The Case Against William (21 page)

Dale
Joiner was in the business of drilling for natural gas, specifically shale gas
through fracking, as hydraulic fracturing had become known. Texas was the
biggest fracking state in America, and Dale one of the biggest frackers in
Texas.

"He
lost a billion dollars?"

"Two. He still owns the gas, but it's not worth as much now.
It's like a stock market crash. He's trying to hang on until prices
rebound."

"You
could put up your house. It's got to be worth more than six million."

"Fifteen.
But Dale already took out a home equity loan and used the money to keep his
company afloat, pay his employees and bills."

"What
are you doing in Poland?"

"Dale's
trying to get a contract with the government to frack here. It'll save
him."

"Not
in time to save William."

"Can't
you represent him?"

"Not
with a suspended license."

After
a few more minutes of meaningless talk—"Yes, I'm still drinking" … "No, I'm not remarried"—Frank disconnected. There was no five
million dollars for bail. Unless the judge reduced his bail at the
arraignment, William would remain in jail until the verdict. And there was no
million dollars for a top-notch criminal defense lawyer. Who would represent
his son? His son's father had once been the best criminal defense attorney in
the state, maybe in the nation, but he had decided to become a drunk instead.
His son had not needed his father in too many years; now, when he finally
needed his father, his father could not give him what he needed most: a
defense to a murder charge.

"Look."

Chuck
gestured at the television screen—at the image of Travis County District
Attorney Dick Dorkin standing before a clump of microphones in the plaza
outside the Justice Center. The press conference. Chuck increased the volume.

"Almost
two years ago to the day," the D.A. said, "Dee Dee Dunston, an
eighteen-year-old freshman cheerleader at Texas Tech University, came to Austin
to cheer at the UT-Tech football game. She never returned to Lubbock. Dee Dee
was brutally raped and strangled to death that night. Her body was discovered
behind the Dizzy Rooster on Sixth Street where she had been seen that night.
Blood traces were recovered from her body. Investigators ran DNA tests on
the blood and then a search in the national DNA database, but no matches
came up … until a month ago. The match was a well-known college athlete.
As is my policy in cold cases, I ordered a retest. The results confirmed the
match. I took the case to the grand jury. An indictment for rape and capital
murder against one William Tucker was handed up Saturday morning. A warrant
for his arrest was issued that afternoon. Mr. Tucker was arrested last night
in his dorm room without incident. He is being held in the Travis County Jail
on a five-million-dollar bail. Arraignment will be at nine
A.M.
Tuesday before Judge Harold
Rooney. Questions?"

The
reporters shouted questions.

"Did
William confess?"

"Not
yet."

"Is
he claiming innocence?"

"At
this time."

"Are
you certain William Tucker raped and killed this girl?"

"We
are certain that the DNA results are accurate and that William Tucker's blood
was on the victim's body. Given that no one else's DNA was
recovered from her body, we are confident that William Tucker is the
killer."

"Are
you going to seek the death penalty?"

"Yes."

The
four men sat in silence in the accused's dorm room on the University of Texas
campus as the two words sunk in: death penalty.

"Son
of a bitch didn't tell me that," Frank said.

"I
could hack into his bank account, clean him out," Chico said.

"Can
we get a drink?" Dwayne asked. "A real drink?"

"Daddy,
the death penalty? It's all over the news down here."

"Becky,
he's innocent. He's not going to be convicted or sentenced to death."

"You
were sure Bradley Todd was innocent."

"William's
your brother."

"He's
not the same brother. He changed. When he became a star."

Frank
ended the call to his daughter. He stood at the upper falls at McKinney Falls
State Park in southeast Austin along Onion Creek. The creek is an outflow of
the Colorado River; the Colorado runs east out of Austin, the Onion southeast.
The water flows over limestone formations that create an upper and lower falls,
below which sit small pools. The park is a popular summer destination when the
temperature hits a hundred degrees, but not so much in October. Campsites run
$20 per night; their beer and whiskey ran twice that. The last time he had
tried a case in Austin, Frank had stayed at the five-star Driskill Hotel in
downtown in a $750-a-night suite with a king-sized bed. This time he had a
sleeping bag on the ground. He tossed a stick into the pool; Rusty raced to
the water and dove in. The dog needed to run after a day in the car.

"Burgers
are ready," Chuck said.

Ever
since he had won the Weber grill in a hotdog eating contest on the beach a few
years back, Chuck had become something of a grill master. He watched cooking
shows about grilling; he read books about barbecuing. He knew more about
basting and barbecue sauce than any man alive, or so he maintained. He flipped
the burgers with the spatula in his right hand and the William
Tucker-autographed football in his left hand. They had stopped at the Whole
Foods in downtown and stocked up on supplies and beer before heading out to the
park. They had packed their own camping gear and Jim Beam up from the beach.
Chico and Dwayne sat at the picnic table. Frank joined them and handed
William's cell phone to Chico. On the table was a box holding the spoils of
their search of William's room. Chico fiddled with William's cell phone;
Dwayne thumbed through the homicide file the D.A. had surrendered and jotted
notes on his cop pad with a Sharpie. He smoked a cigar and wore reading
glasses. Frank drank his Coors. They had taken the beer and protein bars from
William's room. Chuck slapped hamburgers on paper plates in front of them.
Burgers, potato chips, beer, and bourbon for dessert.

"Five
million bail," Frank said. "If the judge won't lower it, he's going
to sit in jail until trial. Couple of months in there, he won't come out the
same boy."

"Might
not be a bad thing," Dwayne said. "He ain't exactly Miss
Congeniality."

"He
could come out worse."

"We
could break him out," Chico said. "Hightail it down to Panama, live
like kings."

He
seemed serious.

"Are
you serious?" Chuck asked.

"Sure.
Course, we gotta make our move while he's still in county lockup, before they
convict him and ship him down to the state pen in Huntsville. County jails,
they're like Swiss cheese."

"We
should've got some Swiss cheese to put on our burgers," Chuck said.

"No
county jail could hold me," Chico said.

He
had escaped six county jails in the course of his career. Consequently, Chico
Duran fancied himself another Cool Hand Luke, although he didn't look like Paul
Newman. More like Cheech Marin with a ponytail.

"I
think we should work within the criminal justice system for now," Frank
said.

"System
is broke, Frank, and you know it. You say your boy is innocent—how many
innocent people are sitting in prison today? You gonna let him spend the rest
of his life in prison or take the needle for a crime he didn't commit? Because
the judge and the D.A. want to get reelected?"

Frank
did not know what he would do if William were convicted. What does a father do
if the system wrongfully convicts his son? Does he say, sorry, son, the system
didn't work in your case, so you'll just have to die in prison. It hadn't
worked for scores of other defendants in Texas; fifty black men had been
released in the last decade when DNA tests proved their innocence, some after serving
twenty or more years. But what if DNA proved his son guilty?

"I
think we can win inside the system."

Chico
shrugged. "You're Anglo. You gotta believe."

"So
what did we find in William's room?" Frank asked.

"Laptop
and phone," Chico said. "I'm seeing if his text messages go back two
years."

"Still
don't figure that," Dwayne said. "Cops not taking the good
stuff."

"Not
all the good stuff," Chuck said.

He
reached into the box and held up a tiny black undergarment.

"You
took a thong?"

"Three."

"Why?"

"That's
kind of personal, Frank. Oh, I found this, too."

Chuck
again reached into the box then held out a small, framed photograph. Frank
took it and looked at the image of himself and his son. It was after a
middle-school game at the Academy when William was only twelve. When he was
still just a boy dreaming of being a man. The Cowboys quarterback. A star.
He had not dreamed of being an accused rapist and murderer.

"He's
innocent," Frank said. "You guys don't know him. I do. It's not in
him to hurt someone."

"Frank,"
Dwayne said, "just playing the devil's advocate here, but you believed
that Todd boy was innocent, too. You were wrong."

"I'm
not wrong about William."

"His
blood on the victim, that ain't good, Frank. Ain't good at all."

"Look,
if you guys want to go back to the beach, it's okay."

"Do
we look like we're going back to the beach?" Dwayne said. "But if
we're gonna defend your son, we got to be honest with each other. Say what we
think. So we don't miss nothing." He tapped the homicide file with
his finger. " 'Cause the prosecution won't."

"Well,
I don't know if your boy raped and killed that girl," Chico said,
"but I sure wouldn't want him coming around my girls."

Chico
guarded his teenage daughters' virginity like the Secret Service guarded the
president. Which was not easy since they lived with their mother in Corpus
Christi.

"What'd
you find?"

"Texts
back and forth with his buddies, talking about coeds that put out, rating them
on a one-to-ten scale, and not in terms you'd want your daughter
mentioned." Chico shook his head. "Good thing we got his phone,
Frank, might not be good for that asshole D.A. to have these messages. Jury wouldn't
like him much."

"The
D.A.?"

"Your
son."

"Like
I said, boy ain't gonna win Miss Congeniality, that's for sure," Dwayne
said. He exhaled cigar smoke then turned to Frank. "So what's our next
move, counselor?"

Frank
pointed at the file in front of Dwayne.

"William
gave me his timeline for that day. Now we take that file and reconstruct the
victim's last day of life. See if they intersect."

"How
much you want to bet?"

His
son sat in jail, charged with raping and murdering an eighteen-year-old girl
named Dee Dee Dunston. Frank ate half his burger and drank his beer and then
went straight to dessert. He had vowed to stay off the hard stuff, but his
head was pounding with a headache. So he downed a shot of bourbon; it wasn't
that different from taking Advil to relieve the pain. But just one. Shot. Or
maybe two, so he'd sleep that night. He needed to sleep to work the next day.
To think. But no more than three shots, that was his absolute limit.

Just
as the light of day was fading into the dark of night, the worst day of Frank
Tucker's life would soon fade into the fog of Jim Beam.

William
had been moved to a solitary cell. The upside was, he wouldn't have to fight a
brother each day; the downside was, there was barely enough floor space for him
to exercise. But he had tried: five hundred pushups, five hundred sit-ups,
one hundred jump squats, and one hundred lunges. Twice. But he felt
unsatisfied. He needed iron plates. Hundred-pound weights. Barbells and
dumbbells. He needed to feel the pump of the blood through his body. He
needed to push his muscles to the max. He needed a real workout. He needed to
prepare for Saturday's big game.

"Hey,
man, you wanna talk?"

The
cramped space contained a cot and a toilet. It was late; he lay on the cot
with his eyes closed. He strained to recall the girl, but her face drew a
blank. As did that entire day. And night. Normally he could remember every
play of every game, but not that game. Not that night. Not that girl. There
had been so many girls and so many nights lost forever to alcohol and
concussions. Sometimes it seemed as if he had no memories of college.

"Worst
thing about solitary, no one to talk to. I like to talk."

William
was a naturally confident player. But he had to admit: this unexpected turn
of events in his game situation—rape … murder … DNA …
prison—had jolted his confidence in a way that throwing five interceptions
could not. It was as if he could feel the momentum of his life shifting. For
almost twenty-three years, the momentum had carried him forward, faster and
faster. Now he suddenly felt adrift.

"You
the white boy?"

The
solitary cellblock sat silent, except for the whispered voice from the cell
next door. William sighed and whispered back.

"Yeah.
I'm the white boy."

"Football
player?"

"You
don't know who I am?"

"We
don't get no Twitter in here."

"Yeah,
I'm the football player."

"Heard
you cold-cocked Coco Pop."

"Who
the hell's Coco Pop?"

"The
homey you cold-cocked."

"Is
that his given name?"

"That
the name we give him, 'cause he always eating them Coco Pops cereal. Too much
sugar for me. I like that Shredded Wheat and cold milk, two percent. Skim
taste like water. Course, you don't come here for the food."

"I'm
not supposed to be here."