Unintended Consequences - By Marti Green Page 0,76
she couldn’t leave.
“Go home, Dani,” Bruce had said an hour ago, obviously able to see her exhaustion. He knew that, should they lose, there would be no rest for her until Tuesday had passed. “I can’t,” she’d told him. He understood.
As the hands of the clock inched toward five o’clock, Dani’s heart sank. Could the decision be sitting in a pile on the desk of a clerk who was unaware that time was slipping away? Perhaps she was thinking about her child’s birthday party the next day or was going through a stack of decisions in the order they’d been put on her desk, routine decisions given the same priority as life-or-death decisions. Whatever the reason, it seemed inconceivable to her that the court would leave this undecided on the Friday before his execution.
She picked up the phone and dialed the clerk’s office. A male voice answered. “This is Dani Trumball with the Help Innocent Prisoners Project. We have an appeal pending on a capital case. I just wondered if there’s been any decision yet.”
“Hold on a moment.”
A crisp female voice came on the line. “Ms. Trumball, I was just dialing you when you called. I have the decision and I’ll fax it over to you now.”
“Can you tell me—how was it decided?”
Her voice softened. “I’m sorry. It was denied.”
“And the stay?”
“Also denied.”
Dani sat in Bruce’s office, sobbing. He was perched on the edge of his desk, facing her. He handed her a tissue and tried to console her. Dani knew she should remain professional. She understood the importance of keeping her emotions in check in order to best represent her client. And she was keenly aware of being considered “soft” because she was a woman. None of it mattered now. The news devastated her.
“You’ll file your petition with the Supreme Court first thing Monday morning,” Bruce said. “It’s not over yet.”
Bruce was being kind. They both knew that the odds of getting the Supreme Court to review the case, much less overturn it, were minuscule.
“Go home. Put this out of your mind for tonight. Tomorrow we’ll both come in and tighten up the petition to the Supremes,” he said.
As she stood to leave, Tommy walked in. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said. “I just got off the phone with Jack—you know, the guy from the Sharpsburg police who ran the fingerprint check for me on that note left on my car. He decided to send it over to the FBI, since they have an expanded database. The prints were run again and a partial match came up. With Stacy Conklin.”
“Isn’t that the little girl who disappeared around the same time as Angelina?” Dani said.
“You got it.”
“How would a young child’s fingerprints get into a database?”
“My guess is her mother or father took her to one of those mall events where kids get fingerprinted in case something bad should happen to them. It helps the police if they’ve got them on file. It was pretty commonplace back then.”
“So it’s Stacy’s fingerprint on the letter?”
“Not hers. Only part of it matched. But the person who threatened me is related to her, closely related. Her mother or father, most likely.”
“Oh my god! You just met with them the day before. You obviously struck a nerve.” Dani practically danced with excitement. “Now we know who’s buried in that grave. It’s Stacy Conklin. It must be.”
“Hold your horses,” Bruce said, ever the pragmatist. “Don’t get carried away with yourselves too quickly. It’s possible that, losing their own daughter the way they did, the thought of a child-murderer getting off on what they might view as a technicality was too much to bear.”
Her joy deflated.
“Why don’t you call the cop that handled that investigation?” Bruce said to Tommy. “If he bites, then he can ask a local judge for an order to exhume the body. If it’s part of an ongoing police investigation, he shouldn’t have any trouble getting it.”
“Sure. I always had a bad feeling about Mickey Conklin, so I’ve been keeping in touch with Cannon all along.”
Bruce turned to Dani. “And you should start reaching out to the governor. Let’s alert her to what’s going on and ask her to be available on Monday to consider at the least a stay.” Colleen Timmons was the governor of Indiana, the first woman elected to that position in that state. She’d run as a tough-on-crime candidate and hadn’t changed since being in office. Dani hoped it wouldn’t come down to relying on her