Rule of Law Page 13

  The whole conversation had a familiar ring to it. Take care of it, Philip. Do the impossible, Philip. Make it go away.

  “We’ll need to issue a firm denial,” Philip said. “We’ll be careful in the wording so it doesn’t look like we’re taking a shot at the widow of the SEAL who filed this thing. We’ll reaffirm how much you love the military and how you would never send men into harm’s way knowing that they weren’t going to make it out. You’ll have to be ready to take questions at the press conference in London tomorrow night.”

  “I know,” the president said. She sounded more determined now. Nothing about this job was easy. “I heard this guy left behind a wife and two little boys. Is that right?”

  “Yeah. It was the Anderson family.”

  “I remember them,” the president said, looking out the window. There was a wistfulness in her voice. “Cutest little boys.”

  “We’ll take care of it,” Philip said.

  The president turned back to him. “Sometimes I hate this job.”

  If Philip Kilpatrick was good at one thing, it was opposition research. His team was the best in the business at digging up dirt on campaign opponents. So after he called Dylan Pierce and hired Washington’s most expensive law firm, he called his opposition research team. They had two assignments—first Wyatt Jackson, then Troy Anderson.

  Philip googled Jackson and knew his boys would have fun with this guy. By the time Air Force One landed, his team would have enough dirt to bury the man twice over. A divorced defense lawyer with a checkered legal career who liked to push the envelope on ethics. It would be, in the parlance of the military, a target-rich environment.

  30

  Two days after he filed suit, Wyatt Jackson rolled out of bed in his RV, fed Clients, and made coffee. He was getting ready to boot up his computer and check the day’s headlines when Clients started pawing at the door. Wyatt threw on his spring coat and opened the door to let the dog out. Clients hesitated, noticing the drizzle, and decided suddenly that he did not have to go.

  “C’mon,” Wyatt said. He nudged the dog with his foot, and Clients tiptoed out onto the wet grass. Wyatt noticed a newspaper in a plastic bag at the bottom of the RV steps and picked it up. He didn’t subscribe to the paper—why bother when you could get your news online? Besides, they probably didn’t deliver to campgrounds.

  He pulled the paper out of the bag and read the note attached to the front. It was typed in large font.

  You’ve been playing in the minor leagues. Welcome to the big-time.

  The Patriot

  Clients finished his business, and the two of them went back inside. The paper was the morning edition of the Washington Herald, and Wyatt immediately wondered how the Patriot had managed to deliver it to the KOA campground so early in the morning. He must have been right outside Wyatt’s door just a few hours ago. He knew where Wyatt lived.

  The article about Wyatt began on page three, where the paper ran national political stories that didn’t make the front page. The headline: “SEAL Member’s Lawyer Leaves Trail of Unhappy Clients.”

  It was a classic hit job that made Wyatt fume. Any lawyer who had practiced for nearly forty years had a few skeletons buried. But this reporter had dug up every bone and made it seem like Wyatt was a walking malpractice suit.

  There had been about a dozen clients who alleged ineffective assistance of counsel on appeal. Wyatt was actually proud of that record. When criminal defendants got convicted, their appellate lawyers almost always argued that the trial lawyers had been ineffective. But Wyatt had put up such fights that it had only happened a few times in his career.

  The reporter had talked to clients who complained from their jailhouse cells that Wyatt had not interviewed the right witnesses or made the right legal arguments or, in one case, had fallen asleep during trial. Wyatt remembered that case—a white-collar defendant with lots of testimony from accountants. Wyatt hadn’t missed a thing during his short nap, but the appellate lawyer made him sound like Rip Van Winkle. The article contained a quote from the client, who said that Wyatt nodded off so much he “looked like a bobblehead doll” during the testimony of an expert witness.

  Several other clients complained that Wyatt had dropped their cases on the eve of trial. They said Wyatt had promised them he would handle their entire case for a flat fee but then made demands for more money. When they didn’t pay, he made a motion to withdraw and left them high and dry.

  Like the best hit stories, it had a grain of truth. Wyatt had left a few clients on the eve of trial, but that was because he was supposed to be paid by the hour and he had already burned through their retainer. Their families couldn’t come up with additional funds, and Wyatt was not going to spend weeks of his life working for free. At least not for the guilty clients—he had done it a time or two for the innocent ones who couldn’t come up with more money.

  Toward the end of the article, the reporter quoted a few clients who were actually satisfied with Wyatt’s work and a couple of lawyers who said what a tough old codger he was in the courtroom. The reporter noted that he had attempted to contact Wyatt by phone and e-mail but had received no response.

  The whole thing felt like a vicious sucker punch, and there was nobody Wyatt could punch back. He couldn’t file a defamation suit against the Herald, both because he had thrust himself into the public spotlight and because everything in the article was technically true. The only thing he could do was use the article to feed his venom against the people who had undoubtedly set this up—Philip Kilpatrick and John Marcano.

  He lit up a cigar and glanced through the article a second time, highlighting the most incendiary sentences. He went online and read comments from those who were predictably trashing his good name and all other lawyers along with him. For about thirty minutes, the hit job had thrown him off-balance. But soon the old Wyatt was back, plotting ways to exact his revenge.

  The problem was that he had a weak lawsuit. He had filed it primarily to draw attention to the allegations the Patriot was making. Apparently the Patriot didn’t like that approach. But Wyatt had learned in nearly forty years of trying cases that the other side fought most viciously when you were really onto something. And this article had required a lot of investigation.

  “Looks like we’ve struck a nerve,” he said to Clients.

  31

  Paige quit work early on Thursday so she could watch Justin Anderson’s soccer game and talk to Kristen. The two women pulled up lawn chairs near the end of the field and out of earshot of the other spectators. Three-year-old Caleb was running around on the sidelines, playing with other kids, which gave Paige and Kristen a chance to talk, punctuated by occasional cheers when Justin kicked the ball.

  Like all soccer games at this level, the kids bunched around the ball in a great moving amoeba. Only occasionally would the ball squirt loose and make progress toward a goal. Justin was more coordinated than the others and scored a goal in the first half, knocking three other boys down in the process.

  “He gets that from his dad,” Kristen said. “And honestly, he’s been a lot more aggressive in the last two weeks.”

  It was a good chance for Kristen to unburden herself about how hard things had been since Troy’s death. “I always thought I could handle anything. A Navy wife and all of that. But, Paige . . .” Kristen’s voice trailed off, and Paige just let the silence linger.

  The hardest times, Kristen said, were after the boys had gone to bed and she was alone in the house. She would dwell on the life she had with Troy and think about how she would never find another man like him. She worried about the future.

  “I know what you mean,” Paige said. “I’ve never met anybody like Patrick.”

  It was the kind of heart-to-heart that both women needed. Paige had resisted counseling because she couldn’t stand the thought of somebody prying into her life and feelings. Plus, she had this nagging fear that the counselor would unearth all of those other life issues that Paige had worked so hard
to tamp down.

  But out here, with the shouts of kids playing and parents yelling, it seemed like a safe place to talk about the hurt. Though she had only dated Patrick for a few months, he had filled such a big void in her life. Just having someone who cared about what she did every day, someone she could trust, made her feel needed and secure and connected in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time. From the moment her mother had moved to Nashville, it had seemed that nobody had her back. Even with her law school fiancé, she felt like she had to constantly prove herself, to show that she was his equal in terms of intellect and wit and ability to cope with life’s challenges. It was like they were some kind of power couple in training, and she could never relax around him the way she did around Patrick.

  Kristen waited until the second half was nearly over before bringing up something that had apparently been on her mind. “Did you see the story about Wyatt Jackson?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Paige said. Then she quickly added, “But he’s a good lawyer.” Even though Paige didn’t like the man, Kristen had decided to stick with him, and it wouldn’t serve any purpose to undercut him now.

  “Oh, I know he’s a good lawyer. I saw him in action when he represented Troy.”

  There was a flurry of excitement on the field as a kid from Justin’s team had a wide-open shot on goal. It flew wide of the net, and the parents let out a collective groan.

  “I talked to him yesterday,” Kristen continued, then shouted, “Let’s go, Justin!” Then, without missing a beat, and proving again that Navy moms could multitask with the best of them: “He called and said we have a problem. A reporter for the Washington Herald contacted him and has been snooping around about Troy’s prior criminal cases. Wyatt thinks they’re going to run a story.”

  It took Kristen only a few minutes to explain the background, but Paige could tell it made her exceedingly uncomfortable. She never glanced at Paige as she talked, following the action on the field and keeping her voice low. Several years ago, Troy had been involved in a bar fight. A woman had accused him of sexual assault. Fondling and groping, that type of thing. Troy said it was all a lie, that one of his buddies had been hitting on somebody’s girlfriend and a fight had broken out. The woman had mistaken Troy for his friend.

  At court, it would have been the woman’s word against Troy’s. But Troy couldn’t testify without ratting out his buddy. So Wyatt Jackson had come in and negotiated a deal. Troy pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault, and the judge entered a suspended finding. The entire case was eventually dismissed after Troy kept out of trouble for six months. The deal allowed Troy and his buddy to stay in the SEALs.

  Out on the field, Justin dribbled the ball down the middle, juked past one person, and headed toward the goal. But Kristen didn’t seem to notice.

  “So now we get hit with this article about Wyatt, and it will be followed by something bad about Troy.” She stopped talking and swallowed hard. “It just all looks like—I don’t know. That’s not who Troy was at all.”

  Goal! Justin had done it again. His second of the day. Paige jumped out of her seat, and Kristen belatedly joined her, just in time for Justin to look over and smile at his mom’s approval.

  When they settled back down, Kristen asked the question that must have been on her mind the entire game. “Would you ever consider coming into my case as cocounsel? I know I can trust you, and I think it would be good to have a female lawyer on the team to fight some of these accusations. I’ve already asked Wyatt about it, and he said he would welcome the help.”

  The request caught Paige off guard. There were a thousand reasons she couldn’t get involved. The case was on shaky ground legally, and Wyatt had filed it against Paige’s advice. It would be impossible to work with Wyatt Jackson. Besides, Paige had a job with the attorney general’s office in Virginia. It wasn’t like she could sue all the president’s men on the side.

  “It’s okay if you can’t,” Kristen added, to fill the silence. “I just thought I would ask.”

  “I’d like to help,” Paige said, trying not to hurt Kristen’s feelings. “But I’m not a private lawyer. I can’t work for the state and represent private clients too.”

  “I understand. I didn’t really expect you could. I just thought . . . well, it couldn’t hurt to ask.”

  Paige hardly slept that night. Was she being selfish in telling Kristen no? How crazy would it be to leave a well-paying job just to help with one lawsuit that would probably be dismissed in two months? She believed in the cause, but she didn’t think the law supported their arguments. And she certainly couldn’t stomach the thought of working with Wyatt Jackson.

  But then she thought about the relationship between Troy and Patrick. Those men were there for each other. They would have each other’s back. Each man would lay down his life for the other.

  Was it too much for her to give up a job, even temporarily, to help out a person who was quickly becoming her best friend?

  For a week she wrestled with the decision. And when the article came out exposing Troy’s prior run-ins with the law, quoting the woman whom he supposedly assaulted and excoriating the judge for ultimately dismissing his case, Paige knew she couldn’t stay on the sidelines. She called Wyatt Jackson and he welcomed her to the team. She knew he would view her as another Wellington—an associate to help with grunt work—but at least she was in the game. She called Bill Harris, who told her he had been praying for her that morning and that God had put her on his heart. Now he knew why. That whole conversation gave her chills. Then she called Kristen, who choked up when she tried to express her gratitude.

  Finally Paige wrote an e-mail to her boss. She requested a leave of absence so that she could help represent Kristen Anderson in her lawsuit against the director of the CIA and the president’s chief of staff.

  Her boss was understanding, but the office had its policies, and his hands were tied. She could resign, and he would do everything within his power to make sure she was hired back when the Anderson case was over. But he couldn’t give her a leave of absence; the AG’s office didn’t work like that. Paige thanked him and told him that she needed to do this. He said he understood, and they worked out a transition plan.

  Paige thought she would feel a certain sense of euphoria and relief the night after she had settled things at work. She thought she would sleep well for the first time in weeks. One of the hardest decisions in her life was behind her, and she had chosen the right path.

  But none of those things happened. Instead, she lay awake, staring at the ceiling, her mind racing. There were lots of questions and very few answers. The future had never seemed quite so uncertain.

  Patrick, what have you gotten me into?

  32

  Paige woke up the next morning feeling very much alone and very much unemployed for the first time in her life. It would do no good to feel sorry for herself, she decided. She had made her decision, and there was no turning back.

  Instead, she charted a new course for the next few weeks. She would get up and run every morning. When she got back to the condo, she would spend the rest of the morning job hunting or perhaps working on setting up her own firm. The afternoons would be reserved for research on Kristen’s case and reading about the geopolitical situation in the Mideast. She would only let herself think about Patrick in the evening.

  At least that was the plan.

  But there were reminders of him everywhere. Her screen saver. Pictures in her study. Old text messages. Plus, he was completely intertwined with the very case that she was now researching. His ghost was ubiquitous, and it would rise up at the most unpredictable times, strangle her heart, and leave her emotionally exhausted.

  She began the week by polishing up her résumé and sending cover letters to law school friends who had landed jobs at private firms. By her third day of unemployment, she started spending more time investigating what it would take to start her own firm. Letterhead, malpractice insurance, setting up an LLC, registering with the state
bar—the list was endless. Plus, she had no idea where she would find the clients.

  Yet it still seemed like the best path. If Kristen’s case got thrown out early, Paige would be right back at the attorney general’s office, asking for her old job back. If she got it, she could shut down her fledgling firm. But if she had started a new job, it wouldn’t be fair to her employer to leave a few months after she started.

  By Friday, she had drafted the operating agreement for her new LLC and ordered business cards. Paige Chambers, Managing Member. It had a certain ring to it.

  On Wednesday, May 9, the managing member of the Chambers Law Firm took a break from her legal work and met Bill Harris at Patrick’s old apartment. They planned to spend the day together, packing Patrick’s stuff in a U-Haul that Bill would tow up to New York. Paige had been dreading the day all week.

  It was the first time Paige had been to Patrick’s apartment since before the deployment. The place had a musty smell, and Paige sucked in a deep breath. She stood there for a moment, almost paralyzed as the emotions came rushing back to her. That was the couch where she’d slid next to him and he had put his arm around her shoulder. There was the table where they’d eaten undercooked steaks and debated whether steaks were better with A.1. sauce. She had been sitting in that recliner when he gave her a back rub and put her to sleep.

  She stared for a moment at the pictures lining the living room shelf. Patrick and his SEAL buddies. Patrick’s grandmother and grandfather in happier times. And a picture of Paige that hadn’t been there the last time she was in this room.

  “He always kept his place neat like this,” Bill Harris said, snapping Paige back to the present. He flipped on a light switch and wandered around for a few minutes. “Not as much stuff as I thought there would be.”