Diana blocked the defense’s efforts to obtain the couple’s phone records, and they have since been destroyed.
The last section of the brief covers Quincy’s own testimony. Since he did not testify at trial, he is now able to tell his story with his own affidavit. He denies any involvement, denies ever owning, or firing, a 12-gauge shotgun, and denies knowing anything about the flashlight until photos of it were presented in court. He denies being in Seabrook on the night of the murder. His alibi was and remains his old girlfriend, Valerie Cooper, who has never budged from her testimony that he was with her that night. We attach an affidavit from Valerie.
The brief is fifty-four pages of clear, sound reasoning, and leaves little doubt, at least in the minds of the fine folks at Guardian Ministries, that Florida got the wrong man. It should be read by learned and fair-minded judges who should be appalled and move quickly to correct an injustice, but that never happens.
We file it quietly and wait. After three days, it becomes obvious that the press has no interest, and that’s fine with us. After all, the case has been closed for twenty-two years.
Since I am not licensed to practice law in Florida, we associate Susan Ashley Gross, an old friend who runs the Central Florida Innocence Project. Her name is listed first on the pleadings, above mine and Mazy’s. Our representation is now public record.
I send a copy of our petition and brief to Tyler Townsend and hope for a response.
* * *
—
OVER IN ALABAMA, Chad Falwright makes good on his promise to seek justice for me and not the real killer. He files an ethics complaint with the Alabama bar, of which I am not a member, and one in Georgia, where my license is registered. Chad wants me disbarred for tampering with the evidence. For borrowing a pubic hair.
I’ve been through this before. It’s a hassle and can be intimidating, but I can’t slow down. Duke Russell is still serving time for Mark Carter, and this keeps me awake at night. I call a lawyer friend in Birmingham and he’s itching for a fight. Mazy will take care of the complaint in Georgia.
* * *
—
I’M IN THE conference room upstairs working through a pile of desperate letters from prison when Mazy yells. I bound down the stairs and step into her office where she and Vicki are staring at her desktop screen. The message is in a bold, silly font that’s almost difficult to read, but the message is clear.
your filing in Poinsett County makes for interesting reading but
it never mentions Kenny Taft. maybe he wasn’t shot by drug dealers;
maybe he knew too much. (this message will evaporate five minutes
after being opened. it cannot be traced. don’t bother).
We gawk at it until it slowly fades away and the page goes blank. Vicki and I back into chairs and stare at the walls. Mazy is pecking away and finally says, “It’s a site called From Under Patty’s Porch. For twenty dollars a month, with a credit card, you get thirty days’ access to a private chat room where messages are confidential, temporary, and cannot be traced.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about. She pecks some more, says, “Looks legitimate and probably harmless. A lot of these servers are in Eastern Europe where the privacy rules are stricter.”
“Can we reply?” Vicki asks.
“Do we want to?” I ask.
Mazy says, “Yes, we can reply, for twenty dollars.”
“It’s not in the budget,” Vicki says.
“This person is using the address of cassius.clay.444. We could pay up and send him a note.”
“Not now,” I say. “He doesn’t want to talk and he’s not going to say anything. Let’s think about this.”
Anonymous tips are part of the game and they provide an excellent way to waste a lot of time.
* * *
—
KENNY TAFT WAS twenty-seven years old when he was killed in a remote part of Ruiz County in 1990. He was the only black deputy on Pfitzner’s force and had worked there for three years. He and his partner, Gilmer, were dispatched by Pfitzner to a site believed to be used as a staging point by cocaine smugglers, none of whom were supposed to be in the area. Taft and Gilmer were not expecting trouble. Their mission was a scouting trip supposedly requested by the DEA office in Tampa. There was only a slight possibility that the site was in fact being used, and