make him fully aware that he's being killed.'
The last comment, delivered factually and without the outrage Carlo would have expected, made him wonder if she, too, was depressed—both from what she had seen and from sheer exhaustion. After a moment, he asked bluntly, 'Are you okay, Terri?'
She mustered a faint smile. 'I'm just not feeling very festive. But nothing like Rennell.' Her smile vanished. 'Even if Pell and I could work it out, Rennell refuses to talk with a prison psychologist. I think Payton's death feels too enormous to get over, or even put into words.
'From his perspective, I understand. But it scares me. The next worst thing to being executed is being dead inside.'
With that, she returned to her work.
Carlo went out for sandwiches. When he returned, Terri was standing in a corner with the telephone pressed to her ear, a stricken expression frozen on a face far paler than Carlo had ever seen it.
'I'll be right out,' Terri said swiftly and hung up.
She folded her arms, hugging herself as though to ward off cold. 'Rennell tried to hang himself.'
'How?' Carlo asked and then realized how stupid the question must sound to her.
But Terri did not seem to notice. 'A bedsheet,' she answered. 'It's all he's got left.'
* * *
After they brought him to her, Rennell slumped, staring at the table—though whether from shame or indifference or complete dissociation Terri could not tell. A purple bruise smudged his throat.
'What were you trying to do, Rennell?'
He did not answer, or even look up. In her own sadness, Terri heard her question as a futile inquiry into what was, at bottom, a rational response to a fathomless loss, which would be followed—unless she could succeed—by fourteen more days of misery before Rennell met Payton's fate.
She took his hand, holding it in silent commiseration.
Still he did not look at her. But she felt his hand begin to grasp hers, the slightest increase of pressure. In a husky near-whisper, he said, 'Payton's gone. Never gonna be with me no more.'
'He's in heaven, Rennell. He still loves you, and cares about you. Just like I do.'
His eyes tightened to fight back tears. 'That's why he's dead.'
At once, Terri understood what she had not fully grasped before: that what made the devastation of Payton's death unbearable was not only loss but guilt. Rennell would never comprehend the depth of Payton's betrayal.
'Payton wants you to live,' she told him. 'He asked me to help you, and help take care of you.'
For the first time Rennell looked up at her, as though struggling to believe this. With painful vividness, Terri imagined the retarded boy standing by the desk of his third-grade teacher, then his only solace besides Payton.
'Please don't hurt yourself, Rennell. For my sake.'
Hearing her own words, Terri felt the full weight of her responsibility, far greater now than just a lawyer's. 'I'll come see you every day,' she promised, 'no matter what. Until you don't have to live here anymore.'
Rennell began to sob, clasping the hand of his lawyer, his last protector.
THREE
READING THE OPINION OF THE CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT in response to Rennell's petition, Terri experienced the jolt familiar to death penalty lawyers. Even though she had tried to steel herself against disappointment, the cold reality of the judicial approval of a death warrant, set forth in typed print on a single page, made her feel queasy.
'One sentence,' Carlo said from over her shoulder. 'A man's life, and all these issues, and they blow it off with 'each claim is denied on the merits.' '
A few words of legal shorthand, Terri thought, a concise staccato that did not reveal the Court's reasoning or suggest the seriousness of its decision. Only the swiftness of its issuance bespoke the fact that Rennell's execution was days away.
Contemptuously, Chris tossed the page toward a corner of the room. 'At least our clemency petition is in.'
Terri gazed out the window of the conference room. Through a dense fog, rain spattered on the glass, droplets zigzagging down the ten-foot panes. 'Okay,' she said emphatically. 'They've given us what we needed to file in federal court—today. All we have to do is fill in the part of our brief reserved for their considered wisdom.'
'That shouldn't take long,' Carlo said.
* * *
Within two hours all that remained was to photocopy their revised habeas corpus petition and their application to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for permission to file the petition before Judge Gardner Bond of the United States District Court. The most important part of which—and all that stood between Rennell Price and lethal injection—was his plea for a stay of execution.
This knowledge, Terri supposed, accounted for Carlo's unwonted silence. 'I can't believe it's down to this,' he finally said. 'That if the same Ninth Circuit panel which turned down Rennell's first petition refuses to let us file this one, it's over. No recourse—no petition for rehearing or to the U.S. Supreme Court.'
'That's because AEDPA bars them,' Terri answered. 'Another of its unique efficiencies, intended solely to end matters: if the same three judges turn Rennell down again, they can't be reviewed by anyone. Their word is literally final.'
