"I'm not sure yet—either Tuesday or Wednesday. But as soon as they do, I'm getting on a plane and coming straight here from the airport."
Rennell's eyes widened at the thought. "Maybe I be free," he said. "Wonder what that be like."
For a moment, Terri did not know what to say. "Good, Rennell. Happy." She thought of the first time she had seen him, gazing out the window of his cubicle at a sliver of the bay. "You can look at the water, feel sunlight whenever you want . . ."
"Go to baseball games."
"Yeah," she said softly. "Go to baseball games."
Suddenly his eyes misted. "Not like Payton," he said. "Payton don't be goin' to no games." And Terri knew that, for Rennell, the idea of death was as awesome and enormous as it was for her.
Now, eating little, Terri was glad that Chris and Carlo were with her. By this time tomorrow, she would be sitting with Rennell.
"They can't kill him," she said aloud, and to her own ears, she sounded as childish and willful as Elena, confronted by emotions too painful to accept.
"No," Carlo answered. "They can't."
* * *
The case was formally denominated Godward, Warden of San Quentin Prison v. Rennell Price. But when the Court's marshal called out "Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!" Caroline Masters instead began with "Justice Huddleston will announce the Court's opinion in Case Number 03-1540, Commonwealth of Virginia v. Burrell."
In a state of silent agony, Terri, flanked by Chris and Carlo, listened to Huddleston drone through the obligations imposed on the State of Virginia by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Once again, Terri tried to read the emotions of Caroline Masters and Anthony Fini. Perhaps she only imagined that the Chief Justice seemed preoccupied and a little detached; she could detect no pleasure in the morning, the final such occasion until October.
At last, Huddleston finished, and Justice Fini looked expectantly toward the Chief Justice. Those assembled, spectators and the press, awaited all that remained for the Court to announce: its latest ruling on capital punishment—the much-publicized, much-anticipated matter of the prisoner Rennell Price.
"Come on," Carlo murmured.
Caroline Masters seemed to hesitate. Then, stone-faced, she said in a chill voice, "Justice Fini will announce the Court's opinion in Case Number 03-542, Godward v. Price . . ."
Sickened, Terri shut her eyes. "Today," Fini said, "in a case which began with the tragic murder of a child, this Court confirms the legacy of Roger Bannon . . ."
Gripping Chris's hand, Terri opened her eyes again and saw that Justice Glynn looked neither at Justice Fini nor at the Chief Justice but at the bench in front of him.
* * *
Not until Caroline Masters took the unusual step of reading her dissent, voice steely with suppressed anger, did Terri feel the blow sustained by the Chief Justice.
"To avoid this Court's responsibilities," she began, "the five justices in the majority have plunged death penalty jurisprudence down the rabbit hole of 'deference to state court adjudications,' condemning—almost incidentally—a man named Rennell Price to death by lethal injection."
Terri shivered.
* * *
On the steps outside, Terri breathed in the hot, fetid air of early summer, gazing across First Street at the Capitol, where seven years before, determined men and women, jockeying for power, had passed the law which had now ensnared Rennell. Carlo stood on the pavement, slightly apart, arms folded; Chris said nothing, perhaps remembering the argument and wondering what else he might have done.
"Fini got his fifth vote," Terri said bitterly. "Rennell's merely collateral damage."
This afternoon she must go to San Quentin to tell him. And in twenty-four hours, she guessed, there would be a new date for Rennell Price's execution.
"Come on," Chris said gently. "Our driver's waiting."
FOURTEEN
RENNELL PRICE'S EXECUTION WAS SET FOR JULY 22.
Rennell's response surprised her. At the moment she told him of the Supreme Court's ruling, he seemed unable to speak. Then he took her hand and held it in both of his; in that moment of communion, she was certain that, as frightened as he was of dying, Rennell felt her own anguish as well. It brought home to her, in a way both painful and moving, how little love he had received from anyone, how abandoned he had always been, and how grateful he had felt to have Terri and the others fighting for him now. For a long time, they simply sat together, two people fearing the death of one.
When she described this to Tammy Mattox, Tammy had smiled sadly. "A lawyer friend of mine," she told Terri, "used to do these cases.
"Few years ago, my friend came down with AIDS. The last case he had was for a retarded man they executed. Before the man died, he wrote out a 'will and testament,' leaving my friend his unused years. It was the only way he could think of to give something back."
All Terri could do for Rennell was visit him every day and—without false promises—try to keep hope alive: otherwise, she feared that the certainty of his time and place of death would slowly begin to crush him. They would seek clemency from the Governor, she assured him, keep up the search for sources of new evidence to support yet another petition—perhaps Betty Sims, perhaps even Tasha Bramwell. Perhaps, with luck, they could find Eddie Fleet, or someone else who was his victim. Rennell simply listened; watching his face, Terri remembered herself as a child listening to her mother say the rosary, words she barely understood but which, perhaps because her mother put faith in them, became a source of comfort amidst the brutality of Terri's home life. This thought underlay another of Terri's goals—to recruit a spiritual adviser to comfort Rennell in his final hours, when Terri could be with him no longer.
The sole comfort for Terri was family, and work.
Through the functionary in charge of clemency, the Governor's office sent the Pagets a letter, specifying its requirements for a clemency petition, the Attorney General's papers in opposition, and Rennell's reply. "The theme of clemency," Terri emphasized to Carlo, "is compassion—all the reasons Rennell's life should be spared.
"His probable innocence is part of that. But we're asking the Governor to look at Rennell as a person: how he got that way, the difficulties of his life, and why a just society would spare him."
Before July 22, Terri explained, the clemency board would hold a hearing. Her hope was to gain support from unanticipated sources: in the eight months since Payton Price's execution, a fiscal crisis had plunged Governor Darrow into a bitter battle against a recall petition—fighting for survival, he seemed even less likely to risk granting clemency to Payton's brother. Recruiting those among the Governor's financial supporters who might also support Rennell—chiefly actors or writers—was not enough. And so, once more, she found herself sharing lunch on Lou Mauriani's deck.
"You didn't know he might be retarded," Terri told him. "You didn't know what Payton would say about Eddie Fleet. Now you do. If they execute him anyhow, how are you going to feel?"
Mauriani considered her gravely. "When I prosecuted your client," he answered in measured tones, "I was absolutely certain of his guilt, and that he deserved to die. For the next fifteen years, I didn't have the remotest doubt about either. About his execution, I still don't. If he did this to Thuy Sen, that should be his punishment.
"You claim that he didn't. But two Supreme Courts have held that the trial was fair, the verdict justified, the sentence warranted. Now you're asking me if I'll sleep at night if I don't turn my back on that and, far more important to me, on the family I promised justice. Tell me how they feel now."
"The same."
Mauriani contemplated his wineglass. "Then I don't think it's my place to help you. Whether I'll sleep well doesn't matter." Pausing, he looked up at her with candid blue eyes, adding softly, "Truth to tell, I wouldn't sleep well either way."
Driving away, Terri resolved to do the one thing which, out of pity for the Sens, she had left undone. "Payton's dead," she imagined telling Thuy Sen's sister. "The next deat
h you watch will be that of a retarded man who may well be innocent. By the time you find out how that feels, it will be too late for both of you. Please don't let yourself become Eddie Fleet's last victim."
But although Johnny Moore dug up Kim Sen's address and unlisted number, Kim never answered the telephone, or her door. In desperation, Terri left a note explaining that she wished to meet. The only response was recorded after 1:00 A.M., on Terri's office voice mail: "This is Kim Sen," the soft voice said. "After all these years, it's almost done now. Please let me find peace in my own way."
How much peace, Terri wondered, would there ever be for a woman who could find none in the middle of the night? Kim Sen had watched Payton die, holding Thuy Sen's picture for him to see. But Payton's death had failed her; now she was placing all her hopes on the healing power of Rennell's execution. As Terri put down the telephone, a remark of Lou Mauriani's came back to her: "For some families, the defendant will never be dead enough. But there's only one way to know that for sure."
The day before the clemency hearing, Thuy Sen's sister met in private with Governor Craig Darrow. Out of respect for Kim Sen's feelings, Darrow's spokesman informed the media, he could not tell them what was said. But, the spokesman emphasized, one thing should be clear—Governor Darrow felt the pain of victims' families in a deeply personal way. No leader with compassion could feel less.
* * *
That afternoon, Terri received a call from Rossella, their housekeeper. In the background she heard Elena sobbing.
Terri felt panic overtake her. "What happened? Is she all right?"
"Except in her mind." Rossella's Latin-accented voice was soft. "She think she see a man following us from the day camp."
* * *
When Terri arrived home, her daughter's eyes were dry, her face drawn and—to Terri's eyes—drained of blood.
As Terri embraced Elena, the girl hugged her tightly. Over her shoulder, Terri saw Rossella's look of sympathy, followed by a slow shake of the head.
Terri sat her daughter on the couch, Rossella standing beside them.
Elena swallowed. "There was a car, following us down the street from camp—driving really slow. The driver was a strange man." Her voice was tight, emphatic. "When I looked again, he was still there, and then he turned the corner down Broadway. Before he did, he looked at me out the side window and smiled. The smile was sick."
"What did he look like?"
Elena's voice rose. "He was a black man, Mama. Like that man you worry about."
Terri forced herself to think systematically, like a lawyer. "How old did he look?"
Elena's brow knit. "How old would that man be?"
"Late thirties."
"Yes. That was how old he was."
"What color was the car?"
Elena thought, then looked away. "I don't remember."
Terri glanced up at Rossella. "Did you see him?"
Once more, silent, the housekeeper shook her head.
Terri took her daughter's hand. "We're going to see the police," she told Elena.
* * *
With two plainclothes cops from the Sex Crimes Unit, Monk spread six mug shots on the conference table where he once had questioned Rennell Price.
Fleet, Terri saw at once, was the third face on the right. But his photograph, too, was a piece of history, an artifact of the time Fleet had traded Rennell and Payton Price for his own freedom. His eyes glinted with a young man's insolence, and the hint of a smile, perhaps perceptible only to Terri, seemed to play at one corner of his mouth.
Elena gazed at the photographs, her own face a mute portrait of fear and confusion. In that instant, Terri imagined Flora Lewis, staring at the mug shots Monk had brought to her living room and picking out Rennell and Payton Price.
"I think it was this one," Elena said and pointed to a photograph next to Fleet, a man Terri had never seen.
It turned out the man was dead.
* * *
That night, just before eleven, Terri softly opened Elena's door and peeked into her bedroom.
It seemed that her daughter was sleeping. Then Elena's voice came from the darkness.
"Did he have a bad childhood, too, Mama?"
Terri hesitated. She did not know whether the question, chilling to her ears, referred to Fleet, or to Rennell, or to Elena's own father.
"Who, Elena?"
Elena did not answer. "I want to know," she said. "Does everyone that something bad happened to have to do those things to someone else?"
Terri thought of herself and then, more piercingly, of Rennell. "Not always . . ."
"Maybe I'll hate men." Elena's voice was shaking now, close to hysteria. "Maybe I'll kill a man for forcing me to do things to him. Will you defend me, Mama?"
Elena began sobbing. Rushing to her side, Terri held her, her body stiff and resistant.
I hate you, Terri told her long-dead husband.
For some families, as Mauriani had said, they can never be dead enough.
FIFTEEN
ALONE, CHRISTOPHER PAGET ENTERED THE STERILE GOVERNMENT building in Sacramento to speak for Rennell at the clemency hearing.
The steps were lined with reporters and jammed with pickets and counterpickets, some with signs seeking or decrying the execution of Rennell Price. The presence of two liberal film stars, a male and a female who lived together, guaranteed yet more media attention but underscored Chris's misgivings; the recall movement against Governor Darrow was growing in numbers and intensity, and more publicity might create a high-profile opportunity for Darrow to bless the execution of a child killer, burnishing his law-and-order credentials. Only new evidence of innocence was likely to serve Rennell, and Chris had none to offer. The last-ditch effort to save Rennell had become a search for Betty Sims, or anyone to whom Eddie Fleet might have made some careless remark suggestive of his guilt.
"Good luck," Terri had said as he left. But her voice was tired, and her tone held little hope.
* * *
The room dedicated to clemency hearings felt like a high school auditorium—three sections of seats sloping downward, sectioned by two aisles—and the proceedings were presided over by stone-faced mutes, a tribunal of eleven members, most of them white and male. In the front row, Thuy Sen's mother, father, and sister were equally impassive, save that Kim Sen kept glancing at a piece of paper grasped tightly in both hands.
Standing at the podium, Chris pled for Rennell's life. "Despite the terrible violence inflicted on Rennell Price, there is no record—either before or after prison—of Rennell inflicting violence on another living soul. Let alone a single act of sexual deviance or cruelty.
"The evidence before you shows a gentle man, confused by the world, who may very well be innocent. If the State of California executes him, our chance to prove that ends, and this will be Eddie Fleet's last, and cruelest, victory."
From the panel, he saw no glimmer of expression. Its chairman, a heavyset political functionary, gazed at some indeterminate spot above Chris's head. With an undercurrent of anger, Chris said, "I ask this board to stop for a moment—just stop—and look at the charade of justice the State asks you to take part in. Before the Supreme Court, Mr. Pell suggested that this board—not the courts—is the proper forum to consider our new evidence of innocence. Now the State tells you that the courts disposed of innocence, and that you must deem him guilty.
"Forget, the State tells you, anything we said before.
"Forget that we insisted on executing the principal witness on Rennell's behalf.
"Forget that our key witness invoked the Fifth Amendment and now—apparently—has disappeared to escape discovery of his own guilt.
"Forget that we refused to compel Fleet's testimony regarding the crime for which we insist on executing someone else.
"Forget that we—all of us—may someday learn through better DNA technology that Eddie Fleet has gotten away with murder, twice." Turning toward the Sens, Chris finished softly, "Forget all that. Because
the tragic death of a nine-year-old child demands that another life be taken, and Rennell Price's is the life we choose to take."
Arms folded, Kim Sen turned from him, staring at the panel. Facing them, Chris said, "The State has already taken one life, that of Payton Price. That execution had the virtue of certainty. This execution reeks of scapegoating and injustice, and only you can prevent it.
"It is 'justice enough,' I respectfully submit, to condemn Rennell Price to die of natural causes in the six-by-six cell in which—unless we can find a way to vindicate him—he will spend the next half century. Especially when his execution may prove to be yet another murder of an innocent." Chris paused. "Only this time by the State."
Stopping, Paget looked at the expressionless faces before him. "Thank you," the chairman said politely and called on Larry Pell.
* * *
Pell said little new. But then, Chris thought sourly, no doubt he did not need to. "As so often in these cases," he concluded, "defense counsel focuses on his client's suffering, rather than the suffering of the victim and her family, or the depravity of the crime committed by these two brothers for their own pleasure and amusement.
"It is well, then, to give Thuy Sen a face, and a voice—her surviving sister, Kim Sen."
In a tense silence, Kim Sen approached the podium, an almost ethereal presence. Then, with resolve which stiffened her posture, she began reading from her paper in a trembling voice.
"Fifteen years," she began. "To me, it's yesterday. Yesterday, and all the yesterdays since what these men did, where I relive, over and over and over again, the day that Thuy was murdered.
"Every day, and every night, I let my nine-year-old sister walk home from school alone. Only now, day after day, night after night, I know what I did not know then—that she will never reach our home." Voice breaking, she paused, steeling herself. "That she will die in those brothers' living room, choking on their semen . . ."
Silently, Chris implored her to stop, as much for her own sake as for Rennell's. Watching, Chou Sen bent her head in sorrow; only Meng Sen maintained his fierce, implacable stare at the chairman of the clemency board.
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