The Last Plea Bargain (36 page)

83

My sleeping pills did their trick, and I might have slept forever if Justice hadn't pawed at me until I took him out at about 10 a.m. Chris had gotten up early to get ready for his sermon the next day and had fixed chocolate-chip pancakes for breakfast.

“What did I do to deserve a brother like you?” I asked.

My saint of a brother left at noon. I was still in my sleepshirt and a pair of shorts and planned on staying that way all day. I had received a few more phone calls and text messages, including ones from Mace James and LA. I was tempted to call LA, but I suddenly had mixed emotions about that relationship. It wasn't just that our lack of discretion might have cost us the case. I was also getting bad feelings about the way LA could adjust the truth when it served his purposes. He came from a different place than me spiritually, and our values were very different.

Plus, there was the issue of trust. He had seemed as devastated as I was after his testimony, but what if that was all an act? My emotions were swinging wildly back and forth, which was precisely why everybody said you should never start a relationship in the middle of a pressure cooker like the Tate case.

When the doorbell rang at twelve thirty, Justice went flying from the family room toward the front door at full speed, barking all the way. I half expected to see LA standing there and maybe J-Lo on a leash. A big part of me wanted to see LA standing there. Instead, I opened the door and found myself looking into the eyes of a man I had never wanted to see again.

Justice squirmed through the crack in the door and jumped all over Professor Mace James.

“Justice!” I said. “Sit!”

But Justice, with his lousy lack of character judgment, ignored me. Mace laughed and rubbed Justice's head. “He's okay,” Mace said.

Though I wanted to tell Mace James to get out of my life forever, I found myself apologizing. “Sorry about that,” I said. “He thinks everybody comes to see him.”

Mace got down on one knee and patted Justice a little. He looked up at me. “His name's Justice, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Fitting. You got a minute?”

Not for you.
“I'm pretty busy.”

Mace stood to his full height. He was wearing a pair of jeans, flip-flops, and a white T-shirt tight enough to remind everyone he could bench-press a small car. He had on a pair of mirrored sunglasses, and it looked like he hadn't shaved in a few days. “This really can't wait,” he said.

I frowned.

“I know you don't trust me, Jamie. But just give me a few minutes.”

It was late August and over ninety degrees outside, but I wasn't about to let this man in my house. There were two wooden rocking chairs on the front porch, and I decided they would have to do. “Hang on a second,” I said.

I went into the house and got Justice's leash, my running watch, and my shades. If I couldn't see his eyes, I didn't want him seeing mine. I came back out and pointed to the rocking chairs. “Three minutes,” I said. “Not a second more.”

The last time somebody had asked for a few minutes of my time was when Caleb Tate dropped the bombshell on me about my father. My stomach had a similar feeling this time.

We probably looked like quite the pair on my front porch, gently rocking back and forth. A six-two bodybuilder with sweat beading on his bald head and a five-eight former kayaker in her sleepshirt and shorts, her hair sticking up, her face void of makeup, her mouth in a permanent scowl, trying to look hard. Justice took a spot between us, still on his leash, his head resting on his front paws.

I started my stopwatch and Mace said, “I guess that's my cue.”

“Two fifty left,” I said, looking at my watch.

Mace didn't waste any more time. “Before Antoine Marshall died, I promised him I would keep working to vindicate his name. Though I had some doubts after the brain-scan test, I've spent two weeks reevaluating every aspect of his case. I reread the entire case file, asking myself if there were any hints that someone else might have murdered your mom. I researched a number of your mom's and dad's cases to see if they had any enemies. I also researched the two things that bothered me most about Antoine's case. The first was the way Judge Snowden treated my client. The second was the fact that Antoine passed a polygraph, even though, to my surprise, he failed the brain-scan test.”

Mace took a breath, and I said, “Two minutes.” I realized where he was headed, and it made my heart start pounding. He must have discovered the connection between my dad and Judge Snowden.
Deep breaths. Slow pulse. Relax.

“I figured that Caleb Tate must have done something to get on the bad side of Judge Snowden, so I looked at all his cases in front of her. I didn't find any reason for their apparent animosity, but I did find something else that intrigued me.”

I was rocking faster, realized it, and forced myself to slow down.

“In three cases, Tate's clients had taken lie detector tests and passed. In each case, Snowden ruled the results inadmissible.”

Some birds landed in the bushes in front of the house, and Justice's ears perked up. “It's all right,” I said, petting his head. He lay back down as if he were just as intrigued about this story as I was.

“I thought that was unusual, so I changed my research strategy. I went through all of Tate's cases for the past ten years and found a total of nine defendants who had passed lie detector tests. Even though the tests were inadmissible, in seven of the cases, he worked out sweet deals for the defendants.”

Mace had been looking out over the cul-de-sac as he spoke, but now he turned to me. I suddenly had no idea where any of this was going.

“Jamie, you've been prosecuting long enough to know that no defense lawyer gets that many innocent clients. So how did Tate's clients do so well on the polygraphs? I figured he must have had a polygraph expert on his payroll, so to speak.”

Mace James's story had taken an interesting twist. I quit worrying about my father's reputation. And I quit looking at my watch.

Mace returned his gaze to the street. “Wrong again. Instead, I discovered that the tests were performed by a variety of polygraph examiners. Nine tests. Five different examiners. So it must have been something else.”

He stopped and checked his own watch. “I'm sorry; I see my time is up.” Mace smiled. I did not. “Will the court give me an extra two minutes?”

“Just say what you came to say, and say it as fast as you can.”

“Anyway, as you know, the polygraph test doesn't really detect lies. It detects physiological changes that occur because we get nervous when we lie. Increased heart rate. Perspiration. Blood-pressure changes. That type of thing.”

“I wasn't born yesterday,” I said.

“Right. Sorry. So anyway, I assumed Tate had figured out a way to game the test. I talked to a few polygraph examiners and started researching countermeasures—”

“I'm aware of the countermeasures,” I interrupted. “I researched them for Antoine's case.”

“I figured you had. Well . . . I actually met with several of Tate's former clients who had taken the test, and they denied knowing anything about countermeasures. Plus, I think Antoine would have told me if he had used them. And another thing—these other clients didn't seem all that sophisticated, yet every single one of them had passed the test. To the best of my knowledge, Tate never had a client fail a polygraph.”

“Where's all this heading?” I asked.

Mace James stopped rocking. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “There's another way to beat the lie detector—you make yourself honestly believe that you didn't commit the crime. The polygraph can't tell the difference between false memories and true memories; it can only test whether you
think
you're telling the truth.

“I started focusing on this when I tried to reconcile Antoine's polygraph results with his brain-scan results. Jamie, there's this whole branch of neurology focused on suggestive memory creation, a form of hypnosis that works on a large segment of the population. The effectiveness is even greater if the subject is taking certain drugs. This isn't carnival hypnosis with swinging watches and all that stuff; it's a very sophisticated form of top-down processing that can be tracked using neurological studies. The CIA experimented with it more than twenty years ago to develop agents who would carry out certain assignments with no remorse and no memory of the events afterward. Physicians in India have used it as anesthesia when they perform surgery—even the amputation of limbs. This stuff is real, and it works.”

My mind was shooting in a hundred different directions. “It can re-create your memory?”

“For certain segments of the population—yes.”

“And Tate's clients were nine for nine?”

“Nine for nine.”

“And ten for ten if you count Tate.”

“I think you've got the math pretty much figured out,” Mace said.

“But how does all this help me with Caleb Tate?” I asked. “Your text message said you might have something I could use.”

“I'm just getting started,” Mace said.

I was no longer worried about how long he was taking.

84

Beads of sweat had formed on the back of my neck, but I wasn't about to move. “What's your agenda?” I asked.

“I couldn't let Antoine's case go—not with so many unanswered questions. And that's led me to some information you may want to have.”

He paused, but I waited him out. I had decided it was hard to rush a law school professor—you just had to let him tell the story his way.

Sure enough, he started up again. “I met with two of Caleb Tate's former clients who had passed the polygraph. One of them has done his time and is out. He retained me because he thinks Tate screwed him over, and he wants to get some revenge. A second of Tate's former clients has a trial date in two months and is looking at a long stretch if he's convicted. He hired me to handle his case.”

“God help us,” I said. But Mace ignored it.

“Dr. Chandar gave them the same brain scan he used on Antoine. The guy on the outside got the same results as Antoine.”

“He failed?”

“Yeah, he failed.”

Mace got out of his seat and took off his sunglasses. He turned and faced me, leaning against the railing and crossing his bulging arms. His big body blocked out the sun.

“I want to tell you about the results for my guy awaiting trial, but I have to know it won't be used against him. I'm here to see if I can work out a deal.”

I didn't respond immediately. I needed time to process everything. “Let's just speak hypothetically,” I said.

“All right, let's assume the same result as the other two guys,” Mace replied. “So now we've got three guys who passed a polygraph but failed the brain scan.”

I nodded, conceding the point. “Some would call that a pattern.”

“But think about this,” Mace continued. “I know you've done enough work with the insanity defense to realize that people can access memories stored in their subconscious through hypnosis. So let's say, again hypothetically, that we put my two clients under hypnosis again and help them access information about their original hypnosis sessions. We get the name of the psychiatrist or the place where the session occurred or a description of the person who created the false memories. I'm sure Caleb Tate would have used that same hypnotist in order to help him pass his own polygraph. You get a phone tap. Then you execute a surprise search warrant at that person's house or office, and they'll call Caleb Tate in about two seconds. That's your path to Tate's conviction. You see what I'm saying? What would that information be worth?”

I thought about it, connecting the dots, and Mace was smart enough not to interrupt. “What's your client's name—the one looking at time?”

Mace hesitated before answering. We were both finding it difficult to trust. “Rashad Reed.”

“What are the charges?”

“Carjackings. Three separate occurrences.”

“Was anybody hurt?”

“No. Traumatized a little, but not hurt.”

“Did you tell him I don't do plea bargains?”

“I did. But I also told him there might be an exception.”

“What does he want?”

“Five years, all but two suspended. Move him to a prison system in a remote part of the state and give him a private cell. He also wants some recess privileges, but he doesn't want to be in the general inmate population.”

“And I want a Ferrari,” I said. “But we don't always get what we want.”

Mace frowned and looked down at the porch. “Jamie, I know you find this hard to believe, but I care about justice too. I'm not really that excited about putting Rashad Reed back on the street in two years. But you've made no secret of your belief that Caleb Tate is the one behind the events that are terrorizing Milton County right now. And while the ethical rules don't allow me to breach any confidences from a former client, they also impose on me a duty not to let my clients defraud the court. This is the only way I know to get at the truth, fulfill my ethical duties, and get Milton County's criminal justice system back on track.”

He waited as I chewed on it but then apparently ran out of patience. “Listen, Rashad Reed is willing to be the next guinea pig to cut a deal. But he's got to have solitary confinement and protection. I'm not sanctioning what he did, but he's my client, and I can't let him cut a deal if it means I'm signing his death warrant.”

“I understand that,” I said. “But this is a lot to work through.” My thoughts were racing with everything I needed to do just to process this. “I'll get back to you as soon as I can.”

“That's all I can ask.” Mace knelt down and rubbed Justice's head, then stood. I stood as well, and we awkwardly shook hands.

“Thanks for coming,” I said.

“Thanks for hearing me out.”

I watched him walk to his truck and drive away. I sensed that the alliances were somehow shifting under my feet. Mace James and I still weren't friends. But I was no longer sure that we were sworn enemies.