“‘Did I do something to deserve this?’ she asked, looking as though she really believed she might have.
“‘Absolutely not,’ I told her. ‘What you deserve is to live to be ninety-five and have ten grandchildren.’
“What she did next almost killed me. Her eyes were as clear as they’d been in weeks. She clenched my hand weakly and whispered, ‘Penn, I’m scared.’
“I pretty much lost it then. I wanted Dad to knock her out. I was like her father, in a way. I could stand seeing her in pain, but I couldn’t stand seeing her afraid.”
Jack touches my arm and says, “I’ve been there, brother. Believe me.”
His understanding gives me a feeling of comfort I don’t quite understand—the luxury of not having to explain, I suppose. “Not long after that, Mitch Gaines called me back. He said he’d heard I was talking to cops about the Avila case, and he was doing me the favor of saving my ass by warning me off it. He actually told me that if I persisted, I might be charged with obstruction of justice. As you might imagine, I was in no mood to be threatened. I told him he was the one whose ass was hanging in the wind, and he’d better stay out of my fucking way. Then I hung up. I was raging mad, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave Sarah’s bedside.
“About ten that morning, her pain worsened significantly. She was moaning and crying, and Annie got freaked out. Dad could no longer keep the pain at bay without drugging Sarah senseless, which would have been a blessing. At this point, Mrs. Spencer was worn down to a shadow of herself. Only Mom and Dad were holding it together. It really looked like Sarah was going to die that day, but somehow she held on. About three P.M., she lapsed into what looked like a coma. But her vitals were still reasonably strong.”
While Jack stares at me, waiting, I let my eyes track a quarter-mile-long string of barges moving downstream far below us. The burnt-orange containers are riding low in the water, and the rumble of the massive engines of the tugboat pushing them is but a hum from this height. Yet that steady hum enters into me like a tranquilizer, and I feel my mind coming unmoored from the present again.
“Penn . . . ?” Jack prompts.
“Sorry. I was going crazy just waiting, so I took that chance to call Joe Cantor. I’ll give Joe credit: he didn’t try to avoid me. We met in a quiet restaurant near my house, one we used to use during murder trials. The owner gave us a private table in the back. Joe told me it was good to see me, and he meant it. We’d tried some major cases together and put some very bad guys behind bars. It was sort of like two old soldiers meeting years after a war. He asked about Sarah, and I soft-pedaled that. I didn’t want to get into it.”
“What kind of guy is Cantor?”
“Unique. He’s half Jewish, but nonpracticing and fully assimilated. About the only thing Jewish about Joe Cantor is his Old Testament sense of justice. He’s not a big guy, but he’s a Texan down to his boots and bones. He looks like Rod Serling. Black hair, iron jaw, and as steely a pair of eyes as you ever saw. He never had much accent, either, which was surprising. His paternal grandfather was a Texas Ranger, and the other was a lawyer who became a judge up in Abilene. Joe himself served two tours in Vietnam before going to Rice and majoring in history. He was decorated for bravery.”
“I guess he came by his legal philosophy honestly.”
“He doesn’t mince words about it, either. He’ll tell you he doesn’t know whether the death penalty’s a deterrent or not, and he doesn’t care. He sees capital punishment as legal retribution by society.”
“Got it. So how’d he take your bad news?”
The memory of that meeting is burned into my cerebral cortex—not merely the words, but the unsettling feeling of seeing the face of one of my heroes revealed to be a mask of sorts. “Not well.”
I remember sliding into the chair in the little private room, watching those eyes I had always seen as the personification of tough-but-fair. Joe started with small talk, some office gossip, and I sat listening to that voice the reporters loved, the one that never dodged a question, that fired off million-dollar quotes faster than you could scribble them down. The voice that even defense lawyers trusted. I was listening the way I listened to witnesses, alert to the slightest emotional dissonance, the faintest tell.
“What put a burr under your saddle over this Avila business?” he asked suddenly.
“I know the family,” I said. “That Conley kid raped Mirabel Avila, and Gaines pled it down because it didn’t look like a slam dunk.” Cantor didn’t look surprised, so I gave it to him straight: “You’ve got problems at the crime lab, Joe. Real problems. Daman Kirmani’s an asshole. I don’t think he’s even qualified to be doing the science he’s doing.”
“Are you qualified to make that judgment?” Joe asked gently. “Dr. K has a Ph.D., for God’s sake.”
“Not in chemistry. And he had no forensic experience when he was hired for that job. If I’d known that when I worked in the office, I’d have been screaming about it back then. When was the last time you went over there?”
“The HPD crime lab? Hell . . . it’s been a good while. Years.”
“Take my advice: pay them a visit. An unannounced visit.”
Joe looked wary. “Why would I do that?”
“Because I went up there last night, and it’s a mess. Rainwater is leaking through the roof, contaminating samples. I saw blood on the floor. Open samples, overheating, you name it. Flagrant violation of standard procedures for preserving the integrity of evidence.”
Cantor was clearly perturbed, but he held himself in check. “You went to the crime lab last night? How the hell did you do that?”
“Is that really the issue here, Joe?”
“It might be. Penn, you resigned from my office. You’re no longer part of my staff, and you have no right to be in that crime lab.”
I felt my face getting hot. “Who gives a shit? Wes Conley’s semen is on that carpet. Dr. Kirmani fucked up. That’s a scientific fact, like it or not.”
“What makes you say that? The kid has a solid alibi, and the cops never found any trace of the perp’s Sony camera or the photo he shot. If Conley had taken that picture, he’d keep it close, so he could use it to whack off.”
I thought about Felix Vargas, who was probably swallowing Valium by the handful in the crime lab restroom. “My word isn’t enough anymore, Joe? I tell you what I just did about your crime lab, and this is your response?”
“It’s not my crime lab. That’s HPD, and you know they’re always stretched for resources over there. If they have problems, they’ll be fixed in due course.”
“No, they won’t. Kirmani has set up a fiefdom that operates on the Peter Principle. Everybody rises to his or her level of incompetence. Obvious problems are being ignored, and cases are being tried on their findings. The Avila plea is a perfect example of that negligence!”
“Negligence is a pretty strong word, Penn. I need more than unsupported accusations.”
I told him about Dr. Kirmani failing to chemically test the carpet. Then I continued, being careful with my pronouns. “A tech in that lab saw Kirmani’s mistake and couldn’t live with it. They confronted Kirmani and got threatened with termination. This person knew that would be the likely response, but they did it anyway. The case meant that much. When that failed, and Mitch refused to do anything, the tech came to me.”
Joe smiled, his eyes filled with a strange mixture of goodwill and regret. “To Penn Cage, the white knight.”
“Hey, you’re the one who let everybody call me Marshal Earp.”
A waitress came into our private room, but Joe brusquely waved her away.
“How do you know this whistle-blower is trustworthy?” he asked.
“Gut feeling. And you always trusted my gut, boss.”
“Did you gut-test his alcohol level?”
As I looked back into Joe’s eyes, my head began to spin. “You already know about this. All of it.”
Cantor shrugged noncommittally. “I found out this morning. Mitch Gaines is shitting M-80s, he’s so pissed off. He wants to charge you with breaking-and-entering and obstruction of justice, and that’s just to start.”
“I know you cut that idea off at the knees.”
Cantor waved his hand. “You don’t have to worry about Mitch. But this plea deal is signed, Penn. The Conley kid’s already gone before the judge. The film’s in the can. It can’t be edited anymore.”
“You’ve got to find a way, Joe. Get the plea vacated.”
Cantor’s mouth fell open. “You know I can’t do that! That’s like unbreaking an egg. Look, it’s a raw deal for the girl, but sometimes cases slip through the cracks.”
“Not often in your office, I was always proud to say. I saw you prosecute crooked bankers like they were crack dealers, and crack whores like they were human beings.”
I could see that my open respect for him was moving him, yet still he resisted me. He was hoping I’d give up, but I wasn’t about to. “Joe, listen. If that kid gets off this time, he’s going to do the same thing to some other girl.”
Cantor stared back at me without speaking, silently taking the measure of something within me. For a few seconds I saw what I thought he must have looked like as a soldier in Vietnam, peering into the shadowy depths beneath some jungle canopy. He was making a threat assessment.
“What’s really going on here?” I asked softly. “Conley’s old man has money, but I know that doesn’t mean shit to you. Mitch said you’ve got a big case coming down the pipeline, and suggested you don’t want the integrity of the DNA lab questioned just now. Is he right?”