Rogue Lawyer (7 page)

I show the jurors a map of their lovely town. The Pit is far away from the pond; there's no possible way Gardy could have been in both places at the approximate time the girls were murdered. The jurors don't believe any of this because they have known for some time that Gardy was a member of a satanic cult with a history of sexual perversion. There is no physical proof that the Fentress girls were sexually assaulted; yet every miserable redneck in this awful place believes Gardy raped them before he killed them.

At midnight, I'm lying across my lumpy motel bed, 9-millimeter by my side, when my cell phone beeps. It's the DNA lab in San Diego. The blood Tadeo brutally extracted from the forehead of Jack Peeley matches the strand of hair the murderer left behind in the shoelaces he tightly bound around the ankles of Jenna Fentress, age eleven.

Sleep is impossible; I can't even close my eyes. Partner and I leave the motel in the dark and are almost to Milo before we see the first hint of light in the east. I meet with the Bishop in his office as the town slowly comes to life. He calls Judge Kaufman at home, gets him up and out of bed, and at 8:00 a.m. I'm in his chambers with Huver and the court reporter. All of what follows will be on the record.

I lay out my options. If they refuse to stop the trial, dismiss the case, and send everybody home—and this is what I expect them to do—then I will either (1) issue a subpoena for Jack Peeley, have him hauled into court, put him on the stand, and expose him as the killer; or (2) go to the press with the details of the DNA testing; or (3) announce to the jury what I know; or (4) do all of the above; or (5) do nothing, let them get their conviction, and slaughter them on appeal.

They demand to know how I obtained a blood sample for Jack Peeley, but I'm not required to tell them. I remind them that for the past ten months I've begged them to investigate Peeley, to get a blood sample, and so on, but they have had no interest. They had Gardy, one of Satan's foot soldiers. For the tenth time I explain that Peeley (1) knew the girls, (2) was seen near the pond when they disappeared, and (3) had just broken up with their mother after a long, violent romance.

They are bewildered, stunned, at times almost incoherent as reality settles in. Their bogus and corrupt prosecution has just unraveled. They have the wrong man!

Virtually all prosecutors have the same genetic flaw; they cannot admit the obvious once it's on the table. They cling to their theories. They know they are right because they've been convinced of it for months, even years. “I believe in my case” is one of their favorite lines, and they'll repeat it mindlessly as the real killer walks forward with blood on his hands and says, “I did it.”

Because I've heard so much of their idiotic bullshit before, I have tried to imagine what Huver might say at this point. But when he says, “It's possible Gardy Baker and Jack Peeley were working together,” I laugh out loud.

Kaufman blurts, “Are you serious?”

I say, “Brilliant, just brilliant. Two men who've never met, one eighteen years old, the other thirty-five, join up for about half an hour to murder two little girls, then go their separate ways, never to see each other again and both determined to keep their mouths shut forever. You wanna argue that on appeal?”

“It wouldn't surprise me,” Huver says, scratching his chin as if his high-powered brain is clicking right along and sifting through new theories of the crime.

Kaufman, whose mouth is still open in disbelief, says, “You can't be serious, Dan.”

Dan says, “I want to proceed. I think Gardy Baker was involved in this crime. I can get a conviction.” It's pathetic to watch him plunge onward when he knows he's wrong.

“Let me guess,” I say. “You believe in your case.”

“Damned right I do. I want to go forward. I can get a conviction.”

“Of course you can, and getting a conviction is far more important than justice,” I say, remarkably under control. “Get your conviction. We'll slog through the appellate courts for the next ten years while Gardy wastes away on death row and the real killer walks the streets, then one day a federal judge somewhere will see the light and we'll have another high-profile exoneration. You, the prosecutor, and you, the judge, will look like idiots because of what's happening right now.”

“I want to go forward,” Huver says like a defective recording.

I keep going: “I think I'll go to the press, show them the DNA test results. They'll splash it around and you'll look like a couple of clowns still trying the case. Meanwhile, Jack Peeley will disappear.”

“How'd you get his DNA?” Judge Kaufman asks me.

“He got in a bar fight last Saturday at the Blue & White, got his face busted, and the guy who did it works for me. I personally scraped Peeley's blood off my guy's fist and sent it to the lab, along with a sample of the hair I collected earlier.”

“That's tampering with the evidence,” Huver says, predictably.

“Oh, sue me, or throw me in jail again. This little party's over, Dan, give it up!”

Kaufman says, “I want to see the test results.”

“I'll have them by tomorrow. The lab's in San Diego.”

“We're in recess until then.”

At some point during the day, the judge and the prosecutor meet secretly. I'm not invited. The rules of procedure prohibit such clandestine meetings, but they happen. These guys need an exit strategy, and fast. By now they know I'm half-crazy and I will indeed run to the press with my test results. At this desperate hour, they are still more concerned with politics than with the truth. All they care about is saving face.

Partner and I return to the City, where I spend the day working on other cases. I convince the lab to e-mail the test results to Judge Kaufman, and by noon he knows the truth. At 6:00 p.m. I get the phone call. Jack Peeley has just been arrested.

We meet the following morning in Kaufman's chambers, not in open court, where we belong. A dismissal in open court would be far too embarrassing for the system, so the judge and the prosecutor have conspired to do it behind closed doors, and as quickly as possible. I sit at a table with Gardy by my side and listen as Dan Huver limps through a tepid motion to dismiss the charges. I strongly suspect that Huver wants to proceed with his beloved case, the one he believes in so strongly, but Kaufman said no; said this little party is over; said let's cut our losses and get this radical bastard and his brain-damaged client out of here.

When the paperwork is signed, Gardy is a free man. He's spent the last year in a tough jail—I should know. But a year in jail for an innocent man is pure luck in our system. There are thousands locked away for decades, but that's another soapbox.

Gardy is bewildered, not sure where to go or what to do. As they lead us out of Kaufman's chambers, I hand him two $20 bills and tell him good luck. They'll sneak him back to the jail to collect his assets, and from there his mother will take him somewhere safe. I'll never see him again.

He doesn't say thanks because he doesn't know what to say. I don't want to embrace him because he didn't shower last night, but we manage a quick hug in a narrow hallway while two deputies watch us. “It's over, Gardy,” I keep saying, but he doesn't believe me.

Word has leaked and there's a mob waiting outside. The town of Milo will never believe anyone but Gardy killed the Fentress girls, regardless of the evidence. This is what happens when the cops act on one of their smart hunches and march off in the wrong direction, controlling the rumors and taking the press along with them. The prosecutor joins the parade early on, and before long it becomes an organized and semi-legitimate lynching.

I slip through a side door to where Partner is waiting. We make our escape, without an escort of any sort, and as we speed away from the courthouse two tomatoes and an egg splash onto our windshield. I can't help but laugh. Once again, I'm leaving town in style.

Rich people tend to avoid death row. Link Scanlon has not been so lucky, though you couldn't find three people in this city who care about Link or his luck. There are about a million people here, and when Link was finally convicted and sent away, virtually everyone felt some measure of relief. Drug trafficking was dealt a severe blow, though it soon recovered. Several strip clubs closed, which pleased many young wives. Parents of teenage girls told themselves their daughters were safer. Owners of fancy sports cars relaxed as auto thefts plummeted. Most important, the police and narcotics agents relaxed and waited for the dip in crime. It happened, but didn't last long.

Link was sentenced to death by an untampered jury for killing a judge. Soon after he arrived on death row, his lead defense lawyer was found strangled. So I suppose the City's bar association was also relieved to see Link put away.

On second thought, there must have been several hundred people here who truly missed Link, at first. Morticians, strippers, drug runners, chop shop operators, and crooked cops, to name a few. But it doesn't matter now. That was six years ago, and once in prison Link proved capable of running most of his businesses from behind bars.

All he ever wanted was to be a gangster, an old-style Capone-like character with a lust for blood and violence and unlimited cash. His father had been a bootlegger who died of cirrhosis. His mother had remarried often and badly. Unrestrained by a normal family life, Link hit the streets at the age of twelve and soon mastered petty thievery. By fifteen, he had his own gang and was selling pot and porn in our high schools. He was arrested at sixteen, got a slap on the wrist, and thus began a long and colorful relationship with the criminal justice system.

Until he was twenty, his name was George. It didn't fit, so he adopted and discarded several nicknames, jewels such as Lash and Boss. He finally settled on Link because he, George Scanlon, was so often linked to various crimes. Link fit him nicely and he hired a lawyer to make it legal. Just Link Scanlon, no middle initial, nothing stuck on the end. The new name gave him a new identity. He was a new man with something to prove. He became reckless in his desire to become the toughest mobster in town, and he was quite successful. By the time he was thirty, Link's thugs were killing regularly as he took over the City's skin business and cornered his share of the drug traffic.

He has been on death row for only six years and his execution is scheduled for 10:00 tonight. Six years is not long on death row; on the average, at least in this state, the appeals drag on for fourteen years before an execution. Twenty is not unusual. The shortest was two years, but that guy begged for the needle. It's fair to say Link's case has been rushed along, or expedited. Kill a judge and all the other judges take offense. His appeals were met with surprisingly few delays. His conviction was affirmed, affirmed, and reaffirmed. All rulings were unanimous, not a single dissent anywhere, state or federal. The U.S. Supremes refused to consider his case. Link pissed off those who truly run the system, and tonight the system gets the ultimate revenge.

Judge Nagy was the one Link killed. He, Link, didn't actually pull the trigger; instead he sent word down the line that he wanted Nagy dead. A career hitter called Knuckles got the assignment and carried things out in splendid fashion. They found Judge Nagy and his wife in bed, in their pajamas, bullet holes in their heads. Knuckles then talked too much and the cops had a wire in the right place. Knuckles was on death row too, for about two years, until they found him with Drano packed in his mouth and throat. The cops quizzed Link but he swore he didn't know a thing about it.

What was Judge Nagy's offense? He was a tough law-and-order type who hated drugs and was famous for throwing the book at traffickers. He was about to sentence two of Link's favorite henchmen—one was his cousin—to a hundred years each, and this upset Link. It was his town, not Nagy's. He, Link, had been wanting to knock off a judge for years; sort of the ultimate takedown. Kill a judge, walk away from it, and the world knows you are indeed above the law.

After his defense lawyer was murdered, folks thought I was a fool to take his case. Another bad outcome for Link, and they might find me at the bottom of a lake. But that was six years ago, and Link and I have gotten along just fine. He knows I've tried to save his life. He'll spare mine. What would he gain by killing his last lawyer?

Partner and I pull in to the main gate at Big Wheeler, the maximum security prison where the State maintains its death row and does its executing. A guard steps to the passenger door and says, “Name?”

“Rudd, Sebastian Rudd. Here to see Link Scanlon.”

“Of course.” The guard's name is Harvey and we've chatted before, but not tonight. Tonight Big Wheeler is locked down and there is a thrill in the air. It's execution time! Across the road, some protesters with candles sing a solemn hymn while others chant support for the death penalty. Back and forth. There are TV news vans lining the highway.

Harvey scribbles something on a clipboard, says, “Unit Nine,” and as we're about to drive away he leans in and whispers, “What are your chances?”

“Slim,” I say as we begin moving. We follow a prison security truck with gunmen standing in the back; another one trails us. Floodlights nearly blind us as we inch along, passing brightly lit buildings where three thousand men are locked in their cells and waiting for Link to die so things can return to normal. There is no sensible reason for a prison to go nuts when there's an execution. Extra security is never needed. No one has ever escaped from death row. The condemned men there live in isolation, and thus do not have a gang of friends who might decide to storm the Bastille and free everyone. But rituals are important to the men who run prisons, and nothing gets their adrenaline pumping like an execution. Their little lives are mundane and monotonous, but occasionally the world tunes in when it's time to kill a killer. No effort at heightened drama is to be missed.

Unit Nine is far away from the other units, with enough chain link and razor wire around it to stop Ike on the beaches of Normandy. We eventually reach a gate where a platoon of jumpy guards can't wait to search Partner and me and our briefcases. These boys are far too excited about the evening's festivities. With escorts we enter the building, and I'm led to a makeshift office where Warden McDuff is waiting, chewing his fingernails, obviously wired. When we're alone in a room with no windows he says, “Have you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Ten minutes ago, a bomb went off in the Old Courthouse, same courtroom Link got convicted in.”

I've been in that courtroom a hundred times, so, yes, I am shocked to hear it's been bombed. On the other hand, I'm not at all surprised to discover that Link Scanlon does not intend to go quietly.

“Anybody hurt?” I ask.

“Don't think so. The courthouse had just closed.”

“Wow.”

“Wow's right. You better talk to him, Rudd, and quick.”

I shrug and give the warden a hopeless look. Trying to talk sense to a gangster like Link Scanlon is a waste of time. “I'm just his lawyer,” I say.

“What if he hurts somebody…”

“Come on, Warden. The State's executing him in a few hours. What else can it do to him?”

“I know, I know. Where are the appeals?” he asks, crunching a sliver of a thumbnail between his front teeth. He's about to jump out of his skin.

“Fifteenth Circuit,” I say. “A Hail Mary. They're all Hail Marys at this point, Warden. Where's Link?”

“In the holding room. I got to get back to my office and talk to the governor.”

“Tell him I said hello. Tell him he still hasn't ruled on my last request for a reprieve.”

“I'll do that,” the warden says as he's leaving the room.

“Thanks.”

Few people in this state love an execution as much as our handsome governor. His routine is to wait until the last possible moment, then appear somberly in front of the cameras and announce to the world that he cannot, in good conscience, grant a reprieve. On the verge of tears, he'll talk about the victim and declare that justice must be done.

I follow two guards dressed in full military gear through a maze and come to the Boom Boom Room. It's nothing more than a large holding cell where the condemned is placed precisely five hours before his big moment. There, he waits with his lawyer, spiritual adviser, and maybe some family. Full contact is allowed, and there can be some pretty sad moments when Momma arrives for the final hug. The last meal is served precisely two hours before the final walk, and after that only the lawyer can hang around.

In decades past, our state used a firing squad. Cuffed and bound, the condemned was strapped to a chair, a black veil was dropped over his head, and a bright red cross was attached to his shirt, over his heart. Fifty feet away, five volunteers waited behind a curtain with high-powered rifles, though only four were loaded. The theory was that none of the five would ever know for sure that he killed a man, and this was somehow supposed to assuage his guilt later in life, in the event that he had a change of heart and became burdened. What a crock! There was a long list of volunteers, all eager to put a bullet dead center in another man's heart.

Anyway, prison lingo is vibrant and creative, and over time the execution room picked up its nickname. Legend has it that an air vent was intentionally left open so the cracking sound of the rifles echoed over the prison. When we adopted the needle, for humane reasons, less space was needed. Death row was reconfigured; walls were added here and there. Supposedly, the current Boom Boom Room includes the very spot where the condemned men sat and waited for the bullets.

They frisk me again and I walk through the door. Link is alone, sitting in a folding chair that is leaning against a cinder-block wall. The lights are low. He's glued to a small muted television screen hanging in a corner, and he does not acknowledge my arrival. His favorite movie is
The Godfather
. He's watched it a hundred times, and years ago began working on his imitation of Marlon Brando. Scratchy, painful voice, one he blames on smoking. Clenched jaw. Slow delivery. Aloof. Completely devoid of emotion.

Our death row has a unique rule that allows the condemned man to die in any clothing he chooses. It's a ridiculous rule because, after living here for ten, fifteen, or twenty years, these guys have nothing in the way of a wardrobe. Standard-issue coveralls; maybe a pair of frayed khakis and a T-shirt to wear during visitation; sandals; thick socks for the winter. Link, though, has money and wants to be buried in solid black. He's wearing a black linen shirt with long sleeves buttoned at the wrists, black denim jeans, black socks, and black running shoes. It's not nearly as stylish as he thinks, but at this point who cares about fashion?

Finally he says, “I thought you were going to save me.”

“I never said that, Link. I even put it in writing.”

“But I paid you all that money.”

“A fat fee is no guarantee of a good outcome. That's in writing too.”

“Lawyers,” he grunts in disgust, and I don't take this lightly. I have never forgotten what happened to his last one. He slowly leans forward, tipping his chair onto all fours, and stands up. Link is fifty now, and for most of his time on the Row he's managed to maintain his good looks. But he's aging quickly, though I doubt if anyone with a firm execution date worries too much about wrinkles and gray hair. He takes a few steps and turns off the television.

The room is maybe fifteen by fifteen, with a small desk, three folding chairs, and a cheap Army-style cot, just in case the condemned might want to catch a few winks before being sent to his eternal rest. I was here once before, three years ago, when my client came within thirty minutes of getting the needle before we were handed a miracle by the Fifteenth Circuit.

Link will not be so lucky. He sits on a corner of the desk and looks down at me. He grunts and says, “I trusted you.”

“And with good reason, Link. I fought like hell for you.”

“But I'm insane, legally, and you haven't convinced anyone of it. Crazy as hell. Why can't you make them see this?”

“I have tried and you know it, Link. No one listened because no one wanted to listen. You killed the wrong person, a judge. Kill a judge, and his brethren take offense.”

“I didn't kill him.”

“Well, the jury said you did. That's all that matters.” We've had this conversation a thousand times, and why not have it again? Right now, with less than five hours to go, I'll chat with Link on any subject.

“I'm insane, Sebastian. My mind is gone.”

It is often said that everyone goes crazy on death row. Twenty-three hours a day in isolation breaks a man mentally, physically, and emotionally. Link, though, has not exactly suffered like the rest. Years ago I explained to him that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a state cannot execute a person who is either mentally retarded or who becomes mentally unsound. Soon thereafter, Link decided he should go insane and he's been acting so ever since. The warden at that time agreed to move Link to the psych unit, where he enjoyed a much more comfortable lockup. Link lived there for three years before a journalist dug deep enough to discover a money trail between various members of the warden's immediate family and a certain crime syndicate. The warden quickly retired and dodged an indictment. Link got slammed back to death row, where he stayed for about a month before getting moved to PC—protective custody. There, he had a larger cell and more privileges. The guards gave him anything he wanted because Link's boys on the outside were taking care of the guards with cash and drugs. In time, Link manipulated a transfer back to the psych unit.

In his six years at Big Wheeler, he's spent about twelve months locked up with the other killers on death row.

I say, “The warden just told me the courthouse got bombed this afternoon. Same courtroom where you got convicted. What a coincidence, huh?”

He frowns and offers a casual, Brando-like shrug, revealing nothing. “I got an appeal floating somewhere right now?” he says.

“It's at the Fifteenth Circuit, but don't get excited.”

“Are you telling me I'm gonna die, Sebastian?”

“I told you that last week, Link. The fix is in. The last-minute appeals are worthless. Everything's been litigated. Every issue covered. There's little we can do right now but wait and hope for a miracle.”

“I shoulda hired that radical Jew lawyer, what's his name, Lowenstein?”

“Maybe, but you didn't. He's had three clients executed in the past four years.”

Marc Lowenstein is an acquaintance of mine and a fine lawyer. Between the two of us, we handle most of the untouchable cases in our end of the state. My cell phone vibrates. It's a text message—the Fifteenth Circuit has just denied.

I say, “Bad news, Link, the Fifteenth just turned us down.”

He says nothing but reaches over and turns on the television. I turn the switch for more lighting and ask, “Is your son stopping by tonight?”

He grunts, “No.”

He has one child, a son who just got out of federal prison. Extortion. He grew up in the family business and loves his old man, but no one can blame him for avoiding a prison, if only for a visit. Link says, “We've said good-bye already.”

“So no guests tonight?”

He grunts, says nothing. No, no visitors for the last hug. Link was married twice but hates both ex-wives. He hasn't spoken to his mother in twenty years. His only brother mysteriously disappeared after a bad business deal. Link reaches into his pocket, produces a cell phone, and makes a call. Inmate cell phones are violently forbidden, and they've caught Link with a dozen over the years. The guards sneak them in; one who got caught said he was paid $1,000 in cash by a stranger in a Burger King parking lot, after lunch.

It's a quick call—I can't understand a word—and Link returns the phone to his pocket. Using the remote, he changes channels and we watch a local cable news show. There's a lot of interest in his execution. A reporter does a nice job of recapping the Nagy murders. They flash photos of the judge and his wife, a pretty lady.

I knew the judge well and appeared several times in his courtroom. He was a hard-ass but fair and smart. We were shocked when he was murdered, but not too surprised when the trail led to Link Scanlon. They run a clip of Knuckles, the gunman, as he's leaving court in handcuffs. What a nasty one.

I say, “You know you're entitled to the counsel of a spiritual adviser?”

He grunts. No.

“The prison has a chaplain, if you'd like a word with him.”

“What's a chaplain?”

“A man of God.”

“And what might he say to me?”

“Oh, I don't know, Link. I'm told that some folks, right before they pass, like to get things right with God. Confess their sins, stuff like that.”

“That might take some time.”

Contrition would be an inexcusable act of weakness for a mobster like Link. He has absolutely no remorse, for the Nagy murders or for all those before them. He glares at me and says, “What are you doing here?”

“I'm your lawyer. It's my job to be here, to make sure the final appeals run their course. To give advice.”

“And your advice is to talk to a chaplain?”

We're startled by a loud knock on the door. It opens immediately and a man in a cheap suit strolls in, with two guards as escorts. He says, “Mr. Scanlon, I'm Jess Foreman, assistant warden.”

“A real pleasure,” Link says without taking his eyes off the television.

Foreman ignores me and says, “I have a list of all those who will witness the execution. There's nobody on your list, right?”

“Right.”

“Are you sure?”

Link ignores this. Foreman waits, then says, “What about your lawyer?” He looks at me.

“I'll be there,” I say. The lawyer is always invited to watch.

“Anybody from Judge Nagy's family?” I ask.

“Yep, all three of his children.” Foreman places the list on the desk and leaves. As the door slams behind him, Link says, “Here it is.” He lifts the remote, increases the volume.

It's a breaking story—a bomb just exploded in the stately courthouse where the Fifteenth Circuit does its work. The scene outside is frantic as police and firemen scurry about. Smoke boils from a second-floor window. A breathless reporter is moving along the street with his cameraman in tow, looking for a better angle and gushing on about what's happening.