Richard Patterson - Conviction

Terri watched his profile; he seemed to study the park less from interest than from the wish not to look at her. "Did you investigate?" she asked.

"Me? At no time. I hired another cokehead, a so-called investigator named Rufus Cross, who kicked back half his fees to me. Don't imagine he did squat, either." He paused, an ironic resignation seeping into his voice. "You're welcome to look at my files."

For whatever good they would be, Terri thought. "What do you remember about Rennell?"

"Nothing much. Never said nothin', really. Just looked right through me. I remember thinkin', Here he is charged with chokin' a nine-year-old on his own come, and he don't give a damn."

The image of Rennell at eighteen, inexorably headed toward a fate he was too impaired to see, hit Terri hard. "Did you consider that he might be retarded?"

"Retarded?" James spoke the word with bemusement and, it seemed, a touch of self-reproach. "He acted like a guilty man stickin' to his big brother's story, and waitin' for Payton to find him a way out. Maybe if I'd ever met with him alone . . ."

In an even tone, Terri said, "A 'way out' like asking a snitch to kill Eddie Fleet?"

"That's right. Hard to feel like that reflected well on either one of them."

"What about Eddie? Ever take a hard look at him?"

James seemed to study a homeless man at the center of the park, painstakingly folding a raveled blanket to stuff it in the garbage bag he used to carry his possessions. "What I remember," he said vaguely, "is tryin' to figure out his deal with the cops. Never found out that it was anything more than what all of them said it was—he'd testify, and Mauriani would consider that before charging him as an accessory."

"What about Fleet's story itself—that Rennell helped to dispose of the body. Didn't you wonder about that?"

"No," James said flatly.

Something new in his manner gave Terri pause. With some reluctance, she asked, "Why was that?"

James's eyes were suddenly harder. "This part, I do remember. Always will. No amount of drugs or whiskey could make a man forget."

* * *

Even through the glass in the county jail, Payton Price scared him some—the look in his eyes was implacable, that of a killer. "They're sayin' you hired a hit man," James repeated. "Jamal Harrison."

Payton's mouth curled in contempt. "Fleet's the whole case, or pretty damn near. You sayin' you'd miss him?" He paused, then added a perfunctory denial. "Jamal's a snitch, like Fleet. That makes him a liar."

"Maybe so. But him sayin' you wanted him to whack Eddie Fleet gives Eddie credibility." James leaned closer to the glass, speaking in an undertone. "This case is smellin' like death to me, son."

Payton met his eyes. "Then I better figure out where else we was."

James felt tired and flat: the coke was wearing off. "What are you tellin' me, Payton?"

Payton seemed never to blink; even through the glass James found this frightening. "Whatever you need to hear," Payton said.

"Like what?"

Payton angled his head, as though searching for an answer. "Like we was with my girlfriend, man. No way we killed that little girl."

His monotone bore no effort to persuade. "Payton," James said with new urgency, "I'm not puttin' on no perjured testimony. No good for either one of us."

Payton leaned closer, forehead nearly touching the glass. "Don't give me that jive," he hissed. "You look here at me, and listen hard. We was with my girlfriend, Tasha. You don't put her up there, we gonna die, and you gonna wind up floatin' in the bay like that little girl did." Payton looked him up and down, voice soft again. "Current like that, fat man like you float all the way to Oakland."

Softly, James said, "I hear you."

* * *

"Jesus," Carlo said.

"I know." Terri gazed out the window of the Waterfront Restaurant at the gray, white-capped current flowing under the Bay Bridge. "James assumed Payton was a liar. And that 'I didn't do that little girl' was just Rennell's pitiful excuse for an alibi. The fact that Rennell couldn't help, or even remember where he was, was just more proof of guilt—allowing James to rationalize pocketing the money from Grandma and blowing it on cocaine. All without doing any work."

"Pathetic," Carlo agreed. "But good for us."

Terri nodded. "Rennell never got his own defense, in either the guilt or the sentencing phase. James never even met with him alone. And the reason fits in neatly with mental retardation—Rennell's total reliance on Payton." She paused to spear a piece of sashimi. "So let's take stock of where AEDPA leaves us on the guilt phase."

"First," Carlo said promptly, "we need a constitutional error at trial. In this case, ineffective assistance of counsel, at least partly due to the conflict of representing both brothers. In short, that better lawyering might well have gotten Rennell acquitted."

Terri finished her meal. "The A.G. will say that nothing James did or didn't do made any difference. So under AEDPA, Rennell got a constitutionally fair trial. The fact that a jury might not have convicted him if Payton had said what he told me is irrelevant."

Carlo shook his head in wonder. "So where does that leave us?"

"Looking for Eddie Fleet," Terri answered briskly. "If we can dirty him now, maybe someone could have in 1987."

TWENTY

RETURNING FROM INTERVIEWING ANNA VELEZ, A FORMER JUROR, Terri sat with Chris and Carlo in Chris's office. "I told her about Payton," Terri said. "But when I asked if it would have changed her mind fifteen years ago, all she promised was to read Payton's deposition and get back to me."

"It's a start," Chris observed. "If you can get Velez to help, we'll add her statement to his clemency petition."

"When is the clemency hearing?" Carlo asked.

"Six days—unless we can get the execution set aside," Terri told him. "We'll have to prepare a supplemental filing, and I'll need you to help me draft it."

"No problem. But don't we need more on Eddie?"

"It would certainly be nice," Chris agreed. "Most of all, we need to preserve Payton's testimony." Glancing at Terri, he asked, "When's the last day we can go to court?"

"Two days from now. Wait any longer to find Eddie, and Payton's dead."

"Clemency," Carlo said, "means mercy. Even if we don't have enough proof to satisfy AEDPA, if the governor has doubts—"

"This governor," Chris cut in, "has no doubts. Clemency is bad politics; executions are good politics. He'll call self-interest 'closure' for Thuy Sen's family."

It was true, Terri thought: Thuy Sen's parents might hold the power of life and death over Rennell Price. "For better or worse," she said, "I've got to try her parents again."

* * *

Chou Sen stared at Terri through the iron bars which guarded the door of their home. She seemed to stand lightly, as if ready to take flight.

"Payton will die," Terri concluded. "But now that we know Rennell's retarded, and what happened in his childhood, should he die, too?"

Chou Sen seemed to stiffen. "My little girl not die from a sickness," she answered in a soft, clear voice. "Not die from a ray-gime, like the Khmer Rouge, which killed so many in our family. Died because two men wanted sex.

"One named Rennell. For fifteen years my daughter dead, and he's still living. Breathing and eating and not feeling the pain of her parents." She blinked, fighting to control her emotions. "Not feeling the shame of her sister. Time for this to be over."

For an instant, Terri desperately wanted to tell her of Payton's confession. But to do so, she was certain, would be to tell the Attorney General's Office.

"If Rennell dies," Terri asked, "do you really think things will be better?"

Briefly Chou's eyes shut. "Maybe some man can do that to a child of yours, and then you can come back and tell me."