The Jury Master

by Robert Dugoni

  She smiled, coy, and took another drink of beer.

  “What are you studying?”

  “Architecture.”

  “Seriously, what are you studying?”

  She lowered the beer and stared at him. “How does it taste?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Your foot.”

  She was serious. He had expected her to say she was taking an art class.

  “For your information, I’ve been taking classes for three years. When Jake was born I had to drop out of college, but I promised myself I’d go back and finish. Then Frank decided being a father crimped his life too much, and I had to wait. I wanted to make sure I could do it before I said anything to anybody.”

  “Do what?”

  “I graduate the end of the summer.”

  He felt a sudden hollow ache in his stomach. “Graduate? Then what?”

  She drank from the bottle. “We can talk about that later.”

  “Are you thinking about leaving?”

  She hesitated. “I was going to talk to you about it earlier, but with the Scott trial I didn’t want it to be a distraction.”

  He felt as if he’d been kicked in the gut. “You’re leaving.”

  “I’ll be giving my formal notice August first,” she said.

  “Two weeks?”

  “You’ll have a month to replace me, David. This opportunity came up unexpectedly. I need time to get Jake situated in school for the fall and to find us a place to live.”

  He felt as if the room were spinning. “A place to live . . . Where are you going?”

  “Seattle. A friend offered me a job doing drafting. It’s a good job. Better pay. Better benefits. I can afford a house. I can spend more time with Jake, and my mother can have her life again, too.”

  He didn’t know what to say. He had never contemplated the possibility that Tina would leave. He had pictured the two of them receiving their gold company watches together.

  “This isn’t what I intended for my life, David. This is better for me—I mean, there’s nothing here for me . . . Is there?”

  “You could find a job here.”

  “Forget it.” She turned and looked out the window, then looked back at him. “Why are you here?”

  “It’s a good firm, Tina—”

  “No. Why are you here now, tonight? You haven’t taken a vacation in years, and when you finally get one you seem to be avoiding going. And pardon me for saying so, but you do look tired.”

  Maybe it was because she was leaving, or maybe it was the beer. Whatever the reason, he was talking before he could stop himself.

  “I haven’t been sleeping much.”

  “You work too hard.”

  “It isn’t work. I’ve been having a nightmare.”

  “A nightmare?”

  “And I get these searing headaches and I can’t get back to sleep.”

  She lowered her beer. “How long has this been going on?”

  “Every morning since the Scott trial started.”

  “David, you should see a doctor.”

  He chuckled. “You mean I should have my head examined.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “The law is still an old-boys’ network, Tina. You don’t want word getting out you might be a little nuts.”

  “You’re stubborn,” she said. “See a doctor, David.” She took a drink of beer. “What’s the nightmare about?”

  “You don’t want to hear this, Tina.”

  “Why not? The longer I’m here the more time Jake gets to spend with the man who’s supposed—oops—I mean, with his dad.” She put her empty bottle on the desk. “Crack me another one.” He handed her a second beer. “Besides, I shared my secret with you. I expect some reciprocity. Maybe you’ll find that it actually helps to talk to someone about these things.”

  Keeping it to himself certainly hadn’t helped. “What the hell.” He started matter-of-factly, as if reciting facts to a jury. “I’m in a room—I don’t know where exactly; the details are sketchy and it’s very stark. There’s a woman there.” He closed his eyes, seeing her. “Sometimes she’s working at a desk. Sometimes she’s just standing . . . dressed in white, backlit, like an outline. And I’m not sure why, but I have this feeling . . .” He opened his eyes. “More than a feeling. I know something is going to happen to her, something bad, and I can’t stop it.”

  “Why not?”

  He struggled to find the right words. “I can’t move. It’s like my arms and legs are bound. When I try to call out to her, my voice . . . Nothing comes out.”

  She sat forward. “So what happens?”

  “I don’t know exactly. There’s this blinding flash of light and an explosion.” He put a hand to his ear as if hearing it. “Then people are rushing into the room, shouting.”

  “Who are they?”

  He shook his head. “Everything is a blur. I can’t see or breathe.”

  “What happens to the woman?”

  He took another drink.

  “David?”

  He lowered his eyes. “They rape her,” he said softly. “Then they kill her.”

  16

  SHE NEVER FLINCHED.

  The blade end of a garden hoe stopped two inches from her throat, and she never moved.

  Remarkable.

  She considered him as one might, on first sight, an old-growth redwood, marveling at its sheer size. Her eyes took in his overalls, from the taut straps across his thick shoulders and chest to the rolled cuffs above his mud-caked work boots. Charles Jenkins did not recognize the face, though it seemed to tweak a place in his memory, but her face would have been a particularly difficult one to forget. She was as stunning as she was composed. Her hair cascaded like spilled ink over her shoulders, the same indigo-blue color as her eyes. Her nose was thin and perfect, perhaps surgically altered, and though he detected no makeup, the cool weather—or the rush of adrenaline—had brought a blush to her cheeks. Otherwise, her bronze-colored complexion was unblemished. He estimated her to be five feet ten—most of it legs wrapped in straight-legged jeans—with perhaps an extra inch from the spit-shined ankle boots, the spiked heel sinking into the moist ground. She wore a waist-length leather jacket over a white blouse.

  And behind the beauty was someone with remarkable training.

  “Charles Jenkins?” she asked.

  HE LEFT THE garden hoe on the ground and led her across the pasture to the cottage. At the back door he removed his boots and stepped inside. He passed through the kitchen to the main room, did not hear her follow, and turned to find her standing in the doorway, considering the kitchen with the same measured curiosity with which she had considered him. Pots, pans, and ladles overflowed the sink onto the worn Formica counter and buried all but a single burner on the stove. Dozens of mason jars, some with the lids wax-sealed tight, lined the counter like glass soldiers. Freshly picked blackberries and raspberries filled strainers, waiting to be washed and boiled. The supermarket in town sold his jam in a section for the locals—a hobby, like the Arabians. His parents had left him with a modest estate that, invested prudently and spent wisely, would sustain him into his old age.

  “You’re letting the heat out,” he said, though it was cool inside the cottage.

  She closed the door behind her and stepped lightly around a maze of tomato plants, fledgling squash, corn, sweet peas, and lettuce sprouting in black plastic containers to join him in the main room.

  He dropped his work gloves on stacks of newspapers and grabbed a handful of the unopened mail addressed to “Resident”—a mountainous pile that spilled across the round table, a six-inch-thick piece of cedar he had cut from the base of an old-growth tree felled by the winter storms of 1998. Sanded and varnished, it served as a one-of-a-kind dining room table. He tossed all but one of the envelopes into a river-rock fireplace, struck a match on one of the stones, lit the envelope in his hand, and dropped it onto the pile. Then he knelt to add kindling, keeping his back to her,
listening to the heels of her boots click on the plank floor. She walked about the bookcases that lined the walls like a country library and held an impressive collection of books and videotapes of classic movies. Fruit crates contained additional books he had not yet read and movies he was eager to watch again.

  He looked over his shoulder and watched her flip through the canvases near a paint-splattered easel.

  “They’re not bad.” She sounded more surprised than complimentary, which was honest. Van Gogh he was not.

  Lou and Arnold crashed through the flap of plastic covering the dog door and jockeyed through the doorway. They rumbled into the room and took up their customary positions: Lou on the plaid couch with the nub-worn armrests, Arnold on the La-Z-Boy recliner facing the fireplace. The floor was not good enough. He had spoiled them. They sat upright, ears perked, eyes darting between Jenkins and this unexpected visitor who had interrupted their daily routine. Jenkins added the split maple, which crackled and popped and filled the room with a sweet, syrupy smell, and replaced the screen. He stood and scratched Lou behind the ears, which caused the dog’s face to wrinkle like that of a ninety-year-old man.

  She walked to the plate-glass window and cradled the bloom of an orchid plant, one of a dozen aligned on a wood plank. The flowers gave the room the feel and smell of a garden hothouse. Then she looked out over the pasture. “Arabians. Temperamental and high-strung.”

  “You know horses.”

  “My mother’s family had a farm. Thoroughbreds, Arabians, a few mules.” She turned from the window and walked toward him, extending a hand as if they were meeting in the supermarket checkout. Her fingers were chilled and soft, though the calluses revealed that she did not push paper for a living. “Alex Hart.”

  “Well, Ms. Hart, I haven’t seen or talked to Joe Branick in thirty years.”

  “I’m not surprised. You don’t have a phone.”

  He took out a cellular from a pocket in the front of his overalls. “I’m unlisted. I don’t get a lot of calls. I also don’t get a lot of visitors. People who need to find me ask for the black man. You asked for me by name.”

  “Word travels fast.”

  She picked up her briefcase, put it on one of the two peeled ash-wood chairs he’d made, and pulled out a copy of the Washington Post. The Associated Press article he had seen in the Post-Intelligencer was positioned below the fold with the same photograph of Joe Branick. Joe looked older, which was to be expected after thirty years. Traces of distinguished gray flagged his temples; otherwise, his tanned, weathered face still gave him the rugged outdoor appearance of someone living in the Sunbelt. Jenkins hadn’t bothered to read the article in town and wouldn’t now. The headline told him everything he needed to know. Joe Branick was not the type of man to kill himself. Thirty years wasn’t going to change that.

  He dropped the paper on the table. “I didn’t know the Washington Post personally delivered their newspaper. Is there a special this month?”

  She smiled and flipped her hair from her shoulder, folding it behind her ear. He caught the aroma of her perfume. It put the orchids to shame. Arnold moaned. She reached inside her briefcase and pulled out a thick manila envelope, handing it to him. “Joe said if anything were to happen to him, I was to deliver this to you.”

  He felt its weight. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He considered her eyes, but if she was holding back information, she was good at it. Keeping his eyes on her, he turned over the envelope, conscious that she stood watching him, perhaps gauging his reaction. He tore open the tab, reached inside, and pulled out the contents.

  The worn manila file staggered him—he felt like a parent seeing an estranged child after thirty years.

  17

  TINA CRINGED, THOUGH not at the brutality of Sloane’s gruesome revelation but at the fact that he had to relive it every morning.

  “David, I’m so sorry,” she said quietly.

  “The worst part about it,” he said, “is I feel like what’s happening to her is my fault.”

  “You mean because you can’t help her?”

  “It’s more than that.” He paused to consider how best to explain it, running a finger over his lips before settling for “I feel like I’m responsible for what’s happening to her.”

  “David, it’s only a dream.”

  “I know,” he said, but in his mind he watched the shadow grab the woman by her hair and lift her from the floor, her body dangling limp and lifeless, the light flickering—the polished blade catching the glint of the moon before cutting through the night as if through a blackened canvas.

  She sat back. “It’s no wonder you’re not sleeping. What a horrible thing to go through every night, David! Do you have any idea who this woman could be?”

  The question perplexed him. “You mean Emily Scott?”

  Her eyes widened and her eyebrows arched. “You didn’t say it was Emily Scott. Is it?”

  He had assumed so, but now, put to the question, he realized he did not know. “I thought so.”

  Tina put her half-empty bottle on the desk. “Can I ask you something else?”

  He smiled, knowing she would. “This seems to be the night, doesn’t it? Fire away.”

  “How did it make you feel when the jury found Paul Abbott not liable?”

  “You mean, how did I feel keeping an obnoxious son of a bitch from having to pay a large bill he was morally obligated to pay? It’s not a perfect system, Tina, but it’s not for me to judge my clients. That’s the jury’s job.”

  “Then forget about Paul Abbott for a moment. Forget about the jury. Forget about defending the system. Just tell me how winning made you feel this time.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  She playfully chided him. “You always get to ask the questions. Let me play lawyer this once. How did it make you feel?”

  “It’s impossible to divorce your ego from it entirely. Nobody likes to lose.”

  “Blah, blah, blah. You’re giving me textbook answers. I want to know how it made you feel. Were you happy, sad? Did you feel any guilt?”

  The word hung over his head like a guillotine blade.

  “Why would you ask me that?”

  “Did you?”

  He stretched the muscles of his neck, tilting his head from side to side, uncomfortable. “None of these are easy, Tina, and none are particularly satisfying, but I can’t dwell on that. No matter how sorry I might feel for the family, it’s my job to defend my clients, whether I personally like them or not.”

  She sat silently.

  He rubbed a hand across his mouth. “If you’re human, you feel compassion. That’s what makes these cases so hard. Jurors want to find a reason to give the family money, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m hired to do a job.”

  In his mind he saw the photograph of Emily Scott’s battered face on the courtroom easel. The homicide detective had used it to describe what he called “the most horrific act of violence I’ve witnessed in twenty-six years.” Steiner had neglected to remove the exhibit after the investigator testified. Emily Scott’s young son had been brought into the courtroom for a portion of the closing argument and sat in the front row, feet dangling above the floor, eyes regarding what would be the last image of his mother. Realizing this, Sloane had stood in the middle of Steiner’s closing argument, ordinarily an intolerable act, walked to the easel, and turned the photograph around.

  No one took offense. Not Steiner. Not the judge.

  Sloane looked across the desk at Tina.

  “Yes,” he said, hearing the low whistle of the guillotine blade sliding down the rack and hitting the wood stump with a dull thud. “I felt guilt.”

  18

  PARKER MADSEN STOOD in his wood-paneled den looking out the leaded-glass panes, sipping tea from a mug embossed with a picture of a large deer—his Christmas gift from his secretary. Above the animal’s proud antlers were the words THE BUCK STOPS HERE. On a manicured gree
n lawn lit by sporadic Japanese landscape lanterns, Exeter gnawed a deflated basketball. Madsen’s grandson would not be happy, but dogs often taught children valuable lessons. This one would be about leaving toys unattended.

  Madsen turned from the window and reconsidered the sheet of paper in his hand beneath the muted light of a green and gold desk lamp. The log of telephone calls indicated that the last three calls had been made within two minutes of one another, two to an area code in the San Francisco Bay Area. The first number belonged to a San Francisco law firm, the second to a private residence in Pacifica, California. Both had the same thing in common: David Allen Sloane.

  According to the San Francisco Bar Association, Sloane worked as an attorney at Foster & Bane. A lawyer. Madsen found that interesting. Each call was also charged as exactly one minute, which indicated that they were actually less than a minute—just enough time to leave a message or instruct the recipient to call back on another line.

  Madsen returned the sheet of paper to the three-ring binder, snapped it closed, and flipped a tab. Sloane’s date of birth was February 17, 1968. He had never married and had no children. A search of Social Security records in Baltimore revealed a California prefix, 573. According to the State Department of Public Health and Vital Statistics, Sloane’s birth certificate had a reissue date of 1974. No reason was provided for why the certificate had been reissued, but Madsen reasoned that it was related to Sloane’s parents’ dying in a car accident in Southern California when he was a child. A clipping from the Los Angeles Times included a picture of the car wrapped around a telephone pole like an accordion. At six years old Sloane was NPG—“no parent or guardian.” He was shipped to a series of foster homes as a ward of the state until, at seventeen, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. It was not uncommon for underage men to enlist. Some lied about their age; others obtained a parental signature. The records did not reveal that Sloane had done either. Somehow he’d talked his way past the marine recruiter. When he obtained the highest score that year on his Marine Corps aptitude test, one of the highest scores ever, no one was about to question his age. Madsen put on his bifocals and reconsidered the number. He had not misread it. Further military testing indicated that David Sloane had an IQ of 173. Near genius. And he wasn’t just smart. Though he was the youngest member of his platoon, Sloane’s commanding officers saw enough in the young marine to elevate him to platoon leader—First Marine Division, Second Battalion, Echo Company. Over the course of his four years of service, Sloane had compiled an impressive record, earning citations for marksmanship and a Silver Star for gallantry in Grenada. Madsen considered a medical report. Sloane took a Cuban bullet in the shoulder after removing his flak jacket during an engagement. That act explained the report that followed the medical report, which Madsen recognized immediately—a psychological profile. He adjusted the lamp.