Twenty

by James Grippando

  “What a monster,” she said, her gaze locked onto the flat screen on the wall. They were watching the first images picked up on school surveillance cameras, seconds before the shooting started. He did look like a monster, dressed in a camouflage flak jacket and black pants, his face hidden behind a black ski mask and dark goggles, his cloth shoe covers lending a creepy slide to his gait. He had tactical gloves on his hands. In one hand was the pistol with extended magazine. In the other were the extra magazines that had pushed the number of rounds fired to well over a hundred.

  “Does that look like Khoury to you?” asked Abe.

  “Can’t really tell.”

  The video quality suddenly changed, and there was audio with the next frames. Riverside had no surveillance cameras in the hallways outside the recreation room, so police had patched together clips of video from a handful of students, some on a dead run, who managed to record snippets of the shooting on their cell phones.

  “How does a kid get caught in a school shooting and think to record video?”

  “It’s in this generation’s DNA,” said Abe.

  The image bounced on the screen, but it was taken from behind the shooter. It was utter hysteria, screaming punctuated by the crack of semiautomatic gunfire. A teenage girl came out of her classroom, saw the shooter, ran for her life—and then dropped to the floor. The shooter turned around and faced the student holding the camera.

  Abe froze the image on the screen. “There it is. The best look of the shooter we have on video.”

  The detective studied the image, then looked at Abe. “That’s the best we got? A face covered by a hooded ski mask and dark ski goggles?”

  “I’m afraid so,” said Abe. “What do you think?”

  The detective rose, walked closer to the screen, and looked harder, as if trying to see behind the mask and goggles. “One thing’s for sure,” she said.

  “What?”

  She turned and looked at Abe. “There’s no way anyone could say that’s Xavier Khoury.”

  “More to the point: If someone did say it, there’s no way a juror would believe it beyond a reasonable doubt.”

  Abe switched off the screen with the remote.

  Vega threw him a puzzled look. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

  “Yeah. Almost two gigs of video from SWAT body-armor cameras when they rushed in and found the victims.” Abe tossed the remote control onto his desk. “I don’t have the stomach for it right now.”

  “When are you taking the case to the grand jury?”

  It was a good question, as the detective knew that a grand jury indictment was needed in a death penalty case. “Soon.”

  “Are you going to show them the video?”

  “You think I should?”

  “You’ll probably have them in tears if you do.”

  Abe walked to the window and peered out toward the detention center where Xavier Khoury was housed. “Might shed a few myself.”

  Jack was back in his office by two o’clock and spent the rest of the afternoon working only on things that had nothing to do with a school shooting. Not that there wasn’t plenty to be done in the Khoury case. The real work would come after Beckham presented the case to the grand jury—it was only a matter of time—but already there were boxes and boxes of materials to comb through. Hannah Goldsmith had offered to take a first cut, and Jack was more than grateful.

  “Got a minute, Jack?” asked Hannah, appearing in the open doorway.

  “Yeah, come on in.”

  Hannah’s father, Neil, had founded the Freedom Institute in the 1960s. It was Neil who’d found the run-down, historic house made of coral stone and Dade County pine just a few blocks from the courthouse and converted it into office space for the Institute. And it was Neil who’d hired Jack out of law school to handle capital cases at a time when Jack’s father, Governor Harry Swyteck, was signing more death warrants than any governor in Florida history. When Neil died, Hannah took over. When Hannah ran out of money, Jack bought the old house, set up his own practice downstairs, and let Hannah run the Institute out of the old master suite and bedrooms upstairs, rent free.

  Hannah took a seat in the armchair facing Jack’s desk. “I may be on to something.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I went through all the witness statements. I count eleven witnesses who say they recognized the shooter as Xavier Khoury. Nine students and two teachers.”

  “More than I thought there would be,” said Jack.

  “But here’s the interesting thing. I checked the date and time of each eyewitness identification. There’s not a single witness who said Xavier Khoury was the shooter until after al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the shooting.”

  “So your argument is that it’s the radical Islam connection that made these witnesses say the man behind the mask and goggles was the eldest son of the only Muslim family in the school. Is that it?”

  “Yes, Jack. Have you seen the surveillance camera images that have been released to the media? The shooter is unrecognizable.”

  “Hannah, that’s all very interesting. But I’m not going to cross-examine nine traumatized children and discredit them until they break down in tears and admit they can’t possibly be certain that the man behind a ski mask and goggles was my client. I just won’t do it. We have to figure out a way to get Beckham to bite on life in prison instead of death. Taking this case to trial is in nobody’s best interest.”

  “We don’t have to go after the children,” said Hannah. “We need the notes and recordings of the interviews. Let’s say the police told the witnesses that al-Qaeda claimed responsibility or that the shooting was an act of radical Islamic terrorism, and only then did they ask the question: Who does this look like to you? The whole preface to the question could have suggested the answer and caused these witnesses to finger Xavier.”

  “All right. That’s an angle that may be worth looking into.”

  “But not tonight,” said Hannah, smiling. “Evan and I are celebrating our one-year anniversary.”

  “Wow. Has it been a year already?”

  “Yeah. One down. Forever to go.”

  “You make marriage sound so magical,” said Jack, teasing.

  “What can I say? Mom was a child of the sixties, and Dad was the prodigal son. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

  “Enjoy your celebration,” said Jack.

  Hannah assured Jack that she would and nearly collided with Jack’s assistant on her way out. Bonnie, it seemed, was always running into or over someone.

  “There’s a visitor here to see you,” said Bonnie. “Nate Abrams.”

  Jack had not spoken to Nate since visiting him at the ICU. He was happy to talk to the one and only school parent who approved of his defense of the alleged shooter. Jack followed Bonnie out of his office to the lobby. Nate rose from the couch. It was readily apparent that he’d come directly from the hospital, as he was still wearing the visitor badge from Jackson Memorial on his shirt.

  “How’s Lindsey?” Jack asked, but by the time the words crossed his lips, the answer was written all over Nate’s face.

  “She’s gone,” he said.

  “I’m so sorry, Nate.” He lowered himself slowly into the armchair, his heart aching. “I can’t begin to say how sorry.”

  “Her mom and I were with her,” he said in a distant voice. “That was good. I suppose.”

  Jack just listened.

  “Her mom is still there,” said Nate. “I had to walk. Had to get out of that place. You know what I mean?”

  “I think I do,” said Jack.

  “I just kept walking. Thinking. Walking. Crying,” Nate said, adding a little laugh at himself. “And walking some more. I was going to walk over to the school. It’s not that far from the hospital, actually. Just on the other side of the river.”

  Silence hung in the air.

  “Did you go?” asked Jack. “To the school?”

  “Almost,” said Nate. “I got abo
ut two blocks away, and I just stopped. I don’t why. Honestly, I don’t know why I started walking over there in the first place. I don’t know why anything happens anymore, Jack.”

  There was only sadness in Nate’s eyes, and Jack could only wish that he had an answer.

  “So I ended up here,” said Nate. “Lucky you. You’re three blocks from the school.”

  “I used to think of it as a blessing,” said Jack.

  “Yeah, all us dads married to our hour-long commutes were jealous.”

  Jack smiled a little, then turned serious. “Something tells me you didn’t just happen over here.”

  Nate shook his head. “No. I came because I’m angry.”

  “At me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because of the argument I made in court this morning?”

  “No. As a lawyer, I totally get why you’re trying to suppress the confession. It’s what all trial lawyers do when they have an unwinnable case. Give the other side a little something to think about and make them come to the bargaining table. My anger isn’t that focused. I’m mad at you, at the world, at the universe. And mad at myself.”

  “Why at yourself?”

  “I hope I can explain this. And not everyone will agree with what I’m going to tell you now. But this is from the heart.”

  “Okay. What is it?”

  He leaned forward a bit, as if to plead his case. “I want your client dead.”

  “Are you saying that you take back everything you told me in the hospital? You don’t want me to defend Xavier?”

  “I’m saying I want to kill him myself. I want to take a hammer and bash his skull in.”

  It wasn’t the first time Jack had heard such words from a grieving father. The popularity of Hollywood revenge stories notwithstanding, real people in real life almost always reached the same conclusion.

  “It’s not worth it,” said Jack.

  “That’s why I came here. I don’t need this, Jack.”

  “This what?”

  “A crusade to put a needle in Xavier’s arm sucking the energy out of me for the next ten years. When I asked you to take Xavier’s case, I never thought I’d get caught up in it, even if I lost Lindsey. I was wrong. I can tell already. It’s going to consume me. That’s why I’m angry at myself. I want to focus on something positive. Maybe create a dance scholarship in Lindsey’s memory. God, she loved to dance. I’m just thinking off the top of my head. I don’t know what my purpose will be. But anything is better than giving my time, my energy, myself over to this monster.”

  Nate took a deep breath, then rose. “I need to get back to the hospital. Left my car there. But that’s what I came to say. I want you to stay on the case. Get the prosecutor to agree to thirteen”—he paused, choking back the correction—“fourteen life sentences, and let’s get this over with. Save me from myself.”

  Jack walked him to the door. “You’re a good man, Nate.”

  “You’re a good lawyer. Put it to good use.”

  Jack shook his hand, the firmest promise without words he’d ever made to another man. “Can I give you a lift?”

  “No, thanks. I need the walk.”

  Nate walked down the stairs, his footfalls crunching in the pea gravel as he continued down the driveway to the street. Jack went back inside. Bonnie stopped him on his way to his office.

  “Oh, Jack, I forgot to tell you. The check came today.”

  “What check?”

  “From the Trustee of the Xavier Khoury Irrevocable Trust.”

  “How much?”

  “Your full retainer. A hundred thousand dollars. Do you want me to split it with the Freedom Institute for Hannah’s work?”

  Jack thought about it, but only for a second. “No. I want you to take it to the bank and cash it. Then get a money order for one hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Payable to whom?”

  “The Lindsey Abrams Dance Scholarship Fund.”

  “Oh, how nice. Is there such a thing?”

  “There will be now,” said Jack.

  “Do you want to do a letter with it?”

  “No. Just put the check in the envelope. No return address. It’s anonymous.”

  Jack went to the window and looked out toward the street. Nate was long gone, well into his lonely walk back to the hospital, but Jack spoke to him anyway.

  “You take care of yourself, Nate,” he said softly.

  Chapter 14

  Alone, Molly walked into her living room and stopped.

  As in most homes, the Khoury living room was the most underutilized square footage under the roof. The only room Molly had spent less time in—recently, at least—was Xavier’s bedroom. He’d told her to keep out, which to her seemed normal for a teenage boy. Everything about Xavier had seemed normal. She no longer knew what “normal” was.

  She stepped toward the fireplace. Talk about underutilized. Every expensive home in Coral Gables had one, and Molly couldn’t understand why. Amir lit a fire about once every three years, and every time he did, Molly got new draperies because he turned the entire room into a smoker. Worse than useless, as far as she was concerned. It had fallen to Molly to explain to their children why Santa Claus didn’t come down the Khoury fireplace.

  Slowly, Molly allowed her gaze to drift upward, above the mantel, settling on the enormous family portrait in a beautiful gold-leaf frame. Amir had commissioned an artist to paint the portrait from a photograph taken on the first family trip to Lebanon that included their youngest daughter. Talitha was three. Jamal was nine. Xavier was thirteen. Molly’s gaze locked onto the smiling face of her eldest son.

  Why?

  Before the shooting, removing that portrait from its place of honor above the mantel would have been unthinkable to Molly. But what was she to do now? Take it down immediately? Wait to see if he was convicted? And if a jury said “guilty,” would that mean going through every family album and Photoshopping her son out of their memories? Do sons convicted of murder cease to exist? Or would her son continue to exist as captured in the perfect photograph that an artist’s brushstrokes had transformed into the perfect portrait. Everything about it was perfect. Her family was perfect. Until it was destroyed from within.

  For what?

  The front door opened, startling Molly. Amir was home.

  “What are you doing?” he asked from the foyer, as if to confirm that she was in the room no one ever entered.

  Molly went to her husband and held him. Amir put down his briefcase and returned the embrace. Molly broke away, glanced at the family portrait over the mantel, and then looked into Amir’s eyes, unable to speak.

  “You’re grieving,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said in a voice that cracked.

  “You need to stop.”

  Molly swallowed hard, confused. “Stop? Why?”

  “We are still a family without”—he paused, alluding to the portrait—“him.”

  The pronoun hurt. “You won’t even say his name?”

  “Do you have any idea what it was like for me going back to the office today? The looks on people’s faces? I’ve spent my entire adult life beating back the notion that Muslims are anti-American. And now this happens.”

  “That’s what really bothers you, isn’t it, Amir? Not that our son is in jail. Not that fourteen children are dead. You can’t get over the fact that your reputation has taken a hit.”

  “Reputation? You think hate and prejudice are about reputation? I don’t want to have this conversation.” He started down the hallway toward the kitchen.

  Molly followed. “I’m not going to let this go. You need to stop making this about you.”

  He turned and faced her. “It is about me. I’m the father in this family. I’m the Muslim!”

  They locked eyes for a moment. Then Amir went to the refrigerator and grabbed a beer.

  “Do you think Xavier did it?” asked Molly.

  The question seemed to annoy him. “I don’t know.”

&
nbsp; “I didn’t ask if you know. I asked what you think.”

  “All I can tell you is that if Xavier went into his school with a gun and killed fourteen children, he was not acting in the name of Islam.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I pray, Molly. Try it sometime. It might surprise you to learn the things you can know through prayer.”

  “Just because I don’t kneel down and face east five times a day doesn’t mean I don’t pray. And my prayers tell me to keep my heart and mind open to possibilities.”

  “Xavier told you he did it. He said it right in front of four police officers.”

  “Jack Swyteck explained all of that to the judge. I thought his argument was quite convincing.”

  “He’s doing what lawyers do—the courtroom tap dance. What you don’t hear is Swyteck trumpeting his client’s innocence, do you? You don’t even hear your own son saying he didn’t do it.”

  “We should hire our own private investigator,” said Molly.

  Amir twisted off the bottle cap and pitched it into the trash. “To do what?”

  “The police aren’t even considering that someone broke into the glove compartment of your car and stole the gun that was used in the shooting.”

  Amir took a seat on the barstool at the granite-topped island. “Is that where your head is now? Someone broke into my car, stole my gun, and shot up the school?”

  “It’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “As if any of this makes sense.”

  “Molly, think about it. Why steal my gun? It would have been much easier to walk into any gun shop in Florida and buy a shiny new assault rifle—which, by the way, would have done even more damage than my gun.”

  “Maybe the shooter wasn’t interested in ‘easy.’ Maybe the goal was to make everyone think it was the Muslim kid who did it.”

  Amir drank his beer, thinking. “A setup?”

  “It could have been.”

  Amir narrowed his eyes, the anger returning. “Don’t do this to me, Molly.”

  “Do what?”