James Grippando - Hear No Evil

“Don’t mean to quibble with you, Mr. Pintado. But those photographs are evidence.”

“They are evidence of the fact that your client had sex with Oscar’s best friend. She’s admitted that. There’s no need to show the world pictures of it.”

“That’s not the point. They were taken with your son’s camera. Probably by your son.”

“Probably,” he said, then looked away. “When I went down to Guantánamo after Oscar died, I cleaned out his locker at the Officer’s Club. Lindsey probably didn’t even know about it. I guess that’s why she never found the pictures. I didn’t even think to download the images myself until she testified about the digital camera.”

Jack gave him a moment, trying not to embarrass him. “Look, Mr. Pintado. I know this has to be awful for you. Your son is dead, and now you find out that he was taking these photographs of his wife. But this was no run-of-the-mill lovers’ triangle. This was an abused woman caught between two men. I don’t know what brought things to a head. Maybe Oscar didn’t like the way Lieutenant Johnson started coming around the house when he wasn’t there, pestering Lindsey for sex. Maybe in some sick way Johnson really started to like Lindsey, and he got tired of Oscar hanging around and taking pictures every time he had sex with her. Something went wrong, and Oscar got shot. Your grandson’s father is dead. And now his mother is standing trial for a murder she didn’t commit.”

“You think it was Johnson,” said Pintado. It wasn’t a question, more like a statement.

“Don’t you?” said Jack.

“I don’t know. But I do know this much: I want to hear from the lieutenant.”

“So do I. That’s why the other day I asked you for any information you could give me about his whereabouts. I want to subpoena him.”

A seagull landed at their feet. Pintado shooed it away. “You were right, you know. Johnson is in Miami. Torres wants to keep him out of the trial if he can. Says he wants him in town just in case he might need him for rebuttal. But I think he wants him here so that you never find him.”

“I’m sure Torres is convinced that Lindsey did it. He doesn’t want me pecking away at Johnson on the witness stand and filling jurors’ minds with reasonable doubt.”

“I agreed with that strategy,” said Pintado. “But I’m not sure I do anymore.”

Jack glanced at the dossier. “You got something for me?”

“The address is inside here. You get your process server out there tonight, you’ll have Johnson in trial tomorrow.”

Jack reached for the dossier, but Pintado pulled back. “Not so fast.”

“What’s wrong?”

Pintado gave him a sideways glance, then held it. “Did Lindsey ever tell you how Brian became deaf?”

Jack reeled a bit, taken by the sudden shift in their conversation. “No. She just said it wasn’t her fault.”

“It doesn’t surprise me that she’d keep it from you.”

“Keep what?”

He patted the dossier and said, “There’s a copy of Brian’s medical history in here as well. It will tell you how he went deaf.”

Jack wanted to know, but he wasn’t sure what Pintado was trying to accomplish. “How did you get this?”

“My lawyer. As a grandparent I had no legal right to see it before. But now that Lindsey’s in jail and my wife and I are Brian’s custodians, the doctor had to hand it over to us. I got it just a few days ago.”

“What do you want me to do with it?”

“Read it. And once you do, I think you’ll agree with me.”

“Agree with you on what?”

Pintado’s eyes narrowed, his expression very serious. “No matter how this trial turns out-even if it turns out that Lindsey didn’t kill Oscar-Brian belongs with his grandparents.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“Read the file, Jack. Then you will.”

Their eyes remained locked for several long moments. Then Jack reached for the dossier, and this time Pintado didn’t pull back. Jack took it from him and said, “All right. I’ll read it. With interest.”

A sly old trial lawyer from north Florida (the only part of Florida that was truly “the South”) once told Jack, “Catchin’ a gator is the easy part. It’s lettin’ him go that’ll cost you fingers and toes. If it ain’t the snapping jaws, it’s the swoosh of the tail that gets ya.” It was another way of saying to be careful what you wish for; you can wrestle a witness onto the stand, but once his mouth opens, it can be a buss or a bite. That old man’s words echoed in Jack’s mind as he prepared to do battle with Lieutenant Damont Johnson, knowing full well that this was one witness who’d be jamming him at every turn.

Jack had filled the morning session with other witnesses, most importantly an expert who testified that it wasn’t uncommon for a physically or psychologically abused wife to keep her suffering to herself, even deny it to authorities. A subpoena wasn’t slapped on Johnson till midmorning, and he was finally hauled into court as the last witness of the day.

“The defense calls Lieutenant Damont Johnson,” Jack announced.

It was as if the collective pulse of the courtroom had suddenly quickened, the excitement palpable. Spectators stirred in their seats, jurors straightened to attention, and the media reached for pen and paper. The courthouse artist worked furiously at the lieutenant’s likeness, as if utterly confident that this was evening-news material. For an instant, Jack had almost felt that it didn’t matter what Johnson said, that it was worth the dumbfounded expression on the prosecutor’s face just to bring Johnson into the courtroom. Soon enough, however, that initial excitement wore off.

“Lieutenant, was it you or Captain Pintado who drugged Lindsey Hart the first time you had sex with her?”

Johnson did a double take, but kept his composure. He was an imposing figure in his own right, dressed in the white uniform of an officer, his hat in his lap. It was hard to maintain a sense of dignity, given the nature of the questioning, but he was holding his own. “Excuse me, but neither one of us drugged her.”

“You’re saying she was a willing participant?”

“I’m saying it was her idea.”

The prosecutor smiled, and to say that Jack was headed down the wrong track would have been the trial’s grandest understatement. He knew better than to think that Johnson would admit to having forced Lindsey to have sex. He wasn’t going to break down on the witness stand and tearfully confess that he killed Oscar Pintado. That kind of drama happened on television every week, but rarely in a real courtroom. Jack had to score the sure points in his direct examination, let Torres have a shot on cross, and then hope for a few strategic openings that he might capitalize on through redirect. That was the plan, anyway.

Jack said, “Let’s see what we can agree on, shall we, Lieutenant?”

“Sure.”

“You had sex with Lindsey Hart, did you not?”

“Yes.”

“Oscar Pintado saw you have sex with his wife?”

“That’s true.”

“He even took photographs?”

Johnson shifted, as if slightly uncomfortable with that notion. “Yes. He did.”

“Do you also agree that this is something most husbands don’t do?”

“Not the ones I know.”

“Not even for their best friends?”

“Right again.”

“You were Oscar Pintado’s best friend, weren’t you?”

“Best friend on the base. I wouldn’t say I was his best friend in the world.”

“All right. Am I correct in assuming that having sex with Oscar’s wife wasn’t part of your friendship from day one?”

“That’s a fair assumption.”

“That’s something that developed after you two had been friends for a while, correct?”