James Grippando - Blood Money

“I’ll drive,” said Theo.

They were in Miami Shores before ten. Jack had visited the Bennett home only once before, and he almost didn’t recognize the place without the battalion of media vans and onlookers in front. The telltale tire ruts in the yard, visible in the glow of a streetlamp, confirmed that they were in the right place. Theo parked in the driveway, and they started up the sidewalk.

“You want me to do the talking?” asked Theo.

“You want me to be disbarred?”

One ring of the bell brought Mr. Bennett to the screen door. Jack wasn’t expecting a warm welcome, and he didn’t get one.

“What the hell do you want?”

Geoffrey Bennett was a retired salon owner who, in Jack’s mind, could have been a 1970s TV game-show host-hair too perfect, skin too tan, teeth too white, almost too good-looking. The only photographs Jack had seen of him without his shirt unbuttoned and chest hair showing were from the trial, where both he and his wife had made a point of dressing as if they were on their way to church. “The look” had only fed the rumors, and while Jack had not explicitly mounted the “abuse excuse,” Bennett still held it against him for having done too little to squelch the talk of sexual abuse that had spread from the hallways outside the courtroom to the farthest corners of the Internet. For Jack, Sydney’s murder trial simply wasn’t the place to deal with her father’s battered public image. Bennett, however, had flat-out accused Jack of feeding the rumors in order to build sympathy for Sydney.

“We need to talk about a certain juror,” said Jack.

Bennett stared back through the screen door, then glanced at Theo. “Who’s he?”

“Faith Corso,” said Theo. “My morning-after look. No makeup.”

“I don’t like smart-asses.”

“I don’t like chumps who pretend not to know who I am.”

“Never seen you before, pal.”

“Me and ‘rot-in-hell’ snuggies was the highlight of the Faith Corso Show on verdict day. How many six-foot-six African American friends you think Jack’s got?”

Jack gave his friend a sideways glance, telling him to tone it down.

“This is Theo Knight, my investigator,” said Jack. “Please, may we come in? It’s important.”

Bennett hesitated another moment, then opened the door. He led them to the family room, offered them a seat on the couch. “Is your wife home?” asked Jack. “I’d like her to be part of this.”

“This is all very upsetting to her,” said Bennett.

“I’m sensitive to that,” said Jack.

Bennett stared back at him for a moment. “I’ll see if she’s up to it,” he said. He headed down the hall toward the bedroom.

“Faith Corso’s morning-after look?” Jack muttered beneath his breath.

“He deserved it. Like he doesn’t know who I am.”

“If we tick him off, he’ll just tell us to get lost.”

“If we don’t call him out at the first sign of bullshit, we’ll get nothing but bullshit. You watch. He’s a scumbag liar who doesn’t know who I am, doesn’t know where his daughter is, doesn’t know what happened to his granddaughter, doesn’t know nothing about nobody.”

“Can I offer you fellas something to drink?” Mrs. Bennett asked as she entered the room.

Jack rose and prompted Theo to do the same. “No, thanks,” said Jack.

The Bennetts sat in the matching armchairs on the other side of the coffee table, facing Jack. Jack noted the collection of framed photographs, all of Emma, on the wall behind them. He tried not to be obvious, but as he lowered himself back to the couch, Jack’s gaze swept the room. Not a single photograph of Sydney anywhere, as far as he could tell.

“Geoffrey and I watched the Faith Corso Show ,” she said. “Other than the times we saw him in the courtroom, we have no idea who this Brian Hewitt is.”

“To put a finer point on it, we didn’t buy off a juror,” said Mr. Bennett. “Anybody who thinks I have an extra hundred thousand dollars in cash lying around is out of his mind.”

“Not that we would do it even if we had the money, of course,” said Ellen Bennett.

Her husband shook his head, frustrated. “Ellen, why would you even add that? It goes without saying. Those are the kind of stupid things that need to stop coming out of your mouth.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Theo sat forward, placed his hands on his thighs in a way that gave him the shoulders of a defensive tackle. “I didn’t think it was stupid,” he said, his glare practically burning a hole through Bennett’s skull.

“I don’t care what you think,” said Bennett.

Jack reached across the couch, guiding Theo back into a less threatening position. “Let’s keep this cordial, if we can. Does that sound good to everyone?”

“Sounds good to me,” said Ellen. The men didn’t answer.

“Good,” said Jack.

Bennett asked, “Did you buy him off?”

“Geoffrey,” said his wife, bristling.

“Quiet, Ellen.”

Jack checked Theo back into place with a hand gesture. “It’s a fair question,” said Jack. “The answer is no.”

“But we would’ve, if we had the money,” said Theo, speaking in a tone that said, Fuckhead .

“Let’s all chill for a second,” said Jack, “and assume everyone in this room is telling the truth. You didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. Who did?”

“Obviously not Sydney,” said Ellen.

“Well, is it that obvious?” said Jack.

“To me it is,” said Ellen.

“Let me tell you why it’s not to me,” said Jack. “Let’s start with this simple question: Where is Sydney?”

“We don’t know,” said Bennett. “That was true when your FBI girlfriend came here last week asking questions, and it’s true now.”

“Okay, let’s assume that’s the case,” said Jack. “Nobody in this room knows where Sydney is. But here’s what we do know. Somebody paid Celeste a thousand dollars to show up the night of Sydney’s release dressed up and looking like Sydney. Somebody paid for a private airplane to fly Sydney out of Miami. Since then, somebody has been paying a lot of money to keep Sydney out of sight-that doesn’t just happen for free. And tonight, somebody plunked down a hundred thousand dollars to pay off a juror. Altogether, we’re talking well into six figures. Maybe north of a quarter million, depending on where she’s hiding, whether she’s moving from one place to the next in order to stay one step ahead of the media, what kind of lifestyle she’s leading.”

“Which makes my point,” said Bennett. “It’s not us, and it’s not Sydney. We don’t have that kind of dough.”

Bennett’s answers were a match for the low expectations Jack had brought to the meeting, but he still needed to ask the question that was at the heart of the matter. “Who’s the young man who met her on the runway at Opa-locka Airport?”

“No idea,” said Bennett.

“Here’s my trouble with that answer,” said Jack. “When you and I talked about Sydney’s release, it was my impression that you were paying for the airplane.”

“I never said that. I told you what Sydney told me-that there would be a plane waiting for her, and there was no refund if you didn’t get her there before two A.M.”

“I took that to mean you were footing the bill.”

“You took it wrong,” said Bennett.

“Then who did pay for it?” asked Jack.

“I have no idea,” said Bennett.

Jack and Theo exchanged glances, and Jack could almost hear the refrain: scumbag liar.

Theo said, “You might as well tell us. I got contacts at the airport. I’m gonna get a name.”

“Good,” said Bennett. “When you get it, you call me. Because like I said: I have no idea.”