In sympathy and dismay, Chris reached across the white tablecloth to touch Terri's hand. "It's not good," he told Carlo. "At the least, it means that four out of nine justices are inclined to reinstitute Rennell's death sentence."
"Oh," Terri said, "it's a little worse than that. In eighty percent of these cases, the Supreme Court has reversed the lower court. With the Ninth Circuit, their record is twenty-seven in a row."
Carlo put down his beer, as if he could no longer taste it.
* * *
Driving toward the office down California Street, Terri heard her cell phone ring on the console where she had placed it.
The screen read "private caller." Hastily, she answered.
"See you lost again," the familiar voice said. "Time to let the sucker die, or face the con-sequences."
Willing herself to be calm, Terri answered tightly, "And what might those be?"
"The ones that happen to bitches keep huntin' for Betty Sims."
There was no way, Terri knew, to trace the call. "What if I found her? Or her daughter?"
For a moment, the voice was silent. "What if I find your daughter?" it asked softly. "Maybe I'd teach her, and send you the pictures. Close-ups, with her lookin' up at me, eyes as big as her mouth need to be."
The phone went dead.
Shaking, Terri pulled to the side and called Charles Monk.
He was still at the office. This time he did not challenge her, perhaps because of the way she sounded. There was little the police could do, he said, and perhaps her caller was just guessing she had a daughter, trying to strike a nerve. But if he had mentioned Betty Sims, it was time for Terri to fill out a police report.
She drove to the Hall of Justice and did that. But by then, Monk reported the next day, Eddie Fleet had vanished.
FIVE
THE SUPREME COURT HEARING WAS SET FOR APRIL.
Starting in December, when the Court had granted the State's petition, the Pagets shaped their strategy. Proving retardation alone would condemn Rennell to a life in prison; reliance on freestanding innocence might provoke a reversal of the Ninth Circuit, leading to his execution. The only clear path was arguing that their evidence was sufficient to establish Rennell's claim of innocence under AEDPA and—equally crucial—that freeing him under such a theory would in no way alter the law.
The Court would announce its ruling in June. "At least," Carlo said after a long day spent honing their brief, "we'll have kept him alive for six more months." But no one truly accepted this—the Pagets, and Rennell, had tasted freedom.
They visited him daily—Terri or Carlo or, at times, Anthony Lane. Their common goal was to raise his spirits and, with Lane's help, to prepare him for what they still hoped would come: a life outside the prisons where he had spent his life—the one where he now lived, the one where he was born—without the brother who had been his protector and betrayer. As the Pagets labored in the shadow of the Supreme Court, Rennell seemed to grow stronger. He did not know, and they had no heart to tell him, how precarious his purchase on life had become.
And so, on the surface, their lives went on, his and theirs. Rennell read simple stories which had belonged to Elena or Kit. Elena turned fourteen, and in early March, Carlo's new girlfriend moved her clothes into his apartment. The Pagets worked on other cases. There was no sign of Fleet, no calls to Terri.
Yet his specter, and that of the hearing, wound through the fabric of their lives. Elena and Kit went nowhere unattended. Looking for notoriety, self-proclaimed Supreme Court specialists tried to shoulder the Pagets aside; one predator, not fully appreciative of Rennell's limitations, wrote him in prison to offer himself as counsel. Chris and Terri gave the media a spate of stories about Rennell which focused on his innocence, not the pitfalls of AEDPA. But there was another problem wholly beyond their controclass="underline" whether the Solicitor General of the United States, whose prestige was matchless, and whose mandate included defending federal statutes such as AEDPA, would file a brief in opposition to Rennell, reaffirming the President's support of AEDPA and the death penalty.
This the Pagets dreaded. "In a close case," Chris told Carlo, "the Solicitor General could be the difference."
And so they waited.
* * *
In late March, when the San Francisco Giants opened the baseball season against the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Baltimore Orioles hosted Tony Fini's beloved Yankees. Gifted with two tickets behind home plate at Camden Yards, Justice Fini took Adam Wendt.
The afternoon was sunny, and although it was breezy and a little cool, Justice Fini did not let this spoil his enjoyment of another beginning, in his mind second only to Easter as a sacred rite of spring. Between innings he sat back with his eyes shut, half-smiling, absorbing the smells of hot dogs and spilled beer as sunlight warmed his face. Adam had never seen a man so perfectly content.
"When I was a kid," Fini said, "I'd skip school for opening day at Yankee Stadium. It was the only sin I didn't mind confessing—no God worth worshiping would fail to understand."
Adam smiled. Until the sixth inning, the newness of spring, the timeless geometry of baseball, absorbed every molecule of Justice Fini's being. Then, between the top and bottom of the inning, Fini spoke without taking his eyes off the Yankees' starting pitcher as he began his warm-up tosses. "The Price case, Adam. Looked at the briefs yet?"
Adam balled up his hot dog wrapper and tossed it beneath his seat. "Uh-huh," he answered. "Price's lawyers do a fairly artful job of tiptoeing through the minefield. I'd give them an A minus to the State's B plus."
Fini nodded, satisfied; that the justice now reposed such confidence in his judgment warmed Adam beyond description. Still watching the pitcher, Fini inquired, "So who wins?"
"I couldn't guess. But Price could hold the middle, Justices Glynn and Raymond. His brief does everything it can to give them a way out."
Fini pursed his lips. "Circulate a memo," he directed, "arguing that we should invite the Solicitor General to weigh in."
Adam hesitated. "In this administration?" he inquired with some trepidation. "The President who appointed the Solicitor General also appointed the Chief Justice."
Fini's keen eyes glinted. "True. But even this President, as a senator, voted for AEDPA. And there's a presidential election coming up. There are only two possibilities—that the S.G.'s office ducks the issue or, more likely, comes to AEDPA's defense. The latter could tip my less decisive brethren."
Quiet, Adam absorbed this. What made Fini exceptional was not simply the capaciousness of his mind but its shrewdness and practicality, firmly moored in the world outside the Court. A great justice, Adam saw, must be a great tactician.
Fini still eyed the pitcher. "How's Clemens looking to you?" he asked.
Adam had been watching Fini, not Roger Clemens. "Okay, I guess."
"He's one or two batters short of finished," Fini demurred with a smile. "A manager has to smell blood in the water before the sharks do."
* * *
As the guards eased Rennell Price into the cubicle, Christopher Paget's first reaction was one he had not expected—that this hulking man with a lineless face, a looming presence in the life of Chris's family, was young enough to be his son.
"I'm Chris." Extending his hand, Chris added with a smile, "Terri's husband, and Carlo's dad. You're about all they ever talk about."
Rennell's soft hand enveloped his. But the man's eyes were expressionless, as though studying Chris for clues: though Rennell's life had become his charge, Rennell Price did not know Chris, and Chris did not know Rennell. That had been better, the rationalist in Chris believed—to feel affection for this man, as Terri did, might cloud his judgment at some crucial moment, perhaps before the Supreme Court, when coolness was what Rennell needed most from him. But now Chris had needed to come here.