"How do we do that?"
"By stressing that the Attorney General conceded that a retrial would result in Price's acquittal. That circumstance is so unusual it has no broad implications for the law."
"No adverse implications, you mean. Because then I haven't signed off on any of Tony's theories, and you're reserving the subject of deference for another day."
Caroline smiled. "It's like the Hippocratic oath, McGeorge. First do no harm—to the law, to this Court, or to Rennell Price."
But Justice Glynn did not return her smile. "It's a way out," he said at last. "There's just so much to think about."
THIRTEEN
IN LATE JUNE, AS THE SUPREME COURT'S TERM NEARED ITS END, the Court remained silent in the case of Rennell Price.
This was a sign of trouble, Chris guessed aloud to Terri—a deeply divided Court or, perhaps, last-minute vote switching or hesitance about the scope of the opinion. Left to speculate, Chris followed the steady announcement of opinions, their authorship rotating among the justices, until with two "opinion days"—a Tuesday and a Wednesday—left, it was possible to guess that the author of the majority opinion would be either the Chief Justice or Justice Fini. "If I'm right," Chris said over dinner on the weekend before, "then we'll know whether we win or lose depending on which one of them announces the opinion."
"I'd like to be there," Carlo said.
Chris glanced at Terri. "Maybe all of us could go."
Terri hesitated. She did not know which would be more excruciating—awaiting the decision in her office or being present at the moment when the Chief Justice named the justice who would summarize the ruling and, with that, whether Rennell Price would live or die. Whatever the result, the task of informing Rennell would fall to her.
"There's Elena," Terri said. "And Kit."
The comment did not need elaboration. The photograph inserted in her New York Times had yielded no fingerprints; its provenance, the police believed, was Internet pornography. And Eddie Fleet still could not be found.
"We can ask Rossella to stay with them."
Terri pondered this. Their housekeeper, as fiercely maternal about the Pagets' children as was Terri, was a paragon of caution and good sense. And during the day, Elena would be serving as a junior counselor at the day camp Kit attended, safely surrounded by adult supervisors and other children.
"I'll think about it," Terri told her husband.
* * *
On the last Tuesday morning in June, all three Pagets watched an inscrutable Court, speaking through Justices Glynn, Raymond, and Ware respectively, announce decisions in three other cases.
That night, as they ate a fine Italian dinner at I Ricchi, Terri thought of her last meeting with Rennell. "I can't come to see you tomorrow," she had told him. "Maybe for one or two days after that."
Rennell looked anxious. "Where you be?"
Terri paused. "I'm going to the Supreme Court," she admitted, "to hear the justices say what they've decided."
Rennell was quiet, his eyes hooded: Terri saw him struggling to imagine that his freedom, or death, was a matter to be announced in public, in an august setting far from San Quentin. "When they do that?" he asked.
"I'm not sure yet—either Tuesday or Wednesday. But as soon as they do, I'm getting on a plane and coming straight here from the airport."
Rennell's eyes widened at the thought. "Maybe I be free," he said. "Wonder what that be like."
For a moment, Terri did not know what to say. "Good, Rennell. Happy." She thought of the first time she had seen him, gazing out the window of his cubicle at a sliver of the bay. "You can look at the water, feel sunlight whenever you want . . ."
"Go to baseball games."
"Yeah," she said softly. "Go to baseball games."
Suddenly his eyes misted. "Not like Payton," he said. "Payton don't be goin' to no games." And Terri knew that, for Rennell, the idea of death was as awesome and enormous as it was for her.
Now, eating little, Terri was glad that Chris and Carlo were with her. By this time tomorrow, she would be sitting with Rennell.
"They can't kill him," she said aloud, and to her own ears, she sounded as childish and willful as Elena, confronted by emotions too painful to accept.
"No," Carlo answered. "They can't."
* * *
The case was formally denominated Godward, Warden of San Quentin Prison v. Rennell Price. But when the Court's marshal called out "Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!" Caroline Masters instead began with "Justice Huddleston will announce the Court's opinion in Case Number 03-1540, Commonwealth of Virginia v. Burrell."
In a state of silent agony, Terri, flanked by Chris and Carlo, listened to Huddleston drone through the obligations imposed on the State of Virginia by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Once again, Terri tried to read the emotions of Caroline Masters and Anthony Fini. Perhaps she only imagined that the Chief Justice seemed preoccupied and a little detached; she could detect no pleasure in the morning, the final such occasion until October.
At last, Huddleston finished, and Justice Fini looked expectantly toward the Chief Justice. Those assembled, spectators and the press, awaited all that remained for the Court to announce: its latest ruling on capital punishment—the much-publicized, much-anticipated matter of the prisoner Rennell Price.
"Come on," Carlo murmured.
Caroline Masters seemed to hesitate. Then, stone-faced, she said in a chill voice, "Justice Fini will announce the Court's opinion in Case Number 03-542, Godward v. Price . . ."
Sickened, Terri shut her eyes. "Today," Fini said, "in a case which began with the tragic murder of a child, this Court confirms the legacy of Roger Bannon . . ."
Gripping Chris's hand, Terri opened her eyes again and saw that Justice Glynn looked neither at Justice Fini nor at the Chief Justice but at the bench in front of him.
* * *
Not until Caroline Masters took the unusual step of reading her dissent, voice steely with suppressed anger, did Terri feel the blow sustained by the Chief Justice.
"To avoid this Court's responsibilities," she began, "the five justices in the majority have plunged death penalty jurisprudence down the rabbit hole of 'deference to state court adjudications,' condemning—almost incidentally—a man named Rennell Price to death by lethal injection."
Terri shivered.
* * *
On the steps outside, Terri breathed in the hot, fetid air of early summer, gazing across First Street at the Capitol, where seven years before, determined men and women, jockeying for power, had passed the law which had now ensnared Rennell. Carlo stood on the pavement, slightly apart, arms folded; Chris said nothing, perhaps remembering the argument and wondering what else he might have done.
"Fini got his fifth vote," Terri said bitterly. "Rennell's merely collateral damage."
This afternoon she must go to San Quentin to tell him. And in twenty-four hours, she guessed, there would be a new date for Rennell Price's execution.
"Come on," Chris said gently. "Our driver's waiting."
FOURTEEN
RENNELL PRICE'S EXECUTION WAS SET FOR JULY 22.
Rennell's response surprised her. At the moment she told him of the Supreme Court's ruling, he seemed unable to speak. Then he took her hand and held it in both of his; in that moment of communion, she was certain that, as frightened as he was of dying, Rennell felt her own anguish as well. It brought home to her, in a way both painful and moving, how little love he had received from anyone, how abandoned he had always been, and how grateful he had felt to have Terri and the others fighting for him now. For a long time, they simply sat together, two people fearing the death of one.