CUTTING ROOM -THE- (44 page)

‘Your Honor,' Joe Varlack objected. ‘My client's done nothing to violate the conditions of his release—'

‘One fire at a time, Mr Varlack. I want to hear from this witness.'

‘Judge, may I request a sidebar again?' Vance asked quietly.

The judge's eyes became slits. ‘What is it this time, Mr Collier? What is the problem with producing this witness for me? Because there is a problem, isn't there?'

‘The witness is unavailable at this moment. That will hopefully be resolved very, very shortly. If we could just go sidebar …'

The judge cocked an eyebrow as it all became clear to her. ‘Is your witness unavailable because he has absconded from the jurisdiction?'

Vance looked down at the podium. ‘The witness is unavailable, Your Honor.'

The judge sat back in her seat. ‘Now I understand. I got it. Whoo. Two plus two is four. Your witness is William Bantling, isn't that right, state? I can't believe this — your witness is Cupid.'

There were no cameras in the courtroom, but that didn't mean that what the judge had just said and what Vance was about to confirm would not be national news.

‘Yes, Your Honor. The witness the state is referring to is William Bantling.'

The judge shook her head. ‘Your witness is not merely unavailable. Your witness is a convicted serial killer who is currently occupying the number two spot on the FBI's Most Wanted list. He's a fugitive. Wow.'

‘There are extenuating circumstances, Your Honor.'

The judge shook her head. ‘I know what you are trying to do. I understand it now, Mr Collier. Apparently Bill Bantling has made some sort of a statement implicating Mr Lunders in criminal activity, which is probably why he was shipped down here in the first place, and you want me to hold Mr Lunders in custody hoping your friends at the FBI find him before your time on
this
case runs out. I get it. You cut a deal with a serial killer. But Mr Bantling is not in custody. He's on the lam and no one has a clue where he is. He could be gone for the next twenty years. The problem I have is the same one I had a half-hour ago: it's not
my
job to keep
your
defendant behind bars when you don't have the facts to support holding him. The possible involvement of Bill Bantling as a witness against Mr Lunders, while disturbing, does not change things. Therefore, I am in the same position I was in a half-hour ago.'

‘Your Honor, I would like to move once again for the dismissal of all charges against Talbot Lunders,' piped up Varlack.

The judge sighed heavily. ‘Granted, without prejudice for the state to re-file. So if you can find more evidence or you can find William Bantling, have at it, Mr Collier.'

‘Objection!' Vance began to yell.

‘Noted,' replied the judge, cutting him off.

Talbot gave his attorney a huge grin. Then he turned to his mother, who was sitting in the row immediately behind him, and pumped his fist in the air.

‘I'll prepare the order myself,' Judge Becker finished, rising. She looked over at the defense table with a frown that was different from the annoyed one she'd held on to for the hearing. This time she seemed worried. ‘Case dismissed. Mr Lunders, you are free to go.'

‘The hotel room was clean, Detective Alvarez,' said Brian O'Dea, the Orlando PD homicide detective, over the phone. ‘No prints, no messages, nothing. We've pulled surveillance on the parking lots. We think we have her on a video leaving the Hilton with a tall, dark-haired guy. He slipped on sunglasses right before the camera caught him, so we're figuring he knew the camera was watching and knew not to get caught on it. That makes us think this was planned out. That it could be an abduction. We're exploring that. We'll get you a still shot of the guy, Detective, but I'm warning you, it's not great.'

Manny stood in Daria's kitchen and stared out her sliding glass doors on to her ugly, dead garden. There were no flowers. Just a barren patch of thorny stems where her roses presumably once stood proud. Any floral life that had survived the rose massacre was killed off or carried off by the hurricane. In the corner of her small cement patio was a pile of broken roof tiles, ripped screening and a heap of palm fronds — trash from Artemis. This was the first time Manny had been to her townhouse since the hurricane. He had had coffee in her garden one morning, not so long ago. He'd watched, as he sat at a wobbly, wrought-iron table for two that his ass had barely fit in, while she potted some baskets with all sorts of colorful flowers whose names he didn't know and couldn't pronounce. She'd used some herbs she'd grown to make him an omelet that day. Or rather, he'd made the omelet because she couldn't cook worth a damn.

‘Any luck on her cell?' he asked, rubbing his eyes and turning away from the doors.

‘No. It's still off. Hasn't been turned on since Sunday night. If it goes back on, we can track it.'

‘I got a subpoena into AT&T to pull the records and texts. Maybe there's something on it,' Manny said softly. ‘I should have those by the morning. Normally that takes a few days, but they're rushing it through.'

‘Good,' the Orlando detective replied.

‘And her car?'

‘It was in the lot, parked in the back. From the surveillance videos, it looks like it hasn't moved since Sunday, either. We got Crime Scene going over it right now, but nothing so far. We got the waitress working with a sketch artist to get a composite of the guy who she said bought Daria a drink Sunday night. Maybe we'll get something off that. And we're running tags of the cars that left the parking lot around the same time as Daria and this dark-haired guy left the hotel. We're hoping the car was in a ticketed lot.'

‘Did he pay with credit? Did he pay the waitress with credit?'

‘Wouldn't that be nice? No. Cash.'

Back to the question of what then? What if she meant what she'd said? What if a smart, sophisticated, sometimes bitchy, beautiful woman really meant it when she said she loved him?

‘Okay, keep me advised.'

‘Where you at now?' O'Dea asked.

‘Her house in Fort Lauderdale. We're sweeping it, but like you said, so far nothing. Got guys fanning out across the neighborhood to see if anyone noticed something — anything
—
out of the ordinary. A suspicious person around her house the last couple of weeks, maybe; anyone following her to the Internet coffee shop down the block in Victoria Park, where she liked to do work, or maybe to the supermarket, or the bagel store, or the cleaners. I don't know. I'm reaching here, but it's all I got.'

‘We'll find something, Detective Alvarez. Hold on, now. She's a prosecutor, right? She knows how to handle herself, I'm sure.'

The Orlando detective's words weren't helping. Because she was a prosecutor, Daria was a bit paranoid. And always prepared. She knew what was out there. She knew all the tricks on how not to be a victim. She always locked her door. She always locked her car. She never walked down dark alleys or in dark parking lots. She carried mace in her purse and a Beretta Tomkat in her glove compartment. She gave speeches to local schools and community awareness meetings on protecting yourself from cyber predators and parking-lot stalkers. She knew enough to avoid the bad guys, so the fact that she was missing spoke volumes about just how much trouble she was in.

Daria's brother, Marco, walked into the kitchen, arms folded across his chest. He had circles under his eyes. Behind him was his wife, CeCe, who gently rubbed his shoulder. Today was the first time Manny had met the man that Daria loved to tell childhood stories about. The big brother who was her best friend while they were growing up. The triplets that she often babysat and bought Poprocks and Charleston Chews for whenever she passed a candy store, were at home, Marco had told him, being looked after by Daria's mother. Daria's father, unfortunately, was not doing well with the news of Daria's disappearance. He'd started having chest pains and was now in ICU over at Memorial West. It wasn't looking good. Marco mouthed the word, ‘Anything?'

Manny shook his head. ‘Keep me advised,' he told the sergeant as a glum Mike Dickerson walked into the kitchen. ‘We'll keep digging down here. Maybe we'll find something,' he finished, turning away from Marco and Mike. But he doubted it. Like Holly Skole and Gabriella Vechio and Marie Modic and Jane Doe and Kevin Flaunders and Cyndi DeGregorio, and all eleven of Cupid's victims, Daria DeBianchi had gone to a bar, met someone, and simply vanished into the night.

The big detective willed back tears as he watched crime-scene techs in protective clothing comb through her dead garden. He hated himself at that moment. If he had only picked up the phone that night when she kept calling. If he had only spoken to her …

Then he'd say it back. Because it was true. He loved her.

But he hadn't. He'd been mad and stubborn and stupid. He remembered her face as she worked in the garden. The sweat that ran down her cheeks, cutting a path through the streak of potting soil on her skin. Her red hair was pulled up into a floppy pony, her hands were caked in dark dirt. Dressed in his shirt, she wore four-inch platform sandals even for gardening and they showed off her legs, which were in desperate need of a tan, but still beautiful.

Now she was gone. And there would be no more opportunities to tell her how he really felt about her, because deep down in his heart he already knew he'd never see her again.

At least not alive.

‘As to the lesser included charge of Murder in the Second Degree in the death of Elizabeth Fabrizio, we the people of the County of Santa Barbara in the State of California do find the defendant, Richard Kassner, guilty. As to the charge of Arson in the First Degree in Count II of the Indictment, we the people of the County of Santa Barbara in and for the State of California do find the defendant Robert Kassner guilty, so say we all.'

The twelve members of the jury looked everywhere but at the defense table as the judge individually polled them, then thanked them for their service and discharged them. Richard Kassner sat in silence at the defense table. His trophy wife cried. His ex-wife cheered. C.J. thought back to that day in the courtroom when he had shot her that smug, menacing look. Now it was her turn. But she couldn't gloat in the end. She looked away as he was led out the side door in cuffs, tearing up as he said goodbye to his infant son.

It had been a long, drawn-out, almost ten-week fight for justice, but C.J. did not feel victorious. She never did after a verdict. A woman was dead, a daughter lost her mother, a wife lost her husband, a baby would grow up without a father. Life was irrevocably transformed for so many people. That didn't change with a guilty verdict.

There was no longer a need to wait for the defendant to clear the courtroom before C.J. herself headed out. She packed up her files and shook hands with Jessica Kassner, assuring her that the People would seek the maximum sentence at her ex-husband's sentencing hearing, which the judge had set down for October. C.J. felt slightly guilty, knowing that Jessica was under the impression that it would be ADA Christina Towns physically standing at that podium arguing for a life sentence, when C.J. already knew she would be long gone from the office by then. She watched Jessica slowly walk out of the courtroom alone, dressed in a long-sleeved suit that covered the disfiguring burns on her arms. She was followed shortly thereafter by an inconsolable and dramatically aged Trophy Wife and her new baby. No, there were no winners here today. There was no cause for celebration.

It was only 2:30 in the afternoon. The streets around the courthouse and city hall were busy with workers still on their lunch hour, citizens paying light bills, tourists taking pictures. Dozens and dozens of strange faces all around her. Bill Bantling was a master of disguise. She knew he could be anywhere. He could be anyone. Just because she didn't see him didn't mean he wasn't there. Her heart beat hard in her chest. She fought back the beginnings of a panic attack and headed across the street to the office.

She briefed Jason Mucci — the Chief Deputy DA who had been clumsy around her ever since she'd turned down his offer to go car shopping — about the verdict. She told him what she was expecting at sentencing, which had been set down for the early part of October. And she told him she would be taking some time off, starting this afternoon. He just nodded, no questions asked. Of course, like Jessica Kassner, he thought she would be coming back. Then she made her way to her office to clear work off her desk. She hated leaving ends undone, particularly seeing as she had no plans to return. Criminal cases always had issues to worry about, so she spelled them out and pasted them on hot pink sticky notes to all of her files.

When she finally looked up at her window it was dark out. The streets were empty and quiet, the office deserted, apart from the cleaning crew. She took a final look around, packed up her briefcase and grabbed her purse.

She was going to make good on her promise to Dominick. He didn't believe it. He didn't trust her. But she knew she would make good. He had given her a second chance. She would make things right between them. She swallowed the lump in her throat.

First, however, she had things to do.

Then she flipped out the light and headed for home.

Manny wasn't quite sure if it was the six-pack he'd downed or the fact that he'd been up all night drinking it, but the front doors of the Palm Beach mansion were starting to blur. He put down his binoculars and rubbed his eyes. They hurt. Everything hurt. Nowhere was the pain as severe as his chest.

Five days. It had been five days since Daria had disappeared. Since she'd stepped out of the doors of the Hilton hotel and vanished. Every police department from Orlando to Miami was actively looking for her. Every police department around the country had been notified via teletype with her photo that she had gone missing under suspicious circumstances. BOLOs had been issued, a missing persons alert had been placed in FCIC/NCIC. But the problem was, no one knew where to look.