But he was also seeing his sister, for the first time in twenty-eight years.

He pulled up a chair and sat, his trembling hands in his lap. “Hi,” he said awkwardly, unsure of himself. Then he leaned closer to her ear. “Hi, Patricia.”

I winced. Sammy was calling his sister by the name she’d known almost her entire life, the one given to her by the Butchers. If she survived the kidney transplant, she’d have plenty of time to learn the story. For now, she was Patricia.

“I don’t know if you can hear me,” he said. “This probably doesn’t make sense to you, but I’ve missed you. I’ve thought about you—”

It came at once, the emotion, closing off his throat. His chest spasmed. Tears began to streak down his face. He touched her hand and then took it in his, stroking it. “You’re gonna be—you’re gonna be okay now,” he whispered. “You’re gonna be okay now.”

“TIME SERVED,” I said. “First of all, he didn’t do it. Second of all, let’s let this poor guy be with his sister.”

Judge Kathleen Poker, sitting in her high-backed leather chair in chambers, was receptive to my plea, particularly in light of recent media interest in the case. Sammy was being bathed in a sympathetic light, and no one was feeling sorry for a child predator who had killed four children and molested countless others. That had been another benefit of the media intensity over the last week and a half—the state police had expedited the DNA testing and confirmed that Griffin Perlini had raped each of the four girls found buried behind Hardigan Elementary School.

I had a child killer for a victim and an aggrieved man recently reunited with his abducted sister for a defendant.

The judge made a steeple with her hands, touching them to her lips. “Yes, I notice there was no diminished-capacity defense. Your client maintains he didn’t do it?”

“Yes, Your Honor. In fact, we think we know who did. We named him on the witness list. Archie Novotny. His daughter was molested by Griffin Perlini. He has the same jacket, and the same green stocking cap, that witnesses confirmed the killer was wearing. And he has no alibi for that night.”

The judge’s eyes shifted to Lester Mapp, the prosecutor. “Judge, look. We don’t want to bury this guy. We don’t—we don’t need that. But we can’t give this guy a pass, either.”

“And what about this Novotny person?” the judge asked.

Mapp let out a sigh. “We haven’t been able to speak with him yet, Judge. He won’t talk to us.”

The judge looked at the prosecutor with curiosity. “That’s called obstruction, isn’t it?”

“Not if you’re taking Five,” I interjected.

“Ah.” The judge nodded. “He’s invoked his rights.”

“Yeah, that should play out well at trial,” I noted.

“We think we’ll be giving him immunity, Judge.” Lester Mapp was generally displeased with the state of affairs and, of late, no doubt, with his assignment to this case in the first place.

“He thinks,” I said. “He thinks he’ll give Novotny immunity. He says he thinks because he’s not sure that Novotny didn’t commit this crime, and he wants to be careful what he wishes for.”

“I understand, I understand.” The judge raised a hand. “Mr. Mapp, where is the state on a plea?”

“We offered ten, Judge.”

She thought about that. “Mr. Kolarich, can I assume you’ll be asking for an instruction on involuntary?”

“I certainly will, Judge.” When a defendant is charged with a crime like first-degree murder, a defendant can ask that the jury be instructed on a lesser-included offense, which here would include involuntary manslaughter. It’s up to the judge, but if the court believes that the evidence warrants a finding on a lesser-included offense, she can give that option to the jury.

The nice thing about involuntary manslaughter is that the judge can impose a sentence down to probation. Everyone in the room knew what she was doing. She was telling Lester Mapp that she could drop the sentence well below the ten years he was seeking.

“Give us a minute, Counsel,” the judge said to me. It was common for judges to conduct pretrials with each lawyer separately, provided all sides agreed to such ex parte communications.

I went into the courtroom and sat. In the last couple of weeks, I had slowly recovered sleep. I hadn’t done any legal work except for Sammy. I’d spent a lot of time with my brother, whose newly buffered bank account, courtesy of Raymond “Smith” Hertzberg, had given him the freedom to decide to return to school for a master’s degree.

Sammy was going under tomorrow for the kidney transplant. He’d left me with the same instructions as he had earlier. He could take a twelve-year sentence, he’d prefer eight. So I was going a little off the reservation here, but I didn’t see what interest of justice was served by putting Sammy Cutler behind bars for several years. The way I saw it, Griffin Perlini probably would have returned to his old ways had Sammy not performed a community service by shooting him.

About twenty minutes later, Lester Mapp passed the torch to me. He sat in the courtroom as I returned to the judge’s chambers.

“Involuntary and four years,” said the judge. “Your client already has one in. He’s looking at about another year.”

Half of which would be spent at a halfway house on his way out of the system. God bless the severely overcrowded state prison system.

“I have authority for three,” I said, taking my best shot.

“No, four’s the best you’re going to do.” She threw up her hands. “Four it is, Mr. Kolarich. Take it or leave it.”

I thought about Sammy’s willingness to take twelve. I thought about our scapegoat, Archie Novotny. I thought about all the ways this could go south. I was relatively sure that I didn’t want the prosecution to take a long, hard look at Novotny.

“We’ll take four,” I said.

63

I THOUGHT WE TALKED about eight,” Sammy said from his hospital bed.

“We did. But you have remarkably able counsel. I got you four.” I pointed to the door. “I can go back and offer to double it, if you’d like.”

Sammy smiled and laughed. “No, four sounds pretty good.”

Sammy was in pre-op, getting ready for tomorrow’s transplant surgery.

“Hey, just to ask,” he said. “You think we would’ve won the case?”

I made a face. “I would’ve used Archie Novotny to make sure the jury knew that the dead guy was a child molester. It was possible, right there, that they’d acquit. But other than that, I don’t know, Sammy. They had a strong case.” I paused, then added, “I don’t think Archie Novotny would’ve held up under scrutiny.”

Sammy didn’t look at me. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, he was pretty clever, but maybe too clever by half. It was nice of him to leave the closet by his front door open when I came to visit, and even nicer of him to have that bomber jacket and green stocking cap prominently displayed for me.”

Sammy didn’t answer.

“Nicer still,” I added, “that the murder happened on a Thursday night, when Archie would normally have a guitar lesson which he conspicuously missed. I mean, he even went so far as to write a note on his check to the guitar instructor, in case anyone might forget that he missed his lesson on that fateful night.”

Sammy shook his head, fighting a smile. A shade of rose colored his cheeks.

“Let me guess,” I continued. “If we went to trial, Archie would have pleaded the Fifth, leaving me to shit all over him in front of the jury and getting us a long way toward reasonable doubt. And if the prosecutor gave him immunity, Novotny would have grudgingly admitted that he missed his guitar lesson that night but he’d say he didn’t remember where he was that night. He’d deny murdering Perlini, but it wouldn’t have been a convincing denial. Right so far?”