Most Dangerous Place

by James Grippando

  “We examined Mr. Sosa’s cell phone records,” he said. “We interviewed everyone he had spoken to or texted, going back ninety days prior to his death.”

  The victim’s call report was marked as a trial exhibit and, at the prosecutor’s request, Detective Meza pointed out two communications between Isa and Sosa.

  “Where did your interview of Ms. Bornelli take place?”

  “My partner and I coordinated with the university police. We waited for Ms. Bornelli outside the lecture hall for her morning class. When she came out, we approached. She identified herself as Isabelle Bornelli. I asked if she knew Gabriel Sosa.”

  “What did Ms. Bornelli say?”

  “She immediately asked, ‘Is he dead?’”

  “Those were her first words: ‘Is he dead?’”

  “Yes.”

  “She didn’t ask, ‘Did he kill someone?’”

  “No.”

  “She didn’t ask, ‘Did he rape someone?’”

  “No.”

  “Ms. Bornelli asked you, ‘Is he dead?’”

  “That’s correct.”

  The prosecutor paused, making sure that her point had registered with the jury. “Then what?”

  “Ms. Bornelli agreed to talk to us, so we walked two minutes to the campus police station, where we could speak in private. My partner and I then questioned her in a conference room.”

  A second exhibit was marked—the detective’s report of his interview. The prosecutor used it as a reference point for her subsequent questions. “On page two of your report it says: ‘Subject stated that she was the victim of date rape.’ Did you ask her if she had been sexually assaulted?”

  “No. She volunteered that information.”

  “After you had told her that Mr. Sosa had been murdered, correct?”

  “Yes, correct.”

  The prosecutor went back to the report. “The next line says: ‘Subject stated that she told her on-and-off boyfriend, David Kaval, about the rape.’ Was that the first time you had heard the name David Kaval?”

  “Yes. Frankly, we were out of leads at this point. So this was of great interest to us.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I asked Ms. Bornelli if her boyfriend was angry at Mr. Sosa for what he had done to her, and she confirmed that he was ‘very angry.’ I then asked if her boyfriend had done anything to suggest he might retaliate.”

  “And her response?”

  “She said no. As I wrote in the report, she said, ‘David was just there for me.’”

  “What did you do next?”

  Meza shifted in the witness chair, sitting more erect, as if he were getting to the good part. “You have to understand, a lot of what a detective does is instinctual—you follow your gut. I had a suspicion about this guy Kaval. So, at this point, I turn things over to my partner, who was a woman. She’s now the ‘good cop.’ I excused myself and called back to the station to run a background check on Kaval. Well, my instincts were right. Kaval had no convictions, but quite a lengthy arrest record.”

  “What did you do with that information?”

  “I kept it to myself,” said Meza. “But when I returned to the interrogation—we all know the drill—I was the ‘bad cop,’” he said, making air quotes.

  “What does that mean, Detective?”

  “I was a more—stern, let’s put it that way. I told her, ‘Look, miss, if you know who killed Gabriel Sosa, this is the time for us to talk about it, because we don’t want you getting into something that later on you might not be able to get out of.’”

  “How did she respond?”

  “She appeared scared to me. Nervous. But she just sat there, staring.”

  “Did you keep at it?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I told her about Sosa’s wounds. The blow to his head. The evidence of torture. I said that these are the kinds of things you see when the attacker is very angry. ‘Have you ever seen your boyfriend that angry?’ I asked her.”

  He was starting to ramble, and Jack was tempted to object, but his instincts told him that Meza was the kind of cop who, if given enough rope, would say something to hang himself. And he did.

  “I said, ‘Don’t try and protect anybody, miss. Somebody that has a nice build like you, gets raped by this guy, gets caught between a rock and hard place.’”

  Jack drew a noose on his notepad.

  “‘Is there anybody you’re trying to protect? ’Cause don’t do that,’ I said. ‘You were a victim, so I want to keep it that way.’”

  “Did she offer any further information?” asked the prosecutor.

  “None,” said Meza. “She wanted to know if she was free to go.”

  “How did you leave things with her?”

  “I told her I couldn’t make her stay. But before she left, I planted a seed. I said, ‘I hope you’re being completely honest with us. Because murder is the kind of crime that doesn’t go away. The investigation never stops.’”

  “Thank you, Detective. That’s all the questions I have.”

  The prosecutor stepped away from the lectern and returned to her seat. The judge invited cross-examination, and Jack rose, promising that he would be quick. He planted himself in front of the witness, close enough to exercise a level of control, but not so close as to draw an objection for badgering the witness. He had his notes with him, but only for effect, as he pretended to read the detective’s testimony back to him.

  “‘Someone with a nice build like you,’” said Jack, his voice loud enough to rattle the witness. “That’s what you said to her?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were a fifty-year-old man?”

  “Fifty-two.”

  “You’re what? Six-three, two hundred forty pounds?”

  “About that.”

  “You’re a law enforcement officer?”

  “I was.”

  “You were talking to a nineteen-year-old college student who told you that she was sexually assaulted?”

  “That’s what she told me.”

  “And you knew that, for whatever reason—maybe she was scared, maybe she was embarrassed, maybe she was too traumatized—she decided not to report her rape to the police. You knew that, right?”

  “I knew she didn’t report anything.”

  “And yet, you were utterly surprised that she didn’t open right up and tell you everything, huh? You played ‘the bad cop’ and put the teenager with the ‘nice build’ completely at ease—but she was the one hiding something. It was her fault.”

  “Objection,” said the prosecutor.

  “Sustained.”

  Jack was fine with it. His read of the jury was that his point had registered.

  “One final question,” he said, again checking his notes. “Detective Meza, you mentioned that murder is the type of crime that doesn’t go away. The investigation never stops.”

  “Yes. I said that. And I believe that.”

  “What about rape? Is that the kind of crime that doesn’t go away?”

  The detective shifted nervously. “I don’t know how to answer that.”

  “I didn’t think so. No further questions, Your Honor.”

  Jack returned to his chair. Manny rose, which Jack hadn’t expected, and he stepped toward the lectern. “I have just a brief follow-up on behalf of Defendant Ingraham,” Manny announced.

  The judge didn’t seem happy about the double-teaming, and Jack couldn’t imagine what questions Manny would have for this witness.

  “Keep it brief,” said the judge.

  “Detective Meza, you also said that, in a murder case, the investigation never stops. Is it fair to say that in this case, the investigation into the rape of Isa Bornelli never started?”

  “Objection,” said the prosecutor.

  “I’ll rephrase,” said Manny. “Did MDPD open an investigation into the rape of Isabel Bornelli?”

  “There was no need. Her attacker was dead.”

  “You were a homicide investigator, right?”
r />   “I think that’s been pretty well established.”

  “Did MDPD ever have an investigator who specializes in sexual assault interview Ms. Bornelli?”

  He paused, at least appearing to think about it. “No.”

  “True or false, Detective Meza: MDPD didn’t bring in a sexual assault investigator because you didn’t believe Ms. Bornelli had been raped.”

  Manny paused, as if bracing for the prosecutor’s objection. Jack had expected one—hoped for one actually, wishing he could have objected on Isa’s behalf, but that wasn’t an option.

  The prosecutor let it go.

  Meza appeared to struggle for a response, then copped out. “I don’t really recall.”

  “We’ll leave it at that,” said Manny. “Nothing further.”

  Jack said nothing as Manny returned to his chair, knowing that the jury and the press were watching. But he was angry.

  To borrow Meza’s words, Jack was very angry.

  Chapter 54

  “What the fuck did you just do in that courtroom, Manny?”

  Trial had ended for the day, but Jack had pulled the entire team into the open conference room down the hall. What he had to say to Manny couldn’t wait until they returned to the office for debriefing.

  “I was just picking up on the theme you started,” he said.

  “The hell you were,” said Jack. He was up and pacing, trying to cool down. Manny was standing, too. The clients were at the table.

  “After Dr. Macklemore testified,” said Jack, “I didn’t think it was possible for the jury to forget those images of Gabriel Sosa. But I took Detective Meza’s own words and reminded them that Isa is a victim, too. In ten seconds you erased any sympathy the jury felt toward her: you turned her into the false accuser who made it all up.”

  “It’s not the mistake you think it is,” said Manny.

  “It’s not the strategy we agreed on! We dumped ‘no rape means no motive; no motive means no conviction.’ You’re injecting it into the case anyway.”

  “The two approaches are not incompatible.”

  Jack stopped pacing, incredulous. “How can they not be? Isa can’t be a victim and a false accuser.”

  “The victim angle works coming from you, Jack, as counsel for Isa. But ‘no rape, no motive’ also works—as long as it comes from me, as counsel for Keith.”

  “I don’t follow this at all,” said Isa.

  Manny took the chair next to Isa, appealing to her directly. “It all comes down to reasonable doubt. If it exists in the mind of the jury, the defense wins. If I develop this theory as part of Keith’s defense, you don’t ‘own it’ directly. But you still benefit. At the end of this trial, there is no way this jury is going to know beyond a reasonable doubt whether you are a victim or not a victim. Whether Sosa was a rapist or not a rapist. Whether you had motive to hurt him, or no motive at all. It’s like a puzzle. If the pieces don’t fit, the jury must acquit.”

  Jack watched Isa’s reaction closely. It was obvious that her heart was not on board with this strategy, which was a good thing. Jack couldn’t have disagreed more with Manny, and at the risk of starting nuclear war, this was the time to lay it on the table.

  “Isa told David Kaval that she was raped,” said Jack, “and Kaval lined up the thug who killed Gabriel Sosa. If Isa wasn’t raped, it doesn’t absolve her of anything. As long as David Kaval believed what she told him, and if Isa stuck to her lie all the way through the kidnapping and the murder, Isa goes to jail for the rest of her life. In fact, if Sylvia Hunt is smart, she’ll turn your ‘no rape’ argument against us and convince this jury that it was Isa’s lies—not her sexual assault—that got Gabriel Sosa murdered. What better way is there for the prosecutor to make the jury hate Isa, feel no sympathy for her as a victim, and convict her? If that happens, neither Isa nor Keith stands any chance of acquittal.”

  There was silence. Jack could see that Manny wanted to disagree with him, but he couldn’t. Jack was dead right.

  “I was raped,” said Isa, her voice shaking with anger. “Manny, if you utter one more word in the courtroom to cast doubt on that, Keith will fire you. Jack can defend both of us. Right, Keith?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Keith, right?”

  Jack caught Keith’s eye and did a double take. A feeling came over him, albeit just for a split second, that Manny had cleared this with his client—the resurrection of the “no rape” strategy—before springing it on Jack and Isa. Jack knew his old friend, and he had seen an unmistakable flash of regret.

  “That’s absolutely right,” said Keith in a hollow voice.

  Chapter 55

  Sylvia Hunt walked out of the courthouse with her head up. It had been a good day at trial. She had nothing to say to the media on the courthouse steps. She kept walking, and they didn’t follow her—probably waiting for the money shot of Isabelle Bornelli. She passed the group of demonstrators on the sidewalk. They were fewer in number tonight, she noticed, but it was the core, vocal group.

  “Rape victims matter!”

  Did they honestly think she disagreed? She suspected that their numbers would continue to dwindle as the trial progressed. Yes, things were going well for the prosecution. But the best was yet to come.

  Sylvia walked to the Graham Building and went up to her office. The support staff had already gone home, so she was on her own to make any last-minute changes in exhibits or slides for the next day of trial. She worked at her desk until seven p.m. and grabbed takeout on the way home. The grand jury testimony of David Kaval was her dinner companion. She reviewed it one more time while eating her cold Thai chicken salad.

  A friend called. Did she want a quick break from trial prep, grab a quick coffee?

  “No, I have a meeting.”

  “You’re a big-shot prosecutor. Bump it back half an hour. You need to get out, Sylvia. It’ll be good for your sanity.”

  At 8:30 p.m. sharp there was a knock on her door. The meeting was with Manny Espinosa. Apparently not all Latinos operated on Cuban time.

  “I gotta run,” she told her friend, and then hung up.

  Sylvia invited Manny inside, and they sat in the living room. It was a discussion she would have preferred to have in her office, but she’d forgotten to request afterhours A/C at the Graham Building, which meant that the temperature there was somewhere between baked brisket and slow-cooked ribs. It didn’t matter. Once she’d told Manny that she had an offer for his client, it was Sylvia’s impression that he would have traveled to Mars or Venus, had she selected either venue.

  “So you have an offer?” asked Manny.

  Sylvia laid her notes on the coffee table. “The felony charge of accessory after the fact is reduced to criminal facilitation, a first-degree misdemeanor. His sentence is a fine in the amount of one thousand dollars. No jail time.”

  Misdemeanor was the magic word. No jail was the icing. Manny’s interest was obvious.

  “What do you want from my client?” he asked.

  “Truthful testimony.”

  Manny shook his head. “His conversations with his wife are protected by the marital privilege. Even if he wanted to testify, Isa could stop him.”

  “Their conversations before marriage are not privileged.”

  “I’ve made him aware of that. There’s nothing.”

  Sylvia leaned forward, her expression very serious. “Convey my offer to him. Maybe something will come up.”

  Keith took Manny’s call on the terrace. Isa was in Melany’s bedroom, reading aloud with her. Keith was alone, leaning on the rail and looking out over the city lights as his lawyer explained the deal.

  “That’s a nonstarter, Manny. I’ll never testify against Isa.”

  Manny reemphasized how meaningless a misdemeanor conviction was—and how devastating a felony conviction could be to Keith’s career, even if he didn’t get prison time.

  “This felony has nothing to do with banking or securities,” said Keith. “I’ve already
checked with the IBS in-house attorneys. There’s no automatic ban from the SEC or any other agency to stop me from doing business as usual.”

  “Keith, you are not Citibank. You are not too big to fail. Maybe the Securities and Exchange Commission won’t care. But do you think IBS wants a convicted felon running its Hong Kong office? They will dump you.”

  “Not if I don’t get prison time.”

  “I can’t guarantee that you won’t if you’re convicted.”

  “I thought you said I’d get probation.”

  “I told you there’s no minimum mandatory prison time for a second-degree felony. You have no priors, so yeah, you’ll probably get probation. But you won’t be traveling to Hong Kong while on probation.”

  The glass door opened behind him and Isa stepped onto the terrace. “Who you talking to?”

  “I gotta go, Manny,” he said into the phone. His lawyer said they’d talk more, and they hung up.

  “What did Manny want?”

  Isa still looked distressed, even after the calming effect of time alone with Melany. Keith didn’t want to upset her further by telling her that he’d been asked to testify against her—something that would never happen.

  “Manny’s trying to get my charge down to a misdemeanor,” he said, leaving it at that.

  “That’s great,” she said.

  “Yeah. It would be.”

  “Then you would be out of the case, right?”

  “Right.”

  She walked the rail and stood beside him, and together they gazed out toward the Everglades, the darkness that lay beyond the blanket of city lights.

  “We should do everything possible to make that happen,” Isa said.

  “I’m not sure we can.”

  She turned her head to look at him. “You have to, Keith. We can’t afford to risk both of us going to prison. That’s not fair to Melany.”

  “That’s the argument Manny is making, but I don’t think it’s a serious risk that I would actually get prison time. I want to talk to Jack about it and see what he thinks.”

  She looked out again toward the city. “Okay. But that aside, I’m starting to think that I’d be better off with Manny out of the case.”