been given a sentence of life imprisonment instead of facing the death penalty in exchange for your testimony?”
“They just told me to tell the truth and that’s what I did.”
After reading Sallie’s testimony, Dani needed a break. Her whole body felt dirty, as if even considering taking on George’s case had blackened her. She poured a cup of coffee and headed to Bruce’s office.
“Have a moment?” she asked as she walked in and made herself comfortable in the chair opposite his desk. It was just as threadbare as the one in her office.
Bruce looked up and smiled. “Do I have a choice?”
“I’m not feeling so good about this case.”
“Okay. Don’t take it then.”
Just like Bruce. Always pushing his staff to make decisions. Most of the time she liked that. Today she wasn’t so sure. “I’m not finished reviewing the transcript, but already it gives me the willies.”
Bruce fixed his eyes on hers. “You shouldn’t take the case if you think the guy is guilty, no matter how many mistakes were made at trial. But if those mistakes got in the way of the truth, he deserves to be heard. Your personal feelings about the nature of the crime are irrelevant. Only the truth matters. And it’s your job to find the truth. So, have you read enough to know what the truth is?”
“No, I haven’t even gotten to the defendant’s case.”
“Well, then two things might happen. The defendant’s attorney could have done a bang-up job and convinced you doubt existed about his guilt or left you certain after hearing both sides he was guilty, or—”
She didn’t let him finish. “Or he did a lousy job and I need to conduct my own investigation, right?
“You got it, girl.”
She thanked Bruce and went back to her office to finish reading the transcript. After Sallie’s testimony, the prosecutor entered into evidence photographs of the burned and battered body of the murdered child despite objections about their inflammatory nature. Side by side with one gruesome photo was one of Angelina Calhoun, a pretty toddler with blond hair framing her face. The contrast was designed to enrage the jury, as it no doubt did.
The prosecution then ended its case and the judge sent the jurors home for the day, leaving them with the sickening images of the corpse to linger in their thoughts overnight.
Wilson began his defense the next day with George Calhoun’s testimony. Once again, Dani’s mind turned the words on the page into a movie of the trial. She saw George take the stand, saw him swear to tell the truth. Wilson took him through the preliminary testimony, where he lived, where he worked, how far he’d gone in school—meaningless questions to get him comfortable with testifying. Then, “Mr. Calhoun, did you murder your daughter?”
“No sir, I did not. I loved my Angelina, more than anything else in the world. I would never hurt her.”
“Then how did that little girl get in that grave?”
“I don’t know. She’s not my daughter.”
“Your wife says she is.”
“My wife’s not thinking right.”
“No further questions,” Wilson said as he turned and walked back to the defense table.
The prosecutor easily discredited George on the stand.
“Where is your daughter?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you ever report her missing?”
“No.”
“Did you ever tell anyone she was missing?”
“No.”
“Did you make any effort to find her?”
“No.”
“Is your daughter alive?”
The transcript noted silence by the defendant.
“I’ll ask you again, is your daughter alive?”
More silence, until the judge said, “Mr. Calhoun, you must answer the question.”
“I don’t know.”
“Mr. Calhoun, are you asking us to believe that your four-year-old daughter whom you love more than anything in the world simply disappeared and you did nothing about it? And you don’t even know if she’s dead or alive?”
“That’s what I’m saying,” he answered, assuring his conviction by a jury of his peers.
The first reading confirmed Dani’s suspicion about Bob Wilson. His lackluster defense during the trial bespoke an attorney who foresaw an inevitable guilty verdict and expended little effort to alter that outcome. Over and over he failed to attack the prosecutor’s witnesses, despite glaring holes in their evidence, or raise objections to improper questions. But even more noteworthy was the absence of any real defense. Aside from a handful of character witnesses, the only testimony refuting the charge was Calhoun’s. Although George had sworn he hadn’t murdered his daughter and that the child found in the woods was not his own, the defense presented no forensic evidence to back up his claim. How could that be? The