The Case Against William (35 page)

"Hello."

"Billie
Jean?"

"William?"

Frank
switched the lamp on and rolled over to her. She put a finger to her lips.

"William,
why aren't you sleeping?"

"I
never sleep."

"What's
wrong?"

"What's
wrong? I'm gonna die on death row, that's what's wrong."

"No,
you're not. Your dad's going to save you, William. He'll find a way."

"Tell
him I'm sorry."

She
motioned Frank closer; he put his head against hers and listened to his son.

"For
what?"

"For
kicking him out of my life. For abandoning him. For forgetting what a good
father he is. For not understanding what he went through with Bradley Todd.
For not sticking with him like he always stuck with me. For being a
piece-of-shit son. For calling him a loser."

She
heard him sobbing.

"For
taking the plea deal."

Frank
grabbed the phone and yelled, "William—no!"

But
his son was already gone.

"Six
days from today, my son is going to stand up in court and plead guilty to a
crime he didn't commit … because he's afraid he'll get the death penalty.
Once he does that, there's no going back. His life is over. We're not going
to let that happen."

William
Tucker would take the plea deal. Innocent people do that. More often than
people would imagine because fighting a prosecutor possessed of unlimited
resources dedicated to putting you in prison is daunting and expensive. Few
people can afford to wage that fight. In 2002, Brian Banks, a
seventeen-year-old star high school football player with a scholarship to the
University of Southern California and dreams of an NFL career, was falsely
accused of rape by a classmate; she claimed he had assaulted her on their high
school campus. He was innocent, but his lawyer advised him to plead guilty.
"You're a big black male," she said. "The jury will convict
you." He faced a forty-year sentence. So he pleaded guilty and got five
years. His accuser sued the high school and won a $1.5 million settlement.
Four years after his release from prison, his accuser contacted him on Facebook
and asked to meet. Brian videotaped their meeting; she admitted that she had lied in
order to sue the school.

It
happens.

Frank
could not let it happen to his son.

It
was ten that morning, and the defense team had gathered on the back porch.
They drank strong coffee and brainstormed with those few brain cells they
hadn't previously killed with alcohol.

"Now,
look, I know you guys think William is guilty, but—"

"He's
innocent," Dwayne said.

Frank
studied the ex-cop smoking a big cigar.

"You
changed your mind?"

"Yep."

"Why?"

"The
surveillance tape at his dorm is wrong. It's time-stamped
one-thirty-eight
A.M.
, but it was
really twelve-thirty-eight
A.M.
They didn't turn the clock back when daylight savings time ended the week
before."

"How
do you know?"

"I
checked with the company that runs security for the dorms."

"They
told you? Just like that?"

"They
told Detective Gentry, Houston homicide. Frank, William got in at
twelve-thirty-eight that night. Means he would've been hard pressed to kill
her downtown at midnight, go back inside the bar and puke, then get back to his
dorm—all in thirty-eight minutes. He's innocent."

"Ditto,"
Chico said.

Frank
turned to Chico Duran. He was smoking a joint.

"You
too? Why the change of heart?"

"Social
media. Kids take self-photos of themselves, their body parts, to show the
world. Don't ask me why, but they do it. If I ever catch my girls sexting,
I'm gonna …"

He
caught himself.

"Well,
anyway, Dee Dee Dunston did it that night, with William's phone. He didn't
take her photo. She did."

He
showed Frank the image of Dee Dee on William's phone.

"See,
her arm's extended. She took her own photo. He didn't lie. He's innocent,
Frank."

"Dwayne,
Chico … thanks, guys. But there's still the blood."

"I
think I can help with that," Chuck said.

"How?"

Chuck
sighed. "I should've put two and two together a long time ago—course, I
usually come up with five—you know, Frank, I don't think so good these days
'cause of all my concussions and the whiskey sure as hell don't help to clear
my mind and—"

"Chuck
… focus. The blood."

"Oh,
yeah. Well, anyway, this kid in my peewee games, name's Georgie—"

"Georgie?"

"They're
five-year-old kids. They're all named Petey or Bobby or Jimmy or Georgie.
Anyway, he's a bleeder. Every game, he bleeds. I mean, he falls to the turf,
the little fucker bleeds. I gotta call a bodily fluid timeout, send him to the
sideline, get him bandaged up so his blood don't get on another kid, and course
his mama's hysterical … peewee football's a fuckin' zoo."

"What's
this Georgie kid got to do with William?"

"Check out this play."

Chuck
had been studying the game tape for the hundredth time. He turned the laptop so
the others could watch the video.

"I've
watched this video more times than I can count. And every time, I've been
focusing on the sideline and not on the field."

"No
shit, Sherlock," Dwayne said. "Dee Dee's on the sideline. She was a
cheerleader, not a player. She ain't on the field."

"But
William's blood is."

"What?"
Frank said.

"Watch
the game. It's ugly, William played awful."

"His
dad showed up drunk, made a fool of himself before that game."

"Oh.
Well that explains it."

Chuck
clicked the mouse, and the video resumed playing. On the screen, William
dropped back to pass then broke out of the pocket and ran; the three Tech
linebackers converged on him. Chuck froze the frame and zoomed in.

"Okay.
Look closely. All four players' arms are bare. Their jersey sleeves are cut
up high, that's the fashion these days, to expose their biceps. And there's no
visible blood on any of them."

He
resumed the video. The Tech players gang-tackled William high and low and hard
and drove him into the turf. William jumped up as if he didn't feel the brutal
tackle. Chuck froze the frame.

"Look."

He
clicked the mouse several times and zoomed in on William's left arm.

"His
left elbow," Chuck said. "He's bleeding."

Blood
ran down his arm.

"When
I saw him in the hospital after the game," Frank said, "his left
elbow was bandaged up. He said he got stitches."

"Nasty
cut," Chuck said. "Probably took a facemask right on the bone,
busted some of those capillaries, they'll bleed pretty good. One time I got
cut on my forehead, face looked like I been shot."

"The
video."

"Oh."

Chuck
resumed the video. William hurried back to his team's side of the ball and
called the next play from the line of scrimmage without huddling up. The game
clock was ticking down, the pace of play was frantic, offensive and defensive
players ran on and off the field, and the referees raced around to keep up.

"Why
didn't the refs call a timeout so he could get bandaged?" Chico asked.

"They're
supposed to, case he's got AIDS." Chuck shrugged. "I guess they
didn't notice in all the confusion. This is late in the game, William's
running a two-minute offense, trying to take the team down for a score to win.
Things are moving fast. Few plays later, he gets his concussion."

On
the screen, William again dropped back to pass then again ran. The same three
Tech linebackers converged on him; just before they tackled William, Chuck
froze the frame and zoomed in on the Tech players.

"Their
arms are clean," he said.

He
resumed the video. They tackled William then got to their feet. Chuck froze
the frame again and zoomed in on one of the Tech players, number fifty-two.

"Now
he's got blood on his arms."

Chuck
ran the tape again. Number fifty-two ran and jumped into the
air where he was met by number fifty-five; they did a body bump, shoulder to
shoulder and arm to arm. He repeated the gesture with number fifty-one. Chuck
paused the video and zoomed in on each player.

"Now
all three have blood on their arms."

"William's
blood?"

"No
one else was bleeding before that tackle."

"Transference
of trace evidence," Dwayne said. "It happens. And it doesn't take
much blood for the crime scene guys to capture his DNA. That's
why they call it trace evidence."

"That's
good thinking, Chuck."

Frank
stuck a fist out to Chuck; they fist-bumped.

"Thanks,
Frank."

"I
don't mean to ruin the party," Billie Jean said, "but wouldn't they have noticed
the blood on their arms?"

"Shit," Chuck said, "when I played we got blood,
spit, puke, piss, tobacco juice—hell, one time I got shit on me—not mine.
That's football. It's a dirty game."

"Okay,"
Billie Jean said, "so your theory is, William's blood got transferred
from William to number fifty-two, from fifty-two to fifty-five, and from fifty-five
to fifty-one? And then from one of those players to Dee Dee Dunston?"

Chuck
shrugged. "You got a better theory?"

"No.
And actually it's not a bad theory. I remember one time, I was stripping, and
this guy—young guy, one of the creeps—he reaches up with a twenty-dollar bill .
. . they wouldn't just toss it on the stage, they had to slip in inside my
G-string, that's when they'd always try to cop a feel. So I squat down a bit
so he can reach it—my G-string—"

She
demonstrated, sticking her right leg out and squatting.

"—and
he slips the bill inside then his forearm slid down my leg, left his sweat—the
creeps always sweated—all the way down my thigh. I could feel it and see it
shiny and wet in the spotlight. I thought, yuk."

"That
was your candy apple red G-string?" Chuck said.

"Are
you sweating?"

"Uh,
we're on the coast."

"It's
December."

"Oh."

She
shook her head clear.

"So
this creep got his DNA on me just like that?"

"He
did," Dwayne said. "And blood's easier to transfer than sweat 'cause
it's sticky. And it dries on skin."

"But
I showered after my shows—God, I scrubbed my skin raw to get the cooties
off," Billie Jean said. "Wouldn't those players have
showered after the game, washed the blood off."

Chuck
shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not. They're linebackers. Barely domesticated
wild animals."

They
stared at the frozen images of the three Tech players on the screen.

"That's
it," Frank said. "That's how William's blood got on the dead
girl."

"That
means—"

"One
of those Tech players killed Dee Dee Dunston."

"You
guys are going to chase down those three players from two years ago?" Billie Jean
said.

They
stood at her car on the road. She would drive back to Austin; they would
travel to Lubbock.

"It's
our only hope. William's only hope."

"Be
careful, Frank. If one of them killed Dee Dee, he'll kill again to stay out of
prison."

"Truth
is, my life doesn't matter all that much. My son's life matters a hell of a
lot more."

"Your
life matters to me, Frank."

"John
Smith, Darrell Jackson, and Bo Cantrell," Chico said. "I searched
for the rosters back then. Those are the players. Smith was a sophomore,
Jackson and Cantrell were seniors."

"We've
got to track those guys down," Frank said. "Fast. Where do we
start?"

"Lubbock."

"That's
a nine-hour drive," Dwayne said.

"No
time to drive. We need to fly."

"Four
plane tickets? We've run through all the money we got from selling the signed
football."

"We
need to sell something else on eBay."

"What?"

"Another
ball."

"I've
got a ball," Chuck said.

He
tossed up his football.

"It's
worthless without William's signature."

"Give
me the ball," Chico says.

He
tapped
on William's laptop and retrieved the close-up photo of William's signature on
the ball they had previously put on eBay. Then he held out an open hand to
Dwayne like a surgeon to an OR nurse.

"Sharpie."

Dwayne
slapped his Sharpie into Chico's hand. Chico studied the photo then signed the
ball: "William Tucker." He held the ball out for their inspection.
They compared the fake signature to the real one.

"That's
good," Chuck said. "Real good."

"You
forged my son's signature?"

"Frank,
I forged dead people's signatures on Medicaid documents. This is a fucking
football."

"And
now we're going to sell a football with a fake signature on eBay? That's
fraud."

Chico
gave him a look. "I'm an ex-con, Frank. I can live with that."

Two
hours later, they had sold the ball for $7,500. Apparently news that William
Tucker would plead guilty to raping and killing a college coed made the ball
more valuable. Only in America.

They
drove to Corpus Christi then flew to Lubbock early the next morning. They had
five days to track down three football players from two years before, figure
out which one was the killer, and then convince him to confess.

There
was no time to waste.

They
rented a car at the Lubbock airport and drove to the Texas Tech campus. They
went directly to the football stadium. They parked and walked to the main
entrance. The gate was locked.

"Wednesday,
they'll practice today," Chuck said. "But not in the stadium."