Death Row (6 page)

"Well, these things happen. So how are you?"

"Oh... I'm slowly recovering," he said, making Christina immediately wish she hadn't asked. "I guess you probably heard-Candy and I gave up the ghost. Called it quits. After a year and a half of marriage, no less."

Christina shook her head. "That long."

"Yeah, sad, isn't it? But I'm getting past the anger and, to tell you the truth, I'm rather relieved. I feel like a free man again. Like I've been reprieved from a life sentence. How about you?" he added, jabbing her in the ribs. "Still single? I hope, I hope?"

This would be a good time to fictionalize a lesbian relationship with a first cousin, Christina mused, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. "Yes, still single."

"And still in the law game?"

"Yes. I work with Ben Kincaid."

Hager slapped himself on the forehead. "Oh, my God, no! You're kidding, right?"

"No..."

"Not him! Not that chump we booted out of the firm!"

"The one and only."

"Oh, you poor dear. I had no idea! I mean, I knew you left the firm at the same time, but I never dreamed you'd still be with him after all these years."

Christina tried not to bristle. "I like working with Ben. He's a good attorney."

"Oh, but Christina-this will never do. I know times are tough for legal assistants, but someone with your skills-"

"Actually, Alvin, I'm a lawyer now."

For the first time, Hager missed a beat. "You're-what? A lawyer?"

Did her newfound status threaten him? Christina wondered. Destroy some illusion he had of overwhelming the vulnerable legal assistant with his well-educated awesomeness? "And I like it where I am," she continued. "Ben and I have handled some major cases. And won. We've helped innocent people avoid unjust charges-"

"Criminal law?" He made a gagging face. "Oh, Christina-it's just too horrible!"

Christina felt her blood pressure rising. "I like what I'm doing."

"But Christina-a girl with your smarts could work anywhere. I bet I could get you back in with Raven."

"I'd sooner die."

"Then one of the other major firms. I'm a partner now, you know. I have a lot of connections. I could put in a good word."

Christina hesitated. She
had
come to network, after all. But the thought of leaving Ben and joining some big firm just didn't appeal. "No thanks."

Alvin 's brow wrinkled. "What's happened to you? The Christina I knew was a serious career woman. She wouldn't pass on a golden opportunity to move herself up in the world. Is he paying you that much?"

Christina suppressed a laugh. "No, that isn't it."

"Have you two got some kind of... thing going?"

"We're just good friends."

Hager spread his arms wide. "Then what?"

"I just-I-" What was she trying to say, anyway? Why
had
she stuck with Ben all this time? Why wasn't she interested in moving onward and upward? She found herself utterly unable to explain it rationally. Was that because it wasn't rational? "I like what I'm doing, Alvin. Where I'm doing it. I'm the person I want to be."

Hager took a step back. "That's fine. Don't get defensive on me. Just trying to help." He winked. "So where is this paragon of lawyering, anyway?"

She scanned the room. "There he is! I wonder how long he's been here. Sorry, Alvin. Must dash." She quickly crossed the room and grabbed Ben's arm. "Thank goodness you're here. I was trapped with Alvin Hager, of all people. Have you met anyone here?"

"I've met lots of people," Ben replied. "Most of them annoying."

"Yeah, well, you know what they say. Ninety-nine percent of the lawyers give the rest a bad name. But this soiree isn't restricted to lawyers, you know. There are some real people here, too. All kinds of big shots. Potential clients."

"Like who?"

Christina tugged her head to one side. "See the guy in the gray? Walt Helmerich, oil kingpin. The man he's talking to? Chester Cadieux. Chairman of QuikTrip. I daresay he's worth a few bucks." She adjusted her gaze slightly to a strong-looking man with silver hair. "Robert Lorton.
Tulsa
World.
Gordona Duca. Real estate. Major wheeler-dealer."

"Who's the guy they're talking to? The redhead."

Christina rolled her eyes. "Ben! Don't you know anyone? He's the most prominent one in the bunch."

"You're just saying that because he has red hair."

"I'm saying it because it's true. He could buy and sell the lot of them."

"That kid? He's what? Thirty?"

"He's Peter Rothko, founder of the Burger Bliss fast-food chain."

"He looks more like the top fry cook."

"He owns the whole outfit. He's a billionaire. Fortune 500. And insanely handsome. He's got it all." Her gaze softened. "Generally considered to be Tulsa 's most eligible bachelor."

Ben blinked. "I thought I was Tulsa 's most eligible bachelor."

"But of course you are. What was I thinking?"

Without warning, Ben lunged sideways and ducked behind her. "Hide me!"

"What on-?" Christina turned her gaze in the other direction. "Oh."

Not ten feet from them, an attractive man in his early fifties strolled across the room jingling a glass. Some dark liquor or other, straight up. "Derek."

"Damn right. Don't move!"

"Ben... doesn't this strike you as just a wee bit juvenile?"

"I don't care if it is," he hissed. "The man hates me, and the feeling is mutual. I don't want to have a big scene."

"You're overreacting."

"Easy for you to say. You didn't have to work under him back at Raven."

"Actually, I did."

"Well, he didn't fire you. You didn't watch him become a federal judge just so he could humiliate you at every possible opportunity."

"If you'll recall, Ben, I was more than a little bit interested in that first trial you had before Judge Derek myself."

"The man is venal, arrogant, and vicious," Ben continued. "And he hates me. Just being in the same room with him gives me the shakes. I'm leaving."

"Ben, you're being ridiculous!"

"I don't care if I am. This is a waste of time, anyway. I'm not the networking type."

"Ben. I insist that you stay."

"Insist away. Unless you're packing handcuffs, I'm outta here."

"Ben, as your partner, I demand that you stay put!"

"Oh, look! Alvin is coming back."

Christina did an abrupt about-face. "Feets, do your stuff!"

When Ben passed through the front doors to his office, he found his staff engaged in a heated discussion.

"That's the craziest thing I've ever heard," said Jones, the office manager. "Everyone knows it was the Cubans. It was payback time."

"Would you listen to me for just one minute?" Loving said. "I been readin' about this for twenty years. It was the air force, man. They had a deal with the grays and they had to protect it."

"Grays? As in space aliens?" Christina snickered. "I think it was the mob. Who else could bring off a hit like that?"

"You're all nuts." Jones pivoted around. "What do you think, Ben? Who killed JFK?"

Ben spread his arms. "Could it be... Lee Harvey Oswald?"

Jones rolled his eyes. Loving slapped his forehead. "Jeez, Ben. You are so gullible."

"You're right," he replied. "I'll believe anything."

"I got some stuff you could read on this," said Loving, their fridge-size investigator and resident conspiracy buff. "I could get it for you."

"Business is slow," Ben answered, "but, happily, not that slow." He paused. Something in here smelled. "Christina, did you have the office fumigated again?"

"Yes. I found a spider."

"Only one?"

"He was a monster."

" 'Bout the size of my pinkie nail," Jones muttered.

"Even the little ones can be deadly," she shot back.

"Christina, you've got to stop. All this pesticide is disgusting. Plus it's bankrupting us."

"Not that that takes much," Jones said sotto voce.

"I'm sorry, Ben, but I can't help it. I hate spiders." She shuddered. "They totally creep me out."

Well, Ben thought philosophically, Christina was a lot tougher than he was about most things. It was nice to know she had at least one weakness. "Anything going on here?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," Christina answered. "You've got someone waiting for you in your office. A young woman."

"Hey, hey, hey, Skipper," Loving said, winking. "You got a little action goin'?"

"Not to my knowledge. Did you interview her, Christina?"

"I tried. She wants to talk to you."

Ben's head tilted slightly. That was odd. Christina was the empathetic one. Usually clients preferred to spill their guts to her. "Do you know who she is?"

"Oh, yes. I knew who she was the moment she came through the door. You will, too." She looked at him levelly. "And you won't believe it."

With an invitation like that, how could he resist? "Let's do it."

Ben started toward his office, Christina close behind. He stopped at the third door on the right and pushed it open.

After he finished gaping, he stepped inside. Christina was right. He couldn't believe it.

The cane leaning against her chair was a sure tip, not that Ben needed one. It hadn't been that long, and she hadn't changed that much.

"Miss Faulkner," Ben said, offering her his hand. "This is a surprise."

"I'll bet it is," she said, taking it. "And please call me Erin." She cast a glance around Ben's sparsely decorated office. "Did you ever consider maybe watering your plants?"

"Why? They're all dead." He dropped his briefcase on the desktop. Christina sat in one of the outer chairs. " Erin, is this visit about a new matter, or... the previous one?"

"The same one, I'm afraid." Her eyes didn't make contact with his. "My family..."

Ben nodded. "Then I have to tell you, before you say anything, that technically anyway, Ray Goldman's appeal is still active and I'm representing him."

"I know that."

She looked good, Ben thought, with close-cropped dark hair and a tight-fitting sweater skirt. She had been a bit pudgy as a teenager, but judging by appearances, that baby fat was long gone. "So the prosecutors probably wouldn't want me talking to you. At least not outside their presence."

"Are we breaking any rules?"

"Christina?"

Christina edged forward. "Are you personally represented by counsel, Erin?"

"No, I'm not."

"Then we're not breaking any rules. But the prosecutors still wouldn't like it."

"Frankly, I don't give a damn what the prosecutors like."

Ben's eyebrows rose. This was certainly a new attitude from the DA's star witness. And the sole survivor of the tragedy. "Okay. How can I help you?"

"You got Goldman's execution stayed, right? I know-I was there."

Ben's heart sank. Is that why she had come-to chew him out for stopping the wheels of justice? "True, but that's only temporary. We applied for federal habeas corpus review, but due to an unusually busy docket, the court hadn't set a hearing. That's why we got an eleventh-hour stay. But that won't happen again. And a hearing has been set, in about a week."

"What are you planning to say at the hearing?"

Ben pondered whether to answer the question. He didn't normally brief prosecution witnesses on his case strategy. But for some reason, he thought he should tell her the truth. "Frankly, we don't know. Getting a prisoner released on habeas corpus is pitifully rare. One of the most common grounds-which isn't at all common-is incompetence of counsel at trial. I can hardly argue that the trial counsel was incompetent, since I was the trial counsel. Someone else could make the argument, though. Which is why I was looking for a new lawyer to take the case."

"I was at that trial every day," Erin said, and Ben could see in her eyes that she was returning to that time, a place he suspected she did not like to go. "I don't recall you being incompetent. In fact, I remember thinking if I was ever in trouble, you were the one I'd hire to get me out."

"I appreciate that. But there's no such thing as a perfect trial, and every trial attorney makes mistakes. If there's an argument to be made, we need to get someone in who can make it."

There was a long silence. Ben could tell Erin was thinking, running something through her head. Unless he missed his guess, there was something she wanted to tell him. She just hadn't figured out how to say it yet.

"I-" She started, then stopped, then tried it again. "I-would like to help. If I could."

Christina's brow creased. "You want to help us-with Ray Goldman's appeal?"

"Yes. If possible. I would."

Ben stared at her, unsure what to say. "Forgive us if we seem taken aback, Erin, but-you were the principal prosecution witness at the trial. The only one who mattered, really. To be quite honest, I thought we were winning. Until you took the stand."

"Everyone thought so," Christina added. " Erin, your testimony is what got Ray convicted. More than that. It's why he got the death penalty."

All at once, Erin crumbled forward. Her head fell into her hands. "I know," she said, barely audibly. "I know that."

Ben and Christina looked at one another. This was too strange, almost surreal. What was going on?

Christina inched forward and gently laid a hand on the woman's back. "I'm sorry, Erin. I wasn't trying to induce a guilt trip. I was just stating a fact. About your testimony, I mean."

Her chest heaved. "That's why it hurts so much."

"I-I'm afraid I don't understand. You told the jury what you saw and heard. Why does that hurt?"

"Because it was all a lie." She brushed the tears from her face and pressed against the arms of the chair, trying to steady herself. "Every word of it. A tremendous lie."