Richard Patterson - Conviction

"Eddie Fleet," Terri said flatly.

"That's what jumped out at me. But James never went after Stace Morgan—even though the cops had found a possible murder weapon in his apartment. Nor did James share with the jury that Morgan and poor old Calvin were rivals in the drug trade, or that the victim, Sylvester, worked for Calvin." Moore closed the notebook. "Inquiring minds might wonder why. But James refused to discuss his so-called strategy with the State Bar investigators—a matter of keeping client confidences, he said."

"Sounds familiar. In our case, James should have gone after Fleet like hell wouldn't have it. You find him yet?"

"Eddie? No. There's a trail of battered girlfriends from here to Oakland and beyond. But so far, no Eddie. If nothing else the sonofabitch is a survivor."

"Keep looking. And try Betty Sims, the girlfriend Laura Finney tried to interview. Something in Finney's story keeps tugging at me." Terri picked up her pen. "Out of the five cases you told me about, how many clients got the death penalty?"

"Four. Everyone but Calvin Coolman."

"And how many sentences were reversed because James was found constitutionally ineffective?"

"One—Calvin's. In the other four, the appellate courts said James was good enough to get his client executed."

"Why am I not surprised." Hastily Terri scribbled a note: "Carlo—read Coolman appellate case." "Eula Price," she continued, "wanted the best counsel she could buy, and got the worst. So what was James disbarred for?"

"You'd suppose incompetence. But you know your own fraternity—shafting your clients isn't enough to get disbarred. You have to steal from them."

"James misused client funds?"

"Yup—beginning in 1986. In extenuation, he pleaded his cocaine addiction. Money went up his nose." Moore's smile was jaded and a little weary. "You've got exactly what you guessed you had—a crappy lawyer who ripped off Grandma to keep himself in coke, then blew off Rennell's defense once he'd blown her money."

"Terrific," Terri remarked. "I just love being right."

* * *

"You know the problem," Terri said.

It was past eleven at night. Naked, she lay across their bed as Chris rubbed her back and shoulders, one of the conditions of their marriage. "Sure," he answered. "Either you get James's cooperation, or he may blow up in your face."

"Not just cooperation—I need his enthusiastic testimony that his incompetence sunk Rennell's defense. Suppose we're 'lucky' enough to get an evidentiary hearing in front of Gardner Bond, and I put James on without knowing what he'll say. To pave the way for new evidence under AEDPA, I've first got to prove James was constitutionally ineffective—"

"Which waives the attorney-client privilege, of course."

"Of course." Terri turned her head on the pillow. "Mind concentrating on my neck? I've got a headache going from there all the way through my temples to my eyes."

Chris's thumbs began pressing into the base of her skull. "Thanks," she murmured. "Maybe James's excuse in the Calvin Coolman case—about not disclosing client confidences—was bullshit. But maybe it wasn't. The risk in our case is that James will testify that Rennell confessed to murder—or that James learned something from Rennell, or maybe even Payton, which points to guilt. That not only would eviscerate any claim of innocence but suggests Rennell is at least smart enough to lie in a consistent way. Lousy atmospherics for claiming he's retarded."

She heard Chris laugh softly. "No wonder you've got a headache. Does James have any friends we can locate?"

"Not really. Johnny says his associates from back then seem to have dropped away—mostly sleazebags, anyhow. But there is an ex-wife, and ex-wives can be useful."

"You might start there. We need to feel out his frame of mind before we go stirring up old memories. And for all you know, he's descended from coke to crack."

"Maybe. But Johnny says he's working in a law library."

"Nice to know that James could find one." Chris's thumbs increased their pressure. "How's that?"

"Fine. Eyes still hurt though."

"I'll get you a damp cloth to put over them before you go to sleep. Unless there's some other service I can perform."

Terri smiled into the pillow. "Does it require my involvement?"

"It might—depends, I suppose. So what other of your problems can I resolve?"

"DNA." Terri closed her eyes, feeling the slow release of pain flowing through her neck. "Retesting the semen may be a long shot. But there's other evidence, too—like the hair caught in Thuy Sen's barrette."

"Sure. But if the hair's not Rennell's, it doesn't prove him innocent. And what if it is Rennell's?"

Terri's temples still throbbed: the last vestiges of the headache, she guessed, would stubbornly survive Chris's ministrations. "At least we'll know," she answered. "What if the Attorney General already does?"

TEN

RENNELL BEGAN TO SMILE AS SOON AS HE GLIMPSED TERRI.

She waited inside the plastic cubicle as the guards brought him from death row. Tentative at first, his smile broadened into a rare show of teeth as the guards locked him inside with her. Then he reached into his pocket and placed an object on the table with an expression that, despite the smile, struck Terri as imploring.

"I been wantin' to show you this," he told her.

She could not imagine what it was besides an artifact constructed of paper clips, dental floss, the handle of a toothbrush, a small piece of metal, and two plastic straws with copper wire extending from the straws. To obscure her mystification, Terri said, "It looks really complicated."

Rennell gazed down at the object as though it bore a talismanic power. "You got that right," he said with a tincture of bravado. "Took me a long, long time. I'm mechanical, for sure. Bet you can't guess what it is."

Terri continued her examination of what—however unfathomable its purpose—was quite intricate in design. Smiling, she shook her head.

"It heats water." The forefinger of his large hand lovingly traced the two parallel copper wires. "I put these in the socket thing, and the metal part in the water. Then it gets hot."

Looking up, Terri felt herself grinning. "Amazing."

Rennell's expression changed once more, his probing look at Terri combining pride with uncertainty. "Pretty smart, huh."

"Yeah," she answered softly. "Pretty smart."

His smile vanished. "When those tests the doctor talking about?"

Suddenly she could feel his worry as strongly as heat passing through his copper wires—a fear she shared, though she could never let him know this. "Pretty soon now," she answered, gazing down at his invention. "I can't wait for you to show this to Dr. Lane."

* * *

They talked for another hour. Their conversation drifted with Rennell's shifting attention, sometimes foundering—Terri now suspected—on the shoals of fears too deep for Rennell to acknowledge, a stifling admixture of retardation and repression. But Terri knew that such fear could lead to a more palpable form of numbing—the need to dull consciousness until one's surroundings, and one's actions, seemed part of a dream state occupied by some other, more indifferent Rennell Price.

"I guess sometimes you smoked crack," Terri ventured. "To feel better."

Rennell's eyelids lowered. "Long time ago," he said in a dull, distant voice. "With Payton."

Terri restrained herself from asking about Thuy Sen. "When you smoked crack, Rennell, did you ever drink alcohol, too?"

Rennell's face darkened, and he could not look at her—if this was difficult, Terri thought with some despair, how might they ever talk about his parents? Then, to her surprise, he mumbled, "I drank beer 'fore I even know about no crack."

The softness of his voice did not conceal a tremor. With equal quiet, Terri asked, "When did you start drinking beer?"