"No. Today. I promised her you'd get her out today."
"Christ, Jack! I'm not a miracle worker."
"She's scared. I have to get her out of there. You must have some favors you can call in."
"What else?"
"I find out from a reporter who snagged me leaving the jail that they've already searched her house. Jenny didn't mention it, so I don't think she knows."
"Merely more ineptitude." Earl was unimpressed. "Let's hope they didn't find anything incriminating."
"She's got a gun," Jack blurted.
Earl shrugged. "And I'm sure it's being tested right now. Unless it's the same gun used to kill Maxine Shepard, it doesn't matter. You know that."
"The reporter said they think they found the murder weapon."
"Bullshit. He's just trying to get a rise out of you. Until they've tested it, he has no basis for saying anything like that." He got up and repositioned himself on the arm of the couch so that he could look outside. "Come on, Jack, nothing you've told me points to Newman. I'm right. You are too close to this, in more ways than one."
"I'm not done. I've saved the best for last."
"I'm waiting."
"Look, I'm not alleging a conspiracy. But there are those at the firm who I believe would do anything to protect their butts."
Earl's lips tightened. He was obviously waiting for the evidence to back up Jack's claims.
"You know, Earl, you never asked why they fired me."
"It didn't matter. I'd heard enough good things about you, and I never give much credence to the reasons a big firm gives for letting someone go. It happens too often, for political reasons."
"What'd they tell you?"
"I never called them."
"What?" Jack was incredulous.
"I told you. It wouldn't have mattered to me." He tilted his head and searched Jack's face. "Okay, so why'd they fire you?"
Jack thought back to the night Mendelsohn called him into his office, one just as big as Earl's but much more opulent. Jack had known, even before he reached the door, that when he left that night he wouldn't be coming back. He knew that after talking to Mendelsohn he'd return to his office to find a guard and a few empty boxes for his personal things. He'd be watched as he packed, and then they'd escort him from the building.
He remembered sitting on the other side of Mendelsohn's large glass-top desk, listening to him claim that Jack really didn't fit the firm's culture, that he really wasn't a team player, that he didn't share the same goals and probably would never be happy there, and that they were doing him a favor by letting him go. And all the while they both knew it was doublespeak for, You disobeyed me, you crossed me, and you must pay. And they both knew, without it being said, that if Jack protested, tried to go public with what had really happened, Mendelsohn would deny it. As the older, more well-known and respected attorney, he would be the one whom everyone believed. Back then, he had the power to ruin Jack's career.
"I'd worked on a product liability case with Mendelsohn. It was pretty obvious our client was going to lose, that they were negligent, but of course Mendelsohn insisted on fighting, on papering the plaintiff to death so they'd settle more quickly and, hopefully, for less money. But the plaintiff's attorney was smart, and tough, and he knew they had a strong case, so he papered us right back. I ended up doing massive amounts of document review at the client's manufacturing plant to respond to the endless document requests. I came across a very damaging intercompany memo. The minute I read it, I knew the case was no longer about negligence, but intentional tort. It wasn't what our client 'should have known,' but what they did know and didn't do anything about."
Earl was riveted. "The client showed you this memo?"
Jack shook his head. "No. You have to understand, I reviewed a lot of documents. A lot. This was a copy. I don't think they realized it existed. We never found the original. They had probably destroyed it, without telling us."
"What'd you do?"
"I went to Mendelsohn, of course, thinking we could brainstorm, figure out some privilege to hold it back or somehow justify to ourselves why it wasn't within the scope of the requests."
Jack stopped and thought of his statement to Jenny: Evidence can be twisted. At the time, he thought he'd done the right thing. That's what lawyers did, wasn't it? That's what they were paid for, to use the rules and bend them in their client's favor. Now, for the first time, he wondered if he was only slightly above Mendelsohn on the low end of the ethics scale.
"Jack?"
"He told me to destroy it. Pretend like it never existed, that I'd never seen it."
Earl immediately understood the implications of Jack's accusation. "And?"
"And I didn't, of course. I spent a lot of unbillable time in the library researching how I might be able to legitimately withhold it, but, not surprisingly, I couldn't come up with anything. I agonized over what to do." He laughed bitterly. "You know me, Earl. Mr. Nice Guy."
"You produced it."
"Yes. Although I did bury it in the middle of a bunch of irrelevant junk. I figured I'd at least buy some time. I hoped the case might settle before they found it. I felt guilty just for doing that."
"Mendelsohn found out and fired you over it?"
Jack nodded. "But not right away. It took a while. Mendelsohn was furious. He assumed that I'd done what he instructed, so he never even discussed the memo with the client, or what could happen to the case if the plaintiff knew about it. Had he done so, he could have encouraged them to settle for what the plaintiff was demanding at the time. Which, needless to say, was a lot less than what the case eventually settled for."
"Or you could have."
"What?"
"You could have discussed it with the client."
Jack shook his head vehemently. "It wasn't like that. I wasn't at that level. The most I ever interacted with the client was at the plant, talking to the secretaries." He knew the point Earl was trying to make: Jack wasn't completely blameless. "But, yeah, you're right. After I was no longer in the middle of it, I realized I could have done things differently. Had I been thinking straight, I would have told Mendelsohn right away that I produced it, so that he could counsel the client. I still would have endured his wrath, but at least the client would have had the chance to settle before they came across it. If it had settled early, no one would ever have bothered to look in that pile of documents we produced.
"He waited a few months before getting rid of me, so it would look unrelated. But he made it clear to me, in his own cryptic way, what my firing was about."
"But he still contributed to your campaign." Earl spoke matter-of-factly, not as if he doubted Jack.
Jack smiled, again feeling the small sense of satisfaction he'd felt when Mendelsohn's check arrived. "Oh, yeah. Given the recent stuff that's been going on with him, he probably thought he'd buy himself some extra insurance to maintain my silence. He doesn't need any more problems."
Earl sat straighter. He seemed more receptive now to Jack's suggestion that Mendelsohn could be involved in Jenny's case. "What recent stuff?"
Jack explained first what Jenny had told him last spring about Maxine and her bad investment deals, and then he relayed everything she'd told him at the jail. Earl rose and paced the room as Jack talked. At times he almost wondered if Earl was even listening to him. At one point Earl hovered behind his desk; it looked to Jack as if he was reviewing his calendar.
"If we start pointing the finger at Newman," he muttered, "it's not going to be pretty."
It's not pretty now, Jack wanted to say.
Earl moved to the window and gazed down at the river. He frowned in thought and then walked back to his desk and pulled a cigar out of the middle drawer. Jack watched him. He'd never known Earl to smoke.
"Little housewarming gift from my new partners," Earl said in response to Jack's gaze. He struck a match and took his time lighting the cigar. "You're not going to like this question, but don't you think it's a little odd th
at she went over there?"
"Not really."
"Not really?"
"No."
The room fell silent, and Jack heard an attorney in the hall hollering for his secretary to find a file.
"What's Claire think about all this?" Earl asked.
The question caught him by surprise. He still held his coffee cup and he noticed his hand begin to shake. He set down the cup. "What do you mean?"
"Just what I said. What's she think about all this?"
"I haven't talked to her since seeing Jenny. She doesn't know any of this stuff I've just told you."
"I'm not talking about Newman. I'm talking about the murder charge."
"I don't know. She was shocked, upset. She knows Jenny didn't do it."
"Because you told her that?"
"No." Jack scooted up a bit in his chair, as if to get closer to the table in front of him. But he knew he was just fidgeting. "Claire's a good judge of character."
Earl crossed the room and opened the door to his office. He asked her to get one of the judges on the phone.
When he returned, Jack braced for the inevitable, reminding himself of his promise to Jenny. The sweet smell of the cigar began to fill the room. Earl leaned up closer. "Look, Jack. I need you to be straight with me."
"I am being straight with you." But he heard a falsetto note creeping into his voice.
"Why are you so certain she didn't do it?" Earl narrowed his eyes.
"I told you. I just know." He had to give him more. "Look, I've known her for over nine years. When she finds a bug in her house, she doesn't kill it, she puts it outside, you know? She adopts every stray she finds. And I'm not just talking animals. She practically sponsors this homeless guy who she runs into on her way to work. She talks tough, but she's not. She's a pussycat. I know she doesn't have it in her to kill anyone."
But it was as if Earl hadn't heard a word he'd said. "Listen to me. Are you involved in this case at all, in any way? I need to know everything if you want me to defend her."
"Yeah, I'm involved in this case." He felt his anger rising, although he knew he had no right. Earl was doing his job—the job Jack was asking him to do. "I happen to be a close friend of the defendant. And the media won't let me forget it."
"From an evidentiary standpoint? I need to know."
"No."
"You're not trying to protect her in any way?"
Quite the contrary, Earl. She's protecting me. "Why don't you just come out and ask me whatever it is you want to ask?" But even as he spoke, he prayed that Earl wouldn't press it.
"I'm not going to suggest anything. But don't keep me in the dark if there's something I need to know. Okay?"
Earl's secretary knocked and peeked in. "Judge Baxter is on line one, Earl."
Jack tried to relax as he listened to Earl's banter with the judge. He closed his eyes. Get to the point, he thought as Earl asked about the judge's wife and then talked about the last poker game they'd attended together.
"Listen, Judge, I need a favor." Earl's tone was still chatty. He laughed heartily, and Jack wondered how the judge had responded. "The Dodson girl, brought in for her client's murder? It looks like I'm going to be representing her." He laughed again at something the judge said, and Jack tensed. He didn't appreciate the light-hearted tone of their conversation. "Yeah, same girl." Earl looked at Jack, and Jack suddenly had the sense that his name had just been mentioned. "He'll be fine. Better to face the tough stuff at the start of a term, I think. Builds character." More laughter, and Earl winked at Jack. Jack finally stood and tried to calm himself by looking out the window again. "It's her I'm concerned about. She's been in since Sunday night, and I've been told that her arraignment isn't scheduled until next week. Do you have any time this afternoon so we can appear? I'd like to get her bail set and get her out of there."
Jack spotted a plane in the distance flying away from the city. He wondered where it was headed. He remembered his comment to Jenny about scheduling a trip to India. Get her out of there. And then what?
A change in Earl's tone brought him back to the phone conversation.
"No, Judge, I didn't know," Earl said, all hint of levity gone. "I haven't been in contact with Sterling yet." When he hung up, he said to Jack, "Two o'clock, as long as I can get Sterling to agree. Another inmate is coming over for a hearing, so the judge agreed to let her appear at the same time."
"Thank you."
"There's something you need to know."
At Earl's ominous tone, Jack turned around to face him.
"The judge said . . . well, he said he's been advised that this could be a capital case."
"What?" Jack shook his head. "What are you talking about?"
"Just what I said. Sterling thinks he's going to ask for the death penalty."
Jack slowly moved away from the window and fell into the closest chair. "The judge told you that?"
"Sterling was courteous enough to advise him of his decision before going to the press."
Courteous enough? This man from Franklin County, who knew nothing about Jenny, about her life, was somehow entitled to be the sole arbiter of whether a jury could be given the choice to take that life away, to put her to death for a crime she didn't commit? He hadn't even allowed the ink on the arrest warrant to dry, and here he was already talking about the punishment.
"Jack?"
Jack lifted his head slowly to meet Earl's eye.
"Now would you like to tell me about your involvement in this case?"
When he shook his head again, Earl said, "You need to tell me. I suspect she'll be a better liar than you."
Yes, she was a good liar, wasn't she? The way she'd turned on him that morning, so believable that he'd had trouble remembering the events of the night before. So convincing in her coldness that he had forgotten how just hours before she'd warmed to him and let him in. And even at the jail she had lied to him, persuading him that everything would be okay, that they could never come up with anything to convict her, that the two of them would be able to keep their secret. All to protect him. She was willing to sacrifice herself to protect him.
"I'm her alibi," he whispered.
Earl stood and went to Jack's chair. He sat on the arm and leaned in. "What did you just say?"
"I'm her alibi." He stared at the edge of the desk in front of him. If he blinked, he was unaware of it. "I spent that night with her, at her place. That's why I'm so sure of her innocence."
"Oh, Jesus." Earl dropped his head into the palm of his hand and rubbed the leathery skin of his face. "Does Claire know?"
Jack laughed bitterly. "Oh yeah. Sure. You know, the minister forgot to include the part about forsaking all others, so it's no problem."
Earl was silent. The silence didn't seem calculated; it lacked the manipulative tension that usually accompanied Earl's failure to speak. He walked to the credenza behind his desk and carefully lifted a picture. Jack hadn't noticed it before, but now, as he watched Earl, he knew it was a framed snapshot Claire had given to Earl and Helen. Jack knew the picture without looking at it. It was of the four of them, from a Bench & Bar conference years before—before Jamie was born. Jack had stared into the camera lens, but Claire had been looking at Jack. Claire had always laughed about it and said they'd snapped the picture just as she was reminding him to smile.
Earl turned to Jack and a slight, nostalgic smile lit his face. "I don't think I've ever met a woman who revered her husband quite like Claire reveres you."
At that moment, Jack knew Earl wasn't talking just about Claire. Like the instant when a foggy dream from the night before becomes crystal clear, he suddenly realized that Earl thought of him as the son he'd never had. What Jack had done dishonored not only Claire, but Earl, too.
He was about to attempt an apology, however feeble and useless it would be, but Earl's voice came to life first.
"I don't get it. She's willing to go to jail to prevent you from being exposed?"
Jack shrank with sh
ame at Earl's question. How had he ever agreed to Jenny's crazy gag order? She'd made it sound so reasonable.
"Well, sort of. But not really." The words came out hoarsely. "Since she didn't do it, she thinks it's a given that she can beat it without my alibi."
"Unbelievable. And the two of you agreed that I didn't need to know this, even though you asked me to represent her? She's a naïve bankruptcy attorney, but you know better, Jack."
"Yeah, well, I've learned that I don't think straight in her presence." He looked down at the floor, embarrassed that he'd finally admitted what Earl had been accusing him of all along. Earl had seen it coming and tried to head it off at the pass, but Jack had plowed on by.
"Do you love her?" Earl's voice was barely audible. He seemed afraid both to ask the question and to hear the answer.
How to respond? He'd told her he loved her, hadn't he? Was it possible to love two women at the same time? Despite his confusion about Jenny, he was certain that he loved Claire, had always loved Claire. It was Claire, not Jenny, whom he couldn't bear to lose. He thought of Jenny's statement, I'm not interested in being someone's mistress, and knew she'd understood this all along.
"Jack?" Earl's voice was gentler than Jack had ever heard it. "I need to get over to the jail and see her. We can talk about this later."
Jack nodded. Earl grabbed his coat from the back of the door and motioned for Jack to follow him. He put his arm around Jack's shoulders as they stepped into the elevator. The unexpected physical contact was almost more than he could bear.
"I'll take care of her," Earl said. "We'll figure this thing out. You just do your job; don't get sidetracked. I'll take care of her for you."
Jack knew then that if he went down and brought the Office of the District Attorney with him, Earl—like Claire—would never forgive him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
AFTER FEEDING JENNY'S cats and trying to straighten the mess made by the cops in their search, Jack arrived at the courthouse with only twenty minutes to spare. He was so focused on getting to Judge Baxter's courtroom on time that he didn't see Claire sitting on the granite wall that lined the steps to the entrance.
Tell No Lies Page 27