Gone Again: A Jack Swyteck Novel

by James Grippando

  Jack was speechless, but he forced a reply. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

  “At the very least, I guess I owe you an apology.”

  Jack stepped down from the porch, and the two men looked at one another, eye-to-eye. “You want to go for a little walk, Gavin?”

  “That would be good.”

  Jack started, then stopped. “But let’s be clear about one thing.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t owe me anything,” said Jack. “Least of all an apology.”

  CHAPTER 26

  It was eleven o’clock Saturday morning, and even though Jack had captioned his request to present additional testimony as an “emergency,” he hadn’t expected to be summoned into court on the weekend. He was wrong.

  “Mr. Swyteck, call your witness,” said Judge Frederick. “And I mean it: there will be no further time allotted to this hearing. I’m starting a five-week jury trial Monday morning with eighteen defendants. You have one hour.”

  Jack intended to make the most of every minute. “The petitioner calls Gavin Burgette.”

  It felt strange: to call such an important witness in a proceeding that meant the difference between life or death, and yet the courtroom was nearly empty. Saturday at the courthouse could be like midnight at the crypt. Hallways were silent. The media were absent. All but Judge Frederick’s courtroom were tombs of darkness behind locked doors. The emergency hearing had drawn just two spectators, Debra Burgette and her daughter Aquinnah. Both were seated in the front row behind Jack and Hannah, on the petitioner’s side of the courtroom. The “rule of sequestration” normally prevents witnesses from being in the courtroom when another witness is testifying, but the rule does not apply to a homicide victim’s immediate family. If Debra wanted to be present for her ex-husband’s testimony, no one could deny her that right. By the same token, Gavin was free to take the stand even though he’d sat through his ex-wife’s testimony from the front row behind the prosecutor.

  Sashi’s father swore the oath and took a seat. His attire was casual smart, a blue blazer with a red necktie, but his demeanor was anything but casual. A witness stand could be an unsettling place for the most powerful of business people, even when the stakes were utterly meaningless when compared to the loss of a child.

  Jack approached slowly, respectfully. “Good morning, sir.”

  “Morning.”

  “Mr. Burgette, you testified at the sentencing phase of Mr. Reeves’ trial, did you not?”

  “I did.”

  “And you asked the jury to recommend the death penalty for Mr. Reeves. Is that correct?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And you supported the trial judge’s decision to follow that recommendation.”

  “Yes.”

  “In fact, less than a week ago, you were of the firm view that Mr. Reeves’ sentence of death by lethal injection should be carried out as set forth in his signed death warrant. A fair statement?”

  “Yes. I’d say as of two days ago I was of that firm view.”

  “Has your view changed?”

  “Objection,” said the prosecutor. “The witness’s personal views are completely irrelevant.”

  The judge hesitated, and lawyers on both sides of the courtroom seemed to experience the same intellectual disconnect: the objection was technically correct, but to hear the prosecutor blurt it out in open court—that the views of the victim’s father were completely irrelevant—just didn’t sound right.

  The judge cleared his throat. “Sustained.”

  Jack retrieved an exhibit from a table near the stenographer. “Sir, I’m handing you Exhibit 11, which was previously identified as the call record for the cell phone of Debra Burgette. It’s for the thirty-day period prior to Sashi’s disappearance. Have you seen this before?”

  The witness inspected it. “Yes. Two days ago. Detective Hernandez of MDPD showed it to me.”

  “How did that come about?”

  “Detective Hernandez told me that he had done a comparison of Debra’s cell-phone call report to my call report from the same time period.”

  Jack retrieved another exhibit, which the witness identified as his call report. “What did the comparison of those two call reports show?”

  “Both Debra and I received phone calls from a number that the police were unable to identify. It was from a prepaid cell phone.”

  “Which number was that?”

  “On Debra’s report, it’s the third one down from the top. On my report, it is the fifth one up from the bottom.”

  “Were you able to identify the caller?”

  “Not at first. I told Detective Hernandez that the number looked vaguely familiar, but it wasn’t listed in my cell contacts. I then checked my SIM card for numbers that I had blocked during this time period. And there it was. I then remembered that this call was from a man named Carlos Mendoza.”

  “When you say you blocked Mr. Mendoza’s number, was that before or after the incoming phone calls listed on your call report.”

  “After. Obviously.”

  “So you did speak to him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know that Mr. Mendoza was a convicted felon?”

  “I had no idea until Mr. Hernandez told me two days ago.”

  “Do you recall what this phone call from Mr. Mendoza was about?”

  “Yes. It was about Sashi.”

  Jack paused. He was sure he had the judge’s attention, but a subtle change of pace would ensure that the judge wasn’t thinking about the Saturday-morning fishing trip he was missing.

  “Mr. Burgette, tell the judge a little bit about what was going on with Sashi in your home during this time period.”

  He shifted in his chair, speaking more directly to the judge. “Sashi was becoming a huge problem at home. Debra told you how she would run away, not tell us where she was. You heard about the things that she was doing online with strangers. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

  “Where were you during this difficult time period?”

  He looked away, regretful. “I was home when I could be. But of course during the day I was at the office. I travel a lot for my work. The two months before Sashi disappeared were especially busy for me. I had one company that was about to do a public offering. I was in a bidding war with two other private equity firms to make another acquisition. I was mostly out of town. Sometimes out of the country for a week or more at a time.”

  “Where was Debra?”

  “Debra was a work-at-home mom. Aquinnah was a high school junior. Alexander was still in elementary school. And there was Sashi. Not easy. Aquinnah and Alexander had all the normal bumps in the road, but even those little things become big things when Mom is giving every ounce of energy to a seventeen-year-old girl with special needs. Debra was on the front line, holding things together twenty-four/seven.”

  “Did you have hired help?”

  “We burned through them like dry timber. I think the longest anyone lasted was two weeks. If Sashi didn’t want you around, trust me, she could get you out of her life. And I don’t mean harmless pranks from The Sound of Music—frogs in the nanny’s bed, that sort of thing.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Horrible accusations. For example, Debra was devoting so much of her time to Sashi that she had no time to help Alexander with his homework. So we hired a tutor. That guy lasted one day. Sashi went on Facebook and accused him of sexually molesting Alexander.”

  “Was it true?”

  “No. But we hired quality people who make their livelihood based on their reputations. It was the same thing with Aquinnah’s friends. They couldn’t come over without being accused of stealing Sashi’s purse or snooping in her bedroom. Eventually the word on the street was to steer clear of the Burgette family. Debra . . . poor Debra was at the end of her rope.”

  “Did you get professional help for Sashi?”

  “Sashi was seeing a psychiatrist. Dr. Wu
rster. He told us that the misbehavior we were seeing in Sashi was typical of children with RAD—reactive attachment disorder.”

  “How often was she seeing a psychiatrist?”

  “Three times a week at four hundred dollars per session, none of it covered by insurance. We were spending a hundred thousand dollars a year on treatments and meds.”

  “Did you consider other options?”

  He struggled, then answered. “I don’t remember how, exactly, but we heard about rehoming.”

  The judge perked up. “About what?”

  “Rehoming,” said the witness.

  The judge wrote it down. “That’s not a term I’m familiar with. At least not in this context. I thought rehoming is what you did with a pet that you’d become allergic to.”

  “I’ll walk the witness through it,” said Jack. “Mr. Burgette, what is your understanding of ‘rehoming’?”

  “It’s an option available to adoptive parents. You hire a broker who ‘rehomes’ the child with a new family.”

  The judge laid his pen aside. “You sell your child?”

  “No, Your Honor,” said Gavin. “That would be illegal. You place the child with a new family that is better able to provide for her.”

  “You give her away,” the judge said sharply. “Is that what you’re telling me?”

  Gavin lowered his eyes, then glanced in the direction of his ex-wife. “It’s called rehoming,” he said softly.

  It was clearly a point of discomfort. Their walk around Jack’s neighborhood eleven hours earlier had gone smoothly until this point. Then it was agony. Jack gave him a moment, then continued. “How did you hear about this option?”

  “From Debra.”

  “How did Debra find out?”

  “Debra was part of an online support group, I guess you’d call it, for families who had adopted a RAD child from a foreign country.”

  “Was Debra’s group sponsored by any organization?”

  “Not that I know of. My understanding is that it was informal. Just well-meaning families who adopted orphans, usually older kids, from a foreign country, and wanted to give them a better life. Some of these kids have experienced terrible things. War. Starvation. Emotional trauma. The adoptive parents aren’t always told about the child’s past, or at least not the full extent of the child’s issues. For some families it’s way more than they can handle.”

  “Was Sashi more than the Burgette family could handle?”

  “There were times when we thought so. One time, I was on business in Mexico City. Debra called me. She had just reached the breaking point. That’s when she told me about rehoming.”

  “When was that?”

  “I’d say a couple months before Sashi disappeared.”

  “What was your reaction?”

  “About what you’d expect. I said absolutely not. Sashi isn’t a shirt. We can’t take her back to Nordstrom for an exchange or our money back.”

  “Was that the end of the matter?”

  “I thought it was.”

  “What happened next?”

  “About two weeks later I got a phone call. From this guy,” he said, holding up his call record. “Carlos Mendoza.”

  “Were you expecting this call?”

  “No.”

  “What did you and Mr. Mendoza talk about?”

  “He said he had met with Debra. That he had found an adoptive family who would accept Sashi. That all the paperwork was in order, except for one thing. He needed an executed power of attorney from me, authorizing the new family to take Sashi.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I said, ‘Look, pal, I don’t know who you are or what the hell’—sorry, Your Honor.”

  “It’s okay. Continue.”

  “I said I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’re not getting a power of attorney from me so you can hand over my daughter to somebody else. And I hung up.”

  “Then what?”

  “I spoke to Debra.”

  “How did that go?”

  “Not well. I don’t feel the need to get into every little detail of what was said. If you wanted to point to the beginning of the end of our marriage . . . I guess this was it.”

  “And after—”

  “But I want to say something about this.”

  The judge sat up. “There’s no question pending, Mr. Burgette.”

  Jack could have moved on. He tried to make eye contact with the witness, tried to divine what he wanted to say, but Gavin was looking past the lawyers, to the first row of public seating. He was looking at his ex-wife. Jack gave him an opening.

  “What did you want to add, Mr. Burgette?”

  It wasn’t really a proper question, but the judge and the prosecutor let it go.

  “I wanted to say that nobody can understand the kind of pressure that Debra was under. I didn’t even understand it, and I was living in the same house. She got desperate, she called this guy Mendoza, he pretended to be someone he wasn’t, she trusted him, he ran with it, and—”

  “Judge, I’m sorry,” said the prosecutor, rising. “But I have to object. This is just a narrative.”

  “Sustained. Mr. Swyteck, return to question-and-answer format, please.”

  “Did Mr. Mendoza ever meet Sashi?” asked Jack.

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “Did you have any further dealings with Mr. Mendoza?”

  “Yes. A few days later, he called me again.”

  “What did he want?”

  “Again he told me everything was set. I just had to sign the papers. It would all be legal and completely discreet. No court hearing was required. Just a power of attorney from each parent is all it takes.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “The same thing I told him the first time. Only I used a few more choice words, and that’s when things escalated.”

  “Escalated how?”

  “He was really angry. He said that he had gone to all this work, that a deal is a deal, and that we were jerking him around. He even threatened to sue me.”

  “Did you have any further dealings with Mr. Mendoza?”

  “He called one more time. I recognized the number, so I didn’t answer. That’s when I put a block on that number. And that’s why his number stuck in my mind when Detective Hernandez showed it to me two days ago.”

  “So, as of the time you broke things off with Mr. Mendoza, he was angry?”

  “Very angry.”

  “He wanted Sashi?”

  “Objection.”

  “Overruled. The witness can testify as to his impression.”

  “It was my impression that Mr. Mendoza wanted Sashi very badly.”

  Jack walked back to the table and skimmed his notes.

  The judge checked the wall clock. “How much more do you have, Mr. Swyteck?”

  “I’m ready to wrap up. Mr. Burgette, when Sashi went missing, you didn’t tell the police about Mr. Mendoza, did you?”

  “No. We didn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, like I said, Mr. Mendoza and I had some harsh words, but the most he ever threatened to do was to sue me. I thought he was a legitimate businessman. I had no idea he was a criminal.”

  “So you and your wife, at the time of Sashi’s disappearance, decided to keep that information to yourselves?”

  “Look, I know that sounds horrible. But we loved Sashi. We really did. This brief look at the rehoming option was our low point. If we had thought there was any chance that Mr. Mendoza had abducted Sashi, then of course we would have said something. But Sashi’s panties were found in the back of Dylan Reeves’ car. His semen was on them. He acted guilty. For God’s sake, man, the police told us he did it. They said Dylan Reeves was our guy! We didn’t see any point in telling the whole world that Debra had been thinking about rehoming a child she loved and devoted herself to. That’s it. That’s the bottom line. Okay? Thank God this is a Saturday and the courtroom is empty when the truth com
es out. How would you like a story like that about your family on the front page of Sunday’s paper?”

  The question hung in the silence, and a part of Jack was glad he wasn’t required to answer it. As he stepped away, a shuffling noise in the gallery caught his attention, which was followed by the clicking of heels on marble tiles.

  Debra hurried up the center aisle to the courtroom’s rear exit, pulled open the heavy mahogany door, and disappeared into the hallway. Jack said nothing, and the courtroom remained still as the sound of her footfalls reverberated down the long, empty corridor and echoed all the way back to Judge Frederick’s courtroom. The echoes came faster as her walk became a run, and then they faded into silence as Jack imagined her running as fast and as far away as possible from the courtroom, the courthouse—her demons.

  Jack took a breath and squared his shoulders to the bench. “I have no further questions, Your Honor.”

  CHAPTER 27

  A girl. Andie spent Saturday morning at the house, smiling at the thought. But there was a tinge of sadness.

  Andie had been convinced that her first pregnancy was a girl. At six weeks, she’d even picked out a name, Viola. Girlfriends had warned her to stay away from baby stores until the third month, that anything could happen early in a pregnancy, and that it was wise to be patient and not open the door to added heartbreak. She’d heeded that advice, until the seventh week, when she’d ventured into a baby store and loaded up on pink. In week eight, she’d miscarried.

  This pregnancy had been cause for joy—and guarded optimism. The week-eight ultrasound was a milestone. “Do you want to know the sex?” the technician had asked. Jack squeezed her hand. Their eyes met, and it was clear that he was leaving it up to her. Did she want to go out on that emotional limb again—knowing the sex, naming the baby, decorating a nursery? “No,” said Andie, and Jack had seemed to understand the decision.

  Twenty weeks later, she’d thought she was in the homestretch. She still was. “Look at it this way,” her doctor had told her. “The finish line is closer.” The unspoken concern was whether she and Jacqueline would sprint through the tape or stumble trying to get there.

  Jacqueline? Nope. Not gonna do Jack and Jackie.