The Advocate's Devil (13 page)

“Comes from watching Vanna White on
Wheel of Fortune
instead of studying during law school.”

Then he showed Abe the Peters case. Abe read it over and over again, searching for some possible relevance to the Campbell
case. There was no relevance. It really was a dead end.

Abe looked again at Justin’s anagram. “Is it possible that your ‘Mark’ is really a ‘Mary’?”

“Unlikely,” Justin said with an air of newly found expertise. “The top of the ‘k’ shows, but a ‘y’ wouldn’t.”

“How about ‘Merle’? An ‘l’ would look like a ‘k,’ wouldn’t it?”

“Could be, but then there would be a spacing problem.”

“How about Merl?”

“No harm trying them all,” Justin said, heading back to the computer room.

A few minutes later he returned. “No cases under ‘Merle,’ ‘Merl,’ or even ‘Mary.’ I think it’s Mark.”

“But the Mark Peters case has nothing to do with Jennifer Dowling or Joe Campbell. I guess that means it’s back to the salt
mines for you. Now you’ve got me really intrigued by this printout stuff. Let’s try to get to the bottom of it.”

“I’ll try my best, but I’m not optimistic.”

“I’m out of here for a few minutes,” Abe said, yawning. “I need some fresh air. Be back in half an hour. Do you need anything
from the square?”

“Yeah, a good book on anagrams.”

Abe walked the three blocks to Harvard Square to pick up a newspaper and think. As he approached the kiosk, he realized he
was hungry and glanced at the window of the corner sandwich shop. It had a sign advertising the daily special, a “Po’ Boy”
sandwich. Abe had no idea what that was, but it didn’t sound appetizing. Inexplicably he found his eyes transfixed on the
words
Po’ Boy.

Suddenly it hit him. Of course! How could he—how could Justin—have missed it! As he stared at the sign, he realized that the
capital letters
P
and
B
were indistinguishable from the top. Their friend Mark could have the unlikely last name of Beters or Belers or even Belare.
They had missed this obvious possibility because “Peters”—which fit the blanks—was such a common name.

Abe raced the three blocks back to the office and found Justin fiddling with the computer. “It could be a ‘B,’ Justin, not
a ‘P,’” Abe said, pointing to Mark’s last name on the printout.

“Damn, you’re right.” Justin shrugged. “I was sure I had the capital letters down pat. I was playing only with the small letters.
But what kind of name is Beters with one ‘t’?”

“A strange one, to be sure, but it’s worth a try,” Abe insisted, showing some pride at his discovery of the similarity between
the tops of capital “B” and “P.”

Justin punched in the case name, first using “Beters” instead of “Peters.” Bingo! After several seconds a recent case appeared
under the heading “The People of the State of New York v. Mark Beters.” Maybe this case would bear some relationship to the
Jennifer Dowling case.

But again, a careful reading of the case showed absolutely no connection. The Beters case involved a rape prosecution in which
an Albany gas station owner named Mark Beters had been convicted of one count of rape and sentenced to eight years in prison.
The conviction had been affirmed in a one paragraph order. It looked quite routine and ordinary.

Suddenly another case name appeared on the screen: “People ex rel Beters vs. McGrath, Superintendent.” It, too, involved Mark
Beters. It was a state habeas corpus proceeding ordering Beters to be released on the ground that his accuser, a woman named
Prudence Crane, had recanted her accusation after becoming a born-again Christian and seeking counsel from a minister.

“This is all very interesting,” Abe said, “but what does it have to do with Jennifer Dowling? Why would Beters’s case come
up in a search for information about Jennifer Dowling?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to check out this guy Beters until I find out what the connection is.”

Haskel had deteriorated significantly. His hands were shaking. His lips were trembling. There were tears in his eyes. He looked
sadder than Abe had seen him since his wife had died three years ago. It was obvious he was not taking his medicine. It broke
Abe’s heart to see his old friend suffer so much. And it hurt him doubly to know that Charlie Odell was also experiencing
his own particular devils because of Abe’s advice.

After a few minutes of imploring Haskel to take his medicine, Abe described the computer dilemma to the old man. Haskel thought
for a few minutes and then began to ask his usual questions.

“If this Dowling woman has nothing to do with this Beters man, then what do their stories have in common? Why would one person
be interested in reading about these two people at the same time?”

“That’s a good question,” Abe said, his mind racing to find an answer. Suddenly it came to him.

“Thanks, Haskel, you did it again.” Abe left for his office, hoping to find someone there who could work the computer.

But the office was empty. He called Justin: no answer. Abe walked into the computer room and saw that the Macintosh was on,
and that the search program Justin had been using was still up on the screen. He started to fiddle with the keys, trying to
figure out how to search for a topic. As he was standing around scratching his head in frustration, Justin walked in.

Seeing Abe with his fingers on the computer keyboard, Justin began to yell. “Don’t touch anything! Don’t you know you could
erase the memory? What are you trying to do?”

“Haskel asked me why anyone would want to read about both the Dowling and Beters cases at the same time. He’s on the right
track. Now, can you translate that sensible question into computerese?”

“Sure,” Justin replied eagerly. “Which word or words are both narrow and broad enough to generate both of these cases in the
same search?”

“That sounds easy enough,” Abe mused. “We need to find categories that cover several different cases with common features.”

“You’ve got it, Abe. If you lose the Campbell trial, you can always become a programmer.”

“Let’s see,” Abe began. “Rape is too narrow, because Jennifer Dowling’s case doesn’t involve rape. It involves consensual
sex given for a promotion.”

“Sexual harassment.”

“Yeah, but that’s too narrow to include the Beters case.”

“How about ‘sexual misconduct’?”

“Much too broad. There are probably thousands of cases under that heading. We have to narrow it.”

“What about ‘false sexual allegations,’ or ‘false accusations’?”

“Or ‘recantations,’” Abe added. “Something like that?”

“Sounds promising.” Justin began to press buttons on his computer. After a few minutes of trial and error, he settled on “sexual
misconduct—unfounded—current year—New York.”

Seven listings! Over to the printer. Again some fiddling. Then the printout, and there they were. The two cases dealing with
Jennifer Dowling; then a case about a woman who falsely accused a man of raping her at gunpoint in Central Park; a date rape
case in which a teenager admitted making up the charge after her father learned that she had lost her virginity; a case in
which a woman claimed that her estranged husband had raped her and then recanted after they reconciled; one case about a recantation
of a recantation of rape.

And then the Beters case! But the Beters case did not immediately follow the Dowling stories in this printout, and Abe asked
Justin why it didn’t track as it had in Campbell’s original printout. Justin explained that the sequence of the printout could
change over time as new items were added to the categories. It was certainly possible that when Campbell ordered the printout,
the Beters case had followed immediately after the Dowling stories. Or maybe, Justin conceded, he hadn’t gotten the search
request precisely right. But one thing was crystal clear: Campbell had not gotten the Dowling cases by searching under “Jennifer
Dowling.” Maybe he had started with her name. But that was not how he’d gotten her cases and Beters’s cases on the same printout.
He had almost certainly gotten them by searching under a more general category involving recent stories about unfounded charges
of sexual misconduct.

“I don’t know what this all means,” Justin said with an air of triumph. “One thing is clear: Campbell lied to us again.”

“Hold your prosecutorial horses, young man,” Abe said. “I understand how proud you are of your little computer discovery,
and it’s only natural that you want it to mean something. But you’re way out of line here. It raises some questions, maybe.
But it doesn’t prove anything.”

“Look, Abe,” Justin responded with an edge in his voice. “We have to presume our client innocent. I’m not arguing with that.
But it doesn’t mean we have to close our eyes to the truth.”

“Justin, I’m as interested in the truth as you are. And I’m not sure I appreciate your sanctimonious tone. Sure, go ahead.
Get to the bottom of this. Just don’t start with an attitude toward Joe. He probably has an explanation for all of this. We
haven’t even given him a chance.”

“So let’s give him a chance. Let’s confront him with what I found.”

“Too early. If we confront him, it will make him sound like our adversary, not our client. He will lose whatever trust he
still has, and he’ll never level with us.”

“How about a trip to Zimmerman?” Justin asked, referring to Gustav Zimmerman, Boston’s leading polygrapher.

“Wouldn’t work with Campbell,” Abe snapped back.

“I don’t mean the
machine
,” Justin explained, “I mean the
ruse
.”

“I know what you mean, and that won’t work either.”

By the “ruse,” Justin was referring to a technique that Abe sometimes used on clients who he suspected weren’t leveling with
him but whom he wasn’t yet ready to confront directly. First he would suggest that they submit to a lie detector test that
could convince the prosecutor to drop the charges. Then, on the way downtown to the polygrapher, he would explain how no one
could trick Zimmerman—he was foolproof. Typically the client would admit he was lying before they even got to Zimmerman’s
office. Justin wasn’t even sure there
was
a Zimmerman.

“Joe knows that passing a lie detector test wouldn’t persuade Cheryl Puccio to drop such a high-profile case,” Abe was saying.
“He’d figure out the ruse and find some reason for not taking the test. Remember, this guy is really smart. Second highest
SATs in the NBA—after David Robinson. Unless and until we come up with hard facts—not your ambiguous computer inferences—we
continue to treat Joe Campbell as our innocent client. Got that?”

“Yes, sir,” Justin said, giving Abe a mock salute.

“Now, while I’m down in Trenton for the Charlie O. hearing, I want you to find out everything you can about this computer
stuff. The presumption of innocence is just a presumption. Something we start with. It can be overcome by hard facts. Until
it is, I believe in Campbell’s innocence. Got it?”

Before taking the job with Abe, Justin Aldrich had worked for a number of lawyers, some famous, some notorious. He’d never
before had one who was always so emotionally committed to his clients, and as a result he’d come personally to think a great
deal of his boss. In this case, however, he was worried that Abe’s commendable commitment might create a blind spot.

“You know, Abe,” he said, “I appreciate your candor toward me and that you don’t pull your punches.”

“Stick around, kiddo, you might learn something they didn’t teach you in those downtown firms!”

N
EWARK
—
M
ONDAY
, M
ARCH
27

Abe and his pharmacological expert, Dr. Ralph Hoxie, arrived at the old brownstone courthouse in Newark at 8:30
A.M.
for the scheduled hearing for Charlie O.

Judge Cox convened the hearing at 9:00
A.M.
Charlie was brought in wearing shackles and cuffs. The bailiff sat Charlie next to Abe. Dr. Hoxie had briefed Abe about Charlie’s
muscle spasms—they were related to the withdrawal from the antipsychotic medicines. Worse than that was the empty stare, the
deadened look, in Charlie’s eyes and the relentless rocking that caused the shackles to clank against the table. Abe knew
that no young man who grew up in the projects would want the world to see him as this pathetic haunted creature.

The judge got right to it. “Mr. Ringel, I want to know one thing, and I want to know it now. Did you advise your mentally
ill client not to take his drugs?”

Abe saw an opening in the judge’s question. “If this court is prepared to find that my client, Mr. Odell, was mentally ill
at the time he
began
not taking his medicine, then we can end this matter right now.”

“Stop playing games with me, Counselor, and answer my question.”

“I am most certainly not playing games, Your Honor. The issue is whether Mr. Odell was mentally competent at the time he was
still taking the medicine. If he was not, then he can begin taking his medicine and still not be executed. If he was competent,
then it doesn’t matter what advice anyone gave him. It would be his decision. Therefore, Your Honor, I’m entitled to a ruling
on his competence before I answer your question.”

“How should I know whether he was competent
then?
” the judge replied angrily. “I never saw him then. He was
presumed
competent, since he was scheduled to be executed, and now I’m advised by the prison psychiatrist that he is not competent.
He certainly doesn’t look competent. Now answer my question.”

With that, the attention of the courtroom shifted to the black man by Abe’s side. Abe had to stop himself from throwing a
protective arm around Charlie’s shoulder. It would not serve his purpose now to offer Charlie any comfort that might appease
him, yet Abe yearned with every nurturing and protective cell in his body to smash the TV cameras that zoomed in on his client’s
twitching face.

“Yes, I advised him to stop taking his medicine, and I am now once again formally instructing the prison authorities to stop
giving him any drugs that could affect his mind, his brain, or his emotions.”