Deadlocked

Chapter 11

Nancy Troy was a public defender, spending her days and nights fighting off a better staffed, better equipped, better financed foe. The State. She was handicapped by another small problem. Most of her clients were guilty and there were too many of them to keep track of, let alone do the exhaustive job of preparing a defense that Mason did for a client that could pay the freight.

She was a miniature bulldog, barely cresting five feet, carrying an extra fifteen pounds of midlife, sandy hair half gray, not vain enough to care. She snapped and snarled at cops and prosecutors, walking the tightrope in a system that balanced overcrowded criminal dockets with overcrowded prisons. Her definition of success was squeezing justice out of the process when she could. Ryan Kowalczyk had been one of her clients.

Her office was in a one-story brick building on the east side of downtown, across the street from what used to be the bus station, an empty building now on the city's list of things it didn't know what to do with. Nancy had been a public defender for twenty years, getting one of the few perks of her practice, a private office; the walls were covered with her kids' artwork and a handful of framed letters of thanks from grateful clients. She offered Mason a seat, closing the door behind him.

"You're lucky you caught me in the office," she told him. "I'm usually at the courthouse or the jail. Or I've got a waiting room full of clients. Sometimes this place is more popular than a public health clinic passing out free condoms."

Mason liked Nancy. It was hard not to. She defended the worst of the worst, making less money in a year than he sometimes made on a single case, doing it because she loved it, giving Mason a hard time about what she called his limelight practice.

"I'm on a tight schedule," Mason explained. "If I start making appointments to see people, I'll run out of daylight."

"What's up?" she asked. "People magazine waiting for you back at the office?"

"Yeah. They're doing a feature on lost causes. Mary Kowalczyk hired me to get a pardon for her son."

"Ryan Kowalczyk? Isn't that a little late?"

Mason shrugged. "Not for a mother who has nothing left but memories. She wants me to clear her son's name."

"So what's the rush? Ryan's gone."

"He's not pushing me. I'm also representing Nick Byrnes, the son of the murder victims. He was three when his parents were killed. He wants me to sue Whitney King for their wrongful death. His statute of limitations runs in less than two weeks."

Nancy took a deep breath, letting it out like a slow leak, leaning back in her desk chair. Mason was certain her feet didn't touch the floor. "Okay," she said. "No pressure. Ryan was my first capital murder client. Not exactly what he or his mother wanted to hear, but like my first boyfriend said, who wants to go second anyway."

"You were ready for trial," Mason told her. "I've never known you to be anything but ready."

Nancy let her chair come forward, pulling herself up to her desk. "You don't have to suck up that much, Lou. Even if you're right. Ryan's mother-your client-was a royal pain in the ass. Second guessed everything I did at the trial. I was glad to turn the case over to our appellate guys."

"She's convinced her son was innocent."

"Lou, all mothers are convinced their sons are innocent. Daughters too."

Mason laughed. "I know. Same with my clients. I've read the trial transcript. You didn't have much to work with. The alibis sounded like a bad idea for a TV movie."

"Tell me about it. The other kid, Whitney King. He had Brandon Potter and Potter was still pretty good in those days. Potter sold the alibi to the jury and I didn't."

"Was there anything in either kid's background that would explain why they did it?" Mason asked.

"No child abuse or satanic cults, stuff like that," Nancy said, leaving it open.

"But?"

"But Whitney was a strange kid. Not jump-out-at-you strange. I picked up bits and pieces. There were rumors among some of the kids at school that he had hit on a few girls a little too hard, maybe even raped one. I could never substantiate anything."

"What was Ryan doing hanging out with a kid like that?" Mason asked.

"Ryan was a nice, geeky kid who wouldn't say shit if he had a mouthful. Whitney was practically his only friend. Whitney liked being worshiped."

"Did you buy Ryan's alibi?" Mason asked.

Nancy pursed her lips, nodding. "Enough to let him testify to it. I mean I had no reason to believe he was lying when I put him on the stand, but I couldn't corroborate it ei

ther. It made sense in a funny kind of way."

"Meaning?"

"The coroner said that the first blow to both victims was to the face. That means they saw it coming. Neither one fought back; at least near as we could tell. Nothing on the victims or the defendants to show they fought. The cops couldn't come up with a murder weapon, but they assumed there was only one. I didn't argue because the one weapon theory was better for Ryan. Unless the boys took turns, it made sense that there was only one killer."

Mason was relieved that someone else had picked up on the failure of the victims to resist. "If both boys were there when the murders took place, one of them would have said he saw the other one do it, and was too scared to try and stop him. Take a chance on a conviction for being an accessory, not a killer. That makes more sense than each one saying that he left and it was over when he came back."

"Exactly," Nancy said. "I pressed Ryan about that. Gave him every chance to tell that story. The kid was consistent all the way through. Wasn't there. Didn't do it. Didn't know squat about any murder weapon."

"Did you talk to the jury after the trial?"

"You know," Nancy answered. "That was weird. They were deadlocked for two days. I would have settled for a hung jury. Then we could have tried the case again or made a deal."

Mason asked, "What broke the deadlock?"

"I never found out. The jury sent a note to the judge saying they didn't want to talk with the lawyers after the case was over. Only time that's ever happened to me. I tried talking to them anyway, just in case there was any jury misconduct that would get Ryan a new trial. I called some of them. Went to see some others. Nobody would say a word. It's like they made a secret pact."