“Oh, I’ll think of something. Be ready now,” Charlie said as he began to jog down the block toward the crowded plaza.
“Hey, Fournier! What the hell is this?” Charlie screamed immediately as he entered the plaza.
I put my head down as Fabiana and I moved along the stand of trees that lined the plaza’s sidewalk.
“What does it look like I’m doing, Baylor?” Peter called back.
“Making a jackass out of yourself, as usual,” Charlie said, taking a sign from a protester’s hand and tossing it onto a grassy knoll beside the capitol’s steps.
“Go home, all of you!” Charlie yelled at them with his hands over his head, his face clenched with theatrical rage. “My client is innocent, but if it were up to you, you’d kill him yourselves. What is this, some kind of lynch mob? This is disgusting. You make me sick!”
The gathered crowd looked at Charlie in complete astonishment. Except for the news crew. They looked like kids on Christmas morning. The beefy guy immediately took his camera off a tripod, put it up onto his shoulder, and turned it on.
“You’ve finally gone crazy, haven’t you, Baylor?” Peter said, stepping toward Charlie. The crowd slowly followed him, unblocking the front doors.
Charlie’s plan was working. At least so far. I still had about forty yards of open plaza to cross.
“Finally lost it, huh, Counselor?” Peter continued to yell in the dead silence. “This is unstable even for you. Let me guess. You’re drunk.”
“I’ll show you unstable,” Charlie yelled back, throwing his briefcase at Peter and raising his fists as he ran toward him. He really did seem like a complete lunatic. When Charlie said he was going to create a diversion, he wasn’t kidding.
Fabiana and I walked hurriedly across the plaza as Charlie and Peter rushed at each other and pandemonium broke out. No one even came close to noticing us as Peter swung at Charlie. The crowd made an ooh sound as Charlie ducked at the last second. But then a big, burly guy holding a JUSTIN HARRIS MUST DIE sign punched Charlie in the side of the head, sending him spinning.
“What? You can’t fight one-on-one, Fournier?” Charlie said as he sent the burly guy tumbling back with a shove.
“Miss Desmarais?” said a soft-looking Asian man in a tan suit as we finally made it into the end zone of the capitol’s cavernous lobby. “I’m Assistant Commissioner of Agriculture Dennis Sim. Where is Mr. Baylor, and what the heck is going on out there?”
“He’s, uh, been delayed,” I said. “I’m Mr. Baylor’s assistant, Nina Bloom. If you’ll take us up, we’re ready to meet with the board.”
Chapter 98
TWO HOURS LATER, I sat in the capitol’s wood-paneled second-floor corridor, checking the time on my iPhone every minute or so. It was either that or pull my hair out.
Because this was it.
Do or die.
Literally.
For the last excruciating hour, Charlie and I had been sitting on a long bench outside of the board’s meeting room, like bad children in front of the principal’s office. Inside, Fabiana was delivering her testimony to the executive clemency board. We’d already turned over the newspaper article to the parole investigator. The only question now was as simple as it was significant.
Had it been enough?
“She’ll do fine,” Charlie said with an aggravating calm as I spun my phone on the bench. He had a small cut under his left eye and a smushed right ear from the scuffle with Peter and the crowd. He’d probably gotten on YouTube by now as well for his taped “don’t Tase me, bro” moment in front of the capitol plaza crowd.
“I should tell them,” I said. “I should march right in there and tell them about Peter. About everything. What if this doesn’t work?”
“But it will,” Charlie said as the door opened.
Assistant Commissioner Sim appeared with Fabiana.
I took a deep breath.
“What’s the verdict?” Charlie said.
“The board will weigh the evidence now,” Sim said.
“What? More waiting?” I said.
“It’s not like we have a lot of time here, Mr. Sim,” Charlie said.
“That’s all I can say for now. Thank you for coming,” Mr. Sim said as he closed the door.
“What does that mean?” Fabiana said. “We have to keep waiting?”
“I need to tell them,” I said, stepping past Charlie toward the door.
Charlie got in front of me.
“No,” he whispered fiercely in my ear. “You don’t. You’re a victim here, too. Did you ask that son of a bitch Fournier to be a monster to you? You came down and actually risked your life to help Justin, and that’s exactly what you’ve done. But you can’t do everything. None of us can. We’ve done everything possible. We’ve petitioned the courts and petitioned the governor. It’s out of our hands now and in theirs.”
“But—”
“But nothing. I just went toe-to-toe with your ex-hubby. Do you really want to mess with me? Let’s head over to the jail.”
Chapter 99
THE WITNESS ROOM for the execution chamber looked like a community theater that Friday night. There were two rows of cheap red chairs, black walls, a black curtain. But beyond the curtain, instead of a lit stage, was the brightly lit window of the death chamber.
Placed directly in the center of it, like some kind of malevolent modern art piece, was an empty gurney. It was fitted with thick leather ankle and wrist straps, a cross awaiting the crucifixion. The digital clock on the wall behind it showed 10:27 p.m.
At around nine, the warden, Tom Mitchner, had come in and given a short explanation about what would happen. At five to midnight, Justin would be brought in and strapped to the gurney. A witnessing doctor would oversee the proceeding as two intravenous tubes were extended and placed into Justin’s left and right arms. At the stroke of midnight three drugs would enter Justin’s bloodstream in succession: sodium thiopental to render him unconscious; pancuronium bromide, a muscle relaxant to stop his breathing; and potassium chloride to stop his heart.
A reporter from the Miami Herald and one from the Associated Press spoke softly at the back of the room. Tara Foster’s mother, as well as the rest of her extended family, had declined to come. Fabiana sat in the front row, talking and holding hands with Justin’s mother.
My hand was cinched onto Charlie’s.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I said to him, my eyes on the gurney. “It’s too much. Way too much. Why haven’t they stopped this? What are they waiting for? These bastards are still going to go through with it, Charlie. How is that possible? How can they?”
“Have faith,” was all Charlie would say, seemingly more to himself than to me.
Eleven came. Then eleven thirty.
“What’s up, Charlie?” I said.
“Have—”
“Faith?” I said. “I don’t know if I can.”
It was eleven fifty when the door opened, and a pale, heavy man in a gray suit appeared. It was Warden Mitchner.
I stared at him breathlessly, waiting to hear that it was over.
“It’s time now,” the tired-looking official said somberly. “They’re bringing in Mr. Harris.”
I had trouble focusing as they did just that. Justin stood ramrod straight, shoulders back, eyes steady and forward like the dress parade soldier that he once had been. He was flanked by two guards, as well as a white-jacketed orderly and a gaunt middle-aged woman in a navy pantsuit who I assumed was the doctor. Justin didn’t even flinch as his mother stood and put her hand on the glass. He just walked obediently over to the gurney and sat, spreading out his arms as he stared up intently, like a magician about to perform a particularly difficult trick.
In the silence, the orderly’s footfalls sounded, like the slow raps of a snare drum, as he stepped across the death chamber. When he stepped back a minute later, the IVs were in Justin’s arms.
The clock on the wall kept right on going. When it clicked forward to ele
ven fifty-nine, one of the reporters cupped a hand over his mouth like he was about to throw up. Tilted back in the gurney, Justin kept his eyes pinned to a point directly above the glass viewing window.
The room was still. Then the clock flashed.
It was twelve.
The injections started. A yellowish liquid suddenly appeared in the IV tubing and started to flow toward Justin’s forearms. All I could do was follow its path.
There was a collective intake of breath as the liquid entered Justin’s bloodstream and he closed his eyes.
“No,” I whispered.
Then my vision swam, and I doubled over.
Chapter 100
I WAS STILL DOUBLED OVER, in the midst of nearly passing out, when a deafeningly loud buzzer sounded in the execution chamber.
The orderly inside ran behind the partition as the witnessing doctor raced toward Justin. A thin stream of yellow liquid and blood splattered onto the floor as the doctor tore the IVs free. The orderly returned and motioned to the guards. After a moment, Justin was quickly rolled out of the room on the gurney with the guards and the doctor in tow.
“What the hell?!” Charlie said, running up and hammering on the glass.
The door to the viewing room flew open thirty seconds later.
It was Warden Mitchner.
“It’s OK,” he said, wheezing. The tall, flabby man was sweating, red-faced. “The first drug was just the painkiller. They didn’t drop the second plunger. Justin received only the painkiller. He’s going to be OK.”
Both reporters jumped up and began yelling at the same time.
“This isn’t happening,” Charlie said beside me. “This state runs executions about as well as its elections.”
“Please. We’ll have order here now. I just received this from Governor Scott Stroud,” the warden said, lifting a sheet of paper.
“ ‘Today I have decided to stay the execution of Justin Harris, an inmate on Florida’s death row for six months,’ ” Mitchner read. “ ‘I have done this to allow the district attorney and investigators involved in this case to gather and properly analyze any and all new information that has come to the attention of the clemency board. After a careful and close review, and conferring with the state attorney general and the parole board, I am not satisfied that it is proper that the execution should proceed until such new information is disseminated and reviewed.’ ”
The warden let out a breath. “That’s it,” he said.
Charlie sat heavily in one of the folding chairs. His head dropped down between his knees.
“Just tell me how Justin’s OK again,” he said, looking up at the warden.
“The doctor on call says his pulse is fine. He just needs to sleep it off. They’re bringing him to the infirmary.”
Charlie let out a breath, then sat up, wiping at the tears in his eyes. I came over and hugged him.
“Then we did it?” he whispered as if he could hardly believe it. “We actually did it?”
After a minute, we joined Fabiana and Justin’s mother in a standing embrace as the reporters spoke excitedly into their cell phones.
“See, I knew you would help Justin, Miss Bloom,” Mrs. Harris said to me as she kissed my hand, then my cheek. “I never doubted it for a second.”
“Me, too, Miss Bloom,” Charlie said winking from over her shoulder. “I knew you could pull it off.”
Book Five
THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE. OR WILL IT?
Chapter 101
A VIOLET-TINGED SHADOW rose up the cabin wall of the small American Eagle jet like a tide as we made the final descent for Key West the next afternoon. Beside me, Charlie started to snore as the landing gear hummed down beneath our feet.
Now that Justin had been given a stay, I wanted nothing more than to be landing in New York. But after we visited a groggy Justin in the infirmary that morning, Charlie had called his law school buddy FBI Special Agent Robert Holden and told him about Peter.
Holden was already waiting for me at Charlie’s house to formally interview me and open Peter’s case. Getting back to my life, unfortunately, would have to wait.
I unburdened my troubled soul in Charlie’s office for a second time.
Agent Holden, a tall, black, former college basketball player, sat across from me taking extensive notes on a yellow legal tablet as I told him about Peter’s first wife, Elena’s shooting, my faked death.
When I was done, Holden looked at me, poker-faced, expressionless. Whether he thought I was crazy or heroic or a liar, there was no way to tell. He capped his red Mont Blanc pen and tucked it into the inside pocket of his charcoal suit coat.
“Would you be willing to repeat what you just told me in open court?”
I thought about that. What would happen when my bizarre story of faking my death and changing my identity came out? It would probably mean my job, some of my friends. I decided that losing it all was worth getting my life back, becoming whole again.
“Yes, of course,” I said. “So what do you think? Is there a case against Peter after all these years?”
“We’ll have to see,” Holden said. “There’s no statute of limitations for murder. The most interesting angle from where I’m sitting is Peter’s corruption as the chief of police. We can start by going after him for Hobbs Act public official violations and see where that leads us. I’m definitely satisfied enough to open an investigation on him forthwith. Because of the threat to you, after I leave here, I’m going to recommend to my boss that he send a team down and that we place Fournier under immediate surveillance. When will you be heading back to New York?”
“Tomorrow,” Charlie said, coming into the office, clinking a couple of Coronas together. “We still have some serious celebrating to do.”
“Well, take it easy and keep an eye on her until she gets on that plane, Charlie,” Holden said. “I’ll keep you guys updated.”
As the FBI agent stood, I wondered yet again if I should bring up that one pesky little detail concerning Ramón Peña. Try to get ahead of it before it undoubtedly came out.
Yet I kept my mouth shut as Holden went out the front door.
“To you,” Charlie said, handing me a beer. “I’m proud of you. You’ve been holding that in for seventeen years. That took guts.”
Guts, lack of scruples. Whatev, as Emma liked to say.
I threw the lime wedge garnish into the office wastepaper basket and took a long hit off the beer. It was crisp, delicious, as cold as an ice cream headache, and after another hit it was empty.
“My plane leaves in twelve hours,” I said, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “We don’t have time to fruit the beer, Baylor.”
Chapter 102
IT WAS SIX O’CLOCK when we arrived in Mallory Square for the sunset celebration. The kooky Key West sunset party hadn’t changed a bit. It was the same uplifting reggae music I remembered, the same happy dancing fools splashing beer all over themselves and one another, the same seductive champagne-colored light.
The original plan had been just to chill back at Charlie’s house, but about an hour before, Agent Holden had called. He’d said that they’d put Peter under surveillance and that they had tailed him up to a boat show in Key Largo, where he’d checked into a hotel with his wife and two kids. Which meant that Key West was ours at least for the night.
Charlie held my hand as he guided me through the street performers and sunburned drunken tourists. He said he had a surprise lined up. I let him walk me out of the square and down a few narrow blocks. We finally arrived at the water at Schooner’s Pier, a restaurant and private marina.
I closed my eyes and sighed as a sea breeze lifted my hair.
I actually deserved to celebrate a little. I had helped get Justin a stay of execution. I’d even made some progress in cleaning up my own life in the past week. There was still the ghost of spring break past haunting me, but what were you going to do? Despite the still unresolved issue that was my life, I officially decided t
o give my guilt a well-deserved night off.
“Is this where it happens? Your big surprise?” I said to Charlie.
“You’ll see,” Charlie said, taking my hand again.
Instead of taking me into the restaurant as I expected, Charlie walked me down the wooden dock. We stopped in front of a massive two-decked luxury motor yacht.
“After you,” he said with a courtly wave toward its boarding ramp.
“What… what are we doing?” I said, gaping at the white Ferrari-sleek lines of the majestic ship. The black-tinted windows on the captain’s bridge made it look like it was wearing shades.
“It belongs to a client of mine, Bill Spence. He owes me a favor,” Charlie said as he tugged me up the ramp. “He runs an upscale sunset dinner cruise. Even at a hundred and eighty a pop, it’s usually pretty crowded, but I got us the whole shebang. She’s all ours. At least for the next three hours.”
“What?” I said, ecstatic.
“Wait here,” Charlie called as he stepped through a doorway off the first deck.
He came back two minutes later, smiling, as he grabbed my hand and pulled me forward. We passed a Jacuzzi and a tiki bar before arriving at the railing of the bow, where an intimate table for two sat waiting.
Charlie handed me a champagne flute and pulled a bottle out of a silver ice bucket.
“Our host is putting the finishing touches on our dinner,” he told me as he filled my glass with bubbly. “He said to enjoy a toast as he takes us out. The first course is coming up.”
“First course?” I said in surprise.
“Now, now. Enough chitchat. This is a surprise,” Charlie said, winking.
Chapter 103
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, the Mallory Square crowd roared at us like we were celebrities, as the luxury yacht swooshed us past them toward the setting sun.
The captain let off the ship’s air horn. When we turned, we could just make out his large silhouette waving to us from behind the bridge’s tinted glass windshield. Charlie hugged me as we waved back with raised champagne flutes.