“Not according to Spenser’s next-door neighbor, who, by the way, hates Spenser’s guts,” the slick, good-looking young guy said.
“Enough!” the Santa figure shouted just as the door to the elegant conference room opened, and Ryan Spenser stepped in. He did not look like a man going to meet his executioner. Everyone at the table, especially the stunning blonde, recognized his cockiness, his arrogance, and saw no trace of a defeated attitude. And all were well aware of Spenser’s political ambitions and the powerful people he and his daddy knew.
No one offered to pour Spenser coffee, so he served it himself with a steady hand. He took a long sip before he spoke. “I resent this meeting. This whole circus is ludicrous, but as you all know, with the media, it has to run its course.”
“It will grow legs, Spenser,” a man in a subdued charcoal gray suit said ominously. “If you think this is going to go away anytime soon, think again. So don’t try blowing smoke in our direction.”
A short distinguished man, the lead attorney for the state in matters of this kind, leaned forward. His bright blue eyes were icy when he shoved the morning edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution toward Spenser. “Take a look at this, Spenser! A good look!”
Ryan Spenser looked down to see a huge picture of Sophie Lee, in color, above the fold. His stomach knotted up. “It’s Sophie Lee,” was all he said.
The same short man said, “You’re damn right it’s Sophie Lee. She’s everyone’s daughter, sister, cousin, the girl next door. She’s wholesome. She’s a goddamn nurse who put herself through nursing school working two jobs so she could take care of sick people. She’s apple pie and ice cream. And let’s not forget she’s an orphan!
“You sent an orphan to prison for life for a crime she did not commit. It’s a damn miracle that that orphan, that girl next door, is now out of prison. You took away her youth, her hopes, her dreams. The media are going to play that up for all it’s worth. Imagine the anguish she’s been through for ten long years! Just try to imagine it because the people in this state have already imagined it, and they have weighed in, and they want blood. Yours! ”
Spenser felt the knot in his stomach move up to his chest. This was not supposed to be happening. On the way over he had rehearsed his speech, which, unfortunately, was now no longer in his memory bank. All he could say was, “I went to court with facts, with only what I could prove at the time. Are you all forgetting that a jury of that woman’s peers found her guilty?”
The Santa figure spoke. “That jury is being interviewed by the press today, every last one of them. By next week, they’ll all have contracts to write books. I heard on the car radio on the way here this morning that a publisher in New York said he’d pay ten million dollars to Sophie Lee to write a book. The only problem is, the publisher can’t find Sophie Lee to make the offer. It appears she’s gone to ground somewhere. Probably to plot your demise, and this state’s as well. In case you aren’t getting the picture here, Spenser, this state is going to go bankrupt. Goddamn it, Spenser, say something.”
“What do you want me to say? I said I prosecuted Sophie Lee to the best of my ability. I went where the proof and facts led me. I find it appalling that you and the media are blaming me. All I did was present the case; the jury is who you should be going after, not me. I can assure you that my other cases are bulletproof. But to be sure and to leave no stone unturned, I am going to put together a team of investigators to go over everything with a microscope. What else do you want me to say?”
The short man snorted. “Twenty years of cases, ten before Lee and ten after, and you sit here and tell me all of them are bulletproof. Aulani, Brighton, Brighton, and Darrow are on this like fleas on a dog. You better start praying, Spenser. All it’s going to take is one irregularity. Another thing. From where I’m standing, it looks to me like you can kiss your political aspirations good-bye. No one is going to vote for someone like you, a prosecutor who sent that poor innocent girl to prison for life.”
Ryan Spenser felt sick to his stomach. Everything he’d heard in this room only spelled doom and gloom. If they were right, he might end up being a Walmart greeter before this was all over.
Since arrogance was Spenser’s middle name, he calmly finished his coffee, stood up, and said, “I have an office to run and things to do. If you like, I can give you a report daily, biweekly, or weekly on my progress. I want to assure you that I am on top of this.”
The room was silent. It remained silent until the door closed behind Ryan Spenser.
And then all hell broke loose. The contingent of state functionaries banged their fists on the shiny conference table so hard, the coffee urn toppled over, spilling coffee all over the folders and pads lined up like soldiers, at which point the blame game began in earnest. Name-calling followed. Only the cocky young man remained silent, taking it all in.
The Santa figure, the designated chairman for the meeting, whistled so shrilly the room went silent. “Enough already. We are going to appoint our own task force and go in behind those schmucks from the Aulani firm to make sure we’re on top of this. In the meantime, someone go to that firm and try to talk sense into those people. Flat out tell them we don’t have twenty million to dish out to that young woman. Explain what’s going to happen when they open that Pandora’s box of old cases.”
The stunning blonde eyed the Santa. She squared her shoulders and asked what they were going to do to Ryan Spenser.
“Nail his ass to the wall,” the blonde’s female counterpart called over her shoulder as she exited into the hallway.
“And you think he won’t retaliate? As you pointed out earlier, remember who his daddy is and remember all those important people he dines with, plays golf with, and vacations with. Chew on that, gentlemen,” the stunning blonde with the shrill voice said. She said gentlemen because there were only four men left in the room. “And before any of you can get up the guts to ask me, no, I don’t kiss and tell.”
“Son of a bitch!” the tall, distinguished man swore. “Talk about being between a rock and a hard place. There’s no way out of this; we’re going to have to pay up. The media will hound us, and this is never going to go away.”
The Santa figured rubbed at his chin. “Maybe if we could locate Sophie Lee, we could cut a deal with her.”
The other three men snorted at once. “Are you out of your mind? You couldn’t go near that young woman even if she were standing outside this door. She lawyered up. You can only deal with her attorneys,” the lead attorney for the state shot back.
“I have a meeting with the attorney general this morning about this mess, so I have to leave now. I’ll copy all of you on the results. In the meantime, no interviews, and someone, for God’s sake, find that young woman. I don’t care what it takes.”
The three remaining men watched the lead attorney walk out of the room, their eyes full of misery, except for the slick young guy, who started to laugh. “This is exactly what I love about politics: you never know what’s going to go down. It’s the challenge, gentlemen, the chase, the adrenaline rush. Well, good luck,” he said, waving airily as he left.
“Who the hell hired that guy, and who is he?” the Santa asked the only remaining person in the room.
The two men looked at one another.
“I never saw him before.”
“I thought he came with you.”
“I think he said he was with ... crap, I can’t remember.”
The stunning blonde’s counterpart walked back into the room, accompanied by the lead attorney. “He’s with the Aulani law firm, gentlemen,” she said. “He just walked in here and took a seat, and no one questioned him. Out in the hall, I just asked him who he was since this was a closed meeting. He was laughing his head off when he handed me his business card.” The woman tossed the card on the table as the lead attorney took his seat again. “That, gentlemen, is what you are up against. And may the best man win.”
The men looked down at the pristine white card w
ith the engraved name on it like it was a coiled rattlesnake. Three heads craned to read the name.
“Jonas Emanuel Darrow.”
“Nah, he can’t be ...”
“Clarence Darrow’s great-grandson? Why the hell can’t he be his grandson?” the Santa shot back.
“Google the bastard,” the lead attorney for the state said.
“I thought you had a meeting with the attorney general.”
“I do, but I want to know if this guy is who he says he is, so I can report it. Will you just do what I tell you?
Ten minutes later, after the report on Mr. Darrow came back, the lead attorney said, “Yep, the son of a bitch is who he says he is. I take that to mean we’re screwed blue.”
No one said a word as they packed up their briefcases. “Well, I was right about one thing. This case has already grown a leg. Wait ten minutes, and six more will sprout,” the man in the charcoal gray suit said.
Chapter 10
RYAN SPENSER’S STAFF OF THREE WOMEN AND THREE MEN WERE on tenterhooks as they waited for their boss to return from his early command-performance meeting. All of them looked wary and uneasy as they tried to imagine what had taken place and what their roles would be when their boss returned to the office. The woman who was senior to the others whispered, “We’ll know by the expression on his face when he walks through the door. Let’s go over the checklist one more time.”
“Coffee’s fresh, pastries are under the dome so they don’t dry out.”
“E-mails are taken care of.”
“The Lee transcript has been opened, and everything is on Mr. Spenser’s desk. Even Kala Aulani’s appeals. Files are stacked next to the desk.”
“The plants have been watered.”
“All his appointments were canceled for the day.”
The senior member of the staff nodded as she brushed at an imaginary speck of lint from her jacket sleeve. “Then we just wait.”
“Maybe we should go back to our respective offices so he doesn’t think—”
“Good idea,” the senior member said as she walked away in relief. The others scattered like mice who had just smelled a cat coming in their direction.
The clock in the foyer read 8:50 when Ryan Spenser stormed through the door. He took a moment to glare at the receptionist, then slammed through the double doors that led to a hallway and his office at the end of it. “Everyone! My office!” he roared like a lion as he rushed to his suite.
When they heard the roar, the staff scurried again like the mice they were. They stood at attention, waiting for the shouts, the demands, the threats that Ryan Spenser was famous for.
“Coffee?”
“Here, sir,” a mousy looking young man who had graduated summa cum laude from Yale University said, his hands shaking as he set a cup of coffee on his boss’s desk. He almost fainted with relief when he realized he hadn’t spilled a drop.
The mousy young man stepped back into the precise line, his hands folded in front of him like the others, as if they were soldiers at a drill parade waiting for orders. No one blinked, no one twitched, and no one coughed.
Spenser looked down at his desk. His three daily newspapers were neatly lined up. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. He almost spewed the coffee he had in his mouth when he stared down at the color photo of Sophie Lee. His insides started to churn at how innocent she looked, how normal. They were right—she was the girl next door. A crazy thought invaded his mind. How could she be the girl next door when she was an orphan? Orphan was the magic word.
Spenser fixed his gaze on his senior staff member. “I want a full background on Sophie Lee from the moment she came out of some woman’s womb. I want twelve of the best investigators we have going at this full bore. Yes, I know a lot of that is in the transcript and in our files, but we are going to start from scratch as if this were day one in preparing for trial. Forget what’s in those files,” he said, pointing to the boxes neatly lined up at the side of his desk. “We need information yesterday. We work around the clock until we get this resolved. Screw up, and you’re on the unemployment line. From this moment on, your lives are mine. If I sink, you all go with me. No interviews. Is that understood?” Six heads bobbed as one. “Now listen up, and listen good.”
They listened, making mental notes as to their various assignments, then nodded again, until their boss was satisfied that they understood what their jobs were to be.
“Here’s a tip. Shake the tabloid trees. Those sleazy reporters know ways to get information we can only dream about utilizing. Promise them whatever the hell you have to promise. Pay them, do whatever it takes. In the end, they’ll probably get the information we need before our investigators can. And you also need to know this. At the meeting this morning there was a stranger there. His name was Jonas Emanuel Darrow. He’s the great-grandson of Clarence Darrow. He works for the Aulani firm, and he just marched into that private meeting like he belonged and sat his ass down and listened to everything that was said. He was a goddamn spy, and no one knew it. I didn’t know it either until one of the conferees called me on my cell after I left the meeting. The son of a bitch now has the inside track. We’re all going to look like fools on the next newscast. Did you all hear what I said? He just marched in there like he belonged, and no one knew who the hell he was. We all look like idiots. You’re all still standing here. What part of what I just said didn’t you understand?”
The mad rush for the doorway would have been comical any other time. Not so that day.
Spenser drained his coffee and fervently wished he’d dosed it with something a little stronger. He buzzed his secretary and held up his cup for her. Just now, that very second, Ryan Spenser couldn’t help wishing that he were dead.
When his secretary returned, Spenser could not avoid frowning at the few drops of coffee that had spilled over into the saucer. Looking up, he asked, “Where are the messages, the e-mails? How many calls did we get from the media?”
“It’s all there on your desk, sir. Your father has called five times this morning and said to tell you he wants you to call him the moment you get into the office. I explained about the early-morning meeting. He said he didn’t care about early-morning meetings and to remind you he is your father, and if you don’t call him, he’s coming here. That was verbatim, sir. Do you want me to ring him for you?”
“No! Absolutely not! I’ll deal with my father. Do not let anyone near this office.”
“Of course, sir.” The secretary backed out of the room and quietly closed the door behind her. She felt so dizzy that she had to sit down. Every light on the telephone console was a glowing red button. She hated that console.
She also hated the pompous ass sitting behind the closed door. It was like this anytime he heard from his father, another real piece of work, whatever his position. I should have quit years ago, she thought. But at sixty years of age, who would hire me?
She had two more years until that glorious day; then she could thumb her nose at this place. On the other hand, given what was going on these days, she might not get the chance to thumb her nose at the jackass she worked for. She crossed her fingers that Ryan Spenser would go down for the count on the very same day she was scheduled to retire. She shot a hate-filled glance at the closed door as she jabbed at one of the glowing red buttons.
Inside the suite of offices where everyone feared to tread, Ryan Spenser sat in his custom-made chair and rubbed his temples. He had a killer headache, one that six Advil had not alleviated. He also felt sick to his stomach. Just the thought of calling his domineering father made him want to puke. He took great gulps of air, hoping to relax himself. Someone had told him once it was a marvelous way to shift into the neutral zone when under pressure. Obviously, that person had lied, because it wasn’t working.
Spenser looked around at his office, his home away from home. He loved it there. He belonged there. At least until he moved into the governor’s mansion, where he wo
uld truly belong. The suite had been decorated by some long-ago paramour whose name he no longer remembered. Cherrywood, one-of-a-kind window treatments, splendid comfortable furniture you could get lost in. Ankle-deep carpeting, the best that money could buy, luscious green plants. His own private lavatory complete with shower. He even had a closet, where he kept several changes of clothes. Built-ins galore and a private bar that didn’t emerge from its hidden recess until he pressed a button. Another button revealed a concealed safe deep enough to hold his life’s most memorable moments. And enough cash to see him through any kind of trouble that found its way to his doorstep. All paid for from his robust trust fund, at no expense to the taxpayers.
These two rooms were his lair, his sanctuary. Today, though, they felt more like a prison, however luxurious. He removed his designer jacket and tossed it across the room, where it landed on one of the deep, comfortable chairs. He jerked at his tie. It landed on top of the jacket. He rolled up the sleeves of his pristine white shirt. He didn’t feel one bit better, and his head continued to thump and pound inside his skull. He continued to massage his temples as he tried to contemplate his next move. A skilled politician, he knew this was do-or-die stuff, and he had to come off just right. If his father was running true to form, he probably already had Spenser’s speech drafted for him.
Spenser wanted to cry as he looked back at the turns in the road he’d taken. What if he had missed, say, just one of those turns, and today he was a plumber or a mailman? Would he be happy? Hell no! He didn’t know the first thing about plumbing other than you turned on water and turned it off. A mailman was out of the question. They kept getting bitten by dogs and delivered mail bombs and anthrax to unsuspecting recipients. Who the hell wanted to be a mailman? No, he was right where he was supposed to be at that point in his life.
Spenser picked up the paper and stared at the picture of a smiling Sophie Lee. God, how he hated that young woman. And for sitting her ass in prison, she was going to get $20 million from the state of Georgia. That was practically a given. She was also, or at least would be shortly, one of the richest people in the country thanks to Adam Star’s having left her the Star fortune. That kind of money could and would bury him. Where the hell had Kala Aulani sent her? For all he knew, she could be with Sophie right that minute, but Kala was too smart for that. She’d spirited her away, far away, that was for sure.
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