Hear No Evil

“I may not make it tonight,” said Jack.

“You still thinking of withdrawing as counsel? I can’t say I’d blame you, if you did.”

“No. Like Lindsey said, I promised to stay on the case as long as I believe she’s i

“What happened?”

“Alejandro Pintado called me back. He’s supposed to meet me in about two minutes.”

“What about?”

“After Lindsey testified this morning, he went home and sifted through some of his son’s personal effects. I guess Lindsey was too distraught to deal with shipping his things from Guantánamo after his death, so Oscar’s father took care of it and had everything shipped back to Miami. Anyway, guess what the old man found.”

“No idea.”

“The digital camera Lindsey testified about.”

There was silence on the line. “Don’t tell me…”

“Yup,” said Jack. “Some very interesting photographs were still on it. I’ll let you know how our meeting goes.”

Jack hung up and tucked the cell phone into his pocket. He waited a few more minutes, then checked his watch. Quarter past seven. Pintado had told him to be at this particular bench no later than seven P.M. He wasn’t late yet, at least not by Miami standards. Jack watched a couple of shirtless college boys toss a Frisbee on the lawn, and it was hard to believe that just five thousand beers ago, he’d once had abs like that, too.

“Hello, Jack.”

He turned and saw Alejandro Pintado seated at the other end of the bench, which startled him a bit. “What are you, the stealth bomber or something?”

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m glad you came.”

“This was something I couldn’t do over the phone.”

Jack noticed the dossier tucked under Pintado’s arm. “Is that for me?”

“Yes.”

“Pictures?”

“No.”

“No?” said Jack, surprised.

Pintado laid the dossier on the bench beside him. “It’s in no one’s interest for those photographs ever to see the light of day.”

“Don’t mean to quibble with you, Mr. Pintado. But those photographs are evidence.”

“They are evidence of the fact that your client had sex with Oscar’s best friend. She’s admitted that. There’s no need to show the world pictures of it.”

“That’s not the point. They were taken with your son’s camera. Probably by your son.”

“Probably,” he said, then looked away. “When I went down to Guantánamo after Oscar died, I cleaned out his locker at the Officer’s Club. Lindsey probably didn’t even know about it. I guess that’s why she never found the pictures. I didn’t even think to download the images myself until she testified about the digital camera.”

Jack gave him a moment, trying not to embarrass him. “Look, Mr. Pintado. I know this has to be awful for you. Your son is dead, and now you find out that he was taking these photographs of his wife. But this was no run-of-the-mill lovers’ triangle. This was an abused woman caught between two men. I don’t know what brought things to a head. Maybe Oscar didn’t like the way Lieutenant Johnson started coming around the house when he wasn’t there, pestering Lindsey for sex. Maybe in some sick way Johnson really started to like Lindsey, and he got tired of Oscar hanging around and taking pictures every time he had sex with her. Something went wrong, and Oscar got shot. Your grandson’s father is dead. And now his mother is standing trial for a murder she didn’t commit.”

“You think it was Johnson,” said Pintado. It wasn’t a question, more like a statement.

“Don’t you?” said Jack.

“I don’t know. But I do know this much: I want to hear from the lieutenant.”

“So do I. That’s why the other day I asked you for any information you could give me about his whereabouts. I want to subpoena him.”

A seagull landed at their feet. Pintado shooed it away. “You were right, you know. Johnson is in Miami. Torres wants to keep him out of the trial if he can. Says he wants him in town just in case he might need him for rebuttal. But I think he wants him here so that you never find him.”

“I’m sure Torres is convinced that Lindsey did it. He doesn’t want me pecking away at Johnson on the witness stand and filling jurors’ minds with reasonable doubt.”

“I agreed with that strategy,” said Pintado. “But I’m not sure I do anymore.”

Jack glanced at the dossier. “You got something for me?”

“The address is inside here. You get your process server out there tonight, you’ll have Johnson in trial tomorrow.”

Jack reached for the dossier, but Pintado pulled back. “Not so fast.”

“What’s wrong?”

Pintado gave him a sideways glance, then held it. “Did Lindsey ever tell you how Brian became deaf?”

Jack reeled a bit, taken by the sudden shift in their conversation. “No. She just said it wasn’t her fault.”

“It doesn’t surprise me that she’d keep it from you.”

“Keep what?”

He patted the dossier and said, “There’s a copy of Brian’s medical history in here as well. It will tell you how he went deaf.”

Jack wanted to know, but he wasn’t sure what Pintado was trying to accomplish. “How did you get this?”

“My lawyer. As a grandparent I had no legal right to see it before. But now that Lindsey’s in jail and my wife and I are Brian’s custodians, the doctor had to hand it over to us. I got it just a few days ago.”

“What do you want me to do with it?”

“Read it. And once you do, I think you’ll agree with me.”

“Agree with you on what?”

Pintado’s eyes narrowed, his expression very serious. “No matter how this trial turns out-even if it turns out that Lindsey didn’t kill Oscar-Brian belongs with his grandparents.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“Read the file, Jack. Then you will.”

Their eyes remained locked for several long moments. Then Jack reached for the dossier, and this time Pintado didn’t pull back. Jack took it from him and said, “All right. I’ll read it. With interest.”

47

A sly old trial lawyer from north Florida (the only part of Florida that was truly “the South”) once told Jack, “Catchin’ a gator is the easy part. It’s lettin’ him go that’ll cost you fingers and toes. If it ain’t the snapping jaws, it’s the swoosh of the tail that gets ya.” It was another way of saying to be careful what you wish for; you can wrestle a witness onto the stand, but once his mouth opens, it can be a buss or a bite. That old man’s words echoed in Jack’s mind as he prepared to do battle with Lieutenant Damont Johnson, knowing full well that this was one witness who’d be jamming him at every turn.

Jack had filled the morning session with other witnesses, most importantly an expert who testified that it wasn’t uncommon for a physically or psychologically abused wife to keep her suffering to herself, even deny it to authorities. A subpoena wasn’t slapped on Johnson till midmorning, and he was finally hauled into court as the last witness of the day.

“The defense calls Lieutenant Damont Johnson,” Jack a

It was as if the collective pulse of the courtroom had suddenly quickened, the excitement palpable. Spectators stirred in their seats, jurors straightened to attention, and the media reached for pen and paper. The courthouse artist worked furiously at the lieutenant’s likeness, as if utterly confident that this was evening-news material. For an instant, Jack had almost felt that it didn’t matter what Johnson said, that it was worth the dumbfounded expression on the prosecutor’s face just to bring Johnson into the courtroom. Soon enough, however, that initial excitement wore off.

“Lieutenant, was it you or Captain Pintado who drugged Lindsey Hart the first time you had sex with her?”

Johnson did a double take, but kept his composure. He was an imposing figure in his own right, dressed in the white uniform of an officer, his hat in his lap. It was hard to maintain a sense of dignity, given the nature of the questioning, but he was holding his own. “Excuse me, but neither one of us drugged her.”