The Girl in the Glass Box

by James Grippando

  “When?”

  “Who knows? Typical hospital bureaucracy. Like a glacier on Valium.”

  “Have you been here all night?”

  “Yeah. Julia said I could go, but I didn’t want her to be alone if something bad happened.”

  Sweet, thought Jack. It was Theo Knight’s new handle. The whole world was turning upside down.

  There was a commotion on the other side of the room. One of the substance abusers was getting tired of waiting, and another one was tired of his constant complaining about the wait. A couple of orderlies, one of them bigger than Theo, came out to calm the men down. It occurred to Jack that Miami could use more orderlies.

  “I got an e-mail from the immigration court in Orlando this morning,” said Jack.

  “Don’t tell me that the judge is sending her back to Macclenny.”

  “No. But he was serious about fast-tracking Julia’s request for asylum. Judge Greely’s calendar is full, so he transferred the case to the rocket docket down here in Miami. Her final hearing is specially set. We start two weeks from tomorrow.”

  “Rocket docket?”

  “I made that up. The official name is the U.S. Immigration Circus Cannon. Judge P. T. Barnum packs it with Latinos and shoots them back over the border.”

  It made Theo laugh, and the depth of his laughter made it clear that he was getting punchy. “You should go home and get some sleep,” said Jack.

  The pneumatic door to the ER opened and Julia emerged. Jack and Theo rose to meet her halfway across the room. She looked frazzled.

  “Everything okay with Beatriz?” asked Jack.

  “She’s awake and seems fine.”

  “Are they going to admit her to the hospital?”

  “The doctor said no two hours ago. Dr. Nelson is her name. But now they tell me the doctor wants to talk to her alone and I have to wait out here.”

  “Let me see what’s going on,” said Jack. He went to the admissions window. The receptionist was on the telephone, and while he was waiting, the commotion resumed on the other side of the room. Two police officers had entered, and the gangbanger with a bloody hand took off like he’d seen a ghost, even though the cops didn’t seem at all interested in him. The pneumatic doors opened, a doctor led the officers back to the patient bays, and the doors closed automatically.

  Julia walked over to Jack and said, “That was Beatriz’s doctor. Why are the police here?”

  Jack was suspicious but didn’t want to alarm her. “That doctor probably has twenty other patients. But let me check it out.”

  The receptionist finally got off the phone, but she was no help. “Are you having severe chest pain or the worst headache you’ve ever had in your life?” she asked.

  “No,” said Jack.

  “Then please have a seat.”

  The pneumatic doors opened again. The police officers were back. So was Beatriz’s doctor. “Julia Rodriguez?” one of the cops said in a voice that filled the waiting room.

  Jack didn’t like the feel of this situation. “I’m her lawyer,” he said, stepping toward them. Julia and Theo went with him.

  The female officer did the talking. “We’d like to talk in private to Ms. Rodriguez.”

  “What about?” asked Jack.

  “Her daughter.”

  “Is she okay?” Julia asked, and Jack heard the panic in her voice.

  “Yes,” said Dr. Nelson. She was one of the younger-looking doctors on duty, but with the tired eyes of a resident in the twelfth hour of her ER shift. “Both the police and I have some questions for Ms. Rodriguez.”

  Theo waited in the lobby as Jack and Julia followed the doctor and police officers into an examination room down the hall. Dr. Nelson closed the door.

  “I’m concerned about Beatriz’s well-being,” she said.

  Jack glanced at the police officers. “My client is not answering any questions until I know exactly what your concern is, Doctor.”

  “Beatriz is a healthy teenage girl with no history of chronic illness reported. This is the second time she’s presented to the emergency room in less than two weeks.”

  “We’re going through a tough time,” said Julia.

  “Let’s just listen,” Jack told his client. “Doctor, why are you concerned about two visits to the ER?”

  “I reviewed her medical record from her hospital stay. A complete battery of tests. Neuroradiology and neurophysiological examinations were negative. Electroencephalogram, magnetic resonance, computed tomography of the skull, and laboratory screenings were all unimpressive.”

  “I don’t understand what she’s saying,” said Julia.

  “They didn’t find anything wrong with her,” said Jack. “Which I think I can explain, Doctor. Have you ever heard of resignation syndrome?”

  “No,” she said without interest. “Have you ever heard of carfentanil?”

  “No. Sounds like fentanyl.”

  “It’s harder to detect that fentanyl, and tests can often miss it. Even autopsies are not foolproof. But we got lucky. It showed up in Beatriz’s urine screening.”

  “Do you suspect drug use?” asked Jack.

  “I asked her if she’s a user,” the doctor said. “She said no. I believe her. But what about you, Ms. Rodriguez? Are you a drug user?”

  “Don’t answer that,” said Jack.

  “No!” said Julia, ignoring her lawyer.

  “Julia, I’m going to send you out to sit with Theo if you say another word,” said Jack.

  “This is my daughter, Jack!”

  Jack gave her that much. “Exactly what is carfentanil, Doctor?”

  “It’s an animal tranquilizer that veterinarians use on elephants in zoos.”

  “Elephants?” said Julia.

  “Julia, please,” said Jack.

  “No, Jack! I need to know what’s happening here. What is this doctor saying?”

  “Let me spell it out,” said Dr. Nelson. “One of two things is going on here. Either Beatriz ingested a bad dose of a synthetic recreational drug, like fentanyl, which contained carfentanil. Or someone is trying to put Beatriz into a coma.”

  Jack narrowed his eyes, realizing what this show of police force was all about. “Munchausen by proxy. Is that what you think is going on here?”

  “Factitious disorder,” she said in a voice that made Jack feel old. “Nobody calls it Munchausen anymore. But yes, that’s why I called the police.”

  Jack measured his words, responding in a calm tone. “I have one question for you, Doctor. Is there a medical reason to admit Beatriz to the hospital?”

  The doctor didn’t seem to like the question, but at least she was honest. “No. Medically speaking, we’ve done all that we need to do. This is a legal matter.”

  “Then we’re leaving,” said Jack. “And we’re taking Beatriz with us.”

  The male police officer stepped in front of Jack, blocking his exit. Jack would never physically threaten a police officer, but a firm voice was in order. “Officer, unless you have a court order to keep my client away from her daughter, I suggest you step aside right now, or I will be filing a false imprisonment lawsuit against the Miami Police Department that will make you wish you’d never met me.”

  The officer glanced at the doctor, took her nonverbal direction, and then backed away.

  “Just so you know, I do intend to report this to DCF,” the doctor said.

  Jack didn’t know if Julia understood that DCF meant the Department of Children and Families, but she clearly grasped the gravity of the situation, and she started yelling in Spanish at the police officers in such an angry and hysterical voice that Jack couldn’t even begin to comprehend. All Jack could do was whisk her out of the room before she said something that somebody more fluent could potentially use against her in a court of law.

  “I’m not leaving Beatriz here!” Julia shouted as they exited through the pneumatic doors.

  Jack handed her off to Theo in the waiting room. “Take her out,” Jack told hi
m.

  “Huh?”

  “Just take her to the car and wait,” said Jack.

  “What are you going to do?” Julia asked.

  “I’m going to become one huge pain in the ass,” said Jack, “until I walk out those doors with your daughter.”

  Chapter 44

  Jack drove Julia home in his car. Theo drove Beatriz separately in his. Jack needed alone time with Julia to ask the hard question of his client.

  “Did you give Beatriz that drug?”

  “No!”

  “Did you give her any drugs?”

  “Absolutely not. I would never hurt Beatriz.”

  “Have you done anything to make it look like she has resignation syndrome?”

  “Jack, I never heard of resignation syndrome until you told me about it.”

  Jack asked the same questions several different ways throughout the ride, and he got the same vehement denials.

  They reached the house before eight a.m. Cecilia and her roommates had not yet left for work, so their cars were in the driveway. Jack pulled up behind Theo on the street. Beatriz jumped out of Theo’s car and hurried up the walkway to the front door. Jack wasn’t entirely fluent in the body language of teenage girls, but Beatriz was making a pretty obvious statement that she didn’t want to talk.

  “Mind if I come in for a minute?” Jack asked Julia. “I have a few questions for Beatriz.”

  “Sure.”

  Beatriz entered the house and closed the door as Jack and Julia climbed out of Jack’s car.

  “Good luck,” said Julia.

  Julia went to Theo and thanked him. Jack wasn’t trying to listen to what she said to him, but he would have bet money that it included the word sweet. Theo drove away as Jack followed Julia into the house. Cecilia was in the kitchen making coffee. Beatriz marched to her aunt’s room and slammed the door shut. Jack joined Julia in the kitchen.

  “How is Beatriz?” Cecilia asked.

  “Fine,” Julia said sharply. “No thanks to you.”

  Cecilia set her coffee cup on the counter, as if taken aback. “I called you three times last night. You told me not to come to the hospital.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about, Cecilia. They found drugs in her urine.”

  “No way! Not Beatriz.”

  “Oh, don’t act so shocked,” said Julia. “And don’t pretend like you don’t know where she would get them. You’re the only one in our family who ever did drugs, Cecilia.”

  Jack suddenly felt invisible, an unwitting witness to a previously unknown-to-him slice of history between sisters.

  “Really?” Cecilia said, indignant. “You’re putting this on me?”

  “I was in jail the first time Beatriz had to go to the emergency room. Beatriz was staying with you and your party-girl roommates.”

  “My party-girl roommates and I have given you half our apartment, shared our kitchen and our bathroom and our food with you, given you our spare bedroom, and turned the living room into a bedroom for your daughter. We have been nothing but good to you. And this is how you thank us?”

  “I don’t owe a thank-you to anyone who turns my daughter onto drugs made out of elephant tranquilizers.”

  “Go to hell, Julia.”

  “No, you listen to me!”

  “Stop!” Beatriz shouted. She was standing in the kitchen doorway. Heads turned in her direction, and they waited for Beatriz to speak.

  “It wasn’t Tía,” said Beatriz.

  Julia and Cecilia stood speechless. Jack spoke up as a neutral. “Where did you get it, Beatriz?”

  “School,” she said. “There’s a boy who has an older brother.”

  Julia’s gaze swung toward her sister, and she was about to apologize, but Cecilia walked out. Julia looked at Beatriz, but her daughter was even less receptive.

  “Don’t talk to me,” said Beatriz. She left the room, headed down the hall, and just kept going—through the front door and out of the house.

  “Let me talk to her,” said Jack.

  Julia nodded, and Jack left through the front door. He caught up with Beatriz at the end of the driveway. She was leaning against Jack’s car, arms folded tightly, staring down the block.

  “Hey,” said Jack, leaning against the fender. He was at her side, and they shared a view of the morning commuters that zipped through residential streets in search of shortcuts to work.

  “Hey, yourself,” she said.

  “Your mom was due for a blowup. I hope you know that. This is unbelievably stressful for any human being. And she’s only human.”

  “She always blames Tía for everything. It’s like she’s jealous that Tía is the only one here legally.”

  Jack hadn’t thought of that, and there could well have been something to it. But this conversation wasn’t about the sisters.

  “Why did you do it, Beatriz?”

  She turned her head just enough to glance at Jack. “It wasn’t my idea.”

  “Whose was it?”

  “My friend at school. Vivien. I talk to her about what’s going on. I told her what the judge said: that if I get better, my mom goes back to jail. She said her brother has this stuff that made him sleep for two days.”

  “Carfentanil?”

  “She didn’t say what it is. But it doesn’t take much. Like one shake of salt is all you need.”

  Unless you’re an elephant. “When did you take it?”

  “Yesterday. After the cops talked to me, I felt like this was going bad. They think Mom and me have something to do with killing Mr. McBride. So I thought if I made myself sick again, then . . . I don’t know what I was thinking. Stupid, I know. Just really stupid.”

  “When was the first time you took it?”

  “That was the first time.”

  Jack paused, confused. “So that night I called nine-one-one and you ended up in the hospital, you’re saying you didn’t take any drugs?”

  “No. Drugs had nothing to do with that.”

  Jack would have been more skeptical had Dr. Nelson not confirmed that the lab work from that first visit detected no toxins. “Then how did you get sick?”

  “I wasn’t sick.”

  “Were you faking it?”

  “No. It’s like I told you before. My mind and my body just went into this place, this trap, and I couldn’t come out. I don’t have a name for it. You did.”

  “Resignation syndrome.”

  “Is that real?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Jack. “Did it feel real to you?”

  Beatriz nodded.

  “Then I guess that’s the answer,” he said.

  The front door opened, and Cecilia came out of the house. She was dressed for class and headed to her car.

  “Why don’t you go inside and give your mom a hug,” Jack said. “I want to talk to your aunt.”

  Beatriz pushed herself away from the car reluctantly and headed for the house. Jack approached Cecilia as she opened the car door.

  “Is everything okay between you and Julia?”

  She stopped and gave Jack a serious look. “No. It’s not okay, and it’s not going to be.”

  “Look, Cecilia, your sister has been through—”

  “No, please. Just stop right there. I don’t want to hear more excuses. I’ve had enough, and my roommates have had more than enough. Beatriz can stay here if she wants, but Julia has to go.”

  “You’re kicking her out?”

  “She did it to herself.”

  “I’m sure she’s sorry.”

  “I’m sure she is, too,” said Cecilia. “She always is, and everybody always forgives sweet, pretty Julia because she’s Julia—until they just can’t take it anymore. Eventually, she drives everybody away. If you don’t believe me, ask her husband.”

  Cecilia got into the car and closed the door. Jack watched as she backed out of the driveway and pulled away, wondering if Cecilia had spoken in anger.

  Or if she’d meant it.

  Chapter
45

  On Monday Jack went on the legal offensive. He filed an emergency motion in criminal court to get to the bottom of the state attorney’s decision to collect Beatriz’s DNA not through a formal request to her mother but by ambushing her at school. Miami-Dade circuit judge Horatio Sloan set the motion for hearing at four o’clock. Assistant State Attorney Phillip Arnoff was on the other side of the courtroom to defend the actions of Detective Barnes and the Miami-Dade Police. Simone Jerrell from the Department of Homeland Security was at his side, which Jack did not take as a good sign.

  “It didn’t have to be done this way, Your Honor,” Jack told the court.

  “Just because it could have been done another way doesn’t make it wrong,” said Arnoff.

  “I understand your position,” the judge said. “But let me ask you this, Mr. Arnoff. Did Detective Barnes advise this child of her rights under Miranda before getting her consent to a DNA sample?”

  “No. Under the law, Detective Barnes was required to issue a Miranda warning only if she was a suspect in the murder of Duncan McBride. She was not and is not a suspect.”

  “Judge, I’m not here to argue about Beatriz’s rights as a suspect,” said Jack.

  “Glad to hear that,” said the judge. “Personally I think the Supreme Court is off in la-la land when they say that a Miranda warning makes it okay to question a schoolkid without a parent in the room and with the school principal there to encourage her to tell the truth. The reality is that even as the police interrogator is telling them they have ‘the right to remain silent,’ most kids are texting about it or updating their Facebook status in real time.”

  Jack liked the way this was going. “Your Honor, this motion is filed on behalf of Beatriz and her mother, Julia Rodriguez. Part of the reason they fled El Salvador was the domestic violence inflicted by Beatriz’s father. Until the body of Duncan McBride was found in their apartment here in Miami, my clients were under the impression that Jorge Rodriguez was still in El Salvador. For their own safety, they have a right to know if he is a suspect in the murder of Mr. McBride and is therefore in Miami.”

  “How does the DNA sample from Beatriz tie in with this?”