“Me too,” Rick agreed.
“Y’all aren’t going to plea, are you?”
Rick grimaced. “That’s the client’s call, and so far her position has been firm.”
“All or nothing,” Powell said, sticking his chin out.
Rick gave a short nod. “All or nothing.”
65
By Sunday evening, the shock of Tom’s lung cancer diagnosis had finally given way to the grim reality of his situation. Strangely enough, the first question that he began to panic about was so basic that it might have made him laugh if he wasn’t so depressed.
Who’s gonna take care of my dog?
After Tom had spent the morning practicing his opening statement for the Newton trial and the afternoon going over the jury list with Rick and Bo until his brain was scrambled, Tom packed up his briefcase and drove home. On the way, he began to stress about Lee Roy’s future home.
He flung open the door and saw his bulldog sprawled out on the kitchen floor on his stomach. He walked over and knelt beside the animal, softly stroking his back until Lee Roy licked his hand. He went through the choices in his mind, knowing the thoughts were a defense mechanism for harder questions but unable to turn them off.
Tommy and Nancy already have a dog. Bo’s current address is his office in Pulaski. Maybe Rick? His mother has the two chocolate labs at the farm. She’d probably be OK with another dog . . .
Finally, he went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face until he had control over himself. After he toweled off, he heard Lee Roy’s whine below him. Tom squatted and the dog put a paw in his hand. “It’s OK, boy,” he said, scratching behind his ears. Then he took out his phone and pulled up the number for his son.
He hovered his thumb over the contact, wanting to talk with Tommy but knowing that as a doctor he’d want to discuss the scans that Bill Davis had done. He didn’t want to have to lie to him too, but on the other hand he didn’t want to hurt him with the truth. Tommy had taken his mother’s death hard, and the boy had always been supersensitive. Let’s just get past the trial, he told himself again. Let’s try this case and give the people I love one more week of peace before everything changes.
Tom wiped his eyes, remembering how nine-year-old Tommy would sit in the front row of his classroom while he practiced his Evidence lectures. Tom would get so impatient when the boy would interrupt his flow with a question. “What does hearsay mean, Daddy?”
When Tommy was eleven, he had played rec league basketball. Tom had missed most of the games due to trial team practices, but he had come to the championship game. Tommy got fouled with two seconds to go and his team down one point. He had missed both free throws, the first one clanging off the back of the rim and the second an “airball,” as the kids called it. He had cried all the way home, and Tom hadn’t been able to console him. “You just need to keep practicing,” was all he could manage for advice.
The boy never played basketball again.
Tom had so many wonderful experiences with his son, like throwing a football on the Quad, fishing on Lake Tuscaloosa, and teaching him how to eat a raw oyster for the first time at Sea-N-Suds, on the Gulf.
But the tired and lazy words that failed to build up his son’s spirit after a setback haunted Tom’s conscience even now. Despite all the good times since, irrespective of Tommy’s growing up to be an accomplished orthopedic surgeon, Tom couldn’t forgive himself.
Have I been a good father? Now that the faucet of regret had started running, he knew he wouldn’t be able to turn it off. The hard questions, the ones that kept a person up at night, were coming fast and furious.
Tom looked at his phone, where Tommy’s name was still illuminated, but he didn’t make the call. He sat at the edge of his bed. On the dresser in front of him was the photograph of Julie from their engagement pictures. She wore a pink blouse and the pearl necklace Tom had given her their first Christmas together as boyfriend and girlfriend. Her blue eyes were youthful and full of life.
Was I a good husband?
He had been lucky and happy in marriage, but it was hard not to think of all the petty things they had spent so much time arguing and stressing about. Money. The nights and weekends he had been away from home for trial team tournaments. Silly spats with in-laws. None of it meant much when Julie’s oncologist informed them about the lump in her breast. After that, Tom had cherished every second.
Time, precious time, he thought as he felt a tear roll down his cheek.
The next stop on the wheel of regret was his grandson. Jackson was twelve. Tom had hoped to watch him drive a car and see him graduate high school. To be there during those difficult teen years as a sounding board. Tom knew how hard it was to raise a boy. His own father had passed long before Tommy was a teenager, and there were so many times when Tom wished he could run a parenting question by his dad. Tom had wanted to be that extra set of ears for his own son. Perhaps he had not always had the right advice for Tommy, but he would make up for that with Jackson.
Now I’ve come up lame and failed them both.
Lee Roy placed his paws in Tom’s lap and Tom bowed his head, rubbing his face against the bulldog’s soft coat of brown and white fur. Tom had been an only child and had raised an only child. He had assumed that Tommy would just have Jackson.
But then came sweet Jenny. Spoiling that child with “slow cones” and other toys and goodies had given him the purest joy he had ever felt in his life. And there was another grandbaby coming.
Time, precious time.
He needed more of it with Rick. The boy was close to becoming a seasoned trial lawyer but wasn’t quite there yet. Tom had wanted to practice for at least two more years, even if he had to cede all the trial work to Rick. He wanted there to be a gradual transition from the old dog to the young bull. He had it all planned out. The best-made plans . . .
And what about the General? He had taken Helen to dinner several more times since their meal at the Legends Steakhouse this past summer and enjoyed her company. She was smart, mischievous, and a hell of a lot of fun to be around. Tom would never marry again. He couldn’t. Julie had been, and always would be, the love of his life. But by God, while he was still kicking on this earth, he liked spending time with Helen, and he knew the feeling was mutual.
Finally, there was Bo.
Tom’s lip quivered as he thought of what his death might do to his best friend, whose family life had played out like a Greek tragedy. He has always looked to me as a father.
When the telephone rang, Tom released his tight grasp on Lee Roy and peered at the device like it might be an alien artifact. The name “Bocephus Haynes” was sprawled across the screen. Telepathy, Tom thought, smiling to himself. He coughed and cleared his throat. Then he gently put Lee Roy’s paws back on the floor and answered the phone on the fourth ring. “Yeah?” he croaked.
“Professor, you’ve got to come down here.”
Tom could feel the excitement in his friend’s voice. “Down where?”
“The office.”
Tom glanced at his watch. It was 9:30 p.m. He had been home for several hours, though it felt like only a few seconds. “Why?”
“Because your client’s fourteen-year-old daughter just got off the phone with Robin Osborne.”
Tom tried to shift his mind back to the trial, but he couldn’t focus. “Robin who?”
“Osborne. Greg Zorn’s paralegal. The woman we’ve been trying to find for the past four months.” A pause. “The person who might be able to lead us to a copy of Jack Willistone’s change of beneficiary form.”
Tom felt a surge of adrenaline as his mind mercifully left the torture chamber of regret and returned to the trial of Wilma Newton. “I’m on my way.”
66
Ten minutes later, Tom, Bo, and Rick stood behind Laurie Ann, who was seated at Frankie’s desk and chewing a wad of bubble gum as if her life depended on it. The teenager wore gray sweat pants, a red Tuscaloosa High Soccer T-shirt, and tennis shoes. O
n the computer screen in front of her was a series of Facebook messages exchanged between Laurie Ann and a woman named Jeannette Osborne.
“Jeannette?” Tom asked.
“Middle name,” Laurie Ann said, popping a bubble. “When she moved to Louisiana, she changed all of her identification to Jeannette. Driver’s license. Car insurance. Facebook page. LinkedIn account. Everything.”
“How did you find her?” Rick asked, and Tom heard the awe in his young partner’s voice.
“I did a search with the last name Osborne and sent private messages to at least three hundred women. I told them who I was and that I needed to find a paralegal that went by Robin Osborne who worked for a lawyer in Tuscaloosa named Greg Zorn. I said my mother’s life depended on it.” She turned and looked up at him. “Jeannette responded tonight.”
“Did she call you?”
“Yep. I told her the deal and begged her to meet with us. At first she said it was too dangerous, but when I started crying, she finally said she could meet tomorrow night.”
Tom raised an eyebrow at Bo, who cocked his head toward Laurie Ann. “She’s good, dog. Whatever you’re paying this girl, you need to double it.”
“Did you tell her the trial started in the morning?” Tom asked, peering back at Laurie Ann.
‘Yes. She said tomorrow night at seven was the earliest she could meet, and I told her that Mr. Haynes would be there.”
Tom and Rick shared a glance. Then Tom turned to Bo. “Can you go?”
“Hell yeah.”
Tom rubbed his hands together and looked at Laurie Ann. “Did you ask her about the change of beneficiary form?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“All she would say is that she had what we wanted.”
“Did she give you a phone number?”
“No, she refused to do that.”
“Did you write down the number that she called you from?”
“Yes,” Laurie Ann said. “It looks like a restaurant or something.” She handed Tom a piece of paper, adding, “This is where she wants to meet.”
He snatched it and read her cursive handwriting out loud. “Pat O’Brien’s, New Orleans, Louisiana.” Then he looked over the top of the paper at Rick and Bo, who were both grinning.
“There are worse places to have to go for work,” Bo said.
Tom laughed, feeling alive for the first time since talking with Bill Davis on the Walk of Champions. He looked down at the firm’s only runner, who had just gone well beyond her job description to track down a person who could end up being the defense’s star witness. “Nice work.”
67
“ALL RISE!” the bailiff’s voice bellowed, and the Honorable Braxton Poe strode to the bench, his face already twisted into a scowl.
It was 8:45 a.m. Monday morning. Jury selection wasn’t supposed to begin until nine, but Poe looked like he was ready to kick things off. “State of Alabama v. Newton,” he said, looking first at the prosecution table, where Powell Conrad and an older career assistant DA named Samuel Moody stood side by side, with Detective Wade Richey behind them.
“Is the state ready to strike the jury?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Powell said, buttoning the top button of his charcoal-gray suit.
Poe frowned at Tom with eyes that did nothing to betray his feelings. “Is the defense ready?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Tom said. Then, nodding to his right at Rick, who was wearing a navy-blue suit, he looked past his partner and winked at their client.
“Very well, everyone sit down.” While Poe shuffled through some papers, Tom took a second to look around the near-empty space that was about to be full of potential jurors.
The only other people in the courtroom were the victim’s widow, Kat Willistone, who sat in the first row of the gallery directly behind the prosecution table, Barbara and Danny Willistone, who sat in the same row as Kat but on the opposite end, and Bocephus Haynes, who was on the row immediately behind the defense table.
Poe put the papers down and gazed over the top of his bifocals. “I’m about to bring the jury pool . . .” He stopped when he noticed Bo. Then, scowling and pointing his gavel in Bo’s direction, he continued, his voice even raspier than normal. “You’re Bocephus Haynes, aren’t you?”
Bo stood. “Yes, Your Honor.”
“It is my understanding that you are suspended from the practice of law in the State of Tennessee and are not licensed to practice in Alabama. Is that true?”
“Yes, it is.”
“You also played football for Coach Bryant, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir. Nineteen-seventy-nine national champions . . . sir.”
“Then I would like you to leave this courtroom right now. Your presence is in direct violation of my pretrial order. If I see you in here again, then I will hold you in contempt of court and have my bailiff escort you to the Tuscaloosa County Jail. Have I made myself clear?”
“Your Honor,” Tom interjected, astonished at the power play by Poe but knowing he shouldn’t be. “Bo Haynes is our investigator for this case. He is in this courtroom in an official capacity, and there’s nothing in his suspension from the practice of law that would prevent him from fulfilling that role for me.”
“I think it’s too close to the line and I also think you are thumbing your nose at the order I entered last Friday. I’m contemplating reporting him to the bar myself, and perhaps you too, McMurtrie, for actively participating in this fraud and violating the orders of this court.”
The judge looked past Tom to Bo, who remained standing in the front row. “Now, Mr. Haynes, you can leave on your own or Henry here”—he gestured at his bailiff with his gavel—“can haul you down to jail. What’ll it be?”
“I’m leaving now, Your Honor,” Bo said, walking down the row. Before he left, he whispered in Tom’s ear, “Good luck.” Then he walked down the aisle toward the exit doors.
“Mr. Haynes,” Poe said, “if I so much as see you in the bathroom of the courthouse, I’ll hold you in contempt, you hear?”
“Yes, sir,” Bo said. He opened the door and nodded at Tom as he disappeared from view.
Poe glanced down at Tom. “That holds true for you too, McMurtrie. If I see Haynes in the courthouse, you’ll sit right next to him in the jail, you hear?”
“Yes, Judge.”
“Alright then,” Poe rasped. “Let’s bring in the jury pool.”
68
Though a little embarrassed by his grade school–style dismissal from the courtroom, Bo was grateful for the reprieve. As a citizen of Giles County, Tennessee, who had not resided in Tuscaloosa since he graduated from law school, he would likely prove useless in picking the jury. He could be of much more help on the outside, especially now that they had a lead. In fact, he would have had to skin out before jury selection was completed anyway in order to be on time for his appointment tonight.
After packing an overnight bag, Bo stopped at a gas station on McFarland and filled up the Sequoia. Then he pulled onto Interstate 20/59 east toward Meridian. Once there, he continued on I-59 to Slidell, Louisiana before looping onto I-10 for the last leg of the trip.
Six hours after he’d left the courthouse, as the sun began to descend over the Mississippi River and reflect an orange hue over the golden top of the Superdome, Bocephus Haynes rolled into the city of New Orleans.
69
By 4:30 p.m., the twelve people who would decide the fate of Wilma Newton were seated in the jury box. Neither Tom nor Rick was all that enthused. Ten men, all white, and two women, both black. Tom had hoped for an equal split of men and women, but the jury pool had been male heavy.
After giving his normal spiel to the jury about not doing any outside research, not talking with the attorneys, and not discussing the case amongst themselves until he instructed them to do so at the end of the trial, Poe dismissed them for the day. Then he advised the attorneys that they’d start with opening statements in the morning.
Thirty mi
nutes later, Tom and Rick sat across from each other in the conference room of the office. “What do you think?” Tom asked.
Rick didn’t hesitate. “I think Powell’s plea offer sounds pretty good. If Greg Zorn had lived and been willing to testify, then we’d have a better story to tell.”
“I agree, but the fat lady hasn’t sung yet on that story.”
“Maybe not, but she’s warming up. Everything rides on getting a copy of that form.”
“Bo will get it,” Tom said.
When Rick didn’t respond, Tom repeated the refrain, trying to make himself believe it. “If there is any way possible to get a copy of that document . . . Bo will find it.”
70
Bo arrived in the French Quarter just after 5:00 p.m. Having a couple hours to kill, and famished after not eating anything on the road, he went to the Napoleon House on Chartres Street and grabbed a muffuletta and a Dixie beer. Once his stomach was full, he walked over to Bourbon Street, where the night was just beginning to gear up. On the balconies above the restaurants and bars, inebriated men and women hollered catcalls to the patrons walking below and threw beads at the women willing to expose their breasts and the men who dropped their drawers. Horse-drawn carriages transported tourists to and fro, and various street performers did everything from playing a musical instrument to acting like a statue.
As he took in the cornucopia of competing smells, which included beer, urine, seafood, horse manure, vomit, and cigarette smoke, Bo enjoyed the jazz music that poured out of different establishments.
At 6:50 p.m., he walked through the courtyard leading to Pat O’Brien’s. Five minutes later, he entered the lounge area of the bar and gazed at the two dueling pianos on the stage. A blond woman belted out Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” on the piano to the left as a heavyset brunette rested while seated at the piano on the right.
The Last Trial (McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers Book 3) Page 30
