* * *
Exhausted from her sleepless night, Terri finished telling Rennell of Payton's confession. "He says the second man was Eddie," she concluded. "And that no one knows but them."
Rennell said nothing. Terri studied his face for evidence of Payton's betrayal—at once fearful of the pain she had inflicted and hoping for some sign of his innocence.
At last he swallowed, a twitch of the throat muscles. "For sure they're gonna kill him now."
"What do you mean, Rennell?"
Rennell blinked, his voice thick with grief. "Payton's trying to take care of me, and now they're gonna kill him for it."
Perhaps the depth of Payton's wrong was too enormous for him to grasp. "He's not dying for you," she answered. "He's dying because he's guilty of Thuy Sen's murder. He doesn't want you to die for what he did."
Rennell's hand covered hers. "Save him," he whispered. "Please."
Briefly, Terri closed her eyes. But are you innocent? she wanted to ask. When she opened her eyes again, tears were running down his face. "I can't," she told him. "There's only you to save now."
NINETEEN
TERRI SAT WITH YANCEY JAMES ON A PARK BENCH ACROSS FROM City Hall, its golden dome glistening in the sunlight of a crisp fall afternoon. In the carefully tended park in front of them, homeless men and women, some with shopping carts, patrolled the walkways which crisscrossed the grass. James observed them with what, to Terri, seemed empathy and self-recognition.
"So easy to fall," he murmured, "so hard to get back up. Folks don't often appreciate how little separates them from us."
To Terri, James's manner and appearance had come as a surprise. The man Eula Price and Lou Mauriani had described to her was fleshy and bombastic, with a voice which wafted multisyllabic phrases with the resonance of a church organ. But this Yancey James was quiet and reflective, with the hollowed-out look of a man who had lost weight too quickly, perhaps because of illness. His neck was a loose crepe of skin, his face smoother but close to gaunt. The life in his eyes had vanished.
Terri herself was wary—fearful that James might know some fact that exploded Payton's confession, or pointed to Rennell's guilt; concerned that her need to establish James's incompetence might keep him from talking. "About the Price case," she began, "I wasn't there. I just need to know what you know, for better or worse. And how the case looked to you."
This elicited the wisp of a smile, which briefly touched his eyes. "You don't have to be so kindly, Ms. Paget. The A.G.'s folks already been sniffin' around, sayin' how you gonna be bad-mouthing me in court—them hopin' I'd tell them how great I'd done for Rennell Price." His voice was weary. "Everybody's tiptoein' up to me like I'm mentally ill, like if they say somethin' mean—or even truthful—I might go postal. Or maybe just break down weepin'."
Terri smiled. "Then I'll skip the niceties. If you want to tell me how you screwed up this case, it's okay by me. You're Rennell's last chance of living."
James gave a rueful shake of the head. "Odds are it's the only chance I'll ever give him. Just wish I could remember more—fifteen years was a long time ago, even without a wicked cross-addiction to Jack Daniel's and cocaine." He turned to the park again, gaze distant, speaking softly. "Know what it's like to be sober, and disbarred? It's like wakin' up in your car in your own garage, but the windshield's busted so bad you can't see out and the hood's all bent out of shape. And all you can do is sit there and wonder how it happened and why you're still alive, 'cause you can't remember drivin' home."
"What do you remember?"
James's eyes narrowed. "The grandmother," he said at length, "when I told her the boys were in trouble, and I needed more money to investigate. The fear in her eyes gave me a moment of remorse. Maybe even two."
Terri watched his profile; he seemed to study the park less from interest than from the wish not to look at her. "Did you investigate?" she asked.
"Me? At no time. I hired another cokehead, a so-called investigator named Rufus Cross, who kicked back half his fees to me. Don't imagine he did squat, either." He paused, an ironic resignation seeping into his voice. "You're welcome to look at my files."
For whatever good they would be, Terri thought. "What do you remember about Rennell?"
"Nothing much. Never said nothin', really. Just looked right through me. I remember thinkin', Here he is charged with chokin' a nine-year-old on his own come, and he don't give a damn."
The image of Rennell at eighteen, inexorably headed toward a fate he was too impaired to see, hit Terri hard. "Did you consider that he might be retarded?"
"Retarded?" James spoke the word with bemusement and, it seemed, a touch of self-reproach. "He acted like a guilty man stickin' to his big brother's story, and waitin' for Payton to find him a way out. Maybe if I'd ever met with him alone . . ."
In an even tone, Terri said, "A 'way out' like asking a snitch to kill Eddie Fleet?"
"That's right. Hard to feel like that reflected well on either one of them."
"What about Eddie? Ever take a hard look at him?"
James seemed to study a homeless man at the center of the park, painstakingly folding a raveled blanket to stuff it in the garbage bag he used to carry his possessions. "What I remember," he said vaguely, "is tryin' to figure out his deal with the cops. Never found out that it was anything more than what all of them said it was—he'd testify, and Mauriani would consider that before charging him as an accessory."
"What about Fleet's story itself—that Rennell helped to dispose of the body. Didn't you wonder about that?"
"No," James said flatly.
Something new in his manner gave Terri pause. With some reluctance, she asked, "Why was that?"
James's eyes were suddenly harder. "This part, I do remember. Always will. No amount of drugs or whiskey could make a man forget."
* * *
Even through the glass in the county jail, Payton Price scared him some—the look in his eyes was implacable, that of a killer. "They're sayin' you hired a hit man," James repeated. "Jamal Harrison."
Payton's mouth curled in contempt. "Fleet's the whole case, or pretty damn near. You sayin' you'd miss him?" He paused, then added a perfunctory denial. "Jamal's a snitch, like Fleet. That makes him a liar."
"Maybe so. But him sayin' you wanted him to whack Eddie Fleet gives Eddie credibility." James leaned closer to the glass, speaking in an undertone. "This case is smellin' like death to me, son."
Payton met his eyes. "Then I better figure out where else we was."
James felt tired and flat: the coke was wearing off. "What are you tellin' me, Payton?"
Payton seemed never to blink; even through the glass James found this frightening. "Whatever you need to hear," Payton said.
"Like what?"
Payton angled his head, as though searching for an answer. "Like we was with my girlfriend, man. No way we killed that little girl."
His monotone bore no effort to persuade. "Payton," James said with new urgency, "I'm not puttin' on no perjured testimony. No good for either one of us."
Payton leaned closer, forehead nearly touching the glass. "Don't give me that jive," he hissed. "You look here at me, and listen hard. We was with my girlfriend, Tasha. You don't put her up there, we gonna die, and you gonna wind up floatin' in the bay like that little girl did." Payton looked him up and down, voice soft again. "Current like that, fat man like you float all the way to Oakland."
Softly, James said, "I hear you."
* * *
"Jesus," Carlo said.
"I know." Terri gazed out the window of the Waterfront Restaurant at the gray, white-capped current flowing under the Bay Bridge. "James assumed Payton was a liar. And that 'I didn't do that little girl' was just Rennell's pitiful excuse for an alibi. The fact that Rennell couldn't help, or even remember where he was, was just more proof of guilt—allowing James to rationalize pocketing the money from Grandma and blowing it on cocaine. All without doing any work."
"Pathetic," Carlo
agreed. "But good for us."
Terri nodded. "Rennell never got his own defense, in either the guilt or the sentencing phase. James never even met with him alone. And the reason fits in neatly with mental retardation—Rennell's total reliance on Payton." She paused to spear a piece of sashimi. "So let's take stock of where AEDPA leaves us on the guilt phase."
"First," Carlo said promptly, "we need a constitutional error at trial. In this case, ineffective assistance of counsel, at least partly due to the conflict of representing both brothers. In short, that better lawyering might well have gotten Rennell acquitted."
Terri finished her meal. "The A.G. will say that nothing James did or didn't do made any difference. So under AEDPA, Rennell got a constitutionally fair trial. The fact that a jury might not have convicted him if Payton had said what he told me is irrelevant."
Carlo shook his head in wonder. "So where does that leave us?"
"Looking for Eddie Fleet," Terri answered briskly. "If we can dirty him now, maybe someone could have in 1987."
TWENTY
RETURNING FROM INTERVIEWING ANNA VELEZ, A FORMER JUROR, Terri sat with Chris and Carlo in Chris's office. "I told her about Payton," Terri said. "But when I asked if it would have changed her mind fifteen years ago, all she promised was to read Payton's deposition and get back to me."
"It's a start," Chris observed. "If you can get Velez to help, we'll add her statement to his clemency petition."
"When is the clemency hearing?" Carlo asked.
"Six days—unless we can get the execution set aside," Terri told him. "We'll have to prepare a supplemental filing, and I'll need you to help me draft it."
"No problem. But don't we need more on Eddie?"
"It would certainly be nice," Chris agreed. "Most of all, we need to preserve Payton's testimony." Glancing at Terri, he asked, "When's the last day we can go to court?"
"Two days from now. Wait any longer to find Eddie, and Payton's dead."
"Clemency," Carlo said, "means mercy. Even if we don't have enough proof to satisfy AEDPA, if the governor has doubts—"
"This governor," Chris cut in, "has no doubts. Clemency is bad politics; executions are good politics. He'll call self-interest 'closure' for Thuy Sen's family."
It was true, Terri thought: Thuy Sen's parents might hold the power of life and death over Rennell Price. "For better or worse," she said, "I've got to try her parents again."
* * *
Chou Sen stared at Terri through the iron bars which guarded the door of their home. She seemed to stand lightly, as if ready to take flight.
"Payton will die," Terri concluded. "But now that we know Rennell's retarded, and what happened in his childhood, should he die, too?"
Chou Sen seemed to stiffen. "My little girl not die from a sickness," she answered in a soft, clear voice. "Not die from a ray-gime, like the Khmer Rouge, which killed so many in our family. Died because two men wanted sex.
"One named Rennell. For fifteen years my daughter dead, and he's still living. Breathing and eating and not feeling the pain of her parents." She blinked, fighting to control her emotions. "Not feeling the shame of her sister. Time for this to be over."
For an instant, Terri desperately wanted to tell her of Payton's confession. But to do so, she was certain, would be to tell the Attorney General's Office.
"If Rennell dies," Terri asked, "do you really think things will be better?"
Briefly Chou's eyes shut. "Maybe some man can do that to a child of yours, and then you can come back and tell me."
Terri could find no words. In her silence, Chou Sen drew herself up. "I ask you, no come back no more. You bring death to our house."
The door closed between them.
* * *
Driving away, Terri remembered to check her cell phone for messages.
The fifth message, in Johnny Moore's voice, began conversationally. "If you're Eddie Fleet, and a scammer with a prior record, your credit rating's no good. So you change your name to Howard Flood."
Behind the wheel, Terri tensed, reminding herself to watch the traffic light hanging over Third Avenue. From the cell phone, Moore chuckled softly in her ear. "Fucker's right here in Oakland, still up to no good. Want his phone number, or you want to just leave him be . . . ?"
"Quit screwing with me," Terri said aloud, then began laughing at the note of triumph in his message, perhaps out of sheer relief.
"If you really do want his number," Moore's voice continued, "it's 510-555-6777. All those sevens make it lucky, I guess."
Terri pulled over in front of a soul food restaurant, snatched a legal pad from her briefcase, and wrote the number down. For minutes, she idly watched the pedestrian traffic—a few men returning from work outside the neighborhood, a gaggle of girls smoking something and going nowhere fast. Then, at last, she punched out the numerals on her cell phone.
Phone pressed to her ear, she listened intently, as if she could force Fleet to answer by sheer effort of will.
"Go," a man's cool voice answered.
Startled, Terri blurted. "Eddie Fleet?"
There was a long silence. "Eddie Fleet? He be dead. Who wants him?"
"Teresa Paget. I'm a lawyer for Rennell Price." She paused, then added flatly, "Rennell's about to be executed."
"Yeah? Well this be Howard Flood." The voice took on the lilt of quiet laughter. "Rennell who, you say?"
"Rennell Price," Terri answered. "And you used to be Eddie Fleet."
The man hesitated. "What you want, lady?"
"To talk to who you used to be." She amended her tone to be respectful, close to precatory. "We're working on a clemency petition, trying to persuade the Governor that Rennell shouldn't die along with Payton. I was hoping you could help us."
"Yeah?" The smooth voice took on an edge. "And why might that be? Sucker killed a child."
"Maybe so. But we think Rennell might be retarded. They don't execute those folks anymore."
The voice laughed softly. "Retarded? No way. Rennell Price was Alfred fucking Einstein."
Keep him talking, Terri urged herself. "Maybe you can tell me about him."
"Like when he invented the nu-cu-lar bomb, and all?"
"Sure. Unless you'd like to share it with a judge."
Fleet was silent. Beneath this, Terri imagined the calculations of a clever man—would it be better to talk with her, and could he avoid trouble if he did not?
"It's Eddie Fleet you're wantin', right?"
"Right."
Fleet laughed again, more quietly. "Might come with a price tag," he told her. "But maybe I could arrange a séance."
TWENTY-ONE
EDDIE FLEET HAD TOLD TERRI TO MEET HIM AT THE DOUBLE Rock Bar.
It was the scene—according to Payton—of their last meeting before Fleet's betrayal. If that was true, Terri found it an unsettling choice, as though Eddie Fleet were indifferent to the demons of his own past. Pushing open the swinging double door, Terri entered a dim-lit world which must have changed little in fifteen years: laminated tables, a long bar facing three neon beer signs, the whiff of smoke too fresh for attribution—despite the city's smoking ban—to the stale smell of old cigarettes absorbed by older leather.
Two men leaned on the bar—one, turning, gave Terri the cool once-over reserved for a strange woman or, perhaps, anybody not black. Then she spotted a lone man at a corner table, his appraisal seeming more amused and openly sexual. Approaching, she felt his smile as a form of muted aggression.
"Eddie Fleet?" she asked.
Gold teeth flashed. His eyes, unusual in their slightly Asian cast, held the insinuating power of a less than wholesome man from whom an attractive woman needs a favor. "Howard Flood," he amended. "Mr. Ed-ward Fleet's rep-re-sentative. Mr. Fleet's, how they say, re-clusive."
Terri sat across from him. He seemed tall—roughly Rennell's height, though not as bulky—and his face was thinner, its calculation animated by a cleverness wholly lacking in Rennell. But then Fleet had outrun the d
ire prospects of his youth: in his late thirties he was neither dead nor in prison. What had compelled him to meet her, Terri suspected, was a well-honed instinct for survival.
He nodded toward the beer in front of him. "Have a drink, lady? Make this more of a social occasion."
"Budweiser's fine."
Fleet stood, confirming Terri's estimate of his height. He wore a tight black T-shirt which displayed his muscles and the tattoos on both arms, and moved with what Terri supposed was meant to be a swaying, calypso rhythm. Suddenly she imagined Fleet in a bulky sweatshirt sauntering toward Thuy Sen, and conjured the man Flora Lewis thought was Rennell Price, mistaking Fleet's swagger for the lurching gait of impaired coordination. Startled, Terri imagined Fleet—as Payton had described him—at the moment Thuy Sen died.
She kept her face expressionless. Returning with a chipped glass, Fleet poured beer for her with exaggerated delicacy. Raising his own glass, he offered in satirically pious tones, "To Rennell Price, and our Lord Jesus's promise of e-ternal life."
Terri stared. "I'm not in the eternal life business, Eddie. That's why I'm here."
Fleet emitted a terse chuckle, eyes still bright as he took a long sip of beer, gazing at her over the rim. Slowly placing down his glass, he said, "What you want from me? At least that I want to give you."
"Anything you can tell me about Rennell. Maybe just what he was like."
Fleet grinned. "The boy stood out, that's for sure. Want to know the first thing I remember about him, from when we was kids?"
"Sure."
"Sucker couldn't play hide-and-seek." The memory produced a laugh. "Should have heard him try to count to twenty. If Payton hadn't helped him, he'd still be It, standin' there with his eyes closed, stuck on 'twelve.' " Fleet's full lips formed a sour smile. "You got one thing right. Rennell's dumb as a rock."
Dumb enough to be framed for murder, Terri thought. To her, Fleet's manner betrayed a man lethally Darwinian—taught from childhood to seek out, and exploit, the weakness of whomever he encountered. "Ever say that to the police?" she said.
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