About halfway through, the first partner, Frank Goldmark, died of a massive coronary at a 49ers game. The next one, Leslie Keller, left to become General Counsel of an Internet start-up in return for stock options which became worthless once the company crashed and burned. I guess you could say Rennell Price was a real killer.'
Terri did not smile. 'After Keller left,' she asked, 'who took over the case?'
Finney glanced at her daughter. In a corner of the living room, the child watched a purple puppet chirp at her from the television. Turning, Finney answered, 'I did. After all those years, the case was too attenuated to explain to another partner, and would have required too much learning the law for him to get a grip on. After all,' she added sardonically, 'we were doing this for free.'
This time Terri's expression was so polite that only Carlo might read it as a mask. 'I guess that's why they call it pro bono,' she answered, and the baby in the playpen began to whimper.
* * *
They waited in the living room while Finney took twenty minutes to breast-feed her son. 'What's wrong?' Carlo asked.
Terri looked at him in surprise. Softly, she answered, 'To me, it's classic—the intellectual severity, the unearned cynicism, the ability to see every irony but how badly they served Rennell. Sometimes I'm not sure what makes me crazier—smug big-firm lawyers, or privileged white women.'
Carlo looked at the plastic kids' toys scattered across the carpet. 'This is privilege?'
'To a mother.' Terri's smile was sour. 'She's home, isn't she? Rennell Price is about to die.'
* * *
When Finney returned without the baby, she began speaking as if she'd never left. 'The problem with the direct appeal was that the record was so clear.
'Mauriani played it straight. No racial bias in jury selection. No withholding of exculpatory evidence. If his witnesses gave answers which were objectionable and James failed to object, Mauriani would caution them and then rephrase the questions . . .'
'Why not?' Terri observed mildly. 'When you're getting away with murder, why not wrap it with a bow?'
'The point is,' Finney retorted, 'that all the record left us was to argue that, on its face, James was so incompetent as to effectively deny Rennell Price his right to counsel. The Attorney General's Office argued that there might be strategic reasons for even his worst lapses. Though no one could guess what they were . . .'
'What did James tell you?' Carlo asked.
'Nothing,' Finney responded in an arid tone. 'He was in the middle of disbarment proceedings, so his lawyer advised him not to meet with us.' She glanced at Terri. 'All he told me on the phone was that Rennell's case was so hopeless that nothing he did, or didn't do, would have made any difference. Lest that sound too self-serving, the California Supreme Court read the record, and agreed.' Pausing, she smiled thinly. 'For that meager result, we bought Rennell Price seven more years on death row. Clever lawyering, don't you think?'
* * *
Turning from the screen, the little girl pronounced herself hungry. A look of martyred patience crossed Finney's face, and she invited Terri and Carlo to the kitchen while she made a peanut butter sandwich and cut it into bite- size squares. Placing this offering before her daughter, she said with a faint smile, 'Here you are, sweetie. Quicker than you can say 'paternity leave.' '
The little girl looked up at her, uncomprehending, then slipped the first brown and white square into her mouth. 'Not that I blame my husband,' Finney remarked. 'Our firm's got upward of three hundred male lawyers, and not one has taken the six-month leave we offer. Its mere existence is enough to make them paragons of feminism.'
The bitterness beneath this observation made Carlo imagine a disenchanted and, perhaps, no longer quite attentive lawyer left by attrition to deal with a hopeless client.
'At least that's something,' Terri answered. 'My first husband was just a deadbeat.' But, of course, Ricardo Arias had been so much more than that.
* * *
As they went back to the living room, Terri turned to Carlo. 'Once Rennell lost his direct appeal,' she explained, 'the next step was habeas corpus. Basically, you claim that a prisoner is being imprisoned in violation of his constitutional rights, and then try to get him out by proving it.
'In Rennell's case, that enabled Kenyon and Walker to file a separate petition, also before the California Supreme Court, presenting evidence outside the record—maybe of innocence, or factors which might cut against a death sentence. As well as why James might have failed to uncover evidence of either.' Of Finney, she inquired, 'Who looked into Rennell's school or medical records?'
Finney settled back in her chair. 'That part got assigned to another associate, I can't remember who. What comes to me is a lot of truancy, and a couple of accidents—things like falls and broken bones.'
Terri studied her. 'Kid stuff?' she asked softly.
'I guess so, yeah.'
Carlo glanced at Terri. 'What about Rennell's IQ?' he asked.
'I remember he was no genius,' Finney said reluctantly. 'But if you're talking about retardation, that became more critical after I left the firm. By the time the Atkins case came down, it was too late for us to use it—our habeas corpus petition had already been shot down by the State Supreme Court, the Federal District Court, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supremes had declined to review. So raising retardation falls to you.'
No problem, Carlo thought. We've got seven weeks. It struck him that Terri's face was never more arresting than when her green-flecked brown eyes betrayed the swiftness of her thoughts. 'Did you try to interview Rennell's teachers?' she asked.
'I think so. But I don't recall anything coming of it.'
'What about the family?'
