“So, make your choice, Judy. Make your head go up and down and say, ‘Yes, your Honor, I will faithfully represent this defendant I’ve agreed to represent.’ Or, prepare to fight a professional misconduct charge.”
She’d hated herself all the way back to Boulder for caving in, and for a moment had considered storming into the firm’s home office in Denver to call an emergency conference. But setting it up by phone on the drive back worked better, and she was loaded for bear when she finally pushed through the doors of her Boulder office. She aimed herself like a runaway train at the plush teleconference room.
It had been Roger Crandall who’d screwed her. The supposedly revered senior partner who had called her in and, she thought, gently rebuked her for falling short of the fifty hours of annual pro bono work. It had been his idea to suggest she take a criminal case that was undoubtedly going to get tossed before trial. That assurance made her nervous, but so did Crandall, and in the end it was just another item on the daily agenda to inform the court that she would take the case as defense attorney.
The first few minutes of the conference call were spent on her impassioned and outraged soliloquy, followed by ten minutes of silence while her two senior partners departed the Denver side of the videoconference, allegedly to answer other calls. A thinly disguised ploy, she figured, to let her cool down while they undoubtedly discussed the liability of having excitable women as lawyers. The thought was anything but amusing.
The two men returned to the other side of the screen, one the perpetrator, the other his cheerful accomplice.
“Okay, now we need you to calm down a bit, Judith, and look at this logically.”
“What?” She was coming forward in her chair, already irritated at what they’d probably said in the hallway.
“I mean, really now, just take a breath. I know you’re furious, but we need logic.”
The impeccably dressed senior partner on the other end of the video connection glanced at the other greying male and toyed with the pen in his hand before looking back at her – or at least at the image of her playing on their corresponding screen. The furnishings of a typically opulent corporate law office were visible in the background through the glass wall behind the men, and she knew they were looking at a much more tranquil scene framing the front range of the Rockies visible behind her in their satellite office.
Judith let out a long breath.
“Okay, gentlemen, I’m breathing. But I’m also seething, because you tricked me! This was supposed to be a grand gesture that would evaporate with this stupid prosecution. but it isn’t evaporating! I’m getting the clear impression that neither of you is ready to throw this firm’s might behind getting me out of this stupidity.”
Jenks Walters, the firm’s cofounder chuckled. “Well, the way I see it, other than risking a humiliating defeat at the appeals court trying to get you out of this with the media watching, our choices are rather limited. Essentially, we could offer the judge a job at the firm, or we could have him killed. The first solution would get us a lawyer who hasn’t practiced law in twenty years, and I’ll bet a sensitive part of my anatomy he’d be a bastard to work with; and, the second option would put us all in prison.” He jerked around toward Roger Crandall and arched his eyebrows. “You see any advantage in either of those, Rog?”
Crandall’s sharp features and humorless expression didn’t change as he stared through the electronic ether to meet her eyes.
“Here’s the deal, Judith,” Crandall said, his words typically crisp, fired at the screen like small, verbal bullets. “I pushed you to do this thinking it was, indeed, going to go away. Gonzales was asking for help, and…”
“Whoa! Wait!” she said, coming forward in the chair she’d finally sunk into. “He came to you?”
Roger Crandall shook his head. “No, we saw each other at a civic function, I’ve tried cases before him many times, and he was lamenting his inability to get good counsel for this airline pilot.”
“You are aware he thinks we’re Gucci-clad fat cats, right? You know he loathes us?”
“That’s his official attitude. That’s the kind of class nonsense that gets him reelected.”
“So, what, he’s a drinking buddy of yours and a member of the country club?”
“No, Judith, he’s a hardworking judge and he was obviously worried about this defendant, and, quite frankly, talking way out of school, worried about Richardson.”
“So, you volunteered me? Seriously? Without discussing it? I mean, hell, Roger, I am a partner even if you’re the king.”
“Judith, I did not volunteer you. I told him I might be able to arrange something, and I took a look at our pro bono commitments thinking I could peel away one of our brightest associates, and guess who I found hadn’t been holding up her end for the last two years?”
“Goddammit, you lied to me Roger.”
“I did no such thing. And I am not about to support any attempt to use the appellate courts to overrule Gonzales’ decision not to release you. The appellate judges will not look kindly on our making a big deal out of a case that is already a national embarrassment for Colorado and a narcissistic overreach by the DA.”
“Narcissistic is hardy the word for it, Rog,” Jenks Walters snorted. “Trying to convict an airline pilot who had to make a tough choice is a gross abuse of power.”
Crandall ignored him.
“My point, Judith,” Crandall continued, “...is that it does not serve Walters, Wilson, and Crandall well to give Judge Gonzales the chance to show to the world that we are, in fact, the type of unresponsive, elitist fat cats he wrongly represents we are at election time. If we go crying to the appeals court, even if they grant the motion, we look bad.”
“What are you saying?” Judith asked, her voice close to betraying her rising desire to scream.
“I’m saying,” Roger continued, “...as clearly as I can, that the best thing for this law firm is for you to suck it up and defend the guy. Period.”
“How? Would you tell me that? He’s guilty as sin of murder in the second degree. He made a conscious decision. He knew if he did what he did that people would die. It may stink and be unprecedented to be going after an airline pilot making a tough call in flight, but the DA is technically, legally correct.”
“Give Roger an opportunity to explain,” Jenks interjected, earning a none-too-kind sideways glance from his partner over the lack of need for a champion.
Roger Crandall returned his gaze to Judith Winston. “It does not hurt to show that we are lawyers first, and corporate lawyers second, understand? We all took the same bar exam and it had did have a section on criminal law.”
“Dammit, Gonzalez said the same thing, but that does not...”
“You’re perfectly capable of handling this, Judith.”
Just for a second – an interval so short the other two lawyers could not have noticed – Judith felt the full blown emotions of a drowning person, suddenly overwhelmed, her sense of self-esteem flattened by a visceral terror of failure and that same evil little voice somewhere in the back of her consciousness telling her she was faking it and they were going to find out! And just as quickly, as if addressing those very fears, Roger Crandall continued.
“You’re sharp as hell, Judith, or I promise you wouldn’t be here. We’ll get you some help...get you tutored on criminal defense...even get you an experienced second on the case, but in the end, it will help our image to have you rise to this challenge. And, if you lose, well, hell, who could be expected to win something this twisted up? And we might ace it on appeal, you never know. I doubt anyone really wants to put that poor flyboy in prison.”
“Other than our buffoonish DA you mean,” she snapped.
“Go easy on our poor old district attorney,” Jenks chuckled, leaning into the picture again. “Fact is, Grant�
�s a politician, not a real lawyer, and he’s all wrapped up in running for God.”
Judith’s head snapped forward as the car’s automated system slammed on the brakes to avoid colliding with the pickup that had suddenly stopped in front of her. She forced her mind back to the present, glancing at her watch, relieved to see the traffic jam was finally breaking up ahead.
Finding Marty Mitchell’s address on the northern perimeter of Boulder was almost too easy with the GPS on her phone. Judith parked in front of the house and rang his phone again with the same lack of response. The sun was riding low in the west, but over an hour away from descending below the front range, and the house was bathed in natural light, obscuring whether any lights were on inside. She walked to the front door and rang the bell, hearing the sound echo inside, but nothing stirred. He had talked of owning a very loud dog, but she could hear nothing from within.
Predictably, the doorknob refused to yield to her perfunctory effort to turn it, and she re-closed the screen door and moved to what was probably the living room window, shielding her eyes to peer inside at a well-kept interior, with photos on the coffee table and nothing seemingly out of place.
She pulled out her phone and punched in Marty’s number again, keeping her ear to the window to see if she could hear a ring tone from inside, but there was nothing. Worried about neighbors misunderstanding what she was doing, Judith glanced around before deciding to circle the house, grasping the knob on the backdoor just to make sure all was secure and giving it a shake.
But the backdoor latch had apparently not seated, and without a deadbolt in place, the door suddenly swung open.
Judith moved inside cautiously, calling his name, listening in vain for a response. She checked the two bedrooms, finding the beds made with military precision, the bathroom towels ready for guests. She stopped for a second passing a floor to ceiling mirror and looked at herself, aware of the extra ten pounds she was always fighting to keep off, yet mostly pleased with the trim and disciplined woman she saw. Trim and disciplined was what any professional woman had to be, and the last thing she ever wanted anyone to know was how much effort it took, and how often the polished and unshakeable attorney they saw doubted herself.
The kitchen was neat and clean, except for a closed, half-eaten jar of peanut butter – a spoon set neatly beside it. She almost missed the several envelopes in the middle of the kitchen table. Each had a name on the front of it, but no address, or stamp, or return…
A sudden suspicion gripped her like a rising gorge, a sick feeling that she knew where this was going, where it had to go given what she was seeing. Each envelope was sealed, but she ripped open the first one and removed three pages of printed verbiage, trying to slow her reading to comprehend that it was a goodbye. Essentially a suicide note, with no indication of where or how.
Judith pulled one of the kitchen chairs and sat down hard, her mind racing. She opened the other three envelopes one by one, finding different messages but no additional clues. He had, however dated the signatures, and when she focused on the date, it was the 13th, one day ago.
How the hell can I find where he went? she thought. He could be anywhere! Think, dammit!
Suddenly her plan to help him feel better with a more optimistic assessment of his chances with his upcoming trial seemed so pathetically short of the mark. He’d needed that assurance before, and now…
There was something she was missing. The feeling was practically shouting at her, quite audible over the pounding of her heart and her breathing as she tried to figure out what to do. Calling the police would be essentially useless, or maybe not. She didn’t even know what car he drove, let alone his license plates…but they would.
She placed her cell phone on the table and stared at it, trying to visualize where his phone was, the one she had bought to give him some peace and privacy. That was an iPhone, just like hers. Maybe the cell company could locate it.
Holy crap! I can’t believe I forgot!
She toggled on her phone’s screen and moved to the note page, thumbing through the various things she’d typed until she found the one that mattered: The ID and password for the “Find My iPhone” function. She hadn’t told him about preprogramming it, and in truth, it was because she didn’t trust him. If the court had decided to put an ankle locater on him, she wanted a second way to find him if he fled. Maybe, just maybe, she thought, it would tell her where he was.
Judith worked to control her breathing as she togged on the appropriate app and carefully entered the information. The depiction of a compass rotated back and forth for almost a minute as her heart slowly sank.
It would have been too easy, she concluded, failing to recognize at first when the screen shifted to a map with a little green dot in the middle.
She leaned in, trying to interpret the map and the image. It was apparently a satellite depiction, but she had to zoom in and out several times to finally recognize where his cell phone was claiming to be, and as the recognition dawned, she looked up through the front windows of the house to see the big mountain itself.
Oh my God!
CHAPTER THREE
Summit of Longs Peak, 14,255 feet above sea level, 6:40 pm, August 14th
The temperature had dropped maybe ten degrees, prompting Marty to pull on a thick sweater under his windbreaker. Still, all in all it was pleasant, the lengthening shadows of the Rockies beginning to stretch east toward Loveland on the high plains that James Michener had made so attractive in his seminal work, “Centennial.” Marty loved that book, and as he’d told more than a few friends, it was the allure of northeastern Colorado ignited by Michener’s tale that had prompted him to bid on the next assignment his airline posted for the Denver pilot base. Buying a house in Boulder wasn’t exactly living the dream on the prairie, but it was close. He’d been happy there, both as a bachelor, and then a married man, although without the kids he’d always wanted. Nevertheless, it had been a blissful existence that hadn’t been quite as blissful for his ex.
He winced at the pain of the breakup, and the agony it had been writing a goodbye note to her.
Marty poured himself some more cabernet, amused at the thought that he might imbibe too much, realizing, as he replaced the bottle, that his pack was buzzing. He pulled out the cell phone, wondering why he hadn’t turned off the ringer altogether. The screen showed a long list of missed calls, all of them from Judith Winston.
Dammit!
He’d forgotten about their planned phone call. He thought of sending a simple text: “Sorry to worry you, but goodbye,” but she’d get the farewell note he’d just written in the little leather journal soon enough.
The familiar sounds of a smaller jet reached his ears and he looked up to track a corporate Gulfstream as it flew westbound thousands of feet above the peak. The sounds, however, immediately yanked him back to the left seat of the Boeing 757, raising his heart rate and triggering the nightmare all over again: The tail of a Beech 1900 commuter appearing out of nowhere just ahead, the frantic attempt to dump the 757’s nose in time, the screech of tearing metal...
It was easier to think about his female lawyer, and especially the way he’d tried to torture her on their first meeting in May. Marty took another sip of wine and looked toward Boulder, recalling that morning as he reluctantly parked his car outside her office.
He remembered being puzzled as to why he was standing outside such a ritzy office building. This was an assigned lawyer, a public defender he had been ordered to see. Such people worked out of old store fronts or their mother’s basement, didn’t they?
But the address was correct, and with some confusion he’d pushed through the door into a corporate world of wealth and opulence he’d always been amused to visit.
It took thirty minutes and a desultory perusal of three fancy magazines before he was escorted into what resembled a board room. M
arty took one of the oversized chairs and waited, somewhere between irritated and bored. He was aware the assigned lawyer was a woman. Probably some bespeckled little inge’nue, with her hair in a bun fresh out of law school and working a hundred hours a week as a drone hoping for partner status and a life someday. If he was dumb enough to let someone like that represent him, he’d probably end up in the gas chamber, or whatever Colorado used.
A door opened and Marty looked up in time to see Judith Winston enter the room accompanied by two male associates. The fact that she was beautiful had survived a concealment attempt – hair back, glasses, a stark business suit instead of girl clothes. Her honey blond hair alone was all but iridescent. Marty had to remind himself he was here to reject her, even insult her, but there was also something about the force of her commanding presence that left him off balance.
She had offered her hand as if forced to greet a leper, and when he’d given it a perfunctory shake, she withdrew and slid into the chair opposite his, already immersed in the paperwork. He half expected her to pull out hand sanitizer.
“You’re Martin Mitchell, correct?”
Why else would I be sitting here, Babe? he thought, suppressing the retort in favor of a single word response. “Yes.”
“All right. I, for some unknown reason bordering on insanity, have volunteered to represent you and have been so appointed by Judge Gonzales.”
16 SOULS Page 3
