Afraid of the Dark - James Grippando [37]
“Put that away,” said Jack. “I volunteered for this case. The only person to thank is Neil Goderich at the Freedom Institute.”
“Will he take a check?”
Jack couldn’t help smiling. “Yes, but usually it’s from rich people who didn’t see him sneaking up at a cocktail party and missed their chance to turn and run.”
She didn’t seem to get it, but that wasn’t important. She closed her purse, folded her hands in her lap, and heaved a heavy sigh of what seemed like a combined sense of relief and Now what?
“Jamal tells me you’re working on the alibi,” she said. “I might be able to help with that.”
Jack paused, trying to be discreet. A mother helping her son with an alibi. Now there’s a twist.
Maryam continued. “I know what you’re thinking. But Jamal was crazy about McKenna. He called me when she broke up with him. He sounded devastated.”
“On a help scale of one to ten,” said Jack, “I’d have to rate that as ‘not so much.’ ”
“I realize that it cuts both ways.”
“Obsession usually cuts only one way,” said Jack.
“You don’t understand. Before he disappeared, the last conversation I had with my son, he told me he was coming home—back to Minnesota.”
“When was that?”
“I don’t remember the exact date. But it was on his cell, so I’m sure there are phone records.”
Jack made a note to get it. “You’re sure it was before the murder?”
“Of course I’m sure. I called him the next morning to check on his travel plans, but he didn’t answer. I kept calling his cell, his apartment. No answer. I called McKenna’s father at work, Jamal’s friends. No one knew where he was, but his car was still in Miami—still parked outside his apartment. I was hoping he’d bought a bus ticket and just slept on the trip, but it was like he’d vanished. That was when I filed a missing person report, which of course got me nowhere.”
“None of that’s in dispute,” said Jack. “The prosecutor will simply say that the breakup sent him into a reclusive funk. Maybe he drank himself unconscious and slept under a bridge or on the beach for a night or two. He snapped, killed McKenna, and went on the run.”
“Let me ask you this, Mr. Swyteck: How does a nineteen-year-old kid with a warrant out for his arrest get all the way from Miami to Somalia, completely undetected?”
“The same way as any other kid whose father has alleged connections to a Somali terrorist organization.”
She looked away, and Jack could see that the lasting stigma of that relationship cut very deep. “Sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t accusing you or anyone else. I’m just thinking like a prosecutor.”
Her expression was still one of shame—and anger. “I hardly knew Jamal’s father,” she said. “We never married. Jamal did a family tree for one of his eighth-grade projects, and after that, he wanted to know more about his father. He was good with computers—a genius, really—and when Jamal was in high school they developed an online relationship. If I’d known what kind of things he was involved with, I would never have let Jamal communicate with him.”
Her hand was a tight fist, the tissue balled up inside it. Jack sensed she had more to say, so he merely listened.
“My son is not a terrorist.” She drew a breath, as if she resented having to say it. “If he was, the government wouldn’t have failed so miserably at that court hearing you handled in Washington.”
Logic supported her, but so far, logic hadn’t been the test in this case. “You’re right about that,” said Jack.
“I didn’t help my son run from the law,” she said. “I spoke with Jamal only once after McKenna’s death. He was calling from Prague.”
“Tell me about that,” said Jack.
“It was a total surprise. I could hear the fear in his voice. He didn’t have any money or a credit card, so he called