It all came back to the tabloids’ investigative reporters. The first picture of Sophie Lee, wherever she was, would pay enough money to put three kids through college. He reminded himself that he hated Kala Aulani.
Maybe Kala sent her to Mumbai. That sure as hell was far enough away. Or the Hindu Kush. Even farther. Or was it? He’d have to look that up. Kala was crafty, though; she could have stashed Sophie Lee someplace in Georgia, right under their noses.
Spenser’s mind traveled back in time to the day Sophie Lee’s verdict was read and the courtroom was empty except for him and Kala. He’d asked her what the girl had whispered to her, and she said ... she said ... Kala had said, “She told me to put a hex on you.” Had she?
He thought about karma then. What goes around comes around threefold, or was it tenfold? He couldn’t remember. Well, that was why they had Google, wasn’t it? He’d dated some woman who was into the stars and all that psychobabble, and she was big on karma.
Spenser’s arm snaked out. He buzzed his secretary. “Did the Aulani firm send over Adam Star’s video?” he barked.
“No, sir, they did not.”
“Well, call them and tell them if I don’t have it in an hour, I’m going to file a motion with the court saying they are withholding evidence. Never mind, just call Jay Brighton for me.”
“I can do that, sir, but the last time I called, the person answering the phone said their office is not taking any calls from you. Do you want me to try again?”
“Son of a bitch! Who the hell do they think they are?” he roared into the intercom.
“They say they are the Aulani, Brighton, Brighton, and Darrow law firm when they answer the phone,” the secretary responded smartly. Spenser missed the sarcasm. He broke the connection and decided to e-mail Jay Brighton.
Hawaii? Maybe Kala sent the girl to Hawaii. No, that was too obvious. Or was it? He thought about that old saying, “Keep your friends close, your enemies closer.” Kala had a huge family still in Hawaii. He’d read an article about her right after she announced her retirement, and she had talked about the Aulanis’ coffee business, the huge family, and how she couldn’t wait to go back to her roots. That huge family would take care of Sophie Lee. Probably guard her with their lives. Strangers poking around would get nowhere with a family like that. Then he thought about another old saying, “Money talks and bullshit walks.” Yeah, yeah, Kala probably sent her to Hawaii. Well, he’d just throw that out to the media and let them take it from there. He made a mental wager with himself that Kala Aulani would cut her six-month vacation short and suddenly return to Hawaii if he did that. Oh, yeah.
Spenser pulled out his cell phone, took a deep breath, and hit number four on his speed dial—his father’s number. Much as he hated to do it, he really had to return his father’s call.
Chapter 11
IT WAS HARD TO TELL WHO WAS MORE NERVOUS, RYAN SPENSER or his staff. They watched him roll his shoulders, shoot his cuffs, and square his shoulders again before he took one last look at the short speech he was about to give at his first press conference since Sophie Lee had been released from prison. He was clearly very nervous, but his arrogance was still there, written all over him.
Half the members of his staff hoped he would pull it off because they knew he meant it when he said they could all find themselves on the unemployment line. The other half, the half who hated his guts, hoped he would fall flat on his face.
None of the staff had seen his prepared remarks, which he’d memorized earlier, but two of them had seen it roll out of the fax machine, which meant his daddy, who was the Speaker of the House in Washington, DC, or someone on the staff of his uncle the governor, had actually written the speech. The only thing those who had seen it communicated to the others was that it was short, just two paragraphs.
“Time to go, sir,” one of the staff members said as she looked down at the incoming text on her cell phone. “The reporters are waiting.”
“They can wait. Who’s front and center?”
The same staff member, anticipating the question, had already asked the question to the person who had sent her the original text. She looked down at the incoming text. She cringed. “Patty Molnar, the Atlantic Journal-Constitution’s star reporter.” Or, as they called the paper around the courthouse, the AJC.
Ryan Spenser felt a slight tremor in his knees. He tried to ignore it as he stood as tall as he could. He hated Patty Molnar almost as much as he hated Sophie Lee because of the position he was in. He didn’t just hate the reporter, he really hated her. The reason he hated her was because Patty Molnar was Sophie Lee’s best friend, along with that star golfer, Dominic Mancuso. Every goddamn day of Sophie Lee’s trial, Molnar had attacked him in the AJC. Mancuso, Atlanta’s golfing star, had added his comments to Molnar’s vitriolic writings, and the news carried them twenty-four/seven. Until ... his father stepped in and had a Come to Jesus meeting with the powers that be at the AJC. Successfully muzzled, Molnar, according to his sources, had a vendetta against him, and there she was with the opportunity to claim her fifteen minutes in the spotlight. After that day’s press conference and interview session with the members of the jury that had convicted Sophie Lee, she’d be the most-sought-after reporter in the country, probably more famous than Woodward and Bernstein. God help him.
“I don’t need a goddamn parade, people. I can do this on my own.” Spenser glared at his staff as he headed out of his office to beard, in this case, the lioness by the name of Patty Molnar. He had one bad moment as he stared at himself in the shiny brass of the elevator. He’d forgotten to floss that morning. “Shit!” he muttered.
He strode from the elevator like a man with a purpose—and he indeed had a purpose, a very important one—to save his own skin and his reputation, not to mention his political aspirations.
He made his way to a room at the far end of the hall that had been set up for the press conference, and, afterward, the interviews with the members of the jury in Sophie Lee’s trial. Interviews by the same group of reporters to whom he would be addressing his remarks, led by Patty Molnar. He did not envy any of those jurors. Not one little bit.
Spenser eyed the podium at the front of the room and walked toward it with long strides. He knew all eyes were on him, and he was glad that he was wearing his Hugo Boss suit and the pricey new linen shirt he’d purchased just for this occasion. The power tie he’d chosen was just the right touch. He looked out at the small sea of reporters and locked eyes with Patty Molnar. In his life he had never seen a more evil, vindictive smile. His stomach muscles tightened into one gigantic knot.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I have a prepared statement, which I will read. I will not be taking any questions afterward as I have a meeting scheduled directly after this press conference. So, let me get started.
“No one is more saddened than I am that Sophie Lee was imprisoned for a crime she apparently did not commit. When the case was brought to trial, I argued it on the basis of the evidence that was presented to me. I gave the case one hundred and ten percent. I left no stone unturned. I presented my case, and the jury of Miss Lee’s peers found her guilty. A judge sentenced her to life in prison. I sincerely regret that Miss Lee spent ten years in prison for a crime she didn’t commit. I cannot turn the clock back, and if I could, I would still present the same case I presented ten years ago. The only positive aspect of all of this is that Adam Star made things right at the end before his death, and Miss Lee was released to go on with her life.
“I would like to say at this time that I am not at all certain in my own mind that Adam Star’s deathbed confession is truthful. My staff and I are working on that as we speak. As we have updates, you will all be notified via a press release. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an office to run and an old case to look into.”
Spenser didn’t want to look at Patty Molnar, had no intention of looking at Patty Molnar, but he couldn’t help himself. He saw the same evil, vindictive smile he’d seen when h
e walked into the room. The knot in his stomach tightened till he thought he wouldn’t be able to take another breath. When he reached the hallway, he walked faster than he had ever walked in his entire life to the men’s room, and, once inside, he leaned against the door and took great gulping breaths of air. And then he started to shake and couldn’t stop. He ran to one of the stalls and closed the door until he could get himself under control.
Spenser took deep breaths, pep-talked himself, then slapped at his own face to try to calm down. He couldn’t stay there. He needed to get back to his office, so he could watch the reporters grill Sophie Lee’s jury.
On the way back to his office, he couldn’t erase Patty Molnar’s smile from his mind. She was out to get him. Maybe no one else had seen it, but he’d seen her flip him the bird ever so subtly.
Inside his headquarters, Spenser ripped at his Hugo Boss jacket and the power tie as he stomped his way into his office and slammed the door. He knew, without even asking, that his staff thought he had come off in the interview as a real shithead. He knew because there had been no one in the outer offices, and he felt like a shithead. He should have written his own goddamn speech. And he never should have said that Star’s deathbed confession was suspect. Or that it merely appeared that Sophie Lee had not committed the crime for which she had spent ten years in jail. Never never never!
Spenser clicked on the television set. He pressed a button on the console and demanded coffee he didn’t want. It appeared within seconds. Cup poised, he watched the screen as the jurors, all but juror number seven, who had died three years into Sophie Lee’s incarceration, filed into the room. There were also five alternate jurors who followed the other eleven jurors and took their seats on one of the long sides of a large conference table.
It was a full-court press, with all the wires and cables and cameras. The press—print as well as cable and the major news channels—were seated in four rows of seats that had been set up earlier. Patty Molnar had the best seat in the house, front row center. She was seated directly in front of the jurors.
Spenser’s eyes caught movement in the rear of the room. He felt his heart take on an extra beat when he realized who he was seeing in the back of the room. The golf pro Dominic Mancuso. Another best friend of Sophie Lee and Patty Molnar. Where was the other best friend, Jonathan something or other? Dempsey, that was his name. And then another person entered the room and took a seat next to Mancuso. Jonas Emanuel Darrow! Spenser knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was carrying sixteen subpoenas somewhere on his person. The minute this slaughter was over, Jed, as Darrow was called by his peers, would swoop in and serve all those lovely blue subpoenas. Spenser continued to watch, a sick expression on his face as Jed shook hands with Mancuso. Allies? But of course. And after the subpoenas were served, Patty Molnar, Dominic Mancuso, and Jed would all belly up to the bar and hoist a drink to his fall from grace.
Ryan Spenser wanted to cry.
Spenser’s mood lightened just a little as he listened to the softball questions being asked of the jurors. None of the media or the reporters got up, instead shouting out their questions from their seats. The answers were terse, yeses and nos, with no elaboration. Clearly, the eleven jurors did not like being in the limelight like this. All of them looked wary and uncomfortable.
And then it was Patty Molnar’s turn. She got up, microphone in hand, and approached the table. Under her arm she had a stack of files. From a paper in her hand she went down the list, saying each and every juror’s name. Even the alternates. Each juror nodded as his or her name was mentioned.
“I have here a profile of each of you. I know everything about each of you from the day you were born. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will be publishing these profiles in tomorrow’s paper. I’m going to ask you some questions now, and I want to warn you ahead of time that most reporters don’t ask questions they don’t already know the answers to. We’re kind of like lawyers in that respect. Well, some of us, anyway.”
Spenser glared at the television set. The jurors looked uneasy, he could see that. After all, he’d had a full month of staring at them ten years ago as he tried to figure out how they were going to vote. Especially the foreman. He’d aged, that was for sure.
“First question. Is it true that you all rushed your verdict because juror number four’s wife was going into labor, and he wanted to get to the hospital even though five other jurors were voting for acquittal?”
Juror number four bristled, his face turning as red as a candy apple. “That’s not true!”
“Actually, it is true. I have here in your file the time you left the courthouse after the jury rendered their verdict and the time your six-pound-three-ounce baby boy was born. Whose name, by the way, is Daniel Robert Rumsen Junior. The time difference between the reading of the verdict and the birth of your son is exactly ninety-four minutes. I don’t think you’re going to get a book deal, juror number four.”
“It was all his idea,” juror number three, a sixty-year-old woman with white hair, said, pointing to the foreman. “There were four other holdouts, and I was one of them. He hammered at us and hammered at us. He kept saying that the facts were as plain as the noses on our faces even if we couldn’t see them. He called the five of us stupid. He said we were uneducated.” Three other jurors nodded in agreement. “Oh, and one other thing—he said the prosecutor had an almost perfect record on convictions and wouldn’t have brought the case to trial if he didn’t think he could win it.”
Juror number eight, a young woman around thirty-five or so, raised her hand. “The foreman told us that you can’t trust a foreigner, meaning Miss Aulani. Like Hawaii is foreign.” She sniffed. “Of course, ten years ago we didn’t have a president who was born in Hawaii. He browbeat us and kept calling us stupid, especially the women. He reminded us every day that because he was a school principal, he was smarter than all of us put together.”
“Guess none of you are going to get that extra fifteen minutes of fame,” the reporter from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution observed, “and no book deals, either. None of you are credible. You getting what I’m saying?”
No one said a word.
“So then, Mr. Foreman, what do you have to say to these comments?” Patty asked, shoving the microphone as close to his face as she could.
“I am not going to lower myself by responding. We voted our consciences. We did exactly what the judge told us to do. And just for the record, I am not looking for a book deal. And before you can ask how I now sleep at night, my answer is the same: I did my duty and went with the facts. And I sleep very well, thank you very much, Miss Big Shot Reporter. Molar, is it?
“I am sorry that young woman had to spend ten years in jail. I truly am sorry. I am sure that we all are, but none of us can unring that particular bell.”
Patty Molnar smiled, knowing that what she was going to say was utter nonsense, but she said it anyway. “Well, there is sorry, and then there is sorry. How sorry will you be when that young woman, whose name, in case you have forgotten, is Sophie Lee, files a lawsuit against all of you? You do know she has already filed a suit against the state of Georgia for twenty million. It’s my understanding another suit is going to be filed against Ryan Spenser. Lawyers are expensive in this state. Some of them actually charge four hundred dollars an hour.” Patty thought she heard several gasps of shock as she wondered again if what she had just said was true or not, not that she cared even one little bit at that point.
Juror number ten, a middle-aged housewife, started to cry. “Well, I for one can’t sleep, and I don’t mind telling you that either. I regret my vote. I regretted it the moment I voted. I even had to go to a therapist to try to get past that. It still haunts me. I want to cry for Miss Lee and what we did to her. And the worst part was she was an orphan with no family to help see her through that awful ordeal. I hope she gets the twenty million dollars, and that’s not nearly enough to make up for ten years behind bars. Speaking strictly for myself, I wouldn�
�t take a book deal if they paid me my weight in gold.”
Nine of the jurors and the alternates nodded. Not so the foreman and juror number four.
Chairs were pushed back as the jurors signaled that, as far as they were concerned, the interview was over. Patty turned and nodded to Nick Mancuso to stand by the door until Jed could serve his subpoenas. She wanted to laugh at the startled expressions on the faces of the foreman and juror number four when Jed read off their names and handed them the subpoenas.
“Lawyer up, ladies and gentlemen,” Patty shouted as a cameraman for CNN shoved a microphone in her face. She swatted it away.
As Patty headed to the back of the room, she heard the television reporter from CNN say, “That was Patty Molnar from AJC, who just tried to knock the mike out of my hand. She has a big dog in this fight since she’s a personal friend of Sophie Lee.”
Nick Mancuso was grinning from ear to ear. “Duffy’s Pub, and I’m buying.”
“What about your golf tournament?” Patty asked as she linked her arm with that of her best friend. “I wish Jon was here to see this,” she whispered.
“Yeah, me, too, but I think he’s watching us from above. By the way, I had to book a later flight to Hawaii.”
Jed clapped Nick on the back, then hugged Patty. After all, she was his significant other.
Upstairs, in his plush office, Ryan Spenser turned off the television set. Just as he did, his cell phone started to ring. He had no doubt whatsoever that it was his father, so he didn’t even bother to take the phone out of his pocket. For all he cared, his old man could call from then till the cows came home or hell froze over, and he still wouldn’t answer it.
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