Afraid of the Dark

Chapter Twenty-two

The following afternoon, Jack returned from Washington to find a box waiting for him in his office. In it was the evidence that the state attorney had presented to the grand jury to secure an indictment for murder in the first degree. Jack was in no mood to sift through it.

Not in a box. Not with a fox.

The morning meeting at the Red Cross with Neil and Stan Haber had brought Jack no closer to proving Jamal’s alibi, and his review of the box of grand jury materials convinced him of one thing: Jamal was in deep trouble. The recording from Vince’s answering machine was especially powerful. Jack listened to it once, and when the chills stopped coursing down his spine, he played it again. At moments like these-when he was alone in his office and there was no need to hide his emotions from a judge or the jury-it didn’t matter how many murder cases he’d taken to trial. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, like the sound of a teenage girl struggling to name her killer as her young life drained away.

“Tell me,” he heard McKenna whisper, “am I dying?”

Jack envisioned her lying on her bedroom floor, her body limp and wrapped in a blood-soaked blanket, her vision fading as she looked up into Vince’s eyes and heard his lie.

“No, sweetheart. You’re gonna be just fine.”

No videotape was needed to see Vince switching into cop mode, unable to save McKenna but finding the wherewithal to build the case against her killer.

“Who did this to you?”

A weak cough was her response, the end nearing.

“McKenna, tell me who did this to you.”

It took a moment, but then came the one-word answer that was the heart of the state’s case: “Jamal,” she whispered.

“Your boyfriend?”

“My first,” she said, her voice barely audible. There was no rhythm to her breathing, the noise more like a gurgle of fluids in her throat. Then there was silence, followed by Vince’s emotional outburst.

Jack hit the STOP button, knowing how it had ended, unable to listen a second time to Vince’s efforts to revive her.

Two hours passed before Jack looked at the clock again, and it was well past dinnertime when he finally got through the rest of the evidence in the box. Jack had handled other murder trials in which the victim had been stabbed to death, but this case was very different. There were no photographs of the victim. The crime scene was literally a pile of ashes, and the forensic and investigative reports read more like a prosecution for arson than homicide. Investigators had isolated the propane tank that was believed to have caused the explosion. It was the fire marshal’s expert opinion that it was gunfire-probably an errant shot at Vince by the attacker-that had ruptured the tank. The ensuing fire had consumed virtually all physical evidence relating to the homicide, including McKenna’s body. The only knives recovered in the rubble were in the charred remains of the kitchen drawers, and there was no way to know if any of them was the murder weapon or if the killer had brought his own and escaped with it. The state’s case was built on McKenna’s own words and a detailed statement of Vince Paulo.

Jack kept coming back to the answering machine recording-as he expected the prosecutor would at trial. It was a dramatic contradiction of his client’s claim of innocence, and a jury would demand an answer to the same question that was dogging Jack:

If Jamal didn’t do it, why did McKenna say it was him?

Jack packed up the box of evidence, called it a night, and met Neil for a late bite at Cy’s Place in Coconut Grove. They sat on stools at the long mahogany bar, the television on the wall tuned to ESPN. Cy’s Place was better known for its late-night jazz than its food, but if Jack didn’t eat there at least once a week, he risked serious bodily injury at the hands of the owner.

“Try the fish sandwich,” said Theo. “The dolphin were practically jumping into the boat. I caught ’em myself this morning.”

Having spent the morning in meetings trolling for evidence to support an alibi, Jack was wrestling with another why-can’t-I-be-Theo moment. Fishing in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream was one of the many reasons to live in south Florida, especially in January, but Jack hadn’t been out since September. If it weren’t for Theo’s what’s-yours-is-mine philosophy, Jack’s boat would have rotted on the dock.

“Make it two,” said Neil. “And a couple cold drafts.”

“Cool,” said Theo. “Yours is on the house, Neil.”

“What about mine?” said Jack.

“You I charge double.”

Neil laughed, but Jack knew he wasn’t kidding. “What did I do to piss you off?”

Theo went to the tap and starting pouring. “Vince Paulo basically saved my life two years ago,” he said. “And now you’re defending the guy who blinded him.”

Jack was all too aware of that dilemma. “First of all, Neil asked me to help with the case. Second of all, he’s more convinced of Jamal’s innocence than I am. So why is his food free?”

Theo set up the beers in front of them. “Neil can’t help himself. He thinks everyone is innocent. You know better.”

“He has a point,” said Neil.

“Stay out of this,” said Jack. He tasted his beer, and an idea came to him. “I tell you what, Theo. You can bill me double for a month, if you can explain one thing to me about this case.”

“I assume you mean the month of March, not February.”

“All right. Thirty-one days.”

“Hold on,” said Neil. “You can’t discuss the case with a bartender.”

“Theo is my investigator,” said Jack. “This is a privileged conversation.”

“It’s more like a bet involving the price of fish sandwiches,” said Neil.

“Then let’s do this by the book. Theo, in accordance with the rules of criminal procedure as approved by the Supreme Court of Florida, I hereby retain you as a certified expert on phony alibis and bullshit accusations. Tell me what you think of this one.”

Theo came closer, resting his arms on the bar top. “Let’s hear it, dude.”

Jack took a minute, his smile giving way to a very serious expression. The $64,000 question that had popped from the box of evidence from the state attorney was still eating at him, and he was no longer just kidding around.

“Answer me this,” said Jack. “Why would a girl like McKenna Mays tell a cop that her boyfriend stabbed her if he didn’t?”

“Easy,” said Theo. “The guy who did it told her he’d come back and slit her throat if she named him. She’s bleeding, scared, confused, and blurts out the first name that comes into her head.”

“Doesn’t exactly line up,” said Neil. “The girl was dying. No reason to fear her attacker coming back to hurt her.”

“Maybe he threatened to come back and kill her entire family. Or maybe she didn’t know she was going to die.”

The last point had Jack and Neil exchanging glances. Lawyers could agonize over evidence for hours, days, even weeks. A former gangbanger from the ’hood who’d spent four years in Florida State Prison could look at the same set of facts and make things just so simple.

“Take it one step further,” said Jack. “It’s not that she isn’t sure if she’s going to live or die. Maybe she’s absolutely convinced that she is going to live.”

“Convinced by someone she knows and trusts,” says Neil.

The lawyers were silent, but Jack didn’t need ESP to know where the other legal mind at the bar was headed.

“I don’t want to go after Paulo directly,” said Jack, shaking his head.

“I can’t blame you a bit for that,” said Neil. “But you know as well as I do that trying to prove up a secret detention facility in Prague is headed nowhere fast. So here’s the thing.”

“Tell me.”

He glanced at Theo, then back at Jack. “It’s like I told you before. They got the wrong man, which means that whoever stole Vince Paulo’s sight and killed McKenna Mays is still out there. The way I see it, you’re actually doing Paulo a favor.”

Jack lowered his eyes, talking into his beer. “Yeah, a favor,” he said with a mirthless chuckle. “I’ll probably get a thank-you note from the whole damn department.”