Dead Lawyers Tell No Tales (12 page)

ON TUESDAY EVENING,
Landon arrived early at the gym with a brand-new curl bar. He had purchased it that afternoon and wiped it down carefully before he left his condo. When he got to the gym, he carefully placed twenty-five-pound weights on both ends—perfect for Jake. The three high school juniors Landon mentored were curling twenty pounds more than Jake, and this would keep the boys from having to switch weights so often.

It would also allow Landon to get a good, clean set of fingerprints.

When they had finished working out, Julia was not outside waiting for Jake as she had been the prior week. Jake stepped away from the others and called her. When he returned from making his phone call, he shoved his hands into the pocket of his hoodie and hung his head.

“Your mom on the way?” Landon asked.

Jake hesitated. “She’s running a little late.”

“But she is coming?”

Jake shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll be fine. You can go ahead.”

The kid was a terrible liar. Besides, Landon had to lock the building, and he couldn’t leave Jake standing outside in this weather.

“Why don’t you let me take you home?” Landon asked. “It’s not that far out of the way, and it would give me a chance to check in with your dad.”

Jake pressed his lips together. “All right,” he said. He made another phone call as Landon locked up the gym.

On his way out, Landon looked at the curl bar but cut off the lights and left it behind. He could always circle back later and get it, he told himself.

They talked football for the first twenty-five minutes on the way to Jake’s house. They were almost there when Jake mustered the courage to change the conversation.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

He looked out the side window and took a deep breath. “Do you think my dad did it?”

Landon wanted to give the kid some reassurance. He could sense how badly Jake needed it. But he couldn’t lie to him. Deception had put Landon in jail once. He had promised himself that he wouldn’t walk down that path again.

“Your father’s a good and decent man who has spent his life upholding the law. The case against him is highly circumstantial, and Harry’s one heckuva lawyer.” Landon paused, sensing that Jake needed more. “There aren’t any guarantees, Jake. But I believe we’re going to win this case.”

Jake considered this in silence for a few minutes as they pulled into the Kings’ neighborhood. “But do you think he did it?” Jake eventually asked. “Did Dad kill that woman?”

The kid was smarter than Landon gave him credit for. He could sniff out a bluff, and he obviously wanted Landon to play it straight. “I don’t know,” Landon admitted. “I just don’t know.”

Jake seemed satisfied by the honesty and nodded his head ever so slightly. “I’m glad you’re his lawyer,” Jake said.

They rode in silence until Landon turned into the Kings’ driveway. Landon admitted to Jake that he really didn’t need to see Elias that night after all. “I’ll see you on Thursday,” Landon said.

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to come.”

“Why not?”

Jake had one hand on the door handle but stopped before getting out. “My mom and dad had a pretty big argument last night. My mom’s going back to New Jersey to stay with her parents for a while. She wants me to go with her.”

Landon could see the pain on the kid’s face. Choosing between a mother and father was never easy. But it was excruciating under these circumstances.

“Are you going?” he asked.

“I don’t want to,” Jake said softly. “My friends are here. And I feel like my dad needs me.”

Landon didn’t like the fact that Julia was heading to New Jersey. It would look better for the case if she hung in there with Elias. But that wasn’t Landon’s main concern right now. He saw deep pain on young Jake’s face, his entire world falling apart.

“You need a ride Thursday?” Landon asked. “I could pick you up.”

Jake made a meager effort to decline but Landon insisted. It might be the only way Jake could get there.

Jake thanked Landon, got his stuff out of the rear seat, and headed into the house.

He walked slump-shouldered, facing a divided household and an impossible choice.
Poor kid,
Landon thought.

///

That night, Landon and Kerri talked about Harry’s request for Jake’s fingerprints.

“You’re not going to do it, are you?” Kerri asked.

Landon explained how it might help Elias and Jake. Maybe they could prove that somebody else’s fingerprints were on the weights.

“If that’s the case, why don’t you just ask Jake for his fingerprints?” Kerri said.

“Because at trial, Jake might have to take the stand. If he’s asked whether he gave us a fingerprint to test, it would look like we’re hiding something if he doesn’t also know the results. And Harry’s not sure yet that he wants Jake or Elias to know the results.”

“Listen to yourself,” Kerri said. “And think about this as a father. Would you want your lawyers taking secret fingerprints of your son so they might use them to accuse your kid of murder? Or just as bad, so they might accuse your wife?”

“My kid, definitely not,” Landon said. “My wife, maybe.”

Kerri gave him a
not funny
look. They both knew she was right. And Landon had no intention of going back to the gym and picking up that curl bar. It wouldn’t be a pleasant meeting with Harry, but Landon wasn’t going to compromise his principles. Not this time.

“Are you ready to have an unemployed husband?”

“Yes,” Kerri said quickly. She gave him a kiss. “I already miss your cooking.”

THE AUTOPSY HAD BEEN THE LEAD STORY
on every local newscast Tuesday night and was still part of the news cycle on Wednesday morning. The
Tidewater Times
gave it a front-page headline. Landon watched his own wife read the story on WTRT. They used B-roll with stock photos of Erica Jensen from her firm’s website and a video of Elias King’s arrest. Kerri looked directly into the camera and spoke in dramatic tones about the autopsy results. She mentioned “the date rape drug GHB” and the fact that Erica was pregnant. “DNA tests on the fetus have not yet been completed,” she said.

Landon knew she didn’t have any choice in the matter. Kerri’s colleagues had begun calling the King case “the gift”—the story that kept on giving. Just when things seemed to settle down, Franklin Sherman would release another tantalizing piece of evidence. “The gift” guaranteed that even a slow news day would have an interesting lead story.

Harry only spent a few minutes in the office that morning, just long enough to pack his satchel for court and ask Landon a question.

“Did you get the fingerprints?” he asked. He was standing in the doorway to Landon’s office.

Landon shook his head. “I couldn’t do it, Harry. It just didn’t feel right.”

Harry frowned. “We’ll talk later.” He turned and headed down the steps.

///

Landon was deep in thought, drafting a motion and staring at his computer screen, when he looked up and noticed Brent Benedict at his door. The firm’s managing partner looked serious.

“Can you join me for lunch?” Brent asked.

Landon glanced at his computer. It was twelve thirty and Landon was definitely hungry. But Brent Benedict had never asked him to lunch before. In fact, Landon couldn’t remember Brent even setting foot on the second floor since Landon started working.

“Sure,” Landon said. He grabbed his suit coat from the back of his door and followed Brent down the steps.

“I thought we’d go to Bella Monte,” Benedict said.

It was an Italian place just a few doors down from the McNaughten and Clay building. According to Rachel, the firm used it for client lunches. She said it had the best lasagna and meat loaf around, and the owners seemed to know everyone in the community. Landon had never been there.

He and Brent walked across the parking lots without talking, and Landon wondered if he was being fired. It seemed a little too coincidental that he had stood up to Harry that morning and was now being escorted to lunch by the firm’s managing partner. On the other hand, employers didn’t usually take you to lunch just to hand you a pink slip.

On the way, two F/A-18 Hornets from the nearby Oceana Naval Base passed overhead. Their roar had become a customary part of life in
Virginia Beach for Landon. He had grown used to stopping conversations and waiting for the jets to pass over, splitting ears with their rumbling “sound of freedom.” Newcomers to the Beach would plug their ears and look up at the jets. But Landon was already past all that.

“Is that what you flew? Landon asked as the jets trailed off toward the ocean.

“It’s classified,” Brent said.

Landon couldn’t tell if Brent was kidding, so he stuck his hands in his pockets and walked on in silence.

When they arrived at the restaurant, Landon followed Brent to a back table where the rest of the firm waited. Harry McNaughten was there. So were Parker Clausen and Rachel. Even Janaya.

“Hey, Landon,” Rachel said. “Have a seat.”

The others had already ordered drinks, and everyone except Harry had a glass of wine. Harry was drinking some kind of dark beer. A waitress showed up and Landon ordered a Diet Coke.

The lawyers all chatted as if they did this every day. Clausen wanted to talk about his latest book, but nobody seemed to care. Rachel asked Harry some questions about the King case. Janaya asked Landon how Maddie and Kerri were doing.

The small talk continued until the waitress came to take their order. It was the first time Landon had seen the firm this relaxed. It seemed like the lawyers might actually like each other.

When the shop talk started in earnest, it focused on an upcoming hearing in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia, on behalf of Cipher Inc. The three lawyers on the downstairs floor were scheduled to fly out later that day on a private Cessna the firm occasionally leased. Brent Benedict would be arguing the case, and Rachel and Clausen were going along for research purposes. It seemed to Landon a little extravagant to send three lawyers on such an excursion, when only one would be actually speaking before the court. But Cipher Inc. could certainly handle the charges.

When the main course finally arrived and the wineglasses were refilled, Harry asked for everybody’s attention for an important announcement.

“I’d like to propose a toast,” Harry said. “To the newest member of the bar.”

Harry raised his glass and the other lawyers did the same. Landon stopped in midtoast, his eyes wide.

“Just found out from a friend at the Board of Bar Examiners yesterday,” Harry said, his mouth curling into a smile.

The lawyers clinked glasses and took a sip. For Landon, who had said a prayer about this every night for the last two weeks, the moment seemed surreal. He could keep his job. Once he got sworn in, he could officially practice law. He immediately thought about telling Kerri, how she would react, knowing that their sacrifice had paid off.

Still, one could never be too sure in these matters. “So you’re saying I’m in?” Landon asked Harry.

Harry looked around the table. “Are there any other lawyers here waiting to hear from the Board of Bar Examiners?”

The others smirked and shook their heads.

“Then I guess I’m talking about you. Congratulations.”

Landon smiled broadly and toasted everybody again, one by one. They congratulated him and gulped down their beer and wine. They were starting to grow on him.

“They’ll let anybody practice law these days,” Harry said.

///

After lunch, Harry and Landon returned to the office, trailing the others.

“I thought I might get fired,” Landon confessed. “For failing to get those fingerprints.”

Harry’s expression didn’t change. Perhaps he was considering it after all.

“It’s good you’ve got your principles,” Harry said. “That’s one of the reasons I hired you. But you’re overanalyzing this. Our client needs us to
find out whose fingerprint is on that weight. And at this point, I don’t want somebody who might be testifying to know that information.”

“I understand that,” Landon said. “It just felt wrong trying to deceive Jake.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Harry said. He was a little out of breath from the walk. “I’ll get the fingerprints some other way.”

RACHEL STRACH NEVER GREW TIRED
of flying in the cockpit of the Cessna Citation Mustang the firm leased from time to time. The plane was trimmed out with a white leather interior and could carry four passengers. For this trip, Parker Clausen was riding alone in the back, while Brent manned the controls and Rachel stayed up front as his “copilot.”

She and Brent put on the headphones and chatted away once they reached cruising altitude, after he had switched off the mike to the outside world. For Rachel, the soft purr of the jet engines seemed to drown out all of the tension and chaos that was part of a busy law firm. Here, cruising above the clouds, they could talk about personal matters, and Brent opened his life like a well-worn book.

Brent was good-looking, in incredible shape, and a powerful attorney. But none of those things had first attracted Rachel to the man who was nearly ten years older than she. Instead, it was the side of Brent that others never got to see, the part that he buried beneath his military demeanor and tough-guy veneer. The guy had a heart. He was a sucker for romance
and adventure and fairy-tale endings. She had seen it first on a road trip, when the two of them had gone to see
The Vow
together. He had cried, though he’d tried to mask it. She was hooked.

The movie showed marriage the way it was supposed to be, he’d said when they shared dinner together afterward. “I’d give anything to start over again.”

There had been rumors about the Benedicts’ marriage when Rachel had joined the firm five years earlier. It was Brent’s second. His first had fallen apart during a six-month deployment. His wife informed him about the other man by e-mail.

It took Brent five years to get over the heartbreak and find Stacy, a woman who had already burned through two marriages and brought kids into the relationship. They met at a cocktail party. He was a promising young attorney, and she was an interior designer, the daughter of a wealthy Virginia Beach developer. She married Brent, quit her job, and began working on her tennis game. The marriage quickly soured, though they managed to tough it out for ten years. But Stacy knew she wasn’t getting any younger and eventually insisted on a divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. They separated and agreed to work things out without getting lawyers involved.

That lasted until Brent suggested what he thought was a fair proposal for child support, spousal support, and equitable distribution. Stacy was insulted, made an appointment with the most aggressive divorce lawyer in Virginia Beach, and the war was on. Brent’s stepchildren, who had never learned to call him Dad, alleged that his strict disciplinarian ways constituted abuse. Stacy’s attorney, a woman named Carolyn Glaxon-Forrester, claimed Brent was hiding assets, and she demanded access to all of McNaughten and Clay’s financial data.

The case became a bone of contention at the firm and made every one of Brent’s victories bittersweet. The more money he made, the more support Stacy wanted. And Glaxon-Forrester kept dragging out the proceedings, demanding more information about the legal fees and profits of McNaughten and Clay.

It was against this backdrop that Brent unburdened himself in the skies over South Carolina. “I don’t know why it has to be like this,” Brent said, his voice forlorn. “I don’t hate Stacy. I just don’t feel anything for her anymore. There are times when I want to just fire my lawyer and tell Stacy I’ll sign anything her lawyer drafts, just to end it. But I don’t even think that would satisfy her. It’s like her whole life is about getting revenge for all these perceived slights during our marriage. If the divorce proceedings ended tomorrow, I don’t think she would know what to do.”

Rachel listened and let Brent talk things out. She knew he wasn’t really looking for advice; he just wanted a sympathetic ear.

“The first time your marriage fails, you blame it on the other person. I mean, she couldn’t wait six months for me to get back from deployment? But the second time, you have to look at yourself. Maybe I’m a poor judge of character. Or just a terrible judge of women. Stacy’s certainly not perfect. But I loved her when we first met. She was vulnerable then, coming off her second divorce. Things were different.”

“You’ve always been a sucker for a damsel in distress,” Rachel said.

Brent gave her a sideways glance. “Meaning?”

“The Sergeant case. Their motion to compel.”

She didn’t need to say more. It was the first hearing Brent had allowed her to handle in federal court. The opposing lawyer had accused Rachel of hiding documents and being unethical. Brent had jumped to her defense and almost started a fistfight in the hallway after the hearing.

“You’ve been a great mentor to me,” Rachel said. “And you’ve given me every opportunity I could ever ask for. So I wouldn’t say you are a terrible judge of
all
women.”

“Just the ones I end up marrying,” Brent said.

“Details,” Rachel said.

They flew in silence for a few moments, and Rachel started thinking about the what-ifs. Apparently she wasn’t the only one.

“I wish I’d met you ten years ago,” Brent said. “It might have saved me a lot of heartache.”

On too many occasions to count, Rachel had wished the same thing.
Brent had always been good to her. Protective, encouraging, nurturing. She had endured her own turmoil in the five years since she joined the firm, churning through several boyfriends, one of whom was emotionally abusive. Brent had threatened the man with his life if he ever laid a hand on Rachel.

“I know what you mean. But you know what I’ve concluded?”

“What?”

“I’m just glad I know you now.”

She reached out and put a hand on top of his. She wasn’t trying to shatter some new barrier; they had grown accustomed to the casual touches that signified something deeper than friendship. But this time it was an unspoken promise. She left her hand there for a long time, and neither of them spoke.

That evening, Rachel and Brent checked into the hotel, changed clothes, and spent an hour in the workout room. Parker Clausen had his own agenda. He headed to the bar, had a few drinks, and retired to his room to work on the next chapter of his great American novel.

After their workout, Brent and Rachel went out to dinner. Brent ordered an expensive bottle of wine. He had a case to argue the next day, but in typical Brent Benedict fashion, he had prepared well in advance. Besides, the hearing was the furthest thing from either of their minds. In fact, during the hour-and-a-half dinner, neither said a word about that case or any other. There were more important things to talk about. Personal things. And on the cab ride home, Rachel slid next to Brent and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

In the hotel elevator, she slipped him a key to her room. “Give me ten minutes,” she said.

He was military, so he arrived right on time. He knocked softly and she let him in.

They woke together in the morning.