"No, Your Honor. But we think they had different biological fathers. According to their mother, Rennell's father was a 'sweet, slow boy down the street.' She may be mistaken, but she's probably too impaired to make it up.
"It seems that Vernon Price believed that, too—which may be why he despised Rennell." As though recalling that his other audience was the media, Lane raised his voice, infusing it with irony. "Unlike Payton, Rennell derived no benefit from Vernon Price's intellect. Instead, he bore the weight of Vernon's psychosis."
Pell, Terri noticed, had begun to regard Tony Lane with the raptness reserved for a dangerous expert. Behind her, she felt an absence of whispering or stirring, heard a silence so deep that she imagined a reporter flipping the page of a notebook.
"What form did that take?" she asked.
Lane folded his hands, gazing past her at those watching. "Rennell suffers from a sleep disorder: chronic nightmares, broken slumber, fear of falling asleep in darkness. We believe that started because the sounds of his father beating or raping his mother kept Rennell up at night—his bedroom was next to theirs. But no doubt his sleeplessness worsened at the age of four, when his father sat him naked on a white-hot space heater."
One of Bond's law clerks, listening from the jury box, began fumbling absently with the knot of his tie. Bond himself squinted, as though the light in his courtroom had become too bright. But whether this was in sympathy or aversion, Terri could not tell. "What other events," she asked Lane, "may have contributed to Rennell's sleep disorder?"
Lane turned to Bond again, pitching his voice to sound more confiding. "According to Payton's deposition, Vernon Price would rape Athalie in front of the boys, sometimes penetrating her anus or vagina with a broomstick. The only restraint on Vernon's behavior was that the kids were not participants.
"All that changed on the day when Vernon forced Athalie to take the child's penis in her mouth." Lane's tone remained even, allowing the words to carry their own weight. "Once she finished, Vernon lapsed into an alcoholic stupor. That was when Athalie went to the kitchen, got a butcher knife, and stabbed him in the heart."
Bond's pursed mouth formed a small o. Terri could guess his thoughts: So this is where Rennell Price learned to force oral sex on children. "In your view," she inquired, "how did being forced into a sex act with his mother affect Rennell Price?"
Lane seemed to gather himself. "To begin, I believe that Rennell's reaction to witnessing his father's murder—and being an unwilling party to the sex act which caused it—triggered a form of post-traumatic stress disorder, not dissimilar to that of soldiers who've suffered a horrific experience in combat. Except that Rennell was seven, not twenty, and the trauma Rennell wished to repress was that of a child forced into oral sex. From which, in his own experience, a terrible death resulted." Lane slowly shook his head. "Forget conscience, Your Honor, or the normal sexual taboos. In my opinion, for Rennell Price to force oral sex on a nine-year-old girl would have been a self-inflicted wound too difficult to bear. Long before Rennell was raped himself."
With these words, Lane had veered sharply into guilt or innocence—just as Terri had designed—while creating sympathy for Rennell. Bond hesitated, seemingly torn between annoyance at this detour and interest in what Lane had to say.
"What about retardation?" the judge finally demanded. "That's supposed to be the focus of your testimony."
"I'm coming to retardation," Lane promised. "But that's not what makes Rennell Price a tragic figure. It's everything else about him.
"Rennell was genetically predisposed to retardation, substance addiction, and mental difficulties. He was completely unwanted from birth, and suffered chronic neglect, physical illnesses, and extreme abuse since infancy. By early childhood, he was mentally, socially, and emotionally impaired. His history shows severe learning problems, mental retardation, organic deficits, and trauma. He was raised in poverty, in a chaotic environment that lacked supervision, guidance, or any positive role models. He was failed by his home, school, and community, all of which deprived him of a basic foundation for healthy development." Lane paused, his face and manner filled with a sad conviction. "Rennell Price, Your Honor, is the worst case of neglect and abuse I've ever seen."
Bond regarded him, fingertips steepled together. "Perhaps so, Dr. Lane. But I hear any number of habeas corpus petitions, and I can't recall one where the petitioner's childhood was not portrayed as a horror story."
Lane held the judge's gaze. "Perhaps so," he answered quietly. "But Rennell Price's childhood is the perfect storm."
After a moment, Bond's expression became inscrutable. "All right," he said. "We'll recess for ten minutes," he said. "Then perhaps you'd care to address why we would find this man retarded. Which, rather than guilt or innocence, is the proper purview of your profession."
The courtroom stirred, tension released in a Babel of voices and shifting bodies. Terri turned to her husband and murmured, "How do you feel about calling Rennell now?"
With cool eyes, Chris watched Gardner Bond as he retreated from the bench. "Ask me later," he said.
NINE
"A SCORE OF SEVENTY," ANTHONY LANE ADVISED THE JUDGE, "IS not an absolute ceiling on retardation. And seventy-two is not a passing grade—"
Bond held up a hand. "How do we impose a standard, Dr. Lane?"
"By looking at whether retardation was clear from childhood, and the degree to which it affected Rennell's capacity to act in daily life." Lane's voice was cool. "Which, as we know, is a long, sad story—a devil's brew of heredity, brain trauma, and abuse. The only question is whether a number justifies ignoring all that."
Stepping closer to the witness stand, Terri interposed a question of her own. "The Supreme Court's opinion in Atkins, Dr. Lane, emphasized the difficulties of a retarded man in coping with the legal system. Can you describe how retardation landed Rennell Price on death row?"
Lane settled back, hands folded in his lap, assuming a more academic tone. "I'd describe it as a series of misperceptions and disconnects, beginning with Rennell's first interrogation and ending when the jury and judge sentenced him to death.
"Inspector Monk saw a sullen crack dealer unable to conceal his own sense of guilt. What Monk actually faced was a frightened boy of extremely low intellect, searching for answers which would please the police—"
"Didn't Rennell," Bond interrupted, "admit seeing Thuy Sen at a store?"
"Maybe he did," Lane answered with a shrug. "Maybe he was just guessing. The real mystery is why he didn't confess to killing her.
"All too often, retarded people make false confessions to ingratiate themselves, or simply to put an end to repeated questioning. No matter how many times Monk asked him, Rennell came back to 'I didn't do that little girl.' But he couldn't make the police believe him."
"Perhaps," Bond retorted, "because he couldn't account for his whereabouts."
Though the judge's comment was delivered as a counterthrust, Lane nodded in amiable agreement. "Precisely. Monk imagined seeing a child molester without an alibi. What he really saw was someone without any capacity to remember, or any specific sense of time or place—let alone of where he was the day Thuy Sen disappeared.
"Payton says Rennell was asleep. In an even deeper sense than that, he was—each day and every day. For Rennell, one day was like any other, an indeterminate moment spent in a darkened room."
The somber description made Gardner Bond pause. "What about Jamal Harrison?" Terri interposed. "His story to the police helped persuade Assistant D.A. Mauriani to seek the death penalty."
"It's the same phenomenon. Harrison believed Rennell smiled because Payton had just told him Jamal would take care of Eddie Fleet. But Payton says it was simply because he'd promised Rennell that things would be okay." Lane's tone softened. "As always, Rennell believed him. Which is why we're all here."