“Ms. Bristol.”
“Ms. Bristol, I truly believe you’re reading too much into this meeting on Monday night. Have you spoken to your husband about this?”
“I would love to. But if you think he’s bad about returning your calls, you should see how he ignores mine. And as of”—she checked her watch—“two hours ago, he’s in Mexico City.”
Jack bristled. “Your husband left the country?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know he’s in Mexico?”
“His office manager told me. Lourdes is very loyal to el jefe, but she can be a pretty good girlfriend to Mrs. Jefe, too.”
She looked away, and Jack followed her gaze out the window. Across the fairway, a man nearly as old as Old Cutler Road itself was struggling to get out of a deep sand trap—to get himself out, not his ball.
Her gaze swung back to Jack. “This was a bad idea.”
“Excuse me?”
“Meeting with you in hopes of hearing the truth about my husband was a bad idea,” she said. “I’m very sorry you took the trouble to come all the way down here.”
On her lead, Jack and Theo rose and followed her to the hallway, where they said goodbye. The housekeeper showed them out to the driveway. Across the street, a landscaper armed with a noisy blower was stirring up a blizzard of fallen leaves, sending them into the street, making them someone else’s problem.
“What do you think?” Jack asked on the walk to his car.
“I think hell will freeze over before that old man in the sand trap finds his way out. They’re gonna have to fucking bury him there.”
“No, smart-ass. I was talking about Dr. Perez hightailing it out of the country.”
They got into the car. The doors closed, and Jack started the engine.
“Can you serve a subpoena in Mexico City?” asked Theo.
“Not one that I can enforce overnight,” said Jack. “We can just forget about Dr. Perez as our star witness.”
“Then here’s what I think,” said Theo.
Jack backed out of the driveway. “What?”
“Find out what’s on that flash drive. Fast.”
Chapter 38
Gwen Stahl picked up her daughter from an after-school ballet class at the Miami Conservatory and drove straight home.
Gwen counted four photojournalists outside the front gate to her driveway. It was already dark, so how many more were hiding in the bushes she didn’t know. All were looking for “the shot”—a telling look of anger or disgust between husband and wife—to prove that the kiss seen ’round the world had been a sham. The photographers watched her car pass, openly disappointed to see that it was just Gwen and her daughter inside.
The garage door opened automatically, and Gwen drove in faster than she should have, stopping just a few inches from the back wall. Rachel grabbed her book bag and jumped out of the car.
“I’ll check the mail!” she shouted, and ran inside through the side door to the mud room. The mail was on the granite countertop, where the housekeeper always put it before leaving at four o’clock. Rachel was kneeling on a barstool, rummaging through the stack as Gwen entered the kitchen.
“Anything interesting?” asked Gwen.
“Nothing,” said Rachel, and then she went through the stack again.
Rachel’s first task after returning to Florida had been to send Nanny a letter in Colombia. Gwen had watched the same scene unfold every day since: Rachel running into the kitchen to check for a reply, only to find disappointment.
“International mail can be very slow,” said Gwen, not knowing what else to say. “Do you have any homework, sweetie?”
“Just math.”
Ironically, her school used the Singapore math curriculum. It was the one cool thing about their two-month hideaway on the other side of the world: Rachel was the only kid in her class to have learned Singapore math in Singapore, if only for a few weeks.
“Why don’t you get your homework out of the way while I make dinner?”
“Okay.” Rachel slung her book bag over her shoulder and climbed down from the barstool.
“Oh, and water the plants in the hallway, too, sweetie.”
Rachel groaned the way any kid would about household chores. “Yes, master,” she said, as she left the kitchen.
Gwen went to the refrigerator for a couple of chicken breasts. She was rinsing them off in the sink when her husband entered the room. “I didn’t know you were home,” she said.
He didn’t answer, and then she noticed the cordless earbuds in each ear. His phone, as usual, was in his hand. He said something, speaking not to her but to whoever was on the line, as he grabbed a can of diet soda from the refrigerator. Gwen washed her hands and started chopping carrots. Evan ended his call. He was standing at the counter, drinking his soda.
“Will you be staying for dinner? I can grill another chicken breast.”
The question snagged him from somewhere deep in his thoughts. “Uh, no. I have—things.”
Evan checked his messages on his phone. Gwen kept chopping. Like old times.
She put down the knife. “I stopped by the hospital today to see about transitioning back to work.”
Evan was still staring at his phone. “That’s nice.”
“Of course, I didn’t make any promises. I told administration there’s still a chance we could be moving to Washington.”
Evan was typing furiously with his thumbs.
Gwen selected a tomato from the colander and started slicing. “The good news is that the behavioral health unit desperately needs help. Two clinical psychiatrists have quit since I started my leave of absence for the campaign. The director said I can start whenever the Electoral College issue sorts itself out.”
No response from Evan.
Gwen put the tomato wedges in a salad bowl with the romaine. “I spent the rest of the afternoon with a bipolar ex-Marine who looks like a young Bradley Cooper. He was in his manic phase, so the sex was unbelievable.”
Still no reaction.
Gwen seasoned the chicken breasts with a little salt and pepper. “I may go back again tomorrow. Do you have any condoms I can borrow?”
Evan looked up from his phone. “Huh?”
“Nothing,” she said.
Rachel entered the room. “Mommy, what’s this?”
Gwen turned. Rachel was standing on the other side of the kitchen counter. In one hand was the sprinkler she used to water the plants. In the other, squeezed between her thumb and forefinger, was something about the size of a thimble. It appeared to be made of brass.
“Let me see,” said Gwen.
Rachel brought it to her. Evan turned his attention back to his e-mails as Gwen took a closer look. It was a spent ammunition casing. Just the casing. No bullet.
“Where’d you get this?” Gwen asked.
“I found it.”
“Where?”
“In the planter outside my bedroom. Underneath the bromeliads.”
“I don’t know what that is, sweetheart. Evan?”
He looked up from his smartphone. “Hmm?”
Gwen stepped out from behind the sink and handed the brass casing to her husband. “What do you make of this?”
Chapter 39
Jack was back in court Thursday morning.
The continuation of Charlotte’s hearing was still a civil proceeding, not a criminal trial, and the issue before Judge Martin hadn’t changed: Was Charlotte Holmes “fit” to serve as a member of the Electoral College? But the case was no longer about Tallahassee’s unofficial pastime, the alleged trading of sex for votes. A man was dead. His widow was in the courtroom, seated on the other side of the rail, directly behind the attorney general and her team of government lawyers. At the table beside Jack was an “unfaithful elector,” now an accused killer. Although Charlotte’s liberty was not yet at risk, the atmosphere was no less intense, as General Barrow wrapped up the testimony of witness number one, an FDLE ballistics expert.
&n
bsp; “Sir, based on your examination, were you able to determine to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty whether or not the bullet removed from the victim’s chest was fired from the pistol registered to one Charlotte Holmes?”
“Yes. It was fired from that gun.”
No one disputed that it was Charlotte’s gun, or that she’d pulled the trigger. But courtroom was theater, and in a case as politicized as this one, the attorney general needed an “Aha!” moment from each witness to feed the maw of social media, even if the drama wasn’t real. With the precision timing of a Broadway choreographer, Barrow would pause after the well-rehearsed answer, as if waiting for the courtroom to reverberate with the chong-chong from Law & Order, the unmistakable two-note beat that was somewhere between the slamming of a jailhouse door and the banging of a wrench on a cast-iron pipe.
The Leon County medical examiner was next.
“Dr. Nelson, have you determined a cause of death?”
“Yes. A single gunshot wound to the chest, with perforation of the heart and lungs.”
Chong-chong.
“Have you determined the manner of death?”
“Objection,” said Jack, rising.
The judge looked confused. Or annoyed. Maybe both. “What’s wrong with that question, Mr. Swyteck?”
In a shooting case, a medical examiner had only three choices when it came to the manner of death: homicide, suicide, or accident. Jack’s only real “objection” was President MacLeod’s inevitable tweet to five million followers that “Charlotte Holmes is ‘guilty of homicide,’ so said the medical examiner.”
“It’s important to point out that this is a case of justifiable homicide,” said Jack. “As the evidence will show, Ms. Holmes is immune from prosecution under Florida’s stand-your-ground statute.”
The judge scowled. “It’s also important to point out that when lawyers object in my courtroom, they’d better have a legally valid objection. Overruled. The witness may answer.”
Dr. Nelson leaned forward to speak into the gooseneck microphone. “The manner of death was homicide.”
Chong-chong.
Barrow used the final witness of the morning—the detective in charge of the crime scene—to drive home the point that the victim was unarmed. Theoretically, it didn’t matter if Mr. Meyer had a weapon or not, as long as Charlotte thought he was going for a gun. But Judge Martin was only human, and the shooting of an unarmed man didn’t sit well with anyone. Jack had to take some of the sting out of the detective’s testimony that police found no gun on the victim or at the scene. Cross-examination was in order. Jack started with a photograph from the security camera outside Clyde’s, which the attorney general had already put into evidence.
“Detective, this first image shows a line of people waiting outside the club. Can you confirm that it was taken before the shooting?”
“Yes,” he said, and then he checked the time stamp in the corner. “Less than a minute before.”
“You testified earlier that there were fifty-one people in this photograph, correct?”
“Yes. Not all identifiable, but around that number.”
Jack showed him the next exhibit. Rather than continuous video, the security camera outside Clyde’s was programmed to record a new fixed image every sixty seconds. “Look at this next image,” said Jack. “Can you tell me what this is?”
“That’s the same camera view outside the club, but a couple minutes later.” The detective checked the time stamp. “Exactly two minutes later.”
“How many people are in this photo?”
“Hard to say.”
“It’s hard to say because the crowd has scattered, correct?”
“Yes.”
“It’s pandemonium. People are running in every direction. Some have been knocked to the ground, right?”
“Yes.”
“Outdoor tables and chairs are overturned on the sidewalk?”
“Yes.”
“By the time the police arrived, all of these bystanders were gone. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Did you follow up with any witness interviews?”
“Yes. We worked through local television and social media to ask anyone who had any information about the shooting to contact us for an interview.”
“How many people had information and contacted the police?”
“Twelve.”
“How many people had information and did not come forward?”
“Objection,” said Barrow.
“Overruled,” said the judge. “It’s kind of a smart-alecky question, but Mr. Swyteck is entitled to make his points on cross-examination. The witness can answer, if he knows.”
The detective shrugged. “There were at least three dozen other people in the photograph. How many of them had information, I don’t know. But there was no reason for anyone not to contact us, if he or she had information.”
“No reason?” said Jack. “Let’s explore that. How many were afraid to come forward because they were underage and didn’t want the police to take their fake ID?”
“Objection.”
“Overruled again. Answer if you know, Detective.”
“I have no idea,” he said.
“How many chose not to come forward because they didn’t want a steady boyfriend or girlfriend to find out they went to Make-Out Monday with someone else?”
The detective waited for the attorney general to object, but she let it go. “I don’t know,” he said.
“How many had information and just didn’t want to get involved?”
“I don’t know.”
Jack referred again to the post-shooting security photo. “Is that a storm drain at the curb outside Clyde’s, Detective?”
He checked. “It looks like one.”
“Did any of the fifty-plus people caught in this stampede accidentally kick a handgun into the storm drain?”
“I doubt it.”
“Did you look in the storm drain?”
“No.”
“Prior to the shooting, did any of these bystanders hear Mr. Meyer call Dr. Perez a ‘wetback’?”
“In the case of the twelve witnesses we interviewed, none of them mentioned it.”
“And with respect to the three dozen or more you didn’t interview, the question was never asked. Correct?”
“Obviously.”
“Prior to the shooting, did any of these bystanders hear Mr. Meyer say, quote, ‘I got fire in my pocket’?”
Barrow jumped to her feet. “Judge, I move to strike this whole line of questioning. There is no evidence that Mr. Meyer uttered any racist slurs, or that he said anything about what was in his pocket.”
The judge swung his gaze toward Jack. “Mr. Swyteck, do you intend to call a witness who can fill in that blank?”
Jack didn’t answer. He meant no disrespect to the court, but something in the photograph had caught his eye—something he hadn’t noticed earlier.
“Mr. Swyteck?” the judge pressed. “Do you have a witness who will testify that Mr. Meyer said, ‘I got fire in my pocket’?”
Jack was still transfixed by his discovery in the photograph.
“Counsel?” said the judge, his tone sharpening.
Jack looked up from the photograph. “Sorry, Your Honor. I believe Dr. Perez will testify to that effect. Unfortunately, he’s out of the country, so I’m not sure I can get him here in time.”
“That’s a problem,” said the judge. “I can certainly understand why someone facing criminal charges would not want to testify on a rush-rush basis in a civil proceeding, before she’s even had a chance to assess the evidence against her. It is certainly within Ms. Holmes’s constitutional rights to remain silent. But unless someone testifies about this alleged altercation between Dr. Perez and Mr. Meyer that led to the shooting, it’s not evidence in this hearing. Understood?”
“Understood,” said Jack. He turned away from the witness and laid the photograph on the table. It was grainy, l
ike most security-camera images, but Jack was pretty sure he was right: in the corner of the frozen-in-time hysteria outside of Clyde’s, an island of calm in the swirl of panic, stood someone wearing a baseball cap and a camouflage jacket—like the “someone” Charlotte had seen among the demonstrators outside her house, across the street from Madeline Chisel’s office, and on the sidewalk in front of Cy’s Place—watching her.
“Do you have any further questions for this witness?” the judge asked.
Jack lifted his gaze from the photograph. “Nothing at this time, Your Honor.”
“General Barrow, it’s almost noon.”
“Your Honor, there is just one piece of evidence I’d like to offer before the lunch break. Could I have just five minutes, please?”
The judge chuckled. “Five minutes? No offense, but it takes most lawyers longer than that just to sneeze.”
She smiled, then turned serous. “This I can guarantee, Judge. At this time, the state of Florida offers the recording of the defendant’s phone call to nine-one-one immediately after the shooting. It’s two minutes and eleven seconds in length.”
“Any objection?” asked the judge. “And this time, Mr. Swyteck, I mean a valid objection recognized under the law.”
“No objection,” said Jack.
“Very well,” said the judge. “Let’s hear it.”
A techie on the attorney general’s trial team queued up the audio recording and hit the play button. The packed courtroom sat wrapped in silence. The speakers hissed from the ceiling above, as if waking from a slumber. After an audible beep, the dispatcher’s voice followed.
“Nine-one-one,” she said in a pleasant southern accent. “What is your emergency?”
The next voice was Charlotte’s, and it was immediately clear why the attorney general was so eager to get her words into evidence.
“I shot a man!” said Charlotte, her recorded voice quaking. “I think he’s dead.”
Chapter 40
Jack didn’t eat lunch. He was on a mission.
Dr. Perez’s lawyer had managed to avoid him for days—until Jack put the world’s greatest legal assistant on the case. Bonnie managed Jack’s office like a pro, and it didn’t hurt that she also had the tracking skills of a bounty hunter. Bonnie worked her contacts all morning and texted Jack the coordinates for the ambush: “Subject leaving his office at 11:55 for lunch at Wolfie’s.” Calling him “subject” was a bit much, but Jack had no reason to question the intelligence. He texted back a “thanks” emoji and made a quick plan with his client on their way out of the courtroom.
The Big Lie Page 21
