Chasing Justice

by H. Terrell Griffin

  “No. I lost it a couple of months ago.”

  “How long did you own it?”

  “Two or three years.”

  “Was that the only phone you had possession of on April first, other than the one issued by FDLE?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re sure you didn’t have another phone that day, perhaps one you borrowed, or one of those prepaid phones they call burners?”

  “We’re not allowed to carry burners, and I’ve never borrowed a phone from anybody in my life.”

  “Do you remember the number on that phone? The one you lost?”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t.”

  “Would the number have been 813-555-3833?”

  That caused a reaction, but again it was slight. I’d rattled him, but he was still stoic, his expressions subtle. “Yes, I think so.”

  I handed him another document. “Can you identify this document?”

  He looked at it. “The phone records for my private cell.”

  “Do you see a call on there for the morning of April first, either an incoming to you from Agent Strickland or the FDLE office in Tampa?”

  “No.”

  “And do you see any calls from you to either of those numbers on the morning of April first?”

  “No.”

  “So, would it be fair to say that you did not get an assignment from Agent Strickland at mid-morning on April first?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Then would it be correct to say that you called Agent Strickland at eight-fifteen on April first, some five minutes before Detective Robson even got to the scene of the murder?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  When the witness starts to fall back on a lack of memory, the lawyer is winning. Juries don’t like that kind of answer, particularly when the lawyer has just proved with irrefutable evidence, the written documents, that what the witness had so confidently testified to couldn’t possibly be true.

  Time to switch gears. “Had you ever been in Mr. Bannister’s condo prior to the first time you went there as part of your investigation?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Had you ever met Abby Lester before you arrested her?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know who Linda Favereaux is?”

  “Only what I’ve heard. She was a woman who was murdered on Longboat Key at about the same time that Mr. Bannister was killed.”

  “Did you know that Mrs. Favereaux and Mr. Bannister had sex just before Bannister was killed?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ever meet Mrs. Favereaux?”

  “No.”

  “Had you ever heard of her prior to your involvement in this case?”

  “No.”

  “Would you be surprised if I told you she was an undercover agent of the Department of Homeland Security, and was investigating Mr. Bannister for his part in local drug dealing?”

  “I don’t know how I’d be surprised if I’d never heard of her.”

  “As a matter of fact, Agent Lucas, you saw Linda Favereaux at Mr. Bannister’s condo on the night he died, didn’t you?”

  A shadow crossed Lucas’ face, a momentary breach in the cool exterior he’d maintained since I’d first met him. It was a look of fear, not unlike that of a small animal cornered by the big predator. Lucas was glimpsing his own doom. He didn’t know what I could prove, but he knew I was closing in on him. He was rattled, and I expected him to deny that he’d been in Bannister’s condo on the night of the murder. But he surprised me. He dropped the bomb, the one that would repudiate every thing he’d testified to, every shred of evidence he’d given in this case. He said, “I will invoke my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and refuse to answer that question, Counselor.”

  There was dead silence in the courtroom. I stood at the podium, stunned by this turn of events. It was one of those things that often happen in trials; the unexpected turn that throws the lawyer’s plans into turmoil.

  I looked up at the judge, who seemed to be moving in slow motion as he leaned toward the witness stand. The rustle of shuffling papers at the prosecutor’s table broke the silence, a juror coughed, a chair squeaked. The judge said, “Agent Lucas, are you seeking the protection of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution against giving testimony that might incriminate you?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Okay,” the judge said, “I’ll instruct the jury.” He told the jury that every witness had the right under the United States Constitution not to incriminate himself and that he could not be compelled to testify if the testimony tended to do so. The jury was not to read anything into the witness’s assertion of his constitutional rights.

  Good luck on that one, I thought. The second that Lucas invoked his right, every man and woman on that jury knew he was guilty of something, if not murder, and anything he’d testified to was immediately rejected.

  “Agent Lucas,” I said, “did you kill Nate Bannister?”

  “I’ll take the Fifth,” he said.

  “Did you manufacture the emails that were purportedly sent by Abby Lester to Mr. Bannister?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know who did?”

  He sat for a moment, mulling over the question. “I’m going to have to take the Fifth on that one, too.”

  “Did you kill Linda Favereaux?”

  “I’ll take the Fifth.”

  Lucas had made the calculation that by taking the Fifth he would perhaps appear guilty to this jury, but since he didn’t know what evidence there was that would prove him a murderer, he would be protecting himself. The very fact that I was asking such questions would lead him to believe that there was some evidence of his guilt, but he had no way of knowing how strong that evidence was. He was probably assuming that he would be charged, but if the evidence against him could be picked apart by a smart lawyer, he could at least plea bargain to something that wouldn’t include a life sentence in prison. By invoking the Fifth, he was not testifying to something that could be used against him in his own trial. The jury in that trial would never know that he’d hidden behind the Constitution in this trial.

  I looked at my watch. Four o’clock. Lucas had disrupted my plan with his unexpected invocation of the Fifth Amendment. Under the circumstances, I didn’t think Swann would cross-examine Lucas. I had one more major witness to call, and I’d be done. I thought I had time before the evening recess.

  “Under the circumstances, Your Honor,” I said, “I have no further questions.”

  Swann looked a little dazed as he slowly rose from his chair. He had just seen his case implode. Every lawyer who has tried enough cases has had that terrible moment when he realizes that his carefully constructed case has taken a fatal turn and he has lost the jury. It usually happens when an important witness you had counted on, or sometimes your own client, dissolves on the stand, his testimony falling apart under cross-examination that shows him to be a liar. It had happened to me once, and I knew the feeling, a combination of despair and cold anger directed at the witness stand and the person who had so completely destroyed his own case by lying under oath. I almost felt sorry for Swann.

  “I have nothing,” Swann said.

  “May we approach the bench, Your Honor?” I asked.

  He motioned us forward. “What’s up, Mr. Royal?”

  “Your Honor, there are two detectives in the courtroom who would like to arrest Agent Lucas. I would suggest that it might be appropriate to send the jury out so that the arrest can be accomplished outside their presence.”

  The judge nodded and told the jury that we would take a short recess and he would bring them right back in so that we could finish the day on time. The jury went out, and Detective Harry Robson came forward and arrested Lucas. Harry read him the Miranda rights regarding his right to remain silent and to have an attorney. Lucas nodded, his face a picture of infinite sadness. I was looking at a man whose life was over. Whatever crimes
he’d committed, whatever base impulses had driven him to the dark side of a society that can only exist because the rule of law shines a bright light into its dark corners, he was still a human being, and as loathsome as he was, I couldn’t help but feel pity for him.

  * * *

  The jury trooped back in. “Call your next witness, Mr. Royal,” the judge said.

  “State your name, please.”

  “James Favereaux.”

  “Where do you reside?”

  “Gulf of Mexico Drive, Longboat Key, Florida.”

  “Your occupation?”

  “I’m employed by the United States Department of Homeland Security.”

  “In what capacity?”

  “I’m a special agent in the investigative division of DHS.”

  “Do you work undercover?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long have you been doing that kind of work?”

  “About thirty years, in one federal agency or another.”

  “How long have you lived on Longboat Key?”

  “Three years, approximately.”

  “What brought you to the Sarasota area?”

  “I was sent here by my agency to infiltrate a large drug operation.”

  “Did you do that?”

  “I was working on it. I thought the man running the operation on this coast was a guy named Mark Erickson. I’d been working on getting closer to him for the past year.”

  “What kind of work did Mr. Erickson do? Other than drugs.”

  “He’s a professor at the University of South Florida.”

  “Tell me about your relationship with him?”

  “It wasn’t much. My wife Linda and I would take Erickson and his wife Julie to dinner occasionally, and I donated a million dollars to the university to endow a chair that the Ericksons hold jointly. They’re both tenured professors in the same department at USF.”

  “Where did that money come from?”

  “It was essentially drug money that had been forfeited to the Department of Homeland Security from other operations I’d handled over the years. It was decided at the top levels of DHS that if we gave the money to the university, it would be a good use for it and at the same time, it would put me in good with Erickson. It would also show him that I had the wherewithal to be a big money player in the drug business.”

  “Did you have another agent working with you?”

  “Yes. My daughter.”

  “Was that Linda Favereaux?”

  “Yes.”

  “You just called her your wife.”

  “Yes. That was part of a subterfuge that we used as we worked undercover drug operations.”

  “She was posing as your wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Years ago, I had to pull her out of a bad situation. At the time I was an undercover agent for the Defense Intelligence Agency. My daughter was an adult by then, but needed my protection from some very bad people, some of whom suspected she was my daughter. It seemed prudent to give her a different identification and then make it appear that I’d married her, so that no one would connect her to the young woman who was my daughter.”

  “And you’ve worked together ever since?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was she also an agent of the Department of Homeland Security?”

  “Yes. A fully trained agent.”

  “Was Linda making any progress on the investigation?”

  “Yes. She had made contact with the local money man, the guy who was responsible for laundering the funds brought in by the drug cartel. He wasn’t the top guy, but she was working up the chain of command. She had found out who the money man reported to and she had begun to accumulate the evidence that would convict them both.”

  “Were you close to having them indicted?”

  “No. We were working our way up. We wanted to find the top people, the ones who ran the whole operation.”

  “I take it this was a long-term investigation.”

  “Yes. It could take years.”

  “Who was the money man?”

  “Nate Bannister.”

  Swann was on his feet, objecting loudly. “Mr. Royal is trying to besmirch the reputation of a dead man.”

  “Overruled.”

  “Did you get far enough in your investigation to determine who Bannister reported to?”

  “Yes. Mark Erickson.”

  “The University of South Florida professor?”

  “Yes. The information Linda got from Bannister confirmed that Erickson was the man who ran the operation on this coast.”

  “Until that time, had you been able to confirm your suspicions that Erickson was the kingpin?”

  “No.”

  “Tell me about what was going on with Bannister.”

  “We’d picked up rumors among the lower level drug folks that Bannister was the money launderer. He was quite the lady’s man, and Linda made arrangements for the bartender at the Ritz Carlton to introduce them. Over a couple of months they became friendly, and Bannister invited her to his condo for drinks the evening she died. She felt she was making progress. She had talked around the issue of putting some money into the drug operation. She had led him to believe that she was the disgruntled wife of a rich man who’d made his money in some shady deals. She thought if she could put some money into a drug deal, she could make a lot of money for herself and leave her husband.”

  “Tell me about the early morning hours of April first of this year. Did you see Linda?”

  “Yes. She got home late from Bannister’s. She was very upset. She told me that she’d been to Bannister’s home for a drink. They had a couple of glasses of wine, and Bannister attempted to seduce her. She put him off, but he became insistent. He’d apparently had a lot to drink before Linda arrived. He was a bit loose-tongued and was beginning to open up to her about his operation. Trying to convince her that he was a big-time guy who could make her rich.

  “She finally acquiesced and had sex with him. She didn’t want to interrupt the flow of information he was giving her. It was the first time he’d opened up so completely about his part in the drug business and his relationship with Erickson. She wanted him to continue.”

  He stopped, choking back emotion. I gave him a minute to compose himself.

  “Did that bother you, Mr. Favereaux? Your daughter and colleague having sex with Mr. Bannister?”

  “No. She had affairs from time to time, and it wasn’t the first time she’d had sex with a suspect we were working on some undercover operation. I wasn’t bothered by it.”

  “Did anything else happen that evening, Mr. Favereaux?”

  “Yes. After they had sex, Bannister went into the living room to get some more wine. Linda was in the bathroom getting dressed when she heard a gunshot. She rushed into the living room and saw Bannister on the floor with a gunshot to the head. A man was standing over the body. Linda slammed the bedroom door shut and locked it. Mr. Bannister’s condo unit was adjacent to the emergency stairwell and he had installed a door from his master bathroom directly into the stairwell. I think it was his escape hatch. Linda left that way.”

  “Did she get a good look at the killer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she recognize him?”

  “Yes. She’d met him once when she was with Bannister.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Wes. At least that was the way he’d been introduced to her by Bannister. She never heard a last name.”

  “Did the name mean anything to you?”

  “Not at that time.”

  “Did Linda tell you what Bannister had to say that evening about his involvement in the drug business and with Mark Erickson?”

  “Not a lot. She was going to fill me in and we’d file a full report with my boss in Washington. But before I could do that, I had to meet Mark Erickson in Bradenton.”

  “What was that all about?”

  “Erickson had called me a few minutes
before Linda got home that night. He said he needed to meet with me on an urgent matter. He asked me to meet him at a McDonald’s on Cortez Road at midnight. I told him that was an odd hour and place for a meeting, but he assured me that the McDonald’s and the midnight hour would provide the anonymity that was crucial.”

  “Wasn’t that a bit odd? Kind of cloak and daggerish?”

  “Sure. But I’m in the cloak-and-dagger business. I’ve met a lot of strange people in a lot of strange places during my career, so I wasn’t particularly surprised. He did tell me that he lived north of there on the Manatee River and he thought the McDonald’s would be convenient for both of us. He also thought we’d be inconspicuous that late in the evening.”

  “Did he tell you anything about why he needed to meet with you?”

  “Only that a mutual friend, Nate Bannister, had suggested the meeting.”

  “Didn’t that seem a little strange to you since you had never met Bannister?”

  “Yes, but then I figured if Bannister had anything to do with it, Erickson wanted to talk about a drug deal. I’d dropped some hints to Erickson, but he’d never followed up. I figured that Linda had told Bannister enough about her husband—me—that he thought I might be interested in putting some money into a drug operation. He talked to Erickson, and now Erickson wanted to meet with me.”

  “You’ve testified that you knew Erickson.”

  “Yes, like I said, we were social acquaintances, and I’d endowed a chair for him at USF. But we’d never talked about drugs, and Erickson had never even touched on the subject. At least not until he brought Bannister’s name into the conversation on the night Linda died.”

  “So, even though Linda had just missed being murdered, you thought you needed to make that meeting?”

  “Yes. Even more so after Linda came home and told me that Bannister was dead. Erickson was the only lead we had into the drug cartel. I thought the cartel must have found some reason to kill Bannister, and I was hoping that Erickson could tell me something about why he was killed. I thought I could better protect Linda, and at the same time make progress in moving up the chain of command in the drug cartel.”

  “So you went to the meeting?”

  “Yes. He told me that he needed ten million dollars to finalize the deal he and Bannister had been working on. Something about a condo project over near Lakeland. I told him I would have to meet with him and Bannister to flesh out the details. Erickson told me that Bannister was no longer part of the deal and he was now the sole owner of the project. At first, he was anxious to get the money immediately, but then agreed to meet later in the week to talk in detail about the project and my part in it.”