Most Dangerous Place

by James Grippando

  “That’s absolutely preposterous,” said Hunt.

  “You know, Judge, that’s the third time I’ve heard Ms. Hunt use the word absolutely, which is usually a pretty good sign that a lawyer is ‘absolutely’ blowing smoke.”

  “All right,” said the judge, “that’s enough. I’m denying the request to voir-dire the witness at this time. But, Mr. Swyteck, file a motion, and if you can set forth a reasonable basis for the possible existence of a secret deal between this witness and the state, I will reconsider. Ms. Hunt, let me ask you this. How many more witnesses do you have?”

  “None. Ms. Simpson is the last one.”

  “So the state will rest after cross-examination?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Perfect,” said the judge. “It was my goal to finish with the prosecution’s case before this jury retires for the weekend. Mr. Swyteck, proceed with your cross-examination.”

  “Judge, to be quite honest, much of this witness’s testimony has taken me totally by surprise. I would love the opportunity to regroup over the weekend.”

  “Mr. Swyteck, you’ve tried many cases. You know what will happen if Ms. Hunt does not rest her case before we leave here today. She’ll show up Monday morning and have five more witnesses to present. This trial will never end.”

  Jack couldn’t disagree, and he actually liked the idea of forcing the government to rest its case. But he had a better way to get there.

  “Your Honor, I’m happy to proceed today with limited cross. But I would request permission to recall Mrs. Simpson to the witness stand as a hostile witness, should the defense choose to put on its case next week.”

  The judge paused to consider what Jack was requesting, and he seemed to appreciate the genius of it: Jack was forcing the state to end its case today, and he was preserving his ability to prepare to his fullest and take his best shot at Ilene Simpson next week.

  “Come on, Judge,” said the prosecutor, “Mr. Swyteck wants to have his cake and eat it, too.”

  “That’s probably true,” said the judge. “But I like cake. Mr. Swyteck’s request to recall Ilene Simpson next week as a hostile witness is granted. Proceed with your cross-examination.”

  The prosecutor and Manny returned to their respective tables. Jack took his place before the witness. Since he had the ability to recall her next week, Jack would keep his examination brief. His only goal was to soften some of the sting of her testimony before the jury retired for the weekend. If Jack could score just one point, it would be a victory.

  He zeroed in for the kill quickly.

  “Mrs. Simpson, you testified that when you pulled up to the garage in your car, John Simpson physically took Isa Bornelli by the arm and pulled her from the passenger seat. Correct?”

  She paused, obviously distrustful of anything Jack said, and reluctant to agree. But there was only one answer. “Yes, that’s what I said.”

  “And when you were in the garage, again John Simpson took Ms. Bornelli physically by the arm, and he led her to where Gabriel Sosa was kneeling.”

  Another pause, and Jack could almost see the wheels churning in her head as she tried to figure out where this was headed. “Yes,” she answered.

  Jack went to his table and checked his notes. “And when he had Ms. Bornelli right in front of Mr. Sosa, he shouted something at her.”

  “Yes.”

  “‘Look at him!’” Jack shouted, and then he repeated it, pounding out each word with a tap on his notepad: ‘Look . . . at . . . him!’”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice shaking a bit. “That’s what he said.”

  Jack laid his notepad on the table. “Mrs. Simpson: You know why he told you to bring Ms. Bornelli to the garage at three o’clock in the morning, don’t you?”

  “I—I’m not sure.”

  “You know,” he said, his voice rising, “that John Simpson wanted Isa Bornelli to look at the bloody and beaten body of Gabriel Sosa. That’s what he said, right? ‘Look at him!’”

  “Yes.”

  “You know that John Simpson was sending Ms. Bornelli a message, don’t you?”

  “I—”

  “Objection!”

  Jack didn’t wait for a ruling, his cadence even faster: “You know he was telling Ms. Bornelli that if she ever told anyone what happened on that night, that this is what would happen to her!

  “Objection, Your Honor!”

  “Isn’t that true, Mrs. Simpson?”

  “Mr. Swyteck, that’s enough. The objection is sustained.”

  Jack turned away and did a quick check of the courtroom pulse. The judge was glaring at him. Sylvia Hunt was fuming. The jury appeared to be in shock. The media were eating it up.

  And back at his table, seated beside Jack’s empty chair, Isabelle Bornelli was sobbing into her own hands, her husband’s arm draped around her heaving shoulders.

  “Your Honor, I have nothing more for this witness. At this time,” Jack added, portending more to come. Then he returned to his chair.

  Chapter 61

  “The state of Florida rests.”

  Jack thought that those would be the final words before trial broke for the weekend. Manny had another idea. He waited for the judge to dismiss the jury, and then he played his hand.

  “Your Honor, we haven’t heard a thing in this courtroom to support the charge against Keith Ingraham. Even if the court assumes that there is sufficient evidence to show that Isa Bornelli was involved in the murder of Gabriel Sosa, not a shred of evidence has been offered to show that Mr. Ingraham knew anything about it. As the court knows, under Florida law a husband or wife cannot be an accessory after the fact to a crime committed by his or her spouse, so the only relevant conduct is before they were married. There’s nothing, Judge. Nothing before and, for that matter, nothing after. Keith Ingraham is not an accessory after the fact to murder. I request that the court enter a judgment of acquittal as to my client.”

  “Ms. Hunt, any response?”

  The prosecutor rose. “Your Honor, at this time the state of Florida withdraws the charge against Keith Ingraham.”

  Judge Gonzalez shook his head in tremor-like fashion—it reminded Jack of his crazy dog Max shaking off the rain—as if to say, Haven’t we had enough surprises for one day?

  “Done,” the judge said. “Mr. Ingraham, you are free to go. Ms. Bornelli and Mr. Swyteck, I will see you Monday morning at nine a.m. sharp. We are adjourned.”

  “All rise!”

  A murmur coursed through the courtroom as the crowd rose and the judge stepped down from the bench. His chambers door closed with a thud, which sent the media racing to the rail like sprinters after a starting gun. Manny went to them. Isa and her husband remained in their chairs, locked in an embrace. Jack walked straight to Sylvia Hunt.

  “It sucks what you did to Keith Ingraham,” he said.

  “It sucks what you did to Ilene Simpson.”

  “No. Ilene is fair game. You charged Keith as a pawn. He was purely leverage to get Isa to cut a deal and agree to plead guilty to your offer of manslaughter.”

  She packed her briefcase and locked it. “And as it turns out, the trial is going quite well. I don’t need leverage, and all deals are off the table. Keith Ingraham is superfluous. So I let him walk.”

  “Are you for real?” asked Jack.

  “You don’t have to thank me. In fact, you won’t want to thank me, after the jury convicts your client and she’s sentenced to life. See you Monday, Jack,” she said as she turned and headed toward the gate.

  Jack watched as the swarm of reporters that had gathered around Manny suddenly rushed to the other side of the courtroom, eager for a quote from the prosecutor. One of them called out to Jack by name—“Hey, Swyteck!”—but Jack continued toward the defense table. Keith and Isa were still in their seats, still sharing a private moment in a public place. They occupied two of the four chairs. The defense table was half full. Or half empty. They would find out soon enough.

  Yes, S
ylvia. We will see you Monday.

  Chapter 62

  Jack saw the first signs of discord in the limo ride from the courthouse.

  As usual, Jack and Manny were in the forward-facing bench seat, and their clients rode with their backs to the driver. But there were a few extra inches of daylight between Keith and Isa on this trip. They seemed more interested in the view outside their respective windows than in the person beside them. At first, Jack thought it could have been simple fatigue. Or perhaps Keith was feeling a bit of “survivor’s guilt”—he was free, but Isa was still on trial. By the time they reached the Freedom Institute, however, it was clear: not all was simpatico between them.

  It was around three o’clock when they gathered in Jack’s office to debrief. Manny had been on his cell since leaving the courthouse. Whether he would remain on the team to help Isa was one item on the afternoon agenda. Keith had something else he wanted to discuss.

  “Was Jack right?” Keith asked.

  “Right about what?” asked Isa.

  “His cross-examination of Ilene. Is that the reason you didn’t go to the police—because John Simpson threatened to do to you what he did to Sosa?”

  It was a question he could have asked in private, strictly between husband and wife. But it was as if Keith had decided that he wasn’t the only person in the room who deserved an honest answer from Isa.

  “Yes,” she said with a slight edge to her tone. “I told you three times in the courtroom. Yes. I was nineteen years old. I was scared to death. I probably should have gone to the police. But I swear, I thought they were done punishing Gabriel for what he had done. I begged them not to kill him. I stood in front of the man who had raped me and told John Simpson that Gabriel was innocent—anything to convince Simpson to let him go.”

  Keith was silent. Isa prevailed on him. “Keith, I swear on my life. I swear on our daughter’s life. Simpson told me it was over. When I left that garage, Gabriel was alive.”

  “Not for long.”

  “That’s not my fault!”

  “That’s debatable.”

  “Oh, my God, Keith. Why are you being like this to me? You didn’t know Gabriel Sosa. Do you have any idea what kind of person he was?”

  “I don’t know anything about him.”

  “He’s the man who raped your wife! That’s who he is. He pulled a knife on me and raped me for two hours in every part of my body, in any way he wanted. Do you want more details, Keith? Is this what a woman has to say in order for people to believe her?

  “And it didn’t end there. Gabriel didn’t go away. He started showing up at the Wellness Center when I would work out. He would show up at Starbucks when I was having coffee. He knew my routine, and he would be there, just so I’d have to see him—so I’d have to feel him looking at me. And then—after I defended him in that garage and told John Simpson ‘You got the wrong guy, please don’t hurt him!’—do you know what Gabriel did?”

  No one asked. They simply gave Isa time to steady her voice and continue.

  “You heard Ilene’s testimony,” she said, “how Gabriel said something in Spanish that she didn’t understand. That was true. Gabriel looked up at me and said, ‘Valió la pena.’”

  She didn’t translate. The words hung in the air.

  “What does that mean?” asked Keith.

  Isa swallowed hard, unable to answer.

  Jack’s Spanish was serviceable enough. “It was worth it.”

  Isa sprang from her chair and hurriedly left the room. The men were stone silent. No one made eye contact. Finally, Keith spoke.

  “I had no idea about the knife.”

  “There was no knife,” said Jack.

  “You think she was lying?”

  “No. I believe everything she said except the part about the knife. I think she was making a point there.”

  “A point?”

  “Ten years ago, there had to be a knife. Or a gun. Something. Something more than a nineteen-year-old woman’s word that she invited a man into her dorm room and didn’t consent to sex. With no weapon, the doctor at the campus clinic wouldn’t believe her. The police wouldn’t believe her. Not even her own father believed she was raped.”

  “Point well taken,” said Manny.

  “Except—” Keith started to say.

  “Except what?” asked Jack.

  “It’s not just attitude or chauvinism that kept Felipe Bornelli from believing Isa when she called home and said she was raped.”

  “Do you know something I don’t?” asked Jack.

  “Isa told me what she and her father talked about when they met in Cy’s Place. Not everything was in the letter he gave her—the one she showed you.”

  “What was left out?”

  “According to her father, Isa has made at least one false accusation in the past. It had to do with her father and one of her friends in high school.”

  “Do you have the girl’s name?” asked Jack.

  “Alicia Morales.”

  Jack pulled his chair closer and looked his friend in the eye. “Tell me about that, Keith. For once, please. I need someone to tell me everything there is to know.”

  Chapter 63

  The phone call at 4:59 p.m. that Friday from Sylvia Hunt surprised Jack. Her message surprised him even more. “It’s your lucky day,” she said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I told you in the courtroom that I would see you in court—no deals for Ms. Bornelli. I still feel that’s the wisest course. But there is at least one person here at the Office of the State Attorney who feels differently.”

  Jack understood clearly: he’d always known State Attorney Carmen Benitez to be reasonable.

  “What are you putting on the table?”

  “I’m not doing this on the phone. Talk to your client. Get prior authorization from her as to what is acceptable. Meet me in my office at six o’clock and I’ll present my offer. You either accept it or reject it on the spot. Those are the rules. Take it or leave it.”

  Jack took it. He arrived at the Graham Building before six. A rookie prosecutor met him outside the building, got him through weekend security, and took him up the elevator to Sylvia Hunt’s office. Sylvia closed the door. The meeting was just her and Jack.

  “Well?” said Jack. “What’s your offer?”

  She leaned forward in her chair and folded her hands atop her desk. “Before I get to that, there are a few things I want to clear up. First, there is no third-party deal, as you described it to Judge Gonzalez. I didn’t promise to go easy on David Kaval in exchange for testimony from Ilene Simpson.”

  “Then you have nothing to worry about,” said Jack. “But I’m still going to ask her about it.”

  “Do what you have to do,” she said. “Second, I was angry, I admit, after trial today. I said things about your friend Keith I shouldn’t have. I want to assure you that this office didn’t charge him as a pawn, as you characterized it. We presented evidence to a grand jury, and there was probable cause to believe that he paid twenty thousand dollars to David Kaval to keep quiet about his wife’s involvement in the murder of Gabriel Sosa. In the course of this trial, I sorted out that Kaval wasn’t even at the garage when Gabriel was murdered. It became clear to me that Mr. Ingraham’s payment wasn’t hush money. It really was just to clear up the marital records. That’s why I took a dismissal.”

  “All’s well that ends well, I guess,” said Jack. “Hopefully we have a good ending for Isa.”

  “Yes,” said the prosecutor. “I’ve been authorized to put my previous offer back on the table. Voluntary manslaughter, four years in prison.”

  “You have to do better than that,” said Jack.

  “I don’t have to do anything.”

  “You could be fair.”

  “This is more than fair.”

  “You don’t see Isabelle Bornelli as a victim at all here, do you?”

  She glared at Jack, and her eyes began to cloud with the same anger that he’d seen in the c
ourtroom. She yanked open her desk drawer, gathered up a shoe box, and emptied the contents onto her desktop.

  It was a stack of letters. Some were still in postmarked envelopes. Some were opened.

  “What’s this?”

  “Take a look. Look who signed them.”

  Jack took one of the letters. It was handwritten and two pages in length. Jack turned to the back of the second page. It was signed “Fatima Sosa.”

  “Gabriel’s mother,” said Sylvia. “Take your time. Read it.”

  “I don’t need to,” said Jack.

  “And you don’t need to tell me who the victim is in this case,” she said, taking the letter back from him. She gathered up the papers and put them back in the box. “Now, do you accept my offer? Or do you reject it?”

  Jack already had his decision from Isa. Four years in prison was not acceptable. He rose and said, “We’ll see you Monday.”

  Jack left the Graham Building and went to his car. Isa was waiting to hear from him, but she was not the first person he needed to call. Something else was on his mind—a question that had been burning since seeing those letters from Fatima Sosa.

  Jack needed a quick answer. He dialed Michael Posten at the Miami Tribune. Over the years, Jack’s relationship with Mike had ebbed and flowed between trust and distrust, friend and foe. Their dealings in Isa’s case had been no different. But Posten might be willing to help Jack sort out this latest quandary, especially if he didn’t know he was helping.

  “Mike, hey, it’s Jack Swyteck.”

  “Jack, buddy. Just the man I wanted to talk to. I’m doing a story for Sunday’s paper. I could use a quote.”

  “Sure. But maybe you can do me a little favor.”

  “How little?”

  “You did a story right before the start of trial. I seem to recall a couple of quotes from Fatima Sosa, Gabriel’s mother.”

  “Yeah, I interviewed her.”