False Convictions

Casey watched rage seep into the judge’s face. He scooped up the last bit of cherries jubilee and chewed so intensely that even his Adam’s apple bobbed with the effort.

Finally, he rose, towering above them on the dais, pointed his fork at Casey, and said, “Tomorrow morning at ten in my chambers. No reporters, just lawyers. I’ll listen and I’ll make my decision then, and it’ll be based on the law, not a black man with a megaphone. That’s it.”

The judge flashed a dirty look at Marty and stomped away.

“That was smooth,” Casey said when they reached Jake’s car. “You ever hear of the word subtle?”

“He’ll think about it,” Jake said. “Believe me.”

“Will you do it?”

“Depends on whether he gives you the order,” Jake said, starting the car and pulling out onto the drive. “I’ve got some markers. Would I? Yeah, I suppose I would. Good for you, right? The publicity you want? Good for the Project? Good for your career?”

“My career is fine,” Casey said.

“But it never hurts,” Jake said, a small smile on his lips, his eyes on the road.

“You think that’s what I’m about?”

Jake shrugged and said, “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it, really. Everybody’s about the publicity to a certain extent. You learn little tidbits like that after a decade in television.”

“I’m about tomorrow,” Casey said. “A judge’s chambers, an opposing counsel, and a legal strategy to kick their ass.”

“Wish I could be there,” Jake said, “but I’ll be on my way to Rochester to interview your boy Graham.”

“I’ll give you a play-by-play,” Casey said. “You better take me to Marty’s law office. I’ve got work to do. And Jake?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Graham isn’t my boy.”

Jake smiled.

14

THE ONLY BREAK Casey took from her research was di

When she woke the next morning, she dressed for the run she’d promised herself as penance for ordering a fresh raspberry tart à la mode the night before. Jake Carlson sat waiting for her in the lobby, dressed in sneakers, shorts, and an Under Armour T-shirt that revealed a muscular frame she hadn’t expected from a man his age.

“Want company?” Jake asked with a boyish grin.

“If you weren’t a Pulitzer Prize wi

“A good TV reporter is part stalker, anyway,” he said. “So you Googled me? That’s a good sign.”

Off they went together, passing through a cloud of Ralph’s cigarette smoke just outside the lobby doors. They ran the side streets, passing the prison and the bus station before leaving town and turning down a country road. For the first mile, Casey checked over her shoulder for Ralph but never saw the Lexus and forgot about him.

Five miles later, they ended back at the hotel. Sweaty and winded, Casey passed on Jake’s invitation to breakfast and wished him luck with his interview.

“I’m supposed to fly out after I finish with Graham,” Jake said, still breathing hard, “but I was thinking maybe I’d hang around and see how things shake out. Would that be okay with you?”

“It’s a free country,” Casey said.

“All you have to do is say the word and I’m as good as back on Long Island,” Jake said.

“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” she said, wiping the sweat from her face with her bare hands. “The whole hospital idea was yours. You’re in on this with me as much as you want to be.”

“Good,” Jake said, clearing his throat. “Look, I’ve been around. This could be something or nothing. But maybe we could do another di

“Only if you throw in another run,” she said, patting her stomach.

Jake touched her shoulder lightly, wished her luck of her own, and said good-bye. Casey watched him walk away before she headed upstairs. After a shower and some coffee, she went over her notes again before allowing Ralph to drive her to the courthouse.

“The problem is narrowing it down,” Ralph said without taking his eyes from the road. “I got a person to do it, but they came up with over seven thousand white BMWs on the road in 1989. It’s a matter of pulling the ones from this area and they have to go through the list one at a time. We’ll get it eventually, but this guy’s been in the can, what? Twenty years?”

“Be nice if it didn’t get to twenty-one, though, right?” Casey said.

Ralph’s eyebrows lifted for a second and he gave a slight nod.

“You found Cassandra Thornton’s people pretty fast, I’ll tell you that,” Casey said, tapping the folder Ralph had delivered to her at the law offices around nine the previous evening. “Nice work.”

He pulled over in front of the old limestone courthouse. “I’ll be in that spot across the street.”

As she made her way up the steps, Casey looked back at Ralph, who sat watching her with a blank face from the pewter Lexus.

The judge’s chambers had high ceilings. The dark-stained oak had faded under years of neglect. It smelled of aging books and moldy paper, but the high window behind Kollar’s desk shone across the room onto a wall busy with a framed collection of butterflies, brilliant with color. Casey stared for a minute, then turned toward Kollar, trying to reconcile the collection with the granite-faced judge.

“These are beautiful,” Casey said, turning back to the specimens. “This blue is electric.”

“A lot of people use ethyl acetate in their kill jars,” Kollar said. “Cyanide makes them squeamish-the way the little suckers thrash around a bit-but it’s the best way to keep the colors bright.”

Casey looked at the judge for a deeper meaning before she shook hands with the hospital’s lawyer, William Fly

“Judge, as much as we’d like to help Ms. Jordan, giving out these samples would be an egregious invasion of privacy, plain and simple,” Fly

Kollar looked at him and nodded.

“State law is very clear that outside a subpoena in a criminal proceeding, the medical information of a patient is sacrosanct,” Fly

The judge compressed his lips as if this were common knowledge.

Fly