“Yesterday?” asked the judge, incredulous. “How did you come to find this out just yesterday?”
“It was pointed out to us by Gavin Burgette. Debra Burgette’s ex-husband.”
“No one mentioned this to you before yesterday?”
“No, Your Honor.”
The judge removed his reading glasses, as if that might make things clearer. “How is it that Mr. Burgette comes forward with that information three years after the fact?”
Detective Hernandez seemed more than happy to step into the mind of Sashi’s father and answer the question. “Mr. Burgette accepts the tragic fact that the jury got it right: his daughter was murdered by Dylan Reeves. He further believes that one of these men is responsible for the so-called birthday calls to Ms. Burgette.”
Jack needed to wrest control back from the judge, albeit respectfully. “Judge, I think the only person who can answer your question is Mr. Burgette. I’d like the opportunity to question him under oath.”
The prosecutor jumped in. “I believe this hearing is over,” she said. “None of this has anything to do with the question of whether Sashi Burgette is still alive.”
Judge Frederick rocked back in his chair again, this time even farther than usual, as if counting the tiles in the ceiling. “It concerns me that the defense was never told that Sashi Burgette was contacting strangers via the Internet in the month prior to her disappearance.”
“The defense could have subpoenaed Sashi’s computer records,” said the prosecutor. “That’s all they were entitled to receive.”
“It’s not that easy,” Judge Frederick said. “It seems to me that the government should have handed over Debra Burgette’s phone records if you knew that Sashi had given her mother’s cell number to strange men she was meeting on the Internet.”
“That’s exactly right,” said Jack. “And at that point, the defense might very well have discovered what MDPD claims it didn’t know until yesterday: that one of these callers on Debra Burgette’s call report was Carlos Mendoza, who is now serving time for human trafficking.”
The prosecutor shook her head. “Judge, if MDPD didn’t connect the phone number on the call report to the physical burn phone that was in Carlos Mendoza’s possession at the time of his arrest, it seems highly improbable that the defense could have made the connection.”
“Then how did Mr. Burgette make the connection,” the judge asked, “even if it was just yesterday?”
The prosecutor was silent. So was the witness. No one had an answer. The judge had hurt Jack with some of his questions to the witness, but this one, by contrast, was beyond helpful. It was a home run.
“Judge, again,” said Jack, “I’d like the chance to question Mr. Burgette under oath.”
“I hear you, Mr. Swyteck. Counsel, please take your seats.”
The prosecutor returned to her table, and Jack to his. Hannah looked ready to hug him. The judge addressed them in a solemn tone.
“Let me say that I’m deeply troubled by this development. It does seem to me that more facts need to be fleshed out on this issue. You’ll have a scheduling order from me by tomorrow morning, if not sooner. The stay of execution will remain in effect until further order of this court. The witness is excused but shall remain under oath. For now, we’re adjourned.”
With the crack of a gavel and at the bailiff’s command, lawyers and spectators snapped to their feet. As Judge Frederick stepped down from the bench and walked to his chambers, Jack discreetly scanned the courtroom. The crowd had thinned since the conclusion of Debra’s testimony, but one empty seat, in particular, caught Jack’s attention. It was in the first row of the public gallery, just on the other side of the rail, directly behind the prosecutor’s table.
For the first time since the start of the hearing, Gavin Burgette was nowhere to be seen.
CHAPTER 25
Jack drove straight from the courthouse to the Freedom Institute. Hannah was in the car behind him. Even his cell phone was leaving him alone. It was like another era, when driving was actually downtime, his posttrial therapy.
Jack crossed the drawbridge and continued on North River Drive, toward an old neighborhood along the river. Once exclusively residential, the area had evolved into a haven for small business. Many historic houses remained, preserving some sense of the old neighborhood, but they were now home to Pilates studios, computer-repair shops, and everything in between. So much had changed since his days alongside Neil Goderich. Jack, too, had changed. Still, he managed a nostalgic smile as he turned onto Northwest Ninth Court.
Court. Jack suspected that Neil had felt a little karma when, as a young and idealistic lawyer, he’d made that same turn off North River Drive and fallen in love with the perfect place that wasn’t located on a street, avenue, boulevard, terrace, lane, or road. When he wasn’t in court, Neil was on court. That was his life.
The Freedom Institute was their life, Hannah. Andie and I are in agreement about this.
Jack parked in the driveway and reached Andie on his cell as he crossed the lawn. “How are you feeling, honey?” he asked.
“I’m fine. Can I call you right back? You caught me right in the middle of something.”
“Sure.”
He put away his cell. Hannah had parked on the street, and Jack waited for her before heading inside. “Hannah, I want you to get me everything you can on Carlos Mendoza.”
“Eve’s on it already,” she said as they headed up the sidewalk. “The bad news is he refuses to talk with us.”
“You checked with the warden?”
“No. Mendoza has himself a high-priced lawyer on retainer. She called here before we could even pick up the phone and dial FSP. She made it crystal clear that Carlos Mendoza is represented by counsel and that he’s not talking to anyone.”
“I’m sure. Except the prosecutor.”
“What?”
“Think about it. Why would a guy who’s already serving time need a high-priced lawyer?”
The deduction came quickly. “To get his sentence reduced?”
“Correct, grasshopper. So who does his lawyer talk to?”
Another quick deduction. “You think Mendoza is cutting a deal to testify against Dylan Reeves?”
“It only makes sense. We’ve asked for a new trial. If I were the prosecutor, I’d be thinking ahead and talking to every single one of those ‘strangers’ on Debra Burgette’s call record. Maybe one of them has a connection to Dylan Reeves. Maybe it’s Mendoza.”
“But if there was a connection, wouldn’t it have come out in the first trial?”
“If there was no connection, why would Mendoza be all lawyered up? Situations change. Maybe Mendoza was in no mood to deal the first time around.”
“Sounds like another talk with our client is in order,” said Hannah.
Jack’s cell rang. It was Andie calling back. Jack told Hannah that he’d catch up, and she went inside. Jack stayed on the front steps, beneath the sprawling limbs of a gigantic live oak.
“Sorry about that,” she said.
“It’s okay. I was just checking in.”
“I’m glad you did. I didn’t want to bother you in court, but this is my ‘Andie the FBI agent’ phone call.”
“I’ve been expecting it. The answer is yes, the status of the FBI investigation into Sashi Burgette’s disappearance is an issue in my case.”
“Yeah, and that’s only about the tenth time I’ve heard that today. So I have to give you my speech. Here goes.”
Jack listened, but he could practically recite it from memory. Whenever one of his criminal cases had a connection to the FBI, Andie was required to certify to the special agent in charge of the Miami field office that appropriate “information barriers” were in place to prevent any possible compromise of the Bureau’s integrity.
“Have you given that speech to our baby yet?” asked Jack. “Or does FBI protocol not extend to future criminal defense lawyers?”
“That’s hilarious,” she said drily.
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“Seriously, though—I can’t even work on the case at home while you’re there?”
“Technically, that’s what the protocol requires.”
“But things have hit the proverbial fan here. It’s going to be a late night.”
“Work at the office. I’ll be fine.”
Jack hesitated. He’d known Andie to run down drug dealers in a dark alley at midnight. He’d seen the cuts and bruises on her body after an undercover assignment that she couldn’t tell him anything about. It seemed silly to say he was worried about her being home alone for a few hours, but the E-word, eclampsia, was on his mind.
“I should’ve been a real estate lawyer.”
“Dirt on your hands? Definitely not your thing, Jack.”
He laughed. “I’ll try to be home by midnight.”
“I’ll be asleep long before then. So, good night.”
“Good night, sweetheart.”
He tucked away his cell, started inside, and then stopped.
Dirt on your hands.
It had been an innocent joke, and Andie couldn’t possibly have known where Jack’s thoughts would take him; but as he stood on the steps of the Freedom Institute, it had triggered his darkest memory: the trial of Eddie Goss, a confessed sexual predator who stood accused of savaging a teenage girl. After the verdict of not guilty, protesters had pelted him with exploding baggies of animal blood on the courthouse steps, no subtlety in the “blood is on your hands” symbolism. Memories like Goss—his last trial for the Institute—kept him from walking into Neil’s old room and taking over.
Her blood is on you, Swyteck!
The front door opened, and Hannah peeked her head out. “You coming, Jack? I really think we should set up a phone call with Dylan Reeves.”
“Yeah, I’ll be right there.”
Jack continued up the stairs, went inside, and walked right past Neil’s old office, straight to the kitchen.
Andie tucked her cell into her purse as her ob-gyn entered the examination room.
“It’s a close call,” Dr. Starkey said with a sigh.
Andie’s afternoon blood-pressure check at the field office infirmary had shown more than a “normal” increase since the morning, and Nurse Rebecca had insisted that she see her doctor. The call from Jack had come while Andie was alone in the room, seated on the examination table and waiting for Dr. Starkey. Andie had chosen not to mention any of it, not wanting to worry Jack over nothing.
If it was nothing.
“How close a call is it?” asked Andie.
“If you were a few points higher on the systolic, I would definitely want to induce now.”
“But we’re still only twenty-eight weeks.”
“That’s the problem. But if your pressure spikes like this again, and we can’t get it under control, we have to be ready.”
“But the baby has to be ready, too.”
“Before thirty-two weeks, these are never easy decisions. I tell ya what. Let’s do another ultrasound and see exactly how big she is.”
“She?”
The doctor froze, catching herself too late. “Andie, I am so sorry. I completely forgot that you and Jack didn’t want to know.”
Andie wasn’t angry. She placed her hands gently on her belly and smiled. “My baby girl. Everything’s gonna be okay. Dr. Starkey and I are gonna take good care of you.”
The doctor smiled, but it was a serious smile. “Yes, we will.”
Dinner for Jack and the rest of the Freedom team was cold pizza peeled from the top of a cardboard box. One would think that if the delivery boy was going to sit on the pie, he could have at least kept it warm. The foursome was seated around the kitchen table, the speakerphone in the dead center of the table beside a stack of napkins. Dylan Reeves was on the line.
“It was a good day,” said Jack. “Your stay of execution is still in effect.”
“A ‘good day’? Really? I’m on death watch. How good do you think my fucking day was?”
“I get it,” said Jack.
“No, you don’t,” Reeves snapped back. “Nobody does, till you’re here. I heard the Supreme Court denied Elmer’s petition this afternoon.”
Elmer Hudson was the other FSP inmate on death watch. He was in the cell ahead of Dylan Reeves.
“That’s true. They did,” said Jack
“They got a guard sitting outside his cell twenty-four/seven now, watching everything he does, so he doesn’t spoil the party and kill himself before they can kill him. He goes on Monday afternoon.”
“Monday morning, actually,” said Hannah.
Jack gave her the “cut” sign, as if to say, “Not helpful.”
“Great. Monday fucking morning. And when he’s gone, they move me into his cell. Hardly nobody gets out of that cell alive. I’m next in line. Me and Elmer, we’re the lucky Lotto winners: four hundred fuckheads on death row, only three signed death warrants. Elmer’s number one, and I’m number two. Once Elmer’s gone, there’s nobody between me and the needle. If Judge Frederick says no more stay of execution, I’m dead.”
Eve reached over the speaker to peel off another slice of cold pizza, pulling as much of the congealed mozzarella from the delivery box top as possible. “Jack’s abuela is praying for you, Dylan,” said Eve.
Jack did a double take. Abuela was a devout Catholic, but he was quite certain that the only prisoners she’d ever prayed for were political ones in Cuban jails.
“God bless her,” said Reeves.
He wasn’t the first death-row inmate to find religion. Indeed, Reeves’ police interrogators had used scripture against this prodigal son of a preacher: “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”
“Dylan, I need to ask you a question,” said Jack. “And I need a completely truthful answer.”
“Ask it, then.”
“Do you know a man named Carlos Mendoza?”
There was silence on the speaker. Jack wasn’t sure if his client was taking a little extra time to search every corner of his memory for any connection to a man by that name, or if the name had immediately registered and Reeves was simply crafting his response.
“Never heard of him,” said Reeves. “Why?”
Jack gave him the thirty-second version of the courtroom exchange, Mendoza’s conviction and prison sentence for human trafficking, and his connection to the prepaid cell number that appeared on Debra’s call record.
“And the police never told my lawyer about this guy Mendoza?” asked Reeves.
“They should have. That’s one of our arguments,” said Jack.
“Sounds like a good one,” said Reeves.
“There’s a weak link in it,” said Jack. “There are ten strange men in total whose phone numbers appear on Debra Burgette’s call record. Nine of them we know for sure that Sashi had communications with over the Internet. We have actual printed e-mails of Sashi sending nine different men her photograph along with her mother’s cell-phone number. But Carlos Mendoza is different. His phone number is on Debra’s phone record, but there’s no evidence from Sashi’s computer records that she ever had any contact with Mendoza.”
“Maybe Sashi talked to him on the phone.”
“There would have been a record of that,” said Jack.
“Maybe they met in person. Just like I met her in person in the park.”
Met her, thought Jack. Another death-row euphemism. “Maybe. But it won’t be easy to prove. Mendoza won’t talk to us. We can subpoena him, but he could invoke the Fifth Amendment. Or he could just lie.”
“I think you gotta do whatever it takes!” said Reeves. “I’m running out of time here.”
Jack looked around the table, tired eyes all around from one long night after another. “Yeah, we know,” said Jack. “Time is short.”
Jack left the Freedom Institute before midnight. Saturday was just a few minutes old when he got home—technically speaking, one day closer to his client’s execution.
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He parked in the driveway and walked quietly to the front door, trying not to make any noise that might wake Andie on the inside. The porch light was burning, and he was aiming his key at the lock on the front door when he heard a car door slam across the street. Someone had been waiting in one of the cars parked at the curb. A man started walking up Jack’s driveway, his heels clicking on the pavers, his face obscured by a shroud of cloud-filtered moonlight. Jack waited at the door. The man continued up the sidewalk at a deliberate pace, no hurry at all, and then stopped before the steps to the front porch. He was just within reach of the porch light’s glow.
It was Gavin Burgette.
Jack readied himself, recalling Gavin’s threat the first time they’d met.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Gavin.”
“I’m not here to kick anybody’s ass,” he said.
“How long were you waiting in your car?”
“Not long. Half an hour.”
“You could have called me. I have a phone, you know.”
“The wait did me good. I honestly didn’t decide for sure to say anything until I reached for the door handle and got out of the car. I needed time alone to sort out my thoughts.”
“About what?”
He took another step forward, closer to the bottom step. “I had a talk with Debra tonight.”
“Does she know you came here?”
“It was her idea.”
“Her idea?”
“Debra and I haven’t agreed on much lately, but one thing I can’t argue with: if a man is going to be executed, you shouldn’t have any doubts about his guilt.”
“Are you having doubts?”
He didn’t answer right way. “I’m not as sure about this as Debra is. But it’s possible.”
“What’s possible?”
He looked away for a moment, then back. “That we don’t have the right man.”
Jack was speechless, but he forced a reply. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
“At the very least, I guess I owe you an apology.”
Jack stepped down from the porch, and the two men looked at one another, eye-to-eye. “You want to go for a little walk, Gavin?”
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