The Borzoi Killings
Page 22
Intricate procedures governed visits to prisoners at the MDC. Access to Juan Suarez at the far more lax state prison in Riverhead took less than fifteen minutes. Here, in this warehouse-like prison, Raquel had never been able to reach an inmate in less than an hour, often longer. Passing through the security was like peeling an onion; there were layers on layers of bars and guards, scanners and friskings.
For the first time in a year, Raquel had been living in a state of peaceful ecstasy brought on by her liberating meeting with Dr. Anil. She felt that she was reconstructing her life. Once a woman with many friends, she’d allowed those friends to drift away as she went into isolation at the moment a doctor had told her she had stage 2 breast cancer. She gave up clients and suspended her beloved teaching at Columbia. Only her secretary, Roger, knew all the details about the chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. When she lost her hair, she stayed in her apartment. Roger constantly sent her text messages about the dangers of isolation. But she saw herself as hunkering down, in battle mode, a dedicated soldier.
But it was different now. Raquel—taught by Theresa Bui about the happiness and feeling of community that friends could bring—was reaching out to people. She had joined a support group for cancer patients and survivors. She let the dean of the faculty at Columbia know she would return. She’d even had two television appearances on CBS for the first time in more than a year.
Raquel had done something else in the last five weeks. She had a small group of retired FBI agents now working in retirement as private investigators. Freed from the Bureau, they were also free to use techniques and means of access that as agents they couldn’t use. Raquel was never sure how they went about their business. She welcomed the results, not the process. Over the last several weeks she spent more than thirty thousand dollars to get the results.
And now she wanted to use those results.
After she had finally passed through all of MDC’s security stations, Raquel waited less than five minutes in the stuffy visiting room before Juan Suarez suddenly emerged from a sliding iron door like an actor from behind a curtain. Dressed in the trim blue uniform of a federal prisoner rather than a baggy green state uniform, he looked relaxed. He was smiling. Kept in rigorous solitary confinement, Juan had no idea what had happened in the five weeks since they had last seen each other in the holding cell in the Riverhead courtroom after the verdict.
Although Raquel hadn’t intended to do it, she rose to her feet when Juan reached out to embrace her. She recalled how angry and how altered Juan had become from time to time in the closing days of the trial; it was unsettling to recall that his voice could change in an instant from the faltering, often charming Spanish accent to a voice that seemed fluent in English.
“Raquel,” he said as he sat at the plastic table, “I’ve missed you. And I worry that you forgot about me. Or that you are mad with me.”
“No. There was a whole backlog of things I had to do after the trial. I helped Theresa’s parents arrange for a memorial service.”
“I think about Theresa.”
“There were hundreds of people at the memorial. People from her childhood in Chinatown, people she knew in college and law school, her friends in the city. The service helped her parents and family, it made the grief a little lighter.”
Juan said, “I loved her.”
There it was, she realized, that sincere charm whose presence had led her to look forward to the weekly visits, many of them not even necessary, in Riverhead. Juan Suarez was one of those rare people who gave energy to any room he was in, even a prison conference room. I loved her, he had just said about Theresa. And Raquel forced herself to think, Be careful, girl.
“How is life here?” she asked.
“Not bad, not good. I can only get out of the cell fifteen minutes a day. But they let me have Don Quixote. I’m almost finished. Then I’ll ask for another book. Maybe they give it to me.”
Raquel said, “Actually, Juan, you don’t need to worry about whether they’ll give you another book here. You won’t be here very much longer.”
“What are you telling me?”
“You’re going to be taken to JFK soon and put on a plane to leave the country.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your conviction has been thrown out. You’re being deported to Mexico, where you will be set free.”
Juan Suarez folded his hands on the table in front of him and lowered his forehead onto them, a gesture of prayer. He murmured in a low voice in Spanish.
“Do you want to know why?” Raquel asked after a minute.
“Sure, please.”
“Two kids playing in the landfill near your house in Sag Harbor found a poncho and long knife buried in the ground. The FBI and the state labs tested them. None of your blood and DNA was on the poncho or the knife.”
“Gracia de Dios.”
“Do you want to know what else has happened?”
He nodded, his hands folded at his lips. “What?”
“The FBI has arrested the three detectives—Halsey, Cohen, and Cerullo—who testified against you. Halsey for obstructing justice and lying during his testimony at the trial, Cerullo and Cohen for stealing the cash in the Richardson bedroom.”
Juan said, “Those are bad men.”
Raquel Rematti had made this trip to prison not just to tell Juan Suarez that he was about to be set free. She had another purpose. She said, “How do you know that?”
“Sure they are.”
“Don’t you know them?”
Juan became very still. “What?”
“You met Cerullo and Cohen, didn’t you?”
“I saw them when they came to court.”
“You didn’t know them before?”
“Before? No. Why do you ask?”
“And do you want to know about Jimmy?”
“The coke dealer?”
“He was indicted for killing Brad. His DNA was on the machete and poncho. Since he was arrested five years ago on another charge, his DNA was taken and stored, and it matches the DNA on the weapon.”
As she had expected, Juan simply stared at her.
“But, Juan, they can’t find Jimmy.”
“Why not? They found me.”
“You knew Jimmy, didn’t you?”
“Sure, Raquel, I saw him around the house all the time. Mrs. Richardson hated him. Mr. Richardson liked him.”
Raquel Rematti leaned forward, her elbows resting on the table and her index fingers touching her chin. “You know that we’ll never see each other again. You’ll get back to Mexico and be free.”
“Who knows, Raquel? Maybe I’ll come back.”
“Let me ask you this, Juan: You didn’t know Jimmy just through seeing him at Brad’s house, right?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’ve said that many, many times to me.”
“What?”
“That you don’t understand.”
“There’s been a lot that I don’t understand.”
Raquel, now very concentrated, said, “You and Jimmy worked for Oscar Caliente, right?”
“I told you, Raquel. I worked for Oscar in the city, and then he forced me do some work on the island. I didn’t want to, but I did. And one of Oscar’s drivers, Jocko, told me that Jimmy was working for Oscar, too. So, yes, I know that Jimmy worked for Oscar.”
“People force you to do a lot of things, don’t they, Juan?”
“Sometimes. I was afraid of Oscar. I told you that. I’m still afraid of him.”
“Were you afraid of Brad Richardson?”
Raquel saw that Juan’s charm was dissolving. “Why are you asking me that?”
“You owe me some answers, Juan.”
“Raquel, I’ve always given you answers.”
“Where’s Jimmy?” she asked.
“I don’t know where he is.” In his voice now was that disturbing edge she had heard before, the voice of someone who knew how to scream and command. As he grew more int
ense, more focused, his English became more fluent, the accent dissipating. “Why are you asking? Where are you going with this?” He was moody, combative.
“Juan, nothing can touch you now. You can never be charged with anything relating to Brad’s death. And I can’t say anything to anyone about what you tell me about anything you’ve done. I’m still your lawyer, you’re my client. In a way, I’m your partner. You could tell me you blew up the World Trade Center and I could not repeat that. You understand that, don’t you?”
“I’ve always trusted you, Raquel.”
Raquel knew she was alone with Juan Suarez in a small room with an iron floor, concrete walls, an iron ceiling, and a locked door. She also knew because her investigators had told her Juan Suarez was a man with infinite rage: they had visited the two men he attacked in East Harlem and brought back pictures of the lacerating wounds Juan had inflicted in seconds. And she knew that the hoodlum in the prison yard who attacked Juan had all the cartilage in his throat broken, also in a second.
Raquel said, “You know Jimmy is dead, don’t you?”
Juan came closer, his arms stretched across the table toward Raquel. Quietly he said, “We took Jimmy on one of those boats with a small kitchen and a small bedroom out into the ocean. We left from the marina in Sag Harbor. Oscar was with us.”
“Was this after Jimmy killed Brad Richardson?”
“Jimmy didn’t kill Brad Richardson,” Juan Suarez said. “I did.”
Raquel stared at Juan’s black eyes. He stared at her. The isolated room was absolutely still. The iron door was locked.
“Why?”
“I introduced Oscar to Brad. Oscar told Brad and everyone else that he wanted to buy polo horses. Brad liked meeting people. Oscar said he owned horse ranches in Argentina and needed polo horses. Oscar can pretend to be anyone.”
“And you can, too, isn’t that right, Juan. Or is it Anibal?”
He ignored the question. “Oscar got mad at Mr. Richardson.”
“Why?”
“Mr. Richardson couldn’t keep his hands off anyone.”
“What else?” Raquel asked. “Oscar Caliente is too smart to have Brad Richardson killed because Brad tried to kiss him.”
“Brad knows hundreds of people all over the world. A friend in Argentina told him that there was no Oscar Caliente there who bought and sold ponies for millions.”
“And Brad told Oscar that?”
“Yes. Brad didn’t know how to be careful.”
“And Oscar felt disrespected?”
“He did.”
“And Oscar had expected to get money from Brad for a horse deal?”
“Sure.”
“How do you know that?”
“Brad told me. Oscar, too.”
“And then Brad walked away from the deal?”
“He did.”
“But he expected Oscar to still hold hands?”
“Brad was a nice man, Raquel. I’ve always told you that. But he didn’t understand other people. He thought everything was a game.”
“And Oscar?”
“Oscar has people killed, Raquel, because he likes to.”
Raquel felt the onset of a fever of anger in all her body. “He had Theresa killed, didn’t he?”
“No, he had you killed. He wanted you. I told you to leave him alone. You didn’t. You need to think about that, Raquel.”
She didn’t respond to that. It was too painful.
“Oscar told you to kill Brad?”
“He knew I learned to do that in Mexico.”
“And you did it?”
“Yes.”
“And you took Jimmy out on the boat and killed him.”
“We did.”
“You are an animal.”
“You haven’t lived my life, Raquel. I’ve survived.”
Raquel was tempted to ask how he felt about the people he had hurt to enable him to survive. But she wanted facts, not justifications, and besides no criminal in her experience had ever accepted responsibility. It was always the same litany: denial, excuse, crazy rationales.
“Tell me this: Did Oscar say why he wanted Jimmy to vanish?”
“He said he didn’t trust him.”
“And Oscar didn’t trust you either, did he?”
“We put Jimmy’s blood on a new poncho while we were still on the boat. We burned the poncho I wore. But first I took the blood from Brad and the blood from Jimmy and put it on the new poncho.”
“And the blood from the Borzois, right?”
“Yes, Raquel.”
“And you cleaned the machete?”
“I did.”
“And you put Jimmy’s blood on the machete?”
“Yes.”
“And you brought the poncho and machete back to the marina in Sag Harbor?”
Juan’s smile was cold. “Be careful, Raquel. You know too much.”
“I’ll worry about myself.” Raquel was rigid. “You were supposed to put the poncho and knife in Jimmy’s apartment in Hampton Bays?”
“You need to be careful.”
“Jocko was going to drive you out there the next day?”
“Who told you all this?”
“You put the poncho and knife in the abandoned dump to hide them overnight, didn’t you?”
“You know, Raquel, that Oscar is in Mexico. He will come back here. He has lots of disguises.”
“But the police came for you before Jocko, isn’t that right?”
“Sure, they came first.”
“Oscar was mad at you?”
“Oscar is always mad.”
Raquel’s hands were clenched. “Where did you put the money?”
“What money?”
“Come on, it’s time to stop it. You stole money from Brad’s office, didn’t you? The cash upstairs wasn’t the only money, was it?”
“Raquel, Oscar is still out there. He won’t forget you when I tell him you know all this.”
“You’re threatening me.”
“No, Raquel, this time I’m telling you the truth.”
The iron door slid open. It was time for the random headcount that brought an abrupt end to all visits.
He smiled as he left the room. “I love you, Raquel.” And then he vanished behind the closing gate, leaving for some place in the world where Raquel Rematti would never see him again.
She drove to Brooklyn Heights. She walked on the high promenade that overlooked everything that was glorious about New York: the glittering harbor, the century-old span of the Brooklyn Bridge, the clean, gleaming skyline. White gulls floated on invisible waves of wind.
In the breeze and bright air, Raquel Rematti felt that she was cleansed.
About
the Author
Photo credit: Star Black
Paul Batista, novelist and television personality, is one of the most widely known trial lawyers in the country. As a trial attorney, he specializes in federal criminal litigation. As a media figure, he is known for his regular appearances as guest legal commentator on a variety of television shows, including Court TV, CNN, HLN, and WNBC. He’s also appeared in the HBO movie You Don’t Know Jack, starring Al Pacino.
A prolific writer, Batista authored the leading treatise on the primary federal anti-racketeering statute, Civil RICO Practice Manual, which is now in its third edition (Wiley & Sons, 1987; Wolters Kluwer, 2008). He has written articles for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The National Law Journal.
Batista’s debut novel, Death’s Witness, was awarded a Silver Medal by the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA). Batista is a graduate of Bowdoin College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and Cornell Law School. He’s proud to have served in the United States Army during the Vietnem War.
Paul Batista lives in New York City and Sag Harbor, New York.
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When a terrorist is brought to the Untied States for trial, Byron Carlos Johnson, a famous American lawyer, volunteers to represent him. Unknowingly, he is ensnared in a complex web of spying and manipulation that could deliver hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorist cells around the globe. Byron is swept up in a war between rogue US government agents and a ruthless terrorist group and must fight to protect his integrity and his life.
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When Tom Perini, a legendary Heisman Trophy winner turned criminal lawyer, is found brutally murdered in Central Park, his widow Julie Perini suspects a wider conspiracy. Not only was her husband part of the defense team for a Congressman on trial for bribery, her intuition also tells her that the FBI is not too eager to find the killer.
Relying on her skills as a journalist, Julie begins her own investigation and soon discovers her late husband’s secret underworld associations. Those now threaten her and her toddler’s lives. Fighting grief and a sense of betrayal, Julie is pulled into an inescapable labyrinth of organized crime dealings, political corruption, brutal power grabs, and murder.