Dead Lawyers Tell No Tales (25 page)

LANDON JUST WANTED LIFE
to get back to some semblance of normalcy, but the week of May 13 was not cooperating. The firm’s only assistant, sweet Janaya Young, tearfully resigned on Monday. She thanked both Parker and Landon profusely. Through tears, she told them how much the firm had meant to her. But she had twin boys whose daddy was nowhere to be found, and Janaya had to take care of her family.

Parker and Landon both said they understood. Parker even offered six months’ severance pay. “We can’t do it all in one check,” he said apologetically, “because our cash flow is too tight. But I’ll keep you on payroll so you get a check every other week for the next six months, as if you’d never left.”

Landon had never been more proud of his partner.

The investigation into the deaths of the firm’s lawyers continued to hit brick walls. The Feds were taking the lead in the investigation of the Cessna explosion. But Detective Freeman was still the lead on
Harry’s death, and she had practically taken up residence in the offices of McNaughten and Clay. The court had appointed a special prosecutor from another jurisdiction to work with Freeman, thus keeping any privileged information out of the hands of the Virginia Beach Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office.

Freeman had turned the second-floor conference room into her own private war room, as she shuffled through files and yelled questions down the hall at Landon. The whole thing had an
Alice in Wonderland
feel. A Virginia Beach detective setting up shop in Landon’s office, freely accessing the firm’s files, shouting down the hall to Landon the same way Harry had done. What other criminal-defense lawyer operated like this?

Things had changed dramatically at the condo as well. Billy Thurston made himself at home, sleeping on the couch most of the night. When Landon woke up, he would nudge Billy, who would traipse back to Landon’s home office and sleep for a few more hours on the air mattress. Kerri was feuding with her bosses about their lack of support for her refusal to reveal her sources in the Universal Labs story and had requested two weeks off to sort stuff out. Landon suspected she really just wanted to stay home with Maddie so they wouldn’t have to drop their daughter off at day care.

On Wednesday, Detective Freeman told Landon that the VBPD could no longer afford to keep his family under twenty-four-hour watch. They would drive by the condo frequently at night and make their presence known. Freeman had gone to the mat for both Landon and Parker, threatening to resign if anything happened to them, but she had lost the battle. Budgets were tight, and lots of people received death threats. Though she never said it, Landon could guess the dynamics in the upper echelons of the police department.
“Let’s see, we can keep our streets safe or we can provide around-the-clock protection for a couple of small-time lawyers. Next question.”

Billy Thurston decided he would pick up the slack and stick to the Reed girls like glue. Except for the three hours a day when he worked
out at a local gym, he shadowed them most everywhere they went. The Wolfman, of course, continued to lurk around as well and said he wasn’t going away anytime soon. He wasn’t very talkative, but Kerri and Landon weren’t complaining. If you were in a football game, you wanted Billy Thurston on your side. But if you were trying to catch a serial murderer, the Wolfman was your guy.

According to the Wolfman, Cipher Inc. was conducting its own below-the-radar investigation into who was after the McNaughten and Clay lawyers. It wasn’t just that McNaughten and Clay was their firm and that Sean Phoenix took it personally when somebody killed his longtime attorneys. He also appreciated Kerri’s reporting and wanted to keep her family safe. Though Kerri never admitted it, Landon suspected that Sean Phoenix was one of the confidential sources she had gone to court to protect.

By Thursday, Landon just needed a break. He was tired of living life like a zebra on a lion preserve, constantly glancing over his shoulder or studying people’s faces for the slightest hint of guilt or deception. He was tired of worrying about Maddie and Kerri every second of the day, finding makeshift reasons to text Kerri every few minutes just to make sure his family was okay. He was tired of everyone lowering their eyes when they met him and passing on their condolences, keeping their voices low as if by talking normally they might somehow shatter his fragile psyche. He hadn’t been sleeping. He hadn’t been exercising. And he still couldn’t figure out who was killing his partners or why.

On a whim, he called the three high school quarterbacks he had been mentoring and told them to show up that night at a local football field. They were to bring as many of their offensive linemen as they could. And everyone should be prepared to work out.

That evening, Landon and Billy climbed in Landon’s truck and picked up Jake King at his house in Chesapeake. The poor kid was so intimidated by the presence of the Green Bay Packers starting center that he hardly spoke a word on the way to the practice field. When the players all gathered, introductions were made, and the linemen who
came looked at Billy wide-eyed. The guy was way bigger than he looked on TV!

They divided up into two groups—quarterbacks and linemen. Before long, most of the linemen were wishing they had never met Billy Thurston. Landon and his quarterbacks fell into a comfortable routine. Passing drills, footwork, pop quizzes about check-down progressions for certain types of coverage. But the linemen were another story.

Billy Thurston had always been an emotional player—one of those guys who was a teddy bear off the field but a vicious animal on it. He started with one-on-one blocking drills and was yelling at the kids almost immediately, forcing them to keep their pads down and get better leverage. When he would get really frustrated, he’d step in and show them how to do it himself, knocking some hapless two-hundred-pound high school lineman flat on his back.

“You can’t stand straight up like that!” he’d yell. “You’re going to get your quarterback killed!”

Landon smiled to himself from fifty yards away. It had always been, in Billy Thurston’s world, the greatest transgression of all—letting a defensive lineman get to your quarterback.

“Doggonit!” Billy was yelling. “You’ve got to take more pride in yourself than that!”

Before long, the high school kids started catching on, and the intensity of the workout picked up. They began yelling and grunting and egging each other on. “That’s more like it!” Billy hollered. “Now you’re talking!”

When the linemen were so worn out that they could hardly move, much less block with the technique that Billy insisted on, Landon and Billy brought the players over to the bleachers and sat them down. Billy talked to them first. Discipline. Humility. Take care of your body. And remember, the ability to play football is a gift. Don’t take it for granted.

At the end of his bleacher speech, Billy parceled out a few compliments. He told the guys that they had worked hard and that he saw real potential. He loved their attitude. But to be honest, their blocking tech
niques were pitiful. He wondered if they could work out again in a few days, and the heads started nodding. “Yes, sir,” a few of them said.

“All right,” Billy said. “I’ll see you out here Saturday morning at seven.”

It was a tough act to follow, but Landon had to say
something
. He mainly lectured the quarterbacks, telling them that they were only as good as their offensive line. When they got credit for a win, they should deflect it to the guys in the trenches. “We get all the glory, but they do all the work.”

Most of them already knew about the personal challenges Landon was facing, but he gave them a few additional details. Somebody was apparently targeting all the lawyers in his firm. And when Landon needed help, Billy had shown up uninvited on Landon’s doorstep.

Landon had intended to tell the guys about Billy getting face-planted by one of the other men already guarding the Reed family. He wanted to get the guys laughing. But when he got to that part, he couldn’t do it. Instead, he swallowed hard and lost the ability to say much of anything at all. They all waited for a few awkward moments as he struggled to regain his composure.

He decided he’d said enough. “Listen to what this man says,” Landon concluded, motioning toward Billy. “Because there are some things in life more important than football.”

JAKE WAS UBERTALKATIVE
on the way home. Three of the linemen on his team had shown up for the workout. They were younger than the others and gave up about fifty pounds to the older guys, but Jake’s friends had fought hard and Billy was proud of them. With his dad’s trial looming, it must have felt good for Jake to just focus on football for a night.

When they pulled into Jake’s driveway, Elias came out and thanked Landon and Billy for what they were doing with the kids. He asked Landon if he could have a word with him in private.

Landon turned to Billy, who shrugged. “I’ll hang with Jake,” he said.

A few minutes later, Landon was sitting in Elias King’s study. He had asked Elias for a towel to sit on so he wouldn’t get sweat all over the leather chair, but Elias told him it was the least of his worries. Elias was dressed in khakis and a crisp button-down shirt. He wasn’t wearing shoes, but otherwise he could have been at the office on a business-casual day.

The pictures in the office reminded Landon that the King family had seen better days. Mixed among the obligatory pictures of Elias hobnobbing with legal big shots, including a sitting justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, were pictures of Elias and his family. The three of them vacationing together at the beach. A casual shot of Elias with his arm around Julia. A stiff pose of the three of them in the photographer’s studio, all wearing blue jeans and white shirts. Jake was the spittin’ image of his dad.

“I’m sorry about Brent and Rachel,” Elias said. “I never got a chance to express my condolences.”

“Thanks,” Landon said.

Elias fidgeted with a pen. “I really miss Harry,” he said, not looking up. “I miss him for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that he was in a different league than my current lawyers.”

Elias followed with a laundry list of problems with his new attorneys. They had recently completed a mock trial exercise to see how the case would play out. Both mock juries had returned a guilty verdict. Elias’s lead lawyer had represented him, and a few other firm lawyers had played the part of the prosecution.

“I learned two things from that,” Elias explained. “First, I need to change lawyers. Landon, these guys have no idea how to try a case. They’ve built a reputation representing high-profile clients, but they almost always plead them out. My case is going to trial.”

Elias shifted in his chair, narrowing his eyes. “Second, I learned that I make a terrible witness. As a prosecutor, I always hoped the defendant would take the stand. They generally make an easy target. But as a defendant—” Elias grinned a little to himself—“I knew I was smarter than everybody else. I figured I would make a darned good witness. Plus, I had truth on my side.” Elias shook his head and frowned. “But there are too many questions I can’t answer. Even the young partner who played the prosecutor made me look like a liar, and he wasn’t even very good. In postverdict polling, my credibility was about zero. Cheating on your wife has a way of doing that, you know.”

“I don’t think Harry was planning on putting you on the stand,” Landon said.

“Precisely. But if I don’t take the stand, the jury’s going to think I’m hiding behind the Fifth Amendment. They’ll expect better from a former prosecutor.”

It was déjà vu for Landon, the same problems he and Harry had discussed at length. In a way, it made him thankful that they were some other firm’s challenges now.

But then Elias looked at him and said the last thing Landon ever expected to hear. “I’d like for you to consider taking my case.”

Landon did a double take, as if somebody had just taken a swing at him.

“Hear me out,” Elias said quickly, reading the expression on Landon’s face. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot. We could actually work together as cocounsel. I would do the opening, which would give me a chance to speak directly to the jury without having to take the stand. You could do a lot of the witness examination.”

It took Landon a moment to realize that the man was serious. He was actually asking a first-year lawyer to help him try his case! The pressure must have been getting to him.

“Harry thought highly of you, and that’s saying something. Sure, you lack experience, but I’ve got experience in spades. Plus, right now you’ve got a lot of goodwill with the press. I know this sounds pretty Machiavellian, but I could use some of that.”

Landon hadn’t thought about Elias acting as his own lawyer. As he suggested, this would give him a way to speak to the jury without being cross-examined. But he could use that same strategy with his current lawyers. Why change to a first-year attorney?

“Lately, I’ve been asking myself what Harry would do,” Elias continued. “And that’s what led me to this. Harry would try something totally out of the box. Harry would use you to help. He believed in you, Landon.”

It sounded crazy, but maybe the idea had some merit. Harry had
made a pretty good living off crazy, or at least unconventional. Plus, the approach was bound to create a national media frenzy—publicity the firm could parlay into other cases.

“There’s one other thing,” Elias said. “And this is nonnegotiable. My current lawyers have hinted that the best way to plant reasonable doubt is to point a finger at Julia.” Elias set his jaw. “I’m not willing to do that, Landon. Not under any circumstances. If you take the case, I need you to understand that.”

That part didn’t bother Landon. In fact, he admired it. “I never liked that strategy anyway,” he said.

“Does that mean you’ll think about it?”

“I’ll think about it,” Landon said. “And I’ll give you my answer by Monday.”

“THIS IS WHY I BECAME A LAWYER,”
Landon said. But Kerri was shaking her head. They had been discussing the matter at the kitchen table for thirty minutes. It was nearly midnight, and neither Landon nor Kerri was giving an inch. Not only was Kerri against taking on the case; she was still proposing that Landon leave the firm altogether. Billy Thurston was within earshot, sitting in the family room, working on his second bowl of cereal and watching
SportsCenter
.

“Billy, what do you think?” Kerri asked.

“My friends are for it. My friends are against it. I’m for my friends.” Billy’s eyes never left the television.

“This is the firm that gave me a chance. This is what it means to be loyal,” Landon said. “I can’t turn my back on this.”

“What would it hurt to at least call the station in D.C.?” Kerri asked. “Just to see if the job’s still open?”

“For me, moving to D.C. is not an option.”

Kerri was picking at a loose thread on the place mat. “What about
our family, Landon? I can’t sleep at night because I’m worried about what I would do without you. Every jet that flies over reminds me that it might have been you on that Cessna. I know you feel like you owe the firm, but that firm is cursed.”

She shot a glance at Billy. “I mean, look at us. We can’t even leave the condo without some kind of protection. We need a new start.”

Landon was tired of new starts. He was tired of acknowledging to a whole new set of folks that he was the guy who had cheated on his teammates. Of trying to convince them that he had changed.

He couldn’t keep running. There was an old saying in Alcoholics Anonymous: “Wherever you go, there you are.” He knew it was true of him as well. Wherever he went, the point-shaving scandal followed. At some point, he had to just hunker down and
prove
to people that he could be trusted.

“Kerri, we can’t outrun this. Just like we’ve never been able to outrun what I did in college—”

“I’m not saying we can outrun it,” Kerri interrupted.

“Let me finish, okay?”

“I’m just saying, if this were about running, I wouldn’t have waited two years for you to get out of jail. This is about our family.”

Landon blew out a breath. “Is it my turn?”

“Yes.” She didn’t sound convinced.

“The only way we get out of danger is by finding out who’s killing the firm’s lawyers and why. And we’re not going to get that done by moving to D.C.”

“Whoa!” Billy said from the family room couch. It was a top-ten play on
SportsCenter
, an in-your-face-dunk by some NBA rookie sensation. “He posterized that dude!”

Landon shook his head. His life was like a bad sitcom. “Turn that thing off,” he said. “Get out here and join us.”

“I’m trying to be the Swiss,” Billy shot back. “The Swiss don’t take sides.”

“Get your fat Swiss tail out here!” Kerri said. “We need your help.”

Billy mumbled under his breath but lumbered to the table. If he
was going to be the mediator, he said, he needed some paper and a pen. He drew two lines, dividing the page into thirds, and told Landon and Kerri to give him a list of the pros and cons for each of three options—moving to D.C., staying in Virginia Beach and taking the King case, or staying in Virginia Beach and not taking the case.

“A pro for moving to D.C. is that maybe Landon wouldn’t get killed,” Kerri said.

“Okay,” Billy said. He wrote down
Landon stays alive.
“You sure that should go in the
pro
column?”

Kerri didn’t smile, so he batted his eyes at her. “I’m just sayin’, with Junior here out of the way—maybe you and me?”

Billy’s offbeat sense of humor managed to lighten the mood a little and got Kerri and Landon talking in less threatening tones. The list grew lopsided in favor of D.C. even though Landon did his best to come up with alternative ways of making the same arguments against it. He believed in Elias King’s innocence. He wanted to help Jacob. And he wanted to prove that he was the kind of lawyer who would never turn his back on a firm or a client. “Plus, we’ve got the ocean here,” he said.

“When’s the last time we went to the ocean?” Kerri asked.

When Billy was done writing, most of the factors weighed in favor of moving. None of them knew for sure that moving to D.C. would make things safer for Landon, but their instincts told them that disentangling from the firm would help. Kerri could be a rock-star journalist on a big stage in D.C. With everything Landon had learned under the tutelage of Harry McNaughten, he could start his own firm. In fact, it might be easier to open his own shop than it would be to pick up the pieces at McNaughten and Clay.

Billy turned the page around so they could both see the list. The choice was obvious. It was time to bail.

“You want my advice?” Billy asked.

“Sure,” Kerri and Landon said in unison.

“You guys are both people of faith, and I respect that about you. So
here’s what I’m thinking. Kerri calls this station in D.C. If the job’s still open and she gets it, then God wants you to move to D.C. If not, you stay here.” He looked down at the list. The column for taking Elias’s case was far longer than the one for not taking it. “And if you stay, you take the case.”

It felt like a cop-out to Landon—let the circumstances dictate what God wants. But Kerri liked the approach.

“Makes sense to me,” she said. “I think it leaves room for God to do his thing.”

She reached under the table and took Landon’s hand. He swallowed a lump in his throat and nodded his head. Billy was right about one thing—if God didn’t want them moving to D.C., he would close that door. But this took it out of Landon’s hands, and that was hard.

“I guess that works,” Landon said. He turned to Kerri. “I’d like to finish Elias’s case first, but if you’re not okay with that, then I won’t.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea. Not with everything else that’s been happening.”

“Well then,” Billy announced. “I see my work here is done.” He stood from the table and headed back to
SportsCenter
.

///

The next morning, after Kerri had left, Landon came out and shook Billy awake on the couch. The big man grunted and rolled over. Landon shook his shoulder again, and Billy squinted, opened an eye, and muttered something like “lea’ me ’lone.”

“Kerri said she wants to stay in Virginia Beach,” Landon said. “She woke up this morning and said that she had prayed about it half the night. She said this was our home; that I needed to take that case; that God wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”

Billy sat up, rubbing his eyes. He had a serious case of bed hair.

“Did you hear what I said?” Landon asked.

“Reverse psychology,” Billy said. “It works every time.”

///

The trial was scheduled to begin exactly six weeks from the day Landon was rehired as Elias King’s attorney. He worked fourteen-hour days. Seven days a week. Billy Thurston saw more of Kerri and Maddie than Landon did.

The only thing Elias King had in common with Harry McNaughten was his superb ability as a trial lawyer. His style couldn’t have been more different from that of Landon’s mentor. Elias was a control freak. He and Landon scrutinized every detail of the case. They wrote out their witness examinations question by question. They brought in witnesses and grilled them for hours, preparing them for cross-examination by Franklin Sherman. They took turns playing an adverse witness while the other one worked on his cross-examination. For Landon, it was a month of trial-advocacy boot camp with a drill sergeant who was pumping caffeine by the gallon and had his own freedom at stake. All of this while answering occasional questions from Detective Freeman and worrying about cash flow in his role as a new firm partner.

As the trial approached, Landon also worried about Parker Clausen. The man was becoming more unkempt, wearing the same faded jeans and T-shirts every day. A few times, Landon smelled liquor on Parker’s breath by midafternoon. His office, which used to be relatively clean, was starting to look like a scene from
Hoarders
.

But Landon didn’t have time for those problems now. There was so much to be done on the King case and so little time to do it.

On the bright side, each new day that passed seemed to lessen the threat of further violence against firm members. Billy Thurston was sticking with Maddie and Kerri. The Wolfman—or occasionally another operative from Cipher Inc.—was always hanging around someplace. Detective Freeman finally finished her analysis of the firm files and now only occasionally stopped by or called with another question.

“Any leads?” Landon would ask.

“I’m working on it.”

Two weeks before trial, Landon still didn’t know who had killed Erica Jensen. He had learned that Julia King had wrestled with depression her entire life and had been diagnosed as bipolar. But that didn’t make her a killer. Even if she was, that defense was off-limits.

The net result was that Landon and Elias were preparing a case of counterpunches—the precise strategy that Harry had once eschewed.
“The jury will want to know who did it,”
Harry had said, and those words kept ringing in Landon’s ears, haunting him.

Elias, on the other hand, clung to the presumption of innocence. “All we have to do is create reasonable doubt,” he reminded Landon on numerous occasions.

Landon didn’t argue—since they had no alternative suspect, what was the point? But deep down, he suspected that Elias was wrong and Harry was right. If they couldn’t prove who murdered Erica Jensen, the jury would pin it on Elias.

“Reasonable doubt” was lawyer-speak. The jury just wanted to know who did it.