The Girl in the Glass Box: A Jack Swyteck Novel

by James Grippando

  “That would be satisfactory.”

  Jack glanced at his client’s image in the monitor. Her expression conveyed the same “two-against-one” dismay that Jack was feeling.

  “Judge, our request for release can’t wait a week. Ms. Rodriguez’s daughter is in the hospital. A report from her physician is attached to our motion in the file. This proceeding against her mother has taken a terrible toll on her emotionally. It’s manifesting itself in malnourishment, severe dehydration, and depression.”

  “Not to be flip,” said Jerrell, “but we all want our mommies. That’s not grounds for release on bond. I would also point out that this is not a case in which the detainee overstayed a validly issued visa. She entered this country illegally, which means that she could be charged with a crime.”

  “But you haven’t charged her criminally,” the judge pointed out.

  “No.”

  “And they never will,” said Jack. “Because then it would be a criminal proceeding, and the government would have to pay for her lawyer. Judge, this effort to mischaracterize my client as some kind of dangerous criminal is all bluster. There is no evidence in the record to support her detention, and I disagree with Ms. Jerrell’s cynical dismissal of our humanitarian argument as an ‘I want my mommy’ defense. This is a very serious matter.”

  “All right, all right,” said the judge. “Here’s what I’m going to do. I will order the release of the detainee on humanitarian grounds. Bond is set at two thousand dollars.”

  Jack could live with that. Two thousand dollars really meant coming up with only two hundred, the customary 10 percent required by a bail bondsman.

  “However,” the judge continued, “if and when the child’s condition improves, the government can file a motion to return Ms. Rodriguez to detention.”

  “Excuse me?” said Jack. “If her daughter gets better, my client goes back to jail?”

  “I’ve made my ruling.”

  “Thank you, Judge,” said Jerrell.

  “Next case,” said the judge.

  The immigration-court shuffle was on, with the next detainee appearing on-screen from Baker County, and another attorney stepping up to replace Jack at counsel’s table. Jack grabbed his bag and headed toward the public-seating area on the other side of the courtroom rail.

  “Swyteck, you got a minute?” asked Jerrell.

  After the “mommy” remark, he was in no mood to speak to her. “Sorry, I don’t.”

  “Come on. Thirty seconds.”

  “Urgent call to make,” said Jack, reaching for his cell. “Gotta phone your names in to the Harvard Foundation ASAP.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You and Judge Greely,” said Jack, deadpan. “I’m nominating you for Humanitarians of the Year.”

  Jack felt the weight of Jerrell’s glare as he turned and headed for the courtroom exit.

  Chapter 27

  Jack picked up Julia at the Baker County Facility.

  Nothing moved quickly in jail, but the drive from Orlando was over two hours, which was also how long it had taken Cecilia to go door-to-door in her neighborhood, collect the bondsman’s fee, and wire it to Mickey’s Bail Bonds in Macclenny. Julia had already been released and was waiting outside the complex with her bag packed when Jack pulled up in his rental car. He’d never had a more grateful client—not even on death row.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she said over and over.

  Jack put her bag in the back seat, and they headed to the airport in Jacksonville. He’d planned to use the time alone in the car to tell her more about his trip to El Salvador, but Julia had other ideas. All she wanted was to borrow Jack’s cell.

  “No need,” he said. “Open the glove box.”

  She did and found a cell phone. “Should I use this one?”

  “It’s yours. It’s prepaid.”

  “You are just the best. If you weren’t married, I’d kiss you.”

  “It’s actually from Theo—your ‘getting out of jail’ gift. He’s kind of an expert on the subject.”

  “That’s so sweet of him.”

  Sweet. Not a word Jack had often heard in the same sentence with “Theo.”

  Julia had the main number for the hospital written on the palm of her hand, and she asked the switchboard operator to connect her to Beatriz’s room. Jack picked up enough of one side of the conversation to understand that Cecilia had answered, Beatriz was asleep, and the sisters were in disagreement as to whether Cecilia should wake her. Julia ended the call in frustration.

  “I can’t believe she won’t put Beatriz on the phone.”

  Julia didn’t have a full appreciation of Beatriz’s condition, and Jack decided to leave the medical update to the hospital physicians. Julia filled the rest of the ride with calls to worried friends who’d been sending prayers and asking about her. By the time they boarded the plane, the string of sleepless nights in jail had finally caught up with her. Jack let her rest on the flight to Miami and then drove her to the hospital.

  “You’re coming up to the room, right?” asked Julia.

  Jack didn’t want to intrude on a mother-daughter reunion, but he hadn’t seen Beatriz since the ambulance had taken her away. “You sure it’s okay?”

  Spanish idioms were often beyond Jack’s fluency, and the expression that Julia rattled off reminded him of something Abuela might have said. “Of course it’s okay,” she added, as if Jack was already part of the family.

  The University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital was Miami’s premiere public hospital, which meant that in addition to its stellar reputation for groundbreaking research in everything from cancer to spinal injury, it was also a workhorse for the world of Medicaid and the uninsured. Parking anywhere near the main entrance was impossible, so Jack and Julia entered through the ER. The waiting room was a virtual cross section of lower-income Miami, one night’s share of nearly a quarter million visits annually. An old Haitian woman hung her head into a big plastic bucket that reeked of vomit. A homeless man with no legs slept in the wheelchair beside her. A single mother comforted a crying baby as her four other children played leapfrog on the floor, shouting at one another in Spanish. Jack got it that there was a cost to treating undocumented children, but he wasn’t second-guessing his decision to call an ambulance.

  They were issued visitor badges at the registration desk, and after a painfully slow elevator ride, the doors finally parted at the third floor. Polished tile floors glistened beneath bright fluorescent lighting, an assault on the eyes that rivaled snow blindness. Cecilia met them at the pneumatic doors to the pediatric suite, and the sisters locked in a tight embrace, which triggered Latin tears of joy by the bucketful.

  “She’s awake,” said Cecilia.

  Julia shrieked with excitement and raced down the hallway. Jack and Cecilia followed, and by the time they reached the open door, Julia was leaning over the bed rail and had Beatriz in her arms. Jack waited in the hall with Cecilia, giving Julia a moment alone with her daughter.

  “I think I owe you an apology,” said Cecilia.

  They hadn’t spoken since Aunt Cecilia had turned into a mother bear on steroids. But Jack had endured much worse, from clients taking a swing at him to witnesses spitting in his face. “No problem,” said Jack. “We’re all under a ton of stress.”

  The pediatrician arrived and asked to speak to Beatriz’s mother. Julia pulled herself away from her daughter, choosing to get the medical update in the hallway, out of Beatriz’s earshot.

  “I’ll sit with her,” said Cecilia.

  “Actually, she wants to talk to Jack,” said Julia.

  That seemed to hurt Cecilia’s feelings, and Jack wasn’t sure what was up, either.

  “Fine. I’ll be in the lounge,” said Cecilia.

  Jack knocked lightly on the doorframe and entered the room. Beatriz was sitting up in the bed at a comfortable angle. Fluids flowed into her veins from an IV bag suspended from a pole on the other side of the
bed. She turned her head and smiled.

  “Hi, Mr. Swyteck,” she said softly.

  Jack pulled up a chair to her bedside and sat down facing her. Her color was much better, and some of the sparkle she’d lost had returned to her eyes. “How are you feeling?”

  “Much better, now that my mom’s home.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Thank you for helping us.”

  “You don’t have to thank me. I’m glad to help.”

  Her smile faded, and a crease of a worry line appeared between her eyes. “This thing that happened to me. It was really scary.”

  “That’s why I called an ambulance.”

  Beatriz turned very serious. “Could you hear me?”

  “I’m sorry. Could I hear you when?”

  “When you and Cecilia were talking to each other in my bedroom. Did you hear me tell you to call the doctor?”

  Jack looked at her with concern. “Honey, you didn’t say anything when I was in your room.”

  “Yes, I did!” she said in a hushed but urgent voice, taking care not to let anyone outside the room hear them. “I was yelling to you at the top of my voice. ‘Call the doctor! Mr. Swyteck, call the doctor!’”

  “You must have dreamed that.”

  Her head rose from the pillow. “No! It wasn’t a dream!”

  “Okay,” Jack said in a calm voice. “Don’t get yourself worked up over this.”

  She settled back into her pillow.

  “You were dehydrated,” said Jack. “You weren’t eating or sleeping. It was—”

  “It was like I was in the box,” she said, her gaze fixed on the ceiling.

  “What?” asked Jack.

  “I could see you standing there over my bed. I could see Tía, too.”

  “That’s not possible. Your eyes were closed.”

  “I don’t care what you say. I saw you both. And I could hear what you were saying. I was talking to you, but you weren’t listening. Or maybe you couldn’t hear me, because I was inside the box.”

  “What box?”

  “A glass box,” she said. “It was all around me.”

  Beatriz turned her head on the pillow, peering over the bed rail as Jack’s gaze met hers. She looked terrified, and Jack had no idea how to respond.

  “Did you tell your doctor about this?” he asked.

  Beatriz nodded.

  “What did she say?”

  “Not much. She said they did an MRI and a bunch of other tests while I was asleep, but they didn’t find anything for me to worry about.”

  Jack smiled just enough to reassure her. “It sounds like they took very good care of you.”

  Beatriz nodded, but it was not without trepidation—and fear. “I just don’t want to go back in that box.”

  “Good news!” said Julia, as she entered the room. “You’re being discharged, baby. The doctor says I can take you home tonight!”

  Beatriz shot an uneasy glance at Jack, then smiled weakly at her mother. “That’s great, Mom.”

  “This is one of the best days of my life,” said Julia. She went to Jack and hugged him. “Thank you so much.”

  It was a heartfelt embrace, but Jack was looking over Julia’s shoulder toward Beatriz, who still seemed to be recovering from the secret she’d shared with him.

  “You’re welcome,” Jack said to his client.

  Chapter 28

  Night fell and streetlamps blinked on as Julia and her daughter stepped off the bus at their corner of Little Havana. They walked side by side, each with a bag over one shoulder, passing countless bench billboards for abogados de accidentes, English lessons for Spanish speakers rápido, and other necessities of immigrant life. They were about a block from their house.

  “What was it like in the detention center?” asked Beatriz.

  The question was a bit out of left field, and there were so many ways to answer it. Julia went with the benign option. “Boring,” she said. “Really boring.”

  Their little duplex next to the used-tire shop wasn’t much, and the fence that protected Señor Gomas actually had more razor ribbon than the fence around the Baker County Facility. But to Julia, at least on that night, it was like checking into the Ritz. The doctors at Jackson had decided that it would serve Beatriz better to sleep in her own bed than to spend another night in the hospital for observation. Amen to that. As for Julia, anything was better than a bunk in a detention center.

  “What was the worst thing about the place?” asked Beatriz.

  “Missing you.”

  “Other than that.”

  “Worrying about you.”

  “Mom, stop, I’m being serious,” Beatriz said.

  Her tone struck Julia as a highly Americanized teenage whine—part of the “melting pot” experience, Julia figured. “I’m serious, too,” said Julia. “The whole time I was there, I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

  “Forget about me for a minute. I want to know about the place. Tell me the worst thing about a detention center.”

  Julia stopped to think, and in the glow of the streetlamp, Beatriz stood there, waiting. A car passed, and then another. Beatriz wasn’t a little girl anymore, and she deserved a thoughtful response.

  “Not knowing,” said Julia.

  “Not knowing what?”

  “How long you’re going to be there, or where you’re going to end up.”

  They started walking again. Then Beatriz asked, “Do we know where we’re going to end up?”

  Julia put her arm around Beatriz’s shoulder. “Mr. Swyteck is a very good lawyer.”

  “But do we know?”

  “Let’s take it one day at a time, girlfriend.”

  They stopped at the front door, and as Julia dug the key from her bag, they exchanged an uneasy glance. The memory of Julia pinned beneath the weight of an ICE officer and Beatriz closing the door on them was still raw. Julia turned the key, opened the door, and took a step inside. The light switch clicked when she flipped it, but the light didn’t go on.

  “Great. The electric bill didn’t get paid.”

  “Tía paid it,” said Beatriz. “She came by and picked up the mail every day.”

  Julia toggled the switch up and down. Nothing. “Bulb must be burned out.” She took another step inside, but Beatriz stopped her with an arm tug.

  “What, honey?”

  “It’s so . . . dark.”

  Julia was suddenly reminded of that little girl with her head under the covers asking Mommy to leave the light on. It really hadn’t been that long ago. She crossed the dark room and switched on a lamp, which brightened everything but the expression on Beatriz’s face.

  “Smile, baby,” said Julia. “We’re home.”

  Beatriz closed the door. “I guess so.”

  Julia opened her bag and dug out the last thing she’d packed before the ICE arrest, the crucifix that she’d grabbed on her way out of the house, and she rehung it on the wall hook next to the door. “We’re safe here,” she said.

  “It feels weird to me. I don’t know why.”

  Julia planted a kiss on Beatriz’s forehead. “I have an idea. How about a cup of Haitian hot chocolate?”

  Beatriz rolled her eyes. “Mom, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re not Haitian.”

  “We’re not Italian, either, but you love spaghetti. One Haitian hot chocolate, coming up. Go unpack,” she said, as she headed to the kitchen.

  Julia laid her bag on the counter and then checked the cupboard, running the list of ingredients through her mind. She had almost everything she needed, though the powdered stuff would have to sub for the freshly shaved cocoa bean. She laid a cutting board and a kitchen knife on the counter, grabbed a saucepan, and took it to the sink to add a little water. The faucet hissed and Julia froze. Her gaze locked onto the back door like a laser. She turned off the water and walked slowly to the end of the kitchen counter for a closer look.

  They had no backyard. Behind the house was just a narrow alley, and the only
reason they used the back door was to take out the trash. The door wasn’t completely closed. At least it didn’t appear to be. It seemed a little off, protruding maybe an eighth of an inch beyond the frame. Julia tried to recall the last time she’d taken out the trash. She couldn’t remember, but it didn’t matter. She would never have been so careless as to leave the door ajar.

  Assuming it was ajar.

  Julia took the knife from the cutting board, held it tightly in her hand, and continued around the counter toward the back door. Five steps and she was there. She laid her hand on the panel and pushed.

  The door moved.

  Her pulse quickened. She turned the knob, but it just spun around loosely. The back door had been jimmied open.

  “Beatriz!”

  A shrill scream came from the other end of the house.

  “Beatriz!” she shouted over and over again as she ran from the kitchen and down the hallway, the kitchen knife her weapon. She found her daughter standing in the doorway to the bathroom. The light was on, and Beatriz’s hands covered her eyes. She was shaking but otherwise unable to move.

  “Oh, my God,” said Julia, gasping at the sight.

  She held Beatriz tightly and pressed her daughter’s face against her shoulder. Julia took one more look at the bloody and mutilated body in the bathtub, and then took her daughter to the bedroom. Beatriz was crying, and Julia was trying not to cry as she helped her daughter onto the bed.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” said Julia, trying to calm Beatriz, even though she knew things were far from okay. She stroked Beatriz’s head with one hand and with the other dialed Jack on the disposable cell. Thank God he answered.

  “Jack, we need you,” she said, breathless.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Please, come quick,” she said in a voice that shook. “Duncan McBride is dead.”

  Chapter 29

  Jack broke the speed limit on every street between Key Biscayne and Little Havana, and he even rolled through a few stop signs. Even so, by the time he arrived, Julia’s house was an active crime scene.