Free Wild Justice by Phillip Margolin Page B

you remember the McNab boy? Vaguely. I was in junior high school, wasn t I? Frank nodded. I fought that case and fought that case. He was convicted in the first trial. I cried after the verdict because I knew he was innocent. I wasn t experienced in handling death cases. I truly believed that the verdict was my fault. Guilt drove me, and I didn t stop until I d won the appeal and a new trial. The jury hung at the retrial. I couldn t sleep, I lost weight and I charged every moment that poor boy spent in jail to my soul. Then my investigator talked to Mario Rossi s mother. The snitch? Frank nodded. Rossi s testimony kept Terry McNab on death row for four years, but he confessed to his mother that he lied to get a deal for himself. When Rossi recanted, the prosecutor had to dismiss. Frank was silent for a moment. Amanda saw the color rise in his cheeks and his eyes water. When he spoke again, Amanda heard his voice catch. I can still remember that afternoon. We ended the hearing around four, and Terry s father and mother and I had to wait another hour for Terry to be processed out of jail. Terry looked stunned when he stepped outside. It was February and the sun had gone down, but the air was clear and crisp. When he stood on the steps of the jail Terry looked up at the stars. He just stood there, looking up. Then he took a deep breath. My plane didn t leave until the morning, so I was staying at a motel on the edge of town. Terry s folks invited me to dinner, but I begged off. I knew they were just being polite and that the family would much rather be alone. Besides, I was wrecked. I d left everything in the courtroom. Frank paused again. Do you know the thing I remember most about that day? It was the way I felt when I entered my motel room. I hadn t been alone until then, and the enormousness of what I had done had not sunk in. Four and a half years of fighting to do the right thing, the lost sleep, the tears and the frustration . . . I closed the door behind me and I stood in the middle of my motel room. I suddenly understood that it was over: I had won, and Terry would never have to spend another moment caged up. Amanda, I swear my soul rose out of my body at that moment. I closed my eyes and tilted my head back and felt my soul rise right up to the ceiling. It was only a moment, and then I was back on earth, but that feeling made every moment of those horrible four years worthwhile. You don t get that feeling doing anything else. Amanda remembered how she had felt when she heard Not guilty in LaTricia Sweet s case. It had been so heady to win, especially when she hadn t thought she would. Then Amanda remembered what she had seen on the tape, and she realized that there was no comparison between LaTricia Sweet s case and the murder of Mary Sandowski. LaTricia wasn t hurting anyone but herself. No one had to fear her after she was set free. It would be totally different to help free the person who tortured Mary Sandowski. Amanda had no doubt that her father meant what he had said. What she didn t know was whether she believed that the chance to save a few deserving people would ever be enough compensation for representing a monster who could coldly and cruelly cut the nipple off a screaming human being.
    14 Bobby Vasquez parked in his assigned spot in the lot of his low-rent garden apartment. On one side of the complex was the interstate and on the other a strip mall. Truth was, between the IRS and his child support payments, this was the best he could afford. There were two rows of mailboxes near the parking spot. Vasquez collected his mail and thumbed through it while he climbed the stairs to his second-floor apartment. Ads and bills. What did he expect? Who would write him? Vasquez opened his door and flipped on the light. The furniture in the living room was secondhand and covered by a thin layer of dust. Sections of a three-day-old Oregonian littered the floor, the threadbare couch and one end of a low plywood coffee