“He could have photocopied everything.”
“He probably did.”
“That is not comforting.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be.”
Maya sat across from her.
“What happens now?”
Harper looked at the folder.
“The work gets boring.”
Her mother raised an eyebrow.
“Boring?”
“Motions. Hearings. Reviews. Appeals.”
“Good.”
Harper smiled.
“You want boring?”
“I love boring.”
The investigation continued for seven months.
It uncovered problems in fourteen criminal cases.
Not all defendants were innocent.
That mattered.
Harper insisted on saying it whenever reporters tried to simplify the story.
Some evidence remained valid.
Some convictions stood.
But five cases contained confessions investigators could not authenticate.
Three evidence logs had been altered.
Two defendants had been placed at locations contradicted by verified records.
Malik Dawson’s conviction was vacated first.
Harper sat in the back of the courtroom beside Charles Morris when Malik walked through the side door.
He was eighteen now.
Taller than Harper expected.
He wore a borrowed suit.
His mother sat in the front row crying before the judge even entered.
The prosecutor handling the review was not Hensley.
Hensley had been reassigned months earlier.
The new prosecutor stood.
“Your Honor, after reviewing the integrity of the evidence underlying Mr. Dawson’s conviction, the state can no longer represent that the plea was supported by reliable evidence.”
Morris closed his eyes.
Harper looked at Malik.
He did not smile.
The judge vacated the conviction.
Malik’s mother made a sound somewhere between a sob and a gasp.
Malik turned.
For one second, he looked directly at Harper.
She had never met him before that morning.
Afterward, they stood outside the courthouse.
The same courthouse where reporters had surrounded Harper months earlier.
Malik approached her.
“You’re the lawyer girl.”
Harper smiled slightly.
“That description follows me everywhere.”
He held out his hand.
She shook it.
“My mom says you found the paperwork.”
“Mr. Morris kept the paperwork.”
“You found what was wrong with it.”
Harper nodded.
Malik stared at the courthouse steps.
“You know what everybody keeps saying?”