Panthera Spelaea

Just before lunch, I got a cellmate. Fyodor Zobnin was a Ukrainian prisoner who spoke heavily accented English; he was in his forties and had black hair, greying at the temples. He was tall and skinny and very chatty.

Within an hour, he’d quietly filled me in on his life and his time in the Russian prison system. Talking wasn’t against the rules, but talking too loud would attract the guard’s attention. He laid on his bunk while I exercised in the small, open area next to our beds. A thief, he’d been in and out of prison since he was fourteen. I quizzed him about the justice system, and it’s fair to say he wasn’t a fan. “Everything is against you, including your lawyer,” he told me. “If you can’t afford one, they’ll have one for you, but he won’t help you. They work with the prosecutors, not against them.”

I had to laugh at that. I told Fyodor about my first lawyer when I woke up, who didn’t know English and didn’t want to ask me questions. “My parents hired a lawyer for me, and she seemed to be doing a good job. I haven’t seen her since my arrest, though.”

I didn’t trust Fyodor a bit. Thieves had no honor, the saying went, and I didn’t trust the jailers either. Why double-bunk a prisoner with me while there were open cells on the block? It didn’t make sense unless he was a jailhouse snitch. I was free to talk about my treatment, even my interrogations, but I wasn’t going to say a word about what happened before my arrest. I was pretty sure they were recording us. With that in mind, I said nothing about my interrogations or the crimes they were trying to pin on me.

I confirmed my suspicions when he asked me if I knew the dead cop. I’d seen the cells; no radios, no televisions, no communications with the outside. How could he know about the deaths unless the cops told him about me?

I ignored his question and shifted the conversation to soccer.

He became increasingly frustrated with me until the guards took him away a few hours later. I don’t know what they promised him, but he got nothing out of me. Would that even matter? He could say I told him anything, and it was my word against his. I’m sure any recordings wouldn’t be available to my lawyer to rebut his testimony.

Shortly after, the guards came for me. I went back down to the transport area, where they changed me into an orange jumpsuit. Shackled and hooded, I was loaded into a van and driven back downtown, a police car with its siren blaring as an escort. I could hear and smell the crowd nearby when the van stopped. I didn’t need to know much Russian to figure out they weren’t happy.

The bright sunlight warmed my skin when the doors open. The guards walked me back, then removed my hood. We were outside a modern-looking building, a crowd of several hundred waiting to get a glimpse of me. Uniformed officers took custody of me, perp-walking me fifty feet towards the building entrance.

The crowd was yelling at me, and with the shackles on, I was focusing on walking without tripping. The chains only allowed me to take short steps. The only good part of the walk was that I could see I had a few supporters in the crowd. My Mom was standing just outside the building, and Anna and Svetlana were standing on either side of her. I smiled at the three and said, “It’s going to be all right,” even if I didn’t believe it.

“I love you,” Svetlana mouthed to me.

As soon as I was inside the service door, they took me up an elevator to a conference-sized room. Based on the metal furniture secured to the floor and the benches with rings to hook shackles on, it was a prisoner holding facility. Despite being locked in place, the guard only left when my lawyer arrived. “What’s going on, Marina?”

“You’re keeping me very busy, John,” she replied as she sat next to me at the table. She opened her briefcase and removed a bag; inside was a big sandwich packed with meat. “I figured you were hungry.”

She was right. I ate the sandwich, washing it down with milk, and felt much better already. “What happened with Anna and Svetlana?”

“Both were questioned separately at different police stations. It took me a while to get to them, but they were smart enough not to say anything until I was there, and their statements matched. By dinnertime, both of them were back at the apartment. I warned them that there would be far more than two bugs in their apartment now, and they would be much harder to find. I wouldn’t put it past the Task Force to move in next to them and listen through the walls.”

“But they are all right?”

“It was rough on them, and it wasn’t over. Svetlana missed her hearing for the charges against her at the hospital because she was still at the police station. It didn’t matter; they found her guilty of fraternization and fired her. Anna complained about it in a television interview, and she got fired over the telephone last night.”

Jesus. I’d ruined their livelihood just by being around them. “Tell them I’m sorry. I never meant for them to get hurt.”

“Your mother is helping them, and they are fiercely loyal to you. Now, before we talk about the hearing, tell me what has happened since your arrest.”

I went through the questioning at the downtown station, then at Lefortovo. “I made no statements about that night, and I didn’t even look at the confession paper. They did put another English-speaking inmate in with me, but I told him nothing as well.”

“Fyodor Zobnin, he’s on the witness list.”

“Do you know what they have on me?”

“We’ll find out shortly. I hope we get a good judge because this is going to be fun.”

“What is going to happen?”

“This is the equivalent of an arraignment and bail hearing in your country. The police can only hold you for forty-eight hours before such a hearing. Senior Investigator Kaprisov has filed a motion requesting that you be denied bail and detained pending trial.”

“Kaprisov? Why is he doing it when I’ve already spoken to the Prosecutor?”

She let out a sigh. “Because they are playing fast and loose with the law. Officially, the Police have two months before they transfer the case to a prosecutor, though they can request up to a year, and sometimes that limit isn’t met. After the prosecutor gets it, you have to schedule a trial. You could easily spend two years in prison before you see the inside of a courtroom again.”

Damn. “The State wants the death penalty, and this is a high-publicity case.”

“Exactly. The horrific nature of the deaths, plus the fact one of the dead is a police officer, means the judge will be reluctant to grant bail. That’s what we are fighting against, John.”

“And what is on our side?”

“The truth,” she said. There was a knock on the door, and Marina left the room with the officer. Ten minutes later, still shackled, officers escorted me through another door into a courtroom. Marina was sitting at the closest table, and the officers locked my shackles to a loop set into the floor. Mom, Anna, and Svetlana were sitting behind me, but the officers stopped me when I tried to talk to them. It was a full house in the audience section, including some foreign press.

Senior Counsellor Rozanova was at the other table, a younger assistant at her side. There was no jury box, just a raised area where the judge would sit. “Don’t say anything unless the judge directs a question to you, and stand and sit when I do,” Marina said. “The proceedings will be in Russian. You will wear these headphones, and a court employee will translate the proceedings into English for you.”

“I understand,” I said. A door to the side opened, and everyone in the courtroom stood. I stood as well, the chains rattling the only noise in the room.

The bailiff started talking. “Court is now in session, Central District Judge Vitali Shemkov presiding.” The judge sat, followed by the rest of the courtroom. “Detention hearing for John Jacob Cantwell.”

“Madam Prosecutor?”

“The State is requesting no bail, Your Honor. The detainee is the main suspect in the murder of thirteen people. One of the victims was a police officer actively surveilling the detainee over suspicion of three additional murders in Siberia last month. The detainee is the subject of two active murder investigations and sixteen victims. He is a foreign national, thus an obvious flight risk, and should remain in custody pending trial.”

The Judge looked at me like I was dog poop on the bottom of his shoe. “The investigations are ongoing?”

“Yes, your honor. The crime scene is complex, and analysis of DNA and other evidence could take months. In addition, we know the detainee had multiple accomplices, but we are still searching for them. A prolonged investigation is likely.”

The judge nodded, then turned to Marina. “And the Defense?”

“We request the defendant be released immediately, Your Honor.” The courtroom erupted, and the judge banged his gavel, and the bailiff warned the court to remain quiet. “The Government doesn’t have a bit of evidence to support their contention my client was involved in either event. You cannot detain a person based on a hunch; such detention requires at least enough probable cause to justify an arrest. The State has failed to meet even that low threshold has not been met. In the Siberian crime, my client was a victim. He nearly died in the river, only waking up a week later in a Moscow hospital. The Criminal Investigation Division has nothing on him except that he barely survived while the other three in the boat didn’t. Their evidence was so weak that they did not even bring him before a court before releasing him.”

Marina wasn’t done; she was just getting warmed up. “The Police arrested my client in his girlfriend’s apartment, hours after the deaths occurred and over a kilometer away. They did this without a warrant, despite the law allowing this detention ONLY if he was at the scene of the crime. The law requires that Mr. Cantwell have two hours with his lawyer before any interviews and for his lawyer to be present. Two interrogations took place while I was still trying to find out where the police were holding John; the police never allowed him to call his lawyer or his family. The law requires that police notify his family, but they found out from the international news. He has a right as a foreign citizen to have Consular representation, but no police officer contacted the US Embassy. Finally, within three hours of detention, police must prepare a protocol stating the grounds for the arrest. The police AND the detainee must sign the protocol. Where is it? My client never saw it and never signed anything. The State never gave it to me, Your Honor. Can they produce it for you?”

I could see the Judge was getting mad. “Madam Prosecutor? Where is the protocol?”

She was dead, and she knew it. “I do not have one, Your Honor.”

“And the other failures to follow the law and protect the detainee’s rights? Do you dispute them?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“Can you bring forward a single piece of evidence that shows the involvement of the detainee in either crime?”

She swallowed and removed a piece of paper. “Surveillance video near the suspect’s apartment confirms Mr. Cantwell and two women got into an argument on the sidewalk with twelve individuals. The twelve were friends of three men Mr. Cantwell assaulted on the Moscow subway, leaving all three in the hospital. Mr. Cantwell led them into a trap where all twelve men, and the police officer, were killed by a waiting lion.”

Marina just laughed. “You have something to add, Counsellor,” the judge asked.

“Yes, sir. The video also shows the gang members boxed Mr. Cantwell, his girlfriend, and her roommate as they walked home, threatening them with a gun. They fled, losing the pursuers in the park. The police found no evidence tying my client to the scene of the crime. Police found no injuries on his body, no eyewitnesses, and no physical evidence on his person or in the apartment. They found no African Lion in the apartment; in fact, they’ve never found the Lion who killed the men. The plain fact is that the Task Force has no idea who is responsible for the deaths, but they have a wealthy American to blame it all on. That is why we are here, Your Honor. The State has already trampled this man’s rights, and they seek to continue violating them while they search for ANYTHING that might point to his guilt. This flouting of basic rights cannot be allowed to stand, and the only remedy is the obvious one. Release him now, Your Honor. When and if they have probable cause to arrest the killer, they can come before your court and show cause for a warrant.”

Marina was kicking ass, but it still depended on the judge. Who wanted to be the one who freed a cop killer, after all?

“Madam Prosecutor?”

“The detainee remains the prime suspect and a flight risk, Your Honor.”

Marina wasn’t taking that lying down. “Mr. Cantwell was not involved in the Mitino Landscape Park deaths, Your Honor. Mr. Cantwell is a victim of the events in Siberia. The Court retained his passport because of the open investigation there, not because they had evidence of his involvement. Mr. Cantwell has resided in a hotel or at his girlfriend’s apartment since then. If he’s a flight risk, he would already be gone, Your Honor.”

The judge nodded. “Court is in recess for one hour while I review the submittals.” We all stood up as he left.

When the door closed, Marina turned to me as I took the headphones off. “That went as well as I could hope. Now we wait,” she said.

I barely had a chance to tell my Mom and my girlfriend that I loved them before I was led back out of the courtroom.