False Convictions

by Tim Green

  Through a doorway on the far side of the infirmary, Casey heard the clash of bars rolling open and Dwayne appeared in shackles, followed by a guard. Casey held Dwayne’s indifferent stare as she explained why she was there and what she needed from him. While his expression never changed, her voice rose with enthusiasm.

  “Robert Graham, whom you met with me last time,” she said, “is working on pulling some strings to get this lab work moved to the top of the pile. Dwayne, we could have you out of here in a matter of days.”

  The nurse reappeared with a test tube, needle, and a rubber strap.

  But instead of holding out his arm, Dwayne Hubbard shook his head hard enough to jangle his chains.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “You don’t get my blood.”

  25

  CASEY’S MOUTH DROPPED open. She blinked and said, “Dwayne, we need this to get you out of here. You get that, right?”

  “The machine has worked against me since the day I was born,” Hubbard said, his eyes glittering at her. “Now you’re here to tell me it’s different? You think I’m like the rest of these cattle? I have an imagination. It runs wild with the possibilities for what you could do with my blood, other unfinished business to be tagged on me.”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Casey said.

  “Because you’re here to help me?” he said, holding her in his gaze. “That’s what my original lawyer said, too. That’s what they said with my appeals. All of a sudden, some media lawyer shows up with her billionaire boyfriend? When it seems like it’s too good to be true, it’s because it is.”

  “Jesus,” Casey said.

  Dwayne turned to go, but with a nod from Mallard his guard stepped in front of him and blocked his path, raising his baton.

  “Wait,” Casey said, appealing to Mallard as she stepped toward Dwayne. “Even if you’re right-let’s say it’s someone’s game-why wouldn’t you let me try? If I can show your DNA isn’t a match to whoever raped that girl, you go free. If there’s a game, you’re still here, but you’re here anyway.”

  Dwayne grinned at her. “Lady, you want something from me. I might be locked away, but I know an opportunity when I see one. You want what I got? Okay. Maybe. What do I get?”

  “You get out of here,” Casey said, her smile crooked with disbelief.

  Dwayne’s smile faded. “I want something in case I don’t.”

  Casey studied his face.

  “You killed her, didn’t you?” she asked, the words spilling from her mouth without thought.

  Dwayne’s face lost all expression. “I told you I didn’t.”

  Mallard cleared his throat and in an undertone said, “You don’t have to listen to this, Ms. Jordan. I can get whatever you need.”

  “Sure he can,” Dwayne said, nodding intelligently. “He can have them beat me to death if he wants, or beat me until you’ve got all the blood you want. Is that what you want? Some lawyer. Thanks for your help. Shit, I bet you sleep real well at night.”

  “What do you want?” Casey asked Dwayne, ignoring Mallard.

  Dwayne’s shoulders relaxed. A smiled curled the corners of his mouth. “Love.”

  Dwayne gave Mallard a knowing look.

  “What does that mean, Dwayne?” Casey asked, impatient and annoyed.

  “He knows,” Dwayne said, angling his chin at the assistant warden.

  Mallard pursed his lips, and to Casey he said, “He wants a wedding.”

  “What wedding?” she asked.

  “Dwayne has a pending application for marriage.”

  “Pending for about five goddamn years,” Dwayne said, the anger flaring in his eyes.

  “Why?” Casey asked.

  “Married prisoners get conjugal visits,” Mallard said, pushing the glasses up higher on his nose, his cheeks flushing.

  “And you found someone on the Internet,” Casey said, turning to Dwayne.

  “There’s someone for everyone, Ms. Jordan,” Dwayne said.

  26

  BALLOONS RESTAURANT sat just around the corner in a cramped row of houses on Wall Street facing the forty-foot-high concrete barrier that no convict had ever gotten over. The single escape in the history of the wall had been a murderer who found an old overflow pipe in the bowels of the prison’s ancient underground maze, and he’d gone under it. The restaurant looked like its neighbors except the front room had been blown open into one big space with a well-worn wooden bar and two large picture windows facing the wall. Graham waited for Casey at one of the tables crowded into the paneled back room. When he looked up and saw her, he said something she couldn’t hear into his cell phone before snapping it shut and standing to pull out a chair for her.

  “I’m impressed,” he said, sitting back down on the other side of the small round table and signaling a waitress.

  “You’re the one who fast-tracked the DNA analysis,” she said, removing her napkin from the paper place mat, a map of the red, white, and green boot of Italy. She flipped open the napkin and placed it in her lap.

  “Anyone can load up a congressman with campaign contributions and push the red button,” Graham said. “By the way, Marty’s held up at the office.”

  They ordered sparkling water and lemons from the waitress and listened to the lunch specials before Casey said, “There’ve been a lot of strange twists in this case, a lot of buttons pushed.”

  Graham shrugged and rubbed the stubble that had already begun to appear on his chin. “I like pushing buttons.”

  “I had a law professor use me to beat a murder rap, once,” she said. “He liked to push people’s buttons.”

  Graham grinned. “Didn’t he butcher his victims and eat their gall bladders?”

  “He didn’t start out that way.”

  “You said you had to get back to your clinic. All I’m doing is trying to make you happy. You’re not going to hold that against me, are you?” Graham asked, raising his thick eyebrows.

  She looked into his eyes. They got big, and softly he said, “Most men look at something and think of all the reasons why they can’t have it. Everything I look at, I ask, ‘Why not?’ That’s how I look at everything, even you.”

  Before Casey could answer, his eyes jumped over her shoulder toward the doorway that led through the front room and the bar. He reached out his hand and Casey spun her head to see Ralph handing a manila envelope to him across their table. The driver’s red-rimmed eyes were puffy, he needed a shave, and the color was gone from his face.

  “Got it,” Ralph said, then nodded to Casey before turning and disappearing through the doorway.

  Graham sat back in his chair and opened the envelope, examining the papers. “Talk about strange twists.”

  Casey picked up the spent lemon wedge and sucked on it as he pushed the papers her way. She examined the paper on top, a copy of a vehicle registration from 1988, a white BMW 750i.

  “Nelson Rivers,” she said, reading, then looked up at Graham. “Not related to the former DA?”

  Graham clamped his mouth shut, expressionless, and shrugged. Casey continued to sift through the papers. Nelson Rivers was the son of Patricia Rivers, the former DA who now sat on the New York State Fourth Circuit Appellate Court in Rochester. One of the papers was a copied page from the Auburn Citizen from 1987, a photo of a handsome young man and a stunning blonde, the junior prom king and queen from Auburn High School, Nelson Rivers and Cassandra Thornton.

  “He was her boyfriend,” Casey said aloud, “and he drove a white BMW at the age of nineteen? Is he still around?”

  Graham nodded at the papers. She kept going.

  “A phone bill in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos islands?” she said, examining the last couple sheets of paper. “A dive charter. In business since 1990. Captain N. W. Rivers? This fat guy with the beard is him?”

  “You’ve been saying all along that you needed more than just the DNA, right?” Graham said. “An alternative theory for the court? Otherwise they’d fight you tooth and nail. Well.”

&nb
sp; “And you wanted some media,” Casey said. “Can you say ‘feeding frenzy’?”

  Graham nodded solemnly.

  “How did Ralph find him?” Casey asked.

  “It’s what he does.”

  “And I thought he was slacking on the registration,” she said, stuffing the papers back into the envelope and patting it with affection.

  “One thing you never have to worry about with Ralph,” he said.

  “I’m sorry about all the suspicion,” Casey said.

  “Should we order?”

  Casey had an arugula salad and a small side of pasta while Graham ate a chicken dish with peppers and red sauce as they discussed how to proceed.

  “I’d like to get the media going on this,” Graham said. “Put some of it out there like a regular Freedom Project press release, get a little traction in the local paper, then leak some of the things about the judge to a national or two, prime the pump. Then we can start leveraging a couple shows against each other to lock in the biggest one we can get for the big story.”

  “What about American Sunday?” Casey asked, wondering again where Jake had gotten to. “Obviously, you’ve got connections there.”

  “Connections?”

  “Well, they know the story.”

  “I’d like to use Sunday to land Sixty Minutes or Dateline,” he said. “Or at least Twenty/Twenty. I’ve got a contact who knows Steve Kroft. If they know that Sunday is interested but that we’ll give them the exclusive with you and me and Dwayne if they commit, I think we’ll stand a chance.”

  “Don’t you want to give it to American Sunday, though?”

  “Why would we give it to a show with two million viewers when we could have twelve?”

  “Right,” Casey said, pausing for a moment. “What I’d really like is to have this guy Rivers’s DNA. Proving the sample isn’t Dwayne’s is good, but if we can prove it belongs to Nelson Rivers? The judge would probably beat us to the jail with a key. Now, that’s a story.”

  “I agree, but I want the pump primed,” Graham said with an expression that let Casey know he’d have his way.

  “Okay, but even if we work the media, I still wish we could get Rivers’s DNA sooner than later,” Casey said. “Trust me, it will wrap this whole thing up quick if we do and it matches.”

  “Okay, so let’s go get it,” Graham said.

  She narrowed her eyes at him.

  “I know a great place in Turks and Caicos right on the beach,” he said. “We could take a couple days and enjoy it while we’re figuring a way to get a sample from Rivers. I’ve got a friend down there who’s a cop. He’ll help. Oh, come on, it’ll take that long for the lab to finish with the hospital swabs, anyway. What do you think?”

  Casey frowned.

  “Did I mention separate rooms?” Graham said. “Hell, the place I’m thinking of has a whole separate pool house. You don’t even have to be under the same roof with me if you don’t want. What do you think?”

  “I think I’ve got to get back to my clinic,” she said.

  “Tomorrow’s Friday,” he said, “then the weekend.”

  Casey thought for a moment, then said, “I think it was two years ago I went to a conference in San Diego and spent an afternoon on Mission Beach. I got sand in my hair and bought a soggy fish taco. That’s been about it.”

  “See? All work and no play,” Graham said. “I know a place that pulls the lobsters out of a trapdoor in the floor. It’s built on a pier and they grill them with rum. Like nothing you’ve tasted.”

  “Business first,” she said. “I want that DNA.”

  “Okay,” Graham said, nodding enthusiastically. “We can hire the guy’s boat. I’ll have my cop friend join us and get the spit off his snorkel or a soda bottle or something, preserve the chain of evidence, and we’ve got it.”

  “All the right moves,” she said.

  “Hey, I’m making this up as I go,” he said. “I can’t help it if I’m good.”

  Casey eyed him and reluctantly said, “You’re not bad.”

  “Do you dive?”

  “Not for a while, but I got certified in college.”

  “So, we’re on?”

  “Let me check in on a couple things,” she said. “I’ve got a conference call in about twenty minutes with my staff. I’ll let you know for sure later.”

  27

  AIR HISSED through the cabin, but in no way suggesting their actual ground speed of 720 miles per hour. Below, clouds mottled the surface of the electric blue water with purple shadows. A robin’s egg horizon hinted at the curve of the earth from fifty thousand feet.

  “I feel guilty for working,” Casey said, leaning back in her seat. “That’s just beautiful.”

  Graham looked up from his book, The Art of War, and poured her a fresh sparkling water, dropping in a wedge of lemon before passing it across the aisle.

  “Enjoy,” he said, turning his attention back to Sun Tzu. “No reason not to do both.”

  “The perfect setting to grab some DNA.” She reached for her briefcase and extracted a file Stacy had sent overnight to her hotel room, the case of a young woman the Dallas district attorney’s office wanted to put behind bars for selling a dime bag of marijuana to an undercover cop. As she went through page after page of the police report, the description of the crime, and the young woman’s background, Casey couldn’t help comparing the resources she had to spend on Dwayne Hubbard.

  “Bad news?” Graham asked, breaking her concentration.

  “No, why?”

  “I’m sitting here thinking about being extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness, in order to be the director of my opponent’s fate,” he said, obviously quoting the book, “and I look over and it’s like you swallowed a rotten egg.”

  “Maybe I can subtly wring my opponent’s neck,” she said. “I’ve got a DA’s office willing to spend two hundred hours of time and energy to put a woman away for two years at a six-figure cost to the taxpayers for selling a couple joints while murderers, rapists, and real drug dealers rule the streets. It makes me sick sometimes, the double standard of justice.”

  “Men and women?” Graham asked.

  “Rich and poor,” she said. “If I had the Freedom Project’s resources for every one of my clients, they’d all walk. Think about Dwayne Hubbard.”

  “He has the resources now. We’re flying a private jet to the Caribbean for a DNA sample.”

  “Twenty years too late, though, right?”

  “So shines a good deed in a weary world,” he said.

  “More Sun Tzu?”

  “No,” Graham said, grinning. “Willie Wonka.”

  He stared at her until she laughed.

  “You know what happens with all work and no play,” he said.

  “That’s work,” she said, nodding at his book. “Management styles.”

  “So how about champagne?” he said. “Clearly not work.”

  “I had you for the wheat-beer type.”

  He laughed. “I’ve got a six-pack of Pyramid Hefeweizen. I was going for a mood with champagne.”

  “Then I’ll have a beer,” she said.

  He jumped up from his seat and dug into the burl-wood galley, removing from a bin of ice two bottles dressed in baby blue and white labels. Expertly, he flicked off the tops, removed a crystal glass from the shelf, and raised it questioningly.

  “Bottle is fine,” she said.

  “I like that.”

  He handed her one and sat back down. They touched bottles across the aisle, each taking a mouthful and savoring the flavor.

  “So,” she said, “what’s this place you’ve got us at?”

  “Villa Oasis? You’ll love it. Right on Grace Bay. The sun sets like a slice of tomato on a warm breeze. Water clear as the air and so blue it looks like a Disney creation.”

  The plane tilted and began its downward slide.

  “Already?” Casey asked.

  Graham raised his bottle, winked, and took a swallo
w.

  Casey enjoyed the way a uniformed woman with a gold badge shuttled them right through customs while the people getting off a commercial airliner queued up like cattle in cargo shorts and flowered shirts. A jeep waited for them just outside the terminal with its engine running and a man in a panama hat standing guard.

  “No limo?” Casey asked.

  Graham’s face fell and he said, “You didn’t want one, did you?”

  “I’m kidding,” she said, grabbing the roll bar and climbing into the passenger seat. “It’s perfect.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Two men loaded their bags into the back. Graham put the jeep into gear and they raced off. He took the curves and hills with the familiarity of a native, honking when he passed and waving in a friendly way. Casey didn’t catch her breath until they pulled down the private drive and rolled to a stop in front of a broad white villa with a clay tile roof nestled into a thicket of sea pines and palm trees. The dust settled and a dark man in white linen hurried down the steps, greeting Graham and introducing himself to Casey as Charles. Charles took their luggage and led them into the house.

  The sun had already nestled itself into the puffy clouds on the horizon, and still the brilliance of the blue water shone like a gem beyond the white beach. Casey let out a breath and felt her body relax.

  “This way,” Graham said, leading her out onto the terrace and across the pool area to a smaller building.

  He swung open the door and led her through the open main room with its light-colored wood and festive island colors to a master bedroom where several sets of clothes had been laid out on the huge four-poster bed: swimsuits, capris, summer dresses, shorts, and T-shirts. On the floor were sandals and shoes that went with the clothes.

  “I told them size two, but Laura insisted on buying everything in a four as well,” Graham said. “I guessed seven for your feet, so she got eights and sixes, too. I know you said you’d make do with the clothes you had, but I wanted you to be comfortable.”

  “These are very nice,” Casey said, lifting a cotton dress from the bed. “I don’t know what to say. Who’s Laura?”