by Marti Green
She and Tommy headed to their respective desks. With Indiana time an hour earlier than New York time, they were hopeful they’d still be able to reach the people they were looking for. Dani pulled out her reference guide to each state’s gubernatorial office and dialed the number for Joe Guidry, the governor’s chief of staff. He answered the phone directly. She identified herself and filled him in on what had happened with George Calhoun. She finished with her purpose in calling: “Joe, this guy is innocent, and if we have one more week, I’m sure we can prove it beyond any doubt whatsoever. We’re hoping that Governor Timmons can stand by on Monday in case the Supreme Court turns us down.”
All she heard was Joe’s breathing.
“You still there?”
“Yeah. I’m just thinking. Let me understand. You’ve been turned down by two federal courts; your request of the state court for exhumation has been turned down; and if the big Court turns you down, you want the governor to put her neck out there and give this convicted child-murderer a break. Does that about sum it up?”
“It’s not exactly how I’d put it. I’m not asking her to let the guy go free, not yet anyway. All I need is seven days. Seven days to wrap it up with a nice bow and ribbon, and I’ll throw in the real murderer, who’s been living unpunished for nineteen years.” Dani realized she’d probably gone too far. Bruce was right; she shouldn’t jump to conclusions about the Conklins. Still, she didn’t pull back the pledge. If that’s what it took to get a stay, she’d say anything at this point.
“I don’t know what the governor will want to do. The best I can promise you is that she’ll listen to you on Monday. Call us after the Supreme Court rules.”
It was the most she could hope for—Governor Timmons would hear her out. She walked back to Bruce’s office and saw Tommy inside. “Did you reach Cannon?” she asked.
“Nope. Just got his voice mail. I left an urgent message, then called the general number for the sheriff’s office and left a second message. Hopefully he’ll call me back.”
Dani filled Tommy and Bruce in on her conversation with Joe Guidry.
“There’s nothing more you guys can do tonight. Go home and get some rest,” Bruce said.
As if she could.
It was almost 8:30 when Dani arrived home. An accident on the FDR had slowed the usual Friday-night exodus from the city to a standstill. By the time she pulled up to her house, her body ached from head to toe. Doug greeted her at the door with a glass of wine.
“Rough day?”
“A rough six weeks.”
He put his arm around her and led her to the couch. On the cocktail table lay a platter of her favorite cheeses with crackers. Next to it was a bowl of ruby-red cherries, her favorite fruit.
“Where’s Jonah?”
“Sound asleep.”
Dani settled into the couch and let the wine relax her. The windows were open and a soft breeze moved the curtains like ripples on a lake. It felt so good to be home.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Doug asked.
“No. Not tonight. Tonight I want to pretend that I’m back in law school, that last year, when I was excited about entering the legal profession. I remember how I thought I would do so much good as a lawyer. Everything seemed black and white then, remember? Bad guys were convicted, good guys were never even arrested. Wasn’t that how it was supposed to be?”
Doug cut a piece of cheese and placed it on a cracker and handed it to her. “I don’t think even then we were that naïve.”
“I was. I thought the law really meant something. That truth and justice were the goal, not wins and losses.”
“Truth and justice are the goal. But finding the truth is difficult. You’re sure your client is innocent, that all the facts you’ve uncovered prove he is. But the people opposing you believe in a different truth. They believe your facts are suggestive, perhaps, but not conclusive. And to set a convicted child-murderer free, there must be indisputable facts. Whose truth is right?”
“Okay, different people look at facts differently. I get that. But death is irreversible. When there isn’t agreement on what is the truth, then keep the prisoner alive while the search for the truth—a truth that can’t be challenged—goes on. How can anyone be comfortable with killing a man who might be innocent?”
“You and I aren’t comfortable with that. But others may argue that those instances are so rare they shouldn’t change what is just punishment for atrocious deeds.”
Dani leaned her head back into the couch and felt her eyes drift closed. She spread herself out on the couch and Doug covered her with a blanket. She was too tired to talk anymore. She was too tired for their honeymoon hour. Sleep overtook her and she welcomed it; she welcomed her escape from a world of gray.
Dani returned to the office Saturday. Waiting at the fax machine was the decision from the federal court. Two of the judges on the three-judge panel had denied the habeas petition as well as the stay. The third had dissented, agreeing that George had received ineffective assistance of counsel at his trial. The majority’s opinion was succinct: “Nothing in the record below supports defendant’s claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. Defendant has not shown that his attorney’s performance affected the outcome of his trial. Rather, defendant’s own silence concerning the whereabouts of his daughter, despite the urgings of his counsel to explain her disappearance, are likely to have played a greater role in the verdict than any act or failure to act of his attorney. Nor does the allegedly new evidence support a reopening of his case. His motion for a writ of habeas corpus is denied, as is his request for a stay of the execution.” The lone dissenter was equally succinct: “The majority’s blind eye to the possibility of executing an innocent man is tantamount to the commission of murder by the state.”
Dani couldn’t have agreed more.
Her work was finished and she was ready to leave when she got a call from Tommy.
“What are you still doing at work? Go home and play with your kid.”
“I was just about to do that. What’s up?”
“Cannon called me back. I filled him in on the fingerprint results and he was pretty skeptical.”
“But will he follow up on it?”
“He won’t go for an exhumation, not yet. But he did say he’d take a ride over to the Conklins’ and talk to them. I think I can push him some more, but we need time.”
Each time Dani heard that word—time—it felt like a sucker punch to her gut. “That’s the one thing we don’t have.”
CHAPTER
28
One Day
Dani had planned to take an early Sunday flight to Indianapolis, drive to Michigan City the same afternoon, and be refreshed for her stay with George on Monday. When tired, her emotions rose to the surface too easily. She needed to keep them in check for George. She needed to be strong for him.
Plans go awry. She’d sat at the departure gate at LaGuardia for three hours. Weather, they’d said. Torrential downpours and gusty winds, to be more exact. Her flight hadn’t landed until nine o’clock, too late for her to drive to Michigan City. Instead, after picking up her rental car, she had called around for a hotel room near the airport, settled into the room, and quickly drifted off to sleep.
The ringing of her cell phone woke her at 6:45. She didn’t mind being awakened. She’d set her alarm to go off soon anyway.
“I didn’t wake you, did I?” Tommy asked.
“No, I was up.”
“Good. I wanted to give you an update on Cannon. He went out to their house yesterday. The wife was there, but not the husband. According to the wife, he’s a pharmaceutical salesman and is on the road now.”
“Did she say anything useful?”
“Well, Cannon asked if they’d ever had their daughter’s fingerprints taken. At first the wife got excited, asked if they’d found Stacy. Cannon said no, then
told her about the partial of Stacy’s prints on a threatening letter. Which is pretty stupid if you ask me. Doesn’t the guy know how to run an investigation? Anyway, the strange part is that the wife said they’d never had her fingerprints taken.”
“She has to be lying.”
“Or maybe the husband did it without telling his wife.”
“Maybe. But one or both of them doesn’t want us stirring things up with Calhoun’s case.”
“Cannon is still on the fence with this. He wants to believe the partial is wrong, that it’s not a match for someone in Stacy’s family. After all, it’s not a complete match.”
“So what’s he going to do?”
“Wait for the husband to get back, then talk to him.”
It wasn’t the response Dani had hoped for, but she couldn’t do anything about it. She downed a quick breakfast and checked out of the hotel. The roads were clear and she made good time on Interstate 65, arriving at the prison by eleven o’clock. She’d already arranged with Warden Coates to spend the day with George, a stark departure from the usual prison practice. Despite the daily violence in the other sections of the prison, where seventy-five percent of the inmates were there for murder and where even the visiting chaplains wore protective vests, death row was relatively tranquil. As a precaution, she’d been required to sign a waiver of liability protecting the prison against any lawsuit, despite Coates’s confidence that George wouldn’t harm her.
Melanie stood by in the office and waited for a ruling from the Supreme Court. Dani had the phone number of Joe Guidry, the governor’s chief of staff, programmed into her own phone. A push of a single button would reach him.
There was no cell-phone service in George’s cell, so the warden had agreed to get her when Melanie called his office with word from the Supremes.
After Dani was processed through the visitor’s entrance, a guard escorted her to George’s jail cell. The concrete corridors had a musty odor, and her nose twitched as she held back a sneeze. She endured the expected catcalls as she walked past the cells. The roominess of the enclosures surprised her. Then she remembered Coates’s telling her that death-row inmates, who occupied their cells alone, were given more space because the rooms encompassed their entire world. No job duties, no library, no group meals. Just their cells all but a half hour each day. She passed a cell whose walls were covered with paintings as good as some she’d seen in museums. Another cell looked like a greenhouse, with dozens of plants below a small window. At the end of the row, she heard a squeak as she passed, and looked up to see a snow-white rabbit sitting on a small table and an open cage in the corner.
“The prisoners are allowed pets?” Dani asked her escort.
“Only on death row. These men, they know they’re going to die. It helps some keep depression at bay.”
Dani passed through a security gate at the end of the row and was led down a separate corridor where inmates were placed within twenty-four hours of their execution. Unlike the other sections marked by a constant hum of blended noises, this area was eerily quiet. George looked up as he heard footsteps approach, and a hopeful smile broke out on his face when he saw Dani.
“I don’t have any news for you yet,” she told him after the cell door had closed behind her and the guard had left. “But Melanie will get word to me as soon as we hear from the Supreme Court.”
George nodded slowly. “I don’t expect much.”
“There’s still time. Executions have been stopped with just hours to go.”
George’s hands rested on his lap. He had a look of determination on his face. “I’m ready for it to be over. I did what I had to and I’m okay with that.”
She hadn’t told George about the nurse at the Mayo Clinic. She felt torn. She didn’t know how he’d react. Would it heighten his anguish to think his daughter was alive and not be able to find her? Or would it bring him peace? Dani concluded that it was wrong for her to withhold information from him.
“George, it’s possible that Angelina is alive.”
George’s shoulders shot back and his body became taut. “Have you found her?” he asked in a choked voice.
“No, not yet.”
“But she’s alive?”
“We’re not certain. But we believe she may be.”
Dani told him about the nurse at the Mayo Clinic. She described the efforts they’d made to track down Sunshine Harrington. As she spoke, George slumped into his chair as if a pin had been stuck into his body and all the air had escaped.
She put her hand on his. “I’m sorry.”
George sat upright again. “No, it’s good. It’s good. My beautiful angel is alive. It means what I did meant something. It mattered.”
They didn’t know yet if that were true, but if George did walk to his death tonight, Dani preferred that it be with the belief that Angelina had survived.
Unlike the cells she’d passed along death row, this one was bare. A bed, a small table and wooden chair, and a toilet in the corner—nothing more was needed in quarters meant to be used for less than twenty-four hours. Every now and then a guard walked by, his footsteps echoing in the hallway. Once, a chaplain appeared and asked George if he needed anything. George shook his head.
The hours passed slowly. George didn’t speak much. Dani could only imagine what his thoughts must be. Her life wouldn’t end tonight, yet she felt the same helplessness he must have felt. She tried to engage him in conversation, as if by doing so she could drag the thoughts of death from his mind.
“Do you have any family?” she asked. “Parents? Siblings?”
“My dad died about ten years ago. Heart attack. Very sudden.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It was the stress, my being here, that did it to him. Every time he’d come visit, I could see it in his face.”
“And your mother?”
“She’s still alive.”
“Will she be here tonight? In the visitors room?”
George’s face tightened. “She came yesterday. We had a good visit. I told her don’t come tonight. I couldn’t bear my mom seeing me all strapped up like that. My folks, they understood. They knew what I did for Angelina. Never once did they doubt me.”
“They sound like good parents. Tell me about them.”
“Dad, he taught me everything I knew about cars. He could take apart any car and build it right back up like brand new. He worked on the factory line, though. Cars were a hobby for him.”
“How about your mom?”
“A boy couldn’t have had a better mom. She would have done anything for me. I had no brothers or sisters. I’d come home from school and she’d always have something fresh baked for me. Always.” A smile crossed his face. “She wasn’t educated. Never even finished tenth grade. As soon as my dad finished high school, she ran off and married him. Mom thought everything I did was right. Never once did she use harsh words with me. It breaks my heart to see what this has done to her, but she puts on a strong show for me. Every time she visits, she tells me I did what I had to do.”
“She must love you very much.”
“Yes, ma’am, she does.” George stopped talking for a moment and then said, “If you do find Angelina, will you make sure she gets to know her grandma? That would be a real good present for my mom. Not that it’ll heal her broken heart over me, but it would help. I know it would, if she had a granddaughter to love. So, will you?”
“Of course.”
“You’ve got to promise me.”
“I promise you, George.”
At 3:45, a guard came to take Dani to Coates’s office.
“Your associate is on the phone. Do you want some privacy?”
“Yes, please.”
She was afraid to pick up the phone. The odds were small that the Supreme Court would stop this travesty, and she didn’t want to hear the words
she dreaded. But she couldn’t avoid it.
“Melanie, have you heard something?”
Melanie’s voice was weak, as if the elasticity had been strained out of her vocal cords. “It’s bad news. They denied a stay and they denied cert.” Certiorari was the term used when the Supreme Court agreed to decide a case.
Dani’s legs shook. She’d been through this before with other inmates. It never got easier. “I’ll call the governor’s office. There’s still hope in that corner.”
She got off the phone and dialed Joe Guidry’s number.
“Joe, the Supremes have turned us down. Governor Timmons is the last hope to stop the execution of an innocent man.”
“Look, I’ve read the stuff you’ve sent me, and I agree there are doubts in this case. But she’s all about law and order. She needs something solid.”
“Give me one week. That’s all I’m asking for. One week and I’ll get you something solid.”
“Hold tight. I’ll go speak to her.”
The line was quiet for ten minutes before Joe came back. “One week and you need to produce the daughter. That’s the deal. If you don’t have Angelina Calhoun or a valid death certificate for her in one week, then she won’t do anything more for you. Understand?”
“Joe, she won’t regret this.”
“We’ll see. I’m faxing the stay over to the prison now.”
Dani hung up, elated. One more week. It was a lifetime.
CHAPTER
29
If he weren’t so goddamn tense, he might have appreciated the beauty surrounding him. The red rock encasing the Colorado River as it snaked its way thousands of feet below truly was majestic. Maybe when this was over, he’d take his wife for a vacation here.
The website listed on the brochure told him exactly when and where Nancy’s trip would end: Marble Canyon. It even said where they’d spend their last night before being whisked to Las Vegas for their flights home: Marble Canyon Inn. He had arrived two days earlier and settled into a room at the same lodging. He’d used another name and showed a false driver’s license. It had been easy finding someone to make it, no questions asked. There wasn’t much to do while he waited for her, so he’d taken in some of the sights: a boat ride up Lake Powell, a hike along the north rim of the Grand Canyon, a visit to Navaho Bridge. All spectacular, he thought. Even so, his next move was always in the forefront of his mind. Nothing he saw or did could shake it from there. He was prepared to kill Nancy Ferguson.