The Advocate's Daughter (15 page)

Sean shook it off. He would not let emotions get the better of him. He was there to find Abby's notes. It was a loose thread that needed to be fixed, and he wanted to feel like he was doing something. He searched her small desk, the dresser, and closet. He looked in the wicker baskets under the bed, inside the laundry basket, and even scrunched the stuffed animals to see if there was anything hidden inside. He found nothing.

Before leaving the room, he eyed a political poster pinned to her wall,
VOTE
“
NO
”
ON PROP 9
. Despite growing up in D.C., seeing the foibles of elected officials—and having Sean as her father—Abby had never turned cynical about politics or politicians. He was reminded of the last time she'd called him on his own cynicism.

*   *   *

“You always say people deserve a second chance, so why not him?”

Sean rolled his eyes. A politician caught having an affair with an intern did not deserve a second chance.

“What if his wife was a horrible person?” Abby argued. “What if he'd found his soul mate?”

“You believe in soul mates?”

Abby looked at Sean and then over to Emily, who was on the couch reading a book. “Of course I do.” She turned back to her argument: “You just wouldn't give him a second chance because he's a politician. Why do you hate them so much?”

“I don't hate them that much.”

“No? Name anyone you hate more than politicians.”

Sean thought about this one. “Child molesters,” he said. Then, with a tiny smile, “And radio disc jockeys.”

*   *   *

Ryan was at the bookshelf, removing one book at a time, fanning the pages and peering in the empty space on the shelf. Sean helped him finish the search. They found nothing. Defeated, Ryan sank into the small sofa. Sean sat at the round bistro table just off the galley kitchen. He began absently flipping through the mail he'd stacked on the table.

“I'm hungry, Dad. Are you?”

Sean continued examining the junk mail and envelopes. “I'm a little hungry. Something sound good to you?”

“Burritos,” Ryan said.

Sean thought about it. “I'm not sure there's any Mexican places near here.”

“I know a place…”

Ryan flashed a grin, like
Before.
It took a second, but Sean caught on. “You won't catch me in another Chipotle the rest of my life.”

Sean liked the feel of the smile on his face as he continued to scan Abby's mail. He came upon the telephone bill; the landline Abby opposed as unnecessary and archaic, but that Sean insisted upon. He opened the envelope and read the first page. Nothing caught his eye. Some calls to her grandparents, some to New York, and a smattering of out-of-state numbers he didn't recognize. But on the second page, an unusual entry:
COLLECT CALL FROM SUSSEX II CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
,
WAVERLY
,
VA
. There were two similar entries on the third and fourth pages of the bill. Who would Abby know at a prison? He didn't think she was doing any prison clinic work with her law school.

“Hey, do you know if Abby knew anyone in prison?” Sean asked.

“Prison? I don't think so. Why?” Ryan walked over to the table and took a seat.

“Abby was accepting collect calls from someone at this prison,” Sean said, handing one of the telephone-bill pages to his son.

Ryan looked it over. “She never said anything to me. Look the place up on the Internet.”

Sean pulled out his mobile. “My phone's nearly dead. We'll have to wait.”

“Maybe not,” Ryan said. He placed his iPod Touch on the table.

“I thought that was just for music?”

“It doesn't have a phone, but you can get Internet if there's a Wi-Fi signal.”

Sean thought about this. “So that's how you sent the Facebook…” Sean stopped. “Is that why I saw you standing in the neighbor's yard that night? You were stealing a Wi-Fi signal because we'd locked you out of the computer.” Sean couldn't help but break a smile.

Ryan's face flushed.

“Well, get to it, do the search,” Sean said.

Ryan tapped on the device and frowned. “Wi-Fi's not working down here, either.”

“We haven't shut off the service, but maybe the cops unhooked it,” Sean said. “How about we go somewhere for lunch that has Wi-Fi. I actually think I know somewhere you'd like.”

“Is it—”

“No,” Sean interrupted. “It's not Chipotle. And I don't care if Chipotle has Wi-Fi.” He smiled again.

“Dad,” Ryan said, staring at the telephone bill.

“Yeah?”

“Look at the name of the town.” Ryan put a finger on the center of the bill.

Sean read the words above his son's finger.
WAVERLY, VIRGINIA
. It sounded familiar but he couldn't place it.

“Abby's notes on the folder,” Ryan said. “She wrote ‘Waverly.' Maybe she was going there. And maybe the other word Abby wrote on the folder, ‘Chadwick,' is who she was going to visit.”

 

CHAPTER 37

Sean and Ryan edged forward in the lunch line at Ben's Chili Bowl. The place was less than three miles from Abby's apartment, and they'd been coming to Ben's for chili dogs and half-smokes since Ryan was a little boy—before gentrification made the place fashionable.

After ordering, they waited for their food at a table in the back of the restaurant. They faced a large mural depicting famous African Americans in history, many of whom had spent muggy summer nights during the civil rights era filling the booths and tables at Ben's. Ryan gazed at the wall and said, “Remember when you used to quiz me on the names of everyone on the mural?”

Sean nodded as he fumbled with Ryan's iPod Touch. He turned into such an old man every time he tried to operate any type of touch screen. The images inevitably moved uncontrollably around the screen, or disappeared, or zoomed in or out too far.

“Need some help?” Ryan said with a smirk.

“Only if you're buying lunch,” Sean replied. He caught the Wi-Fi signal and searched the Internet for the Virginia Department of Corrections. On the tiny screen he read that Sussex II was a Security Level Four facility. It housed inmates with life sentences, but who were not disruptive or predatory.

“You can search inmates by name,” Ryan said, pointing to a miniature search icon.

Abby had written two words on her file folder, “Waverly” and “Chadwick.” The prison was located in the town of Waverly, Virginia, so Sean tapped in “Chadwick.” A grid-like list appeared. Sean handed the iPod Touch to Ryan to adjust the image so it fit the screen:

Five names. But the only inmate in the Sussex facility was John K. Chadwick. Ryan quickly pulled up several newspaper stories mentioning the man's name, which reported that John Keith Chadwick was serving a life sentence. He'd been convicted in the nineties of murdering a college classmate, his girlfriend. She'd been raped and suffered a fatal blow to the head. Like Abby.

 

CHAPTER 38

By late afternoon they were on I-95 South en route to Sussex prison. Traffic was heavy, and Sean trailed a large semi that was muscling its way to an exit. Sean had called the prison to try to speak with John Chadwick, but was told that prisoners could only make, not accept, calls. They could, however, receive personal visits. In what had been a number of impulsive moves by Sean of late, here they were. Driving to a prison out in the middle of nowhere.

“Turn. Right. On. Route. Six. Twenty-five,” the navigation system directed. It had been more than three hours on the road, but Sean and Ryan had used the time to talk. About rock bands. About how Jack didn't fully understand that Abby was gone. About how Mom was doing. Sean realized it had been a long time since he and Ryan had really talked. Somehow Sean had become one of
those
parents. The “Washingtonians” he rolled his eyes at: competitive, achievement-obsessed, more interested in talking
at
Ryan about how to get into Harvard than hearing about his son's thoughts and dreams. He'd always considered himself an involved parent, and in superficial ways he was. He showed up at the parent-teacher conferences and soccer games and plays. He helped with homework. But one eye was always on the clock or his phone. He didn't have time for the little things. The board games Emily played with the kids on Sunday nights, Taco Tuesday, or her Thursday reading hour.

They rolled onto Musslewhite Drive in Waverly, Virginia, following the signs to the prison's visitor lot. The facility was a foreboding campus of tall fences and concrete structures on hundreds of acres in the vast open land of rural Virginia.

Ryan gazed up at the guard tower. “Do you think we'll be able to get in?” He seemed fascinated with the idea of going inside a prison.

“I was told that if we got here before five o'clock, we'd have a shot.” Sean had called an associate at his law firm and asked her to set up a visit with Chadwick. To his surprise, the associate managed to arrange a same-day visit. The efficiency of the private sector. He picked up the phone and a twenty-five-year-old with an Ivy League degree made calls, faxed in the necessary forms, and he was in. It would have taken weeks to arrange such a visit when he was in the government.

“Do you think we'll see any scary prisoners?” Ryan asked. He had a gleam in his eyes.

“You're going to have to hang out in the waiting area, I'm afraid.” Sean didn't know what he was walking into and didn't want to risk Ryan dealing with a convicted murderer. God knows what the guy might say or do when approached by strangers. Ryan frowned, but he didn't debate the point.

Sussex II, as it turned out, ran an efficient operation and Sean was through the checkpoints, scanners, and searches in less than ten minutes. A burly man in a tight-fitting corrections uniform escorted Sean to a visitor's room. In all his years at the Justice Department and as a lawyer, Sean had never been inside a prison. He expected to be separated from John Keith Chadwick by a sheet of glass with each of them talking into telephones, but Sean was ushered into a tidy conference room painted institutional beige. The man sitting at the table in the room likewise was not what Sean had expected. No prison muscles. No face tattoos. No scarred veteran of the penal system. Just a doughy man with blond hair and a baby face, despite being in his forties. He wore a blue short-sleeved collared shirt and plastic-framed glasses. Under the glasses, kind eyes.

The correctional officer gestured for Sean to sit down across from the prisoner and said he'd be right outside if Sean needed anything. The click of the door's lock was unsettling, and Sean was surprised to be left alone with the man. But he relaxed when he saw that the prisoner was cuffed and had chains dangling from his wrists that were attached to anchors on the table.

“You're Abby's father?” John Chadwick asked.

“That's right.”

“I recognized you from the newspapers. I'm really sorry for your loss. She was a great girl.” Chadwick had a hint of a Southern accent. Not country bumpkin, more Southern gentleman.

“Can I ask how you knew her?”

Chadwick wrinkled his brow. “My case. I thought that's why you're here. To take over my case.” He shifted in his chair.

“I'm sorry, that's not why I'm here.” He didn't say more. Most lawyers liked to talk, to hear their own voices. Sean had learned that you get more information if you wait and listen.

Chadwick sat back and considered him. After a long silence, he said, “Then why are you here?”

“You had several calls with my daughter and I was, well, surprised. She'd never told me about you.”

Chadwick sighed, a drawn out audible exhale. “You don't know anything? She didn't mention me?”

Sean shrugged.

“Abby was going to try to reopen my conviction—get it thrown out. Get me out of here. Prove I'm innocent.”

Sean narrowed his eyes.

Chadwick said, “Look, I know how that sounds, believe me. Everybody in here is innocent. But I really am. And the DNA is going to prove it.”

“There's DNA evidence?”

Chadwick leaned forward and rubbed his chin with the back of a chained hand. “I was a senior in college and I had a bad drinking problem. My girlfriend, Natalie, was murdered.”

Sean looked into Chadwick's eyes, but said nothing.

“The night she was murdered,” Chadwick continued, “we'd had a fight. She didn't like that I was going to a party. She'd been trying to get me to stop drinking. As usual, I didn't listen and went out. I woke up the next morning in my dorm room. I had no idea how I got there. And I had a bruised hand. The next thing I know, the police are knocking on my door. Natalie was found dead, beaten to death, and she'd been sexually assaulted. And I've been locked up ever since. But I didn't kill her, Mr. Serrat. I loved her.”