The Girl in the Glass Box

by James Grippando

  “Seriously?” said Jack. “Is that what this meeting is about? My cross-examination tactics?”

  “You implied that MDPD is conducting a homicide investigation in a way that works to the advantage of the DHS in a deportation hearing.”

  “Miami is not a sanctuary city. As a matter of policy, local law enforcement coordinates with federal immigration authorities. I’m entitled to pick and probe to uncover the extent of that coordination.”

  “MDPD doesn’t compromise homicide investigations to help the feds win deportation hearings,” said Arnoff.

  “All I did was point out the truth,” said Jack. “Your DNA evidence didn’t connect Jorge Rodriguez to the murder of Duncan McBride. My only intent was to help my client, not to hurt your investigation.”

  Detective Barnes could sit quietly no longer. “Forget the DNA evidence, Swyteck. What if I told you MDPD has other evidence that Jorge Rodriguez is in Miami?”

  “I’d say I haven’t seen it.”

  Barnes opened the manila file folder in his lap, removed a one-page document, and laid it on the corner of the prosecutor’s desk. “Here’s a draft BOLO,” said Barnes, referring to a “be on the lookout” notice. “How’s that hit you?”

  Jack took it. The BOLO warned that “the subject should be considered armed and dangerous.” It included a grainy photograph, typical of security-camera images, with the caption: “Last seen at Downtown Dadeland Apartments.”

  “When did you get this picture?” asked Jack.

  “This afternoon. It took time to review the security-camera video from Downtown Dadeland and find a good image.”

  Jack looked at the photograph again. He’d met plenty of murderers behind bars. Nothing had quite the impact of the photo of a murderer on the loose. “Has this been issued?”

  Barnes and the prosecutor exchanged glances, seeming to agree that Arnoff should be the one to explain.

  “Look, Jack,” he said in a civil tone. “I hear you’re a straight shooter. If I tell you something, I need your agreement that it doesn’t leave this room. Can I have your word on that?”

  Jack glanced at Barnes, who still seemed angry. But Arnoff appeared to be on the level. “Sure. You have my word.”

  “We don’t have enough evidence to arrest anyone on murder charges. Not yet. But the guy in that security video left the Downtown Dadeland Apartments with a twenty-year-old woman who has an apartment there. He stayed with her for at least a couple of nights after the murder of Hugo Martinez. We don’t know if this young woman left the apartment with him of her own free will or if he forced her to go with him. We don’t know if the guy is dangerous or just a friend.”

  “You don’t consider Jorge Rodriguez dangerous?” Jack asked with surprise.

  “There’s the rub,” said Arnoff. “If we knew this was Jorge Rodriguez, we’d issue a missing-person’s BOLO for the safety and welfare of this young woman.”

  Jack double-checked the BOLO. “So you’re not sure this is Jorge Rodriguez?”

  “We have nothing to compare this image to. We’ve never seen his picture.”

  “Neither have I,” said Jack. “Julia left everything to do with him back in El Salvador. But surely you can get something through law enforcement channels. Mug shot, driver’s license, passport.”

  “We tried,” said Arnoff. “The response we’ve gotten so far is that he’s an informant in their witness protection program. Eventually, we’ll get through the red tape, but at the moment we have nothing.”

  Jack’s thoughts turned back to safety. “The woman who has the apartment at Downtown Dadeland. Who is she?”

  “Rosa Fields. A college kid who messed up her life. Drugs. Prostitution. Her neighbors say it’s normal for her to disappear for days at a time, and no one has filed a missing-person report. But like I said, if we knew for certain that the guy she left with is a badass like Jorge Rodriguez, we’d issue a missing-person BOLO for her safety.”

  “You think she . . .”

  “We don’t know,” said the detective.

  “Which brings us back to the purpose of this meeting,” said Arnoff. “We need someone to confirm that the man in this security video is Jorge Rodriguez.”

  “By ‘someone,’ you mean my client,” said Jack.

  “To be blunt,” Barnes added, “if that guy in the picture is Jorge Rodriguez, and your client keeps it to herself, how’s she going to feel if he kills again? What if that woman with the apartment at Downtown Dadeland didn’t leave with him by choice?”

  Of course Jack had already considered that possibility, but the fact that Barnes would spell it out so clearly gave him pause.

  “That would be a horrible thing, wouldn’t it?” said Jack.

  “Yes, it would,” said Barnes.

  Jack held his response, partly because he wanted to be sure to say everything that needed to be said, but also because he couldn’t believe the game that was being played. As the silence lingered, the sincerity seemed to drain from the prosecutor’s expression. Neither man looked sincere. They were flat-out smug.

  “You had me going for a minute there,” said Jack.

  “Excuse me?” said Arnoff.

  “That line about not being able to get so much as a driver’s license photo from El Salvador? Nice try. But who do you think you’re dealing with, a first-year law student? The police don’t have to link a name to a face in order to issue a BOLO. And you sure as hell can issue a BOLO before you have enough evidence to arrest someone. I’m betting you’ve already issued this BOLO.”

  “Why would we call you in here if we already issued it?” asked Arnoff.

  “I don’t know,” said Jack. “Maybe ICE sees this case as an important precedent and wants to win at all costs. Maybe I pissed off the wrong government lawyer ten years ago and now it’s finally coming back to hurt one of my clients. But this phony ask for Julia’s help to attach her husband’s name to this photo has Simone Jerrell’s fingerprints all over it.”

  Barnes scoffed. “There you go again with your government conspiracy theories, Swyteck.”

  “The department is trying to convince Judge Kelly that it’s safe to deport my client back to El Salvador because her husband is here in Miami. Jerrell hasn’t proven where Jorge Rodriguez is. But if you can get Julia to confirm that the man in this photograph is her husband, that’s an admission right from her own lips. Slam dunk. Case over.”

  “Everything has unintended consequences,” said Barnes.

  “Unintended?” said Jack, incredulous. “This isn’t about getting the information you need to issue a BOLO. You’re asking my client to sign her own deportation order.”

  “If it makes it any easier,” said the prosecutor, “I’d be happy to submit a letter to Judge Kelly letting him know that she cooperated in our investigation.”

  “I’m sure that would look very nice in a frame hanging on the wall in her apartment in San Salvador,” said Jack.

  Barnes sharpened his tone. “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you, Swyteck? But I can tell you how this is going to play out if something happens to that young woman from Downtown Dadeland. Does your client really want to be the illegal who refused to help MDPD save the life of a college girl from Indiana? Do you want to be the lawyer for that illegal?”

  Jack rose without responding.

  The prosecutor rose with him. “Jack, let’s get real. You know her husband is here. Your client knows he’s here. Simone Jerrell dropped the ball and failed to prove it. But haven’t you won enough cases on technicalities in your career?”

  Jack folded the draft BOLO and tucked it into his coat pocket. He would never accept that forcing the government to prove its case was a “technicality,” but the thought of a young woman who may or may not have left her apartment “by choice” had gotten to him. Deep down, he knew he was right—that the BOLO had already been issued and that this meeting was a stunt.

  But he wasn’t willing to bet someone else’s life on it.

 
; “I’ll speak to my client,” said Jack.

  Chapter 59

  Jorge parked the car on Main Highway, which he found confusing, since it wasn’t a highway at all. It was the main street through Coconut Grove, where vehicles moved only slightly faster than the pedestrians who strolled past sidewalk cafés and open-air bars that catered to a casual clientele. Rosa was in the passenger seat. Outside her window, across the sidewalk by the old stone wall, was a brass plaque of the National Register of Historic Places. They were near the Barnacle, Miami’s oldest house, built before Coconut Grove had streets, highways, or even motorized vehicles. More important, they were a half block away from Cy’s Place.

  “I can’t do this,” said Rosa.

  Her constant chatter and restlessness were making Jorge crazy. Not even the threat of the choke-chain collar could keep her in line. An addict in need of a fix responded to one thing only. Jorge pulled a foil packet from his pocket and dangled it before her eyes. She lit up like a child on Christmas morning.

  “Oh, my God. Is that—”

  “Yup. How long’s it been, Rosa?”

  She nearly doubled over, rocking back and forth in her car seat, as if it hurt just to think about it. “I don’t know. Too long.”

  Jorge lowered the driver’s-side window. “I could just throw it away.”

  “No, no!”

  “If you can’t help me with one little thing, why should I reward you with this?”

  Rosa fell back into her seat, breathing out her frustration. “How do you know she’s even going to be there?”

  Jorge pulled up a photograph on his cell phone and showed her the fruits of his informal surveillance of Cy’s Place. “This is Beatriz’s routine,” he said. “She sits at the table in the front by the window and does her homework every school night.”

  Rosa checked out the image on his screen. “Cute girl.”

  It was just her honest reaction, but Jorge took it as an opportunity to work a little psychology on Rosa. “Yeah,” he said in the sincerest tone he could muster. “I really miss her.”

  Rosa looked at him curiously. “No offense, but you don’t seem like the loving-father type.”

  He looked at her with sad eyes. “You don’t know me. Why do you think I act the way I act?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Beatriz was my whole life in El Salvador. She’s my only child. I almost had a second, but you know what happened?”

  “No.”

  “My wife got a boyfriend, and he made her have an abortion. He didn’t want my kid in her life.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “I know, right? But that’s not all. Then she and her boyfriend stole my little girl and took her to Miami.”

  “That’s so—” She stopped herself, flashing a quizzical expression. “Wait a minute. If the boyfriend made your wife get an abortion because he didn’t want your kid in his life, why did they steal your daughter?”

  Jorge’s lie was quickly falling apart. “Just to spite me, I guess. They’re bad people.”

  “So mean.”

  “Yeah, it is. That’s why I say her boyfriend got what he deserved.”

  “Was that the guy you shot?”

  “Yeah.”

  Rosa seemed to accept it, but she was rocking back and forth in the car seat again, her thoughts consumed by what really mattered to an addict. “I can have that packet if I help you, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I’m not going to help you steal your daughter back. You can put that dog collar on me all you want. I won’t do it.”

  “I’m not saying you have to do anything like that. This is very simple. I just need to know where my daughter is.”

  Rosa folded her arms tightly, still rocking, trying to stop her hands from shaking. “You know where she is. You just said she’s in Cy’s Place doing her homework.”

  “I need to know where she is all the time.”

  “How can you do that?”

  Jorge opened the console and removed the bag from the pet store. Rosa recoiled, as if expecting a dog chain. But they sold all kinds of gadgets at the pet store.

  “This is a little GPS tracker,” Jorge said, showing her the package. “It attaches to a dog collar. The app on your cell phone tells you where the dog is, wherever he goes.”

  “Doesn’t the battery run out?”

  Rosa asked way too many questions. “That’s not your problem. It lasts a week without recharging it. That’s long enough for me to track Beatriz.”

  “So you want me to ask her to wear it?”

  She was truly annoying. “No, she doesn’t have to wear it. Beatriz carries her backpack with her wherever she goes. I want you to go into Cy’s Place, strike up a conversation with her about any bullshit that interests a teenage girl. Do whatever you need to do to get next to her. And when you get the chance, just slip this into one of the five hundred little pockets in her backpack.”

  “What if I don’t get the chance?”

  Her dumbest question yet. “Then instead of this,” he said, showing her the foil packet, “you get this,” he said, pulling the dog chain from his coat pocket.

  Rosa crossed her arms tightly again, as if hugging herself, trying to stop the trembles. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll get it done.”

  He handed her the transmitter. “Make sure you do,” he said in a very serious voice.

  Chapter 60

  Julia did the right thing.

  Jack had laid out the options. Her best case for an asylum claim was to keep quiet and force Simone Jerrell to live with the record she’d created—to leave it “inconclusive” as to whether Jorge Rodriguez was in Miami or in El Salvador. Jack was “99.9 percent certain” that MDPD had already issued the BOLO and that the sole purpose of showing Julia the security-camera photo was to force Julia to admit, conclusively, that her husband was in Miami. For Julia, the one-tenth of 1 percent chance that she held another woman’s safety in her hands was enough.

  “It’s him,” Julia had told Detective Barnes. “That’s my husband.”

  Jack attached similar odds—99.9 percent—to the likelihood that Judge Kelly would order her deported.

  Julia caught the bus but didn’t go home. She rode to Cecilia’s house, took a seat on one of the lawn chairs on the front stoop, and waited in the darkness. She knew her sister would return home eventually. An hour passed, the night air turned chilly, but Julia’s anger didn’t cool. A bus stopped across the street and pulled away. Cecilia was left standing on the sidewalk.

  Julia rose, and their eyes met. Darkness stretched in the fifty feet between them, but Cecilia was bathed in the glow of the streetlamp, and Julia was in the yellower glow of the porch light. Julia tightened her glare, as if to tell her younger sister, Don’t you dare walk away from me.

  Cecilia crossed the street and stopped halfway up the sidewalk. Julia stepped toward her and stopped.

  “You want to explain yourself?” asked Julia.

  Cecilia said nothing. From her puffy eyes it was clear that she’d been crying, but any Salvadoran girl who’d ever set foot in a Catholic church knew that Judas had also wept.

  “I’m sorry,” said Cecilia. “It’s not the way you think.”

  “Jack told me what ‘accessory after the fact’ means. Jorge killed Duncan McBride. You helped him ditch the car.”

  “That’s not what happened,” said Cecilia.

  “It’s your DNA on the cigarette butt, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. But listen to me, will you, please? Just once, hear my side of it?”

  Julia swallowed her anger. “All right. Talk.”

  “You were in jail. Beatriz was staying with me and turning numb before my eyes with that resignation syndrome or whatever it was. Then, to make it even worse, this McBride bastard threatened her on the bus on her way to school.”

  Julia knew that much was true; Beatriz had told her about the bus. “What does that have to do with Jorge?”

  “The night you g
ot out of jail, Jorge came here to see me. I told him to go away, but he wouldn’t leave. He said he had to talk to me. I didn’t want to make a scene in front of my roommates, so I agreed to go for a ride with him.”

  “In Duncan McBride’s car?”

  “I thought it was Jorge’s car. He offered me a cigarette, and I smoked it. He told me Beatriz didn’t have to worry about McBride anymore.”

  “Yeah, because he killed him,” Julia snapped.

  “I didn’t know that! I had no idea what that meant. Nobody knew McBride was dead at that point. Jorge dropped me off. I left the cigarette butt in the ashtray. That was it. I swear.”

  Julia studied her sister’s expression. It could have been true. Probably was true. But Julia sensed that she was leaving something out.

  “How did Jorge even know that McBride threatened Beatriz on the bus?”

  Cecilia was silent.

  “Cecilia? How did he know?”

  Tears welled in Cecilia’s eyes.

  “You told him, didn’t you? Be honest with me, Cecilia. How long have you known Jorge is in Miami?”

  “A while,” she said softly.

  “How long have you been in touch with him?”

  Cecilia started to tremble. “Jorge is not the guilty person you say he is, Julia.”

  “He raped me and choked me with a dog chain!”

  “You said you got that burn mark on your neck from the zip line.”

  “Yeah, just like I said the black eye was from walking into a door. And the sprained wrist was when I tripped while running. Do I have to go on and on? Do you think I’m the first victim of domestic violence to make excuses for her husband?”

  “I didn’t lie on the witness stand. I never saw him hit you.”

  “I didn’t say you lied. But that doesn’t excuse what you just said. How can you stand there and tell me to my face that Jorge is not the guilty person I say he is? Forget what he did to me. He killed two people just in the short time he’s been in Miami.”

  “I didn’t mean he’s a good guy. I meant . . . he’s not the only one to blame.”

  “Blame for what?”

  Cecilia hesitated, then just blurted it out. “For what Beatriz has had to live through.”