Gone Again

by James Grippando

  “Hold on one minute,” the judge said. “You’re saying that even though this is a so-called disposable phone, Ms. Burgette received calls from this same number twenty-eight days apart?”

  “Yes, Your Honor. Disposable phones aren’t exactly like disposable razors. People can keep the same burner for weeks or even months.”

  “Okay, where is the incoming call on this exhibit?” the judge asked.

  “It’s highlighted in yellow on page two of the exhibit.”

  “Yes, I see it now. Has law enforcement been able to identify the owner of that incoming phone number?”

  Jack explained the problem of prepaid cell phones, cash buyers, and no service contract. The judge had presided over enough trials of drug dealers to understand.

  “Ms. Burgette, tell the court what you heard in the call last night.”

  “Nothing,” she said in a soft voice. “It was silence for two minutes. Just like the last three calls.”

  “Did you say anything?”

  “Yes, of course. I kept encouraging her to say something. I said, ‘Sashi, talk to me! Please!’”

  “There was no reply?”

  Debra shook her head. “No.”

  “Thank you. No further questions.” Jack returned to his seat beside Hannah.

  The prosecutor rose. “Judge, I would like a sidebar before cross-examination of this witness.”

  The judge waved counsel forward. Four lawyers, two from each side, huddled with the judge alongside the bench, their conversation out of earshot of the witness and spectators. The prosecutor spoke first.

  “Judge, this witness is the mother of a murder victim. For the reasons I discussed in chambers yesterday, I prefer not to put her through cross-examination and treat her as an adverse witness if the court is still inclined to deny Dylan Reeves’ petition and lift the stay of execution.”

  “The landscape has changed considerably since I spoke in chambers yesterday,” the judge said. “In fact, my inclination is to extend the stay of execution as long as the FBI is actively investigating whether Sashi Burgette is still alive.”

  “No one said the FBI is investigating anything,” said the prosecutor.

  “I inferred otherwise from Mr. Swyteck’s remarks.”

  “No,” she said. “That might be what Mr. Swyteck tried to talk his wife into doing after they went to bed last night, but I know of no FBI investigation.”

  “That was way out of line,” said Jack.

  “Yes, it was,” the judge said sternly.

  “I apologize. But if the court’s ruling will be influenced by whether or not the FBI has opened an investigation, then I would like a short recess to get the facts straight.”

  “Maybe Mr. Swyteck already has that information.”

  “I do not,” said Jack. “That’s an internal matter at the Bureau.”

  “All right,” said the judge. “We’ll reconvene this afternoon at two p.m. And in case you’re worried, Ms. Carmichael, yes, I will remind the witness that she remains under oath.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” said Jack, and he didn’t feel the need to say anything more.

  For now.

  CHAPTER 22

  Andie spent the first part of her morning revising the operational budget for Operation Pill Mill, and the irony was not lost on her when she took a break to head downstairs to the infirmary. Nurse Rebecca was on site in the Miami field office to assist agents and staff with everything from a case of the sniffles to necessary immunizations for travel to the Brazilian rain forest. Andie just wanted her blood pressure checked.

  “Your systolic is up a bit from yesterday,” said the nurse, as she removed the Velcro cuff from Andie’s arm. “Have you been givin’ yourself enough lookin’-out-the-winder time?”

  Andie assumed that “looking-out-the-window time” was another one of those great expressions that Rebecca had borrowed from her grandma in Birmingham. “Probably not.”

  “You need breaks, Andie. Breathin’ exercises are good. And avoid stress.”

  Avoid stress. Had Rebecca suddenly forgotten than they worked in the same building? It was “like tellin’ the flame to avoid the fire”—another good one from Rebecca’s grandma.

  “I’ll try.”

  Andie went back upstairs to finish working on her budget. The phone rang as she entered her office. It was Agent Hidalgo from the Violent Crimes Against Children Unit, which came as a surprise. ASAC Schwartz had pulled her off the investigation because of the Jack connection and possible conflict of interest.

  “I’ve spoken with my unit chief,” said Hidalgo.

  “Steve, before you say anything more, you should know that I’m walled off from this investigation.”

  “I know. But that’s the point of my call. There is no investigation, and I thought you had a right to know.”

  Andie lowered herself into her chair. “That sure didn’t take long.”

  “Let me put it this way: it would be unprecedented for the FBI to reopen a missing-person investigation where the victim’s killer has been convicted and sentenced to death, and he’s literally a cell door away from the execution chamber.”

  Andie couldn’t get comfortable. It wasn’t Hidalgo. Her baby had picked a most inopportune time to press on her bladder. She lifted herself up from her desk chair and stood at the window. “I wasn’t expecting you to issue an Amber alert. But I wasn’t expecting to run into a wall so soon, either.”

  “I understand. But the facts as proven in a court of law are the facts. Miami-Dade Police investigated each of those phone calls that Debra Burgette received on her daughter’s birthday. The firm conclusion is that this is a hoax.”

  “I don’t agree with that conclusion.”

  There was a slight hesitation on Hidalgo’s end of the line. “You think Sashi is alive?”

  “I don’t think this is a pervert getting his jollies by messing with Sashi’s mother.”

  “Are you circling back to the idea that Sashi was stolen back by her biological parents?”

  “Let me just say that when Schwartz told me to hand this case off to you, I was hoping someone would at least be open to the possibility that it could have been them. Or maybe a friend, a neighbor, a relative—anyone who, in line with long-standing Chechen tradition, believed it was his or her right and responsibility to raise Sashi after her parents were killed in the war if she hadn’t been stolen from her extended family, her community, her village. Or maybe it’s someone who doesn’t know Sashi or her family at all. Maybe it’s someone connected to a completely different Chechen family who thinks their stolen child was sold to the highest American bidder, so they steal Sashi from these rich Americans.”

  “But if any of those things happened, where has Sashi been for three years?”

  “Co-opted. Brainwashed. Locked in a basement, God forbid. Remember, we are dealing with a teenager—now an adult—who has reactive attachment disorder. I’m hamstrung here because this is my husband’s case and I can’t be involved. But I have to say I’m not comfortable with the door slamming on all these possibilities in less than twenty-four hours. Especially now that we know this latest call originated from the area in south Florida we call Little Moscow.”

  “Wow. You make a stronger case for Sashi being alive than your husband does. Maybe you should join his legal team.”

  Andie was about to laugh right along with him, but she didn’t hear any laughter coming from the Washington end of the line. Is that what the pushback from Washington is about, Steve? The mommy-to-be agent helping her husband?

  “Jack doesn’t need a cheerleader,” she said.

  “That’s good. Because here’s something that might change your view. I asked one of the tech agents to look at the same cell tower data that Agent Kusak examined in your office.”

  “Did your guy interpret it differently?”

  “He understands how Kusak reached his conclusion. The data showed that the call was routed to a cell tower in what you say is Little Mosco
w. Based on that, Kusak concluded that the prepaid cell phone was located in that same area.”

  “Right.”

  “But a call from a cell doesn’t always get picked up by the nearest tower. If that tower is overloaded, the call will reroute to another tower. Of course, this is all happening in split seconds.”

  “Right. So?”

  “I don’t want to get too deep into tech-speak, but here’s the gist. My tech guy looked into the routing patterns in south Florida. The cell tower closest to Debra Burgette’s house is—well, let’s call it Cell Tower A. If someone makes a call to Debra’s house and Cell Tower A is overloaded, the usual pattern would be for that call to reroute to the cell tower in Little Moscow.”

  “So even though the caller isn’t actually in the Little Moscow area, the cell-phone records would suggest—at first glance, anyway—that the call was initiated from Little Moscow.”

  “Exactly. This is a very congested network. Calls are rerouted every second from overloaded towers. My techie believes that this two-minute call to Debra from the prepaid cell was rerouted.”

  “So, in his view, Debra and the caller were actually closer to each other than the cell tower records would indicate.”

  “Right.”

  “Which in your mind means what?”

  “It could mean several things.”

  “What do you think it means?”

  “I’m speculating, I admit. But it’s at least possible that when Debra Burgette received this phone call, she had her cell phone in her left hand and a burner in her right hand.”

  Andie hesitated, staring out the window as she followed his implication through to its disturbing conclusion. “Debra called herself?”

  “Yeah. And she knew that her cell-phone records would show yet another two-minute phone call from a prepaid cell, which can’t be traced back to anyone. The cell tower analysis doesn’t rule out that possibility.”

  “Why would Debra do that?”

  “Desperation. She sincerely believes that her daughter is alive. She believes even more strongly that Sashi can be found only if she can somehow get law enforcement to reopen the missing-person investigation.”

  “I see your point. But I also see a gaping hole in it.”

  “Which is what?”

  “If that were Debra’s motivation, why did she tell us that she heard only silence on the line? There’s no recording of these phone conversations. No data is preserved, other than the length of the call. There’s no way for us to know what was said or if anything was said at all. If Debra has been buying prepaid cell phones, making these calls to her own cell, and claiming that Sashi’s on the line—a premeditated plan to convince the police that they should reopen the investigation because Sashi is alive—why wouldn’t she take her lie to the next step?”

  “What next step?”

  “If she’s making this up, she could just as easily say, ‘Sashi called. She talked to me. She wants to come home. Help me bring her home.’ Why stop at saying that Sashi called me and won’t say anything?”

  Hidalgo didn’t have an answer. “I see your point, too.”

  “Good. Where does that get us?”

  He breathed out again. “I’m afraid it doesn’t get the missing-person file reopened. That much I know.”

  “Okay,” said Andie. “But I’m going to keep my eyes and ears open. And I’ve got your number on speed dial when I have something.”

  He seemed to take notice that she’d said “when,” not “if.”

  “I’ll be right here,” he said. “Anything else I can do for ya?”

  Andie was still bothered by Hidalgo’s insinuation that she had followed this lead to help her husband. “Yeah, there’s one thing. You should call Barbara Carmichael about the cell tower analysis. And share your theory about Debra calling herself as well.”

  “It’s more speculation than theory. I don’t think that part is even worth sharing.”

  “It’s important to me that you do,” said Andie. “Anything we do in connection with this case, we need to let the chips fall where they may.”

  “All right.”

  “So you’ll call her?”

  “Yeah. If you want me to.”

  “Thank you,” said Andie. “I want you to.”

  CHAPTER 23

  The hearing in Judge Frederick’s courtroom resumed at two p.m.

  Jack had nothing to report. If the FBI was planning to reopen the Sashi Burgette investigation, they weren’t telling the lawyer for her accused killer. Jack hadn’t bothered to call Andie directly and put the question to her. Crossing that line would have been an egregious violation of the unwritten rules that kept them happily married.

  The prosecutor delivered the news in open court. “Judge, the bottom line is that the FBI’s National Crime Information Center’s missing-person file on Sashi Burgette remains closed.”

  “And that’s not going to change?” asked the judge.

  “I don’t have that information.”

  Jack believed her. It wouldn’t have been the first time that a local state attorney had been left off the FBI’s need-to-know list.

  “Very well,” the judge said. “Shall we bring in the witness?”

  “Yes,” said the prosecutor. “At this time the state of Florida would like to proceed with the cross-examination of Debra Burgette.”

  The courtroom deputy brought the witness forward. Debra took her place, and the judge reminded her that she was still under oath. She nodded with so much apprehension that Jack thought she might ask for a blindfold and cigarette.

  God, I hope this was the right decision, he thought.

  The prosecutor approached and stood before her. It wasn’t a threatening posture, but it was clear who was in control. “Good afternoon, Ms. Burgette. I’m sorry we have to see each other again under these circumstances.”

  Debra nodded again, then cut her eyes toward the gallery. It was only a split second, but Jack followed her gaze, and it led straight to her ex-husband.

  “Do you remember the first time we met?” asked the prosecutor.

  “Yes,” Debra said softly.

  “You’ll have to speak up a little bit,” the judge said.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice not much louder. “I do.”

  “That was a horrible period in your life, and I hate to take you back there. But we talked about Sashi at our first meeting. Didn’t we?”

  “We did.”

  “You told me that you loved Sashi and that, in her own way, you believed that Sashi loved you. Do you remember that?”

  “I do.”

  “But it was a difficult relationship. You told me that in the four years Sashi lived with you, she’d run away from home several times.”

  “Yes.”

  “At least six or seven times, you told me. Maybe as many as ten. Correct?”

  “Around that number. But those were nothing like what we’re talking about here. Sashi would get angry and run out of the house, and we wouldn’t know where she was. And it was awful, and stressful. But she was never gone overnight.”

  “And part of the reason it was so awful was that you felt guilty.”

  Jack rose. “Objection,” he said, but he used a gentle tone, so as not to jar the witness. “It’s just improper to make an insinuation like that in this setting.”

  “Sustained.” It may or may not have been the proper ruling in the legal sense, but Jack had pushed the right button.

  “I’ll rephrase,” said the prosecutor. She returned to the podium and retrieved a notepad. “Let me try to recall your words as precisely as I can,” she said, checking her pad. “You told me: ‘Every time Sashi ran away from home, I felt like I was to blame. Whenever she ran, it was because I’d missed something. It was her cry for help.’ Did you tell me that, Ms. Burgette?”

  Jack could feel Debra struggling. The prosecution had fought to keep out all evidence of Sashi’s runaways, and now that Jack had managed to get it before the court, Carmichael
was using it against the defense—and Debra.

  “Ms. Burgette, did you say that to me? Or words to that effect?”

  “I think I did.”

  “You think you did? Or you did?”

  She swallowed hard. “I’m sure I did.”

  The prosecutor paused, as if ready to switch topics. “Again, I apologize for having to take you back to the worst day of any parent’s life. But I have to ask you a few questions about the day Sashi disappeared.”

  “I understand.”

  “You testified at trial that the last time you saw Sashi was on a Friday morning, when you dropped her off near her school.”

  Debra drew a breath. “Yes.”

  “Now, you also mentioned that you and Sashi had an argument during that ride to school. Isn’t that correct?”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” she said softly.

  “The argument was one of the reasons Sashi got out of the car before you actually reached the drop-off at campus. Isn’t that a fact, Ms. Burgette?”

  She stared blankly at Jack, as if fully aware that she’d told him a slightly different version. “Traffic was bad, too. She was afraid she was going to be late.”

  “Ms. Burgette,” the prosecutor said, her tone tightening. “Sashi ran from the car, didn’t she?”

  She swallowed hard, her expression almost numb. “She was in a hurry.”

  “At trial, you testified that you didn’t remember what that argument was about.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Do you recall now?”

  Debra did a double take, as if the question surprised her. “No.”

  “That’s understandable. Let me see if I can refresh your recollection.” The prosecutor went back to her table and retrieved a one-page document from a file. “Your Honor, I have here a copy of Ms. Burgette’s cell-phone billing record for the one-month period of time before Sashi’s disappearance. May I show it to the witness?”

  “If you think it will help her remember, you may.”

  The prosecutor provided a copy to Jack and to the judge. Then she approached the witness and handed the document to her. “Ms. Burgette, I focus your attention specifically to the lines that are highlighted in yellow. Please review them carefully, and let me know when you have finished.”