The Last Plea Bargain Page 10

  “Nice,” Chris said.

  21

  After Antoine put his jumpsuit back on and sat down, he shrugged. “Guess that’s about it. I’m just trying to live for Jesus now. And if I die—I pray he’ll help me get ready for that, too.”

  There was an awkward silence, and Antoine snuck a glance at Mace. Mace stared back at him with a silent message. Let the pastor process this. It’s his turn to speak now.

  Chris had brought his own Bible, and he had it out on the ledge on his side of the window. “I really appreciate your sharing the story of your conversion,” he said. “If I didn’t believe that God could save the worst of sinners, then I wouldn’t be a pastor. In fact, God tells me that if I have hatred in my heart toward my brother, it’s the same as if I’ve killed him. So in that regard, I’ve been convicted of murder too.”

  Though Chris didn’t expand on that statement, the implications couldn’t have been more clear. The person Chris had once hated—hated strongly enough for it to qualify as murder—was sitting right in front of him.

  “And it’s not only hatred,” Chris continued. “I’ve struggled my whole life with things like pride and greed. So, Antoine, it looks like you’re wearing that Bible of yours out. I’m going to read something that will probably sound familiar to you, and then I want to ask you a question. Is that okay?”

  “Yes.”

  Chris flipped to a page toward the back of his Bible. “First John 1:8-10,” he said, pointing to the verses. “‘If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.’”

  Chris stared at Antoine for a moment, and the convict’s eyes started darting around a little. He was always fidgeting, his nervous energy preventing him from sitting still. But it was more noticeable now.

  “Antoine, I need to know and I need to hear it from you. Did you kill my mother? And are you asking me to forgive you for that? Because if you confess that and pray for forgiveness—not to me but to God—he will forgive you. But if we don’t own our sin, how can we ask God to forgive us? It says right here—” Chris tapped his Bible with his finger like a good preacher, though the softness and urgency in his voice signaled a genuine concern for Antoine—“that his Word is not in us if we claim we have not sinned.”

  Antoine looked down, then turned in his own Bible to the same passage as if checking it out just to be sure. He shook his head a little, a nervous tic, and looked straight at Chris. “I can’t say I did something I didn’t do. That right there is what would make me a liar. I can’t lie to you, Pastor. You’re a man of God.”

  Chris kept his gaze steady, his voice soft. “Are you denying that you killed my mother?”

  Antoine rubbed his hand over his forehead, down his dreads. “I’m saying I don’t remember nothin’ from that time in my life. God as my witness, Preacher, I don’t remember killing nobody. I don’t remember breaking into your house. I swear to you, man—I never shot a gun in anger at anyone. That just wasn’t me. I couldn’t have done it. Not me, man. I didn’t do it.” Antoine’s voice was getting sharper, more tense. Mace gave the slash sign across his throat but Antoine ignored him.

  “I’ve been sitting in here for eleven years for something somebody else did. Pastor, you’ve got to believe that. I didn’t shoot that woman. I never even been in your house. I know if I say I did it and start bawlin’ and telling you how sorry I am, you would probably try to help me out. But I can’t tell you something I didn’t do. C’mon, man. I can’t lie to you. I can’t lie to God.”

  Mace took a step forward. “Antoine,” he said, his voice firm. “Chris is not accusing you. But he’s got to believe his own father’s testimony. And if it were you sitting in his seat, you’d do the same thing.”

  “Sorry, Pastor,” Antoine said, his voice more subdued. The humility was back. “I just—you don’t know what it’s like sitting in this same cramped room all day, no windows, praying for God to somehow make the truth come out.”

  Antoine opened his mouth as if to say more but decided against it. All three men let the silence hang there for a moment.

  “I prayed for the same thing all the way through the trial,” Chris said softly. “I only wanted the truth to come out. And I believe my prayers were answered.”

  “I’m sorry you don’t believe me,” Antoine replied. “And I’m going to keep praying for you every day.” His fidgeting had become a full-blown tic, sporadic little movements of the head. Mace had seen it a few times before when his client was under pressure. “But I didn’t kill your mama. And I can’t say that I did.”

  In the parking lot, Mace tried to do some damage control. “He’s never wavered on the issue of his innocence,” Mace said. “But don’t forget what he said before. He doesn’t remember half the stuff he did because he was high most of the time.”

  “I understand that,” Chris said. “And I’ve lost a lot of sleep about today’s meeting, praying about what I should do. But I can’t write a letter asking the parole board for mercy if I don’t think your client is repentant.”

  It was a gut punch for Mace. He had anticipated this result, but he had always held out hope. “I understand,” he said.

  Chris handed Mace his Bible. “Looks like your client could use a new one,” Chris said. “Could you make sure he gets this? And let him know that I’m praying for him, too.”

  22

  On Monday, April 9, Detective LA Finnegan and a tribe of four Milton County police officers and evidence techs executed a second search warrant on Caleb Tate’s mansion. They wanted to see if they could find strands of Rikki’s hair for testing—perhaps from an old brush—that might generate results different from the hair on her head when she died. They also needed detailed information from Tate’s computer. The court had authorized the warrant on the condition that a special master oversee the retrieval of data. The court was worried that there might be information on the hard drive pertaining to Tate’s other cases that was protected by the attorney-client privilege.

  Somebody—and I was pretty sure I knew who it was—had tipped off the media so the local TV stations could show live footage of the police swarming Tate’s home. They also ran excerpts from the affidavit we’d filed in support of the search warrant.

  Unfortunately, we found little additional information, on the computer or otherwise, that helped our investigation. Tate had done his spring cleaning after the first search. And then, the day after the second search, he struck back.

  LA sent me a text just before noon on Tuesday with the latest. WVRC doing an exclusive interview with Tate 2nite. 6:30 news. 10 minutes.

  I called LA to make sure I had it right. “They’re going to interview him about the case?”

  “Not just that,” LA told me. “He’s taking a polygraph on the air.”

  “What?”

  “The man’s got a flair for the dramatic.”

  We gathered in the conference room to watch the big show—me, Regina, LA, and a half-dozen other staff members and attorneys from our office. Masterson was on the campaign trail. I had invited Dr. O’Leary, the medical examiner, but she had other pressing work.

  The program started with an earnest young reporter named Lori Conrad asking Tate questions about his wife’s death. Conrad was one of the most popular television reporters in the Atlanta market. She sat face to face with Tate, the way the big-name reporters did on 60 Minutes. After a few softball questions, Conrad got to the point.

  “Despite everything you’ve said, there are still some who believe that you poisoned your wife. What would you say to them?”

  Caleb looked smug and seemed torn between looking at Lori and staring directly into the camera. “I’ve been mostly silent since my wife’s death because I knew that defending myself would mean talking about some very private things in our lives—things that mig
ht tarnish Rikki’s memory. But I’ve finally come to realize that she would not want this to be a double tragedy. We loved each other. And as tragic as her death was, she would not want that tragedy compounded by having me blamed for it.”

  Caleb swallowed hard and continued. “As you probably know, Lori, you can tell how long someone has been ingesting drugs by testing their hair. Drugs bond to the roots of the hair and become part of the hair shaft as the hair grows out. I’m assuming that the investigators have tested Rikki’s hair. If they have, they should release those results.”

  “What do you think those results would prove?” Lori Conrad asked.

  “That my wife had been abusing narcotics for a very long time.”

  When Tate said it, with that cocksure attitude of his, I glanced quickly around the room. It was the first time in the case that I wondered whether Tate had a source inside our investigation. If we indicted, we would have to reveal the hair-testing results. But right now, there was no way he should know about them. Unfortunately, his assessment was right on the money. The hair results had confirmed six months of drug ingestion.

  Others in the room seemed transfixed by the interview, unperturbed by the hair-testing comments.

  “But some of our viewers might think you had been slowly poisoning her,” Conrad said. “How would you respond to that?”

  Tate smirked as if it was ludicrous that he had to put up with such far-fetched allegations. “I would respond the same way I responded to the investigators and the DA’s office. I told ADA Jamie Brock, who is spearheading this investigation, that I would cooperate fully. I said I would come in and answer questions, produce documents they needed, let them search my house as often as they needed, or take a polygraph test. I have nothing to hide.”

  Lori Conrad scrunched her face into a confused look, one that seemed rehearsed. I felt my stomach clench. I knew what was coming next.

  “Did it surprise you that Ms. Brock was handling this case?”

  “I’ll say this: I was surprised that out of twenty-six attorneys in the DA’s office, they chose the one person whom I have a history with. You may recall that I defended the man accused of killing Ms. Brock’s mother.”

  When Conrad let the answer linger for a second, it felt to me as if the other attorneys in our conference room were stealing sideways glances at me. I braced myself.

  “What did Ms. Brock tell you when you offered to cooperate?”

  Caleb couldn’t resist a little shake of the head. “She basically went off on me. She told me I had better watch myself. She told me if I gave her even the slightest bit of rope, she would use it to lynch me from the nearest tree.”

  Conrad acted startled. “She said that—‘lynch you from the nearest tree’?”

  “Those were her exact words.”

  A few of the ADAs in the room registered their disapproval at the dramatic tone of the interview. Those hadn’t been my exact words, but still I felt my face turn red as I realized that Tate had set me up.

  “That’s why I came to you,” Caleb Tate said to his host. He appeared sincere. Hurt.

  I wanted to throw something.

  “The DA’s office wouldn’t accept my offer to take a polygraph, so I asked if you’d be interested in doing one on the air.”

  I scowled at the audacity of it. I hoped the public would see through this.

  Lori Conrad turned sideways to the camera, proud of herself for landing such an impressive stunt. “We brought in Dr. Stanley Feldman, one of the top polygraph analysts in the country. Earlier today, he sat down with Caleb Tate and administered an exhaustive test.” She paused for effect, then turned back to Caleb. “We’re going to show the viewers some footage from that test and then, after the break, we’ll have Dr. Feldman on live to give us the results.”

  Once more she turned to the camera. The cheese factor was off the charts. “Even Mr. Tate does not know what Dr. Feldman concluded.”

  As the advertisements rolled, my friends in the DA’s office jumped to my defense. Tate was a grandstander. Polygraphs were notoriously unreliable. Experienced liars like Tate could fool them every time. This was just a publicity stunt from a desperate defendant. The whole city would see it that way.

  But Regina Granger was silent. So, too, was LA. I could tell he wasn’t used to being outflanked in the media.

  Dr. Feldman made quite a show of it after the break. He talked about the mechanics of the polygraph test and how it could detect even the slightest increases in heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and perspiration. Yes, there were some hardened liars who were able to game the exam, but he had ways of telling whether somebody was trying to fake it. That was most definitely not the case here. Feldman was 100 percent convinced that these results were accurate; he would stake his formidable national reputation on it.

  “How many polygraphs have you administered?” Lori Conrad asked.

  “I don’t know. Probably a couple thousand. Maybe more. Frankly, I don’t even try to keep track.”

  Satisfied, Conrad asked the question everyone was waiting for: “So what’s your conclusion? Did Caleb Tate poison his wife?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Did Caleb Tate provide any of the drugs that caused Rikki Tate’s death?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “In a court of law, you are required to express scientific opinions to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty. Do you have that kind of certainty with regard to this test?”

  “I am familiar with the standard,” Dr. Feldman said. “And my level of certainty here is well beyond the standard required for admissibility in a court of law.”

  The camera zeroed in on Caleb Tate, tight enough so you could see the pores, and his expression showed genuine relief. He didn’t seem to know that this result was coming. Maybe he was just a really good actor, or maybe he didn’t kill his wife. For a moment, even I had a flicker of doubt.

  But only for a moment. “It’s junk science,” I said. “He’ll never get that test admitted in this case, and he knows it.”

  “He just did,” LA said.

  23

  Ten minutes after Caleb Tate’s media coup, I was called into Regina Granger’s office. Masterson, who was campaigning in one of the far reaches of the state, was on speakerphone. Regina looked glum, and it was clear to me that she and Masterson had already been going at it.

  “Jamie is here now,” Regina announced.

  “Regina says you watched the Tate interview with her,” Masterson said.

  “I did.”

  “We’ve got to put out a statement right away denying those lynching comments. I’ve already had a dozen reporters call. That whole episode taints the integrity of our investigation.”

  Masterson paused for a moment, and I decided not to answer.

  “We could also put in the same release some verbiage about the unreliability of polygraph tests and urge everyone to withhold judgment until the police have completed their investigation. We need to have a measured but quick response.”

  In a prosecutor’s office, there are things said and things left unsaid. That’s especially true when it comes to legal ethics, where everyone tiptoes and talks in ambiguities.

  Masterson was a wily veteran and one of the most straightforward and ethical men I knew. But you don’t become DA without an extra portion of street smarts. I noticed he had never asked me if I made the statements. And that was no oversight. As long as he didn’t know one way or the other, he could authorize the DA’s spokesperson to issue a denial. It would be our word against Tate’s.

  But these were not the kinds of games I played. It was the same reason I could never bring myself to plea bargain. I had this idealistic view of justice where there were good guys and bad guys. And when you start blurring the lines—a white lie here, a little deal there—it becomes impossible to distinguish them again.

  “What does Regina think?” I asked. It was playing Mom against Dad, but I needed some help.

  Regin
a gave me a sideways look as if she didn’t appreciate being put on the spot. “Regina thinks that no prosecutor in her right mind would threaten a defendant that way.” Her voice was cold, and she clipped her words. “I would hope people in our office would appreciate how repulsive that imagery is to African Americans.”

  Regina glared at me, and I cast my gaze toward the floor.

  “But I also told Bill I see no need to respond with any kind of public statement. It just dignifies what this clown did and deflects the focus from whether he killed his wife to whether someone in our office threatened him.”

  I nodded, though I didn’t look her in the eye. I’d seen Masterson upset before, blustering about the office, chewing people out. But Regina was normally bubbly and cheerful, the grandmother who only saw the good in her grandkids. Seeing her this upset was unsettling.

  “Let’s cut the BS,” Masterson said, his voice booming over the speaker. “Did you threaten to lynch him?”

  I hesitated as my brain sifted through a hundred calculations. I had worked so hard the past four years, possibly harder than anyone. My integrity and judgment had never been questioned before. I was a rising star in the office, smart enough to know that a comment like this could be fatal to my career. I couldn’t see myself in private practice. And I knew that nobody would ever be able to prove whether I said it or not.

  But I also knew that I had to live with myself. Good guys make mistakes. But they don’t lie to cover them up.

  “Well?”

  “I don’t think I used the word lynched. But I did say something about stringing him up.”

  “A distinction without a difference,” Masterson said. His voice was more resigned now, the tone of disappointment. Regina gave me a sympathetic glance.