The Innocence Game

I sat in the lawyer’s office and stared at a row of diplomas on the wall. The writing was impossible to read—a fitting introduction, I figured, to the practice of law. I was about to get up for a closer look at the goods when the man himself came in, small and dark, with soft whispers and greasy handshakes. He sat behind his desk and gestured for me to make myself comfortable. Not likely. He took out a thin blue file, placed it on his desk, and folded his hands over it.

“As you know, Ian, I’m handling your mother’s estate.”

“I didn’t know she had an estate.”

“Nearly everyone has an estate, Ian.”

“No kidding.”

He gave me a nod, like this lesson in and of itself was worth the L ride downtown. “She didn’t have a lot, your mother. The house, of course, a little less than five thousand dollars in a savings account, and a small insurance policy to cover her final expenses.”

I hadn’t thought about final expenses. I was surprised my mom had. As I was about to find out, my mom was full of surprises.

“She left you something else,” the lawyer said. “It’s the reason I’ve asked you down here.” He took an envelope out of the blue file and turned it over in his hands. “She insisted you read it alone. In this office. Once you’ve done that, I have an affidavit for you to sign. Then I can release the money.”

“Thanks, but you can keep the cash.”

The lawyer looked at me like I’d just punched the pope in the stomach. Or some such infallible being. “I can’t do that, Ian.”

“Have you read it?” I said, nodding at the letter.

“It’s sealed. No one’s read it but your mom. And now you.” He placed the envelope flat on the desk and lifted himself from his chair. “Take your time. When you’re done, we’ll fill out the paperwork and talk about funeral arrangements.”

The lawyer left. I stared at the envelope. I could see my name, hidden in the folds of my mom’s cursive, and crumbled a little inside. I pulled the envelope toward me. The paper was thick. Expensive. It felt like a single sheet. Maybe two. I slipped my finger under the edge of the flap and broke the seal. Then I took out the letter and began to read.

The seminar met in Fisk Hall, one of the oldest buildings on Northwestern’s campus and the crusted, beating heart of the university’s Medill School of Journalism. I took a seat at a table in the back. The pile of red hair at the front shook itself like a dog shaking off the weather. A hand beckoned.

“Won’t do, Mr. Joyce.”

I sighed, grabbed my backpack, and found a place up front. The pile of hair parted itself, revealing a considerable length of nose and eyes of violent blue.

“My name is Judy Zombrowski. You can call me Z. Do you know Ms. Gold?”

The hand directed my attention to a woman sitting directly to my left. She had a perfectly square chin, high cheekbones, and long, brown hair that turned crimson in the late-afternoon sun. Sarah Gold waved. I felt queasy. Gloriously so.

“We know each other from undergrad,” Sarah said, smiling at me as if we’d exchanged more than three words during our four years together.

“Of course you do.” Z cast a look toward the back of the room. “We’re waiting for one more.”

A door banged open.

The third student in the summer graduate seminar was tall and angular. He had thick shoulders and a long jaw covered by a blond scruff of beard. His eyes were shaded and hard to read.

“Jake Havens?” Z’s voice rang down the empty aisle and echoed off the walls. Havens took the same seat I’d picked out for myself.

“What is it with you people?” Z waved Havens forward. “Up here.”

“I’m good, thanks.” His voice was ragged, like a car knocking through its low end of gears. He looked older. In his thirties, even.

“Fine. Sit where you want.” Z poked at the mass of papers piled up around her. From underneath a legal pad she pulled out what looked like a Big Mac and unwrapped it. She took a bite, then found a Coke with a straw and sipped.

“So, can someone tell me what we’re here for?” Z took another bite and watched us as she chewed.

“We’re here to work on wrongful convictions.” Sarah Gold tapped a pen lightly against the table as she spoke. “Men who’ve been sentenced to death for crimes they didn’t commit.”

“You mean murder, Ms. Gold.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Z.”

“Yes, Z.”

“And what if, heaven forbid, the son of a bitch is guilty?” A pickle dropped out of Z’s Big Mac. She ignored it. “What if you spend the quarter working a file and, at the end of the day, he raped the little girl, cut her into pieces, and stuffed them all into Hefty bags. Just like the state said he did.”

Sarah opened her mouth to speak.

“I’m not finished,” Z said. “What if you work a case and are convinced the poor bastard is innocent? Not a doubt about it. But you don’t have the evidence. Or you do have the evidence, but for some reason it’s tainted. Inadmissible. What then?”

Z took another bite of her sandwich, put it down, and held up her hands like she was a doctor getting ready to operate. “I’m not supposed to eat this stuff, but I love it.” She wiped her fingers with a napkin, wrapped up what was left of the burger, and stuffed it into its paper bag. “My point is this. We have a lot of files. And a lot of possible outcomes. But we don’t root for one result over the other.”

“What do we root for?” Sarah said.

“The truth, if we can find it. And a good story. As for the actual workings of our legal system”—a flick of hands to the heavens—“sometimes it’s necessary to let things fall where they may. Do you understand what I’m getting at?”

We all nodded.

“Like hell you do. But that’s all right. Just keep in mind rule number one. The evidence is what it is. Allow it to tell its own story. Don’t shape it to support a certain outcome. We’ll talk more about all of this later. For now, why don’t we get started?” Z gestured to the stack of brown files climbing the wall behind her. “These are just a few cases you can look at. We have another roomful down the hall.”

“Do we start anywhere in particular?” I said. “Or just dig in?”

“This seminar is all about instinct, Mr. Joyce. And who has it. In fact, our very first case relied on little more than a hunch. Have any of you heard this?”

We all shook our heads. Z seemed pleased.

“Our first case involved a man named Charles Granger. He was convicted of shooting a man dead over a drug deal and sentenced to die by the state of Indiana. In the spring of 1999, we read through the file in this very classroom. None of us bought it. No one was sure why, but the facts just didn’t hang together. So we ordered up Granger’s trial transcripts and began to work the case. We eventually zeroed in on the state’s eyewitness. At first, she was scared to talk to us. We sent her some letters from Granger. Then we sent her a calendar with Granger’s scheduled execution date circled. She wound up recanting her testimony, and the whole thing came apart. Charles Granger spent fifteen years on death row. At one point, he was forty-eight hours from being killed. And we saved his life. This seminar has saved eight other lives since then. And gotten at least that many released from decades of prison time for crimes they didn’t commit. This will be the best work you’ll ever do. It will also be the most demanding. And a lot of it will depend on you trusting your gut.”

Z rattled the ice in her Coke and sucked on the straw until she hit bottom. Then she threw the cup in the vicinity of a barrel. “You’ve been chosen for this seminar because you’re the best. At least that’s what they tell me. I’ve won three Pulitzer Prizes in my career, so I know talent. And from where I sit, the screening committee for this course gets it right a little more than half the time. Which means at least one of you doesn’t belong. But we’ll see. Now, I’d like to head down the hall for a walk-through of our filing system.”

Z stood. Sarah and I got up with her.

“I’ve already got a case.” Jake Havens was still slouched in his chair, eyes fastened on the floor. “Name’s James Harrison. Fourteen years ago, he was convicted of killing a ten-year-old kid in Chicago.”

Z smiled so I could see her eyeteeth. “Mr. Havens. Nice of you to check in. We tend not to focus as much on cases in Illinois since the state abolished its death penalty.”

Havens looked up. “What happened to ‘trusting your instinct’?”

“I didn’t say we couldn’t take a look at an Illinois case. Just that, all things being equal, it might not be a priority.”

“But all things aren’t equal.”

“I’m not following you.”

“First of all, Harrison’s dead. Fourteen months in prison and they found him stuck in the neck with a shank.” Havens climbed to his feet and moved down the aisle until he stood on the other side of Sarah. He pulled a thick file from a tattered backpack and thunked it down in front of him. “This is everything I could find. Mostly newspaper clippings. And the original police report.”

Z ignored the paperwork. “Why would we look into a case where the convicted man is deceased?”

“Does the fact that he’s dead make him any less innocent?”

Z licked her lips. First day and the prof was pissed. Great.

“Mr. Havens, let’s take this up after class…”

Havens pulled a wrinkled gray envelope out of his pack and laid it beside the file.

“You have something else for us?” Z’s voice rose with her eyebrows.

“It’s a letter, ma’am.”

“I can see that.”

“I received it four days ago.”

“In the mail?”

“There’s no stamp,” Sarah said, tilting her head to get a closer look.

“It was tucked under the front door of my apartment.”

“When, Mr. Havens?”

“I told you. Four days ago.”

Z nodded. “Go ahead.”

I could feel the shift in the room. Z was no longer the teacher. And Jake Havens, no longer just a student.

“I woke up and it was sitting in my hallway. So I opened it.”

“Who else has handled it?”

“No one.”

“You’re sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“And what do you think is in there?”

“I know what’s in there. It’s a note from the killer. The real killer.”

Z walked to the back of the classroom and closed the door. She returned with a box of latex gloves. We each took a pair and snapped them on. I couldn’t take my eyes off the envelope. Z’s cloak-and-dagger only made things better. She picked up the envelope and studied it. There was no address, just
jake havens
printed in block letters of black ink.

“Was it sealed, Mr. Havens?”

Jake shook his head. Z didn’t seem surprised. She opened the envelope and eased out its contents—a single sheet of paper filled with more block lettering. Z pressed the page flat on the table and we all read.

98-2425…i kilt the boy
.

“There’s something else.” Havens reached into his pack again, this time pulling out a small piece of cloth. He placed it down beside the letter. My hand picked it up before the rest of me realized what I’d done. It was a ragged cut. The fabric, white with a black stripe running through it.