Lassiter

27 No One Breaks Into the Grand Jury

The next morning, I drove north on Dixie Highway, headed to the office. On the radio, Leonard Cohen was complaining that there “ain’t no cure for love.”

I’d walked around the street, asking a couple neighbors if they’d seen anyone lurking in the hibiscus hedges during the night. But no one had. So who the hell had it been? A random intruder or someone with a connection to Krista’s case?

As I pulled onto I-95, I noticed a gray Hummer H2 behind me. Big as a battleship, it would have been hard to miss. I’d already seen it on Sunset Drive earlier this morning when I stopped at a bakery for coffee and a pastelito de guayaba.

Was I getting paranoid? First the Escalade owned by a guy in prison. And now this behemoth? Made as much sense as tailing someone in a Rose Bowl float.

I stayed in the right-hand lane in order to take the exit for the flyover to the MacArthur Causeway. The Hummer was directly behind me.

I was looking in the rearview mirror, trying to make out the driver’s face, when my cell phone rang.

“Jake, get your ass over to the Grand Jury chambers now!” Castiel’s voice.

“You’ve changed your mind? You’re bringing Amy’s case up?”

“Your crazy client just chained herself to the door. If you don’t get her out of here, I’m gonna have her arrested.”

I swung left out of the exit lane, barely missing the sand-filled barricades. The Hummer braked but couldn’t make the turn Lost you, pal. Whoever the hell you are.

Twenty-three citizens, good and true, make up the Grand Jury. They hear evidence presented by the State Attorney and render an indictment if they determine there is probable cause that a suspect committed a crime. It takes fourteen votes to indict, and the jurors usually do whatever the prosecutor tells them to. It’s an old expression, but still true: a Grand Jury will indict a ham sandwich. Not, however, if the State Attorney fails to bring the meat and bread to their chambers.

The jurors gather in the civil courthouse downtown, an eighty-year-old limestone tower shaped like a wedding cake topped by a pyramid. In the winter, turkey buzzards circle the parapet near the peak of the building, inspiring jokes about predators in feathers above and Armani below. A colorful mural of old Florida is painted on the ceiling of the lobby. Who knew that Native American tribes were overjoyed to find Spanish sailors with muskets landing on the beaches?

I hopped into a balky elevator, surrounded by a passel of lawyers. They were jabbering about prosecutors who cheated, judges who fell asleep, and clients who don’t pay their bills. Lawyers are great whiners.

I heard the commotion as I stepped into the corridor near the door to the Grand Jury chambers. A woman shouting.

“The State Attorney is corrupt! Can you hear me in there?”

A man shouting back, “Quiet down, now!”

The woman was a frantic Amy Larkin.

The man was a pissed-off Miami cop.

Three other cops formed a bulwark between them and the passersby in the corridor. One more guy in uniform and they’d have enough for a basketball team. That’s the thing about cops. They travel in flocks, like the buzzards. On the floor were a pair of busted handcuffs and a three-foot-long bolt cutter. Amy had cuffed herself to the door. The cops had snapped off the cuffs, but now Amy was staging a one woman sit-in.

“Investigate!” Amy chanted. “Investigate! Investigate!”

Castiel came up behind me. “You’ve got exactly thirty seconds to get her out of here or she’s going to jail.”

“Amy, c’mon, let’s go,” I said, shouldering my way through the phalanx of cops. She was sitting cross-legged, arms folded across her chest, her back against the wall. A Gandhi pose, daring the constabulary to pick her up and carry her out.

“I want to testify. Testify!”

“I swear I’ll have her Baker-acted,” Castiel said. “Lock her in the loony bin.”

“Amy, c’mon,” I said. “No one breaks into the Grand Jury.”

“Where is justice? Where is justice for my sister?”

“Amy, it’s over,” I said. “You made your point.”

“Charlie Ziegler killed Krista! If you won’t do something about it, I will.”

“All right, enough,” the first cop said, taking a step toward her.

I held up a hand, like a guard at an intersection. “Just a few seconds, okay?”

He swatted my hand away, and without my telling it to, my arm shot out, and I grabbed his wrist. He didn’t pull away. He just looked at me. Hard. The look seemed to come naturally. He was three inches shorter than me but just as heavy, with a body builder’s torso. A lot of cops are into steroids and HGH, and this guy made Barry Bonds look puny.

“You don’t lay a hand on a peace officer,” he said.

I let go of his wrist but stayed put between him and Amy.

“Peace officer? Who the fuck are you, John Wayne?”

“And you don’t use profanity in a public building.”

“Fine. Let’s go outside. But let me get her out of here first.”

“We’re taking her in. She’s refusing a lawful instruction by a peace officer.”

Peace officer, again. Going all True Grit on me.

“I’m only going to ask you once, sir.” His voice cranked up a notch. “Move!”

“ ‘Move’ is not a question.”

“Jake, you’re crazier than your client. Do what he says.” Castiel crashing our party.

“Amy, please come with me or we’re both going to jail,” I said.

“Miami cops are dirty!” she shouted.

“That’s it,” the beefy cop said. He pushed me aside, and I pushed him back. Which is when two of his pals slammed me, face-first, against the wall. Another grabbed my right arm and twisted it behind my back. A fourth cop, with nothing else to do, twisted my left arm to meet my right. That sent a lightning bolt through my shoulder. I’d had rotator cuff surgery back in my playing days, and the joint still bothers me when I do something foolish like hail a cab, shoot the bird, or get shackled.

The cops tried to get their handcuffs off their belts, which resulted in a jangling that resembled a bell choir. That gave me the chance to wrestle one arm free. Hercules unbound, I wheeled around, and the first cop zapped me in the chest with his Taser.

My knees turned to jelly, but I didn’t fall. The second blast made me claw the air, searching for something to grab on to. I hit the floor, my legs splayed, my feet twitching. My ears were humming with static, so I barely heard Castiel. “Wrong way, Lassiter. Wrong way, again.”