“Come, Jonah, let’s go back into your bedroom,” she whispered to him. Dani put her arm around his shoulder and led him down the hallway. His bedroom looked like any other twelve-year-old boy’s, with posters of baseball heroes and rock stars adorning the walls, clothes hanging over the back of a chair, and stacks of textbooks on his desk. She settled him back into his bed and traipsed to the bathroom for a dose of children’s Tylenol and then to the kitchen for a glass of orange juice to wash it down.
With Jonah medicated, she made herself comfortable on the plush carpeted floor in his room to keep him company. “Try to go back to sleep, sweetie,” she said as her own eyes drifted closed.
Deep within the recesses of her head, Dani heard the faint buzzing of an alarm clock down the hall. Her eyes shot open and she realized she had fallen asleep. She looked at Jonah and saw that he, too, had fallen back asleep. A soft guttural sound came from his slightly opened lips and a shaft of sunlight peeking through the curtains lighted up beads of perspiration on his forehead. She stood up and felt his neck. Still warm. Quietly, she tiptoed out.
Doug lay in bed, his eyes half-closed. “Where were you?”
“In Jonah’s room. He’s sick.”
Doug’s eyes shot open and he raised himself up. “What’s wrong?”
“Probably just a cold. He has a fever, though.”
“Have you spoken to Dr. Dolman?”
Harvey Dolman, a doctor at Montefiore Hospital, treated Jonah for matters large and small. Dani thought him a godsend, a physician who not only understood Williams syndrome and its far-reaching tentacles but also treated his charges and their families with an inexhaustible supply of patience. The Bronx hospital had opened its Williams-syndrome center just a few years ago, and it had simplified their lives immeasurably.
“It’s too early to call. I’ll wait until 9.”
“His service can reach him any time,” Doug said as he reached for the phone on the side of the bed.
Dani put her hand over Doug’s. “He’ll be okay. I’m sure it’s nothing serious. We shouldn’t disturb Dr. Dolman now.”
Doug stared at her a moment. “All right then, if you’re sure.” He lay back down. “You know he’ll want you to stay home with him.”
She did know. They were supposed to take turns, but Dani couldn’t resist Jonah’s pleading for her to stay.
At nine o’clock she called Dr. Dolman and received the reassurance she’d hoped for. Jonah had a cold, an ordinary cold like every child gets from time to time. He felt better after sleeping for a few more hours and awakening to discover he would spend the day at home with his mother. His smile returned, along with his gushing chatter. Dani enjoyed spending time with Jonah. In fact, most adults enjoyed his friendly and cheerful personality. If she hadn’t felt pressed by the Calhoun case, she’d have relished a day at home with her son. Instead, she picked up the phone and called her office.
“I’m going to work from home today,” she told Melanie. “Let’s schedule a conference call for two o’clock and we’ll go over what we have. Let Tommy know, okay? Oh, and if the retainer comes in from Calhoun, call me.”
An hour later she got a call back from Melanie. “It arrived in the morning mail. George Calhoun’s retainer letter. Do you want me to call his trial attorney?”
“He wasn’t just his trial attorney,” Dani reminded her. “He handled the appeals as well. I’ll give him a call from here.”
Telling the former attorney he was being replaced always presented a challenge. Sometimes HIPP got lucky and there was visible relief that he’d be removed from his place as the last link in the chain of events leading up to a person’s death. More often there was defensiveness, since the first avenue of review on an appeal was ineffective assistance of counsel. The judicial system afforded everyone the right to counsel. With death cases, the Supreme Court had ruled that it must be effective counsel. Sadly, there were too many instances of overworked, inexperienced, incompetent, or just plain unfit, attorneys defending the accused on trial for their lives. Dani had read so many trial transcripts where the defense attorney was admonished for alcohol on his breath or prodded awake when it was her turn for questioning that she wasn’t shocked anymore. With George’s trial counsel handling his appeals, the issue of ineffective counsel wouldn’t