Twenty

by James Grippando

  “Is that what you think? That we filed this lawsuit to bully you into withdrawing?”

  “The thought crossed my mind.”

  “Erase the thought,” said Fitz. “This is a simple breach-of-contract action. All families execute a binding agreement to abide by the Riverside’s rules and procedures. Your wife breached that agreement.”

  “Then let’s address this on a business level. We will agree to leave the school quietly. The school waives its right to tuition for the rest of the school year.”

  “That hardly leaves my client whole,” said Fitz. “Riverside Day School is a not-for-profit institution. The Board of Trustees approves its annual budget based on the number of tuitions coming from enrolled students. Even if one of those students leaves, the school still depends on that tuition to meet its operations.”

  “You’ll find another family to step in. The waiting list to get in to Riverside Day School is as long as my arm.”

  Fitz shook his head. “That waiting list has evaporated into thin air.”

  Jack had heard the rumors. “So what people are saying online is true?”

  “I wouldn’t know what is being said online,” said Fitz.

  “The buzz is that Riverside is in panic mode. They think families are going to pull out in droves and demand a tuition refund.”

  “That’s a legitimate fear,” said Fitz. “Any reasonable parent might ask himself or herself, ‘Do I want to pay top dollar to send my child to a school that will forever be linked to a massacre like this one?’”

  The lightbulb switched on for Jack. “Now I get it. The Board of Trustees is making an example out of us. The message to the school community is this: every family—even the ones we kick out of this school—will be held to their contract for the full amount of annual tuition.”

  “Plus payment of my attorneys’ fees. Which I believe are in the neighborhood of twenty-eight thousand dollars. Twenty-nine, once I bill for this meeting.”

  Fitz rose from his desk chair and offered a handshake, which Jack ignored.

  “I can’t dismiss the case, Jack. I’m sure you understand.”

  “I’m trying to,” said Jack, leaving the office with the firm impression that everything he’d heard about Duncan Fitz was true—and then some.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said, as he blew past Theo in the lobby. In five minutes they were down the elevator and in the car. It took another five just to get out of the parking garage and into the stop-and-go traffic of Brickell Avenue, the heart of Miami’s Financial District. Jack had no desire to move his office downtown, but it was a beautiful afternoon, and the reflection of palm trees and sunshine against Brickell’s glass towers made him long for the old convertible he’d swapped out for life with Andie, Righley, and a golden retriever named Max, who had no idea he was a dog.

  “You want me to drop you at your office?” asked Theo.

  “Stop by San Lazaro’s Café first,” said Jack. “I have a few pointed questions for Maritza.”

  The drive to the coffee shop was just long enough for Jack to call Andie and give her the highs and low, mostly lows, of his meeting at Cool Cash. She took it as well as could be expected, and Jack assured her that Hannah was a pit bull, every bit the match for Duncan Fitz.

  Theo found a parking spot next to the one for the Employee of the Month. Jack led the way inside to the booth in the back where he’d met Maritza. Theo’s head covered half the map of Cuba. A server approached.

  “Is Maritza here today?” asked Jack.

  The server suddenly seemed flustered. “Uhm. Maritza? Uh . . . one second.”

  Jack and Theo exchanged puzzled looks as she walked away.

  “Did you see that face she made?” asked Jack.

  “That was weird, dude.”

  The manager appeared a moment later, the same one Jack had met the day before. “You were asking about Maritza?”

  “Yeah, I was here yesterday. We talked over her break.”

  “I remember.”

  “Is she here?” asked Jack.

  “No.”

  “When will she be back?”

  “That’s impossible to say. Probably never.”

  “Do you know where she is now?”

  “I’m guessing she’s on an airplane to Mexico City. ICE was here yesterday. I’m told she has been deported.”

  “She was illegal?” asked Jack, though it was more of a reflex than an inquiry.

  “Look, I don’t know all the details, and I have a café to run. Do you fellas want to buy some coffee? If not, I’d like to turn this table.”

  “I’d like an espresso,” said Theo.

  “I’ll send your server,” said the manager, and he stepped away.

  “What do you make of that?” asked Jack.

  “It’s like the old joke,” said Theo. “What’s worse than a prostitute for an alibi? A deported prostitute.”

  “Never heard that one,” said Jack.

  “A moldy oldie, I call it.”

  Jack considered how quickly he’d lost his potential alibi witness after mere mention of her to the prosecution. “I call it a little too convenient for coincidence.”

  Chapter 24

  “Is it safe?” asked Righley.

  The question cut to Jack’s core. He was leaning over her shoulder at the kitchen table, cutting her toasted waffle—“No black stuff on the edges, Daddy”—into bite-sized pieces on her breakfast plate. Righley was dressed in a blue skirt and white polo shirt, the mandatory uniform of her new school. It was the family’s morning routine. Andie got her up and dressed. Jack took Max outside to do his morning business and made Righley breakfast. They’d followed the same routine when Righley was at Riverside Day School, but there was a twist of late, with Righley asking the same question she’d asked every morning since day one at Key Biscayne K through 8.

  Is it safe?

  “Yes, sweetie. It’s safe, it’s fun, and you’re going to learn so much there.” Jack was sure of it. Then again, hadn’t every parent at Riverside Day School made the same promise to their children just by virtue of sending them off to school each morning?

  Max jumped up on his hind legs, front paws on the tabletop, and licked the syrup from Righley’s chin. She laughed the way every child should laugh. There was nothing like an eighty-pound golden retriever licking your face to make you feel safe.

  Righley finished her waffle in what seemed like record time, though Jack suspected that Max had claimed more than his fair share. Andie entered the kitchen.

  “Ready, Righley?”

  Righley looked at Max. “Ready?”

  The real winner in the new routine was Max. The best thing about Righley’s new school was that it was close enough to walk. The downside was that, with fourteen hundred students, Key Biscayne’s K through 8 enrollment was almost triple Riverside’s K through 12, which was precisely the reason Jack and Andie had stretched their wallet to send Righley to Riverside in the first place. Andie affixed Max’s leash and took Righley’s hand. Jack kissed them all good-bye, and the threesome was out the door. He topped off his go-cup with hot coffee and glanced at the newspaper on the kitchen counter. The remaining memorial services for victims of the Riverside shooting were scheduled for the coming week. Jack wondered if his name would come up. He grabbed his computer bag, jumped in the car, and headed across the bridge to Doral.

  Most people who’d heard of Doral thought of the legendary Blue Monster golf course, home to PGA events for over fifty years and host to virtually every great player in the sport. Doral was also home to the Forensic Services Bureau of the Miami-Dade Police Department. Jack was pushing Xavier’s case forward as fast as possible, and at the top of his priority list was the deposition of the state’s fingerprint expert. At nine a.m. Jack was in a windowless conference room, and the stage was set. Jack was on one side of the rectangular table. Abe Beckham was on the other. The witness was seated at the head of the table next to the court reporter. It was Jack’s depositi
on, so he was asking the questions.

  “Good morning, Dr. Granger,” said Jack, beginning much in the same way he would at trial, eliciting the witness’s background and qualifications. Granger was a skinny fellow, mostly bald, save for an exceedingly long wisp of hair that attached at what was formerly his hairline, reached back over his shiny scalp, and disappeared somewhere behind his right ear. It was the gray and self-grown version of the hair extensions that Riverside mothers paid ridiculous sums of money to have taped to their heads, only to lose them in a tennis match or a windy convertible. Granger had a nervous habit of pushing his wisp into place once every minute or so, though it wasn’t readily apparent to Jack what was “in place” as opposed to “out of place.” That aside, there was no challenging Granger’s expertise in his field. He held a PhD and had served as chief of the MDPD Forensic Bureau’s Latent Unit for almost fifteen years.

  “What is the primary function of the Latent Unit?” asked Jack.

  “We evaluate physical evidence from crime scenes for the presence of latent prints through friction ridge analysis.”

  “What is a friction ridge?”

  He used his own hand as a prop. “On the palm side of our hands and on the soles of our feet are prominent skin features that single us out from everyone else in the world. These so-called friction ridges leave impressions when they come into contact with an object. The impressions from the last finger joints are known as fingerprints.”

  “What is a latent fingerprint?”

  “Let me back up a second,” said Granger, pushing the wisp of hair back into place. “There are two different types of friction ridge impressions. The first are of known individuals recorded for a specific purpose, like the prints that you gave to the Florida Bar when you became a member, or that your client gave to the police when he was arrested. The second type involves impressions of unknown persons on a piece of evidence from a crime scene or related location. These are generally referred to as latent prints.”

  “Did you analyze latent fingerprints recovered from the crime scene at Riverside Day School?”

  “I did.”

  “On what piece of evidence were those fingerprints found?”

  “From the weapon that was recovered on the scene.”

  Jack put the next question with some trepidation, as it was a key issue that he and Hannah had focused on. “Were any latent prints found on the extended magazines recovered from the crime scene?”

  “No.”

  “None?” asked Jack.

  “No. My assumption is that the shooter wiped those magazines clean after purchasing them, probably with alcohol, and thereafter handled them only with gloves, like the gloves the shooter was wearing in the surveillance video I watched.”

  It was the kind of long-winded and speculative answer that Jack would have shut down at trial, but he was interested in hearing the expert’s assumptions in a discovery deposition.

  Jack handed the witness a photograph of the pistol. “Dr. Granger, this photograph is marked as Grand Jury Exhibit Ninety-Two and was produced to us by the state of Florida. Is it your testimony that the only latent fingerprints you examined are those found on this weapon?”

  “That is my testimony.”

  “Were you able to identify any of the fingerprints found on this pistol?”

  “Yes. We identified several prints from the gun’s registered owner, Mr. Amir Khoury. And one print from the defendant, Xavier Khoury.”

  “Using the photograph, could you please point to the exact location of these fingerprints?”

  “I’d rather use the diagram I prepared,” said Granger. “It’s in my report.”

  Jack located it, and reasked the question. Granger first identified the location of Amir’s fingerprints, which were not important. “Where did you find Xavier Khoury’s fingerprint?” asked Jack.

  “There was only one print. It was the right index finger. Found here,” said Granger, pointing to the diagram, “on the top of the barrel near the fixed sight.”

  “Your examination of Mr. Khoury’s fingerprint was done in accordance with best practices, correct, Doctor?”

  “Of course.”

  “Consistent with the exercise of best practices, what conclusion did you reach as to the age of Xavier Khoury’s fingerprint that was found on the pistol?”

  Granger looked puzzled—so puzzled that he pushed the wisp of gray hair back into place when, as far as Jack could tell, it wasn’t even out of place. “The age?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” said Jack. “How long had Xavier’s fingerprint been on the gun?”

  “I didn’t reach any conclusion in that regard,” said Granger.

  “Why not?”

  “There’s no reliable scientific test to determine the age of a fingerprint. We can only deduce it from circumstantial or anecdotal evidence.”

  “How would you deduce the age of a fingerprint?”

  “For example, if a latent print is lifted from a newspaper dated June first, twenty-nineteen, you know the fingerprint isn’t older than that.”

  “Let’s keep our focus on the weapon at issue in this case. Is there such a way to ‘deduce’ the age of Xavier Khoury’s fingerprint?”

  “Not in our lab. The Netherlands Forensic Institute has made progress on a technique that can be used on fresh fingerprints—prints less than fifteen days old. They claim that their technique can pin it down to within a day or two.”

  “The fingerprints from the weapon found in this case were not examined by the Netherlands Forensic Institute, were they, Doctor?”

  “No.”

  “As far as you know, Dr. Granger, my client’s fingerprint could have been a day old?”

  “Yes.”

  “A week?”

  “Yes.”

  “A month?”

  “Sure.”

  “A year?”

  “When you start talking years, then it becomes a question of whether the print really could have lasted that long. That all depends on the surface, the firmness of the imprint, and other factors, including the salinity of a person’s skin. On porous surfaces, like paper, fingerprints can last forty years.”

  “What about a gun like the one used in the Riverside shooting? How long?”

  “I’m going to object,” said Beckham. “That’s pure speculation.”

  There was no judge at a deposition, but the prosecutor had the right to make his objections for the record. Clearly, Beckham didn’t like the point Jack was making—that the only time Xavier had ever handled this gun was years before anyone had planned the school shooting.

  “Let me rephrase,” said Jack. “Are you aware of any studies regarding the recovery of latent prints some number of years after those prints were impressed on a firearm?”

  “I’ve read a number of excellent studies. For one, Sheffield Hallam University developed a technique to recover latent marks from spent casings using an electrolysis process. They’ve examined spent casings and weapons up to twenty years old, in various states of decay, and recovered latent prints that are legally admissible in a court of law.”

  “In our case, Mr. Khoury’s gun is more than twenty years old,” said Jack. “In theory, the fingerprints you recovered from Amir and Xavier Khoury could be that old, correct?”

  “Not Xavier’s. He’s only eighteen. And in my opinion the size of the impression indicates that his hands were fully grown.”

  “So the most your report can say is that Xavier laid a finger on his father’s gun sometime after he went through puberty. Say, sometime in the last three or four years.”

  “Objection,” said Beckham. “Dr. Granger has already testified that there is no test to confirm the age of a fingerprint.”

  “You can answer,” Jack told the witness. “Xavier touched his father’s gun sometime in the last three or four years. That’s all you can say, right?”

  “It could have been that long ago.”

  “And for the same reasons, Mr. Khoury’s print could be
twenty or more years old, correct?”

  “Yes,” said Granger. “And the same goes for the unidentified print.”

  Jack did a double take. It never ceased to amaze him the way smart people couldn’t resist showing off how much they knew, even if it helped the other side. It took all of Jack’s professional discipline to contain his excitement.

  “Dr. Granger, I’ve read your report. I didn’t see any mention of an unidentified latent fingerprint on the murder weapon.”

  “It’s not in my report.”

  “Why not?”

  “Additional tests are being run to identify it.”

  “Where was this unidentified fingerprint found?”

  “On the inside of the pistol’s slide. I’m not a ballistics expert, but a pistol doesn’t have an exposed barrel the way a revolver does. The barrel is inside the slide. So, for a print to be found inside the slide, the firearm must have been disassembled for cleaning, maintenance, gun-safety training—whatever the reason.”

  “Let me make sure I understand,” said Jack. “You’ve been unable to link this latent fingerprint to any known individual, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “But you have concluded that this fingerprint does not belong to either Amir Khoury or Xavier Khoury.”

  “Objection,” said Beckham. “That was not Dr. Granger’s testimony. Your question fails to account for the fact that the impression could have been blurred or smudged, which prevented Dr. Granger from concluding that it belonged to either Xavier or Amir Khoury.”

  “Is that the case, Dr. Granger?” asked Jack. “Or is the prosecutor putting words in your mouth?”

  “I object to that remark,” said Beckham.

  Jack tightened his gaze, as well as his figurative grip, on the witness. “Dr. Granger, there was nothing wrong with the quality of the fingerprint you were unable to identify, was there?”

  “No,” Granger said, too much of a professional to mince words. “Actually, it’s of even higher quality than the latent print of Xavier Khoury. It oxidized into the metal, which can happen with certain types of firearms or casings.”