False Convictions (7 page)

“Hmmm,” she said. “I have to admit Graham does make me wonder. It’s a pretty good clip from Texas, and New York doesn’t exactly
have a shortage of solid defense attorneys. Plenty who are a lot better than me.”

Jake studied her and swallowed a mouthful of his microbrew. “From what I know about Robert Graham, he doesn’t take a leak
unless there’s a good reason.”

“Maybe we’re both jaded,” Casey said. “He’s giving money away, not just to the Freedom Project; he’s giving money to my clinic,
and this is something I can do for him.”

“He’s a clever man,” Jake said, “and you can do more than you think.”

“Like?”

“Sitting here with me,” Jake said. “I can’t help wondering what’s behind it all. Yes, he gives money, but he gets a lot of
bang for his buck: publicity, hobnobbing with important and credible people. He needs that.”

“Sure.”

“Ego is the obvious answer,” Jake said. “That’s the way with most of these people—people willing to spend big bucks to get
a PR agency to sell a profile to some TV show—but I think it’s something else with Graham.”

“Everyone has an ego,” Casey said.

“It’s not that.”

“Then what?”

Jake leaned into the table. “I think he’s involved with some questionable people.”

“You’re a little suspect,” Casey said, “but here I sit.”

Jake flashed a plastic smile and said, “This thing isn’t my story. Did you know he went bankrupt ten years ago?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Lost it all. Almost, anyway,” Jake said. “He took a pretty sizable family fortune and got into some big commercial real estate
projects—hotels, casinos, office buildings—but that wasn’t enough. He leveraged the real estate and went wild in the tech
market. At one point, his net worth was estimated at over three billion dollars.

“Then it crashed, and he lost all of it. Everything. The banks got left holding the property. Then, miraculously, he finds
some offshore partners who stake him. He buys back everything from the banks for fifty cents on the dollar. He never made
the tech mistake again and since then he’s had the Midas touch. He buys military-industrial companies before the Iraq war,
then gets into oil and gas just before the energy squeeze. He buys shut-down factory equipment for pennies on the dollar,
ships it overseas where he can pay people a dollar a day to work, and starts making a mint selling the same things on the
world market. All the while he’s funded by some bottomless pit of money. Who are these partners? No one ever asks because
he’s Robert Graham, the philanthropist, the great do-gooder.”

“You do a mess of homework for some puff piece.”

“Old habits,” Jake said. “I don’t buy it. Something is wrong with him. I can smell it. You say something is wrong with this
case you’re working on? I promise you they’re connected for a very good reason. Now, that’s the story
I
want to do.”

“Oh, grow up, Jake,” Casey said. “I know your momma didn’t tell you this but there aren’t a lot of squeaky-clean billionaires
out there. I think you’re taking a side road, and I note a little jealousy.”

“Like I said, this isn’t my story,” Jake said. “I’m supposed to do the interview with him at his offices in Rochester the
day after tomorrow. Also, my contract’s up in a couple months and I’ve got a fourteen-year-old with braces. I’m too old for
jealousy.”

“You’re married?” Casey asked.

“She’s gone,” Jake said, fixing the TV smile onto his face. “Cancer, but we had a lot longer together than they said we would.
Good years. It’s been a while, so I’m as over it as you can get with these things.”

Casey cleared her throat and said, “I’m sorry.”

“The ring keeps me out of trouble for the most part,” Jake said, flexing his fingers. “Otherwise, they’d be hanging all over
me.”

They sat for a minute, drinking away the awkwardness, then Jake said, “I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll help you sniff around
your corrupt little town tomorrow, tell the show I want to get some B-roll of this Freedom Project in the trenches, and head
to Rochester the day after for the interview with Graham. Who knows? Maybe we’ll find your evidence.”

“If I’m going to shake this thing loose,” Casey said, “I’ll need that scandal. I need someone to come forward and admit they
destroyed the evidence, but even then, I’d need to show a judge that they did it on purpose and why if I’m going to get him
to grant me a new trial.”

“What was it you hoped to get from the evidence?” Jake asked.

“If I had the knife Dwayne carried and if I can show the blood on it doesn’t match the victim’s DNA, along with the other
suspicious elements of the case, my guy walks.”

“Where would you get her DNA?” Jake asked.

“They’d have carpet samples or clothes with her blood on it,” Casey said. “That, or I could even have the body exhumed.”

Jake grimaced, then asked, “Didn’t I read your guy was convicted for rape and murder?”

“He was.”

“How dead was she when they found her?” Jake asked.

Casey wrinkled her nose. “Meaning?”

“Stone cold? Right to the morgue?” Jake asked. “Or was she still bleeding? Even breathing? And they rushed her to the hospital.”

“What would it even matter?” Casey asked.

“What about a swab?” Jake said. “If she went to the hospital, they would have done the rape kit.”

“But that would have gone into evidence,” Casey said.

“The rape kit would have,” Jake said, “but usually, when a hospital has a rape victim, they’ll test for STDs and AIDS when
they do the rape kit. If he raped her, his DNA will be in those swab samples. If it’s someone else, your guy still walks.”

Casey sat silent, then said, “I kept thinking of this case as a murder. The rape is another part of it I didn’t think about,
for the trial, I mean. They should have done a blood test on any samples they got. If it matched Hubbard’s, they would have
used it. If it didn’t, the defense should have.”

“Either way, it sounds like the police evidence is gone,” Jake said. “I think your only hope is the hospital.”

“Would a hospital even have something like that?” Casey asked.

“One thing I’ve learned about hospitals,” Jake said, “they keep everything.”

J
AKE SAT WAITING in the lobby wearing khaki pants and a dark blue polo shirt that made him look younger than the suit he wore
the day before. He stood, holding two cappuccinos, handed her one, and said, “Ready?”

Outside, Casey saw the Lexus before Ralph could step in front of her.

“Where to, Ms. Jordan?” he asked, pitching a cigarette into the bushes.

“You weren’t following us last night, were you, Ralph?” Casey asked. “Because that wouldn’t be necessary.”

Ralph stared at her with empty pupils surrounded by tattered brown and yellow irises.

“I think I’m set on a ride,” Casey said, glancing at Jake. “Don’t forget about the car, Ralph. The white one? Bavarian Motor
Works?”

“I’ll let you know,” Ralph said, limping toward the Lexus. “But I’ll just tag along in case something comes up.”

“I’m a big girl, Ralph,” Casey said. “I even made these high heels from a rattlesnake I killed with my bare hands.”

Ralph looked down.

“I’m kidding,” she said.

Ralph opened the car door and, climbing in, said, “Mr. Graham is pretty precise in what he wants.”

Casey shrugged and followed Jake toward his Cadillac, which was parked on the side of the building.

“How’s Dad?” Jake asked.

“Constipated,” she said. “Makes him limp.”

“What BMW?”

“Hubbard says he saw a white BMW the night of the murder,” Casey said. “If Graham really wants to help, that’s what he should
have Ralph doing. But we’re kind of keeping that under wraps for now, so if you don’t mind going off the record?”

“Graham,” Jake said. “He’s up to something else.”

The hospital was only a five-minute drive. They got there just after nine and Casey admired how Jake wormed them into the
office of the hospital’s president.

“Smooth,” Casey said as the president’s secretary showed them into his office.

“I can’t help it,” he said, looking almost sheepish. “People love me.”

The hospital president, Dr. Prescott, entered wearing a dark suit. They all shook hands and he told Jake how his wife watched
American Sunday
religiously and that it was an honor to meet him.

“Didn’t you do that piece on the rock-and-roll nun?” the doctor asked. “Hell of a story. Did you ever get a comment from the
Pope? Because you ended the piece by saying that the Vatican had not responded to your e-mails.”

“The Pope doesn’t e-mail a lot,” Jake said. “He’s pretty old-fashioned from what I hear.”

Casey looked at Jake, who only shrugged and suppressed a smile.

“So, how can I help?” Prescott asked, sitting at the head of the table and clasping his hands.

“We’re looking for swab samples taken from a rape victim in 1989,” Casey said. “Would you have something from that far back?”

“That’s an interesting question,” Prescott said, looking at her curiously. “I don’t know if I can even answer that for you.
For liability reasons.”

“Twenty years ago a college coed named Cassandra Thornton was raped and brutally murdered,” Jake said. “They brought her here,
but she died within hours and never regained consciousness. The hospital would have tested her for STDs and maybe AIDS, isn’t
that right?”

“I can’t speak about a specific individual, but if you gave me a hypothetical, I might be able to help you,” Prescott said,
offering Jake a knowing look.

“Of course,” Jake said, then restated the question as a hypothetical.

“That would be standard procedure, yes,” Prescott said with a nod.

“Perfect,” Casey said, beaming at Jake, unable to contain her excitement.

Prescott moved his hands from the table into his lap and said, “For anything more in-depth than that, I’d have to have a court
order.”

“Our client has a statutory right to the evidence,” Casey said.

“I understand,” Prescott said, “but this isn’t evidence. If it were evidence, the police would have it. Unfortunately, in
my position, I always have to consider the hospital’s liability.”

“What liability?” Casey asked.

Prescott shrugged. “The family? Privacy issues? I’d like to help, but I’ll have to talk to our lawyer and get his thoughts.”

“Maybe you could give him a call?” Jake said, nudging Casey with his foot under the table. “We’d really appreciate it. We
don’t want to put you in a bad spot, but obviously, it’s pretty important.”

Prescott grinned at Jake then swiveled around, removing a phone from the side table and setting it in front of him. “Let me
try.”

Jake winked at her and Casey sat as patient as she could while she listened to the hospital president talking to his lawyer,
explaining the situation, and then going through many of the facts again. Casey took a deep breath and let it out through
her teeth.

Finally, Prescott hung up, looked sadly at Jake, and shook his head. “Sorry, Mr. Carlson. As I thought, we’d need a court
order or a signed release from the victim’s family to give you any kind of information. We can’t do anything without either
of those and avoid the liability.”

Casey clamped her teeth shut and stood so she wouldn’t blurt out anything offensive.

“Sure thing,” Jake said, rising as well and shaking the president’s hand. “Could you do me a favor, though? If Ms. Jordan
was to go to the trouble to get this order, could you just tell us if you thought we’d be wasting our time?”

The doctor puffed out his lips and slipped on a pair of reading glasses as he turned to his computer screen. He pecked away
at the keyboard for several minutes, frowning at the screen.

Finally, he looked up at Jake with the hint of smile and said, “I don’t think you’d be disappointed.”

W
HEN THEY GOT outside, Casey searched the street and marched over to the pewter Lexus, knocking on Ralph’s window. It hummed
down and Ralph looked up at her with a blank expression.

“I got something for you,” Casey said.

Ralph nodded, but said nothing.

“Cassandra Thornton,” Casey said, “the woman Dwayne Hubbard went to jail for? See if you can find her relatives and ask them
if they’ll sign a release that gives us access to her hospital records the night she was killed.”

Ralph squinted at Jake, then nodded and said, “We can do that.”

“Great,” Casey said. She turned and crossed the street with Jake, taking out her phone and dialing Marty Barrone. He was in
his office, which was less than three blocks away. They left Jake’s car on the street and walked to the office, taking an
elevator up to the third floor. The offices of Barrone & Barrone were nice enough for a high-end firm in Manhattan. Blond
wood and contemporary leather chairs had just the right blend of sophistication and success, with some subtle modern art to
suggest a progressiveness she didn’t expect to find in Auburn, New York. Marty’s office, however, was a small space with a
narrow window. Casey and Jake barely had room for their knees as they sat in chairs facing his desk with their backs to a
bookcase.

He had one of those posters on the wall about success, with an eagle soaring in the clouds. The poster was a bit sun-faded
and showed it had been tacked to a wall before being framed.

“My fiancée is going to flip,” Marty said, sitting down across from them, wagging his head, and talking fast. “I wish I had
a dollar for every time Linda told me about one of your stories and how great you are. I usually golf with my dad and uncle
on Sundays, but she TiVo’s them and makes me watch. Not that I don’t want to watch, but hitting it around on Sundays kind
of goes along with the program around here. Jeez, man. Did that nun really rock out like that? She was amazing when she played
‘Stairway to Heaven.’ ”

Casey sighed. “Okay, Marty, we need to get Judge Kollar to give us an order. We need to compel the Auburn Hospital to give
up swab samples they may have taken from Cassandra Thornton that would have her attacker’s DNA.”