James Grippando - Hear No Evil

“Then it’s her kid who pays.”

“What?”

“My first choice is to use Dr. Vandermeer to prove that Lindsey was cheating on her husband. But if you won’t let me do that, then I’m going to call the kid to the stand. I’m going to ask him how many men he saw come and go from the house when his father wasn’t home.”

“You’re bluffing,” said Jack.

“No, I’m not. So it’s your call, Jack. You can withdraw your objection and let Dr. Vandermeer testify. Or you can stand firm and make me put the boy on the stand. But don’t kid yourself. Before this trial is over, the jury will fully understand that it was you who forced me to sit a ten-year-old child in the witness box so that he could tell the whole world that his mommy is a whore.”

Jack struggled to show no reaction. Several strands of thought were weaving through his head, a tangled mess of conflicting information that seemed to wrap around his brain and choke off all ability to reason. Then he realized it wasn’t thought or reason at all that was clouding the issue. It was emotion, pure and simple-his amorphous feelings for the biological son he’d never met. Meeting Brian for the very first time under circumstances such as these was something he didn’t even want to consider.

“Let me talk to Lindsey,” was all he could say.

At Jack’s request, Judge Garcia stretched the five-minute recess into twenty. Jack watched from across the table as Lindsey massaged her temples, trying to nip a migraine in the bud. Sofia was seated at the short end of the rectangular table, perpendicular to Jack at her left and Lindsey at her right. It was just the three of them in the windowless conference room.

Lindsey’s voice shook with anger as she said, “I can’t believe that bastard would threaten to use my own son against me like that.”

“I can,” said Sofia.

Jack glanced at his cocounsel, as if to say Let me handle this. “Lindsey, as your lawyer, there’s one thing I need to know: What would Brian’s testimony be if the prosecutor called him to the stand?”

She stopped massaging and looked Jack in the eye. “You mean about these strange men coming to our house when Oscar was away?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“It’s absurd. If I were going to cheat on my husband, do you think I would do it in my own house with my son in the next room?”

“Coincidentally, that’s exactly what a certain Cuban soldier is going to say if we call him in your defense. You and Johnson were having sex while your son slept in the next room.”

“I told you five times already, I was not having an affair with Damont Johnson. I wasn’t having an affair with anyone.”

Jack thought for a moment. “So, if Brian were to take the stand and say that a stream of strange men was parading toward your doorstep, he would be lying?”

“The prosecutor is bluffing. Brian would never say that.”

“Can you be sure of that? Remember, he’s been living with his grandparents for almost a month now.”

Lindsey tugged nervously at a strand of her hair. “I don’t know anymore. He’s ten. He could be manipulated into saying just about anything, I suppose.”

“Easily,” said Jack, stepping into the role of prosecutor. “ ‘Brian, did men ever come over to your house? Did they come with your father? Was your father there the whole time they stayed? Are you sure? Is it possible that your father left, and that the men stayed? Is it possible they came back later, after your father had left?’ Before you know it, Torres has your son rattling off the names of a half-dozen soldiers who came to visit his mother.”

“You can’t let that creep do that to my son.”

“There’s only one thing we can do to avoid it.”

Lindsey swallowed the lump in her throat. “Then that’s what we should do. I’m not going to let my son be manipulated into testifying against me.”

“You want me to withdraw my objection to Vandermeer’s testimony?”

“If that’s what it takes to keep him off the stand, yes.”

“That’s the way I’ll pitch it to Torres. I’ll let the doctor’s testimony go to the jury only on the condition that he agree not to call Brian as a witness.”

“Do it,” said Lindsey.

“All right. But it does create another problem down the road. It’s going to be that much harder for us to argue that the Cuban soldier is lying about you and Johnson.”

“I told you, I was not having an affair.”

“I know. And we agreed that if we put the Cuban on the stand, we would try to convince the jury that he was telling the truth about Johnson coming to your house the morning of the murder, but he was throwing in the spicy sex just to embarrass the Pintado family. But with Vandermeer in the equation, it’s no longer your word against the word of a Cuban soldier.”

“Then maybe we don’t call the Cuban.”

“Maybe we don’t,” said Jack. “I need to think more about that.”

Lindsey seemed to be searching for words, then finally she looked at Sofia, then back at Jack. “Could I speak to Sofia alone for a minute?”

Jack said, “I’m your lawyer, too. This is all privileged.”

“I would just feel more comfortable if Sofia and I were alone.”

“We’ve got just two minutes left on this break,” said Jack. “If there’s something that needs to be aired, it needs to be aired among all of us.”

A tense silence filled the room. “Okay,” said Lindsey. She drew a breath, unable to look Jack in the eye as she spoke. “The Cuban soldier…”

Jack waited, but the silence continued. “The Cuban soldier what?”

Finally, she said, “He isn’t lying.”

Somehow, Jack had already known. But hearing it still felt like a mule kick. “You lied to me again, damnit.”

“No, I didn’t lie. Lieutenant Johnson and I weren’t having an affair. It was…”

Again, she lapsed into silence. She was doing funny things with her lips, as if her mouth were at war with the words she was about to utter.

“It was what?” said Jack.

Her eyes closed, then opened, and her voice was barely audible as she said, “It was a good bit weirder than that.”

Jack felt that mule kick again.

There was a knock at the door, and Sofia opened it. The bailiff stuck her head into the room. “Judge Garcia’s back on the bench. He wants us back in the courtroom-now.”

Jack was torn, but a federal judge was not the kind of person to keep waiting. “We’ll finish this later,” he said.

“There’s nothing more to say.” Her chin was on her chest, and she seemed to be biting back her shame, if not shutting down the flow of information.

“Like I said. We’ll finish this later.” Jack grabbed his briefcase, then took his client by the arm and led her back to the courtroom.

Theo Knight was on a shopping spree. The search was on for the stolen parts-and for the guy who’d torched Jack’s Mustang.

As expected, relatively few shops specialized in classic-car parts, and many of those were highly specialized, dealing exclusively in Corvettes or foreign cars. A dozen phone calls produced no leads. Finally, a call to the Mustang Solution in Hialeah turned up the kind of bumper Theo was looking for. A personal visit to the shop confirmed that it was indeed Jack’s. Theo had washed that car hundreds of times, knew every dent and ding. The rear bumper on Jack’s car had a dimple to the right of the license plate mount. This one had the same dimple.

“How much you want for it?” Theo asked the shop owner.

“Four hundred.”

Fucking thief, thought Theo. He peeled off five bills and said, “An extra hundred if you tell me where you got it.”