Джон Гришэм - The Guardians

Quincy is already there, on the other side of a thick plastic window. The door closes and we are alone. To make the visits as difficult as possible, there are no openings in the partition and we are forced to talk with bulky phones that date back at least three decades. If I want to pass a document to my client, I have to call a guard who first examines it and then walks it around to the other side.

Quincy smiles and taps his fist on the window. I return the salute and we have officially shaken hands. He’s fifty-one now, and except for the graying hair he could pass for forty. He lifts weights every day, does karate, tries to avoid the slop they serve him, stays lean and meditates. He takes his phone and says, “First, Mr. Post, I want to thank you for taking my case.” His eyes water immediately and he’s overcome.

For at least the last fifteen years Quincy has not had a lawyer or any type of legal representative, not a soul out there in the free world working to prove his innocence. I know from my vast experience that this is a burden that is almost unbearable. A corrupt system locked him away, and there’s no one fighting the system. His burdens are heavy enough as an innocent man, but with no voice he feels truly helpless.

I say, “You are indeed welcome. I’m honored to be here. Most of my clients just call me Post, so let’s drop the ‘mister’ stuff.”

Another smile. “Deal. And I’m just Quincy.”

“The paperwork has been filed so I’m officially on board. Any questions about that?”

“Yeah, you look more like a preacher or something. Why are you wearing that collar?”

“Because I’m an Episcopal priest, and this collar has a way of getting more respect, at times.”

“We had a preacher once who wore one of those. Never could understand why.”

He was raised in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and their ministers and bishops do indeed wear collars. He dropped out as a teenager. At eighteen he married his girlfriend because she was pregnant, and the marriage was never stable. Two other children followed. I know their names and addresses and places of employment, and I know that they haven’t spoken to him since his trial. His ex-wife testified against him. His only brother is Marvis, a saint who visits him every month and sends him a small check occasionally.

Quincy is lucky to be alive. One black juror saved his life. Otherwise, he would have gone to death row at a time when Florida was enthusiastically killing folks.

As always, Guardian’s file on him is thick and we know as much about him as possible.

“So what do we do now, Post?” he asks with a smile.

“Oh, we have a lot of work to do. We start with the scene of the crime and investigate everything.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“True, but Keith Russo is still dead, and the people who testified against you are still alive. We’ll find them, try to gain their trust, and see what they’re saying now.”

“What about that snitch?”

“Well, surprisingly, the drugs haven’t killed him. Huffey’s back in prison, this time in Arkansas. He’s spent nineteen of his forty years behind bars, all due to drugs. I’ll go see him.”

“You don’t expect him to say he lied, do you?”

“Maybe. You never know with snitches. Professional liars have a way of laughing about their lies. Over his miserable career he’s snitched in at least five other cases, all for sweetheart deals with the cops. He has nothing to gain by sticking to the lies he told your jury.”

“I’ll never forget when they brought that boy in, all cleaned up with a white shirt and tie. At first I didn’t recognize him. It had been months since we were in the same cell. And when he started talking about my confession I wanted to scream at him. It was obvious the cops had fed him details of the crime—cutting off the electricity, using the flashlight—all that stuff. I knew right then that my ass was cooked. I looked at the jurors and you could tell they were eating it up. All of it. Every last lie he told. And you know what, Post? I sat there listening to Huffey and I thought to myself, ‘Man, that guy swore to tell the truth. And the judge is supposed to make sure all witnesses tell the truth. And the prosecutor, he knows his witness is lying. He knows the guy cut a deal with the cops to save his ass. Everybody knew, everybody but those morons on the jury.’ ”

“I’m ashamed to say it happens all the time, Quincy. Jailhouse snitches testify every day in this country. Other civilized countries prohibit them, but not here.”

Quincy closes his eyes and shakes his head. He says, “Well, when you see that sack-a-shit tell him I’m still thinking about him.”

“Thinking about revenge is not helpful here, Quincy. It’s wasted energy.”

“Maybe so, but I have plenty of time to think about everything. You gonna talk to June?”

“If she’ll talk.”

“I bet she won’t.”

His ex-wife remarried three years after his trial, then divorced, then remarried again. Frankie found her in Tallahassee living as June Walker. Evidently, she eventually found some stability and is the second wife of Otis Walker, an electrician on the campus at Florida State. They live in a middle-class neighborhood that is predominantly black and have one child together. She has five grandchildren from her first marriage, grandchildren that Quincy has never seen even in a photo. Nor has he seen their three children since his trial. For him, they exist only as toddlers, frozen in time.

“Why shouldn’t she talk to me?” I ask.

“Because she lied too. Come on, Post, they all lied, right? Even the experts.”

“I’m not sure the experts thought they were lying. They just didn’t understand the science and they gave bad opinions.”

“Whatever. You figure that out. I know damned well June lied. She lied about the shotgun and the flashlight, and she lied when she told the jury I was somewhere around town the night of the murder.”

“And why did she lie, Quincy?”

He shakes his head as if my question is foolish. He puts the phone down, rubs his eyes, then picks it up again. “We were at war, Post. Should’ve never got married and damned sure needed a divorce. Russo screwed me big-time in the divorce and suddenly I couldn’t pay all that child support and alimony. She was out of work and in a bad way. When I got behind, she sued me again and again. The divorce was bad but not nearly as bad as what came after. We grew to thoroughly hate each other. When they arrested me for murder I owed something like forty thousand bucks in payments. Guess I still do. Hell, sue me again.”

“So it was revenge?”

“More like hatred. I ain’t never owned a shotgun, Post. Check the records.”

“We have. Nothing.”

“See.”

“But records mean little, especially in this state. There are a hundred ways to get a gun.”

“Who you believe, Post, me or that lying woman?”

“If I didn’t believe you, Quincy, I wouldn’t be here.”

“I know, I know. I can almost understand the shotgun, but why would she lie about that flashlight? I never saw it before. Hell, they couldn’t even produce it at trial.”

“Well, if we are assuming that your arrest, prosecution, and conviction were carefully planned to frame an innocent man, then we must assume the police leaned on June to say the flashlight belonged to you. And hatred was her motive.”

“But how was I supposed to pay all that money from death row?”

“Great question, and you’re asking me to get inside her mind.”

“Oh, please don’t go there. She’s crazy as hell.”

We both have a good laugh. He stands and stretches and asks, “How long you staying today, Post?”