Tim Green - False Convictions

“Somebody,” Casey said.

“Me.”

Casey considered him. “Can you get me the hell out of here?”

“I think I can,” Marty said. “I might have to eat the cost of the reception hall, but I figure I can take the honeymoon trip with a buddy of mine from law school.”

“Your fiancée?” Casey said.

Marty shrugged. “She might get over it. Judge Kollar probably won’t.”

“What did you do?”

“He’s not the only judge,” Marty said, sniffing the air.

Casey angled her head over her shoulder and Marty flinched at the sight of the beaten woman.

“He’s got arraignments today, but they finish around eleven. I used a couple favors and got the desk sergeant to hold the arraignment back, then push it out this afternoon to Judge Hopkins in the city court,” Marty said. “She got in when the Dems were riding high with Bill Clinton. She doesn’t even like Judge Kollar.”

“No million-dollar bail?” Casey said with a wry smile.

“No,” Marty said, “but this is no joke. They’re charging you with criminal tampering, tampering with public records, and felony conspiracy. The whole bundle adds up to about ten years if things go against you, and I’ve got to say, you don’t have a lot of friends around here.”

“Really?” she said. “They gave me one hell of a reception.”

“They’re saying you switched the samples out at the storage facility the hospital uses,” Marty said, frowning as he lowered his voice. “They’ve got a night watchman who says you paid him off, but when he saw you on the news he had to come forward. Said he couldn’t live with himself, thinking he’d helped to free a murderer. Claims he had no idea what you were up to.”

“He got paid off all right,” Casey said.

Marty raised his eyebrows.

“Not me,” she said. “Graham.”

“Sure,” Marty said, his face going red before he looked down at the floor. “They’re also saying you got the sample from Nelson Rivers yourself.”

“That is so sick,” Casey said, clenching the mesh of the cage. “You’ve got to stop that right now, Marty. Get out there and tell the reporters.”

“They know you flew down there,” Marty said, still averting his eyes.

“I flew down there after we got the sample from the hospital,” Casey said. “Tell them that. Have them look at the flight records.”

Marty bit into his lip and wagged his head. “Ralph is saying he flew down with you the first time, before you went with Graham, that you went under another name. There’s a woman in the flight record.”

“A woman?” Casey said. “A whore. She had to have a passport to come back into the country. Tell them to check.”

“They’re saying it was a fake record,” Marty said. “Ralph is falling on his sword, taking the blame. He says Graham told him to assist you with whatever you needed and that you insisted on going under a false name and that he was just following orders. Says he didn’t see how you filled out the immigration papers or what passport you showed the agent coming back in. Graham is saying he’s appalled. That’s what he said, ‘appalled.’ ”

“But you saw me in the hotel that night,” Casey said.

“I did,” Marty said, nodding, “but no one is listening to me and no one else saw you. Remember? You didn’t even order room service.”

Casey bit her lip and asked, “They’re talking to the media? When?”

“They had a press conference right after you got arrested,” Marty said. “It looked like a circus, all the trucks and reporters packing up and heading up the hill in a wave to the courthouse steps. That’s where Graham did it. He’s calling for the police to take Dwayne Hubbard into custody. Says the reputation of the Freedom Project is at stake now because of you. They’ve got a manhunt going.”

“He destroyed Patricia Rivers,” Casey said, “now he’s saving his own ass.”

Marty only nodded and looked up, staring at her through his glasses.

“Marty?” Casey said quietly. “Why are you doing this?”

“I want to be a lawyer,” Marty said, “not someone’s bagman because my uncle knows everyone. I want to really practice, write briefs, make oral arguments, all the stuff you dream about in law school. I didn’t go to get a merit badge that earns me a six-figure salary, I want to make a difference.”

Casey smiled at him.

“You’re the first person who treated me like I could even do this,” Marty said.

“I wasn’t so nice.”

“You let me help with that brief. No one does that with me. How can you get better if all they ask you to do is get drinks and sandwiches? I figure, I get in now and I’ll get to be your right-hand man on this thing.”

“You didn’t think I’d hire a first-class criminal lawyer with experience?” Casey asked.

“No,” Marty said, slowly shaking his head, “I figured you’d do this yourself, but you need local counsel, just like you did for Hubbard.”

“You never heard the saying ‘A lawyer who represents herself has a fool for a client’?” Casey asked.

“Well,” Marty said, dropping his eyes again.

“Right,” Casey said. “So, thanks, and go get me out of here.”

JAKE’S FINGERS worked the keyboard, and without looking up, he said, “Quinton may wake up tomorrow morning and change his mind.”

“There are more patient men,” Dora said.

Jake got into the secretary of state’s Web site and input the account name and password Casey had set up that morning.

“With a little luck,” he said out loud, tapping the enter key. The computer beeped and the screen changed. Waiting for him were two PDF files, which he opened.

“It’s the same guy,” he said, pointing to the name and signature on the screen at the bottom of the document.

“John Napoli?” Dora said. “The same guy as who?”

Jake snatched up his cell phone and began dialing Don Wall.

“An old man in a wheelchair who has some goon driving him around town in a silver Mercedes SUV,” Jake said, listening as Don’s phone rang. “He’s the lawyer for the city on some project, but he’s much more than that… Don? It’s me, Jake.”

“I’m thrilled,” Don said. “My first two days at home in a month, so I wouldn’t expect anyone else. How may I serve you?”

Jake heard the sound of kids in the background, but pressed on. “Remember that John Napoli?”

Don heaved a sigh and said, “You got a corrupt attorney? Wow. Come out to Des Moines with me and do a story. They’re calling this guy the next Adam Gadahn.”

“Right,” Jake said, “Al Qaeda in America. I’m serious. Napoli’s plugged in.”

“Jake, listen to yourself,” Don said. “D’Costa? Fabrizio? Napoli? You think everyone whose name ends in a vowel is plugged in with organized crime? I told you, D’Costa was a cop who now runs a seventy-million-dollar business.”

“At this moment,” Jake said, “I am looking at a certificate of incorporation with Napoli’s name on it for a company that owns a billion dollars in gas leases in the Marcellus Shale Formation.”

“In the what? What is that, French?” Don said.

“It’s an underground geological formation,” Jake said, “in the Atlantic states. Lots in New York. One of the biggest natural gas reserves in the world. Napoli is tied in with Robert Graham and a bunch of other names who are trying to keep the courts in New York from ruining their chance to get it out of the ground. There’s some environmental issues, and these guys have enough at stake that Graham just spent a lot of time and money to ruin the person next in line for the court, Patricia Rivers.”

“Rivers? I saw that in the airport last night on CNN,” Don said. “Figured that Graham guy couldn’t get his dad to play catch in the yard growing up and he just needed some attention.”