False Convictions (16 page)

“I couldn’t shut him up on the phone,” Graham said.

It took less than a half hour before Rivers eased back on the throttles and the boat rocked forward close enough for the kid
to hook a buoy with his gaff and tie them off. Rivers raised his beer can, not to sip at the dregs but to expel into it a
stream of brown juice as he studied the water over the side.

“Fifty-sixty feet of visibility,” he said, almost as if speaking to himself. “You’ll be fine. Probably see a reef shark or
two.”

“You’re going down with us, right?” Graham asked.

Rivers scowled and pulled up the cuffed leg of his pants, exposing an ankle so red and bloated that the spur of the bone could
hardly be made out.

“Gout,” Rivers said. “Have fun.”

The kid brought gear up from the cabin below and assisted them until they dropped over the side. Beneath the surface, they
shrugged at each other and Graham signaled for them to follow him down the anchor line, indicating they might as well play
it through and see what they could see since they were there.

At forty feet, they found gullies of white sand beneath coral ridges thin with fish compared to what they’d seen the day before.
Graham directed them to a cave beneath a ledge where a troop of king crabs stood frozen like giant spiders from a monster
movie. Casey felt a chill that was instantly replaced by hot fear when she looked up and saw a shark moving swiftly above
them like a gray and white missile. From the empty blue space in front of them, another ghostly shape appeared, its black
eyes as lifeless as lumps of coal.

When she saw the fourth and fifth, her heart began to thump. Graham shouted something through his regulator, pointing, and
Casey looked up. Above them, not far from the boat, a scarlet cloud filled the water, shedding purple chunks that floated
to the ocean floor like a grotesque rain. Through the cloud the sharks swam, twisting and snapping at the chunks and then
each other.

Graham tapped her shoulder and pointed to another shark, his own eyes wide with shock.

Casey spun. Heading right at them was something she’d only seen on Discovery Channel, a snarling black bull shark more than
two times the size of the others, its mouth pulled down in a wicked frown, teeth bared like a hundred blades.

The shark plowed right through the three of them, racing for the pack and the cloud of chum. Casey kicked for the surface,
fueled by panic and aware that the bull shark had torn into a wounded reef shark, thrashing and darkening the water to a purple
gore. Casey broke the surface, ripped off her mask, and screamed for the boat. Graham surfaced beside her, yelling as well
but grabbing hold of her shoulders.

“Stay still!” he said, grabbing her vest and filling the BCD with air from her tank so she floated high in the water.

The major surfaced but floated like a dead man, facedown.

“Stop it!” Graham said. “The movement attracts them. Stay still. We’ll be fine.”

He turned and shouted at the boat. “Rivers! Get over here, you stupid fuck!”

The captain had already fired up his engines, dirtying the sky with a plume of black diesel and turning the sluggish boat
their way, chugging right through the roiling, bloodstained water where dorsal fins and tails slapped the surface. Rivers
waved from behind the wheel and Casey could see his enormous grin. When he pulled up alongside them, Graham handed her up
to the boy, who hoisted her aboard the stern platform.

Graham came next, followed by the major. Graham tore at his equipment, letting it drop to the deck as he surged forward. Rivers
shared a laugh with his boy, and the sight of Graham made whatever it was even funnier for them until Graham grabbed the big
man by the lapels and yanked him out of his swivel chair. The shirt’s material ripped and Rivers swatted at Graham’s hands.

“What the
fuck
were you doing?” Graham shouted.

“Hey, easy, easy,” Rivers said, pushing Graham away without success.

“Are you trying to kill us?” Graham shouted, spit flying from his mouth as he shook the captain.

Major Appleton shucked his gear and stepped forward, putting a firm hand on each man’s shoulder. “Robert.”

“Yeah, calm down,” Rivers said, sulking. “People love to see the sharks. They won’t hurt you.”

“Reef sharks won’t,” Graham said. “But there’s a bull shark down there, you stupid son of a bitch.”

“Bull shark?” Rivers said, leaning for the gunwale as if to confirm. “A big one?”

“Big enough.”

“Well, I never had that happen before. Sometimes they come in to feed on a whale, but…”

“You pull this kind of shit all the time?”

“I told you, people like it. They love it.”

“Take us back,” Graham said, then he stalked over to Casey and put a towel around her shoulders.

She didn’t stop shivering until they hit the beach.

“Christ,” Graham said as they sat down at the terrace table overlooking the ocean. “I’m sorry.”

“How can he do something that crazy and get away with it?” Casey asked.

Major Appleton said, “Who you gonna call?”

“You’re with the island police,” she said.

“People on a vacation?” the major said. “They don’t want trouble. Like he said, most of them probably do like it, seeing the
sharks.”

“But not knowing that’s what he’s going to do?”

“The thrill, I guess,” the major said.

“My God,” Casey said, “the DNA.”

The major raised his eyebrows and reached beneath the table, digging into his dive bag. When his hands reappeared, they held
a Ziploc bag containing an empty can of Bud Light and a slimy pool of brown juice.

“Got it when I went to break up the fight,” the major said. “A world of DNA.”

“There wasn’t a fight,” Graham said.

“Might have been,” the major said, grinning. “Wouldn’t be your first, eh?”

Graham clapped the major on the back, grinning as well. “Not my last, either.”

J
AKE COULDN’T keep going this way. He called a doctor friend down on Long Island and had him phone in some codeine to a local
Rite Aid. He popped two, desperate for relief, and set off for Auburn. Jake listened to his messages. He tried Casey but got
only voice mail before Don Wall rang in on the other line.

“You know who this Napoli guy is?” Don asked.

“Let me guess,” Jake said, the pain growing dim, his mind blurring slightly as he passed out of the city limits, “the attorney
for the city of Buffalo?”

“Why are you fucking around with me?” Don said. “Do you think I have time for this shit? I already put out feelers for a Buffalo
mob guy.”

“I just found out the hard way,” Jake said, concentrating hard on his mouth to keep his words from slurring from the codeine.
“White flag. I’m going home.”

“Where you belong.”

“Thanks, Don,” Jake said. “I’m sorry. I’ll send you some of the new network lapel pins.”

“They got new ones?”

“For the VIPs. I got you covered.”

He rode for a while longer, gently probing the stitches in the back of his head and feeling much better before he sighed heavily
and dialed up Dora for a different kind of medicine.

Jake tucked a brand-new cell phone under his chin, riding east on the Thruway now, toward his hotel room in Auburn. He got
Dora and told her what had happened and how he felt stupid.

“Don’t feel stupid,” Dora said, “that’s what makes you good. You get wild ideas and you follow through on them. Sometimes
they pan out, but that’s not why I left you a message to call me. Listen to this.”

Dora read him a story in the
Auburn Citizen
quoting anonymous sources close to Dwayne Hubbard’s Freedom Project legal team suggesting a cover-up in the twenty-year-old
murder case that involved the then district attorney’s son.

“Casey didn’t say a goddamn thing about it,” Jake said. “I just tried calling her. No wonder she didn’t pick up my call. They
actually leaked it to someone else?”

“Maybe Graham is the source,” Dora said. “And if he wasn’t, he’s the one paying her tab. Why would she give the scoop to the
guy who’s out looking to smear him?”

“Not smear, just shine some light,” Jake said. “I know Graham is hiding dirty stuff.”

“Whatever he’s got going with an old mill and some factory jobs, it’s not as dirty as a judge who turned the system on an
innocent man when she was the DA,” Dora said. “Did you know she was the governor’s choice to fill the vacancy they’ve got
on the New York State Court of Appeals?”

“Not if this thing has any traction.”

“Exactly,” Dora said. “This is a story worth getting in trouble for. So get to work and find your girl and get us the inside
scoop.”

“
My
girl isn’t returning my calls,” Jake said.

“If
you
can’t get a girl on the phone, it only tells me one thing,” Dora said.

“That she doesn’t like me?”

“That you’re not trying.”

“I am as of now.”

“Good, got a backup plan?”

“Not really,” Jake said. “But there’s a kid lawyer whose family is plugged in and the head of the Auburn Hospital who’re both
fans, so if I can’t get her, I’ll start with them.”

“I’ll line up a crew in case. And Jake?”

“Yeah?” he asked, ready for one of her wisecracks.

“Don’t half-ass this one. This isn’t a puff piece.”

J
AKE CHANGED into khaki shorts and a dark green polo shirt. It was, after all, a backyard barbeque. He swallowed two more codeine
pills, then followed the directions Marty had given him, turning off Route 20 and heading south toward Owasco Lake. A mile
before it, he turned off and wound his way through a few backstreets before finding a rugged drive that dipped down into some
trees. Late model cars and trucks lined the shoulder, half in the ditch. Jake had to back into a driveway and swing around,
going almost all the way back to the paved street before he pulled the Cadillac over to the side and got out. He followed
a young couple where the wife wore a pale yellow sundress and carried some kind of casserole wrapped in aluminum foil. Her
boyfriend or husband groped her rump through the dress until he realized Jake was following.

The couple turned down a dirt drive marked by a wooden sign, hand-painted with the name Zarnazzi. Jake followed, his shoes
clapping the hard-packed mud in one of the tire tracks and leading him toward the twang of a live bluegrass band. The single
story red summer cottage lay in the midst of dozens of picnic tables filled with revelers that stretched to the grassy bank
of the lake inlet. Two Jet Skis buzzed by on their way to the lake, their drivers hooting and waving to friends in the crowd.
A giant, half-round black grill hitched to the back of a heavy-duty pickup truck had been pulled onto the back lawn and poured
smoke into the treetops from a stovepipe smokestack. Whole chickens in blackened suits disrupted the snarling flames while
a fat man in a white chef’s hat basted them with a four-inch paintbrush.

The couple in front of Jake deposited their offering among the others on a checkered cloth that stretched across three picnic
tables. Diners with paper plates worked the other side of the table, picking through the dishes before receiving their own
char-grilled chicken from the fat man. Men crowded the beer keg’s icy tub while kids ran through the hubbub trailing balloons.
Jake breathed deep the smell of food and cold beer and his mouth watered.

“Jake!”

Jake turned and shook Marty’s hand. The young lawyer was wearing pleated golf shorts and a Greg Norman straw hat. His collared
shirt sported a litany of ketchup stains. He didn’t appear to notice, though, as he introduced Jake to a bucktoothed girl
with dark hair and a deep tan. Jake thought she had the judge’s eyes and he couldn’t help but notice the ample curve of her
breasts in the tight lime green tank top whose color matched her hair band.

“Let’s get something to eat,” Marty said, raising his voice above the band. “We’ll sit with you.”

Jake followed them through the line, loading his plate and sitting across from Marty and his fiancée before accepting a cup
of beer Marty poured from a half-empty pitcher. The beer would go good with the codeine, make it a real party. They raised
their plastic cups.

“Here’s to a victory for the Freedom Project,” Marty said.

His fiancée batted her eyelids at Jake, offering him a sly smile that let him know she was drunk.

“Is your dad here?” Jake asked her.

She shook her head.

“Had a conference in Houston,” Marty explained. “About everyone else is, though.”

“This the chief’s place?” Jake asked. “I saw the sign.”

Marty shook his head. “No, the chief’s here, but this place is his brother’s. He’s a fireman. Most of the cops are here, too.
Those guys stick together.”

“And you think the chief might talk to me?” Jake asked, tearing into a chicken leg, hungry now from the drugs and the beer.

Marty shrugged. “I don’t know, Jake. My uncle says people are going to choose sides on this.”

“And you and your uncle are on my side?”

“It’s the right side, right?” Marty said, hugging his fiancée to him as he took a swig of beer from his plastic cup. “We’re
fixing a twenty-year wrong and you’re—well, the Project—is our client. Spreading the message is only good for them.”

“Patricia Rivers still has friends, I assume?” Jake said, loading a forkful of beans.

“Sure,” Marty said, the blotches on his face reddening. “She still owns the big place on the lake. Lives in Pittsford, though,
really.”

“Because it’s going to get ugly,” Jake said, lowering his voice. “You know that, right?”

Marty shrugged and stuck a pinkie finger in his ear, working it. “It’s TV. If you’re in public service, you got to expect
it.”

Marty turned to his fiancée. “Your dad says that, right?”

“Your uncle know I’m here?” Jake asked, looking around.

“I was wondering, Jake,” Marty said. “You know, CNN and those morning shows, how they always have these lawyers on? You know,
expert opinions on things? I could really see myself doing some of that.”