simply. 'Monk found Betty Sims.'
SIXTEEN
MUCH OF THE EAST SIDE OF INNER-CITY CLEVELAND, TERRI learned, had been ravaged since the riots of the late 1960s. Spacious homes had become boardinghouses for the desperate or impoverished; a once-thriving main artery of commerce was now a strip of laundries, liquor stores, corner groceries, and check-cashing businesses; the public housing was a Stalinist cinder- block monolith scarred by indecipherable graffiti, in front of which Terri saw a cluster of black kids passing a joint. But Betty Sims had found a toehold on a better life—the house she rented, though small, was on a tree-lined street whose lawns and gardens were carefully tended, a sign of neighborhood pride. It was early evening when Terri parked in front, hoping to find Sims and her daughter home, and the trickle of men and women walking from nearby bus stops bespoke an ethic of work and striving.
Terri rang the bell. After a moment, a plump, wary-eyed woman cracked open the door, fixing Terri with an expression that suggested few of the surprises in her life had been good ones. 'I'm Teresa Paget,' Terri said simply. 'Rennell Price's lawyer.'
The wariness in Sims's eyes became weariness. Yet, if anything, she appeared more guarded. 'Another lawyer,' she said.
'Another one. In two weeks, Rennell's due to be executed.'
Sims slowly shook her head, a gesture of resistance. 'Maybe he should be. But that's got nothing to do with me.'
Terri tried to rein in her anxiety for Rennell, and for Elena—over two thousand miles away from San Francisco, with nothing to go on but instinct, there was little she could do to make Betty Sims talk. With a calm she did not feel, Terri asked, 'Could I come in?'
Sims did not move. After a moment, she asked, 'What happened to Payton?'
'They executed him.'
Sims looked down. Finally she said, 'Ten minutes, is all. Got to put on dinner.'
As though regretting her own invitation, Sims paused before standing aside. The living room Terri entered was sparsely furnished. To one side of a plain wool couch sat a photograph of Sims and a girl whose smile did not seem to reach her eyes.
'Your daughter?' Terri asked.
'Uh-huh.'
There was no give in Sims's expression; it was plain that she had no wish to discuss her child. Steeling herself for resistance, Terri ventured, 'I'm here about Eddie Fleet. I know you used to live with him.'
Though her eyes did not change, Sims's face seemed to twist, a spasm of anger she erased in an instant. 'Used to,' Sims responded tersely. 'That was another time, another place. And none of your concern.'
Terri hesitated, knowing all too well the emotions which might lie beneath this answer. 'I think it is,' she said. 'I think you know what Eddie's capable of doing.'
Sims folded her arms, looking hard at Terri. 'What would that be?'
'What he did to the murdered girl, Thuy Sen. And what he did to your daughter.'
For an instant, Sims seemed to buckle, as though Terri had hit her in the solar plexus. 'Get out,' Sims said softly. 'We got nothing more to talk about.'
She had been right, Terri suddenly knew. 'Without you,' Terri said, 'Rennell Price is going to die, and Eddie Fleet will find himself another child to abuse. Maybe the next mother won't have an aunt in Cleveland, somewhere to run to. Maybe her only choice will be letting Eddie beat her up, or hiding in her bedroom while Eddie forces her little girl to have sex. Maybe it's okay with you that another mother and her daughter get to live with that.'
'Get out,' Sims hissed. 'You get out this very minute.'
The front door opened.
Sims's eyes widened. A girl close to Elena's age stood there in a parochial school's plaid uniform, tall and awkward-looking, eyes darting from Terri to her mother, as if she, too, feared surprises. Sims could seem to find no words.
'I'm Teresa Paget,' she said. 'A lawyer from San Francisco. I came to ask you and your mother about Eddie Fleet.'
The girl's eyes became a well of anger, directed first at Terri, then at her mother. When Terri turned to Sims, the woman's eyes glistened with tears. 'I'm sorry, baby. I'm just so sorry.'
'Not sorry like me, Mama. I was all alone with him.'
The girl's tone was so like Elena's that it made Terri shiver. When Terri spoke, her own voice was husky. 'My client's a retarded man named Rennell Price. The State of California is about to execute him, for choking a nine- year-old girl to death as he forced her to give oral sex. We think the real murderer was Eddie Fleet. I need someone to say that Eddie likes sex with children, or Rennell will die in his place.'
'Where is he?' Sims demanded. 'Eddie.'
For an instant, Terri considered lying, claiming that Fleet was dead. She paused, torn between her obligation to truth, her duty to Rennell, and her need to protect her own daughter. 'I don't know,' she finally acknowledged.
'If we do what you want, he'll find out where we are.'
It was Terri's own fear. But she could not admit this. 'He'll be too afraid to try,' she assured the girl, cringing at her own duplicity. She needed Lacy Sims for another reason she could not admit: to prosecute Fleet for child sexual abuse, putting him where he could not harm Elena. 'Please,' she urged, 'stop this thing from happening again.'
