Jack got Margo Drake’s number and called her right away. He told her who he was and what he was looking for. He didn’t have the faith Anthony Webster did that the magic words public record were going to do the trick, so he added a few extra.
“Anthony Webster was the investigator on that case and he instructed me to give you a call and to tell you his notes were now a public record.”
“Oh, I’m glad you told me that,” Margo Drake told Jack. “Because we don’t usually give out anything in the prosecutor’s separate file. That file contains all the prosecutor’s notes and everything. However, since this case is so old-and you just want Mr. Webster’s notes and not the prosecutor’s and Mr. Webster instructed you to call to tell me it is a public record-we’ll have to comply. It will take me a few days because those files are in storage.”
Jack thanked her and told her a few days would be fine. He then sent her a letter confirming their telephone conversation.
The notes arrived five days later. Anthony Webster had indeed interviewed James Vernon, and Vernon had told him essentially the same story he told Wofford Benton-that he was just a witness to the murder.
Jack’s dilemma still remained the same. James Vernon had told two different stories to four different people. He had no credibility, and therefore, in Jack’s mind, the question of Henry Wilson’s innocence was still very much in doubt. On the other hand, Anthony Webster’s notes changed the legal ballgame entirely. If Wofford Benton had been able to call the prosecutor’s investigator to the stand instead of a prison snitch to talk about what James Vernon told him after the state had put on its case and rested and after Vernon had taken the Fifth, Henry Wilson might not have been convicted. Jack’s burden was now clear: he would have to convince a judge that Anthony Webster’s testimony was newly discovered evidence.
He sent a copy of the notes to Webster, along with an affidavit confirming under oath that the notes were indeed his and that the interview took place during the prosecution’s investigation of the case, a month before Henry Wilson’s trial.
When he received the signed affidavit back in the mail, Jack called Wofford Benton. The judge was in the middle of a hearing. To Jack’s surprise, he recessed his hearing temporarily to take the call.
“What’s up, Jack?”
“Well, Judge, I just want to update you on the case. You asked me to do that.”
“Yes, I did. Thank you.”
“I just received an affidavit from Anthony Webster. He was an investigator at the state’s attorney’s office.”
“Yeah, I vaguely remember him. He was wound a little tight as I recall.”
“That’s the guy. Anyway, I found notes of an interview between Webster and James Vernon in which Vernon told Webster the same thing that he told you. Did you know that Vernon had spoken to the prosecutor’s man a month before the trial?”
“Of course not. How did you find out?”
“Ted Griffin told me when I talked to him.”
“Dammit!” the judge swore. In the silence that followed, Jack could hear Wofford breathing heavily on the other end of the line. He was processing the information, and it didn’t take him long to arrive at the same conclusion Jack had reached.
“Let me ask you this, Jack. Do you think Henry would have been convicted if I had been able to put the state’s chief investigator on the stand to testify on his behalf rather than that jailhouse snitch, Willie Smith?”
“I don’t think so, Judge.”
“Neither do I. I’ll go ahead and prepare my own affidavit, and you use it however you need to. Even though I don’t think you will be successful with the ‘incompetence of counsel’ defense, I understand that you have to raise the issue.”
Wofford Benton no longer appeared to be a disinterested observer. He had joined the appellate team.
Jack’s next call was to the Florida State Prison at Starke to set up an interview with Henry for that Friday. He now had some news for him.
That evening Pat and Jack took their treasured run along the river. “This is so boring,” Pat said as they jogged along together. “Every night the same thing-starry skies, peaceful waters, weeping willows, pelicans, owls. . I miss the action of the big city-the robberies, the murders, the rapes. You know what I mean, Jack?”
“I’m with you, honey.” She was always content, and she made him feel the same way no matter how his day had gone.
“So tell me about all this new evidence that you’ve uncovered.”
“Well, I talked to Ted Griffin, the lawyer, and Anthony Webster, the prosecutor’s investigator, and I got the notes of his interview with James Vernon. The bottom line is that James Vernon told the prosecutor’s investigator that he was at the scene of the murder and Henry Wilson wasn’t there, and Wofford Benton never knew about that conversation.”
“Would it have made a difference if he did?”
“Absolutely. When Vernon took the Fifth at trial and refused to testify, Benton called a prison snitch to the stand. If he had known about Anthony Webster and called him instead, Henry Wilson might have walked.”
“So Henry is innocent.”
“Not necessarily. The original source of all this new information was James Vernon and he may have been lying like a rug.”
Just then Pat saw something rise in the river. “Look!” she pointed.
“What is it?” Jack asked as they stopped to look.
“It’s a manatee!” she said gleefully. “I was just telling the kids about them the other day. Oh, I wish I had a camera.” They stood and watched as the big hulking thing lazily drifted down the river with not a care in the world. They only resumed their run when it was out of sight.
“Have you tried to locate James Vernon and what’s that other guy’s name-the witness against Henry?”
“David Hawke?”
“Yeah, that’s the one I was thinking of. Have you tried to find them and talk to them?”
“I did. They’re both dead. Vernon was killed five years ago in a drug deal gone bad and Hawke was also murdered-I don’t know when.”
“Is that good or bad for Henry?”
“It’s good if he gets a new trial. With Hawke dead, there’ll be no evidence to convict him. It won’t help him get a new trial though.”
“It sounds like you’ve got the evidence to do that.”
“Maybe. I don’t know if I can meet the legal standard, and I’m still not sure that he’s innocent.”
“Well, Jack, as I said before, present the evidence and leave the rest to fate. What’s the standard you need to meet-new evidence?”
“Newly discovered evidence.”
“Well, this is newly discovered evidence, isn’t it? How was anybody to know that the prosecutor’s investigator did this interview?”
“Wofford would have known if he had talked to Ted Griffin. Wofford didn’t talk to him, and he should have. Ted Griffin would have told him about Anthony Webster.”
“Wait a minute! You mean the prosecutor finds evidence that the person he or she is prosecuting may be innocent and they can hide it?”
“Something like that.”
“No, Jack. No. I won’t accept that. That can’t be the law. How can a prosecutor who represents all of us hide evidence of a person’s innocence? It doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s just an evidentiary rule.”
“Well, if that’s the rule, whoever said the law is an ass is right. That is asinine.”
Jack smiled to himself. Pat certainly had a way of getting to the heart of the matter.
14
It took about an hour for Ralph Giglio, the police sketch artist, to come up with a detailed picture of the man Paul and David had seen outside their window on the night of Carl Robertson’s murder. Nick and Tony were both impressed.
“We need to get this picture in the neighborhood-stores, shops, apartment buildings-everywhere,” Nick told Tony.
“How about the Post and the News?” Tony offered. “They’ve been following this case pretty closely. I’ll bet they’ll put something like this on the front page.”