Twenty

by James Grippando

  “Let me help you, honey.”

  “No!”

  That took him aback. When it came to girl stuff, untangling wet hair was one of the few things Jack did better than Mommy. He even did it on Mommy.

  “I just want to—”

  “Daddy, don’t touch me!”

  Jack froze. The day had left even Andie, a trained FBI agent, out of sorts. Righley’s outburst was so out of character as to be downright worrisome.

  Like a godsend, Jack’s grandmother appeared in the doorway. “Hola, mi vida!” Literally, “my life.” To Abuela, Righley was as precious as life itself.

  Righley rushed across the room and hugged her. Abuela was too old to pick her up, but as she liked to say, the way she was shrinking and Righley was growing, they’d be eye to eye soon enough. Jack was glad she’d agreed to spend the night. Abuela had a way of shrinking any life trauma down to size. It wasn’t exactly a gift. Not only had she lost a daughter—preeclampsia claimed Jack’s mother way too young—but it had taken Abuela forty years to escape Castro’s Cuba to visit the grave.

  “You sure you two will be all right while we’re gone?” asked Jack.

  Riverside had a satellite campus in South Miami for students with special needs. An emergency parents meeting was scheduled there for seven p.m. If not for Abuela, Jack and Andie probably would have skipped.

  “Go,” said Abuela.

  The drive to the Riverside satellite was thirty minutes. Jack and Andie arrived to a packed gymnasium. This meeting was only for families with children who were neither victims nor eyewitnesses to the carnage; individual counseling sessions were underway at a separate facility for those more directly affected. Still, it was a solemn crowd, easily more than three hundred parents. Jack found two of the last open seats in the third row of bleachers. He and Andie were squeezing into place, bumping shoulders with each other and the parents beside them, when the head of school stepped up to the microphone.

  “Good evening. I’m Cynthia Mickelson, and I want to thank all of you for coming tonight.”

  The first order of business was an ecumenical prayer. The bleachers rumbled as the crowd rose. Leading the convocation were a minister, a priest, and a rabbi. No imam, it occurred to Jack as the prayer ended.

  “Amen,” the crowd said in unison.

  Mickelson waited for all to be seated and then started with a series of announcements. School would be closed for at least a week. Counselors were available to students and parents upon request. Support animals would be allowed in classrooms when classes resumed.

  “Also,” she continued, “I received a call from the Florida attorney general this afternoon. I have his word that the state will pay all expenses for the funerals of the victims.”

  “How many are there?” a man shouted. He was a few rows behind Jack.

  “Excuse me?” asked Mickelson.

  The man rose. “How many teachers and students have we lost? No one will give us a straight answer.”

  The head measured her words. “The official count has not yet been released. As soon as we have that information, we will post it on the school website.”

  Another man rose. “It’s at least one more than it had to be.”

  Mickelson hesitated, confused. “I don’t understand.”

  “My middle son, David, was caught in the hallway when this lunatic opened fire. He and his friend Lucas Horne tried to hide in the bathroom. But the bathroom door was locked. My son was lucky. Lucas is dead. So I want know: Why was that bathroom door locked?”

  “The bathrooms in our middle school and high school buildings are locked. Students must ask their teacher for permission to use the bathroom, and if permission is granted, they are given a key.”

  “Why is that?”

  “That was a decision we implemented at the beginning of this school year. As a preventive measure.”

  “Preventative of what?”

  “Last semester we had to expel two eighth-grade students for vaping in the bathroom.”

  “So you locked the bathrooms? The only place my son and his friend had to hide was the bathroom, and you locked it?”

  The pain in his voice drew a rumbling from the crowd. The head of school went into damage-control mode.

  “I am so truly sorry, for your son, and for the Horne family. I should point out, however, that if your son was an eyewitness to this unfortunate turn of events, your entire family should be at the other meeting.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “These families here, whose kids will be going back to school in a week with their puppies and kittens for support, need to know the truth. They need to know some of us will be paying the price forever because of your stupidity.”

  “I completely understand your anger.”

  “No!” he said, his voice booming loud enough to fill the gymnasium. “You don’t understand. But if you think you do, then, by God, you had best not get anywhere near Lucas Horne’s father.”

  He lowered himself into his seat, emotionally spent. His wife slid her arm around his shoulder, as if to say he’d done the right thing.

  Another man rose in the next bleacher section. “While we’re on the subject of stupidity: Don’t we have background checks for families before they are accepted to this academy?”

  Mickelson paused, thinking through her response. “As everyone in this gymnasium knows well, the application process at Riverside is highly selective and very comprehensive. And of course we interview all students and their parents.”

  “What if people lie?” the man asked.

  “Lie about what?”

  “About who they are?”

  “I don’t think that’s the issue here,” said Mickelson.

  “I do. Let’s say only the mother comes in for the interview and not the father. How much do you really know about that family?”

  Jack and Andie exchanged anxious glances. The man might as well have asked, How’d you let Molly’s Muslim husband slip through?

  “I see where you’re going with this,” said Mickelson. “And I want to address this as fully and as directly as I can. We all want answers.”

  “You bet we do.”

  “Hold on,” said Mickelson. “Just because someone called the media to claim responsibility on behalf of al-Qaeda doesn’t mean that al-Qaeda was necessarily behind this. And just because the shooter—alleged shooter—has a Muslim father doesn’t mean that this shooting had anything to do with radical Islam.”

  “That’s all very nice and politically correct, Mrs. Mickelson. But do you expect us to believe it?”

  “I expect everyone in this room to let law enforcement do its job without feeding the rumor mill.”

  “It’s not a rumor. My brother is a cop at Miami-Dade. He says the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is already involved. Why would the FBI’s terrorism task force be involved if al-Qaeda’s claim of responsibility was not credible?”

  “I don’t know how to answer that question,” said Mickelson.

  His gaze swept the bleachers. “Isn’t one of our parents an FBI agent? Maybe she can answer it.”

  Heads turned, and dozens of parents were suddenly looking in Jack and Andie’s direction.

  Mickelson seemed to sense Andie’s discomfort even from thirty feet away. “I don’t think it’s fair to put Agent Henning on the spot like that. That’s not the point of this meeting.”

  “Maybe we should let her speak for herself,” the man said. “It’s a simple question. Would the Joint Terrorism Task Force get involved if al-Qaeda had nothing to do with this?”

  The crowd fell silent, which sent a clear message. Andie was suddenly the official spokesperson for the FBI. She rose slowly.

  Jack heard whispering all around them, which made him wish all the more that they had never come.

  Who’s she?

  Absentee mom. Hardly ever at the school.

  I think she’s friends with that Muslim boy’s mother.

  “I can’t comment on that,” said Andie.
She sat down and looked at Jack, but he didn’t have to tell her what she already knew.

  This crowd had all the confirmation it needed.

  Chapter 5

  Jack and Andie were the last to leave the school parking lot. Not that they weren’t eager to get home. After being singled out as the “FBI mom,” Andie needed to find a private place and call her ASAC.

  “How’d it go?” Jack asked as she climbed into the passenger seat.

  “You don’t want to know, and I can’t tell you.”

  The drive from the mainland to Key Biscayne was mostly in silence. Crossing the causeway, Andie’s profile was a pensive silhouette against the backdrop of city lights in the distance. They were home a little after nine o’clock. Righley was sound asleep in her room. Abuela was nearby in her favorite rocking chair, literally snoring. Andie wanted their little girl in their bed, so she gently picked her up and carried her down the hallway.

  Jack heard a car pull up outside the house and then a timid knock on the front door. He went to the living room and opened it.

  “May I come in, please?” asked the woman.

  Although Jack had met Molly before, it took him a moment to recognize her as the woman standing on his front porch. She was normally a stylish dresser, but the cashmere wrap she wore was better suited for January, and there was nothing stylish about the broad-brimmed hat that left her face in the shadows and the sunglasses so dark that not even eighties heartthrob Corey Hart would have worn them at night.

  “It’s me, Molly,” she said as she removed her sunglasses.

  Without them, she looked broken, desperate. Jack couldn’t help but feel for her.

  “Who is it, Jack?” asked Andie, entering the living room.

  Molly went straight to Andie, but it seemed that Molly’s need for a hug was not exactly reciprocal. Just a few hours earlier, Andie had been quick to show her support for her girlfriend, at least in conversation with Jack. Maybe it was the phone call with her ASAC, or maybe a gymnasium full of angry parents had unlocked the voices of child victims in her head, but something had changed since the school meeting. Psychologically speaking, it seemed that Andie had already moved from denial to anger.

  “Molly, I know you must have a lot to talk about,” said Andie. “But right now I just want to lie down with my daughter and thank God she’s still here.”

  “I won’t be long.”

  “I’ll let you two talk in private,” said Jack.

  “No,” said Molly. “I’d like you to be part of this, if you would, Jack.”

  Jack took a seat with Andie on the couch. Molly sat in the club chair, facing them.

  “I heard about the meeting at the school,” said Molly. “I didn’t go, of course. I’ve been at the jail all night, trying to speak to Xavier.”

  “Trying?” asked Jack. “Are the police not allowing it?”

  “It’s a different problem,” said Molly. “Xavier refuses any visitors.”

  “You’re his mother,” said Andie. “If you want to see him, you have the right.”

  “I’m told that’s not the case. He’s eighteen. Since he’s no longer a minor, the police are telling me that his parents have no right to visit him and no ability to force him to see us.”

  “When did he turn eighteen?” asked Jack.

  Molly hesitated, then answered in a weak voice. “Today.”

  The gravity of a high school student embarking on a shooting spree on his eighteenth birthday sent chills through the room.

  Molly continued. “I suppose Xavier waited until he was eighteen so that his parents would have no say over what happens to him after the . . .” She seemed unable to even say the word.

  “After his arrest,” Jack offered.

  “Yes,” said Molly. “After his arrest.”

  “Has anyone told you what was said at tonight’s meeting?” asked Andie.

  “Not directly. But I see the chatter on social media. Not everyone at the school has deleted me from their list of friends yet. They might be surprised to know that I agree with much of what is being said.”

  “Like what?” asked Andie.

  “Al-Qaeda, for one. I’m sure our head of school means well by telling parents not to jump to conclusions about a connection to Islamic terrorism. But al-Qaeda claimed responsibility.”

  “And you believe that the claim is real?” asked Jack.

  “Yes. Someone must have radicalized Xavier to do something as horrible as this. Contrary to what people might say on social media, my son was not ‘born to kill.’”

  “Molly, if I could give you any advice, it would be this,” said Jack. “Don’t go on social media. Stay off the Internet.”

  “I know. It’s horrible what people will say. The whole world wants my son executed so he can start burning in hell as soon as possible.”

  “No one said that at tonight’s meeting,” said Jack.

  “They’re definitely saying it online. I can’t explain or excuse what Xavier did, but a high school boy who is the victim of brainwashing should not be executed.”

  “It will be up to the state attorney to decide if she’ll seek the death penalty,” said Jack.

  “Can he be executed?” asked Molly. “Legally, I mean. Can a boy who’s still in high school get the death penalty?”

  Jack took no joy in being the one to tell her, but soon enough Molly would learn what a difference a day makes. “The Supreme Court has held that the death penalty is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment as ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ for anyone under the age of eighteen. Xavier made the cutoff by one day.”

  Molly closed her eyes and opened them slowly, absorbing the blow. “So that’s the answer? If the state attorney chooses to seek the death penalty, there is no mercy?”

  Jack understood the arguments on both sides: What mercy had Xavier shown his victims? “If he’s found guilty, there will be a second trial on the issue of sentencing. So it’s up to the jury to decide if he gets death or life in prison. Xavier’s youth and impressionability would be relevant mitigating circumstances that jurors can consider.”

  “Thank you for that,” she said. “I put a lot of stock in what you say. I understand you’ve done a lot of death penalty work.”

  “I have,” said Jack.

  “Some would say too much,” added Andie.

  “I googled you,” said Molly. “You’re a very courageous man. You’ve taken some very tough cases. For some pretty notorious clients.”

  “Most of those were a long time ago,” said Jack.

  “Before we were married,” said Andie.

  Molly paused, and Jack sensed she was building up the nerve to ask him something. Finally, she spoke.

  “Could you be Xavier’s lawyer?”

  Andie answered for him. “No.”

  “We would pay you, of course.”

  “Molly, he can’t,” Andie said firmly.

  “I’m sorry,” said Molly. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with asking,” said Jack.

  “I wish you would at least think about it. I don’t know how I’m going to find a good lawyer.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” said Jack. “Your son is an adult, even if it is just by one day, and he has no job. It makes no difference that his parents have enough money to afford a private attorney. Your son is indigent for purposes of court-appointed counsel and will be represented by the Public Defender’s Office.”

  “But I don’t want him to have a public defender,” said Molly.

  “The public defender is well qualified to make all of the arguments that need to be made at Xavier’s sentencing hearing to avoid the death penalty.”

  “No, he’s not. I spoke to him. He called me earlier today because Xavier wouldn’t talk to him and he thought I might have some insight on how to break through. Frankly, I don’t trust him.”

  “Don’t trust him in what way?” asked Jack.

  “It goes back to what I s
aid before. Xavier wasn’t born a murderer. I do believe he was radicalized. But this is key: he was not radicalized at home.”

  “Is someone saying that he was?” asked Jack.

  “Not yet. But the public defender is already heading in that direction.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It was clear from the questions he asked me. He’s going to tell the same old story that lawyers always tell. His client was the victim of his upbringing. The parents are horrible people. How could a boy who was raised in this household grow up to be anything but a mass murderer?”

  Jack had made similar arguments—the dysfunctional family, physically and emotionally abusive parents—many times on behalf of death row inmates. “The public defender can’t make those arguments if they’re not true.”

  “Baloney. My husband is a Muslim. He’s a sitting duck for the bogus argument that he radicalized Xavier. It’s not fair to Amir, who loves this country as much as any other American. And it’s not fair to Xavier’s brother and sister, who will have to live with this stigma for the rest of their lives.”

  “Everything you’re saying is valid,” said Jack. “But there isn’t much you or I can do. It’s up to Xavier to choose his own lawyer. He’s eighteen.”

  “What if he called you? Maybe I can get through to him and give him your number. Would you talk to him?”

  Jack cut another glance at Andie, who even in her silence was making her position clear.

  “I don’t know,” said Jack.

  “I don’t expect anyone to prove my son’s innocence. That’s impossible. All I’m asking is to keep him off death row. And do it without labeling my entire family as Islamic-extremist sympathizers. Is that asking too much?”

  Jack considered it. Molly was beyond desperate. “I’m not saying I’ll take his case. But if he calls me, I might take the call.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so very much.”

  Molly rose. She and Andie shared a hug more awkward than the first one. Jack showed her to the door. Molly thanked him again, and Jack closed the door. Andie had more to say.