Blood Money

by James Grippando

  “Bailiff, please bring in the jury,” said the judge.

  “All rise!”

  Behind Jack, in the packed gallery, the bumps and thuds of the rising crowd sounded like a ragtag army on the march. Jurors in Florida courtrooms were never shown on television, so even as the jury entered, the cameras remained fixed on Jack and his client. Jack had become almost immune to the constant coverage. Sydney had never gotten used to it, having complained to Jack throughout the trial that when she looked calm, the media attacked her as coldhearted; if she cried, they said she was faking; when she flashed even the slightest smile, they declared her a sociopath.

  The jury took their seats, and everyone else in the room did the same.

  “They’re not looking at me,” Sydney whispered.

  Somewhere—probably TV—Sydney must have heard a lawyer say that if the jurors didn’t make eye contact with the defendant as they filed into the courtroom, it signaled a guilty verdict. For Jack, a far better indicator was the number of courtroom deputies hovering around the defense table, ready to grab his guilty clients before they could make a mad dash for the door. Somehow, the deputies always seemed to know.

  The judge broke the silence. “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?”

  “Yes, sir,” the twelve answered in unison.

  Jack glanced over his shoulder and spotted Sydney’s parents in the back row. Geoffrey Bennett, hands clasped and praying, was seated beside his wife. Behind them stood the police investigators who had found Emma’s body.

  “Would the foreman hand the verdict form to the court deputy, please.”

  A woman in the dark blue uniform of courtroom deputies approached the jury box and received the verdict form. She handed it up to Judge Matthews. He inspected it, making sure that all was in order, showing no expression as he turned page after page. Finally, he looked directly at Jack and his client.

  “Will the defendant rise along with counsel.”

  I know it’s going to be okay. That was what he wanted to tell his client. But how could anyone say such a thing? How could anyone know?

  Jack’s gaze swept the jury box. Each juror had taken the same oath to “render a true verdict according to the law and the evidence,” and the evidence against Sydney was entirely circumstantial. Cause of death, unknown. Manner of death, a matter of inference upon inference and expert opinion. No eyewitnesses. No confession from the accused. Yes, the jury had been told that in a court of law circumstantial evidence is as probative as direct evidence—a point that the prosecution hammers home in every trial. Beyond their own awareness of what they had decided, however, the jurors didn’t know anything more than the rest of the players in this courtroom drama. For all their forceful argument, the prosecutors didn’t know what had happened. Neither did Judge Matthews, the investigators on the case, or the experts who had testified at trial. The pundits on television sure as hell didn’t know.

  “Madam clerk,” said the judge, “you may publish the verdicts.”

  Not even Jack knew.

  “In the circuit court of the eleventh judicial circuit in and for Miami-Dade County, Florida, State of Florida versus Sydney Louise Bennett . . .”

  None of them knew, because they hadn’t been there for Emma’s final moments.

  “As to the charge of first degree murder . . .”

  What they knew was in actuality nothing more than what they believed. And what Jack believed as he stood at Sydney’s side and heard those words—“We the jury, find the defendant”—is what he would believe to his dying day: There was more than one person in that courtroom who knew what had happened to Emma. And Jack could have proved it.

  If only Sydney had wanted him to.

  Chapter Two

  Not guilty!”

  The shout from atop the courthouse steps carried across the street and all the way to the jurors’ parking lot, loud enough for most of the sunbaked crowd to hear. Silent and filled with anticipation, many of the onlookers were following a slightly delayed Internet live stream on smartphones and electronic devices, which just a moment later confirmed the verdict. Those not stunned into speechlessness erupted in anger.

  “What?”

  “How?”

  “That jury must be nuts!”

  By default—not a seat to be had in the courtroom—Theo had made himself part of the outdoor vigil, conspicuously taller and darker than the predominantly white, female crowd around him. The shade of an oak cut the glare on his iPhone. BNN was covering the trial live, and their on-screen graphic summarized the verdict. First degree murder: not guilty. Manslaughter: not guilty. Criminal child neglect: not guilty. Sydney was convicted on one count of providing false information to police investigators. Essentially, the jury believed what the defense lawyers had said about their own client: She was a liar, not a murderer. Television cameras captured her fighting back tears of relief, propped up by Hannah Goldsmith. The camera cut to Jack as the court polled the jurors, and Theo was glad to see that Jack wasn’t flashing some cocky lawyer’s grin and slapping high fives with everyone around him. One by one, each juror verbally confirmed that this was his or her verdict.

  “Unbelievable,” was the running commentary from BNN’s anchor. Through his earbuds, Theo heard the judge thank the jurors and dismiss them. Then the BNN anchor said it again, this time with attitude: “Simply un—be—lievable.”

  Theo glanced around him. The crowd was becoming more vocal, their expressions of anger and despair making it hard for him to hear the TV coverage. Theo increased the volume, then lowered it. Faith Corso was on a rant that needed no amplification.

  Corso, a tough former prosecutor turned TV personality, had spotlighted the Sydney Bennett case from the beginning. It had started with a desperate, monthlong search for a missing two-year-old girl—but without the usual sympathy for the mother. Police quickly pegged Sydney as a liar about everything, from her place of employment to her whereabouts on the day of Emma’s death. She’d led her parents to believe that she was holding a steady day job as a bookkeeper at a Key Biscayne resort. In fact, she was a “shot girl” at a popular South Beach nightclub—one of the scantily clad young women who roamed through the crowd with a bottle of tequila in one hand and a tray of shot glasses in the other, cajoling drunk young men into spending ten bucks for a shot and quick squeeze of the shot girl.

  Sydney’s biggest deception, however, was in what she hadn’t said.

  “What mother fails to report the disappearance of her own child if she isn’t covering up a homicide?” asked Corso, her voice laden with disgust. “And what kind of mother goes out partying the night her daughter goes missing, parties again the next night, and the night after that?”

  Corso had been asking those questions for three years. The prosecutor had put them up in bold letters on a projection screen during closing argument. Corso, the prosecution, the crowd outside the courthouse, the millions of viewers on television—all had expected the jury to answer with a verdict of guilty.

  Theo’s iPhone flickered, but the Internet connection remained strong enough for him to hear something about the scheduling of a sentencing hearing on the “false information” conviction. The judge announced that Sydney would remain incarcerated until then. Corso quickly explained to her viewers that the maximum sentence for the conviction on the lesser count was one year. Because Sydney had already spent three years behind bars awaiting trial, she would likely serve no additional time.

  “Shot Mom will be free and back to her wicked ways in a week,” said Corso. Dubbing her “Shot Mom”—a play on “shot girl” and “hot mom”—was one of the signature devices that Corso had used throughout the trial to express her contempt for Sydney Bennett.

  Corso checked with one of the BNN reporters on the scene: “Heather, what’s the reaction outside the courthouse?”

  “Faith, it is way beyond disappointment. People here are genuinely heartbroken. I’ve spoken to a group of mothers who trav
eled all the way from Arizona, college students from New Orleans, retirees from New York. All of them filled with a sickening sense that there has been no justice for Emma.”

  Theo suddenly sensed an echo. He looked up from his iPhone and realized that he wasn’t just hearing the roving reporter’s voice on television through his earbuds. Heather Brown and the BNN cameraman were standing just fifteen feet away from him. She was suddenly coming his way, speaking into her microphone.

  “Faith, let me see if I can get a word with the man who brought defense lawyer Jack Swyteck to the courthouse today. Sir!”

  Theo froze. “Me?”

  “Yes, can I have a quick word with you, please?”

  Being six feet six and black in this crowd had definitely proved to be a liability. “You must have me confused with someone else.”

  “Wait a second, I know that man,” said Corso, and Theo could hear her in his earbuds. “Viewers may recall that, a few years back, I did a BNN special investigative report on capital punishment, and one case we featured told the story of how Jack Swyteck used his family name to pull strings and get Theo Knight off Florida’s death row.”

  If by “pull strings” you mean DNA evidence . . .

  “Heather, ask Mr. Knight if he—”

  “Gotta go,” said Theo as he broke away.

  “Mr. Knight!”

  Theo was off like a running back. It had taken Jack four years to prove Theo’s innocence. Twice he’d come so close to the electric chair that they’d served him a last meal, sent him to the prison barber, and shaved his head and ankles for placement of the electrodes. Theo had nothing to prove to anyone—ever again.

  “Mr. Knight, please!”

  The reporter tried to follow, but the crowd closed around her and the cameraman. Theo pushed all the way to the street in front of the courthouse, past clusters of angry onlookers, around several other reporters who were delivering up-to-the-minute reports. His cell rang, and he made the mistake of answering. It was Faith Corso.

  “Mr. Knight, where will Shot Mom go from here?”

  Theo did a double take. “Are we on the air? And how did you get my number?”

  “There’s an app for that. Would you answer my question, please?”

  “I have no idea where Sydney is going.”

  “You’re the defense team’s driver, are you not?”

  “No.”

  “Apparently you’re about as truthful as Shot Mom. We caught you on camera driving Jack Swyteck to the courthouse today.”

  “That doesn’t make me his driver, Miss Daisy.” The film reference was probably lost on her, but Morgan Freeman was one of Theo’s favorites. “Are we on the air or not?” he asked.

  She wouldn’t answer. “When Shot Mom is released, will you be the one driving her wherever she plans to go?”

  “I got nothin’ to say about that.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “Nope.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t that the same thing you told police when they found a convenience-store clerk dead on the floor and your hands in the cash register?”

  Theo held his tongue. “I’m hanging up now.”

  “No, wait! People have a right to know. Where will you be taking Shot Mom? Hollywood for a movie? New York for a book deal?”

  “You need to ask Sydney that.”

  “What about your buddy, Jack Swyteck? What’s his cut of the blood money?”

  “I got no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about turning the tragic death of an innocent little girl into profit. Isn’t that the next move for Shot Mom and her lawyers?”

  Theo almost hung up, but Corso’s hold on him wouldn’t allow it.

  “Mr. Knight, people have a right to know the truth.”

  “All right,” said Theo, “I’ll give it to you straight. But only if we’re on the air.”

  “Of course we’re on the air,” she said, her voice rising with excitement. “And for my friends in the viewing audience, you’re watching another BNN exclusive. I am speaking on the telephone with one-time death row inmate Theo Knight, a close personal friend and former client of Shot Mom’s lawyer, Jack Swyteck. Go ahead, sir. Tell us what business deals are in the works now that this astounding verdict has left Shot Mom completely unaccountable for Emma’s tragic death.”

  Theo wasn’t a news junkie, but Jack had told him how the Sydney Bennett circus had pushed BNN’s ratings into the stratosphere—and how, in particular, Faith Corso’s stature as a TV personality skyrocketed every time she uttered the words Shot Mom.

  “I can only speak for myself,” said Theo.

  “Yourself?” said Corso. “So even the driver for Shot Mom’s lawyer has his eye on a deal of some sort? This ought to be good.”

  “Oh, this deal is beyond good. As soon as we hang up, I’m going straight to your Web site and I’m buying two of those ‘Rot in Hell, Sydney’ snuggies for just nineteen ninety-five, plus shipping and handling. And if I order in the next three minutes, I get a free ‘I heart the death penalty’ bumper sticker.”

  Theo could hear the hiss of anger in her next breath. “That is so typical of the way the defense team has treated this entire tragedy,” said Corso. “A joke, a complete mockery of our system of jus—”

  Theo hung up, reeling in his anger. He continued away from the courthouse, stepping outside the ring of frenetic reporters with way too much hair and makeup for the ninety-five-degree heat, beyond the reach of microphone-toting assassins who seemed eager to interview anyone who was willing to say something outrageous on camera. He stopped at the street corner and wiped the sweat from his brow.

  Lashing out at Corso on national television wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever done. Of course she wasn’t actually selling snuggies or giving away bumper stickers, but she’d pushed him, and it was Theo’s nature to push back. The exchange was sure to be replayed many times over, and the last thing Jack needed was to be coldcocked by the BNN broadcast. He knew Jack didn’t have a cell phone inside the courthouse, so Theo shot him a text for later.

  Heads up. Thx 2 yer driver, they wanna kill us both.

  Theo’s gaze turned back to the crowd outside the courthouse. No one was leaving. If anything, folks were only getting more worked up.

  After they kill Sydney.

  Chapter Three

  Thursday’s sentencing hearing went as the pundits had predicted. Sydney Bennett was sentenced to time served for her conviction on one count of providing false information to police. Her release from the women’s detention center was set for some time after midnight the following Saturday, probably very early Sunday.

  On Friday morning, Jack met with his client to talk logistics. It was just the two of them, as Hannah Goldsmith was delivering an opening statement in one of the other 143 murder cases pending in Miami-Dade County.

  “How scared should I be?” asked Sydney.

  She was seated on the opposite side of a small table, attorney and client surrounded by windowless walls of yellow-painted cinder block. Bright fluorescent lighting lent their meeting room all the warmth of a workshop. Sydney was a grown woman, but dressed in pajama-like prison garb, with no makeup, she seemed more like a teenager to Jack. It was hard for him to fathom that Sydney and Hannah were just three years apart in age. Light-years apart in maturity.

  “I’m not telling you to be scared,” said Jack. “I’m just saying we have to be careful.”

  “They want to kill me, don’t they?”

  “If ‘they’ killed everyone ‘they’ wanted to kill, death row would be the most overcrowded place on Earth.”

  “Don’t sugarcoat it. I’m not clueless. I can watch television in here now.”

  That was new. Until her acquittal on murder charges, Sydney had been housed under the category of Protective Custody Level One in the high-security section of the detention center. One hour a day to take a shower, sit in the dayroom, and make collect calls from the jail phone. She
could access books from a library cart to take back to her cell, but Level One inmates had no television or computer privileges.

  “Okay,” said Jack. “Some people may want to kill you. Some want to marry you. Some want the trial to start all over again so they have something to do while they knock off two bottles of chardonnay before lunchtime. You can drive yourself crazy thinking about what ‘they’ want.”

  “You’re right. From now on, the only thing that matters is what I want.”

  That wasn’t exactly what Jack was saying, but he moved on. “Let’s talk procedure. And safety.”

  “Safety’s a good thing.”

  “The correctional facility is walking a fine line,” said Jack. “Until you get outside the gate, you’re their responsibility. The last thing they want is for something bad to happen to you on their turf. On the other hand, they don’t want to be accused of giving you special treatment. They want this to go according to standard procedure, as much as possible.”

  “Seems weird that turning a woman out on the street after midnight would be standard procedure.”

  Jack had once filed a lawsuit on behalf of a twenty-year-old woman who was raped by a carload of gangbangers on the night of her release. The case was dismissed, since putting women on the street alone after midnight actually was standard procedure.

  “You won’t have to fend for yourself,” said Jack. “I’m walking out with you, and we’re going straight to an SUV.”

  “SUV, huh? Faith Corso said I was getting a limo with a hot tub.”

  Jack didn’t doubt it. “It’s a Chevy Suburban with a hundred and thirty-two thousand miles on it. I use it to trailer my boat.”

  “Cool. We’re escaping by boat?”

  It was a rare attempt at humor. Acquittal suited her well. “No. Theo is under strict orders to leave the boat behind.”