Robin walked down the hall and greeted Jose with a big smile.
“You look great,” she said. And he did.
Robin had assigned Loretta Washington the job of helping Jose acquire a wardrobe and an apartment. Loretta was impossible to dislike. After some initial resistance, Jose had put himself in the associate’s hands. Giving Loretta the job had paid off, and Jose looked very handsome in a long-sleeve navy blue shirt, a gray sweater, tan slacks, and shined brown shoes.
“Do you have a few minutes?” Jose asked.
“For you, always. Come on back to my office.”
“What’s up?” Robin asked when they were seated.
Jose looked nervous. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”
Robin smiled. “That’s good,” she said, hoping that her little joke would help Jose relax, but it didn’t work. He looked sad and couldn’t look Robin in the eye.
“I was a total jerk when we went to Black Oaks. I should never have treated Frank Melville the way I did.”
Jose took a breath before continuing.
“I was so angry that I didn’t listen to what you said. Now that I’ve had time to think, I can see that Mr. Melville truly believed that I killed Margo when he prosecuted me, and I understand that there was nothing he could do to help me until Stallings died. I just wish I could go back in time to when he was alive. It’s killing me that he’s dead, and I can never thank him for all he did for me.”
“Don’t beat yourself up like this. Mr. Melville didn’t need your thanks. He understood why you were angry, and he accepted it. All he wanted to do was to set you free. Getting you off death row and out of prison made him very happy. If you really want to thank him, take charge of your life and turn the rest of it into a success.”
“That’s the reason I’m here. I’ve decided that the best way I can honor Mr. Melville’s memory is to go back to school and earn a degree I can use to help free wrongly convicted people. I’ve been looking at the courses you need to have to be a paralegal, and I want to volunteer at one of the places you mentioned, like the Innocence Project.”
“I think that’s a great idea. Let me talk to some people I know. Maybe I can wrangle you a paid position.”
“Thanks, Robin.” Jose stood up and looked at the papers spread over his lawyer’s desk. “I don’t want to take up any more of your time.”
“You’re always welcome here. I’ll let you know if I come up with anything, and you make sure to do the same.”
The door closed behind Jose, and Robin leaned back in her chair and smiled. Most of the time, criminal defense attorneys dealt with the bodies of dead children, battered adults, and psychopaths who didn’t feel a bit of remorse for the horrors they inflicted on innocent people and others who whined about howunfair life was. But, every once in a while, a criminal defense attorney did something that made the world better. Freeing an innocent man from a life behind bars was one of those things, especially when there was a good chance that the person you saved was going to turn his life around.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Peter Dowd contacted Robin a week after she called to tell her that his client had agreed to meet with her at the penitentiary and had given him permission to send her his files in Yousef’s case. Robin asked Dowd if he would accompany her to the penitentiary to smooth the way for her meeting with Khan. She said she would compensate Dowd for his time, and Dowd agreed.
As soon as Robin landed in Los Angeles, she took a Lyft to a part of LA that had seen better days and walked up to the third floor of a low-rise, brick office building that fit in beautifully in the ungentrified landscape. Dowd’s one-person shop was as unimpressive as the attorney, who was in his late fifties, overweight, growing bald, and looked to be a candidate for an early heart attack. The good news was that Dowd had been pleasant when they’d met and had showed no signs that he resented Robin second-guessing the way he had handled Yousef Khan’s case. Dowd intimated, with a wink and a nod, that he chalked up Robin’sdiligence to an interest in collecting as big a fee as possible. Robin didn’t try to disabuse him of this notion.
The prison where Yousef Khan had been sent to spend the rest of his life was depressingly similar to every other prison Robin had visited. There were high, thick walls, gun towers, barbed wire, serious and suspicious guards, and steel bars that opened and shut with a dull clang that reminded those men and women who had been convicted of murder that once inside, they were inside for good.
“Yousef is going to surprise you,” Dowd said as they waited on one side of a metal table for the guards to bring Khan to them.
“How so?” Robin asked.
“He was a homeless alcoholic when he was arrested. Really sick and thin as a rail. Prison probably saved his life.”
Before he could say more, a door opened and a handsome man with the bulging muscles of a bodybuilder walked into the room. Khan was clean shaven with high cheekbones, coffee-colored skin, and bright blue eyes. If she’d met him in Hollywood, she would have guessed he was a star of romantic movies.
Khan spotted Dowd and smiled.
“Hey, Peter, how are you doing?” he asked in a deep voice that had a trace of a Middle Eastern accent.
“Doing good, Yousef. And you’re looking well. This is Robin Lockwood, the lawyer I told you about. She’s flown down from Portland, Oregon. I’ll let her tell you why.”
Robin knew that physical contact wasn’t allowed, so she didn’t try to shake Yousef’s hand. Instead, she nodded and smiled.
“Thanks for agreeing to see me.”