The Victim (11 page)

“
Her international driver’s license says she’s twenty-one. Been seeing her for like three weeks now. She likes the BMW.”

“
You drive a Three Series.”

Mandy threw up his hands. “She’s from Kazakhstan, like she knows the difference.”

“
So you’re tapping the Central Asian market now? South Beach run out of Russian mail-order brides?”

Mandy scoffed and reached into his pocket, pulling out his iPhone. He slid his thumb, unlocking the touch screen, and showed Anton a photo of a naked young woman snapping a photo of herself in her bathroom mirror.

“
She’s
from Kazakhstan?”

“
Yeah,” he slipped the phone back in his pocket. “Blonde hair, blue eyes. What’d you think, she was some gypsy washwoman?”

“
With you, you never know. You’re hit or miss.”

Anton’s intercom came alive. “Mr. Mackey, I have Ms. Avery here to see you.”

Anton punched the intercom button. “Alright, please send her in.” He turned to Mandy. “You okay with five? At least to start?”

“
What’s the charge?”

“
Burg-batt, of course, with an agg-batt thrown in and resisting with.”

“
Vic wanna pursue this?”

“
Let’s find out. And stop standing in the corner like a hired goon. Please sit down. You’re making me nervous.”

Yessenia led Daniella Avery into Anton’s office, directing her to one of the two leather chairs placed before Anton’s desk. Yessenia made the round of introductions and handshakes. Daniella was polite but reserved, almost guarded and uneasy. Anton had seen it a thousand times. A victim of domestic violence.

He could see no visible signs of injury on her face, which was quite lovely. She was younger than he thought, maybe twenty-eight or twenty-nine. She had dark hair that framed her face, falling below her chin and curling at the shoulders. She was a petite woman whose oversized Louis Vuitton purse slung over her shoulder seemed almost comical. She wore a silver Cartier watch. He noticed a Mercedes key fob dangling from her fingers and he quickly typed $30,000 on the retainer agreement where he had initially put $15,000. He even bumped up Mandy’s fee.

“
How are you doing?” Anton asked.

She set the huge purse at her feet and folded her hands in her lap. All things considered she was very well put together. She wore skinny jeans tucked into furry Ugg boots with a heavy cream-colored turtleneck and a scarf. It was sixty-six outside. Freezing by Miami standards.

“
Terrible. This has been the worst experience of my life. But I love my husband and I don’t want anything bad to happen to him. I’d like him to be represented by a good lawyer.”

Spoken like a true DV victim. Anton couldn’t count the number of times he had been retained by the wife or girlfriend or baby momma of some coward. They all called 911 to get the guy to stop beating them, but when they realized that Florida is a “no drop” state and that prosecutors would pursue domestic violence cases whether or not the victim wants to press charges, they began to get scared. Most of them just wanted the abuse to stop. Deep down inside they somehow still loved them.

“
I understand completely.” He clicked out of the retainer agreement document and enlarged her husband’s inmate profile. Bryan Avery was thirty and was charged with three felonies. “One of the charges that your husband is facing is aggravated battery. That means that he either used a weapon to hurt you or caused serious injury or permanent disfigurement. You don’t appear to be injured.”

Daniella unraveled her scarf and rolled down her turtleneck. Raised red striations encircled her neck. Yellow and bluish bruising had begun to form.

Rage coursed through Anton’s veins. He wanted to crack her husband’s skull wide open. He could tolerate a lot of things. But violence against women got under his skin.

“
It was a belt,” she said, readjusting her turtleneck to hide her injury. “He wrapped it around and pulled pretty hard. I couldn’t breathe.”

Fury burned in Mandy’s sun-beaten face. He hated batterers more than anything.

“
Can you tell us what happened?” Mandy asked.

Daniella turned to Mandy. Her posture was closed. She seemed intimidated by the burly ex-cop.

Anton said, “It’s okay to discuss everything with both of us, Ms. Avery—”

“
Daniella, please.”

“
Daniella. It’s okay to discuss everything with both of us. If retained, I’ll be relying upon Armando’s services. He was an officer with the Miami Beach Police Department for seventeen years. He’s one of the best in the business. I always use him, especially for life felonies.”

Panic welled in her eyes. “Bryan’s going to prison for the rest of his life?”

“
No, nothing like that. It’s just that he’s charged with a felony that’s punishable by up to life in prison. Burglary with an assault or battery. We call it a burg-batt. The maximum penalty he could get if convicted at trial is life. But I sincerely doubt that he’s going to get anything even close to that. I remember you saying on the phone that you and your husband have been separated for two months? I’m assuming that you’re living separately then?”

She nodded a yes, dabbing her eyes with the fringed end of her scarf. That would explain the burglary aspect of the charge. If they had still been living together then there could be no burglary since her husband had legal possession of his own property. It would have been an easier case to resolve but for a much smaller fee.

“
So what happened?”

She inhaled slowly and let it out. “Well, we were trying to work things out. We’ve only been married for a year. No kids. About two months ago we decide to take some time apart. He works all the time and things just weren’t going well. I dunno. We only dated a few months. Maybe we rushed into things. So anyway, he wants to get back together, right? So I agree to meet him for drinks at Blue Room last night.”

Anton asked, “Where had you been staying since the separation?”

“
Oh sorry, let me backtrack. We own a house in Coconut Grove. He’s staying there. I got an apartment down the street on Brickell. The Templeton, just south of the bridge? You familiar with it?”

Anton nodded. “Yeah, I know it. Did Bryan rent that apartment for you or did you rent it yourself?”

“
I rented it myself. Why?”

“
Because if Bryan’s name were on the lease I could argue that there could be no burglary since it was technically his own apartment. It would have no bearing on the other charges but it would negate the burglary element of the burg-batt charge. Without that charge, he would be entitled to a bond. Unfortunately since it was your apartment, if he entered it without your permission and committed an assault or a battery in the process, it’s non-bondable.”

Daniella furrowed her brow, looked down, and fiddled with her purse strap. “Non-bondable means he stays in jail.”

Anton checked the time. It was after five. According to Bryan’s inmate profile, he had been booked at four a.m. and had already been to his first appearance. Since the Miami-Dade Corrections website reflected that he had no bond, the first appearance judge had found probable cause for the charges.

“
For now. There’s a specialized type of bond hearing I can request called an Arthur Hearing, which I always do immediately, even before the State’s made a filing decision. It’s basically a mini-trial before a judge where the State has to prove Bryan’s guilt.”

“
Who’s the judge in his case?”

Anton opened his web browser and logged on to the Miami-Dade Clerk of Courts website. He cut and pasted the case number from Bryan’s inmate profile and brought up the docket information.

Fuck.

The judge was Sonia Morales.

Maximum Morales.

“
The judge isn’t great. She was an ASA for over ten years before becoming a judge. Basically a prosecutor in a robe. Not very defense friendly.”

“
What’s an ASA?”

“
Assistant state attorney. That’s what we call prosecutors in Florida.” Anton maximized his Word file containing his notes. “Anyway. What else happened?”

“
We met at Blue Room. He had never been to my apartment. I kinda wanted to keep it that way. We met at the bar around ten.”

“
How much did you have to drink?” Anton asked. His defense attorney gears were in motion. Alcohol in her system would impact her ability to remember what had happened.

“
I don’t drink.”

“
But you met him at a bar.”

“
A girl can’t order a Diet Coke at a bar?”

“
True. Did he drink?”

“
He had a few martinis. Bryan’s a little affected, shall we say. His father owns a pretty big construction company, which Bryan works for. He’s never had to go out and struggle like common folks. He’s cocky, very into appearances. Versace dress shirts, Rolex watches. Drives a Porsche—a Boxster with an automatic transmission, but he still thinks people will fancy him some exotic car aficionado. I think he prefers ordering fancy martinis to appear more sophisticated, but he usually just sips them and eats the olives.”

“
So he wasn’t drunk?”

Legally it wouldn’t matter if he were. Voluntary intoxication was not a defense in Florida. However, if Bryan had no prior criminal record it could be good mitigating evidence that could turn a prison sentence into a probation term.

“
Didn’t seem drunk. But I saw a tableful of friends so I was up and about. He spent some time at the bar by himself so I don’t really know if he had more than two drinks.”

Anton typed a note to have Mandy pull the surveillance video from Blue Room.

“
How did you get from the bar back to your apartment?”

“
I walked there from my place. The Templeton is just a few blocks from Blue Room. I was planning to walk home but it was after midnight and Bryan didn’t want me walking alone.”

Anton didn’t blame him. No woman, especially one as good looking as Daniella Avery, should ever walk the streets of Miami after dark. Miami was a dangerous animal when the sun went down.

“
Did he drive?”

“
He valeted. He’s such a douche. He always pays the valets an extra twenty bucks so they park his car out front, you know, with the rest of the expensive cars? I mean, it’s a Boxster for chrissake. That’s about as impressive as a Three Series.”

Anton tried hard not to laugh. Mandy held his poker face, but the jab to his ego was evident in his flushed cheeks.

“
Did he drive you home?”

“
He drove himself there but I drove us back to my place. Cops run radar all over the place at night and he didn’t want to chance it, you know?”

“
So then what?”

“
We get back to the Templeton. I pull up to the front and figure he can drive himself home from here. But he insists on walking me to my apartment. I say fine. I valet the car, we walk into the lobby—”

“
The Templeton’s a secure building,” Mandy interrupted. “Didn’t you have to sign Bryan in as your guest?”

She turned to Mandy. “Yeah.”

Anton nodded, catching Mandy’s subtle wink. Mandy could speak to whomever was working the security desk last night to find out Bryan’s demeanor and whether there was any indication that he was being invited up to Daniella’s apartment. If he was an invited guest he couldn’t have broken in.

“
What happened next?”

“
We take the elevator up to my floor. I’m on thirty-six. I walk to the door, ready to say goodnight. But he leans in like he’s gonna kiss me. I stop him and tell him that I’m not ready to make up. As if one night out had resolved months of marital issues. He spent the whole time swilling his drink, looking around, talking about how much responsibility his father had given him, how he was gonna run the company some day. He was even checking out other girls. Such a pig.” She shook her head, snapping out of it. “Sorry, that’s not really your concern. Anyway, I say goodnight, unlock the door, and he’s being pushy. I mean really persistent. He wants to come in, I’m saying no. But he’s laughing, thinking it’s cute. But I’m serious. I want nothing to do with him. Didn’t feel that spark, you know? Before I agreed to meet him for drinks I thought that maybe there was a chance…but he only confirmed everything I knew about him. He’s a self-centered pompous asshole. It was over.”