Stevenson kept staring out the window and talked as if there was someone on the other side. “I knew your father, you know. He was one of those people that burns like a meteor streaking across the night sky. Everybody wanted to be him. But I suppose you already know that. I imagine he had a lot to do with you becoming a lawyer.”
“He had a lot to do with me becoming a lawyer, but it wasn’t because I wanted to be him.”
Stevenson turned slightly and shifted his gaze to Jamison. “Well, from what I’ve read and heard, you’re apparently far more like him than not. But isn’t that almost always true? We grow up either wanting to be like our father and not achieving it or not wanting to be like our father and looking in the mirror one day and realizing we are him.” Stevenson appeared thoughtful. “The reason I did what I did, Mr. Jamison, is your father.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t imagine you do. I’ve never told anyone this because both your father and I committed that we would never discuss it. If we did it would probably cost me my seat on the bench and your father his law license. We kept our word. In the end, it didn’t make much difference. I lost my seat on the court, but that wasn’t your father’s fault. At least he kept his law license. In any event, I’m not going to break my word now—unless I know why you need to know. And even then, I make no promises.”
Jamison measured his words carefully. “I don’t think—no, I know—Richard Harker didn’t get a fair trial.”
Stevenson’s eyebrows raised slightly. He tilted his head to the side. His eyes hardened to gray ice, staring at Jamison. “Are you saying I didn’t give Harker a fair trial?”
“No, sir. I know you gave Harker a fair trial. I’m saying that I know evidence was concealed in that case, evidence you had no way of knowing about and evidence his lawyer, Alton Grady, didn’t know about.”
Jamison perceived from Stevenson’s expression that his comment about concealed evidence didn’t seem to surprise Stevenson, who quietly said, “Why now, Mr. Jamison? Richard Harker is dead and all the sins of that case are buried with him. Why now?”
“Because I need to know if my father did the right thing.”
“The right thing? Is that it? I’m not sure what the right thing is in your mind but okay, yes, your father did the right thing. I like to think we both did the right thing, but what is the right thing is far more complicated than law school lectures on legal ethics.”
Stevenson sat back down and leaned his head back, closing his eyes. “The right thing. When that verdict came in I fully intended to impose the death penalty. The crime was horrible and as far as I was concerned Richard Harker deserved no mercy. Your father defended one of the two primary witnesses, Clarence Foster, a little weasel who would have stepped on his mother’s neck to steal someone’s property. But it was a jury verdict and I believed Harker did it. I had no pangs of conscience or reservation about sentencing Richard Harker to death.”
“Then why didn’t you do it?”
“Most people, including many lawyers, do not understand that judges can’t just set aside verdicts unless they have a good reason, a reason they can state on the record. There’s only one area where it is all in the hands of a single judge and that is the imposition of the death sentence—whether to impose death or life. No judge wants to get it wrong. You have to live with yourself when you go home at night”
“What did my father have to do with that?”
“After the verdict and right before sentencing, your father called me and asked to meet with me at my home. He told me it was about the Harker sentencing. Normally I would have said no, but not to your father. We’d known each other a long time. He said it was urgent and he needed my advice. If a man like Roger Jamison needed my advice, then I knew it was important. He walked into my study and the first thing he did was ask for a drink. Then he told me that what he was going to do was put a burden on me and I could never speak of it. He told me that evidence had been concealed and that Harker didn’t get a fair trial. I’ve been around a long time. I knew he had to have gotten that from Foster and he did. Don’t you understand? Your father violated his attorney-client privilege. He disclosed confidential information. There are a lot of things I might criticize about Roger. I know far more about him than you might think. Perhaps far more than you know yourself. But he never stood in front of a judge and lied. I knew he was telling the truth and I knew that I could never use what he told me to grant a new trial.
“What was I supposed to say—that the lawyer for one of the prosecution’s primary witnesses confidentially told me that the prosecution had concealed evidence? Not to mention that I had breached my duty not to discuss a pending case.” Stevenson raised his gaze to meet Jamison’s. “It isn’t a pure process, Mr. Jamison. It’s a process that we try to live up to. Human beings with faults apply the law. If I did disclose it, it would cost Roger his law license and it wouldn’t change the situation. I couldn’t grant a new trial based on what Roger said. He knew that. None of it would be admissible. The supreme court would reverse me in a heartbeat.
“There was only one way to ensure that Richard Harker would not go to the gas chamber with me knowing he didn’t get a fair trial. I gave that to him. I believed he was guilty, but I gave him life. I couldn’t have lived with myself if I hadn’t done what I did and, I suppose, neither could your father.
“I’ll never know whether that concealed evidence might have changed the verdict. There is a wide gulf between guilty, not guilty, and actually innocent. A lot of guilty people walk out the door having been found not guilty. That just means the prosecution failed to prove guilt. It doesn’t mean they didn’t actually do what they were accused of. Innocent is entirely different. I never believed Harker was innocent.
“Under the circumstances there was nothing I could do without evidence that could be used. If he was guilty, then I can live with what I did. If he was really innocent, then I have to live with that too. I don’t believe Harker was innocent. So, the question becomes whether the verdict was a just result. The question you’re wrestling with is what is a just result. And that’s why you’re here, isn’t it, Mr. Jamison? I’m guessing you know that evidence was concealed by your office in the Harker case, don’t you? And you know who did it. Now you have to decide—what is the right thing to do?”
Stevenson moved his mouth into a tight line, his age reflected in his eyes. “There is a certain irony here, don’t you think, Mr. Jamison?”
“Irony?”
“Your father sat across from me and placed his burden on me. And now I sit across from his son and return that burden. Irony, Mr. Jamison. And now I’m also guessing there’s nothing you can do either without destroying yourself. Just like your father.”
Stevenson templed his hands in front of his face. “A piece of advice, Mr. Jamison. Richard Harker is dead. He didn’t just take Lisa Farrow’s life. Richard Harker took a lot of lives with him. But he’s dead now. Sometimes it’s best to let the dead rest quietly. There’s no sin in that unless you have a career death wish. I can speak from personal experience.”
Chapter 55
The next morning, O’Hara walked into Jamison’s office with Ernie. “Andy called. He has the DNA results.”
“What are they?” Jamison asked.
“He said he thought he should show you himself.” O’Hara hesitated before adding, “I could tell from his voice that he thinks there’s a problem.”
Andy was firing a pistol into a large container of water. The sound reverberated through the room in part because there was no sound absorption material on the walls. He pulled up a strainer with a perfectly formed bullet and took off his sound-blocking headphones when he noticed the three men. “This is the gun that we think was used in the Owens murder.” He rolled the bullet in a gloved hand, his voice triumphant. “If we have a match, then we have the murder weapon, and then we have the murderer.” He could see the impatience on O’Hara’s face. “You want to know whose blood I found
on that pathetic stuffed rabbit. I told you, I am king of forensics. It’s not easy to separate mixed blood samples to separate the DNA, but I was able to do it.” Andy waited for positive feedback, but realizing it wasn’t going to happen continued. “But I’m not sure it’s going to help you. Easier if I show you.” Andy shuffled around in a pile of paper on his desk and pulled up several sheets covered with what looked like a series of small dashes. “It’s very simple, really. I don’t mean the process, I mean the matching. You can see the patterns. First—”
O’Hara interrupted. “Just the results, please.”
Visibly disappointed at not being able to show off his forensic expertise, Andy responded. “All right, like I said, the blood on the stuffed rabbit shows a direct relationship to the swab you gave me from Christine Farrow. Although it’s all mitochondrial DNA, there’s really no doubt it’s from her mother, the victim. The DNA profile you gave me from Clarence Foster matches the DNA I found in the mixed blood on the toy, including the fact that the pattern fits someone of African heritage. If Foster handled the rabbit he had to have been bleeding or whoever handled the rabbit had both the victim’s blood and Foster’s blood on his hands.
“Here’s where I ran into a problem. You gave me Harker’s blood sample from his autopsy and you gave me blood from a Tom Sample and from an unknown fifth party. I would have expected to find Harker’s blood. The blood I found was from the same matriarchal line as this Tom Sample, the mitochondrial DNA showed the relationship. They were both related to a mother or a grandmother common to them. The weird thing is the DNA you gave me from the unknown sample wasn’t in the blood on the rabbit and it didn’t have the same mitochondrial relationship, but the blood you listed as an unknown is definitely related to Tom Sample in some way, just not the same mother. Best guess would be through the father. Do you know who the father is? If you get me that it would help.”
O’Hara interrupted. “And Harker’s DNA?”
“It wasn’t in the blood I tested from the stuffed rabbit. I’m not sure what that means to you but I can say that whoever left that blood on that rabbit had the blood of three people on their hands, the victim’s blood, Foster’s blood, and blood from someone related to Tom Sample. If Harker handled that rabbit, then I couldn’t find his DNA. So that doesn’t mean he didn’t kill the victim. It’s entirely possible the blood could have gotten on the toy at a different time. But it creates a question about the coincidence of all three blood samples being on the toy belonging to the murder victim’s child and mixed together, which would indicate the mixed blood was placed on the rabbit at the same time. Is there anything else?”
“No, Andy,” O’Hara said. “Like I told you this is off the books. No reports and no case number. You good with that?”
“Yeah, I’m good with that. It doesn’t mean much with Harker dead. I’m guessing that whoever left that third DNA is dead too.” Andy had a smug look on his face like he was now in on a secret. “I did look up a list of vics and a Richard Sample showed up from a bar killing almost ten years ago. Is that him? Is he related to Tom Sample?”
It was obvious Andy was fishing to try to insert himself into the investigation. He saw crime scene investigators on television running around like cops, although that wasn’t reality. He just wanted to be a part of the street cred. O’Hara politely cut him off. “Not sure yet.”
“Well, if that’s him, then you would have a real shitstorm if Harker wasn’t dead, I guess. Enough to cause you problems in a trial.” Andy waited for an answer but the three men remained quiet. He knew enough to stop. “Don’t worry, no report. But you owe me—and you will pay the king of forensics.”
Jamison thanked Andy and led his investigators to a nearby empty office. He sat down heavily. “So, Sample killed Lisa Farrow. Christine said someone came in and touched that rabbit. That was probably Foster, who says he was so drunk he doesn’t remember any of it.”
“Or it could have been Sample and he had Foster’s blood on his hands. But when Christine was hypnotized it sounded like there was a second man who came into her bedroom and touched that stuffed rabbit. Probably Foster.” O’Hara added, “I’ve seen men do a lot of things when they were stone drunk and the next day they’re blacked out, don’t remember a thing that they did.
“Assuming Jimmy Stack is telling the truth. Rick Sample slipped up when he told Jimmy Stack that he would do the same thing to him that he did to Lisa Farrow in order to shut Stack up. That’s what Clarence meant when he said he did the right thing. He knew he’d lied about Harker to save himself, but he believed Harker did it. He didn’t have any pangs of conscience until Stack told him that Sample had actually been the murderer. So, killing Sample was how he made it right.”
Ernie said, “Well, there’s some justice in that, I suppose.”
All three men absorbed the consequences of the blood tests, and then Jamison asked, “What about the fifth DNA sample? What did you tell Andy about where that came from and why we wanted it?”
Ernie said, “Like you told me, I gave Andy that swab I took from inside your cheek and told Andy it was an unknown that we wanted to compare with the swab we took from Tom Sample.” Ernie could see the pain on Jamison’s face. He paused before quietly saying, “Tom Sample is your brother.”
O’Hara let the heavy silence fill the room before he asked a final question. “What are you going to do now, Matt? The only thing we can prove is that Gage and Cleary concealed evidence in order to ensure Harker was found guilty. And now we know that it’s at least probable that it was Rick Sample who killed Lisa or else by some really weird coincidence that blood ended up on Christine’s rabbit. I don’t believe in coincidence.”
Ernie’s voice was almost inaudible. “If this is true, then Harker was innocent. That poor bastard spent almost thirty years behind bars and could have been executed. Now what? It’s too late for Harker and there’s nothing we can do to Sample. And then we got the other problem.”
Jamison had been staring at his legal pad. He looked up when Ernie said, “other problem.”
“There’s something else? This isn’t bad enough?”
“If this gets out, Matt, so will the information about your dad. You need to think about that. This isn’t going to be a one-day article in the back pages of the newspaper. It’s going to be front page and there’s not a damn thing it can change in terms of Harker or Sample.”
“What about Gage and Cleary? What about the fact that there’s plenty of evidence now to believe that Richard Harker was innocent, and that evidence was suppressed to make sure he was found guilty?” Jamison’s voice was a whisper.
O’Hara answered for Ernie. “More important, what about you? It won’t be good. Dead is dead. Harker is dead. Sample is dead. This case is dead. Gage and Cleary aren’t your problem. You need to drop this now.”
Jamison didn’t answer. He got up and walked from the room. This time O’Hara and Ernie let him walk alone. They knew he needed to work this out his own way.
Jamison sat in his darkened office and stared at the manila envelope with the tapes of Foster that had been concealed. And then there was the forensic report. He picked up his phone and started to call his mother, then canceled the call. The phone wasn’t the right way to do this and he wasn’t sure whether she even needed to know if he decided to just put an end to the whole thing. He dialed another number. “Dr. Levy, I need to see you.”
Levy listened intently and without interruption until Jamison finished and looked at him with a question mark in his eyes. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know about any legal ethical responsibilities. But I do understand whether or not you can let this whole thing die. I think not.”
“If I release these tapes people are going to want to know how I got them. Not to mention that O’Hara is right. My career will be over.”
“Maybe, but people want to know a lot of things. That doesn’t mean you have a responsibility to tell them. The only people yo
u have a responsibility to right now are your mother, this newly discovered brother, and yourself. I think your first issue is what do you tell your mother, if anything? That depends on what you do with the tapes and how you do it. Let me ask two questions. First, what will be accomplished by disclosing the tapes? Second, if the tapes are disclosed, why does anybody need to know where the tapes came from?”
Levy paused, sensing Jamison’s uncertainty as to the right course of action. Finally, he quietly added, “When I was in graduate school, the first thing one of my professors in human behavior said was, ‘If good and evil are simply a matter of perspective, then what is morality?’ He said that was what we would study. At the end, the only conclusion I could reach is that what is right and wrong isn’t always that clear. It depends on the circumstances and sometimes on the consequences. You need to do what you believe is right and that is something only you can answer.”
Jamison drove aimlessly for over an hour, finally pulling up and parking at the curb of the destination he had been avoiding. He sat in the car for a few minutes, staring at the manila envelope. He had thought about a lot of things. It had been a long night. He could do nothing, but Levy was right, he couldn’t do that and face himself in the mirror. He didn’t have a career death wish, so making a public disclosure wasn’t the right move, and even if it was the right thing, he was the one who would pay the highest price. By early morning he had decided.
He got out of the car and walked up to the offices of Samuel Gifford. Jamison waited in the reception area of what had once been the dining room of the aged home. Gifford walked out and extended his hand. “To what do I owe the pleasure. I notice you don’t have your junkyard dog with you.”
Shades of Truth Page 36