Twenty

by James Grippando

  Jack followed her out of the building, the movement of the black dot on the screen synced perfectly with their walk through the courtyard.

  “The shooter’s next stop was the rec center,” said Vega. “I’m guessing you knew that.”

  “Yes,” said Jack.

  Vega opened the door, and they entered a wide hallway. To the left were classrooms. To the right was the recreation center.

  “Your wife was in there,” said Vega. “Those yellow dots on your screen are the parents who attended the coffee with the head of school.”

  Vega walked. Three green dots were in a vestibule outside the second classroom on the left.

  “By now, word was starting to spread that there was a shooter on campus,” said Vega. “Unfortunately, three students didn’t make it out of the building with their classmates. They hid right over there.”

  They stopped outside the vestibule. Two of the green dots turned purple. The third dot moved quickly down the hallway, then stopped. Green turned to purple. Jack could not contain his reaction.

  “Lindsey,” he said softly.

  “What?”

  Jack cleared his throat. “That was Nate Abrams’ daughter. Lindsey.”

  “Yes. I was so sorry to hear we lost her. Victim number fourteen.”

  The screen went dark. The detective took Jack’s iPad. “That’s as far as our tech team has gotten with the virtual reenactment.”

  Jack was in some way relieved. He wasn’t quite ready to see how close to the black dot the yellow “parent” dot had come after leaving the rec center, racing down the hallway, and standing guard outside Righley’s classroom.

  “The graphic designers are incorporating new information into the model every few days,” said Vega. “You should coordinate directly with Abe Beckham for the latest updates.”

  “I will,” said Jack. “Thank you.”

  Together they left the building, but instead of retracing their steps, Jack followed the detective on a shortcut directly to the front gate. He thanked her again and walked alone toward his office, just a few blocks away. The front porch outside the old house-turned-law-office was in sight when his cell phone rang. He checked the number. It was the number he’d dialed earlier that morning, the one from the Khoury family cell-phone records. Jack answered eagerly, and her words were music to his ears.

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said.

  Jack stopped on the sidewalk. Detective Vega’s tour had all but convinced him that someone had radicalized his client. The young woman on the line might know something about that.

  “Maybe we should talk about it,” said Jack.

  “Maybe.”

  “I can come to you,” said Jack.

  “I don’t know.”

  Jack didn’t want to push too hard—but he needed to close the deal before she changed her mind again. “Where are you now?”

  “I’m at work.”

  “Where do you work?”

  “Uhm. Little Havana. Do you know San Lazaro’s Café?”

  “Yes. That’s ten minutes from my office. When’s your next break?”

  “Three.”

  Jack checked the time. He had twenty minutes. “That would work perfectly for me. How about you?”

  “I guess. But . . .”

  Jack was afraid to ask. “But what?”

  “If you get here before three, take the booth in the back. The one with the old map of Cuba on the wall. Wait there.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief. That was a but he could deal with. “Got it. Oh, one other thing. What’s your name?”

  “Maritza.”

  “Thank you, Maritza. I’m on my way.”

  Chapter 17

  Jack made it to San Lazaro’s Café with time to spare, ordered a café con leche at the counter, and found the booth in the back. Maritza hadn’t been kidding about the old map of Cuba on the wall. This one was from pre-Castro Cuba, more than sixty years old.

  Just after three p.m., a young woman brought him his coffee and took the seat across from him. She was a little older than Xavier, Jack guessed, a dark-eyed Latina with long brown hair and a face like a younger Selena Gomez. Younger and tired. “I’m Maritza,” she said.

  Jack thanked her and kept the preliminaries short. He had a thousand questions but only a few minutes. “How do you know Xavier? From school?”

  “No,” she said, scoffing. “I didn’t go to Fancy-Pants Day School, if that’s what you’re asking. I graduated from Miami Senior High two years ago.”

  “Is that your term or Xavier’s—‘Fancy-Pants Day School’?”

  “Mine. He called it ‘fuck-wad penitentiary.’”

  She was already more helpful than Jack had anticipated. “How did you meet?”

  “Xavier stopped here for coffee almost every day on his way to school. Large American coffee, two sugars. He drives a BMW convertible, so one day I was like, ‘Hey, nice car.’ We started talking every day after that. Chitchat. It grew from there.”

  “Grew in what way?”

  “We became friends.”

  “Just friends?”

  She smiled. “More than friends.”

  “Were you his girlfriend?”

  “Not officially.”

  Jack stirred a packet of sugar into his coffee. “What does that mean?”

  “Xavier’s parents have a problem with Latina chicks. Especially his father. Apparently we’re all sluts. His parents are such assholes.”

  “So you kept your relationship a secret?”

  “Yeah. If we went out, it was to somewhere no one would know us. Anyplace north of Miami Gardens was safe.”

  “His phone had no text messages from you. Did you ever text each other?”

  “Never. No Snapchat, no social media. Just phone calls. We had to do it that way. Xavier said he had like a ton of money coming to him in trust on his eighteenth birthday. He didn’t want his parents finding a text message and cutting him off over a girlfriend.”

  “Did anyone ever find out that you two were an item?”

  “An item?”

  Jack was dating himself with the terminology. “Did anyone know that you and Xavier were, you know—”

  “We weren’t just fuck buddies, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “That wasn’t exactly my question, but thank you for that.”

  “In fact, that morning was supposed to be ‘the day,’” she said, using air quotes.

  “Are you talking about the morning of the shooting?”

  Maritza was noticeably less cheerful. “Yeah. That morning.”

  “What did you mean when you say it was supposed to be ‘the day.’”

  “It was his birthday. The big one.”

  “I know. Eighteen.”

  She looked away, then back. “I was his present.”

  Jack suddenly hoped Righley would never grow up, then shook it off. “I get your drift. So what was the plan? Meet after school?”

  “No. Instead of school.”

  “What?”

  “I took the day off. Xavier skipped school that day and came to my apartment. My roommates were at work, so we had the place to ourselves. That’s where he got his present.”

  “I’m less interested in what the present was than when,” said Jack. “You’re saying that Xavier was at your apartment the morning of the shooting?”

  “Yes.”

  Jack took a moment to process that answer. “Until what time?”

  “Until his phone started ringing. And ringing. And ringing. His mother was psycho-calling him, and he freaked out. He thought his mom was on to him and somehow knew he was with me.”

  Her story jibed with the cell-phone records, the flurry of calls from a panic-stricken mother to her son. “What did you do?”

  “Xavier said he needed to go back to school.”

  “Go back? I thought you said he skipped school and went to your apartment.”

  “He parked his car in the school lot, like usual. His father had one o
f those electronic gizmos on his BMW—the ones the insurance companies have, so you can see where someone drives, how fast they go, and stuff. So he couldn’t drive to my apartment.”

  “How did he get from the school?”

  “The parking lot is right next to the athletic field. I picked him up at the back gate.”

  Jack drank his coffee. “Did you drive him back to school after his mother called?”

  “Yeah. Left him off where I picked him up. The back gate.”

  “What time?”

  “I’d say around ten thirty. Maybe eleven.”

  The shooting had ended before ten a.m. “What did you see when you got there? It must have been pandemonium.”

  “To me, it looked like there was some kind of fire drill going on. Which I thought was pretty lucky for us. Xavier could just jump the fence and fall in line somewhere. Not until later did I find out this was no drill. People were getting shot.”

  The café manager approached their table. “Break’s over, Maritza. Need you at the drive-through.”

  “Coming,” she told him. She waited for him to leave before saying more to Jack. “Sorry, I have to go. I hope this is useful.”

  “It’s useful,” said Jack. “If it’s true.”

  “Why would I lie?”

  “Don’t take this personally, but girlfriends are the number one phony alibi in the history of homicide. Mothers a close second.”

  “I’m not a phony.”

  “I understand. But I’d like to ask you one favor: Would you be willing to sit for a polygraph examination?”

  “A what?”

  “A lie detector test.”

  She looked at him harshly, clearly offended. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “I’m just being careful.”

  “No one will believe me. Even if I pass a stupid lie detector test.”

  “Passing a polygraph will help.”

  “No way. You just said yourself that girlfriends are the number one phony alibi. That’s who I’ll be the rest of my life: the slutty Latina who slept with the Islamic terrorist and then lied to help him get away with shooting up his school.”

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to offend you.”

  “My first reaction was right,” she said, rising. “I should never have talked to you.”

  “All I was suggesting is that a lot of people have made up their mind about Xavier. They’ll question your story.”

  “They can’t question it if I don’t tell it,” she said, sliding out of the booth.

  “Please don’t leave like this.”

  “Just forget it. This meeting never happened. Don’t call me again.”

  “Maritza, please—”

  “I said forget it. I won’t testify. I won’t say anything to anyone. Ever.”

  Jack could only watch as she made an angry pivot and marched back to work.

  Chapter 18

  Jack and Andie were side by side in the moonlight, holding hands, seated in matching Adirondack chairs. A gentle breeze blew in from the bay, adding warmth to the glow of downtown Miami’s magnificent skyline on the mainland. Their little vintage-fifties house was tiny by Key Biscayne standards, one of the few remaining Mackle homes that hadn’t been bulldozed to make room for elevated three-story McMansions built on concrete pilings. Jack and Andie were among the holdouts. It worked just fine for their family of three, might get crowded if they became four, or might be under three feet of water by the time Jack and Andie were grandparents. The trade-off was life on the Key Biscayne waterfront.

  Andie had a glass of sauvignon blanc in her free hand. Jack held the complaint in his, reading.

  “Exactly what is a declaratory judgment anyway?” asked Andie.

  “The Board of Trustees is asking the court to issue a declaration that the school has good cause to terminate our contract.”

  “So they can kick Righley out of the school?”

  “Yes,” said Jack. “And still make us pay the full year’s tuition we owe.”

  “Can they do that?”

  “It’s frivolous. If the board wanted me to stop representing Xavier Khoury, they should have talked to me about it. Not file a bullshit lawsuit against my wife.”

  “The lawsuit doesn’t have anything to do with your representation of Xavier Khoury.”

  “It has everything to do with it,” said Jack. “They could have just sent us a letter and terminated the contract. Instead, they filed a lawsuit and made this a public statement.”

  “You’re talking about the motive. I’m talking about the substance of the lawsuit. This is serious.” Andie took the complaint from him and read aloud.

  “‘Agent Henning disregarded the explicit instructions of the head of school, putting the lives of students in danger. As a law enforcement officer, Agent Henning was familiar with the well-established “Run, Hide, Fight” response protocol to an active shooter in public places. By her own admission, Agent Henning violated that protocol.’”

  Jack stopped her. “There’s bogus allegation number one. When did you admit to violating the ‘Run, Hide, Fight’ protocol?”

  Andie considered it. “I guess at the candlelight vigil in the park. A few of the kindergarten moms confronted me and made some pretty harsh accusations. I didn’t deny anything. I guess by not denying it, I admitted it.”

  “Yeah, you and Jesus.”

  “But that’s not the main point. What this lawsuit is alleging is that it would have been fine for me to run for an exit. Instead—well, it says it right here. ‘Agent Henning proceeded directly to a classroom filled with kindergarten students, potentially leading the shooter to the youngest and most vulnerable students in the school. Agent Henning’s negligent and unprofessional actions caused unknown additional casualties.’”

  “That’s just outrageous,” said Jack. “No one in Righley’s classroom was hurt. In fact, the argument could be made that you prevented the shooter from going in that classroom by standing guard outside the door.”

  Andie drew a deep breath. “I just don’t believe this is about you, Jack. These are smart people on the Board of Trustees. Would they file a lawsuit like this just because you’re defending Xavier?”

  “It’s also a proactive move,” said Jack. “Yes, the trustees are smart. But the school also has smart lawyers. It’s not a pleasant topic while families are still grieving, but wrongful death lawsuits are already in the pipeline. This claim against you is step one in taking control of the narrative: the school did everything it could, and to the extent that any safety measures failed, it was the fault of people like you who broke the rules.”

  “Maybe it was the fault of people like me.”

  “Stop,” Jack said.

  Andie turned her gaze toward the distant city lights on the mainland. “The crazy thing is, I had to leave my gun behind in the glove compartment. Not only am I an FBI agent. I was the only one in my class at Quantico who made the Possible Club. You know what that means, Jack? It means I shot a perfect score on one of the most difficult training courses in the country. It means that if you put me at the other end of the hallway with that shooter, I could have shot the teenage stubble off of his chin. I could’ve put a bullet between his eyes and ended it. Instead, all I could do was hide in a vestibule outside my daughter’s classroom, armed only with a stupid fire extinguisher, while he just kept shooting and shooting and—”

  “Hey, hey, stop,” said Jack. He went to her quickly and held her tight.

  “I’m sorry,” said Andie, sobbing.

  “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay.”

  Jack kissed her on the forehead. “You’re right. It’s not. I was moved when Nate Abrams walked me down the hall from his daughter’s room in the ICU and asked me to take this case. Even more moved when he walked all the way from the hospital to tell me to keep on doing what I was doing. But you’re my wife. This is our family. I’m not going to do this at your expense. I’ll file a motion to withdraw as counsel in
the morning.”

  “That’s not what I want,” said Andie.

  “You don’t have to say that. No need to put on the happy mask and play ‘the good wife.’”

  “It’s not that,” said Andie, and her expression turned from sadness to resignation. “We never really fit in there anyway, Jack.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know exactly what I mean. I’m pretty confident we’re the only family at Riverside that uses coupons at the grocery store.”

  “What’s wrong with coupons?”

  “Nothing. All I’m saying is that changing schools is not the end of the world. How is Righley going to feel when she’s sixteen years old and still riding the bus while her friends are driving to school in a new Audi or Range Rover? We have an amazing daughter who will do amazing things at her new school. And in the long run, she’ll learn a lot more from a father who does what he believes in than she would ever learn from attending ‘the right school.’”

  Jack smiled a little. “Thank you for that.”

  “I meant it.”

  Jack held her closer. “One way or another, I have to wrap this up as soon as possible. And it starts tomorrow.”

  Chapter 19

  Abe Beckham and a junior prosecutor entered the grand jury room at eight a.m. Inside were twenty-three grand jurors who had sworn an oath to keep secret all matters that occurred before them, and to consider all evidence presented against Xavier Khoury. There was no judge. The prosecutor was the virtual writer, director, and producer of this nonpublic proceeding.

  It was day three of the presentation. It was Abe’s decision, with the state attorney’s approval, not to call any children as witnesses before the grand jury. Instead, the prosecution team read witness statements into the record, which had taken most of the first day. Day two had been forensic evidence and testimony from law enforcement officers. On Wednesday morning, exactly one week after the deadly shooting, the prosecution was ready to call its final witness.

  “Let’s get started,” said Beckham.