Conviction

TWENTY-THREE

LESS THAN AN HOUR LATER, TERRI AND CHARLES MONK SAT IN a windowless interrogation room at the Robbery and Homicide Division. "I flunked retirement," he told her matter-of-factly. "Back here part-time, doing special investigations. Chumps who gave me the golf clubs at my farewell party are wanting a refund."

Terri gave him a perfunctory smile. "Got time to excavate the past?"

"Whose past?"

"Eddie Fleet. The guy who asphyxiated Thuy Sen while Rennell Price was fast asleep."

Monk dealt with surprise, Terri realized, by summoning a total absence of expression. But his eyes betrayed his swiftness of thought. "If Rennell was sleeping, and Fleet still says he wasn't there, that makes Payton your witness."

"Think about it," Terri urged. "You had no witnesses to the murder. So Flora Lewis could mistake Fleet for Rennell, and Fleet could lie to you about him."

"That'd be a pretty nasty coincidence, counselor. I never told Fleet about Lewis. Their stories jibed without any help from me."

Terri felt a surge of desperation. "I have a witness," she retorted. "One of the men who killed her. You can't ignore what Payton says."

Monk appraised her, his expression softening a bit. "But the A.G.'s Office can," he said. "Death row confessions are nothing new to them. You'd better tell me exactly where things stand."

Eyes still fixed on his, Terri summarized her theory as succinctly as she could. "Rennell never knew what happened," she concluded. "He still doesn't. I'm sure Fleet does. I'm almost as sure that if you kick over enough rocks, you'll find a pedophile who likes forcing children into oral sex, and is going to keep on doing it until somebody stops him. And maybe, if we're lucky, he told somebody sometime how clever he was to frame Rennell."

"You've got investigators. Why me?"

Terri paused, then chose total candor. "Because we're striking out. Because there's ten days left for me to save Rennell. And because you've got as big a stake in that as I do." She softened her voice. "Maybe bigger. Whatever happens, I'll have done my best to save an innocent man. But if I'm right, his death—and the next child Fleet forces into sex—will be the dark side of your storied career."

Monk shook his head in demurral. "I went where the evidence took me. I'm not the prosecutor, or the judge, or his lawyer, or the jury that convicted him."

"They were all standing on your work," Terri replied. "Fleet's story saved his ass; Payton's story seals his execution. Why are you so sure that Fleet didn't play you?"

For the first time Monk looked away from her, eyes narrow in thought. "Rennell's retarded," she continued. "He was too impaired to have a story, and Fleet knew it. That put him one jump ahead of you."

"Matter of fact," Monk quietly remarked, "this room is where he fingered the brothers." His smile was almost imperceptible, a ghost of deeper reflections. "What exactly you want me to do?"

"To use all your street contacts—check out Eddie Fleet, a.k.a. Howard Flood. If you find something that troubles you, tell Larry Pell. Soon."

Wincing, Monk stretched his legs in front of him, reminding Terri of his chronically painful knee. "Have to tell Pell first," he responded. "It's his case now, not mine. But I'll try and see what I can do."

"Thanks, Charles," Terri said simply.

* * *

"Last time I ever see him," Rennell told Terri. "Tole me in the yard warden gonna lock us down now . . ."

He stopped, choking on his words. Tears ran down the broad planes of his face, so riven with grief that he did not seem to notice them. His next words came in a near-whisper. "Says not to leave my cell no more. Not till you get me out."

Miserable, Terri took his hand. Rennell's lips fluttered. "Says I can't go with him," he mumbled.

Terri's chest felt tight. "To heaven?"

Eyes shut, Rennell slowly shook his head. "The death chamber."

Helpless, Terri tried to answer as though this were a commonplace. "They don't let other inmates watch. It's the rules."

Rennell wiped his eyes with the back of his curled hand. "Grandma can't come either. Too sick, Payton says."

This was true. But only Terri knew that Payton had not given his permission for Eula Price to attend. He did not wish her to see him die, or bear witness to his shame.

Fumbling in the pocket of his denim shirt, Rennell withdrew a piece of paper, then carefully unfolded it on the table before her. "I drew this for him."

Heartsick, Terri stared at two stick figures, one larger and one smaller, drawn in orange Magic Marker. The larger figure seemed to be reaching down to catch the other's hand.

"It's beautiful."

"Want you to give it to him," Rennell said softly. "At the death chamber, so he'll have it."

She could not tell him that a pane of glass would separate Payton from those who came to watch him die. "I don't think I can be there, Rennell."

Rennell looked up at her, his eyes pleading. "He's my brother—always lookin' out for me. Don't want him to be alone."

The realization of what he was asking crept over her. Terri's mouth felt dry. "What does Payton say?"

"Up to you. Is it okay?"

The enormity of this request, Terri saw, was well beyond his ken. She had given Rennell comfort, and so could comfort Payton as well. The Teresa Paget of Rennell's imaginings slept soundly.

"It's okay," she assured him.

* * *

Christopher Paget gazed down at the drawing his wife had placed on his ink pad.

"Jesus," he murmured and slowly shook his head. "It captures this whole tragedy—far better than I can do in a hundred pages of legal argument. I'm just so sorry, sweetheart."

Terri mustered a wan smile. "I know you are. Save Rennell, I thought, and I could keep my innocence intact. But there's no innocence quite like his."

Chris glanced toward the marked-up pile of papers beside Rennell's drawing. "I'm a half hour from being finished. Then I'll run these to Sacramento, and ask the Governor's office for a reprieve. Bond notwithstanding, the State ought not execute Rennell's only witness before we can make our case."

"Do you think you've got a prayer?"

"An agnostic's prayer," Chris quietly allowed. "You're the Catholic, however lapsed. Maybe you can resurrect your rosary and pray that God will whisper in our Governor's ear. As opposed to his pollsters' here on earth."

Tiredly, Terri sat. "I don't want Payton to die, Chris. I'm not ready to watch that. Not when Rennell is with me night and day."

Chris's look of compassion carried a hint of his own solitude. "I know," he answered.

* * *

Terri went to her office and hit buttons on her cell phone until she found the number she had recorded for Eddie Fleet. She pressed one more button, then heard his telephone ringing.

"Go," Fleet answered tersely.

Terri hesitated. "This is Terri Paget. I've got a declaration to go over with you."

"That's sure nice, Terri Paget." His silken voice was suffused with anger. "Only problem is the A.G. called me first. Seems like you tryin' to trade me for Rennell."

"That's not right—"

"You take me for a fool?" His tone became quiet, poisonous. "You can still come on over. But now you got to get down on your knees and suck my dick till I'm done. See if you're woman enough to live through what I got stored up just for you." Fleet emitted a harsh laugh. "That's what this case is all about, right? 'Cept your mouth is bigger."

For a terrible instant—born, Terri understood at once, of a mother's primal instinct to protect—she feared this man not for herself but for Elena. Then the line went dead.