He paused, obviously uncomfortable with Jack’s spin on it. “It happens,” he said.
“It happens,” Jack said with a tinge of sarcasm. “Thanks, Lieutenant. I think we got it.”
Jack turned his back on the witness and returned to his seat. Lindsey gave him a look of approval, though the worry in her eyes was still evident. It was way too premature to start celebrating, but his point had seemed to register with the jury.
“Mr. Torres,” the judge said, “you may reexamine.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.” He buttoned his coat as he rose, but rather than approaching the witness he remained at his place behind the prosecution’s table. “Very briefly, Lieutenant. You’ve handled a few homicide investigations in your career, have you not?”
“Many, many of them.”
“In your experience as an NCIS investigator, how is it that you’re able to nail those killers who take great pains to cover their tracks?”
“More often than not, it’s because they made just one dumb mistake.”
“Just one?”
“One is all it takes.”
“Like forgetting to wipe a fingerprint off the gun?”
He nodded, then glanced toward the jury and said, “Like forgetting to wipe the gun.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. No further questions.”
The high Jack had felt after his cross-examination had just taken a nosedive. Two of the jurors had even smiled and nodded, as if volunteering to carry the prosecutor’s new mantra all the way back to the deliberations room: One is all it takes.
The judge said, “The witness may step down. Mr. Torres, do you have any more witnesses to call?”
Torres gave his witness a moment to get clear of the witness stand. He was ready to make a major announcement, and he wanted no distractions to take away from his spotlight. Finally, he said in a firm voice, “Your Honor. The government rests its case.”
“Thank you,” said the judge. All rose as the judge dismissed the jury. When the last of them had filed out of the courtroom, Lindsey, the lawyers, and spectators settled back into their seats.
The judge made some housekeeping announcements, then looked at Jack. “Mr. Swyteck, should your client choose to put on any evidence in her defense, I suggest you be ready to do so at nine o’clock Monday morning.” He banged his gavel and said, “We’re adjourned.”
“All rise!” cried the bailiff.
The judge exited to his side chambers, and the rumble of the crowd filled the courtroom. Jack turned toward Lindsey and said, “Big weekend ahead, Lindsey. It’s decision time.”
“Decision time for what?”
Jack closed his briefcase and said, “Just about everything.”
36
The reception at Mario’s Market was ice cold.
The trial had come between Jack and his biweekly lesson in Cuban culture from his grandmother, so he was determined to take Abuela to the market on Saturday morning. She’d told him ten or eleven times over the telephone that it wasn’t necessary, that it was really okay to skip their little shopping date just this once. Since his return from Cuba, she’d refused to speak about her tearful voice mail message and Jack’s visit to the cemetery. Jack promised not to raise it again, assuring her that this outing was purely for the fun of it. She still seemed wary, but Jack finally persuaded her. After just two minutes inside the store, however, he realized that her reluctance had nothing to do with Jack’s mother and the child she’d lost.
“Do they really have to glare at us like that?” said Jack.
“Not us, mi vida. You.”
The outrage in the Cuban community over the possibility of Castro’s soldier as a witness had seemed to peak with the torching of Jack’s Mustang, but the hate mail and vicious attacks on Cuban talk radio had grown steadily since Jack’s grilling of Alejandro Pintado on the witness stand. Having defended death row inmates for his first four years of practice, Jack could deal with critics. But Saturday morning at Mario’s Market wasn’t the faceless fury of strangers whose acceptance Jack neither sought nor needed. These were good people, regular folks, neighbors who played dominoes with his grandmother in the park. It was the woman behind the deli counter who used to have his coffee ready for him, exactly the way he liked it, before he even asked. It was the cashier selling Lotto tickets who had always insisted that some combination of Jack’s and José Martí’s birthdays was definitely the lucky number. It was the seventy-nine-year-old stock “boy” who would tell Jack about the gunfights on Eighth Street (long before it became “Calle Ocho”) between Batista loyalists and the Castro supporters. And it was the butcher who used to laugh at Jack’s terrible Spanish, tell him that it’s a good thing his mother was from Bejucal because an accent like his wouldn’t even earn him the distinction of “honorary Cuban.” Jack expected the backlash from the Cuban community at large, and he was even getting used to some of it. But rejection from these folks was rejection on a whole different level.
“Let’s get some bread,” said Jack.
“I think we should just go home,” said Abuela.
He could see the pain in her expression, but he wasn’t ready to retreat just yet. He kissed her on the forehead and said, “You wait here. I’ll get the bread and take the dirty looks with me.”
He walked to the end of the aisle and ducked beneath a sign that pointed the way to PAN CALIENTE. It was a back area separated from the main store by thick, clear plastic strips that hung in the doorway and kept the heat on the baking side. A man wearing white overalls and a white T-shirt was loading another tray of dough into the oven.
“Antonio, how are you today?”
Antonio was smiling until he connected the voice with the speaker. He turned back to his work, saying nothing as he slid the tray into the hot oven.
“How about a couple of loaves?” said Jack.
Antonio closed the oven door and put the tray aside. “We’re out.”
Jack could see six loaves sitting atop the oven, which was where the just-baked bread was stored and kept warm. It was one of the secrets that helped such a little store sell eight hundred loaves a week.
“Out, huh?” said Jack.
“Sí, all gone.”
“What about those?” Jack said, pointing toward the oven.
“Those aren’t for you.”
“Antonio!” a man shouted. Jack turned and saw the owner, Kiko, stepping out of the storage room. He said something quickly in Spanish, too quick for Jack to pick up. But the baker promptly moved away. Kiko grabbed two hot loaves and laid them on the table.
“Sorry about that,” he said.
“It’s okay. I should be the one to apologize. Pretty foolish of me to come here in the middle of a trial like this one.”
Kiko shrugged, as if he couldn’t completely disagree. “It’s an older clientele here, Jack. First generation mostly. Everyone here had their home stolen from them, and most of them know people who ended up in one of Castro’s prisons just because they dared to complain about it. That can make you kind of emotional.”
“I understand that. I’m not trying to stick my finger in anybody’s eye. I’m just…”
“Doing your job?”
Jack looked away. It was the truth, but somehow it didn’t sound like enough. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore.”
Kiko bagged the long loaves and handed them to Jack. “I meant to tell you, I enjoyed that article in yesterday’s paper about you.”
To mark the end of the first week of trial, the Tribune had run a feature story on the three main lawyers in the Guantánamo murder case-Jack and Sofia for the defense, and Hector Torres for the prosecution. It noted the Cuban roots of all three lawyers, with special emphasis on Jack, who was known by most people only as the son of a gringo former governor.