Beyond Suspicion (3 page)

•

In minutes they were back in Courtroom 9, and Jack could feel the butterflies swirling in his belly. This wasn’t the most complicated case he’d ever handled, but he wanted to win it for Jessie. It had nothing to do with the fact that his client was a woman who’d once rejected him and that this was his chance to prove what a great lawyer he was. Jessie deserved to win. Period. It was that simple.

Right. Is
anything
ever that simple?

Jack and his client stood impassively at their place behind the mahogany table for the defense. Plaintiff’s counsel stood alone on the other side of the courtroom, at the table closest to the jury box. His client, a corporation, hadn’t bothered to send a representative for the rendering of the verdict. Perhaps they’d expected the worst, a prospect that seemed to have stimulated some public interest. A reporter from the local paper was seated in the front row, and behind her in the public gallery were other folks Jack didn’t recognize. One face, however, was entirely familiar: Joseph Marsh, Jessie’s neurologist, was standing in the rear of the courtroom.

A paddle fan wobbled directly over Jack’s head as the decision makers returned to the jury box in single file. Each of them looked straight ahead, sharing not a glance with either the plaintiff or the defendant. Professional jury consultants could have argued for days as to the significance of their body language-whether it was good or bad if they made eye contact with the plaintiff, the defendant, the lawyers, the judge, or no one at all. To Jack, it was all pop psychology, unreliable even when the foreman winked at your client and mouthed the words, “It’s in the bag, baby.”

“Has the jury reached a verdict?” asked the judge.

“We have, Your Honor,” announced the forewoman. The all-important slip of paper went from the jury box to the bailiff and finally to the judge. He inspected it for less than a second, showing no reaction. “Please announce the verdict.”

Jack felt his client’s long fingernails digging into his bicep.

“In the case of Viatical Solutions Incorporated versus Jessie Merrill, we the jury find in favor of the defendant.”

Jack suddenly found himself locked in what felt like a full body embrace, his client trembling in his arms. Had he not been there to hold her, she would have fallen to the floor. A tear trickled down her cheek as she looked him in the eye and whispered, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He released her, but she held him a moment longer-a little too long and too publicly, perhaps, to suit a married man. Then again, plenty of overjoyed clients had hugged him in the past, even big burly men who were homophobic to the core. Like them, Jessie had simply gotten carried away with the moment.

I think.

“Your Honor, we have a motion.” The lawyer for Viatical Solutions, Inc. was standing at the podium. He seemed on the verge of an explosion, which was understandable. One and a half million dollars had just slipped through his fingers. Six months earlier he’d written an arrogant letter to Jessie telling her that her viatical settlement wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. Now Jessie was cool, and he was the fool.

God, I love winning.

“What’s your motion?” the judge asked.

“We ask that the court enter judgment for the plaintiff notwithstanding the verdict. The evidence does not support-”

“Save it,” said the judge.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” With that, Judge Garcia unleashed a veritable tongue-lashing. From the first day of trial he’d seemed taken with Jessie, and this final harangue only confirmed that Jack should have tried the case to the judge alone and never even asked for a jury. At least a half-dozen times in the span of two minutes he derided the suit against Jessie as “frivolous and mean-spirited.” He not only denied the plaintiff’s post-trial motion, but he so completely clobbered them that Jack was beginning to wish he’d invited Cindy downtown to watch.

On second thought, it was just as well that she’d missed that big hug Jessie had given him in her excitement over the verdict.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, thank you for your service. We are adjourned.” With a bang of the judge’s gavel, it was all over.

Jessie was a millionaire.

“Time to celebrate,” she said.

“You go right ahead. You’ve earned it.”

“You’re coming too, buster. Drinks are on me.”

He checked his watch. “All right. It’s early for me, but maybe a beer.”

“One beer? Wimp.”

“Lush.”

“Lawyer.”

“Now you’re hitting way below the belt.”

They shared a smile, then headed for the exit. The courtroom had already cleared, but a small crowd was gathering at the elevator. Most had emerged from another courtroom, but Jack recognized a few spectators from Jessie’s trial. Among them was Dr. Marsh.

The elevator doors opened, and Jack said, “Let’s wait for the next one.”

“There’s room,” said Jessie.

A dozen people packed into the crowded car. In all the jostling for position, a janitor and his bucket came between Jack and Jessie. The doors closed and, as if it were an immutable precept of universal elevator etiquette, all conversation ceased. The lighted numbers overhead marked their silent descent. The doors opened two floors down. Three passengers got off, four more got in. Jack kept his eyes forward but noticed that, in the shuffle, Dr. Marsh had wended his way from the back of the car to a spot directly beside Jessie.

The elevator stopped again. Another exchange of passengers, two exiting, two more getting on. Jack kept his place in front near the control panel. As the doors closed, Jessie moved all the way to the far corner. Dr. Marsh managed to find an opening right beside her.

Is he pursuing her?

It was too crowded for Jack to turn his body around completely, but he could see Jessie and her former physician in the convex mirror in the opposite corner of the elevator. Discreetly, he kept an eye on both of them. Marsh had blown the diagnosis of ALS, but he was a smart guy. Surely he’d anticipated that Jessie would speak to her lawyer about suing him for malpractice. If it was his intention to corner Jessie in the elevator and breathe a few threatening words into her ear, Jack would be all over him.

No more stops. The elevator was on the express route to the lobby. Jack glanced at the lighted numbers above the door, then back at the mirror. His heart nearly stopped; he couldn’t believe his eyes. It had lasted only a split second, but what he’d seen was unmistakable. Obviously, Jessie and the doctor hadn’t noticed the mirror, hadn’t realized that Jack was watching them even though they were standing behind him.

They’d locked fingers, as if holding hands, then released.

For one chilling moment, Jack couldn’t breathe.

The elevator doors opened. Jack held the door open button to allow the others to exit. Dr. Marsh passed without a word, without so much as looking at Jack. Jessie emerged last. Jack took her by the arm and pulled her into an alcove near the bank of pay telephones.

“What the hell did you just do in there?”

She shook free of his grip. “Nothing.”

“I was watching in the mirror. I saw you and Marsh hold hands.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Apparently. Crazy to have trusted you.”

She shook her head, scoffing. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that, Swyteck? That’s what I couldn’t stand when we were dating, you and your stupid jealousy.”

“This has nothing to do with jealousy. You just held hands with the doctor who supposedly started this whole problem by misdiagnosing you with ALS. You owe me a damn good explanation, lady.”

“We don’t owe you anything.”

It struck him cold, the way she’d said “we.” Jack was suddenly thinking of their conversation on the courthouse steps just minutes earlier, where Jessie had heaped such praise on the kind and considerate doctor. “Now I see why Dr. Marsh performed the diagnostic tests himself. It had nothing to do with his compassion. You never had any symptoms of ALS. You never even had lead poisoning. The tests were fakes, weren’t they?”

She just glared and said, “It’s like I told you: We don’t owe you anything.”

“What do you expect me to do? Ignore what I just saw?”

“Yes. If you’re smart.”

“Is that some kind of threat?”

“Do yourself a favor, okay? Forget you ever knew me. Move on with your life.”

Those were the exact words she’d used to dump him some seven years earlier.

She started away, then stopped, as if unable to resist one more shot at him. “I feel sorry for you, Swyteck. I feel sorry for anyone who goes through life just playing by the rules.”

As she turned and disappeared into the crowded lobby, Jack felt a gaping pit in the bottom of his stomach. Ten years a trial lawyer. He’d represented thieves, swindlers, even cold-blooded murderers. He’d never claimed to be the world’s smartest man, but never before had he even come close to letting this happen. The realization was sickening.

He’d just been scammed.

•

Sparky’s Tavern was having a two-for-one special. The chalkboard behind the bar said well drinks only, which in most joints simply meant the liquor wasn’t a premium brand, but at Sparky’s it meant liquor so rank that the bartender could only look at you and say, “
WELL,
what the hell did you expect?”

Jack ordered a beer.

Sparky’s was on U.S. 1 south of Homestead, one of the last watering holes before a landscape that still bore the scars of a direct hit from Hurricane Andrew in 1992 gave way to the splendor of the Florida Keys. It was a converted old gas station with floors so stained from tipped drinks that not even the Environmental Protection Agency could have determined if more flammable liquids had spilled before or after the conversion. The grease-pit was gone but the garage doors were still in place. There was a long wooden bar, a TV permanently tuned to ESPN, and a never-ending stack of quarters on the pool table. Beer was served in cans, and the empties were crushed in true Sparky’s style at the old tire vise that still sat on the workbench. It was the kind of dive that Jack would have visited if it were in his own neighborhood, but he made the forty-minute trip for one reason only: the bartender was Theo Knight.

“’Nother one, Jacko?”

“Nah, I’m fine.”

“How do you expect me to run this joint into the ground if you only let me give away one stinking beer?” He cleared away the empty and set up another cold one. “Cheers.”

As half-owner of the bar, Theo didn’t give away drinks to many customers, but Jack was a special case. Jack was his buddy. Jack had once been his lawyer. It was Jack who’d kept him alive on death row.

Jack’s first job out of law school had been a four-year stint with the Freedom Institute, a ragtag group of lawyers who worked only capital cases. It was an exercise in defending the guilty, with one exception: Theo Knight. Not that Theo was a saint. He’d done his share of car thefts, credit card scams, small-time stuff. Early one morning he walked into a little all-night convenience store to find no one tending the cash register. On a dare from a buddy, he helped himself. It turned out that the missing nineteen-year-old clerk had been stabbed and beaten, stuffed in the walk-in freezer, and left to bleed to death. Theo was convicted purely on circumstantial evidence. For four years Jack filed petitions for stays of execution each time the governor-Jack’s own father-signed a death warrant. At times the fight seemed futile, but it ended up keeping Theo alive long enough for DNA tests to come into vogue. Science finally eliminated Theo as the possible murderer.

Theo thought of Jack as the guy who’d saved his life. Jack thought of Theo as the one thing he’d done right in his four years of defending the guilty at the Freedom Institute. It made for an interesting friendship. Best of all, Theo had kept his nose clean since his release from prison, but he could still think like a criminal. He had the kind of insights and street smarts that every good defense lawyer could use. It was exactly the point of view Jack needed to figure out what had gone wrong with Jessie Merrill.

“What are you laughing at?” said Jack.

Theo was a large man, six-foot-five and two-hundred-fifty pounds, and he had a hearty laugh to match. He’d listened without interruption as Jack laid out the whole story, but he couldn’t contain himself any longer. “Let me ask you one question.”

“What?”

“Was it the big tits or amazing thighs?”

“Come on, I’m married.”

“Just what I thought. Both.” He laughed even harder.

“Okay. Pile it on. This is what I get for feeling sorry for an ex-girlfriend.”

“No, dude. Abuse is what you get for sitting too far away for me to slap you upside the head. Then again, maybe you ain’t sitting so far…” He reached across the bar and took a swing, but Jack ducked. Theo caught only air and laughed again, which drew a smile from Jack.

“Guess I was pretty stupid, huh?” said Jack.

“Stupid, maybe. But it ain’t like you did anything wrong. A lawyer can’t get into trouble if he don’t know his client is scamming the court.”

“How do you know that?”

“Are you forgetting who you’re talking to?”

Jack smiled. Theo had been the Clarence Darrow of jailhouse lawyers, a veritable expert on everything from writs of habeas corpus to a prisoner’s fundamental right to chew gum. He was of mixed ancestry, primarily Greek and African-American, but somewhere in his lineage was just enough Miccosukee Indian blood to earn him the prison nickname “Chief Brief,” a testament to the fact that some of the motions he filed with the court were better than Jack’s.

Theo lit a cigarette, took a long drag. “You know, it’s not even a hundred percent you were scammed.”

“How can you say that?”

“All you know is that your client held hands in the elevator with this Dr. Swamp.”

“Not Swamp, you idiot. Dr. Marsh.”

“Whatever. That don’t make it a scam.”

“It was more than just the hand-holding. I flat-out accused her and Dr. Marsh of faking her tests. She didn’t deny it.”

“I didn’t deny it either when the cops asked me if I killed that store clerk. Sometimes, even if you ain’t done nothing, you just think you’re better off keeping your mouth shut.”

“This is totally different. Jessie wasn’t just silent. She looked pretty damn smug about it.”

“Okay. And from that you say Jessie and this big, rich doc got together and pulled a fast one on a group of Vatican investors.”

“Viatical, dumbshit, not Vatican. What do you think, the pope is in on this too?”

“No, and I ain’t even so sure this doctor was in on it.”

“Why would you even doubt it?”

“Because this cat could lose his license. You gotta show me more than a good piece of ass to make a doctor do something like this.”

As bad as things had looked in the elevator, Theo had hit upon a crucial link in the chain of events. The criminal mind was at work. Jack asked, “What would you want to see?”

“Somethin’ pretty strong. Maybe he needs money real bad, like right now.”

Jack sipped his beer. “Makes sense. Problem is, I can’t even get Jessie and her doctor friend to return my calls.”

“I’d offer to give Jessie a good slap, but you know I don’t rough up the ladies.”

“I don’t want you to slap her.”

“How about I slap you then?” he said as he took another swing. This one landed. It was a playful slap, but Theo had the huge hands of a prize fighter.

“Ow, damn it. That really hurt.”

“’Course it did. You want me to slap Dr. Swamp, too?”

“No. And for the last time, moron, his name is Marsh.”

“I’ll get ol’ swampy good-pa-pow, one-two, both sides of the head.”

“I said no.”

“Come on, man. I’ll even do him for free. I hate them fucking doctors.”

“You hate everyone.”

“Except you, Jack, baby.” He grabbed Jack’s head with both hands and planted a loud kiss on the forehead.

“Lucky me.”

“You is lucky. Just leave it to Theo. We’ll get the skinny on this doc. You want to know if you got scammed, you just say the word.”

Jack lowered his eyes, tugging at the label on his bottle.

Theo said, “I can’t hear you, brother.”

Jack shook his head and said, “It’s not as if I can do anything about it. There’s no getting around the fact that everything Jessie told me is protected by the attorney-client privilege. She could have pulled off the biggest fraud in the history of the Miami court system. That doesn’t mean her own lawyer can just walk over to the state attorney’s office and lay it all out.”

“That’s a whole ‘nother thing.

“What the hell am I thinking, anyway? I’m a criminal defense lawyer. I don’t do my reputation any good by ratting on my own clients.”

“Listen up. What you do with the information once you get it ain’t my department.”

“You think I want to get even with her, don’t you? That I want to nail my ex-girlfriend for playing me for a fool?”

“All I’m asking is this: Do you want to know for a hundred percent certain if the bitch stuck it to you or not?”

Their eyes locked. Jack knew better than anyone that Theo had ways of getting information that would have impressed the CIA.

“Come on, Swyteck. You didn’t drive all the ways over here just to talk to Theo and drink a beer. Do you want to know?”

“It’s not about revenge.”

“Then why bother?”

He met Theo’s stare, and a moment of serious honesty washed over them, the way it used to be when staring through prison glass. “I just need to know.”

“That’s good enough for me.” Theo reached over the bar and shook Jack’s hand about seven different ways, the prison-yard ritual. “Let’s get to it, then. We’ll have some fun.”

“Yeah,” said Jack, raising his beer. “A blast.”