Dead Lawyers Tell No Tales

by Randy Singer

  “Interesting thoughts,” Deegan said. She sat back down. “Mr. Sherman?”

  “Well, let me begin by saying that I’m grateful Mr. Reed is still here with us.” He looked at Landon, who nodded his appreciation. “But let’s give the police time to catch whoever did this. Mr. Reed is right; somebody apparently wants him and his client dead. When we find out who that is, I think we’ll know a lot more about the truth of this case. But these jurors are bound to find out that somebody tried to kill the defendant and his lawyer. Do you really think we’ll get a fair trial under those circumstances?”

  What he really meant, Landon knew, was that he didn’t want to try a case against someone the jury might consider a hero. Few things can raise a person’s stock as quickly as getting shot.

  Deegan turned from Franklin Sherman to Landon, and he took it as his cue to fire a shot of his own.

  “Judge, let’s take a step back and look at the big picture. We’ve got a case where my client is being accused of killing a potential witness in a federal investigation before that witness could meet with an assistant U.S. Attorney. My client’s defense is that he was set up as part of some greater conspiracy. Then, in the middle of our trial, somebody tries to silence me and my client before we can prove our case. Moreover, whoever is behind this apparently sets off a bunch of tear gas canisters to create maximum chaos. In other words, they’re doing everything possible to stop this trial. Why give in to that? Why not finish this case and show them that justice can’t be held hostage?”

  “Judge, that’s ridiculous—” Sherman began.

  But Deegan cut him off. “Mr. Sherman, I’ve spent almost my entire career on your side of the courtroom. I know what it means to be threatened and to have my witnesses threatened. And as Mr. Reed pointed out, I know what it feels like to be shot. I can guarantee you one thing. If somebody fired at a prosecution witness while I was prosecuting the case, I would have insisted that the case go forward. I would have argued that we can’t let hired hit men intimidate the courts. Now, how is this different just because the shoe’s on the other foot?”

  Sherman started to answer, but the judge cut him off again. “That’s a rhetorical question, Mr. Sherman.”

  He scowled but knew not to push it.

  “And it’s also my ruling,” Deegan continued. “I’m going to instruct the deputies to bring the jury into the courtroom, and we’ll see if we have enough of them to proceed. If we do, we’ll sequester the ones who are here, dismiss the others, and reconvene tomorrow at 9 a.m. Mr. Reed, I’ll give you the option at that time of whether or not to proceed, based on the health of your client. Any questions?”

  “No, ma’am,” Landon said.

  Sherman frowned and shook his head. “I think it’s a mistake,” he muttered under his breath.

  Judge Deegan stared him down for a moment but chose not to respond. Tempers were already on edge. They were in unprecedented waters.

  “That’s all, gentlemen,” she said.

  81

  BEFORE HE COULD LEAVE the courthouse, Landon had to spend an hour answering questions from Chesapeake detectives. Just when he thought he had described what had happened for the last time, Detective Freeman from the Virginia Beach Police Department showed up. She made him walk through it again, step by step, as she made notes in her little black book.

  “Look, my client’s at Chesapeake General,” Landon said, his frustration rising. “I’d like to get over there and see him. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

  Detective Freeman scanned the faces of her counterparts from Chesapeake. “If you gentlemen are done, I can go to the hospital with Mr. Reed and complete my questioning there.”

  Kerri and Maddie were already at the hospital when Landon arrived. Kerri was a little sore, something to be expected after being tackled by a three-hundred-pound NFL lineman, but she was otherwise unhurt.

  The Wolfman had come and gone. According to what he told Kerri, he had checked the rooftops once the bullets started flying and then had run to the parking lot on the other side of the circuit court building looking for the shooter. He had no leads but was closely monitoring the police investigation.

  Julia and Jake were also at the hospital. Elias had been moved from the OR to recovery, and the police were in place to provide 24-7 protection.

  “How is he?” Landon asked.

  “He just got out of surgery,” Kerri said. “The bullet entered the back of the calf and fractured the fibula. He’s got a lot of swelling and bleeding, but it missed his major veins and arteries.”

  “Where’s Billy?”

  “He’s having an MRI. He twisted his knee and we’re praying it’s nothing serious.”

  ///

  Elias King came through the surgery well and was grateful for Landon’s quick thinking in front of Judge Deegan. “If I can’t get a not-guilty verdict after getting shot in the middle of the case, there’s no hope,” Elias said, his mind still foggy from the anesthesia.

  “Let’s see how you’re feeling tomorrow morning,” Landon suggested.

  Elias pointed a finger in Landon’s direction. His tongue was thick, his smile lopsided. “You’re rehired.”

  The worst news of the day came from Billy Thurston’s MRI. He had partially torn his ACL and might require surgery followed by up to six months of rehab. The decision of whether to undergo surgery that would make him miss the season would, of course, be made in conjunction with the Green Bay team physician, but the doctors at Chesapeake General weren’t optimistic. The big man had successfully protected the wife of his college quarterback, but the 2013 season may have just gone down the drain.

  82

  BY THE TIME LANDON got back to the office, Parker Clausen had heard all about the shootings. “I tried to call your cell but you weren’t answering.”

  “Sorry,” Landon said. “I’ve been a little busy.”

  They were standing in the front lobby of the downstairs office, leaning on the counter surrounding the work space where Janaya used to sit. Landon still had on his dress pants, though he had a small hole in the left knee, and his white shirt had a bullet hole in the back. It had already been one of the longest days he had ever experienced, and it was only two in the afternoon.

  “Turn around and let me see the back of your shirt,” Parker said.

  Landon did, showing off the bullet hole. He had been careful at the hospital not to let Maddie see it.

  “That could make Harry’s Hall of Fame shelf,” Parker said. “Where’s the vest?”

  “The police kept it. Ballistics tests.”

  “Oh. Sure.”

  Parker took a drink of his Coke and shook his head. “I’ll be honest with you. When Harry first brought you to this firm, I thought he’d lost his mind. But you ended up being one of our best hires. Heck, you almost inspire me, and that’s darn near impossible.”

  “I don’t feel so inspirational,” Landon said.

  Parker ignored the comment and turned serious, the edges of his mouth twisting down in concern. “I’ll tell you what, Landon. You’ve got to get out of this case, or you’re going to get yourself killed.” He took another swig of soda and hitched up his jeans. “We’ve already lost three lawyers over the King case. Let’s not make it four.”

  Landon still wasn’t sure that the other killings were related to Elias’s case. But one thing he did know—whoever was trying to kill the firm lawyers had already concluded that Landon knew too much. Backing out of Elias’s case now wouldn’t change that.

  “Seems to me that these shootings prove Elias is innocent. Our firm ought to stick with him now more than ever.”

  Parker finished his Coke and threw the empty at the trash can. It bounced off the edge, and he cursed. “That’s why you’re a better man than me,” he said, leaning over and throwing his can away. “You’ve already done more than other lawyers would have, with the possible exception of Harry. I’m just saying you should leave good enough alone now.”

  “I can’t do tha
t,” Landon said.

  “Why not?”

  Landon couldn’t give the man an answer, but that didn’t change the truth. He was going to see this one through. It was in his nature. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t.

  Plus, what choice did he really have? Whoever wanted him dead wasn’t going to leave him alone just because he pulled out of the case. The only way to get out of danger now was to help the police figure out who was trying to kill him.

  ///

  Landon spent the entire afternoon in the office with Detective Freeman, reviewing the last few weeks of Harry McNaughten’s life. With the attempted murders of Landon and Elias, Detective Freeman was rethinking the entire case.

  As she explained to Landon, she had previously been focused on the firm’s connections with Cipher Inc. Harry had represented Cipher’s top operative in the Al-Latif assassination. Brent Benedict had represented both Sean Phoenix and Cipher in numerous appeals. Plus, Benedict was a former SEAL, the type of person Sean Phoenix occasionally hired for some under-the-table work.

  “I thought those offshore bank accounts set up by Benedict were for laundering payments from Cipher,” Freeman explained. “And I thought somebody—one of Cipher’s many enemies—was out to knock off all of Cipher’s lawyers who knew about a certain project. What that project was, I didn’t have the foggiest idea.”

  But now, Freeman admitted, her theory no longer held water. Neither Landon nor Elias worked for Cipher. On the contrary, Elias had been a sworn enemy of Sean Phoenix and Cipher. Freeman now believed that the deaths of Harry McNaughten, Brent Benedict, and Rachel Strach were all somehow tied to the King case. Harry must have figured out something he wasn’t supposed to know and passed it along to Brent Benedict. Maybe to Elias as well.

  Her buggy eyes zeroed in on Landon. “And somebody out there thinks you know this information too. Are you sure there’s nothing you’re keeping from me?”

  The question frustrated Landon. She had already asked it about three times. “Why would I withhold information that would help you find the person who shot me?”

  “So that’s a no? You’re not holding anything back?”

  He blew out a breath and gave her a look, though he knew it wouldn’t make any difference. Freeman didn’t care whether people liked her or not. “Yes, that’s a no.”

  They spent a few hours trying to re-create every minute of Harry’s life during his final two weeks. His time sheets were a big help, and Freeman zeroed in on two entries Harry had made a week before he died, both indicating phone calls to the secretary of Judge Zimmerman, the judge implicated in the insider trading case whose records Harry had unsuccessfully tried to subpoena. One entry read: T/c with Zimmerman’s secretary requesting a return call. The second entry, two days later, read: Follow-up t/c with Judge Zimmerman’s secretary.

  Why was Harry calling Judge Zimmerman’s secretary?

  Landon read through Judge Zimmerman’s subfile again, this time more carefully than before. On Zimmerman’s résumé, Harry had highlighted the judge’s service as senior staff counsel at the State Department. Harry had also made a few notes in the margin with the name and phone number of the judge’s secretary as well as the month and year she had started working for Zimmerman. Landon couldn’t figure out the significance of the data, but Harry apparently figured it was worth noting.

  Harry had done a similar thing in Big John McBride’s subfile, noting the starting date for McBride’s legal assistant. It was within a few weeks of Zimmerman’s assistant. That coincidence was significant enough for Harry to make note of it, but Landon couldn’t understand why. It sure would have been nice to know what Harry was thinking.

  Then a thought struck Landon. It was something he had considered before, but it now seemed more significant. “Do you know what’s missing from the Elias King file?” he asked Detective Freeman.

  “Yeah, a reason for somebody to kill Harry.”

  “That too,” Landon said. “But the first thing Harry always did was to write out his closing argument. He thought that helped him focus on what he needed to prove, to separate the critical from the trivial. I thought he was working on one for the King case before he died.”

  Freeman thought about this for a moment and made a note in her little book. “So you think somebody took it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he threw it out. Maybe that wasn’t what he was doing—I just saw him writing some notes on a legal pad. When I originally took the case over, I looked for it but never found it. If I had, it might have saved us all a lot of grief.”

  ///

  The pieces didn’t fall into place until nearly eleven that night. By then, Landon had gone home and scattered the King file across the kitchen table. When it hit, the revelation was so sudden he let out a soft “Whoa,” even though nobody else was there to hear.

  In a flash, it all made sense. The similar starting dates for Zimmerman’s secretary and McBride’s legal assistant. The reason Harry had been calling the judge’s secretary. The offshore accounts in the Seychelles islands.

  He checked the file to make sure he remembered correctly. Erica Jensen had started at Kilgore and Strobel just six months before Zimmerman’s secretary. For the first time it dawned on him why Erica Jensen, pregnant with her first child, would have called the assistant U.S. Attorney and requested a meeting. To Landon, the answer was now obvious. Why hadn’t he thought about this before?

  Erica Jensen wasn’t going to the assistant U.S. Attorney to implicate Elias; she was planning to exonerate him. At first, she may have helped set him up—making the deposits into the offshore accounts and maybe even the anonymous phone call that initially got the Feds involved. But somehow, Elias had won her over. Her feelings for him were real. And when she found out that she was pregnant with his child, she had done some serious soul-searching.

  Landon was suddenly energized. Billy Thurston was lying on the couch, the television on, his leg propped up. The pain pills and muscle relaxers were helping him sleep, and he was snoring like a train. Earlier, Kerri had crawled into bed with Maddie to calm her daughter’s fears and then had promptly fallen asleep herself.

  Landon stood, feeling like a man who had just been rescued from a mine shaft, basking in the sunlight for the first time in days. He made two cups of coffee, one for him and one for Kerri. He went back to Maddie’s room and gently placed his hand on Kerri’s shoulder, shaking her a little. She woke with a start and sat straight up.

  “It’s okay,” Landon said. “It’s just me.”

  She stared at him as if he were crazy, her eyes wide open. It took a few seconds for reality to sink in and for Kerri to relax a little.

  “We need to talk,” Landon said. “And I need to see the video from that first interview you did with Sean Phoenix.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kerri asked, rubbing her eyes.

  “I’ll explain everything. There’s a cup of coffee waiting for you in the kitchen.”

  83

  ON THURSDAY MORNING, security was tight at the Chesapeake Municipal Complex, a classic case of locking the barn door after the horse got out. The place was literally crawling with police and bomb-sniffing dogs. Security checks at the courthouses came as close to strip searches as the law would allow. There were no exceptions. Even lawyers who had been practicing in that court their entire professional lives had to endure pat-downs and open their briefcases so the deputies could riffle through their stuff.

  The media presence had quadrupled. Nothing like a good old-fashioned shoot-out to get the American public interested.

  Though it hadn’t been easy, Landon had talked Billy Thurston into staying home with Maddie. He had shown enough heroism for one trial. His leg was in a plastic cast and needed to be elevated.

  “I know you hate to miss the action,” Landon had said. “But I’ll give you a blow-by-blow tonight. Besides, there’s nothing more important than knowing that Maddie’s safe.”

  Taking Billy’s place
was Parker Clausen. He had trimmed his beard and put on an expensive black suit that he had apparently not worn since gaining his last ten or fifteen pounds. It made Landon hot just watching the big guy sweat as they stood in line outside the metal detector waiting to get into the courthouse.

  Elias met them in courtroom three. His leg was heavily bandaged and in a cast. He sat at counsel table with it stretched straight in front of him, sticking out from under the table. That should strike a nice sympathetic chord with the jury, Landon thought. Elias was still on a few painkillers but said it didn’t affect his thinking. To Landon, he seemed a little more mellow than usual.

  Court began with a thirty-minute argument about whether the trial should go forward.

  “What are we going to tell them about the shooting?” Sherman asked. “They’ll certainly notice Mr. King’s leg. And with all the commotion that occurred yesterday, most of them already know.”

  When Landon stood to offer his counterargument, he said he had a novel idea. “What if we just tell them the truth? I know that thought would never occur to Mr. Sherman, but how could it hurt? We don’t know who shot my client and me. We just tell the jury the truth about what happened and instruct them that it shouldn’t affect their deliberations either way.”

  “You really are a rookie,” Sherman scoffed. “‘Okay, folks, somebody tried to kill the defendant, but just ignore that.’ That’s really fair.”

  “Enough,” Deegan snapped. “We don’t need the attorneys acting like children.” She glared for a moment at Sherman, and Landon felt vindicated. “Now sit down, Mr. Sherman.”

  Deegan ruled that the case would go forward. The jurors remaining on the panel had been in the jury room during the shootings, away from all sources of outside news or influence. They were already several days into the trial, and she was determined not to let whoever had carried out the shooting disrupt the administration of justice. “The less said, the better. I’m going to tell them that Mr. King was injured in an incident at the courthouse yesterday but that his injury and the underlying incident have absolutely nothing to do with this trial.” Without waiting for a response from the lawyers, she turned to her deputy.