“They used the written affidavit I signed three years ago. Not that they even needed it. All they had to do was play the recording of McKenna naming her boyfriend as the killer. The trial will be a different story. I was the only one there when McKenna died. I was holding the cell phone to her mouth when she identified her killer.”
Vince could feel his wife rise up on her elbow, her concern palpable. “I’m scared,” she said.
Those words hit him hard; Alicia didn’t scare easily. They’d met on the force, when Alicia’s father had been Miami’s mayor, and she’d risen to become one of the top young cops in the department. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” said Vince.
“I mean I’m afraid for us,” she said. “I don’t want this to take us back to the bad old days.”
She was talking about a stretch of time before they were married, a few weeks after he became a hero, soon after the doctors removed the bandages-when Vince came to the frightening realization that he would never again see her smile, never look into those eyes as her heart pounded against his chest, never see the expression on her face when she was happy or sad or just plain bored. That was the same day he’d told her it would be best to stop seeing each other, and the unintended pun had made them both cry.
Vince held her tight. “That’s not going to happen.”
She unwound from his embrace and pressed her forehead against his, as if willing him to look her in the eye.
“Do you promise?”
It gave him goose bumps, this latest confirmation of how foolish he had been to push Alicia away, assuming as he had that it was only a matter of time before a beautiful young woman fell out of love with a blind man.
“Yes,” he said. “I promise.”
A strange noise reverberated near the dresser. They froze, each one processing it in a separate darkness, and then shared a laugh as they dove beneath the sheets.
“Sam!”
Chapter Seven
On Thursday morning, two hours before the scheduled arraignment of Jamal Wakefield in Miami-Dade County circuit court, Jack went to the Pretrial Detention Center with just one objective:
“I’m withdrawing as counsel,” he told Neil.
The long prison corridor was lined with iron bars, and Neil had been waiting for Jack outside one of the attorney-client conference rooms. Charged with a capital offense, Jamal was held in a safety cell, away from the drunk drivers and petty thieves, which meant that he was allowed just two “under glass” visits per week. Inmates were allowed to meet and talk privately with their lawyers, however, and Jamal Wakefield was waiting on the other side of the locked door. Jack blurted out the words before Neil could even say hello.
“I’m sorry,” said Jack. “I’ll do whatever I can today to transfer the case to you. But I’m out.”
Neil just smiled, completely unfazed. “Like old times, isn’t it?”
It was indeed deja vu. Jack had probably resigned a dozen times from the institute before actually packing up and leaving. It wasn’t just the emotional drain of defending the guilty. As he’d told Neil more than ten years ago, he probably could have stuck it out if he had met just one guy on death row who was genuinely sorry for what he’d done. But those weren’t the kind of cases that the institute handled.
“Give me one chance to change your mind,” said Neil.
“It won’t work.”
“I’ll cut off my ponytail if it doesn’t.”
Whoa. That was serious. “You’re on,” said Jack.
The guard unlocked the door from the inside, and the two lawyers entered.
“I’ll be back in thirty minutes,” the guard said, and then he closed the door.
The fluorescent lights overhead were so bright that Jack almost needed sunglasses. The floor was bare concrete, and the cinder-block walls were pale yellow with no windows. Seated at the Formica-topped table was Jamal Wakefield. The transformation since Gitmo was startling. A shave and a haircut alone made him look years younger, and even after three years of incarceration, it was easy to see how handsome McKenna’s boyfriend had once been. Jack truly didn’t recognize him.
The silver-haired man seated beside Jamal, however, was another story.
“Long time no see,” said Peter Swenson.
In a classic case of overcorrection, Jack had literally switched sides after leaving the institute, spending the next two years of his career as a federal prosecutor. As Neil knew well, Swenson was the polygraph examiner that Jack had used regularly to test his informants.
“With my ponytail on the line, I wanted Jamal to be examined by someone you trust,” said Neil.
“All right,” said Jack. “You got my attention.”
Advance clearance was required to administer a polygraph in jail, but Neil had taken care of that, and Swenson’s equipment was ready to go. Two fingers on Jamal’s left hand were wired to electrodes. Pneumograph tubes wrapped his chest and abdomen. An inflatable rubber bladder rested on the seat of the hard wooden chair beneath him, and another was behind his back. A blood pressure cuff squeezed his right bicep.
“Time’s a-wastin’,” said Neil. “Let’s roll.”
Swenson turned his attention to his cardio amplifier and galvanic skin monitor atop the table. The paper scroll was rolling as the needle inked out a pulsating line.
“All set,” he said.
Jack knew the drill, and Swenson had taken care of the preliminaries before his arrival. The first task was to put the subject at ease. He started with questions that would make Jamal feel comfortable with him as an interrogator. Do you like music? Have you ever owned a car? Is your hair purple? They seemed innocuous, but with each answer Swenson was monitoring the subject’s physiological response to establish the lower parameters of his blood pressure, respiration, and perspiration. It was almost a game of cat and mouse. The examiner needed to quiet him down, then catch him in a small lie that would serve as a baseline reading for a falsehood. The standard technique-Jack had seen it unfold many times-was to ask something even a truthful person might lie about.
“Have you thought about sex in the last ten minutes?”
“Uh, no.”
Jamal blinked about five times. It wasn’t something that men necessarily liked to admit-especially when charged with the obsession-driven murder of their girlfriend-but it was a scientific fact that anyone with a Y chromosome thought about sex every three minutes. The room fell silent as the examiner focused on his readings. He appeared satisfied. He knew what it looked like on the polygraph when Jamal lied. Now he could test his truth telling on the questions that really mattered.
“Is your name Jamal Wakefield?”
“Yes.”
“Are we in Miami, Florida?”
“Yes.”
Jamal seemed almost robotic in his responses-and rather than staring off blankly at the wall or the ceiling, he was looking straight at Jack, fully aware of the man he needed to convince.
“Is today Sunday?”
“No.”
“Are you fluent in Chinese?”
“No.”
“Did you kill McKenna Mays?”
“No.”
“Have you ever climbed Mount Everest?”
“No.”
“Are you a man?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sitting in a chair?”
