Chasing Justice

by H. Terrell Griffin

  We stood as the jury exited the courtroom. This is the time when opposing counsel usually shake hands and congratulate each other on having tried a good case. Not this time. Swann abruptly left the courtroom, leaving his entourage to pack up his documents and other detritus left at the end of a trial. I wasn’t surprised.

  I was packing up my brief case when the young woman lawyer and the intern from Stetson Law School came to my table. We shook hands. The lawyer said, “Mr. Royal, I think you just ruined old George’s perfect record.”

  I smiled. “I hope so. He could still walk away with this one.”

  “I doubt it,” she said. “Maybe a loss will take some of the arrogance out of him.”

  “He might be harder to work for,” I said.

  “This is my last case,” she said. “My last day working for the state attorney. I start at a private firm in Jacksonville on Monday. I’ll probably face George in court someday. I’m looking forward to it. And I’m not sure he has a career after that stunt he pulled with the last witness. I’d be surprised if he doesn’t get disbarred. I hope you don’t think I had anything to do with that.”

  I smiled. “That never crossed my mind. What makes him tick?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. He’s a much better lawyer than you saw in this case, but he always takes the easy way out. I think his main problem is that he’s lazy and narcissistic. It’s too bad. He could have been a really good lawyer.”

  I turned to the intern. “What about you? Where do you go from here?”

  “Back to Jacksonville. I’ll finish the summer internship and then back to Stetson for my last year of law school. I’ll see what turns up then. It was a pleasure watching you work. Smooth as silk.”

  I laughed. “That’s the beach-bum effect.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  The longest hours of a trial lawyer’s life are those spent waiting out the jury. He spends it in a conference room locked up with his clients, unless they’re back in a cell somewhere. It’s a time when he relives every minute of the trial, trying to decipher the jurors’ reaction to each bit of evidence, to consider the mistakes he made, because there are always mistakes, and wonder if one of them might have ruined the chance for an acquittal. He rummages around in his mind as the gastric juices rumble in his gut, producing yet another ulcer.

  Abby and Bill sat across the table from me, saying nothing. I think they somehow knew that I needed some time to sort out the ups and downs of the past week. I was forcing myself to think pleasant thoughts that would push my fears about the trial into the back of my mind. I was enjoying an image of J.D., and my boat Recess, and a flat green sea as we cruised toward Egmont Key, when there was a knock on the door. The court deputy stuck his head in and said, “We’ve got a verdict.”

  If I had been attached to a sphygmomanometer, one of those contraptions they use to check your blood pressure, it would have blown a gasket. The game’s over. The jury has decided. The fat lady is about to sing. Everything you’ve done in the past two and a half months to save your client either worked or it didn’t. It all boils down to one word, or hopefully two, on a jury form. “Guilty” or “Not Guilty.” In a matter of minutes, we’ll know whether Abby is going to walk out of the courtroom with Bill and me, and drive to the key and find a cool bar in which to imbibe a few drinks of relief and congratulation, or leave shackled to a deputy and start the process of taking up residence at a state prison.

  I looked at my watch. The jury had only been out for twenty minutes. Hardly time to elect a foreman or forewoman. Lawyers have debated for years whether a quick verdict or a drawn-out deliberation is best for the accused. It’s a question that has never been satisfactorily answered, probably because there is no answer. Every case and every jury is different from another.

  * * *

  The jury filed back into the courtroom. Judith Whitacre was holding the verdict form. She was the forewoman. She looked at Swann, caught his eye, and smiled. Oh crap. What the hell happened? I thought surely she was one juror I could count on.

  The jurors took their seats and the rest of us sat. The judge asked if they’d reached a verdict. Judith Whitacre stood and answered. “We have, Your Honor.”

  “Please hand the verdict form to the deputy, Madam Forewoman.”

  The deputy took the form and handed it to Judge Thomas. He looked at it and handed it down to the court clerk. “Please publish the verdict, Madam Clerk.”

  The clerk stood and read the form. “In the Circuit Court of the Twelfth Judicial Circuit of Florida, in and for Sarasota County, case number 4856, State of Florida versus Abigail Lester. We the jury find the defendant Abigail Lester…” The clerk paused. Dramatic effect? Probably not. It was only a split second, probably not even noticed by most of the people in the courtroom. It seemed like hours to me.

  I was holding my breath, my heart racing. I’d had the same reaction to every verdict I’d ever heard. Abby had grabbed my hand and was squeezing hard, a look on her face that I can only describe as one of hope and resignation. The next second would decide her fate and the course of her life from this point forward.

  The clerk seemed to catch her breath, inhale and said, “Not guilty.”

  Abby sagged against my shoulder. I looked at the jury. Judith Whitacre was grinning at me. She nodded, and I nodded back. The smile with which she had favored Swann when she walked in with the verdict in her hand had been one of derision, not congratulations.

  Judge Thomas dismissed the jury with his thanks and they filed out of the courtroom. Swann and his crew left suddenly without saying anything to anybody. I was tempted to go after him, to rub in his loss and mention that never again would he be able to brag about a spotless record of triumphs. But I reminded myself that I was a better person than that. Or at least, I liked to think so.

  Abby hugged me and sobbed. All the tension and fears that had permeated her senses since she had first been arrested were washing out of her system. She held me tight, wouldn’t let go. I hugged back. Bill Lester came through the rail and wrapped his arms around both of us. Tears were slipping down his cheeks. “Let’s go get a drink,” he said. And that’s what we did.

  * * *

  At three o’clock in the afternoon, we were at Tiny’s. I’d called J.D. as soon as I walked out of the courthouse. She answered, “Well?”

  “Not guilty.”

  “That’s my man. I’m so proud of you, Matt. And happy for Abby and Bill.”

  “Thanks, sweetie. We’re on our way to Tiny’s to celebrate.”

  “I’ll see you there.”

  By the time we arrived, a crowd was gathering. Word travels fast on a small island. I’d called Robin Hartill at the newspaper as soon as I hung up from talking to J.D. She put the story, including the attempted intimidation of Judge Thomas, on the Internet edition of the paper and joined us at Tiny’s. Logan and Jock dragged in from the golf course. J.D. had called Gus Grantham and he was on his way. Off-duty Longboat cops were filing in to congratulate Bill and Abby. It was a gathering of the islanders, a collective sigh of the relief that one of them would not be going to prison. I got a lot of hugs and handshakes and jokes about the devout beach bum losing his status and being dragged back into the real world, all of which I denied.

  The party went on into the evening. I could feel the tension leaving my body, the beach bum replacing the lawyer. Jock and Logan declined to go to lunch with us the next day and suggested that J.D. and I spend the day alone on the beach at Egmont Key. That sounded better and better. It would be a day to reclaim my rightful place among the indolent. I was looking forward to it.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  Somehow, August slipped up on me. The weeks since the trial had been an easy time of good fishing and good friends. J.D. and I settled back into our routines, jogging the beach at dawn, stopping in the key’s bars and restaurants for a drink with friends in the evenings. We spent a lot of time on Recess on J.D.’s days off, sometimes doing nothing but floating around, unan
chored and unconcerned about the world. Bill and Abby Lester had gone to the mountains of North Carolina for a well-deserved rest. They came back refreshed and happy to see their lives return to normal.

  The key was mostly empty, probably no more than a couple of thousand year-rounders enjoying the quiet of the summer. Word from the broader world occasionally seeped onto the key, interrupting our isolation and bringing news of the fate of the characters who had so consumed my waking moments and haunted my dreams during the months leading up to Abby’s trial. Mark Erickson had pleaded guilty to a number of drug charges and murder. He would spend the rest of his life in prison. There was no evidence that his wife Julie had been involved in the drug business or that she even had any knowledge of her husband’s activities. She would retain her professorship at USF. On the day of her husband’s sentencing, Julie filed for divorce.

  Jim Favereaux had disappeared. Homeland Security Agent Devlin Michel assured J.D. that he was in the custody of the appropriate federal authorities and would be dealt with accordingly. Jock explained to us that there were secret courts that dealt with rogue agents. A public trial would give away too many secrets. When the agents were sworn in, they signed documents giving up certain rights, including the right to a public trial if charged with a crime growing out of their activities as federal agents. If the agent was sentenced to prison, it was to a Supermax, the highest-security prison in the system. He was given a new name and a cover story that turned him into a common criminal with an extensive history of violence. I was pretty sure that was Jim Favereaux’s fate.

  Kent Walker, the man who accosted me in the Euphemia Haye parking lot, was in jail awaiting trial on assault charges. His use of a gun and the fact that he was trying to intimidate a lawyer in the middle of a capital murder trial, caused the committing judge to set a high bond. Walker wouldn’t be going anywhere except state prison.

  The governor’s chief of staff, Fulton Hancock, had been arrested in Tallahassee in the early hours of the morning after Erickson’s confession. Hancock was free on a large bond. He’d resigned his position with the governor, but the flurry of news reports on Hancock’s transgressions had tarred the governor, despite his vociferous denial of any knowledge of his aide’s criminal activities.

  Detective Brad Corbin was in the Orleans Parish jail awaiting transport to a state prison. He’d spilled his guts when confronted by Homeland Security agents. It seems that there had been talk of a trip to Guantánamo, domestic terrorism, death penalties and other such nonsense. Corbin caved and confessed, and he would spend the rest of his life as a guest of the Louisiana prison system.

  Judge Wayne Lee Thomas filed a grievance against George Swann accusing him of suborning perjury and making a deal with an accused Stephanie Bramlett, which he had no authority to make. The case was pending before a Florida Bar Grievance Committee in Sarasota, and things did not look good for Swann. I had not been called to testify before the committee, but I would do so if asked.

  I spent a couple of weeks after the trial trying to decide whether I should approach Bill Lester about his affair with Maggie Bannister. It was really none of my business, and now that I knew who had murdered Nate Bannister, and Abby had been acquitted, the only reason I could see for my pursuing the issue was my curiosity. In mid-July, the island gossip network lit up with the word that Trip Grower, a Longboat Key police captain, and Maggie Bannister were engaged and would be tying the knot in the fall.

  J.D. was as surprised as everyone else on the island, but it sent her into a frenzy of investigatory zeal. She knew that the chief and Grower had been friends since their days in the police academy, and she couldn’t imagine that Bill Lester would cheat on his wife and his best friend at the same time. She’d never accepted that Lester would have had an affair in the first place.

  J.D. had to be careful as she looked into the case. She couldn’t compromise Cracker Dix, who had told us about the affair in the first place, nor could she smear Bill Lester by innuendo. After a week of digging, she came up with the answer. As one of the ranking officers in the department, Captain Grower was subject to call at any time, day or night, and was therefore entitled to the use of an unmarked cruiser twenty-four hours a day. Grower’s car had reached the end of its service life in February and his new car was late arriving. Since Bill Lester lived on the key, and he was deskbound most of the day, he could do without his department car for a couple of weeks. He’d lent it to Grower until the new car was delivered. It was during that period of time that Cracker thought he’d seen the chief arrive at Maggie’s house. Given that Grower and the chief were about the same size, it would have been an easy mistake for Cracker to make. The man he thought was the chief was actually Trip Grower.

  We never did figure out why Maggie Bannister had lied about her presence in her husband’s condo in the weeks before his death. Her fingerprints were found in various places around the living room, but she had denied being there. J.D. suggested that it was probably an innocent visit, but that for some reason she didn’t want anyone to know about it. She might have been concerned that her boyfriend Trip would have access to the information, and would be upset to know that she had visited her almost ex-husband. Maybe Maggie thought her best defense was a denial. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t important, so neither J.D. nor I ever mentioned the discrepancy to anyone. That old adage about letting sleeping dogs lie was often good advice.

  Then, one day when I wasn’t expecting it, the dog days of August fell on us like a hot blanket. The sun was intense and the days were cooled only by our afternoon thunderstorms that brought even more humidity to smother the island. It was a time to spend indoors or in a swimming pool or the Gulf waters.

  It was on such a day that J.D. called me. I had been to lunch with Logan at Mar Vista, sitting at the air-conditioned bar and munching on a fish sandwich. A few hardy souls took their meals at the tables under the trees adjacent to the bay. I’d walked the two blocks home and was washing the sweat off under a cold shower when the phone rang.

  “Big news,” said J.D. “I’m on my way downtown to help Harry Robson interrogate Tori Madison.”

  “They got her?”

  “Yes. She was arrested in Orlando last night. The Sarasota County sheriff sent somebody to pick her up. She should be at the jail in about ten minutes.”

  “How did they find her?”

  “Stupid luck. She was working in a topless bar and got into a cat fight with one of the other dancers.”

  “She wasn’t bartending?”

  “Nope. Dancing. I guess she didn’t have much money in her getaway stash. The story the Orlando police got from the manager of the bar was that she applied for a job as bartender, but local law required that she had to be fingerprinted and run though the local police. Not surprisingly, she refused to do that, so they offered her a job as a dancer.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “Apparently, the fight was loud and rough. An off-duty police officer who was working security at the club tried to break it up and got punched in the mouth for his trouble. He pulled out a Taser and quieted the girls down. When they stopped twitching, he arrested them. When they printed our buddy Tori, up popped the murder warrant from Sarasota County.”

  “Will she talk?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we can cut a deal. Lesser charge in return for less time in prison.”

  “There’s nothing she can add to the Bannister case. Abby was acquitted, and we know from Lucas’ confession that he was the murderer. But I would sure like to know why she went after Abby.”

  “Me too. I’ll call you when we finish.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  Tori Madison was shackled by one arm to a U-bolt in the concrete floor of the interrogation room in the Sarasota County jail. A small table separated her from Harry Robson and J.D. Duncan. Tori had dyed her hair dark brown and wore it short. Her face was as still as a mask of stone. Only her eyes were animated, darting about like a cornered animal seeking escape.
“I want a lawyer,” she said.

  “There are a number of ways this can go, Tori,” J.D. said. “One, we charge you with first-degree murder. Two, we turn you over the Homeland Security, and they arrange for a little Caribbean vacation for you at a delightful place called Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Three, you talk to us, and we’ll get you a better deal than a ride on the needle up at the death chamber.”

  “I didn’t kill anybody,” Tori said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” J.D. said. “In the eyes of the law, you’re guilty. You conspired to have Nate Bannister killed, and that makes you just as guilty as Wes Lucas. It’s first-degree murder, Tori, premeditated murder. The fact that you tried to pin it on somebody else is just going to make the jury angry. Anger turns ordinary juries into hanging juries. You want to take a chance on that?”

  “What kind of deal?”

  Harry spoke up. “We’ll take the first-degree murder charge off the table. We’ll charge you with conspiracy. You confess to your part in the scheme and plead guilty to conspiracy. No lawyers. The deal is only good right now. Take it or leave it.”

  “I want to think about it.”

  “You’ve got ten minutes,” Harry said. “We’ll leave you to it.” He and J.D. got up to leave the room.

  “Wait,” Tori said. “How much time will I have to do?”

  “That’ll be up to the prosecutor and the judge,” Harry said. “But the death penalty won’t be a factor if you plead.”

  “Let me think about it.”

  The detectives watched Tori through a one-way mirror. She didn’t move during the ten minutes, and when J.D. and Harry returned to the room, she nodded. “Tell me the deal.”