“I just got the call. The supreme court granted your motion for a new trial.”
Jack accompanied the warden back to the death cell where Tom Felton was waiting. The man was in shock. He was still a little subdued from the diazepam, but he was aware enough to know that he had been minutes away from death, strapped to a gurney with IVs in his arms and heart monitors on his chest when everything stopped. Nobody had told him anything yet.
The warden let Jack in and closed the cell door behind him.
“Let me know when you’re ready and we’ll move him back to his cell,” the warden told Jack.
Jack sat in the death cell with his client for a minute or two before either of them spoke. Tom was sitting on the bed, his head down, his hands holding onto the cot for dear life.
“They should have finished it,” he said finally. “I was ready. I won’t be able to do this again. I’ll have to find a way to kill myself.”
“You won’t have to do it again,” Jack said.
Tom looked up, confused. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The supreme court granted you a new trial.”
“So that’s what this was about. Why didn’t anybody tell me?”
“I guess they figured you should hear it from me. You probably have a lot of questions, and it wouldn’t be appropriate for the warden or the guards to try and answer them.”
“I see. We never did talk about what would happen if I got a new trial.”
Felton still seemed a little wary, as if he didn’t or couldn’t believe what was happening.
“No, we didn’t. I don’t think the State can retry you. They just don’t have any evidence.”
“You mean they’re going to set me free.”
“They could. I don’t know. They could hold you on a different crime.”
“They’ve never charged me with anything else, have they?”
“No. The guards are going to take you back to your cell. I’ll check with the State, but I believe we’ll know something within a few weeks.”
“That long?”
“Maybe not. I can’t say at this point. I hoped you’d be a little happier.”
“I’m sorry, Jack. I’m still a little dopey from the drug, and I think I’m in shock as well. Thank you.”
“No problem. I’ll walk you back to your cell.”
Jack went to the door and signaled for the guards.
Chapter Thirty-Five
After leaving the prison, Jack went back to the condo in Oakville. He was emotionally exhausted and immediately went to bed but he couldn’t sleep. Henry had bought a bottle of Jack Daniel’s a few weeks back, and Jack decided to pour himself a shot and sit out on the patio and listen to the crickets sing. It was a beautiful night, clear skies with a slight breeze. He brought the bottle with him and poured another shot a few minutes later. After that second one, he could feel the tension rise from his body like steam from a natural spring.
When Henry was released, Jack was ecstatic. He didn’t feel that way about Tom Felton because he still wasn’t sure that Felton was innocent. There had always been a safety valve in the back of his mind to establish that innocence, something he hadn’t discussed even with Henry.
For Felton to be guilty, some of the evidence had to be legitimate. Obviously, the bowie knife was not the murder weapon in the Brock/Diaz murders, but it could have been the actual weapon used by the killer when he attempted to kill Stacey Kincaid. If those fingerprints on the bowie knife were real and not planted, something that would be apparent to any fingerprint expert, the State could still charge Felton with the attempted murder of Stacey Kincaid. That was Jack’s out. If they didn’t charge Felton with attempted murder, the fingerprints were definitely bogus and Felton was innocent.
Jack took a long deep breath and poured himself one last shot. In a few minutes he wouldn’t have any trouble sleeping.
After the new trial was granted, things happened a lot faster than Jack had expected. The supreme court’s opinion in the case of State of Florida v. Thomas Felton was a scathing rebuke of the state attorney and the coroner’s office. The police department escaped criticism because there was no real evidence to conclude that they were part of the plot to railroad Felton. The coroner was dead but Jane Pelicano, the prosecuting attorney and now the state attorney for Apache County, was still very much alive. The