The Girl in the Glass Box

by James Grippando

  “Sure.”

  “I want to explore a claim of asylum for you. Do you know what asylum is?”

  “I know that everybody here wants it.”

  “And obviously not everybody here qualifies. You might, as the victim of sexual violence.”

  “Do you have any idea how many women in this jail are victims of sexual violence?”

  “I don’t doubt it for a minute. And I don’t want to mislead you: to get you asylum, we have to prove a lot more than the fact that you’re a victim of sexual violence. We have to prove that the violence is connected to government action, and that you have a credible fear of it happening again if you’re deported.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “Let’s put that aside for the moment. Nothing else matters if we can’t prove step one: you were sexually assaulted.”

  “So we’re back to where this conversation started. I have to convince the judge I was raped.”

  “Yes. And again I’ll be honest. Going into immigration court is like going back to the bad old days. The social bias against believing a woman’s claim of sexual assault is real in any courtroom. But at least in the criminal courts there have been some improvements. Like the old laws that required corroborating evidence to prove rape. Those have been repealed.”

  “What’s corroborating evidence?”

  “Something other than your own testimony. Like a rape kit, for example. Or a witness to the crime.”

  “So we don’t need a witness in my case. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “That’s in a criminal court. I know this sounds crazy, but it’s easier to prove rape in a criminal prosecution than in an immigration case. I’m not talking about ‘the law,’” he said, making air quotes. “I’m talking reality. We’re going to need more than your testimony.”

  “So we do need a witness?”

  “That’s one form of corroborating evidence. But the fact is that most sexual assaults don’t have witnesses.”

  She lowered her eyes. “What if mine did?”

  It wasn’t the response Jack had expected. He proceeded cautiously. “Was there a witness in your case?”

  She nodded.

  Jack hesitated again. A “witness” could mean a lot of things. Gang rape was one of them. “Is that why the prosecutor in El Salvador believed you?”

  Again she nodded.

  “How many witnesses were there?”

  She took a moment, then raised her index finger.

  “One?” asked Jack.

  She nodded.

  Jack gave her more time, then asked the question that had to be asked. “Who was it?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Julia? Can you tell me the name of the witness?”

  Her gaze was fixed downward, somewhere on the floor. “I talked with a counselor on Friday. Sandra is her name. She helps victims like me.”

  “Did you tell her about the witness?”

  “No. She said I could call her if I wanted to.”

  “Would you rather talk to her about this? Should we ask her to come back?”

  Julia took a deep breath, but she didn’t answer.

  “Julia, should I get the counselor? Or can you tell me?”

  “I can tell you,” she said softly.

  “Okay. Good. Take your time. What’s the witness’s name?”

  Jack waited. Finally, Julia looked up, her eyes welling with tears.

  “Beatriz.”

  Chapter 14

  A midafternoon flight from Jacksonville landed Jack in Miami before rush hour. Beatriz and her aunt met him at his office. It was near the criminal courthouse in an old neighborhood that was transitioning from single-family homes to a mix of residential and commercial, where historic residences were being converted into art studios and professional office space.

  “Cool house,” said Beatriz.

  Jack’s office dated back to the 1920s, ancient by Miami standards, built in the old Florida style with a coral-rock facade and a big covered porch that made you want to pull up a rocking chair.

  “The very first owner was a famous Miami pioneer, Julia Tuttle,” said Jack.

  Beatriz smiled. “Julia,” she said, giving the dearly departed Ms. Tuttle the Spanish “Hoolia” pronunciation. “Like my mom.”

  Jack hadn’t made that connection, but he liked it. “Yeah, like your mom.”

  Jack led them inside. The previous owner was the Freedom Institute, where Jack had worked as a young attorney fresh out of law school. Four years of defending death row inmates proved to be enough for Jack, so he struck out on his own as a sole practitioner. A decade later, when his mentor passed away and the institute was on the brink of financial collapse, Jack came up with a plan to save it, which eventually meant buying the building. The Freedom Institute operated rent-free upstairs in the renovated bedrooms. Jack and his longtime assistant ran his practice downstairs.

  “Wow,” said Beatriz.

  Jack’s career had its share of ups and downs, but lately it had been up, and his renovation of the old “Hoolia” house reflected better times. The original floors of Dade County pine had been sanded and refinished. The high ceilings and crown moldings had been restored. The bad fluorescent lighting, circa 1970, had been replaced in a total electrical update. The living room was an impressive reception area decorated with oriental rugs, authentic antiques, and silk draperies.

  Beatriz stopped at the edge of a gorgeous Sarouk rug. “Should we take our shoes off?”

  “People have done much worse than walk on that rug.” Jack was thinking of the night that he’d hit big on one of his contingency-fee cases, and Theo had stopped by to help him celebrate with “shots of tequila, no training wheels”—no salt, no lime. It hadn’t been pretty.

  Jack led them to what was once Julia Tuttle’s dining room, now his private office. Rather than take the power position behind his desk, they each took an armchair near the fireplace that had once been the house’s only source of heat. Jack didn’t want to jump right into business, so he asked Beatriz about the Star Wars T-shirt she was wearing. He was failing miserably in his attempt to convince her that there was blue bantha milk in his refrigerator when Cecilia reminded them that the meeting had a purpose.

  “Beatriz and I talked about what happened to her mother,” Cecilia said.

  The transition was too abrupt. Beatriz fell silent and drew her hands into her lap, tightening them into twin balls of tension.

  “Let’s ease into this a bit,” said Jack. “You know what we came here to talk about, right, Beatriz?”

  She nodded.

  “We all know something bad happened to your mom in El Salvador. Let’s just call it ‘the situation,’ okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “How old were you when the situation happened?”

  “Eight.”

  “Where were you when it happened?”

  “Home.”

  “Where in your house?”

  She wrung her hands. “I can’t remember.”

  “Do you remember where your mother was?”

  She paused, as if trying to recall. “I don’t.”

  “Was anyone else in the house?”

  Another long pause to search her memory. “Not that I remember.”

  Cecilia jumped in. “She doesn’t remember much.”

  “That’s okay,” said Jack, keeping his focus on Beatriz. “I just want to know everything you can remember about the situation.”

  Beatriz breathed in and out. “I remember I was home with my mom. And I remember hiding in a closet.”

  “Why were you hiding in the closet?”

  Her struggle continued, and Jack saw more pain than strain in her expression. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you want a minute to think about it?”

  “I said I don’t know,” she said sharply.

  “That’s fine,” said Jack, keeping his voice gentle. “Is there anything else you can remember?”

  Her eyelashes fluttered, a
s if powering her recall. “I remember talking to a man about it.”

  “About the situation?”

  “Right.”

  “Was your mom there for this conversation?”

  “No.”

  “Who else was there?”

  “A police officer.”

  “Was this in your house?”

  “No. I think it was the police station. It was a long time after—after the situation. They asked me a lot of questions.”

  “Was this after your mother was charged with a crime?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Do you remember what you told them?”

  “No.”

  “Do you remember anything at all?”

  Beatriz shook her head.

  Jack could have probed further, but Beatriz appeared to have had enough. And Jack wanted a word in private with Cecilia. He told Beatriz to wait where she was while he and Cecilia stepped out. Jack closed the door on the way out and led Cecilia to the reception area in the old living room.

  “Did Julia change her mind about this?” he asked.

  “I don’t understand your question.”

  “At our meeting this morning, Julia told me that Beatriz was a witness to the crime. From what I heard in there, I get the impression that Julia had second thoughts about putting her daughter in this position, so she called Beatriz while I was flying back from Jacksonville and told her not to get involved.”

  “That’s not what’s going on.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because that’s what a good mother would do.”

  Jack hadn’t expected that. “Are you saying Julia’s not a good mother?”

  “No, I’m sorry,” she said with a shake of her head, chiding herself. “I didn’t mean that. This is all just so stressful.”

  “Cecilia, is there something you should tell me about your sister?”

  “No. That was just a stupid remark I made. It makes me sad to see what Beatriz is going through day after day, and sometimes I get mad at Julia for it, but this is not her fault. Just forget what I said.”

  Jack didn’t answer right away. He let the silence linger, taking note of how Cecilia handled it.

  “Seriously,” said Cecilia. “Nobody told Beatriz to get amnesia.”

  “Okay,” said Jack. “But if Beatriz isn’t under her mother’s order to forget everything, we have a child witness with some seriously suppressed memories.”

  “I don’t know what to do about that.”

  “I have a couple of ideas,” said Jack.

  “I hope at least one of them is good.”

  Jack gazed toward his office, thinking of Righley, thinking that Beatriz had been just four years older than his own daughter when she’d witnessed something no child should ever witness.

  “So do I,” he said.

  Chapter 15

  The light in Hugo’s closet switched on, and he felt the barrel of a gun pressing up under his chin.

  “Don’t shoot,” he said, barely moving his mouth.

  “Soon, you will beg for this bullet.” It was El Lobo, and he smelled like tequila. “Now get up. We’re going to the party room.”

  The party room. Not again.

  Hugo felt the barrel of the gun against the back of his head, as El Lobo tied his wrists behind his back. He did a poor job of it. Much more slack than usual. Definitely drunk.

  With his hands behind his back and a drunken Zeta breathing down his neck, Hugo walked down the hallway as directed and entered the party room. El Lobo’s men were seated on barstools around the grill, but there was no hostage. The men were using it as a card table. Two empty bottles of tequila were on the floor. A full bottle was being passed around. In the middle of the table was a pile of cash.

  “Keep walking,” El Lobo said.

  The barrel of the gun felt glued to the base of his skull as Hugo stepped forward. The drunk Zetas welcomed him with merriment as El Lobo shoved him toward the grill.

  Hugo’s throat was going dry. “I will never give you a phone number,” he said with defiance.

  “Shut up!”

  Hugo showed no reaction, but the response cut through him like a knife. El Lobo had a frightening edge to his voice. Tequila could make men mean, and a meaner El Lobo was not a good thing.

  “Kneel,” said El Lobo.

  Hugo lowered himself to his knees, his gaze cast toward the floor. El Lobo grabbed him by the throat.

  “I’m going to give you one more chance: Give us a phone number.”

  El Lobo released his grip, and Hugo coughed in his struggle for air. “Kiss my ass,” he said, coughing again.

  El Lobo gathered the nylon rope that El Electricista used to tie the prisoners to the grill. Then he went to the small table in the corner of the room, picked it up, and smashed it to pieces on the floor. He grabbed one of the broken table legs with one hand and held the loop of rope in the other.

  “My friends,” he shouted to his fellow Zetas, “I give you the garrote!”

  The men responded with a rhythmic chant, as if they were at a soccer game: “El garrote, el garrote, el garrote!”

  “Quiet!” shouted El Lobo, and then he stepped closer to Hugo. “You ever heard of the garrote, Señor Hugo?”

  Of course he had. The gangs of El Salvador were always looking for more inventive ways to murder their rivals. But Hugo said nothing.

  “Let me show you.” El Lobo dropped the loop over Hugo’s head like a noose. Then he fed the table leg through the rope and turned it quickly, tightening the slack. It squeezed around Hugo’s neck, but not too much.

  “The rules are simple, my friends. I deal each of you one card. Low cards take a shot of tequila and add fifty pesos to the kitty. High card turns the garrote. Just one turn. And here’s the payoff: if it is your turn of the garrote that makes the Salvadoran give us a phone number, you take the pot!”

  The men rolled with laughter, loving it, except for one skeptic, a fat guy who was naked from the waist up and covered with tattoos. “What if he won’t give a phone number and just dies? Who gets the pot?”

  El Lobo smiled at the man’s stupidity, then reached down and tapped Hugo not so gently on the face. “He’ll give us the phone number,” El Lobo said, still smiling.

  The men laughed. The fat one poured a round of shots, which the Zetas belted back in a toast to El Lobo and his imaginative games.

  “Let the tournament begin!” shouted El Lobo, as he dealt the first round of cards.

  The losers groaned, took their hundred-proof medicine, and anted up their fifty pesos each. The Zeta who’d been dealt a king of hearts gave the table leg another turn. Hugo’s head tilted back, and the noose gripped his neck. He had no intention of giving up a phone number, but even if he’d wanted to, he could never have forced the words from his mouth.

  El Lobo dealt another hand. The losers drank a shot of tequila. Another winner turned the garrote. Hugo groaned, but it was more like wheezing. His vision blurred.

  Still another hand was dealt. Ace of spades topped queen of diamonds.

  Drink, drink, drink!

  Another turn of the garrote.

  Hugo could no longer bear it. His body twisted, his feet slid out from under him, and he rolled to the floor. One of the men—another winner?—grabbed him, maintaining pressure on the garrote as he buried his knee into Hugo’s sternum. Hugo was pinned on his back, completely at the man’s mercy. His head pounded with congestion, like the worst sinus headache imaginable. His eyes bulged. His face flushed red. It was as if he could hear nothing but his own desperate grunts, but then he heard something more.

  El Lobo was shouting at him, demanding a phone number.

  Hugo struggled to make out the words, wanted to answer if it would end this suffering. But it was all running together.

  The garrote tightened further. Hugo tasted blood in his mouth as small bleeding sites erupted in the moist, soft
mucosa of the lips and mouth. The shouting continued, except that to Hugo’s ears it no longer seemed like shouting. It sounded like . . . singing. As he struggled to remain conscious, El Lobo and his gang were singing to him like a choir of angels.

  The explosion that followed left Hugo aghast. A crimson shower of blood and gray matter left him wondering if his head had actually exploded, but El Lobo was suddenly on top of him, lifeless, with a gaping hole in the top of his shattered skull.

  “Coño!” Hugo shouted, shocked to discover that he had a voice. There was no pressure on the garrote, but his excitement was short-lived, as mini-explosions erupted across the party room. The windows shattered, woodwork splintered into pieces, and Zetas dropped to the floor in pools of their own blood.

  “La policía!” a wounded Zeta shouted. He shot out the lights with a pistol, raised an Uzi to the window, and returned the spray of gunfire.

  Hugo played dead in the darkness, gaining strength and continuing to recover from the garrote as bullets flew overhead. Another Zeta dropped to the floor, shot dead. A bullet skipped across the tile inches from Hugo’s face. Maybe it was a police raid. Maybe a rival gang had declared war. Whoever was showering the Zeta stronghold with bullets seemed to draw no distinction between kidnapper and hostage.

  Gotta get out of here!

  Hugo wriggled his hands free from behind his back—El Lobo’s tying had been sloppy indeed—and took the automatic pistol from El Lobo’s dead hand. In the darkness, he slithered across the floor to the door, which was already pockmarked with bullet holes as another spray of gunfire from somewhere outside the building sent more splinters flying.

  Hugo counted at least three dead Zetas on the floor. Two others, maybe a third, were at the windows returning gunfire. Hugo could stay in the party room and die with the criminals or he could make a run for it.

  Hugo checked the pistol. Nine millimeter. Semiautomatic. Fifteen rounds in the magazine and one in the pipe. He took a deep breath, said a quick prayer, and flung open the door. The pop-pop-pop of gunfire was all the warning he needed to keep his head low as he launched himself into the hallway.