’s too bad about Anibal Vaz.”

  “We think your client was not alone. He had accomplices, there were people, such as Oscar, who we think had an interest in Brad Richardson. Those people didn’t want to do the dirty, dirty work of getting up close and personal with Brad. Blood is messy, so is brain splatter. Your client knew Brad, knew the house, knew his schedule, knew the security system. And knew the Borzois. Not to mention, and most important of all, he knew where to find hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in the house. And knew that the Borzois would never bark at him or bite him. This case would have been just a bit easier if your client had bite marks on his ankles.”

  When Margaret Harding stopped, Raquel smiled at her, trying to lure her into saying more.

  “There is one other thing. Six or seven months ago there was a knifing of three men at 101st Street and First Avenue, in East Harlem. It happened just after midnight. Two of the men were seriously injured, the other only slightly. He said the attacker handled a long knife as though he was one of those ninja characters in the movies, or Zorro. The blade flashed around like a sword, this guy said.”

  “Aren’t there twenty knifings in the city every night of the week?” Theresa asked. “I live there.”

  “Sure, but it was an unlucky coincidence for the knifer. One of the injured men was the son of a cop, a captain. You know what cops are like: you hurt one of their kids and you get tracked down as if you hurt one of the Obama girls. It gets real priority.”

  Raquel said, “It’s a nepotistic tribe. They never heard of equal justice for all.”

  Margaret shrugged. “They hunted for the guy. They didn’t find him. But they did find the knife.”

  Raquel raised a hand. “And you’re going to tell me Juan Suarez’s fingerprints and DNA are on the knife?”

  “That’s right, Raquel,” Margaret said. She gathered up the glossy pictures and slowly slid them back into the valise. “I hope we’ve given you enough to work with.”

  “Is there anything else?” Theresa asked.

  “Not today,” Margaret said, smiling again. “Maybe later. Let’s see what you come back with. I’ve put enough food on your plate for now. You need to feed me something now. It’s only fair, don’t you think?”

  24.

  Always quietly watchful, Juan sensed that Raquel Rematti was uneasy. Usually she was a woman who looked steadily into people’s eyes. Instead, when Juan sat at the plastic table across from her and Theresa Bui, Raquel was staring at a sheet of paper in front of her.

  “Raquel,” he said, “is something wrong?” He glanced at Theresa. Over the last few weeks he had become comfortable with her presence at these meetings. He was an instinctively smart man: he knew Raquel could not defend him all by herself and recognized that Theresa brought skills that could help Raquel and him. But Theresa’s face, usually conveying compassion and sympathy, was at this moment blank, her eyes unblinking.

  “I’ve always said, Juan, that you need to tell me the truth. I have to know what the truth is to help you.”

  Juan gazed steadily at her, nothing evasive in his expression. “I have, Raquel.”

  “I’m not sure, Juan. A knife was found in New York City. The fingerprints and DNA on it match your fingerprints and DNA.”

  “I washed dishes in a restaurant in New York before I come out here.”

  “You told me that, I know that already. But listen to me: a large knife, almost the size of a sword, was used in an attack in the city. It has your fingerprints. And it has your DNA. The victim’s injuries were like those Brad Richardson sustained, although the man didn’t die.”

  “Raquel, one night a waiter who didn’t like me told me he was going to get me after my shift. Why does he say this? I don’t know. I didn’t do anything to him. He said, ‘I’ll get you outside.’ I was afraid he had friends, because he say he did. I don’t have any friends, no one to help me. So I took a knife with me. The place is uptown, it was dark. I was on the sidewalk. I had to go to the subway, long walk. The man was across the street. Two guys with him. They run at me, and I run away. Then they all around me. They have knives. I take out my knife. That’s how it happened.”

  “What happened, Juan?”

  “I hurt them, Raquel. And then, I don’t know, I ran away.”

  “What did you do with the knife?”

  “The guy cut my hand. I couldn’t hold onto it.” He held up his right hand. On the web between the index finger and the thumb was a white scar. Raquel hadn’t noticed it before.

  “What happened then?”

  “I didn’t go back to the restaurant ever again. The cops were all over the place. I was afraid.”

  “How did you get out here?”

  “In a car. There are men who drive us from the city out here. I asked, I paid them money, and they took me.”

  “Did you know the police were looking for you?”

  “I know they were looking for me, Raquel. People tell me the cops know who I was. But all I do is protect myself.”

  “Juan, they kept the knife and then, when you were arrested out here, your fingerprints and DNA matched the ones on the knife.”

  “I understand. Those men, Raquel, they were trying to hurt me. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “The man who was stabbed with the knife wasn’t someone who worked in a restaurant. He was a police captain’s son out for the night for fun with friends.”

  Juan said, “The guy who came after me was called Chico. He worked in the restaurant.”

  “Are you sure? Really sure? None of the three guys worked in the restaurant. They were all brats who were looking for a good time, for a thrill.”

  “I don’t know, Raquel. It was dark. I thought it was Chico, the waiter.”

  “The cop’s son spent four weeks in the hospital, Juan. He’ll never be able to move his arm again. All the nerves and muscles and tendons are cut. When a cop’s kid is hurt, they never stop looking for the guy who did it.”

  “They were trying to hurt me, Raquel. They wanted to kill me.”

  “That doesn’t matter. The police and now the prosecutors out here have a knife you used in New York in the way someone out here used a knife on Brad Richardson and the Borzois.”

  “I didn’t hurt Mr. Richardson. I hurt those people, not Mr. Richardson.”

  There was a pause in the room. “Why didn’t you ever mention this before?” Theresa asked.

  Without any hostility, Juan looked from Theresa to Raquel. “I wanted you to like me. Both of you. So I didn’t tell you that.”

  “And there’s something else, Juan,” Raquel said.

  “Wh
at?”

  “I need to know your name.”

  “Juan Suarez.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Juan Suarez, Raquel.”

  “Is that your name?”

  “Juan Suarez.”

  “Is your name Anibal Vaz?”

  “No, Raquel.”

  “Didn’t you once tell Joan Richardson that your name was Anibal?”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  Theresa repeated Raquel’s question: “Did you tell Joan Richardson that your name is Anibal Vaz?”

  He was still calm. “No.”

  Raquel was totally focused on him. “Did you ever sell drugs?”

  “I did, a little.”

  “Where?”

  “In New York.”

  “Only there?”

  “No, Raquel, a little out here, too.”

  How disarming he is, Raquel thought, how much like one of those men whose simplicity and attractiveness and sincerity were so compelling—men like the engaging Ted Bundy who was so successful in persuading so many women to go to private places with him before he killed them. A deadly charmer.

  Normally skeptical about the stories most of her clients told her, Raquel wanted to believe him. “When did you do that?” she asked.

  “Why are you asking me these things, Raquel?”

  “Because one of the things I have to do to protect you is to see whether there is information you can give to the prosecutors about other people. I do that because if you have information about other people that’s valuable to Harding then she might give you some kind of break.”

  “What kind of break?”

  “We’re not there yet. She and I haven’t talked about that yet. I can’t get there unless you have information about crimes other people did. They won’t give you any kind of break, whatever it might be, until I tell them what you might know about what other people have done. It’s a step at a time. We go first.” She paused. “Do you understand?”