James Grippando - Afraid of the Dark

“This is a true story?”

“Absolutely. The church’s position was that Edgardo could return to his parents if they converted to Christianity. Needless to say, Edgardo never came home. It was a huge international incident, but the pope wouldn’t budge. The boy even lived with him in the Vatican for a while. Edgardo ended up a Catholic priest, one of the proteges of Pio Nono.”

“Pio Nono?”

“That was the Italian name for Pope Pius IX.”

“That’s what Grandpa shouts from his bed. I thought he was railing against the post office.”

“Pio Nono is actually the main character in the play. Your grandfather was very moved by the story.”

“Who wouldn’t be?”

“I mean it really impacted him,” she said. “Much more than I expected.”

Jack waited for her to say more, but she fell silent. “Because… he’s Jewish?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. Maybe something inside me made me want to think he was. Look at me,” she said, laughing at herself, “I’m eighty-three years old and still trying to please my mother. Oy vey.”

Jack smiled. It was easy to see how his grandfather had enjoyed her company.

His cell phone rang. Jack didn’t recognize the number, so he didn’t answer.

“I’m not saying it’s so,” said Ruth, “and the last thing I want to do is create an identity crisis for you. But I have heard of people literally on their deathbed, telling their children or grandchildren the truth about their ancestry. And you can’t always dismiss as crazy everything that comes out of the mouth of someone with Alzheimer’s.”

Jack’s phone chimed with an incoming text message. He glanced at it, then froze.

“It’s Pio Nono,” it read. “Call me. NOW!”

“Is something wrong?” asked Ruth.

Jack shook off the chills. “Will you excuse me one minute?”

Ruth seemed concerned, as if she might have said something to anger him, but Jack had no time to explain.

He hurried out of the cafeteria and found a quiet place to return the call from a dead pope.

Jack ran to his grandfather’s room.

It was creepy the way the message had referenced Pio Nono, and Jack feared it was a threat-aimed not just at him, but also at the man who had been shouting those words at the top of his voice.

“Are you okay?” he asked as he rushed toward the bed.

Grandpa was breathing but was out like a light, his mouth wide open. Ativan, Jack presumed-one of the anti-anxiety medications made famous by the Michael Jackson homicide, better known in nursing homes as the day-shift relief drug: Load up the patient at lunchtime, chart him as “nonresponsive” through sunset, and let the night shift deal with him. Jack would have a word with the prescribing doctor later.

He pulled up a chair beside the bed, retrieved the number from his cell history, and returned the call. After two rings there was a voice on the line.

“Got your attention, I see.”

“Who is this?” asked Jack.

“Someone you need to talk to.”

“How did you know I was in the middle of a conversation about Pio Nono when you texted me?”

“I heard you,” the man said, his scoff crackling over the line. “Is there any other way?”

For all the concern over confused residents wandering out of the building, Sunny Gardens wasn’t nearly vigilant enough about checking visitors. “Are you in the building?”

“That’s enough questions. Just shut up, relax, and listen. I’m not calling to threaten you or blackmail you. I’m calling to help.”

“Help me what?”

“Defend Jamal Wakefield.”

An aide knocked and entered to clear away Grandpa’s lunch tray, making enough noise to wake anyone who wasn’t overmedicated. Jack stepped into the bathroom for privacy, closed the door, and turned on the exhaust fan to cover his voice.

“How are you going to help?” asked Jack.

“I know things.”

“What kind of things?”

The man paused, then said, “I know where Jamal was when McKenna Mays was murdered.”

Jack gripped the phone even tighter. “Where?”

“Exactly where he said he was.”

Yesterday’s court hearing had been closed, so the alleged black site in the Czech Republic was not yet public information. Jack wasn’t going to supply the answer for him. “And where would that be?” he asked.

“Prague,” the man said. “In a warehouse two kilometers from the airport, to be exact.”

It was the kind of detail that added credibility; not even Jamal had known the exact location. “Are you telling me that my client was in a detention facility at the time of the murder?”

Silence. But Jack could tell that he was still there. “How do you know where Jamal was?” asked Jack.

There was another stretch of silence, and Jack wasn’t sure if he had a liar, a crank, or just a reluctant witness.

“How do you know?” said Jack.

Finally, an answer: “I’m the guy who took him there.”

Jack’s heart nearly skipped a beat. “Listen, we need to meet. If you’re still anywhere near this building, I can do it now.”

“Now is not good.”

“I’ll come to you,” said Jack.

“Not now.”

“Don’t play games.”

“It’s not a game. Problem is, I don’t have the photographs with me. You’re definitely gonna want them.”

“You have actual pictures that show where Jamal was?”

“What do you think, Abu Ghraib is the only place they had a camera?”

This was starting to sound too good to be true. Then again, it wasn’t so long ago that photographs of naked prisoners stacked into human pyramids, men on dog leashes, and other forms of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq would have seemed unimaginable.

“You name the time and place,” said Jack. “I’ll be there.”

“Tonight. Eight o’clock. Go to any of the cafes by the Lincoln Theatre and sit outside on the mall. When I’m convinced that you came alone, I’ll find you.”

“See you then,” said Jack, but the caller was already gone.

He wants money,” said Theo.

Jack was riding shotgun in Theo’s car, cruising toward Lincoln Road Mall on Miami Beach. Theo Knight was six feet three and 250 pounds of badass, which made him Jack’s go-to guy when strangers called out of the blue and said, “Let’s meet-alone.” Theo was Jack’s investigator, bodyguard, bartender, best friend, and confidant, none of which had seemed possible when Jack had represented the only teenager on Florida’s death row. It took years of legal maneuvering and last-minute appeals, but Jack finally proved Theo’s innocence. The new Theo had spent the last decade making up for lost time, pushing life to the edge, as if to prove that he was only as “innocent” as a former gangbanger from the Grove ghetto could be.

“I’m not going to pay anyone to testify,” said Jack.

“Then there’s no point in going,” said Theo. “People don’t get involved unless there’s something in it for them.”

“Not everyone is you,” said Jack.

“The guy called and texted you on a pirated cell phone so that you couldn’t trace it back to him. He’s going to ask for money.”

Theo had checked out the number at Jack’s request, and it was hard to argue with Theo’s interpretation of the results. “Just drive,” said Jack.

Theo cranked up the radio. Jack immediately reached over and turned it down. It was the kind of music that made him feel old. He just didn’t see the poetry in it, even if it was on some level remarkable that so many words could actually be rhymed with suck and bitch.

“Just trying to get you into the South Beach state of mind,” said Theo.