The officers took him to the nearby station and started workingon him. Two weeks later, he was a piece of tenderized meat, and his confession was allowed in court. His exhausted public defender was not permitted to postpone the trial, and Mitchell was soon convicted by an all-white jury, while people outside marched for his death.
If that had been all it was, there was a chance, even in this unjust nation, that his case could have been overturned on appeal.
But there was other evidence. A bloody handprint had been found on the side of his truck. Photos were taken of the print, but the truck itself was long gone. Mitchell was said to have had blood on his clothing as well. The police lab technician testified that the blood came from the victim, but the clothing and lab reports and photo of the handprint were later lost, or stolen. Accounts of just what had happened to the evidence varied. At any rate, none of it existed anymore.
In his—most likely forced—confession, Mitchell said he recalled dragging Betty into the woods but had blacked out after that. Police combed the woods, and dredged the nearby creek. They brought in bloodhounds, but they found no trace of Betty.
Georgia was pocked with rivers and streams, deep holes where the water made caves, and old mines with forbidden entries. There were plenty of places to hide a corpse.
It was very quiet on the abandoned road. Ruby felt her stomach tighten. She didn’t have much time.
The next morning, she met Mitchell’s attorney in a café near the capital defender’s office in downtown Atlanta. He was a tall, slender Black man wearing a Morehouse pin.
“I’m not sure an investigator is what you need now,” she said.
“What do I need?” The café was warm and cozy, with bright green booths and small tables.
“A miracle.”
He smiled wryly, but there was no pleasure in it. He had ordered a breakfast sandwich, and she followed suit. The crowd was young and diverse. In Oregon, where she had started her career, most of the diversity was in the cities.
Ruby tackled her sandwich. It was tasty, but she lost her appetite at the beginning of every case. He glanced at her, thinking she had an incomplete air about her. Her clothing looked like an afterthought; her pale face was drawn.
All the same, there was a warmth to her. She was the calm eye of the storm.
“I heard about you,” he said. “You exonerated Earnest Washington in Oregon, right? Didn’t he serve like twenty-five years on death row?”
“Seventeen on death row,” she said. “Twenty-five total in custody.”
“See? Winning a case like that is why I want you.”
“I had two years to work up that case,” she said, setting down her sandwich and picking up her coffee. “You’ve given me two weeks. There’s nothing a decent death row investigator can do in two weeks—besides cover ground that’s already been covered.”
“I’m desperate,” he said, and she saw that he was.
“You say Mitchell is innocent,” she said, delicately blowing on her coffee. “But there is evidence. Or there was evidence.”
She waited to hear what he had to say. By the time they reached the capital unit, most attorneys had lost the shine of naivete, and no longer believed their clients were innocent just because they said they were. But some became zealots, and in a way this was worse, because they refused to believe that the state might be right.
“He’s got reasonable doubt,” the attorney said. “The confession was coerced and the alleged evidence lost. What actually happened thatnight? I don’t know. Client didn’t have a record. No reason to think he’d attack some innocent person. No weapon was ever found. No body, as you know. He should have been offered a deal.”
“So you don’t know if he’s really innocent.”
“No one does.”
Ruby looked down. It was hard for her to say no to a case when a person’s life was on the line. There was no way to know who was innocent and who was not until the investigation was complete. The problem was, some investigations didn’t end. At least not before the life of the client ended.
“I’ll do it,” she said, “because the client wants me to. But I still think I’ll be the last one to hold the ball.”
“I’ll hold it with you.”
She carried her leftovers in a white paper bag, and he held the door for her. He would go back to his office, she knew, and work some of his many cases. Mitchell Brown was a cog in the wheel for the state, a piece of machinery that had gotten jammed on the way out. He might be real to his defenders, but he was also real to the family of the victim, and to his own family.
Which reminded her of next steps.
“Where to?” the attorney asked, curious.
“Where I always start. The beginning.”