times.
The judge gave the jurors four questions to answer. The questions are set out in the statute that governs sentencing in an aggravated murder case. The jury's answer to each question must be unanimous. If all of the jurors answer all of the questions with yes, the court has to impose a death sentence. If the answer of any juror to any of these questions is no, the judge has to give you life.
A slender, middle-aged woman with gray hair stood up when Judge Campbell asked if the jury had a verdict. This was Vivian Tahan, a CPA with a large accounting firm. Amanda would never have let Tahan on if she' d had a choice, but she had run out of peremptory challenges by the time Tahan was called and she had discovered no reason to ask for her dismissal for prejudice. The fact that the strong-willed Tahan was the foreperson made Amanda very nervous.
Judge Campbell took the verdict forms from the bailiff and read through them. Amanda's eyes were riveted to the stack of paper.
I' m going to read the questions posed to the jurors and their answers to each, Judge Campbell said. I note for the record that each juror has signed the verdict form. On the first charge in the indictment, to the first question, ' Was the conduct of the defendant, Timothy Roger Dooling, that caused the death of Mary Elizabeth Blair committed deliberately and with the reasonable expectation that death of the deceased would result?' the jurors have unanimously answered yes.
During the guilt phase, the jury had found that Dooling acted intentionally when he strangled Mary Blair to death. There was a legal distinction between intent and deliberation, but it was the width of a hair. While the yes finding did not surprise Amanda, it still caused her heart to skip a beat.
On the second question, ' Is there a probability that the defendant, Timothy Roger Dooling, will commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society?' the jurors have unanimously answered yes.
There were still no surprises. Timothy Dooling's first violent act occurred in third grade, when he set a dog on fire. They had never stopped, and they had gotten progressively more serious.
The third question asked whether the defendant's action in killing the deceased was an unreasonable response to the provocation, if any, of the deceased. The only time this became an issue in a case was in situations of self-defense or long-term abuse. Dooling's victim had been kidnapped, held hostage for days and systematically raped and murdered. It was no shock that the jurors had unanimously found Dooling's conduct unreasonable.
Amanda and Mike Greene leaned forward when Judge Campbell started to read the last question and the jury's answer to it. Question four was the only important one in most cases. The question, Should the defendant receive a death sentence? opened the door for defense counsel to present any argument against death that could be supported by evidence. Amanda had presented witness after witness to attest to the horrors of Timothy Dooling's childhood, and she had argued that the mother who gave him life had handcrafted him from birth to be the monster he had become. If one of the twelve jurors agreed with her arguments, Tim Dooling would live.
To question four, Judge Campbell said, the jury has answered no by a vote of three to nine.
Dooling sat stone still. Amanda did not move either. It was only when she saw the prosecutor's head bow that she knew that she had convinced three of the jurors that Dooling's life was worth saving.
Did we win? Tim asked her, his eyes wide with disbelief.
We won.
Ain't that something. Tim was grinning. That's the first time I ever won anything in my whole life.
Amanda returned to her loft at ten-thirty, exhausted but ecstatic at having beaten back her first death verdict. The loft was twelve hundred square feet of open space in a converted red-brick warehouse in Portland's Pearl District. The floors were hardwood, the windows were tall and wide and the ceiling was high. There were two art galleries on the ground floor and good restaurants and coffeehouses nearby. She could walk to work in fifteen minutes when the weather was good.
Amanda had filled the loft with furniture and fixtures she loved. A solemn Sally Haley pear in a pewter bowl that cost a month's salary hung across from a bright and cheery abstract painted by an artist she had met in one of the street-level galleries. Amanda had discovered her oak sideboard in an antique store two blocks away, but her dining table had been crafted in a woodworker's studio on the coast. It was made of planks the artisan had salvaged from a fishing vessel that had run aground in Newport during a storm.
Amanda flipped on the lights and threw her jacket onto the couch. She was too excited to go to sleep and too distracted for TV, so she poured herself a glass of milk and put two slices of bread in the toaster before collapsing in her favorite easy chair.
Tim Dooling's case was her first capital murder as lead counsel. The pressure on her during the past nine months had been tremendous. Nothing had prepared her to handle a case where one mistake could result in the death of a client. When the verdict was read Amanda had not experienced the manic surge she' d felt when she won her first PAC-10 swimming title; she had simply felt relieved, as if someone had removed an immense burden from her shoulders.
The toaster dinged, and Amanda dragged herself to her feet. As she crossed the room she suddenly noticed how quiet it was in her loft. Amanda enjoyed her solitude, but there were times, like tonight, when it would have been nice to have someone with whom she could share her triumph. She had dated a few men since moving back to Portland. There had been a six-month affair with a stockbroker that had died a mutually agreeable death and a longer relationship with a lawyer from one of Portland's large firms who had asked her to marry him. Amanda had asked for time to consider the proposal, then realized that she wouldn't have to think at all if he was the one.
Amanda wouldn't have minded having Frank to crow to, but he was in California with Elsie Davis, a schoolteacher who had been a character witness for a student Frank had defended. While interviewing her, Frank discovered that she had lost her husband to cancer and had stayed single for twelve years because she had never found anyone to take his place. Their cautious friendship had blossomed into a serious relationship, and they were on their first vacation together.
Amanda buttered her toast at the kitchen table. While she sipped her milk she took stock of her life. On the whole she was happy. Her career was going well, she had money in the bank and a place she loved to live in, but she was lonely at times. Two of her girlfriends had married during the past year, and she was beginning to feel isolated. Couples went out with couples. Soon there would be children to occupy their time. Amanda sighed. She didn't feel incomplete without a man. It was more a question of companionship. Just having someone to talk to, who would be around to share her triumphs and help her up when she fell.
Chapter 33
Andrew Volkov performed his custodial duties at St. Francis Medical Center diligently. Tonight, as he cleaned the floor outside the offices of the Department of Surgery, he moved slowly and deliberately, making certain that his mop covered every inch of the corridor. Volkov was tall, but it was hard to guess his height because he slouched and shuffled as he worked. He rarely spoke and never met the eye of anyone who spoke to him. His own eyes were gray-green, his hair was close-cropped and blond, and he had the broad cheekbones, wide nose and brooding brow of a Slav. Volkov rarely showed any emotion, maintaining a stolid expression that reinforced the impression that he was as much a mule as a man. When told to do something, he obeyed immediately. His superiors had learned quickly to be precise in their instructions because Volkov demonstrated little imagination and followed orders literally.
The offices of the Department of Surgery were quiet and deserted at two A.M. Volkov pushed his cart against the wall and straightened slowly. He rested his mop against the wall, checked the corridor and shuffled toward the door to the next office. He opened it and turned on the light. The office was narrow and not very deep, a windowless cubicle, really, hardly wider than a closet. A gunmetal gray desk took up most of the floor. It was covered with medical journals, textbooks, mail and miscellany. Volkov was under strict instructions never to touch anything on a doctor's desk, but he was supposed to empty the wastebasket under the desk.
Volkov took a duster from his cart and ran it over the shelves of a bookcase that stood against one wall. When he was through dusting, he looked down at the patch of floor that was not covered by the desk, the bookshelves and the two visitor chairs. It was an area so small that it was hardly worth dealing with, but Volkov's boss had instructed him to clean any surface that could be cleaned, so Volkov shuffled outside, emptied the wastebasket, then took his vacuum cleaner off the cart. He plugged it in and ran it back and forth across the floor. When he was satisfied that he had done all he could do, Volkov placed the vacuum cleaner back on the cart.
Volkov reentered the office one last time. He closed and locked the door and drew a pair of latex gloves out
