Heart of a Killer (4 page)

Once again I was taken aback by how good she looked, and how incongruous her appearance seemed to the reality of her situation.

“Hello, Sheryl.”

“What did you come up with?” She didn’t seem in much of a sociable mood; I’d had corporate clients who were significantly less businesslike.

“Well, I’ve been familiarizing myself with your case,” I said.

“Which case?” She didn’t so much say it as snap it.

“The murder case. The Charlie Harrison murder.”

She was clearly annoyed. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“It’s the reason you’re here.”

“Listen,” she said, pausing to try and compose herself. “I know why I’m here. Everybody knows my why I’m here, and now you do as well. But focus on what I’m saying, okay? The reason I’m here has nothing at all to do with the reason you are here.”

She was either impatient or disgusted with me, or both, and it was starting to get on my nerves. “I understand,” I said, “but—”

She interrupted me, which was just as well, since I had no idea how I was going to finish the sentence. “You are here to save my daughter’s life.”

I nodded. “And I will try to do that. I’ve decided to represent you, if you still want me to.”

“I have no alternative,” she said, clearly not pleased by her lack of options.

“My eyes are filling with tears,” I said, displaying my normal tendency to substitute sarcasm for angry speech. “You could get another lawyer.”

“How?”

“I don’t know … however you got me. You can just go through the same process; trust me, I won’t fight it.”

“You know how long that took?” she asked. “Three weeks, and look what I wound up with. You know how long three weeks is in this situation?”

I’m not sure why I didn’t walk out of the room; that was certainly my inclination. But for some reason I didn’t. “Sheryl, you are clearly not happy to have me as your lawyer. And I’ve got to tell you, I didn’t rub the lawyer genie’s ass and wish for you either. But it seems like I’m all you’ve got, and I’m willing to do my best. I’m a pretty good lawyer.”

“Where did you go to law school?” she asked.

“Harvard.”

She tried to stifle a moan, but failed. “Oh, shit.”

“You don’t approve of Harvard?”

“Jamie, none of this is going to be pretty, or clean. You understand?”

I nodded, annoyed that I was pleased she had used my first name. “I figured that much.”

“So your Harvard clubs, and your secret handshakes, won’t help us. Still with me?”

“I’m trying, but I can’t seem to focus.”

“Why not?”

“I’m trying to remember the secret handshake. Which worries me, because if I can’t remember it, no one else will tell it to me. It’s a secret.”

She laughed, an incongruous laugh considering the circumstances, but a great laugh considering any circumstances. It was a laugh that you expect to hear in a bar, after a bunch of beers and a bunch of stories. Not in a prison while figuring out how to die. And it was a laugh that matched her eyes, which were much warmer than when we had first met.

It was the kind of laugh that invited others to laugh along, and I did.

“You going to work your ass off on this?” she asked, her tone changed. Weirdly, my joke about the secret handshake had for the first time implausibly earned me some respect.

I could have given her a knee-jerk “yes,” but I didn’t, because her question jarred me a little, and made me think. The concept of working my ass off, not because I had to but because I wanted to, was not one I was very familiar with. The last time I had voluntarily worked my ass off was never.

“I’m going to do the best I can, Sheryl.”

She paused, maybe because someone doing the best they could for her was not exactly an everyday occurrence. Then, “Let’s get it done, Harvard.”

As motivational speeches go, in that moment “Let’s get it done, Harvard” ranked up there with “Win it for the Gipper.”

Uncle Reggie’s office was the size of a broom closet. Actually, I think it had been a broom closet before Reggie converted it into a place where the accused could find salvation, coffee, and a way out of their legal troubles.

Reggie was a legend in New Jersey legal and criminal circles, which in itself was quite revealing. He believed that everyone deserved a competent, vigorous defense, and their ability to get such a defense should not be predicated on their ability to pay. That also happens to be what the justice system purports to believe, which is why it was sort of a surprise that Reggie always stood out so much.

On a per-square-inch basis, there was more paper in Reggie’s office than anywhere on Earth. It was possible to pace the office, or sit down, without ever actually touching floor or chair. The paper was strewn everywhere, and Reggie always claimed that if a single piece were cleaned up or moved, he wouldn’t be able to find anything.

“Well, if it isn’t life’s great disappointment,” he said when he saw me, softening the verbal blow with a warm hug.

“Thanks, Reggie. I can always count on you for a pick-me-up.”

“How’s my pain-in-the-ass brother?” he asked.

“I would describe him as unchanged,” I said.

“That’s not always such a bad thing.” He thought for a moment, then, “Make a note of this … that’s what I want on my headstone. ‘Here lies Reggie Wagner. He was unchanged.’”

“You’ve got me making notes about your headstone?”

“Why not? You’re the executor of my will. You’re also the sole beneficiary.”

“Are you serious?”

“Don’t be too flattered,” he said. “You didn’t beat out any other serious contenders, and I have no money. In fact, you’re probably going to have to spring for the headstone.”

I laughed out loud; Reggie was one of the few people on the planet who could make me do that. “Then stone might be the wrong thing to call it. ‘Headwood’ might be more accurate. Balsa wood.”

“So what brings you here? Planning the next family circle?”

“I was in the New Jersey State Prison for Women this morning,” I said.

“Who bailed you out?”

“This is serious. I have a client in there.”

He nodded. “Let’s hear it.”

I told him the whole story, and he listened attentively, not interrupting once. When I finished, I asked, “What do you think?”

“Sheryl Harrison. That’s the woman who slit her husband’s throat?”

I hadn’t mentioned how she killed him, only that she had. “Yes, you remember it?”

“I pretty much remember every significant criminal case in this county for the last thirty years. It’s a curse. But this one was near the top of the list.”

“Why?”

“Because it didn’t make sense to me. I never really bought that she did it.”

“She confessed.”

He nodded. “I know, which doesn’t say much for my theory. And don’t forget, I think everyone is innocent.”

He stood up. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“I’ve got to be in court in twenty minutes. We can finish talking on the way.”

We started making our way from Regg’s Main Street office in Paterson to the courthouse, about a fifteen-minute walk. It should take ten, but each store seems obligated to have stands set up out in the street with their merchandise, as if the junk, when seen in the light of day, will prove too enticing to pass up. It makes walking on the streets very difficult. Since at many points the walking area was only one-person wide, it wasn’t that well suited for talking either. Especially since Charlie walked at about forty-five miles an hour.

“So what do you think of her chances?” I yelled up ahead, while trying to simultaneously catch my breath.

“She doesn’t have any chances.”

“What does that mean?”

He stopped for a moment, to let me close the gap. “They won’t go for it. They won’t come close to going for it.”

I had come to the same conclusion, but his certainty still annoyed me. “Why not?”

“You’re asking them to kill her. There is no death penalty in New Jersey.”

“They don’t have to do the actual killing, and this isn’t a penalty; this is the granting of a wish.”

He nodded as if that cleared it up. “Ohhh, why didn’t you say that before? That changes everything; prisoners get three wishes that are always granted. This could be her first and last one.”

“So they would let her daughter die?”

“Her daughter is not their problem; she is. Take your best shot, Jamie, and let me know how I can help. I think she’s right, and I approve of what you’re doing. But you and she have no chance.”

We reached the courthouse, and he shook my hand and told me he had to get inside for jury selection on his next trial.

“Are you going to win this one?” I asked.

He laughed. “You must be kidding. I’ve got less chance than Sheryl Harrison.”

He started to walk across the street, then stopped and came back. “Who was the detective assigned to the case at the time?”

“John Novack,” I said.

“He’s the best. Let me know if you want to talk to him.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

He shrugged. “Because pretty soon you’ll be grasping at straws, and maybe he’ll be able to help.”

The way to get through life is to reduce the number of potential “no”s. Most people in most jobs are trained to say “no”; it’s much easier and much safer. A “yes” involves a lot of risk, and it’s very public and easy to trace back. A “no” has a good chance of remaining anonymous, and anonymity is a valued perk in our workforce.

A “no” stops something cold, often leaving little or no chance to appeal. So if you want an answer on something, you go as high up as you can, bypassing as many potential “no-sayers” as possible.

This is the reason why I didn’t go to the director of inmate affairs at the prison, or even the warden. They would be very likely to say “no,” and no doubt powerless to say “yes.” The best I could hope for, and that would be a long shot, was that they would pass it up to their superiors for a ruling. The more prudent move for me would be to go straight to those superiors, if I was able to.

So that’s what I tried to do, and I tried to do it quickly. Just four hours after promising Sheryl that I would work my ass off, I called Sidney Williams, the commissioner of the New Jersey State Department of Corrections.

Williams’s position is a political one, appointed by the governor. I wasn’t sure which way that would cut, but I basically saw it as a negative. Sheryl was counting on someone to do the right thing. When people concerned with doing the best thing politically actually do the right thing, it’s generally a coincidence.

I told Mr. Williams’s assistant that I needed to talk to him on an urgent matter, concerning a prisoner in his system. When the woman didn’t seem impressed, I told her that it “is a matter of life and death,” and that “time is a crucial factor.”

I had a feeling that she wasn’t cowed, because she started reciting the procedures I would have to take, starting with the officials within the prison itself. When it became clear that I wasn’t going to get through the impenetrable bureaucratic wall, I asked who was the next person below Williams on the chain of command.

She told me that the first assistant commissioner was a woman named Constance Barkley, so I hung up and called Ms. Barkley next. She had a male assistant, I guess they go boy-girl, boy-girl, and I told him my name was Jamie Wagner, and that I needed to see Ms. Barkley on an urgent matter.

It was pretty much the same story that I told the previous person, except for purposes of this conversation I wasn’t Jamie Wagner, a prisoner’s attorney. My new persona was Jamie Wagner, reporter for the Bergen
Record
, who was giving the Department of Corrections a chance to be quoted in a page-one story that was going to run the next day. A story that was focused totally and unflatteringly on that very department.

An hour and a half later I was in Ms. Barkley’s office. She appeared to be in her late fifties, petite with a kind face. You wouldn’t pick her out of a lineup as a person second in command of a state-ful of felons.

“You’re not a reporter,” she said, after we shook hands. “You’re a lawyer.”

“What gave it away? My sweaty palms?”

She laughed, which made me figure she wasn’t too annoyed by the deception. “No, the Bergen
Record
did that. When we checked they had no idea who you were. So we searched the system, and found you had recently registered as a lawyer for one Sheryl Harrison.”

“Why did you agree to see me?” I asked.

That brought a shrug. “Why not? I was curious, and what’s the worst that could happen?”

“That’s my philosophy of life,” I said. “Actually, the story I gave you was partially true. What I wanted to talk to you about does have the potential to be a very big story. I’m hoping you can help me avoid that, and do the right thing in the process.”

“I assume it’s about Ms. Harrison. What is it that she wants?” she asked.

“She wants to save her daughter’s life.”

“Sounds reasonable. Where does the Department of Corrections come in?”

So I laid it straight out for her, chapter and verse, and she listened without saying anything, except a single “I see,” when I got to the part about Sheryl being the only match for a heart that Karen was likely to find.

When she finally responded, it was slowly and carefully. “I’ll move your request quickly through the system. You were wise in coming straight here; had you gone through the local prison authorities it would have been bogged down for weeks.”

“Great. Do you have a point of view on the request itself?”

“I want you to understand that what I’m about to say does not represent the point of view of the commissioner, or the state of New Jersey.”

I nodded. “Understood.”

“I think it’s a wonderful thing she’s doing; I’d like to think I would do the same. But you don’t have a chance in hell. Not one.”

That was becoming a familiar refrain. “Why not?”

“Because we don’t kill people in New Jersey; we don’t have the death penalty. She should have committed her murder in Texas.”

“This is not a penalty; this is her wish. Hopefully, in her mind, her dying wish.”