Are there enough pearls to justify working for someone like Cardoni?
Do you remember the McNab boy?
Vaguely. I was in junior high school, wasn't I?
Frank nodded. I fought that case and fought that case. He was convicted in the first trial. I cried after the verdict because I knew he was innocent. I wasn't experienced in handling death cases. I truly believed that the verdict was my fault. Guilt drove me, and I didn't stop until I' d won the appeal and a new trial.
The jury hung at the retrial. I couldn't sleep, I lost weight and I charged every moment that poor boy spent in jail to my soul. Then my investigator talked to Mario Rossi's mother.
The snitch?
Frank nodded. Rossi's testimony kept Terry McNab on death row for four years, but he confessed to his mother that he lied to get a deal for himself. When Rossi recanted, the prosecutor had to dismiss.
Frank was silent for a moment. Amanda saw the color rise in his cheeks and his eyes water. When he spoke again, Amanda heard his voice catch.
I can still remember that afternoon. We ended the hearing around four, and Terry's father and mother and I had to wait another hour for Terry to be processed out of jail. Terry looked stunned when he stepped outside. It was February and the sun had gone down, but the air was clear and crisp. When he stood on the steps of the jail Terry looked up at the stars. He just stood there, looking up. Then he took a deep breath.
My plane didn't leave until the morning, so I was staying at a motel on the edge of town. Terry's folks invited me to dinner, but I begged off. I knew they were just being polite and that the family would much rather be alone. Besides, I was wrecked. I' d left everything in the courtroom.
Frank paused again.
Do you know the thing I remember most about that day? It was the way I felt when I entered my motel room. I hadn't been alone until then, and the enormousness of what I had done had not sunk in. Four and a half years of fighting to do the right thing, the lost sleep, the tears and the frustration ... I closed the door behind me and I stood in the middle of my motel room. I suddenly understood that it was over: I had won, and Terry would never have to spend another moment caged up.
Amanda, I swear my soul rose out of my body at that moment. I closed my eyes and tilted my head back and felt my soul rise right up to the ceiling. It was only a moment, and then I was back on earth, but that feeling made every moment of those horrible four years worthwhile. You don't get that feeling doing anything else.
Amanda remembered how she had felt when she heard Not guilty in LaTricia Sweet's case. It had been so heady to win, especially when she hadn't thought she would. Then Amanda remembered what she had seen on the tape, and she realized that there was no comparison between LaTricia Sweet's case and the murder of Mary Sandowski. LaTricia wasn't hurting anyone but herself. No one had to fear her after she was set free. It would be totally different to help free the person who tortured Mary Sandowski.
Amanda had no doubt that her father meant what he had said. What she didn't know was whether she believed that the chance to save a few deserving people would ever be enough compensation for representing a monster who could coldly and cruelly cut the nipple off a screaming human being.
Chapter 14
Bobby Vasquez parked in his assigned spot in the lot of his low-rent garden apartment. On one side of the complex was the interstate and on the other a strip mall. Truth was, between the IRS and his child support payments, this was the best he could afford. There were two rows of mailboxes near the parking spot. Vasquez collected his mail and thumbed through it while he climbed the stairs to his second-floor apartment. Ads and bills. What did he expect? Who would write him?
Vasquez opened his door and flipped on the light. The furniture in the living room was secondhand and covered by a thin layer of dust. Sections of a three-day-old Oregonian littered the floor, the threadbare couch and one end of a low plywood coffee table. Each weekend Vasquez vowed to clean up, but he made an effort only when the dirt and debris overwhelmed him. He was rarely home, anyway. Undercover work kept him out at odd hours. When he wasn't working he kept company with Yvette Stewart, a cocktail waitress at the cop bar where he did his serious drinking. His wife had left him because he was never around, and he had continued the tradition after moving to this shithole.
Vasquez tossed his mail onto the coffee table and walked into the kitchen. There was nothing in the refrigerator but a six-pack, a carton of spoiled milk and a half-eaten loaf of stale bread. Vasquez didn't care. He was too exhausted to be hungry, anyway. Too exhausted to sleep, too.
Vasquez flopped onto the couch, popped the top on a beer can and flipped channels until he found ESPN. He closed his eyes and ran the cold can across his forehead. Everything was going just fine so far. Cardoni was in jail, and everyone seemed to have bought his story about the search. It felt good on those rare occasions when things went right for a change. Another thing that cheered Vasquez was Cardoni's claim that he did not own the Milton County house. Something like that was easy to check.
Vasquez turned off the set and pushed himself off the couch. He crumpled the sections of the newspaper and the beer can and threw them in the trash. Then he dragged himself into the bathroom. While he brushed his teeth he savored the fact that Dr. Vincent Cardoni was spending the first of what would be an endless number of days behind bars.
Chapter 15
Frank Jaffe sat in a back booth in Stokely's CafT on Jefferson Street in Cedar City and finished his apple pie while reading the final page of the police reports Fred Scofield had given him earlier that morning. The cafT had always been an oasis for Frank, his father and other weary hunters exhausted from hours of trudging through thick underbrush with nothing to show for their efforts but scratches, running noses and tales about the giant bucks that got away. It was the first place Frank had ordered a cup of coffee and sipped a beer. When Amanda was old enough, Frank had taught her how to shoot and introduced her to the wonders of Stokely's chicken-fried steak and hot apple pie.
Frank finished his coffee and paid the check. The Milton County jail was three blocks away on Jefferson in a modern annex behind the county courthouse, and Frank set off in that direction. In the days of Frank's youth, the population of Cedar City hovered around thirteen hundred and Jefferson had been the only paved street, but developers had ruined the town. Family-owned hardware and grocery stores were dying a slow death as national chains moved in; there was a mall with a multiplex cinema at the east end of town; Stokely's was forced to include caffF latte on its menu in order to survive; and the three-story red-brick courthouse on Jefferson was one of the few buildings that was more than thirty years old.
After checking in with the deputy at the reception desk, Frank was led to the attorney visiting room. A few moments later the thick metal door opened and Vincent Cardoni was brought in. The surgeon was dressed in an orange jail-issue jumpsuit, and there were dark circles under his eyes. As soon as the guard locked them in, Cardoni glared at Frank.
Where the hell have you been? I thought you were coming first thing this morning.
I met with Fred Scofield first, Frank answered calmly. He gave me some discovery that I needed to read through before we met.
Frank placed a stack of police reports on the cheap wooden table that separated them.
This set is for you. I thought we could go over some of it before the bail hearing.
Frank handed Cardoni a copy of the criminal complaint.
There are two counts against you now. The first involves the cocaine that the cops found in your bedroom. Frank paused. The other is a charge of aggravated murder for killing Mary Sandowski, the woman on the tape.