Unintended Consequences (12 page)

Darryl had been sentenced to life in a Florida state penitentiary. True to the cops’ promise, he’d avoided a death sentence through his confession. By then, Dani’s parents had retired to Florida, and she planned a trip with Jonah to visit them and arranged to meet with Darryl while she was there. As a result of that meeting, she began to question her previous assumptions.

Darryl had been nineteen when the police picked him up for questioning about the rape and murder of Janice Priestly, a sixteen-year-old high school student working part time at a local Burger King. It was one of the many fast-food restaurants frequented by students at a nearby college, where Darryl earned straight A’s and edited the college literary magazine. He readily admitted to having been at Burger King that night, along with his friend Lance, planning the next steps for a shared research project. He hadn’t noticed any of the employees and left shortly after eight. But according to Janice’s friend and coworker Rona McAfee, Darryl had been flirting with Janice, and when she finished her shift at eight, both Darryl and Lance followed her out the door.

When brought in for questioning, Darryl assumed that it must have been a mistake and saw no need to have a lawyer present. After all, he hadn’t done anything wrong. Twenty hours later, Darryl understood that his innocence was irrelevant. During his interrogation, he had been beaten in the head, the chest, and the legs, never on the face, and always with a phone book held against his body so as not to leave evidence of the brutality. They threw a chair at him and repeatedly slammed his head on the table. When the abuse failed to produce a confession, the police told him Lance had confessed and would soon implicate Darryl. They told him he’d receive the death penalty unless he too confessed. They showed him photographs of death row. They held a hypodermic needle to his arm and said, “This is how we’ll kill you.”

At that moment, Darryl knew his only two choices were life in prison or death. He chose the former. The police had lied about Lance; he hadn’t confessed, nor had he implicated Darryl. But to escape the death penalty, Darryl had agreed to testify against his friend. They were both sentenced to life in prison.

Twelve years later, the governor of Florida received a letter from a convict on death row in Georgia, saying two innocent men were in prison for the rape and murder of Janice Priestly, a crime for which the letter-writer took sole responsibility. Instead of interviewing the convict, Florida police interviewed Darryl in prison. Fearful that asserting his innocence would harm his chance for parole, Darryl reaffirmed to the police that he had committed the crime.

Now he sat before Dani, looked her straight in the eye, and said, “I’ve never hurt anyone in my life.” She believed him. When Darryl had been convicted, DNA testing was in its infancy. By the time she’d met him, it was proven technology. Over the next few months, Dani tracked down evidence files from his trial and discovered that biological specimens from the victim still existed. She filed a motion for DNA testing. The state objected. After a hearing, she prevailed. Testing was conducted and it showed conclusively that neither Darryl nor Lance had raped Janice.

Jenny died two days after Dani told her of the DNA results, comforted by the confirmation all these years later of her nephew’s innocence and reassured that an injustice would soon be rectified.

Dani expected that his story would have a happy ending. She filed a joint petition with the state of Florida to set aside the convictions of Darryl and Lance on the grounds of actual innocence. After fifteen years in prison, both would become free men. Before that happened, though, an inmate viciously beat Darryl, and he suffered irreversible brain damage. He needed the constant care of a group home. Although freed from prison, his future, which once held so much promise, was gone forever.

When Jonah got older and Dani wanted to return to work, she sought out HIPP. Her view of the world had changed because of Darryl Coneston, and working at HIPP became her atonement for her earlier blindness and arrogance.

C
HAPTER

12

H
unched over a small table at a Dunkin Donuts shop, Tommy brought the paper cup filled with hot coffee to his lips. Still too hot. He drank his coffee black, no cream, no sugar. Coffee should be hot, steaming hot, but damn, this coffee in his hand would scald his tongue and leave him with an annoying burn on the roof of his mouth that would pester him the rest of the day. Better to wait and let it cool off. No need to rush. A wild goose chase—that’s what he was on. Still, it was his job to follow the trail, no matter how far fetched. He had to admit he’d been wrong before. Not often. Hardly ever, in fact. Dani seemed so sure this guy was innocent, but Tommy knew she was a marshmallow inside. Maybe outside, too. It took the kind of experience Tommy had to harden up and realize how perps lied so convincingly. He’d seen that plenty at the Bureau.

He tried his coffee again. “Mmm,” he said out loud. “Just right.” He broke off a piece of his cinnamon Danish, dunked it into the coffee, and then took a long sip of the rich brown liquid. His favorite breakfast: not eggs or bacon or pancakes, just a good cup of java and a Danish. Maybe sometimes a splurge with a bagel and cream cheese. He believed in keeping fit. Working out regularly at the gym and eating healthy—well, maybe the Danish wasn’t so good, but surely better than bacon—were part of his regular routine. Traveling broke that routine and put him out of sorts. When he’d miss more than two days at the gym, he thought it must be what withdrawal felt like. He’d done his share of traveling with the Bureau. Now he preferred settling in at home.

Tommy finished his breakfast and opened up a road map of Indiana. He had a straight ride east on Route 80, then Route 76, to Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania, the Calhouns’ hometown. A six-hour drive if he didn’t hit any traffic. In his leather briefcase, his initials stamped on the front in gold—a gift from his wife when he’d taken the job with HIPP—were signed releases from Calhoun. With any luck, they’d be enough to get the hospital officials and the doctors to open their records to him. If there were any records left. After all, if Calhoun told the truth, the records would be almost twenty years old. Had there even been computers then? Tommy didn’t remember, it was so long ago.

After paying the bill, he sauntered to his rental car and began his drive. An unbroken expanse of prairie lay ahead. During the summer, cornfields might line the roadway, he thought, but now the brown land was flat and dry. With nothing to distract him, he reached over to his briefcase on the passenger seat and pulled out a CD and popped it into the slot on the dashboard. When riding in a car, alone like this, he liked to listen to books on tape and always brought one along with him on forays into the field. Mysteries were his favorite—Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos, Robert Parker, pretty much anything by P. D. James.

Fiddling with audio controls while driving at seventy miles an hour was an art that Tommy had mastered long ago. Soon he heard a British-accented voice reading the words of John LeCarre’s newest fiction. Tommy adjusted the volume and settled in for the ride. Books were better than music, he figured. Music was a diversion; books were an absorption, displacing all other thoughts except the story unfolding. That’s what he wanted right now—to push aside all thoughts of George Calhoun and his date with the executioner.

Meadowbrook Hospital looked like most other community hospitals: a faded brick façade four stories high surrounded by acres of parking spots filled with cars. Tommy drove around for five minutes before he caught a blue Toyota pulling out and managed to beat out a Mercedes for the empty space. He figured he’d start with the hospital before trying to track down the doctor whom George claimed had treated his daughter. Even if he found the doctor—and without a name, he gave it a slim chance—it was so long ago that maybe the doctor wasn’t even practicing anymore. Maybe he wasn’t even alive. Hospitals kept records, though. If he could get a look at them, they could tell him whether George had been truthful about his daughter. At least the part about her being sick. The rest of his story seemed too cockeyed to believe. He couldn’t imagine walking away from one of his kids. Not for any reason. And especially not if the kid was sick. That’s when a kid needed you the most.

Tommy walked through the parking lot to the main entrance. As he stepped through the revolving door, the odor of ammonia mixed with decay hit him. He walked to the information desk and smiled at the elderly woman sitting behind it. “Hello, dear. Can you tell me where I can find the guy in charge of this hospital? I’m not sure what his title might be. Maybe ‘executive director’?”

The woman knit her brow and seemed momentarily lost. “Oh, my. I’ve never been asked that question before. Usually I’m asked for directions to a patient’s room or the cafeteria or even the restrooms.” She smiled shyly. “I’m just a volunteer, you see. Two afternoons a week. It helps the time go by.”

Tommy pointed to the phone on her desk. “Maybe you could call somebody and ask.”

“How silly of me. Of course. I’ll do just that.”

Twenty minutes later, Tommy sat on a chair in the office of Ronald Cornwall, director of operations for Meadowbrook Hospital. The administrator held in his hands the medical records release signed by George Calhoun.

“Mr. Noorland, I’ve already explained to you that we have procedures here. This release will be sent to our records department and they’ll do a search. If we have anything, we’ll send it to you. The process usually takes several weeks.”

“And I keep explaining to you that our client doesn’t have several weeks,” Tommy answered, barely able to control his frustration with this bureaucrat.

Cornwall shook his head. “Even if I wanted to circumvent our procedure, you’ve said these records are from twenty years ago. We didn’t computerize everything then. It’ll take that amount of time for our records clerk to search through our archives—and that’s assuming I push this ahead of other record requests that are pending.”

Tommy leaned back in the chair and folded his arms. “Well, we’ve got to figure something out, ’cause I’m sure you don’t want an innocent man to die just because your people are too busy to look through a shitload of papers.”

Cornwall’s face blanched. “Surely it can’t come down to our records.”

“It just may.”

“But—but—he’s been in jail, you said, for seventeen years. How could it be that you’re now first asking for our records? You can’t just lay this on me—you must know you’re being unfair.” Cornwall’s voice had risen in pitch and his widened eyes practically pleaded with Tommy to lift the burden he’d placed on him.

Although skeptical of finding documents that would jibe with Calhoun’s story, Tommy conducted all his investigations as if he believed his clients. He was a trained investigator, comfortable with himself only when he knew he’d been thorough. Shortcuts weren’t an option for him. He didn’t plan on walking away from the hospital empty-handed.

“Listen, I can help your guys look through the boxes.”

Cornwall shook his head. “No, that’d violate privacy laws.”

“Fuck privacy laws.”

Cornwall’s shoulders drooped. “I’d like to help you—really I would. But I’m not a miracle worker. Doctors make miracles, not hospital administrators.”

“I’m not looking for a miracle, just information. Seems pretty simple to me.”

The two men stared stonily at each other, like gunslingers waiting to see who’d draw first. Cornwall suddenly sat up erect in his seat. “Wait a minute. Maybe we can go about this a different way. You said she was treated here in 1989 or ’90. Maybe the treating doctor is still on staff here.” Cornwall opened a drawer in his desk, took out a sheet of paper, and looked it over. “I think we may be in luck.” He picked up the phone on his desk and punched in four numbers. “Is Dr. Samson available?” Minutes went by before he spoke again. “Gary, I’m glad you’re here. Were you on staff in ’89? Good. By any chance, do you remember treating a little girl back then for leukemia—her name was Angelina Calhoun, about three or four years old?” Cornwall nodded and smiled. “I’m going to send someone up to see you, if you have a moment now. His name is Thomas Noorland. He’s an investigator and has a signed release from the girl’s father.” He hung up and turned to Tommy. “You’re in luck. Dr. Samson is the head of our pediatric oncology unit now, but back then he was a staff physician. He remembers the Calhouns. I’ll have someone bring you up to his office and he’ll tell you what he knows about their daughter’s condition back then.”

Tommy had to admit his surprise. He’d expected the hospital to be a dead end, certain that Calhoun had fabricated the story of his daughter’s illness. Now it seemed that at least one part of his tale was true. As for the rest, Tommy remained skeptical.

Cornwall buzzed his secretary on the intercom. “Vicky, is Billy around? Good. Send him in here, please.”

Moments later a middle-aged man in workman’s clothes entered Cornwall’s office.

“You need me, Mr. Cornwall?”

The man’s slow speech and shuffling gait suggested some degree of developmental disability. “Yes, Billy. I’d like you to take this man up to see Dr. Samson. His office is in Room 521. You remember how to get there, right?”