The guard got down from the platform. “You can talk to Mr. Alvarez in the first noncontact visiting room. It’s at the end of the hall across the way. Follow me.”
The guard led Robin to another open area lined on two walls with bulletproof glass windows where attorneys could talk to prisoners who were deemed to be too dangerous to be allowed in the visiting room. At the end of this area were the two tiny rooms where death row inmates could meet with their attorneys. The guard escorted Robin to one of them and ushered her inside. A bridge chair faced a glass window set in concrete blocks painted institutional brown. A slot for passing papers was set in the bottom of the window, and a metal ledge just wide enough to accommodate a legal pad jutted out of the wall beneath the window. A phone receiver was attached to the wall. On the other side of the glass was a room that was a mirror image of the one Robin was in.
After twenty minutes passed, a door opened and Alvarez walked in. Fighters have to make weight, and they get good at estimating it. Robin saw a welterweight in the 147-pound range; slender, muscular, and in better shape than she would have expected given the starchy food prisoners were served and the limited amount of exercise someone on death row would get. Alvarez’s black hair had streaks of gray, and his brown eyes were a shade darker than his skin.
The prisoner sat down on a folding chair on the other side of the glass. Robin picked up her receiver. Jose stared at her. She motioned toward the receiver on his side. Alvarez picked it up. He looked suspicious and tense.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“My name is Robin Lockwood, and I’m an attorney.”
“Why are you here? I don’t know you.”
“I’m here to help you. I know for a fact that you didn’t kill Margo Prescott, and I’ve been hired to get your conviction reversed.”
“Who hired you? I don’t know anyone who would want to help me.”
“This must be very confusing. Let me explain. I have a law firm in Portland, and I specialize in criminal defense. A few weeks ago, I was hired by Frank Melville, the district attorney who prosecuted you. When he tried your case, he was convinced that you murdered Margo Prescott. Then, he came into possession of evidence that convinced him that he’d made a terrible mistake and that you are completely innocent.”
“What evidence?”
“A person he was representing confessed to the murder.”
Jose looked stunned. “When did he get this evidence?”
“Several years ago.”
“And he waited until now to try and get me out!” Alvarez said, suddenly furious.
“I can understand how angry you must be, but there’s a reason Mr. Melville couldn’t act sooner. The evidence was in the form of a confidence told to him by a client, which he was forbidden by law to disclose because of the attorney-client privilege. The man who confessed told Mr. Melville that he couldn’t tell anyone you were innocent. He said that he would deny his confession if Mr. Melville went public, and there were no witnesses to the conversation who could back up Mr. Melville. The person who confessed to killing Margo Prescott died recently, and Mr. Melville hired me to see if I could free you from death row.”
Alvarez looked down at the narrow metal ledge where a prisoner could rest papers. Robin could see that he was barely able to contain his anger.
“I’ve been rotting here for thirty years. Thirty years! Do you understand what that’s like? Caged like an animal and treated like one, when Melville knew that I was innocent?”
“I know it won’t make you feel better to learn that Mr. Melville was so overwhelmed by guilt that he stopped practicing law.”
“You’re damn right it doesn’t.”
“And I would never tell you that I can understand how horrible this has been for you. I can just promise that I will do everything in my power to end your ordeal.”
Alvarez looked up and laughed without a trace of humor.
“Ordeal.That’s a lawyer word. A pretty vocabulary choice that can’t even begin to describe how every minute of every day has been torture.”
“You’re right. I apologize. As I said, I won’t pretend that I’llever be able to understand what you’ve gone through. I will tell you that I’m convinced that we have the ammunition to get your case overturned, and I promise you that I will do everything in my power to get you out of the cage you’re in.”
“What exactly do you plan to do?” Alvarez demanded.
Robin pushed several documents to Alvarez through the paper pass.
“These are pleadings I’ve prepared and several legal memos I’m going to file. I plan to challenge your conviction in federal court on the grounds that your trial attorney was incompetent. We’ve found several witnesses who will swear that the person who really killed Margo Prescott was a sexual predator who had propositioned Miss Prescott for sex.”
“Are you talking about Archie Stallings?”
Robin looked down, unable to meet Jose’s eye.
“I’m afraid I can’t answer your question.”