Gone Again

by James Grippando

  “Yes.”

  “Their conscience doesn’t work the way yours or mine works, does it?”

  “No, it does not.”

  “Doing things that might shock the average person makes them feel in control. Right, Doctor?”

  “Yes, and it’s very frustrating for parents. For many, it’s overwhelming.”

  Jack paused to check his notes, then continued. “Dr. Pollard, I’m going to ask you for your expert opinion. Based on your knowledge and experience, and based on your review of Sashi Burgette’s medical records, is Sashi more or less likely to run away from home than a child without RAD?”

  “Definitely more likely.”

  “Compared to a child without RAD, is Sashi more or less likely to derive a comforting sense of control from the fact that people are searching but can’t find her?”

  “Again, more likely. RAD children are in a constant battle to control a situation.”

  “Last question. Compared to someone without RAD, is Sashi more or less likely to care if Dylan Reeves dies by lethal injection for a murder he didn’t commit?”

  “Objection, Your Honor.”

  “This isn’t a jury trial, Ms. Carmichael. Let’s keep our hands off the hyper-objection button and get through this hearing expeditiously. The witness may answer.”

  “I would have to say less likely.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. No further questions.” Jack returned to his seat.

  “Any cross-examination?” the judge asked.

  “Briefly,” said the prosecutor. She rose but didn’t step away from her table. “Doctor, in response to Mr. Swyteck’s questions, you acknowledged that RAD children need to ‘control’ a situation.”

  “Yes.”

  “For example, isn’t it true that many adolescents with RAD will chat incessantly in order to control a conversation?”

  “Yes, some will. From the moment they wake up until their head hits the pillow. Outsiders will often see these children as precocious. It becomes far less endearing when they reach school age and attempt to control an entire classroom with their chatter.”

  “Doctor, given Sashi Burgette’s diagnosis, what is the likelihood that she could make a phone call to her mother and say absolutely nothing for up to two minutes?”

  “Honestly, I would say that’s highly unlikely.”

  “Nothing further,” said the prosecutor.

  The judge dismissed the witness, and as the doctor stepped down, Hannah leaned closer to Jack and whispered, “I call it a tie.”

  “You’re too generous,” said Jack. “It all comes down to Debra.”

  CHAPTER 17

  For the first time in a week, Andie was in the FBI field office in North Miami Beach. Getting back to work was the right medicine—much better than lying in bed and reading preeclampsia horror stories on the Internet. Her ob-gyn had given her the green light on one condition: “Avoid people who make your blood pressure rise.” The doctor was only half kidding.

  Andie checked in with the assistant special agent in charge. ASAC Guy Schwartz was glad to see her back, but he wanted her to know that if her return was out of concern that a complicated pregnancy might put her over the thirteen-day limit on paid sick leave, she need not worry: five of her colleagues had stepped up to transfer unused personal time to her. FBI recruiters talked a lot about being like a “family,” and something like this made it feel true, even if, at times, the “family” did seem a bit dysfunctional.

  Schwartz put her to work on a proposed budget for a planned investigation into south Florida “pill mills,” pain-management clinics that were essentially drug dealers with prescription pads, dispensing oxycodone and other Schedule II narcotics like expensive candy. Budgeting wasn’t Andie’s favorite line of work, but she was in no condition to chase down bad guys on foot, and the payoff was that if headquarters approved her numbers, there was an undercover role for her in the investigation.

  Around ten she went to the kitchen for a mid-morning smoothie. She needed to keep her calories up, and eating smaller portions more often worked better for her than three full meals a day. She walked back to her office, but numbers were not foremost in her mind.

  Andie couldn’t stop thinking about her talk with Debra Burgette. The very idea of Chechen parents still looking for their stolen daughter after all these years was beyond disturbing. The chance of their ever finding her on the other side of the world seemed remote. The notion that they would then steal her back—something that Debra had never suggested but that had nonetheless popped onto Andie’s “anything is possible” list—seemed even more far-fetched.

  Or was it?

  Andie minimized the proposed budget that was on her computer screen. The Internet beckoned. Talking with Debra had made her curious about Chechnya in the years between Sashi’s birth and adoption. The Chechen heritage of the Boston Marathon bombers had made her only generally aware of the long-running separatist conflicts. She tried a few searches, and grim headlines came rolling in. Death Toll for Two Wars Estimated at 160,000 . . . Grozny Devastated by Russian Bombardment . . . Thousands of Civilians Killed.

  Andie refined her search, and a chilling image appeared on her screen.

  It was a black-and-white photograph from a U.K. news organization. A half dozen children were huddled alongside a gravel road. They had the sad and hopeless look of refugees. The news story opened with a firsthand account of the British reporter’s conversation with a Chechen village:

  “Why are those children standing by the road?”

  “They are for sale,” the woman told me. “Pretty little girls go first. Then handsome boys. The rest, the big ones—they go on the side of the road.”

  Andie read quickly: “After more than a decade of conflict, a rising number of childless families are willing to pay large sums to adopt a newborn baby and frequently resort to illegal methods to acquire one. The problem is compounded by the fact that Chechen society considers illegitimate birth shameful and there is very little formal adoption . . .”

  There was more, but Andie had read enough. She checked her online directory and dialed a colleague at FBI headquarters. Special Agent Steve Hidalgo worked in the Violent Crimes Against Children Unit. Andie had first met him when he traveled to Miami to head Operation Cross Country, a coordinated law-enforcement action that rescues sexually exploited children and takes down their pimps in more than a hundred cities every year. Hidalgo also worked with the VCAC Unit’s International Task Force, which made him Andie’s go-to guy.

  He took her call, and after quick pleasantries he was happy to take her question.

  “Fire when ready, Andie.”

  “Have you ever heard of a case where the biological parents have their child stolen from them and then they steal her back?”

  “Hmm. The more common abduction involving biological parents is one parent taking the child away from the other in a divorce and custody battle.”

  “I’m talking about something very different. The parents had their child snatched away. The child ends up in an orphanage in a foreign country and is adopted legally by U.S. citizens. Then the biological parents track down their daughter and steal her back.”

  “Off the top of my head, I can think of only one case that is even close to that situation. It was actually a woman in Florida.”

  “Naturally,” said Andie. It was a running joke in the Miami field office, the way every crime that “breaks the mold” seemed to have a Florida connection.

  “A woman in her late forties was artificially inseminated and gave birth to twins. She had a complicated pregnancy and, for reasons I don’t recall, decided to give up the twins for adoption. But it was open adoption, I believe, where she had visitation rights. When the twins were about eighteen months old, they visited with the birth mother over the Christmas holiday, and she didn’t bring them back. I think she was finally arrested in Canada.”

  “Did she get to keep her kids?”

  “No. She pleaded guilty to kidnapping
, and the children were returned to the adoptive parents. The adoption was binding.”

  “Did she try to go through the court system before resorting to kidnapping?”

  “I don’t remember. But in the situation you’re describing, that would obviously make the most sense. DNA testing could easily prove that they are the biological parents. Then it would be just a matter of convincing a judge that their child was stolen from them. No need to resort to kidnapping.”

  “Unless they didn’t trust the court system. Or if they were afraid that the adoptive couple would claim that the child was never stolen—that the biological parents gave up the child and aren’t entitled to change their mind.”

  “That’s a fair point,” he said.

  “How likely is it that the biological parents could track their daughter from a place like Chechnya?”

  “How long has it been since she went missing?”

  “At least seven years. Probably more.”

  “Whoa. Lots of complicating factors there,” he said. “In the time frame you’re talking about, the trail out of Chechnya would be very murky.”

  “Impossible, would you say?”

  “No,” he said, and there was a hint of coyness. “No more impossible than what your husband is trying to prove in court.”

  “You know about that?”

  “Everyone in my unit gets daily updates on child murder cases. Anyway, is there something specific you’d like me to look into, Andie?”

  She thought about it. As long as she’d known Jack, she’d never blurred the line between one of his cases and an FBI investigation. If she was going to take this any farther, she needed more than curiosity. She needed solid leads—and the approval of ASAC Schwartz.

  “Not yet,” she said. “But I may be back in touch. And, hey, thanks.”

  CHAPTER 18

  The petitioner calls Debra Burgette,” said Jack.

  Judge Frederick had declared a short recess following Dr. Pollard’s testimony. Fewer than a dozen spectators had turned out to watch the first witness. Triple that number, plus a strong media contingent, had filed in during the break to watch the victim’s mother testify on behalf of her daughter’s convicted killer. Jack had not publicized Debra’s appearance, and, for her sake, he would have preferred less public attention. But word traveled fast in a courthouse where the media were perpetually poised to capture the arraignment of a federal prosecutor caught biting a stripper, the verdict on a high-priced call girl who claimed that “nymphomania made me do it,” or some other “trial of the century,” Miami-style.

  The bailiff swore the witness and Debra took a seat. As Jack approached, he noted her quick, nervous glance toward the first row of public seating. Her ex-husband was seated on the opposite side of the courtroom, directly behind the prosecutor.

  “Good morning,” said Jack. “Please introduce yourself for the record.”

  Debra did so. A few more background questions followed, and even for the preliminaries the spectators watched in rapt silence. Then Jack heard one of the heavy double doors in the back of the courtroom creak open. It wasn’t loud enough to be a disturbance, but Debra seemed more than slightly distracted as her daughter entered the courtroom. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack could see and almost feel Aquinnah agonize over which side of the courtroom to sit on, Mom’s or Dad’s. She remained standing in the very back, centered beneath the clock above the double doors, not the first child of divorce to assume the neutral posture of a Switzerland.

  “Ms. Burgette, please tell the court about the phone call you received on Sashi’s eighteenth birthday.”

  Jack and Debra had rehearsed the night before, and the strategy was to tackle the most difficult part of her testimony as quickly as possible: the phone calls. Debra drew a breath, and it was clear that no amount of rehearsal could have made this easy for her.

  “I received the call in the morning,” she said, her voice quaking.

  Jack walked her through it, knowing that even though a trial lawyer was not technically allowed to ask his own witness “leading questions,” an objection from the prosecutor would have made her look like a complete bully.

  “And the following year,” said Jack, “on Sashi’s nineteenth birthday. Did you receive a phone call?”

  “Yes,” Debra said, and Jack again guided her through it. They did the same for the third phone call on Sashi’s twentieth birthday. Just as Debra had told Jack in their first meeting, she explained that the calls were untraceable because they were from a disposable cell phone with no service contract, and that the police were of the view that it was all a cruel hoax. Then it was time for her to explain why she thought the caller was Sashi. At this point, even with Debra clutching a tissue moist with tears, Jack knew that the prosecutor would have to get tough.

  “Ms. Burgette, do you know who these calls were from?” asked Jack.

  “Yes. All are from—”

  “Objection,” said Carmichael. “Judge, I’ve tried to keep my objections to a minimum, but this does go to the heart of the matter. The witness doesn’t know who these calls were from. Clearly she believes they were from her daughter. But that’s pure speculation.”

  “The objection is sustained,” said the judge. “I understand that the purpose of this hearing is to convince the court that Sashi Burgette was still alive after Mr. Reeves was convicted of murder. I’ll give Mr. Swyteck a little latitude to establish a factual basis for the inference that these calls are from Sashi Burgette. But we’re not going to delve into speculation.”

  A little latitude was all Jack needed.

  “Thank you, Judge. Ms. Burgette, keeping the judge’s comments in mind, let me ask you a few questions about your daughter. When did you first meet Sashi?”

  “Not until my husband—now my ex-husband—and I were well into the adoption process. An agency accredited by the Russian government helped us put together a dossier, which took about three months. Once the dossier was filed in Russia, we waited another six months to get a referral from an orphanage. That’s when Gavin and I traveled to Moscow.”

  “To meet Sashi?”

  “Actually, to meet Alexander. Our request was for a boy. We immediately fell in love with Alexander and wanted to accept the referral. That’s when we found out that Alexander had an older sister. Sashi.”

  “You didn’t know that before you made the trip?”

  “No. Basically all we knew at the time of the referral was Alexander’s age and sex. It was a bit of a leap of faith to get on the airplane.”

  “Did you meet with Sashi on that first visit?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did that go?”

  Debra hesitated. “Not very well.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “We tried talking to her, but we got no response.”

  “Because she didn’t speak English?”

  “No, we used a Russian translator. But Sashi just sat there. No response.”

  “How would you describe her at that meeting?”

  “Alert. Watchful. But . . . frozen. That’s actually the term for it: ‘Frozen watchfulness,’ the way a child acts when trying to be alert for the next blow. But we didn’t know that at the time. We just had a child who wouldn’t talk to us. We thought it might be the translator, so we brought in another one.”

  “Did that make a difference?”

  “No. Again, we would ask questions. Sashi gave us silence.”

  “What did you do?”

  “We asked to see her medical records.”

  “Did the records explain her behavior?”

  “There was nothing specific.”

  “Anything general?”

  “There’s a—disclaimer, I guess you’d call it. Families are made to understand that many of the infants and children available for adoption may have developmental delays and may also suffer from malnutrition as well as other effects of being institutionalized.”

  “Were you satisfied with that explanation?”

/>   “Not entirely. Gavin, not at all.”

  “But at some point you obviously agreed to adopt both Sashi and Alexander, correct?”

  She glanced in her ex-husband’s direction, and Jack caught a glimpse of what surely was a longer story. “Yes,” Debra said. “After some . . . discussion, let’s call it, the final decision was to adopt both children.”

  “When was the next time you saw Sashi?”

  “About three months later. It took that long to get a court date in Russia. We stayed in Moscow another two weeks for the post-finalization waiting period.”

  “Were you able to talk with Sashi then?”

  “It would be more accurate to say we talked to her.”

  “Was she any more responsive than she was in your first visit?”

  “Again, she seemed alert. Vigilant, you might say. But there was nothing more.”

  “You got only silence?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like the phone calls you received on her eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth birthdays?”

  The prosecutor rose. “Objection, Judge.”

  “Sustained. I get your point, Mr. Swyteck, but that’s just not a proper question. And be advised that I intend to finish this hearing before lunch. How much longer do you plan to go with this witness?”

  “Just a few more questions,” said Jack. “Ms. Burgette, did there come a time when Sashi did speak to you?”

  “When we came back to Miami, we found a psychiatrist, Dr. Wurster, who is fluent in Russian. It took months of therapy, but we finally broke the silence.”

  “Sashi started speaking?”

  “Yes. More and more as her English improved.”

  “Was it continuous improvement?”

  “No. There were setbacks along the way. Times when Sashi would shut down and go silent again. Retreat into that frozen watchfulness.”

  “Was there anything in particular that triggered those periods of silence?”

  “I’d say when she was frightened.”

  “Do you recall anything specific?”

  “There was a lot of tension in our house, even before Sashi disappeared. Most of it related to Sashi. But it wasn’t her fault.”