Suspicion of Vengeance (39 page)

"Excuse me," Dodson said, reaching for the door handle. "Please move out of the way.
Please"

When Jackie reluctantly moved, Dodson slammed the door. The interior lights went oft He backed out, and the car bounced as he hit the brakes. He stared back at her, and through the window she could see the dash lights making a greenish glow on his face. Muffler rattling, the car streaked out of the parking lot.

Jackie swung her purse over her shoulder, then quickly held it up to look at it. "Dammit." The leather bottom was soaking wet.

CHAPTER 24

Tuesday, April 3

After argument at the Florida Supreme Court, a lawyer coming out of the courtroom would walk onto the terrazzo floor of the rotunda, circled by eight green marble columns, and see the clerk's office down a wide corridor to the left. Gazing in that direction, Gail told Anthony that she wanted to make sure the clerk had all their contact numbers.

"We faxed them a list," he said.

"Let's make sure they got it."

She remembered having sent it, but last night, after finally falling asleep around three o'clock, she'd had a bad dream. The court had ruled, and they needed to give her the order, but they couldn't find her, and she couldn't get into the building. All of the high, metal doors were locked, and if she didn't get the order in her hands, it would be too late. The guards were standing outside Kenny's cell.
Kenny? It's time to go.

Anthony gave one of his little sighs. "All right, we'll make sure."

Gail bit her tongue to keep from asking him to stop it. He was being wonderful. He'd bought two first-class airline tickets because that's all there was available, and they'd stayed at the Doubletree in downtown Tallahassee. She had argued the case; he didn't even have to be here, but he wanted to be with her. He was carrying her briefcase. He had rubbed her back last night.

She took his hand.
"Te quiero mucho."

Blinking as if surprised, Anthony said, "I love you too." He felt her hand. "You're perspiring. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

In the airy, modern clerk's office, they waited at the counter, and presently the death clerk came out to see them. Gail had expected a woman dressed in black, but Marcia Turner was a pretty blonde with a sweet nature. "I have all your phone numbers, so don't worry."

"How soon will they rule?" Gail asked. "Do you have any idea? This afternoon, do you think?"

"Oh, I don't think so. It could take a few days."

"A few
days?
But the execution is scheduled for April eleventh—"

Anthony was smiling at Ms. Turner. "Thank you for your help."

"—and my client is
innocent,
you see, and we need time to appeal. We're going straight to the U.S. Supreme Court—"

"Yes, ma'am."

Gail felt a sneeze and pulled out her tissue just in time.

"God bless you," Ms. Turner said.

"Gail, let's go," Anthony said.

They went out through the rotunda, heels tapping on the floor. She asked Anthony to wait, wait just a minute. She walked over to one of the doors leading into the courtroom. The justices were probably back on the bench already, hearing another case. Gail thought of the things she had wanted to say, but it had all gone so fast. Had they even read the brief? Two hundred pages, argument and exhibits and citations.

Eighteen minutes for the appellant, then twenty for the state. Then another two minutes for rebuttal. The red digital numbers on the lectern had relentlessly counted down. Then the court had thanked her and sent her on her way. The seven of them, two women and five men in black robes, had vanished through the curtained doorway behind Chief Justice Harding's chair in the center.

"They asked a lot of questions about the standard for review, didn't they?"

"You handled it very well, I thought."

"Did I?" She turned to him. "Did you notice how Shaw and Pariente kept asking about the claim of innocence? Shaw was talking about the totality of the circumstances. I think we have their votes. We only need two more."

Anthony took her arm. "Are you hungry? Let's find something to eat."

"The AGA was such an
idiot,"
she said. " 'I'm fixing to answer y'all's question, Justice Quince.' Or this: 'If we go down that road, no tellin' where we'll end up.' He sounded personally insulted that we'd even filed an appeal."

"It's a routine for them, sweetheart." Anthony pushed open the door, and the wind at the top of the steps fluttered his tie and lifted her hem.

"I should have mentioned Rusty Beck. I should have
told
them."

"You couldn't. It wasn't in the record."

"Screw the record. They
wanted
more evidence of Kenny's innocence. I hinted that we had someone else, but I should have been specific. I should have told them. Too damned late now." Gail opened her purse and took out her cell phone. "I need to call Kenny."

Anthony sighed. "Gail, please. You know how long the prison keeps you on hold. Wait till we get to the office. It's three blocks away."

They had dumped their overnight bags with a lawyer in town whom Anthony knew. Gail agreed it would be better to wait until they had a quiet room, and they went down the steps. It was a lovely, small-town day, and the dogwood trees were in bloom, like white butterflies caught among the fresh green leaves.

Gail made a note to herself: Call Ruby. She'd promised to let her know how the oral argument went. They had spoken yesterday. Ruby had told her not to worry.
Jesus will save Kenny Ray.
I hope so, Gail said to herself, because I'm not doing so well.

Call Kenny. Call Ruby. Check her offices for messages. Had she paid Karen's tuition this month? Call her mother.

At the sidewalk, Anthony turned left, but Gail grabbed his arm. Across the street was another set of steps that led up to the state capitol. "You know what? We should check at McLaren's office and see if he got our message."

Earlier this morning, over Anthony's protests, Gail had gone to the office of the governor's assistant general counsel in charge of death cases to see if the governor would possibly be open to a stay of execution, if absolute proof were presented to him of Kenneth Ray Clark's innocence. A legal assistant to Mr. McLaren had come out to say that the governor was aware of the case. Obviously he was aware, she had replied. He had signed the warrant.

"Forget it. He isn't going to talk to you," Anthony said.

"What harm could there be in trying?"

He took her hand and pulled her along, and an edge came into his voice. "There comes a point when you have to accept that you have done everything that you can do."

"I have an idea," she said. "Let's get the media on our side. Governor Ward won't listen to us, but he reads the opinion polls. We should have done this before! Let's call the
Miami Herald, The New York Times,
CNN,
Forty-eight Hours, Nightline,
everybody we can think of. Let's say we know who did it."

"What?"

"Anthony, we have to name Rusty Beck as the killer or nobody would give a damn. We can't keep Whit McGrath out of it any longer. It would be a huge story. 'Palm Beach socialite implicated in death of young mother.' We won't
say
he's involved, we'll just let the reporters draw their own conclusions."

"Gail, we can't—"

"There would be such a clamor that Ward would be forced to issue a stay. And it doesn't matter if Rusty says Kenny was with him when the Mendozas died, don't you see? He would only implicate himself. We have him in a no-win position."

Anthony set down the briefcase and took her by the shoulders. "Listen to me. We have no
proof.
If you make unfounded accusations, they will sue the hell out of us."

"I don't
care
!”
Gail felt the heat in her face, her neck. Her blouse was soaked. "All right, then, withdraw as attorney of record, and they can sue
me.
I haven't got anything they can take."

He shook her. "Stop this!"

"What else can I do? If we lose here, do we rely on the U.S. Supreme Court? Look what they did in
Herrera
v.
Collins.
They said innocence doesn't matter, all they care about is rules—"

She broke down, sobbing.

"Niña, no llores."
Then she was in his arms, pressed tightly against his chest. He stroked her hair.

"Anthony, I can't let him die. I can't."

"Por favor, corazón, deja de llorar. Todo va a salir bien."

Anthony sat by the window so he could lean against the bulkhead and Gail could lean on his shoulder. An airline blanket covered them both. He had put his jacket in the overhead compartment and loosened his tie. She slid her hand over his shirt, tracing the outline of his muscles.

She'd just finished her second glass of wine. Free in first class. The leather seats were roomy and soft.

"How do you always make it look so
easy
?
You snap your fingers and people walk out of jail."

He laughed softly. "I like to brag about my victories, but I assure you, there have been defeats as well."

"Anthony, have you ever witnessed an execution?"

"Once."

"When?"

"The summer before my last year of law school. I was working for a pro bono capital attorney in Philadelphia."

"You never told me about that." She picked her head up. He was looking out the window. The sun had set, leaving only an afterglow. His eyes were intensely dark, nearly black. She waited, then settled her head back on his shoulder. "Can you talk about it?"

"The attorney had chest pains, but he'd promised the client that somebody would be there, so ... I was the lucky one."

"Was it terrible?"

"The client was guilty, which was some consolation. Henry Lamar Williams. A twenty-six-year-old black man with an IQ of seventy. He raped and murdered a thirteen-year-old white girl. There was no doubt, because the police found her body in the shed behind his house, and he confessed. He said he didn't mean to kill her. We argued that it was cruel and unusual punishment to execute someone who was retarded, but the state said he wasn't officially retarded. He had one too many IQ points. So they put Henry in the electric chair. He saw me and smiled. Then they dropped the hood over his head.
Zzzzzzt.
The next thing I remember, they were loading me onto a stretcher. For months afterwards, I dreamed about it. But maybe it did me some good. I have defended more than a dozen murder cases since then, and none of my clients has been sentenced to death."

"You fainted?"

He put his lips to her ear. "Don't let this get around, but... I am not superhuman."

"Yes, you are." Gail kissed him and smiled.
"Mi macho.
Listen, if ... you know,
if.
You won't have to be there. They only allow one lawyer, and Kenny asked me if I would, and I said yes."

"I wouldn't put you through that," Anthony said.

"Whose case is it?"

"Ours, so I thought."

"Sorry, but I have seniority," she said. "Ha-ha."

Her hand went under the blanket, and he let some time go by before lifting it out. He rubbed his nose across hers. "I think you're a little drunk,
señora."

"I deserve to be." The stars in the window seemed to shift suddenly downward. The jet was making its turn toward Miami, coming in from the west, the black and endless Everglades below them.

A little while later, the lights in the cabin came on, but Gail couldn't begin to rouse herself or open her eyes.

"Sweetheart, sit up, we're about to land." Anthony gently shoved her off him.

She hid a yawn behind her hands. "I've been thinking. What about Gary Dodson? Maybe he knows where the bodies are. The way he acted with Jackie, he knows something, Anthony. It would explain why McGrath gives him legal work, to keep him quiet."

Anthony pressed a button, and his seat came up. "If that is true, Dodson isn't getting much for his silence."

"God, if we could just get through to him. What about Hector? He was amazing, getting a retraction out of Vernon Byrd."

Anthony glanced at her. "No, Hector isn't right for someone like Dodson. Is your belt fastened?" She clicked it shut. He leaned over and nuzzled her neck. "Come home with me tonight."

"Can't. Sorry. I need to be with Karen. I promised her I would, and then I have to get up early and work on the Supreme Court stuff

He sighed.

"Anthony, I want you to do something for me."

He looked at her sideways. "What?"

"I want you to go see Kenny."

"Why? You just spoke to him."

"Make him come clean about the Mendozas. You could do it. You're a guy. Beat him up if he won't talk. Make him tell you where they dumped the car. He drove it, he has to remember. Tell him we have to
find
them."

Anthony focused somewhere over her head. "I don't want to get back on an airplane in the morning. What good will it do, hearing his lies?"

"Please?"

His eyes shifted to fix on hers. His full lips pursed into a kiss. "I'm keeping a list of all these things I do for you. Oh, yes. And someday,
señora,
I am going to collect."

Wednesday, April 4

The guards came to the death watch cell with the cuffs and leg irons and said his lawyer wanted to see him. Kenny put out his cigarette—no more Top tobacco; he was using up the last few dollars in his trust fund on Marlboros, living large. The moke out in the corridor made a note:
2:25
p.m
. Inmate puts out cigarette.

He rolled off his bunk, ready to go:
2:26
p.m
. Inmate taken from cell for legal visit.
Between two guards he shuffled down the long corridor to the attorney visiting rooms, thinking he'd see Gail Connor. He was wrong.

It was her Cuban boyfriend on the other side of the desk. They unhooked the cuffs from the waist chain, and Kenny sat down across from him.

They closed the door.

"Where's Gail?"

Quintana said he was sorry Gail couldn't come, but she had to finish some papers that had to be sent to Washington.
Bullshit,
Kenny said to himself.