Blood Money

She smiled. “Bueno.”

There was a knock at the door.

“I’ll get it,” said Theo, but when he got up, his foot caught on the stool. It sounded like a multicar pileup on I-95 as he and the stool hit the tile floor, but Theo was okay. He crossed the living room and opened the door. It was the neighbor’s son, RJ.

“Hi, Max!” RJ shouted.

Max lifted his head. He’d slept through the multicar pileup in the kitchen, but he was suddenly wide awake and barking as if he had smelled RJ approaching a block away from the house.

“That’s some watchdog you’ve got there,” said Theo.

Max was all over RJ, and they went down for a wrestling match on the floor. RJ quickly had the upper hand. He was big for thirteen, a force on the middle school basketball court in his size-twelve shoes, and Jack regarded him as poster child for twenty-first-century Miami: Cuban on his mother’s side, Lebanese on his father’s, and his favorite food was sushi, which he’d learned to roll himself from his uncle, whose fiancee was Japanese. When Max was pinned, RJ looked at Jack and said, “We’re leaving for Charleston tomorrow. I just wanted to see what time you wanted me to pick up my travel buddy.”

Jack hesitated. The original thought had been to send Abuela to Tampa to stay with her brother and to send Max away for the rest of the summer with the Kayals, who rented a beach house in South Carolina every year. Jack knew RJ was going to be disappointed.

“Actually, there’s been a change of plan,” said Jack.

“Max can’t go?” said RJ.

The sadness in the boy’s voice was bad enough. The pathetic expression on Max’s face made it even worse. It was as if Mighty Casey had just struck out and they were in the heart of Mudville. Jack glanced at Abuela, who shot him a reproving look that seemed to say, Have you no heart? Send the dog!

“You know what?” said Jack. “Let’s just stick to the plan. I’ll have him and all his stuff ready for you tonight.”

The joy was back as RJ gave Max a bear hug, along with a quick rundown of how much fun they were going to have at the Kayal family reunion. Abuela seemed satisfied. Jack was going to miss his early-morning ritual with the cold black nose in his face, but it was only for a short time-until the threat against “someone you love” was lifted.

The phone rang, and Theo answered it. “It’s Hannah,” he said as he handed Jack the phone.

“What’s up?” Jack said into the phone.

“I just left the women’s detention center. They finally coughed up the visitation records that Theo asked for on Saturday. I’m going through them now.”

“Anything of interest?”

“There are a couple names on here I don’t recognize, so I’ll need to follow up on them. But what made me call are the names I do recognize.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there are the familiar names you would expect. Me. You. Geoffrey and Ellen Bennett. My dad. Those are all multiple visits. And then way down on the list, there’s a name that jumped out at me. Just one visit.”

“Who is it?”

“Celeste Laramore.”

Jack’s mouth opened, but no words came.

“Jack, you there?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“I thought you should know right away, especially since you have that hearing before Judge Burrows tomorrow about the Laramore case. I thought it could be important.”

Now, there’s an understatement.

“Thanks, Hannah,” said Jack. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

Chapter Forty-Five

Score one for us.

Jack wasn’t keeping a blow-by-blow score in his head, but Tuesday morning’s hearing in the civil case against BNN was definitely going his way. It began with the loss of credibility BNN suffered when Ted Gaines requested that television cameras be allowed at the hearing.

“Let me get this straight, Mr. Gaines,” said Judge Burrows. “Before the plaintiffs even filed their case, you rushed into my courtroom and persuaded me to enter a gag order that prohibited them from discussing the case publicly, correct?”

“That’s correct,” said Gaines. “These scandalous allegations against the news-gathering practices of my client would cause irreparable harm to BNN’s reputation and standing.”

“I understand that argument,” said the judge. “And I also understand that just a matter of hours after those allegations appeared on Celeste Laramore’s Facebook page, you filed a motion to dismiss the case with prejudice as a sanction for violating that order. Also correct?”

“Yes, sir,” said Gaines. “For twice violating that order.”

“But you want today’s hearing to be open to the public and broadcast on television. Do I have that right?”

“Yes, Judge,” said Gaines. “The reality is that once these allegations appeared on the Internet, there was no way to undo the damage. You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube, as the saying goes.”

Gaines continued with a forceful First Amendment speech about the public’s right to know, but the judge was no fool, and BNN’s flip-flop was no less galling. For the first time, Jack felt momentum on his side. It made Jack lead with an argument that he hadn’t planned on making.

“I would ask the court to reconsider its earlier determination that my clients were responsible for the Facebook postings,” said Jack.

“On what grounds?” the judge asked.

“Yesterday, in criminal court before Judge Matthews, I proffered evidence regarding an unidentified man who is obsessed with my client, Sydney Bennett. That man has threatened me and committed other criminal acts in his effort to force me to reveal Ms. Bennett’s whereabouts to him. The proffer was made in chambers due to the sensitivity of the evidence as it relates to an active homicide investigation. I request the same opportunity in this case-to proffer evidence that this same man has tried to sabotage this case against BNN. We believe these Facebook postings are yet another way to bring harm to me, my clients, and my career in his ongoing effort to coerce me into revealing Sydney Bennett’s whereabouts.”

“Two objections,” said Gaines. “First, we have the proverbial what-has-opposing-counsel-been-smoking objection.”

The judge banged his gavel. “That’s out of order, Mr. Gaines. Your second objection had better be a good one.”

“Yes, Your Honor. This court has already ruled that the Laramores are responsible for the Facebook postings by virtue of the fact that they should have taken down the page if they couldn’t control it. Some ‘unidentified man’ doesn’t change that.”

“Mr. Gaines’ point is well taken,” said the judge. “Your request for reconsideration is denied, Mr. Swyteck.”

“But-”

“No ‘buts,’” said the judge. “The purpose of today’s hearing is to find an appropriate punishment for the violation of this court’s gag order-specifically, to determine if the lawsuit against BNN has sufficient merit to make dismissal too harsh. I want to reiterate, however, that this hearing will not become a mini-trial of Laramore v. BNN. There is just one issue: Even if BNN interfered with the data transmission from the ambulance, was that the legal cause of Celeste Laramore’s coma? Am I clear?”