“Like what?”
“Like a signal word. Some way to communicate that she wanted help?”
“We had a signal,” he says.
“So if the signal is spoken by the decoy you would pick it up on the electronic wire and that would be the clue that she was in trouble. You’d come running?”
“That’s right.”
“The police report talks about a backup safety device used that night.”
“There was a panic button,” he says.
“Could you tell the court what a panic button is?”
“It’s in the report,” he says.
“Fine. Tell us what it is.”
“It’s an electronic button set to a different frequency than the wire. Sometimes it’s pinned in the decoy’s clothing. Usually it’s in her purse.”
“Sort of a signal of last resort?” says Lenore.
“If you like.”
“Was this button something that you used all the time?”
“No. Just in certain cases.”
“Why was it used in this case?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could it have been because someone anticipated that the electronic wire wasn’t going to function in this case?”
“No. Nothing like that,” he says. “We just used it in some cases and not in others.”
The point is well made here, that if the cops wanted to set Acosta up, some bogus reason for a meeting between Hall and the judge, they would not want a recording of their conversation. If he became angry, a safety word would be worthless with no wire to pick it up. The button was Hall’s lifeline.
“So what instructions did you give Ms. Hall? How was she instructed to use the safety signal and the panic button?”
“Signal word first,” says Frost. “Button second, only if the first didn’t work.”
“Why not use the button first?”
“There was always risk in using it. The john might see her do it. Get violent,” he says.
“Was Ms. Hall pretty bright? Cool under fire?”
“Yeah.”
“She knew what she was doing?”
“You could say that.”
“She would follow instructions well?”
He makes a face, concession, and nods.
“I take that to mean yes?”
“Yes.”
“Had she ever used these safety procedures before, to your knowledge?”
“The safety word. She needed it a couple of times with other johns. The button, she’d never seen before. We had to tell her how to use it.”
“What was the signal word that night?”
“A phrase. Something. I can’t remember. We change ’em all the time.”
“‘It’s a hot night’?” says Lenore.
This was not something contained in the police report. Kline looks at Lenore, his eyes venal little slits, knowing there is only one place she could have gleaned this information: her interview with Brittany Hall that day in her office. He makes a note on the outside of his file folder as I look at him.
“Was that the safety signal for trouble that night?” says Lenore. “‘It’s a hot night’?”
“It coulda been,” he says. “Sounds right.”
“Did you hear those words uttered that night by the decoy, Ms. Hall? Did you hear her say, ‘It’s a hot night’?”
“No.”
“But you were listening at the door, right?”
“Right.”
“And you heard the conversation between the defendant and Ms. Hall? Voices in a normal tone, stating all the terms of commerce?” says Lenore.
“That’s right.”
“But you never heard the decoy utter the words ‘It’s a hot night’?”
“No.”
“Isn’t it a fact, Sergeant, that the decoy uttered that phrase not once, but three separate times, and you couldn’t hear it, because you couldn’t hear anything through that door?”
“That’s not true,” he says.
Lenore could only have gotten this from Hall, and Kline knows it.
“Then how do you explain the fact that you responded to the signal of last resort, the electronic signal from the panic button, which Hall had been instructed not to use unless the safety word failed?”
This is recorded in the police reports, an undeniable truth. Frost entered the room only after being told that the signal had sounded.
“Maybe she panicked,” he says. “Made a mistake.”
“Right.”
It is the problem with little inconsistencies. They tend to breed like flies.
“Sergeant Frost, you say you heard this conversation between the defendant and Ms. Hall from your position outside the door. What exactly did you hear?”
“I heard the defendant offer Ms. Hall money in exchange for sex.”
“Yes. We all heard you testify to that. But what were the defendant’s words. Precisely?” she says.
“I didn’t write them down,” he says.
“So you can’t recall the defendant’s words?”
This could be fatal to Kline’s argument.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what did he say?”
“He negotiated with her,” says Frost.
“Looking for a bargain, was he?”
The witness makes a face, like it happens.
“What were his words, Sergeant Frost?”
He thinks for a moment. “How about two hundred-two bills-something like that.”
“That’s as precise as you can get?”
Frost screws up his face, thinks for a moment.
“He said. .” Some hesitation. “He said, ‘I’ll give you two hundred dollars for sex.’”
Lenore almost laughs at this, the colloquial pitch put forth. Like the john was buying milk.
“Those were his exact words. ‘I’ll give you two hundred dollars for sex’?”
“Right.”
“A moment ago you said half-and-half.”
“What difference does it make?” Acosta in my ear. “It is all lies.”
“Then we should cut it out like a cancer,” I whisper back to him. When our eyes meet, there is, for the first time, some melding of minds here, a sense in his expression that makes me believe him. It is not that I believe the Coconut is incapable of these acts. He has probably done them at one time or another. But I do not believe that he has done them this time.
“Maybe he said, ‘I’ll give you two hundred dollars for half-and-half,’” says Frost.
“Which is it?”
“Half-and-half,” he says. “It was half-and-half.” A satisfied look. A story he can live with. How big a lie can take refuge in ten words?
“And you’re sure about the two-hundred-dollar part?”
“Absolutely.” Frost gives her a judicious nod.
Acosta flinches at my side. “A fucking lie.” He at least has the adjective right.
“I want to testify,” he tells me. A disaster in the making. I tell him to be quiet.
Lenore turns away from the witness for a moment, shuffling some papers. She reaches over and flips a single page onto the table in front of Kline. He picks it up and reads. Before he can finish, Lenore asks the judge if she can approach the witness. Radovich nods, and on the way she delivers another page to the judge.
“Sergeant, I’m going to show you a document and ask if you can identify it.” She passes a third page to the witness. He looks at it.
“Do you know what that is?”
“Inventory sheet,” he says.
“And where does it come from? Who generates that particular sheet?”
“The county jail,” he says.
“And what’s the purpose of this particular form?”
“To account for a suspect’s personal belongings when he’s booked.”
“You’ve seen these forms before? Maybe not this particular one, but others like it?”
“Sure.” He drops the form onto the railing in front of the witness box, and turns his attention from it.
“And does this particular form have a name on it?”
“Yeah.” He doesn’t look.
“Whose name?” says Lenore.
“The defendant. Armando Acosta.”
“And the charge?”
“Six forty-seven B,” he says.
“Is that the personal property booking sheet for the night in question?”
“Appears to be,” he says.
“Is there a box on that form, Sergeant, entitled ‘Cash in Possession’?”
Frost’s expression is suddenly vacant, like the eyes of a man turned inward, searching for a soul that isn’t there.