Close to Home (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 5)

by Robert Dugoni

“I assume so,” Cho said.

  “You don’t know for certain.”

  “It was in the box when we went over the evidence so, yeah, I’d say it was in the box when we returned it.”

  Rivas turned to Battles. “You had the tape last night?”

  “I had the same box of evidence,” she said, trying not to look or sound guilty. “I signed it out and asked that it be brought to my office just before Bob went home, but I don’t specifically recall seeing the tape.”

  “Meaning what?” Rivas asked.

  “Meaning I didn’t look at the tape last night. There was no reason to view it again and, besides, I didn’t have a television to play it.”

  Rivas turned again to Cho. “I thought you said the last time you saw the tape was last night?”

  “The box,” Cho said, his gaze intense. “I didn’t see the tape specifically, but I saw the box on her desk last night. Where else—”

  Rivas cut him off, looking again to Battles. “Did you return the box?”

  Battles nodded. “I brought it back and left it on Bob’s chair. He’d already left for the day.”

  “So it wasn’t logged back in?”

  Grassilli shook his head.

  “But I did return it,” Battles said to Grassilli. “You had the box this morning, right?”

  “I had the box,” Grassilli said.

  “But not the tape,” Cho said.

  “I returned the box,” Battles said. “We don’t know about the tape, whether it was in the box.”

  “And the tape isn’t in your office?” Rivas asked Grassilli.

  “Not that I can find.”

  “And it wasn’t in the box this morning?”

  “No,” Clark and Cho each said.

  “And it isn’t in an office somewhere, got misplaced?” Rivas asked.

  “Not that I’m aware of,” Cho said.

  “I didn’t take it out,” Battles said.

  “Check,” Rivas said.

  They agreed they would.

  “Is there a copy?” Rivas asked Grassilli.

  Grassilli sighed. “It was a VCR tape, Judge. We’re not equipped to copy that here and it was in use by counsel preparing for this hearing, which, as you know, was being expedited. We were going to send it out after the hearing.”

  “There’s no copy?” Rivas looked to Cho, her voice rising in both pitch and volume.

  “No,” Cho said. He rushed to confirm what Grassilli had said. “The equipment used at the convenience store was outdated. We couldn’t copy it here and it was in use . . . I intended to send it out to be copied after the hearing.”

  “What about the Seattle Police Department? Did they keep a copy?” Rivas asked.

  “I doubt it,” Cho said. “We took jurisdiction almost immediately.”

  “Well, I think you better find out.”

  “I will,” Cho said, not sounding optimistic.

  Rivas looked at Grassilli before making a pyramid with her hands and putting her fingers to her lips, perhaps thinking, but not saying, what everyone in the room was also thinking. This was a significant problem for the prosecution to overcome, especially at a subsequent court-martial, which required a higher degree of proof of guilt.

  “Your Honor,” Cho said, “I can prove the existence of the tape through Archibald Issa, the owner of the convenience store, and both he and Detective Crosswhite could testify to having seen Laszlo Trejo on the tape.”

  Rivas shook her head and lowered her hands. “Without the videotape, any further testimony by Detective Crosswhite related to that tape could not be effectively challenged by Mr. Trejo and his counsel. I won’t allow it. And I can guarantee you that, at a court-martial, a judge would find that the lack of the video impedes Mr. Trejo’s Sixth Amendment right to confront and cross-examine not only Detective Crosswhite but Mr. Issa, and anyone else you might put on the stand.”

  “We could call Mr. Issa to establish that he recalled Mr. Trejo being in his store,” Clark said.

  “Does he specifically? Does he independent of the tape? Or would that only be because he received a telephone call and subsequently viewed the videotape? That was—what, nearly three weeks ago now? Does he remember any other customer?” She shook her head, her voice becoming more emphatic. “Even if he recalled the defendant in his store, the best evidence is missing. You have the same problem. And given my understanding that the videotape will tie together all the other evidence—like the significance of the store receipt found in the car—you might get by this hearing, but you won’t get by any subsequent court-martial where the rules of evidence and the burden of proof are strictly enforced.”

  Cho pointed his finger at Battles. “There is no dispute the prosecution logged the evidence back in yesterday afternoon and no dispute that she requested and had it in her possession after that. She just said she clearly had it last. That is not debatable.”

  Battles shook her head. “I said I don’t recall viewing the videotape, and I resent the insinuation. I brought the box back to Bob’s office.”

  “The log-in sheet doesn’t confirm that,” Cho said.

  Rivas looked to Grassilli, who reluctantly shook his head. Battles could see that she had put him in a bad spot and she regretted having done so.

  Cho faced Battles, Grassilli now between them like a promoter between two fighters at an upcoming fight press conference.

  “I left the box on Bob’s chair,” Battles said. “Maybe the tape didn’t get put back in the box.”

  Cho spoke through clenched teeth. “This is the slimiest thing—”

  “Enough,” Rivas said. Cho turned away, his head cocked at a defiant angle. It felt like someone had suddenly sucked all the air out of the room and no one could breathe. “Unfortunately, Lieutenant, the prosecution has an absolute duty to preserve evidence.”

  “And we did!” Cho snapped. “The log shows that we did. Since defense counsel had the evidence last, the presumption that the evidence has somehow been lost or destroyed rests with her, and all negative inferences should be construed against the defendant.”

  Rivas shook her head. “That’s for another hearing,” she said. “Regardless, you have the same problem; no court will court-martial a defendant based on the alleged improprieties of his attorney. Since Mr. Trejo was sitting in the brig at JBLM, he clearly had no involvement. As I said, you might get by here, at an Article 32 hearing, but the court-martial is another story altogether.”

  Rivas paused, perhaps thinking of the political ramifications that could unfold if the prosecution did not find the tape. She shook her head as if to shake the thought. “I’m going to give the prosecution twenty-four hours to come up with the tape or an explanation for its disappearance. I will keep the Article 32 hearing open until then. If the tape cannot be found, I will make my decision on the evidence I have before me. If you wish to bring a motion that the presumption of wrongdoing should shift to defense counsel, you can do so. In the interim, I’d get on the phone with Seattle PD. And, I would check all of your offices.”

  Cho and Clark followed Grassilli out of the room. Battles let them go before she started to leave. “Lieutenant Battles,” Rivas said.

  Battles stopped and turned back, already certain of what Rivas intended to say. The box of evidence was in her possession last, and the ramifications of the tape having gone missing would also rest with her.

  “I would seriously consider new counsel for Mr. Trejo,” Rivas said, “and perhaps for yourself.”

  Battles hurried into her office and shut the door. It didn’t stay shut for long.

  Brian Cho stormed in without knocking. “Is beating me so important that you would risk your career?”

  Battles faced him. “Get over yourself. This isn’t about you.”

  Cho took another step forward, the two now just inches apart. “You’re damn right it isn’t about me. It’s about you. Big-time. We’re going to bring that motion, and after I intend to drop an e-bomb in DC. It isn’t going to just be Trejo
who’s looking at a court-martial.”

  An e-bomb was an ethics complaint filed with the JAG office at the Pentagon in Washington, DC. Such a threat was not levied lightly nor taken lightly. The JAG officers who did the investigations were referred to as “coneheads” because, while bright, they usually had little common sense and zero sense of humor.

  “Bring it!” She stiffened. If Cho was looking to intimidate, he’d picked the wrong person. “I didn’t take the Goddamn tape,” she said. “And when you find it on your desk, or in Clark’s bed, you can take your apology and shove it up your ass.”

  Cho looked like he was about to react. Battles hoped he did. She’d bust his nose and send him out the door, walking bent over for a week, before he laid a hand on her.

  “Counsel.” Rebecca Stanley stepped into the office. Cho quickly stepped back. “Is there a problem?”

  “No, ma’am,” Cho said.

  “Then I think you should be spending your time searching for that videotape, don’t you?”

  Cho nodded. He looked like a teakettle about to spout as he stepped from the office into the hallway.

  “Lieutenant?” Stanley said.

  Cho turned back, his jaw undulating.

  “Close the door, please,” Stanley said.

  Cho reached and pulled shut Battles’s door, giving her a final glance.

  After a beat, Stanley turned and addressed Battles. She spoke calmly. “You want to tell me what happened?”

  Battles shook her head. “I don’t know what happened.”

  “You had the box of evidence last?”

  “I had the box brought to my office last night. Bob said it had the significant pieces of evidence and it seemed easier to just log out the entire box.”

  “He delivered it to your office?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you returned it?”

  “Last night—probably around eleven.”

  “But Bob wasn’t there.”

  “No. I left the box on his chair. I’ve done it before.”

  “Maybe, but that isn’t procedure, Leah. The court reporter takes physical custody and is responsible for all Article 32 evidence.”

  “I know.”

  “You put Bob in a bad position.” Stanley exhaled. “And you don’t know whether the tape was in the box?”

  “I don’t recall taking the tape out of the box, and I certainly did not view it last night.”

  “Did you see it?”

  “Not last night.”

  “So you don’t know.”

  “I can’t say for certain I saw it, no.”

  Several seconds passed. In a solemn voice, Stanley said, “But you were the last person to have the evidence box.”

  Battles took a moment, thinking back to the prior night, to Cho pimping her in her office, and the evidence box sitting on her desk. She measured her response. She knew she’d have to measure all her responses from this point forward.

  “I was the last person to have the evidence box,” she said.

  Stanley dropped her hands. “Then you better hope Cho finds that tape, Leah. You better hope this was all just a big misunderstanding, because Lopresti wants somebody’s ass to run up the public flagpole, and if he can’t have Trejo’s . . .”

  Stanley let the thought, and the alternative, linger unsaid, but both women knew whose ass Lopresti would hang from the flagpole and it wasn’t Stanley’s.

  Del stepped into the elevator at Police Headquarters at the end of his shift tired and emotionally spent. After going through Allie’s e-mails and text messages, he’d gone to work; he needed the diversion, and work had always provided it. Tonight, however, had been slow, leaving him time to think about Allie’s text messages and what might have been had he destroyed her phone when she went to rehab.

  He’d decided to wait before telling his sister about the contents of the e-mails and text messages. He would stop by her house and talk to the twins before work tomorrow and ask if they knew about J-Man, or at least whether they knew his real name.

  He stepped from the elevator and started across the secured parking structure where the detectives kept their personal vehicles and the department kept its pool cars. Pigeons pranced and cooed in the concrete rafters. Spiked fencing had not deterred them, nor had the persistent drone of the cars on the adjacent I-5 freeway. Most of the detectives’ personal cars were gone, but Del wouldn’t have missed her if the lot had been full.

  Celia McDaniel leaned against the trunk of his Impala looking like a catalogue model. She was dressed in blue jeans with knee-high black boots, a white silk shirt beneath a jean jacket, and a black-and-white scarf fashionably draping her neck.

  Del stopped cold, confused to see her here, at this hour of the night. His tired mind tried to determine some reason she’d be present.

  “Celia? What are you doing here?”

  “I figured this was your car.” She pushed away and admired the Impala. “You really are old-school, aren’t you?”

  On the car’s trunk he noted a wicker picnic basket. “In some things, I guess.”

  “I like that,” she said. “I’m old-school also.” Her smile had a warmth and a genuineness to it Del had not experienced in years.

  “You,” he said, “do not come across as old-school.”

  “No?”

  “You look like you’re twenty-eight.”

  Her smile broadened. “One of the advantages of being black. We don’t crack.”

  “Excuse me?” He had to stifle a laugh.

  “Black don’t crack; you’ve never heard that before?”

  Del blew out a breath, unsure what to say.

  “I’m forty-one,” she said. “But my skin says I’m twenty-eight. No wrinkles. My mother and I used to get confused for sisters. It bugged the hell out of me until I realized I’d someday be in my forties.”

  “Ah,” Del said, understanding. “My mother and I were never confused for sisters.”

  Celia laughed, lifted the basket, and approached. They stared at each another, like two high school kids.

  “I don’t have anything more on Allie’s dealer—an e-mail address, but not a name.”

  “You’ll get there.” She lifted the picnic basket. “I figured you hadn’t eaten.”

  “It’s twelve thirty at night.”

  “I know. I thought you said you get off at twelve. What do you people do for half an hour? I figured you’d be running out of there like the place was on fire.”

  It dawned on Del that McDaniel’s presence had nothing to do with Allie’s case. Celia knew he’d had a hard day going through Allie’s computer and phone records, and she’d gone to a lot of trouble just to make him feel better, to let him know that she cared. “Faz was waiting for his wife . . . Wait, what about your trial?”

  “I’m no longer in trial. Shortly after getting off the phone with you, I received a phone call from the defense attorney accepting my last plea deal. We went back to court and put it on the record.”

  So she didn’t have to work.

  She lifted a blue-and-white-checkered dish towel covering the basket’s contents. “Now, nothing special—some French bread, prosciutto, salami, cheeses, and an assortment of olives.”

  “Wow. It doesn’t get any more special,” Del said, not even glancing at the basket’s contents.

  “I figured Italian was a safe bet. We don’t have anything to drink, though. I’m hoping you have a good Italian wine to go along with it?”

  “I bet I could find something,” he said.

  CHAPTER 25

  The following morning, Leah Battles thought the MA at the Charleston Gate took twice as long as necessary to consider her identification card, though she realized it could just be her paranoia in the aftermath of the Article 32 hearing. Word spread like a wildfire across a naval base, and no doubt everyone was talking about the missing videotape and speculating over what had happened to it. That was the reason Battles got up that morning to go to work, as scheduled. Her mother had
once told her, during Battles’s high school years, that her absence spoke volumes, and so did her presence. She intended to be present.

  When she entered the front door of the DSO building, Darcy, the receptionist, and two people standing at her desk turned to Leah. They looked as if they’d been caught. Their conversation ceased, and the other two slowly turned and walked away. Battles nodded to Darcy and continued toward her office, waiting for Darcy’s customary greeting. It never came.

  She slipped into her office and shut her door, taking a moment to consider her surroundings. Her office décor was just the right mix of work and home, and it had always been a sanctuary, a place where she felt grounded. Today, however, it felt foreign, isolated, and claustrophobic. She wanted to turn and leave, but she knew she couldn’t make it that easy on them. Instead, she turned on the overhead fluorescent lights, hoping their brightness would remove some of the impending gloom, and changed into her working blues.

  Sitting at her desk, she hit her keyboard, received the customary prompt asking for her name and password, and typed in both. While the computer booted up, she finished changing into her blue work uniform and black boots. Then she unlocked her desk drawer where she kept her active files and pulled it open. The drawer was empty. She looked at her computer monitor. The system did not recognize her name or password.

  She swore under her breath and typed in her name and password a second time, though the empty desk drawer made it clear she hadn’t made a mistake. Again, the screen refused her access. She rocked back in her chair, processing what had happened. She’d never heard of a defense attorney having her files yanked so quickly. The attorney-client privilege mandated that an attorney’s clients had to release the attorney. There was only one likely explanation. They’d locked her out and taken her files.

  So much for being present.

  A tentative knock on her door diverted her attention. “Come in,” she said.

  Darcy poked her head into the room with a tentative smile, the kind normally reserved for funerals. “What’s up, ma’am?” she said softly.

  Battles almost said, “Not me for promotion,” but she wasn’t about to act defeated. She returned the smile. “Sun and sky, Darcy. I’ll let you know when they aren’t.”