Most Dangerous Place

by James Grippando

  “We drift any farther and we’ll be looking at the walk of shame,” said Keith.

  The “walk of shame” is when a boarder is unable to surf back to his launch spot and must beach himself, walk back while carrying his gear—and that’s the guy who buys the beer that night.

  “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t,” said Jack.

  Keith smiled and then turned serious. “Can I talk shop for one minute?”

  “No,” said Jack. He was lying back on his board, enjoying the sun on his face.

  “Come on. Seriously. This is important.”

  Jack sat up. “One minute.”

  “Isa tells me that Manny is getting on your nerves.”

  “Really? We’re out here floating in paradise, and you want to talk about Manny?”

  “This isn’t about Manny. It’s about my wife.”

  “Let me ask you a question,” said Jack. “Does Isa go home and tell you everything she and her lawyers talk about?”

  “No. At best I get the high-altitude overview from thirty-six thousand feet. But we do talk generally about how everybody is getting along.”

  “Look, Keith. You can’t put two lawyers in a room without somebody getting annoyed. Manny has his own style.”

  “You’re sure it’s just a matter of style?”

  “Yes. I told you before that I could work with him.”

  Keith watched a pair of windsurfers pass, two college guys carving the way the younger and less burdened Jack and Keith used to. Then he looked back at Jack. “I just want to make sure you’re in this ’til the end.”

  “What would make you think I’m not?”

  “Isa came home from the meeting in Manny’s office and was on edge all night. I asked her what was wrong. It took a while to drill down on it, but basically she’s afraid you might not stick around.”

  “I don’t understand why she would say that.”

  “She’s pretty intuitive, Jack. And she is a pretty advanced student of psychology. I just want you to know that Isa sees you as lead counsel in this arrangement. Manny is second chair.”

  “I have no problem being cocounsel.”

  “No, I want you to understand. It would be absolutely devastating to Isa if you were to decide that you couldn’t be on this team anymore.”

  “Why would I decide that?”

  “I’m talking hypothetically. For whatever reason there is. Whatever might come up in the future. Before you walk away from Isa—from Isa, Melany, and me—think about what I’m saying.”

  “Keith, you’re being way too dramatic. I’m not walking away from anybody. I won’t leave unless Isa tells me to leave.”

  “You promise?”

  It seemed like an odd request—more unnecessary drama—but it was clearly important to Keith, so Jack went along. “Yeah. I make that promise.”

  “So I don’t need to call in the favor?”

  Keith was smiling, but Jack sensed that he wasn’t entirely kidding, and he knew exactly what “favor” Keith was talking about. “Whoa. You said you would never do that.”

  Keith looked off to the shoreline, as if following the ocean breeze through a stand of spindly coconut palms on the beach. “I never thought I’d be married to a woman indicted for murder,” he said.

  Chapter 28

  Sylvia walked quickly from the courthouse to the Graham Building. Her morning hearing had run into mid-afternoon, and she was eager to return the call she’d missed from the warden’s office at Florida State Prison. It was about their star witness in the Bornelli case. Of course she feared the worst.

  Please don’t tell me Kaval is dead.

  The elevator let her off on the seventh floor. She went straight to her office and got through to the warden himself. It was a short conversation. Kaval was still very much alive, but the news was important enough for Sylvia to head straight to the state attorney’s office and share it immediately.

  “Our boy David Kaval tried to call Bornelli on her cell phone. Collect, of course.”

  Sylvia was standing in the doorway, and the state attorney invited her in with a wave of her hand.

  “When?” asked Benitez.

  “Saturday night,” said Sylvia, as she settled into the armchair. “I’m told Bornelli did not accept the charges, so they didn’t speak.”

  The state attorney leaned back in her desk chair, puzzling. “How is it that Kaval was even allowed to place the call in the first place? FSP has very strict rules on collect calls to cell phones. I should know. I was part of the panel that reviewed them. Inmates can’t just place collect calls to the pope or their drug dealer or whoever else they feel like calling. They have to submit a list of cell numbers to the warden, and they can only make collect calls to preapproved numbers.”

  “I raised that with the warden. But guess what? Isa Bornelli’s cell number is on Kaval’s preapproved collect-call list.”

  “That is very interesting. What do her lawyers have to say about that?”

  “I haven’t heard from them. I just heard this myself ten minutes ago.”

  “So, wait a minute. Kaval placed the call two days ago, and her lawyers have said nothing to you?”

  “Nope. My cynical side tells me that they put her number on the approved list and wanted him to reach out to her. He might say something they can use. They’re probably coaching her right now on how to take the sting out of his testimony—maybe even turn him into a witness for the defense.”

  The state attorney considered it. “I don’t think that’s what the silence is about. If her lawyers were behind this, she would have accepted Kaval’s call. She didn’t.”

  “That’s true,” said Sylvia.

  The state attorney rose, thinking as she walked slowly across her office to the window. She was looking out toward the river, her back to Sylvia as she spoke. “I’m more inclined to think that the reason we haven’t heard from Swyteck or Espinosa is because Ms. Bornelli hasn’t told them about Kaval’s collect call.”

  “Why would she keep that information from her lawyers?”

  “For the same reason she wouldn’t tell her lawyers that her cell phone was on Kaval’s preapproved call list.”

  “Okay. But, again, why not tell them?”

  She turned and faced Sylvia. “Now there’s a question I would love to have answered.”

  “Do you want me to confront Kaval about this?”

  “No. We need to be much more clever than that.”

  “Clever in what way?”

  “The fact that Bornelli is on the preapproved list tells me that our star witness was lying through his teeth when he told you that he’s had no contact with Ms. Bornelli since she left the U.”

  “That would appear to be the case,” said Sylvia.

  “So here’s what we’re going to do. I want you to call the warden back and tell him to do nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nada. He is to leave Bornelli’s number on the preapproved list. If Kaval wants to try her number again collect, FSP should allow it. Next time Bornelli might accept the charges. She might say something we can use against her. All calls are monitored, so we don’t even need a warrant.”

  “Isn’t that kind of risky? Kaval might also say something stupid and kill our case.”

  “He might. But let me ask you this: Based on what we have right now, how sure are you that you can prove Bornelli’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?”

  “I feel confident.”

  “Sylvia, all it will take to lose this case is one juror—probably one woman juror—to decide that the victim of sexual assault should never be charged with the murder of her attacker. You understand that, right?”

  “I understand.”

  “There will be groups of protesters outside the courthouse for the duration of this trial. Those jurors will walk past their signs and slogans every day on their way to and from the courthouse. You realize that?”

  “Yes.”

  “And here we have a shot at getting a
n admission straight from Bornelli’s mouth that she planned, directed, and participated in this murder. Agreed?”

  “That could happen.”

  “I say we take that shot. I say we let FSP monitor those calls the way they monitor every call from an inmate, and we get to the bottom of this. What do you say, Sylvia?”

  It had been years since the state attorney had tried a case in a courtroom, but any one of her lawyers would attest that her cross-examination skills were as sharp as ever.

  “Okay,” said Sylvia. “Let’s do it.”

  Chapter 29

  Jack waited until well after dark. Then he took a ride with Theo into the paint-and-body-shop district south of the University of Miami.

  More than a decade had passed since the murder of Gabriel Sosa, but the garage where Kaval and his friend had taken him was still in business, two commercial blocks west of the elevated Metrorail station, in the crowded warehouse and auto-repair zone. This wasn’t an official visit to the crime scene. Jack just wanted a rough impression of what it might have been like on that night. Might there have been a security guard at another garage who’d seen something? Could someone on the nearby Metrorail platform have heard Gabriel screaming? Would a jury believe Isa’s old boyfriend when he looked them in the eye and said Isa had indeed come to this place?

  “There it is,” said Theo. He stopped the car and killed the engine.

  They were at the end of a blind alley, this neighborhood’s version of a cul-de-sac. All of the businesses in the area had closed for the night, their windows and doors protected by iron bars or roll-down shutters. Not another vehicle was on the street, but about a dozen cars were parked on the other side of a twelve-foot chain-link fence. For any would-be thieves looking for easy pickins, a coil of razor wire stretched across the top like a man-eating Slinky.

  “Let’s check it out,” said Jack, as he opened the passenger door.

  “You’re getting out here, white boy?”

  “No, we’re getting out,” said Jack.

  They weren’t far from Theo’s old neighborhood, where the Knight brothers and Grove Lords had once ruled. On the other side of busy U.S. 1 was the intersection of Grand Avenue and Douglas Road, the heart of the old Grove ghetto. Theo had shared the history with Jack. It was there, outside the run-down bars and package stores, that a fifteen-year-old Theo had come across a crowd that had gathered in the street around the body of a woman that someone had discarded like so much worthless trash. His Uncle Cy had struggled to keep him back, but Theo was drawn in, as if he needed to see with his own eyes what drug addiction and a string of violent men had finally done to his mother.

  Jack shut the door, and one step toward the garage was all it took to send a vicious Doberman charging toward him. Jack’s heart leapt to his throat, but thankfully the guard dog was on the other side of the chain-link fence, growling and baring its teeth between barks.

  “If they brought Sosa here to scare him, they chose the right place,” said Jack.

  They stopped and stood on the cracked asphalt, and Jack allowed himself a few quiet minutes to get a feel for the place and take an imaginary journey back to that night.

  “So where was your friend Keith when all this happened?” asked Theo.

  “Zurich. He’d left New York and was just getting started with IBS.”

  “Funny,” said Theo. “People say they don’t get how you and me is friends. I don’t get you and Mr. Swedish banker.”

  “Swiss. Meatballs are Swedish.”

  “No, meatballs are Italian. Porn is Swedish.”

  Jack looked at his friend and blinked twice. “I feel like we’ve had this conversation before.”

  “Côte d’Ivoire. Two thousand eight. When you found that doctor without borders to fix your love life and thought you could follow her anywhere.”

  “You make it sound so pathetic.”

  “It was pathetic.”

  Jack blinked again. “Exactly what are we talking about?”

  “Sorry. You and your rich friend.”

  “Be glad he’s rich.”

  “Why should I give a shit?”

  Jack had never told Theo the story, but it was probably about time he did, particularly in light of Keith’s mention of “the favor” while out on the bay. “Do you have any idea how much it cost to conduct a DNA test when I worked at the Freedom Institute?” asked Jack.

  “Never really thought about it,” said Theo.

  “Think six figures,” said Jack. “Ever wonder who paid for the test that got you off death row?”

  “Uh-uh,” said Theo.

  Jack had believed in Theo’s innocence, but the Freedom Institute barely generated enough revenue to keep the lights on. The Innocence Project and others who fought for funding of DNA tests were just getting traction. In what Jack had thought was a long shot, he’d turned to his one friend who was making big bucks before his thirtieth birthday.

  “Let me just say this,” said Jack. “You owe Keith as much as I do. Probably more.”

  He seemed to take Jack’s point. “Huh. That’s cool.”

  “Yeah. Keith’s a pretty cool guy.”

  Theo glanced at the barricaded entrance to the garage. “What does he think of all this?”

  “That’s a complicated question,” said Jack.

  “That’s such a lawyer’s answer. You know what I think?”

  “No, but I’m pretty sure you’re going to tell me.”

  “I think no matter how this turns out, Keith is gonna be left wonderin’ what the hell kinda people his wife hung out with in college.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And he’s gonna be wonderin’ if she ever tells the truth.”

  “People work through these things.”

  “Do they?”

  “Yeah. Not always. But sometimes.”

  The Doberman growled. He was looking at Jack as if he were a steak dinner. Or a Swedish meatball.

  “Are you making any progress on tracking down Isa’s old man?” asked Jack.

  “No. I’ve gone through almost the whole list of hotels you gave me. I’ve smooth-talked enough reservationists to get myself half a dozen free hotel nights. No Felipe Bornelli at any of them. He could have gone back to Venezuela.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Jack.

  “Why not?”

  Jack told him about the story Mike Posten had on hold at the Tribune. “I’ve heard two people say they have proof that Isa wasn’t raped. Posten is one. The other is Felipe Bornelli.”

  “You think Felipe is his source?”

  “He’s the first person Isa talked to after it happened. I don’t see who else Posten would consider credible, apart from someone who was there, and Sosa is dead.”

  “Well, what if there was more than two people there?”

  “It happened in Isa’s dorm room. There were no witnesses.”

  “I didn’t say a witness.”

  “You mean two attackers?”

  “I mean three adults. One’s dead. One’s alive and says Sosa raped her. The third’s alive, too, but is telling the Tribune a totally different story.”

  Jack paused. “I actually hadn’t thought of that.”

  “That’s because you were a married old fart before you were a married old fart.”

  “But why would this unnamed third person suddenly talk to a reporter after being silent all these years?”

  “I dunno. Stranger things have happened in Miami.”

  “Yeah,” said Jack, his gaze drifting back toward the garage. “Much stranger.”

  Chapter 30

  It was after midnight in downtown Miami, and the gentle breeze from the bay was still warm enough for Isa to sit comfortably on the terrace. She was dressed for bed and covered in her bathrobe, her face aglow in the light of her tablet’s LCD. The opening of the sliding glass door startled her. Keith was just getting home from the office.

  “Why are you still up?” he asked as he leaned over and gave her a kiss.
/>   “Not sleepy,” said Isa.

  He took a seat in the patio chair beside her. “Wish I could say the same. I have another conference call with the Hong Kong office in fifteen minutes. They think it’s lunchtime.”

  “I’m sorry. This time difference must be brutal.”

  “It is what it is,” he said, and then he reached over and took her hand. “But I am going to have to fly back this weekend.”

  “Oh,” she said. “For how long?”

  “At least a week. Maybe ten days if I stop in Zurich on the way back.”

  “I thought IBS told you to take all the time you need.”

  “And they meant it, too—as long as my needs don’t interfere with my work.”

  He was smiling, but Isa knew it wasn’t a joke. Travel had always been part of Keith’s job, and he didn’t have to tell her that living in Miami would only make it worse. Isa understood. She just didn’t like knowing that he would be on the other side of the world, and that, no matter what happened, she couldn’t leave this place. “Melany and I will be fine,” she said.

  “I know you will.”

  Isa glanced at her tablet. “I was on the Internet looking at schools. Jack says it’s almost certain that we’ll still be here when Melany starts kindergarten in the fall.”

  “He told me the same thing.”

  “I want to be sure she goes someplace where they will make every effort to mainstream her.”

  “Did you find anything?”

  “A couple of them look promising. I thought I’d make some calls tomorrow and set up interviews.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Isa waited for him to say something more, but he didn’t. “Don’t you want to know which schools?” she asked.

  No response. He was checking an e-mail.

  “Keith?”

  “Huh?”

  He was in serious work mode, and she didn’t fault him for that. “It’s okay. Never mind.”

  Keith rose and gave her another kiss. “Sorry, I have to dial in for my conference call.”