Help Me Nora

1 Nora Dockson

1 Nora DocksonNora hadn’t cried over a judge’s decision since she was eighteen years old.

She hadn’t wept in court today when the judge sent Gus back to Washington State Penitentiary with a new date for lethal injection.

But hours later, when she entered Channing Palmer’s Spokane townhouse and her best friend wrapped her in a consoling hug, the sympathy ambushed her.

She couldn’t choke back her tears.

Channing smoothed her hair and muttered, “Spineless judge.”

“Gutless shithead,” was what she tried to respond, but the words came out garbled.

From the back of the house came the sleigh bell sound of ice tinkling against crystal and high-spirited laughter. The stereo blared “Frosty the Snowman”.

Channing’s great room had to be jammed with colleagues from the Legal Resource Center and friends from the public defense offices—all bubbly with holiday booze and idealism. Revering The Law as though it were a sacred totem.

The f*****g Law.

She pulled free from Channing’s embrace, hunched her shoulders, and headed up the staircase. She smelled the piney scent from evergreens draping the bannister.

She heard Channing call to her husband Clayton, putting him in charge of answering the door. The light tap of footsteps behind her on the uncarpeted stairs told her Channing was following.

Nora dropped her parka on the master bedroom floor and collapsed on the canopied double bed.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” Channing said, sinking onto the quilted coverlet. “Not after what happened in Hammond County this afternoon.”

“Don’t worry,” Nora murmured. “I won’t go down and spoil the holiday mood.”

She sat up, grabbed a tissue from the box on the bedside table, blew her nose. She raised both hands to push ginger curls off her forehead.

“I’m not looking for someone to cheer me up. This setback means I have to concentrate on Gus. I don’t have time for anything else. I need to let Quinn know.”

“He’s not here yet.”

Channing plucked a pack of cigarillos from where they nestled next to the bedside ashtray.

“I talked to him right after you called,” Channing said. “He wants me to drop everything I’m doing and rewrite the brief you drafted for Gus.”

“Of course it has to be revised,” Nora stuffed down her irritation. She was pissed at Quinn, not her friend. She could write a decent brief.

She fumbled in her purse for her own cigarettes and lighter and lit both their smokes. “I know Gus’s case better than you. I’ll do it.”

Heavy footsteps on the stairs signaled somebody coming, and seconds later Quinn’s solid form filled the bedroom doorway.

Dark hair fanned out across his shoulders. He stepped into the room, sniff-testing the air—the reformed pack-a-day man getting a secondhand fix.

“They told me I’d find you two up here,” Quinn said. “Nora, I need you digging into the Jared Nelson files full-time.”

She was off the bed and on her feet.

“I won’t quit Gus.”

“I’m not pulling you off his case,” he said. “But I have to keep you as co-counsel for Jared. Channing will fix your brief. She breezes through the constitutional issues faster than anyone else at the Center.”

“Gus’s case is at a critical point.” Nora hardened her voice. “I need to move fast and hit hard. I can’t live with myself if I drop him now.”

“But now is when I need you.” Quinn paused and when he resumed, any trace of pleading was gone from his tone. “You saying you can abandon Jared and live with yourself?”

“I made a good start reviewing the evidence in his case. Let me concentrate on Gus for two more weeks. I know I can find a way to beef up my arguments.”

“Sorry,” Quinn shot back. “Jared’s deadline is only sixteen days away. You have to find me something I can use.”

She tried once more.

“Nobody I need to talk to for Jared will be available over the holidays. I can’t do any serious investigating until after New Year’s. At least give me till then to come up with a new angle for Gus. As his lawyer, I owe him that.”

Quinn’s eyes narrowed as though reckoning her height.

She straightened her backbone, standing her tallest. Determined to measure up.

Channing was standing, too, her gaze flickering between them.

Quinn sighed in surrender.

“Until New Year’s. After that, you’re on Jared only. And whatever you do for Gus better not have blowback. We don’t have enough manpower as it is. I can’t afford to lose any funding.”

She widened her eyes.

“I’m at war on behalf of the wrongfully condemned. So—I’m not supposed to piss anybody off?”

“Don’t piss me off,” he growled and turned toward the door.

“Merry Christmas,” she called in the direction of his back.

He grunted acknowledgement and disappeared down the stairs.

She lifted her clenched fist in a victory salute.

Channing pulled it down.

“Not your smartest move,” she told her. “You’ll be working through the holiday. You said you were going to spend Christmas with your grandmother.”

“If I get right to work, maybe I still can.”

Nora reached for her purse and pulled out her cell while explaining.

“I’ve been playing phone tag all week with a cop. He mentioned me to a couple of people. Said he’s got the inside dope on one of my clients. He could mean Gus. Maybe I can catch him tonight. Name’s Harper.”

“A State Trooper? Kent Harper?” Channing made the same face she did when she smelled milk gone sour. “I know him. A hundred percent cop. Hates us. He’ll screw a defense lawyer any way he can.”

“I’d meet with the devil if he’d help me get Gus out.”

She searched her contact numbers.

“Harper’s twisted.” Channing sounded worried. “He’d enjoy trashing your rep.”

Channing’s warning made her squirm but she kept her tone light. “Worth the risk. Maybe he has what I need.”

“Not much chance you’ll stay focused long enough to get it out of him,” Channing remarked. Her expression grew knowing. “His ass will be a major distraction.”

Holding the phone to her ear, Nora shushed her friend and made a date with the trooper. They’d meet in half an hour at a bar around the corner from her apartment.

She grinned at Channing.

“I’ve seen Harper only once, from a distance. And only from the front. You’re saying he has a nice ass?”

“Forget Harper.” Channing shook a warning finger at her.

“He’s too much like the sorry losers you fell into bed with during your shameless youth.”

“I only told you those stories to show I saw the error of my ways. I made a vow. I won’t hook up with another good-lookin’ bad boy.”

“For sure, you don’t want a bad-boy cop.”

Nora drove to the close-to-campus apartment she’d begun renting while still in law school. She parked the Buick in her assigned slot and hurried on foot through the freezing twilight to the Cooler Tavern.

By half past six, she was seated in a booth, a pint of draft beer and a bowl of popcorn in front of her.

She was relieved to find not a single pine bough, holly branch, or red-nose-flashing stuffed reindeer in sight. No Christmas scents had invaded the place either. The pervading odor of fresh popcorn reigned unchallenged.

Her stomach was reminding her she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She’d had no appetite after the prison van rolled away, hauling Gus back to Walla Walla and death row. But now she was on track again, working hard on his behalf.

Ravenous, she emptied the popcorn bowl, savoring the salty flavor. Wiping butter off her fingers with a napkin, she spotted Harper coming through the front entrance. He slipped off his parka, turning to hang it on the coatrack. His plaid shirt was tucked into jeans.

Definitely a nice ass. And good shoulders.

Harper waved to her before heading to the bar. A couple of minutes later, toting his own pint, he slid into the seat across from her.

His blond hair was buzzed shorter than she liked and he’d slapped on too much cologne.

Still, she’d interviewed less appealing sources.

She pulled out her cell and turned it off. Tonight’s work might turn out to be fun. She didn’t want any interruptions.

They small-talked while working their way down the beer.

Harper seemed interested to learn she’d spent a good part of her life in a small Oregon town near Pendleton. He insisted that, with her twang, she must have been a barrel-racer at the town’s famous Round-Up.

She admitted to liking horses, but confessed she’d never done any rodeo-ing.

He’d grown up on a Central Washington wheat farm, she discovered.

“Not too far from where you were this morning,” he said.

Registering her surprised look, he laughed. “Judge’s classy phrasing got back to Spokane before you did.”

As she’d hoped, Harper wanted to talk about Gus.

“You been following the Gustavo Ochoa case?” she asked.

“Not really.” His expression was amiable. “Maybe you could fill me in?”

“You know the crime, right? Somebody battered a sixty-six-year old widow to death in Sweet Home eighteen years ago?”

He nodded.

She added, “Today, I was trying to get the judge to agree that the murder investigation was bungled. Cops were called after the man living next door found her body stuffed in an upstairs closet.”

Harper broke in. “This neighbor was an instant suspect, right?”

“Wrong. He was a respected citizen. The cops actually let him into the house to tidy up before they got an arrest warrant.”

Harper grimaced in disbelief. “He got to roam through the crime scene unescorted?”

“Unbelievably, yes. Other neighbors hinted to investigators going door to door that this guy, Timothy Randall, was bonking the victim. Years later, I interviewed several of them. They told me the same story.”

“And that was?” Harper asked.

“Timothy Randall’s wife didn’t drink alcohol. He liked to slip next door to the widow lady’s for afternoon cocktails.”

“And other afternoon delights.” Harper snickered knowingly.

“He’s dead or I’d put him on the stand and make him admit it.”

Harper was paying close attention. Clearly, the case interested him.

She added the kicker.

“Timothy Randall helpfully pointed the cops toward a suspect.”

“Aha!” Harper sounded gleeful. “Bet you’re going to tell me he named Gustavo Ochoa.”

“Bingo. Randall remembered Gus shoveled snow for the victim. Cops found her canceled checks. One written to Gus was cashed a month earlier. And they pulled a single fingerprint on her door frame that matched his.”

“So your client had a police record.”

Harper’s tone had gone flat, all jaded cop.

“It was for one charge of domestic violence. When he and his girlfriend argued, she’d get mad and call the police. He says he never hit her. She dropped the charges twice. Third time, she swore out a warrant and he was arrested and printed. He paid the forty-buck fine and moved back in with her. But the cops who got the print match made the leap from possible slapping to probable murder.”

Harper grunted.

“He was in the system for hitting a woman. His print was in the house of a female murder victim. You said this happened in Sweet Home in the nineties?”

He registered her nod and continued. “A lot of violent crime originated in Sweet Home’s Latino community back then. The local force had to look at him. But one print? One canceled check?”

Harper shook his head. “Not enough for an arrest warrant.”

“Pretty flimsy,” she agreed.

“Especially as they found two other sets of prints at the scene that didn’t match the victim or Gus. The cops never identified who left them. They just picked up Gus. Three months later he was on trial for murder.”

“Found guilty, obviously.” Harper smiled. “You being a death penalty appeal lawyer.”

“His court-appointed lawyers didn’t put up a real defense.”

“But he’s not dead,” Harper noted. “So his lawyers must’ve appealed.”

“They did. Luckily, the attorney appointed to handle the appeal was sharper than they’d been.”

She took a deep breath before going into the legalese.

Harper cut her off.

“The appeal lawyer focused on a technicality. Won a new trial. Your man was found guilty again.”

Harper swallowed beer and leaned back in his chair. “But that must’ve taken place more than fifteen years ago. How did this old case end up in your lap?”

“When I was a student at Spokane University School of Law, I interned two summers at the Center. The coordinator handed me Gus’s file and I got hooked. I buried myself in it. Visited him at the prison. Spent time with his mother and sister. Talked to witnesses. After I graduated and passed the bar exam, I was hired as a permanent Center employee.”

“Specializing in Gustavo Ochoa,” Harper said. “Sounds like you’ve grown attached to him.”

“I’ve known Gus for seven years. He’s gentle and honest. I can’t imagine him killing anyone. The more I learn about his case, the more convinced I am that he didn’t murder that woman.”

She paused for another sip of beer.

“When I applied for post-conviction relief,” she continued, “my co-counsel and I blew several big holes in the prosecution case. Hearing was before Judge Bennett. Same judge I had today. He wrote in his opinion that Gus might not be guilty. But he refused to grant him a third trial.”

“’Course not,” Harper said. “Judge has to run for re-election every four years. He’s not going to tell twenty-four registered voters who served on the first two juries that they wasted their time. Much better for him if the appellate division takes the heat.”

“That’s where we’re headed. The State Supremes agreed to hear the appeal. I got a court order transferring the most important exhibits to Olympia, so they’d be available to the justices. And that’s when the county clerk tells me he can’t locate a glass slide. Supposedly, it contained a fiber removed from the victim’s body. When I recovered the exhibit, I could tell it was a hair.”

“My, my,” Harper mused. “Misplaced and mislabeled evidence. How careless.”

“Careless my ass.”

Lifting her pint, she drained it and felt the alcohol loosening her up.

Eyeing Harper, she recalled her conversation with Channing. Best not to get too loose with him. Especially when he wasn’t giving her anything helpful.

Before she could use her empty glass as an excuse to end the evening, he was on his feet. He headed for the bar with both their glasses. When he set the refilled pints on the table, she reached for hers.

“Thanks.”

He grinned. “Long story. Thirsty work.”

He was right. Her mouth had gone dry from all the talking. Lifting her glass, she swallowed deeply. “Short version is the forensic scientist who prepared the slide testified in both trials that he’d passed it on to the local cops. They claimed they never got it. Three months ago, the forensic guy discovered it in another file in his office.”

She emphasized “discovered” as if the word had quotes around it.

“And that made you suspicious.”

“The hair was blond. Of course it hadn’t come from a brown man. I arranged for an expert to analyze it. Test showed it hadn’t come from the victim, either. Damn, a foreign pubic hair on her body.”

Harper’s eyebrows rose. “You’re saying the hair wasn’t introduced into evidence at the original trial?”

“Not by the prosecution and not by the defense. Completely unacceptable. I figured the state appellate lawyer handling the case would agree to re-try the case. She didn’t.”

“She?” Harper’s brow wrinkled. “You mean Marianne Freemantle?”

“You know her?”

“Seen her in court.”

“Makes two of us.”

She stopped herself from saying more. Harper didn’t need to hear how much she hated the woman. “So I went back to Judge Bennett. Who said—”

Harper interrupted. “‘One pubic hair is not enough.’ And I agree. It isn’t. You haven’t shown it came from a viable suspect.”

She opened her mouth to protest.

Harper held up both hands, palms out, to stop her.

“You clearly believe the neighbor killed the old woman. You tie that hair and those fingerprints to him, you’ll get a new trial and you’ll get your client off.”

“Great idea.” She puffed air between her lips to add a derisive sound.

“Except for him being dead and buried.”

“So exhume him,” he retorted. “Get his DNA. Take his prints.”

Damn, Harper was twisted.

She hadn’t considered digging up the dead to free Gus.

“I’m glad I called you,” she told Harper. “Your suggestion isn’t what I expected to hear. But it’s a good one. I’ll think it over.”

“Not what I expected to say, either, since that remark by the judge today is the most I’ve heard about Gustavo Ochoa’s case.”

Harper leaned back and pushed his empty mug to one side.

“The only client of yours I’m familiar with is Jared Nelson,” he said.

He’d named Quinn’s life imprisonment appeal client.

She struggled to wrench her mind away from Gus.

“You thought I wanted your views on Jared?”

“The most cold-blooded criminal I’ve ever encountered,” Harper said.

Her brain refused to absorb the switch.

“I’m not Jared’s lead attorney.” She shifted in her seat and added, “I’m not that familiar with his case.”

Undeterred, Harper continued. “His wife testified that he attacked and raped her. Yet he calmly repeats that he wasn’t home. How can Jared Nelson expect anyone to believe his own wife didn’t recognize him?”

He looked at her expectantly.

As if she’d reveal Quinn’s strategy for the case. Or more accurately, his lack of one. She made a show of checking her watch. Seven-thirty. “Sorry, I have to cut this conversation short.”

Standing, she added, “Thanks again for the advice and the beer. And Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.”

Harper stood, too.

She bumped into him twice as they struggled into their coats. Beer made her clumsy. Might also make her talk too much.

Playing it safe, she declined Harper’s offer to drive her home.

They parted at the exit and he grinned at her.

“You have a Happy New Year, Little Buckaroo.”

She couldn’t help giggling.

“You, too, Farm Boy.”

Buoyed by the beer, the new idea for Gus, and the plain silliness of imagining riding in the Pendleton Round-Up, she walked briskly home alone along frozen sidewalks. Collecting her briefcase from the Buick, she climbed the exterior staircase to the covered walkway fronting her apartment.

Her front door opened directly into a single box-shaped room, flanked along the right-hand wall by a tiny kitchen, walk-in closet, and bathroom. Small, but hers.

She’d raced off to Hammond County this morning, leaving the sleeper sofa unfolded. The homemade quilt with the not-quite-right sunbonnet-girl pattern welcomed her back.

She’d repainted the walls three times since moving in. They shone glossy white, a pristine backdrop for her “prison art,” drawings sent by grateful clients who had no other gifts to give her.

Gus’s colored-pencil sketch of a family picnic held pride of place. On it, bright sun shone in an azure sky. Small figures spread across a grassy meadow, clustering under willows, wading in the stream. He’d filled the paper with tiny, intricate details. At the center, he’d placed himself, his family, and her.

She was flanked by his sturdy white-haired mother Luisa and his graying older half-sister Yvonne. His lawyer—his carrot-topped Nora—burned like a flame in that hopeful future landscape.

Her first case, Gus had been part of her life for seven years. He was more than a client—he mattered. And he was innocent. She was certain of that.

She’d do everything in her power to set him free.

Emptying her pockets as she undressed for bed, she remembered to turn her cell back on and found she’d missed one call.

She recognized the number. It belonged to the phone used by inmates at Oregon’s correctional facility for women.

The automated message in her voice mail intoned the name of her caller in two different voices: “Winifred. Yates.”

Uneasy, she drummed her fingers on the bedside table. She’d made her pre-Christmas visit to Winnie last weekend. What had come up in the past seven days that was too urgent to crawl past the censors in email or a letter?