Innocence On Trial Read online

  Published and distributed by Book Baby

  In association with Script Star Media

  Print ISBN: 978-1-54395-867-6

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-54395-868-3

  © 2019 Rick Bowers

  www.rickbowerslive.com

  All rights reserved.

  To Wynn, Neva, Helen, and Luke, with Joy.

  In the time it took to write this novel, 409 men and woman

  were exonerated of serious crimes in the U.S.

  Innocence on Trial is dedicated to them, and all of

  the imprisoned innocent.

  Table of Contents

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  1

  Eden, New York

  July 2, 2008

  3:17 AM

  Erin Lambert placed two hands on the precast concrete barrier of the pedestrian bridge that arched over the Genesee River.

  Erin had no doubt that the forty-foot drop would end her pain. The violent crush of flesh and bone on rock and water would break the grip of the street-grade OxyContin, acid-laced weed, cheap vodka, and uncaring men who had ruined it all. The plunge would also erase the shame of dancing nude for leeches and losers. Erin wondered whether her sister strippers at the Bottoms Up Gentleman’s Club would hold a wake for her using her stage name, “Breeze.”

  “My life is fucked,” she thought, watching the water swirled below. “Totally fucked.”

  At that moment, Erin heard the unwelcome sound of salvation coming in the form of tires on gravel. The engine stopped, the door opened, and footsteps snapped dried twigs and leaves. Tree frogs and cicadas screeched an alarm.

  “Go away.” Erin didn’t bother to look back to see who’d crashed her pity party. “Just leave me alone. Get it? Go.”

  No response.

  “For Christ’s sake.” She raised her voice even louder, her cry riding the jagged rocks that studded the shallows upriver. “What part of ‘get lost’ don’t you understand?”

  Still no response.

  Erin turned to confront the intruder. She saw the dark outline of a man moving toward her. His shadowy presence stepped onto the footbridge, taking long strides. In his black sweatshirt, slacks, gloves, and boots, the figure blended into the night like the reflection of the black oaks on the dark water. His eyes, however, cut through the darkness, glowing in the moonlight like those of a predator closing in on his prey.

  As the man approached, Erin opened her eyes so wide, her lids ached, straining to see if she could identify him. In the hazy moonlight, she could make out his face. The guy’s rigid bone structure and cold, deep-set eyes sent panic racing up and down her spine. In the dim light of the starry sky, she moved her gaze to his hands. The man twirled a steel pipe in his right hand and swung a coil of rope in his left. Her heart pounded, and her brain raced; fear paralyzed her arms and legs.

  “No!” she screamed. “Why?”

  He kept coming, picking up his pace.

  “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I am. I’m so sorry.”

  Her hunter laughed. His cold, deep voice said, “Too late now.”

  Her blood froze over.

  Although she’d contemplated death just moments before, Erin Lambert now wanted to go on living. “Don’t hurt me,” she gasped, registering the noose hanging at the end of the rope.

  She felt like one of those chiseled ice sculptures at a winter festival. Closing her eyes, she embraced the darkness, blacking out what she hoped was just a bad dream. When her eyes opened, however, there was no doubt that this was real. The intruder raised his right arm above his head and brought the tire iron down hard. The dull clunk echoed off the granite rock face.

  White-hot pain cascaded over the right side of Erin’s face, circled her skull, and spread through her head, neck, and shoulders. Her knees buckled. Her eyes rolled. She dropped the vodka jug she’d been slurping from and heard it shatter at her feet. She crumpled into a heap on the shards before curling herself into a ball at the base of the barrier. She felt another surge of pain as the black tire iron cracked against the other side of her skull. Now, she lay still, feigning death.

  “Wait.” Her mind raced. “What’s this?” Hope flickered. Erin spotted the vodka jug’s handle, still intact, and grabbed it, thrusting the jagged edge into the leg of her assailant. She heard a scream, followed by silence.

  “Now go.”

  No chance. The man’s muscular arms lifted her up and propped her against the barrier. His skilled and practiced hands dropped the noose over her head and snapped the slipknot tight. He pulled hard, squeezing the rope into her neck, cutting off her air supply.

  The man in black stepped back and wrapped the other end of the rope around a steel bar protruding from the concrete. Then, he lifted her limp body onto the top of the wall.

  “No!” Erin sucked in a lungful of air, summoning the strength to scream. “Please, no!”

  She saw him smile and heard him snicker.

  She felt his hands rest on her upper body.

  She watched him step back and set his feet.

  She felt him push.

  Erin experienced an instant of weightlessness as she plunged into the abyss.

  The rope unfurled and snapped tight.

  The cicadas and tree frogs went silent.

  2

  2019

  The crumbling ramparts. The spiral guard towers. The thirty-foot concrete wall.

  Squinting into the sun on a cloudless summer morning, Laura Tobias scanned the century-old, two-thousand-man, maximum security
prison. The Attica Correctional Facility in remote western New York looked like a medieval fortress rising from a barren moonscape.

  Attica, a rogues’ gallery of serial killers, gang leaders, pedophiles, and madmen.

  Attica, a state-run torture chamber for the depraved, deranged, detested, and diabolical.

  Attica, a monument to misery, misnamed a “correctional facility.”

  Attica, the scene of the infamous 1971 prison riot and takeover, and the merciless police siege that left thirty-nine inmates and hostages dead. Adding to the death toll were three inmates and one guard killed earlier in the revolt.

  Laura imagined what the scene must have been like on that fall morning, close to a half-century ago. The morning that six-hundred armed state troopers reclaimed the D-Block exercise yard the cons called “Central Park.” She could almost see the armored choppers raining tear gas on prisoners as they retreated under a hail of gunfire, and the police sharpshooters picking off the inmate ringleaders. She could almost hear the automatic weapons fire and the booming shotgun blasts tearing up convicts and hostages as the amplified command, “Surrender and you will not be harmed!” rolled over the living and the dead. She imagined state troopers firing at the cons, who wore football helmets and fought back with shivs, crude Molotov cocktails, and homemade spears.

  Laura crossed the asphalt parking lot and approached the prison entrance, which was flanked by the flags of the United States and the State of New York. She passed a granite marker bearing the names of the eleven guards killed in the ‘71 siege. Laura pictured the dead prisoners and hostages lined up on the pavement, as they had been after the ‘71 assault. The hardtop under her black ankle boots had once glittered with a thin sheet of crimson, and the humid air had once been beaded with red droplets.

  Fuck Attica.

  Laura Tobias was a woman of high ideals and personal secrets.

  The young lawyer looked up at the words, “Attica Correctional Facility,” etched in concrete above the arched entrance. Cracks in the grim façade cascaded in all directions like random slash wounds. Her gaze rose to the imposing turret and towering spire that made the place look like a castle. Disneyland for the doomed.

  Laura hated Attica. Dungeons like this, and the hopeless souls locked inside them, were among the reasons she’d become an exoneration lawyer in the first place. Torture chambers like Attica, and the miserable men locked inside them, were among the reasons she’d never stop fighting for the wronged innocents.

  Never.

  Laura knew what to expect inside the classic, old-style “Big House”: the mess hall rigged with automatic tear gas sprinklers; the howls of lunatics emanating from the Segregated Housing Unit the cons called “the Box”; the long, linear cell blocks linked by intersecting catwalks and tunnels; the stench of human waste and Lysol; the caged rage and choked fury. She also knew that inside those walls, beyond the guard towers and razor wire, beyond the spotlights and fences, beyond the guards and ghosts, she would find an innocent man.

  3

  Laura stepped down a razor-straight walkway to the brick Administration Building. She passed through a metal detector, then a lobby with shifting shadows, barred windows, and portraits of former prison administrators. She could almost feel the stares of the dead white men in the frames as she continued down the corridor, reaching an office door with a sign that read, “Registration—All Attorneys Sign In Here.”

  The young lawyer entered the office, stepped to the service counter, and addressed the corrections officer on duty. “Laura Tobias. I’m with the Council Against Wrongful Convictions.” She set her briefcase on the counter and opened it, extracting her Certificate of Good Standing from the New York State Office of Court Administration, and her business card from the Council Against Wrongful Convictions. She slid them to the CO.

  The short-haired, stocky, middle-aged guard examined the certificate and card before sliding them back to her. He picked up a clipboard and ran his finger down a list of names. He found hers with a rigid scowl. “What else is in the briefcase?”

  Laura turned the open case toward him for the requisite contraband search, saying, “I have a one-hour, non-contact visit with inmate Edward Thomas Nash. Lawyer-Client Interview Room Two.” She told him Nash’s inmate number, 00088417.

  The guard snapped like a pit bull whose kill switch had just gone off, “I know that. It’s right in front of me.” He slid her a sign-in sheet and took a step back.

  “Thank you, Officer…?”

  “Cox.” The CO tapped the name badge above the pocket of his starched shirt. “Jim Cox.”

  “Thank you, Officer Cox.”

  Cox’s demeanor screamed ex-military. No surprise there. Laura expected most of the guards to be cut from that particular block of granite. After all, honorably discharged military personnel were given hiring preference for jobs with the New York State Department of Corrections and Supervisory Services. In rural backwaters like the town of Attica, those DOCSS jobs were one of the few remaining routes to a middle-class lifestyle.

  The CO’s sneer seemed to be standard operating procedure. Prison staff always gave the impression they were dedicated to blocking lawyer-client visits. Laura’s request to meet her client had been delayed for weeks due to lost paperwork, sudden rule changes, bad communication, and incompetence. To put an end to the foot-dragging, she’d threatened a formal complaint. The whole rigmarole had made her more determined to see it through.

  Even if she had to break into prison to do so.

  Laura scribbled her name on the sign-in sheet and slid it back to Cox. She posed for a security photo and awaited instructions. After he collected her driver’s license, car keys, and wallet for safekeeping, Cox fiddled to get the photo into the plastic sleeve of the visitor’s badge. As he dallied, Laura studied a poster on the wall behind the CO:

  Dress Code for Female Visitors:

  No short skirts.

  No halter tops.

  No tight sweaters.

  No hats or headbands.

  No jewelry or watches.

  No green clothing of any kind.

  Laura hoped her thrift-store black jacket, long-sleeved, white cotton shirt, loose-cut black slacks, and black ankle boots would pass muster. Most of the time, her light brown hair hung loose to her shoulders and swayed with her steps. Today, it was washed, conditioned, moussed, and combed into neat conformity—the conservative look.

  Handing her the badge, Cox barked another command: “Take a seat on the bench against the wall. A block CO will be down to escort you to the visitation center.” Cox made no comment on her attire; his silence amounted to her passing muster on the prison dress code. Laura slid the sign-in sheet back to Cox, who sneered, turned his back, and walked to a file cabinet, ignoring her as he slipped papers into folders.

  Thank you for your excellent service, Officer Cox.

  Laura took a seat on the wooden bench and snapped open her briefcase. She’d never been in the place before, and she’d planned to read a report on Attica before her visit, but actual casework had gotten in the way. Figuring she was in for a wait, she pulled out the spiral-bound booklet bearing the logo of the Corrections Association of New York—an independent organization authorized by the state legislature to inspect and report on conditions of the state’s major penal institutions. She scanned the title: “Violence and Abuse of People Incarcerated at Attica C.F.” Reading the description put a lump in her throat:

  Attica Correctional Facility continues to operate as a real and symbolic epicenter of state violence and abuse in New York State prisons. The history of the 1971 Attica rebellion, and the state’s violent suppression of that rebellion, still infuse Attica’s walls and operations.

  Staff brutality, racism, and abuses of power remain pervasive at Attica, creating an overall environment of abuse and violence. Incarcerated persons reported frequent staff assaults, includi
ng punches, kicks, beating with batons, choking, smashing people’s heads against walls, and abusive searches.

  “Laura Tobias!” The block CO spat out her name like it was spiked with poison.

  “Here,” she shot back. “I’m Laura Tobias.”

  “Follow me.” The CO blurted the words through a tight smile. “You’re taking the Tour.”

  4

  Laura hustled her papers back into her briefcase and jumped up from the bench.

  “Move it,” the CO snarled with a mix of aggravation and arrogance. “Let’s go.”

  He smiled, shot a knowing look to Cox, and turned back to Laura.

  “You get the VIP tour,” he said. “Right this way.”

  “Tour?” She posed the question with a tilt of her head. “What kind of tour?”

  The CO smirked. “It’s just a short stroll through the cells, over the catwalk, and past the yards. The Grand Tour.”

  More bullshit, Laura thought. It was probably just a tactic used to intimidate overly aggressive lawyers. The guards probably shared a laugh over giving an attorney “the Tour.”

  Laura locked eyes with him and said, “Let’s go.”

  She read the name tag on the CO’s shirt: Mathew Brady. She made him out to be twenty-one, twenty-two at the most. Probably too young to be a vet. Must have gotten the job through family connections. His complexion was baby-smooth and pink as a peach, like a razor had never touched his delicate skin. In an odd contradiction, his barrel chest and iron frame had undoubtedly been forged by thousands of bench presses, and cases of steroids. Brady wore a black stab vest over his rock-hard body. He kept his head high and his stare inscrutable, and marched like the soldier he never was.

  Brady led her through the Administration Building Annex. She could see the entrance to A-Block at the end of the hall. The checkpoint was a steel door, rigged with an electronic operating system and guarded by a pair of officers. Lined up behind Officer Brady, Laura waited for an electric buzzer, passed through the metal detector, and emerged into the infamous prison.

  “Ugh.” She gagged on the rancid stench. “Shit!”

  Brady looked back with a half-smile, half-sneer. “Water shortage. No running water. It’ll be back up tonight.”