I talked to the respiratory therapist and got the usual runaround. Primary care physician? Yes, but not the one looking after Dad now. A specialist? A pulmonologist, maybe? Infectious disease? On call, she said, but who I really wanted was the hospitalist.
What the hell is a hospitalist?
I finally got what I was assured was the right information, and gave my name and number to the person at the nurses’ station, explaining I was the one he or she should talk to. I made sure my parents weren’t in fighting mode and told Mom I’d be back in just a little bit. I made her write down my cell phone number in case she needed me, and asked for hers. She said she didn’t have one, but Dad had a phone in his room.
After calling Laura to tell her I was definitely available, I picked her up. She lived in a condo, a two-story boxy thing in west Pompano Beach, close to I-95 so she could get to work easily. I had volunteered to drive to put the miles on the rental but also because I wanted to see where she lived.
She was brushing her teeth with one hand, gesturing me to come in with the other so she could go finish up. When I asked her if she had figured out what was up with Will Hench, she shook her head and walked into her bathroom, still brushing.
While I waited I checked out her living room, which included an elliptical trainer, a set of free weights, and a ten-pound medicine ball.
Like in her house in Tucson, the other furnishings were spare to the point of nonexistence. Most of it was too shabby for her to have bought new. It looked like a college kid’s apartment. The only thing I recognized was her desk, a big heavy pale oak thing. She must have been particularly fond of her desk, because she brought that with her. I remembered working at that desk when I used her house in Tucson to hide out in. The surface was bare except for a Charles Dickens novel. I just knew if I opened the top right drawer I would find her pens and pencils lying side by side in order of their length, and her list of twenty or so unique random numeric passwords taped under it.
Rigidity is maybe not such a good quality to have when you’re dealing with people on death row. Not that I’d say Laura was rigid. Okay, maybe I’m saying that. Just a little.
I opened the next drawer down. Her office supplies in this one included a semiautomatic, a can of pepper spray, a stun gun, several rape whistles, and brass knuckles. Jesus, even I didn’t have brass knuckles. I looked over my shoulder to make sure she hadn’t seen me snooping, and shut the drawer.
There was something different about the top of the desk, though. An ugly gash in the wood peeked out from the side of the blotter. I lifted the blotter with my index finger and saw that the gash extended across the top of the desk a good ten inches.
“I’m ready,” she said behind me, as I let the blotter drop. She picked up the copy of Our Mutual Friend and took it with her.
* * *
William Hench’s office was on the fourth floor of a modest building in immodest Palm Beach. We got to the suite he shared with a couple of other attorneys, and Laura gave our names to the receptionist, who took us straight to his office. He wasn’t in it, so I took the opportunity to look out his big clean windows onto Olive Avenue. Then Hench walked in, introduced himself, and showed me a chair in front of his desk. Laura stayed standing behind the other chair with her arms crossed, coiled in preparation for what he might say.
Will was technically a whippersnapper in my view, early forties, which meant young enough to still have the passion that brought him into this field, whether for the money or the justice. Nice enough suit, and what actually looked like a piece of Chihuly art glass on his bookshelf, so the justice must have been profitable enough. He gave me the fake smile. I didn’t have to wait long to hear why.
After the accepted offer of a coffee, which he fixed for me himself—it felt more like a delaying tactic than hospitality—he sat down behind his desk and looked at Laura with a bad-news look, the kind where you try to telegraph it without having to actually say the words.
While I was noting this, he was already at the back end of a sentence. “… new law the governor signed, the Timely Justice Act. The name puts a positive spin on it, but essentially it’s bada boom bada bing, and you’re dead, all right? The law sets a deadline for appeals so we don’t have enough time to get reversals in cases where egregious mistakes were made. Plus, it gives a maximum of thirty days to execution once the death warrant has been signed.” Hench sighed, and apparently knew he couldn’t keep the information from us any longer. “Laura, I got the call late yesterday that it’s been signed.”
“When?” Laura asked, as loudly as a ghost.
“Five days.”
Laura’s arms quickly unfolded and her hands shot down to the back of the chair so you kind of got the feeling the support of the chair was necessary. I wanted to help her sit down, but I thought if I tried she’d smack me. She managed to say, “I’ve … never … heard of—”
Hench raised his hands, palms facing us as if he were surrendering, and said, “I know. I never have either. It feels like someone is expediting his execution just because we’re going to leverage the fingerprint examiner’s fraud. They’re afraid if this works it will start a domino effect with other cases. Man, I don’t want to be responsible for Marcus Creighton’s death.”
“Has he been told?” she asked him.
“I’m sure.”
While he had been saying all this, Hench’s expression slowly fell in sync with his words until by the end I could see his weariness making the lines already in his face a little deeper, even gravity turning against him.
Laura appeared to recover from the initial shock and was already jumping on her horse and riding off in all directions. “I need to go to him today,” she said.
Raiford is a five-hour drive north of Palm Beach and would take the whole day. I thought about Mom and Dad. But for now I focused on Hench instead. “Do you really think you can stop this?” I asked, not voicing my personal opinion.
“How the hell should I know?” he snarled, and then shook his head as if trying to get the useless anger out. “Sorry, but I can tell from your face you’re thinking we’re idiots. It’s par for you people. But that’s how it is. It’s defense. We try to see justice done. Sometimes we succeed.” He glared at me as if he anticipated my response and got to it ahead of me. “Or maybe we are all just idiots. But the world has to be made aware that forensics is not infallible. We need to show that some cases are built on forensic mistakes and flawed witness testimony.”
Laura had re-coiled her arms and started to pace like we were wasting daylight and her next move would be out the door. It nearly was until Hench stopped her.
“Just wait a second, Laura. We know what the evidence is. We have less time to line it up, and right now we only need enough to make a case for a stay of execution. We can do this.” His eyes gleamed with spirit and maybe the excitement of the chase as he slurped his coffee. “And I’ve got a possible ace. I’ve got a TV interview scheduled.”
“Local station?” Laura asked, turning back into the room and leaning across Hench’s desk.
“National. It’s a tremendous opportunity,” he said to both of us. “Maybe the publicity will give us a little more leverage.” He made a brave gesture of giving a one-two punch. “Can’t hurt,” he said, and to Laura, “But don’t let up on what you’re doing. Any bit of evidence, an excluding fingerprint, the phone records, will support the stay. Best case is I have something to offer on-air.”
“How much time do we have?” Laura asked.
“The TV slot I was offered is day after tomorrow, airing on the six o’clock news, filming in the morning at a local studio. Apparently it’s a hot topic because it will be the first execution following the passage of that law. If we can make it public, we can make it political. Our chances are better that they’ll back down.”
Laura didn’t say anything but tucked her thumbs into her blazer pockets, which to someone trained in body language said everything about whether she gave this idea a thumbs-up.
Will said, “They would have been willing to schedule it for tomorrow, but the other person they want to get can’t make it until the next day.”
“Who’s the other person?” Laura asked.
“Alison Samuels.”
“Well, isn’t that just the most idiotic thing you could do,” Laura said, taking her hands out of her pockets and throwing them in the air.
“It’s that controversy thing they do now where they’re hoping we start to yell at each other,” Hench said, more to me than to Laura. “It’s the only way they’d agree to the interview.”
“Who’s Alison Samuels?” I asked.
Will shuffled some papers around on his desk, but tentatively, as if he feared the woman was hiding under the pile and would jump out at him. “I’m on my way up to Tallahassee,” he said. “Laura, would you please tell Brigid about Madame Defarge?”