“My immune system. I have AIDS. And to demonstrate again my precision about words, I means AIDS, not HIV. And not that it matters, but don’t start thinking I was some poor victim in prison. I assume I got infected by shooting steroids with the wrong needle. It’s amazing what this disease does for your ability to be absolutely truthful. And the truth is that, back then, I did in fact try to trade on the information. I was looking at a presumptive twenty and would have done anything to cut my time.”
“So what happened?”
“I told a guard I wanted to see the detective in charge of solving those murders of the prostitutes. And then I told the detective everything I just told you. He said it wasn’t enough—he had the same concerns about linguistic ambiguity that we just went over.”
“And that was it?” Ellie asked.
“That was it. Well, that, and he told me they already had the case wrapped up. And here’s the thing: the cop didn’t push me for more. He heard everything I had to say and decided, ‘Thanks but no thanks.’ If I recall correctly, his name was William. Last name began with an S. I remember because I tried to comment on the ugliness of snitching by throwing in a Shakespeare quote. The gist was, ‘Those who are betrayed feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor stands in the worse case of woe.’ Then I made some stupid joke about his name being similar to William Shakespeare. Wow, in retrospect, I suppose I realize why the man didn’t want to groom me into his star witness.”
“So how’d your potential for twenty years come down to six?” she asked. “You find someone else to tattle on?”
“Nope, my one attempt as a rat was enough for my tastes. Ironically, my savior was the blood test. DOC doesn’t want inmates running around with the high-five, don’t you know. My defense attorney never shook my hand after the news, but he did convince the judge that not even a meth dealer deserved what, at the time, looked to be a life sentence. So the judge gave me six years, assuming I’d be emaciated and oozing by the time I was released, just in time to die on someone else’s dime. But by the time I got out, the science had changed. They’re saying that some people will have HIV their entire lives without ever developing a single symptom. Alas, I apparently won’t be one of the lucky ones, but I remind myself every day that if it weren’t for the virus that made me sick, I’d still be in prison.”
She didn’t have a response to that. “Did you ever tell anyone else about the conversation you had with Amaro? Another inmate or prison guard, or your attorney?” Whoever sent the anonymous e-mail that led them to Harris had sent it from Manhattan. It made no sense for Harris to have sent it; and if he had, it definitely made no sense for him to travel to Manhattan to do it.
“No, just the one detective. I was shocked—and, frankly, disappointed in myself—when I realized I had basically forgotten about the whole thing until I heard Anthony Amaro’s name on the news. I went to bed last night wondering if I should call someone, or whether it would only be a repeat of the conversation I had with the detective at the time. Now I can die knowing I did the right thing. Sorry, that was a joke. Too much?”
As they walked to the car, Ellie was certain that the trip to talk to Harris had been worth it, but couldn’t put her finger on the reason why.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
Carrie inched the rental car forward. If anyone needed proof that Americans loved their cars and hated to walk, one look at this McDonald’s would do the trick. The parking lot was empty with the exception of a line of cars waiting for the drive-through.
Thomas had been mortified when she suggested fast food for lunch. Using his big-city biases to her advantage, she fibbed and told him that a Quarter Pounder was much better than anything else near their hotel. The truth was, Carrie loved fast food. And although she could have walked to a McDonald’s two blocks from the hotel, she also loved the drive-through. Sitting in this line, listening to the radio, waiting for that familiar steamed patty with warm ketchup and soggy pickles, was the kind of ordinary thing she missed in Manhattan. The car trip had also given her an excuse to escape the gloominess of downtown, dead but for a few government buildings and some pawnshops and check-cashing shops. Here, just off the Thruway, drivers sought fuel, food, and rest among a sea of options: Denny’s, Wendy’s, a Best Western, and a Hess station were all within sight. It was nothing beautiful, but she found comfort in its genericness. Absent of all reminders of Utica’s once high hopes that never came to pass, this stretch of Genesee Street could be almost anywhere in America.
She used her wait time to make a call she’d been putting off. She pulled up “Bill” on her cell phone and hit enter.
By the third ring, she found herself hoping he wouldn’t answer. It would be easier to break the news by voice mail.
“Hey, you.”
“Oh, hey. I thought I might just get your voice mail. If you’re busy, I can call back.”
“Nope. Just got out of a meeting and have—wow, a six-minute break. These days, that’s practically a vacation. How about you? How’s life working for your law professor?”
“That’s why I’m calling. I’m sorry I didn’t get into the specifics when you were in the city. I wanted the night to be about celebrating your appointment,” she added. “But the former professor is a defense attorney named Linda Moreland. And the case I’m helping her with is—”
“Oh my God, Anthony Amaro. I heard on the news he was challenging his conviction. New DNA evidence, right?”
“On Donna, in fact. It’s crazy. Things are happening really fast. Linda sent me up to Utica last night.”
“Seriously? You’re home?” Neither of them had lived in Utica for years, but they would both always call it home.
“At the Governor.”
“You should talk to Dad. He’s pretty much been the contact person on that case since it closed. I can guarantee you he thinks Amaro’s the right guy, but I assume he’d be willing to talk to you—at least to some extent. I mean, you’re basically family, so you’ve certainly got a better crack at him than Linda Moreland. Sorry, but she doesn’t have many fans in law enforcement.”
“I get that. And I will go talk to your dad. But, Bill, I’m not sure he’s going to like what I have to say. The truth is, Amaro’s case is a lot stronger if the police in charge of the investigation come out looking bad.”
“Ah, I get it. I know you, and I know what you’re probably doing to yourself. Sometimes you forget I’m a cop, too. We know how the system works. Just do what you need to do, Carrie. Dad’s tough, and he’ll be fine.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you any of this earlier.”
“Stop saying you’re sorry. It’s getting painful, and my six-minute vacation is up.”
“Got it. Any interest in dinner tonight, or a drink or something?”
“Geez, I’d love to, but I’m swamped for the next four days straight. Barely time to brush my teeth. That kind of busy. But I’ll let you know if I free up.”
“Sure thing.” When the line went silent, she wondered if he was using his schedule as an excuse to avoid a person who would work for Linda Moreland.
CHAPTER
THIRTY
That was a bust,” Rogan announced as he started the engine. “The guy was a one-man freakshow.”
“Meanie.”
“I wasn’t so taken with your new pal.”
“Oh, come on, he was kind of funny. And cooperative. An hour ago, we thought he might clip us off as we took the steps of his front porch.”
“You don’t earn a cookie for not being a murderous meth-head scumbag. He’s a guy who thinks he’s smarter than everyone around him because he’s spent his entire life surrounded by the bottom of the gene pool.”
“But do you believe him? That’s all that matters.”
“Sure, what’s not to believe? I think he definitely had some kind of conversation with Amaro about him being afraid of the other prisoners. But all that crap about Harris knowing the exact meaning behind the words Amaro used? Gi
ve me a break.”
Rogan was proving to have a remarkable sense of direction, navigating his way back toward downtown without resorting to the GPS. He took a right onto Genesee, and Ellie recognized the old theater with the huge, beautiful marquee that they had passed last night on the way in. This stretch of downtown reminded her of Wichita, with low brown and red brick buildings, but where Wichita had torn down the theater where she and Jess used to see two-buck matinees, the Stanley Theater was announcing a showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show that night. On the following block, a boarded-up house was covered in grafitti.
Her cell buzzed. It was Max. She answered using the phone’s speaker function.
“Good timing,” she said. “We might be getting somewhere, depending on which one of us you ask.” She looked at Rogan and pointed at herself. “Me,” she mouthed. “He should listen to me.”
“Get there fast,” Max said, “because we’ve got a major problem.”
“What now?” she asked.
“Remember how I said I had to go to Martin to make sure we could fund you guys going up to Utica? Well, to make sure he knew how important it was, I told him that Christy McCann’s ID of Amaro was a problem—that Major basically led her.”
“Oh no.” She saw Rogan’s knuckles tighten around the steering wheel.
“He called Linda Moreland and Judge Johnsen.”
Rogan couldn’t hold his thoughts in. “To tell them what, exactly?”
“The new information.”
“I’m a little lost here,” Rogan said. “What new information do you think we’ve gotten? We still have an eyewitness ID.”
Ellie saw the problem coming and had no idea how to stop it. She had told Max as she was leaving the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women yesterday that she believed Majors had stacked the deck against Amaro when showing photographs to Christy McCann. And she had brought Rogan up to speed about the interview with McCann during their drive up to Utica. But she had not told Rogan that she had criticized Majors’ identification process to Max during their private phone call.
She spoke up before Max answered the question. “I’m sorry, that’s my fault. Max called me as I was leaving Bedford Hills, and I told him I thought the ID was flawed.”
“Don’t try to take the blame,” Rogan said. “My problem isn’t with you sharing your opinion. It’s with Donovan, for passing that opinion on to a boss who is obviously trying to help Amaro at this point.”
“Rogan, I know you’re frustrated,” Max said. “I am, too. But it’s not the kind of thing I can keep from the district attorney himself.”
“You didn’t even bother checking in with the other detective on this so-called fresh-look team to see if he happens to agree with Hatcher’s assessment, which I don’t. Majors may not have handled it perfectly, but at the end of the day, Christy McCann told Hatcher that she recognized Anthony Amaro.”
“I can’t even get a word in about why I called, Rogan. Ellie, will you please take me off speaker so I can tell you what’s happening? It’s important, and we’re wasting time.”
Rogan waved a hand toward her phone, indicating she should do as Max asked, but Ellie knew Max would never make the request to any other detective.
“You can explain it to us both, Max. And Rogan has a good point. I told you my worries about the ID, but it was a quick conversation. If you were going to make that official by telling Martin, we should have had a more thorough discussion—all three of us.”
“There hasn’t been anything thorough about this,” Rogan said. “We’re two people, essentially working outside the department, trying to work seven different murders across two decades in two cities, all at the same time.”
“Fine.” Max’s clipped tone made it clear that he was fighting to keep his cool. “The process hasn’t been ideal. I know that. I did what I thought was right, both in terms of getting Martin to approve your travel up there, and also keeping him up to speed, which is my job.”
Rogan groaned, but Max didn’t hear it and continued. “Martin, in turn, felt obliged to notify the court, because she gave us the week on the understanding that we’d be trying to shore up the evidence against Amaro. Instead, we found more exculpatory evidence, and Martin takes very seriously our duty to disclose, even after conviction.”
“Let me guess,” Rogan said, “in the interests of transparency. And it’s not exculpatory. Hatcher felt hinky about the ID, but the witness is still onboard. Usually prosecutors try to back up their own witnesses.”
“You can yell at me all you want, Rogan, but it won’t change where we are. Moreland pushed for an immediate release.”
“But we have until Friday,” Ellie said.
“Not anymore. You saw the judge. Linda Moreland already had her convinced this was an exoneration case and that Buck Majors went rogue. Now she finds out that instead of finding evidence that helps keep him in, we may—though I get Rogan’s point—have more reason to doubt his guilt.”
“So convince the judge to keep the same timeline.” Yesterday Ellie had thought it was insane to expect them to produce new evidence in three days. Now she was clinging to every last second of time. “We’re getting more evidence. We just talked to Harris. He says Amaro admitted—”
“The judge didn’t care about Harris,” he said. “I tried buying time by saying you were up there to interview him. Moreland went nuts that the tip came in completely anonymously. I said the tipster didn’t matter if the information panned out with Harris himself. But Johnsen slammed the door on it. She said it’s fundamentally unfair to justify Amaro’s conviction with evidence that we didn’t even know about at the time he was charged.”
“But if he’s guilty, he’s guilty.”
“Not to the judge. She said Amaro has a due-process right to have his conviction set aside if all of the government’s original evidence has been undermined. If we have completely new evidence against him, the most she would do is to vacate his conviction without prejudice so we could at least retry him. Please tell me Harris is a smoking gun. At this point, we need Mother Teresa with HD photographs of Amaro burying the bodies.”
“Well, not a smoking gun exactly, but he says Amaro admitted to killing the Utica victims.” She did her best to explain Harris’s belief that Amaro had actually confessed, not merely expressed a concern that he’d be perceived as guilty.
Max didn’t even pause before writing off the information. “Not even close. The way Johnsen put it, Amaro’s conviction rests on a nest filled with eggs. And each one—Buck Majors, Christy McCann, the new DNA evidence belonging to who knows who—breaks one of the eggs. She said we can break an egg or two and still have a nest, but at this point, every single egg is cracked, and we look like we’re switching them out after the fact.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Ellie said. “A nest is made of twigs, not eggs. We should be able to switch the eggs if we need to, until we’re—I don’t know, breaking them and scrambling them and turning them into an omelette.”
In that moment Ellie decided that metaphors were officially stupid.
“Well, the way Judge Johnsen put it, we can’t prove we got the right guy but with the wrong evidence. She signed the writ.”
A writ of habeas corpus. You have the body, as the Latin term puts it. A petition for habeas corpus is a request by a prisoner to gain his release, claiming insufficient grounds for his detention.
“For when?”
“For now. She signed it. The paperwork takes a while to get processed, but he’ll be getting out soon.”
“Have someone sit on him. We need eyes on him at all times.”
“That’s why I’m calling you. He’s not down here. That was part of his plea—to be housed closer to home. He’s at Five Points. For now. But the release is in the computer. How quick can you get to him?”
Five Points was a maximum-security prison between Syracuse and Rochester. “An hour at least,” Rogan said, more familiar with the geography than she. “Mayb
e an hour and a half.”
“We’ll go now,” she said. “Damn it. We should have gotten a statement from him at the very beginning of this.”
“You do what you need to do as part of your investigation. I’m just letting you know that he’s getting released.”
Ellie knew that the professional rules of ethics prohibited Max from contacting, or even directing contact, with a represented party. But Ellie and Rogan weren’t lawyers. The only rules they had to follow came from the Constitution, and as far as the Constitition was concerned, Amaro was fair game unless he expressly told them he didn’t want to speak to them. As a result of the discrepancy between the rules for lawyers and law enforcement, it was common for prosecutors to “allow” police to contact represented parties without actually “directing” it.
“Got it,” she said. They all knew the code. “We’ll head to Five Points, just to make sure we keep eyes on him. We’ll set up shop, however long it takes.”
“That would be a lot easier if Judge Johnsen had put any limitation at all on his release: electronic monitoring, daily reporting, perhaps a current address. No. Once he’s released, he’ll be in the wind, out there in the world, with no supervision whatsoever. I put in a call to the Oneida County DA. They’ll be pissed we didn’t loop them in earlier, but I’m going to see if they can take what we have and get an arrest warrant for Amaro on the old cases.”
“They can do that?”
“Oh yeah. He was never prosecuted in Utica, so there’s no double jeopardy. I think that’s why Johnsen was so willing to sign the writ. She can tell herself she’s doing the right thing by setting aside a wrongful conviction, with the knowledge that Utica still has another bite at the apple if Amaro really is the guy. They can use what we have on the Garner case—weak as it is—and throw in whatever you got from that cellmate. It’s not nearly enough for a conviction, but it should be enough for probable cause. That’s all they’ll need to hold him on new charges.”
All Day and a Night: A Novel of Suspense (Ellie Hatcher) Page 16