admissions people wouldn’t appreciate snail mail. She figured if Crane paper was good enough for the U.S. Treasury, it was good enough for the FLS Admissions Office. Her upstart attitude again. A paperwork rebel, a bureaucratic maverick.
“Vanderbilt alumna I see. Justice major. You from Tennessee?”
She got the uncanny impression he already knew all of this, had already memorized her resume, researched her life, knew her inside and out, her paper-thin self.
“No, born and raised in Appomattox, Virginia. Stone’s throw from the original courthouse. It burned down. Lots of history there.”
The Judge didn’t pursue any of that history, maybe didn’t care.
“Same with your husband?”
She found the question strangely out of place, cordial yet personal, and was more than a little tempted to change the subject altogether. Steer it toward the Gatekeeper, the woman whose life had 27 days left to run before 50 cc’s of potassium chloride stopped her heart. It was common knowledge around campus that the Judge had recently—and rather nastily—divorced his wife Sheila. Plenty of allegations of infidelity on both sides. Grist for the rumor mill—but his notoriety made the rumors richly deserved.
Zora was a nobody, her private life still sacred. She answered and then steered.
“I’m not married, Judge Ras. Never have been.”
That just popped out of her—a dig at his divorce, retaliation for the question. Upstart. A pair of judicial eyebrows furrowed.
“Right now I’m too dedicated to my studies, and”—suggestive cough—“trying to get the death penalty abolished.”
Which was, after all, the whole point of the LORD Project. If the LORD activists couldn’t halt the needles, and the occasional 2500-volt jolt of electricity, they’d chip away at the edifice of official death one convict at a time. Mainly through exculpatory DNA evidence. Wouldn’t work for the Gatekeeper—her DNA had been all over the crime scene, smothering the body parts she hoarded. How the hell Zora was supposed to get her off the hook was anyone’s guess.
The Judge took the hint, steered back toward the condemned.
“I’d like you to prepare a clemency plea for Dorothy. I’ll send it directly to the White House. They know it’s coming, in fact I’ve spoken to President Heath about it. She went to Founders, you know.”
Rebecca Heath had gone to Founders? Zora had no inkling of that, but politics really weren’t her thing. She hadn’t even voted for President Heath, hadn’t voted at all in the last election. Not something she wanted to admit to Judge Ras. Where Heath had matriculated didn’t surprise Zora—it might not have been Harvard or Stanford Law, but FLS put Texas on the map for more than just steaks and sweet crude. Higher-ranked than UT-Austin, and that was saying a lot.
What did surprise her, really startled her, was how the Judge had referred to the Gatekeeper as Dorothy . As though they were old chums. For one of his law students, an upstanding citizen and upwardly-mobile woman, a future who’s who of American lawyers, he waxed formal. For a serial killer in the deepest hell-hole of the American penitentiary system, buddy-buddy. Strange. Perverse.
“I think I heard about that. But how am I going to prepare a clemency plea? I’m just a 1L and I really know very little about the Gate—about Dorothy’s case.”
The Judge became more animated, signs of growing passion in his demeanor. The zeal of the personal.
“That’s exactly the point, Ms. Bright, you’re an eager young mind, passionate about the law, you can bring an idealist’s point of view to the plea. I know Heath would respond well to that. And the media would eat it up.”
“Honestly I don’t think I could bring anything to the plea. Of course I’d like to help but . . .”
“You’re going to meet Dorothy, Ms. Bright. End of discussion. I’ve already arranged the date and time. Next Monday, 10 o’clock. Sharp. In lieu of coming
“Vanderbilt alumna I see. Justice major. You from Tennessee?”
She got the uncanny impression he already knew all of this, had already memorized her resume, researched her life, knew her inside and out, her paper-thin self.
“No, born and raised in Appomattox, Virginia. Stone’s throw from the original courthouse. It burned down. Lots of history there.”
The Judge didn’t pursue any of that history, maybe didn’t care.
“Same with your husband?”
She found the question strangely out of place, cordial yet personal, and was more than a little tempted to change the subject altogether. Steer it toward the Gatekeeper, the woman whose life had 27 days left to run before 50 cc’s of potassium chloride stopped her heart. It was common knowledge around campus that the Judge had recently—and rather nastily—divorced his wife Sheila. Plenty of allegations of infidelity on both sides. Grist for the rumor mill—but his notoriety made the rumors richly deserved.
Zora was a nobody, her private life still sacred. She answered and then steered.
“I’m not married, Judge Ras. Never have been.”
That just popped out of her—a dig at his divorce, retaliation for the question. Upstart. A pair of judicial eyebrows furrowed.
“Right now I’m too dedicated to my studies, and”—suggestive cough—“trying to get the death penalty abolished.”
Which was, after all, the whole point of the LORD Project. If the LORD activists couldn’t halt the needles, and the occasional 2500-volt jolt of electricity, they’d chip away at the edifice of official death one convict at a time. Mainly through exculpatory DNA evidence. Wouldn’t work for the Gatekeeper—her DNA had been all over the crime scene, smothering the body parts she hoarded. How the hell Zora was supposed to get her off the hook was anyone’s guess.
The Judge took the hint, steered back toward the condemned.
“I’d like you to prepare a clemency plea for Dorothy. I’ll send it directly to the White House. They know it’s coming, in fact I’ve spoken to President Heath about it. She went to Founders, you know.”
Rebecca Heath had gone to Founders? Zora had no inkling of that, but politics really weren’t her thing. She hadn’t even voted for President Heath, hadn’t voted at all in the last election. Not something she wanted to admit to Judge Ras. Where Heath had matriculated didn’t surprise Zora—it might not have been Harvard or Stanford Law, but FLS put Texas on the map for more than just steaks and sweet crude. Higher-ranked than UT-Austin, and that was saying a lot.
What did surprise her, really startled her, was how the Judge had referred to the Gatekeeper as Dorothy . As though they were old chums. For one of his law students, an upstanding citizen and upwardly-mobile woman, a future who’s who of American lawyers, he waxed formal. For a serial killer in the deepest hell-hole of the American penitentiary system, buddy-buddy. Strange. Perverse.
“I think I heard about that. But how am I going to prepare a clemency plea? I’m just a 1L and I really know very little about the Gate—about Dorothy’s case.”
The Judge became more animated, signs of growing passion in his demeanor. The zeal of the personal.
“That’s exactly the point, Ms. Bright, you’re an eager young mind, passionate about the law, you can bring an idealist’s point of view to the plea. I know Heath would respond well to that. And the media would eat it up.”
“Honestly I don’t think I could bring anything to the plea. Of course I’d like to help but . . .”
“You’re going to meet Dorothy, Ms. Bright. End of discussion. I’ve already arranged the date and time. Next Monday, 10 o’clock. Sharp. In lieu of coming
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