Page 127 of The Proving Ground

“Yeah.”

Once Cisco was gone, I walked back through the gate and stood in front of the empty jury box. It was the proving ground where I would make my final stand in the case. I faced the two rows of leather seats in the box. There was a time in my life when I believed this was sacred ground. But now it seemed that nothing was sacred anymore. Not the rule of law, and not those who practiced it.

44

MAGGIE’S CAR WASin the garage when I pulled in. She wasn’t in the front room but I saw an open bottle of red wine on the counter when I glanced into the kitchen while passing through the house. I found her on the back deck. There wasn’t much here, just a table and chairs, a Weber grill, and a hot tub we never used, and no view of the city. All you could see was a hedge and part of the neighbor’s house above us on the hillside street.

“Mags, what are you doing back here?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “Just having a glass of wine.”

“You want to sit in the front, watch the sun go down?”

“No, I’m happy here.”

I started stripping off my tie.

“I’m going to change and then I’ll be back out here.”

“You don’t have to. You can go watch the sunset.”

“Is something wrong?”

“You should have told me.”

“What, about going to see Adebayo? Why? I mean, I can’t go tothe DA herself every time I have a case. That would look bad for both of us.”

“This case you should have brought to me. It would have saved you the embarrassment. Saved me too.”

“What are you talking about? What embarrassment?”

“The case isn’t there, Mickey. You’re taking a wild swing at your own redemption over a case you think you should have won twenty years ago.”

“You’re passing?”

“Yes, we’re passing. Monday you’ll get the formal reject from Adebayo. This whole thing could have been avoided if you had just shown it to me first.”

I pulled out a chair and sat down. I started thinking about how I would break the news to David and Cassandra Snow. I tried to mentally review the petition I had spent a day writing. I was sure all of the elements of habeas were there. New evidence unavailable at the time of conviction, medical research, medical witnesses—I had everything.

“It was all there,” I said. “Why was it rejected? I don’t want to wait till Monday. Just tell me.”

“We had no choice,” Maggie said. “It took only a search of the National Institutes of Health website to see that osteogenesis imperfecta was first described a hundred fifty years ago. Mickey, you have her condition right, but you should have had it back then. It’s not new evidence.”

“No, it was not diagnosed back then. Her mother wasn’t around to give a history, and the specific genetic test for her type of OI wasn’t available at the time. That is the new evidence. If I didn’t make that clear I can rewrite the petition. Whatever you need.”

“I just need you to stop, Mickey. It’s not happening.”

I ran a hand through my hair.

“You can always take it to federal court,” Maggie said.

“He’ll be dead before we get to the first hearing,” I said. “That’s the whole reason I went to you. He’s dying and his daughter wants to get him out.”

“Well, but you didn’t come to me. You went around me.”

“Jesus, I did not. I went through established channels. It would have been inappropriate to take this directly to you. Is that what this is really about? I could tell you were upset before you even looked at the petition. My client is being punished because you think I did something wrong.”

“It’s not that, and you know it. It’s a decision based on the law. Look, you were a young lawyer back then. You didn’t know what you know now. It’s the same with all of us, and we all have to live with the mistakes we made and the cases we lost.”