"It's okay," she assured him.
* * *
Christopher Paget gazed down at the drawing his wife had placed on his ink pad.
"Jesus," he murmured and slowly shook his head. "It captures this whole tragedy—far better than I can do in a hundred pages of legal argument. I'm just so sorry, sweetheart."
Terri mustered a wan smile. "I know you are. Save Rennell, I thought, and I could keep my innocence intact. But there's no innocence quite like his."
Chris glanced toward the marked-up pile of papers beside Rennell's drawing. "I'm a half hour from being finished. Then I'll run these to Sacramento, and ask the Governor's office for a reprieve. Bond notwithstanding, the State ought not execute Rennell's only witness before we can make our case."
"Do you think you've got a prayer?"
"An agnostic's prayer," Chris quietly allowed. "You're the Catholic, however lapsed. Maybe you can resurrect your rosary and pray that God will whisper in our Governor's ear. As opposed to his pollsters' here on earth."
Tiredly, Terri sat. "I don't want Payton to die, Chris. I'm not ready to watch that. Not when Rennell is with me night and day."
Chris's look of compassion carried a hint of his own solitude. "I know," he answered.
* * *
Terri went to her office and hit buttons on her cell phone until she found the number she had recorded for Eddie Fleet. She pressed one more button, then heard his telephone ringing.
"Go," Fleet answered tersely.
Terri hesitated. "This is Terri Paget. I've got a declaration to go over with you."
"That's sure nice, Terri Paget." His silken voice was suffused with anger. "Only problem is the A.G. called me first. Seems like you tryin' to trade me for Rennell."
"That's not right—"
"You take me for a fool?" His tone became quiet, poisonous. "You can still come on over. But now you got to get down on your knees and suck my dick till I'm done. See if you're woman enough to live through what I got stored up just for you." Fleet emitted a harsh laugh. "That's what this case is all about, right? 'Cept your mouth is bigger."
For a terrible instant—born, Terri understood at once, of a mother's primal instinct to protect—she feared this man not for herself but for Elena. Then the line went dead.
TWENTY-FOUR
FOR TERRI, THE NEXT TWO DAYS WERE A BLUR OF ACTION THROUGH which she tried to save her client by preserving the life of his brother.
Rennell and Payton were in lockdown with the entire population of death row—no visitors, no exercise, no doctor visits save for medical emergencies. East Block would be particularly quiet, its pall deepened by the knowledge that one among them would soon die, to be followed, quite likely, by another lockdown and another execution. Even the crazies were muted.
The only break in this routine was Payton's deposition. Shackled, he sat at a wooden table in the psychiatric conference room, responding first to Terri's questions, then to Larry Pell's, with a precision and composure which astonished her. It was as though he wished to perform the last meaningful act of his life, the only one in which he retained volition, by employing all the resources he had acquired since receiving his sentence of death. With conviction and persuasiveness, he spelled out for the lawyers and a court reporter that Eddie Fleet was the murderer of Thuy Sen. For Terri, his story, terrible in itself, was made more tragic by the fact that—unless the Governor granted a reprieve—no one else would ever see or hear Payton tell it.
This sense was only deepened by the fierce dignity of Payton's response to Pell's cross-examination. "No," he answered, biting off each word. "I didn't lie. Don't want to die with a lie on my lips. Don't want Rennell to die for me." He paused, face twisted with emotion, and then he spoke more softly, looking directly at Larry Pell as if daring him to hear. "You about to kill my brother, who done nothin' to that girl. All that poor sucker ever did was love me, and what he got for it is this. Only thing I can give him now is truth."
Tears welled in his eyes. But he would not look away from Pell until, at last, Pell decided he had no more questions.
After this, Payton's only words were for Terri. With a weary smile, he murmured, "Guess I'll be seeing you." Then the guards took him away.
* * *
The press conference which followed preceded Terri's call to Thuy Sen's family.
In a hotel meeting room crowded with reporters, she distributed Payton's deposition, transcribed overnight by a team of stenographers. Then she spoke to the cameras. Though she would always find this surreal, Terri had learned to imagine her audience behind the blank lens of a mini-camera.
"Payton Price's confession," she told them, "exonerates Rennell Price for the murder of Thuy Sen. And it places responsibility for this horrible act squarely where it belongs—on Eddie Fleet, whose perjured testimony has brought Rennell within eleven days of execution.
"Therefore, we have asked Governor Darrow to delay Payton's execution until—if we're granted the hearing Rennell deserves—Payton can be heard in open court . . ."
This would yield headlines, Terri knew, be the lead story on newscasts across California and, therefore, put pressure on the Governor and, once she filed Rennell's second habeas petition, on Gardner Bond. The price could be Bond's enmity.
As to Thuy Sen's family, she was uncertain of their reaction until, for the first time, she found herself speaking to her father. "Rennell's innocent," she said simply. "He shouldn't die for what Eddie Fleet did to your daughter. All we're asking is that you support our petition to the Governor, so that the right man can be punished."
"Payton Price die," Meng Sen interjected coldly. "Attorney General say you already got his testimony."
"He will die . . ."
"Tomorrow." The spat-out word was followed by a pause. "Tomorrow," the man repeated quietly. "I watch him."
The phone clicked off.
* * *
On the morning of Payton's scheduled execution, Terri began drafting Rennell's habeas corpus petition while Chris, a prisoner in his office, awaited a telephone call from Governor Craig Darrow.
Shortly before 11:00 A.M., Carlo cracked open Terri's door. "Darrow's on the line," he said urgently. "Dad's talking to him now."
Swiftly, Terri followed Carlo to Chris's office. Through the squawk box, the Governor was speaking in the careful tones of a diplomat. "I understand your concern, Chris. But my job is to see that our laws are carried out, including those with respect to capital punishment—"
"We're not asking for a commutation, Craig. Just a delay."
Terri and Carlo stood by Chris's chair. "Fifteen years," the Governor said in mild reproof, "seems like delay enough. The Attorney General advises me that her family wishes this execution to go forward. Where the man's admitted his guilt of a terrible crime, and you've preserved his eleventh-hour testimony, I'm inclined to agree."
Anxious, Terri turned from the squawk box to her husband, willing him to give the answer she would give. "You were a trial lawyer," Chris told Darrow. "You know the difference between a typed page and the words of a living witness."
"I do," Darrow replied with measured sympathy. "But, in itself, it's not enough for me to act. There are other interests at stake . . ."
"Can we talk about this?" Terri whispered sharply.
Chris glanced up at her. "Could you hold, Craig?" he asked. "Just for a moment. I need a word with cocounsel."
Quickly, he stabbed the mute button. "What is it?"
"Dammit," Terri burst out. "He's not just the only real witness, he's the only living witness. Flora Lewis wasn't even there, and now she's dead."
"So's Payton," Chris said evenly. "Darrow's not changing his mind on this."
Carlo looked from his father to his stepmother.
"You raised money for this creep," she shot back. "You at least can push him some."