Dead Lawyers Tell No Tales (4 page)

THE DAZZLE OF CHRISTMAS
turned into the dreariness of a January filled with depressing news. While waiting for the Board of Bar Examiners to affirm the recommendation of the Character and Fitness Committee, Landon bombarded local law firms and public defenders’ offices with applications. To distinguish himself from the dozens of other applicants, he put on a suit every day and personally hand-delivered the paperwork. The receptionists all smiled and politely told him they would give his application to the hiring partner, but Landon never received even the first call.

After three weeks of rejections, he started exploring the possibility of hanging out his own shingle. But among other problems, that would take start-up money, something he and Kerri didn’t have. Somebody had to pay for the malpractice insurance and a website and business cards and license fees and who knew what else.

His painting jobs mostly dried up after the first half of January, leaving Landon to split his time between training high school quarterbacks
at night and playing Mr. Mom (along with the Dog Whisperer) during the day.

House-training Simba was about as successful as landing a legal job. Landon resorted to spreading blue plastic on top of the carpet in the condo so it would be easier to clean up after one of Simba’s many accidents.

The sole piece of good news in January was the playoff march of the Green Bay Packers. Landon had always been a Cowboys fan himself, but Billy Thurston was now starting for the Pack. It was enough to turn the entire Reed family into cheeseheads.

Each Sunday, the Reeds attended a church that met in the Westin Hotel in the Town Center area of Virginia Beach. On January 20, they went out for lunch after church to the Gordon Biersch Brewery because the place had lots of big screens and a rowdy atmosphere for Landon and Kerri to take in the beginning of the NFC Championship Game. Maddie liked eating at the high tables in the middle of the restaurant, and the place had a kids’ menu with some of the best mac and cheese in town. The Reeds planned on watching the first half of the game there and driving home at halftime. The entire family, including Maddie, had worn Packers jerseys to church.

Things started going south toward the end of the second quarter, as Landon was finishing his last chicken wing. Uncharacteristically, the Packers quarterback threw his second interception of the half, and this one was returned for a touchdown.

The booth directly behind Landon’s table was occupied by three loud and obnoxious 49ers fans. After an explosion of high fives, the biggest among them couldn’t let it go. “That’s two interceptions this half!” he proclaimed during the commercial break. “At that rate he’ll have more than three for the game.”

“And he’ll prob’ly fumble on the last drive,” said his buddy.

Kerri shot Landon a look. It wasn’t the first time they had been through something like this.

“Yep,” said a third voice, “wonder who’s paying him.”

Landon watched Kerri’s face tighten, the storm clouds forming in her eyes. It was a look that generally meant he and Maddie should seek immediate shelter. “Let it go,” he whispered. Ignoring him, she turned and stared at the men in the booth.

“You got something to say?” she asked. Her lips were tight in anger, her jaw set.
Great,
thought Landon. There would be no backing down now.

“You talking to me?” the big man asked. The group’s spokesman looked like he weighed about 250. He was a Grizzly Adams type with a scruffy black beard, a bald pate, a 49ers jersey, earrings, and a forearm full of tattoos. He held his arms out—a peace offering. “We’re just talking amongst ourselves.”

He took a swig of beer but kept his eye on Kerri. She stared back.

“That woman can talk to me all day long if she wants,” quipped his friend. This guy was shorter, with the high and tight haircut of the Marines. He wore a tight red T-shirt showing off ripped arms and a washboard gut. He and Grizzly bumped fists.

“Grow up,” Kerri snorted, turning back to her table, her eyes on fire. “Let’s get out of here,” she said to Landon.

“Can I go potty?” Maddie asked.

Kerri grunted in frustration.

“Don’t worry about it,” Landon said, keeping his voice low and calm. “Go ahead and take her. We’ll leave when we’re ready. You can’t let jerks like that run us off.”

Kerri sighed and helped Maddie off her stool. The men at the booth stared unabashedly as Kerri and Maddie walked away.

“Wouldn’t mind getting inside that Packers jersey,” the Marine said. Landon scowled at him.

“Probably hasn’t had a real man in a while,” said the third man, a younger guy with wavy blond hair who looked like he’d just stepped out of a frat party.

Landon shook his head and reminded himself how much was at stake. The Character and Fitness Committee had recommended him to the Virginia State Bar. If he got into a fight now, he would jeopardize
everything he had worked for in the last three years. He had learned to swallow his pride, one of the many consequences of what he had done. He took a drink of soda and turned back to the television.

But the boys at the booth weren’t done. Grizzly staggered over to Landon’s table, accompanied by the Marine. Frat Boy didn’t join them.

“I played a little football back in the day,” Grizzly said. He slurred his words and looked unsteady. “Used to have season tickets to the Knights. Consider myself a proud alum.”

Just my luck,
Landon thought.

The Marine had carried his beer to Landon’s table and set it down, as if he might be joining Landon for lunch.

“You know what I can’t stand?” Grizzly asked. Landon tried to ignore him, leaning to the side so he could see the game over the big man’s shoulder.

Grizzly shifted a little, blocking Landon’s view. “I can’t stand prima donnas who have the God-given ability to play for a team that I would have given my first child to play for, and then they sell out their teammates. Know what I mean?”

Landon didn’t say a word. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kerri and Maddie returning from the bathroom. This was going to be trouble.

“All right, he gets it,” Frat Boy said. He had approached Landon’s table and put a hand on Grizzly’s arm, nudging him back toward the booth. But the big guy was too drunk and belligerent to retreat so quickly. He shook his friend’s arm away and, in an exaggerated move, knocked Landon’s glass over, spilling the drink on Kerri’s plate.

“You are such a jerk,” she snapped, arriving at the table. She let go of Maddie’s hand and pushed Grizzly aside to grab her keys and cell phone from the table.

Grizzly took a stutter step back and regained his balance to hover over Kerri. “Darn, you’re cute when you’re mad,” he said, smiling. He put an arm on her shoulder to turn her back toward him.

Kerri looked shocked, but before she could say anything, Landon snapped. He jumped from his chair and caught the man with a right
cross. He had learned a thing or two about fighting in prison, including the element of surprise.

The Marine gawked for a second, stunned, and then took a swing at Landon from the side. Landon blocked it, grabbed the Marine’s collar, and pulled the man’s head down while raising his own right knee and driving it into the Marine’s face. Blood squirted from his nose.

Grizzly had not gone down. He wiped the blood from his mouth and grabbed Landon from behind, wrapping him up in a bear hug. Frat Boy and the Marine started punching Landon as Kerri screamed, trying to pull the big man off. By the time the bartender and a few others had separated the combatants, Landon was crumpled on the floor with Kerri kneeling beside him. Maddie was crying.

The police arrived ten minutes later, after the 49ers table had paid their bill and cleared out. Kerri wanted to press charges, but Landon refused. For him, it was just another sad chapter in the ongoing saga of the point-shaving scandal. The dental bill for repairing his three lower front teeth the next day cost nearly fifteen hundred dollars.

Five days later, a sheriff’s deputy showed up at Landon’s condo with a subpoena to appear in Virginia Beach General District Court on a charge of assault and battery. As it turned out, Landon wasn’t the only one who required dental work. Grizzly’s name was Kirby Wingate, and he claimed that Landon had started everything, chipping one of Grizzly’s top front teeth when he threw the first unprovoked punch.

If the truth about the assault came out in court, no judge would convict Landon. But who knew what Wingate and his friends would say?

Landon couldn’t afford an attorney and would have to defend himself. Because his application to practice law was now before the Virginia Board of Bar Examiners, who could either accept or reject the recommendation of the Character and Fitness Committee, he knew he would need to inform them about the charges. If he lost, he could kiss his law license good-bye.

IN VIRGINIA,
General District Court has jurisdiction over all misdemeanors. Under a unique aspect of Virginia law, the victim or police officer initiates the case and testifies—the Commonwealth’s Attorney doesn’t even get involved unless the case is appealed. The person who files the complaint chooses the original return date for the first hearing. Sometimes a trial is actually held on that day, but often the case is rescheduled for trial at a later time. Kirby Wingate had chosen February 4, the day after the Super Bowl, as the original return date for Landon’s assault charges. It was all Landon could think about while watching the game the night before. But what did it matter? The Packers had been knocked out during the championship game two weeks earlier.

Wingate had apparently called the paper as well. The article appeared on page two of the local section, reminding readers about Landon’s role in the point-shaving scandal and informing them of his current application to acquire a Virginia law license. Kerri wanted to sue Wingate for defamation, but Landon scoffed at the thought. “Kerri, when you
google my name, there are already four pages of articles about the point-shaving scandal. I’m pretty much defamation-proof.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That my reputation’s so shot it would be hard for anyone to make it worse.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

Landon and Kerri arrived at court early and squeezed into the third row of a packed gallery. After twenty minutes, while the judge was processing a line of people requesting continuances, somebody tapped Landon on the shoulder.

It took Landon a second to make the connection. The man was an older lawyer, dressed in a well-worn blue pin-striped suit. He had a long Roman nose, dark eyebrows, a high forehead, and wavy gray hair tucked behind his ears.

“Mr. McNaughten,” Landon said, surprised.

“Can we meet in the hallway?” McNaughten asked in a gruff whisper.

“Sure.”

“You might want to bring the missus.”

Outside the courtroom, they found an out-of-the-way corner. McNaughten introduced himself to Kerri, who said she remembered him from the hearing. “We really appreciate your committee taking a chance on Landon,” she said. “You won’t be disappointed.”

Landon wanted to thank McNaughten as well but thought it might be a breach of protocol.

“That’s actually why I wanted to talk to you,” McNaughten said. “I was waiting upstairs to have some motions heard in circuit court, and I read the newspaper article. I worked too hard convincing my committee members to give you a chance to have it all get sidetracked now. Have you got a lawyer?”

Landon was gratified to learn that McNaughten had been in his corner. “I was going to handle it myself,” Landon said.

“Bad idea,” McNaughten replied. “You get this judge on the wrong day and it’s a twofer.”

“A what?” Kerri asked.

“A two-for-one. An assault on your record and, as a bonus, you get denied by the Board of Bar Examiners.”

Landon knew it was true. Yet he had never been short on confidence. Deep down, he was relishing the chance to cross-examine Kirby Wingate.

“We can’t really afford a lawyer,” Kerri said.

“You can’t afford
not
to have one,” McNaughten responded. “Tell you what—I’ll take your case today, and we’ll figure out a way for you to pay me later.”

Kerri looked at Landon, her eyes lighting up. Landon was skeptical. Anything too good to be true usually was.

“What’s your rate?” Landon asked, as if it really mattered.

“Four-fifty an hour. But for you, I’ll knock it down to four hundred. You go back in there and tell the judge that I’m representing you, and she’ll set the trial on the contested docket for two this afternoon. Shouldn’t take more than an hour to try the case. Another thirty minutes or so right now for you to tell me what happened.”

Kerri looked at Landon with a face he had seen before when the woman discovered a bargain. “We really need to do this,” she said. Landon agreed but felt a little wind leave his sails, as if Kerri had just benched him for the big game.

He and Kerri spent the next fifteen minutes briefing McNaughten on the fight. They tried to keep it concise. The meter was running.

“Did you bring your dental bill?” McNaughten asked.

Landon pulled it out of his suit-coat pocket. “Right here.”

McNaughten patted his pockets and found a pair of reading glasses. He put them on, glanced at the bill, then stuffed the bill and glasses in his pocket.

“This should be fun,” he said.

OVER LUNCH,
Landon and Kerri debated why Harry McNaughten would want to take their case. Kerri’s theory made the most sense—the man smelled some cheap publicity. Regardless, they were both glad to have him aboard.

When they returned to court, they sat through three other contested cases before the clerk called Landon’s. Judge Tyra Lee, a striking young African American jurist, had all the witnesses stand to be sworn in. Landon joined Harry McNaughten at the front of the courtroom, standing to one side just below the judge’s dais. Kirby Wingate and his buddies stood on the other.

“Nice of you to join us today, Mr. McNaughten,” Judge Lee said.

“Couldn’t resist a little fun,” Harry said. “And I’d like to sequester the witnesses.”

Judge Lee asked Wingate’s buddies and Kerri to step into the hallway until they were called by a deputy. Landon was pretty sure Kerri would try to melt the others with her stare.

The police officer told the court that he had not witnessed the event but had arrived after the fight was over. Judge Lee then turned to Kirby Wingate and said, “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

Wingate had tried to dress the part. He had on a suit and tie for the occasion, though he couldn’t quite get his shirt buttoned at the neck. He hadn’t bothered to trim his beard but had ditched the earrings. His face was red, especially his broad nose, but Landon couldn’t tell if that was from a lifetime of drinking or from nerves. Unlike Landon, he had not yet been to the dentist, and his front tooth was chipped at the corner.

He spoke in a conversational tone, a different man from the obnoxious fan of a few weeks earlier. He had obviously rehearsed his little spiel. He explained that he and his friends were 49ers fans and that Landon and his family were Green Bay fans. The two camps had been going back and forth during the first half, “talking a little trash,” according to Wingate. Things got particularly heated when the second interception was returned for a touchdown.

When Kerri and Maddie went to the bathroom, Landon had called Wingate and his friends out. “He’d probably had a few too many drinks,” Wingate explained. “I walked over to the defendant’s table, and that’s when I recognized him.”

Wingate testified that he had been a Southeastern Knights fan his whole life. “So I said to him, ‘Hey, ain’t you the one that threw those ball games a few years ago?’”

That’s when Landon got upset, Wingate said, and the two of them had words. Landon knocked over a drink. About that time, Kerri returned from the bathroom and started cursing at Wingate. “I’d prefer not to repeat her exact words, Judge. But anyway, she came up behind me and grabbed my arm and tried turning me around to face her. I put my hands up in the air, like this, basically saying, ‘I don’t know what you’re doing, lady, but you’re crazy.’ And the defendant over there—” Wingate leaned forward, looking around McNaughten and pointing at Landon—“just hauls off and coldcocks me in the jaw.”

Wingate took a half step forward and bared his teeth for Judge Lee.
“Chipped my tooth. To be honest, shocked me for a moment. I mean, that guy went berserk. He kneed one of my buddies in the groin and then started going after the other one. So I just grabbed him from behind to basically pull him off, and his wife is screaming and clawing at me, and somehow the defendant got punched—not by me, Judge—and fell to the floor. After that he stands up, and he and his wife start accusing me and my buddies of all kinds of stuff. So we just left so there wouldn’t be any more problems.”

Landon had spent two years in jail and another two and a half years in law school. He wasn’t exactly naive, but it still shocked him to hear a guy like Kirby Wingate come into court, raise his hand to tell the truth, and spew out such bald-faced lies. He frowned and shook his head, hoping the judge would notice.

Harry, on the other hand, seemed amused. He grinned a little and snickered at the big man’s testimony, giving the judge a sideways look.
Are you really buying this, Your Honor?
Judge Lee ignored him.

When Wingate had finished his story, Judge Lee turned to Harry. “Any questions, Counselor?”

“I might have one or two.”