Plea of Insanity (11 page)

19

Lat waited until the wheelchair was actually pushed out the front doors of Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center before he walked up to the man seated in it. ‘David Alain Marquette?’ he asked, already knowing the answer.

‘Jesus Christ! Not here!’ shouted the older gentleman in dress slacks and a sweater who walked carefully alongside the chair. He had the slight cadence of an accent that had been worn away over many years, which Lat couldn’t quite place. Lat figured it was Marquette’s father, who had been successfully ducking the police since his arrival in Miami a couple of days ago. A handsome woman – probably Marquette’s mother – flanked the right. She was dressed impeccably in an expensive suit with well-coiffed silver-white hair that was pulled back tight into a chignon. She looked elegant and reserved, but scared. The man now moved protectively in front of the wheelchair.

A private ambulance sat waiting underneath the awning. The two EMTs that had moved to assist Marquette hesitated, looking around dumbly for someone to tell them what to do. Steve Brill held up his badge. Although he had no jurisdiction outside of Coral Gables, no one besides Lat knew that. ‘Mr Marquette and his family won’t be needing your services anymore, boys,’ hesaid. At that precise moment, three MDPD cruisers pulled up, their lights flashing. ‘See, we’ve made other arrangements for him.’

‘Are you Alain Marquette?’ Lat asked the older man.

‘Go to hell!’

‘Step away from the wheelchair,’ Brill cautioned.

‘I’m Detective John Latarrino, Miami-Dade Police,’ Lat said.

‘He is sick!’ said the man, his tone desperate.

‘Step back, sir,’ Brill said again, and the man finally did. Family members were always the ones you watched during an arrest. Emotions ran high and you never really knew what someone was capable of.

The figure in the wheelchair was pale. His light-gray eyes darted everywhere. An oxygen tube ran from his nose to a tank on the side. A portable IV connected more tubes to his veins.

Lat was unmoved. Images of the slaughter that he’d seen at the house flashed in his head. The crumpled, broken body of little Emma, hiding behind her Hello Kitty chair in her pink princess room. For as long as he lived, he’d never forget that scared, swollen face, her blue eyes wide open, the soft streams of sunlight from a new morning bathing the bloody carnage in a golden caramel hue. Lat nodded to a uniform. The nurse backed away as the officer took her spot, turning the wheelchair around and back toward the hospital. On the other side of Jackson, and a building away from the Ryder Trauma Center, was Ward D, the part of the hospital reserved for in-custody defendants who required hospitalization. Marquette would be booked in there, just a few short pushes away. Ward D was handled like a jail, with bolted doors and high security. But no matter how bad it might be, at the end of the day it was still a hospital, not a jail cell. For Lat, that was just not bad enough.

‘Get Mr Levenson on the phone. Now!’ shouted the man.

‘Alain, calm down!’ said the woman.

‘Just do it!’

‘His lawyer ain’t gonna help him tonight, folks,’ piped in Brill.

A blue Channel Seven news van pulled up fast behind one of the cruisers. The door slid open and a breathless Teddy Brennan jumped out, microphone in hand, Willie in tow. ‘Dr Marquette!’ he shouted while running toward them. ‘Did you kill your whole family? Why did you do it? How do you feel right now? Or are you the victim here?’

‘Jesus Christ!’ Lat shouted, shaking his head and waving in the direction of the uniformed officers. ‘Get them the hell out of here!’

Only a few limited ears at MDPD, the State Attorney’s Office and Coral Gables PD knew about Marquette’s arrest and Lat certainly hadn’t authorized anyone to contact the news, even going so far as to keep it off the radio so no one would pick it up off the scanners. It didn’t take a quantum leap to figure out the boat had a leak. As if on cue, another news van pulled up and a reporter scurried out, this one from local NBC Channel Six.

‘Is it true there’s a full confession?’ yelled Brennan, ignoring the uniforms and pushing closer, hoping it was his question that got an answer, not the competition with the next microphone over.

‘Was Jennifer Marquette raped before she was murdered?’ shouted the newcomer.

‘Is this a Miami-Dade case now?’

‘Are you seeking the death penalty?’

‘Where the hell is your warrant? Where’s your warrant?’ the old man shouted angrily at Lat. He, too, moved toward the wheelchair.

Another news van pulled up. Another reporter came a-running.

‘Step back, sir,’ commanded Brill, his hand on his taser. ‘I said step the fuck back! You, too, Geraldo!’ he yelled at Brennan.

‘He’s sick! He’s sick!’ pleaded the woman. Her handsome face had turned ashen white, matching her hair.

‘Freedom of the press, Detective! We have a right to be here!’ shouted Brennan, thrusting his microphone at the woman, and pressing close enough to Brill that Lat knew it was simply a matter of time before something really bad happened.

Time to wrap this up. ‘David Marquette, you’re under arrest for the murder of Jennifer, Emma, Daniel and Sophie Marquette,’ Lat began. ‘You have the right to remain silent, and anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You also have the right to an attorney, but you obviously know that one already. Alright,’ he said to Brill and the uniform, nodding back to ward the electric double doors. ‘Let’s go. Get him out of here.’

That was when the woman fainted face-first onto the pavement with a thud, Alain Marquette started to scream and sob for the cameras, and all hell broke loose in front of Jackson Memorial.

20

The angry shouts from 5 – 3 could be heard all the way down the courthouse’s fifth-floor hallway. Mel Levenson was a tall, lumbering man with two chins and an imposing voice even in a library. Now Mel was in a courtroom, he was mad and he wasn’t holding back, either on the volume or the accusations.

‘This was nothing but an ambush, Your Honor!’ Mel complained on decibel ten to an already irritable Judge Irving Katz and a courtroom full of cameras. ‘Rather than call my office and arrange for my client’s surrender – which could have and should have been done,’ he said, shaking an angry, swollen finger in the direction of Rick Bellido, John Latar-rino and a sullen-looking Steve Brill, ‘the Miami-Dade and Coral Gables Police Departments – with the blessing, I’m sure, of the prosecutor – set up a trap outside Jackson to nail my client as he helplessly rolls by in his wheelchair, an oxygen tank and critical-care nurse at his side. Not to mention the man’s elderly parents. And without any concern for the devastating emotional trauma this man has already been through, losing his whole family, or the life-threatening injuries he’s just had surgery for,’ Mel continued, picking up a copy of Friday’s
Herald
and holding it up for the judge.
DOCTOR DAD ARRESTED FOR MURDER WHILE ATTEMPTING TO FLEE
blared the headline across the front page.
‘
These detectives call the press to get their own fifteen minutes of fame in – all the while prejudicing everyone in the tri-county area against Dr Marquette with their damn lies. Then they arrest him and ship him off to jail, when he belongs in a hospital.’ Mel wiped his long jowls with his big balloon hands and moved back from the podium, almost stepping on a cameraman and Stan Grossbach, his co-counsel.

Lat felt the rush of anger flush his face and he looked over at Rick Bellido, waiting for him to say something about that fame comment, but he never did. Meanwhile, to his right, he could actually hear the knuckles in Steve Brill’s hand crackas he clenched and unclenched his fists behind his back. He was apparently waiting for the same thing.

Due to the sheer volume of people who tended to do even more stupid things over the weekend than they normally did during the week, bond hearings on Monday mornings in Judge Irving Katz’s courtroom were always busy, but never like this. Except for the judge, bailiff, an ASA and a PD, usually the claustrophobically small courtroom was empty. Today it was standing room only. Conducted via closed-circuit TV at DCJ, even the defendants didn’t show up for court. At least not physically. Nothing more than a thirty-second pro-forma hearing that allowed the judge to review the arrest form, determine if probable cause existed and set a bond, a First Appearance was usually done and over with before the defendant had even figured out where in the room the damn camera was.

The judge shook his head. ‘Great speech, Mr Levenson, and it’s duly noted for the record, but your client is charged with murder. Four of them to be exact. This is just the First Appearance and you know murder’s non-bondable at this stage.’ He nodded at the TV screen before him, where a pale-faced David Marquette, dressed in an orange Department of Corrections jumpsuit, stood motionless at the metal podium, a wheelchair at his side. ‘All I get to decide now is if there was probable cause to arrest him, and,’ the judge continued, waving his copy of the pink arrest form from the bench, ‘based on the facts cited in here, I have no choice. So there’s not a lot I can do about your complaints except listen to them, and, frankly, I’m not Dear Abby. Besides which, if I’m reading this A-form correctly, Dr Marquette was wheeled off to Ward D, Mr Levenson. He got his medical care. It’s not like the detectives threw him in a cement cell with the rats.’

‘We all know Ward D is not like the rest of Jackson, Judge. Look at him,’ Levenson said, pointing to the screen. ‘Just look at him!’

The doctor had not moved. He hadn’t even acknowledged that the judge was talking about him. In fact, Lat wasn’t sure if the man had even blinked the five minutes or so he’d been standing up there, clutching the sides of the podium with bone-white knuckles, eyes vacant and expressionless. Behind him, a long line of bored-looking, tattoo-riddled defendants in various states of undress snaked its way through the middle of the crowded, peeling pea-green room to the back doors, where two correction officers stood watch against a wall. Another two kept the line moving at the podium and the noise down. Because a First Appearance was supposed to be held within twenty-four hours of arrest, more than a few defendants were still dressed as they were when the cuffs were slapped on the night before – bare-chested and in their boxers. Some even worse. The restless line began to talk again and the courtroom filled with the echo of incoherent chatter and noise.

‘Keep them quiet over there!’ yelled Katz to the correction officer at the podium, placing one hand over his ear. ‘I can’t hear. If they don’t want to be quiet, then take whoever’s yapping out and bring ’em back tomorrow.’

The guard nodded at the camera. Then he turned and yelled, ‘Shut up!’ to the crowd behind him.

‘I could’ve done that,’ mumbled Katz in disgust.

‘He should be in a hospital bed right now,’ Levenson continued. ‘He never should have been released back to the general population this morning. He’s still a very sickman.’

‘HMOs do it all the time,’ Katz said flatly. ‘He had the weekend off as it was.’

‘Mr Levenson’s client was apparently feeling well enough last week to try and flee the jurisdiction before he was wheeled over to Ward D, Your Honor,’ Rick interjected.

‘He was being transported to another hospital,’ protested Levenson, glaring across the courtroom.

‘In Chicago,’ added Rick.

‘I made those arrangements,’ said the man who rose like a tall shadow from the front row of seats. ‘That is my hospital and my son needs acute medical care. He was not trying to flee.’

‘Your hospital?’ asked the judge.

‘This is Dr Alain Marquette, Your Honor,’ said Levenson. ‘He is the Chief of Neurology at Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital.’

‘Ah, three sides to every story,’ said Katz. ‘Dr Marquette, you have good counsel here, and as I’m sure that good counsel has told you, there’s nothing more that can be done for your son at this point in the proceedings. Mr Levenson will have another opportunity to seekbond at what’s known as an Arthur Hearing or before the trial judge when one’s appointed, but there’s nothing I can do for him today.’

‘This was unprofessional. It should have been handled differently,’ Levenson grumbled.

‘If I had a nickel for each time I wished for something I didn’t get, I’d be a rich man, Mr Levenson. Instead, I’m just really old and really disappointed.’ Katz looked into the jail camera. ‘No bond,’ he yelled, as if David Marquette were deaf. ‘Now unless there’s some other high-profile case that someone forgot to tell me was on my calendar this morning,’ he said, pausing for a moment to throw an icy stare in the direction of his bailiff, ‘you all can take this outside in the hallway so I can clear my courtroom. I imagine they’re all with you, Mr Bellido,’ the judge finished, frowning over his glasses at the reporters who had already started to gather their cameras and microphones and hightail it for the door. Then he turned his attention and his frown back to the correction officer on the TV screen. ‘Bring the next one up, Sergeant!’ he barked. ‘And keep the rest of them quiet over there!’

21

Lat moved quickly, catching the elder Marquetteas he opened the door to the courtroom’s vestibule. ‘Dr Marquette? I’d like to speak with you for a moment—’

‘You’re kidding me, right?’ barked Mel Levenson, barreling up behind them, like a freight train without lights.

Alain Marquette turned to Lat, his dark-blue eyes angry and unforgiving. A long, uncomfortable moment passed. ‘I have nothing to say to you people. Nothing,’ he finally said.

Contrary to what police dramas portrayed on primetime, short of a subpoena or some really good leverage, there was really no way to make someone talk to the police who didn’t want to talk to the police. And since John Latarrino had neither at the moment, he could only watch as Dr Marquette, flanked by his son’s attorneys, walked out of the courtroom.

Less than thirty seconds later, a dapper Rick Bellido strode up in his expensive navy suit, frowning. ‘Let’s go,’ he said with a nod, straightening his tie and reaching for the door.

‘What about Brill?’

Bellido shot him a look. ‘He said he’ll catch up with you downstairs.’

That was smart, Lat thought, as he followed Rick out of the courtroom. Brill had been warned by his department in no uncertain terms to keep his mug far away from any and all cameras after last week’s televised out-of-jurisdiction, expletive-filled, taser-waving takedown at Jackson.

A crowd of noisy reporters from all the local stations buzzed around the Levenson camp, which had made an impromptu, teary-eyed press-stop by the escalators. Another crowd waited anxiously outside the doors for Team State. Lat had been in media cases before, but this looked Hollywood crazy. Flashbulbs began to explode as soon as they pushed the doors open, and a parade of reporters and cameras and boom mikes trailed behind them as they headed for the elevators, shouting out questions that they’d either just heard the answer to in court, or weren’t going to get an answer to anyway. At least not from him.

‘Does this mean Dr Marquette will have to stay in jail? When would his Arthur Hearing be? When could he be released?’

‘What about the death penalty? Are you going to seek the death penalty for all four murders?’

‘How did he kill the children? What was the actual cause of death? Why won’t your office provide details?’

‘Were the kids sexually assaulted? Was the mother involved? Was there evidence of a cult?’

‘Is it true Emma Marquette was still alive when officers arrived at the house? Could she have been saved if they’d just gone in sooner?’

‘Detective Latarrino, does your department take some blame for the injuries suffered by Nina Marquette when her son was arrested last Thursday?’

Some of the questions were just completely bizarre, as were some of the reporters asking them. Back in the front row once again, Lat spotted Teddy Brennan, from Channel Seven, and it set his teeth on edge. Rickstopped by the elevators and selectively answered a few of the easier ones, the perfect look of prosecutorial confidence and controlled outrage on his face, while Lat, of course, said nothing. He’d watched Rick Bellido work the cameras before on his other media-magnet Major Crimes cases, and also when the guy popped up on TV as a guest legal analyst, and he had to admit that the cameras sure did love the man. But if Lat was damn sure of anything it was that Ricardo Bellido, Super Prosecutor, loved those cameras right back. Every last one of them.

Just as the elevator doors opened on an empty car, Rick held up his hands, like the Pope at an attendance, and the crowd obediently quieted. ‘That’s all I have for now, folks. We hope – I hope – that you’ll respect that. Right now, our thoughts and prayers are with the family of the victims, and, of course, our concern is to ensure the safety of the community, which was the purpose of this morning’s bond hearing. The investigation’s ongoing, and we’ll keep the public informed. That is a priority. That’s
my
priority.’ Then he repeated the same thing in Spanish for the cute
Telemundo
reporter, just before the elevator doors closed.

Lat could practically hear the collective sigh of approval as thousands of
abuelas
across Miami swooned in their living-room easy chairs. ‘That’s
my
priority.’ Like this guy was running the damn show by himself? As he watched the doors close on all those cameras, Lat began to seethe. With the exception of the serial killer Cupid a few years back, he’d never seen such media interest before at a bond hearing – which made today’s unexpected circus all the more curious. David Marquette hadn’t even been shipped over from Ward D and placed on calendar until the last second this morning. And since all bond hearings were videotaped, there was really no reason for the press to physically appear. All a reporter had to do was call ahead and order the bad guy of the day to go, zip by the courthouse and grab the tape twenty minutes before airtime. And that’s what they usually did. Usually. Unless they thought they’d be getting a scoop.

‘The cameras certainly eat you up, Bellido,’ Lat said with a shake of his head when they were alone.

‘Thursday was a clusterfuck, Lat,’ Rick replied coolly, without looking over at him. ‘Today was damage control.’

Marquette’s arrest and the dramatics that followed had played out on an otherwise slow news night on all the local channels. Alain Marquette might have nothing to say to the police, but he sure had plenty to say to Teddy Brennan. His angry two-minute interview – the one where he clung to the sweater that had gotten soaked with blood from his wife’s televised kiss with the pavement – had blasted both police departments. Rather than see it as the harmless emotional tirade Lat thought it was, the Director of the MDPD viewed it as a PR nightmare.

‘What about controlling Mel Levenson?’ Lat asked. ‘What about making the detectives who are working this thing 24/7 a priority? You know damn well it wasn’t us that called in the press. That’s what turned Thursday to shit.’

‘You need to know how to work them, John. Don’t let them work you.’

The elevator stopped on four. ‘I heard Jerry Tigler is passing the reins soon, heading to greener pastures. Charley Rifkin, too. I heard there’s gonna be room at the top soon,’ Lat said and then paused. ‘Did you know the media was gonna be here today, Bellido?’

Rick finally looked over at him. ‘I was just doing my job today, Lat,’ he replied, the temperature of his voice dropping from cool to arctic freeze. ‘And they just showed up doing theirs, I suppose. The two shouldn’t affect each other, and they didn’t. As for that rumor you heard, that’s news to me.’ He exited the elevator, holding the door as people pushed past him to get on. ‘Your pre-file’s next week. Call me the second you get that DNA back and keep pressing Holt for the pattern testing on that knife by the end of today. If you can’t do it, I’ll get on the horn with him and handle it myself. Like I said, I don’t like waiting till the last minute. What you need to be worrying about now is the grand jury.’ With that, he let go of the doors and walked off down the crowded hall.

Then the elevator filled and the doors closed, and the opportunity passed for John Latarrino to give Rick Bellido’s camera-friendly face the finger.