O’Brien had told me that former cops had to be kept away from other prisoners because they would be murdered. The protective custody unit where Hernandez lived also was home to snitches and weaker inmates who would be easily preyed upon. Nothing like home sweet home.
Having never met Hernandez, I didn’t know what to expect. He was in his early forties, about five feet ten inches tall and a mass of muscles. His forearms and biceps were huge from pumping iron. He had a Fu Manchu mustache and his head was shaved. I suspected his fierce look and weight-lifting regimen were born from necessity. He wanted to appear intimidating in prison. He did. At least to me.
“You wanted to talk to me about Carlos Gonzales.”
“What I want is to cut a deal.”
“I assume your attorney already has cut you the best deal possible with the U.S. Attorney. I’m an assistant county prosecutor. Your case doesn’t fall under my jurisdiction.”
“Look, I want my wife to get my police pension.”
“I have no connections with the NYPD.” There was no point in promising him what I couldn’t deliver, even if he could help my case.
“Oh, you’ll find a way. Talk to the U.S. Attorney and FBI, since they sent me here.”
I decided not to mention that I wasn’t exactly on good terms with the FBI right now.
“What do I get in return if I try to help your wife get your pension?”
“Carlos Gonzales’s head on a silver platter.”
“Tell me how you can do that.”
“I’ll testify to what I know.”
“Okay, what do you know? How did you get involved with him?”
“My partner and me had been watching that piece of shit for months. We knew he was selling blow out of his jewelry business. One night, we see Gonzales ducking out the back door into the alley carrying a briefcase. My partner, Andy, says, ‘Why does he have a briefcase?’ I mean, it’s not like he’s a Wall Street tycoon. I pull our squad car into the alley and that stupid son of a bitch Gonzales starts running from us.”
Hernandez grinned. He was enjoying himself. “Andy hops out of the squad car and goes after him on foot. While he’s running, Gonzales tosses his briefcase into a trash Dumpster. Stupid. I mean, we’d seen him do it.”
I didn’t want to interrupt him, so I was just sitting there listening, but Hernandez suddenly paused. “All those years busting people, I never realized how uncomfortable being handcuffed is. Maybe you should have someone slap a pair on your wrists just to get the full experience, or maybe you already have been handcuffed a few times. Right?”
Great, I thought. I’d driven all the way to Attica with O’Brien and canceled a date with Mom to have a dishonest cop come on to me inside a prison interrogation room.
“Let’s get on with this. You said Gonzales threw a briefcase into a Dumpster.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said. Normally my partner would have kept chasing Gonzales, but Andy had put on a few pounds and was winded, and besides, like I said, we knew who he was. Andy fishes the briefcase out of the Dumpster. He opens it and says, ‘That shitbird’s got a shitload of cash here.’ I look and the entire case is filled with bills. My partner counts sixty-four large ones. Now at this point, we got no proof this is drug money. I mean the guy could have been on his way to make a deposit at the bank. Except he tosses the briefcase.”
“It must have been a large briefcase to hold that much money.”
“It’s one like you lawyers like to carry. It doesn’t open sideways like a suitcase. It opens from the top, so Andy reaches inside, touches the bottom, and says to me, ‘There’s something hidden down here.’ He can tell because his hand should go another three or four inches deep but it don’t. He takes out his knife and pries open the bottom and bingo, there’s a packet of Charlie hidden there. We had him cold with dope.”
“Can I assume you took the money and dope?”
“No,” he said, appearing slightly offended as if I had insulted him, “you can’t. Because neither of us had never done nothing wrong. We was good cops. But everyone has a price, lady. If I had sixty thousand bucks right now and I told you I’d give you the cash if you showed me your tits, you’d be pulling them out right now.”
He was making me uncomfortable. “You and your partner had the money and were in the squad car, right?”
“Yeah, we were sitting there with this cash and this bag of dope, and instead of calling it in, like we should have, we began talking. Andy says, ‘What if we take a few for ourselves? Maybe five grand each.’ That’s when I blew it. I got eighteen years on the force and instead of saying, ‘I’m not risking my career for a lousy five grand,’ I said, ‘What about Gonzales?’ I opened the door to the idea. I never should have done that.”
For the first time, I detected regret in his voice. “Andy and me begin talking about how we could use the cash. About how we are risking our lives every day and we can’t even afford to live in Manhattan. We talked about how the really big thieves are the ones who get elected to City Hall. They’re stealing stuff and no one does nothing. And then Andy says, ‘What the fuck is Gonzales going to do?’ He don’t want anything to do with this briefcase. We’re the cops, no one would believe him if he ratted us out. And that’s when I opened my big mouth and said, ‘In for a dime, in for a dollar.’”
“What exactly did you mean?”
“I meant, why take five grand each? If we’re going to take it, then let’s take it all. Andy says, ‘What about the blow?’ I said, ‘What if we take his cash and then we simply give him back the briefcase with the blow still in it. We’re not dope dealers. We give it back and say something like, ‘You dropped this.’ Now, he’s going to know we took the money, but so what? We got the cash, he gets the dope, and he can just mark it down as the cost of doing business. At the time, it sounded like a good plan.”
“Only it didn’t work, did it?”
“Oh, it worked just fine at first. The next day, Andy hands him the briefcase and says, ‘You dropped this.’ He just looks at us and says, ‘I’ve never seen that before.’ He thinks it’s a trap, so Andy says to him, ‘We ain’t going to bust your ass.’ Andy opens the case and shows Gonzales that it’s empty. Gonzales knows we grabbed his money but he don’t know if we found the dope. He takes the case and we walk out. I thought that was the end of it. But it was just the beginning.”
Hernandez paused to catch his breath and then said, “For a lawyer, you got nice tits.”
“Look, I came up here to hear your story. I didn’t come up here to talk about my anatomy. If you make another comment like that, I’m walking out.”
“Hey, ease off, okay? You can’t blame a guy for trying when you’re locked up all the time.”
“What about your wife?”
“She’s got nice tits, too,” he said, laughing.
I really didn’t like him.
He got back to his story. “A week later, we’re outside the jewelry store and out walks Gonzales all friendly. He says, real smart like, ‘This briefcase looks like the one I owned, but it’s not mine.’ He hands us the very same briefcase and Andy looks inside and it’s empty. Gonzales walks back into his business and I says, ‘Check the fake bottom.’ Andy pries it open, and sure enough, there’s two stacks of cash. Five grand in each. I says, ‘That little shit is trying to buy us off.’ Andy gives me this disgusted look. He says, ‘Partner, he already did.’”
I asked, “How long did you take bribes from Gonzales?”
“The gravy train ended six months later when we got busted.”
“How’d the FBI get you on tape? Was Gonzales wearing a wire?”
“Lady, we ain’t stupid. We always checked him for wires. No, as near as I can tell, Gonzales didn’t start working for the Feds as a snitch until after they busted all of us. The way I figure it, the Feds got all three of us on a boom mike. You know what that is?”
I had no idea.
“A boom microphone is a directional listening device that the FBI can poi
nt at suspects and use to listen in on their conversations. It has a range of about a city block. The agents must have been following Gonzales, and when they saw him talking to us, they must have pointed a boom at us and tape-recorded our conversation.”
“So that’s how the FBI got you and Gonzales discussing bribes.”
“Yeah, they got us talking about lots of things. My partner and me were running a scam on Gonzales. We was telling him that we needed more money—a bigger slice—because we had a lieutenant who wanted in on the action. We told Gonzales that this lieutenant could provide him with protection—you know—tips about who might be working as an undercover cop.”
“Was there really a lieutenant willing to do that?”
“Naw, we was just feeding him bullshit to get more money. Of course, he didn’t know that. Still, that little shitbird was suspicious, so he began telling us about how he was a real tough guy and how we shouldn’t mess with him because he knew how to take care of business.
“I said to him, ‘Oh really.’ And he tells both of us—Andy and me—that he’s a stone-cold killer. I says, ‘Who’d you kill?’ And this asshole comes right out and tells me that he poisoned his old lady. He told us he put cocaine in her glass of milk and had his little girl give it to her.”
Hernandez certainly had my attention, but I was suspicious. “You could have read that information in the newspaper. You could be making all of this up. Do you really expect me to believe that Gonzales told two cops that he murdered his wife?”
“Two cops who was on his payroll, dear. It wasn’t exactly like we was squeaky clean, and besides, Gonzales has a huge ego—he wanted to convince us that he was a tough guy.”
I must have still looked skeptical because he said, “Listen, lady, I’m not a virgin here. You know the defense is going to attack me. But I can handle myself in court. I’ve testified plenty of times. I may be in prison, but I didn’t kill nobody. I didn’t break any arms. I can be a credible witness. But in return, you got to get the U.S. Attorney to give Andy and me our pensions for our families.”
I’d heard enough. I said, “I need to think about this.”
“Don’t take too long,” he said. “You know I can always call the other side and tell them that I’m willing to testify that Gonzales told us that his old lady killed herself. That she really did commit suicide.”
“In other words, you’re willing to testify for either side?”
“We earned them pensions. If you don’t want to play ball, then I’m calling that other attorney, Pisani, and I’ll tell him that I’ll testify for Gonzales and so will Andy. We’ll destroy your case unless you help us.”
I rapped on the window at the officer stationed immediately outside my door and he opened it. “We’re done here,” I told him. As I started to exit, Hernandez gave me one parting comment. “Remember, if I don’t get word from you in the next twenty-four hours, I’m talking to Pisani.”
I removed the temporary visitor’s pass that I’d been issued when I reached the sally port and slipped it into a drawer in the bulletproof control room. The officer compared my face to the photo on my assistant district attorney’s ID badge that I had surrendered when I had gotten to the prison. Satisfied that I was, indeed, Dani Fox, he flipped a switch and the first row of bars in the sally port opened. Seconds later, I entered the lobby, where O’Brien was talking to the assistant warden. We said our good-byes. As we stepped outside, I felt like I needed a shower.
“What were you and the assistant warden talking about?” I asked O’Brien.
“We was talking about how women can be prosecutors and cops now, but that they’ll never work in a prison like Attica. There’s still a few jobs only a man can and should do.”
“I think that place could use a woman’s touch.”
He chuckled and asked, “Did Hernandez tell you anything worthwhile?”
“He told me that Gonzales bragged to him and his partner about poisoning Benita with cocaine-tainted milk.”
“Anyone who’s been reading the newspapers knows that.”
“Hernandez wants a deal. His pension for his testimony. And if we don’t cooperate, then he’s going to contact Pisani and offer to testify for Gonzales. He’ll claim that Gonzales told him and his partner that Benita had committed suicide.”
“What an asshole. Can you get him his pension?”
“I doubt it. Besides, I don’t trust him and neither will jurors.”
“So our trip today was a complete waste of a Saturday?”
“Not exactly. Mr. Hernandez may have helped me—without realizing it.”
55
Pisani was leaning against the edge of the prosecutor’s table with a smirk on his face when I arrived in court Monday morning.
“I heard,” Pisani said as I approached him, “that you and Detective O’Brien made a little weekend jaunt.”
I assumed Antonio Hernandez had contacted him, too, from the prison. We’d gone up Saturday. Pisani had probably been there on Sunday.
“Nothing like a trip upstate to help clear your mind,” I said.
“Ms. Fox, I know all about your conversation with Antonio Hernandez and I can only hope you’re going to call him today as a witness. I can’t think of anything more pleasing at this moment than to cross-examine that piece of shit.”
Placing my briefcase on the table, I said, “If that’s the most pleasing thing that you can think of this morning, the clerk’s office must have run out of interns.”
“Please don’t concern yourself with what pleases me. Of course, it would be easy to please you. But then, you’re too naive for my tastes and a bit of a bore. Like this trial’s become a bore. Despite all your bravado, you’ve not built a credible circumstantial case and deep down you know it. You’re going to lose this case.”
I realized that I shouldn’t respond, but I couldn’t help myself. “Maybe I can liven up things today. As you just suggested, I am planning on calling a witness who’s not on my original list.”
Pisani gave me a sickening smile and said, “Oh goody, you’re going to bring Antonio Hernandez in as a surprise witness. I can’t wait.”
As soon as Judge Morano called court into session, he asked if I had any more witnesses.
“Your Honor, the prosecution wishes to call a witness who was not on our original list.”
“And why wasn’t this witness on your list?” the judge asked.
“Because until this weekend, I wasn’t aware that he could provide important testimony in this matter.”
I could practically see Pisani salivating.
Judge Morano asked Pisani, “Have you been informed that the prosecution intends to call a new witness?”
“Ms. Fox and I just spoke a few moments ago. If she wishes to call this witness, I will not object. In fact, I will be delighted!”
“Then call your witness, Miss Fox.”
In a loud voice, I said, “The state calls FBI Special Agent Jack Longhorn.”
Pisani’s smug expression vanished. “Your Honor,” he said, leaping to his feet, “this is not the witness Ms. Fox and I were discussing.”
“You just told me that the two of you had talked about this,” Judge Morano said, waving us forward for a sidebar conference. “Which one of you wants to tell me what’s going on here?” he asked.
“The witness we discussed this morning is a prisoner at Attica prison,” Pisani said.
“With all due respect to Mr. Pisani, I never said I was going to call that prisoner. Before court started, Mr. Pisani told me that he hoped I’d call him. He mentioned his name. I simply said I was going to call a witness who was not on the original list. I didn’t say who.”
In a weary voice, Judge Morano said, “I don’t know what sort of semantic games you two are playing and quite frankly I don’t care. Miss Fox, are you planning on calling a prisoner from Attica, because it will take time to get him here.”
“Not at this time, Your Honor. FBI Agent Longhorn, who is seated in the back
of the courtroom gallery, will suffice.”
“You have any objections to Agent Longhorn testifying?” the judge asked Pisani.
Being cautious, Pisani said, “Quite frankly, I do. The FBI did not investigate this case so I don’t see how having Agent Longhorn testify is relevant. Also, the FBI currently has criminal charges pending against my client. I suspect this is an attempt by Ms. Fox to prejudice my client’s reputation by having Agent Longhorn testify.”
“Miss Fox,” the judge said, “are you trying to get information about those pending drug charges in through a back door?”
“No, Your Honor, the state wishes to call this witness because he has important testimony about this murder—not because of the federal charges.”
“What the hell does he know about this murder?” Pisani said.
“Well, if I can get him on the witness stand, then we’ll know, won’t we?”
“Okay, Miss Fox,” Judge Morano ruled, “you can call him, but you’ll need to tie all this together in a nice bow for me rather quickly, and don’t make me regret this by trying to get those federal charges into the record.”
As Pisani and I were returning to our respective tables, I said, “You wanted some excitement, here it comes.”
He didn’t reply.
Agent Longhorn did not look pleased while he was being sworn in. I began by asking him a quick series of questions that established who he was and his credentials as a federal agent. Then I got to the point.
“Agent Longhorn, do you know the defendant?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever heard the defendant talking about the death of his wife, Benita Gonzales?”
Longhorn looked directly at me and said, “I have never had a conversation with the defendant about his wife’s death.”
“That was not the question. I asked you if you’d ever heard the defendant talking about his wife’s death.”
Still trying to outmaneuver me, Longhorn reluctantly replied, “He may have talked about her death, but I was not present.”
Pisani was on his feet. “Your Honor, Agent Longhorn is correct. If he did not personally have a conversation with my client, then anything that he might say is hearsay and not admissible.”
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