The gate buzzed open. Inside a cramped space a guard in a plastic booth took their visitor forms. Then they passed through a door composed of iron bars into the visiting area.
It was as Terri had described it—two parallel rows of Plexiglas booths encased in wire. One row had views of the bay through high windows; the second, which did not, included "Visitors' Booth 4." The guard opened its metal doors and locked them inside.
"Too bad," Terri remarked. "Rennell likes the view. But this way he'll focus better."
As they settled in two plastic chairs on one side of the small wooden table, Carlo prepared himself to meet his new client. "Building a relationship," he remembered Terri saying, "is the only way to pose hard questions and deal with hard subjects—like abuse. And we need to prepare Rennell to meet with Tony Lane." Then she had paused, and her green-flecked eyes had become more distant. "We also have to prepare him to die. That's not a job for strangers."
At the entry to the row of booths, Carlo saw a large black man with his hands shackled behind his back, flanked by two guards in bulletproof vests. "Rennell," Terri said softly.
Silent, Carlo watched them approach.
Briefly, Terri touched his arm. "Just remember this: as long as we're in this cage, and no matter what we think, there's never a reason to doubt Rennell's innocence. Never give him one. Not in your words, or your expression—for you to help him, he has to believe in you. No matter what."
How, Carlo wondered, could she control her thoughts with such discipline, or even believe she could? Then the guard opened the cage, and Rennell stepped inside.
The guard locked the door behind him. Rennell stood over them, an otherworldly gaze dulling his large brown eyes. His wrists thrust backward through a slot in the door, as though schooled by habit. Then the guard unsnapped the cuffs.
Rennell flinched. "Hi, Rennell," Terri said. "It's good to see you."
* * *
In the next few moments, Carlo tried to absorb as much about Rennell Price as his senses allowed.
The big man settled across from them with painful deliberation, as though he had to think hard about the act of sitting. Carlo flashed on his maternal grandfather after his first stroke; Carlo Carelli had never again trusted his body, and to move his hand, or take a step, had seemed a willful act of memory. But this man's face, younger than his years, lacked all emotion—except that his gaze was so fixed on Terri that Carlo felt invisible.
"This is Carlo," she told Rennell. "My stepson. He's also a lawyer, and he's going to help us."
Smiling, Carlo held out his hand. It took Rennell a few seconds to grasp it, his grip as lifeless as his fleeting look at Carlo.
"How's your television working?" Terri asked. "Okay, I hope."
"Good."
The deep voice conveyed far less emotion than the word. "How's Hawkman doing?" she asked.
Rennell's brief glance at Carlo conveyed discomfort with his presence, perhaps distrust. "Good. Like I told you. But mostly same is same."
That much, Carlo believed. "What else have you been up to?" Terri asked.
Still Rennell did not look at Carlo. "I've started making a book," he said in an oddly stubborn tone. "Of my life."
Carlo heard this as a kind of narcissism, reminding him of an odd fact recalled by his father: that Lee Harvey Oswald's mother had once proposed to write a book entitled "A Mother's Place in History." But perhaps, Carlo amended, beneath this was a sad hope that his life mattered to anyone at all.
"What kind of book?" Terri asked.
"With pictures, for Grandma. Next time I want you to bring a camera."
The demand, both childish and peremptory, bemused Carlo further. He found nothing in Rennell's eyes to give him any clues as to whether his client suffered from a poverty of thought, feeling, or both.
"She wants to come see you," Terri said in a sympathetic voice. "But she's way too sick."
For the first time, Rennell's expression became probing. "Is she dead?"
Terri shook her head. "No," she answered softly. "Just old and sad and worried for you."
Rennell laughed softly. "Worry," he said. "Like she always done."
Carlo could not tell whether he heard disdain or merely fact. But Terri nodded her understanding. "That's because she loves you." She cocked her head, eyes expressing curiosity. "What else do you remember about her?"
"Chicken dinners."
What about the time she lost her house for you? Carlo wondered. But Terri smiled. "Did Payton like those, too?"
"Guess so."
"How's he doing, by the way?"
Rennell shrugged. "He say follow the rules and you be all right."
"Sounds like good advice, Rennell."
"Guess so." His stubborn tone returned. "Long as Payton be here, they don't give me no trouble in the yard."
At this, Carlo glanced at Terri: Payton's execution date was twenty-five days away, and his lawyers now had little hope—whatever else, no one believed Payton Price to be retarded.
"He say they going to kill him," Rennell continued softly. "Say he in a race with Grandma for the grave. Won't see him in the yard no more, he say. I got to keep my head down when he be gone."
Terri considered him. "When you were kids," she ventured, "I guess Payton looked after you."
For the first time, Rennell seemed to smile, the slightest change in his eyes, and at the corners of his mouth. "Yeah, he done that. Took me to school, maybe sometimes to the store."
"What else did he do?"
Rennell's eyes clouded. "Sometimes, if things was bad, he'd take me out to hide."
Once more, Terri cocked her head. "Hide from what?"
Rennell folded his arms.
"Your father?" Terri asked.
Rennell's shoulders hunched. "Sometimes he'd take a belt to me."
"Your daddy? Or Payton?"
Rennell shook his head. "Sometimes he'd hit me a lick, keep me in line. But mostly he'd look out for me."
Carlo saw Terri hesitate, trying to interpret this. Then she asked, "Did Payton ever get you in trouble?"
"No."
The stubborn tone had returned. Quietly, Terri prodded. "Not even about selling crack?"
Rennell looked up at her. "Payton never did nothing," he said in a stone-cold voice.
To Carlo it was as though, quite suddenly, Terri were a stranger. Sifting his impressions, Carlo tried to imagine how Rennell would seem to someone who, unlike him, did not strain to sympathize.
"I'm just trying to understand things," Terri told him. She paused, eyes silently seeking trust. "I want to bring another friend to see you, Dr. Lane. He can help me tell the judge what you're really like, and why you're innocent."
Rennell's eyes watched her closely. "Then get me some of that DNA. Man on TV told me about that."
"You ask Payton about it?"
Rennell nodded. "He say don't bother. They won't never be spending money on no gangbanger."
It was as good a rationalization as any, Carlo thought. "Sometimes it's not money," Terri said. "Sometimes DNA doesn't work. If it doesn't, what should I tell the judge?"
Rennell sat back. In a tone even wearier than before, he repeated, "I didn't do that little girl."
It was as though, Carlo thought, Rennell Price were talking to himself. He could not begin to guess whether this was a statement of enduring truth, or all that a guilty man had ever known to say.
"I know that," Terri answered. "Is there anything else you can tell me to help the judge believe us?"
Rennell's eyes closed. Silent, he rocked in his chair, seemingly beyond words. "I'm a respectful man," he murmured at last. "I wouldn't do that to no child."
To Carlo, the statement had a rote quality, something learned very long ago. But Terri's gaze grew more intense. "Who taught you to be respectful?"
"Grandma."
Whose authority, Carlo thought, seemed to have expired long before Thuy Sen's death.
Terri leaned closer. "Did you always try to do what your grandma said?"