Infinite Hope Page 7

  District Attorney Sebesta and four Texas Rangers were there, too, indicating the level of gravity the state was placing on my case. A conviction and a closed murder case sure went a lot further for the DA and the Rangers than an unsolved multiple homicide on the books. But somehow none of them seemed as imposing with Dick DeGuerin in the room. I took my place next to Dick as the judge made his entrance. We stood for the standard ceremony before a bailiff told us to sit. I couldn’t help feeling like I was on a television show.

  The judge was quick to cut the silence. “Counsel, do either of you wish to file any pending or additional matters with this court prior to proceeding?” Both Dick and Sebesta said no. We were ready to go.

  The hearing began with Sebesta calling his first witness. It was the fire marshal who had been assigned to the crime scene on the night of the murders. He described in gruesome detail the situation he’d encountered at the house. He gave an important expert opinion—that the fire was started by gasoline. The marshal remembered with remarkable clarity the location of each body. Sebesta seemed to know just what to ask to elicit the most emotional response from his witness. He had the marshal recall the stab wounds and gunshot holes that riddled the victims’ bodies. The testimony was gut-wrenching and brutal.

  Before long, it was time for Dick’s turn. His questions on cross-examination were simple and purposeful. He knew that certain facts were needed for the record.

  “Did you find any signs of forced entry?” he asked.

  “No, I didn’t,” the marshal responded.

  My lawyer followed up with a series of other questions.

  Sebesta’s next witness was Shawn Eldridge. I recognized him as the Caldwell jailer who had booked me when I first arrived and one of the many uniformed officials who had hovered around my case in those first few days. Describing the booking process, Eldridge testified that he’d kept the speaker on in my cell and that he’d heard me talking to Robert Carter. His hand having just been on the Bible, Eldridge looked straight ahead with piercing eyes as he insisted that I’d made incriminating comments in those conversations. Sebesta seemed satisfied, having picked up something useful against me. Dick, though, had little trouble ripping gaping holes in the jailer’s testimony. A once-confident Eldridge became reluctant. His testimony on cross-examination revealed commonsense deficiencies in his narrative. Eldridge hadn’t discussed my statements with anyone for three weeks, an unlikely twist considering the importance of that evidence. He made no notes about what he’d heard and only “remembered” it after a conversation with the Rangers.

  “Why would you wait three weeks to tell anyone something so important?” Dick pressed, his question saying as much as any answer could. Eldridge was dumbstruck. He was then asked about the notoriously unreliable speakers in the Caldwell facility. He acknowledged that the speakers were erratic, sometimes working and other times not, and admitted that the speakers were even known to display the wrong cell number. What started as a boxing match between Dick and the jailer had turned into something else. Eldridge was helpless, curled tightly against the ropes, taking punch after withering punch. I focused only on the reddening of the jailer’s face. His lies exposed, Eldridge scurried off the stand.

  Knowing Eldridge’s testimony was weak, Sebesta next called to the stand another jailer, to try again. This jailer testified that he, too, heard me talking to Carter about what I’d done on that August night. His story seemed to have been elicited to address the problems uncovered by Dick in the Eldridge exchange. The jailer had taken measures to record the conversation, or so he said. He testified that he had gone to his car to retrieve a tape recorder. The recorder had conveniently failed to function properly. Dick wasn’t any kinder to this witness.

  “Officer, did you see Anthony Graves on the night he was booked in?”

  “No, I didn’t.” The officer fidgeted in his seat. He hadn’t seen Officer Eldridge collapse under pressure, but he surely felt the force of my lawyer’s heavy-handed questions.

  “I see,” Dick continued. “Have you ever heard Anthony Graves’s voice?”

  The jailer said that he hadn’t. Dick then asked whether this jailer had thought to report what he had heard. The jailer said that he’d kept the information to himself, a claim that sounded as unlikely the second time as it had the first.

  Dick pressed the jailer on the proper procedure for prison personnel. Weren’t they supposed to report such vital information as soon as they got it? The jailer was visibly shaken. He looked like he would rather be anywhere else in the world. This urge was confirmed when Dick finally let him off the stand.

  “No further questions,” Dick said, turning away from the witness stand. The jailer moved quickly out of the courtroom.

  Watching him leave the stand, I felt a swell of satisfaction. It was a brief moment of respite. I was there under the protection of a good attorney, and the jailers who had tried so hard to make my life hell were now under pressure. Between watching Eldridge slither off the stand and feeling the obvious discomfort of a second shamed officer, I indulged a bit in the raging resentment that had been building since the moment my mother’s neighbor told me the cops were on my trail. I wasn’t exactly comfortable with how I felt in that moment. Mostly it was a small burst of power and control to break up the monotony of jail-induced helplessness.

  The seemingly endless parade of witnesses continued with Ranger Ray Coffman, the lead investigator on my case. Not much had changed in Coffman’s dress or demeanor since he took control of my first interrogation. He still had that same walk that made me chuckle to myself. He walked with an air of importance. He had on his big white cowboy hat with a pair of boots that seemed too tight for him to walk in. He was a clown to me, but his work on my case was not funny. He still moved slowly, too, as if in defiance of anyone who might deign to tell him what to do. He wore sunglasses this time, refusing to take them off when he walked into the room. His smooth, unhurried responses confirmed that his confidence wasn’t an act. He clearly described what he’d observed at the crime scene. He outlined the contours of his hours-long conversation with Robert Carter. Dick knew that unlike the two jailers who had testified before, Coffman was a strong witness. His testimony was likely to resonate not only with the judge but with a jury, if we ever got to trial.

  The contrast between Ranger Coffman and my attorney was stark. Dick was short. His suit looked as if it’d been tailor-made for him. He was intellectual, with a mind that moved from point A to point C before most people had passed B. He had an understated competence. Dick knew what he was doing and didn’t need to do much more than open his mouth to prove it. Coffman was different. He wore his boots and sunglasses like a shield, broadcasting to the world that he was somebody important. Their matchup looked, on the surface, like a heavyweight tilt between comparably formidable foes. And maybe it would have been, had they met on the street or in some dusty barroom. But this was a courtroom, and few in Texas commanded a courtroom like Dick DeGuerin.

  Dick kept his questions simple, but he was still able to shake Coffman’s confidence. The Ranger’s once-brazen demeanor wilted in a matter of seconds as he struggled to answer questions. He looked nervous, almost confused. I thought for a minute that he might pull out a cigarette and chain-puff it right there on the witness stand. That thought almost made me smile. Dick scored a blow with a question that caught Coffman flat-footed.

  “Mr. Coffman, is there anything you have, or have discovered during your investigation, that would link my client, Anthony Graves, to this case?”

  “No, sir,” he said. “There is nothing that I have that would link your client to this case.” His comment struck me as the sort of thing you might hear at an exoneration hearing. The lead investigator had admitted under oath that he’d found no evidence to link me to the murders. That led to a more disturbing thought. Why, in light of all that had just been said, did these people still want me so badly?

  Dick responded to Coffman’s comments by seizing momentu
m. The hearing was to determine whether or not I’d be granted bail, and Dick thought the Ranger’s admission was more than enough for the judge to set a reasonable amount. I was excited, thinking about the possibilities. But the judge denied his request. I added that moment to the growing catalogue of inexplicable denials. Many times the Rangers, jailers, police, and now the courts had refused to grant my freedom despite clear indications of innocence. It dawned on me that the state might just be capable of anything.

  Since this was a bond hearing, the only issue was whether a bond would be ordered by the court and thus grant me a path to fight while free (assuming I could somehow afford to pay the bond), or whether I would be remanded, meaning held without bond. In bond hearings, there really isn’t much reason for the defense to present evidence. In fact, the entire burden of proof is on the prosecutor, at this hearing and at all stages of the proceedings. The DA wanted me remanded, of course, but at the same time didn’t want to show his hand in advance of trial. So the prosecution offered the least evidence it could that would result in an outcome of remand.

  It’s also not for the defense to present its case right then, as it would have little or no impact on the bond decision, and it would tip off the prosecutor to the defense’s strategy, thus helping them better prepare. By that point everyone knew my alibi; it would not be news here. So, strategically, Dick did not put up much of a defense.

  As expected, I was remanded. Dick knew all this too well; it was me who was learning about something I never wanted to know, particularly when I was sitting in the defendant’s chair. I wouldn’t be going anywhere in a capital case unless or until this nightmare somehow ended through the legal process.

  Back in my cell, I lay in my bunk thinking about the day’s events. I thought of my family, their reactions in the courtroom. Like me, they were beginning to understand how unjust every aspect of my case was. And I wasn’t surprised by the judge’s ruling, because Dick had already told me what he would do. Still, I was disappointed to see this man—who’d been elected judge—seemingly allow politics to play a role in dispensing justice.

  It all felt like a whirlwind of good and bad. I’d been elated during the trial as the Rangers and the police department were exposed as a cabal of liars, but the denial of bail tempered my emotions.

  I called my mom to talk about what had happened in the hearing. We shared a laugh, a perverse commiseration on a case that tended more to politics than to truth. While we both knew my calls were too expensive for her to receive this often, a mother’s grace and love kept her from ever mentioning that burden, not even once.

  Movement in my case seemed to come in three-week increments. I waited as patiently as I could to learn what would come next.

  One night I stood at my cell door about a week after my court date, trying to catch a bit of television through the crack. Officer Eldridge approached my cell. He held in his hand a bundle of legal papers.

  “What’s this?” I asked him.

  “They’re indictment papers, Graves. You’ve been indicted.” My heart plummeted. All those weeks in jail had cultivated an alarm within me, which buzzed uncontrollably whenever it sensed bullshit, as it did in that moment.

  “Man! I don’t want this! I need a phone so I can call my attorney. How the fuck are they going to indict me for something I didn’t do? I want to call my attorney!”

  “Graves, it’s after nine. You can use the phone in the morning.”

  I didn’t care. The word “indictment” had hit me so hard that I knew I’d never sleep without some assurance from my lawyer. Eldridge finally relented and brought the phone. I soon had Dick DeGuerin on the line.

  “Dick! This is Anthony Graves,” I said. “The jailer just brought me some indictment papers.” I was indignant, but careful not to take out my frustration on him.

  “I’m not surprised. If the DA wants an indictment, he usually gets it. It doesn’t mean anything other than the fact that they plan to take us to court. I’ll check on it in the morning and get back with you.”

  “Look, man, I just want to go home,” I told him. “I’m tired of their games.”

  Dick assured me that everything would be all right. He then turned the conversation in a different direction.

  “Say, Anthony, have you heard from Roy Allen at all?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Well, I’ve been trying to reach him to get the rest of the payment for taking on your case. I’m having difficulty getting together with him.”

  I assured him that Roy Allen was good for the money. Dick seemed satisfied with my answer, but I was worried. Lawyers of DeGuerin’s stature take payment at two points. They charge a fee to investigate the case and handle pretrial motions, as Dick had done. A much larger payment is required to take the case to trial. I didn’t know exactly how much Dick DeGuerin charged, but something told me he wouldn’t be having that conversation with me unless there was some doubt about Roy Allen’s ability to pay.

  LATE OCTOBER 1992–MAY 1993:

  THE WAITING GAME

  CELL ASSIGNMENTS WERE FLUID IN CALDWELL. Not long after I talked to Dick, the jailers moved me from the cell I’d shared with Angel and placed me with a familiar face: Scotty. The move was a welcome one. Scotty was the only person in Caldwell who I was acquainted with from home. I trusted him as much as I could trust anyone in the Burleson County facility. Though welcome, the move was also curious. I had been in a two-man cell with Angel. Scotty’s cell had only one bunk. One of us would be sleeping on the floor, and I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be him. I moved quickly past my confusion. It wasn’t worth thinking about, with the many other things clouding my mind. And I didn’t mind sleeping on the floor, reasoning that I’d easily trade that inconvenience for a cellmate I thought I could trust. Besides, the beds weren’t all that comfortable anyway.

  My conversations with Scotty during those first few days were easy. We talked about the places we’d been and the people we had known. Though he and I hadn’t been good friends back in Brenham, I grew up with one of his cousins, so I had seen him around. Talking with him was the closest I got to normal while at Caldwell. The jailers must have sensed our comfort. After only a couple of days, the Rangers came calling.

  “Scotty?” one of them asked. “We want to talk to you.” I watched as they pulled Scotty from the cell, just as they’d done with Angel and others before. I shook my head. It wasn’t hard to see that something was wrong when Scotty returned.

  “Man, Graves!” he said, his voice shaking. “They just started coming at me with questions about you, rapid-fire style. There wasn’t anything to say. I know nothin’ about nothin’!”

  I was overwhelmed. I racked my brain for a good reason they were hounding me. I couldn’t say much to Scotty in the moments that followed. I needed my mom. After some wrangling, the jailer brought me a phone, and I dialed home, collect as always. I asked her about my children and how she was doing. I wanted to know about my brothers and sisters too. Just a few weeks before, I had been like a dad to them. Our own father had left when we were young, leaving my mother to raise us around her work schedule. I wondered how my family was doing without me.

  Scotty asked to take a turn on the line with my mom, and I said sure. He reported what had happened with the Rangers and told her that Sebesta, too, had talked to him about my case. Sebesta was dealing, giving Scotty a chance at reduced time if he’d give the state something to work with. I don’t expect Sebesta much cared whether the information was true or not; it needed only to be useful. The thought of Scotty lying on me kept me up at night. I trusted Scotty and all, but I was quickly learning the pressures that confinement could put on a man.

  Pretrial detention is largely a waiting game. A man sent to the penitentiary with a sentence can set his mind to doing whatever time he’s assigned. A man in my position had no such luxury. I waited as weeks turned into months.

  I was starting to feel sorry for myself. I couldn’t help but wonder, Why me? Why would God
put me through this if He’s real? I’m a good guy. I’d never had any malice in my heart. Why would Robert Carter get me caught up in all this?

  I was terribly homesick and missed my sons. One night I took up the Bible and hurled it into a corner. I wanted to give up. I wasn’t sleeping well. I finally realized I wasn’t going home anytime soon. I cried. I wept. I was afraid.

  Then I walked over to the corner of the cell and picked the Good Book back up. It opened to a passage that told me God wouldn’t put any more on me than I could bear.

  There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it. (1 Corinthians 10: 13)

  It was a rough night.

  I knew that something would happen in my case eventually, but the timing was out of my control. Often, the waiting was interrupted only by happenstance, when conversations with jailers would give me insights into my own case. Such was the case when Officer Jennings came through to check the row. He moved from cell to cell, passing the phone with each stop. Finally, he was at my door.

  “Hey Graves, how are you doing?”

  “Not too good, Steve,” I told him. “The grand jury handed down an indictment.”

  Jennings nodded. “I heard about that. But hey, don’t be pissed off at the sheriff. He didn’t want you in this jail. He thought they didn’t have any evidence to be bringing you here.” He said this almost as if he was trying to offload some guilt.