Conviction

SIXTEEN

MUCH OF THE EAST SIDE OF INNER-CITY CLEVELAND, TERRI learned, had been ravaged since the riots of the late 1960s. Spacious homes had become boardinghouses for the desperate or impoverished; a once-thriving main artery of commerce was now a strip of laundries, liquor stores, corner groceries, and check-cashing businesses; the public housing was a Stalinist cinder-block monolith scarred by indecipherable graffiti, in front of which Terri saw a cluster of black kids passing a joint. But Betty Sims had found a toehold on a better life—the house she rented, though small, was on a tree-lined street whose lawns and gardens were carefully tended, a sign of neighborhood pride. It was early evening when Terri parked in front, hoping to find Sims and her daughter home, and the trickle of men and women walking from nearby bus stops bespoke an ethic of work and striving.

Terri rang the bell. After a moment, a plump, wary-eyed woman cracked open the door, fixing Terri with an expression that suggested few of the surprises in her life had been good ones. "I'm Teresa Paget," Terri said simply. "Rennell Price's lawyer."

The wariness in Sims's eyes became weariness. Yet, if anything, she appeared more guarded. "Another lawyer," she said.

"Another one. In two weeks, Rennell's due to be executed."

Sims slowly shook her head, a gesture of resistance. "Maybe he should be. But that's got nothing to do with me."

Terri tried to rein in her anxiety for Rennell, and for Elena—over two thousand miles away from San Francisco, with nothing to go on but instinct, there was little she could do to make Betty Sims talk. With a calm she did not feel, Terri asked, "Could I come in?"

Sims did not move. After a moment, she asked, "What happened to Payton?"

"They executed him."

Sims looked down. Finally she said, "Ten minutes, is all. Got to put on dinner."

As though regretting her own invitation, Sims paused before standing aside. The living room Terri entered was sparsely furnished. To one side of a plain wool couch sat a photograph of Sims and a girl whose smile did not seem to reach her eyes.

"Your daughter?" Terri asked.

"Uh-huh."

There was no give in Sims's expression; it was plain that she had no wish to discuss her child. Steeling herself for resistance, Terri ventured, "I'm here about Eddie Fleet. I know you used to live with him."

Though her eyes did not change, Sims's face seemed to twist, a spasm of anger she erased in an instant. "Used to," Sims responded tersely. "That was another time, another place. And none of your concern."

Terri hesitated, knowing all too well the emotions which might lie beneath this answer. "I think it is," she said. "I think you know what Eddie's capable of doing."

Sims folded her arms, looking hard at Terri. "What would that be?"

"What he did to the murdered girl, Thuy Sen. And what he did to your daughter."

For an instant, Sims seemed to buckle, as though Terri had hit her in the solar plexus. "Get out," Sims said softly. "We got nothing more to talk about."

She had been right, Terri suddenly knew. "Without you," Terri said, "Rennell Price is going to die, and Eddie Fleet will find himself another child to abuse. Maybe the next mother won't have an aunt in Cleveland, somewhere to run to. Maybe her only choice will be letting Eddie beat her up, or hiding in her bedroom while Eddie forces her little girl to have sex. Maybe it's okay with you that another mother and her daughter get to live with that."

"Get out," Sims hissed. "You get out this very minute."

The front door opened.

Sims's eyes widened. A girl close to Elena's age stood there in a parochial school's plaid uniform, tall and awkward-looking, eyes darting from Terri to her mother, as if she, too, feared surprises. Sims could seem to find no words.

"I'm Teresa Paget," she said. "A lawyer from San Francisco. I came to ask you and your mother about Eddie Fleet."

The girl's eyes became a well of anger, directed first at Terri, then at her mother. When Terri turned to Sims, the woman's eyes glistened with tears. "I'm sorry, baby. I'm just so sorry."

"Not sorry like me, Mama. I was all alone with him."

The girl's tone was so like Elena's that it made Terri shiver. When Terri spoke, her own voice was husky. "My client's a retarded man named Rennell Price. The State of California is about to execute him, for choking a nine-year-old girl to death as he forced her to give oral sex. We think the real murderer was Eddie Fleet. I need someone to say that Eddie likes sex with children, or Rennell will die in his place."

"Where is he?" Sims demanded. "Eddie."

For an instant, Terri considered lying, claiming that Fleet was dead. She paused, torn between her obligation to truth, her duty to Rennell, and her need to protect her own daughter. "I don't know," she finally acknowledged.

"If we do what you want, he'll find out where we are."

It was Terri's own fear. But she could not admit this. "He'll be too afraid to try," she assured the girl, cringing at her own duplicity. She needed Lacy Sims for another reason she could not admit: to prosecute Fleet for child sexual abuse, putting him where he could not harm Elena. "Please," she urged, "stop this thing from happening again."

The girl threw her backpack at her mother's feet. "What my mama say happened?"

"She didn't say. She's trying to protect you."

The girl's look at Sims was bitter and accusatory. "Yeah," she said in a monotone, "she's really good at that."

Inwardly, Terri recoiled from the emotions she had unleashed between this mother and daughter. But there was no time for regret. "What about you?" she asked. "Do you want to protect the next child Eddie Fleet comes after?"

The girl looked from her mother to Terri. "Don't do this, baby," Sims implored.

The girl faced Terri, a smile of anger and reprisal playing across her lips. "What you want to hear about?" she asked. "The first time, or the last?"

* * *

Betty Sims worked as a secretary. Though she was only ten, Lacy had a key to the apartment, to let herself in after school. The other person with a key was Eddie Fleet.

That day—the one she still had dreams about—Lacy opened the door and found Eddie lying on the couch, dressed in nothing but boxer shorts, the pupils of his eyes like pinholes.

"Hey, sweet pea," he said softly.

Embarrassed, Lacy turned away.

She heard Fleet stretching lazily on the couch, emitting a silken yawn. "Don't need to be so bashful, Lacy. Ain't you seen a man before?"

Lacy did not answer. Quickly, she went to her room and shut the door behind her.

Sitting at the desk, she tried to brush aside the unease she felt, the sense of vulnerability. She opened her history book, staring at the chapter on Egypt.

The door opened behind her.

She did not turn. "What you doin'?" Fleet asked.

Reluctantly, she faced him. "Homework."

" 'Homework'?" he repeated. "What a girl need with that? Homework's what I give your mama whenever I'm in the mood for it."

Lacy knew—she could hear them through the walls. Seemed like Fleet liked her mother to scream; some nights Lacy willed herself to be in another place.

Now her stomach felt queasy. "Well," she said, "my homework's on Egypt. Got to do it."

Fleet's smile was so benign that it scared her. "Time for some other lesson," he said easily. "I'll be the teacher, you be my pupil."

He began walking toward her. Lacy saw the surface of his boxer shorts stirring and knew that no one else could save her. "Don't want no lessons," she said tightly.

Fleet's eyes turned brighter. "You do, child. You just don't know it yet."

She stood, backing away. "I'll tell my mama."

Fleet laughed softly. "No, you won't. Your mama knows when to open her mouth, and when to close it. That's what I'm gonna teach you."

Lacy began trembling. "You know what good pupils do?" Fleet inquired. "They get down on their knees, and say please. That be how the teacher knows it's time."

She felt his hands on her shoulders. Half-staggering, she fell to her knees and saw his shorts around his ankles.

Her eyes filled with tears. Gently, he cradled her chin in his hands, gazing down at her. "Know what?" he said with a ruminative smile. "You got eyes just like your daddy's."

Mute, Lacy stared up at him, scared and desperate. He took her hand and put it on his most intimate place. "You don't know your daddy, do you?"

She shook her head, eyes closing. The last thing she remembered him saying was, "Name was Payton. The one your mama turned to for con-so-lation. Just like what I've got for you."

* * *

Stunned, Terri faced Betty Sims.

She sat away from her daughter, at the other end of her couch, a figure of abject shame. Terri waited until Sims could look at her.

"You wanted to know," Sims said in a voice shot through with misery. "You wanted to know everything."

Terri struggled with her own disbelief. "You were with Payton."

Briefly, Betty shut her eyes. "Just one or two times, a few days before those two got arrested. I wanted him to stop Eddie from beating up on me."

"Did he?"

Sims shrugged. "Couldn't do nothing from jail."

Suddenly, the logic of events long past struck Terri so hard that she felt herself inhale with a shudder. Softly, she asked. "When did you tell Eddie about Payton?"

Sims turned away. "Day or two after it happened. Eddie beat it out of me."

Silent, Terri absorbed this. Whatever the other reasons for all that Eddie Fleet had done, the sexual abuse of this child was a last act of reprisal. "And you told no one."

"No."

Terri turned to Lacy. "Will you? Will you go to the police?"

Wearily, Sims gazed at her daughter.

"Yes," the girl told Terri. "Let Mama's boyfriend be afraid of me."

* * *

"We need to file a third petition," Terri urged Chris by telephone. "Not only is Fleet a pedophile but turning in the brothers was more than just an act of survival. Taking Payton down felt extra good to him."

Chris was silent. "Of course," he said at last, "Pell will say that Betty has it in for Fleet, and that stories of childhood abuse are notoriously unreliable. He may even claim that Lacy's trying to save the uncle she never knew she had."

In her excitement and exhaustion, the warped logic of such an argument had not occurred to Terri. "Rennell's an uncle," she said softly, unable to define the sadness this made her feel.

"Anyhow, Terri, come home soon. We've got a new petition to work on, and Johnny Moore's got something else for you. For whatever finding Tasha Bramwell turns out to be worth."

Before calling Johnny, Terri tracked down Charles Monk, to tell him what had happened to Lacy Sims. Still no one knew where Fleet might be.

* * *

At last, after staring for sleepless hours at the red-illuminated numbers of a hotel room clock radio, Terri drifted off to sleep. The dream which came to her was Elena's, except that Terri had taken her daughter's place.

She was alone in a darkened bedroom, and there was banging on the door.

Elena's father was coming.

The door opened. Terri hugged herself, and saw his shadow coming toward her. She prayed it was her mother, and then a man's face came into the light.

"Both of you," Eddie Fleet said in her husband's perfect English. "First your mother, and then you."

Terri woke up sobbing.