Closing arguments concluded on Friday afternoon, although Lourdes’s lacked the conviction she had mustered for Bantling in her opening. After the charging conference, the two alternate jurors were dismissed from service and their opinions devoured in the hall by dueling MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News correspondents, and the remaining twelve jurors instructed on the law. Finally, at 4:27 P
.M
., the jury was sent out to deliberate the fate of the defendant.
Less than an hour later, at 5:19 P
.M
., a knock was heard on the jury door and Hank delivered a note to the judge in his chambers.
They had a verdict.
85
‘Is this your verdict, so say you all?’ asked Judge Chaskel over his reading glasses to the jury foreman as everyone in the courtroom quickly scrambled to their seats. No one had expected a verdict this quick in a capital case. Particularly C.J., who had barely made it to the first-floor coin-operated coffee machine for a cup of joe on her way back to wait for the verdict in her office. That’s when Eddie Bowman had jumped on the escalator, yelling to her that the jury was back.
The judge’s face showed no emotion as his furrowed eyes perused the verdict form. The courtroom was standing-room-only – jammed with prosecutors, defense lawyers, press members, spectators, and family. An electric buzz of excitement ran through the room.
‘Yes, Your Honor, it is,’ anxiously replied the foreman, a garbageman in his forties from Miami Beach. He was trying hard to ignore the cameras and microphones that were hanging on his every breath, recording his every nervous tic. Small beads of sweat appeared on his upper lip, and he brushed them away with the back of his hand.
‘Very well, then, you may be seated, sir. The defendant will please rise.’ Judge Chaskel folded up the verdict form and handed it back over the bench to Janine, the clerk. The foreman, obviously relieved to be out of the spotlight, sat back down with the other eleven members of the jury, all of whom then stared at the bench
uneasily, purposely avoiding even a glance in the direction of Bill Bantling. ‘Madame Clerk, please read the verdict.’ Then Judge Chaskel sat forward in his high-backed leather chair, his hand firmly resting on the wooden gavel on the bench.
‘We the jury, in the county of Miami-Dade, Florida, on this the fifth day of January, two thousand and one, find the defendant, William Rupert Bantling, guilty of murder in the first degree.’
Guilty. Guilty of murder in the first degree.
A choked sob sounded in the courtroom, which C.J. suspected came from Mrs Prado.
‘This courtroom will remain in order and everyone will remain seated,’ said the judge sternly, his deep voice still commanding attention over the now-overanxious, excited, fidgeting crowd. ‘Ms Rubio, would you like the jury polled?’
‘I would, Your Honor,’ Lourdes said blankly after hesitating a moment, her hands resting on the edge of the defense table for support. Bantling stared at the judge, as though he had not yet heard the news.
‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I will now individually poll you to see if the verdict rendered was, in fact, your own. Juror Number One, what was your verdict?’
‘Guilty,’ said the retired secretary from Kendall, crying.
‘Juror Number Two?’
‘Guilty.’
And so it went down the line. Some of the jurors’ eyes were red with tears, others looked relieved, and still others shared looks of disgust and anger when their turn to speak came.
After Juror Number Twelve reiterated the defendant’s guilt, the courtroom erupted in complete chaos. Mrs Prado began to wail, family members of Cupid’s other victims who had attended the trial shouted and cheered, reporters rushed out to the hall to call their news agencies, and C.J. hung her head in a silent prayer of thanks to a God she had thought no longer existed.
It was over. It was finally over.
86
That was when William Rupert Bantling began to scream.
It was the same bloodcurdling, angry screech that she had heard before when she was locked in with him and Lourdes in DCJ. The excited courtroom chatter quickly drifted into stunned silence as everyone’s eyes and cameras turned to Bantling.
He had his hands on his head, pulling at his hair, and was shaking his head furiously from side to side. His face was beet red, his eyes wide and furious, and from his mouth came that awful screeching sound. He turned in C.J.’s direction and pointed at her.
‘You fucking cunt!’ he hissed. ‘I should have fucking killed you then, you little bitch! I should have fucking killed you! You’re not gonna get away with this!’
‘Order, I want order in this courtroom! And I want it now!’ Judge Chaskel bellowed, his face red, matching Bantling’s. ‘Mr Bantling, are you listening to this court? I want you to be quiet!’
Lourdes put her hand on Bantling’s arm to quiet him, but he violently threw it off, almost sending her into the chair railing. ‘Don’t you fucking touch me, either, you two-timing bitch! You’re in on this with her – I know it!’
‘Mr Bantling, I will no longer tolerate this outburst in my courtroom. I will have you gagged, if that’s what it takes to shut you up!’ He looked at Hank. ‘Remove the jury now, Hank! Now!’ Hank hustled to push the jury members, who all stood with their mouths open
watching Bantling’s breakdown, through the door leading to the soundproofed jury room.
Bantling turned and faced the bench. ‘Your Honor, I want another lawyer. I want another one right now.’
‘Mr Bantling, you have just been convicted of capital murder. You can have any lawyer you want to represent you during the appeals process, as long as you can afford it. And if you can’t, the court will appoint one for you. But you can’t have another one right now.’
‘Judge, you don’t understand! I didn’t do this, and they both know it!’
‘You need to calm down, sir, and control yourself.’
‘I fucked that prosecutor years ago. I fucked her bad in her apartment in New York, and now she’s framing me for these murders! I want a new trial! I want a new lawyer!’
Judge Chaskel furrowed his brow again. ‘Mr Bantling, this is not the time or the place for these sorts of allegations, which sound rather ludicrous to me. You can take up whatever issue you want with your appeals attorney at a later date.’
‘Just ask her! She’ll tell you! She’ll tell you she was raped! And she knows it was me who did her! And my attorney, she knows it was me but she feels bad for Ms Townsend. She feels bad for poor Chloe. So she’s not fighting for me like she should. She should have had this case dismissed!’
‘Ms Townsend? Ms Rubio? Do you know what this is about?’ Judge Chaskel looked perplexed.
This was it. The moment she had always dreaded. The moment she knew would come, but today had thought somehow she might escape.
How would it feel when it all came crashing down?
C.J. swallowed hard and stood from her seat to face the judge. ‘Your Honor,’ she said slowly, ‘I was, in fact, the victim of a violent rape some years back when I was a law student in New York.’
One huge, enormous gasp could be heard simultaneously throughout the courtroom. A voice said, ‘Oh my God! ‘ Another, ‘Holy shit!’ Another, ‘Did you hear that?’
Tonight’s CNN Headline News, coming to you live from Miami: Shocking In-Court Revelation by Prosecutor in Cupid Murder Trial!
She cleared her throat and continued in as strong a voice as she could muster. ‘Apparently, Your Honor, the defendant has become privy to this information through old police reports and public records searches and is aware that my rapist was never caught. In an effort to fool this court and to cloak these proceedings in accusations of impropriety and railroading, Mr Bantling has made a midnight confession that he was the man who raped me. However, Judge, I can assure this court that that is not the case. Mr Bantling is not the man who attacked and raped me, and I have advised his attorney as such in a prior meeting. I believe she also finds no merit in his accusations before this court today.’
Judge Chaskel stared dumbfounded out from the bench. He did not like being put in this position. Not after he had just run what he thought to be a perfect, appeal-proof trial. ‘And this is the first time I am hearing of this? Now?’ He looked at Lourdes. ‘Ms Rubio, do you wish to be heard on this matter?’
Lourdes Rubio looked straight out before her at the judge, never once even glancing in C.J.’s direction. ‘Judge, I have spoken with my client and I have read the police reports concerning Ms Townsend’s assault. I have
also spoken with Ms Townsend herself.’ She paused slightly, then continued, ‘I believe my client’s accusations against Ms Townsend are without merit and I do not support them.’
Judge Chaskel sat in silence, contemplating his reaction and his next words. The courtroom stayed silent as well. Finally he spoke. Although sounding sincere, his words were carefully chosen for the court reporter. ‘Ms Townsend, I am sorry that you were compelled to disclose a very private matter before this court today. I should only hope that the media that is present here and now armed with this information will treat it with the privacy and tact that it so deserves.’
‘This is fucking bullshit!’ Bantling violently pushed the defense table with both hands, sending it toppling over and Lourdes’s files flying everywhere. ‘All of this! All of you are gonna kill me because you feel sorry for that lying bitch!’ Three corrections officers grabbed him from behind, holding his arms and legs while he struggled against them. As they handcuffed and shackled him, he snarled in C.J.’s direction, his eyes filled with pure hatred, his mouth foaming.
Judge Chaskel raised his voice to almost a shout. ‘You can have your appeals attorney take up any issue you want. Right now, this matter is concluded. Gag him, Hank.’
‘You lying whore, Chloe! This isn’t over! This isn’t over!’ Bantling screamed.
Then he fell silent as the bailiff taped his mouth shut.
87
She couldn’t go home. The media had somehow found her carefully guarded address and were camped out in the parking lot of Port Royale awaiting her return. They’d obviously paid the security guard to look the other way while they pulled past him in their bright blue Channel 7 News Team trucks. So she sat in her office at 10:30 that night calling hotels to try to find a room for a few nights until the media got bored and moved their trucks away from her parking spot and their boom mike away from her front door. She didn’t even notice him standing in the shadow of her door frame until he softly called her name.’
‘C.J.?’
She looked up, hoping it was the State Attorney again, but instead found Dominick.
‘Hi there,’ was all she could reply. He had been in court when the verdict was read.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Well, actually, I am looking for a place to stay for a few days. Mrs Cromsby, the elderly lady in apartment ten-sixteen below me who takes care of Lucy and Tibby while I’m working, has suggested I ‘lie low’ for a while. It’s a circus, apparently.’ She would not look at him.
He came in from the doorway and walked around the side of her desk, sitting finally on the edge. She felt his eyes upon her, studying her as if she were a specimen, and she wished he would just leave.
You told me you were in a car accident. Those scars are from no car accident, are they?’
She felt her lip tremble and she bit it, hard. ‘No, no they’re not.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want anyone to know. Now, isn’t it ironic, that my rape is tonight’s top story around the world? Translated into twenty-four languages as we speak.’ She pulled her fingers through her hair and rested her head in her hands. ‘I didn’t want you to know, that’s all.’
‘Did you think things would be different between us if I knew? Is that it?’
‘I don’t need your pity, Dominick. I really don’t.’
‘It’s not pity, C.J. I thought it was a lot more than that. Do you think I’m that shallow?’
‘Look, it’s not about you. Okay? It’s in the past.
My
past. And I still try to deal with it every single day in the best way that I can. Today was just not one of those better days.’
‘Don’t just shut me out.’
‘I can’t have children, Dominick. There, I’ve said it. Maybe it matters to you, maybe it doesn’t, but I can’t. And now you know. Now you know.’
A long silence hung in the room. Her cheap wall clock ticked off the minutes, and no one spoke. Finally, Dominick broke the silence in a low voice, Was it him? Was it Bantling?’
Within hours, the media had amassed and then released for public consumption, vivid details of C.J.’s rape. And now he remembered Manny’s voice on the Nextel, telling him about the clown mask he had just found in Bantling’s closet. And then C.J., startled by him
in the task force conference room with the unattended evidence. It was all there.
You just had to know where to look.
She pondered the question for a few long seconds. She felt the tears well up and then trickle in a hot stream down her cheeks, but there was no stopping them. She looked up at him, straight in his probing, questioning brown eyes and when she finally spoke, her voice, barely a whisper, was resigned. ‘No. No. It wasn’t him.’
He studied her. Her beautiful tan face, framed by chestnut blond hair, lighter at the roots than at the ends, like a child’s. Her deep, emerald eyes, underlined with troubling, dark circles. He imagined for a moment what Bantling had done to her to give her those scars. He pictured that face, the face he had now grown to love, crying and twisted and tortured under the weight of a barbaric monster. He knew she was lying to him. Somehow it didn’t matter.
‘Close the book.’
‘What?’
‘Close the telephone book. Put down the phone.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re coming home with me, that’s why. I’m taking you home.’
He took her hand and pulled her up and out of the chair. Then he wrapped her in his arms and kissed the top of her head. He held her tight against his chest, listening to her sobs, and stroking her hair. Not wanting ever to let go.