‘No one’s moved her? Touched her?’
‘Nope. What you see is what you get. Suits took a peek, but that’s it. I played baby-sitter. “No touchy, boys, and be sure to play nice with the other cops!” Crime Scene did photograph the scene, though. They finished up about ten minutes ago.’
Anna Prado’s nude body was lying faceup, the knees bent and her legs folded up underneath her body. Her arms were tied together with nylon cord above her head. Long platinum blond hair collected in a pile underneath them. Her chest was cut open in two incisions, forming a cross, the sternum neatly cracked. The heart was missing. Blood had pooled underneath the body, but not in a significant amount – making it clear she had been killed elsewhere.
‘He was probably getting ready to move her to some deserted place and fuck with her some more. Then we get to find her skeleton a couple of months from now fucking a sink nozzle or something… just in time for the holidays. Let me tell you something, Dom, just in case you didn’t know, there are some sick fuckin’ people in this world.’ He moved away from the guardrail and lit another cigarette. He raised his middle finger and smiled
at a slow passing car. ‘Like these sick maggots, stopping to try and get a really good look.’
‘She looks fresh, Manny.’ Dominick touched her arm, and the flesh and muscles moved. The skin was cold. Rigor mortis had come and gone, but not too long ago. He figured she had been dead probably less than a day. Dominick stepped back from the trunk, and underneath his shoe he heard a light crunching sound. He bent down and picked up what looked like a piece of red taillight. He slid it into his pocket. ‘What did they use to pop the trunk?’
‘I think a metal jack. Only Lindeman with the Beach actually touched the trunk after they popped it. Crime Scene is going to dig in as soon as the ME takes her away. I wanted you to see the scene, though, before they do.’
‘Who’s this Bantling guy? Does he have a history?’ Dominick looked behind him at the Miami Beach cruiser, where the figure in the backseat sat upright and still, but he could not make out the face in the dark.
‘Nope. We ran him. He’s got nothing. I called Jannie, the analyst over at the task force, and, as we speak, she is dissecting his scummy little life from the time he first shit in his drawers until the last time it was he took a leak. We’ll know more by breakfast.’
‘What’s he do? Where’s he from? I never heard of him before. He hasn’t surfaced on any of our lists, has he?’
‘Nope. He’s forty-one and a buyer for Tommy Tan Furniture Designs, some ritzy designer on the Beach. He travels a lot to South America and India. Claimed he was headed to the airport when Chavez pulled him over. The little that we do know is that he keeps to himself. We’ve got an army out at his house right now, interviewing the
neighbors and just waiting for a warrant. So far we’re getting the usual from the neighbors: “He seemed like such a nice guy, but
I
knew there was something odd about him” sort of crap. Tomorrow they’ll be on Jerry Springer claiming they were clairvoyant and we were idiots.
‘I already called the State Attorney, and Masterson and Bowman from the task force are working on the warrants. They’ll walk them through with C. J. Townsend from the State Attorney’s and then they can all head to the judge’s house for cookies, milk, and a signature.’
‘Has this Bantling said anything?’
‘Nope. He’s not talking. Hasn’t said a word since he denied the consent to search to Chavez. We’ve got him in the back of Lou Ribero’s squad car with the mikes on and we’ve been listening, but he’s not even breathing heavy back there. I told everyone to leave him alone, that we’ll handle it. Our federal friends haven’t talked to him either. Not yet anyways, although I’m sure it’s on their to-do list.’
‘Alright. Crime Scene can have it. Release the body to the MEs. Make sure to bag her hands before she’s moved.’ Dominick nodded in the direction of the investigators and techs, sitting on the side of the road, all trying to remain inconspicuous in their blue jackets with the words police and medical examiner printed in large fluorescent yellow lettering on the back. They descended upon the back of the trunk like termites to wood.
Dominick nodded at the circle of cops that still surrounded the car as he passed through again. In the sky he heard the distinct whirring of a helicopter hovering overhead, and bright lights blinded him from above.
‘Hey, Manny, please tell me that is your fat-ass boss coming in for a landing and tour number two,’ he said.
Manny looked up and squinted hard. Then he shook his head again in disgust. I’m afraid not. That, my friend, is the Channel Seven Trauma News at Ten O’Clock. Looks like we’ve made the big time. We’re gonna be on at eleven. Be sure to smile.’
‘Shit. The hordes are descending. Alright, let’s get this guy back to the office and talk to him before he realizes that this is a death-penalty state and starts whining for a lawyer and the ACLU. I’ll talk to the boys from the Bureau when we get back there, but let’s just make it clear that he’s
our suspect.’
Dominick opened the back of the Miami Beach cruiser and leaned in. The man inside stared straight ahead. In the overhead car light, Dominick saw that his right eye was puffy and swollen, and blood ran down the side of his face from a deep cut over his cheekbone. Raised red marks covered his neck. He must have tripped on his way into the squad car. It always amazed Dominick how clumsy suspects can be. Particularly on Miami Beach. His hands were cuffed behind him.
‘Mr Bantling, I am Special Agent Dominick Falconetti with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. I’m gonna need you to come with me. I need to ask you some questions.’
William Bantling continued to stare straight ahead, expressionless. His eyes blinked only once.
‘
I
know who you are, Agent Falconetti. And I can assure you that there is nothing for us to discuss at your office, or anywhere else for that matter. I am invoking my right to remain silent. I want to speak with my lawyer.’
17
Marisol Alfonso waited impatiently for her boss at the second-floor elevator bay in the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. Her short, doughy frame paced the hallway, a pink message pad in hand. It was only 9:02 A.M. and she had officially been on the clock for one hour and two minutes, even though she hadn’t actually arrived at the office until 8:15. She was more than mad – she just wasn’t gonna take this shit anymore. They did not pay her enough.
The doors opened, and Marisol scanned its departing occupants. In the back of the crowd of police uniforms and business suits, wearing dark sunglasses and a crisp gray suit, she found who she was looking for.
‘Where you been?’ she barked angrily. ‘Did you know that I have taken thirty messages since I been here?’ She dramatically flicked through the pink pad and followed her prey through the security access doors down the hall to the small office in the Major Crimes Unit, where a plaque on the door read c. j. TOWNSEND
, ESQ., ASSISTANT CHIEF. NOW
she waved the pad high above her head. ‘All these, they are for you!’
The last person C. J. Townsend wanted to be greeted by on any morning was her mean secretary, Marisol. It automatically ruined any hope she might have held out for having a good day. Today, in particular, was no exception. She opened her briefcase on top of her desk, removed her sunglasses, and stared back at the glaring,
lumpy figure who stood before her, iridescent clawed hands on hips, in a hot-pink Lycra T-shirt and flowered skirt that was two sizes too small and five inches too short.
‘The last I checked, Marisol, answering the phone and taking messages were included in your job description.’
‘Not this many. I haven’t been able to do nothing else. Why didn’t you call and tell me what to say to these press people?’
Not as if she did much anyway. C.J. smiled through her gritted teeth. ‘Tell them that there is no comment and just keep taking those messages. I’ll get back to whoever needs getting back to, but right now I have a ten o’clock hearing that I need to prepare for. Please make sure that I’m not disturbed.’ With that said, she began unpacking the files from her briefcase.
Marisol asked loudly, dropped the message pad on C.J.’s desk, turned on her pink high heels, and stormed out of the office, mumbling angrily in Spanish under her breath.
C.J. watched as Marisol teetered off down the hall to the secretarial pool, where she figured she would now spend the next two hours making her rounds among the secretaries, gossiping about the morning’s events and what a bitch her boss was. C.J. closed the door and let out a slow breath. If it was the last thing she accomplished at this office it would be to get that woman moved to another division, on another floor, preferably to the Child Support building across town. Not an easy task. After ten years, Marisol was a lifer. They would probably have to drag her out in a large, pink body bag before the State Attorney conjured up the balls and actually canned her.
She leafed through the message pad. NBC Channel 6, WSVN Channel 7, CBS Channel 2,
Today, Good Morning America, Telemundo, Miami Herald, New York Times, Chicago Tribune,
even the
Daily Mail
in London. The list went on and on.
The news of an arrest of a suspect in the Cupid murders early that morning had spread like wildfire through the media, and the feeding frenzy had begun. From her office window, C.J. had already spotted the media refugee camps that had staked their claims on the steps of the criminal courthouse across the street, complete with direct satellite feeds to their New York and Los Angeles affiliates.
She had been assigned for the past year by the State Attorney himself to assist the Cupid task force with their investigation. She had been to the scenes, attended some of the autopsies, reviewed miscellaneous warrants, debriefed the medical examiner, scoured police and lab reports, and taken witness statements. She had also shared in the rash of criticism that was seemingly doled out on a daily basis by the press on the lack of progress in the case. But now her devotion to the boys in blue had won her the granddaddy of all prizes: prosecuting the most notorious serial killer in the history of Miami. That assignment alone apparently now made her the
celebrity du jour
in the eyes of the media, something she absolutely dreaded.
In her ten years with the State Attorney’s Office, she had prosecuted everything from fishermen catching spiny lobster out of season to triple homicides committed by seventeen-year-old gang members. She had asked judges for fines, community service, probation, prison, and death. Five years earlier she had been commended
on a near-perfect conviction record and promoted to Major Crimes, a small, specialized unit composed of the office’s ten top prosecutors. There, she and her colleagues were assigned much smaller caseloads than the rest of the 240 attorneys in the busy office, but their cases were considered the worst type of crimes and the most complex to prove. Most were first-degree murders, all were heinous, and all were judged by the office to be newsworthy. All her defendants faced the death penalty, by electric chair or lethal injection. Most of them got it. Organized-crime hits, child killings, gangland executions, domestic murders where whole families were summarily annihilated by a despondent man angry because he’d just lost his job – every case, by its very nature, a potential media explosion, although some received front-page press, while others only a two-sentence blurb on the back page of the local section. Others never made it to the big time at all, overshadowed by another case still more atrocious, or an upcoming hurricane, or the Dolphins big loss to the Jets.
In C.J.’s five years with the unit, she had seen her share of her name in the papers. The attention always made her more than a little uncomfortable, and she still loathed giving interviews. She did her job, not for the publicity or limelight, but for the victims, the ones who could no longer speak from their graves six feet under and the innocent friends and family that were inevitably left behind wondering why when the gun smoke cleared and the cameras were turned off. She felt as though she gave the survivors a sense of vindication, a feeling of power in an otherwise powerless situation. In this case, however, the glare of the spotlight would be even more
oppressive, since for the first time she’d be dealing with the national and international media, rather than just the local press. She knew when Manny Alvarez called her at home last night to tell her they had a Cupid suspect that this was going to be big. Probably the biggest case her career would ever see.
She had spent half the night reviewing the warrants for William Rupert Bantling’s house on Miami Beach and his two cars. Then she spent the other half preparing for the First Appearance Hearing Bantling would be having today, which was set for 10:00. In between the two, she visited the scene on the MacArthur and stopped by the ME’s office to get a look at the body. Then she fielded three anxious phone calls from the State Attorney, Jerry Tigler, who was quite upset that although he had been at the same fund-raiser for the governor as the City of Miami Police Chief and the FBI SAC, he apparently had not been invited with all the other bigwigs to the after-hours party down on the causeway. He wanted C.J. to find out why he had been slighted. With all that, she had forgotten to sleep.
Within twenty-four hours of his arrest, Bantling was entitled to a determination by a judge in a pro-forma hearing that there was probable cause to arrest him for the first-degree murder of Anna Prado. Was it more likely than not that he had committed the crime of which he was accused? Off the cuff, a mutilated body in the trunk probably met that criterion. And, normally speaking, a First Appearance was a nothing, two-minute hearing that was handled on closed-circuit television with the defendant on one side of a monitor across the street at the county jail and a temperamental, overworked judge
with a First Appearance docket of two hundred misdemeanors and fifty felony cases in a tiny courtroom on the other.
The ornery judge would read the arrest form, read the charges aloud, declare probable cause, set the bond or deny one, and move on to the next defendant in the long line that snaked through the jailhouse. And that would be it. It was over so quickly, the defendant usually hadn’t even realized his name had been called. He would stand at the jailhouse podium, blankly looking all around until they pushed him off to the line of prisoners headed back to their cells. The prosecutor and public defender sat in the courtroom with the judge, but they were really just decorations. There were no witnesses, no testimony, just the judge reading off the arrest form. And he always found probable cause. Always. It was nothing fancy – just good ol’, swift southern justice.