Anne Frank still believed there was good in the world, even when her short life was at its darkest moment. And so must I. I have already had so much more than she, that if it is time for the quality of my life to be drastically altered, then I must accept that with grace. But I am still amazed, even in this dire place, at the tiny acts of kindness I see everywhere. The brief moments of consideration, of unselfishness, even in the grimmest of circumstances. Sharing food. Reading letters for those who cannot. Comforting the lost and forgotten. I know there is evil in the world, true palpable evil, in men, women-even in something as seemingly innocent as a young girl. But I also know there is great good. Perhaps its rarity is what makes it so special-and what ultimately gives us our greatest indication of the divine nature of the human spirit.

I still have my faith. And while I don’t think retaining that is any great act of courage, it is a comfort to me. I can sleep nights, sometimes, with the knowledge that regardless of what horrors I am forced to undergo-it is for a reason. I do believe that. I must believe that. Because if it were not so-life at this point would simply not be worth living. And I want to go on living. I want to believe. And so I shall.

The homily was finished, the anthem had been sung, and the new interim priest, Father Doner, had chanted and sung through the Sanctus and the Lord’s Prayer and the Agnus Dei. Soon it would be time for the choir to rise and take communion; they were always among the first to go, so they could be back in the choir loft singing while the congregation took theirs.

Ben wished his choir robe had pockets, but it didn’t. They wore big bulky Anglican-looking things, white shifts on a dark, full-length, bulky, hot and heavy gown-with no pockets. Who designed these, anyway? Probably some monk five hundred years ago, and people have irrationally been copying it ever since, even though it’s bulky, hot, heavy… et cetera. And had no pockets.

He had tried to concentrate on the homily, but his mind was elsewhere. In the courtroom, replaying his every move, wondering if he could’ve done something differently. Better. In the jailhouse, trying to bring comfort to the man who had brought so much to him, knowing that he had failed him. And at the juvenile detention center, burrowing into the minds of two young girls, trying to understand what to him was simply unknowable. It was too much for his puny brain. It was, as Father Beale would say, greater than him.

Is that why people turned to God? Ben wondered. When all was said and done, was it just the desire to make sense of it all, or to believe that someone, somewhere could make sense of it? He couldn’t say, but if that was it, he could sympathize.

But could he believe? That was the sticking point. He had seen too much, had known too intimately all the bad, the crooked, the grimy, the depraved, the flat-out evil that lurked in the world. He had seen the worst of everyone-even a beloved priest. And yet, it seemed clear to Ben now that Father Beale’s flaws did not make him a fraud-they made him a man. And humanity, with all its imperfections, was still capable of achieving greatness. And occasionally did.

The time had come. All around him, the rest of the choir rose to its feet, and before he really understood when or why, Ben rose also. He followed them as they filed down the nave and knelt with them at the altar rail.

“The body of Christ,” Father Doner said as he passed Ben the wafer. And Ben took it and ate it.

Did he believe? It was too hard a question to answer. But I want to believe, he thought, as he brought the silver chalice to his lips and sipped the wine. I want to believe. And for now, that’s enough.

Unfortunately, Father Beale’s fate in this novel is all too real. Actual Innocence, a book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jim Dwyer with Peter Neufeld and Barry Schreck, provides horrifying details about sixty-five convicts who were sent to prison or death row-after being convicted by a unanimous jury-before DNA testing produced stone-cold proof of their innocence. Unfortunately, even after these convicts’ guiltlessness was established, many of them were not freed, because under current appellate law, “actual innocence” is not necessarily grounds for release from prison. Worse, because post-conviction appeals have been sharply truncated, many innocent convicts found themselves without legal recourse before the DNA technology to exonerate them even existed. A recent report produced by Equal Justice USA, a project of the Hyattsville-based Quixote Center, found that sixteen men in seven states had been executed despite “compelling evidence of their innocence.” How does this happen? Eyewitnesses are often mistaken, snitches lie, confessions are coerced or fabricated, junk science is permitted, and lawyers fail. If all this is true, how many Father Beales must there be in our American prisons?

To help correct this injustice, lawyer Peter Neufeld has founded the pro bono Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. The Innocence Project is a nonprofit organization dedicated to using DNA evidence to seek releases in the hundreds of remaining cases of wrongly convicted persons. They have also proposed a bipartisan Innocence Protection Act, which would give inmates the right to DNA tests to prove their innocence and would require the preservation of evidence after conviction. There have been more than one hundred post-conviction exonerations based upon DNA evidence in the last few years-but there is still much work to be done. Persons wanting to know more about this endeavor can visit: http://www.cardozo.yu.edu/innocence_project/.

Once again, I want to thank my editor, Joe Blades, and my agents, Robert Gottlieb and Matt Bialer, for their guidance and support. I want to thank Arlene Joplin, my criminal law expert, and William McConnell, my Episcopal church expert, for reading and commenting on an early draft of the book. And I want to thank my family, Kirsten and Harry and Alice and Ralph, for keeping me relatively sane.

Readers are invited to E-mail me at: wb@williambernhardt.com. You can also visit my Web site and sign up for my E-mail newsletter: www.williambernhardt.com.

William Bernhardt is the author of many books, including Primary Justice, Double Jeopardy, Silent Justice, Murder One, Criminal Intent, and Death Row. He has twice won the Oklahoma Book Award for Best Fiction, and in 2000 he was presented the H. Louise Cobb Distinguished Author Award "in recognition of an outstanding body of work in which we understand ourselves and American society at large." A former trial attorney, Bernhardt has received several awards for his public service. He lives in Tulsa with his children, Harry, Alice, and Ralph.