Unintended Consequences - By Marti Green Page 0,68

direct appeals. Even if we ordered the body to be exhumed and the results of the DNA test excluded Mr. Calhoun as the father, where does he go with that?”

“This would be newly discovered evidence. It would give rise to a new appeal.”

“How is it newly discovered evidence? If what Mr. Calhoun says is true, he’s known from the beginning that it wasn’t his daughter. At every step of his proceedings, this issue could have been raised. Hasn’t he waived the right to ask for the body to be exhumed now by his own silence?”

Dani saw the yellow light come on. She had only a minute left to persuade these three judges to rule in her favor. “Your Honors, if there is incontrovertible evidence available which could show that the child in the woods was not Angelina Calhoun, then the prosecutor’s case disappears. Their only basis for convicting Mr. Calhoun was the identification of that child as Angelina. Justice mandates that he have access to the evidence. If he has no appeals left—and I don’t believe that’s the case—then the governor of this state would be able to right a cruel wrong by commuting George Calhoun’s sentence and setting an innocent man free.”

“Your time is up, Ms. Trumball.”

“Thank you, Your Honors.”

She sat down and a sense of numbness enshrouded her. Landry stood at the podium now. Dani saw his mouth move but heard nothing. She felt exhausted from the preparation, from the performance, from the ever-present sound of the ticking clock. She felt like a wooden soldier marching steadfastly toward a steep cliff and the inevitable fall to the chasm below. A poke in her arm jolted her back to the proceedings.

“Dani, are you okay?” Melanie asked.

She looked up and saw that Landry had left. Two men in neatly pressed suits were waiting to take her place at the defense table. The next case had been called. It was time to leave.

The flight back from Indianapolis departed on time. Dani was anxious to be home, to be enveloped in the safe cocoon of her family. Her already-great respect for Bruce had grown exponentially. He’d handled capital appeals from beginning to end for ten years now and, at least during the time she had worked there, never seemed to lose his equilibrium. It wasn’t so for her. There had been moments, alone in her hotel room, when she’d wanted to run away, crawl under the covers, escape the hell of representing an innocent man condemned to die. When she handled only the appeals, she didn’t bond with the inmate in the same way. She wrote words on a page and then argued law and principles in a court. It had changed now. She was connected to George Calhoun. She was his lifeline.

They circled LaGuardia Airport for twenty minutes before being cleared for landing, typical of congested New York City airports. When they finally landed, they all checked their voice mail.

“Hey, I got a message from a nurse at the Mayo Clinic,” Tommy said after closing his phone. “She saw the flier posted in the nurse’s lounge. Says she may have some information for us.”

Dani couldn’t believe what she’d heard. Proof that Angelina had been left at the Mayo Clinic would change everything. “Call her back. Right now.”

“Already tried. Got her voice mail. I’ll keep trying. This may be just the break we need.”

Please let it be so suddenly became her mantra. Please let it be so.

CHAPTER

25

Eleven Days

Tommy hoped the perfect weather in Rochester, Minnesota, portended that something good would come of his meeting with Jody Melnick. Instead of the drenching rain that had greeted him on his last visit, a few puffy white clouds dotted the crystalline blue sky and the temperature stayed at seventy-two degrees. He’d finally reached Jody last night. She wasn’t certain her information would be helpful but had agreed to meet with him the next day when her shift ended. Tommy had caught the first plane out in the morning and now waited for her in the hospital cafeteria.

“Mr. Noorland?”

Tommy looked up and saw a middle-aged woman in starched white scrubs. Her name tag read “Jody Melnick, R.N.” “Ms. Melnick,” he said as he stood up and extended his hand to shake hers. “Thank you so much for meeting with me. And please call me Tommy. You sounded a little cryptic on the phone.”

“And call me Jody. I appreciate you coming out to speak to me in person. I hesitated to call at all. Trudy and I