Blindman's Bluff (6 page)

L
EANING AGAINST THE
wall, he slowly unwrapped a peanut power bar, his brain absorbing the cacophony of clatter. It was nearing the time when the courts reconvened and that meant noise coming at him from all directions. Across the way, two women were discussing bread recipes. One was from the Michigan area. She was older, in her sixties judging by the rhythm and deliberation of her speech. The second was a young Valley girl with a cowboy twang, reminding him that once California was the Wild West. The din increased as the crowd filed in.

To his right was a woman who was on the Fernandez trial. He had heard her voice as the jury panel left the room even though she had been whispering. As he overheard her speak into her cell, he knew instantly that she was talking to her husband or a boyfriend. Although her language was clean and innocuous, her tone was full of sexual innuendo. The way she laughed and riposted. He imagined her to be a map of sensual curves. She sounded like she was clearly born and bred in L.A.

He took a bite of his bar and waited for court to resume, the
noise level growing exponentially as people congregated in the courthouse hallway, sound waves bouncing off the hard interior surfaces. The open space had cement floors and wooden walls without a stitch of carpeting or upholstered furniture to absorb the racket. The only things to sit on were butt-breaking benches. He didn’t feel like sitting. He sat around enough as it was.

If he paid attention, he could hear well.

To his left were two Hispanics: one from Mexico and the other from El Salvador. They were speaking in what they thought were hushed tones, but his ear was so attuned to the nuance of speech, they might as well have been shouting through a loudspeaker. They were jabbering on in rapid-fire Spanish about the news, specifically the horrendous murders in the West Valley. He had heard several different renditions of that story about the billionaire developer, his wife, and his son gunned down in their multiacre ranch.

How freakin’ ironic was that? All that money and the poor schmuck couldn’t buy himself some loyal security. But that was the problem with money. It attracted all sorts of misfits and cretins, but usually small-time con artists didn’t murder. In his limited experience, homicides of big shots were done by other big shots—respectable people in deep shit with something dear to lose.

He continued to eavesdrop on the Spanish conversation and chuckled to himself. The two bozos kept calling Guy Kaffey, the slain billionaire, Señor Café—which translated into English as Mr. Coffee. Like the guy was a small appliance. As the men continued to talk, their voices dropped a notch. To him, it was strange that the two men were attempting a private conversation, but they clearly needed to talk. He could hear the urgency in their voices. And they probably had to be in these hallowed hallways—as witnesses, defendants, or plaintiffs. People didn’t hang around for the commissary food.

There were strict rules for jurors on overhearing conversation revolving around current cases. That kind of eavesdropping could influence outcome. But he felt there was nothing wrong with listening in on casual conversation.

The woman on his right had hung up her cell phone. She sounded like she was now going through her purse. Her rifling was almost drowning out the Spanish conversation, which was becoming so inaudible that he was actually straining to make out the words. Not that their yapping was important to him, but now it was a point of pride.

Like the limbo song—how low can you go?

They were still talking about the Kaffey murder, and something about the intensity of the conversation drew his interest. Ever so slightly, he turned his head in the direction of the sound to absorb a couple more decibels. His ears perked up as it became clear that the men were speaking about the killings from personal knowledge.

The Mexican was talking about a man named José Pinon who had gone missing, and
el patrón,
the boss, was looking for him in Mexico.

“Because he fucked it up with the son,” the Mexican told the El Salvadorian.

“¿Qué pasa?”
El Salvadorian asked. What happened?

The Mexican’s voice was full of contempt. “He ran out of bullets.”

“Ay…estúpido!”
the El Salvadorian said.
“So why didn’t somebody else finish him off?”

“’Cause José’s a retard. He says he asked Martin to do it, but me? I don’t hear nothing about that. I think he’s covering his own stupid ass and he can kiss that good-bye. Martin is really pissed.”

The El Salvadorian said.
“Martin es malo.”

Martin is bad.

“Muy malo,”
the Mexican said,
“pero no tan malo como el patrón.”

But not as bad as the boss.

The El Salvadorian agreed with that assessment. He said,
“José es un hombre muerte.”

José is a dead man.

“Realmente Absolutamente Muerte,”
the Mexican added.
“Hora para que el diga sus rezos.”

Really dead. Time for him to say his prayers.

He heard a bailiff call out a jury panel, and the men stopped talk
ing. The woman with the throaty voice had closed her purse and was walking away from him. Immediately, he turned on his handheld radio and began to follow her as she moved to the other side of the hallway. After a few moments, when he felt they were sufficiently far enough away from the two Hispanics, he took a big step forward and tapped her on the shoulder.

Abruptly, Rina turned around and found herself face-to-face with Sunglasses Tom. “Yes?”

“Excuse me,” he said. “My name is Brett Harriman and I work for the courthouse as a translator. I believe you’re on the panel of one of my cases.” When she didn’t answer him, he said, “I want to assure you that what I’m about to ask of you has nothing to do with that case.”

Rina stared at him and waited for him to continue.

“Um…this is awkward.” He paused. “I know that this sounds really odd, but could you do me a favor?”

Finally she spoke. “It depends on what it is.” Rina sized up the man. Brett Harriman née Smiling Tom seemed nervous. She couldn’t see his eyes under the sunglasses, but his demeanor was jumpy.

He dropped his voice to a whisper, but he still sounded like an actor. “Please, please. Whatever you do, don’t stare at the spot that I’m going to ask you to look at. And whisper, okay?”

Rina paused. “What on earth is going on?”

“I’m getting to that. The spot where you were standing just a few moments ago talking on your cell. A few feet away are two Hispanic men talking…don’t stare at them.”

“I’m not—”

“Without staring at them and acting as casual as you can, can you describe them to me?”

Involuntarily Rina glanced at the men, then turned her eyes away. When she looked back up, the two men were deep in conversation and hadn’t appeared to notice her. She sneaked in a few passing looks and returned her questioning eyes to Tom/Brett, who wasn’t reacting to her perplexity.

And when it finally occurred to her
why
he was acting so stoic,
she almost hit her head and said,
Duh!
The indoor sunglasses should have been a giveaway, but he had always moved so seamlessly and without any help.

Tom Cruise/Brett Harriman was blind.

She wanted to ask him about it, but that would have been rude. Instead, she whispered, “Why do you want to know about the men?”

He whispered back, “Just describe them to me, please.”

Rina took a quick snapshot. The men looked to be in their twenties, ordinary in size with the one on the right being slightly bigger than the one on the left. Bigger had on a black polo shirt. Smaller, who was doing most of the talking, was garbed in a Lakers’ T-shirt. They both had shaved heads and tattoos on their arms, but the drawings were not professionally done. The homemade ink embedded under their skin looked more like discoloration rather than human artwork—a snake, a tiger head, a B12—someone was a vitamin nut.

Rina said softly, “I realize you’re sight impaired, but why do you want to know what those two men look like?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“I’m sorry, but if you want me to help, you have to tell me what you’re after.”

“It’s personal…” Harriman heard the bailiff call group 23. “Forget it! That’s my panel, I’ve got to go.” He softened his voice. “It’s all probably nonsense anyway.”

He turned on his handheld radio, put an ear pod in his ear, and walked away, leaving Rina confused and curious. She managed to sneak in another sidelong glance at the men. What arm was showing wasn’t overly muscular, but they did have meaty hands. They had on jeans and rubber-soled shoes. If she had to guess, she’d say that they probably worked construction.

When they announced her panel, Rina lined up with the rest of her group outside the courtroom, and they began their number countdown to identify who was present. They were missing juror number 7 who was chronically late, and the panel collectively groaned. Ally, Joy, and Kate came over to Rina.

Joy said, “What were you talking to Smiling Tom about?”

“Just passing the time.” Rina’s lie was smooth.

“I think he likes you,” Ally said.

“Why not?” Kate said. “Just look at her.”

“He’s blind.” When the three women stared at her, she said, “Or visually impaired. He uses that little radio as a homing device, kind of like an electronic cane.”

“Ah…” Kate said. “That makes sense. I knew something was off.”

“He just walked up to you and told you he was blind?” Ally said.

“No, but up close you can tell.”

“How?” Joy asked.

“The way his head rolls when he talks to you…the way he rocks back and forth.” Actually, he didn’t do any of those things, but it sounded like something a blind person might do. “I spoke to him for about thirty seconds.”

“Why’d you speak to him?” Joy wanted to know.

“He asked me for the time. After I answered him, he asked if this was my first time working with the criminal justice system. I told him that my husband was a police officer. Then he remembered me and my voice from the voir dire, that I was the one with the detective lieutenant husband. And then they called his jury so he had to go. And that was that.” Rina gave the group a forced smile. “I was about to give him my challah recipe, but I didn’t have a chance.”

No one laughed.

Juror 7 showed up out of breath and apologized profusely for his tardiness. With his presence accounted for, the bailiff opened the door to their courtroom and the group began to file in. Her new circle of friends were looking at her with bemusement and skepticism.

Maybe she hadn’t lied as well as she thought.

DECKER HANDED NEPTUNE
Brady a copy of Oliver’s guard list. Not only had Scott included the duties of each security officer, but he
had also managed to find out who, if any, had a police record; a surprising number of them did. Most of the offenses were misdemeanors, but there were a half-dozen felonies among the twenty-two names: eight more added to the original list of fourteen.

Decker took in Brady’s face. It was clear that the head of Kaffey Personal Security hadn’t slept in a very long time. He raked a hand through a nest of black greasy curls.

“Look it over and see if you have anything to add.”

Brady’s blue eyes yo-yoed up and down the sheet. “Looks pretty good.”

“How’d you manage to employ so many men with records?”

“Not me, Lieutenant.” Brady sighed. “Kaffey had a soft spot for the disenfranchised.”

“Yeah, Grant Kaffey said something about Guy hiring delinquents, but I can’t believe you went along with it.” Decker pointed to a name. “This isn’t spray painting. This guy, Ernesto Sanchez, has two aggravated assaults—”

“Look at the dates. The convictions are years old. He went through rehab years ago and got his life back together. There’s nothing more pious than a reformed drunk. Guy was involved in all sorts of bleeding-heart programs for the socially disadvantaged. It was horseshit, but when Guy got in those kinds of moods, I just did what he told me.”

Brady’s blue eyes were bloodshot. He had changed from his original clothes to a freshly laundered blue oxford button-down shirt and a pair of designer jeans. He kept playing with the collar on his shirt.

“The social consciousness was part of it. The other part was that Kaffey was a tightass and I was on a budget. These guys worked
cheap.”

“You’re telling me that a man as rich as Guy Kaffey would hire felons because they worked cheap?”

“Exactamente, mi amigo!”
He sighed again and ran his hands down his face. “The ranch is vast and the acreage bleeds into public trails. That kind of isolation comes with a price. Despite all the
fences and the barbed wire and the alarms, the place has dozens of ways to get in and dozens of ways to get out. You need an army to really secure every exit and entrance and Kaffey wasn’t willing to pay for it. He’d give me names and phone numbers and I’d say, Sure, boss.”

“There are twenty-two names on this list. That’s a pretty big posse.”

“They didn’t all work at once,” Brady explained. “And the turnover was high. I needed a posse just to keep the system going. Kaffey told me we didn’t need geniuses, just bodies. Usually there were only four guards per shift. Guy was happy with that arrangement most of the time.”

“So when wasn’t he happy with the arrangement?”

Brady paused. “Sometimes he felt vulnerable. When he was in those kinds of moods, I’d have as many as a dozen men roaming the property.”

“What about on the night of the murders?”

“Four guards were contracted to work. If Kaffey had asked for more guards, he didn’t call me up and tell me to arrange it.”

“Maybe he knew you were busy with a sick father and didn’t want to disturb you.”

Brady’s laugh was bitter. “You think that consideration for his employees was ever a factor with Kaffey?”

“He let you go to Oakland to nurse your father back to health.”

“At the time, my father was an inch away from dying. He had no choice. I was going even if it cost me my job.”