Tim Green - False Convictions

“Hey, chief,” Marty said with a wave, walking right over to the balding, rigid-backed chief. “Look who’s here, Jake Carlson from American Sunday. You’ve seen his show, right? Jake, Chief Zarnazzi.”

“Marty, refill these pitchers for us, will you, kid?” the chief said, offering Jake a nod before he turned his attention back to the cards.

Marty hustled out with three empty plastic pitchers as Jake searched for a sign of the current that celebrity could create in certain intimate groups, especially in a small town. People loved a face from TV, whether they’d seen it themselves or not. But the other cardplayers kept whatever interest or excitement they had contained, glancing at the chief’s face just as often as they examined their own cards. The chief clicked two blue chips down on the table, raising the stakes. After a call around the table, the chief laid down three aces and everyone else groaned.

Jake waited for the chief to rake in the pot and when he still didn’t look up, Jake said, “Chief, I wanted to talk to you about this Rivers situation.”

The chief narrowed his eyes behind the wire-rim glasses, peering through the screen door and out at the water. “River looks a little high for this time of year, I guess. Other than that, we’re all good.”

“Patricia Rivers,” Jake said patiently, the codeine putting just the right emotional distance between him and the chief, “and her son, Nelson. The one with the white BMW no one bothered looking into twenty years ago. Cassandra Thornton’s boyfriend. I’m chasing that story and I’d love to find someone who worked the case, maybe someone who knows why so many questions got left unanswered.”

“Can’t recall who worked that one,” said the chief, lifting the corner of his first card off the table just enough to identify it.

“Martin Yancy,” Jake said.

“What?” the chief asked, looking up with cold blue eyes.

“The police report said Detective Martin Yancy,” Jake said. “I read it.”

The chief smiled. “Yancy left the force so long ago I can’t recall his face, so you’re out of luck, bub.”

“I’m sure there must be others who worked it,” Jake said, keeping his spirits up despite the chief’s obvious lack of interest.

The chief shrugged, called the first round of bets, and peeked at his second card when it came around as though Jake were a puff of smoke.

“Marty told me his uncle said people are going to have to take sides on this one,” Jake said, standing firm, oblivious to the tension that was quickly taking hold. “He’s right, and I don’t think you’re going to want to be on the losing side of this, chief. It would look well for the department if it helped out on the back end because the way it’s looking, you’re going to have a lot of explaining to do about the front end of this little story.”

The chief picked his smoldering cigar out of a glass ashtray, drew on it until the ember perked up, exhaled, then raised his leg and passed gas. The table of old-timers erupted with adolescent chuckles.

Jake twisted his lips and said, “I hope you don’t make a habit of writing notes on your hand.”

The chief wore a puzzled look. “Why’s that?”

“The network has this lawyer down in the city who specializes in Freedom of Information requests,” Jake said. “When he gets done with this backwoods outfit, you’ll be handing over every Post-it and paper napkin you ever wrote on and if you scribbled on your palm, I wouldn’t put it past him to have that flayed off your greasy mitt and delivered to my office in a manila envelope along with everything else.”

Jake turned and shoved open the door, nearly causing Marty to spill all three of his pitchers.

“How’d it go?” Marty asked from behind him as Jake strode across the grass.

“Wrong side,” Jake said, waving his hand without looking back. “Thanks, anyway. Send me that tape.”

Jake reached the end of the driveway and went right. He’d nearly reached his car before he heard his name and looked back. An old man with a full head of white hair and a crooked hip hobbled toward Jake holding a single bent finger up in the air. Pale legs the color of skim milk flashed at Jake from beneath the man’s floppy shorts. Brown dress socks reached halfway up his calves, and his sneakers scuffed the dirt road, kicking up little dust devils.

By the time the old man reached him, he had to bend over to catch his breath before he could speak and before he did that, he extended a hand toward Jake, which he shook politely.

“Myron Kissle,” the old-timer said, looking up from either side of a flattened nose with two dark eyes. “Formerly Detective Kissle, Auburn PD. Get kicked in the back of the head by a mule?”

“Hi, Myron,” Jake said, touching the wound on the back of his skull. “What can I do for you?”

Myron rose as high as his bent frame would allow. Looking Jake in the eye, he said, “It’s what I can do for you. I heard Marty Barrone talking to the judge’s daughter about why you’re here. I worked that Cassandra Thornton case, and I can tell you some things.”

GRAHAM CONVINCED CASEY to stay an extra night on the island. He pointed out to her that the major’s courier service wouldn’t get the sample to the lab in Syracuse in time to do anything until Monday morning.

So she stayed, getting on Graham’s jet the next morning at seven in order to be back by noon and hopefully get the results fresh from the lab. Ralph picked them up in the Lexus and they headed straight downtown.

The forensic laboratory in Syracuse was just off the main highway, between the hospital and the psychiatric center. Ralph pulled over to the curb in front of the five-story modern brick building. The lab’s director, a blonde woman in a white lab coat, personally held the door open for them. Casey and Graham introduced themselves and she gave them each her card, identifying herself as Helen Mahy.

“I spoke with the deputy director just a few minutes ago,” Helen said with a somber face as they crossed the lobby and stepped onto the elevator, “and he knows we’ve got you covered.”

“Do they match?” Casey asked.

The lab director looked at her watch.

“We should have it the moment we walk in,” she said, lowering her voice with import. “I know this is a matter of national security, and I’ve got to tell you, we’re very glad to be doing our part. My team really scrambled on this, especially Laurie Snyder. She’s the one who’ll have the charts, so if either of you could give her an attaboy it’d mean a lot.”

“We’ll do that,” Graham said, his face grim.

“Are you…” Helen said, turning to Casey and tilting her head. “I’ve seen you before.”

Graham held up a hand. “I’m sorry. We can’t talk about who, what, or where. You understand.”

“Of course.”

The elevator rumbled opened and they took a short turn down a hallway before pushing through two heavy double doors and into a lab that nearly filled the footprint of the building. Men and women in goggles, lab coats, and gloves worked at countertops amid test tubes, beakers, open flames, and high-tech electronic equipment. Nearly all of them stopped their work to stare.

Helen led them to one of several desks in the midst of the lab where a mousy woman in glasses and hair pulled into a ponytail with a red rubber band sat hunched over a computer screen. Helen asked if she had the results on their case.

The woman looked up and blinked at them several times before she said, “Yes. I have it. You can see right here.”

“We can’t tell you how much we appreciate all your work,” Casey said, earning a nod from the director.

The lab woman smiled and turned back to her screen. Using a mouse, she manipulated two white brackets around a yellow rectangle covered with what looked like the inky rungs of four ladders. The patterns of the rungs and their thickness didn’t seem to match and Casey felt her heart in her throat.