Gone Again

by James Grippando

  “It’s an emergency, all right,” said Jack. “And it doesn’t get any more real.”

  CHAPTER 65

  Jack and his team pulled another all-nighter. There was a working shower in the downstairs bathroom, and occasionally the water was even hot. Brian was in it, and Jack was next in line when Barbara Carmichael called. Jack and Hannah had her on the speaker in the kitchen.

  “I wanted to let you know that Aquinnah Burgette submitted to a polygraph examination,” said the prosecutor.

  “When?”

  “Just this morning.”

  “And?”

  “She failed.”

  It was almost as if the floor had fallen out below him. “Back up a step,” said Jack. “Aquinnah failed on what?”

  “On certain key questions concerning the disappearance of Sashi Burgette.”

  “Such as?”

  “All of them.”

  Jack knew that there were usually no more than three operative questions in any polygraph examination. “I’d like to know what questions she was asked.”

  “That’s confidential pursuant to an agreement between the state attorney’s office and Aquinnah’s attorney.”

  “Do you mean Nicole?”

  “Yes.”

  Jack was starting to feel outgunned. “Let me ask you this: Who chose the examiner?”

  “Aquinnah’s attorney made a recommendation, and I agreed to it.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Charles Whitehurst.”

  “What? How could you possibly approve him? Whitehurst is a known whore among criminal defense lawyers. He’ll give the desired answer to anyone who will write him a check. If his conclusion was that Aquinnah failed, Nicole obviously wanted Aquinnah to fail.”

  “That’s your opinion. Another person might conclude that Aquinnah has taken a page out of Sashi’s book. She’s become quite the storyteller.”

  “This is not a story. I witnessed it. This was a confession. I don’t mean to sound sanctimonious, but I need you to work with me a little bit—in the interest of justice.”

  “The wheels of justice are already on track. There. Now we’re both sanctimonious.”

  “Barbara, come on. An affidavit from Aquinnah would completely exonerate a man who is quickly running out of time.”

  “After this morning’s polygraph examination, it would be my position that any such affidavit is perjury.”

  “Any affidavit would be based on exactly what she told me.”

  “Look, the bottom line is that there isn’t going to be an affidavit. Aquinnah and her lawyer made that decision after the polygraph. All I can tell you, Swyteck, is to submit an affidavit from yourself on your client’s behalf.”

  “The court will attach no evidentiary weight to that, and you know it.”

  “But you’ll probably still file it, which is fine. It’s Saturday, and I’ll be checking my e-mail from home. Have a good weekend.”

  She hung up. Jack and Hannah were alone in the kitchen. The silence lingered until Hannah broke it.

  “What do you want to do, Jack?”

  He checked the time. Breakfast was over on death row. “Let’s call our client.”

  “What are you going to tell him?”

  Jack reached for the phone. Then he paused, looking Hannah in the eye. “That I believe him.”

  CHAPTER 66

  Jack poured himself a mug of coffee as Hannah double-checked the final revisions to their draft motion for stay of execution. It was approaching nine a.m.—the deadline that Jack had set for filing with the Supreme Court. A decision needed to be made.

  Hannah turned the final page and pushed the motion to the table’s edge. “I think it’s good.”

  Jack went to the refrigerator, but there was no milk for his coffee. “I agree. But ‘good’ doesn’t do it. Good gets our client executed.”

  She voiced no counterargument. “Where does that leave us?”

  Jack tasted his coffee. The morning brew he remembered at the Freedom Institute was never good enough to drink black, but this wasn’t bad. It was the first thing he’d found better without Neil. “I’m starting to think the Supreme Court isn’t the right shot. Maybe we should go back to Atlanta and ask the court of appeals to reconsider.”

  “Reconsider? Really? You know what my old man used to say about trying to get a federal judge to ‘reconsider,’ don’t you?”

  Jack did indeed. “‘A judge who has judged loves finality,’” he said, quoting his mentor. “‘The death penalty is “finality” with an exclamation point.’”

  “Wise words,” said Hannah.

  “Maybe we’ll find a judge who hates exclamation points.”

  “They are kind of cheesy,” said Hannah.

  “Like laughing at your own joke, some famous writer used to say.”

  “James Joyce.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes. I learned it at Barnyard.”

  “We’re officially getting punch-drunk,” said Jack. Outsiders found it odd, but it was an occupational hazard of death work.

  “Sorry, chief. So what’s your thinking behind going back to the court of appeals?”

  “We won there before. They ordered Judge Frederick to hold the evidentiary hearing. It might be worth a shot to see if we can get them to send it back to him for further proceedings based on new evidence.”

  “Nice in theory. The problem is that we don’t have new evidence. Not without a sworn affidavit from Aquinnah that says Sashi killed herself.”

  “Right. That’s why I need to make a final run at Nicole. I gotta make this happen.”

  The front door opened. Theo entered and walked straight to the kitchen. It wasn’t the norm for Jack to enlist Theo as an investigator twice in one week. But if Jack’s latest hunch was correct, traffic records might just be the key to finding out what really happened to Sashi, and the Department of Motor Vehicles was closed on a Saturday, making Theo his go-to guy by default for this fact-finding mission.

  “Whaddaya got for me?” asked Jack.

  He dropped the cardboard box on the table. “Doughnuts.”

  “Doughnuts are good,” said Hannah.

  “And they’re still warm. Try the chocolate crumb cake.”

  “Theo,” said Jack. “I meant what did you find out?”

  Theo took a seat at the table. “I think we’re close to fillin’ the hole in the Gavin Burgette doughnut.”

  “Tell me.”

  “On the day Sashi Burgette disappeared, Gavin’s Porsche passed through the Golden Glades turnpike exit at four forty-six p.m.”

  “Northbound or southbound?”

  “Southbound.”

  “That makes sense,” said Jack. “He was driving back toward Miami from whatever ‘business trip’ he was on. So on a Friday, if he’s passing Golden Glades at four forty-six p.m., that puts him at Cocoplum around . . .”

  “Six o’clock,” said Theo. “Give or take a few.”

  Jack was constructing a timeline in his head. “Aquinnah told me that she gave the sleeping pills to Sashi and dumped her body before her father got home. Hannah, what time did Gavin Burgette say he returned from his business trip?”

  “Around eight o’clock.”

  “What time did Debra Burgette say Gavin got home?”

  “Debra testified that she was out looking for Sashi until Gavin got back,” said Hannah. “She met him at the house at eight o’clock.”

  “So, two things,” said Jack. “One, if Gavin really didn’t get home till eight, Sashi’s body was already gone. Otherwise, Debra would have seen it.”

  “Right.”

  “But if Gavin got home as early as six . . .”

  “He would have found Sashi dead from the sleeping pills,” said Hannah.

  Jack thought for a moment. “Or nearly dead.”

  Theo swallowed another chocolate crumb doughnut. “Dude, dead is one situation. Nearly dead? That’s a whole nother thing.”

  “You’re absolutely
right,” said Jack, his thoughts churning. “A whole nother thing.”

  CHAPTER 67

  A sliver of morning sun was peeking through the blinds in her bedroom window when Andie woke. It was Saturday, so she hadn’t set an alarm. She checked the digital clock on the nightstand. It was 10:06 a.m., and she was still tired. The usual discomforts of the third trimester had kept her awake until four. Whirling thoughts about the Burgette family had only compounded the problem.

  She checked Jack’s side of the bed, which was empty. She assumed that he’d worked all night at the Institute, but it was possible that he’d come and gone after she’d finally fallen asleep.

  Andie scooted to the edge of the mattress. She slid her legs off the edge, let her feet drop toward the floor, and sat upright. Going vertical produced a mild head rush, but nothing worrisome. The standing order from the doctor was to self-check her blood pressure first thing in the morning, and then every three hours. Her digital monitor was on the nightstand, just beyond her fingertips. She leaned toward it with her arm fully outstretched and fingers wiggling as she tried to extend her reach. Just as she had the monitor in hand, the phone rang in the kitchen, which startled her—no one ever called on their landline—and she dropped it.

  “Shit,” she said, then chided herself.

  I wonder if Riley can hear that?

  After five rings, the phone went silent. Jack was phasing out the landline, so they had only the phone kitchen, and the ringer was set loud enough to be heard anywhere in the house.

  It was ringing again. Somebody really needed to reach her, which only made her groan.

  Some people might say that a dropped monitor and a ringing phone were no big deal—that Andie was “hormonal” and “feeling overwhelmed.” But at this stage of pregnancy, stooping over to pick up anything and then walking all the way across the house before her first trip to the bathroom was a dicey proposition. She left the monitor on the floor, put on her robe and slippers, and started down the hall. The phone stopped ringing before she could get there. She turned around, and it started ringing again.

  Call me on my damn cell, will ya?

  She went to the kitchen and answered the phone. It was Debra Burgette.

  “Oh, thank God you picked up,” said Debra. “I don’t have your cell number.”

  You’re forgiven. “Glad you called. I was thinking about you last night.”

  “And I’ve been thinking about what Jack said—that I have a say in whether police talk to Alexander.”

  “He’s right,” said Andie.

  “Well, if someone has to talk to Alexander, I want it to be you.”

  It was music to Andie’s ears. “I can meet you at the field office. You remember where it is?”

  “Yes. But we have to do this soon. It’s Gavin’s weekend, but things got so screwed up, Alexander wanted to stay with me last night. I have to drop him at Gavin’s by noon.”

  “I can meet you in thirty minutes.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll see you then.”

  “See you then,” said Andie.

  Jack took a quick shower at the Institute, jumped in his car, and rolled down windows to air-dry his hair on the short drive to Jackson Memorial Hospital

  Jackson was one of the nation’s premier public hospitals. While it made headlines for groundbreaking research in cancer and spinal injury, its other strengths were myriad, and it didn’t take long to connect the dots from a friend to a “friend of a friend” and find a renowned expert in just about any medical discipline. Jack didn’t need the world’s foremost authority. He just needed a quick favor from someone who was willing to explain the basics, and explain them correctly.

  The “friend of a friend” method worked beautifully; there were occasionally advantages to sharing a surname with the former governor of Florida. At eleven o’clock he was seated at a table in the hospital cafeteria, having coffee with a sleep-disorder specialist.

  “Caffeine is not your friend,” said Dr. Trish Hollings. She was drinking bottled water.

  Jack covered his cup. “Shhh. You’ll hurt his feelings.”

  The doctor smiled, then checked her watch. “I’m sorry to be so short, but I have a meeting with half a dozen med students in ten minutes.”

  “That’s plenty of time,” said Jack. “I just need to pick your brain quickly.”

  “About what?”

  Jack pushed his coffee—his nonfriend—to the side. “Sleeping pills.”

  Andie met with Alexander in the interrogation room at the Miami field office. She’d enlisted Dr. Paula Cohen, one of the FBI’s child psychiatrists, to assist her. The table and chairs had been removed. Andie, Dr. Cohen, and Alexander were on the floor, seated on a blanket. Debra, MDPD Detective Perez, and ASAC Schwartz were in an adjacent room, listening by speaker and watching from behind the one-way mirror.

  The first segment was the easy part: just talk and spend time together to make Alexander feel comfortable. When he seemed ready, Andie shifted gears.

  “Alexander, how old were you when your sister Sashi went away?”

  “Six.”

  “Can you remember anything about the day it happened?”

  He nodded. It was an assured nod, and Andie had no reason to doubt it. She’d met people who were as young as three or four at the time of the event but retained vivid memories of their mother crying when President Kennedy was shot or their father cursing at the television on 9/11. The day the police had swarmed the Burgette house and Alexander’s entire known universe had turned upside down in the frantic search for his sister probably wasn’t a day that Alexander had been too young to remember.

  “I want you to tell me everything you remember about that day,” said Andie. “Can you do that for me?”

  He nodded once more.

  Andie smiled a little, just enough to let him know that he was doing fine. “Okay. Let’s get started.”

  CHAPTER 68

  Jack entered Nicole Thompson’s law office with low expectations. His expectations rose considerably when Gavin joined them. A lawyer-to-lawyer meeting would likely have produced little. With Gavin in the room, Jack had a shot—not at getting an affidavit from Aquinnah, but perhaps something more.

  What a control freak this guy is.

  Nicole was seated behind her granite-and-glass-top desk. Jack and Gavin sat in matching chairs that were straight out of Modern Living magazine, made from twisted chrome bars and hard leather straps. Gavin pulled his chair to the side of the desk so that both he and his lawyer were facing Jack. Nicole got things started.

  “We’ve spoken with Aquinnah,” she said. “I explained that you had requested an affidavit from her to file on behalf of Dylan Reeves. I’m sorry you drove all the way over here, but I can only confirm what I told you on the telephone: Aquinnah will not provide an affidavit.”

  “I can file a motion with the court to take her deposition.”

  “Good luck with that,” said Nicole. “Your case is no longer before Judge Frederick, and I’m pretty sure that it’s written in Rule One of the Rules of Appellate Procedure that depositions in cases before the court of appeals are allowed only on cold days in hell.”

  She was right, which was why Jack and Hannah had never even considered it.

  “Maybe Dylan Reeves can give us a weather check when he gets there,” said Gavin.

  Nicole shot him a look that said I’ll do the talking.

  Jack rolled with it. “I understand that Aquinnah sat for a polygraph this morning.”

  “Which she failed,” said Nicole.

  Jack nodded. “I’m not surprised, given the examiner you hired.”

  “She failed because she was lying to you,” said Gavin.

  Nicole was about to chide her client again, but Jack took her by surprise.

  “I agree,” said Jack.

  Lawyer and client exchanged a quick glance, pleased. “Well,” said Gavin. “I’m glad we’re all in agreement.”

  “Partial agreement,” said Jack.
“Aquinnah was lying only when she told me that she got rid of Sashi’s body by herself, before you came home. She didn’t do it without help.”

  “She didn’t do it with or without help,” said Gavin. “Your client murdered Sashi.”

  “Let me tell you why you’re wrong, Gavin.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Nicole. “We really don’t have time for this. The reason we invited you over here, Jack, is to talk about the overtures DCFS has been making toward my client, and the future custody arrangements for Alexander.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Gavin. “I want to hear what Swyteck has to say.”

  “Gavin, I don’t recommend that you—”

  “Nicole, I got this,” he said firmly. “Go ahead, Swyteck. This should be interesting.”

  Nicole sighed. “I advise you to just listen, Gavin. Don’t let him engage you.”

  Jack was tempted to borrow the line she’d used on him: Good luck with that.

  “Let me start with the little things,” said Jack. “Something that didn’t compute for me was when you were in court and you accused Debra of rehoming Sashi. Now, you had to know that was a lie.”

  “No, I was beginning to think it was true.”

  “Gavin, just listen,” said Nicole.

  “Or maybe you just panicked,” said Jack. “For a time, the case before Judge Frederick was going well for Dylan Reeves. It was starting to look as though he didn’t do it. But if he didn’t do it, who did? Stepdads are almost always suspects when seventeen-year-old daughters disappear.”

  “You think I accused my wife of rehoming Sashi so that the spotlight wouldn’t shine on me?”

  “Gavin, for the last time: just listen.”

  “Yeah, listen good, Gavin. Because you’ve done a lot of talking. You talk a lot about how much you love your son, but you know what? I went to your apartment. Not a single photograph of your son anywhere. Not a single photo of any of your children. I talked with Alexander when he came by the Freedom Institute. Says he does nothing but watch TV and play video games at your house. I heard you talking to Debra last night. You bought tickets for you and Nicole to watch a movie while Alexander was supposed to go with the sitter. When we searched the house, you didn’t even know if he owns a bicycle.”