Tim Green - False Convictions

Graham nodded at the papers. She kept going.

“A phone bill in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos islands?” she said, examining the last couple sheets of paper. “A dive charter. In business since 1990. Captain N. W. Rivers? This fat guy with the beard is him?”

“You’ve been saying all along that you needed more than just the DNA, right?” Graham said. “An alternative theory for the court? Otherwise they’d fight you tooth and nail. Well.”

“And you wanted some media,” Casey said. “Can you say ‘feeding frenzy’?”

Graham nodded solemnly.

“How did Ralph find him?” Casey asked.

“It’s what he does.”

“And I thought he was slacking on the registration,” she said, stuffing the papers back into the envelope and patting it with affection.

“One thing you never have to worry about with Ralph,” he said.

“I’m sorry about all the suspicion,” Casey said.

“Should we order?”

Casey had an arugula salad and a small side of pasta while Graham ate a chicken dish with peppers and red sauce as they discussed how to proceed.

“I’d like to get the media going on this,” Graham said. “Put some of it out there like a regular Freedom Project press release, get a little traction in the local paper, then leak some of the things about the judge to a national or two, prime the pump. Then we can start leveraging a couple shows against each other to lock in the biggest one we can get for the big story.”

“What about American Sunday?” Casey asked, wondering again where Jake had gotten to. “Obviously, you’ve got connections there.”

“Connections?”

“Well, they know the story.”

“I’d like to use Sunday to land Sixty Minutes or Dateline,” he said. “Or at least Twenty/Twenty. I’ve got a contact who knows Steve Kroft. If they know that Sunday is interested but that we’ll give them the exclusive with you and me and Dwayne if they commit, I think we’ll stand a chance.”

“Don’t you want to give it to American Sunday, though?”

“Why would we give it to a show with two million viewers when we could have twelve?”

“Right,” Casey said, pausing for a moment. “What I’d really like is to have this guy Rivers’s DNA. Proving the sample isn’t Dwayne’s is good, but if we can prove it belongs to Nelson Rivers? The judge would probably beat us to the jail with a key. Now, that’s a story.”

“I agree, but I want the pump primed,” Graham said with an expression that let Casey know he’d have his way.

“Okay, but even if we work the media, I still wish we could get Rivers’s DNA sooner than later,” Casey said. “Trust me, it will wrap this whole thing up quick if we do and it matches.”

“Okay, so let’s go get it,” Graham said.

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“I know a great place in Turks and Caicos right on the beach,” he said. “We could take a couple days and enjoy it while we’re figuring a way to get a sample from Rivers. I’ve got a friend down there who’s a cop. He’ll help. Oh, come on, it’ll take that long for the lab to finish with the hospital swabs, anyway. What do you think?”

Casey frowned.

“Did I mention separate rooms?” Graham said. “Hell, the place I’m thinking of has a whole separate pool house. You don’t even have to be under the same roof with me if you don’t want. What do you think?”

“I think I’ve got to get back to my clinic,” she said.

“Tomorrow’s Friday,” he said, “then the weekend.”

Casey thought for a moment, then said, “I think it was two years ago I went to a conference in San Diego and spent an afternoon on Mission Beach. I got sand in my hair and bought a soggy fish taco. That’s been about it.”

“See? All work and no play,” Graham said. “I know a place that pulls the lobsters out of a trapdoor in the floor. It’s built on a pier and they grill them with rum. Like nothing you’ve tasted.”

“Business first,” she said. “I want that DNA.”

“Okay,” Graham said, nodding enthusiastically. “We can hire the guy’s boat. I’ll have my cop friend join us and get the spit off his snorkel or a soda bottle or something, preserve the chain of evidence, and we’ve got it.”

“All the right moves,” she said.

“Hey, I’m making this up as I go,” he said. “I can’t help it if I’m good.”

Casey eyed him and reluctantly said, “You’re not bad.”

“Do you dive?”

“Not for a while, but I got certified in college.”

“So, we’re on?”

“Let me check in on a couple things,” she said. “I’ve got a conference call in about twenty minutes with my staff. I’ll let you know for sure later.”

AIR HISSED through the cabin, but in no way suggesting their actual ground speed of 720 miles per hour. Below, clouds mottled the surface of the electric blue water with purple shadows. A robin’s egg horizon hinted at the curve of the earth from fifty thousand feet.

“I feel guilty for working,” Casey said, leaning back in her seat. “That’s just beautiful.”

Graham looked up from his book, The Art of War, and poured her a fresh sparkling water, dropping in a wedge of lemon before passing it across the aisle.

“Enjoy,” he said, turning his attention back to Sun Tzu. “No reason not to do both.”

“The perfect setting to grab some DNA.” She reached for her briefcase and extracted a file Stacy had sent overnight to her hotel room, the case of a young woman the Dallas district attorney’s office wanted to put behind bars for selling a dime bag of marijuana to an undercover cop. As she went through page after page of the police report, the description of the crime, and the young woman’s background, Casey couldn’t help comparing the resources she had to spend on Dwayne Hubbard.

“Bad news?” Graham asked, breaking her concentration.

“No, why?”

“I’m sitting here thinking about being extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness, in order to be the director of my opponent’s fate,” he said, obviously quoting the book, “and I look over and it’s like you swallowed a rotten egg.”

“Maybe I can subtly wring my opponent’s neck,” she said. “I’ve got a DA’s office willing to spend two hundred hours of time and energy to put a woman away for two years at a six-figure cost to the taxpayers for selling a couple joints while murderers, rapists, and real drug dealers rule the streets. It makes me sick sometimes, the double standard of justice.”

“Men and women?” Graham asked.

“Rich and poor,” she said. “If I had the Freedom Project’s resources for every one of my clients, they’d all walk. Think about Dwayne Hubbard.”

“He has the resources now. We’re flying a private jet to the Caribbean for a DNA sample.”

“Twenty years too late, though, right?”

“So shines a good deed in a weary world,” he said.

“More Sun Tzu?”

“No,” Graham said, grinning. “Willie Wonka.”

He stared at her until she laughed.

“You know what happens with all work and no play,” he said.

“That’s work,” she said, nodding at his book. “Management styles.”

“So how about champagne?” he said. “Clearly not work.”

“I had you for the wheat-beer type.”

He laughed. “I’ve got a six-pack of Pyramid Hefeweizen. I was going for a mood with champagne.”

“Then I’ll have a beer,” she said.

He jumped up from his seat and dug into the burl-wood galley, removing from a bin of ice two bottles dressed in baby blue and white labels. Expertly, he flicked off the tops, removed a crystal glass from the shelf, and raised it questioningly.