Unintended Consequences - By Marti Green Page 0,42

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 La Grange—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