The Price of Justice (23 page)

C
HAPTER

41

F
or the Melton family, April 15 signified not only tax day but moving day as well. Each year, they returned from their home in Palm Beach to the nine-thousand-square-foot town house with eight bedrooms and nine bathrooms, just off Fifth Avenue on East Sixty-Third Street, that Horace Melton originally had purchased and now housed all of the Melton family. Win had considered remaining in Florida longer to continue his counseling sessions with Dr. Stern, but his therapist thought it would be good for him to return to Manhattan.

It had been easier for him to hibernate in Florida. He could sit in his backyard, go for a swim, and read book after book with no one to bother him. Isolation had become his way of living for seven years. Outside stimuli unsettled him. And Manhattan was nothing if not stimulating. The noise, from horns blaring and the hooves of the horse-drawn carriages clomping down Fifth Avenue; the crowds, hordes of people pushing their way up and down the sidewalks; the lights. Day and night, each building lit up. And the smells! Block after block of every kind of ethnic restaurant, their odors pouring out onto the streets. How could he handle all that now?

Dr. Stern had said he was ready. And so, he had returned to New York with his mother and grandmother.

He’d been there only one week when Max implored him to go out. “Come on. We’ll take it slow. Just go out to a restaurant.”

He had demurred. Restaurants were crowded. Restaurants were noisy.

“Okay. How about a movie?”

He’d agreed reluctantly. Now, he was grateful his friend had pushed him. He’d needed that nudge to take his first baby step back into civilization. The Paris Theatre, an old-style movie theater, was just a few blocks from his town house. Max picked him up, and they walked there together, choosing seats in the mezzanine, where it was marginally more isolated. After, they stopped in the Plaza Hotel for coffee and dessert.

“Thank you,” Win said after they’d finished eating. “I wasn’t sure I could do this.”

“See, it wasn’t so hard.”

Win winced. It
had
been hard. His heart had raced, and his hands had beads of sweat when they walked the streets to the theater. For the first half hour of the movie, he’d barely been able to concentrate, afraid every unseen movement around him was an inmate, ready to attack. Gradually, though, his muscles had begun to unclench, and he could focus on the movie, a love story set in Copenhagen. It had made him think about Sienna. He hadn’t answered her letter, and she hadn’t written again. Now, both of them were in Manhattan. Could he reach out to her? he wondered. No, it was still too soon.

“. . . restaurant tomorrow?”

Win realized Max had been speaking to him. He looked at him blankly. “What?”

“I said, how about going to a restaurant tomorrow?”

Win shook his head. “I’m not ready.”

“Come on. You did great tonight.”

For the hundredth time, he wondered if he should have stayed in Palm Beach. Carly’s killer was most likely there. Win had clung to the fantasy that somehow, if he stayed in Florida, he’d be able to apprehend him. Serve him up to the police and rejoice as he was sentenced to the hell that was rightly his, not Win’s. Dr. Stern had brought him back to reality. The true killer would most likely remain free.

C
HAPTER

42

A
t last, winter seemed to have left New York City. The streets were clear of snow, and the temperatures were north of sixty degrees. Dani loved this time of year, when the rain brought the first bloom of flowers on the shrubs, and summer beckoned. She arrived in the office with her cup of coffee from the deli on the corner and a cheese croissant to go with it. As she settled into her desk, there was a note on her chair from Bruce:
See me when you get a chance
.

She leafed through the e-mails waiting on her computer and listened to the two voice mails that had come in during the previous evening. When she’d finished the last of her coffee, she walked over to Bruce’s office.

“You needed me?”

He waved her in, and she took a seat. “Anything new on the Carly Sobol murder?”

They’d stopped referring to it as “the Win Melton case.” Although there remained the small possibility that Amelia Melton had strung them along, making up the story of another’s confession, Dani and Tommy believed Win was innocent. “We seem to have hit a dead end.”

“Push harder. HIPP is still going to take a hit—a big one—if news of the bribe gets out and we can’t prove with certainty that Win is innocent. And my experience is that nothing stays hidden forever, especially when public figures are involved. Beyond a reasonable doubt may be good enough for a courtroom, but for the media, only no doubt whatsoever will fly.”

“Tommy’s looked at everything he can think of. He still believes Greg Kincaid is the killer, but we can’t prove it.”

“The board is filing its annual report in two weeks, and it’ll show the donation from Mrs. Melton. That’s when questions may be asked, and we’d better be ready to answer them. I want you and Tommy to make this HIPP’s number one priority.”

Dani nodded, then left his office to find Tommy. He was in the coffee room, and she entered, poured herself a cup, and sat down at his table.

“Bruce wants us to push everything else aside and keep looking for proof of Win’s innocence.”

“I know he’s innocent. Greg Kincaid killed her. If only I’d had more time in his house. I’m sure he hid that damn flower somewhere. You think you could get a search warrant?”

Dani shook her head. “Aside from the fact that we’re not the police or prosecutors, we don’t have probable cause. That picture isn’t enough.”

“I could try getting back inside the house.”

“Absolutely not.” Dani knew that Tommy occasionally skirted the law. It wasn’t something she countenanced and certainly not something she’d agree to beforehand. “What if it isn’t Kincaid?”

“Who else could it be?”

“I don’t know. But maybe we need to widen the circle of people we interview. You’ve spoken to most everyone at the dance. How about people who lived nearby? Maybe check the list of sexual offenders registered within a five-mile radius of the school.”

“You want me to go back to Palm Beach?”

“Maybe. Start researching it here, and if a lead comes up, go back to Florida. Bruce feels like we’re sitting on a time bomb, just waiting for an expos
é
to blow up HIPP’s operations.”

“I’ll start right away.”

Dani walked back to her office. She hated to lose, although it was something every trial attorney faced now and then. At first, it rattled her confidence, made her wonder if she wasn’t the rising star that her superiors thought of her as, but instead a fraud, soon to be uncovered. She’d spoken to other women along the way, successful women, who admitted having similar feelings from time to time, and so she had come to terms with losing long before working at HIPP. But a loss now didn’t just mean a personal failure. It could lead to the failure of HIPP.

She sat down at her desk and tapped her fingers, trying to figure out what more she could do. As an attorney, her job was to marshal the facts into an argument that supported her clients’ claims of innocence and present those facts to a jury or a judge. She wasn’t an investigator—that was Tommy’s job, and he was the best one in the office. Still, she felt she needed to do something.

She picked up the phone and dialed Win’s home. She hadn’t spoken to him since he’d returned to New York. When he came to the phone, he greeted her with a warm hello.

“Sorry I haven’t called sooner. I wanted to let you get settled. How’s it going?” Dani said.

“Making progress. I went with Max to a movie last week. At a movie theater.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Have you gotten in touch with any other of your friends in the city?”

“Oh, a few called after my retrial. I really want nothing to do with them anymore. If they didn’t stick by me when I was imprisoned, I don’t need them now.”

Dani knew that high school and college were the times for entering into lasting friendships. Some went by the wayside as careers and family took hold, but the treasured ones lasted. It was so much harder to make friends later, when work and children consumed so much of one’s attention. Win had lost that time.

“You’d once mentioned that you had a girlfriend at Princeton. What happened to her?”

There was silence at the other end of the line. For a moment, Dani thought they’d been disconnected. “You still there?” she asked. She heard a deep sigh in return.

“Sienna. Sienna Metzner. She was my girlfriend,” he finally answered. “She wrote me after I was acquitted. She’s living in Manhattan now.”

Dani smiled to herself. First loves were never forgotten. They always remained tucked away in a special corner of one’s memory. “Have you spoken to her?”

“I can’t. I didn’t even write her back.”

Dani understood. She’d spent enough time with Win to realize that the somewhat arrogant young man who’d entered Princeton full of dreams and confidence had disappeared during his years in prison, where he faced death for a crime he hadn’t committed. She also understood that finding the real killer might begin the healing process for him, but the real test was reaching out to others again. Trusting them not to hurt him. Max could help him with that, but the real help would come from opening himself up to a relationship with a young woman. Like Sienna.“What are you afraid will happen if you call her?”

“I wouldn’t know what to say. I’m no longer who she expects.”

“Maybe that’s true. But maybe she didn’t fall in love with the swaggering, too-rich-for-his-britches Win Melton, but the Win she recognized, maybe even before you did, could make a difference. Maybe she can help introduce that Win back into the world.”

Win chuckled softly. “You make it sound so easy, Dani. But everything frightens me now. The cars honking their horns, the people yelling in the street, the noise of the construction going on. I hate going outside. What am I going to do? Invite Sienna to come watch an old movie with me in my family room?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Let it lie, Dani. It’s much too soon.”

“Okay. If you say so, I’ll back off. What I really called to say is that we’re not backing off looking for Carly’s killer. We’ve had some setbacks, but it’s now our number one priority.”

“Good. I want him found. And I want him thrown in the same dank dungeon of a prison I was in. Only this time, it should end with a needle in his arm.”

Once again, Tommy called on a former colleague to help him with his search. After leaving the FBI, Ernie Wilbanks had taken a job as chief of security for Roma Pizza, a nationwide chain headquartered in West Palm Beach.

“I’m hoping you have some contacts in the local police department,” Tommy said to Ernie.

“Sure. Plenty. What do you need?”

“There are three registered sex offenders within a mile of Palm Beach High School. I need to know what they did, where they were seven years ago, and whether the police have concerns that’d they’ve resumed their activities.”

“Want to tell me why?”

“Wish I could, but this has to fly under the radar. And if you can find out if any other sex offender lived nearby seven years ago, that’d help, too.”

Tommy heard the scribbling of a pen through the phone. After a minute, Ernie said, “I’ll do my best. What’s your time frame?”

“I need it yesterday.”

Ernie laughed. “You never change, do you?”

“Why mess with perfection?”

“I feel so bad for him,” Dani told Doug during “honeymoon hour.” Win had fared so much better than the typical inmate that HIPP succeeded in freeing. He had a comfortable home, a loving family, no worries about food or shelter or money. She should feel happy for him. Yet, his sadness had infected her.

“Be patient. You told me he was seeing a therapist. Let that run its course.”

“You’re right, of course. But I keep thinking that if his old girlfriend were back in his life, he’d come around more quickly.”

“Uh-oh. I get the clear sense that you’re thinking of meddling.”

“Would it be so terrible if I called her?”

Doug pushed Dani up from her position entwined in his arms, then looked at her sternly. “I know you once wanted to be a psychologist, but remember, you chose a different path. Let Win’s therapist handle his emotional needs. You stick to the legal ones.”

Dani lay back down in his arms. She supposed he was right. Still, what would be the harm in just speaking to the woman?

Before she left for work the next morning, Dani opened up a phone-directory website on her computer’s browser and typed in
Sienna Metzner, Manhattan
. Three names popped up. One was between the ages of forty-five and fifty, one was over sixty, and one was twenty-five to thirty. Bingo, she thought as she copied down the phone number. Doug had already left for work, Jonah for school. She knew from Win that Sienna was an intern at a Manhattan hospital. That meant crazy hours. Chances are she wouldn’t be home, Dani thought, but why not give it a try?

A drowsy voice answered the phone on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Is this the Sienna Metzner who went to Princeton University?” Dani asked.

“Look, I’ve already donated this year. Don’t you people ever give up?” the voice answered with more than a hint of displeasure.

“I’m not soliciting for contributions. My name is Dani Trumball. I’m calling about Win Melton.”

“Win? Is he okay?” Suddenly, the voice was alert, and all annoyance was gone.

“Yes, he’s fine. Sort of fine.” Dani hesitated. “Look, he doesn’t know that I’m calling you, and I probably shouldn’t be. It’s just
 . . . 
it’s just that I’ve grown to care about him. I know that you wrote him.”

“I did. But he never answered.”

“Win’s not the person he was back in Princeton. Prison is hard for everyone, but magnify that a hundred times for death-row inmates. I think he’s afraid that he’s changed so much, you wouldn’t want to know him anymore.”

“But that’s not true,” Sienna said, an urgency to her voice. “I understand that he’s different. We both are. And it may be that what we had back at Princeton is lost forever. I hope not. I think, no matter how much life changes us, there are fundamental aspects of who we are that become part of our core. That never disappears. Maybe it becomes buried so deeply that it’s hard to find it again. But I believe it’s there.”

“With time, I think Win will find himself. I guess I’m just calling you to ask you to hold on a bit longer. Don’t give up on him.”