“At Sarah’s second trial, I tried to prove that Finley was involved in dangerous undercover work, but the intelligence agencies used the state-secrets privilege to stymie my inquiries. Then the judge kept out statements Finley made to Sarah on hearsay grounds.”

“It looks like Ms. Woodruff’s freedom rests on showing Finley’s connection to a CIA smuggling operation,” Dana said.

“Or drug dealers. Finley told Sarah that he thought that the crew member who murdered everyone on the China Sea made an arrangement with a Mexican cartel for the hashish. There were also rumors that Finley’s kidnappers were after two hundred fifty thousand dollars that Finley supposedly was given to finance the smuggling operation.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of money being involved.”

“It was a rumor that was circulated on the street by drug dealers and users.”

“How strong was the evidence that Finley was the survivor of the shootout on the China Sea?”

“That’s a fact. The night watchman who called 911 told Tom Oswald, the investigating officer from Shelby PD, that he’d seen a man stagger off the ship and drive away. The guard thought the man might be wounded. He also saw another car that may have been following the wounded man.

“During Finley’s autopsy, the medical examiner found a bullet wound in Finley’s side that was older than the wounds caused by the bullets that killed him. Then there was the duffel bag found next to Finley’s body, the one with the phony passports and ID. There were bloodstains on the bag. Some were old and some were new. If Finley was wounded on the night of the murders on the China Sea and shot again on the evening he died, it would explain the two different groups of bloodstains.

“Another thing. Shortly after Finley disappeared that first time, the bodies of two men with ties to a Mexican drug cartel were found just off a logging road. I think these were the men who kidnapped Finley, but I didn’t have a shred of evidence connecting the men to our case, so the judge wouldn’t admit any evidence about the dead men.”

“Then there’s the clincher. After Sarah was indicted the second time, I learned that Oswald lifted a latent print from a hatch covering the hashish. Shortly before Sarah’s first trial was supposed to start, a deputy DA ran one of the unknown prints from Sarah’s condo and matched it to that print found on the hatch. After Finley was murdered, they took his prints and made the match.

“It’s clear to me that Finley was wounded on the China Sea. Sarah’s condo was the closest place he could think of to go, so that’s where he headed. The Mexicans were watching the ship and tailed him to Sarah’s place, kidnapped him, took him to the area with the logging road, and were killed when Finley was rescued. But after the judge’s rulings and the assertion of the state-secrets privilege by the government, I had no way to prove any of it.”

“Do you think the men who rescued Finley were with the CIA?” Dana asked.

“Probably. Someone paid for that ship. Finley’s company, TA Enterprises, is a shell corporation. I’m certain it was created to purchase the China Sea and finance the hashish smuggling operation. But who put up the money? My bet is the CIA. The passports and phony ID point that way too.”

“You’re talking about the stuff found in the duffel bag?”

Mary nodded. “While I was preparing for Sarah’s first trial, she told me some names she’d heard Finley mention: Dennis Lang, Larry Kester, and Orrin Hadley. In the duffel bag that was found with Finley’s body were several passports and sets of phony ID. Lang, Hadley, and Kester were the aliases Finley used. He could have gotten the ID and passports on the street, but an expert I hired to look at them told me they were a first-rate job. He couldn’t swear that only a government agency could make something that authentic, but they looked like something the CIA would turn out.

“That’s why I made the discovery requests. If I could have proved that Finley was involved with drug smuggling or terrorists or the CIA, I would have had a viable argument that someone other than Sarah killed him. But I dropped the inquiries when Sarah’s first case was dismissed and, as I said, I was stonewalled when I made them again after the second indictment. The attack on the state-secrets privilege is a cornerstone of our argument in the Supreme Court.”

“Is there anything else you can think of that I should know?” Dana asked.

Mary looked as though she was going to say something, but she paused.

“Yes?” Dana prodded.

“Well, there was another odd thing that happened during the second prosecution, but I don’t think it had anything to do with Sarah’s case directly. On the other hand, you might be able to use it to spice up your article.

“Max Dietz prosecuted Sarah the first time. He just rushed to judgment. Then he kept information from me that the law compelled him to turn over to the defense. He was reprimanded by the DA. Shortly after, he disappeared.”

“Just vanished?”

Mary nodded. “This was a few weeks before the motions in Sarah’s case. The last person to see him was his secretary. He asked her for some blank subpoenas and took them into his office. He left a little later and hasn’t been heard from since.”

“Any idea what happened?”

“He was very depressed by his demotion out of the Homicide Unit after the first trial, and the most prominent theory is that he committed suicide after he was reprimanded for hiding the exculpatory evidence from me. But that’s just a theory. No body has been found.”

“I do have a last request. Do you think it would be possible to talk to Sarah?”

“I’ll ask her, but it’s her decision.”

“Great.”

“Tell me where you’re staying. As soon as Sarah tells me whether she’ll meet with you, I’ll let you know.”

Dana told Mary the name of her hotel and her room number.

“Another thing, are Officers Oswald and Swanson still on the Shelby police force?”

Garrett shook her head. She looked sad. “They’re both dead.”

“What?”

“Shortly before the second trial, they answered a 911 call about a robbery in progress at a convenience store and were gunned down by the robbers.”

“Was anyone arrested?”

“No. There were no witnesses, and the clerk was killed, too.”

“An interesting coincidence, don’t you think?”

“You mean because all of the witnesses to what happened on the China Sea are either dead or missing? I’ve thought about that, but there’s nothing I’ve heard that leads me to believe that they were murdered because of what they saw on the ship.”

“Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, Ms. Garrett, and for what it’s worth, I’d say you did a good job but kept running into a brick wall.”

“I don’t know how good a job I did. Sarah’s on death row. But you’re right about that wall. Someone doesn’t want what Finley was doing made public, and it’s not going to be unless the United States Supreme Court rules that they have to.”