The Price of Justice (19 page)

C
HAPTER

33

G
etting access to the police notes would help, but Tommy knew it would take time. Before he returned to New York, he headed to Palm Beach High School to take a look at the yearbook for the 2007–2008 school year. Once there, he made his way to the principal’s office.

“Why on earth would you need it?” Mrs. Baker, the principal, asked after Tommy explained who he was. “The man who really murdered her finally confessed.”

“Yes, but there’s still a cloud over Winston, left over from the trial. The only one who saw Sanders at the high school was Winston’s best friend. I’m trying to track down other students at the dance who might have seen him.” Tommy had rehearsed this lie before he’d arrived at the school. No one could know that he was trying to track down the real killer.

“Well, I suppose it’s okay, then.” She walked over to a bookcase in her office. One shelf contained a whole row of yearbooks. She scanned through them until she came to the one she wanted, then pulled it out. “Feel free to use my outer office, then drop it off with my assistant.”

Tommy nodded, then moved to the outer office, where Baker’s assistant sat, along with a row of chairs for students who’d been sent to the principal’s office. He pulled out a legal pad from his briefcase, along with a pen, and settled in one of the chairs. First, he flipped through the book to see if there were any pictures of the dance. He found two. He’d hoped the names of the students in the pictures would be printed below the photos, but no such luck. He ambled over to the assistant, the one person in the school who usually knew even more about the students than the principal.

“Excuse me, Miss—”

She looked up from her typewriter. “Miss Wender.”

She looked to be in her fifties, with hair already gray, and carrying an extra twenty pounds.

Tommy placed the yearbook in front of her. “I wonder if you recognize any of the students in this picture?”

She peeked at the photos. “I do, but I’m not sure I’m allowed to give you their names. Privacy, you know.”

Tommy flashed her his biggest smile. “Oh, it’s okay. Mrs. Baker said you could help me.”

“Really? Well, if she approved it.” She looked once again at the photos. “I don’t know everyone, of course.” She pointed to each student she recognized and gave their names. Tommy jotted notes as she spoke, and when finished, thanked her. He handed her back the yearbook and quickly left. He didn’t want to be caught in his lie if the principal exited her office.

Once back in his car, he took out his iPad and looked up addresses for the names he’d been given. Of course, it was harder for the females. Many of them no doubt had married since then and taken their husbands’ names. He only needed a few, though. Each person he spoke to could lead him to others at the dance. The more people he reached, the greater likelihood that someone might have seen another person leave the gym after Carly Sobol went off with Win.

He wrote down notes, then headed back to his motel. No use trying to reach people now. They’d probably be at work. When evening came around, he’d begin making phone calls. In the meantime, the beach beckoned.

Tommy had already spoken to six people, and other than getting more names of kids at the dance, he’d made no headway. He dialed the number for the seventh person on the list—Neil Orloff. After he introduced himself, he said, “I’m trying to find someone at the dance the night Carly Sobol was killed who might have seen anyone else leave the gym before the dance was over.”

“Why?” Orloff asked, echoing the same confusion expressed by each person to whom he’d spoken. He gave Orloff the same answer he’d given the principal.

When Tommy finished, Orloff said, “I had a thing for Carly back then. Greg had grabbed her up before I’d had a chance to make my move, but I was still into her and kind of kept my eyes on her. When Greg left her to get some drinks, I thought I could move in for the next dance, but before I had a chance, I saw her leave with Win Melton.”

“You knew who he was?”

“No. But I read the newspapers and recognized him from the picture.”

“Did you see anyone else leave?”

“A few minutes later, Max Dolan walked out.”

“How’d you know it was him?”

“He was friendly with one of my friends. Sometimes he hung out with us.”

Tommy already knew that Dolan had left the gym to look for Win.

“Anyone else?”

“Yeah. After Greg came back with drinks, he looked around for Carly. When he couldn’t find her, he left the gym, also.”

This was news. Greg had told Tommy that he’d stayed in the gym. Now Tommy had a witness who said he’d lied about it. “Did you see either Max or Greg return?”

“I wasn’t keeping an eye out for Max. But I didn’t see Greg or Carly after that. I figured he’d found her, and they’d left. Boy, was I wrong.”

Tommy knew where he’d be tomorrow morning. Knocking on Greg’s door at eight a.m. Kincaid had a lot of explaining to do.

Once again, Kincaid’s mother answered the door, and once again, she glared at Tommy when he asked for Greg. “When are you going to leave my son alone? You got what you wanted. That rich kid is off the hook.”

“Just a few more questions for him,” Tommy said as he walked past Mrs. Kincaid into the foyer.

“Hey. I didn’t say you could come in.”

Tommy stood his ground and called Greg’s name. A moment later, he heard a door open, and then Greg’s voice. “Coming.”

Tommy noticed a slight twitch in Kincaid’s eye when he entered the foyer and saw him. “Mind if we sit down and chat just a bit?”

“Yeah, I do mind. I’m getting ready for work. I’d like you to leave.”

Tommy didn’t move. “I’m just wondering why you lied to me? About leaving the gym?”

There was that twitch again.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I spoke to a friend of yours, Neil Orloff. He saw you go after Carly.”

Kincaid’s face turned red. “Look, I don’t know what your game is. The trial is over. Win walked away.”

Tommy leaned close to Kincaid and whispered in his ear. “Did you kill her? Is that why you lied? Couldn’t stand to see her back with Win?”

Kincaid pushed him away and shouted, “Get out! Get out of my house!”

“Better do as he says, mister.”

Tommy turned and saw Mrs. Kincaid standing three feet away with a gun pointed right at his chest. His leg muscles tightened, and his pulse quickened.

“We got the ‘Stand Your Ground’ Law here. It means I can shoot you and say you forced your way in here, had to defend myself. I guarantee you, I won’t see the inside of a jail cell.”

Tommy registered the daggers in her eyes and knew she wasn’t bluffing. “I’m leaving now.” Before he turned to the door, he whispered softly so only Kincaid could hear, “If you killed her, I’m going to find out. Count on that.”

C
HAPTER

34

M
uch as Dani wanted to find the person who really killed Carly Sobol, there was little she could do. The burden was on Tommy to try to uncover new leads. And so, she turned to the requests for help from prisoners that were piling up on her desk. She needed to choose her next client, the man or woman she was convinced was wrongly convicted. She decided to pick someone whom DNA could exonerate, assuming the police had held on to the files with the original samples.

As she was looking through the list of inmates that HIPP had already agreed to help, Tommy, now back in New York, stopped by her office.

“Anything yet on the lawsuit Donahue filed?” he asked.

Dani shook her head. She had convinced Win to go along as a plaintiff in the complaint seeking discovery of the police files. He wanted to know who had been responsible for his seven years in a hellhole, so he readily signed the papers.

“I’m sure the county will contest it.”

“But you think we’ll win, right?”

“I do. It doesn’t mean the records will shine any light on the real culprit, though. Remember, they pretty much stopped investigating when they honed in on Win.”

Tommy took a seat. “My money is on her date for the night. From the first time I met him, he seemed squirrelly to me.”

“What would his motive be?”

“Jealousy. Humiliation. She came with Kincaid and then walked out on him to be with Win. In front of the whole senior class.”

“Even if you’re right, the police files may not help. Proving it won’t be easy.”

“Maybe not. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to try, though.”

Dani knew Tommy meant it. He was a bulldog when it came to solving cases. That’s why she always wanted him on her team. One day, she knew, he would retire from working altogether. Make the exodus to Florida that many of his buddies had already made. She didn’t know what she’d do when that happened. They worked so well together; she hated the thought of teaming up with someone else.

Tommy left, and she returned to reviewing folders again. She’d narrowed her choice down to three. The first was Malcolm Brown, a forty-one-year-old Mississippi man who’d been in prison for eighteen years for raping a white woman. Immediately after the attack, the police arrived, called by bystanders who’d heard her screams. She identified the man as black, with close-cropped hair and wearing red pants and a hoodie. One of the neighbors who’d called the police told them of a black man living in their predominantly white complex. The police entered Brown’s apartment, dragged him outside to the woman, and asked if he was the man. She said, “Yes,” and he was arrested. It didn’t matter that when the police entered his apartment, only minutes after the attack, he was wearing blue jeans. It didn’t matter that his hair wasn’t close-cropped. And it certainly didn’t matter that his mother said he hadn’t left their apartment. He was convicted after a one-day trial and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison.

Dani knew that the leading cause of wrongful convictions was eyewitness identifications. In a case like this, where a suspect was not picked out of a lineup but instead brought directly to the victim, or where the victim was shown a single photograph, the eyewitness identification became especially suspect. Brown had asserted his innocence from the time of his arrest throughout the entire time of his incarceration, including in the numerous letters he’d written to HIPP over the years. DNA hadn’t been available when he’d been convicted. Now, if the police still had some to test, it could free him.

The second case she considered involved a tainted eyewitness identification as well. A young woman had been attacked late at night in her apartment. She saw her attacker only briefly, in dim light, before she was bound and blindfolded. Her attacker repeatedly raped her, then stole almost $800 she’d hidden in her nightstand before leaving. The police created a composite photo of the attacker, based on her description. A few weeks later, eighteen-year-old Otto Singer was questioned by the police on a separate matter. The detective questioning him noted a resemblance to the composite photo and alerted the detectives investigating the rape. The victim was shown his photo as part of a “six-pack,” a group of six potential perpetrators. Otto was the only young, clean-shaven man in the group. The victim tentatively identified him but asked for a lineup, where she picked him out. Of course, this was after seeing his photo. At trial, the eyewitness identification was buttressed by testimony from an expert on microscopic-hair analysis, who claimed that a hair found on the victim’s nightgown matched that of the defendant. Now, it’s known that, unlike DNA, microscopic-hair analysis is incapable of identifying a match with any certainty. Once again, Otto had witnesses who placed him at home at the time of the attack, and once again, Otto had steadfastly asserted his innocence.

The third plea for help she considered came from a Texas man, now twenty-three, who’d been convicted of the rape and murder of Susie Hancock, a fourteen-year-old girl, when he was sixteen. After a source claimed he’d seen the girl get into a car with Oscar LeMarque just before she disappeared, the police brought Oscar in for questioning. Twenty hours later, alone in the room with only the police, and without his parents or counsel, Oscar confessed to the crime. The police had recovered semen from the dead girl. It didn’t match Oscar’s DNA. That didn’t matter. The district attorney went forward anyway, got a conviction, and Oscar was sentenced to eighty-five years in prison. This was the first time he’d written to HIPP, unlike the other two, who’d written many times.

Dani knew she should choose Brown or Singer. They’d been incarcerated longer. But ever since representing a young woman last year who’d falsely confessed to the murder of her parents, she’d been drawn to cases involving a potentially false confession. Especially when the defendant was a teenager—still a child, really. She turned to her computer and began drafting a letter of representation for Oscar LeMarque.