Tim Green - False Convictions

“I went to Turks, to get the DNA,” Casey said. “My cell didn’t work down there. Sorry about that.”

“Sounds like it wouldn’t have mattered,” Jake said.

Casey shrugged. “So I can see you on TV Friday night, huh?”

“Graham’s pull is even heavier than I thought,” Jake said. “Yeah, it’s all one big happy network family-Twenty/Twenty agreed to let me do the story and my show loves the exposure, so I’ve got a boatload of work to do.”

“Seems like the hardest part is done,” Casey said.

“I’m going to take a crack at Judge Rivers. You never know,” Jake said with a grin. “Either way, we’re going to indict this whole town. That’s the angle, and I have to admit, it’s a good one.”

“The town?”

“A prison town, corrupt politics, bribes, payoffs, extortion, nepotism, you name it,” Jake said. “They want me to throw the kitchen sink at this place, make it much bigger than a woman DA. She’s the crown jewel, but they want us to rip up the floorboards, show how everyone kept quiet and sent an innocent black man to jail for twenty years. How Rivers got away. How his mom went on to position herself for the highest court in the state.”

“How did she?” Casey said.

“Probably the same way she got her son off,” Jake said. “Like Myron Kissle said, the woman’s a barracuda, and that always makes good TV. I could save myself about three days in the library if I had someone who knows local politics who’d talk to me.”

“I think I know someone who might be up for it,” Casey said.

“The ear guy?” Jake said, sticking a pinkie into his ear. “I was thinking that. Be nice if you weighed in for me. I think he’d do it for me, but he works for you.”

“My pleasure.”

CASEY FORCED her lips into a flat line. She should look cheerful, but she’d already recruited every muscle in her face not to frown. Trucks sprouting small satellite towers lined Genesee Street as far as the hill dipping toward the rough side of town. Their generators belched spent diesel into what would have been crisp morning air. Graham, she knew, wanted to give the networks plenty of time to cut their pieces, and give his PR people more time to sell it into the news cycle.

Ralph pulled over in front of the police cruisers, which sat angled watchfully out on the wide street. Between them, cops working crowd control leaned with their arms and cups of coffee resting on the roofs of their cars, sunglasses pushed up above their hairlines in the shadow of the courthouse. Casey circled the cluster of patrol cars and the sidewalk bulging with cameras, microphones, and smartly dressed reporters. While not an unfamiliar scene, the VIP tent Graham had somehow arranged to be set up in the narrow plot of grass beside the courthouse made her wonder if they hadn’t overdone it.

She was waved through the police checkpoint by a party planner who wore a turtleneck beneath his Armani suit. The linen-covered table, heavy with Danish, salmon, and caviar hors d’oeuvres and silver urns of coffee and tea, held no interest for her. Neither did the retinues surrounding Al Gore, Brad Pitt, or Jesse Jackson.

“There you are,” she said to Graham, who stood with a crystal tumbler of orange juice. He was in his Timberland boots, Levi’s, and flannel shirt with dark hair poking out of the open collar. “Who’s the party planner?”

“Abel?” Graham said, nodding toward the wispy man in the turtleneck. “He’s a director. Won two Clios last year.”

“Commercials?”

“Try the cheese Danish,” he said, surveying the small crowd. “Brad Pitt loves them. They’re from Neddi’s, a little place Abel found in Chicago. Fresh this morning.”

“How did you do this?”

Graham smiled without looking at her, obviously proud. “They believe in the cause.”

“That’s bullshit,” Casey said. “What did it cost? Is there a service you use to get a lineup like this?”

Graham shrugged. “It’s a big moment.”

“It is now.”

“It was always big,” he said. “Big to Dwayne. His mom. The Project. Nothing could be bigger.”

“Now it’s big to every housewife in Dayton,” Casey said. “I’m serious. If I’m going to be doing these on a regular basis, I want to know how it works.”

Graham reined in his smile and met her eyes. In a low voice he said, “There is a service. They work through the agents and keep schedules for all the A-list people. You have to fly them in and out and provide police escorts, and you have to take who happens to be close by. Brad Pitt was shooting a movie in New York. Gore was actually in Buffalo showing his movie.”

“And this would cost?”

Graham looked away, studying with appreciation the legs of a young woman in a dark suit who hovered near Jesse Jackson.

“About the same thing it cost me to hire you,” Graham said, grinning, his eyes dancing around the tent now.

“For all of them?”

“For Brad Pitt. Jesse and Al I got two for one.”

Casey nearly choked. In a hissing whisper she said, “You spent two million dollars to have these people here?”

“It’s like an ad in the Super Bowl,” he said, nodding. “Did you see the networks out there? E!? Fox News? These things cost money. Plus, all three of them are now on our board.”

“Swell.”

“You asked how it’s done. Look at Kollar. I bet you didn’t know he had those dimples.”

Judge Kollar stood in his robes, having a picture taken between Brad Pitt and Al Gore, his smile wide as an airplane hangar. Graham looked at his watch and a disturbance at the back corner of the tent marked the arrival of Dwayne Hubbard in a pin-striped suit escorted by two Auburn police officers, each of whom gave wide berth to the man Casey had last seen in shackles. Trailing Dwayne was a thin black woman with white hair wearing a bright blue dress and matching hat, Casey guessed the mother. Another woman stood beside her, tall, overweight, and a black face painted with red rouge and lipstick surrounding a gap-toothed mouth. Casey couldn’t imagine who she might be or what her role was.

Even in the suit, Hubbard’s thin neck and big glasses gave him the air of a character actor playing a bit part on a low-budget cable movie. Jesse Jackson kicked into gear with kisses, solemn hugs, and jive handshakes.

The judge got into the act with Brad Pitt, mugging for the lone photographer who took direction from Abel. Al Gore waited like the statesman until a more dignified moment could be born from the charade and he could pump Hubbard’s hand like a car dealer. It was then Casey heard Dwayne introduce the heavy woman as Naomi Potts, his soul mate and fiancée. Abel raised his voice and began herding the whole group the way only someone fluent in managing big egos and personalities really can.

Atop the courthouse steps, between the towering columns, Casey and the rest positioned themselves on patches of duct tape bearing their names written in black Magic Marker. Casey stood beside Dwayne Hubbard in front of the podium and its herd of microphones while Brad Pitt, Al Gore, and Jesse Jackson, who wouldn’t let go of the mom, flanked them along with Graham, who placed a patronizing hand on Casey’s shoulder as she spoke. When she turned to offer him a weak smile, Casey noticed the judge prowling around in the background, jockeying for some face time.

Casey removed the notes from her briefcase, only to have them deftly snatched up by Abel, who replaced them with a small, three-sentence script. Casey frowned at him, but Abel was too busy handing out scripts to the others to notice her ire.

Casey realized that the crowd had quieted. Graham gave her a hearty thumbs-up. Flashes popped and lenses spun into focus. She cleared her throat and began to read.