An Imperfect Process (33 page)

Slowly at first, then with increasing fluency, Jason began describing his classes, the things he was learning both inside and outside the classroom, the beauty of the Rockies. Even though Kendra had relayed much of the information from Jason's e-mails, Daniel listened hungrily, absorbing every syllable.

Kendra watched the conversation with relief. She hadn't been kidding when she told Daniel that she thought this was meant to be. Sometimes when people were being stupid, God stepped in. Jason and Daniel were doing their part by moving beyond anger to deal effectively with the situation as it was. There was a similarity in how the two thought that was making it easy for them to converse. Maybe the plastic barrier between them actually helped at this stage, when they were virtual strangers even though they shared blood and bone and DNA.

Closing her eyes, she prayed that the day would come when her son and his father could actually touch each other. Hug each other. And if that day never came—well, at least they had this day.

Chapter 23

Val let her voice mail pick up the incoming call, wondering how she could ever have thought that starting her own office would mean she'd be less busy. Two days into her official occupancy of the church, she was running in circles like a tail-chasing kitten.

The previous morning she hadn't even poured coffee before receiving a phone call that one of her Crouse, Resnick cases had suddenly become hot. While Kendra pulled the files on that, a call had come in from Bill Costain, her biggest Crouse, Resnick client. Not only was he transferring much of his business to her, he had a big project that had needed discussing immediately.

She had complied, driving down to Annapolis for a waterfront lunch meeting. Not only was he a good friend and client, but most of his work was on a scale that she could handle either alone or by subcontracting to another lawyer. She needed him as a client for the financial security of her fledging legal business. But she had hardly had time to draw a deep breath, and she absolutely couldn't neglect work on Daniel's petition.

Nonetheless, it was great to have her own place, and at

Crouse, Resnick having a snoring hound in her office would have been frowned on. She glanced at the patch of sunlight that Malcolm had claimed. Since Rob was going to be out most of the day, he'd brought Malcolm downstairs. Not only was the dog pleasant, undemanding company, but now she didn't have to listen to his stubby claws tapping upstairs in Rob's apartment.

Val was reaching for another document when the doorbell rang. Kendra had taken the morning off for personal business, so Val hiked from her office to the front door herself. She made a mental note to talk to Rob about putting in a video camera and solenoid system so she could check out visitors and let them in from her desk.

Standing on her doorstep was Mia Kolski, the music teacher whose ex-husband kept taking her to court. "Hi, Val. Since I was nearby, I thought I'd drop off the documents you requested in person."

"Come on in." Feeling guilty that she hadn't been more aggressive on Mia's behalf, Val stepped aside and led the other woman to the small conference room. "Did you find anything interesting?"

"That's why I need to talk to you." Mia sat and opened her tote bag to remove a fat file. "When I contacted the army pension office to find out why I wasn't entitled to any of Steve's pension, they sent me a copy of this waiver." She handed over a photocopy.

Val studied the document. It was signed and notarized. "Is it possible Steve slipped this in without you noticing when you were signing a bunch of papers?"

"That could have happened, but it didn't. To begin with, that's not my signature. It was signed and notarized in Georgia during the time he was living in Atlanta." Mia tapped the copy of the notary seal. "I've never been in Atlanta except passing through the airport, and I sure as heck wasn't there for this notary to testify to my identity."

"Good grief, Steve forged this? And convinced a notary to witness?" With rising excitement, Val studied the signature and the seal more closely. "I suppose he could have gone to the notary with some female friend who claimed to be you. This does look more or less like your signature, though, and graphologists don't always agree on authenticity. Can you prove that you were in Maryland when this was signed?"

"Darned right I can." Mia smiled triumphantly. "That happened to be the day of the school's spring music recital. I taught in the morning, rehearsed in the afternoon, and directed the production in the evening."

"You've got witnesses who can swear to this?"

Mia nodded. "The water pipes in the girls' restroom broke and made a terrible mess that morning, and we had to scramble like mad to put the show on. The day is engraved deep in all the teachers' memories. Including your mother's, I'm sure."

Val whooped with glee. "We've got him, Mia! This is fraud, and we can prove our case. Shall we start with a threat to his lawyer saying we'll take him to court if he doesn't return your pension rights, or shall we go right to the police?"

Mia hesitated. "Steve is a jerk but I don't want to send the father of my kids to jail. I'd be willing to give up my half of the pension to get him and his sleazy lawsuits off my back. Is there some way we can use this as leverage to stop him from dragging me to court every few months?"

Val sat back in her chair and thought about it. "I'll have to check with one of my family law friends to be sure. A lot depends on whether he wants the money more than he enjoys driving you crazy."

"He likes harassing me, but he
loves
money. He's making a lot more now than he did in the army, and it just makes him want even more."

"Then maybe I can draw up an agreement which you would both sign, in which he acknowledges that the waiver is fraudulent, and you promise not to press charges nor claim any pension money as long as he doesn't take you to court again. It gives him a major incentive to find other ways of getting his jollies."

"If you can get him to agree to that, it would be great!" Mia sighed blissfully. "Being able to get on with my life. What a concept."

Val jotted a note on her tablet. "I'd also want to include a clause saying that from now on, the child support will be sent automatically from his bank account. If he doesn't have to personally write that check every month, he might be less cranky about it."

Mia rose and hugged Val. "You're a genius!"

"A lawyer is only as good as the ammunition she has to work with." Val grinned. "And you just handed me a bazooka."

After Mia left, Val called and left a message for a friend who specialized in family law to find out if her plan was feasible, then returned to work on the Crouse, Resnick case. She lost track of time and was startled to realize that it was well after noon when Kendra appeared in the door of Val's office.

"Jason is here with me," Kendra said. "Do you want to say hi?"

"I'd love to." As Val moved from behind her desk, Jason followed his mother into the room. It was the first time Val had seen him since he'd entered the academy almost a year earlier, and the intervening time had filled out his muscular frame and matured him. In his uniform, he was enough to make young women swoon, and older ones draw a deep breath. "Look at you, Jason! The air force obviously agrees with you."

"It does. Nice to see you, Miss Val." He took her proffered hand briefly. "We just came from the SuperMax prison."

Uh-oh. Val cast a quick glance at Kendra. "It's a suffocating place, isn't it?"

"No need for evasive tactics, Val. Jason found out about Daniel from Cal Murphy's niece, so we decided it was time he met his other father." Kendra smiled a little wearily. "It went pretty well, didn't it, Jay?"

As Jason nodded, Val said, "Sit down and tell me about it if you have time. If you have any legal questions, ask away."

Kendra and Jason took chairs while Val came around the desk and perched on the edge so she wouldn't look so formal. Jason asked bluntly, "What are the odds of getting him off death row?"

Val wished she could offer whole-hearted assurance, but she couldn't. "We've got a decent shot. At the least, we should be able to get a postponement while the new evidence is evaluated. If the court finds it compelling, maybe his sentence can be permanently commuted to life imprisonment."

Jason absorbed that. "What is the chance of his getting released from prison?"

"We'd have to come up with some really stunning evidence, like the long-lost murder weapon, or hope we could persuade the governor to pardon him." She grimaced. "Since capital punishment is very political, that's not terribly likely."

"It's so unfair." Jason's low voice vibrated with emotion. "I grew up not facing any real racism. Sure, I knew it existed, and that older folks had fought a lot of tough bat- des, but I never realized that it affected me. And it does, doesn't it? Would my... my other father be on death row if he was white?"

It was a question Val had already asked herself. "Given the facts of this case, it's hard to say. He might be. Malloy was killed by a black man. That's never been in dispute, and Daniel did fit the description. A number of the police and prosecutors involved were black, and he certainly wasn't railroaded, not with three eyewitnesses swearing he was the killer. Kendra, did you feel that Cal Murphy was a smart, capable attorney who did his best?"

Kendra nodded. "Even at the time, I thought Murphy was pretty good. He wasn't drunk, didn't sleep through testimony or any of the other awful things you hear about. I appreciate him even more now that I've worked in law offices for so many years."

Val turned back to Jason. "But would your mother's testimony that she and Daniel were together have been dismissed so quickly if she were a white doctor instead of a black clerk? Maybe not. Would the police have done a more thorough investigation if they hadn't had a convenient black suspect with a criminal record? Maybe. There's racism in the system, but it's hard to prove in any given case."

Jason's lips tightened. "If he were white, maybe he wouldn't have been sentenced to death."

"Again, it's hard to say," she replied. "The best predictor of the death sentence is not the race of the killer, but the race of the victim. Death sentences are much more common if the victim is white."

"I find that particularly offensive," Kendra interjected. "As if a white life is worth more than a black one."

"Damned right it's offensive." Val looked down at the floor, trying to formulate ideas she'd never put into words. "Race is the karmic burden of America. Every other immigrant group that came here did so willingly. The brave and the ambitious made incredible sacrifices and took great risks to come to America for the chance to build better lives.

"African Americans are the only exception. They were brought here against their will, enslaved and brutalized, deliberately deprived of culture, education, and the opportunities others took for granted. Now, for our sins as a nation, race haunts us." She raised her gaze to Kendra. "I'm almost afraid to say such things out loud because race is such a volatile, painful subject, but how can we heal if we can't even talk?"

"I've often thought similar things," Kendra said quietly. "Even all these years after the Civil War, race matters. I grew up feeling as if there were invisible walls around me, walls a black girl couldn't climb over. I didn't want Jason to feel the same."

"You succeeded." Jason studied his mother's face with new respect. Val guessed that he had taken his sheltered, supportive upbringing for granted, as young people usually did. At nineteen, for the first time, he was beginning to understand how much conscious parenting had gone into raising him. He'd probably have to have kids of his own before he truly understood how lucky he had been.

Turning back to Val, Jason asked, "Is there anything I can do? I... I like my new father. I don't want to lose him before I have a chance to know him."

"If I think of anything, I'll ask pronto." Val glanced at her clock. "Shall we order in a pizza for lunch? Serious conversation always gives me a desire for saturated fats."

The atmosphere lightened and they began negotiating preferences for pizza toppings. While holding out for onions and Italian sausage, Val gave private thanks for the chance that had informed Jason of Daniel's sentence. If the worst happened... well, Kendra wouldn't have to mourn alone.