Page 20 of The Death Row Club
“She gave that to me months ago, right after filming wrapped onTo Catch a Killer. The show’s producers and the attorneys at her firm agreed she shouldn’t have any contact with you.”
An ache rises in my chest. “Why not?”
“Everyone assumed your father’s case would go to trial, and the two of you would be called as witnesses. Witnesses aren’t supposed to interact with each other.”
“So what, she decided she’d rather cut all ties with me than get a slap on the wrist from a judge?”
“Tom Woods’s clemency hearing has been scheduled for next week. In Montana, a death sentence can only be overturned by the governor, after he’s received a recommendation from the Board of Pardons and Parole. This will be Greer’s last chance at getting his sentence commuted to life imprisonment.”
She never mentioned that while we were working on the show. After her father’s arrest, Greer committed herself to rescuing him from the execution chamber. She graduated from law school, joined a top-tier firm, and took him on as her first client, defending him, unsuccessfully, at each of his appeals. Why would she have taken those months off to filmTo Catch a Killer, when she could’ve been gathering letters of support and helping to prepare his statement?
“I don’t know how you feel about your father,” he continues, “but Tom Woods means everything to her, regardless of what he’s done.”
“No one in their right mind would let Tom Woods out of prison.”
“She doesn’t want that; she just wants to keep him alive. Lock him up and throw away the key for all she cares—as long as she can visit him every week.”
“I still don’t understand what this has to do with me.”
“She can’t afford to get caught up in a legal scandal right now. The Board will be looking for any excuse to reject her petition. She can’t give them one.”
When he says it like that, it sounds convincing—except for one small problem. “My dad pled guilty, though. He’s been sentenced; the case is closed. She could’ve called anytime after that.”
“She’s been under a lot of pressure recently.”
She’sbeen under a lot of pressure? Is he serious?The New Yorkerpublished a profile about her right before the show premiered. In between paragraphs celebrating her legal career were full-color portraits, captured in her two-million-dollar Sherman Oaks bungalow. I’ll bet she doesn’t have creditors banging down her doors; I’ll bet she isn’t worrying about the bank repossessing that “surprisingly modest” (their words, not mine) home.
“I don’t know if you’ve tuned in to the news recently,” I say, “but I have also been under a lot of pressure.”
He at least has the decency to look embarrassed. “I never said you hadn’t. I know you probably can’t see it right now, but Greer does have good intentions. She insisted on inviting you this weekend—”
“Yeah, and then decided not to show up herself.” I force myself to calm down. The last thing I want is to enmesh a stranger in my interpersonal drama. It’s not his fault that Greer’s chosen to abandon me yet again. “How do you know each other?”
“I freelance for her law firm sometimes—surveillance mostly, data collection.”
“You’re a private investigator.”
He nods.
“Is that how you met?”
“No, we go back almost a decade—incredible, since she almost put me in the hospital the first time we met.”
“Wait, what?”
He smiles, and for the first time, it seems genuine. “When her father was arrested, she was all over the news. I decided to introduce myself since we came from such similar circumstances. I located her law school, waited in the parking garage for her. Next thing I know, a stick of rebar’s swinging at my kneecaps, and then I’m rolling around on the ground, in pain so intense I can barely remember my name, with a very small, very angry woman standing over me, screaming, ‘Who sent you, fuckface?’ at the top of her lungs.”
That sounds like Greer all right.
“We’ve been together ever since.”
Together? “So, you two are—”
“The club’s cofounders. I provide the list of member names each year; she provides the location.”
Not what I meant, but the news still takes me aback. “So, this lodge—”
“Is hers.”
