The Borzoi Killings

33.

At the end of Bo Halsey’s testimony, Ang Tien, who had been sitting in the back row of the gallery, walked out into the crystalline late winter afternoon. He’d waited to hear Bo Halsey’s testimony, hoping Halsey would describe the surveillance tape. That hadn’t happened.

Ang Tien had twenty of his business cards in his pockets. He moved among the reporters standing near the glistening television panel trucks. He handed out his cards. Deferentially he asked every man and woman holding a microphone or a notepad for their business cards. All of the dozen or so reporters he approached either handed him a business card or, after he explained he had important information about the trial, wrote their names and email addresses on pieces of paper. They were hungry for information, and even though they didn’t know the young Asian man with spiky black hair who looked like a computer-obsessed nerd, they didn’t hesitate to give him their contact information and take his cards. He could be anyone-a friend of a juror, someone who knew Juan Suarez, or just one of the law junkies who haunted courtrooms.

That night Ang Tien created an untraceable email address for himself. He typed “Bedroom in the Richardson House on Murder Day” in the subject line-he knew the subject line had to have a message that the reporters couldn’t ignore-and in the body of the email he wrote: “Law enforcement officials taking cash from the Richardson bedroom.” Then, without hesitation, he pressed the Send key to distribute the video to the reporters. He then posted it on YouTube. His screen flashed that the message had been sent.

He leaned backward in his chair, raising his arms above his head. Suddenly lifted from him were the anxiety, resentment, and anger he had felt for weeks while Bo Halsey never again spoke to him about the tapes of Cerullo and Cohen methodically carrying cash from the bedroom to the bathroom. Ang Tien shouted and pumped his hands in the air.

Less than two hours later a CNN anchor introduced another story at the start of the seven o’clock news: “A bizarre twist in the trial of the man accused of killing billionaire hedge fund owner Brad Richardson in ritzy East Hampton. CNN has received through anonymous sources a tape of two police officers taking cash found in the Richardson bedroom. Here is part of the tape, taken several hours after Richardson was murdered, police say, with a machete.”

The high-resolution tape, enhanced by Ang Tien’s wizard skills, captured the faces of Cerullo and Cohen and their quick, furtive movements. The tape also captured them as they continuously looked around the room for the kinds of small security cameras they obviously expected to see. There was even an occasional murmur of voices, almost of grunts, but that was far less distinct.

As soon as the tape ended a young reporter-Asian, sleek, articulate, attractive-said, “Our sources have definitively identified the men on the tape as law enforcement officers named Dick Cerullo and Dave Cohen, described as experienced detectives with years of experience in the NYPD and the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office. Interestingly, their names were mentioned today at the trial by seasoned lead detective Bo Halsey as the two officers he had sent on the night of the murder to look for more than two hundred thousand dollars in cash that Brad Richardson allegedly kept in his bedroom. Halsey said at the trial that the two officers came back from the assignment with no cash.”

The screen suddenly turned into a tape of Bo Halsey that afternoon walking from the courthouse. He wore sunglasses. He looked like the veteran soldier-tall, strong, his head completely shaved-he in fact was.

The reporter continued, “The illegal Mexican immigrant on trial for the murder of the billionaire is also accused of stealing well over two hundred thousand dollars in cash from the bedroom where the law enforcement officers were filmed. The lead detective, Halsey, was reached a few minutes ago. He said he had never seen the tape before. It was, he said, news to him. He also said that any further questions had to be referred to the prosecutors. The lead prosecutor, Margaret Harding, hasn’t yet returned messages left for her.”

Raquel’s cell phone rang as she was having dinner with Theresa at the American Hotel in Sag Harbor. They were in the room with the ancient bar and the fireplace, which was lit. The carefully carved tin ceiling glowed with the candlelight from the tables and the fire. In the wine at Raquel’s table a deep glow filled the glasses.

“Hello,” Raquel said when her cell phone screen lit up with the caller ID New York Times.

It was Jennifer Hoover, a reporter from the Times who had Raquel on what she called her go-to list. She said, “Raquel, where are you?”

“We’re at the American Hotel. In Sag Harbor.”

“Do they have a television set?”

“No, and I hope they never do. They do have a moose head high on the wall with a cigarette dangling from his lips.”

“Let me tell you what the entire country has been looking at for the last half hour. Maybe I can get your reaction. I’d like to get my article into the online edition pronto.”

“I never heard you breathless before, Jennifer. What’s happening?”

“An hour ago someone sent out emails and posted on YouTube a video of two Suffolk County detectives.”

“Tell me more.”

“In it the cops are carrying stacks of cash out of Brad Richardson’s bedroom.”

“What?”

“It was a surveillance tape taken on the day he was killed. The two cops are the ones Bo Halsey mentioned today as the guys who came back empty-handed from the search for the cash. Obviously they found it, and they kept it.”

Raquel paused, holding her breath. “Jennifer, I think all I can say now is that if the tape depicts two rogue policemen stealing cash that Juan Suarez is alleged to have stolen then this situation is outrageous, particularly if the prosecutors knew about the existence of this tape.”

“Did you ever see it?”

“Of course not.”

“What do you plan to do?”

“Jennifer, why don’t you just write that we’ll take all necessary steps to vindicate Mr. Suarez’s rights, or something like that. That’s for the record. But between us, off the record, you were wonderful to call me. This is the best news I’ve heard in a very, very long time. I’ll give you the first word on anything that develops from this.”

As they had on many nights during the trial, Raquel and Theresa drove to the seaside house in Montauk when they left Sag Harbor, almost deserted at this time of the year and profoundly attractive. The drive to the house took less than forty-five minutes. The Montauk Highway, essentially a two-lane street after it passed through East Hampton, had almost no traffic.

Raquel was bone-weary, as she had been on most nights for the last two weeks. She hadn’t called her doctor for the simple reason that she was afraid about what she might hear. Raquel was not convinced-or she didn’t want to believe-that the cancer had recurred because she didn’t have the pain through her entire body that had first alerted her a year ago to the possibility that she might be sick. But for the last two weeks the pain and lassitude, and the deep-down, secret fear, had destroyed her sleep.

Raquel loved to drive her black Porsche-another of the few toys she had given herself when she recovered-but on this night as on many others she let Theresa drive. In multiple ways Theresa had witnessed Raquel’s rapid transformation. She saw how blanched Raquel’s vibrant, dark face was by the end of each day. And she also saw Raquel’s daily strength as she rallied during each trial day to be alert and strong until the jury left the room to go home. At that point, Raquel would sit with her head resting on her hands in the private, usually empty room reserved for lawyers next to the courtroom.

On the quiet drive they listened to the local NPR station with All Things Considered set at low volume. The familiar, subdued cadence of Robert Siegel’s cultured voice, a throwback to the days of baritone-voiced broadcasters like Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite-seemed to soothe Raquel. She and Theresa both smiled when a ninety-second summary of the day’s trial was broadcast-even NPR regularly covered the trial.

As usual, Theresa prepared supper; it consisted mainly of heating food they regularly picked up from a stop at the fancy Citrella store in East Hampton. She set the food on the table. Raquel, who poured one glass of wine for each of them, ordinarily put the dishes in the washer.

Each night Raquel used the small guest bedroom. It was closer to the sound of the sea than her own bedroom. She believed the rhythm of the waves might ease her into fitful moments of sleep. Theresa always seemed uncomfortable with the idea of using Raquel’s far larger, well-decorated bedroom, but Raquel quietly insisted on it.

Not long after they started regularly using the Montauk house they started embracing before Raquel left for the small bedroom. It was Raquel who initiated the embraces. They lasted for thirty seconds, sometimes a minute. At first uneasy about them, Theresa soon became comfortable. Raquel obviously derived something comforting from them.

Tonight, at the end of the embrace, they pressed their cheeks together, almost kissing. Raquel said, “Thank you, my sweet friend.”

Raquel, wrenched up from another fitful sleep, had no doubt that the odd pop-pop-pop sounds she heard were rifle shots. As always, she was naked when she was in bed. She jumped to her feet and, naked, sprinted toward her bedroom.

As soon as she entered the room she saw that the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the beach was shattered. She turned on the lights. Tiny shards of glass glinted over the bed and floor. Panting, shouting Theresa, Theresa, she glanced all around the devastated room.

Theresa Bui’s body was slumped against a wall. The bullets had struck her head. Blood drenched her jet-black hair.

Raquel, oblivious to the shards of glass under her bare feet, ran to the body and knelt, praying, beside it. She instinctively knew that the sniper thought the person he had killed in Raquel’s bedroom was Raquel herself.