“Yes,” Nick said.
Faith nodded.
Will kept holding up the wall.
Amanda said, “Let’s start with the Vasquez murder. Two suspects. Maduro and who else?”
“My money is on Michael Padilla,” Nick said. “He’s a bone breaker with a side of psychosis. Got transferred here from Gwinnett DOC after biting off another inmate’s finger.”
Faith recognized the name from the stack of jackets she’d read through. “It’s not a stretch to think a finger-biter would be a hand-chopper.”
Amanda said. “Nick, see if you can get Maduro to turn on Padilla. If we can unwind the Vasquez murder, we can cut Nesbitt off at the knees.”
Faith felt a jolt of shock. Amanda didn’t know about Nesbitt’s prosthesis, and Faith could not think of a natural way to bring it up.
Amanda called to Nick, “None of this gets back to Sara. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Nick had a grim set to his mouth. On his way out of the chapel, he patted Will on the shoulder. Faith didn’t know if Nick was offering Will support, thanking him for intervening with Nesbitt, or tapping him in. The least she could do was make sure she said Jeffrey Tolliver’s name as little as possible.
Amanda said, “Faith, nutshell it for me.”
“Okay, this is where it gets tricky. Grant County never charged Nesbitt with murder.”
Amanda raised an eyebrow. “No?”
“The investigation is still technically open and considered unsolved. There was a ton of circumstantial evidence that led them to presume that Nesbitt was the killer. The biggest mark against him was that the bad things stopped happening when Nesbitt was locked up.”
“The Wayne Williams Paradigm.”
“Correct. Nesbitt was arrested and convicted for other, unrelated crimes that were uncovered during the murder investigation, but it’s presumed he committed the underlying crimes.” Faith added, “If I had to use a bad cliché, I’d say Nesbitt is playing chess instead of checkers. He thinks if we can clear him of the murder, that opens up the possibility of his next move, which would be knocking down the other charges.”
“The other charges being?”
“Initially, Grant County caught him with a shit-ton of kiddie porn on his laptop computer. We’re talking tweens, eight to eleven years old.” Faith pushed away thoughts of her own children. “Nesbitt was sentenced to five years with possible probation after three, but it never came to that. The idiot is king of the self-inflicted wound. He started making trouble the minute he walked through the gates. Lots of fighting, holding on to contraband, stealing shit from the wrong people. Finally, he ended up punching out a CO who woke up out of a coma two weeks later. Nesbitt got two dimes tacked onto his initial sentence for attempted murder of a corrections officer.”
“He’s looking at Buck Rogers Time,” Amanda said, using old-timey slang for a release date so far into the future that it felt like a fantasy. “Nesbitt doesn’t have a lot to lose. He has a history of creating trouble. What’s your impression? Does he really think he’s going to walk out of here?”
“He’s a below-the-knee amputee.”
“Does that change your answer?”
“No.” Faith tried to put herself in Nesbitt’s shoe. “He’s behind bars for the attack on the CO no matter what happens to his original case. There’s no causal connection between the alleged constitutional violation and the acts he took against the guard. But here’s where the chess moves come in. Take away the cloud hanging over Nesbitt’s head concerning the Grant County investigation. If Nesbitt can get the kiddie porn charge off his sheet, he’s out of protective custody. Then, he can petition for transfer. Yes, he’s got the attempted murder on the CO, but I can see a scenario where he argues diminished capacity because of the disability. That could buy him a ticket into a low-security facility, which is a country-club compared to where he is now.”
“You think he’s playing us for better accommodations?”
“I think he’s absolutely playing us. Con’s gonna con. Nesbitt wouldn’t do this if he wasn’t working at least twenty different angles. My gut tells me that vengeance against Grant County is his primary motive, but there’s a lot of other benefits he can get if we re-open his original case. Attention. Special treatment. Trips to the police station, the courthouse.”
Amanda asked, “Will? Anything to add?”
Will said, “No.”
Amanda told Faith, “Tell me about Nesbitt’s petitions for post-trial relief.”
“He appealed his kiddie porn conviction on two separate issues.” Faith referred to her notes to make sure she got it right. “First, he said the initial search of his house that revealed the contents of his hard drive was fruit of the poisoned tree. Law enforcement did not have a warrant and they did not have probable cause to enter his residence. Nothing pointed to him as a suspect.”
“Second?”
“Even if law enforcement had probable cause to enter, they were limited to searching for a suspect or a weapon or a possible hostage, not a computer file. They would’ve needed a warrant to search the computer.”
Amanda’s eyebrow rose up again, because Nesbitt’s lawyers were on firmer ground. “And?”
Faith’s cheeks felt red. Will had started to pay close attention. He had a weird sixth sense about when shit was about to get real. “One of the detectives testified at trial that she was searching the desk drawers for weapons when she accidentally bumped the laptop. The screen woke up, she saw images of child pornography, and they charged Nesbitt for possession of illegal images.”
“Lena Adams.” Amanda’s disgusted tone said it all. None of them bought the story. This was why Nick had been so hot under the collar when they were interviewing Nesbitt. For Faith’s part, she wouldn’t believe Lena Adams if the crooked cop swore on a stack of Bibles that the sun rose
