Retribution (29 page)

What had made her so afraid, in the courtroom, in the apartment? Was it Bantling? Did this case have a different, special meaning to her for some reason?
He had seen her try difficult, complex, very violent cases before. She was always in control, always in command. Not now – now she was scared and anxious.
What made this case so different for her?

And why did he care so much?

38

Officer Victor Chavez stood in the doorway and rapped loudly on her office door at exactly ten past nine on Monday morning. He was already ten minutes late.

‘ASA Townsend? C. J. Townsend?’

C.J. was seated behind her desk, where she had been since
7
:00 that morning. She looked up and saw the young rookie in her doorway, holding the prefile subpoena that had been sent to him. Behind him in the hall stood two other Miami Beach cops in uniform. On one shoulder she recognized sergeant stripes.

‘We’re here for our prefiles,’ said the striped shoulder as he pushed his way past Chavez, who had stalled in the door frame and had yet to actually enter her office. ‘Lou Ribero,’ he said, extending his hand across her desk. He nodded behind him. ‘This is Sonny Lindeman and Victor Chavez. Sorry we’re a little late. Traffic’

‘I thought I had scheduled all your prefiles separately, Sergeant Ribero. At least that’s what I told my secretary to do.’ C.J. shook his hand, frowned, and looked down at her day calendar as murderous thoughts flooded her vision. She envisioned Marisol’s thick neck in her hands the next time she saw her in the bathroom.

‘Yeah, you did, but well, all of us were there on the scene on Tuesday, and we all came together, so we figured we’d do it together, if it’s no big deal. We do joint prefiles all the time. Saves everyone some time.’

Her hands released Marisol’s throat. ‘Thanks,
Sergeant, but I prefer to prefile all my witnesses separately. I think I’ve got you at ten-thirty and Officer Lindeman at eleven forty-five. Why don’t you both head to the Pickle Barrel and I’ll beep you when Officer Chavez and I are done? I’ll try to finish you all up early, if I can,’ she said.

The young man in the doorway finally stepped forward into the room. ‘Hello, ma’am,’ he said and nodded. ‘Victor Chavez.’

C.J. immediately felt old. She
could,
by a very wild stretch of the imagination, be this guy’s mother, he looked that young. And with the lack of sleep she’d had in the past week, she probably looked that old. He couldn’t be a day past nineteen.

‘Have a seat, Officer Chavez. And, please Sergeant, close the door behind you.’

‘Alright, then,’ said Ribero, carefully eyeing the back of Victor Chavez’s head. ‘Have fun, Victor. We’ll see you soon.’

‘Thanks, Sarge.’ Chavez flopped down and took an easy seat in one of her fake-leather chairs. He was a good-looking guy, no doubt, with olive skin and smooth features. She could tell from the size of his forearms in his short-sleeved uniform that he worked out. A lot. His jet-black hair was cut in the close-cropped style that rookies had to wear in the academy, and she wondered how long he had been out. His gum cracked as he looked around her office. C.J. thought he looked maybe a little too comfortable.

‘Raise your right hand, please,’ she said. ‘Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God?’

‘I do,’ he said and dropped his hand. In his lap he held
a notebook, the arrest form, and a police report. He crossed his ankle casually across his knee, and C.J. spotted his ankle holster, which was, she suspected, exactly what he wanted her to see. Those were not department issued, only his side arm was.
Great. A cowboy.

She pulled out her legal pad. ‘Officer Chavez, have you given a prefile before? Are you comfortable?’

‘Yes, ma’am. I’ve actually given a few before.’

‘Okay, then let’s do the preliminaries. And stop calling me ma’am. It ages me.’ She smiled. ‘How long have you been a police officer?’

‘Since February.’

‘February of what year?’

‘This year.’

‘Two thousand?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you off probation yet?’

‘No. I have four more months to go.’

‘Do you work with an FTO?’ FTO stood for Field Training Officer.

‘Nope. That ended in August. I’m in my own car since then.’

‘When did you graduate from the police academy? January?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’
Not just a rookie. A newborn.

‘Look, Officer Chavez, we’re going to get along just great if you stop calling me ma’am.’ She smiled at him again, but this one was not as friendly.

He smiled a full smile of white teeth back at her. ‘Okay. I got you this time.’

‘Alright, then, let’s get to Tuesday the nineteenth. You were the one who pulled over William Bantling. Can you tell me what happened that evening?’

‘Yep. I was in my car and I saw this black Jaguar go speeding past me, doing maybe thirty-five, forty miles per hour. So I pulled him over.’

This was going to take some work. ‘Thank you. That was very informative, but I think I’m going to need a few more details.’

She watched him for a moment. He was fidgety, playing with the shoelace on his shiny black uniform shoes, and although he was trying to come off to her as cool, calm, and collected, she could see underneath that he was very tense. This was, without a doubt, the biggest case his short seven-month career had ever seen. He had a right to be nervous, she supposed. But she also unfortunately detected in him more than just a hint of arrogance, a smirk behind the bright smile. She found that rookies right out of the academy usually went in one of two directions the first year. They were either total dependants: never taking the initiative, waiting for instructions, constantly asking questions of their superiors, unsure of themselves and what needed to be done in a situation. Or they were Rambos: totally independent, know-it-alls, don’t-have-to-ask-a-thing types. The latter category – the ones already packed for their power trip, with mega-egos – were the ones of whom she had grown most wary. Inexperience bred mistakes, no matter what, and she accepted that, but the Rambos – although inevitably being the ones who made the most mistakes – never cared to own up to them.

‘Were you on patrol alone that night?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

‘Washington and Sixth.’

‘In a marked unit?’

‘Yep.’

‘Is that when you first saw the Jaguar?’

‘Yep.’

‘Where?’

‘Speeding down Washington toward the MacArthur Causeway.’

‘Heading south?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Were you using a radar gun?’

‘Nope.’

‘Then how could you tell he was speeding?’

‘He was weaving in and out of traffic in an unsafe manner at a speed that I could visually tell from my training and experience was higher than the posted limit of twenty-five miles per hour.’

Taken straight out of the
How to Properly Word Trial Testimony If You’re a Cop
textbook.

‘How fast was he traveling?’

‘I approximated it to be about thirty-five, maybe forty miles an hour.’

‘Okay. What did you do then?’

‘I followed the vehicle on to the MacArthur Causeway, heading west toward the city, where I eventually pulled him over.’

The MacArthur Causeway, which ran from the beach to downtown, was about two miles long. ‘Officer Chavez, Bantling was pulled over at almost the very end of the causeway, was he not? Right across from the
Herald
offices?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s a pretty good distance from Washington. Was this a high-speed chase, Officer?’

‘No. I wouldn’t say high speed.’

Of course not. High-speed chases were not permitted in the Miami Beach Police Department unless in pursuit of a fleeing violent felon. And only then with approval from a sergeant. That being said, they happened all the time anyway. ‘Okay. If not high speed, what speed would you put it at?’

‘I’d say maybe fifty-five to sixty mph on the causeway.’

‘So you’re basically telling me that you were
following
this guy on the causeway and doing the speed limit with your lights and sirens on until he finally just pulls over?’

‘Yeah. But I don’t think I had my sirens on, maybe just my lights.’

‘Did you call for backup at this time?’

‘No.’

‘Why not? This guy has been going since Washington, heading straight out of the Miami Beach limits and you didn’t call anyone?’

‘No, no.’ Officer Chavez now began to look uncomfortable. He uncrossed his legs and shifted in his seat.

‘How did you finally get him to pull over?’

‘He just did. Right there on the side of the causeway.’

This was beginning to sound interesting. Too interesting.

‘Would you consider this a chase, Officer?’

‘No. Look, he might not even have seen me in his rear-view. Maybe that’s why he didn’t pull over right away. All I know is that he finally did.’

‘Okay. What happened when he finally pulled over? What did you do?’

‘I got out of the car and asked him for his license and registration, which he gave me. I asked him what his hurry was, where he was headed to, and he told me he
was going to the airport and that he had a plane to catch. Then I asked him where he was going to and he didn’t answer me. I saw one bag in the backseat and I asked him if he had any luggage in his trunk and he still didn’t answer me. Then I asked him if I could maybe look in the trunk, and he told me no. So I headed back to my car to write the guy a ticket for speeding. And for this broken taillight that he had.’

‘Let me understand this. This guy whom you’ve been chasing for a couple of miles –
okay, following
for a couple of miles – tells you to pound sand when you ask to look in his trunk and you just shrug it off and head back to your car to write the ticket?’

‘Yes.’

Never happened. No Beach cop that she had ever met took it that nicely when a person he’s just pulled over won’t let him look in the trunk. Forget whether they even had probable cause to look in the trunk in the first place.

‘Okay. Then what?’

‘Then I’m heading to my car and I pass the trunk and I smell this smell. This rotten smell, like maybe, maybe a dead body or something.

‘So I ask the guy again for consent and he tells me no, that he’s got to go. So I tell him he’s not going nowhere. And I call for
K-9
units to respond. FHP shows up, along with Beauchamp from the Beach and his dog Butch. Butch goes nuts on the trunk, and so we popped it. The rest is history. There’s a dead body inside with her chest cut open, and I know we just nailed Cupid. I tell this Bantling to get the hell out of the car, and we all just waited for about six minutes on the causeway while the whole world showed up.’

C.J. read the arrest form again. Then she remembered what Manny had told her after she was called out on the warrants on Tuesday night, and she knew she had more than a little problem on her hands.

‘Where were you again when you first spotted Bantling’s car, Officer Chavez?’

‘I was on Washington and Sixth.’

‘Was your car on Washington or on Sixth?’

‘Sixth. I was sitting on Sixth when I saw him go by.’

‘But on Washington, Sixth is a one-way, Officer Chavez. It only heads east. If you were watching Washington, you must have been facing west.’

Chavez shifted again. It was obvious he was uncomfortable, but he never missed a beat. ‘Yeah, I was on the corner of Sixth facing the wrong way when I saw the car go by. I do it all the time. Great way to catch speeders. They don’t expect you to be there.’

‘And when you saw him heading south toward the causeway, you pulled right out after him?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Never lost him?’

‘Nope.’

‘Okay. Now that we both know you’re lying, Officer Chavez, why don’t you tell me what really happened?’

39

Sixth Street was not only a one-way street, it was also not a through street. Even if Chavez was facing west, the wrong way, small cement pilings prevented his turning left, or south, on to Washington. He would have needed to turn north on Washington and make a U-turn a block or two up. There was no way that he could have kept that Jag in his sights, assuming he had ever even seen it speeding in the first place.

Chavez was now visibly shaken. His face was red. She had caught him, and he knew it.

‘Look. Alright. I was sitting on Sixth. I saw the Jag and I headed down Sixth to Collins. I made a quick right and went back up Fifth straight to the causeway. I only lost him for a minute, if that’s what you’re getting at.’

‘Wait. Wait. You headed back down Sixth?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you were never facing the wrong way at all, were you? You were never even watching Washington?’ She could not believe the words she was hearing. She stood up and leaned over the desk, her voice shaking with anger. ‘So help me, Officer, I am about to have your badge. You are under oath and I want the truth, you got that? Or else I’ll be talking to your cheap PBA lawyer while you’re kissing your youth good-bye in a crowded cell at South Florida Reception!’

There was a long silence. The arrogance was all but gone now, the air let out of the balloon. Chavez’s brow
was furrowed, his eyes dark. He finally looked worried.

‘Jesus Christ, I never knew this was going to be this, this… big case! How the fuck was I supposed to know this guy would turn out to be Cupid?’ He pulled his hands through his hair, and C.J. sensed that her case was about to fall apart. ‘Alright. Look, I was on Sixth, out of my car on the corner, talking with some tourist kids who were having some words or something. I got this radio call. Some anonymous tip had just come in about this guy running dope out of the back of his car. Caller said a late-model black Jag
XJ8
was heading south down Washington. The dope was in the trunk.’

‘An anonymous tip?’ C.J. was stunned. This was the first she had heard of such a thing.

‘Yeah. Tipster said he had two kilos of cocaine in the trunk and was heading for the airport. So I see this Jag go by me, I say
adi
ó
s
to the fighting friends, and hop in my car down Sixth to Collins. I swing up Fifth, but he’s gone. I knew he must’ve headed for the causeway over to the airport, so I hop on the MacArthur and about a mile or so up, past Star Island I see him. Just as calm as a fucking cucumber. I’m thinking, you know, this jerkoff’s just gonna hightail it the hell out of Dodge, all cool and shit, not even breaking fifty-five. So before he can get off the Beach limits and I lose jurisdiction on him, I pull him over.’