Unintended Consequences (14 page)

Despite its being early on a Thursday evening, well before the hour fashionable New Yorkers dined, every table at Cuccina’s was full. The smell of garlic permeated the air, and the walls vibrated with the sound of conversation mixed with the bustle of the wait staff. They had to strain to hear each other at times, but the outstanding food, the reasonable prices, and the location convenient to Columbia Law School kept them coming back. When Dani and Doug found themselves staying late at work, they usually ended up at Cuccina’s.

Dani’s second glass of wine had gone straight to her head, and she felt somewhat woozy. She sat back in her chair and only half-listened to Doug’s ramblings about a trip they could take while Jonah was at summer camp. With the lines on Doug’s face blurred by her hazy vision, he still looked youthful and, with or without the lines, handsome. She’d met Doug on her first day of work at the US Attorney’s Office. She had been staring dumbly at a photocopy machine, trying to figure out its various buttons, when Doug walked by, coffee cup in hand. He smiled at her and Dani could see the dimples in his cheeks widen, the green flecks in his eyes sparkle, and she was instantly smitten. After that, she made up excuses to seek him out until he finally invited her to a friend’s party. They’d been together ever since.

“So, what do you think?” Doug asked, bringing her back to the present.

“Um, I’m not sure.”

“You didn’t hear anything I said, did you?”

She shook her head. “It’s the wine. You know how I get.”

“It’s okay. You’ve had a hard couple of days. I asked what you thought about sailing through the Greek islands this summer.”

Instantly, Dani’s mind pictured billowing white sails surrounded by azure waters. She sat at the bow of the boat, her hair swirling around her face, her legs hanging over the side. “Sounds dreamy, but neither of us knows how to sail.”

“No problem. We hire a captain and we serve as his crew. He’ll show us what we need to do.”

“Can we afford it?”

“I’ve already checked out a few places. I think we can handle it. What do you think?”

Dani hesitated. She knew how Doug would respond but said it anyway. “We’d be so far from Jonah. It’s his first time away from us. What if he gets homesick? What if he gets hurt? How would the camp even reach us on a boat?”

Doug put down his fork and reached for Dani’s hand. “You worry too much. It’s the twenty-first century. We can get calls on the boat. Besides, your parents will be around to take him for the few days it might take us to get back if an emergency comes up.”

Dani pulled her hand away. “Maybe you worry too little. We’re both lawyers, remember. We’re trained to think of all the things that can go wrong and cover every contingency.”

“Just consider it, okay?”

“I will, I promise.”

Doug looked at her silently for a moment. “Is there something troubling you tonight? You’ve seemed far away even before you had any wine.”

Dani told him about the note Tommy found on his car. “I keep running it through my head and trying to figure out who would want us to stop our work. I can only think of two possibilities: Either someone knows George killed his daughter and wants to make sure he doesn’t escape punishment, or someone knows George didn’t kill his daughter and is afraid we’ll find out.”

“Have you notified the police about the note?”

“Tommy called in the local police in Pennsylvania. They’re checking to see if they can get a fingerprint match from the note.”

“Now
this
is something you should worry about. Not that you should stop what you’re doing. Just be careful.”

“So, what do you think? Why would someone try to stop us?”

Doug pondered a moment. “I think you should make a list of everyone who knows you’re investigating Calhoun’s case.”

Dani reached for her pocketbook and pulled out a small notepad and a pen. “Let’s see. Well, of course, everyone at HIPP, but they can’t count.”

“Probably not, but for this exercise write down everyone’s name.”

She began writing on the notepad. “The wardens at both prisons know, George’s attorney and his secretary, the detective in Illinois—I think his name is Cannon. Those are the people who know we may try to stop the execution. But they could have told anyone. And those people could have told others.” She put her pen down. “This is pointless. There’s no way I can figure out everyone who might know that we represent Calhoun.”

“Okay. Let’s try this. Who would be harmed most if Calhoun is exonerated?”

Dani thought for a moment and picked up her pen again. “The person who actually murdered the girl found in the woods.”

“Then that’s your answer.”

She grimaced. “It’s not an answer. I have no idea who killed the girl if it wasn’t George.”

They retreated into silence as the waiter brought over coffee. As he walked away, it hit her. “We have to find out the identity of that little girl. Then we might know who’s threatening us.”

“I think you’re right.”

Dani scribbled a reminder in her notepad: Exhume body of dead girl.

The next morning Bruce, Melanie, Tommy, and Dani gathered in HIPP’s conference room.

“Okay, what’s the strategy?” Bruce asked.

“I think we need to attack it on two fronts,” Dani said. “First, we go to the superior court in LaGrange—that’s the closest court to where the body is buried—and try to get an order of exhumation.”

“Hasn’t Calhoun exhausted his state court appeals?”

“He has. I wouldn’t fashion the request for exhumation as an appeal, though. Before now, no one has questioned the identity of the girl found in the woods. They convicted George of killing that girl. The appeals have all been based on an assumption that it was Angelina. If we get an order of exhumation and it turns out to be someone else, then going back into state court with that information might be too late, or maybe not—I’m not certain. But that’s not where we’d go. That brings me to the second front. He hasn’t exhausted his habeas corpus
appeals, so we can go into federal court and try to show that the conviction or sentence violated his constitutional rights.”

“What’s your timing?”

“Ideally, I’d go first with the state case, get an order exhuming the body, then be able to bring those results to the federal case. But we don’t have time for that so we may have to file the second case before we get a ruling on the first.”

Bruce turned to Tommy. “How about your investigation? Are you finished with that?”

“I’m going to try to see if Calhoun’s story about the Mayo Clinic holds water. I’ve already got a few calls in and I’m waiting for callbacks.”

“Okay,” Bruce said. “Sounds good. You need anything from me, just let me know.”

Dani sighed. “A miracle. That’s what I need.”

C
HAPTER

15

S
unny Bergman still wasn’t used to the crowded streets of New York City. Really, after living in Manhattan for almost two years, she should have adjusted to the teeming humanity. Yet she felt a jolt each time she left her apartment. The confined walls of the elevator, the perpetually smog-filled air, even the smell of the streets triggered a yearning to be back in Byron, the small town where she’d grown up. An ideal childhood, she thought, with the coziness that came with knowing just about every person in town. A trip to the supermarket always included chats with friends she’d run into or parents of her friends or even just the smiling workers behind the cash register. And a city was only twenty minutes east, with all the stores and restaurants anyone could want.

Manhattan was so different. No one smiled at her or barely even nodded in response to her cheery attempts at chatter. Once in a while someone would smile at Rachel, but even the most coldhearted person couldn’t resist such a beautiful child. Sunny’s own heart fluttered each time she looked at her daughter. She hadn’t planned on having a child so early. They had agreed she would work until Eric finished his medical training and then she would go to nursing school. Taking turns—that’s what marriage was about. One day she’d go back to school, but not yet. She couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Rachel with a stranger.

Stepping onto the sidewalk from the vestibule of her apartment building, the bright sunshine momentarily blinded Sunshine. Sunshine—that was her real name. She’d heard the story of her name numerous times from her parents. How they’d waited so long to have a child and how when they first set eyes on her, the hospital room brightened, as if drenched in sunlight. Holding Rachel’s small hand, she led her toward the park, an oasis of green in this city of concrete and brick.

“Mommy, can we see the aminals today?” Rachel asked in her dainty voice, so melodic in its tones that it sounded like a song.

“It’s ‘animals,’ not ‘aminals,’ ” Sunny said. “And not today. It’s too far away. After the park, we’re going to meet Daddy for lunch.”

“But I wanna see the aminals.”

“It’ll be fun to see Daddy for lunch.”

Sunny understood Rachel’s silence. Residents worked long hours and Eric rarely got home before Rachel went to sleep. Ironic—it was Eric who loved children so much that he chose pediatrics as his specialty; Eric who’d brought her to Manhattan, so far from the family and friends she loved; Eric who left her alone all day in this city of strangers. He’d left her alone again yesterday with his sudden visit back to his hometown in Pennsylvania. He’d gotten a call the evening before from his sister. Carol was in trouble again, he’d said. Her marriage was shaky, and she wanted to drink. Two years of sobriety were about to go down the drain. He needed to go back and straighten her out. “We’ll go with you,” Sunny had offered, desperate to spend more time with Eric.

“No, Rachel will be a distraction. Besides, I’ll be back home tonight. It’s just for the day.”

He returned late that evening, withdrawn, unwilling to join in her effort at conversation. He went to sleep early and left for the hospital before she and Rachel had awakened that morning. He’d told Sunny many times that he had to work harder than the other residents to prove himself. He was much older than the rest—he’d been almost thirty-two when he began medical school. “I was the black sheep of the family,” he’d told her when they first met. “The wild one who didn’t want to settle down to any serious work. Now I have to make up for it.”

Sunny took Rachel’s hand in hers. They walked past the few brownstones interspersed between new apartment buildings and stopped to admire the first buds on the forsythia in their carefully tended gardens. Sunny kept her face turned away from the bags of garbage, heaped layers deep, that lined the curb. The trucks had not yet arrived to pick up the trash. Another change from the neat plastic or metal cans that sat at the end of the driveways in her childhood suburban home. The acrid odor couldn’t be good for Rachel. She always worried about disease when the pungent smell entered her nostrils.

Sunny held her daughter’s hand tighter as she crossed the road to escape the offending litter. Prewar brick buildings lined the street. Most were six or seven stories high, with an occasional restaurant or store on the street level. Her own apartment building was one of the highest in the neighborhood, at twelve stories. But neighborhoods in Manhattan were strange. Just one or two blocks away, their character changed completely. So unlike the sameness of Byron, its streets lined with simple ranches and the occasional two-story, the lawns carefully manicured, the backyards fenced because even in the Midwest one had to be careful the toddlers didn’t run out into the streets, though the drivers were always cautious.

“Look, Rachel, Billy’s at the park.” They were just steps from the entrance to the playground. When Rachel saw her friend, she dropped her mother’s hand and ran to him, plopping herself next to him in the sandlot. Sunny strolled over to Billy’s mother, Ellen, and sat next to her on the bench.

“I didn’t expect to see you today,” Ellen said as she smiled at Sunny. “Didn’t you say you were meeting Eric for lunch?”

“We are, but it’s so lovely out that I left a few chores for later so we could get some fresh air first.”

“I know how you feel. I couldn’t wait to get outside today. It almost feels like spring.”

“Well, it is spring.”

“Yeah, the calendar says it’s spring, but in New York, spring is about five days in May. Before then it’s cool and rainy, and after it’s hot and steamy. We don’t get too many gorgeous days like this.”

Her eyes closed, Sunny bent her head back and let the sun stream over her face. On a day like this, sitting among the greenery of the park, it almost felt like being back home. She could hear peals of laughter coming from her daughter, and the sound brought a smile to her face. Yes, having Rachel made everything worthwhile.

“Have you heard about MaryLou?” Ellen asked. “She walked in on Stephen in bed with a young floozy. She was supposed to be at the theater, but she must have eaten something rotten at lunch because she felt so sick, she left during intermission.”

Ellen was a notorious gossipmonger, a neighborhood busybody who thrived on scandal and could prattle nonstop. The drone of her voice melded into a sonorous hum as soothing as the white noise of an air conditioner. Sunny knew she didn’t need to respond. A few grunts here and there would suffice.

“Stephen just looked at her and said, ‘You’re home early.’ Can you imagine that? He didn’t even try to hide the girl or make some lame apology. Well, you know the rumor’s always been that MaryLou had her own flings on the side, so maybe she got what she deserved. I heard she bedded the boy who delivers her groceries from Gristedes. He brings me my groceries too, and he’s adorable, but my God, he can’t be more than eighteen!”

Sunny opened her eyes and looked for Rachel. Her daughter was still happily ensconced in the sand with her little friend. As she glanced toward the entrance to the park, she saw Ralph approach with his daughter, Brianna. The brief flutter of her heart unnerved her, but she caught herself. In the past, she’d felt foolish around Ralph, stammering her responses to his polite conversation. But she was better now, able to smile and be composed without betraying the nervousness she always felt in his presence.