The Borzoi Killings (12 page)

The videotape was grainy
. Bo Halsey had spent hundreds of hours in his career staring at blurred photographs and then, with the advent of surveillance cameras everywhere, the faint images of people on tape. After five repetitions of the three-minute tape, he recognized the men depicted on it. They were Cerullo and Cohen. They were hastily moving cash from the Richardsons’ stately bedroom to the bathroom. While there was no surveillance tape of the bathroom, Cerullo and Cohen weren’t carrying it out of the house then. Bo Halsey knew they were hiding it.

“When did you see this tape?” Halsey asked Ang Tien, the youthful Asian technician who, two days earlier, had asked for an appointment with him.

“Last week.”

“Why were you looking at tape from the bedroom? He was killed in his office on the first floor.”

“Someone from the security company must have been like curious. She would have known the locations in the house where the security systems were. It’s a subtle system, kind of beyond the state of the art technologically, you know. Like very advanced. It doesn’t rely on cameras. It relies on sensors that aren’t like visible to anyone looking for them. So she probably thought it would be like interesting to review footage from a house where, you know, a murder happened.”

“And she knew to look in the bedroom?”

“Apparently.”

“Why would anyone in his right mind have a surveillance camera in his bedroom?”

Ang Tien was young, geeky. Halsey knew that Ang spent hundreds, possibly thousands of hours every month gazing into computers. He had no friends or girlfriends; his computer life was the only life he wanted to lead. Bo Halsey was once impatient with the young generations of police officers who worked for him and who used
like
and
you know
in every sentence. But, despite that annoying tic, many of them were smart and hard-working. Ang Tien, the grandson of a Vietnamese soldier who had fled Saigon in a helicopter in 1975 as the North Vietnamese army rolled to victory, was very smart: he had helped Bo in other cases, and his information and results were always reliable.

“Have you shown this to anybody else?”

“No. You’re in charge of the investigation. I thought, you know, I should go directly to you.”

“Do you recognize the men in the tape?”

“No.”

“Do you see what they’re doing?”

Ang Tien was struck by the question because it was so unnecessary. He wondered for a moment whether Bo Halsey was taunting him. It was obvious what the men were carrying.

At last Ang said, “They’re like carrying cash.”

“Is there any other footage of them later that night?”

“No, just as there’s no footage of them before this scene. The sensors in Richardson’s office were turned off like about five minutes before he was killed. But not in the bedroom, like whoever turned it off in the office didn’t, you know, do it in the bedroom. The surveillance system is in zones, and the service can be turned off with a password in a keypad, but there were like different keypads in that house.”

Halsey had Ang replay the scene. At the start of the sequence, Cohen and Cerullo were repeatedly glancing toward the ceilings, searching for telltale camera eyes. Bo Halsey was disturbed by the scene, but not surprised. Years earlier, when he was a narcotics detective in Manhattan, Cerullo and Cohen had risen quickly through the ranks and become detectives. Neither of them worked for or directly with Halsey, but the word on the job was that they were rogues, executing search warrants for drugs and cash in targeted apartments and entering on the inventories only half the cash and drugs. They kept the rest. Halsey was already working for the Suffolk County Police when first Cerullo and then, a year later, Cohen joined the department. They came from politically connected families in Suffolk County. They now reported directly to Bo Halsey, and the three of them were the ranking homicide detectives in the county. They annoyed him, he thought they were jerks, and he no longer tried to conceal his contempt for them.

Ang Tien asked, “Who are they?”

“How the fuck do I know?” Halsey asked. “Sit on this until I tell you what to do.”

Ang Tien was very obedient. “Sure, Detective. It’s easy to save. I’ll give it to you when you need it.”

Margaret Harding, in a
soft voice, said, “Can we talk, Raquel?”

They had just finished a brief, routine appearance in court. Raquel was surprised by the question. Since the last meeting with Harding and Richie Lupo, Raquel experienced something she hadn’t allowed herself to feel in years: she was angry with them, and she took their attitude personally, as an affront to her. It was Raquel’s style not to engage in angry exchanges, not to try to intimidate other lawyers by screaming at them, and not to conduct herself as anything other than a calm, determined, dignified lawyer. It was a rare approach for a lawyer anywhere, and particularly rare in New York. She found she was more effective when she didn’t allow herself to be antagonized or insulted. Her crafty mother, born in Italy, had told her, “You can kill with kindness, Raquel, and if you stay calm you’ll live longer.” So her lingering anger and resentment had unsettled her for several days; the disquieting feelings had just started to lift when Harding spoke to her.

“Margaret, certainly, let’s talk,” Raquel said, almost brightly, as if they were agreeing to have coffee together. “Theresa will join us.”

Standing attentively nearby, Theresa Bui looked surprised but pleased. Over the last several weeks Raquel had recruited her into the work of defending Juan Suarez. Theresa was diligent and
orderly; she was also a gifted writer who crafted skillful and effective letters, affidavits, and briefs. This skill was important in any case, and especially so in a case such as this one: CBS had already done a half hour broadcast,
Murder in the Hamptons
, about the case. Everything Raquel did was scrutinized. All the court filings were lodged electronically with the court. And as soon as they were filed the Internet lit up with the news. The reactions for “comments” routinely vilified her.

Raquel always told her students that, even for a dynamic trial lawyer, writing was ninety-five percent of the work a lawyer did. The time a trial lawyer spent in a courtroom was a fraction of her time devoted to writing in the office. “Five percent inspiration,” Raquel told her Columbia students, “ninety-five percent perspiration.” For Raquel, having Theresa working with her lessened some of the burden, and in any event Raquel had mentored other women lawyers over the years.

And Raquel recruited Theresa because she liked her. Although Theresa had initially acted as if she were in awe of Raquel—and she was—she soon let her guard down. Theresa moved in a world of people under thirty-five, a world Raquel didn’t really know but wanted to know because it seemed to be fun. Theresa lived on the lower East Side, she was attractive, she had many casual and serious friends, she went to clubs, she knew everything there was to know about social media. And she saw that Raquel Rematti, although famous, had few friends and needed them since, as Theresa knew, she was in the early stages, of recovery from a dreadful disease, no matter how robust she seemed.

With the heels of her stylish high-heeled shoes clicking on the floor, Margaret Harding led them to a door with a sign reading
Jury Deliberating
. The room was empty, as it almost always was. She sat down at the head of a long table. Raquel and Theresa sat to her right.

“Thanks for coming in,” Margaret said.

“Thanks for asking us.” Raquel smiled at her. “What can we do for you?”

Margaret placed a thin valise on the table. She slid out of it three large glossy pictures that resembled the promotional headshots actors once used before the Internet. “My guess is,” she said, “that you can’t know much about Juan Suarez except for what he tells you. He seems to have come out of nowhere and to be no one in particular. His wife, or whoever she was, is gone. The kids are gone. Not one of the immigrants who seem to have known him will talk to us. No one even knows his real name. He might, I suppose, have told you all those things. But I doubt it. He’s a liar.”

Raquel, who was never going to tell anyone what she discussed with Juan Suarez or any other client, smiled at Margaret, not reacting to the word
liar
.

“We think we know a little bit more about him now. We have an experienced and effective lead detective on this case, Bo Halsey. He’s been very curious and he’s drilled down. Halsey knows how to do that—MP in the Army, detective in New York City before he came out here. He called on contacts he developed with the DEA.”

Raquel was now really interested. The world was awash in drugs, but the DEA only had the resources to follow credible leads. If the DEA had information on Juan Suarez, it could be interesting. She said, “I’m going to ask Theresa to take notes. Is that okay with you?”

“Sure,” Margaret answered. “It’s probably a good idea. The DEA contacts were productive. A few days ago Halsey received a report and pictures. Let me tell you, Raquel, the pictures bear an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Suarez. But they were taken of a man known to the DEA as Anibal Vaz. Not so long ago he was followed to and through those after-hours clubs in downtown
Manhattan. Anibal Vaz was a very well-dressed, well-placed drug dealer, says the DEA. They were on the brink of picking him up in the city, but he just vanished. They think he was working for a guy named Oscar and that Oscar somehow, through some turncoat law enforcement agents, found out that Anibal Vaz was about to be picked up, and made Anibal Vaz vanish before he could talk.”

Raquel continued to wait. Theresa was writing on her notepad.

“I wanted to share these pictures with you,” Margaret said, fanning the photographs out in front of Raquel and Theresa.

Raquel looked at the three pictures. The first depicted a serious-looking man in the midst of wildly dancing people. It was taken at that instant when a revolving strobe light illuminated him and the men and women around him. He was Hispanic and handsome, but could have been virtually any handsome Hispanic man, not necessarily Juan Suarez. The second showed the same man, in profile, about to walk into a unisex bathroom from which men and women were entering and leaving. The man was closer to the lens than in the first picture, but still at least twenty feet away. It was obvious as he stood near other people that the man was tall, as was Juan Suarez.

The third picture was certainly of Juan—full face, close, as if he were posing for it—but with no context. It was impossible to know where it was taken: nobody was around him and there was no recognizable background. He did appear to be wearing the same expensive black shirt as the man in the other pictures.

As she slid the three photographs back to Margaret Harding, Raquel said, “Pictures can be deceiving. I can’t tell who the gay blade at the party is in the first two pictures. The third is a nice headshot of Juan Suarez.”

“Obviously the DEA and now we know more about the context of those pictures. They may not be the only ones we have.”

“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me who took these pictures and when. Or give me the other pictures you have.”

“Not today.”

After a pause, Theresa asked, “So what do you want from us?”

Margaret Harding was surprised that it was Theresa Bui who spoke. But the question itself didn’t surprise her. “Obviously,” Margaret said, “we want cooperation from him. The DEA would like to know who he knows and who he worked for. They are in the business of rolling up drug distribution rings. If Mr. Vaz, or Mr. Suarez, knows who a man named Oscar is and where Oscar is, then the DEA may want to urge us to do something for Mr. Suarez.”

Raquel said, “Let’s assume Juan knows this Oscar . . .”

“We don’t have to assume. There’s a surveillance tape from a Starbucks on Montauk Highway that shows Oscar and Juan talking.”

Raquel never allowed herself to be deflected from a question and was too experienced to reveal any surprise. “So let’s assume Juan can help the DEA, what does that do for you? You and Richie are not in the business of rolling up drug rings. You’re in the business of getting a conviction for murder. And, although I shouldn’t say it this way, you have the most sensational murder of the century so far and an accused man who says he’s innocent. Let’s assume he pleads guilty to a lesser murder charge and helps to bring down a drug ring. What plea deal involving murder or manslaughter can lighten up his sentence in exchange for exposing a drug ring?” Raquel paused, staring at Margaret Harding. “Where’s my incentive to give you any cooperation at all if I can’t expect anything important in return?”

Both of them loved engaging in this game. It was a world of suggestions, of tentative concepts and of negotiating options that might not exist. “You’re right,” Margaret said, “I could care
less about drugs. You put it exactly as it is, Raquel. My office is in the business of getting murder convictions. But even when there’s only one murder, and we have only one dead man, and only one defendant, we want to get multiple convictions when we can.”

“Margaret, I don’t think you will even get one. At least not Juan Suarez.”

Margaret laughed lightly. “This is what I love about our business. I see black and you see white. And at the end of the day, unlike most situations in life, we get to learn whether it’s black or white. Who wins and who doesn’t. We have no doubt that we will nail Anibal Vaz.”

“Thank God,” Raquel answered, almost smiling, “Juan Suarez wins. It’s too bad about Anibal Vaz.”

“We think your client was not alone. He had accomplices, there were people, such as Oscar, who we think had an interest in Brad Richardson. Those people didn’t want to do the dirty, dirty work of getting up close and personal with Brad. Blood is messy, so is brain splatter. Your client knew Brad, knew the house, knew his schedule, knew the security system. And knew the Borzois. Not to mention, and most important of all, he knew where to find hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in the house. And knew that the Borzois would never bark at him or bite him. This case would have been just a bit easier if your client had bite marks on his ankles.”

When Margaret Harding stopped, Raquel smiled at her, trying to lure her into saying more.

“There is one other thing. Six or seven months ago there was a knifing of three men at 101st Street and First Avenue, in East Harlem. It happened just after midnight. Two of the men were seriously injured, the other only slightly. He said the attacker handled a long knife as though he was one of those ninja characters
in the movies, or Zorro. The blade flashed around like a sword, this guy said.”

“Aren’t there twenty knifings in the city every night of the week?” Theresa asked. “I live there.”

“Sure, but it was an unlucky coincidence for the knifer. One of the injured men was the son of a cop, a captain. You know what cops are like: you hurt one of their kids and you get tracked down as if you hurt one of the Obama girls. It gets real priority.”

Raquel said, “It’s a nepotistic tribe. They never heard of equal justice for all.”

Margaret shrugged. “They hunted for the guy. They didn’t find him. But they did find the knife.”

Raquel raised a hand. “And you’re going to tell me Juan Suarez’s fingerprints and DNA are on the knife?”

“That’s right, Raquel,” Margaret said. She gathered up the glossy pictures and slowly slid them back into the valise. “I hope we’ve given you enough to work with.”

“Is there anything else?” Theresa asked.

“Not today,” Margaret said, smiling again. “Maybe later. Let’s see what you come back with. I’ve put enough food on your plate for now. You need to feed me something now. It’s only fair, don’t you think?”