He would have asked whether she had eaten. Then he would have asked whether every item of evidence had a record, whether the officers' conduct had been documented, and whether she had forgotten to consider explanations she disliked. Finally, he would have asked how the people in her old case files were doing, because he had never believed that clearing one's own name ended the duty to help others. Olivia looked at the names Maya had written on a page beside the watch and knew what she would do next.
The following morning she called Tasha's attorney. Then she called Elaine. Then she called Maya, who was already awake preparing to interview another family. By noon they had scheduled a meeting with a team of independent lawyers to review the affected convictions. Olivia's life had been handed back to her, but seven people had not yet received the same chance.
The work that followed was slower than the arrest and harder to photograph. Lawyers had to retrieve files from different courts, find witnesses who had moved, compare evidence labels with laboratory records, and determine which convictions were affected by demonstrated misconduct rather than merely by an officer's name appearing on a form. Several families had spent their savings on legal fees and no longer believed promises made by anybody wearing a suit. Olivia understood their caution because she had once sat behind the same glass and asked herself whether another official assurance could possibly matter.
Tasha's case received urgent attention. The old medical report she had filed after treating the injured teenager still existed in the hospital's archived records, although her supervisors had been reluctant to discuss it publicly. The report predated her arrest, and preserved communications showed that an officer connected to Reed's unit had complained about her refusal to change its wording. Investigators also found evidence that the narcotics associated with her case had passed through the same compromised property-handling system revealed at Clearwater.
At the hearing where Tasha's charges were dismissed, Olivia sat in the gallery rather than at counsel table. Tasha wore a borrowed navy dress and held her hands folded so tightly in her lap that the knuckles stood pale. When the judge reviewed the new evidence and authorized her release, Tasha remained seated for a few seconds, looking toward her attorney as though waiting for another condition to be announced. Only when the lawyer touched her shoulder did she begin to cry.
Her son Jamal waited outside with his grandmother. He had grown taller during her detention, and the gap between his front teeth had changed since the last photograph she received. When Tasha emerged, he looked uncertain, then ran toward her so quickly that the adults stepped back to make room. She knelt and held him as though the entire world had narrowed to the weight of his arms around her neck.
"I didn't do what they said, baby," she whispered.
"I know," Jamal said. Then, after a moment, "I wanted to know when you were coming home."