I live with four cats on what was once a poor farm outside the small town of Lyle, Virginia. I share a small suite of offices with an attorney named Robbie Owens in a renovated townhouse on the north end of town and spend most of my days in my office managing the estate of Reilly Heartwood, a famous country singer and my biological father. He was a generous man who left me a lot of money, what was once a poor farm, a mansion on the edge of town, responsibility for four elderly people who once lived on the poor farm but currently live in the mansion, and a maze of tax problems stemming from his donations to charities that had lost their 501(c)(3) status.
Reilly Heartwood, who performed under the name of CC Hollinger, died without telling me what our relationship was. My mother, to hide the shame of being pregnant with me, had married a nice but formal man named William Harrington and told me that he was my father. William, who stuck me with the preposterous name, “J. Shepard Harrington,” neither played with me nor taught me what sons are supposed to learn from their dads. I guess he was nice to my mother in an old school way, but he wasn’t pleased when my mother took to calling me Shep. He traveled a lot, so I wasn’t surprised when one morning he wasn’t there for breakfast. After a few days, I asked my mother if he was coming back, and she just said, “no.” We never spoke of him again.
I am an attorney with expertise in corporate and commercial matters and a smattering of civil law issues. My limited knowledge of criminal law was acquired when I was prosecuted by the federal government for criminal fraud and sentenced to prison. I served three years before the legal system finally acknowledged, albeit reluctantly, that I wasn’t guilty.
The experience exposed a system designed to value conviction rates over truth—a system that regards sentences as final and irrevocable. For me, the most important lesson learned was that it’s far easier for an innocent person to get into prison than out.
I was released from prison in time to watch my mother die of cancer. Less than a year later, I came to Lyle to deal with Reilly’s untimely death from a gunshot wound initially reported as self-inflicted. I insisted that he wouldn’t have killed himself and, in fact, proved that he’d been murdered. That’s when I learned he was my father. While poking my nose into Reilly’s death, I also learned what it was like to be shot. Having been shot once, you might think I wouldn’t get involved in another murder investigation. But last summer, I was drawn into the murder of a woman who worked at a research facility that used chimpanzees as test subjects. Sydney Vail, who was later accused of the crime, brought me a stolen chimp named Kikora. Defending Sydney and Kikora was legally challenging, not to mention painful. I was shot for the second time, an experience that would make a rational lawyer think twice before getting involved in a third murder.
While not wanting to sound defensive, I did think twice—actually more than twice—about getting involved in the murder case of Jennifer Rice. I set boundaries to avoid being drawn in too deeply. I agreed to help around the edges of the case. My good intentions, however, were undone by an overdeveloped aversion to people who believe they can hurt others and get away with it. So while I denied that I was trying to find out who killed Jennifer Rice, I was wondering who did.
Jennifer Rice was in her late seventies when she was beaten to death. Although she was famous for her travel books and photographic essays, I had never heard of her until Reggie Mason appeared in my office to ask a favor. Reggie is a black state trooper whom I met while working the Sydney Vail case. He is a large, bear-like man in his early forties. To some, he appears intimidating, but he is one of the gentlest men I’ve ever known.
I hadn’t seen Reggie Mason for several months when he arrived at my office on a cold February day in 2002. Perhaps his arrival alone should have alerted me to the import of his visit. Certainly I should have read the cues on his face to know that his visit wasn’t personal. Any misconceptions were quickly dispelled when Reggie announced that he needed to confess to various crimes and wanted my advice on how he should proceed.
Reggie’s announcement certainly defined his future. He told a simple story of what he did and why. Because his actions constituted crimes under Virginia statutes, his future was in the hands of the power brokers of the legal system: the police, a prosecutor, and a judge. He asked me, my law partner, and Robbie to help him decide when and how to admit to his wrongdoing.
Yet, his announcement actually told volumes about the past—a past that none of us knew anything about, and one that would soon appear one painful revelation at a time.