Twist of Fate (9 page)

As they circled the Pen on one-way streets to reach the parking lot, Rob saw women standing on the sidewalk and shouting up to inmates visible in the prison's narrow windows. Wives and girlfriends, presumably. He wondered if drugs and other contraband were ever thrown to the prisoners.

He was glad their destination was the SuperMax prison across the street. Relatively new, the brick structure hadn't had time to accumulate as many ghosts as the Pen. As they parked, Val explained, "Even though death row is here, the main purpose of SuperMax is to secure the most violent criminals. Prisoners spend twenty-three hours a day in solitary confinement, with an hour of recreation time."

"So if they aren't crazy when they're first sent there, they soon will be."

"Probably, but at least they can't murder each other."

They fell silent when they reached the entrance to the SuperMax. Though Rob had never been in this prison, the routine was painfully familiar. Guards and metal detectors, Val's briefcase thoroughly searched, and an atmosphere as toxic as poison gas.

As the guards patted him down for concealed weapons, he felt as if a steel band were tightening around his chest. Recognizing his panicky desire to bolt, Val said quietly, "If you want to wait in the truck, that's okay."

"Thanks, but no. This needs to be done." Grimly he reminded himself that he was here by choice. If he visited the SuperMax again, maybe it would be easier. "But it's a good thing you're doing the talking."

"Talking I can always manage." Her mouth tightened as she surveyed their surroundings. "Making sense is something else again."

"You'll make sense." They shared a glance of mutual support, then followed a guard to a visiting room. It was little more than a glorified closet with a transparent plastic barrier separating the prisoner from visitors. Conversation was through a pair of telephones.

Val took one of the two chairs on their side, but Rob fidgeted about the small space, unable to relax. He didn't take the seat next to Val until the opposite door opened and two guards escorted a shackled Daniel Monroe into the other half of the room.

Rob's first impression was of intimidating size. Monroe was well over six feet tall with massive shoulders that stretched the fabric of his bright orange jumpsuit. A long, wicked scar marred the ebony perfection of his gleaming bald head. Another scar had been carved in his jaw. Knife cuts? Broken glass? If Rob saw this man at night on the street, he'd get the hell away as fast as he could. Even shackled and separated from the visitors' area, Daniel Monroe was scary.

Not turning a hair, Val waited until he'd taken his chair and lifted the handset, then introduced herself. "Mr. Monroe, I'm Val Covington. Kendra Brooks said she'd let you know I would be coming."

"She told me." Monroe's basso profundo voice rumbled the telephone, sounding more resigned than dangerous. "That girl just don't give up."

"Neither do I, Mr. Monroe." Val gestured toward Rob. "This is my investigator, Rob Smith. You fired your previous lawyers. Will you allow us to act on your behalf?"

Monroe turned his attention to Rob. His gaze wasn't that of a mad dog killer, nor did he have the flat stare of a psychopath. Instead, he had the wise, sad eyes of a man who had seen unspeakable things and given up all belief in justice. "Why bother? I ain't hopin' no more. When the chief justice of the Supreme Court says that actual innocence isn't necessarily a constitutional claim, it's time to quit."

Val said incredulously, "A chief justice said that? Which one?"

"Rehnquist. Look it up." Monroe's voice was matter-of- fact.

"I will." Val frowned as she considered how to reply. "Very well, since hope is a luxury you can't afford, don't hope that we can do anything. We both know that the odds of success are slim. But isn't even a long shot worth trying?"

Monroe stared at his manacled wrists. "You don't know what you're askin'."

"I think I do," Val said quietly. "And now I'm going to take a cheap shot. Will you let us do what we can for Kendra's sake, so she won't torment herself wondering if more might have been done?"

After a long silence, Monroe released his breath in a ragged sigh. "Okay, Miss Covington. For Kendra's sake. I don't want her carryin' no regrets when I'm gone."

"Good. And please, call me Val. We are going to get to know each other very well." Val pulled a legal tablet from her briefcase. "I know you've told your story a thousand times before, but would you mind doing it again?"

"Not much to say. I was never no saint. As a kid, I got into trouble with the law a couple of times. I never did nothin' violent, but I did have a record and the cops knew me. After I served six months for swipin' a car to go joyridin', I decided it was time I grew up. Kendra gave me another chance, and I got a job working in a warehouse. They treated me right and were going to make me a supervisor. I got me a GED and was set to take some night school courses at the community college.

"Then one night the cops came bangin' on the door. When I opened it, they charged in and slammed me against a wall. I moved real, real slow so they wouldn't get itchy trigger fingers. They said I had to come down to the station for some questions. When I left, I told Kendra I'd be back soon 'cause I knew I hadn't done nothin' wrong." There was a bitter edge to his voice. "I said good-bye to Kendra and the baby, and I been locked up ever since."

"What happened at the station?" Val asked softly.

"They kept askin' questions about what I'd done that night. Didn't know what was going on until one of the detectives got in my face and screamed why did I kill Officer Malloy? That's when I knew I was in deep shit--a policeman killed.

"I told 'em the truth, over and over. Then they put me in a lineup, a couple of witnesses said I was the shooter, and it was all over. I was charged, tried, and convicted. People cheered when I was sentenced to death."

His flat voice was chilling. Rob asked, "No one believed Kendra's testimony that you were with her?"

"The shooting took place only a couple of blocks from where we lived, so the prosecutor claimed there was time for me to sneak out and back without her knowing." Monroe snorted. "As if I'd leave Kendra to attack another woman, blow a cop's brains out, then calmly come home to play with my baby. But common sense didn't matter. They wanted to convict someone real bad, and I was handy."

"There was an attempt several years ago to commute your sentence to life imprisonment," Val said.

"The victim's family wouldn't hear of it, and what they think matters." Monroe's expression tightened. "Some smart folks tried to help me, Miss Val, and didn't get anywhere. It's time to let go and let God."

"We've already had this discussion, and you agreed to let us see what we can do. Personally, I prefer to think God helps those who help themselves. I'm not a criminal lawyer, but I'm a damned good attorney and maybe I can bring a fresh eye to the case." Val flipped to the next page of her tablet, revealing questions she'd written in advance. "Are you ready for a preliminary discussion of the evidence?"

Monroe gave a faint, rueful smile. "You sayin' that resistance is futile, and it will be a whole lot easier if I cooperate?"

Val smiled back. "That's about it, Daniel. Let's give it a try and see what happens. What have you got to lose?"

He rubbed a hand over his bald head, revealing the edge of a tattoo below his sleeve. "Nothin', long as I'm not fool enough to hope, and talkin' to you is a break in the boredom. Ask away."

Val obeyed, asking probing questions about the crime, the evidence, and the people involved. Rob watched in silence, simultaneously learning about the case and observing Monroe's reactions. Val's grasp of the material was remarkable, especially since she'd only just taken the case on and was working on multiple projects.

When their time was up, they left the SuperMax in silence. He inhaled deeply as they reached the street, thinking that even exhaust-tinged air tasted wonderful after the suffocating atmosphere of the prison.

He took his companion's cool demeanor at face value until they reached the privacy of the pickup truck. As he closed his door, she buried her head in her hands. "What a ghastly place! It's...it's like walking into a cloud of poison gas."

"Worse," he said grimly. "Prisons are soul-destroying for everyone in them."

"Seeing Daniel made capital punishment
real
. Kendra showed me a picture from before his imprisonment. He was a real teddy bear of a guy, very different from the way he looks now. As he talked, I couldn't stop thinking that his days are literally numbered. One day in September, the state intends to strap him to a gurney, stick a needle in his arm, and murder him." A wrenching sob escaped her. "It's barbaric.
Barbaric
."

Throat tight, he put an arm around her shoulders. "That's the worst of executing people. It makes us all barbarians."

She turned into him, shuddering from her sobs. Her intense reaction was a startling contrast to the composure she had shown in the prison.

His own reaction was equally intense. As he circled her with his other arm, he realized with a fierceness beyond anything he had felt in years that he wanted her. He wanted to have and hold her, protect her and seek comfort from her. He wanted to connect with another human being as he never had before. He had been attracted to her physically from the start, and soon came to admire her intelligence and charm. But her vulnerability touched some deep, long- frozen part of his soul.

Unable to bear the cascade of his emotions, he sought for a way to restore normalcy. "Maybe you're the one who can keep the barbarians at bay this time, Val."

"Maybe." She raised her head wearily. "Sorry to cry all over you. I never do things like that, but meeting a condemned man pushed buttons I didn't know I had."

"I won't tell anyone that the SuperMax got under your skin. It got to me just as badly." He pulled out his handkerchief for her, at the same time easing away, putting as much space between them as was possible in the cab of a small truck. "I'm amazed at how much you've learned about the case so quickly."

"There are three keys to being a good lawyer--preparation, preparation, preparation. Boring, but true. The more homework I do, the better the results, and I learned early how to do my homework well."

"Do you think Monroe is innocent?"

"Quite possibly." Her expression hardened. "But even if he's guilty as sin, I'm going to do my damnedest to get him off death row. I've just become a convert to the cause of ending capital punishment."

"There's nothing like personal experience to make the horror of it sink in." Before Val could wonder about his remark, he continued, "If I understand this right, remove the eyewitness testimony and the case against Monroe collapses. No physical evidence ties him to the murder--no blood, and the weapon was never found. His only crime might be that he was roughly the same size and shape of the real shooter."

"Like he said, with a policeman dead, they had to convict someone and he was handy." She wiped her eyes with his handkerchief. "Are you still up for investigating this case? It's not going to be fun, and the potential for pain and depression are huge. If you're unsure, now is the time to bail out."

"I'm sure." He turned the key in the ignition and the truck's engine lurched to life. "Tonight I'll start work on the files you gave me. When I'm up to speed, we can talk strategy."

"It's a deal." She smiled wearily. "We're off to a good start, I think."

Rob hoped so, or Daniel Monroe was doomed. But as Rob turned into the afternoon traffic and headed downtown, it was Val who dominated his mind. Now that he knew just how much he wanted her, what, if anything, was he going to do about it?

Chapter 7

Sunday afternoon in the park. Enjoying the lazy sunshine, Val pulled into the grassy lot and parked at the end of an irregular line of vehicles. In the last eight days she had decided to open her own office, committed herself to what was going to be a gut-wrenching case with little chance of success, spent far too much time fantasizing about her new landlord, and learned that a local Big Sister/Little Sister organization was having a potluck picnic. She wasn't sure whether so much change was exciting or terrifying.

No, she was sure. It was both.

She climbed from her car, telling herself that attending a picnic was not a commitment. Anita Perez, the social worker who coordinated the group, had explained the program over the phone and invited her to the outing. The other people were mostly existing Big/Little pairings along with other family members, but there would also be kids in need of partners and a few other women interested in becoming Big Sisters.

Val removed the bakery fudge cake she'd brought as a contribution and headed toward the sizable crowd picnicking under the oak trees. A card table held blank nametags, so she stopped to print her first name on a tag.

She was following the scent of broiling hamburgers when she was approached by a relaxed middle-aged woman with shrewd eyes and an easy smile. Glancing at the tag, the woman said, "Hi, Val. I've been hoping you would make it. I'm Anita Perez."