by Marti Green
The state’s case relied on two witnesses. If Sallie’s confession could be discredited, there was still the gas station owner’s identification of George and his car. Although eyewitness testimony often made jurors comfortable with returning a guilty verdict, it was notoriously unreliable. Dani leafed through the trial transcript again, looking for errors to form the basis for appeal. She knew she’d find them. Ineffective assistance of counsel would top the list. Bob Wilson could have been asleep at trial and he’d have done a better job. And because he represented George on his appeals, he certainly hadn’t raised his own inadequacy as a reason to overturn the jury verdict. Until four or five years ago, they wouldn’t have been able to attack the verdict and sentence on grounds of ineffective counsel. Unless raised in the first appeal, that defense was gone. Thankfully, the Supreme Court had recognized that when the trial lawyer handled the direct appeal, he wouldn’t claim he’d been ineffective.
Dani turned toward the backseat and saw Tommy, lost in his laptop. “Hey, can you add to your to-do list a checkup of George’s lawyer? Let’s see if there’s any dirt on him.” Tommy nodded without looking up from his screen.
They spent the rest of the trip in silence.
“Thank you for meeting with us, Warden Coates.” They were all seated in front of the warden’s immaculate mahogany desk in a room large enough to house the entire HIPP staff. Bars covered the three large windows overlooking the prison yard, but sheer white curtains draped over them softened the effect. A uniformed man stood guard in the corner, silent, although his very presence shouted loudly that they were in a prison facility. The warden looked younger than most, perhaps pushing forty, with dark-brown hair free of graying wisps. His handshake had been strong enough to hurt the beginning arthritis in Dani’s fingers. “So,” Dani continued, “as you know, we’re looking into an appeal for George Calhoun. You were very helpful when we spoke on the phone last week, but I wonder if there’s anything else you can tell us about Mr. Calhoun?”
“Such as?”
“Well, you mentioned that he’s always maintained his innocence. How does that come up here?”
“You have to understand, prisoners on death row are kept separate from the rest of the men. Except for about thirty minutes each day, they’re in their cells alone. They don’t even get much chance to talk to each other.”
“I’m confused,” Dani said.
“Well, I’m getting to that. See, everyone needs to talk, whether it’s to the chaplain or often to the guards. Otherwise they’d go crazy. Lots of convicts boast about their misdeeds. Others blather on and on about being railroaded. George never says much one way or the other. But he’s gotten close to one of the guards. George doesn’t talk much about his daughter, but after every visit with his lawyer, he’d storm back to his cell shaking his head and complaining to the guard about his lawyer not believing him. And then he’d say he’d never hurt a hair on his precious daughter’s head, never had and never would. You can take that for what it’s worth, which isn’t much in a prison. But like I told you before, when it comes to killing a man, I like to be sure we got the right person.”
Dani didn’t know if a warden with a conscience was hard to find or typical nowadays, but whatever the case, Warden Coates had an open mind. “Has George ever had a psych consult here?”
“Nope. No need to.”
“So, no evidence of delusional thinking?”
“Seems lucid every encounter I’ve had with him. In fact, most of the men facing death here seem like coiled snakes, ready to attack. It’s not a stretch to picture them murdering someone. Not so with George. He’s always been calm, almost serene. Whatever he’s done, he’s at peace with it.”
“As far as you know, has he ever told anyone what happened to his daughter?”
“Other than those times he’s upset about his lawyer, he never talks about her.”
There it was again—the one piece of the puzzle that didn’t seem to fit anywhere. George had been steadfast that the child found in the woods was not his daughter. Yet with a lethal injection awaiting him in little more than a month, he still hadn’t offered any explanation for Angelina’s disappearance. No matter how powerful a legal argument she could make that he hadn’t received a fair trial, she hoped, for a whole litany of reasons, it would come down to that one question: What happened to Angelina Calhoun? They weren’t going to get that answer today. The warden had informed them when they arrived that George, fighting off a bout of pneumonia, had been removed to the medical wing. It could be a few days before they’d be able to meet with him. Dani figured they’d use that time to meet with Bob Wilson and try to track down the couple whose daughter disappeared around the same time. She couldn’t shake her concern, though. George had reached out to HIPP, so she guessed he wanted to be saved. But did he want it enough to give them answers?
“I miss you.”
“Isn’t Gracie a good enough substitute for me?”
Doug laughed, and the sound of it rushed through Dani’s body, briefly lightening the feeling of apprehension that had filled her these past few days. “Not even close.”
“How’s Jonah doing?” She felt torn. She wanted Doug to answer that her son missed her terribly, that his world had fallen apart without her. But she knew it was better for Jonah that he didn’t.
“Katie is spoiling him rotten, so he’s quite happy. By the way, the camp application came in the mail today.”
It was an application for music camp. Camp Adagio, in the Green Mountains of Vermont, served children with Williams syndrome. Jonah had played piano since the age of three. It had begun with the typical toddler’s toy keyboard. Instead of plunking random keys, he quickly began to mimic melodies he heard on the radio. By five, he’d graduated to a professional keyboard, and a year later they bought a used upright for him. Two years ago, he’d begun composing piano concertos.
Williams syndrome children often had a great passion for music. Some expressed it through singing; others, through playing musical instruments; and still others, through composing music. Many were considered musical prodigies, and most had such an acute perception of sound that they could hear tiny deviations in pitch.
“Are we really sure he’s ready to be away for a whole month?”
“Dani, we’ve gone over this a hundred times. He’s ready. It’ll be good for him.”
“He’s growing up so fast. I know he’ll always need us, but going away for a month makes it feel like he’ll need us less.”
“And isn’t that a good thing?”
“Yes—of course.”
“How’re the interviews going?” Doug was a master of redirection when she felt sorry for herself.
“Unproductive so far. And we hit a roadblock today. George is sick and we can’t see him until his fever breaks. Hopefully, that won’t be more than a day or two, but it does set us back.”
“So what happens in the meantime?”
“I planned to wait until after we see George to meet with his trial counsel, but I think I’ll take a ride over there tomorrow.”
“Well, good luck with that. And hurry up home. Even if Jonah doesn’t need you, I still do.”
No, she thought as she hung up. Doug might want her, but right now it was George who needed her.
CHAPTER
7
Tommy searched through the mini-bar in his hotel room for a shot of scotch. With none in sight, he settled for a Coors, twisted off the cap, and sank into the cushioned vinyl chair in front of his desk. Dani worried him. Before even talking to George, she’d already thought him innocent. And that was bad. Most of the men on death row were guilty and deserved to die. Although he understood that it was important to make sure a mistake hadn’t been made, you needed to investigate with a clean slate. At this stage, the presumption of innocence was crap. As far as he was concerned, presume guilt and search for any evidence otherwise. Thi
s was Dani’s first investigation, and her inexperience showed. At least to him. She was smart, all right. When the evidence showed that an inmate was innocent, no one did a better job of marshaling the facts into a top-notch brief. And he’d watched her argue cases before appellate courts—even the Supreme Court. Damn, she was persuasive, looking like a fox but sounding like a tiger.
Sallie may have mixed up her story along the way, but it always came back to the same culprit: George. Maybe she’d taken part; maybe not. That didn’t matter. It was George who was being readied for execution, George who was their client. And so far it looked like the jury had gotten it right. Still, he needed to check out every lead, no matter how far fetched. He picked up the phone and dialed.
“Hammond Police Department. How can I direct your call?”
“Is Detective Hank Cannon in?” Tommy waited several minutes before he heard a loud raspy voice answer.
“Cannon here.”
“Detective Cannon, my name is Tom Noorland. Jimmy Velasquez said you could help me.”
“How do you know Jimmy?”
“We worked together at the Bureau back in the ’90s. I’m retired now, working with the Help Innocent Prisoners Project in New York.”
“Got to be pretty slow work for you. I don’t know many innocent prisoners.”
Tommy laughed. “I’m with you there. But this one’s got a needle waiting for him in five weeks. We just want to make sure he deserves it.”
“Didn’t a jury already decide that?”
“C’mon, detective. You know sometimes they slip up. Most of the time it’s letting a bad guy off. Once in a while it’s the other way around. Nothing’s perfect.”
“What do you need from me?”
“You investigated a missing-child case back in ’90. Name of Conklin, Stacy Conklin. Do you remember that?”
Tommy could hear a sigh at the other end of the line, then silence. He took another swig of Coors and waited. When the voice at the other end next spoke, it was more subdued.
“You know how some cases just stick with you? You work them and work them, and no matter how hard you look, you just get nowhere? That’s Stacy Conklin. It’s buried in the department as an unsolved case, but it’s not buried in my head. I wish it was. I got just two years left till retirement, and I sure don’t want to spend my days wondering about what happened to her.”
“Were there any leads? Any witnesses still around?”
“No. She disappeared from her bed in the middle of the night. The parents were asleep, and when they woke up, she was gone. No fingerprints, no sign of forced entry, but it was summer and the bedroom windows were open. We got a list of people who’d been around their house, but nothing panned out.”
“And the parents themselves—they checked out?”
“Well, they were pretty hysterical when it happened. Anyone seeing them could tell it had hit them hard. They weren’t putting on a show, if you know what I mean. When that body turned up right next door, in Indiana, we took the parents in for an ID. Seeing that burned body of a little girl near killed them. The mother couldn’t even look at her. I stood right next to them. Thankfully, it wasn’t their daughter.”
“How could they be sure, with the body so badly burned?”
“Different size, different weight. And some hair was still left. It wasn’t the same shade as their daughter’s.”
There was no reason to think the Hammond police force hadn’t done its job right, especially considering Detective Cannon’s zeal for closure on the case before he retired. Tommy decided to press further anyway. “Was any forensic testing done to confirm she wasn’t their daughter?”
“Like DNA?”
“Yeah, like DNA. Anyone compare the victim’s DNA to the Conklins’?”
“You gotta to remember, this was back in ’90. DNA testing wasn’t routine then.”
Tommy didn’t want to risk alienating Cannon. He’d need his help if this were a thread worth pursuing. “Okay, I keep forgetting that.”
“Why are you asking about Stacy, anyway? Do you have some information about her?”
“Nope. Just checking all loose ends for a guy on death row. By the way, do you know where the parents are living now?”
“Sure. Same house they were in when Stacy was taken. I tell you, I wouldn’t have stayed there. I still keep in touch with them. Nice couple. They never got over their daughter, though. Never had any more kids.”
Tommy thanked the detective for his help. Nothing for nothing, he thought to himself as he hung up.
CHAPTER
8
A loud knock at the door awakened her. “Housekeeping,” Dani heard someone say. She’d done it again—forgotten to put up the “Do Not Disturb” sign. The clock on the nightstand read 8:15. She tumbled out of bed, opened the door to the hallway and asked the woman on the other side to come back later.
She’d needed to be awakened anyway. Melanie and Tommy were meeting her in the lobby at nine for the hotel’s continental breakfast. She quickly showered, got dressed, and headed downstairs. They were already waiting for her at a small table. She grabbed a muffin and a cup of coffee and joined them.
“Hear from the warden yet?” Melanie asked.
“Yeah, I just spoke to him. Calhoun’s still in the infirmary but getting better. We’ll probably get to see him tomorrow.”
“I reached Detective Cannon last night,” Tommy said.
“And?” Dani and Melanie said in unison.
Tommy filled them in on his conversation with Cannon.
“Is there any way we can get a DNA sample from the Conklins?” Melanie asked.
“Hold your horses,” Tommy said. “Just because they have a daughter who disappeared around the same time as Angelina doesn’t mean the child buried in that grave is theirs.”
“But all the other children who disappeared then are accounted for.”
“Only the children whose disappearances were reported. That doesn’t give the full picture. Say a set of parents murdered their kid during that time frame. They obviously wouldn’t have reported it to the authorities and so she wouldn’t be in the FBI database. Even if the dead child isn’t Angelina—and that’s a big if—it could be anyone.”
“Still,” Dani said, “it would be helpful if we could figure out how to get a DNA sample from the Conklins. Even if it’s just to rule them out.”
“Don’t forget the victim,” Tommy said. “Who knows whether there’s anything in the evidence kit that we could get a DNA sample from. Or if they even still have the evidence kit. Without the child’s DNA, we’ve got nothing to match it with.”
“Isn’t it standard to hold on to that evidence?” Melanie asked.
“Maybe not in 1990.”
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves, guys,” Dani said. “We know from George’s lawyer’s file that no DNA testing was done on the victim or the Calhouns. That may be because they had a confession from Sallie or because DNA just wasn’t part of their arsenal back then. But if there’s an evidence kit that contains something with the child’s DNA, we need to find out fast. We could run it against George’s DNA and see if it’s a match. Tommy, can you call the police station in LaGrange, see what they still have?”
“I’ll get on that.”
Dani took a bite of her muffin and washed it down with a swig of coffee. “And also, Tommy, do you think the detective in Hammond would introduce you to the Conklins?”
“My guess is he would. If there’s any possibility the child in the woods was Stacy and not Angelina, he’d want to know.”
“Okay. Work with him on that.”
“What are you thinking? That the Conklins may have been responsible for their daughter’s death?”
“Frankly, it doesn’t matter to us if they are or aren’t. If we can show that the child isn’t Angelina Calhoun, then we
get a new trial for George, if not outright dismissal. But if it is Stacy, her parents’ insistence that the victim wasn’t their daughter certainly raises suspicion.”
Melanie shook her head. “If I were looking at a burned corpse, I’d want to believe it wasn’t my child. I’d want to protect myself from imagining the pain my daughter experienced.”
Dani looked around the breakfast room. Groups of families were sitting at tables, some chatting quietly, others visibly irritated by their children’s whining demands. How would it feel if that whining child were taken from you, never to be seen again? God, the agonizing recriminations you’d put yourself through: Was it my carelessness? Could I have done more to protect my child? She could understand a parent viewing a body in the sterile room of the medical examiner and proclaiming, “No! That can’t be my child! I won’t permit it to be my child!” Melanie was right; self-protection created a very strong armor.
“Tommy, I think you should drive over to Hammond and have a chat with the detective.”
“Consider it done.”
With the day clear for her, Dani decided to visit Bob Wilson. She drove toward LaGrange in another rental car, this time a subcompact, the least expensive. Tommy took the original rental to Hammond, Illinois, in the opposite direction.
She hated driving in strange cities with no satellite radio, only unfamiliar stations. She hated country music, which inevitably was the only music she could find on the dial outside New York. But she also hated driving without music; the silence unnerved her.
