When the waiter set his plate in front of him, Jack had to restrain himself from digging in greedily, as he might have had he been with one of the guys from his office. The slow, polite bites he took only made him hungrier.
"So Jack," said Gregory. "Earl's told us a lot about you."
"Earl's been very supportive of me. I couldn't ask for a better boss. Or friend."
"You've been at the DA's office, what now, ten years?" asked Pat.
"Eight. Two years at Newman, Norton and Levine before that." Maybe he should have just said "eight," left out the Newman part. Of course, they'd probably done their research and wanted to make sure his answers were consistent.
They nodded, as if they understood.
"Saw you got the conviction in the Adler case," said Stuart. "When's the sentencing?"
Well, that was easy. They didn't even ask why he'd left Newman.
"It's scheduled for next month sometime."
"What are you going for?" asked Pat.
Jack looked at Earl before answering. They usually made it a habit not to talk publicly about cases unless they had a planned response for the media. He wasn't sure if Earl would expect him to make an exception for these guys, or whether this was some sort of test to see if he kept his mouth shut despite the importance of his audience. But he couldn't read him.
"I'm not sure we've decided that, yet. We're still mulling it over."
"Are you handling the Barnard case?" asked Stuart.
This was beginning to feel like Twenty Questions. "No. Frank Mann handled the arraignment. Either he or Jeff McCarthy, or both, will handle the rest of it, right, Earl?" He looked straight at his boss now, hoping Earl would help steer the conversation in another direction. "Or maybe our DA will decide to try it himself, go out in a blaze of glory."
They laughed, and Jack relaxed.
"Whaddaya think, Earl? If you don't do it yourself, you're not going to put your best man here on it?" asked Gregory.
Okay, Earl, now you're on the hot seat. Let's see how you like it.
"I'd love to, if I could," Earl said, leaning back to one side of his chair and placing his arm across the seat back. "Jack's already got a lot on his plate, so I'd have to take him off a few things to put him on Barnard, and then I'd have to figure out who could pick up where he left off. The judges don't like it when I start moving everyone around in the middle of a case. Sure, I'd prefer Jack, but either Mann or McCarthy's capable." He picked up the napkin from his lap and wiped his mouth. "Anyway, Jack might be too busy this summer, huh, boys?" He turned to Jack and winked.
But they weren't letting up. "Well, I'm sure you two are aware there's some pressure to seek the death penalty in the Barnard case," Gregory said. "Has the time arrived, Earl?"
They all stopped eating, anticipating Earl's answer.
Earl shrugged. "We'll see."
"What do you think, Jack?" Gregory asked.
"I don't think it's my place to decide that. That's still Earl's job, for now." To hell with this. He didn't want the job, anyway. Why was he having this conversation?
"Look," Pat spoke up, "we're only asking because it's going to be an issue in the election. It's important to know where you stand."
"I haven't even decided to—"
"He works in the DA's office, for Christ's sake," Earl said, interrupting. "Where do you think he stands?"
What on earth was Earl doing? Jack stared at him, trying to make eye contact. Earl's nostrils flared and Jack knew he was trying not to lose his temper. He obviously hadn't expected this discussion at the first meeting.
But they weren't taking Earl's word for it. Gregory pressed on. "Jack, we understand you might not want to comment on a particular case. But, in general . . ."
Jack started to think that maybe Earl was wrong; maybe he should just be straightforward, tell them now where he stood, and let them decide if they wanted to get behind him despite his views. Put the issue to rest.
"Look, I think there are a lot of problems with the death penalty that need to be addressed. Do you realize that since it was reinstated in this country, almost two-thirds of the trials that ended in death sentences were later, on appeal, ordered to be retried because so many mistakes had been made?" He glanced at Earl to gauge his reaction. He watched Jack, but his face didn't betray his thoughts. Jack didn't look forward to their private conversation after lunch.
"You can interpret those statistics several ways, Jack," Gregory stated. "Some would say they prove the system is working. The mistakes are being caught before it's too late."
"Not all of them," he replied. "DNA tests show that innocent men have been put to death."
"That was before DNA," Stuart interjected. "Now those mistakes are easily prevented."
Tell that to the ones already executed.
As if he'd read Jack's thoughts, Earl spoke up. "Well, that doesn't help the others, does it, Stuart?" Jack looked at him in amazement, acknowledging his support with a thankful glance.
"No, but we're talking about the future. We can't change the past."
Jack could sense his own agitation increasing as they spoke.
"But DNA's not enough," he said. "You can put a person to death in this country without any physical evidence. You can ask for death on circumstantial evidence alone. That's outrageous."
Pat, who had been quietly eating throughout the discussion, finally spoke. "Come on, guys. I think we all know Jack's preaching to the choir." Jack wondered if this was their "good cop, bad cop" routine. Pat turned to him. "I think we understand where you're coming from, and I, for one, agree with you. Indeed, some think the tide's turning across the country, thanks to our neighbor Governor Ryan in Illinois. But the fact of the matter is that the people of our own fair city are going to insist that Earl's successor be willing to seek the death penalty, if the case calls for it. This string of cases we've had recently has upset the public and they want to hear some tough talk. The Republicans know this and will use it to their advantage. We've got to take that into account."
Well, I'm not your man, then.
"Listen, Jack, once you're in, it'll be up to you to decide whether it's appropriate to seek death," Gregory said.
Once you're in.
Pat spoke again. "We just need to know, theoretically, if the right case came along, you know, given the statute . . ."
Jack nodded; he knew where they were going. They had him pegged; they were now posing this as an ethical question. Would principled Mr. High and Mighty Jack Hilliard follow the law?
"Theoretically," he began hesitantly, "I'd be loath to seek it. But" —did he just say "but"?— "as with a judge or a jury, a DA is charged with the duty to uphold the law, and if the facts warrant, as required by the appropriate statute, he would have to weigh those facts and make a proper determination in accordance with that law." What did he just say? And did he really just say almost all of it in the third person? He was sure he hadn't said he was in favor of the death penalty in some cases, but it was apparent that everyone else at the table thought he had. Earl beamed.
Gregory nodded and grabbed his drink and then leaned back in his seat before taking a sip. "That's exactly right, and that's what the voters are going to want to hear," he said. Was this guy a fool? Jack himself didn't understand what he'd just said; he seriously doubted the voters would buy such a convoluted response.
Stuart resumed eating; Pat motioned to the waiter, and when he appeared at his side, requested a cup of coffee. Jack realized the discussion of the issue had ended. He had to get away from them for a few minutes to gather his senses.
The men's room was empty and unnecessarily large and ornate. He leaned against the brown speckled marble in front of one of the four sinks and stared at himself in the mirror. He ran his hand through his hair. He wasn't sure what had just happened in the dining room. Clearly they thought he'd said he would be willing to seek the death penalty in the right case. Or did they? Maybe they just thought he was willing to say he'd do it. Maybe
they didn't even care what he did once he was in the position to decide. He thought of Claire again, seriously considered calling her. He looked at his watch. She had office hours right now; he could probably reach her. It would help to hear her voice right then, to tell her where he was and how crazy this whole idea was turning out to be.
The door to the bathroom opened and a man walked in. Jack nodded to him, washed his hands as if he'd just used the john, and then walked back into the hallway. He could probably find a quiet spot down one of these halls, somewhere private to call her, but he decided against it. He'd go back to the dining room and get the damn lunch over with as soon as he could. And then, when they got back to the office, he'd tell Earl to lay off, to leave him alone. He had no intention of running for District Attorney. Period.
"They loved you, are you out of your mind?" Earl's voice rose as he slammed the door to his office.
"That's because they think I'm in favor of sending everyone to the electric chair," Jack replied. The volume of Jack's voice almost matched Earl's. "Thanks to you," he added sarcastically.
"Goddammit! You're really starting to piss me off, you know that?" Earl moved a file off his chair and slammed it onto the desk. "They weren't even paying attention to me. You told them exactly what they wanted to hear, once you got off your soapbox." He pointed at Jack, his eyes narrowed. "If you don't like that, you have only yourself to blame." His face was tight and red.
Jack remained stubborn. He sat with his legs crossed, his hands in his lap, his fingers intertwined, his thumbs tapping against each other, one foot swinging nervously. He hadn't said what they all thought he had.
"Maybe Mann's the one I should be talking to," Earl said then, taunting Jack.
"If that's who you think you should talk to, then I guess that's who you should talk to." He refused to play the game.
Earl sighed angrily, but the red began to fade. "Look, Jack. I'm not going to beg you. If you really have no interest, fine." He pulled his chair closer to the desk and leaned forward on his elbows. "But here's the thing—I think you do. You wouldn't have said what you did at lunch if you didn't. That was your own little way of keeping your options open. I have no problem with that. The only problem I have is that you won't even admit it to yourself."
"Okay."
"Okay what?"
"Okay, you're entitled to your opinion."
Earl shook his head, pursed his lips. The red crept up again. "Get out of here, then. We'll talk later, once you've had a chance to think about this."
Jack felt as he had when he was fifteen, after his father had quietly chastised him for letting a friend copy his test answers. But there'd never been a discussion with his dad. Jack just did what he'd been told. "You told me you'd respect my decision," he reminded Earl.
"I will, when it's an honest one. Now out." Earl picked up some mail from his desk and began to read it.
Jack sat there for a moment, staring at the top of his forehead behind the letter, wondering why Earl even cared.
Earl finally looked up, pointed at the door. "Out."
CHAPTER FOUR
THAT EVENING, JACK and Claire stayed up late talking. He told her about the lunch, including his statement about how he'd handle a potential capital case and their interpretation of it. Unlike Earl, Claire didn't view Jack's statement as a concealed effort to keep his options open. She thought he'd merely stated the obvious: "A DA does have to make those decisions in accordance with the law," she said. "What's wrong with saying that?" For her, the question he had to ask himself was whether he could, in fact, ask for death in a case that met the statute's requirements, regardless of his personal beliefs. If he couldn't, she thought, he had to be forthright about his position and let the voters decide if they still wanted him, or he should forget about running altogether.
Jack felt grateful for Claire's growing support, but it wasn't long before he began to feel the wrath—albeit indirectly—of others in his office. The press he'd received resulted in some good-natured teasing, but he soon realized Earl's endorsement had its downside, too. The next day, after he'd grabbed a quick lunch in the courthouse cafeteria and was heading back to his office, he overheard a few of the attorneys talking about him. He'd stopped in the copy room, just around the corner from Frank Mann's office. He heard Maria's voice first.
"It's not his fault Earl gave the reporters his name. He probably didn't even know."
"He knew," said Frank. "And he probably knew Earl was quitting, too, before Thursday night. They've probably had this in the works for a while."
"You're paranoid, Mann." Jack recognized the voice as Jeff McCarthy's. Frank's comments didn't surprise him, but Jack really liked McCarthy, thought they were friends. He hoped McCarthy would get behind him. "Jack seemed just as shocked as the rest of us. It's not like he's been gunning for Earl's job."
"Maybe not. But he's been thinking about it. He knows he's the darling of this office."
A chorus of laughter followed that comment, but it sounded to Jack as though they were laughing at Frank, not Jack. He wondered how many lawyers were in Frank's office.
"He's the darling of the office, Frank, because he's an excellent lawyer." It was Maria again. Jack couldn't help but smile. He was beginning to like Maria, her boldness. She wasn't afraid to take on Frank, even if he was more than ten years her senior.
"I think you're turning green, Mann." Kathy Ferguson was talking now, another senior prosecutor, definitely not intimidated by Frank. So there were at least four of them.
"Listen, Jack's a great guy." Barry Johnston. Five. "But I can understand where Frank's coming from. Once Earl tossed out Jack's name, it sort of shot anyone else's chances."
"But Jack hasn't even said he's going to run," said Maria.
"He's just playing hard to get. He likes it when Earl dotes on him." Obviously, Frank hadn't been paying attention. Earl had done nothing but ignore Jack since yesterday's lunch. "I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to take Barnard away from me and Jeff." Jeff had been assigned to second chair the case with Frank.
"You're crazy," said Kathy. "If Earl decides it's a capital case, Jack would run screaming from the courthouse before he'd agree to try it." Jack heard a lot of shuffling around. "I'm getting a bite to eat," she said. "Anyone coming?"
Jack wheeled around and ducked back into the copy room. Luckily, the copy room staff was on lunch break and he had the room to himself. He sighed. He and Earl had been close from early on and everyone knew it, but he'd never thought it caused a problem with others in the office. Things had obviously changed. Even though they'd all backed him—except Mann, of course—they saw him differently now. He felt like an outcast in his own home.
As the week wore on, his feeling of abandonment grew, and he found himself wondering why he hadn't heard from Jenny since their brief call on Monday. By the time he arrived at his office on Thursday morning, he'd decided to ask her to lunch. Maybe he'd even score some points for being the one to call first.
He hesitated for only fifteen minutes—the time it took to open his mail—before he picked up the phone. But she wasn't there, and he didn't leave a message. After all, what would he do if he asked her to call back and she didn't?
It was almost ten before she finally picked up, on his seventh try.
"Hey, it's me." He tried to sound nonchalant, undemanding.
"Hi." Sometimes she said "Hi, me," but not today. Her voice sounded distracted, as though she was in the middle of drafting a brief and it was still on her computer and she was only half listening to him.
"What are you doing?"
She laughed a little bit, derisively, he thought. "I'm training for a 10K race."
Dammit, she knew what he meant. "Where were you earlier? I tried to call you when I first got in." And several times thereafter.
"I went straight to Bankruptcy Court this morning. I had a hearing with Judge Fields. The creditors are trying to get him to dismiss my client's case because they haven't been able to put togeth
er a plan of reorganization. I had to go beg on their behalf to get one more chance."
He thought of her sitting in her chair, phone wedged between her ear and shoulder while her hands worked the keyboard. He knew she hated the speakerphone and only used it when others in the room wanted to be in on a call. He wondered what she was wearing. When she'd mentioned court, he'd immediately thought of what she called her "lucky suit." It was an odd green color, sort of minty like the original Crest toothpaste but maybe a shade lighter. On anyone else it would have looked ridiculous, but with her dark skin and black hair she could pull it off. In fact, on her it was stunning.
"A debtor?" he asked, teasing her. Newman didn't usually handle debtor work.
"Well, this isn't just any debtor." She was serious still, ignoring his teasing. "It's Mertz."
"Oh." He understood. The Mertz Corporation was a longtime client of Newman's, owned by a prominent St. Louis family. Newman would never have turned down the work. "Well, did you succeed?" he asked.
"Of course" was her immediate reply. He knew she wasn't bragging about her skills, or even referring to her good relationship with Judge Fields, but merely to the fact that a bankruptcy judge didn't like to dismiss a debtor's case unless he had absolutely no other alternative.
"Listen, Jack, I'm sort of in the middle of something right now. I don't have a lot of time to chat. Is there something specific you wanted?"
He swallowed. She'd never been so abrupt with him before. "Yeah, I . . ." He hesitated, wondered if he should just try another time. Maybe it was too soon. "I thought you said you just got back from court?" he asked instead.
"I did. But Stan laid a new case on me last night before I left, and he wants us to try to get appointed as creditors' counsel. I need to put together some sort of proposal by tomorrow." Stan Goldberg was her boss, the head of the corporate and bankruptcy department at Newman.
But she had to eat, didn't she? "Well, do you have time for lunch?"
"I brought my lunch today."
In all the years he'd known her, he couldn't remember her ever bringing her lunch. If she didn't go out for lunch, she just skipped it.
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