The Letter Of The Law

by Tim Green

  It wasn't that Tony Cronic was a slouch. He was a respected attorney who had at one time served for three years as the president of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association. He had been making a comfortable living, but it was nothing compared to what he was doing now. With Casey as his partner, he had been able to focus on acquiring the clients and handling the media. That let her focus exclusively on trying cases, and she was proving to be one of the very best.

  Today, that perfect symbiotic relationship had opened yet another door. Tony had spent the past day and a half on the phone with Culpepper's brother, who was also his manager, trying to sell him on the notion of Casey as his attorney rather than the one his agent, Harvey Weissman, was recommending.

  "I've got seats on a plane first thing in the morning," Tony told her.

  "I have closing arguments Monday, you know," Casey replied.

  Tony had completely forgotten. Suddenly he realized that her reserve hadn't been entirely feigned. She was working on the case of a young woman named Catalina Enos. The young Mexican-American woman had electrocuted her husband by tossing a boom box into his bathtub. As she sometimes did, Casey was representing the woman for free. Pro bono legal work was something every lawyer thought was a noble endeavor; few ever really did much of it.

  But Casey was a ferocious defender of the rights of the accused. She believed, as Tony did, that in order for justice to be served, every person accused of a crime deserved competent legal representation. Although she didn't mind her rates being exorbitant for those who could afford them, Casey also insisted on offering her services to those in need as much as her cramped schedule allowed. It was an annoying reality that Tony had presumed would wear away after time, but it hadn't. Casey was still doing her pro bono work as devotedly, if not as frequently, as their paying work.

  "We'll be back tomorrow night," Tony argued. "Look, you don't get a chance like this very often."

  Tony knew that despite Casey's noble disposition, she, like most people, could be persuaded at least in part by the thought of a remarkably profitable undertaking. And if they were to represent Culpepper, it would be profitable not only in itself but in what it could lead to. While they had represented notable businessmen, politicians, and even a couple of professional baseball players, they had yet to represent a legitimate major entertainer. Since their ultimate goal was to be the legal team of the stars, they might one day look back on this case as the linchpin of their success.

  Tony didn't even try to hold back his smile when Casey said with feigned indifference in a hushed tone, "I presume he's innocent."

  "No one did it until they're proven guilty, Casey," he said glibly. "You know that. That's our motto."

  "Yes, I know that's our motto," she whispered. "But I mean it, Tony. I don't want to do this if he did it."

  Tony tugged at his goatee. The prospect of losing a deal this big was intolerable. He knew Casey would represent someone even if all the odds were against them. As long as she thought there was a chance a person was innocent, she would represent them with all her considerable means. He also knew that she was particularly sensitive when it came to sex crimes.

  "I doubt he did it," Tony muttered. "He's denied it in the newspapers."

  "I don't like these kinds of cases, Tony," she said, still in a low tone, regretful now that she'd opened their discussion in a public forum. "You know that. I heard about it on the radio. I don't want to represent him if he's as bad as he sounds. I really don't."

  "Will you go up there with me and at least talk to him?" Tony whispered, conscious of the gaping onlookers and trying not to beg. "You know how these things can be. People like Culpepper are targets. This is what we've been waiting for…" His speech ended with a nervous laugh that he tried to make sound offhand.

  Casey looked at her husband. He made a smooth transition from his prolonged assessment of the young Mrs. Rienholf to a noncommittal smile. He was proud of his wife. In truth, though he would never admit it even to himself, she was his greatest achievement. And, while they both knew she would do whatever she damn well pleased, he did appreciate the public show she made of consulting him on important decisions.

  "You'll do the right thing," he told her. His standard line.

  After a pause she said to the table, "I'm sorry, would you excuse us?"

  Tony followed her outside into the warm darkness. The quiet night was a sharp contrast to the buzz of the immense dining room. They stood away from the door on the walkway, where they could be certain of being alone.

  "I want to go," Casey said, glad to be free to speak in a normal tone, "but it can't be until after the trial."

  Tony frowned. "We've got to go now, Casey. If we wait, he'll get another lawyer. Weissman, the agent, is trying to get him to go with Devon Black out of Chicago. But I've got the brother on our side, and he said if we get there this weekend, he knows he can get Pierce to go with us."

  "But I've got a woman who could go to jail if I can't lock up the jury with my closing argument," Casey argued.

  "Is it really that critical?" Tony asked doubtfully. He knew she'd spent much of her time the past month working on the case, but he didn't get very involved when there was no money at stake.

  "Yes, it's that critical," Casey countered. "Van Rawlins is the judge…"

  Tony winced. Rawlins was the former DA, one whose career as a prosecutor Casey had practically destroyed. After working in his organization for only a short time, she had electrified the city by joining Tony and immediately turning around and whipping her old boss in a major murder trial. The blow had cost him the next election, and Casey presumed she'd seen the last of him. But Rawlins, a political animal, had recently wormed his way from a struggling private practice into the Republican nomination for a vacated seat on the bench. If Rawlins was given a chance to foil Casey, he would.

  "And," Casey continued, "the DA had all the good witnesses. My God, Tony, that house was like a prison. Catalina lived in that house with her husband's entire family. She was like a slave. She had no one, and they're all lined up against her.

  "No," Casey added, "that girl is counting on me. I've got to be back."

  "There are plenty of flights," Tony said. "We can leave in the morning and get back easily by early evening."

  Casey considered her partner's face. More than anyone, he had helped her become exactly what she'd always wanted to be. She lived in a big, elegant home that other people cleaned. Her clothes came from a personal shopper who scoured the finest stores in Austin and Dallas, seeing to it she was always dressed in the latest fashion. Her jewelry, although she wore only a few pieces at a time, had to be kept in a vault. She drove the latest, biggest-model Mercedes. And, more important, people admired her. Wasn't she one of only a handful of women invited regularly to tea at the governor's mansion by his wife? Didn't she always have to choose from a broad selection of the women who wanted to play tennis with her at the club?

  Yes, Casey was everywhere and everything she'd always wanted to be. And much of that had evolved from her partnership with Tony. Her husband was important, of course. But Casey didn't know if she would even have met Taylor if she hadn't joined forces with Tony. It was Tony who had cultivated her confidence in the big city. She had always been able to shine in her tiny hometown outside Odessa. She was everything back there, the class president, the valedictorian, the homecoming queen. And why shouldn't she have been? It was a squalid little farm town in the middle of nowhere. But Austin was a big city, and Casey needed a mentor like Tony to help give her the confidence that she could still shine at a much higher level.

  She smiled fondly at her partner and said, "I'll go."

  Then, turning toward the door, she remembered her husband's words and added, "I think it's the right thing."

  CHAPTER 4

  "My God, it's freezing," Casey said. She wondered aloud how anyone could choose to live in the north. Not only was it cold, but the roiling gray clouds spit fitful bits of ice and snow and rain at them. Despit
e the proximity to noon, the horizon was inky and flat.

  Tony stamped his feet on the dirty concrete and huffed into his hands. The raincoat he wore was like nothing in the cold wind whipping down from Canada. Although it was nearly April, a sudden cold snap had left the ground outside the airport frozen and lightly frosted with snow. The driver who met them at the gate had gone around for the car. Tony and Casey had made the mistake of walking out to the curb to wait for him.

  "Let's go inside," he said with a shiver.

  "Here he comes," she said. She, too, was dressed for warmer weather in a light coat that covered a classic blue pinstripe business suit and heels. Her shapely legs, bare from the knee down except for dark stockings, were chilled to the bone.

  Casey had spent the entire plane ride, as well as the time during their layover in Chicago, going over her closing-argument notes for her trial the next morning. But their car ride to Pierce Culpepper's side of town was spent going over the facts of the rock star's case, as Tony knew them. Casey nodded silently and let him finish before asking, "What's his legal history?" She already knew the star's background: a suburban kid from St. Paul and one of the few white rap artists to not only thrive, but take his unique sound to the top of the charts worldwide.

  Tony shrugged. "The paper talked about a couple of incidents when he was back in college, but nothing that he did any jail time for."

  "That's comforting," she said flatly.

  Tony rubbed some of the moisture off the window with his palm as they drove through an imposing set of iron gates. Culpepper's home was a three-story fieldstone mansion. The architect had given it myriad gables and turrets that hinted at the notion of a castle. It looked like a home the governor would live in. Years ago, such a place would have intimidated Casey.

  She could still remember the home of the president of the Bank of Texas in Odessa. As a little girl of eight, she'd gone there with her father in his pickup truck to buy an old piece of machinery from the man who took care of the bank president's cars. They had entered the estate through a dusty service gate in the back. When her father went into the enormous garage to conduct business, Casey had wandered up the tree-lined path toward the main house.

  It rose from the ground amid an old stand of oaks like a brick fortress. Its shutters and columns were brilliantly white, and on the lush green back lawn, the family, dressed as if they were going to church even though it was Saturday, was playing croquet. From behind a tree, Casey had peered at the children. They were close to her age, and happiness to Casey from that moment on was defined by the image of those well-dressed children pocking away with wooden mallets at the colored balls in the shade-mottled grass.

  Then her reverie had been destroyed. The greasy hand of a scrofulous boy in ratty jeans and a grimy Astros hat spun her rudely around.

  "They don't want no white trash around them," the boy sneered.

  "I'm not white trash, you!" Casey piped back at him defiantly, kicking him in the shin.

  The boy howled and grabbed her in a headlock, wrestling her to the ground. Before she knew it, the banker himself was upon them, and Casey quivered at the sight of his big, red face and the strong, musty smell of his expensive shaving lotion. He pulled the two of them apart with an expression of disdain and ordered, "You get back to your daddies and don't let me see you around this house again!"

  As the limousine rolled through the front gates, Casey fingered her Cartier watch and wondered how it was that the shame of such a small moment could last so long.

  "Nice place," she said, feigning complacency.

  The rock star made them wait in his study for nearly an hour before he wandered in wearing a baggy pair of pants and a scruffy T-shirt. In less than a minute, Casey sensed that what Tony thought was a done deal was far from done. It wasn't even close. In fact, after a couple of probing questions, she was nearly certain that Culpepper had decided to go with a different attorney.

  "Can I ask you a simple question?" she said.

  The rock star shrugged. "Sure."

  "Why are we here?"

  "I don't know," Culpepper said, looking to his brother, a younger, scrawnier version of himself who sat in a big chair in the corner with his feet dangling over the arm.

  "I told Tony," the brother said defensively, "nothing was guaranteed. I just said that if you wanted to represent Pierce that you'd better come up here and see him in person."

  "My brother likes to jerk people around," Culpepper said in disgust and walked out of the room, absolving himself of the entire situation.

  "Hey," the brother said somewhat belligerently after staring blankly for a few moments at the door. "I told you, Tony, Pierce has the final say…"

  Casey was going to rip into the brother, then she decided to rip into Tony before giving it up completely. It would be a waste of effort. Tony did things like this from time to time, and she didn't want to hear his rationalization about how hard it was to sell their services. It made her feel cheap because deep down she knew it was true. Not that she was a hard act to sell, but beyond Austin, Texas, there was a whole battalion of good trial lawyers trying to represent the big-name stars. She was one of the many, and that was something she would have to live with until the day she became the biggest name in the legal profession. That was her goal, and she believed that one day it would happen. In the meantime, she had to get home. With a look of complete irritation, she made for the door.

  Tony wanted to defend himself, and he trailed Casey down the hall and through the house, patiently calling her name. Outside, everything was glazed in ice. Even in the gloom of the storm, the trees shone like glass. The thin layer of freshly fallen snow was also sheathed in ice. On the front steps, Casey slipped but saved herself a broken leg with a desperate grasp at the railing. Tony carefully helped her regain her balance, and they both shuffled tentatively to the car.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "I had no idea, really."

  "I know you didn't, Tony," she muttered. "Let's just get out of here."

  As soon as they were in the backseat, their driver began to fret out loud about the ice.

  "It's not good at all," he said, driving with pitiful slowness.

  Casey implored him to hurry. "I can't miss this flight."

  "I doubt there's going to be a flight," the driver said with an uncomfortable glance in the rearview mirror. "It's real bad, ma'am, and getting worse."

  The driver was right. By the time they got to the airport, the flights that weren't being delayed by several hours were being canceled outright. Rain and ice continued to fall from above. Casey plaintively watched the ever-darkening sky from a seat by the window at their gate. At the rate things were going, she wouldn't be home until well after midnight, and she wanted to be fresh for the trial. By seven, a good night's sleep was the last thing on her mind. The airport had closed down completely.

  "Come on!" Casey barked after hearing the news. She grabbed Tony by the sleeve and jerked him toward the main terminal. "We can drive."

  "Casey," Tony complained as he jogged along beside her, "you can't drive in this. Even if you could, we couldn't make it back if we drove all night."

  "I've got to do something," she said in distress.

  The rental counters were abandoned anyway.

  Casey approached a young skycap who was sitting on a bench with his face in his hands. "Is there any way I can get a car?" she asked him.

  The skycap shook his head sadly and said, "Nobody's getting out of here now. Everyone who had the chance got out about two hours ago. I got caught up helping a guy with his stuff. He promised me he'd drop me off in town, but by the time we got his bags in the car, we couldn't even get out of the lot. Everyone here now is here for the night…"

  "Catalina," Casey whispered to herself at the finality of the news. "I've got to get to a phone," she said to Tony, frantically searching the terminal with her eyes. "I've got to tell Patti. She'll have to do the closing argument…"

  Patti Dunleavy was Casey's understudy,
a capable, vivacious attorney. The problem was that while Patti was the only other lawyer intimately familiar with the nuances of the Enos trial, she was only recently out of school and had never tried a real case before.

  "The judge will delay the closing arguments," Tony said, forgetting for a moment the bad blood between Casey and Rawlins.

  "He can and he should," Casey replied, grinding her teeth. "It would be wrong to proceed. It would be unethical. But we're talking about Van Rawlins. He hates me, Tony… That girl could go to jail. Of course he should delay the closing arguments. But he won't. Goddamn him to hell, he won't!"

  CHAPTER 5

  Donald Sales held his wife's hand mirror as far away from himself as he could and critically assessed his mangy blond wig, thick plastic glasses, and the makeup he had applied to lighten his complexion. He was wearing a dark suit. It seemed that until recently, the only time he ever wore a suit was for a funeral. No one would recognize him now. He smiled grimly at himself and returned the silver mirror to the top of the bureau. This would be a funeral of sorts.

  In the top drawer he fished among his socks for a clip, popped it into his Browning 9mm, and slapped a shell into the chamber. On the neatly made bed was a fake leather briefcase he'd purchased at Wal-Mart. Using a handkerchief, he wiped the pistol as well as a can of Mace free of fingerprints before placing them both in the case.

  In the tiny room, an iron bed sat on a plank floor, bare except for a small handwoven Navajo rug. Once a brilliant red, it was now faded nearly pink. On the walls were stark black-and-white landscape photographs in barn-board frames. A fragile antique chair sat wedged into the corner, its seat covered with a delicate lace doily. Sales took pride in the fact that, except for the color of the rug, the room hadn't changed in twenty years. When his wife died, he had made a pact with her spirit that their bedroom would remain sacrosanct, that it would always be their place, and so he had never shared it with another woman.