Twenty

by James Grippando

  Jack saw a vacant lot surrounded by a chain-link fence. A faded billboard promised condominiums “Opening Summer 2015”—a deadline that could now be met only with the aid of time travel. There were a few mounds of gravel and deep ruts from truck tires, but the weeds had taken over.

  “I think this used to be a joint called the Harlem Square Club,” said Theo. “Long gone.”

  “Yeah,” said Jack. “Like Maritza.”

  Chapter 34

  Jack didn’t like what he heard in Andie’s voice. She wasn’t suspended, but she’d cashed in a sick day and was calling from home. Andie was not a crier, and the verge-of-tears moment they’d shared that night on their patio, right after she was hit with the lawsuit, was a rarity. But there was something in her voice that Jack had never heard before, something more worrisome: defeat.

  “What’s happening to me just sucks beyond belief.”

  “Andie, I don’t think you should have left the office.”

  “You have no idea what a rumor mill that place is, Jack. I had to get out.”

  He listened in private, through earbuds, as Theo drove them out of Overtown. Andie recounted the whole conversation with the ASAC. Schwartz was a decent guy and, Jack had always thought, a genuine fan of Agent Henning. But they didn’t call it the Federal Bureau of Investigation because it was immune from bureaucracy, and Schwartz was to some extent a prisoner of his own position. Jack’s real beef wasn’t with the FBI, anyway. It was with Duncan Fitz.

  “He didn’t have to involve the bureau in his pissant lawsuit,” said Jack. “I know Hannah is your lawyer of record, but I’m not going to stand for this.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I can think of a couple things,” said Jack. A left hook to Fitz’s jaw was high on the fantasy list.

  “Please don’t do anything while you’re angry,” she said.

  Jack didn’t answer.

  “Jack, please. Don’t.”

  “I promise on one condition. You need to go back to the office.”

  “Today?”

  “Yes, now. You can’t let this beat you. There’s no reason for you to feel shame. I’ll see you at home tonight. I love you.”

  The call ended.

  “Everything okay?” asked Theo.

  “Not really,” said Jack. Andie had every right to feel down, but it just wasn’t like her to deal with adversity by leaving work early and going home.

  Jack’s focus turned to the root of the problem. “Drop me off right here,” he told Theo.

  Theo pulled up to the curb near the side-street entrance to Amir Khoury’s office building. Jack’s car was still in the parking garage. He got out and watched Theo drive away, but he didn’t enter the garage. He walked to the corner and crossed Brickell Avenue—to the offices of Coolidge, Harding & Cash. Not even the pleasant greeting from the young woman at the reception desk could temper his resolve.

  “I need to see Duncan Fitz,” he told her. “Please tell him it’s urgent.”

  She apparently remembered him from the prior visit. “Right away, Mr. Swyteck.”

  Jack stood by as she spoke into her headset. He couldn’t hear the response, just the receptionist’s stream of “Uh-huh, uh-huh, u-huh.” Finally, she looked at Jack and relayed the message, straining with concentration to get it exactly right—oddly, the same face Righley made when spelling her name backward.

  “Mr. Fitz thanks you very much for stopping by, and he asks that you please leave the check here with me.”

  “The what?” said Jack, and then his anger surged. Treating him like the courier of the settlement check was beyond insulting. Jack knew the way to Fitz’s office, and he started down the hallway.

  “Mr. Swyteck!” the receptionist shouted, but Jack had too much of a head start to be chased down by a woman wearing high heels. The door to the senior partner’s corner office was open. Jack went straight inside and closed the door behind him, startling Fitz, who was seated at his desk.

  “You’re lucky you and my father are old friends,” said Jack. “Or I might punch you right in the nose.”

  “Trust me, Jack. There were times when the governor wanted to punch me in the nose, too. Sit, please.”

  “Don’t downplay this. Filing the lawsuit was one thing. Lodging a complaint against my wife with the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility is crossing the line.”

  “Easy, Jack. This is not personal. I believe it was Clausewitz who said war is the mere continuation of policy by other means. I think of litigation as the continuation of business by other means.”

  “This is beneath even you, Duncan.”

  Fitz rose, but it took longer than it should have. His hip seemed to be bothering him. “My arthritis is acting up,” he said, grunting. “Getting old sucks.”

  It made Jack angry, but in a different way. His intention had been to shred the old man, and Fitz was making it feel like an attack on his own grandfather. Jack half expected him to offer a cherry Life Saver.

  “I want you to know that this was not my idea,” said Fitz.

  “It’s your case,” said Jack. “If someone on your legal team has a Machiavellian mind, you’re responsible.”

  “No, I meant the idea of lodging a disciplinary complaint did not originate from within this law firm. They asked me to do it.”

  “You mean your client? The school asked you to do it?”

  “No,” he said, grimacing as he massaged his hip. “I’m not making myself clear. Sorry. Damn this arthritis. I mean the feds.”

  Jack wasn’t following. “Someone in the federal government asked you to report Andie to the FBI? That’s what you’re telling me?”

  Fitz stood up straight, breathing out the pain. “That’s exactly right.”

  “Who?”

  Fitz shook his head. “I can’t tell you that, Jack.”

  “Why did they ask you to do it?”

  “I honestly don’t know why. But as you know, this law firm has an all-star white-collar criminal defense team. We represent some of the biggest corporations in the world facing billions of dollars in fines for violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. When the feds ask for a favor, you do it. You never know when you might want to cash in your chips.”

  “Was it someone in the FBI who asked?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “You have to tell me.”

  He stepped closer and looked Jack in the eye. “All I can tell you is this: you’re smack-dab in the middle of something much bigger than you can imagine.”

  Jack met his stare. “I think you’re bullshitting me.”

  Fitz smiled a little, shaking his head as he returned to his desk. “Then I’ll pray for you.”

  “I thank you for that.”

  “Oh, and Jack,” Fitz said, before Jack reached the door. “Tell the receptionist to validate your parking ticket on the way out. What that garage charges is highway robbery.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  Jack closed the door on his way out and went straight to the elevator. He wasn’t sure what to make of Fitz’s claim that someone in the federal government had solicited his complaint against Andie. But he knew one thing: it wasn’t information he should keep to himself. The elevator doors opened to the main lobby. Jack speed-dialed Andie on her cell phone.

  “Honey, are you at the office yet?”

  “Almost. You don’t have to check up on me, Jack. I’m going back to work.”

  “Sorry, I wasn’t checking up. I just met with Duncan Fitz. There’s something you need to know.”

  “What?”

  Jack hesitated. Of all the federal agents he’d met over the years, no one was prouder of her work than Andie. She didn’t warm easily to conspiracy theories, and neither did Jack.

  “This came from Duncan Fitz, so consider the source.”

  “Jack, I’m walking into the building now. What is it?”

  The lobby was more crowded than Jack would have liked, but he found a quieter spot b
ehind a potted palm tree.

  And then he gave her the painful news.

  Chapter 35

  Abe Beckham hurried back to his office, late for his meeting with Sylvia Gonzalez. It was his third trip of the day to and from the courthouse. A sentencing hearing before Judge Miller at nine a.m. Back to his office. A guilty plea before Judge Salvador at eleven. Back to his office. Another hearing at two. Back to his office. Thankfully, it was a short walk from the justice center to the Graham Building and its appropriately shaped footprint.

  The Boomerang Building.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said, as he entered his office and hurried to his desk. Gonzalez was waiting for him.

  “Not a problem,” she said. “Hopefully you’ve had time to reconsider our phone conversation.”

  Gonzalez had called him after her meeting with Swyteck and explained how finding Xavier’s accomplice was a “Justice Department priority.” To that end, the State Attorney’s Office needed to be “flexible” on the death penalty. Beckham had told her no. She’d asked him to think about it, which he’d promised to do. In no way had he encouraged her to fly all the way down from Washington to hear his final answer.

  “I’m sorry you made the trip,” said Beckham. “If you were under the impression that a face-to-face meeting might make me more amenable to dropping the death penalty, you were mistaken. The state attorney’s position is unchanged.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I thought I’d made the DOJ’s priorities clear.”

  “Honestly, I’m not convinced there was an accomplice. Maybe someone—his mother, probably—ditched the vest, the ski mask, the goggles, and the rest of his gear as an accessory after the fact. But an accomplice on the front end? No. I see Xavier Khoury the same way history records ninety-nine percent of mass shooters. A lone wolf.”

  “What if you’re wrong about that?”

  “Prove me wrong. Show me some evidence.”

  It was clear from her body language that Gonzalez was reluctant to do so. “I’m not asking you to drop your case, Abe. I shouldn’t have to compromise a federal investigation to convince you that it’s in the interests of national security to offer Xavier Khoury life without parole in exchange for the name of his accomplice.”

  “Threatening a man with death unless he names an accomplice is a dangerous game,” said Beckham. “Even if you get a name, the accomplice will argue that Khoury just made it up to avoid the death penalty. And you know what? The man may have a point. Everything I see tells me no accomplice.”

  “Then where did Khoury get the extended magazines?” she asked.

  “Really? That’s your evidence of an accomplice? It’s not illegal to own an extended magazine. Anybody can buy one at a flea market, online, or at countless other places. Unlike a handgun, you don’t even have to register them under state or federal law. The important thing is we know exactly where he got the murder weapon.”

  “The gun with the unidentified fingerprint on it,” she said.

  “The gun with Xavier Khoury’s fingerprint on it.”

  “Aren’t you at all concerned that the extraneous print will raise a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors?”

  “Not in the context of the totality of the evidence. That print could belong to the guy who washes Amir Khoury’s car.”

  “And Swyteck will argue that it could have been that guy who shot up Riverside Day School.”

  “Which the jury will find laughable. It was Xavier Khoury. And I can prove it. He murdered thirteen innocent children, fourteen now with the Abrams girl, and a science teacher—a hero—who died trying to save his students. Khoury deserves to die for what he did.”

  Gonzalez rose, seeming to realize that Beckham was not about to budge. “I’m very disappointed, Abe.”

  “Don’t be,” he said, walking her to the door. “Charge Mr. Khoury under federal terrorism laws as you see fit. But I answer to the people of this community, and fourteen of the youngest and most promising members of that community were murdered in cold blood. The Office of the State Attorney is seeking the death penalty. Period.”

  Jack was determined to leave his office before five o’clock.

  One of the great things about Riverside Day School was its after-care program. Jack and Andie had used it to the fullest extent. With the change of schools, Abuela was filling in at the house from three till seven on school days. But 7 p.m. was practically bedtime—Abuela’s, not Righley’s. She was in her eighties and too proud to admit that she was slowing down. Max was getting on in years, too, the upside being that he no longer posed a danger of jumping up and knocking Abuela over. But Jack didn’t like to push his luck or his grandmother. At a few minutes before five, he headed for the door.

  “I have to show you this, Jack,” said Hannah.

  Two more steps and it would have been a clean getaway. “Can it wait till tomorrow?”

  “Five minutes. That’s all I need.”

  She was too excited for Jack to say no. “Two minutes,” he said.

  She led him to the kitchen, where her laptop was open on the table. On-screen was a frozen frame from what Jack immediately recognized as the surveillance video at Riverside on the morning of the shooting.

  “Exactly what am I looking at?” said Jack.

  “Xavier Khoury,” said Hannah.

  Jack looked more closely. The shooter was not in the frame. He saw only high-school-age students running in a hallway.

  “I don’t see him,” said Jack.

  Hannah pointed. Jack looked even more closely. It was a boy. Dark hair. About Xavier’s build and skin tone. He was wearing the same uniform that all high school students at Riverside wore.

  “I don’t see it.”

  Hannah increased the zoom. The resulting pixelation only made the image worse. “Now I really don’t see it,” said Jack.

  “You don’t have to. I found a face recognition expert who will say she sees it. In her opinion, that is Xavier Khoury running from the gunman, like the rest of the students.”

  Jack was more than skeptical. To his eye, the zoomed image on the screen was little more than a scattering of magnified dots. “Hannah, there are so many problems with this, not the least of which is how are we going to afford a face recognition expert. How much does she charge?”

  “Two thousand dollars.”

  In the world of expert witnesses, that wasn’t much. “That’s all? Total?”

  “No. Two thousand an hour.”

  Shades of the parking garage: For the first fifteen minutes.

  “I don’t like this,” said Jack. “The jury will see how grainy this image is. Beckham will destroy this expert as a hired gun: ‘Pay her enough and she’ll say that’s Christopher Columbus running down the hallway.’”

  “She’s highly respected in her field,” said Hannah. “She uses an accepted video-pixelation-enhancement technique.”

  “Let’s get real. Do you truly believe that’s Xavier caught on video?”

  “I believe my expert is qualified to render an opinion that it’s him.”

  Given the day Andie was having, Jack was in no mood to debate the limits of a lawyer’s ethical duty to be a “zealous advocate.” He wanted to be home when Andie got there.

  “We’ll talk tomorrow.” He said good night to Bonnie on his way out and headed to his car in the driveway. A couple of blue jays had dropped direct hits on his windshield. Jack loved the sprawling limbs of century-old oaks that canopied the front yard, but he wished the birds would find another bathroom. It was such a common occurrence that he kept a spray bottle in the trunk. He was rummaging around for a clean rag behind the spare tire when he heard a footfall in the pea gravel behind him and a voice that was vaguely familiar.

  “How is Xavier?”

  Jack turned around slowly. He knew he hadn’t been seeing things in the courtroom, and one look at her face confirmed it. “Nice to see you, Maritza.”

  “Is Xavier going to be okay?” she asked.

 
“I was told you were deported.”

  “And the best thing is to let everyone keep on thinking it.”

  She had a black gym bag slung over her shoulder. “What’s in the bag?”

  “That’s not important. A friend from the coffee shop told me you’re looking for me. I want you to stop. I’m of no value to you. The alibi was a lie. I was not with Xavier during the shooting.”

  “I figured that out on my own. I want to know why you lied.”

  “Because I love him. And because he didn’t do it.”

  Jack was much more interested in the second part of her answer. “How do you know he didn’t do it?”

  “Xavier got mixed up with some bad people. I got him mixed up with bad people.”

  “The imam told me you’re a prostitute.”

  She paused, and it was apparent to Jack that the word wounded her. “Of course he would say that,” she said. “But this is not about me. Xavier is not a murderer. He didn’t do this. He’s the fall guy.”

  “Then why doesn’t he just deny it?”

  “The same reason I want the world to think I’ve been deported to El Salvador. He’s afraid.”

  “He could get the death penalty if he doesn’t deny it.”

  “He’s not afraid for himself. When I say these are bad people, I mean bad. They will kill his sister, his brother, his mother. He can’t deny it.”

  “Who are these people?”

  “Ask Xavier. I can’t tell you.”

  “I need your help. He won’t talk to me. Maybe he’ll talk to you. Come visit him with me.”

  “I can’t go anywhere near him! It’s risky enough for me to come here and see you.”

  “Tell me how to break through to him.”

  “I’ve told you enough. You don’t need me to figure this out. It’s all there. Find it. And leave me alone.”

  “The name you used at the coffee shop was Maritza Cruz. I’ve run every background check I can legally run. There’s nothing to connect ‘Maritza Cruz’ to anyone who even vaguely resembles you. That’s not your real name, is it?”

  “What do you think?”