was a party to a child sexual abuse. Was he abused? Conversely, is there any evidence that he was predisposed to be an abuser?
'There's no direct evidence of guilt. No witnesses; no physical evidence of sexual contact between Rennell and Thuy Sen. What we're left with is a damning but wholly circumstantial case. Which Rennell denies.'
'He's got a real investment in denial,' Lane observed. 'But if you're right—that he's a wobbler, borderline retarded—he might not be a very good liar. To me that lends his denial a certain credence.'
Listening, Carlo felt himself being drawn into a complex world—equal parts psychodrama, mystery, and horror story. It gave him a new appreciation of the mettle, and complexity, of his young stepmother's character, complicated still further by the deep ambivalence which this case surely must create. 'There's a lot to consider,' Terri was saying. 'Start with Rennell's relationship to Payton. Could Payton lead him into an act he wouldn't do on his own?'
Lane fiddled with his salad. 'At eighteen, Rennell would have been ragingly hormonal. And if he was retarded, he might have been more comfortable with children than with female peers. But he'd need a real antisocial component in his makeup for him to force a nine-year-old into oral copulation. Unless he was high on crack.'
Cocking her head, Mattox looked across the table at Lane. 'Isn't there a contraption called a pleathysmograph, or something—measures penile activity in response to visual cues, like naked women or little girls in tutus?'
'There is, actually. If you like that sort of thing.'
'Too demeaning,' Terri said firmly. 'We're trying to build a relationship with this man, not turn him into a lab experiment from Krafft-Ebing.' She drained her glass. 'Still, I'd give a lot to know what really happened fifteen years ago.'
Carlo gave her a quizzical smile. Would you? he wondered in silence.
But it was only as they left, and he and Terri stood in a dense fog waiting for the valet to bring their cars, that she asked, 'How was dinner with Elena?'
'Good,' Carlo answered, then added quietly, 'I'm pretty sure she doesn't know, Terri. There's been nothing in the news, after all. Our client's sliding toward death without a ripple.'
FIVE
IT WAS ON TERRI'S FOURTH VISIT TO RENNELL PRICE, WITH forty-one days before his execution, that she first took Carlo with her.
They crossed the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County, the city behind them a mirage seen in glimpses through a low, swirling fog, the point of the Transamerica Pyramid piercing its highest wisps. On the far side of the bridge the parched, brown hills of Marin were like another country, bathed in the sun of a clear fall day. As they sped up Highway 101, Terri described Rennell's life.
'San Quentin has roughly six hundred prisoners on death row,' she told Carlo. 'More than anywhere in America. Rennell's in East Block, where most of them are—five rows of cages stacked in tiers. Each cell is six feet by six, with a bunk, a stainless steel toilet and sink, a maximum of six cubic feet for possessions, one small shelf, and maybe a TV with headphones to cut down the noise.
'There's a lot of shouting—conversations about sports, or people calling out chess moves, or just screaming for no reason. East Block's also where they put prisoners with things like psychosis, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder. Which makes it worse for Rennell—most of the death row population is sort of dulled down, just resigned. But the mentals are loud—'
'Can Rennell see anyone?' Carlo interjected.
'Only the guards. The walls to each side are concrete—you can only look out the front, and that has bars which are crosshatched to keep the prisoners from pelting guards with urine or feces. They can peer in at you, of course —whether you're sitting on the toilet or just lying on your bunk. Otherwise there's just noise bouncing off concrete and metal.'
'Does Rennell get out for meals?'
Terri shook her head. 'They prepare the food in the main kitchen. Then guards push it over on carts, raise it on a mini-elevator to the tier—Rennell's on the fourth tier up—and slide it through a food slot built into the bars. The hot breakfast comes with a box lunch for later, a sandwich with peanut butter or mystery meat and maybe some fruit and a couple of cookies. Then there's another hot meal for dinner. After a time, the guards pick up the trays.' Glancing at her watch, Terri stamped down on the gas pedal. 'From the standpoint of the prison administration, cell feedings take up a lot of time and labor. But letting this crowd eat together would be worse. Especially with all the crazies.'
Carlo had never thought to visualize Rennell Price's day. Now he imagined himself stuck in a cage amidst five tiers of cages housing people he could only hear; the endless, dissociated sameness of waiting for trays to materialize through a slot, bringing much the same meals you'd had the day before. 'What about showers?' he asked.
'Showers you get three times a week. But the showers are converted cells, which never seem to work that well. Best not to expect warm water.' Squinting, Terri took her sunglasses off the dashboard and slid them on. 'Or to smell very good. That's one of the prices of exercising daily.'
'Where do they do that?'
Terri jerked down the sun visor. 'Exercise? There are six exercise yards, each with a basketball hoop and a toilet, each surrounded by concrete walls and partially covered with a metal roof in case it's raining out. On a catwalk above the roof are guards with rifles—to quell riots or, in theory, to keep some prisoners from getting killed by others. San Quentin's a dangerous place—a lot of prisoners refuse to exercise for fear of getting killed by other inmates, or maybe just because the yards are crowded and there's nothing much to do . . .'
'Can't they segregate the worst ones?'
'Actually, they try.' Turning on the right blinker, Terri glanced over her shoulder and changed lanes, exiting the highway at the sign for San Quentin State Prison. 'They divide prisoners into categories,' she continued. 'Grade A's, the supposedly well-behaved ones, can exercise together up to five hours a day. Grade B's—psychotics and gang members and the obviously violent—don't get out much at all. And then there are the 'walk-alones,' like Rennell and Payton.
'Walk-alone is the name for at-risk inmates: snitches, or prisoners whose crimes are so low status that other
