CHAPTER 34
Dan O’Leary tilted back his head to apply eyedrops. His contact lenses felt glued to his corneas. Outside his bay window, rain fell in the shafts of yellow light from the street lamp. He had the window open so he could listen to the storm as it rolled in from the north, bringing the sodden, earthy smell of rain. As a boy, he used to sit at his bedroom window watching for lightning strikes over the North Cascades, counting the seconds between the strike and the clap of thunder exploding across the mountain peaks. He’d wanted to be a weatherman. Sunnie had said that she thought that would be the most boring job on the planet, but Tracy had said Dan would be good on television. Tracy had always been that way, even when other kids had treated him as the dork he’d sometimes been. She’d always stood up for him.
When he’d seen her at Sarah’s memorial service, alone, his heart had bled for her. He’d always envied her family, so close and loving and caring. His house had not always been that way. Then, in a relatively short period of time, Tracy had lost everything she’d loved. When he’d stepped to her side at the service, it had been as her childhood friend, but he also could not deny he had been physically attracted to her. He had given her his card in hope that she might call him, and come to see him not as the boy she’d known, but as the man he’d become. That hope had faded when she had come to his office and asked him to review her file. Strictly a business meeting.
Later, he’d invited her to his home out of concern for her safety, but seeing her again, he hadn’t been able to help hoping that something might spark between them. When he’d wrapped his arms around her to putt the golf ball, something had stirred inside that he had not felt in a very long time. He’d spent the past month tempering those feelings with the realization that Tracy remained deeply wounded and was not only vulnerable, but distrustful—about Cedar Grove and everything and everyone she associated with it. Dan had suggested the Chihuly glass exhibit and dinner to remove her from that environment, then realized that he’d placed her in an awkward dilemma. Did she invite him to spend the night or did he get a hotel? He’d sensed that he was rushing her, that she wasn’t ready for a relationship, and that she had enough on her plate with the recent discovery of Sarah’s remains and now the potential for another emotionally draining hearing.
He’d also had professional concerns. Tracy was not his client. Edmund House was his client. But Tracy had all the information Dan needed to prepare properly for the post-conviction relief hearing, should a court of appeal grant House that right. Under the circumstances, Dan thought it best to remove any undue pressure on Tracy and bow out of their date until they were both in a better place and time.
Sherlock grunted and twitched, asleep beside Rex on the throw rug in front of Dan’s desk. Dan had begun bringing the dogs to work after Calloway’s threat to impound them. He didn’t mind. They were good company, except for the fact that every noise caused them to bolt upright and race into the reception area barking. For the moment, at least, they were quiet.
He refocused on Vance Clark’s Opposition to the Petition for Post-Conviction Relief. His intuition that Clark had filed his opposition early in order to insinuate to the Court of Appeals that the petition had no merit had been correct. Clark had kept his arguments simple. He’d stated that the petition failed to show any impropriety in the prior proceedings that would warrant a hearing to determine if Edmund House should get a new trial. He reminded the Court that House had been the first individual in the state of Washington to be convicted of first-degree murder based solely on circumstantial evidence because House had refused to tell authorities where he’d buried Sarah Crosswhite’s body, though he’d confessed to killing her. Clark had written that House had instead tried to use the information as leverage to force a plea, and that he should not now benefit from that strategy. Had House advised authorities of the location of Sarah Crosswhite’s body twenty years ago, Clark concluded, any exculpatory evidence could have been introduced during his trial. Of course House had not done so because it would have been conclusive evidence that he’d committed the crime. Either way, House was guilty. He’d received a fair trial. Nothing that Dan had introduced in his petition for post-conviction relief changed that.
Not a bad argument, except it was completely circular, premised upon a court accepting that House had confessed to the murder and used the location of the body as leverage for a lesser sentence. DeAngelo Finn had done a poor job cross-examining Calloway on the lack of a signed or taped confession, which would have been any defense attorney’s first plan of attack. Finn had compounded his mistake by putting House on the witness stand to deny confessing, which had put his credibility at stake and allowed the prosecution to successfully argue that House’s prior rape conviction was now fair game, allowing them to question him about it at his trial. That had been the death knell. Once a rapist, always a rapist. Finn should have moved to exclude the introduction of House’s alleged confession as circumspect due to the lack of any supporting evidence and highly prejudicial to House’s case, avoiding the entire fiasco. Even if the motion had been denied, House would have established strong grounds for an appeal. Finn’s failure to do so, regardless of the exculpatory evidence found at the grave, was itself a basis for a new trial.
Sherlock rolled and lifted his head. A second later, someone rang the reception bell.
Sherlock’s nails clicked on the hardwood, Rex close behind, followed by a chorus of barks and baying. Dan checked his watch, started for the door, then paused to pick up the autographed Ken Griffey, Jr., baseball bat that he’d also started bringing to the office.