Claim of Innocence

by Laura Caldwell

  “On a Tuesday?” When she said nothing, I offered, “Well, she is a college sophomore, right?” Valerie nodded.

  For something to do, I picked up the oatmeal cookie she’d given me and broke it in half. “So why did you ask me to come, Valerie?”

  “Because I was…” A helpless shrug. “I was lonely, and you said something about being my friend.”

  “I’m a good friend,” I said. “It’s something I pride myself on.”

  She smiled, then it faded. “I was thinking of how good it felt to talk to you the other day. I haven’t spoken about my father in so long. In fact, I’ve only spoken about him a handful of times since he was executed.”

  “That must have been terrible.”

  “It was. For a long while, I really believed he would be freed.” Valerie took a sip of her coffee. “The execution didn’t happen for years and years. His case would be appealed and then sent back and then appealed some more. I could hardly follow the ups and downs, but each time his conviction was upheld, each time he was closer to death, my trust died a little bit. And then it just…” Again that faraway expression. “It just went away.”

  It sounded as if she had come to terms with it. “And now,” she continued, “it seems I’m due for the same fate. At least the prison part of it. Sometimes that makes me wonder if I deserve it. Is it somehow scripted ahead of time, this curse on our family?”

  I didn’t know how to answer. Did she wonder if she deserved it because she was guilty? “How old were you when he was executed?” I asked instead.

  “Twenty-four.” She sighed. “Then my mom died, and I got pregnant with Layla soon after. Two Solaras dead, another created. Layla’s father took off for Florida shortly after we found out I was pregnant. He helped when he could, but he wasn’t ready to be a father, and I was fine with that.” An inhale of breath. “She’s my world.” Her eyes suddenly became animated and stared into mine in a beseeching way. “Izzy, I can’t lose that world. You have to help me.”

  I told her I would. I asked her questions. What had happened that night she went to reveal something to Amanda and Bridget? What was she going to tell them? But even though her eyes remained anxious, her demeanor aggrieved, she wouldn’t tell me any more. She had, I realized, merely wanted comfort. And so I asked her about other things—things that girlfriends would talk about. Where had she gotten that silver necklace she’d worn that day? Had she been to the new discount clothing store on Southport? Had she seen any exhibits at the MCA?

  Before I left forty-five minutes later, I hugged her. She clung to me, and so I squeezed her back even tighter.

  “Thank you,” she said, over and over. “Thank you. Thank you.”

  I told her it was no problem. That I was happy to do it. But I left knowing nothing more, feeling more confused than ever.

  49

  The next morning, as I made my way through the glass doors in the courtroom, bleary from lack of sleep, Maggie came out of the order room, talking on her cell. She gestured me toward her before I’d even dumped my bag at our table.

  I wanted to tell her about Sam and me at the hotel, about the Panamanian document, about my visit to Valerie’s last night. But before I could speak, Maggie put her hand over the receiver and said in a low voice, “It’s my grandmother.”

  She glanced at the state’s attorneys, then turned her back, speaking into the phone. “Did you see any of the case names?” A pause. “What? Are you sure? Was it spelled the same?” She shook her head. “I don’t get it. Was it just one file?” Another pause. “Okay. I’ll talk to you later.”

  She spun to face me, a puzzled expression on her tiny face, and placed the phone on our table. She looked around. The state’s attorneys were at their table, organizing exhibits. The bailiff prowled the front of the courtroom, looking at his watch. Maggie dropped her voice even lower. “My grandmother says Marty’s not doing good.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Yeah, she’s really worried. Everyone is. He’s acting even more peculiar…”

  The judge came in the room, and we all turned, our hands behind our back. He stepped up to the bench. “Greetings, everyone. We’re going to be efficient with our time this morning. I have a meeting with the chief judge at eleven.”

  “We’re ready to go, Judge,” Tania Castle said.

  “As are we, Your Honor,” Maggie replied. “We’ll retrieve our client.” She picked up her cell phone and texted her clerk to bring Valerie from the empty courtroom. “So anyway,” she whispered to me when she was done. “My grandma says Marty is almost manic. He won’t stop reviewing old cases. It’s like he’s getting ready to retire or…” She squeezed her eyes shut and then open. “Or like he’s getting ready to die.”

  “Don’t say that. Don’t jump to any conclusions.”

  “I know. I know. But listen to what my grandmother just told me. One of the old files he pulled had the name ‘Solara’ on it.”

  “S-O-L-A-R-A?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Was there a first name on the file?”

  “No. She said that it was simply marked with the word Solara. When she tried to look closer, he got upset. He gathered the materials, said he was going to the library.”

  “The one in your office?”

  “No, the law library at the Daley Center.”

  “Really?” Most lawyers used computers to look up cases and statutes, and so attorneys didn’t often utilize the sprawling law library at the downtown courthouse unless they really needed to tuck themselves away. Or they were researching old materials that weren’t digitalized.

  “And now he won’t answer his phone, she says,” Maggie said. “I mean, what is going on?”

  “Could this be Valerie’s case?”

  “It was an old Redweld folder that he pulled from their basement storage.”

  “What about Valerie’s father’s case? Did he work on it?”

  “That’s what I’m wondering. My grandmother said in his early days of the law, when he was a state’s attorney, he didn’t often tell her the names of defendants on cases he was working on. The victims were his clients, he felt, and his responsibility was to them or their families. So he always used the victims’ names when they talked about his work. After he started working as a defense lawyer, he changed it around, of course. The defendants were his clients now. My grandmother doesn’t remember hearing the name Solara before Valerie’s case.”

  I thought back to this weekend, at the Bristol’s penthouse when we spoke about the case. When I’d asked, So sometimes it does matter to you. The innocence or guilt? Martin had looked at me, paused, and solemnly said, Yes. I had assumed he was speaking of Valerie.

  Valerie came into the courtroom then. Maggie greeted her, then strode across the room to talk to the state’s attorneys.

  “Thank you, Izzy, for coming over last night,” Valerie said.

  “Of course.” I paused. “I wanted to ask you something. Do you remember who the state’s attorney was on your father’s case?”

  She looked startled for a second. When I didn’t explain, she seemed to think about it. “Yes. Emmet Lambert.”

  “Oh.”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “No reason, I guess.” But I had a strong, strong feeling about this I couldn’t ignore.

  Maggie came back to our table. “Mags,” I said, “can you handle this morning on your own? I want to find Martin. I have a hunch about something.”

  She bit her bottom lip, thinking about it. Valerie looked confused.

  “Someone should make sure he’s okay, don’t you think?” I said.

  Valerie nodded.

  I looked at Maggie. “Can you handle the witnesses by yourself?”

  Maggie’s eyes rose to the ceiling and made a ticking sound with her mouth, as if reading off a mental list of witnesses in her head. “Okay, sure. Some of them are essentially repeats of earlier testimony. So I’ll be repeating earlier crosses. Then we have the EMTs. Yeah, I can handle it.”


  “Call your first witness,” the judge said. “Now, please.”

  I picked up my bag from the table, and left the courtroom.

  50

  The Daley Center, the site of much frenetic activity in my previous lawyerly life, now seemed like a calm island after the crazy energy of 26th and Cal. I took the elevators to the very top and entered the library. From the thirtieth floor, the south side of Chicago was visible, along with Lake Michigan, a glistening cobalt-blue today. This view, I’d always felt, was one of the best in the city.

  I showed my ID to security and entered the main part of the library—bookshelves along either side surrounding wood tables where researcher-types, law students or lawyers huddled over books and laptops. Even though the bookshelves were high, they were placed far enough apart that nothing could overshadow the view of the lake. However, with the August morning sun already blasting inside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the place was growing warm.

  I glanced around the space, not seeing Martin. I knew the library had back rooms and errant halls. Slowly, I picked my way up and down one aisle, then another and another. As I reached the more hidden sections of the library, the lake wasn’t evident, the windows smaller, the air cooler.

  I turned a corner, and finally I saw him. He was hunched over a stack of opened books, a pile of documents and a notepad. Usually, if Martin was working, I saw him in a full suit, his hair coiffed, his tie clip gleaming. But he was in a shirt now, which looked too big for him, no jacket, sleeves rolled up. With his head bowed over his work, I could see his pink scalp through his white hair.

  “Martin.”

  He looked up, mouth round and open like a fish. “What?” Then, “Izzy?”

  I walked to the small table where he sat and pulled up a nearby chair. I set my bag on the floor and sat down.

  “The trial?” He sounded bewildered. “What’s happening?”

  “Everything is fine. Some additional detectives today, and some emergency medical personnel.”

  “Okay, so…” Deep concern showed in his eyes then. “Is it Maggie? Is something wrong?”

  “No, she’s great. You’ve trained a good lawyer in your granddaughter.”

  He smiled. “Well, she comes by it naturally, and not because of me. She’s just wired the right way.”

  “She is.”

  Quiet.

  “So Martin…” I picked my hair off my neck and let it fall back on my shoulders, feeling hot at the thought of making an accusation at Martin Bristol. “You were an assistant state’s attorney in the late 1970s.”

  Like a good trial lawyer, he gave nothing away. No indication of whether he was confused or knew exactly where I was heading. “Yes.”

  “You were a newer lawyer at that time.”

  He gave me a single nod. “That’s true. After high school, I followed my father into machinery parts sales. I quit fourteen years later because I was miserable, and then I went to law school.”

  “And then you became a state’s attorney.”

  Another nod, very slow and cautious this time.

  “And then you worked on the Javier Solara case.” There had been no mention of Javier’s attorneys on the internet yesterday, and Valerie had said the prosecutor’s name was Lambert, but then why would Martin be studying an old file with the name Solara on it?

  When he said nothing, gave no reaction, I continued. “You must have been…” I trailed off doing the math in my head. “You must have been a second chair at Javier’s trial?”

  “Third.” He cleared his throat. “Third chair.”

  I nodded. “So what’s going on, Martin? I know you’re opposed to the death penalty. Are you haunted by the fact that you sent someone to that fate?”

  A heavy sigh. “I am against the death penalty. I lobbied to overturn it in this state. Because the system costs entirely too much, because it’s not a deterrent to others, because…well, there are a lot of reasons.”

  “But back then? During the Solara trial?”

  “Back then I was okay with it. Particularly when we were dealing with someone who brutally stabbed a young woman full of promise.”

  “So what happened? Why this?” I gestured at the notes in front of us.

  Martin Bristol looked at me in a way he never had before. He had always respected me, always treated me amazingly well. But I had never felt that I was on his level, not personally, not intellectually, not professionally. His kind heart and open nature had allowed me into the world of the Bristol family when I became Maggie’s friend. And yet now, Martin Bristol looked at me like someone he needed, like he needed me to step up to his level.

  “You can tell me,” I said. I wasn’t sure precisely what I was encouraging him to divulge. But obviously something was there.

  His eyes searched mine, for reassurances, it seemed.

  I stared back. Then, to give him a break from what seemed an internal struggle, I glanced down at his yellow legal pad.

  Over the years, so many things had changed with the law, with life, but Martin Bristol had probably used such yellow pads since he’d begun practicing.

  It was hard to read his writing, particularly upside down, but I could see two columns he’d created— Evidence For, one said, and Evidence Against. Below the headings were notations.

  I looked back up.

  “Javier Solara,” Martin said, “was innocent.”

  51

  Executions like Javier Solara’s happened at midnight in the “death house.” At least that’s what the public defenders office called it. Martin’s bosses at the state’s attorney’s office had often mocked that term, but he had finally understood it the night when he went to Solara’s execution—the night when he wanted to make it real.

  1990. Joliet, Illinois. Home of Stateville Prison. In the daylight, when one pulled up to the place, it looked almost quaint, like a college campus. But there was nothing charming about it. The place housed thousands and thousands of inmates, the kind of people Martin had helped put away since becoming an assistant state’s attorney, people who deserved to be there.

  But he wasn’t so sure that was true of Javier Solara. Initially, Martin had been excited about the case. Yet as it went on, as the evidence was analyzed, he’d had his doubts. He’d wanted to voice his concerns more than once to Emmet Lambert, the lead attorney. That wasn’t so easy to do because Emmet Lambert was one of the most revered state’s attorneys in the office, in the state even. He’d been there longer than anyone, through different bosses and different judges and different mayors. But finally, Martin had gotten the courage to discuss with Emmet some of his hesitancies with the Solara case—like the fact that Javier Solara simply owned knives that were possibly the same type as the one that killed Marilee Travis. That didn’t seem persuasive to him. He mentioned a few inconsistencies with state evidence. He started to turn to other points, but Emmet became angry. He told Martin he’d had enough of his insubordination. He let it be known that if Martin wanted to move up in the office—hell, if he just wanted to keep the job—he should respect those who came before him.

  Martin held his tongue after that. He had two kids by then, and the legal market was tough. But he thought about the case often. Thought about the fact that no witness could tie Solara to Marilee Travis at the time of her death. Sure, there were witnesses who’d seen him that day on his own property, near the Travises’ place, and later there were people who’d seen Marilee returning from school, walking, and Solara picking her up, giving her a ride the rest of the way. But nothing more than that. Some hairs from Solara and his cap were found near the scene on the Travises’ back property, but only near the scene, not at, and again, the Solara and Travis properties abutted each other. There was no evidence of Solara on the body of Marilee Travis, but the police’s theory was that such an absence was due to the fact that the crime happened on a chilly November day. Solara was seen earlier wearing gloves, probably would have had them on when he killed her, too. That’s what Emmet had said
, as well. A grand jury had believed him, for what that was worth. And at the trial, Solara’s defense lawyer was completely outmatched by Lambert.

  More than anything, it was a feeling Martin had that Javier was innocent. But everyone was convinced otherwise, and people were happy that someone was being held responsible for the murder. So they tried the case, and Javier Solara was not only found guilty, he was sentenced to death. But luckily—if you could call it luck—death sentences took forever, sometimes never happened, because of the lengthy, required appeals process involved.

  For a while, Martin was satisfied to keep an eye on the case from the sidelines, letting other attorneys fight for Solara’s rights and his innocence. But then all the appeals were exhausted, and it came to that night—the night Javier would be executed, the night Martin went to the house to watch it all.

  As a former state’s attorney on the case, Martin had been invited to view the execution. Emmet Lambert was dead by that time, and the second attorney on the case had retired to Florida a few years ago, so Martin went there on his own, walking across the Stateville lawn in the eerie, moonless night, toward the death house.

  Never before had he felt such dread. When the cacophony of formless cries started—the inmates shouting from inside the jail, which apparently happened every time an execution was carried out—the feeling intensified. You couldn’t tell what the prisoners were yelling, but the anguish could be felt, the anger.

  The house was small, its only purpose was to kill, and there was no way to avoid what was about to go on inside. People nodded when he entered, glanced at his name badge and expected him to know what to do.

  Eventually, he was led into a room. He sat on the plastic chairs lined in rows. Elevated at the end was a glass wall showcasing another room, this one smaller, maybe ten-feet by six-feet. The same big yellow bricks that made up the walls in the viewing room covered the walls in there, too. The same linoleum was on the floors. Hanging overhead was an exhaust fan with chipping paint, a remnant of the old days when electrocution was the preferred means of killing. The other accoutrement in the room was more current—silver bars on the walls from which IV bags could be hung.