“What?”
“Just look inside. But don’t take it out.”
Amir stepped toward the table, took the envelope, and squeezed the side seams to enlarge the opening. “What is it?”
“It’s a footie.”
“A what?”
“You wear it over your shoes so you don’t leave footprints. Cleaning people use them. So did the shooter at Riverside.”
Molly locked eyes with him, watching as his confusion turned to anger.
“This is how you choose to tell me?” he asked.
“Tell you what?”
“Oh, come on, Molly. The footie worn by the shooter just landed in our mailbox? Is that it?”
“I didn’t say it was the actual footie. But it could be.”
“Yes! It definitely could be, Molly! Because Xavier still had it with him when you picked him up after the shooting!”
“That’s crazy!”
“It’s what the police have been saying all along. Somebody helped him ditch his stuff after the shooting. Who else but his mother would do it?”
“It wasn’t me.”
He clutched the envelope. “Then where did you get this?”
“It came in the mail.”
“Stop lying!” he shouted, slapping the envelope down on the table. “What did you do with all the other stuff? Burn it? Dump it in the Everglades?”
“I didn’t do anything with it!”
“You got rid of all of it, or at least tried to. But like everything else you do, you fucked up. Somehow the footie got separated from all the other stuff. Where’d you find it, Molly? Under the seat in your car? The laundry room? The bottom of your four-thousand-dollar handbag?”
“Why are you saying this?”
“Because it’s classic you. Brilliant Molly finds the footie and says, ‘Hmmm, I’ll mail this to myself from some random post office, and then I’ll go to the police and say, “See, Detective, I told you my son was innocent. The real killer mailed me his footie!”’”
“Stop it, Amir.”
“No, you stop! Your son did this. Do you hear me? He did it. This idiotic scheme of yours is just going to get you arrested as an accomplice after the fact and bring me down even further.”
“Bring you down? Why is this about you, Amir?”
“Because I’m the only Muslim in this marriage!”
He grabbed the envelope and stormed out of the kitchen. Molly followed.
“What are you doing?”
Amir continued to the living room and went to the fireplace.
“Amir?”
He opened the flue, grabbed some kindling from the tinderbox, and lit it with the starter.
“You can’t burn it!” shouted Molly. “That could be evidence.”
The kindling burned quickly. Amir tossed the envelope with the footie into the fire. The flames shot up another foot, consuming the package and its contents.
“Not anymore,” he said.
Chapter 39
Jack’s meeting with Xavier entered its second hour of silence.
The opening monologue had taken about twenty minutes. Jack had laid out everything he’d learned about Maritza from their encounter in the driveway and from Agent Carter outside the detention center. Xavier had shown no reaction, except to make momentary eye contact with Jack each time he mentioned the name Maritza. Jack’s last question was still pending. He broke an hour of silence by repeating it.
“Do you love Maritza?”
Xavier was slouching in his chair with his shackled wrists crossed in his lap. He cut a glance in Jack’s direction, the mention of Maritza’s name triggering another reaction. Then he lowered his eyes and retreated into his cocoon.
Jack rose and reached for the ceiling, giving his back muscles a good stretch. “She doesn’t want you to die. She risked her own life to come and tell me that tonight.”
Xavier didn’t reply. Jack returned to his chair.
“I can wait all night for an answer, if I have to,” said Jack. “Do you love her?”
It wasn’t the most important question on Jack’s list, but he was betting that it was the one Xavier was most likely to answer. All Jack needed was a trigger to get him talking. Another minute passed. Then—and Jack almost missed it—Xavier nodded. Just once, and ever so slightly. Jack smiled on the inside.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” said Jack. “She clearly loves you.”
Xavier made eye contact again. Jack moved to the end of his seat, getting a little closer. “She says you’re afraid to deny the shooting.”
Xavier looked away. Jack had switched gears to the shooting too quickly. He was losing him again. He tacked back in the other direction.
“Relationships are funny things, aren’t they, Xavier?”
His client didn’t look at him, but he seemed to reengage.
“Sometimes, when you’re in a relationship, you feel like you have no choice. In some cases, that’s true. Hell, look at us. I don’t have a choice. I can’t quit being your lawyer. The judge won’t allow it. I’m not complaining. That’s just the way it is. But do you understand what that means?”
No answer.
“It means you can tell me anything. You don’t have to be afraid when you’re with me. Don’t be afraid to deny it. Don’t be afraid to tell me you did it. Don’t be afraid to name the person who helped you do it. I can’t tell anyone what you tell me, unless you allow it.”
Xavier didn’t look at him, but he appeared to be thinking about it.
“It’s like a marriage,” said Jack, “but it’s a weird marriage. You can fire me, but I can’t fire you. A marriage where only one person has all the power.”
Jack waited, studying his client’s reaction. Xavier’s lips parted, and he seemed on the verge of saying something. And then he spoke.
“Like Rusul.”
Jack could hardly believe that his client had finally spoken. But he didn’t understand it. “Like whom?” asked Jack.
No answer.
“Like Russell, did you say? Who’s Russell?”
Jack waited and watched. The body language went negative again. No eye contact, no sign of any willingness to speak further. Perhaps Jack should have let the silence linger another hour, if necessary, but he was losing patience.
“Does Russell have something to do with the shooting?”
Xavier sat up in his chair. For an instant, Jack thought he might say something, but he was only getting up to leave.
“Sit your ass down,” Jack said harshly.
Xavier seemed taken aback by the tone, and the shackles rattled as he settled back into his chair.
“Like I said, you can fire me. You can walk out of this room right now. But here’s what will happen if you do. Tomorrow, maybe the next day, you’ll be in the shower. Two guys will grab you, hold you up by your ankles, and shove your head in the toilet until you drown unless you name your accomplice.”
Xavier sat motionless.
“I’m not threatening you. I’m not suggesting that I will have anything to do with that. I’m telling you that I can’t stop it from happening. So here’s the choice I’m giving you. Tell me the name of your accomplice. Or sit for a polygraph examination and answer this question: ‘Were you the shooter?’”
Jack gave his client a minute to consider it. But only a minute.
“Tell me what it’s going to be, Xavier. Before you walk out that door, I want your answer.”
Xavier glanced at the door, then back at Jack.
“I’ll take the polygraph,” he said.
Jack didn’t respond immediately. He hadn’t expected an answer, and he certainly hadn’t expected that one.
“All right, then. I’ll line up an examiner.”
Chapter 40
It was long after dark when Maritza pulled her Toyota Prius into the lot behind the Mount Olive Baptist Church of Fort Lauderdale. Several RVs, a handful of SUVs, and about a dozen other cars had arrived ahead of her. Another Prius was parked in t
he usual place. Maritza wasn’t the type to get to know her neighbors, but the guy in the Prius seemed to think that all Prius owners were members of the same club, so he’d introduced himself one morning. He was a grad student with about four hundred thousand dollars in student debt. The church didn’t chase people away at night and had even installed a security light, a bathroom, and a shower for its homeless guests. For Cousin Prius, living in his car was the only affordable option.
Maritza hadn’t told him her story.
She parked in her usual spot, not so close to the security lamp behind the church to keep her awake all night, but enough light to hopefully keep away the rapists. She got her blanket and pillow from the trunk and made up her bed in the back seat. Her “neighbor,” the grad student, liked to fold down his back seat and sleep with his feet in the trunk, but Maritza wasn’t interested in buying a mattress and turning the “Prius Motel” into a way of life. She plugged her phone into the USB charger in the console. An extra-long cord left the phone in reach in an emergency. She put her gym bag on the floor, also within quick reach. The pistol was inside and loaded, just in case. She would never have shot Jack Swyteck in his driveway, her threat notwithstanding. But that didn’t mean she was afraid to use it, if necessary.
Maritza had figured that Swyteck might follow her, so the address she’d given to the cabdriver was a good three blocks away from where she’d parked on the street. When she was sure no one was on her tail, she’d walked to her car, hopped on the expressway, and headed north. The parking lot behind the church was her go-to bridge from one apartment to the next. She moved twice a month. It was a way of life for her—had been, for some time.
Damn, it’s hot in here.
It was only her third autumn in South Florida, and like many natives, Maritza had come to hate October in the subtropics. When the rest of the country was enjoying crisp nights, sunny days, and blazing fall foliage, Florida was still stuck in the last vestiges of summer heat, humidity, and even hurricanes. The weather would make a glorious turn any day, bringing millions of snowbirds, some of whom would vie for a spot in the parking lot behind the church. Until then, there was at least one more night of misery on the calendar. She cracked the window open an inch for some air. It didn’t help.
She checked the time on her cell phone. 11:28 p.m. The hour was late and she was dead tired, but she could tell that it was going to be another restless night. It had nothing to do with the heat or the fact that the car wasn’t wide enough for her to stretch out the full length of her body. Her mind was too active.
The imam said you were a prostitute.
Swyteck’s words had been weighing on her all evening, playing over and over again in her head. In hindsight, falling for Xavier had been a mistake—for obvious reasons. But the bigger mistake had been accepting his invitation to go with him to the mosque. Hoping for acceptance and forgiveness had been borderline delusional on her part. She’d trusted the imam for some reason. What she’d told him in private was something she’d told no one since coming to this country.
“Have you been married before?” he’d asked her.
“Yes.”
“What was his name?”
“Abdul.”
“Abdul what?”
“I don’t know. Just Abdul.”
It had gone downhill from there. She was a grown woman, but the imam had made her feel like that fourteen-year-old girl in Baghdad who had gone back to the fraud who’d called himself a cleric to tell him that Abdul had taken her virginity and left without paying her the dowry.
“Now that you have chosen this path, you have no choice,” the so-called cleric had said to her. “You are a pleasure wife. You will do many pleasure marriages. You will bring many men closer to God.”
The tap on the car window made her start. She snapped quickly from her memories and grabbed her gun. The man outside the car took a step back, and she recognized his face in the glow of the security lamp. She put the gun away and lowered the window. He came closer to the car.
“Hello, Rusul,” he said in Arabic.
“Hello, Abdul.”
Chapter 41
Jack got home after midnight. Andie was asleep in their bed. He was too tired to eat, but he went to the kitchen anyway. He checked the trash. No empty wine bottles, which was a relief.
Jack had never known Andie to have a drinking problem, but he’d never known her to drink alone either, until he’d found her nearly passed out on their couch the other night. He knew virtually nothing about Andie’s biological mother, except that she was an alcoholic incapable of raising her own child. A doctor had once told Jack that alcoholism was hereditary, but Jack still wasn’t sure if it was genetic or “like parent, like child.” It bothered him that the fallout from the shooting even had him thinking such things about Andie.
“You hungry?” asked Andie. She’d entered the kitchen so quietly that Jack hadn’t even noticed.
“I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
“It’s fine. I was in and out of sleep.”
She took a seat at the kitchen table. Jack joined her. Less than twelve hours had passed since she’d called to tell him that she was under disciplinary review. It seemed so much longer.
“I’m glad you went back to work,” he said. “I really wanted to be here when you got home, but—”
“There’s no need to explain.”
“I want to.”
“You weren’t here, Jack. That’s all there is to it.”
“Trust me, there’s a little more to it.”
He didn’t go into his meeting with his client, but he told her everything about the meeting with Agent Carter outside the detention center.
“Be careful, Jack,” she said.
“Meaning what?”
“Carter looks like a nice guy—kind of like Theo when he’s behind his bar at Cy’s Place. But if you think Theo has another side, his is nothing compared to Carter’s. He’s a former Green Beret. His father was from Detroit, but his mother was Libyan. He’s fluent in Arabic, so he was at the top of the food chain when US Special Forces started training the Iraqi Special Operations Forces Brigade in counterterrorism.”
“Sounds like he should be working in the Pentagon. Why did he leave the military?”
“I only have hearsay,” said Andie.
“This isn’t a courtroom,” said Jack.
“Around two thousand and nine, US advisers were getting ready to transfer counterterrorism efforts to the Iraqis. It was literally called the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service—CTS. Our exit from Iraq didn’t go so smoothly. Troops were leaving, but Carter was one of the US advisers still on the ground conducting side-by-side operations with CTS. That’s when things got ugly.”
“Ugly for Carter?”
“For CTS. You stopped hearing success stories and started hearing about CTS conducting mass arrests, abusing women, using collective punishment, intimidating entire villages to apprehend a single suspect, and on and on. There was talk of a secret prison and torture.”
“Was Carter part of that?”
“I don’t know. You asked why he left the army. From what I’ve heard, it was entirely his decision.”
“How’d he get into the FBI?”
“We’re talking about the war against terrorism. People as talented as Carter get a second chance. Sometimes a third or a fourth.”
“All of what you say fits with the way he handled our meeting. Lots of implied threats. He told me not to tell anyone we even talked.”
“Except me?”
“No. Including you.”
Andie’s expression turned to concern. “Then you shouldn’t have told me.”
“What?”
“Jack, I’m under disciplinary review. If they ask whether we’ve talked about the case, I’ll have to say that you broke your agreement with the FBI and told me about Agent Carter.”
“I didn’t break any agreement. I never agreed.”
“They won’t see it that way.”
“I don’t care how they see it.”
“Well, I do! The FBI is my career, Jack!”
“I didn’t mean I don’t care—not in that way.”
Andie breathed out so hard that it was almost a groan. “I’m so tired of walking this line, Jack. Everything has a footnote.”
“What does that mean, ‘a footnote’?”
“All you lawyers love your footprints in fine print,” she said, and then switched to her “Jack voice,” which was about as flattering as any wife’s imitation of her husband. “‘Andie, I know you don’t want me to defend a school shooter—footnote—but don’t worry about it, because you and I won’t talk about the case.’”
“That’s not fair. I agreed to take on Xavier only to see if I could convince Abe Beckham to drop the death penalty for life without parole.”
Her Jack voice continued. “‘I never agreed to take Xavier’s case to trial—footnote—but now I’m stuck because the judge won’t let me out of the case.’”
“It’s not a footnote, Andie. It’s the law.”
“If that’s the law, then you should never have said yes to Xavier Khoury.”
“I said yes to Nate Abrams, who doesn’t want to spend the next ten years of his life attending court hearings, obsessed with whether Xavier Khoury lives or dies.”
Andie rested her elbows on the table and massaged between her eyes, as if staving off a massive headache. Slowly, she rose and cinched up her robe.
“Nate Abrams is a good man, and I feel so sorry for him and his wife. But thirteen other families lost a loved one, too. Maybe for those others the death penalty isn’t just an obsession, Jack. Maybe it’s justice.”
Jack watched as she walked away, leaving him alone in their kitchen.
Chapter 42
On Monday morning Sylvia Gonzalez left her apartment in Maryland at the usual time, caught the eight a.m. train, and rode the Red Line all the way into the district. Judiciary Square Station was flooded with the morning rush hour when she arrived, thousands of commuters climbing out of a big hole in the ground, robotic slaves to smartphones and electronic devices. On her way to the escalator she noticed a plaque that marked this station as the birthplace of the entire Washington Metro line. No one else seemed to pay it much mind. Sylvia did, but only because her father had operated a rapid transit train for forty-one years. She missed her dad and thought of him often, the proud man who’d put his daughter through Georgetown Law by going back and forth, traveling the same mile, thousands and thousands of times over four decades.
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