Most Dangerous Place

by James Grippando

  “No! That headline is beyond misleading.”

  “‘Misleading’ is what you call it? So you actually did say those words?”

  “Yes. But it had nothing to do with any attack on Gabriel. I was talking about Gabriel’s attack on me.”

  A warm breeze rustled Jack’s notepad on the table, and with the wind, Isa’s emotions shifted. The anger was giving way to the pain and anxiety she’d displayed in their earlier meetings.

  “Can you tell me more about that?” asked Jack.

  She nodded, but she didn’t jump right into it. Jack gave her the time she needed, his gaze drifting off toward the blanket of city lights that stretched for miles up the coast.

  “Gabriel walked me home from the Rathskeller,” she said. “Neither one of us was tired. He was fun to talk to. He knew my old neighborhood in Venezuela, so we had things in common. I invited him up to my room.”

  “What time was this?”

  “About eleven, I’d say. So we got to my room. We talked a little more.”

  “Sorry to interrupt,” said Manny. “Did you close the door or leave it open?”

  “I closed it,” she said in a firm voice. “Does that make this my fault?”

  “No, not at all. I’m just getting all the facts. Continue, please.”

  “I showed him some of the old beauty-pageant photos of me when I was little, just for laughs. Then he sat on the bed and said something like, ‘So, we’re going to have sex, right?’ I laughed, thinking he was joking. He wasn’t. I said he should leave. He said I was being a tease. I told him he needed to go. But he didn’t move.”

  “Again, sorry,” said Manny. “Did you open the door?”

  The question clearly annoyed her. “No. I didn’t open it,” she said.

  “Then what happened?” asked Jack.

  Isa paused and then continued. “I—he asked me to lie down on the bed. And I did. But this was not to have sex. We just talked. He tried to kiss me, and I got up and asked him to go again.”

  “My apologies,” said Manny. “But I have to ask another question: Did you get up and open the door?”

  Her eyes narrowed, and Jack sensed that Manny’s “no rape” theory of the case wasn’t exactly growing on her. “No. The door stayed closed.”

  “Okay, got it,” said Manny.

  “What happened next?” asked Jack.

  She swallowed hard. It seemed to be getting more difficult for her. “He started pulling off my clothes,” she said, looking away from her lawyers. “I wound up on the floor.”

  Jack gave her another moment. “Where was Gabriel?”

  “He was on top of me. We were struggling and I seriously don’t know how I ended up there, but after he got my pants off, I stopped trying to fight. I figured it would be better for me if I pretended that I was going along with it. I kind of just blanked out. That’s what I told the police—that ‘I just went along with it.’ I was nineteen years old and barely a hundred pounds. Gabriel was probably one eighty, and mostly muscle. I was scared, I couldn’t believe what was happening, and that seemed like the safest thing for me to do.”

  Another minute passed. Isa wiped a tear away. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “No need to apologize,” said Jack. “Did you tell the homicide detective everything you just told us?”

  Isa thought about it. “Probably. Most of it, anyway. I definitely told him that I went along with it—or something like that.”

  Jack looked at Manny and said, “We have to clear this up with the Tribune.”

  Manny shook his head. “The state attorney reversed her position on bail on one condition—that we not talk to the media.”

  “That’s ridiculous. The Tribune wouldn’t know about the detective’s report unless MDPD or someone at the state attorney’s office told them about it. Whoever leaked it clearly distorted the facts. We have a right to explain what Isa meant when she said ‘I went along with it.’”

  “Let’s not jump into the cesspool of a media trial,” said Manny.

  “We don’t have a choice,” said Jack. “Posten said if we don’t comment, he’ll run the story as written.”

  “Call Sylvia Hunt,” said Manny. “Tell her to kill the story.”

  “Why would she do that?” asked Isa.

  “Because the story is inaccurate,” said Manny. “I trust Sylvia to do the right thing before I trust some scumbag reporter to give us a fair shake. If we call Posten and try to straighten this out, the Tribune won’t kill the story. The headline will be even worse. ‘Lawyer confirms: Revenge killer told police she “just went along with it.”’ The state attorney’s office already has a PR mess on its hands with this case. Throw this one right in their lap and tell them to fix it.”

  Jack had his points of disagreement with his cocounsel, but he had to give credit when due. Manny was making excellent sense.

  “I agree,” said Jack.

  Isa did a double take. “What?”

  “I agree with Manny. Sylvia is the one to clean this up.”

  Manny smiled. “Are you patronizing me, Rick? Or is this the beginning of a beautiful friendship?”

  “Who’s Rick?” asked Isa.

  The Casablanca reference was lost on her, but if Manny was an old movie buff, that might be one more thing that the lawyers could see eye to eye on.

  “Let’s not get carried away,” said Jack, as he reached for his cell. “I’ll call Sylvia.”

  Chapter 21

  Isa went to Melany’s room to say good night. It was just the two of them in the apartment.

  She’d overheard Jack’s end of the conversation with Sylvia Hunt, and it had been short and to the point. The prosecutor had made no promises, but she’d at least confirmed that the planned story was inaccurate and that she would do her best to make it right. All they could do was wait. Isa had encouraged Keith to go down to the hotel bar and have a beer with Jack, partly because it would be good for him, but mostly because she didn’t want to be hounded for a full recap of the meeting with her lawyers.

  “How are you doing, muffin?”

  Melany looked up from her favorite board book and smiled. She was on her back, propped up by two pillows. “I’m okay.”

  Isa sat on the edge of the mattress, took the book—Olivia Saves the Circus—and laid it on the nightstand. Melany had read it so many times, and it was probably no coincidence that she was drawn to the story of a circus that needed saving because all of the performers were out with an ear infection.

  “Let Mommy have a look at that boo-boo.”

  Melany turned her head so her mother could check the pressure dressing on the incision site. She was limited to sponge baths for five days, so apart from obvious problems like bleeding or drainage at the ear, it was important to make sure that Melany didn’t somehow get it wet. “You’re good,” said Isa.

  Melany straightened her head just enough to lift her functioning ear from the pillow. “Mommy?”

  “Yes, honey?”

  “When will we know if the operation worked this time?”

  “Twelve more days. You’ll get a processor, just like the one in your other ear.”

  “What if it doesn’t work?”

  Isa had put her faith in the Miami doctors and tried only to look at it from the flip side: if it did work, a bilateral implant was Melany’s ticket to hearing speech in noisy places, and it would even enable her to determine the direction a sound was coming from. “The doctor isn’t worried about that. We shouldn’t worry, either.”

  Melany looked away, then back. “Did you worry when you were little?”

  “Sure.”

  “What did you worry about?”

  “Silly things.”

  “What kind of silly things?”

  Really silly things—things that her mother had put in her head. Am I skinny enough? Are my eyebrows too thick? Is my nose too “native”? Things so trivial that Isa sometimes wondered if God had given her precious daughter this burden to make a point. “Worryin
g is normal, but it doesn’t get you anywhere, honey.”

  “Did you worry about being deaf?”

  “No. I never did. And neither should you.” She leaned closer and kissed her on the forehead. “It’s time to go to sleep. Do you want to take your processor off tonight?”

  “No. Can I sleep with it? Tomorrow night I’ll take it off.”

  It had taken a while to wean Melany of that habit after the first surgery. Returning to a world of profound deafness was a scary notion, and it still wasn’t something that she embraced outside her familiar bedroom in Hong Kong.

  “Sure. You can wear it. Are you having any pain?”

  “A little.”

  “Let me get you something.”

  Isa rose from the bed and went to the kitchen. The acetaminophen was on the top shelf in the cabinet. She poured out the cherry-flavored dosage into the plastic cup, taking care to get it exactly to the line, but her phone rang, startling her, and she spilled.

  “Damn it.”

  She cleaned up the mess with a paper towel and answered her cell with the other hand. “Hello?”

  There was a pause on the line, followed by the voice of an operator. “I have a collect call for Ms. Isabelle Bornelli from Y-three-seven-nine-eight-zero. Will you accept the call?”

  Isa froze.

  “Ma’am, will you take the call?”

  Isa didn’t answer. She couldn’t speak. Her hand shook as she lowered the phone and pushed the button to end the call. She knew who it was; she recognized that inmate number. But it had been years since he’d tried to call her from prison.

  Why? Why are you doing this to me?

  Chapter 22

  Jack and Keith took the elevator down to the seventh floor, and Manny accepted the invitation to join them at Edge Steak & Bar. The restaurant was packed, “reservations only,” but they found three open stools at the quieter end of the four-sided bar in the center of the cavernous room. Jack and Keith ordered a craft brew, Hop for Teacher, just because they liked the name and had never tried it. Manny went for a specialty cocktail of cigar-infused bourbon and told the bartender to send an “Original Cin”—cinnamon-infused vodka and a splash of cherry liqueur—with his compliments to the leggy Latina at the end of the bar. It was Keith’s suggestion that they “talk shop” for a minute, and neither the lawyer to his left nor the one to his right objected.

  “I’m not an attorney,” he said, the usual preface from a layperson who was about to play one. “But with the exception of Melany’s surgery, I have thought of pretty much nothing but Isa’s case since we hit the airport.”

  The waiter set a basket of homemade potato chips in front of them. They smelled irresistible and tasted even better. “Can we get another basket of these?” Manny asked the bartender. “Sorry, Keith. Go on.”

  “To me, the biggest problem I see is that Isa didn’t report the assault to the authorities when it happened.”

  “That’s not a problem,” said Manny. “That’s our advantage.”

  “Manny, we know your view,” said Jack. “Let’s hear what Keith has to say. Why do you think failure to report is the biggest problem?”

  “Because the jury might see it as evidence that Isa intended to take matters into her own hands—that from the very beginning she had ‘revenge killing’ in mind.”

  Manny reached for another chip. “That’s exactly why we have to make it as difficult as possible for the prosecutor to prove that she was actually raped.”

  “Let’s put that aside for a minute,” said Jack. “Keith, you know that Manny and I can’t talk to you as if you were the client—because you’re not. The fact that we’re three guys sitting at a bar doesn’t change that. But I’m guessing that you have something you want to say to us about this.”

  “I do,” said Keith. “I want to make sure that Isa has told you everything she’s told me about this.”

  “Do you have something specific in mind?” asked Jack.

  “In a nutshell: that she called home and spoke to her father right after she was attacked; that her father blamed her for the rape by inviting a man to her dorm room on the first date; and that she was made to feel as though it would bring shame on her family if she reported the rape.”

  “We’ve heard all of that,” said Manny.

  “Good,” said Keith. “Because you’re kind of an expert in this field, aren’t you, Manny?”

  “What field?”

  “The abuse defense,” said Keith. “I did some research on some of your early cases.”

  Manny hadn’t started out as a drug lawyer. His most famous case as a young public defender involved one of the first successful uses of the “battered spouse” defense in Florida, in which he earned an acquittal for a woman who killed her husband after suffering years of his abuse.

  “That was many years ago,” said Manny. “But even so, I don’t see how that applies here. Isa and Gabriel Sosa had one date. There’s no history of abuse.”

  “No history of abuse by Sosa,” said Keith.

  “Are you suggesting that Isa was abused by her father?” asked Jack.

  Keith shifted one way and then the other, as though not entirely comfortable with Jack’s articulation of what he was thinking. “I don’t know. The only time I met the man is when he came to Jack’s office and said Isa wasn’t raped. All I can tell you is that Isa has absolutely no love for her father. I believe her when she says he berated her when she called home and told him about the assault. And then we have this latest statement in the detective’s report. Isa’s words: ‘I just went along with it.’”

  “How does that tie in with her father?” asked Manny.

  Jack saw where Keith was headed, and picked up the line of thought. “It makes you wonder if her father’s reaction on the telephone was the sign of long, dark history,” said Jack. “To frame the issue: Was Isa’s reaction to the sexual assault—‘I thought it was best just to go along with it’—the mark of someone who was abused as a child?”

  Manny shook his head. “You two are making this case so much more complicated than it needs to be.”

  “My only point is this,” said Keith. “The impact of that phone call to her father was huge. It’s more than enough to explain why she didn’t report the rape.”

  “There are a million reasons why a woman wouldn’t report a rape. She doesn’t want to face her attacker in court. She doesn’t want anyone to know. In our case, it happens to be extremely helpful to leave the jury wondering: did she not report the rape because it wasn’t rape? Trust me on this. There’s a time to play the abuse excuse, and a time not to. This is not that case.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting we play anything,” said Keith. “I just want to get the facts out.”

  “The facts are only those that the state attorney can prove,” said Manny. “Right now, the fact is that Isa had no motive to revenge-kill. The prosecution can’t prove she was raped.”

  “But she told an MDPD homicide detective that she was assaulted.”

  “That was two months after the fact, and we haven’t even seen that alleged report yet,” said Manny. “If it does exist, we might still find a way around it.”

  “Why would we want to do that?”

  “Because it’s crazy for us to prove rape for the prosecution and hand them a motive. It’s even crazier to shoot ourselves in the other foot by arguing that she was emotionally or physically abused by her father. The prosecutor will run with that information and tell the jury that she acted on years and years of pent-up anger when she orchestrated the murder of Gabriel Sosa.”

  “That’s a risk,” said Jack, throwing Manny a bone. “But we should be discussing those risks with our client, not Keith.”

  “Well, hold on a second,” said Keith. “It’s time to just stop beating around the bush. Manny, have you been in contact with Felipe Bornelli?”

  “Huh?”

  “Just answer the question,” said Keith.

  “No. I’ve never talked to him.”
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br />   Keith took a long drink from his draft, and then set down the mug a little harder than necessary. “So you’re telling me it’s a fluke that Felipe told Jack that Isa wasn’t raped and that he didn’t approve of her choice of attorney, and then two days later, you’re on the case pushing the theory that Isa wasn’t raped. You’re saying that’s all just a coincidence?”

  Manny shrugged, dismissing it. “There are coincidences, and there are coincidences.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” asked Keith.

  “A lightning strike twice in the exact same spot is a coincidence. A hiker attacked by a polar bear and grizzly bear on the same day—that’s one hell of a coincidence. But two men looking at the same set of circumstances and coming to the same conclusion on how Isa can keep herself out of jail? I don’t call that a coincidence. That’s two people who thought things through independently and reached the right conclusion.”

  “Whoa,” said Keith. “Are you suggesting that Felipe told Jack and me that there was no rape because he’s trying to help his daughter?”

  “I don’t know what Felipe is doing or for what reason. I’ve never met the man. I’m on this case because Foneesha Johnson gave her cellmate my number, and Isa called me. I like Isa. I want to help her. I want to stay on this team. Jack and I don’t agree on everything, but the final decision belongs to the client. Not to me. Not to Jack. And not to her husband. It’s good for a client to have options. That’s in your wife’s best interest.”

  Manny climbed down from the bar, opened his wallet, put down a fifty-dollar bill. “I think that’s enough shop talk for tonight. If Isa wants me off the case, that’s her decision. But just so we’re on the same page, I hope you read my engagement letter. I keep the hundred-thousand-dollar retainer you paid me. Good night, gentlemen.”

  Jack and Keith watched as Manny walked to the far end of the bar and checked on the woman sipping her complimentary Original Cin.

  Keith reached for a chip. “He’s a piece of work, isn’t he?”

  “I’ve tried cases with all kinds,” said Jack, “and it takes all kinds. There’s no cookie cutter for a successful lawyer.”