The Borzoi Killings

by Paul Batista

  Without hesitating, Raquel slid the glass door open for this stranger. “Can I help you?”

  Kathy said, “Ms. Rematti, I work for the Suffolk County DA. In the forensics lab. I need to talk to you.”

  “Come in.”

  30.

  Margaret Harding had done what a genuinely experienced trial lawyer in a murder case would do. She waited. She listened attentively as Raquel asked questions and Joan Richardson gave answers. From time to time she made notes. For the most part she restrained herself from objecting.

  As soon as Raquel said, “I have no more questions,” Judge Conley turned to Margaret Harding. “Re-direct,” she said.

  No recess, no pause. Margaret rose quickly to her feet, asking, “Mrs. Richardson, was one of your husband’s special friends Juan Suarez?”

  “Do you mean special friends in the way Trevor Palmer was Brad’s special friend?”

  “Was Juan Suarez one of your husband’s special friends, like Trevor Palmer?”

  “He was.”

  “Did you ever see what they did as special friends?”

  “I saw them together.”

  “And what did you see them doing?”

  “I saw them hold hands. I saw them in rooms alone with each other.”

  “Did you see your husband and Mr. Suarez do anything else?”

  “They swam naked in the pool together.”

  “And?”

  “They went to New York together several times. They were close. Brad liked Juan a great deal.”

  “Did you ever ask Brad about his relationship with Juan?”

  “Brad said Juan was a sweet man, very easy to be with. He’d often say how lucky we were to have found Juan.”

  “What else did he say?”

  “How handsome Juan was. He asked me whether I thought Juan looked more like Antonio Banderas or Benicio Del Toro, the actors. More like the dashing Latin type or the dark, handsome brooding type.”

  “You told the jury yesterday, didn’t you, that Brad fired Juan when he learned that you and Juan were lovers?”

  “I did.”

  “Was Mr. Richardson doing anything with Mr. Suarez before Brad fired him?”

  “We had some trees and branches that were hanging over the stone patio near the pool. It was fall. Juan was out there working. He was cutting down branches.”

  “Was he alone?”

  “No, Brad was with him for about half an hour. Brad, who told me that he’d like to have a simpler life someday and do real work with his hands, sometimes watched Juan do things like masonry and gardening.”

  “What was Juan using to do his work on the branches?”

  “A long blade that he called a machete.”

  “What was your husband doing?”

  “Just watching for the most part. And then at one point Juan handed the machete to him and Brad swung at the branches. He missed, like a baseball batter hitting only air. They laughed together at that.”

  “How often had you seen Juan use that machete?”

  “Many times. He used it when he was gardening to dig out roots, he used it on the shrubbery. We had lots of supplies and tools when Juan came to work for us. But the one thing he said was missing was a machete. And I remember that Brad and Juan went to the hardware store in Sag Harbor to buy a new machete for him just a few days after Juan started working for us.”

  “And did you ever see that machete after you saw your husband and Brad on the patio with it?”

  “Never, Ms. Harding.”

  Raquel was shaken by what she heard Joan Richardson say. Joan had that thousand-yard stare Raquel had often seen in witnesses who had been on the stand for too long. She seemed no longer focused on what was happening in the courtroom; there was almost no forethought in the answers she gave. This made her unpredictable, dangerous.

  Raquel also knew she had the complicated problem of wanting the jurors to believe much of what Joan Richardson had said—the presence of Trevor and Jimmy in Brad’s life, his use of cocaine, his nonchalance about allowing people to know that there was cash in the house—and at the same time to disbelieve other parts of her testimony, such as Juan’s use of a machete, his naked swimming with Brad, his unfettered run of the house. Raquel even thought that she should simply stop asking questions and let her leave the witness stand after Margaret Harding finished her terse re-direct examination. But Raquel’s experience was that this process was like a chess game in many ways, that each move demanded a counter-move, and that generally the player who stopped making moves was the one who had just lost. Losers had no more moves.

  Raquel asked, “Mrs. Richardson, let’s focus on the night Detective Halsey called you back to East Hampton. Are you there with me?”

  She said, “I think so.”

  “Why don’t you try thinking harder: Isn’t it the fact that you recall the night Detective Halsey called you back to East Hampton?”

  “Yes.”

  “You testified that when Detective Halsey asked you who you thought did this the only name you mentioned was Juan Suarez. Do you remember that?”

  For the first time Joan Richardson looked directly at Juan Suarez. He held Joan’s gaze. “I remember,” she said.

  “And you also testified you saw people in the house the day before Brad died, correct?”

  Joan Richardson shifted her gaze from Juan to Raquel. “There were.”

  “Jimmy?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Jimmy was the coke dealer, correct?”

  “He was, Ms. Rematti.”

  “And Jimmy knew where the cash was kept, correct?”

  “He must have—Brad gave him cash upstairs.”

  “And you know that Brad used to take Jimmy upstairs and Jimmy came downstairs with cash, is that right?”

  “I saw that. As I’ve said, we ran a pretty open house.”

  “And we know that Brad called Jimmy ‘rough trade,’ right?”

  “He did.”

  “And we know that Trevor was there, correct?”

  “For six months Trevor was there very often. He didn’t seem to spend much time writing music. At least Jimmy was working, so to speak.”

  “And Trevor knew there was lots of cash in the house?”

  “He must have. Brad often gave him cash for what Brad called walking-around money.”

  “But when Detective Halsey asked you who you thought did this the only name you mentioned was Juan Suarez, is that right?”

  “It’s the only name I thought of at the time.”

  “Let me see if I understand, Mrs. Richardson.” Raquel’s voice was very subdued, but utterly distinct. “The police asked you if you had any idea who killed your husband. And the only name you gave them was Juan Suarez.”

  “That’s right. He was the man I thought murdered my husband.”

  “And you thought of his name not because you had any real information that Mr. Suarez killed your husband but because he had been your lover, right?”

  “Not right.”

  “And you gave the police Mr. Suarez’s name because you thought he was your husband’s lover, right?”

  “Not right, Ms. Rematti. Not even close. I gave them the name because I believed, and still believe, that Juan Suarez murdered my husband.”

  “But you didn’t see him kill your husband, isn’t that right?”

  “I never said that.”

  “You never heard Juan Suarez threaten your husband, correct?”

  “I never heard that.”

  “You never saw Juan Suarez hit or push your husband, correct?”

  “No, I never saw that.”

  “Your husband never told you he feared Juan Suarez, correct?”

  “No, he never said that.” She sipped water. “But Brad did tell me that he was very surprised that Juan insisted on being paid for the drugs he provided to Brad. He thought that with all the money we paid Juan Suarez it was odd that Juan was such a high-priced drug dealer.”

  Raquel Rematti knew that
she had to keep this quiet, unrelenting process going and that she could not react to Joan Richardson’s words.

  “You testified to the Grand Jury before Mr. Suarez was indicted, isn’t that right?”

  “I did.”

  “And you never once mentioned to the Grand Jury, in five hundred pages of testimony, that Juan Suarez sold drugs to your husband?”

  “No one asked, Ms. Rematti. You just did.”

  “And you didn’t tell the prosecution that, did you?”

  “No.”

  “You get to decide what is important and what isn’t, Ms. Richardson, isn’t that right?”

  “I haven’t been able to decide anything in a long time.”

  “Do you know what the truth is?”

  “Certainly. The truth is that your client killed my husband.”

  “And the jury should believe you, correct, Ms. Richardson?”

  “I can’t tell them what to do.”

  “And they should believe you even though you are a liar, right?”

  “I’m telling the truth today.”

  Raquel’s voice was not angry or loud: it was patient and driving even though she knew she was dealing with a difficult and defiant witness. Just three feet to Raquel’s left was a large screen, in effect an oversize notepad, that rested on an easel; it had been used by Margaret Harding during her opening statement. With a Sharpie magic marker, Harding had written: Follow the timeline, follow the money. During the break after the openings, Raquel had moved the easel to the side so that the jurors couldn’t see it. It was not good to let the jurors absorb, even unconsciously, the message written on the screen.

  Almost seamlessly, like a magician eliding to the next magic, Raquel turned the easel toward the jury. She lifted the big page on which Harding had written her words. Raquel now had a clean sheet, a tabula rasa that was visible to Joan Richardson and the jury.

  “Ms. Richardson,” Raquel said, “do you see this screen?”

  “Of course.”

  “What word am I writing at the top of the page?”

  “The word Lies.”

  “Let’s fill in the empty space under Lies. First, you lied when you told Detective Halsey that you were alone in your Fifth Avenue apartment on the day Brad Richardson was killed, correct?”

  “I didn’t tell him the truth.”

  “You lied?”

  “I lied.”

  “So watch what I’m writing here, Mrs. Richardson: Lie 1: Lied to police. Can you read that?”

  “Your handwriting isn’t too clear. But, yes, I see it.”

  “And you lied to the Grand Jury when you told them you were alone that day. So we have Lie 2: Lied to the Grand Jury.”

  “I regretted that and I corrected it.”

  “And you were under oath both times, isn’t that right?”

  “It is.”

  “So which Joan Richardson should we believe? The liar who spoke the first lie? Or the liar who said the second lie?”

  “I corrected the lie.”

  “You are under oath today, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the jury should believe that you’ve been telling the truth now.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And that’s because you took an oath in front of them? An oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

  Raquel held up her right hand, as if she, too, were swearing.

  “Yes, certainly.”

  “Was there something different about the oath when you testified to the Grand Jury? Which part of the oath did the clerk leave out when he asked you to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

  “It was the same oath, Ms. Rematti.”

  “Yet you lied to those people, yes or no?”

  “Most of what I said was the truth.”

  “Tell us. How is it that the jurors facing you today are supposed to know when you speak the truth and when you don’t? Do you have some sort of signal?”

  “Objection,” Margaret Harding said, knowing what the judge’s response would be.

  Judge Conley spoke into her microphone without looking at Harding: “Overruled. This is cross-examination. You’ll have the opportunity for re-direct, Ms. Harding.”

  Raquel, still at the easel and with the big magic marker in her hand, said, “Let’s get back to the lies we know about. Before the Grand Jury you never mentioned the name Jimmy, the drug dealer, did you?”

  “No.”

  Raquel said as she wrote Lie 3: No Jimmy, “And you told Ms. Harding yesterday that you didn’t mention Jimmy because you were concerned about Brad’s reputation, is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “His reputation? You care about his reputation? And yet you’ve told the world that Brad Richardson was a drug user, that he was bisexual, that he had boy toys like Trevor Palmer to whom he gave what you called ‘walking-around money,’ that he had an affair with Mr. Suarez, that he kept hundreds of thousands of dollars on display in his bedroom, and that he spent his time with drug hustlers and rough trade. And you want this jury to believe that at the Grand Jury, when you were under oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, you were concerned that if you mentioned Jimmy the world would know Brad Richardson used cocaine?”

  “That was my concern.”

  “Wasn’t your concern that you didn’t want to place too many people in the house with Brad Richardson in the twenty-four hours before his death?”

  “That isn’t so.”

  “Really, Ms. Richardson? Isn’t it true that if anyone reads the five hundred pages of your Grand Jury testimony the only person you mention being in the house in the forty-eight hours before your husband was killed was Juan Suarez? Isn’t that true?”

  “I didn’t remember anyone else.”

  “And you didn’t remember Jimmy?”

  “Apparently I didn’t.”

  “And you didn’t remember Trevor Palmer?”

  “It’s hard for me ever to think about Trevor Palmer.”

  “But you didn’t mention him to the Grand Jurors, correct?”

  “If you say so, Ms. Rematti.”

  “If I say so? Let’s take a look at page 326 of your Grand Jury testimony. Mr. Oz asked you: ‘Who did you see in the house in the two days before Mr. Richardson was killed?’ Do you remember your answer? ‘Only Juan Suarez.’ If you need it, I’ll give you a copy of the transcript.”

  “I don’t need it.”

  “And that was a lie, wasn’t it?”

  “It was. It wasn’t the whole truth.”

  Raquel walked away from the easel, but made sure that the list of lies she had written on the big white page faced the jury. At the podium, Raquel said, “Ms. Harding asked you about the Borzois, the dogs. They were killed when your husband was killed, correct?”

  “Obviously the same person who murdered Brad killed the Borzois as well. They did nothing to attack the man who killed Brad. Their teeth had no traces of blood or clothing. Only Juan knew the dogs so well that they wouldn’t have tried to attack. They’re hunting dogs, after all.”

  Raquel decided not to engage Joan Richardson’s blatant, angry effort to damage Juan. She asked, “Do you remember testifying that taking care of the Borzois was part of Juan’s job, part of what he was paid to do?”

  “That was part of his job.”

  “Did you ever see Juan play with the dogs?”

  “I did.”

  “Did you see Juan feed the dogs?”

  “I did.”

  “Did you see Juan groom the dogs?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you ever see Juan hit the dogs?”

  “No.”

  “Mistreat them?”

  “No, never.”

  Raquel turned slightly to look at the jurors. She let ten seconds pass. “And you lied to the Grand Jurors about who you were with on the day your husband died, isn’t that right?”

  �
��I shouldn’t have. I wanted to protect someone.”

  “And that person was your other lover, Senator Rawls, correct?”

  “I didn’t think it was anybody’s business.”

  “You also lied to Detective Halsey, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you lied to the prosecutors, didn’t you?”

  “At first.”

  “And you lied to the Grand Jurors?”

  “I shouldn’t have. It was meaningless, it was stupid. I was afraid and confused.”

  “And finally, Ms. Richardson, listen to me carefully. There was another man in the house in the days before your husband died?”

  “I told you, Ms. Rematti, there were always many people in the house, both the day before Brad died and many other days before that.”

  “And one of them was named Oscar Caliente, isn’t that right?”

  “Brad said he was new to East Hampton, a polo player from Argentina who wanted to buy a horse farm. He knew people Brad knew who were involved with horses and the August polo shows in Southampton. Oscar Caliente, who Brad said was renting one of those old mansions on the beach in Southampton, wanted to be introduced to the horse people Brad knew.”

  “You met Oscar Caliente, didn’t you?”

  “At the house.”

  “When?”

  “Not long before Brad died.”

  Raquel paused, stepping away from the podium and standing alone in the well of the courtroom without pencils, easels, or props of any kind. Raquel—tall, composed, and a master of these scenes—looked steadily at the fourteen anonymous jurors seated in two rows, one higher than the other, a kind of choir. “Ms. Richardson, you didn’t see Juan Suarez kill your husband, did you?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t see Juan Suarez steal money, did you?”

  “No.”

  “You were 120 miles away when Brad Richardson was killed, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You never saw the weapon used to kill Brad Richardson, did you?”

  “No.”