When she described this to Tammy Mattox, Tammy had smiled sadly. "A lawyer friend of mine," she told Terri, "used to do these cases.
"Few years ago, my friend came down with AIDS. The last case he had was for a retarded man they executed. Before the man died, he wrote out a 'will and testament,' leaving my friend his unused years. It was the only way he could think of to give something back."
All Terri could do for Rennell was visit him every day and—without false promises—try to keep hope alive: otherwise, she feared that the certainty of his time and place of death would slowly begin to crush him. They would seek clemency from the Governor, she assured him, keep up the search for sources of new evidence to support yet another petition—perhaps Betty Sims, perhaps even Tasha Bramwell. Perhaps, with luck, they could find Eddie Fleet, or someone else who was his victim. Rennell simply listened; watching his face, Terri remembered herself as a child listening to her mother say the rosary, words she barely understood but which, perhaps because her mother put faith in them, became a source of comfort amidst the brutality of Terri's home life. This thought underlay another of Terri's goals—to recruit a spiritual adviser to comfort Rennell in his final hours, when Terri could be with him no longer.
The sole comfort for Terri was family, and work.
Through the functionary in charge of clemency, the Governor's office sent the Pagets a letter, specifying its requirements for a clemency petition, the Attorney General's papers in opposition, and Rennell's reply. "The theme of clemency," Terri emphasized to Carlo, "is compassion—all the reasons Rennell's life should be spared.
"His probable innocence is part of that. But we're asking the Governor to look at Rennell as a person: how he got that way, the difficulties of his life, and why a just society would spare him."
Before July 22, Terri explained, the clemency board would hold a hearing. Her hope was to gain support from unanticipated sources: in the eight months since Payton Price's execution, a fiscal crisis had plunged Governor Darrow into a bitter battle against a recall petition—fighting for survival, he seemed even less likely to risk granting clemency to Payton's brother. Recruiting those among the Governor's financial supporters who might also support Rennell—chiefly actors or writers—was not enough. And so, once more, she found herself sharing lunch on Lou Mauriani's deck.
"You didn't know he might be retarded," Terri told him. "You didn't know what Payton would say about Eddie Fleet. Now you do. If they execute him anyhow, how are you going to feel?"
Mauriani considered her gravely. "When I prosecuted your client," he answered in measured tones, "I was absolutely certain of his guilt, and that he deserved to die. For the next fifteen years, I didn't have the remotest doubt about either. About his execution, I still don't. If he did this to Thuy Sen, that should be his punishment.
"You claim that he didn't. But two Supreme Courts have held that the trial was fair, the verdict justified, the sentence warranted. Now you're asking me if I'll sleep at night if I don't turn my back on that and, far more important to me, on the family I promised justice. Tell me how they feel now."
"The same."
Mauriani contemplated his wineglass. "Then I don't think it's my place to help you. Whether I'll sleep well doesn't matter." Pausing, he looked up at her with candid blue eyes, adding softly, "Truth to tell, I wouldn't sleep well either way."
Driving away, Terri resolved to do the one thing which, out of pity for the Sens, she had left undone. "Payton's dead," she imagined telling Thuy Sen's sister. "The next death you watch will be that of a retarded man who may well be innocent. By the time you find out how that feels, it will be too late for both of you. Please don't let yourself become Eddie Fleet's last victim."
But although Johnny Moore dug up Kim Sen's address and unlisted number, Kim never answered the telephone, or her door. In desperation, Terri left a note explaining that she wished to meet. The only response was recorded after 1:00 A.M., on Terri's office voice maiclass="underline" "This is Kim Sen," the soft voice said. "After all these years, it's almost done now. Please let me find peace in my own way."
How much peace, Terri wondered, would there ever be for a woman who could find none in the middle of the night? Kim Sen had watched Payton die, holding Thuy Sen's picture for him to see. But Payton's death had failed her; now she was placing all her hopes on the healing power of Rennell's execution. As Terri put down the telephone, a remark of Lou Mauriani's came back to her: "For some families, the defendant will never be dead enough. But there's only one way to know that for sure."
The day before the clemency hearing, Thuy Sen's sister met in private with Governor Craig Darrow. Out of respect for Kim Sen's feelings, Darrow's spokesman informed the media, he could not tell them what was said. But, the spokesman emphasized, one thing should be clear—Governor Darrow felt the pain of victims' families in a deeply personal way. No leader with compassion could feel less.
* * *
That afternoon, Terri received a call from Rossella, their housekeeper. In the background she heard Elena sobbing.
Terri felt panic overtake her. "What happened? Is she all right?"
"Except in her mind." Rossella's Latin-accented voice was soft. "She think she see a man following us from the day camp."
* * *
When Terri arrived home, her daughter's eyes were dry, her face drawn and—to Terri's eyes—drained of blood.
As Terri embraced Elena, the girl hugged her tightly. Over her shoulder, Terri saw Rossella's look of sympathy, followed by a slow shake of the head.
Terri sat her daughter on the couch, Rossella standing beside them.
Elena swallowed. "There was a car, following us down the street from camp—driving really slow. The driver was a strange man." Her voice was tight, emphatic. "When I looked again, he was still there, and then he turned the corner down Broadway. Before he did, he looked at me out the side window and smiled. The smile was sick."
"What did he look like?"
Elena's voice rose. "He was a black man, Mama. Like that man you worry about."
Terri forced herself to think systematically, like a lawyer. "How old did he look?"
Elena's brow knit. "How old would that man be?"
"Late thirties."
"Yes. That was how old he was."
"What color was the car?"
Elena thought, then looked away. "I don't remember."
Terri glanced up at Rossella. "Did you see him?"
Once more, silent, the housekeeper shook her head.
Terri took her daughter's hand. "We're going to see the police," she told Elena.
* * *
With two plainclothes cops from the Sex Crimes Unit, Monk spread six mug shots on the conference table where he once had questioned Rennell Price.
Fleet, Terri saw at once, was the third face on the right. But his photograph, too, was a piece of history, an artifact of the time Fleet had traded Rennell and Payton Price for his own freedom. His eyes glinted with a young man's insolence, and the hint of a smile, perhaps perceptible only to Terri, seemed to play at one corner of his mouth.
Elena gazed at the photographs, her own face a mute portrait of fear and confusion. In that instant, Terri imagined Flora Lewis, staring at the mug shots Monk had brought to her living room and picking out Rennell and Payton Price.
"I think it was this one," Elena said and pointed to a photograph next to Fleet, a man Terri had never seen.
It turned out the man was dead.
* * *
That night, just before eleven, Terri softly opened Elena's door and peeked into her bedroom.
It seemed that her daughter was sleeping. Then Elena's voice came from the darkness.
"Did he have a bad childhood, too, Mama?"
Terri hesitated. She did not know whether the question, chilling to her ears, referred to Fleet, or to Rennell, or to Elena's own father.