“It was insanely awful,” Stevie agreed. “The singer was so bad, you couldn’t even understand him.” He too went into a furious imitation, grunting and mumbling his words.
“When’s the last time you saw him over here?” Del asked.
“Mom doesn’t let him come over here.” Stevie emphasized his words. “She hates him.”
“He’s a loser,” Mark said again and slumped down onto the seat cushions.
Del suspected as much, but at least J-Man now had a name.
Battles sat across the desk from Rebecca Stanley, who kept an office just down the hall. Stanley had the look of a mother whose daughter had been invited to her first prom, but by a young man she didn’t care for. Battles decided to take the same approach she’d taken when she’d been called in to the Dean of Students’s office at her Catholic all-girls high school. She wasn’t about to start defending herself until the charges and the supporting evidence were spelled out.
“Did you pull my files?” Battles asked.
“I did.”
“All due respect, but the clients I have been defending need to be notified and—”
Stanley raised a hand. “They were, and they’ve each agreed to seek new counsel. I apologize, Leah, but these are unusual circumstances. I talked with the CO late last night.”
“And?” Battles said.
“I told him it was not within your character to do what you have been accused of doing. I also want you to know that my opinion might not matter much.”
Battles knew the loss of the tape would cause significant interdepartmental stress, and Stanley had a duty to run the department. “So Brian filed papers?” she asked.
“He dropped an e-bomb this morning, and I think we can expect that things will go nuclear. Cho is under considerable pressure, because of the nature of the crime, to court-martial Trejo. The loss of the tape . . . The CO said we can expect an investigation. I’m told that NCIS will be brought in to interview everyone.”
Battles nodded, but did not speak.
“Look, an Article 32 is supposed to be just a stepping stone, but Lopresti built it up to be something much more for the public and the media. He was hoping it would force a resolution and mollify public outrage. Now it’s blown up in his face, and he isn’t happy about it.”
“Trejo wouldn’t plea,” Battles said. “I explained everything to him, the charges and the likely ramification of those charges. I went over the evidence with him, showed him the videotape. I even told him that I couldn’t beat the plea he was offered. He wouldn’t take it.”
“You spoke to his wife?”
Battles nodded. “She said he was home, but I believe she’s standing by her husband.”
“He told her to say he was home,” Stanley said.
“I think so.”
“He couldn’t have somehow known that the tape would go missing, could he?” Stanley’s eyes narrowed and her brow furrowed.
Battles sat back in her chair. “Nothing I said would have given him that impression.”
“Well, we now have a massive headache and the public wants the Navy’s head on a stake.”
“And Lopresti needs a designated head, and I’m it. I get it.” Battles had had difficult cases before, but she’d always had the safety net of knowing she could walk away after doing her job. This was different. This time, she was the person with much to lose. “But if it’s all the same to you and the CO, I intend to keep my head.”
“I hope you do,” Stanley said. “Lopresti asked that I pull and review the security tape for the DSO night before last. I’m to report to him in about an hour and tell him what the tape reveals.”
Battles knew the security camera was positioned over the front door to cover the interior lobby. She suspected Stanley had not elaborated on the tape’s contents because it didn’t help Battles.
“Can I see it?”
Stanley nodded. “I don’t see why not.”
It took Stanley a few minutes to load the security feed onto her computer. She pivoted the monitor forty-five degrees so they could both watch. The black-and-white camera captured anyone who entered and exited the building. The angle, however, meant the viewer was looking at the top of people’s heads as they entered and exited the front door. If they entered the building wearing their baggy blueberries and cap, everyone looked similar.
“I asked for a copy of the tape from ten p.m. to six a.m. the following morning,” Stanley said.
Neither woman intended to watch the full eight hours. Stanley hit “Fast Forward.” At 10:31, Brian Cho came down the hall and stopped outside Battles’s office. Cho knocked before entering, and closed the door.
“That’s when Brian came down to find out if Trejo was going to plead,” Battles said.
“When he saw the box of evidence?” Stanley asked.
“I still had it,” Battles said.
At 10:37 p.m. Cho reemerged, pausing outside Battles’s office door. He looked to be smiling. In his hands he held his hat, what the Navy referred to as his “cover.” Then he shook his head, put on his cap, and exited the building.
“What was that?” Battles asked. “Was he smiling?”
“I don’t know.” Stanley glanced at her before returning her attention to the computer. She hit the “Fast Forward” button again.
At 10:49, Battles exited her office carrying the evidence box, the top affixed and in place. She carried the box away from the camera, toward the stairs leading up to Bob Grassilli’s office on the second floor just across from the courtroom.
“That’s when I took the evidence box back,” she said.
“Unfortunately, there’s an argument that the tape isn’t in the box,” Stanley said.
On the tape, Battles returned to her office. Several minutes later, she came out dressed in bike clothes and wearing her backpack as she strapped on her bike helmet.
“The backpack doesn’t help either,” Stanley said.
No one else entered or exited the building until 11:03 p.m., when the civilian janitor pushed in a rolling garbage can. Stanley hit “Fast Forward” and the janitor’s movements looked a bit like a Charlie Chaplin movie.
“Can you slow it down?” Battles asked.
Stanley did.
The janitor walked behind the reception desk, then in and out of the ground-floor offices, emptying their garbage cans. After doing so, he departed the building, presumably to discard the garbage, which would be incinerated. Stanley again hit “Fast Forward,” stopping the tape when the janitor returned carrying a vacuum and a bucket of cleaning supplies. He set the vacuum in the entry and took the cleaning supplies down the hall, to the bathrooms. Stanley advanced the tape, slowing it when the janitor returned, placed the cleaning supplies on the reception desk, and started vacuuming. When he’d finished, he exited the building, this time for good.
No one else entered or exited until office workers arrived the following morning—Cho had been one of the first at 7:15 a.m. He walked through reception and down the hall to the stairs leading up to his office on the second floor.
Battles arrived a half hour later.
The tape ended. Battles sat back. “Cho’s office is on the second floor, close to the court reporter.”
“Yes, but he left before you brought the evidence back,” Stanley said.