Retribution (35 page)

How was he supposed to get a fair trial with any of them? Mugging the cameras for attention, when it was he who had handed them their notoriety? They cared not for the fucking truth. They didn’t even listen when it was screamed in their faces.

He sat back in his seat and grumbled, watching the show, the farce, play out in front of his eyes. He wanted to turn his head and smile his best right at those fucking cameras. Maybe crack a lens or two. Maybe get one of those cute blond reporters to send him a love note in jail or, better yet, visit him for a live interview.
Step up to the mike, my dear. That’s it, put your mouth on the mike and take it all the way in.
That would be sweet. And she could bring her own camera, too. His mind started to wander away
from the hearing and his cock rose in his bright red jumpsuit.

Then Miss Tight Ass made her haughty proclamation.

And the state would like to announce… blah blah blah… its intent to seek the death penalty in this case.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t expected the
announcement,
as it was being called; it was just that he hadn’t expected it today, in this circus. Today was just to be his arraignment. Just sit there and say nothing. Today is the day we enter your plea to the charges; that’s it. At least that was what his useless lawyer had said. So they wanted to put him to death? They were going to need some heavy-duty rope then to haul his kicking, screaming ass in, that was for sure. There would be a fight, yes, siree. Count on it.

He heard the cameras click and whir and focus on his face and he watched as Tight Ass teetered her haughty little self back out of the courtroom right past him. So close he could spit on her. So close he could smell her perfume as she passed. Chanel No. 5 it was. He could see her cute little upturned nose and fair skin and full, pouty mouth.

Then the Grinch got an idea. A wonderful, awful idea.

Bill Bantling smiled a sheepish, calculated smile for the cameras. For just then, he’d finally remembered exactly why Miss Madame Prosecutor looked so familiar.

49

‘It took the lab a couple of weeks, but they’ve finally ID’d it. The fishing line that he used on Morgan Weber is identical to the line found in the shed,’ said Dominick.

It was Monday, October 16 – exactly two weeks since Bantling had been arraigned. Manny, Eddie Bowman, Chris Masterson, Jimmy Fulton, and three other task force members sat at the cherry conference table in task force headquarters at the FDLE’s Miami office. C.J. sat next to Dominick at the head of the table. It was a case strategy meeting. A powwow.

‘That’s great. Now tell me the bad news. How many spools of that fishing line were manufactured and sold within the past ten years to bait and tackle shops all over Florida?’ asked Manny.

‘A lot. We’re working on getting a number,’ replied Dominick. ‘Another bit of good news just in: Jimmy and Chris finished up with Tommy Tan’s crazy-ass business records. Even though our love-seat salesman of the year was out of the country six months out of each year, he was nice enough to stay home in cozy South Florida on every day a girl vanished.’

‘Have we gotten anyone to ID him with a victim?’ asked C.J.

‘No. A few Jerry Springer wannabes, but no one credible,’ said Dominick.

‘Well, he hasn’t filed an alibi notice and he isn’t participating in discovery, which worries me a bit. So I don’t
know what defense he plans to spring on us. Maybe we’re in for a big surprise at trial,’ said C.J.

‘Like an evil identical twin brother?’ piped up Chris.

‘Sit down, Matlock, before you hurt yourself,’ yelled Manny. Everyone laughed.

‘So when are we gonna move on him on the other murders?’ asked Eddie Bowman, as the laughter died down. He was scratching the back of his head impatiently. ‘It would make me sick if this pervert walks for some reason on Prado, and we ain’t got nothing to hold him on his way out the door in the middle of the night.’

‘He’s not walking on Prado,’ said C.J.

‘The case is pretty much airtight, isn’t it, C.J.?’ asked Chris.

‘As airtight as a case can be. The DNA’s back, and it’s a match to Anna’s. That was her blood all over his shed. We have the body in his trunk. We have the murder weapon in his shed. The mutilation of her body and dissection of her heart is cruel and heinous, not to mention the drugs he used on her to paralyze her and keep her conscious while he killed her, and we have her abduction from Level, which shows premeditation, all of which are the aggravating factors that we’ll need to get death. All I really would like to seal this case is her heart, and, of course, the hearts of the others. But at least on Prado we have enough at this point to go forward.’

‘Then why not file on the others?’ asked Bowman again. He looked annoyed. For all his twelve years spent in law enforcement, sometimes he just didn’t understand how the legal system worked once a perfectly good case got passed off to a lawyer. Take a mope with an armful of priors and a two-hour taped confession – and five bucks will get you ten that for some fucked-up
legal reason, a jury would never hear about either of them. That’s just the way it seemed to be, and it pissed him off more and more each year. One minute he would be looking at a commendation for great police work on a case and his name on a plaque, and the next, he was sitting in a courtroom listening to a not-guilty verdict on the same fucking case. So he was not holding out any hope on Bantling, no matter how ‘airtight’ the prosecutor was calling it.

‘Because Bantling is a stickler on the clock. He wants a speedy trial on Anna Prado, and I don’t want to act prematurely and later lose something on speedies because all my ducks were not in a row. If I can get a conviction on Prado, I can then Williams Rule not only the conviction itself, but also the facts of her murder into the other cases and try them all together. That way, even without any physical evidence directly linking him to the other murder victims, the jury can still hear about all the murders and Bantling’s conviction for at least one of them. Of course, it’s still circumstantial and that makes me nervous, especially with Miami jurors. I want some physical evidence – and the fishing line is certainly a start – some evidence that directly connects him to those women. I want the smoking gun, Eddie. Find me the trophies he collected from each of his victims. Find me their hearts.’

‘Well, we’re looking, but he could have burned them or eaten them or buried them for all we know, C.J. I just don’t see why finding them is so necessary.’ Bowman scratched the back of his head again.

‘Hey, Bowman, what you got? Fleas?’ Bear yelled. ‘Maybe they’re breeding in your ears, ‘cause you ain’t fucking listening. She’s going forward even without
them. Give her time.’ Not everyone shared Bowman’s gloomy pessimism.

‘I don’t think he did any of those things, Eddie,’ C.J. responded. ‘I think he has them preserved someplace. Someplace where he can look at them and remember. I spoke with Greg Chambers, the forensic psychiatrist who consulted on the Tamiami Strangler. All serials take trophies from their victims. Snapshots, jewelry, hair snippets, underwear, some personal artifact. He thinks Bantling’s trophies were his victims’ hearts. It fits the pattern. And he wouldn’t destroy something he went to great lengths and ceremony to take. They would need to be preserved someplace where he had access to them at his leisure so he could look at them, touch them, remember. So I think that they’re still out there, Eddie. We just need to know where to look.

‘In the meantime, I’ve subpoenaed Bantling’s medical records from New York. He still hasn’t filed an insanity plea, and I don’t think Judge Chaskel is going to let me look at the actual records and charts unless Bantling calls his sanity into question. But the actual
diagnoses
of his medical condition and
what
he was prescribed by his doctor is directly relevant and I’ll get that. That will show a strong link between him and all the murder victims that the ME found with haloperidol in their systems.’

She pulled her hands through her hair and tucked it behind her ears. Then she began to pack up her briefcase. ‘But, we might not even have to try that hard. He may make it very easy for us.’

‘How’s that?’ asked Dominick.

‘I got a call yesterday from Lourdes Rubio. They want to talk. Probably on how he can plea and still avoid the death penalty.’

‘Oh that’s just bullshit!’ groused an excited Bowman. ‘He’s not gonna sit in jail forever eating three square meals a day on
my
tax dollars after hacking eleven women to death, is he?’

‘Don’t be such a fuckin’ grump,’ growled Bear. ‘Counselor is not gonna let him walk. I’ve seen the size of her balls in court and I can tell you that they sure as hell are a lot bigger than yours, Bowman.’

‘Taking the death penalty off the table is not an option,’ said C.J. ‘But if he wants to save the state the time and trouble of trying him for eleven murders, I’ll certainly let him. He can argue to the sentencing jury in the penalty phase that he has found Jesus and his cooperation in pleading was a valuable asset. Valuable enough to spare his life. That argument didn’t work for Danny Rolling in Gainesville and I doubt it will work for Bantling, either.’

She had her briefcase in hand and was headed toward the door. ‘I’ll let you know how it turns out. In the meantime, I’ve sent the feds enough paperwork to ticker tape all of Manhattan for a parade. When they’re done reading, I’m going to walk them through whatever evidence they want to look at on Friday. They’re getting quite antsy. So I’ll need a warm body to open up the evidence room and supervise. Any takers?’

‘Yeah. Bowman. He loves to baby-sit. Don’t you, Itchy? Maybe you can pass off some of those fleas to the FBI SAC.’ Bear laughed.

‘He don’t have much hair left on that shiny head of his for them to hide in, Bear,’ said Jimmy Fulton from the back of the room.

‘Now don’t be making fun of guys with no hair. Me and Bowman are pretty sensitive,’ said Manny sternly.

‘Fuck, you, Bear. I ain’t losing my hair,’ protested Eddie Bowman.

‘No. You’re fucking scratching it off your head, Itchy,’ snorted Manny.

‘We’ll just call you follicle challenged, Eddie. And I ain’t calling Bear nothing. He’s a hell of a lot bigger than me,’ said Chris Masterson.

‘I’ll walk you out,’ said Dominick to C.J. ‘Now behave yourself, kids. No spitballs.’

Dominick and C.J. walked out the conference room doors and down the hall. Rain poured down outside the glass main doors that led to the parking lot. A big boom of thunder quaked outside.

C.J. stood at the main doors. ‘Damn. I forgot my umbrella,’ she said.

‘Let me walk you.’ Dominick took an umbrella from the hall stand outside Dispatch. He led her outside, and they walked close together under the small umbrella in the driving rain to her car.

‘How have you been sleeping?’ he asked suddenly.

She gave him a funny look, as if he knew something he shouldn’t have known. ‘What?’

‘You said you got almost no sleep last weekend after we went to Morgan Weber’s crime scene. I just wanted to know if you had caught up.’

‘I’m fine, thanks.’ She climbed into her Jeep. He held the door open with the umbrella still over his head, the rain pouring off the sides and soaking his pants. The palm trees in front of her car bent under the rain and wind – a typical vicious Florida afternoon thunderstorm in the height of hurricane season. Then Dominick suddenly leaned his whole upper body inside the car and into the front seat. His face was now inches from her own. The
faint scent of his cologne tickled her nose. His breath smelled of sweet peppermint, and she could see the very faint lines that ran out like cracks from his soft brown eyes. She remembered his kiss from weeks ago and felt her breath suck in. The butterflies flew free.

‘When this is all over, will you go to dinner with me then?’ he asked.

She stuttered, taken aback by his question, which she had not seen coming. When she finally found her voice a few long seconds later, she was surprised to hear her own answer. ‘Yes. When this is over I will.’

‘Good.’ He smiled and the faint lines spread, cutting deeper into his tan face. He had such a nice smile. When are you meeting with them? Bantling and his attorney?’

‘Day after tomorrow, at DCJ. I’ll call you and let you know how it went.’ She could not help but smile back at him, a warm, intimate smile. The butterflies danced.

He closed the door and watched under his umbrella as she pulled out of the parking lot and drove off toward the expressway in the driving rain.

50

The mint green halls of the Dade County Jail smelled of bad body odor and urine and shit, an odor so offensive that it was hard to breathe. C.J. hated coming over to the jail. Whenever possible she had inmates brought over to either the courthouse or her office for depos or statements or plea negotiations, but because of the high security surrounding Bantling, that just wasn’t going to be possible. So here she was, behind the same iron bars as the criminals, walking past the peeling green paint under the bright fluorescent lights, trying to tune out the whistles and jeers from the inmates above her on the metal catwalks outside their cells. She silently prayed that nothing dripped on her head from above.
Keep moving – it’s hard to hit a moving target.

On the seventh floor, where the maximum-security cells were located, a corrections officer in a bulletproof plastic booth in the center of the floor directed her down a corridor to a solid steel door with a small, thick, bulletproof window at the end of the hall. When she reached it, a loud buzzer sounded and it slid open. She stepped inside and it instantly slid shut again with a thud, as she faced another short hallway with more peeling green paint, and a steel-bar door at the end. Three video cameras recorded everything from their mounted positions on the wall. From where she stood behind the bars, inside the room she could see a metal table and two bodies seated at it – one of whom she
instantly recognized in his familiar red jumpsuit as Bill Bantling. Cupid. Just steps away from her. She sucked in her breath and exhaled slowly.
Time for the show.
She walked to the door and it, too, slid open automatically. She steadied herself and stepped inside. The doors slammed shut behind her with a loud clang: She was locked in.