by Luanne Rice
“Out of town?” Maggie asked, freezing in place.
The Judge bit his lip, wishing he could lie, say he'd made a mistake. He would, too. Certain lies were useful; he didn't hold by the standard of full disclosure for parents or grandparents. White lies had been critical to his tenure in those roles. Nowadays, parents got all hung up on “openness.” Forget that: Keep the children comfortable so they could focus on scholastic excellence and leave the worrying to their elders.
“Gramps?” Maggie pressed, squeezing her second brownie so hard, it crumbled in her fingers. “He's out of town?”
The Judge took a deep breath. What was it about this that panicked her? The idea of her father getting killed on the road, like her mother? Or was she bothered, as John had been at her age, by her defense attorney father's going behind the heavy, reinforced, unyielding steel doors of a maximum-security prison to visit his clients?
“What's in that book bag, young lady?” the Judge asked sternly. “Time to get started on all that homework, if you want to go to Yale. Yale doesn't take just anyone, you know. You must do the time, if you want to wear the blue. Not to mention Georgetown law; Yale for undergrad, Georgetown for law school. You've got quite a heritage to live up to.”
“Gramps, tell me!” Maggie wailed, a veil of despair over her eyes, her face twisted in a painful knot. The Judge had seen this before. She was about ten seconds away from fretting herself into a full-blown tearfest. Having seen John deal with this, paradoxically, by delivering the hard truth—whatever it was—the Judge went against his own best judgment and decided to lay the cards on the table.
“He went up to the prison,” the Judge said. “To visit Merrill.”
Maggie nodded, the knot relaxing almost instantly—to the Judge's surprise.
“That's okay with you?” he asked.
Maggie shrugged. “I don't know,” she said. “I get worried when he drives, and I know that Merrill's a bad man, but I like to know where Daddy is. No matter what.”
“Hmmm,” the Judge said, reflecting. “When your father was young, before I became a judge, I was a defense lawyer like your father. Don't tell him I told you, but he used to get all in a swivet whenever I'd go to the prison. I think he was afraid those big doors would close behind me, and I'd be locked inside with all those murderers.”
“Dad explains it to me,” Maggie said, eating her brownie. “So I don't have to think bad things. He could never get locked inside, because the guards are watching out for him all the time. And Merrill gets searched, so he can't carry a weapon to hurt Dad.”
“What a smart father you have. He must have learned from my mistakes.”
“How come you went from being a lawyer to being a judge?” Maggie asked.
“Because of my stellar courtroom performance and brilliant legal mind.”
“When you're a judge, you don't have to visit criminals in jail anymore, right?”
“Right. In fact, you'd be booted off the bench if you did.”
“Huh,” Maggie said, chewing thoughtfully.
The Judge sat back, watching her. His granddaughter had such a thoughtful face, intelligent eyes. She might make a fine jurist someday. Teddy, too. But he hoped they would choose corporate law or estate planning.
The Judge thought of Greg Merrill. That baby-faced, soft-voiced, unassuming, college-educated serial killer. What he had done to those girls made him a monster—he defied any other definition.
Johnny was with him now. The Judge looked at his gold watch: at this very moment, as time ticked by. Why, after a lifetime of trying cases involving violent crimes, should the Judge be made uneasy by the thought?
His gaze falling upon his granddaughter's innocent face, the Judge tried to smile. How many violent men had he and her father, over the years and with the full weight and imprimatur of the law behind them, released into society? Hundreds?
Thousands?
The Judge sighed. The truth was—in spite of this sunny child, this vision of goodness sitting beside him with brownie crumbs dotting her lips—he knew that a fair trial was their right.
Problem was, the Judge had lost his stomach for the whole thing. A passionate liberal in his youth, he had—in the lingo of Teddy—shape-shifted into a conservative jurist. He had one hundred percent supported Judge Miles Adams, the judge selected to preside over the long, emotional sentencing hearing that sent Gregory Bernard Merrill to the Death House.
“It's because of you,” he said out loud. Staring at Maggie, her blue eyes so reminiscent of her ravishing mother's, the Judge knew that the kids were the reason for his conversion to a more conservative way of thought. What's a conservative but a liberal who's had grandchildren?
“What, Gramps?”
“Hmm?” he asked, still watching her face.
“You said ‘it's because of you.' What's because of me?”
The Judge felt himself blush. He'd been caught having a Maeve moment. Talking out loud, instead of keeping his thoughts to himself. Get himself in trouble, that way.
“Nothing, my sweet girl. Just enjoy your brownie.”
“You said Maeve was doing the dishes,” Maggie said, her cool gaze flicking to the overflowing sink. “But she must have been too tired to finish.”
“Looks like you're right.”
“I'll help her,” Maggie said, lifting her glass and plate off the table, starting to run the water. “Washing is good . . . all that warm water flowing, sending everything bad away, down the drain. Kate told me.”
“Kate?”
“Our almost baby-sitter,” Maggie said wistfully.
“Kate sounds like she has that rare combination of wisdom and practicality.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, Maeve will certainly appreciate your help,” the Judge said calmly, watching Maggie roll up her sleeves and squirt green detergent into the sink.
He had come, over time, to believe that his role in life was to protect Maeve. He didn't want her being sent to some old age home. She had no kids; her sister was dead.
She'd cared for him since Leila had died, and now it was the Judge's turn to give back. The Judge was all she had—and vice versa. To his surprise, in one of life's beautiful mysteries, he'd found himself able to love again.
Judge Patrick O'Rourke's job now was going to be keeping Maeve Connelly safe at home. Everyone needed someone to love. Everyone: without exception. The Judge thought of John, of what he'd gone through with Theresa, and his heart ached. John had been devastated by her betrayal. He wouldn't even consider dating, and the Judge doubted he ever would again. Like everyone, he needed love, but he wouldn't let himself go looking.
Some things just cut too deep.
John O'Rourke walked into Winterham, the state's only super-max prison, where death row was located. Greeted by some guards, ignored by others, he made his way past the razor-wire-topped walls, through a series of metal detectors and automatic-lock doors.
“Here to see Greg Merrill,” he said to Rick Carmody, a burly, steroid-ridden guard he saw frequently, who pretended not to know why John was there.
“You gotta wait,” the guard said without looking up from his magazine.
John didn't reply, but he felt his blood pressure skyrocketing. As defense counsel for a death row inmate, he got about ten degrees of respect less than a thief; experience had taught him that making waves would just slow everything down more.
Sitting down in the hard brown vinyl chair, he opened his briefcase and began to read his brief. He pictured Kate Harris, thought of what she'd told him about her sister and her husband. He hadn't slept last night. The feelings had kept him up—chills, as if from a fever, racing through his body. Betrayed by two people close to her—how had she gotten through it? Thinking of Theresa and Barkley, John shivered now. When he glanced up, he saw the guard smirking.
“Hey, Counsel,” Carmody said, gesturing at John's bandaged head. “You get that in a barroom brawl?”
“You should see the other guy,” Joh
n said, taking a deep breath to dispel the memories of Theresa.
“Huh, I bet.” The guard chuckled, cracking his fat knuckles one by one. When he had finished, he yawned and gestured for John to step forward. With outward patience, John allowed the guard to wave the metal-detector wand up and down his arms and legs. Inwardly, he longed to clock the keghead: not simply for the ignominy of being so blatantly disrespected, but for the gall with which Carmody leaned forward, examining John's head wound.
“They really got you,” the guard said.
“‘They'?” John asked. “You know something about it?”
“No, Counselor, not me,” Carmody said, hands up in mock innocence.
“That's good,” John said, breathing raggedly, “because my kids were there. You understand? My kids could have gotten hurt by the brick, by the broken glass. They saw it happen, violence in their own home!”
“Hey, whoa! Watch your mouth—you go making accusations you can't back up, I'll get you ejected so fast—”
“My client has the right to counsel.”
“And I have discretion over everything goes on in here. Back off from that garbage about the brick and the window, you hear me?”
“Whoever did it . . .” John began, hardly caring whether he got himself chucked from the room. Until he had come face-to-face with someone who would probably cheer the brick thrower, John hadn't known the full depth of his own rage. His home had been ripped apart once—he wasn't going to let it happen again. “. . . Could have hurt my kids. Hear me? My kids. So forgive me if I'm short on good humor right now.”
“I don't want trouble here—let's forget it. Your kids okay?”
“Yes.”
“That's what matters.”
“You're right. Can I see my client?”
Carmody threw the bolt, letting John pass into death row. John's heart was beating fast; from how Kate Harris had stirred up old deadly pain, from Carmody—could he have had something to do with the brick? And from the normal human response of entering death row.
The inmates lived in seven-by-twelve-foot cells, each containing a metal bunk, desk, and combination toilet-sink. Twenty-two hours each day were spent in solitude; from six to eight each night, they were permitted to mingle in the common room—only with each other, never with other prison inmates.
Merrill lived in the “Death Cell.” Adjacent to the execution chamber, it faced a desk continuously manned by a guard and afforded no privacy. The guard observed everything Merrill did, from washing his face to going to the bathroom. All activity was logged. Although John had filed briefs citing the inhumanness of the treatment, Merrill remained in the Death Cell. And he'd stay there, John knew, until someone worse came along.
“Hi, John,” came Merrill's soft voice, the instant John walked into the consultation room.
“Hi, Greg.”
Unrestrained, Merrill sat at a wooden conference table in his orange jumpsuit. He clutched a Bible; he was never without it. A closed-circuit television system monitored the room, allowing guards to observe.
“What happened to your head?”
“Just a bump.” John opened his briefcase, removed papers. Was he holding back the truth so Greg wouldn't feel bad about being the proximate cause of his injury? Or because of an atavistic fear of letting the killer anywhere close to the details of his home?
“God bless you, John,” Greg said quietly, fingers steepled and head bowed. “I pray for you, you know. That no harm ever befalls you.”
“Thanks, Greg,” John said, brushing it all off. Finding religion was standard practice in prison; over the years, John had learned not to put too much stock in it. “Okay—here's what we have . . .”
John outlined his brief to the court and his latest motion to have Greg moved to a more private cell.
“It's horrible,” Greg said, his voice breaking. “The guards jeer when I go to the toilet. They laugh at me.”
“I know. I'm sorry, and I'm working on it.”
“You know, John . . . I'm not afraid to die. I have the Lord with me; I know my loving God won't send me to Hell. I know that, John. Does it sound crazy when I tell you that I know for sure?”
“I know you believe it, Greg,” John said steadily. He looked into his client's cloudy brown eyes. The man had the urge to hurt. It was part of his makeup, just like his brown eyes and curly hair. Merrill had confessed to having murdered seven women, having assaulted, stalked, and frightened many more.
“This is my hell,” Greg whispered, his voice becoming a hiss. “This prison—manned by the worst of the worst. At least I admitted what I did. These men lord it over me with such unbelievable hatred, John. I want death to come; it's life that's so unbearable.”
John nodded. Greg talked this way, but he was fighting with all he had for the right to live. And it was John's sworn duty to help him.
“Listen,” John said, pulling out another sheaf of documents. “I've reviewed Dr. Beckwith's reports.”
“You have?” Greg asked, his eyes a little brighter.
“Yes.” John had used Beckwith before—sometimes to testify, sometimes just to examine his client. From simple cases such as the one where his testimony had been invaluable in supporting a medication level-imbalance defense (“My client had been prescribed insufficient medication, became emotionally overloaded, and committed the theft . . .”) to determining the state of mind of a real estate lawyer who had killed his unfaithful wife.
“Does he think we have a chance, John?”
“It's possible. He'd like to meet with you again,” John said, glancing at the file. Beckwith had interviewed Merrill once a week since joining John's defense team at the beginning.
“I like him, John. He understands me . . . says my paraphilia is like a cancer of the mind. Can people help themselves from having breast cancer, brain cancer? No, they can't. Dr. Beckwith knows it's like that for me . . .”
John nodded, watching his client's eyes. Merrill never got emotional—even now, with his voice rising and falling, there was no affect on his face. John tried not to get too personally engaged or curious. He was a hired gun; his job was to find legal solutions to legal problems. His client had as many rights in that area as anyone.
“I have a broken mind,” Greg continued. “It's not my fault I couldn't stop thinking of having sex with those girls, couldn't force myself to stop imagining—Dr. Beckwith knows that. I can't choose what to have on my mind . . . the thoughts just came.”
“I know,” John said, his gaze falling on the thicker file in his briefcase, the transcript where Greg confessed to his murders and revealed the locations of the bodies.
“He understands that Depo-Provera helps, that I don't get the thoughts anymore . . . I'm not stupid, I'm not dumb—I just have a mental illness. Dr. Beckwith agrees that I'm a genius, that Darla and I are both members of Mensa.”
“He knows,” John said, still staring at the file. “Darla” was Darla Beal, Greg's girlfriend, one of the many women who had contacted him in prison. The phenomenon amazed John.
Searching the file, he found himself recalling the locations where the bodies had been found: Exeter, Hawthorne, Stonington . . . then he ran through a list of places Greg had mentioned off the record, where he had stalked or assaulted women and not gotten caught.
Kate Harris had kept John awake last night. No doubt about it. Not just the story of her marriage—the pain John understood very well—but her suspicions regarding her sister's disappearance. Unable to push the thoughts away, he'd finally thrown off the covers and gone downstairs to page through Merrill's file.
By three A.M., he had satisfied himself that there was no mention of Willa Harris, no discussion of anyone fitting her description in any of the locales Kate had mentioned: Newport, Providence, the Connecticut shoreline.
And then, turning one last page, John had found it: Fairhaven.
The place where Kate's sister's Texaco card had last been used. Fairhaven, Massachusetts. A small town just east of
New Bedford, filled with boatyards and fishing boats, of prim houses surrounded by rose gardens and white picket fences.
Fairhaven: Greg Merrill had admitted, only to his lawyer, to having stood in the backyard of a Fairhaven house, having climbed onto an overturned dinghy to peer at a thirteen-year-old girl in her bedroom, one hand down his pants as he tried to raise her window with the other.
“Dr. Beckwith thinks there might be a new category for me, doesn't he?” Greg said, suddenly full of life, leaning all the way across the table, knocking his Bible aside.
“I'm not sure,” John said carefully. “I just know he wants to examine you again.”
“An important man like him,” Greg said, eyes glittering. “With all his credentials . . . Director of the Center for Sexual Disorders at Maystone University; a member of the committee for the definitions in the DSM-IV . . . that's it, right?”
“What, Greg?”
“He wants to use me for a new definition . . . I'm a magna cum laude graduate of UConn, but I have—what did he say? ‘An extremely primitive personality structure'?” Greg's eyes flashed. “A zombie-maker . . . I leave my victims alive, just barely, in breakwaters on the incoming tide . . . so they'll have time to know what's going to happen. And then there was that girl who survived all those days . . . He thinks I did that on purpose . . .”
John looked up, with some alarm. This was new. Neither he nor Philip Beckwith was getting into this kind of diagnostic discussion with their client yet, and Merrill had seemed content to leave it that way.
“At the same time,” Greg continued, “I'm power-bestowing. I give them a last chance. I give them hope: Because until the tide rises up to their mouths and noses, they're not at all sure they're going to die. That girl who lived . . . she had hope until she drowned, then got brought back to life. Zero brain function—a zombie—but alive. Now there's hope! A gift, John. I know, because I have it here. I'm in the Death Cell, but until they strap me down, there's hope. People live in hope, John—it's human nature.”
“Where did you . . . ?” John began to ask as his temple started to throb.
