"According to Rennell," Carlo noted, "Payton never did anything wrong."
Lane shrugged. "If Payton did, Carlo, what would the world be for Rennell?"
"That's pretty much what Sharon Brooks said," Tammy observed. "If Payton did something, so did Rennell. Except Payton was a blacktop shark—quick to take offense and ready to fight in a nanosecond. Rennell wasn't. Brooks says he did all he could to stay out of fights."
"And out of trouble?" Lane asked.
"Seems like. Though trouble followed him. He was nine when Mama killed Daddy with a knife—though how that affected Rennell, and what he saw, no one quite seems to know. But Mom went to the mental hospital, and the boys went to live with Grandma—the only other consistent figure in his life."
"What did her influence seem to be?"
Mattox placed the pen to her lips. "She seems to have had some—she was a churchgoing woman of firm moral beliefs, which she tried to instill in the boys. She clearly loved them. But she wasn't one of those iron-willed black matriarchs people like to imagine, bent on scaring those two boys straight. Payton was eleven by the time she got him—he already lived in the streets. Rennell just followed in his wake."
"How so?" Carlo asked.
"As best he could," Tammy answered wryly. "His crack career was paltry, a stretch in juvenile hall for street dealing. That's a singular achievement—in the Bayview it's not easy to get caught. After that, Payton seems to have thought better of using his chucklehead brother as a dealer." She smiled briefly. "Must have been Payton's deep family feeling. He didn't seem to give a shit about his other human sacrifices."
Terri poured herself more coffee. "What do we know about his time in juvenile hall?"
"Not much—no behavior problems." Again, Mattox reached into the bulging folder and placed a paper in front of Terri. "All I could find of interest is this letter."
The letters were printed—as primitive, it seemed to Terri, as they were heartfelt:
DEAR Judge,
This Letter CONCERN ME and My PROBLEM I have BEEN HEAR OVER TIME. I DON'T PLAN TO BE HERE much longEST. PLEASE write a letter HEAR saying r*ennell price gRandmother need ma home.
rennell price
Reflecting on Rennell's tools, so painfully limited, Terri wondered about the circumstances which would cause him to employ them in such a plan. "Problem is," Tammy remarked, "he could actually write this. I can hear the A.G. saying that a man of such superior gifts couldn't possibly be retarded."
Terri looked up from the letter. "You think there was abuse," she prodded. "Was that in his parents' home?"
"That'll take some piecing together." Mattox fished inside the folder and produced a faded photograph. "I started here."
In the photo were two black kids: a slender, sharp-eyed boy she guessed was Payton, and a much younger but bulkier one—Rennell at something like Kit's age, six or seven. A large bandage covered a portion of his scalp.
"What happened?" Terri asked.
"Grandma didn't remember. So I checked out the admissions records at S.F. General." Mattox gave Terri a two-page Xerox. "On December twenty-third, 1976, Mama brought him to the hospital on a bus. He was seven years old, and it was twelve-thirty-five at night. Mama told the doctor he 'fell off a curb.' "
Terri gazed at the picture. "Some curb," she said softly.
"Some fall," Mattox answered. "But the doctor didn't see fit to question what a kid was doing falling off a curb at midnight. He just noted that Mom had liquor on her breath and then wrote her bullshit down like it was gospel.
"His notes also describe Rennell as crying off and on, apologizing to the nurse for being trouble. And that he was lethargic and slow to communicate . . ."
"A concussion would do that."
"So would retardation," Mattox answered with a smile so tight it was murderous. "But here's the best part. The doctor looked for bruises on his body like you'd find if he'd fallen on cement. There were none. All Dr. Kildare could come up with were burn marks on his buttocks."
Briefly, Terri closed her eyes. "What did the doctor say about that?"
"That the burns weren't recent, and therefore required no treatment." Mattox's voice flattened out. "Mom told the doctor Rennell was so damned slow he'd sat on a space heater without thinking."
Terri sat back, drawing a breath. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the sunlight of late morning had reached the edge of the conference table: for the last three hours, she realized, Rennell Price's childhood had absorbed her too much to notice her surroundings.
"What do you think?" she asked Mattox.
"Something a little different." Tammy's voice held suppressed anger. "Yesterday, I reviewed the prison doctor's records from when Rennell came onto death row. Turns out the burn marks were still there. They were permanent—and symmetrical."
"Which means . . . ?"
"That Rennell Price had been tortured." Now Mattox spoke slowly, and very softly. "Someone in this child's family made him sit naked on a space heater while he screamed in pain. Keeping him there must have been the fun part."
EIGHT
FOUR DAYS LATER, WITH TWO MORE VISITS FROM TERRI INTERVENING, Rennell Price met for the first time with Dr. Anthony Lane.
Lane and Terri sat with Rennell at a bare table in the psychiatric conference room of San Quentin Prison, a windowless, ten-by-fifteen cubicle with a chair for the inmate bolted to the floor. As a prisoner under an execution warrant, Rennell was handcuffed, his legs shackled. A burly guard with a baton stood outside.
Lane was dressed in khakis, a work shirt, and tennis shoes. He had greeted Rennell with a power shake and introduced himself in the vernacular; it was his plan, Terri knew, that a black man with a casual air would at some point put Rennell more at ease. But Rennell greeted the doctor as Lane had predicted—with wariness and near-total silence. "If he's retarded," Lane had told Terri, "he'll try to place people into categories, hoping to figure out what their deal is so he can respond appropriately." The role of intermediary fell to Terri.
Rennell slumped in a chair, his eyes fixed exclusively on her. "Tony's an expert," Terri told him. "He can help the judge understand you better."
Rennell hesitated, then slowly nodded, his face devoid of comprehension. "He's just going to talk with us," she continued easily. "Later—not today—he'll help me give you tests."
Rennell's face clouded. "They already give me tests in school."
Terri nodded in acknowledgment. "What kind of tests do you remember?"
"All kinds. Made my head hurt from too many fucking questions."
Lane chuckled appreciatively. "I hear you. We won't pile on quite as many, and we'll break it up a little."
Rennell tilted his head back, eyes fixed on the wall, as though struggling to retrieve a memory. "Mrs. Brooks said I did good," he reported in tones of doubt.
"Mrs. Brooks liked you," Terri assured Rennell. "Still does."
Slowly, his gaze returned to Terri. "You're like Mrs. Brooks," he said. "Sometimes I have dreams about you."
Startled, Terri managed a smile, trying to sort out her own confusion—it was at once the most unguarded thing Rennell had said to her and the most sexually ambiguous. "That's a nice thing to tell me," she answered. "I know Mrs. Brooks was important to you."
Rennell stared at her now, oblivious to Lane. "She was beautiful. She said she missed me every night at home. Like I miss you in my cell."
"Tell me about that," Lane said with amiable curiosity. "Your cell."
The inquiry seemed to startle Rennell from his contemplation of Terri or, perhaps, his memories. In a recalcitrant, near-sullen tone, he asked Lane, "What about?"
Lane gave a casual shrug. "I don't know. Maybe just what it looks like."