Dead Lawyers Tell No Tales

by Randy Singer

  The big man did not disappoint.

  “You survived it,” Billy said. “Besides, as a friend of mine once said, ‘There are some things in life more important than football.’”

  I STOOD BEHIND Pilate at the trial of Christus, whispering advice into the prefect’s ear. The man in the judgment seat was no legal scholar. Instead, it fell to me, Theophilus, Pilate’s favorite assessore, to provide counsel on the intricacies of Roman law.

  “Send him to Herod.”

  An hour later he was back.

  “Release Barabbas instead.”

  At the insistence of Pilate’s wife, I tried everything. But when Pilate washed his hands of the matter, I followed the would-be Messiah to Calvaria, the place of the skull, the hillside where criminals were executed.

  The sight of a good man being crucified did not fade away easily. It would haunt me for years, even after I returned to Rome. I should have done more.

  Thirty years later, as an advocate in Caesar’s court, I would get my chance. . . .

  ///

  His name was Paul of Tarsus, and I had been chosen to represent him. I had been here before, in the great marble hall, but there had never been so much at stake.

  And the judge was a madman.

  Nero had become emperor at seventeen. He had poisoned his brother, ordered the murder of his mother, kicked his pregnant wife to death, and married his male slave. He loved to toy with advocates. He made one beg on his hands and knees. Another time, he decreed that the man return to Nero’s court the following day, properly dressed, and sent a courier that evening with a woman’s gown. A third, who had the temerity to question Nero’s judgment, was sentenced to death along with the prisoner. In a court-ordered suicide, he was made to drink poison the next day. Caesar smiled wickedly as the man writhed on the marble floor, gasping for his last breath.

  The emperor gulped a mouthful of wine. “Next case!” he called out.

  The apostle Paul and I had agreed on one thing. There would be no begging today. We would make our case and concede nothing. I was an older man now. And Rome was a mere shadow of the empire I had once admired. Thirty years earlier, I had watched another man stand up to the haughtiness of a Roman judge and the fury of a bloodthirsty mob. He was unbowed, unshaken. Today, that would be me.

  I had studied this emperor, and I knew his weaknesses. The man loved drama. Almost as much as he loved being the center of attention.

  Well, then, he should love this.

  The idea came thirty years ago as well, at the foot of the cross, during the crucifixion of the man they called Christus. I was speaking to a woman who had been caught in adultery and saved from stoning by the Rabbi’s clever defense.

  “He wrote in the dirt,” she said, tears streaking down her face.

  “Wrote what?”

  “Names.”

  We were both staring at the Jewish Messiah, hanging there, blood oozing from his wrists and feet, a crown of thorns creating rivulets of crimson that colored his beard and dripped from his chin.

  “What do you mean, names?”

  She turned, her dark eyes boring into me. “The names of the leaders who were accusing me,” she answered. “And the women they had slept with.”

  The audacity of it made me catch my breath. I was an advocate. And as I had observed this man in front of Pilate—the give and take, the silent confidence, the questions he posed—I sensed that I might be watching the greatest advocate of them all.

  “He said, ‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,’” the woman continued. She spoke the words into space, staring again at the man on the cross, as if carried back to that time. “And then they dropped their stones and left.”

  And so I began my defense of Paul of Tarsus, thirty years later, in dramatic fashion as well.

  The crowd formed a crushing ring on the outskirts of the marble judgment hall. I was told they had started lining up at midnight. They seemed to pulse in as the charges were read, the men in the second and third rows standing on their toes to get a better view as I rose to address the emperor.

  I stood there for a moment, shoulders straight, head high, looking the man in the eye.

  “Well?” he said.

  I bent down . . . slowly, theatrically. I knelt there on one knee and took a last glance at Nero before I wrote the first name. I used the black ink—ground charcoal mixed with gum arabic—a nice contrast against the white stone. The crowd surged in a little, and a murmur started to spread. Nero leaned forward in his seat.

  The first name created a buzz of excitement, a shot of adrenaline that coursed through the crowd on this hot, steamy day.

  The second would start a riot.

  Acknowledgments

  As you can probably tell from reading this book, I love football and even played a little “back in the day.” I was an average (and that may be generous) quarterback but smart enough to figure out the number one rule: you are only as good as your offensive line. There is also a corollary to that rule: thank them every chance you get.

  The same applies to writing. Which is why I never pass up an acknowledgments page.

  I’ll start with Lee Hough, my good friend and great agent, who provided invaluable insight at the concept stage. Thanks also to Mary Hartman, who performed her usual stellar work reviewing the first draft. Jeremy Taylor, Stephanie Broene, Cheryl Kerwin, and the excellent team at Tyndale House took it from there, bringing the story to life and devising ways to let you know about it.

  Karen Watson, associate publisher at Tyndale, not only helped edit the book but literally resurrected it from the dead. I will never forget the long phone conference when I had given up on the book and suggested that we proceed on to the next project, something I had never done before. Like a good coach, Karen wouldn’t take “quit” for an answer. She helped me work through the challenges and reworked Tyndale’s schedule for release. Now that’s somebody who’s got your blind side.

  In addition, this book would have never been possible without the forbearance and support of my church, my law firm, and my family. A special thanks to those closest to me for putting up with the idiosyncratic lifestyle of a man with so many fictional characters dancing around in his head.

  Now allow me to take off my helmet and put on my lawyer’s hat for a few disclaimers. There is a Character and Fitness Committee in Virginia and a Board of Bar Examiners. Both groups are composed of dedicated and superb lawyers who bear no resemblance to the ethically challenged Harry McNaughten of this book. For that matter, none of my fictional lawyers are patterned after real-life colleagues, though it might make the practice of law a little more entertaining if they were.

  There is one character, however, inspired by a real-life client. That client showed me how much someone can truly change while incarcerated and how hard it can be to rebuild a life. But he also demonstrated that, by God’s grace, it can be done. He became the inspiration for my protagonist, Landon Reed, and for that I am deeply in his debt.

  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

  2 CORINTHIANS 5:17 (NIV)

  About the Author

  RANDY SINGER is a critically acclaimed, award-winning author and veteran trial attorney. He has penned more than ten legal thrillers and was recently a finalist with John Grisham and Michael Connelly for the inaugural Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction sponsored by the University of Alabama School of Law and the ABA Journal. Randy runs his own law practice and has been named to Virginia Business magazine’s select list of “Legal Elite” litigation attorneys. In addition to his law practice and writing, Randy serves as teaching pastor for Trinity Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He calls it his “Jekyll and Hyde thing”—part lawyer, part pastor. He also teaches classes in advocacy and civil litigation at Regent University School of Law and, through his church, is involved with ministry opportunities in India. He and his wife, Rhonda, live in Virginia Beach. They have two grown children. Visit his web
site at www.randysinger.net.