EIGHT
FOUR DAYS LATER, WITH TWO MORE VISITS FROM TERRI INTERVENING, Rennell Price met for the first time with Dr. Anthony Lane.
Lane and Terri sat with Rennell at a bare table in the psychiatric conference room of San Quentin Prison, a windowless, ten-by-fifteen cubicle with a chair for the inmate bolted to the floor. As a prisoner under an execution warrant, Rennell was handcuffed, his legs shackled. A burly guard with a baton stood outside.
Lane was dressed in khakis, a work shirt, and tennis shoes. He had greeted Rennell with a power shake and introduced himself in the vernacular; it was his plan, Terri knew, that a black man with a casual air would at some point put Rennell more at ease. But Rennell greeted the doctor as Lane had predicted—with wariness and near-total silence. "If he's retarded," Lane had told Terri, "he'll try to place people into categories, hoping to figure out what their deal is so he can respond appropriately." The role of intermediary fell to Terri.
Rennell slumped in a chair, his eyes fixed exclusively on her. "Tony's an expert," Terri told him. "He can help the judge understand you better."
Rennell hesitated, then slowly nodded, his face devoid of comprehension. "He's just going to talk with us," she continued easily. "Later—not today—he'll help me give you tests."
Rennell's face clouded. "They already give me tests in school."
Terri nodded in acknowledgment. "What kind of tests do you remember?"
"All kinds. Made my head hurt from too many fucking questions."
Lane chuckled appreciatively. "I hear you. We won't pile on quite as many, and we'll break it up a little."
Rennell tilted his head back, eyes fixed on the wall, as though struggling to retrieve a memory. "Mrs. Brooks said I did good," he reported in tones of doubt.
"Mrs. Brooks liked you," Terri assured Rennell. "Still does."
Slowly, his gaze returned to Terri. "You're like Mrs. Brooks," he said. "Sometimes I have dreams about you."
Startled, Terri managed a smile, trying to sort out her own confusion—it was at once the most unguarded thing Rennell had said to her and the most sexually ambiguous. "That's a nice thing to tell me," she answered. "I know Mrs. Brooks was important to you."
Rennell stared at her now, oblivious to Lane. "She was beautiful. She said she missed me every night at home. Like I miss you in my cell."
"Tell me about that," Lane said with amiable curiosity. "Your cell."
The inquiry seemed to startle Rennell from his contemplation of Terri or, perhaps, his memories. In a recalcitrant, near-sullen tone, he asked Lane, "What about?"
Lane gave a casual shrug. "I don't know. Maybe just what it looks like."
Rennell glanced at Terri, who smiled, tilting her head in inquiry. "I try to make it like my home," he told her, "best I can. But I always keep the light on." His face darkened. "Least till the bulb blows out."
The first part of the answer Terri understood: the mentally challenged, as Lane had told her, are more likely to accept the limits of a cell, whereas Payton might rage at his confinement. But Rennell's last comment bespoke a fear that she could not define.
"What do you do during the day?" Lane inquired.
Rennell turned to him at last, considering his answer. "The same stuff. Boring."
Lane nodded in commiseration. "You've been here for a long time, Rennell. How do you think you're different than when you came?"
It was the kind of abstract question, Terri thought, which most Americans in the age of therapy—or daytime talk shows—could answer by rote. But Rennell looked wary and distrustful. Grudgingly, he answered, "I'm the same."
"Sure," Lane agreed. "But maybe you've learned different things."
Rennell seemed to grope for some response. "I know about law—the DNA stuff."
"Yeah. Tell me about that."
Rennell regarded his hands. "DNA makes you innocent," he said at length. "It's like a test."
"So sometimes tests can help you. Like the tests Terri and I want to give you."
Rennell glanced at the guard on the other side of the glass. "That's what I'm scared of. That's the problem I'm in with you—I don't know things about this test. I just try to do the best I can."
"Man can't do no more than that." Reaching into his briefcase, Lane placed Rennell's third-grade report card on the table. "Remember this? It's your report card from Mrs. Brooks."
A disaster carefully recorded in black ink, Terri thought. Gazing down at it, Rennell touched its edge with his finger, eyes widening with what seemed like wonder at the cursive name at the bottom. "Sharon Brooks," he read aloud.
That was all the meaning the report card seemed to have. "Mrs. Brooks was a good teacher," Lane said. "She knew it was hard for you to read sometimes. The tests will help us understand why."
Rennell's upper teeth dug into his lip. "I'm not sure about no tests. Might not want to take them."
Tense, Terri wondered what to say: if Rennell failed to cooperate, the defense of retardation—Rennell's last and best hope of living—would evaporate. Instinctively, she reached for his hand. "Please," she said. "If you help Dr. Lane test you, I'll be there."
Surprised, Rennell gazed down at her hand, small and delicate on top of his. Then he looked into her face with the eyes of a frightened child. "Will the test make me innocent?" he asked.
Terri's throat tightened, and her hand clasped his wrist. "I hope so," she answered and realized how much, for her own sake, she wished this could be true.
NINE
JOHNNY MOORE ARRIVED AT TERRI'S OFFICE WITHIN TEN MINUTES of her return. "Yancey James," he told her without preface, "got disbarred six years ago. I guess Kenyon and Walker forgot to get back to him."
"Amazing." She waved him to a chair in front of her desk. "Getting disbarred is a trick," she told him. "Anything in James's record relevant to us?"
"Twelve clients on death row by the time he lost his ticket—they just kept piling up. Eventually he earned the charming sobriquet Death's Co-Counsel." Moore's blue eyes held a cynical amusement. "His defenses were so cursory they give new meaning to the concept 'speedy trial.' "
"Any sins in particular?"
"One failure after another to investigate, all rationalized as 'tactical decisions'—which tended, unsurprisingly, to shaft his clients." Moore pulled a notebook from his briefcase and put on his half-glasses. "I've got notes on his five other capital cases in 1987, the year he represented the brothers Price.
"In the Curtis Smith case, he failed to present Smith's only meritorious defense. On behalf of Earl Prentice, he failed to challenge the eyewitness ID of his client, though he had a witness who could have. He defended Stevie Washburn by depending entirely on the investigation conducted by the lawyer for Stevie's codefendant and doing nothing on his own—"
"Like our case," Terri interjected, "except there was no codefendant to rely on. Yancey had them both."
"Indeed," Moore answered dryly. "But at least he gave them a two-day defense—a day for each client. In the Serge Dieterman case, James lost a one-day murder trial. Reason it was so short is that he didn't call the defendant and three other witnesses to testify that the defendant had withdrawn from a conspiracy to murder and, in fact, was leaving the scene when one of the others shot the victim . . ."
"It's almost comical," Terri observed. "Except for the lives at stake."
"I doubt you'll find the last one very amusing—the Calvin Coolman case." Moore glanced at his notes. "Try this, Terri. Calvin, James's client, was accused of shooting Roy Sylvester to death in the Double Rock section of the Bayview. The only person who claimed to have seen the killing was Stace Morgan, a convicted rapist and crack dealer. Stace did not hurry down to the police station with his story. But three weeks later the cops busted him for dealing, and he came up with his story about Calvin capping Sylvester in exchange for probation on the drug rap—"
"Eddie Fleet," Terri said flatly.
"That's what jumped out at me. But James never went after Stace Mor
gan—even though the cops had found a possible murder weapon in his apartment. Nor did James share with the jury that Morgan and poor old Calvin were rivals in the drug trade, or that the victim, Sylvester, worked for Calvin." Moore closed the notebook. "Inquiring minds might wonder why. But James refused to discuss his so-called strategy with the State Bar investigators—a matter of keeping client confidences, he said."
"Sounds familiar. In our case, James should have gone after Fleet like hell wouldn't have it. You find him yet?"
"Eddie? No. There's a trail of battered girlfriends from here to Oakland and beyond. But so far, no Eddie. If nothing else the sonofabitch is a survivor."
"Keep looking. And try Betty Sims, the girlfriend Laura Finney tried to interview. Something in Finney's story keeps tugging at me." Terri picked up her pen. "Out of the five cases you told me about, how many clients got the death penalty?"
"Four. Everyone but Calvin Coolman."
"And how many sentences were reversed because James was found constitutionally ineffective?"
"One—Calvin's. In the other four, the appellate courts said James was good enough to get his client executed."
"Why am I not surprised." Hastily Terri scribbled a note: "Carlo—read Coolman appellate case." "Eula Price," she continued, "wanted the best counsel she could buy, and got the worst. So what was James disbarred for?"
"You'd suppose incompetence. But you know your own fraternity—shafting your clients isn't enough to get disbarred. You have to steal from them."
"James misused client funds?"
"Yup—beginning in 1986. In extenuation, he pleaded his cocaine addiction. Money went up his nose." Moore's smile was jaded and a little weary. "You've got exactly what you guessed you had—a crappy lawyer who ripped off Grandma to keep himself in coke, then blew off Rennell's defense once he'd blown her money."
"Terrific," Terri remarked. "I just love being right."
* * *
"You know the problem," Terri said.
It was past eleven at night. Naked, she lay across their bed as Chris rubbed her back and shoulders, one of the conditions of their marriage. "Sure," he answered. "Either you get James's cooperation, or he may blow up in your face."
"Not just cooperation—I need his enthusiastic testimony that his incompetence sunk Rennell's defense. Suppose we're 'lucky' enough to get an evidentiary hearing in front of Gardner Bond, and I put James on without knowing what he'll say. To pave the way for new evidence under AEDPA, I've first got to prove James was constitutionally ineffective—"
"Which waives the attorney-client privilege, of course."
"Of course." Terri turned her head on the pillow. "Mind concentrating on my neck? I've got a headache going from there all the way through my temples to my eyes."
Chris's thumbs began pressing into the base of her skull. "Thanks," she murmured. "Maybe James's excuse in the Calvin Coolman case—about not disclosing client confidences—was bullshit. But maybe it wasn't. The risk in our case is that James will testify that Rennell confessed to murder—or that James learned something from Rennell, or maybe even Payton, which points to guilt. That not only would eviscerate any claim of innocence but suggests Rennell is at least smart enough to lie in a consistent way. Lousy atmospherics for claiming he's retarded."
She heard Chris laugh softly. "No wonder you've got a headache. Does James have any friends we can locate?"
"Not really. Johnny says his associates from back then seem to have dropped away—mostly sleazebags, anyhow. But there is an ex-wife, and ex-wives can be useful."
"You might start there. We need to feel out his frame of mind before we go stirring up old memories. And for all you know, he's descended from coke to crack."
"Maybe. But Johnny says he's working in a law library."
"Nice to know that James could find one." Chris's thumbs increased their pressure. "How's that?"
"Fine. Eyes still hurt though."
"I'll get you a damp cloth to put over them before you go to sleep. Unless there's some other service I can perform."
Terri smiled into the pillow. "Does it require my involvement?"
"It might—depends, I suppose. So what other of your problems can I resolve?"
"DNA." Terri closed her eyes, feeling the slow release of pain flowing through her neck. "Retesting the semen may be a long shot. But there's other evidence, too—like the hair caught in Thuy Sen's barrette."
"Sure. But if the hair's not Rennell's, it doesn't prove him innocent. And what if it is Rennell's?"
Terri's temples still throbbed: the last vestiges of the headache, she guessed, would stubbornly survive Chris's ministrations. "At least we'll know," she answered. "What if the Attorney General already does?"
TEN
RENNELL BEGAN TO SMILE AS SOON AS HE GLIMPSED TERRI.
She waited inside the plastic cubicle as the guards brought him from death row. Tentative at first, his smile broadened into a rare show of teeth as the guards locked him inside with her. Then he reached into his pocket and placed an object on the table with an expression that, despite the smile, struck Terri as imploring.
"I been wantin' to show you this," he told her.
She could not imagine what it was besides an artifact constructed of paper clips, dental floss, the handle of a toothbrush, a small piece of metal, and two plastic straws with copper wire extending from the straws. To obscure her mystification, Terri said, "It looks really complicated."
Rennell gazed down at the object as though it bore a talismanic power. "You got that right," he said with a tincture of bravado. "Took me a long, long time. I'm mechanical, for sure. Bet you can't guess what it is."
Terri continued her examination of what—however unfathomable its purpose—was quite intricate in design. Smiling, she shook her head.
"It heats water." The forefinger of his large hand lovingly traced the two parallel copper wires. "I put these in the socket thing, and the metal part in the water. Then it gets hot."
Looking up, Terri felt herself grinning. "Amazing."
Rennell's expression changed once more, his probing look at Terri combining pride with uncertainty. "Pretty smart, huh."
"Yeah," she answered softly. "Pretty smart."
His smile vanished. "When those tests the doctor talking about?"
Suddenly she could feel his worry as strongly as heat passing through his copper wires—a fear she shared, though she could never let him know this. "Pretty soon now," she answered, gazing down at his invention. "I can't wait for you to show this to Dr. Lane."
* * *
They talked for another hour. Their conversation drifted with Rennell's shifting attention, sometimes foundering—Terri now suspected—on the shoals of fears too deep for Rennell to acknowledge, a stifling admixture of retardation and repression. But Terri knew that such fear could lead to a more palpable form of numbing—the need to dull consciousness until one's surroundings, and one's actions, seemed part of a dream state occupied by some other, more indifferent Rennell Price.
"I guess sometimes you smoked crack," Terri ventured. "To feel better."
Rennell's eyelids lowered. "Long time ago," he said in a dull, distant voice. "With Payton."
Terri restrained herself from asking about Thuy Sen. "When you smoked crack, Rennell, did you ever drink alcohol, too?"
Rennell's face darkened, and he could not look at her—if this was difficult, Terri thought with some despair, how might they ever talk about his parents? Then, to her surprise, he mumbled, "I drank beer 'fore I even know about no crack."
The softness of his voice did not conceal a tremor. With equal quiet, Terri asked, "When did you start drinking beer?"
For a long time, Rennell was silent, and then the lid of one half-closed eye fluttered. "Daddy," he mumbled. "It was my daddy."
After this, he barely spoke at all. He would not, or could not, tell Terri what he meant.
* * *
Chatting amiably, Carlo Paget and his father sat drinking be
er and half-watching the Giants play their last day game of the summer on a sunstruck afternoon at Pacific Bell Park. Closing his eyes, Carlo tilted his head back toward the sun. "Baseball in San Francisco shouldn't be played on a day like this," he said lazily. "Weather's way too nice."
Chris smiled at this. Carlo and he had watched baseball together for almost two decades, and the memories of Giants games were part of the warp and woof of their shared history, even—or perhaps especially—their mutual determination to endure the misery of night games once played at Candlestick Park, enveloped by the chill dampness of the bay. A phrase passed from one to the other—perhaps as simple as "remember the night"—would evoke for Kit's benefit, and their own amusement, the memory of the Dodgers' right-hander who disappeared in an impenetrable fog enveloping the pitcher's mound, from which his pitches emerged like bullets fired from ambush. Other images were, quite literally, warmer: the day game when the Pirates catcher Tony Pena decided to toss a baseball to the eight-year-old Carlo instead of to a gaggle of rude and clamoring adults; the sudden arrival of Barry Bonds, which the fifteen-year-old Carlo had insisted—in the face of his father's skepticism—would change San Francisco Giants baseball as they knew it; the other bone-chilling night when Bonds had changed the quality of Christopher Paget's life by hitting an eleventh-inning home run to put his teammates, and Carlo's shivering father, out of their collective misery.
Carlo had been fifteen then. Now he was twenty-five, and his father had acquired a brace of tickets in anticipation of Carlo's return to the city. And so, for these few hours, he had resolved to bail Carlo out of their office and, he hoped, out of his increasingly grim preoccupation with the impending execution of Rennell Price. But the game through eight innings was scoreless and, for the most part, lacking in incident, save for a couple of double plays and a base-running blunder by the Giants which had left Carlo muttering darkly about brainlock. Then he gazed into the bottom of his empty cup of beer and began relating Terri's account of this morning's interview with Rennell, and the way his stepmother's questions had suddenly hit a wall.
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