Part 2 (1/2)
”Clymene O'Riley,” said Diane.
”Ah, yes. Ross has spoken with me about her before. He's taken quite a s.h.i.+ne to her.”
They reached the gate and the guard let them back into the high-security area. Diane didn't ask any questions until they got to the chapel. Rivers seemed to have a hard time breathing, talking, and walking at the same time.
”Here we are,” he said.
Diane opened the door to the chapel for him and he proceeded to place his handouts on each desk. Rather than pews, the chapel had rows of metal and plastic cla.s.sroom chairs-the kind with a table attached and a wire basket underneath. The chapel itself had the same s.h.i.+ny tile as the rest of the prison and the same graygreen walls. A single wooden cross stood behind a wooden lectern at the front. Vases of silk flowers- mostly roses, irises and lilies-sat atop tables that lined the walls. Rivers caught her looking at the room.
”Who would invent paint this color, huh?” he said. He shook his head. ”Some of the women arranged the flowers. A local florist taught a flower-arranging cla.s.s as part of our skills program.” He looked at Diane and grinned. ”She had written a nice proposal to the state. Anyway, it was something for them to do. Clymene O'Riley took the course. She did several of the arrangements you see here. What do you want to know about her?”
”Your opinion of her,” said Diane.
Rev. Rivers finished placing his handouts on the desktops and motioned for Diane to sit down. He turned one of the desks around to face her and sat down with a deep breath, as if laying out all the handouts had tired him. His light brown hair was disheveled and his brown eyes looked red and strained.
”She's an interesting prisoner. When she asked to work in the chapel she wasn't like the usual prisoner- she didn't tell me how she'd found the Lord and wanted to help do his work. We sat over there in those chairs.” He pointed to two vinyl-upholstered wood chairs at a table by the wall. ”She told me she was scared and wanted a safe place to work and if I let her work here she would listen to what I had to say with an open mind. I found that refres.h.i.+ng. She told the truth and promised me only what she could give. I've had women promise me they would become nuns.” He laughed. ”I tell them I'm Protestant, but I'll pa.s.s their desires along to Father Henry.”
Diane smiled. ”You are also a counselor here? Is that right?”
He nodded. ”I'm here all day. We have a rabbi and a priest come to minister to the prisoners too.”
Diane glanced down at the handout on the desk in front of her. It was instructions for filling out a job application. Rivers followed her gaze.
”With some of them, small skills like filling out forms, going for a job interview, and creating a budget help them get by on the outside. Clymeme has been a big help. She already has those skills. Sometimes we do role playing and the women pretend they are at a job interview. Clymene is good at interviewing and showing them how to improve. She's fluent in Spanish. I'll tell you, that's a big help.”
”And did she listen to you with an open mind?” asked Diane.
Rivers nodded. ”She did. She listens and asks a lot of intelligent questions. She's a smart woman. She actually understands everything I have to say.”
”Do the other prisoners like her?” asked Diane.
He nodded. ”They do. She writes briefs for them. Pretty good at it too. She's gotten one woman a new trial and another one visitation for her kid. That's really a good record.”
It certainly was, thought Diane. Now she knew why the DA was so nervous. Apparently there was no end to Clymene's skills.
”And the guards?” asked Diane.
He shrugged. ”They like her as much as they like any of the prisoners, I suppose. Probably more because she doesn't cause trouble. There are a couple of guards she is friendly with, I think. Guards are like the rest of us. Cynical. We hear and see a lot.”
”You don't seem cynical,” said Diane.
”I try not to be. Occasionally we actually get prisoners who are really innocent. It happens more than you think. I try to keep an open mind without becoming gullible. And I try not to take it too hard when they disappoint me. It's not an easy line to walk.”
”I can imagine,” said Diane, though he seemed to her like a man who felt disappointments deeply.
He s.h.i.+fted in his chair and stared a moment at the handout in front of him. After a moment he looked back up at Diane.
”I'm not familiar with the evidence against Clymene O'Riley. I get the impression from prison talk that it was weak.” He gave a faint laugh that barely made it out of his throat. ”Something about creative sc.r.a.pbooking?”
Diane grinned at him. ”Those ill.u.s.trated her duplicity and pointed to an underlying scheme.” Diane took a breath and explained in detail about the sc.r.a.pbooks. Rivers bent forward, resting his arms on the desk, and listened.
”None were true?” he asked.
”Not that we could discover. Almost all the photographs of her were digitally inserted over a background. Those places we could contact-like the car rally in Greece and the archaeology digs-did not have her in their records and had no one who remembered her, though they could verify that her husbands had been there.”
”I see,” said Rivers. But Diane wasn't sure that he did.
”Clymene's sc.r.a.pbooks were only secondary to the case,” said Diane. ”The key piece of evidence was the cotton ball, and it was a slam dunk.”
Chapter 5.
”The cotton ball?” Rev. Rivers sat up straight in the chair. ”I don't know about that.”
”Do you know how Clymene's husband died?” asked Diane.
Rev. Rivers frowned and looked at a vase of irises to his right. ”Lockjaw, I think she said.” He looked back at Diane. ”Is that right?”
”Yes. Archer O'Riley flew to Micronesia to work on an archaeological dig. Clymene was supposed to be with him but developed a case of the flu at the last minute. She was to join him later. He arrived feeling sick, headachy, feverish, and a little stiff. He thought he was also coming down with the flu. The archaeology team sent him to a hospital in Guam. On the way he had seizures so severe that he broke one of his vertebrae and his arm was so swollen and inflamed the doctors were going to amputate it.”
Rivers winced. ”Teta.n.u.s is rare, isn't it? I can't say I've ever heard of anyone dying of it, despite all my mother's warnings about stepping on rusty nails.”
”Yes, it's rare. Only about eight people a year die from teta.n.u.s in this country, out of a population of three hundred million,” said Diane.
Rivers said nothing for a moment, as if he were searching for the right words. ”She . . . she somehow infected him? You proved it? With a cotton ball?” He looked skeptical.
”One cotton ball about that big”-Diane made a circle with her thumb and index finger-”told the entire story. I've never had evidence that good before.”
Rivers s.h.i.+fted in the small chair. A few of the but of pulling tons on his s.h.i.+rt looked to be in danger loose. He s.h.i.+fted again.
”I don't know the details of Clymene trial,” he said. ”All I really know is that she was con husband and suspected of victed of killing her last killing her first husband.” Diane started to say they didn't know if Robert Carthwright was her first husband or second, third, or tenth for that matter, but she let that go. The fact was, she didn't know. She did know the evidence supporting the Archer O'Riley murder and she felt it was important for Rev. Rivers to know it.
”Archer O'Riley died just an hour after they got him to the hospital,” said Diane.
”Why was murder suspected?” asked Rivers. ”It wasn't right away. His body was flown back to the United States, where it was examined by his own doctor, who was concerned about the arm because the site of the infection was where his office had taken a blood sample in a routine checkup just days before.” ”Naturally, he didn't want liability,” said Rivers. ”Naturally,” repeated Diane.
Clymene had gotten to Rev. Rivers. Diane could see it in his face-the way he blushed at leaping to her defense. She guessed that he hadn't realized it himself until now-until he felt called upon to defend her. Diane imagined that it had been easy for Clymene O'Riley's to win Rivers over, even though he was resistant to prisoners trying to pull the wool over his eyes. He was a man with meager resources, dedicated to making a difference among the prisoners. Successes were probably few and far between. Clymene hadn't told him what he wanted to hear, like so many prisoners do. She told him what he hadn't expected to hear. Making a promise, small though it was, and keeping it set her apart from the prisoners who made pledges he knew they couldn't keep. By his account, Clymene listened, asked questions, and partic.i.p.ated in a meaningful way in his cla.s.ses-actions above and beyond her simple pledge to keep an open mind. A small thing, but an important thing to Rivers. Clymene was good at calcu lating what was important to people.
Saying she was afraid and wanted a safe place to work was probably true. What was it Frank, her whitecollar-crime detective-friend, said? Truth makes the lie believable in a con. Clymene was undoubtably good at using truth to her advantage-just as good as she was at making fiction seem true.
Diane saw now what Clymene was doing-why she hadn't filed an appeal yet. She was gathering her supporters first. The DA said she had a following on the outside consisting of a few friends and people she went to church with. Having the prison chaplain on her side would be a PR coup for her.
”The health department investigated the doctor's office,” said Diane. ”They found nothing that would account for the infection.”
He again s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably in the small chair, putting further strain on his b.u.t.tons. She could see the white T-s.h.i.+rt underneath. ”Would they find anything? I mean”-Rivers shrugged his shoulders-”if it was just that one contaminated needle.”