C.J. sat back in her chair. Her mouth was dry, her heart pounding in her chest. This was not good. ‘So you never saw him speeding? You pulled him over based on this anonymous tip, and that’s it?’
Chavez said nothing, just looked down at the paperwork, which was still on his lap.
‘What exactly did the tip say?’
‘I just told you. A black late-model
XJ8
was heading south on Washington with two keys of coke in his trunk.’
‘Heading for the airport?’
‘Heading for the airport.’
‘Did the tip give a description of the driver? Did he at least give a plate number? Did he say how it was that he knew this information? Did he say anything at all that would lead a reasonable police officer to think this guy is trafficking?’ Her voice was rising almost to a shout, and she knew it. Anonymous tips are always looked at skeptically by the courts – anyone can call one in, and there’s no way for the caller’s credibility to be assessed. And without sufficient detailed facts in the tip, there is no probable cause. A black Jaguar heading south on Washington with two kilos was not going to cut it.
‘No. That’s it. There wasn’t any more time, Ms Townsend. He was about to leave the jurisdiction, and I didn’t want to lose him so I pulled him over.’
‘No. You had already lost him over on Sixth. In fact, how is it that you know that the black Jaguar you “caught up to” on the MacArthur was the same one you saw pass south on Washington in the first place? How is it that you know that the car you pulled over was the same one the tip referred to on Washington, assuming, arguendo, that the tip was good in the first place?’
Again there was silence.
‘That’s right. You don’t know that, because that tip was shit and you knew it. That’s why you didn’t even tell me about it in the first place. Okay, so you’ve got him pulled over. Tell me exactly what happened next.’
‘I made him get out of the car and asked him for his license and registration. I asked him where he was going,
and he said the airport. That’s when I asked him what was in his trunk. You know, luggage? He only had that one bag in the backseat, and the tip said the dope was in the trunk. And he told me to fuck off. So I knew he had something in there. I told him he’s gonna miss his flight, and I called K-9.’
‘What was in the bag in the backseat?’
‘Clothes, his passport, and a day planner. Some other papers and shit, too.’
‘And when did you search the bag?’
‘While I was waiting for K-9.’
‘There was no smell, either, was there? Coming from the trunk, then?’
‘Yeah, yeah, there was!’ he stammered. ‘It smelled funky, like a dead body, maybe.’
‘You are a goddamn liar, Officer. You never smelled jack-shit, and you and I both know it. First you tell Manny Alvarez that you thought he had drugs, and now you’ve changed your tune because there were no drugs to be found. Anywhere. You also wouldn’t have smelled Anna Prado’s body, because she was only dead a day. So fess up and tell me that you wanted to look in the trunk because you were pissed he wouldn’t let you and you knew you didn’t have enough pc to open it yourself. Ten minutes on the job and you’re a tough guy. No one says no to you. You never even had probable cause to pull him over, do you know that? All because you didn’t bother to check the tip. Do you know what kind of case you have just royally fucked up, Officer?’
He stood up and paced the small office. ‘Christ, I didn’t know it would be Cupid! I thought this guy was maybe dealing. Maybe I’d nail a doper, out by myself, just on intuition. My FTO says this shit happens all the time
in Miami. If someone doesn’t want you looking in their trunk, it’s because there’s something to hide in it. And he had a fucking dead body in there! He had a dead body! You’re gonna tell me that doesn’t mean anything?’
‘Yeah, that’s what I’m gonna tell you, because if the stop is suppressed and the search is suppressed then we don’t have a dead body in the trunk, got it? It never comes in – it’s not admissible in a court of law. Didn’t they teach you the law in the police academy or were you too busy strapping extra weapons on your ankle that you forgot to actually listen?’ They sat in silence while the cheap wall clock ticked off the seconds and minutes. Finally, she asked, ‘How far does this go?’
‘My sergeant, Ribero, he responded after we popped the trunk. I told him the whole story. And he freaked, just like you, said the whole case would be tossed. But then he said we couldn’t let this guy just walk, no way. So he said there had to be another reason why I pulled him over, that it couldn’t be the tip.’
‘Who broke the taillight?’
‘Chavez didn’t answer; he just stared out the window.
‘So it’s you and Ribero?’
‘Lindeman knew about the call, too. How bad is this, Ms Townsend? Am I gonna get fired over this?’
‘Your welfare is the least of my concerns, Officer Chavez. I need to think of a way to keep a man who has butchered ten women in jail, and right now, I am drawing a complete blank.’
40
She sat quietly behind her desk, trying to think through the white noise of confusion. Chavez was back in his seat, but this time the broad shoulders were meekly bowed, his head slumped over his lap, the hands folded in what looked like – and probably was – prayer.
Summoned back over from the Pickle Barrel, Lou Ribero now sat, his arms folded across his chest, glaring at the rookie next to him. He was obviously thinking of the shit patrols he was gonna put Chavez on for the next ten years.
After a long while she finally spoke. Her voice was low, her words carefully chosen.
While the facts of the cases may all vary, the law on anonymous tips in Florida is pretty clear. Because there is no way to cross-examine the caller, to verify where and how he received his information, or test his motives, in order to serve as the basis of a vehicle stop, an anonymous tip must be sufficient in detail so that it is quite clear to the officer that the person providing the tip has intimate knowledge of the facts of which he speaks. If those facts are then independently corroborated by the officer, the officer will then, and only then, have sufficient probable cause, or at least a reasonable suspicion, to believe that criminal activity is afoot, and may pull the vehicle over to investigate further. A tip that is devoid of necessary facts, that is not sufficiently detailed to be considered credible, cannot be the basis of such a vehicle
stop. Period. And of course we all know that any search that is conducted after an illegal stop will also be considered illegal unless there is independent probable cause to support the search. Any evidence obtained as the result of an illegal search will be suppressed and is inadmissible in a court of law as fruit of the poisonous tree.
‘That all being said, a vehicle may also be stopped for any traffic violation that the driver has committed in the officer’s presence, such as excessive speed or an illegal turn, or for any mechanical infraction that the officer sees, such as a broken headlight or taillight or blinker.
‘Officer Chavez has informed me that on September nineteenth at approximately eight-fifteen P.M. he was in his marked patrol unit on Washington and Sixth in South Beach. That at that time he saw a late-model black Jaguar XJ8, license plate TTR-L57 proceeding southbound on Washington toward the MacArthur Causeway with a blond white male thirty-five to forty-five years of age in the driver’s seat. The car passed him at a speed he approximated to be higher than thirty-five miles per hour in a posted twenty-five miles per hour zone. Officer Chavez proceeded down Sixth Street to Collins and then back west up Fifth Street and on to the MacArthur Causeway, heading westbound. He again spotted the black Jaguar XJ8 with the license plate, TTR-L57 and the same white male in the driver’s seat. He stayed behind the vehicle for approximately two miles on the causeway, at which time he also noticed that the Jaguar had a broken taillight and he observed the vehicle do an illegal lane change without signaling. At that point, Officer Chavez decided to conduct a traffic stop. He activated his lights and siren and pulled the vehicle over.
‘He asked the driver, subsequently identified as
William Rupert Bantling, for his license and registration. Mr Bantling appeared nervous and jittery. His hands shook as he handed the license to Officer Chavez, and he failed to maintain eye contact. On his way back to his patrol car, Officer Chavez stopped to look more closely at the broken taillight. At that time he observed a substance on the bumper of the vehicle that looked like blood. He returned to the vehicle to give Mr Bantling back his license and registration, at which time Officer Chavez also thought he detected an odor of marijuana in the vehicle. He asked Mr Bantling for permission to search the vehicle and was denied. Based on the totality of the circumstances, the substance on the bumper, the smell of marijuana, and Mr Bantling’s actions, Officer Chavez suspected that the vehicle contained contraband and so called for a K-9 unit to respond. Beauchamp with the Beach responded and his dog, Butch, alerted on the trunk of the vehicle. The alert gave the officers the necessary probable cause to search the trunk, at which time they discovered the body of Anna Prado.’
She looked at the two men for a long moment now. ‘Is that what happened, Officer Chavez? Did I understand you correctly?’
‘Yes, ma’am. You did. That was exactly what happened.’
She looked at Ribero. ‘Is that how the incident was reported to you, Sergeant?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Very well. Why don’t you finish up your coffee with Officer Lindeman, Sergeant Ribero, and then I guess I’ll see him for his prefile at twelve o’clock.’
Ribero stood to leave. ‘Thanks so much for your help on this, Ms Townsend. We’ll see you, I’m sure, for the
depos.’ He nodded grimly at C.J. and then threw a glare in the direction of Chavez. ‘Let’s go, Chavez.’
The door closed behind them and that was it. The deal was done. The secret pact had been made with the devil, and there would be no turning back for any of them.
41
For the first time in her career, C.J. had compromised herself on a case. It was for the greater good, she had told herself. The small sacrifice of her professional integrity for the greater good. To put away a monster, to slay the dragons, even the good guys sometimes had to play dirty.
The stop was bad – there was no way around it. Legally, there was no probable cause to support it, and so the search was bad as well. She just wished that Chavez had been a better liar so that she wouldn’t have to know what it was she now knew. So she wouldn’t have to play the part that she was now forced to play.
Without the search, there was no body. Without the body, there was no case. If Chavez didn’t clean up his story, Bantling would walk. It was as simple and horrible as that. No matter what evidence the police had found at his house that had connected him to the murders, everything would be thrown out, because without the illegal stop and search, the police would never even have known William Rupert Bantling existed. They would not have searched his house. They would not have found the Haldol, the blood, the probable murder weapon, the sadistic porno tapes. Such was the way the law read.
The phone rang at her desk, pulling her out of the fog.
‘C.J. Townsend.’
‘C.J.? It’s Christine Frederick with Interpol. Sorry it’s
taken me a few days to get back to you. I had to run the information that you gave me through a few systems.’
‘Did you find anything?’
‘Did I find anything? Yes, well I think I found quite a lot for you. I think your suspect may have a home in a few other countries when you’re done with him. The MO hit in all three South American countries: rapes in Rio, Caracas, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. White male with a mask. He likes to cut and tickle. The mask changes, though. I have an alien, a monster mask, a clown face, and a couple of latex faces that the women did not recognize. I then found a similar BOLO in the Philippines, where they had four rapes matching that MO, but those ran from 1991 to ‘94. Nothing there since. The wanted sheets from the eighties are mainly inactive and outdated, so I couldn’t find anything that far back, and there was nothing in Malaysia. All in all, it looks like maybe ten victims, four countries. But this is all off of the wanteds. I haven’t called any of the consulates or police agencies to confirm. I figured you’d want to do that yourself, if this guy matches the pattern, which it looks like he does. Let me fax you over the wanted sheets and you can see for yourself.’
Ten more women. She didn’t even need to read the wanteds that Christine faxed over to know Bantling was the one. He was a serial rapist, a serial murderer, a sexual predator of women. He had raped and tortured more than seventeen women. He had killed another ten, probably eleven – maybe even more.
Without Chavez, there was no case. Bantling would walk on the Prado murder. The time had run on the rapes in the U.S., so he would walk on those as well. She knew that the rapes in the foreign countries would never
be prosecuted. The scenes were the same – there was no physical evidence, and the criminal justice systems in poor South American countries were not to be trusted, to say the least. He would walk on those, too. William Rupert Bantling would walk away a free man. Free to hunt and stalk women. Free to rape and torture and kill again, which is what he inevitably would do. It was simply a matter of time.
A small sacrifice for the greater good.
There was no getting off this case now, or ever. Only one question remained. One that she could not ignore, but did not think she could ever answer.
Who had called in the tip?
42
‘You’ve been avoiding me.’
In the door frame of her office stood Special Agent Dominick Falconetti, a Dunkin’ Donuts bag in one hand, a black leather briefcase in the other. He was sopping wet.
She tried her best to look shocked at his accusation and opened her mouth to protest, but then quickly closed it again and leaned back in her chair.
Guilty as charged, Officer.