Джонатан Келлерман - Crime Scene

He was in uniform. I was not, though I’d put on a decent shirt. No jacket: spring had arrived on campus, overnight. When I was a student, my friends and I had a term for it — that moment when you looked up and noticed that the mud had unfolded into grass, and girls went out in tank tops and shorts. We called it The Day.

The Institute for Wrongful Convictions operated out of room 373, also the office of Yount Professor of Law and Criminal Justice Michelle George Berkowitz.

The door was ajar. Schickman rapped the frame.

“Come in.”

I saw Michelle Berkowitz and thought: assumptions.

She was a petite black woman with regal cheekbones and sculpted eyebrows. Tight braids lined her scalp, blossoming into an auburn cloud at the base of her neck. Stacks of photocopies, forms, folders, textbooks, journals — the stuff of appeals-in-progress — cluttered the floor and bookcases. The desk itself was clean, save a laptop whose wallpaper showed her with a white man and a grinning braces-faced girl of about eleven, the trio mugging in leis.

She told us to sit.

“Thanks for agreeing to meet,” I said.

“How could I not?” She spoke with a Caribbean lilt. “The curiosity was overpowering. You must realize how rare it is to be approached by the police. In fact, it’s never happened in the eleven years I’ve run this clinic.”

“First time for everything,” Schickman said.

“Mm.” An inscrutable smile. “Let’s begin with the same question I would ask Mr. Triplett himself: what’s your goal?”

“To clear his name,” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “But to what end?”

Schickman glanced at me. I won’t say we’d been expecting a hero’s welcome, but her leeriness caught us off guard.

“Legally, your options are limited,” she said. “He’s no longer incarcerated. We could pursue a pardon, but in this instance any potential practical benefits are, in my view, outweighed by the potential costs. So the question then becomes one of personal or psychological benefit. From what you’ve described to me, he’s living quite contentedly.”

Schickman laced his fingers in his lap, as if to belt himself in the chair.

“Maybe you can help us understand the costs,” I said.

“Set aside, for the moment, the toll on Mr. Triplett, which may be significant,” she said. “There’s also a significant cost to me, and by extension to the men and women who are wrongly incarcerated, at this very moment. While we sit here chatting, their lives are slipping away. If I agree to take on Mr. Triplett’s case, I’m depriving those people of our clinic’s time, money, and resources. Does that seem fair to you?”

“He deserves to be able to hold his head up,” I said.

“Can’t he do that already?”

I said, “Could you?”

Berkowitz smiled again, a touch more appreciatively. “You must forgive my skepticism. As I said, I’ve never been approached by law enforcement.”

“We’re here now,” Schickman said. “That counts for something.”

“It does. Although, at the risk of being cynical, I could point out that, if Mr. Triplett were to be granted a pardon, the police officers who stand to be embarrassed are not presently employed by either of your departments. Whereas I have a roomful of pending cases that do create problems for active officers, some of whom are in your departments.”

“We’re not running cover,” Schickman said.

“I believe that your intentions are sincere,” she said. “But let’s be honest with each other, shall we? I’ve known Chief Ames a long time. Don’t tell me he isn’t happy to score a few points.”

Schickman smiled neutrally. “Our duty is to the public, ma’am.”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

“But, look,” he said, “you don’t want it, we respect that.”

“I didn’t say I don’t want it,” she said. “Other aspects of the case make it attractive, vis-à-vis precedent. The juvenile angle. Mental health. There’s value in revisiting it. It’s more a question of timing. And I’d like to emphasize that I meant what I said, about the cost to Mr. Triplett. It’s not a quick process. It could take years. He’ll be forced to revisit a traumatic experience. Even with your superiors on board there will be pushback, I guarantee.”

I elected not to mention the fact that my superior wasn’t on board. If he knew I was sitting here, he’d hit the roof.

“Pushback from the prosecutor,” Schickman said.

“Certainly,” Berkowitz said. “The victim’s family, too.”

“We’re bringing them the real killer.”

She shook her head. “They won’t look at it that way. I’ve seen it happen, in cases far stronger than this. To them, we are ripping off a scab. Nor can I control how people react toward Mr. Triplett once the information becomes public.”

She turned to me. “When we first spoke on the phone, you described him as shy.”

“He is,” I said.

“Well, yes, I should say so. I spoke to his sister, as you suggested, but so far he hasn’t returned my calls. So I’d ask you to consider carefully whether he’s equipped, emotionally, to handle the backlash. People will rush to reconvict him. In the press. On social media. They won’t show thoughtful restraint. He needs to be made aware of the risks.”

“I’ll talk to him again,” I said.

“Please do. And have him call me.”

“Say we do move,” Schickman said. “Can you ballpark our chance of success?”

She yawed her head. “I try not to make predictions.”

“With respect, Professor,” I said, “this is a two-way street. He is shy, and if he senses that you don’t believe him, or that you’re not invested, or that you expect to fail, how are we supposed to win him over?”

“Fair enough,” she said. “I’m going to say ‘possible.’ ”

“Better than impossible,” Schickman said.

She chuckled, took a pen and a pad from her desk drawer. “These are the names of two individuals in the clinic who I feel would be best suited to handle the case. It might make more sense for them to speak with Mr. Triplett, rather than me.”

She tore the page off and held it out it for Schickman.

“Thanks,” he said.

She nodded. Back to me: “I remember you. From your playing days.”

Schickman raised his eyebrows. I guess he’d never bothered googling me.

“My husband is a basketball maniac,” she said. “He was in the crowd the night you got hurt.”

“I’m sorry he had to see that,” I said.

“I’m sorry it happened,” she said.

“Don’t be,” I said, rising. “I’m not.”

When Marlborough Ming heard what I had to say about the death of Nicholas Linstad, he responded, “Ah, screw you.”

I told him I’d take that as a compliment.

The following Tuesday we convened at 2338 Le Conte Avenue, the four-story multi-unit adjacent to Linstad’s former duplex. Joining us was the superintendent, a lanky, easygoing Albanian. He led us to the base of the giant redwood that dominated the building’s backyard. He’d gone to the trouble of hauling up from the basement a thirty-six-foot extension ladder — in turn saving me the trouble of renting one, along with a truck to transport it. He’d also brought his toolbox. Ming had brought his mouth and a bulging bag of pastries.

We propped the ladder against the tree and the manager racked it out to thirty feet. I paused, one sneaker on the lowest rung. The top looked ridiculously far away.

“Okay there, buddy?” the super asked.

“You should make him sign a waiver,” Ming said.

I started up before the super could see the wisdom in this advice.