By Reason of Insanity

10
The next day, Catherine scored another front-page article, trumpeting the news that the Carver kidnapping was not a stand-alone crime. Predictable panic spread among mothers of infants, matched only by the consternation in the Virginia Beach Commonwealth's Attorneys' office. The Carver investigation had sprung a leak! Determined to plug it, the chief deputy commonwealth's attorney subpoenaed Catherine to a grand jury hearing to ask about her source. When Catherine refused to reveal her source, he scowled and threatened to have a circuit court judge hold her in contempt. When Catherine scowled back, he set up a hearing for late afternoon in the Virginia Beach Circuit Court.
At a few minutes after 4:00, Catherine took her place in the witness box and swore to tell the truth. She crossed one leg over the other and then switched them back, trying to get comfortable.
"Please state your name and place of employment," said Boyd Gates, chief deputy attorney. He was a former Navy SEAL and the top prosecutor at the Beach, doing the heavy lifting in court while his boss, Commonwealth's Attorney Anthony Brower, gave political speeches and media interviews about being tough on crime. Gates was bald, midforties, and a bulldog during trials.
Catherine looked at William Jacobs, the lawyer hired by the newspaper. Jacobs was a bookish man with thin gray hair and a worried look on his face. The reporters hated it when the conservative Jacobs got involved in libel-proofing their stories. Scared to death of getting the paper sued, he would always make the reporters water down the good stuff. Jacobs gave Catherine a curt nod.
"Catherine O'Rourke. I'm a reporter for the Tidewater Times."
"Is this an article you wrote for this morning's paper?" Gates handed a copy to Catherine and a second copy to the judge.
"Yes," Catherine said. "That's generally what it means when we put our name on it."
Jacobs shot Catherine a disapproving look.
"Do you think this is funny?" Gates demanded. "Do you find something humorous in the kidnapping of the Carver twins?"
"No," Catherine fired back. "I don't think this is funny at all. I'm being threatened with jail time if I don't reveal a confidential source."
"Read the last paragraph to the court."
Catherine wanted to say that she thought the judge could read those big words all by herself, but she thought better of it.
She read in a slow monotone, her voice trembling just a little. "According to a law-enforcement source familiar with the investigation, the Carver kidnapping may be linked to a similar kidnapping two months ago in Washington, D.C., in which the three-month-old child of Clarence Milburn and Sherita Johnson was abducted in a parking garage. Investigators are reviewing a host of other kidnappings nationwide to determine if other occurrences fit a similar pattern."
"Who was that source, Ms. O'Rourke?"
William Jacobs stood and lodged a halfhearted objection. "For the reasons I explained at the start of this hearing, Your Honor, we don't think Ms. O'Rourke should be required to testify at all, much less reveal a confidential source."
"A reporter's privilege is not absolute," Gates countered. He spoke curtly, as if lecturing the judge. "A compelling governmental interest can override the qualified privilege in a case like this. We are dealing with an extremely sensitive investigation in a high-profile case. As with any investigation, the police held back certain details so they could filter out frauds and trip up the real perpetrator." Gates motioned to the front row of the courtroom at an athletic African-American detective named Jamarcus Webb. "As Mr. Webb testified earlier, the link with another kidnapping was one of the facts held back. And for good reason--"
Judge Amelia Rosencrance cut him off with an impatient flip of her wrist. "Yes, yes, I know how the argument goes, Mr. Gates. And, for the reasons stated earlier, I tend to agree with you. I'm going to overrule Mr. Jacobs's objection and instruct the witness to answer. The government's interest in finding a leak on an investigation of this magnitude overrides Ms. O'Rourke's right to protect her sources."
"Note my objection," Jacobs said politely. When he sat down, all eyes turned to Catherine O'Rourke.
She folded her clammy hands in her lap and swallowed hard. She felt alone in the courtroom as the prospect of facing jail became real.
"Ms. O'Rourke," Judge Rosencrance said, "I've overruled the objection. Please state your source."
"I can't say," Catherine testified. "With respect, Your Honor, I'm not willing to reveal my source."
Judge Rosencrance leaned toward the witness box and seemed to hover over Catherine, like an eagle ready to swoop in for a field mouse. "Your counsel has made his argument," the judge said tersely. "I have overruled it. The law does not protect your right to withhold critical information in the midst of a kidnapping investigation."
Gates took a few steps closer to the witness box, hemming Catherine in. She cast a pleading look toward her own lawyer, motionless at counsel table. Her eyes darted toward the judge, then down at her hands.
"I won't," Catherine said softly, barely above a whisper.
"Then I'll have no choice but to hold you in contempt," Rosencrance responded, her voice sharp.
"I'm sorry, Judge."
Looking up, Catherine thought she detected a flash of sympathy in the judge's eyes. Or maybe uncertainty. No judge in her right mind wanted to put a newspaper reporter in prison. Catherine would probably be reporting for a very long time, including future stories about this judge.
But Boyd Gates had no such ambivalence. "Ninety percent of all kidnapping cases are solved within the first forty-eight hours," he snapped. "Most of the children recovered during that time survive. After forty-eight hours, the odds drop precipitously. While we're here playing games, trying to determine which officers we can trust with confidential information and which ones might be leaking information to the press, the lives of two innocent babies are slipping away."
Catherine felt her heart racing. In journalism school, it all seemed so clear. You made a promise to your sources, you kept your word. Jail was a badge of courage.
But now, with jail actually looming and the lives of two babies at stake, things seemed murky. She shook her head slowly and set her jaw. She faced Judge Rosencrance for one final plea. "If I must, Your Honor, I'm prepared to go to jail. But if the court could just give me a short recess--just overnight so I can talk to my source--maybe this entire standoff could be avoided."
Rosencrance turned to Gates and raised her eyebrows. "Mr. Gates?"
"It's out of the question, Your Honor. We have a compromised investigation. Time is of the essence. We need to know what other confidential information was released to the press and who released it."
"Mr. Jacobs?"
Catherine's lawyer stood and gathered his thoughts. "These are substantial issues of law, Your Honor. If there is a chance of avoiding this dilemma, we should seize it. I know the court doesn't want to curtail my client's First Amendment rights if it can be avoided."
"I'll give you one night," Rosencrance said brusquely. "I want all parties back in my courtroom at 9:00 tomorrow morning."
Gates voiced another objection, but the judge proved she had a stubborn streak too. Finally she banged her gavel and adjourned court.
Catherine got off the witness stand as quickly as possible and gathered her things from the counsel table.
"I hope you can get your source to agree to let you divulge his or her name," William Jacobs said, emotionless as ever. "I don't think we can win this on appeal. You could be serving for an indeterminate time."
Catherine stood to her full height and stared at the man who was supposed to be protecting her. She had heard that the paper paid Jacobs more than $300 an hour. She had also heard he was golfing buddies with the publisher.
"You're fired," said Catherine.
Jacobs did a second take, confusion wrinkling his face. "I work for the paper," he said. "You can't fire me."
"I just did," Catherine shot back. "The paper's not going to jail. I am." She turned and stalked out of the courtroom. On the way, she brushed up against Jamarcus Webb, the investigator who had taken the stand to testify about the confidential nature of the information Catherine had printed.
Her message to Jamarcus was unmistakable. You owe me, Officer Webb.
And keep the info coming.



11
Quinn was in a foul mood when his plane landed at the Norfolk International Airport. The small terminal could probably have fit inside a Vegas casino lobby with room to spare. He pulled his luggage behind him and looked for the driver with the Quinn Newberg sign who would be taking him to Regent Law School in Virginia Beach.
Quinn was here as a favor to Rosemarie Mancini. She had agreed to debate the propriety of the death penalty for mentally impaired defendants but then had found out a few days ago that her testimony would be required at the same time in federal court in California. She had called and begged Quinn to take her place. She reminded him of all the flak she had taken for testifying on behalf of his sister. How could he say no?
His opponent would be a prominent young Virginia defense attorney named Marc Boland. Boland was one of the rarest of breeds--a high-profile defense lawyer who supported capital punishment. In capital cases, Boland handled only the guilt and innocence phase of the trial. For the penalty phase, he entrusted the clients to other lawyers, die-hard opponents of the death penalty. "I'm not against proportionate punishment for capital defendants," his firm's promotional brochure quoted "Bo" as saying. "I'm just against proportionate punishment for innocent capital defendants."
It apparently worked in the red state of Virginia. Boland, a former Richmond prosecutor, had a reputation as a top lawyer who knew how to exploit weaknesses in the system on behalf of high-profile criminal defendants.
On the way to the law school, Quinn reviewed his notes and the materials Dr. Mancini had sent him. As a Las Vegas lawyer arguing against capital punishment in a more conservative state like Virginia, he felt out of his element.
"Are there any casinos around here?" Quinn asked the driver. "Riverboat gambling? Horse tracks? Anything?"
The driver, a Pakistani man with a heavy accent, smiled and nodded. "Yes, yes," he said enthusiastically. "Beautiful day."
Catherine O'Rourke was beginning to understand how real criminals felt. Immediately upon leaving court, she called the office of Marc Boland. Catherine had been impressed with Boland when she saw him argue a few cases that she reported on for the paper. She had also called him a few times when she needed a quote from a criminal defense attorney, like the day before on the sidebar piece about the Carver law firm, and he seemed to appreciate the free publicity. He owes me, thought Catherine. And if anybody could talk Rosencrance into changing her mind, maybe Marc Boland could.
Unfortunately, the best lawyers were also the busiest. According to Boland's legal assistant, Boland had been in federal court all afternoon, handling some motions in a complicated criminal case.
"It's an emergency," Catherine said, emphasizing that she worked for the paper. "I've got a state court judge threatening to throw me in jail if I don't reveal a confidential source."
"I'm sorry," said the assistant. She sounded unimpressed. After all, most of Boland's clients were probably facing jail time. "They won't let him take a cell phone in court with him. I'll leave a message, and I'm sure he'll call as soon as he gets out."
"Can you give me his cell phone so I can leave a message too?"
"I'm sorry. We're not allowed to do that."
"But I need to meet with him tonight," Catherine insisted. "I have to be back in front of this judge at nine tomorrow morning. I know Marc would want to take my call."
This time the assistant sounded annoyed. "I'm sure he'll get back to you as soon as he gets out of court." She hesitated, perhaps wondering if her boss might chew her out if he missed getting in on this case. "If for some reason you don't hear from him, he's doing a presentation tonight at Regent Law School at 7:00. I'm sure you can track him down there."
Following her conversation with the legal assistant, Catherine drove from the Virginia Beach courthouse to Norfolk federal court. By the time she arrived, fighting traffic the entire thirty-five-minute drive, Marc Boland was long gone. She tried his office again but this time couldn't even reach his legal assistant. She waited for Boland to call, checking her phone at least three different times to make sure it wasn't on silent. At 6:15, she decided to head to the law school.
She arrived at 6:45 and pulled into the parking lot of the ornate, colonial-style redbrick building that housed the law school. She drove through the horseshoe-shaped lot once but couldn't find a spot. After a loop through the adjacent lot for the law school library, she still couldn't find one. She checked her watch and drove to the side of the building, where a few coned-off spots were being jealously guarded by serious-looking students.
Catherine rolled down her window and flashed her newspaper credentials. "Where do press members park?" she asked.
The student looked confused. "There are some open spots across the street," he suggested.
Cat turned in her seat and glanced at the big Amerigroup office building located on the other side of the road. She turned back to the student with a pained expression. "For the press?" she asked.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, that's all we have available."
Now he'd done it--called her "ma'am" as if she were fifty years old with gray hair in a bun. "Can I get your name?" Cat asked. She took out a pen and a little flip notebook--a prop she carried for times like this.
"Hang on a minute," the student said.
A few seconds later, the students moved one set of cones for the school's newly designated press parking spot.
Pleased with herself, Catherine walked toward a small gauntlet of protesters who had gathered outside the side entrance to the building. They held signs blasting gays and lawyers and "the sodomites in Sin City." Catherine recognized the stocky ringleader as the Reverend Harold Pryor, a notorious pastor from Kansas who ran around the country pronouncing God's judgment on everyone who didn't attend his church. Because she had parked in the VIP section, the protesters all turned toward her as she approached the side door.
"What's the matter," Cat asked, "couldn't find any military funerals to disrupt?"
Pryor stared at her with small, dark eyes that he narrowed into condemning slits. His face glistened with sweat, and his red complexion matched nicely with his auburn hair. "Woe to you experts in the law," Pryor said, "because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering."
A thought hit Catherine, chilling her even in the midst of the warm, humid air of a spring night. What was Pryor doing clear across the country at an event like this? It wasn't exactly the kind of high-profile gathering that fit his MO. How long had he been in Hampton Roads?
She made a mental note to call Jamarcus Webb once she got inside the building. Then she made a face. "You need to get some new deodorant," she said as she disappeared into the massive brick building that served as the home to Regent Law School.
She found Marc Boland in the front of the lecture hall and pulled him aside, rapidly explaining her dilemma. He apologized for not calling her back. "I haven't even had time to check my messages," he said. "Twenty-two e-mails and six phone messages just from the time I spent in court."
They agreed to meet as soon as the seminar was over.



12
Quinn Newberg sat at a table in front of the standing-room-only crowd in the expansive moot courtroom that doubled as an auditorium. He listened as Marc Boland gave a stirring defense of capital punishment. Bo, as the moderator referred to him, was tall, maybe six-four or so, and big boned, but with a soft-edged baby face that looked like it only required shaving once or twice a week. He had short blond hair and an engaging way with the audience--the style of a Southern gentleman that belied the killer instinct Quinn had already heard about. Bo had played linebacker at Virginia Tech before a torn ACL short-circuited his senior season.
Bo looked impressive in a tailored blue suit and bright tie with bold crimson and yellow horizontal stripes. Quinn had dressed in Vegas casual--khaki slacks, a blue blazer, an open-necked shirt. The event coordinators weren't paying him enough to sport a tie.
Boland didn't spare any of the gory details when he described the crimes committed by those who claimed mental illness. His word pictures of rape, murder, and mayhem would have made Stephen King proud. "These types of crimes are not committed by ordinary citizens," Boland said. "The grotesque nature of these crimes serves as Exhibit A for the defendants' mental imbalance."
Quinn noticed some heads nodding as Boland continued. He had stepped out from behind the podium and was partway up the middle aisle. "If we adopt the philosophy of people like Mr. Newberg, death penalty jurisprudence would be flipped on its head. The more grotesque the crime, the more likely a defendant can make a case that he was mentally impaired, thus avoiding the death penalty. What kind of system is that? If you're going to shoot them, you might as well slice them up and maybe eat a bite or two of your victim." Boland shook his head at the absurdity of it. "That way you can claim the devil made you do it."
As Boland took his seat, all eyes turned toward Quinn. Though Quinn hadn't wanted to be here in the first place, this smooth-talking Southerner had just thrown down the gauntlet. Sure, this was a law-and-order state. But these folks had hearts, didn't they?
Quinn stood behind the podium, just in case.
"In 1986, the Supreme Court barred execution of the mentally insane. But that ruling only protects those without the capacity to understand they are about to be put to death. Or why."
Quinn surveyed the skeptics in the room, mostly lawyers and law students parsing each word, along with the Reverend Harold Pryor and a few members of his church who had slithered into the auditorium and were lined up along the back wall. Quinn liked juries better, especially Vegas juries--average folks who appreciated a little showmanship and common sense. But he did notice some sympathetic looks from a few of the female law students. Something about his sister's trial had made Quinn a hero for many women who suffered abuse or shuddered at the prospect of it. He had received several unsolicited e-mails from women telling their stories and thanking him for what he had done at trial.
"What about a man like Scott Louis Panetti, who claims he was drowned and electrocuted as a child and recently stabbed in the eye in his death row cell by the devil? He has wounds that he swears were inflicted by demons and healed by JFK. And in case you're worried that he's making this up just to avoid the death penalty, you should know that he was hospitalized fourteen separate times and diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia on eight different occasions before he shot his in-laws in 1991.
"He defended himself at trial, flipped a coin to determine whether or not to strike jurors during jury selection, and wore a purple cowboy outfit, complete with a cowboy hat dangling around his neck. Even though it was Texas, this probably wasn't a good idea. It would be like a lawyer lecturing at tonight's debate without a tie."
Quinn's quip fell flat, except for a courtesy chuckle from a few of the women.
"He was judged competent to stand trial," Quinn continued, "competent to defend himself, and not insane at the time of the murders. Because he understands what it means to be put to death, he doesn't fit within the narrow category of insane inmates protected from the death penalty."
Quinn paused. He thought about the dozen or so cases he had accepted since his sister's trial. Mental incapacity was not a choice these people made. He couldn't help but get a little passionate defending them. "Is this really the kind of person we want to put to death?"
Quinn could read body language with the best of them, and most of the audience was saying heck yes.
"Mr. Boland worries that allowing mentally impaired defendants to escape the needle might gut the death penalty," Quinn continued, more animated now. "Good. A study published in the Stanford Law Review documents more than 350 capital convictions in this century in which it was later proven, by DNA evidence or otherwise, that the convict did not commit the crime. In Georgia, a study showed that when African-Americans killed whites, they were four times more likely to be sentenced to death than were convicted killers of nonwhites."
Quinn gave them a chance to digest this information and took a deep breath. The more skeptical the audience, the more Quinn would usually pour on the passion. Weak point, talk louder. He was already out on the limb. Might as well saw away. "Capital punishment is a barbaric remnant of an uncivilized society. Why do you think they use a three-drug cocktail for lethal injection? The sodium thiopental, administered first, is an anesthetic. Then they give the condemned person pancuronium bromide, a paralyzing agent, to put them in a chemical straitjacket. That way they can't squirm around and cry out in pain as the heart is squeezed to a stop from the injection of the potassium chloride. How could any court, much less the Supreme Court, say this is not cruel and unusual punishment?
"As for me, I share the sentiments of former Supreme Court justice Harry Blackmun, a man who grew weary quibbling about the proper guidelines for the death penalty. In a 1994 case, he concluded that the death penalty experiment had failed and stated that he would no longer tinker with the machinery of death. In my view, the death penalty is immoral, unfair, and discriminatory. It ought to be abolished in total or at least prohibited when it comes to the mentally impaired."
A few people clapped and a handful of others joined them in order to be polite. But the real indication of how well his talk was received could be measured by the numerous hands shooting up to ask Quinn a question. Judging by the disapproving looks on their faces, it was going to be a long night.


13
Halfway through the question-and-answer session, Catherine's reporter instincts kicked in. During the first half of the debate, she had been consumed with tomorrow's hearing. Plus, she was only mildly interested in the subject matter--capital punishment had been written to death, so to speak, especially since the Supreme Court had weighed in on the constitutionality of lethal injection. But these two lawyers gave it new life. Quinn, a passionate advocate for the mentally ill, and Bo, the defense attorney with a unique sense of frontier justice. Catherine pulled out her laptop and started typing a few notes.
She stopped midsentence when Quinn responded to a question by describing an execution he had witnessed. And then others he had not. Jesse Tafero in Florida, who, according to eyewitnesses, remained alive for four minutes after the juice was turned on in the electric chair, smoke rising from his bobbing head while ashes fell out from under the iron cap. Or a man in Texas, whose name Catherine didn't catch, who stayed alive for twenty-four minutes after a supposedly lethal dosage of chemicals was injected into his arm. The problem, according to Quinn, was that the tube attached to the needle had leaked, spraying noxious chemicals toward the witnesses.
Quinn explained that doctors couldn't participate in the procedures because helping to kill somebody violated their Hippocratic oath. And the prison officials weren't exactly experts at it. "No sensible person who has actually witnessed an execution can still support the death penalty," Quinn stated.
Marc Boland, seated at the other end of the table, pulled his mike closer. "Not exactly true," he said. "I've witnessed three. One as a prosecutor and two as a defense attorney. In each case, I came to the same conclusion: the murderer died more humanely than his victims did."
And so it went, back and forth, until Catherine had almost forgotten about her appointment with an irate judge the next day. Almost. She checked her watch. It was nearly 9 p.m. That sinking feeling returned to the pit of her stomach.
The moderator called on a student in the second row, and the young man rose to address the attorneys. Interesting, thought Catherine. Other audience members had asked their questions sitting down.
"How can you lecture us about morality," the young man asked, "when you represent clients you know are guilty?"
Newberg gave the man a condescending smile, as if he'd heard the question a million times and expected better from a law school student. "You may like to judge people before they're tried by a jury," Quinn said, "but others of us like to follow the law and presume they're innocent. It's not my job to be judge and jury. My job is to stand up for people who can't stand up for themselves, and I'm not ashamed of it."
This brought a smattering of applause as the student took his seat. But the Reverend Pryor apparently had a different take. "You're a hypocrite!" Pryor bellowed from the back wall. "You say everybody's entitled to a defense, but you pick and choose based on whether they can pay and what type of crime they commit. What if I took out a few baby-killin' abortion doctors--you gonna represent me?"
Quinn shook his head in disgust. "That's not even worthy of a response."
Cat turned in her seat and noticed a few men in suits and earpieces moving toward the reverend.
"What about you?" Pryor shouted toward Bo. "You gonna take my case?"
A security guard grabbed an elbow, and Pryor tried to shake him off.
"I'd refer you to Quinn," Bo shot back. "He's the insanity specialist."
The audience laughed nervously while the men escorted Pryor toward the door.
"Woe unto you, lawyers and hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which are full of dead men's bones on the inside and everything unclean. When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?"
Though the security guards couldn't silence Pryor, they did unceremoniously drag him out the door. Catherine could hear his muffled shouts in the hallway.
There was a moment of stunned silence before the moderator spoke up. He turned first to Marc Boland. "It's a little off the subject," the moderator said, "but maybe we should answer the reverend's question. Would you take his case?"
"As a practical matter, probably not. There are some types of cases I don't generally handle, like, for example, sex crimes. The killing of abortion doctors would probably be among them." Bo paused, continuing in a more solemn tone. "But under our system, Reverend Pryor is entitled to a defense. And, if nobody else would do it, or if the court appointed me, I would take the case. I wouldn't like it, but, for the sake of the rule of law, I'd give him the best defense I could provide."
Bo's remarks brought spontaneous applause from the appreciative audience. When the clapping died down, he turned to Quinn Newberg. "We've disagreed on a lot of things tonight, but I suspect you would concur on that point."
"Actually," Quinn said, "I wouldn't. Pryor might be entitled to a defense. But he's not entitled to a defense from me."
Quinn's bluntness caused a momentary silence as the moderator searched for an appropriate follow-up. Quinn beat him to it. "Not unless he could pay my retainer," he said.
The moderator smiled nervously, apparently unsure whether Quinn was joking.
After the session ended, Quinn Newberg made a relatively quick getaway while Marc Boland lingered for a few moments, shaking hands and chatting people up like a seasoned politician. His eyes eventually landed on Catherine, waiting anxiously at the edge of the crowd. "Excuse me," he said to a few of the folks in front of him.
He pulled Catherine aside. "There's a Shoney's right across Indian River Road. Can you meet me there in five minutes?"
"Gladly," said Catherine, trying hard not to sound too hopeful.



14
Catherine tossed and turned throughout the night, glancing occasionally at the red glow from the digital readout on her alarm. Each time, she calculated her remaining hours of freedom.
She had not even asked Jamarcus if she could reveal his name. She would rather go to jail than burn a source. Marc Boland had agreed to represent her but had not been encouraging. He saw little chance of getting Rosencrance to change her mind. He did think, however, that they had an excellent chance on appeal. He promised to work all night to have an emergency petition ready to file with the Virginia Supreme Court. But even in the best case, Catherine should be prepared to spend a day or two in jail.
She tried not to be melodramatic--if Paris Hilton could survive jail time, Catherine definitely could--but she still felt like a woman on death row. One more night in a comfortable bed. One more morning with a private shower. One more chance to start her day with a cup of coffee from Starbucks and the morning paper.
Exhausted, she rolled out of bed at 6:30 and started getting ready. She lingered in the shower, letting the steamy water soak into her skin as if she could build up a layer of protection against prison grime. She put on a pair of comfortable khaki pants and a pullover cotton T-shirt. She blow-dried her dark hair and pulled it back with a clip, dreading how greasy it would become after a few nights in the slammer. She went light on the makeup, putting on just enough to hide the dark circles under her eyes. She looked in the mirror and practiced her best I'm innocent smile for her mug shot.
Prison. It still didn't seem possible.
Catherine was five-eight with long, athletic legs that had served her well during her high school soccer career. She had added maybe five pounds since then and tried her best to stay in shape despite her desk job. Even so, Catherine knew she would be no match for the career criminals, a thought that caused her stomach to gurgle with apprehension. Solitary confinement she could handle. But she dreaded the thought of sharing a cell with some Amazon who might regard her as a new plaything.
Bo had assured her that the local municipal holding cell wasn't that way. But what did he really know about life behind bars?
Banishing those thoughts, Catherine locked her apartment and climbed into her car for her morning ritual--a strong cup of Arabian Mocha coffee at the oceanfront Starbucks while she reviewed the morning paper. She could have looked at the paper online, but that mentality was killing their circulation. Besides, she liked the feel of something in her hands while she read, the bleeding of ink onto her fingertips.
She bought her coffee and walked a half block to the boardwalk, grabbing a seat on a concrete bench facing the ocean. She basked in the rising sun and the gentle breeze of what promised to be a gorgeous spring day, a great day for a walk, or a sail on the Lynnhaven, or to toss around a Frisbee. It would be a lousy day to spend in jail.
She read with satisfaction the sympathetic article about her case by a fellow reporter. The article was accompanied by an unflattering picture of Gates, who looked like he was in midsnarl, veins bulging from his neck and bald scalp.
Catherine finished her coffee, tossed her paper, and headed home to brush her teeth before going to court. She thought about the last thing Bo had told her the previous night, his lame attempt at gallows humor.
"Don't forget your toothbrush."
Catherine felt her skin tingle with apprehension as Judge Rosencrance entered the courtroom. There was a solemnity about the proceeding, a kind of heaviness that Catherine had witnessed when she'd attended sentencing hearings for real crooks.
At least the paper wasn't going to make it easy on Rosencrance. Catherine's allies had shown up in force. Marc Boland, standing tall and straight next to Catherine, gave her a measure of confidence. Stephen Burnson, the publisher of the paper, and a number of Cat's fellow reporters sat jammed into the front row of the courtroom. Catherine's former attorney, William Jacobs, was there as well, consigned to the second row.
On the other side of the courtroom, Jamarcus Webb stood beside Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Boyd Gates and stole a sympathetic glance at Catherine.
The clerk called the court to order, and the participants were seated. "Welcome to the proceedings, Mr. Boland," Judge Rosencrance said. "Has your client obtained permission to divulge her source?"
Bo stood behind his counsel table and buttoned his jacket. "No, Your Honor," he began. He said it with such confidence that it seemed he might actually be proud of his client. "And with respect, I don't see any legal basis for forcing her to do so. It's not as if revealing this source will prevent a crime--"
"That's all I need to know, Mr. Boland." The judge had her hand up. "We argued the merits of the case yesterday. Just because you're new to the proceedings doesn't mean you get a second bite at the apple."
"But, Judge, the cases couldn't be more clear." Bo picked up a stack of papers, presumably duplicates of reported cases he had copied the night before. "The state must have a compelling interest to override the First Amendment, and here--"
"I'm not interested in your arguments, Mr. Boland."
"My client doesn't have any new information that the police don't already know--"
"Mr. Boland!" Rosencrance cracked her gavel. "Do you want to join your client in jail?"
"With respect, Your Honor, neither one of us should be going."
"That's for me to decide," snapped Rosencrance, her face turning dark. "Stand up, Ms. O'Rourke."
Catherine stood, surprised that she felt a little light-headed.
"This court takes no pleasure in what it must do this morning. There is no bigger fan of our First Amendment than me." The judge paused, and Catherine could see the frustration clouding Rosencrance's face. "But I am also aware that the commonwealth's attorney is faced with an extremely urgent kidnapping investigation. Time is of the essence. According to Mr. Webb's testimony yesterday, sensitive information was leaked to the press, information that could jeopardize the investigation. Mr. Gates and Mr. Webb are entitled to know which investigative officers or law enforcement personnel cannot be trusted with such information. Accordingly, I am holding you in contempt of court for refusing to divulge your source, and I am ordering you confined to the Virginia Beach city jail until such time as you choose to reveal the source or until such time as a suspect is apprehended, whichever occurs first."
"We request that the court's ruling be stayed for forty-eight hours while we perfect our appeal," Bo said.
"We object," Boyd Gates responded, jumping to his feet. "We have a compromised investigation at a critical stage in the process. In forty-eight hours, it will be too late."
"I agree," said Judge Rosencrance. "Request denied."
Before the deputies led Catherine away, Bo argued for solitary confinement on the basis that Catherine had written unflattering articles about some of the inmates.
"That makes sense," Rosencrance said.
Catherine held out her wrists as a deputy approached and slapped on the cuffs.
"This way, please."
Catherine shot an accusatory look at Rosencrance as the deputies led her from the courtroom. She kept her head high, but she felt as though she were dying on the inside. Being a hero wasn't all it was cracked up to be.




15
The deputy sheriff guided Catherine into a secure hallway and through a connecting cinder block tunnel to the city jail. To Cat, it felt like the walls were already squeezing in on her.
They passed in silence through a series of limited-access steel doors with bulletproof glass windows. Each time, the guard had to wait for the door to be opened by remote control. Cat was mindful of ceiling cameras following their every move.
The male deputy passed her off to a gruff female deputy for processing. The woman--Janet Tompkins according to her name badge--didn't seem to realize that Cat wasn't one of the real criminals. She rolled Cat's fingerprints, cataloged her personal belongings, gave Cat a number to hold just under her chin, and lined her up for a mug shot.
Next, Tompkins escorted Cat into a small cell and told her to strip for a full-body cavity search as if Cat were a notorious drug runner.
"Do you know what I'm in for?" Cat asked indignantly.
"No, and I don't care," Tompkins responded, snapping on rubber gloves. "Now shut up and take off your clothes so we can get this over with."
Cat snorted and did as she was told. After the cavity search came the battle of the undergarments. "These are colored and frilly," Tompkins said, critiquing Cat's underwear.
"And?"
"And you're only allowed white underwear. No markings." Tompkins plopped a pile of clothes on the metal bench attached to the wall. Five sets of white underwear, five T-shirts, five pairs of socks, one towel, and two orange jumpsuits. "Get dressed," she demanded, pointing to the clothes. "Flip-flops are in your cell."
"How do you know my size?"
"We eyeball it. This isn't a fashion show."
As Cat changed into her prison garb, Tompkins filled her in on the protocol. "Prisoners who've earned trustee status wear green. The rest of you wear orange. You get a clean set of clothes once a week. The store is open once a week on Wednesdays."
It was Thursday, apparently the worst possible day to start a jail sentence.
"You wake up at 4:30 a.m., and we'll bring you breakfast. We bring you a razor and soap for your shower, and we collect the razors every morning. You're one of the lucky ones in solitary, so you shower alone--with guards watching, of course. Each morning, you get a mop and bucket. Cell inspection is at 8:00 a.m. Lunch at 10:30. Dinner at 3:30. Lockdown at 11:00."
Cat slid into her oversize jumpsuit, composed of a harsh and worn-down fabric. She rolled up the sleeves.
"Let me see your left wrist."
Cat held out the wrist, and Tompkins snapped on a plastic bracelet containing Cat's picture.
"Don't ever take that off," Tompkins said.
"And if I do?"
Tompkins froze and stared at Cat. "Don't ever take it off."
Tompkins escorted Cat back to a small cinder block cell. It had a bolted-down bed with a thin mattress against one wall and a small metal washbasin and a metal toilet on the other. A metal rod for hanging towels was just over the toilet.
"Do we ever get to go outside?" asked Cat.
"Not when you're in solitary confinement, sweetheart."
Tompkins locked the cell door with a loud clang, increasing Cat's sense of claustrophobia. There were no windows in the small cell. I might not see the sun for a week.
"Can I have visitors?" Cat asked.
"Depends," said Tompkins, and she headed down the hall.



16
Time crawled as Catherine endured her afternoon in Cell G17. She was still jittery from the way she'd been treated at booking and was concerned about how long she might be confined. She knew her editor and attorney were pursuing every political and legal avenue to free her, but she also knew there were no guarantees. She could be here for a week, a month, maybe even a year. The thought of sitting in this same cell for a year was depressing beyond words. She actually wondered if it would drive her insane.
After an hour or so, she used the toilet on the opposite wall of her cell. A deputy walked by and glanced at her. An inmate three cells down was constantly hollering incoherently about one issue or another, causing others to yell at her and tell her to shut up. The language was as filthy as anything Cat had ever heard.
She hoped her editors would figure out a way to get some books to her as well as a notepad and pen. She had already decided to propose an impromptu idea to her editor--a jailhouse journal. If nothing else, it might make her a celebrity with the inmates and keep the deputies a little more vigilant so that they wouldn't look bad in the press--the pen being mightier than the sword and all.
She sat on her bed and stared at the wall. One hour. Two hours. The inmates were herded out for rec time to a small asphalt basketball court surrounded by high cinder block walls topped by barbed wire. But Cat wasn't allowed to join them. An hour later, they returned. For Cat, the seconds clicked by in slow motion until . . .
Her first visitor came wearing a three-piece pin-striped suit with a gold pocket watch. He had a trim, gray beard and a long, gaunt face. His skin seemed to hang on protruding cheekbones that underscored freakish eyes devoid of pupils. He took his place against the far wall, holding an inmate number over his chest.
He smiled, exposing the blackened remains of rotted teeth. A camera flashed, causing Catherine to blink. She blinked a second time, but the apparition remained.
A second man entered, younger and more robust, with dark hair and a short goatee. He also had an inmate number draped around his neck, and Catherine felt like she should know this man, but she couldn't quite place him. He took his spot next to the first man. A second flashbulb exploded, and the background noise started.
Frightened, Catherine moved back a little on the bed, still transfixed by the figures standing before her. She heard the sounds of court proceedings, of gavels banging and the excited murmurs that accompany the announcement of jury verdicts. She shook her head, blinked hard, and tried to force herself awake.
A third figure walked toward the others. He was younger than the first and older than the second, dressed in a suit with yet another inmate number, pushing a double baby stroller. In the stroller were two infants whom Catherine recognized immediately--the cute chubby faces and bright round eyes of the Carver twins. The man pushing the stroller took his place between the other men and turned to face Catherine. A third flash went off and Catherine focused on the twins, her stomach sickened by a sense that something awful was about to happen.
Before she could move to them, the stroller morphed into something less definable, like a chair, and then came into sharper focus. It was an electric chair, with a metal hood replacing the pink cap for Cail Ying, the blue cap for her brother, Chi. Catherine heard the clunk of a lever being thrown, and sparks flew from the hoods.
"No!" She leaped forward and rushed the wall, grasping for the kids.
Cat jerked awake, startled to find her hands clenching the sink. She brought them to her mouth, struggling to catch her breath, paralyzed with fear.
Out of nowhere, the fingers of a man's hand appeared and began writing on the wall just above the sink. The words were red, like blood, the handwriting neat and flowing. Cat felt herself go weak as she watched the words form, the blood rushing from her head.
I will visit the iniquities of the fathers
unto the third and fourth generations.
The hand disappeared. The words remained, then seemed to melt, dripping down the wall in streaks of red that trickled into the washbasin and slithered down the drain. Striving to maintain balance, Cat stumbled back to the bed, where she sat nervously on the edge until the red fluid disappeared.
It was a dream, she told herself. A hallucination. A vision caused by the trauma of being imprisoned and the tension of covering the Carver kidnappings. The electric chair, she realized, had been seared into her mind by Quinn Newberg's description the night before.
She tried to stop shaking. But somehow the vision seemed more real than life itself, more solid than the bars of her cell.
It was just a dream. It was just a dream. She repeated it like a mantra until her heartbeat returned to some semblance of normal. She repeated it until the goose bumps started to disappear and the chill crawling up her spine went away.
Just a dream, she told herself.
Just a dream.
Though she had never been asleep.
That evening, Cat was a hot item during visiting hours. The whole experience seemed surreal and, like everything else in jail, impersonal. Cat sat alone in a booth, talking into a telephone, looking at her friends on the monitor in front of her. Her visitors sat in a large room adjacent to the lobby of the jail among a maze of cubicles with telephones and closed-circuit television monitors.
"Did you talk my mom out of coming down?" Cat asked one of her friends. Cat's mom and sister lived in central Pennsylvania, and Cat's friends had already told them about the results of the hearing. Cat loved her mom, but the woman knew how to fret.
"I think I can hold her off for a day or two."
"Thanks," Cat said, and immediately felt guilty.
Like a lot of families, the dynamics between the O'Rourke women were complicated. Cat's dad had deserted the family for another woman when Cat was in junior high. The divorce became final the following year. Cat had seen him only three times since.
Cat's younger sister, Kelsey--the "good sister" in Cat's mind--had stayed close to home to take care of their mom and raise a family. Meanwhile, Cat had chased after her own selfish dreams. Compounding Cat's guilt, her mom seemed to think that Cat could do no wrong and at the same time found ample reason to criticize Kelsey. For her part, Kelsey often returned fire, arguing frequently with her mom while Cat held her tongue, feeling like an awkward visitor even among her own family. Cat couldn't remember exactly when it happened, but the burden of being her mom's "perfect" daughter had somehow stolen her ability to be transparent and authentic, even around her own mom.
She wondered how her mom might react to this latest mess.
Halfway through visiting hours, Marc Boland showed up, and the guards escorted Cat into a booth reserved for attorney conferences. Cat sat on the opposite side of a sheet of bulletproof glass from Bo. The lawyer's tie was undone, and his eyes were bloodshot, as if he had been up three straight nights working on Catherine's case.
"We filed our petition for cert with a justice of the Virginia Supreme Court at 5:00," he said, pulling out a bound document too thick to fit through the slot at the bottom of the glass. "We have a hearing scheduled for 2 p.m. tomorrow. We should have a decision by the end of the day. If not, I'm pretty sure we'll get something on Saturday."
Though this was supposed to be good news, Cat's heart sagged a little. "So the most likely scenario is that I'll be in here for at least one more day and maybe two?"
Bo hesitated. "I'm afraid that's right."
"I can't post a bond and get out like violent felons do?"
Bo looked unsure as to whether Cat was kidding. "You can't get bonded out for contempt of court."
"Can you at least get me a few things to read and something to write with?"
"We can make that happen."
They talked for a few minutes about the procedural challenges. Cat asked Bo to call her mom and calm her down a little. Bo frowned but took down the phone number. He seemed antsy to get back to work, so Cat tried to keep her questions to a minimum. She wanted to talk to somebody about the vision she had experienced, but she didn't want to sound like a wacko to Bo.
"Are they treating you okay?" Bo asked, his big round eyes expressing real concern.
Cat looked at the tired warrior and decided he had enough to worry about. "Like a queen," she said.



17
Quinn Newberg pulled up to the black wrought-iron gate that protected the Schlesinger estate and entered the security code. As the gate swung open, Quinn goosed his Mercedes-Benz S350 down the winding driveway, jerking to a halt in front of the four-car garage. He glanced around as he climbed the marble steps to the front entrance of the stone-and-brick mansion. As usual, everything about the place--the waterfall out front, the lush green landscaping in the middle of the Vegas desert, the manicured lawn--was painfully immaculate. At one time or another, various parts of the house had been displayed in Vegas lifestyle magazines.
He rang the doorbell, greeted the Schlesingers' butler, and gave Allison Schlesinger a polite, high-society hug. He wanted to tell her that she looked good in her new face-lift but kept his mouth shut. The lady was thirty-five and, by Quinn's count, already on her third plastic surgery.
"Just in time for dinner," Allison said, as if she'd been cooking all day. "You want to go up and get Sierra?"
"Where's the old man?" Quinn asked.
"In the den, watching Mad Money."
Quinn groaned. Wayne Schlesinger was giving Trump a run for his money in Vegas real estate, but still he insisted on directing his own investments.
Control. Wayne Schlesinger was all about control.
About two years ago, Quinn had represented Schlesinger's firstborn son, the black sheep of the family, on charges of racketeering, money laundering, and fraud. The prosecutor had offered Andrew Schlesinger a deal in exchange for testimony against some higher-ups in the Vegas crime circles, but Andrew had refused and gone to trial. Quinn won the case, and Dad Schlesinger told Quinn that if he ever needed anything, he should call. "Anything," Schlesinger had stressed.
When Quinn's sister was arrested and Quinn learned that Judge Strackman had been assigned to the case, he had decided to call in the favor. Rookie lawyers might settle for researching a defendant's background or a judge's prior legal decisions when preparing for a bond hearing. But Quinn researched campaign contributions. His firm might not have any juice with Judge Strackman, but Wayne Schlesinger had juice to spare.
At Quinn's request, Wayne and Allison Schlesinger had agreed to take care of Sierra until Annie's trial was over. All of Wayne's children by his first marriage were grown and out of the household. He and Allison had no other kids.
And Quinn had a quasi-legitimate reason for asking. Possibility of flight was always a factor for the judge to consider at a bond hearing. Quinn had argued that Annie would never think about leaving the jurisdiction without her daughter. The Schlesingers would be sure to keep a good eye on her. Quinn didn't even have to mention how much money Sierra's proposed guardians had provided to Strackman's campaign. The result--Strackman had set Annie's bond at $250,000, imposed a few conditions like electronic monitoring, and ignored Carla Duncan's protests about an accused murderer getting bail.
"I'll go and get Sierra," Quinn told Allison Schlesinger. He took the stairs two at a time and headed straight for Sierra's room. The door was locked. Quinn knocked loudly and waited a moment before the door cracked open.
"Uncle Quinn!" Sierra exclaimed. She swung the door open, and Quinn entered the disheveled room, closing the door behind him.
Sierra gave Quinn a quick hug, and he felt the bones from her shoulder blades. Even before her mom was arrested, Sierra had been thin and gangly, all elbows, knees, braces, and long strawberry blonde hair. But she had been losing weight the last few months and had Quinn worried.
He threw some clothes off the bed and took a seat. "Are they treating you all right?" he asked.
Sierra made a face, then apparently decided to make the best of it. "They're okay."
"That doesn't exactly sound like a ringing endorsement."
Sierra shrugged. She started absentmindedly picking up some clothes, throwing them on the floor of her closet. "I'd rather stay with my mom; that's all."
Annie felt the same way, Quinn knew. But in order to get Annie out on bond, Quinn had agreed that she wouldn't have custody or unsupervised time with Sierra until after the trial. Annie had been second-guessing that decision ever since.
"Can we talk about it after dinner?" Quinn asked.
"Sure. I guess so."
Dinner was a stilted, formal affair where everyone avoided talking about the one subject on everyone's mind--Annie's retrial. The waiters cleared each dish as if Quinn and his hosts were dining at a five-star restaurant. Wayne Schlesinger opened a bottle of his best Chardonnay and tried to impress Quinn with how much he knew about it. Cognizant of Sierra's presence, Quinn stuck with ginger ale.
For the most part, Sierra kept to herself, politely speaking only when somebody asked her a question. She picked at her food, following the example of Allison Schlesinger, who gave herself such miniature portions that Quinn was certain she must sneak down to the refrigerator at midnight to eat a snack under cover of darkness.
After the meal, Quinn and Sierra went for a walk around the gardens in back of the main house.
"I hate it here," Sierra said. "I want to come live with you."
"What's so bad about this place?" Quinn asked. "Other kids your age would give anything to stay one night in a place like this."
"I might as well be in prison," Sierra scoffed. "They won't let me talk on my phone or IM until my grades get up. Plus, they won't let me watch TV because they think I might freak if I see something about Mom." She shuffled a few steps in silence. "It's not like I don't go online at school. Or hear my friends talk about it."
"Sierra, I know it's not ideal, but it's the only way I thought we could keep your mom out on bail. The judge made it a condition that you stay here. I guess the judge figured that if you stayed with me, I might let your mom take you someplace far away."
"That's stupid."
"I know. But we can't change it."
In truth, Quinn thought he probably could talk the judge into letting him have custody. But did he want to? He could prepare for trial better without the responsibilities of being a surrogate father. The best thing for Sierra was to have Quinn focused on the case. That way, she could get her mom back for good.
But Quinn couldn't deny that there was another reason he didn't want custody right now--a less admirable one. Having Sierra around would definitely cramp his lifestyle. Quinn thought about his place--an elegant suite on the forty-second floor of the Signature Towers, a high-rise of luxury condos linked to the MGM Grand by a long, covered walkway. His condo featured Italian marble in the foyer and bathroom. A view of the Vegas strip. A flat-screen HD television hanging in the living room. He had decorated his suite with stark and contemporary furniture. Luxurious, yes, but not exactly designed for a thirteen-year-old girl.
Besides, what did he know about raising teenage girls?
Quinn glanced over at Sierra as they walked. He saw Annie's expressive eyes in her daughter, and a hint of Annie's beauty, camouflaged by the freckles and awkwardness of a teen. He also saw big crocodile tears forming in the eyes. His gallant little niece tried to fight them back.
"Can you stick it out here until the retrial? Your mom gets to come and see you just about every night."
"I'll try," Sierra said. "It wouldn't be so bad if the Schlesingers didn't try to act like they were my parents."
"I'll talk to them," Quinn promised.
They walked a few steps in silence. Sierra shuffled along with her head down, displaying the awkwardness of a middle school girl who had hit an early growth spurt. Quinn had seen Sierra with her friends, some of whom came up to the girl's chin. Quinn resisted the urge to tell her to straighten her shoulders and hold her head up.
"What's happening at school?" he asked.
Sierra shrugged. "Nothin'."
"Your mom says your grades are dropping off."
"I don't get math."
"You need some help? Maybe we could get you some tutoring or something."
"I already get tutoring." The statement, said matter-of-factly by Sierra, made Quinn realize how out of touch he was with his niece.
They talked about some of the issues at school, and Quinn inquired gently about what other kids said about Annie's case. "Not much," Sierra responded. "They hope my mom wins next time. Except some of the boys. They call her psycho."
"Boys can be jerks in seventh grade," Quinn said softly.
"They call me Daddy Long Legs," Sierra replied. It was almost a whisper, and Quinn wasn't positive he heard it right.
"Daddy Long Legs?"
"Yeah. Mostly the boys, but some of the girls too."
Quinn stopped walking and Sierra did the same. "Look at me for a second," he said. Sierra looked up, and Quinn saw too much sadness in her big round eyes. "Don't let those boys get to you. Women everywhere would kill to have your long legs. All the models have long legs, all the great actresses. You're a beautiful young woman, and in a few years, every one of those boys is going to be asking you out."
Sierra made a face. "Those boys are lame."
"You just keep a mental list of all their names," Quinn responded. "When you get to high school and they start asking you out, tell them to go find some girls with short, stubby legs."
Sierra didn't smile, but Quinn thought he detected a little glint of pride in her eyes. He realized that he would probably make a lousy dad, teaching a thirteen-year-old girl about the fine art of revenge in order to build her self-esteem. Some men just weren't cut out to be fathers.
There was another long silence as they headed back to the house. "Are we going to win next time?" Sierra eventually asked.
"Oh yeah," Quinn assured her. "We are definitely going to win."
"What happened last time?"
"We just got a bad jury. That's all. It won't happen again."




18
The minutes ticked by for Catherine O'Rourke on day two of her involuntary confinement. How can someone ever serve a ten-year sentence? How does anybody do this for life?
The blows to her dignity and sanity came from all directions. She had barely slept the previous night. Three times a deputy had come around and shone a flashlight in Cat's eyes as part of the shift counts. At 4:30 a.m., a deputy had come by to rouse the prisoners from sleep, and the screeching voice of another deputy came over the loudspeaker, barking out names and commands for the day. When Cat used the toilet, an inmate from the cell across the hall stood and watched.
Cat shot her a disapproving look that only made the woman sneer. "You'd better get used to it, Barbie," the woman said.
The nickname was a carryover from Cat's first day in the slammer. Most of the inmates were housed in two-story "pods"--groups of fourteen cells that opened into a common area containing bolted-down metal tables and benches as well as a wall-mounted television set. Prisoners like Cat, who were serving time in solitary, stayed in a separate wing composed of single cells on each side of the hall. A few other prisoners, however, occasionally passed through the hallway in front of Cat's cell. One of them, a woman with a buzz cut, had said, "Look, it's the brunette Barbie. Hey, Barbie, you're gonna be my baby doll." The inmates within earshot had laughed, and the name, like everything else in prison, had spread like wildfire.
Cat felt the book she was reading slip from her hand and realized she had been dozing. For most of her second day, she had remained sprawled out on her cot, reading a James Patterson thriller, one of several books Marc Boland had provided. Now she closed the book and placed her head on the pillow, facing the wall. The inmates' shouts from the pods or other cells on her hall became a distant hum as Cat dozed in and out, completely exhausted. In a strange way, she was almost too tired to sleep, her body wired to run or fight or somehow survive this awful experience.
That's when he entered her cell.
She saw him reflected on the cinder block wall, which had turned into a mirror. She clutched the pillow tightly, keeping her eyes nearly closed, not daring to breathe. Maybe he would go away if he thought Catherine was sleeping.
Catherine didn't recognize the man, though the sight of him paralyzed her with fear. He was tall, maybe six-two or six-three, and solidly built, as if he spent half his life in the gym. He wore baggy jeans and no shirt. An African-American man with close-cropped hair, a three-day stubble, a broad nose, and molten eyes. Tattoo ink covered the upper half of his body.
He stood on the opposite side of the cell, leering at Catherine as she slept. She wanted to cry out but feared the deputies would be too slow to respond, too late to save her. Instead, she held her breath, deathly still, waiting for her visitor to make the first move.
Instead of attacking, he turned toward a corner of the cell, as if he heard something. The leer disappeared, replaced by a look of sadness, and a single tear trickled from the man's left eye as he slowly faded from view.
Now a woman stood in the corner of the cell. Behind her, a hooded figure in a white robe floated closer, quiet and serene until the woman started shaking spasmodically and then, with a violent rush, the hooded figure jabbed a needle into the woman's neck. Catherine gasped and turned on her cot as the woman slumped to the floor, the needle jutting from her neck.
The hooded figure, face obscured, reached both hands up toward the window. Instantly a baby appeared in the outstretched hands, an African-American child with puffy cheeks and dark, curly locks of hair. The baby cooed and stretched and wiggled a little in the tender hands of the hooded one. The person drew the baby in and cuddled him, rocking the little boy back and forth for a few seconds. Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, the hooded figure bent down and extracted the needle from the woman's neck.
"No!" Catherine yelled. She jumped toward the hooded figure but it was too late. With the speed of a striking cobra, the figure inserted the needle into the baby's arm. The child wiggled and the needle wedged out, spraying noxious chemicals all over the room.
Catherine reached for the hooded figure but came up empty, the poison stinging her eyes. Frantically, she turned on the water from the sink and splashed it on her face. "Don't do this!" she shouted. "Stop!"
The sound of her own voice echoed in the cell, startling her awake, as she stood in frozen horror, looking for the visitors who had just moments ago seemed so real. Her face was wet, the water in the rinse basin running. Her breath was short; her heart pummeled her chest.
She turned off the water and sat down on the cot, shaking from the horror of what she had witnessed.
"What's the matter, Barbie?" the inmate across the hall asked.
A deputy came by to check out her cell. "What's with the shouting?"
Shaken, Cat looked at the deputy, barely able to bring the woman into focus. "Just a nightmare," she said.
"Happens a lot," said the deputy. She turned and walked away.
And that's when Cat saw it--with her eyes wide open, in the broad daylight of her cell, unmistakable and as real as the cot Cat sat on.
Handwriting on the wall. Bloodred.
The offspring of evildoers
will never be remembered.
Prepare a place of slaughter for the sons
because of the iniquities of their fathers.


19
Catherine wrestled all afternoon with the implications of her second vision in less than twenty-four hours. As a logical person, she realized that all the classic ingredients for nightmares had converged on her life at once.
She assumed that the content for the dreams had been derived, at least in part, by the capital punishment debate between Quinn Newberg and Marc Boland at the law school. Quinn's graphic depictions of botched executions had played a prominent role in both dream sequences.
On top of that, she had been reading an intense thriller when she fell asleep and had been an emotional wreck these last few days. Jail was a frightening place, and in her case, the fear was compounded by occasional whispers from her own conscience about possibly impeding the investigation into the Carver kidnappings. She had seen the pictures of those beautiful twin babies. Just thinking about the way they might have died made her sick to her stomach.
Even apart from all these stimuli, Catherine was pretty sure she would have experienced nightmares just from being confined to this cell. While she didn't believe in ghosts and hauntings, she did acknowledge that some places tended to cause nightmares. Take the woods, for example. Camping out and listening to night creatures as she fell asleep was a guaranteed ticket to a dreamland horror show.
One more reason to hate camping.
But still, she had to face some hard truths about these visions. They were far more powerful than normal nightmares. The deal with the sink and splashing herself with water was bizarre. Frankly, she wondered if she might be losing it. And, if she was, who could blame her? Who wouldn't go a little psycho in here?
The thing that puzzled her most was the biblical language she recognized in the handwriting on the wall. Perhaps this element came from the bizarre rantings of Harold Pryor. But she doubted it. Though she didn't recall exactly what the reverend had said the night of the debate, the words in the visions seemed somehow different. More disturbing. More sinister.
She sensed that the words themselves might somehow be important, so she pulled out her journal to jot them down. The first vision, twenty-four hours ago--how had that gone exactly? She thought hard, closing her eyes so she could visualize the bloodred writing dripping toward the rinse basin. The sins of the fathers will be visited on the third and fourth generation. That was the gist of it, the best she could do for now.
Today's words were still fresh. She jotted them in her journal also, confident that she had remembered them pretty much word for word.
The offspring of evildoers will never be remembered. Prepare a place of slaughter for the sons because of the iniquities of their fathers.
Late that afternoon, a deputy came to Catherine's cell and unlocked the door. "Don't forget your toothbrush, O'Rourke," she said. "You're going home."
Just like that? The whole thing seemed rather anticlimactic, but Catherine wasn't complaining. She gathered her books, journal, toiletries, and pen. All of her possessions reduced to this. She took a last glance around the small cell--she sure wouldn't miss this place--and followed the guard to the processing desk. She endured one last pat down--as if she might be trying to smuggle something dangerous out of the jail--changed clothes, signed an inventory for her personal belongings, and felt a rush of gratitude when she saw Marc Boland waiting for her.
She gave her attorney a spontaneous hug.
"Chalk one up for the First Amendment," he said. He handed her a three-page document. "The clerk of the Virginia Supreme Court faxed this to my office about a half hour ago. I wanted to deliver it personally."
"I am so glad I fired Jacobs and hired you," Catherine said, folding the order and placing it inside her journal. "How can I ever thank you?"
Bo didn't try to mask his excitement as a big smile lit up his schoolboy face. "It's all part of Boland Legal Services. Slaying dragons, winning Supreme Court arguments, saving damsels in distress."
"I think I'm going to get sick," said the desk clerk.
"We were just leaving," Bo said.