The Justice Game Read online

  Jason read through all of the examples as the clerk watched him. After a few seconds, the impatient clerk decided to provide a little help. “Most people just answer ‘yes’ to question 12a and ‘no’ to questions 12b through 12k. If you answer ‘yes’ to anything on 12b through 12k, I can’t sell you this gun.”

  “Thanks,” Jason said without lifting his head.

  Despite the clerk’s prompting, he took the time to read each question.

  Are you under indictment or information in any court for a felony?

  Have you been convicted in any court of a felony?

  Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana, or any depressant, stimulant, or narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?

  Have you ever been adjudicated mentally defective?

  Have you been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence?

  Are you an alien illegally in the United States?

  At the end of the long list of questions was a paragraph full of boldfaced warnings, informing the purchaser that he or she could face felony prosecutions for falsifying any information.

  “They take this stuff seriously,” Jason said, signing the form.

  “Yeah,” the clerk groused. “Unless you buy your guns on the street or at a gun show. The ATF just likes hassling legal purchasers.”

  Jason had read about the gun show debate. Thousands of gun show sellers skirted Form 4473 because they weren’t federally licensed firearms dealers. He decided not to take that bait. The gun used to kill Rachel Crawford had been purchased at a gun store. The straw purchaser, Jarrod Beeson, had certified that he was the actual purchaser and signed his name to this form. The gun store clerk allegedly knew that the gun was really intended for Larry Jamison but sold it anyway, despite the bold-print warning.

  Beeson was serving time. The gun store owner and clerk had been indicted and were rumored to be considering a plea bargain.

  Jason purchased a few rounds of ammunition, thanked the clerk, and decided to head straight to the firing range.

  * * *

  Just as he remembered, the gun had a nice heft to it and a sleek feel. It responded cleanly when he pulled the trigger and was easy to sight in. He liked knowing that the gun could only be fired by him. His fingerprints unlocked all this power. His gun.

  On the way home, it felt a little strange to have the gun in the car. On the one hand, he felt more secure. After all, his MD-45 was the great equalizer. But on the other hand, the gun seemed to bring a new aura of danger—as if the world had suddenly become too risky to navigate without firepower.

  He called Melissa Davids and told her that he was the proud new owner of an MD-45.

  “Have you applied for a concealed carry?” she asked.

  He hadn’t thought about that. His main concern right now was working on the case, not playing Dirty Harry. “Not yet.”

  “It might help you get one if you had some actual death threats,” Davids said matter-of-factly. “If you need a few, just let me know. I’ve got extras.”

  Jason thanked her but said he could probably generate all the death threats he needed on his own.

  “I’d like to get together before your deposition next week,” he said, changing subjects. “I’m coming to town Friday for some family business. Can we meet then?”

  “Why?”

  “To prepare for your deposition.”

  “I’ve been deposed before,” Davids said, her tone dismissive. “I’m a big girl.”

  The response made Jason bristle. “You haven’t been deposed on this case before. You hired me to be your lawyer. We really ought to meet beforehand.”

  “I hired you to be my trial lawyer. This is a deposition. I can take care of myself.”

  “There aren’t many objections I can legitimately make at a deposition,” Jason countered, trying hard to remain patient. “It’s tough to defend a witness who isn’t prepared.”

  “Jason, I don’t care if you go to the shooting range during my deposition. I’ve done this before. I can handle Kelly Starling.”

  For a few seconds, Jason let the silence register his objection. “You’re the client,” he said grudgingly.

  “That I am.”

  37

  Blake Crawford showed up right on time for his deposition preparation. Kelly started with the general advice. Listen carefully to the questions. Don’t guess. Look at the camera. Think before you answer. Those types of things.

  Next she spent a few hours playing the role of Case McAllister or Jason Noble, grilling Blake with questions, trying to throw him off or make him lose his cool. Occasionally, she would stop the questioning and give him some pointers.

  Overall, the man did amazingly well. He was soft-spoken and sincere. Even during the practice questions, he choked up when he talked about Rachel and the baby. At one point, Kelly stopped and asked him if he needed a break.

  “Let’s just get through it,” he said.

  He was at his best when talking about Rachel’s hopes and dreams. Blake was a high school math teacher and tennis coach. He and Rachel had moved to Virginia Beach from Florida less than a year earlier when Rachel had been offered a job as an investigative reporter. It was a bigger market and a better assignment than the small station Rachel had been working for in the Florida panhandle. For Blake, it meant moving in the middle of the school year and looking for work as a substitute teacher in Virginia.

  “That’s quite a sacrifice,” Kelly said.

  Blake shrugged. “Not really. Teaching jobs are a dime a dozen. But Rachel loved broadcast journalism. And she had a gift. Everywhere I went, I was pretty much known as Rachel Crawford’s husband.”

  After Kelly had asked her last question, she pronounced him ready. “You’re going to do great. Just be yourself. We’ve got nothing to hide.”

  Blake swallowed hard and stared past Kelly for a moment. “Can I ask you a question now?”

  “Sure.”

  “Your dad’s a pastor, right?”

  The question caught Kelly a little off guard. “Um, yeah.”

  “Do you think it’s right for me to pursue this?” He squirmed a little and toyed with a pen as he spoke. “I don’t mean from a legal perspective. I mean as a Christian. Do you think it’s the Christian thing to do?”

  Kelly didn’t hesitate. “Yes. Definitely. Why do you ask?”

  Blake put the pen down. Concern furrowed his forehead. “A lot of my friends at church think I’m on the wrong side of this. You know… they don’t say it that bluntly. But I pick it up from little things. Some of them have a hard time with this suit because they really believe in the Second Amendment. I don’t know, maybe they feel like this is a big step toward the government taking away our right to defend ourselves. They’re not big fans of the government to begin with.”

  Kelly wanted to interrupt and maybe suggest a change of churches, but she knew enough to hear him out.

  “Others probably feel like I’m just doing this for the money. Especially since we didn’t even sue the people who are really responsible. And then there’s the whole thing about whether Christians should sue at all.”

  Kelly’s mind raced as her client shared these rambling thoughts. Her own understanding of God as a God of justice was so deeply ingrained that she considered cases like this almost a special calling. How could somebody who apparently worshiped the same God see things so differently?

  “God cares about justice,” she said. “It’s all throughout the Old Testament.” She tried to think of some specific examples but she really wasn’t much of a Bible scholar. “Even in the New Testament, the apostle Paul appealed his own case all the way to Caesar. And the only reason Christ refused to defend Himself was because there were bigger issues at stake. In His case, justice demanded sacrifice.”

  Blake looked skeptical. Even to Kelly’s ears, her argument sounded muddled. Then she had a thought. “You want me to see if I can get my dad on the phone?”

  Blake thought it
was a good idea, and Kelly slipped into the hallway so she could talk to her dad on the cell phone and privately explain the situation. A few minutes later, she put him on the speakerphone in the conference room and introduced Blake. “The question, Dad, is whether it’s right for Blake to be pursuing this case as a Christian.”

  She looked at Blake. “Is that it?”

  “Basically. Yeah. I mean, I hate to sound so conflicted. But some days, it just feels like I’m on the wrong side of this issue and alienating a lot of people I care about, and most of them are just too kind to say anything right now. I don’t know.”

  “It’s a great question,” Kelly’s dad said. One thing Kelly had always appreciated about her dad was that he wasn’t afraid of tough questions. “And it’s pretty natural to feel conflicted about something like this.” His voice was calm and reassuring—Kelly called it his “pastor’s voice,” as in, “Don’t use that pastor’s voice on me.” Today, however, it sounded great.

  “Like a lot of matters in life, the first thing you probably need to do is search your heart. Only you know why you’re really pursuing this lawsuit. Is it for the money? Is it revenge? An attempt to fill a hole in your heart left by Rachel’s death?”

  Her dad waited, and Blake seemed to be considering these things.

  “Or is it a desire to keep others from going through the same pain you suffered? Justice is a noble concept, Blake. But the line between justice and revenge is thinner than most people realize. Vengeance belongs to the Lord, not us.”

  Blake nodded. “I ask myself those questions all the time. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell what’s really driving me.”

  “Fair enough,” said Kelly’s dad. “And that’s a question only you can answer. As for the theological questions—it is true that in the New Testament Christians are told not to file lawsuits against fellow believers, but that wouldn’t prevent a lawsuit against MD Firearms. And it may help you to know that our entire tort system is actually derived from the Mosaic law of the Old Testament. When Kelly decided to make a living suing and defending people, I did a little research on this.”

  Interesting, Kelly thought. He’s never shared this with me.

  “Let me read you a passage from Exodus that might apply here. You’ve heard the expression ‘It all depends on whose ox is being gored’?”

  “Yeah,” Blake said.

  “It comes from Exodus 21. Keep in mind that in those days, they talked about dangerous bulls, not dangerous guns, but you’ll see the parallels. ‘If a bull gores a man or a woman to death, the bull must be stoned to death, and its meat must not be eaten. But the owner of the bull will not be held responsible. If, however, the bull has had the habit of goring and the owner has been warned but has not kept it penned up and it kills a man or a woman, the bull must be stoned and the owner also must be put to death. However, if payment is demanded of him, he may redeem his life by paying whatever is demanded.’”

  “Wow,” Kelly said, excited to discover that her lawsuit might actually have a biblical foundation. “It’s the exact same principle. We’re saying that MD Firearms knew about the dangerous habits of this dealer and did nothing. Didn’t keep him penned up, so to speak. Consequently, it’s not just the dealer who should pay but MD Firearms as well.”

  She looked at Blake. He didn’t seem to have quite the same spark as Kelly, but the sag in his shoulders had lifted a little. “Does that make sense?” she asked.

  “Actually, that helps a lot.”

  The three of them kicked it around for a few more minutes, and Kelly’s dad warned Blake that life seldom served up black-and-white choices. “The apostle Paul understood this when he said he was ‘perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.’ Sometimes we have to move forward one step at a time, just waiting for the fog to lift.”

  When they hung up, Kelly could tell the conversation had helped Blake. But she also knew her dad well enough to realize that Blake may not have been his only, or even his primary, audience.

  After her client left, Kelly called her dad again.

  “Thanks, Dad. That was exactly what he needed.”

  “He’s asking the right questions, Kelly. He’s going to be fine.”

  They talked for a few minutes, and her dad put her through the usual interrogation. Was she getting enough sleep? Did she need anything? Was she getting any downtime? Her dad told Kelly a few stories about the excitement of his parishioners when they saw Kelly on TV.

  “We’re praying for you, Kelly. And we’re proud of you.”

  She knew it was true. She had always made the folks back home proud.

  Which only made her feel more like a hypocrite. If they knew what she had done, her family would probably still love her. But pride would turn to sympathy and grave concern, swinging on the hinge of a sin that revealed much about her confused and broken heart.

  38

  Jason didn’t sleep more than a few hours Thursday night. He took an early flight to Atlanta Friday morning and met his sister and Detective Corey at the airport. He shook hands with Corey and hugged Julie. She was part mother and part sister to Jason. They saw the world differently—she was into recycling and organic foods and thought Al Gore should be anointed King of the Universe—but they shared the same dysfunctional childhood, a bond more important than politics. She taught a sociology course at some California community college whose name Jason could never remember.

  Julie had always been the peacemaker in the Noble family, quick with a soft word or a diversion tactic or a compromise for the various skirmishes that erupted between Jason and his dad. She was plain and practical and usually put others first. “Just like her mother,” Jason’s dad would say.

  For this trip, she had brought a small gym bag and a backpack. Like Jason, she apparently didn’t plan on staying long.

  The three of them huddled in the airport over coffee, plotting strategy for the intervention. Detective Corey briefed Jason and Julie on how things had deteriorated at the precinct. To Jason’s surprise, his dad was being investigated by internal affairs for some missing cocaine on one of his cases. His absenteeism was up and case closure rate down. According to Detective Corey, even if Jason’s dad was cleared in the internal investigation, there was a risk he would be placed on probation.

  “I can’t believe he’s using cocaine,” Jason said incredulously. His dad hated the drug. He had seen how much heartache and havoc it caused.

  “He’s not,” Matt said decisively. “But that doesn’t stop the rumors.”

  The plan was to meet Dr. Paul Prescott, a trained substance-abuse counselor, at Jason’s dad’s house. Prescott would facilitate the meeting.

  Dr. Prescott had urged Jason, Julie, and Matt to write letters to Jason’s father that they would read during the intervention. “It’s very important to use only ‘I’ statements in the letter,” he had told Jason during a phone call. “When your dad starts saying that we can’t tell him what to do, my response will be, ‘That’s not what’s happening. Your family and former partner are telling you what they’re going to do.’”

  Before leaving the airport, Matt, Jason, and Julie each read their letters aloud for the others to hear. Jason had fretted for hours over what he should say and finally just decided to put it all out there. His letter contained things he had never said to his dad out loud. He loved him. He was sorry that he had disappointed him. He respected his dad for working hard all these years, literally putting his life on the line so that Jason and Julie could have a better life than he had. He knew his dad had done his best to raise Jason and Julie after their mom died, and he thanked him for that. Jason ended the letter by saying how much easier it would be just to let his dad continue down the path he was going, but Jason cared too much to sit this one out. He hoped his dad would forgive him if this letter sounded sanctimonious; he just wanted his dad to get help.

  When he finished reading the letter, doing his best to keep his own emotions at bay, he saw t
he tears spilling down Julie’s cheeks.

  “Dr. Phil couldn’t have said it better,” Detective Corey joked, trying to lighten the mood.

  Julie reached over and gave Jason a hug.

  Writing the letter had been one of the hardest things Jason had ever done.

  * * *

  Paul Prescott was a bear of a man. He had a flushed complexion, curly brown hair, big brown eyes that never seemed to blink, and round cheeks that sprouted dimples when he smiled. He met the others at a Starbucks about a half mile from the house.

  “I was an addict too,” Dr. Prescott said. “Booze. Drugs. Name the chemical. I know what your dad’s going through. Regardless of how he reacts today, this is the right thing to do.”

  They rehearsed the plan one more time, and Jason felt sick to his stomach. He knew that somehow this would all get blamed on him. His feelings were hopelessly complicated, and he didn’t even try to sort them out. He hated being around his dad but suddenly felt sorry for him. The man’s own family and his best friend were now scheming against him. In some ways, Jason felt like a traitor.

  Jason had serious second thoughts about the whole process. It seemed so heavy-handed, so dramatic. His dad was a private man. He didn’t like people pushing him around. If it had been up to Jason, he would have called the whole thing off.

  But it wasn’t up to Jason. Events had progressed too far for him to back out now. He nodded solemnly as the others talked; he tried to picture his dad after a successful course of treatment, reconciling with Jason and mending years of hurt feelings. For some reason, he couldn’t quite crystallize that picture in his mind.

  They took two cars to the house. The goal was to have Jason’s dad ride with Dr. Prescott to the treatment center. Detective Corey had already taken care of getting work reassigned. Jason and Julie had agreed to split the cost of treatment, so money was not an issue. The idea was to take away every excuse and demand immediate action.