by Lisa Lutz
After compiling all the data that I had on Merriweather’s case, I returned to Maggie’s office to see if it was enough. She shook her head and said, “No.” Then she excused herself to use the restroom. Then she returned to her desk and consumed half a stack of saltines and drank some ginger ale. I did my best to pretend not to notice, which came off as more suspicious than just asking, “Are you feeling all right?” Maggie then reminded me of what I was up against.
To free a man who has been wrongly incarcerated, you need a really good reason and you a need a reason that wasn’t presented in the original defense. While I knew that Harkey had mishandled Merriweather’s case, I also knew that police misconduct would be a hard sell and there wasn’t enough evidence yet to convince a judge to even reopen the investigation.
My only chance of freeing Merriweather would be to look into all of Harkey’s cases to see if there was a common thread. If I could cast doubt on Harkey’s reputation, there was a chance that all of his cases would require some review.
Maggie could subpoena all of Harkey’s cases, but that would draw direct attention to the case and to me. I told her to hold off. There might be an easier way.
• • •
I returned to the Spellman offices and immediately pounced on Dad.
“I need to see the police files on all of Harkey’s cases when he was working homicide. Any chance you can get those for me?”
I had hoped for a simple yes or no answer, preferably yes, but my father said, “What’s going on, Isabel?”
“Can’t you just do this for me and not ask any questions?”
“Uh, no.”
“It’s very simple. Rick Harkey was the arresting officer on the Merriweather case.”
“The convicted murderer that you’re wearing on your shirt?” Dad asked.
“Yes, the innocent convicted murderer. The DNA evidence is conveniently missing, the case was purely circumstantial, has as many holes as a Wiffle ball, and it looks like Harkey coerced the alibi into retracting her testimony. If I can prove misconduct on other cases, then maybe we have a shot at proving a trend, which could result in a reinvestigation of Harkey’s cases in general.”
“So, you’re not doing a good deed, looking into a wrongful conviction; you’re still on a Harkey witch hunt.”
“Why can’t it be both?”
“What are you getting yourself into here?”
“There’s no other way, Dad. And I just know Demetrius is innocent.”
Dad said he’d think about it. But Dad uses the “thinking” excuse as a stalling tactic. He’s done it for years. When I was twelve, I asked for a puppy. He’s still “thinking” about that one. I took my father’s response as a clear-cut no.
I’d hoped to escape the house before I ran into Mom, but she intercepted me in the foyer.
“Isabel! Just who I was looking for.”
“Do I know you?” I asked.
“I believe you’re due for another lawyer date. How’s the hunt coming along?”
“Mom, are you aware that the doorknob to the dining room is now missing?”
“Yes. Now how is that date coming along?”
“I’m busy,” I replied. “Why don’t you go to the store and pick one out for me?”
“What’s the catch?”
“No catch,” I replied.
“Okay,” Mom said, not losing her suspicion.
There was a catch, but I’ll get to that later.
FREE MERRIWEATHER—
CHAPTER 3
I needed ten years’ worth of police files, which meant I needed either a cooperative DA or a cop who had access to police records. I went to the only other cop I thought might cooperate in my endeavor.
The door to Henry’s office was slightly ajar. I shoved it a bit and said, “Are you busy?”
“What are you doing here?”
“I was in the neighborhood.”
“You’re always in some neighborhood,” he replied.
“Isn’t everyone?”
“Come in and close the door behind you.”
I did. I was about to sit down when Henry said, “Don’t sit.”
I didn’t.
Henry then circled his desk and proceeded to frisk me without even asking first. I slapped his hands away. His payback was reaching into my coat pocket and pulling out a dirty tissue.
“Ha,” I said.
“Throw them out when you’re done,” Henry said, tossing the tissue into his trash and then searching his desk for hand sanitizer.
“What were you looking for?” I asked.
“Drugs, Isabel.”
“Get over it. It was a one-time deal.”
Once Henry was satisfied that I hadn’t brought contraband into his office, he offered me a seat.
“I need a favor,” I said.
“Of course you do. Why else would you visit me?”
There was enough of an edge to Henry’s reply that I felt, well, guilty. And here’s something that might surprise you: I don’t feel guilty all that often.
“That’s not true,” I replied, even though as far as I could recollect, it was true.
“What do you need?” he snapped.
“Now I feel bad. I’m not going to ask.”
“Go ahead,” he said.
I quickly got to my feet and said, “I’ll be back later.” Then I made an abrupt exit.
Two hours later
I returned with a picnic basket (i.e., a large paper bag) full of farmer’s market items—anything I could find in the unprocessed food category, including organic cheese and crackers, since I can’t make a meal of apples and whole-grain bread.
“Can you take a break?” I asked when I entered his office.
“What’s in the bag?”
“Drugs,” I replied. “And lots of them.”
Henry rolled his eyes.
“A snack. I thought we could have an afternoon picnic.”
“Seriously?”
“This picnic will include entertainment.”
“They always do. In the form of ants.”
“This entertainment I’m speaking of is better than any episode of Doctor Who in the history of Doctor Who.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Get your coat. It’s chilly outside.”
An hour later Henry and I were seated on a wool blanket just outside the fence of the organic garden in which Rae was doing time. While the inspector and I dined on sustainably-grown nourishment, our afternoon’s entertainment was the pained expression on Rae’s face as she dug ditches, planted zucchini, and watered the tomato plants. The frozen look of disgust on her face carried an uplifting comedic edge. In fact, we both lost our appetites because we were laughing so hard. I hoped that as long as her probation lasted, she would rail against her punitive assignment. Henry, on the other hand, simply enjoyed the fact that Rae was forced out of her comfort zone and into a job that served society rather than manipulated it.
As we gathered our picnic remains, our spirits were considerably elevated, I imagine in the same way someone leaving a great theater production might feel.
“That was the best show ever,” Henry said, smiling. He doesn’t smile all that often, so it was a surprise.
“I know. I came here the other day, out of curiosity. Stayed an hour. Figured I shouldn’t keep it all to myself.”
“Kind of you,” Henry replied.
On the car ride back to the precinct, Henry said, “Okay, what do you want?”
“I need to look at police files from when Harkey was on the job. Preferably before DNA evidence had really evolved and for anything that was a potential capital offense.”
“I gather this is in regard to the Merriweather case?” Henry asked.
“You gathered correctly.”
“Is this about freeing Merriweather or taking down Harkey?”
“Tomato, tomahto.”
LAWYER DATE—
THE FINAL CHAPTER
If you found my relin
quishment of choice in the lawyer-date matter suspicious, you were on the right track. I was simply making sure that when my final lawyer date went down in flames, Mom would take the brunt of the fallout.
In truth, I had kept the secret long enough. My mother had few weapons left beyond her knowledge of Prom Night 1994. It was time I took that sword away from her. But I get ahead of myself. First, may I introduce you to Jason Berendt, Lawyer #5, RIP?
We met at some swanky bar in the financial district. I wore my JUSTICE 4 MERRIWEATHER T-shirt, a corduroy jacket, and a knee-length skirt with boots. I ordered a whiskey on the rocks and waited at the bar.
[Partial transcript reads as follows:]
JASON: Isabel?
ME: Jason, the lawyer?
JASON: Yes. But Jason is just fine.
ME: Have a seat.
JASON: Thank you. Bartender, can I get a Budweiser?
ME: My mother didn’t tell me you drank piss beer.
JASON: [long pause] I guess I never mentioned it to her.
ME: Interesting.
JASON: Who is Merri—
ME: Merriweather. Demetrius Merriweather. Wrongly convicted for murder twenty years ago.
JASON: I see. You want justice for him.
ME: Now that I know you can read, tell me something else about yourself.
JASON: I’m a lawyer.
ME: That I know. It’s in the rule book.
JASON: Excuse me?
ME: Nothing. So what do you do for fun?
JASON: Golf. Snow sports. I’m a total gym rat.
ME: Why is it all you people play golf?
JASON: “You people”?
ME: You know, white, male lawyers.
JASON: I don’t think we all play golf.
ME: Most of you do.
JASON: [hostility creeping in] What do you do for fun?
ME: I don’t have as much fun as I used to.
JASON: What did you use to do for fun?
ME: Rebel.
JASON: What were you rebelling against?
ME: What have you got?1
JASON: You’re not like your mother described.
ME: Especially not today.
JASON: I’m beginning to doubt we have much in common.
ME: We have nothing in common.
JASON: This wins as the weirdest blind date in the history of my blind dates.
ME: Thank you.
JASON: Not a compliment.
ME: Did you know that in the Ice Age, giant beavers the size of grizzly bears roamed the earth? Can you imagine that?
JASON: No.
[End of tape.]
I studied my mother as she listened to the recording. Her scowl took a shape that only Botox could fix, and fortunately I have the kind of mother who won’t submit to torture for her looks. Sadly, I knew that scowl would vanish the moment our conversation came to a close.
“You know this doesn’t count,” my mother said. “Why waste your time sabotaging a date when you know you’ll only have to redo it?”
“I’m done with all the secrets,” I said.
“Really?” Mom replied skeptically.
“There’s something you should know. Connor and I broke up.”
“I’m sorry,” Mom said, and she put her arm around me.
“You already knew, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know he was cheating on me?”
“I did.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You know why,” Mom replied.
“Is that why you made me go on these lawyer dates?”
“That and I thought it would be fun.”
“For whom?”
“Me, mostly.”
“So, no more lawyer dates, Mom. I’m done.”
“Are you?” Mom said, thinking she still held all the cards.
“I’m going to tell Dad what happened that night.”
My mother suddenly became speechless. I could see her mind spinning, various scenarios playing out in her head.
“No, you’re not,” she said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because it’s not just your secret anymore.”
PART IV
SENTENCING
PROM NIGHT 1994
If I really stretched the truth, I could blame the whole thing on Petra. She had come to school the week before junior prom with a Cheshire cat smile on her face.
“You are not going to believe what I discovered in the back of my mother’s closet.”
“What’s its resale value?”
“We’re not selling this shit.”
Petra then handed me what appeared to be her lunch. Inside was a dime bag of marijuana.
“Smell it,” she said.
I opened up the baggy inside and my sophisticated nose told me we were dealing with some prime Humboldt County weed.
“Oh my god,” I said.
“I know,” Petra replied.
“Won’t she know it’s missing?”
“Maybe. But that’s not even a fourth of what she had.”
“I didn’t know your mom was a pothead.”
“She’s been under a lot of job stress lately and she’s got this new boyfriend. It could be his.”
“We totally scored.”
• • •
Fifteen minutes later, flanked by giant trash bins behind the cafeteria, Petra and I took a few hits before history class. We thought it might make the Declaration of Independence a little more interesting.1
While I fought back a coughing fit, Petra had an idea.
“You should search your parents’ room.”
“My dad’s an ex-cop. There’s no way he has any contraband in his room. No way.”
“You’re probably right,” Petra replied.
The bell rang, Petra put her pipe away, and we headed to class.
That night, my parents went to a movie. David was studying at a friend’s house and I was babysitting my three-year-old sister. I read from the Encyclopedia Britannica as her bedtime story. I chose the entry on photosynthesis and she passed out within minutes. I watched some television, tried to pick the lock on the liquor cabinet, and then considered that maybe my parents kept some booze in their bedroom. And then searching their room didn’t seem like a bad idea at all.
There was no booze to be found (and believe me, if it was there, I would have found it). I explored every inch of that room. But I didn’t leave empty-handed. In the bottom dresser drawer, under my father’s old police uniform, I found his badge. And I took it.
Flash-forward two weeks: Petra arrived at my house in a red velvet evening gown that was cut in such a way that it appeared the shoulders had made a run for it, as if in direct protest to the massive shoulder pads of the eighties. I was in an unfortunate forest-green number that my grammy Spellman had bought for me a month earlier. Wearing the dress was my punishment for some minor curfew infraction.2 One picture was taken, which I later destroyed.3
Before I left, my mom said, “Isabel, please stay out of trouble.”
Her voice had a pleading tone. But that never stopped me.
Petra and I had no intention of going to prom. She picked me up at seven P.M., and we stopped at Mel’s diner, had French fries and Cokes, and changed into street clothes in the bathroom. A few hours later, we were crossing the bridge to Berkeley. Petra had learned of a college party that night. And we were going to crash it.
The thing about college parties is that not everyone at them is in college. The house was easy to locate—revelers spilled out onto the sidewalk like sloppy drippings from a sundae. It was the parking that was impossible. Petra eventually settled her car in a red zone three blocks away and we hoped for the best.
We fought our way through the crowd and located the booze. A guy named Scott was doling out shots of Jägermeister. After we sank our first drink of the night, Petra switched to beer, since she was driving. I poured myself a tumbler of vodka, ice, and lemonade and we worked our way out ont
o the balcony.
I finished my vodka drink and filled the tumbler with beer from the keg, since it was parked right in front of me. At some point a guy named J. T. approached the two of us. He was attractive in a one-weekend-only kind of way. The sleaze factor would get old after a while. But I remember he was fine entertainment for the night.
“You ladies got some ID on you? Because I think you look like jailbait.”
The last thing we wanted was to be pegged as high school students. I pulled my father’s badge from my pocket, flashed it, and said, “Run along, now.”
J. T. didn’t run along. He held out his hand and identified himself, or his initials.
“You got a name?” he said.
“Nope,” I replied.
“My kind of girl,” J. T. said.
Now here is where things get fuzzy. Petra met a guy on the lawn bowling team. She’d never met anyone who actually played that sport and was taken with him immediately. Then she vanished, as far as I knew. J. T. kept filling my tumbler with a wide mix of alcoholic beverages and telling me tall tales of his travels in Europe. He was an art dealer, a talent scout, and briefly a spy. All lies, I knew.
I woke up in an empty bed in a cheap Oakland apartment, having almost no recollection of the night before. My clothes were scattered about the floor. I dressed quickly, despite the throbbing pain in my head, and made a quick escape. I never set eyes on J. T. again.
Without a cell phone or any other means of contacting Petra without phoning parental units and incriminating myself, I found my way to the closest BART station. I reached into my pocket for my wallet and was pleased to find I had enough cash to return home. When I reached into the other pocket, a jolt of adrenaline and fear shot through me. My father’s badge was gone.
I arrived home and climbed through the window. On my bed was a note from my mother that informed me I was grounded for the next three weeks. I took a shower and got into bed. My mother took a boom box and a CD of Rae’s sing-along tunes and planted my sister as a steady source of pain right outside my door. She stayed all morning.