The Justice Game Read online

  The two men sat there for a moment. Jason let his silence indicate his assent.

  “She’s been getting mixed results from our focus groups,” Jason said. “They either love her or hate her.”

  “No surprise there.”

  Case arranged his legal pads and deposition transcript into a neat little pile. He stacked copies of the day’s exhibits on top.

  “You’ve got good judgment, Jason. And I’ve watched the tapes from Justice Inc.” Case stopped fiddling with the stack of papers in front of him and looked at Jason. “You’re one heckuva trial lawyer.”

  To Jason, it felt like a strange turn for the conversation. “Thanks,” he said.

  “I may need you to try this case alone,” Case said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I might need to take the stand.”

  Jason furrowed his brow at the suggestion. “Why?”

  “We need somebody who can really explain that memo,” Case suggested. “Some of the jurors might think that Melissa is a little over the top, but maybe they would relate better to me. The question is whether I add more value to the case as a lawyer or as a witness. Right now, I’m thinking witness.”

  Jason felt pressure building in his chest; his head throbbed from these rapid developments. Kelly Starling had a possible mole inside MD Firearms and a smoking-gun memo for her arsenal, and now Jason might have to try the case alone.

  “Let’s sleep on this for a few days before we do anything rash,” Jason suggested.

  “Of course,” Case said. “You know me. I never make rash decisions.”

  56

  Flying back to Norfolk, alone in the window seat, Jason had time to take inventory. He made a list of things he needed to get done prior to trial—two solid pages on his legal pad, and there were probably plenty of things he hadn’t remembered to include. Maybe he was just tired, but the deposition had somehow caused him to turn an emotional corner in the case.

  Given the choice, he probably would have picked the plaintiff’s side. He loved representing the underdog. He wasn’t a natural fan of the Second Amendment, though he was getting more comfortable with the thought of having his MD-45 in his house or car. In some undefined way, it gave him a sense of security and empowerment.

  For a while, he had talked himself into liking this case. It was by far the biggest case of his legal career, and he had grown to genuinely respect Melissa Davids. Plus, there was this whole individual responsibility thing. Wasn’t MD Firearms really just an innocent scapegoat? Weren’t the real culprits Jamison and Beeson and Peninsula Arms, none of whom had been sued?

  But now that Case’s memo had come to light, Jason’s enthusiasm for the case was about nil. Melissa Davids had shown her worst side today. And though he had given Kelly a hard time in front of his clients, Jason found himself respecting her crusader mentality. Kelly carried herself like somebody who had justice on her side—somebody willing to bleed for her client. Jason realized, in a moment of unguarded candor, that he didn’t feel the same way.

  But he was Jason Noble. Law student prodigy. Ace trial lawyer. The greatest actor who would never be considered for an Oscar.

  Jason had once heard a Hollywood veteran say that sincerity was the key to all good acting. “Once you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made.” It was, Jason thought, true in the courtroom as well.

  By the time the plane started its approach, Jason had talked himself into once again being the Great Defender of the Second Amendment. The memo might have cost him a co-counsel, but if so, Jason had gained a great witness in the process. Melissa Davids had her rough edges, but Case McAllister was a pro. He would sit there on the witness stand, adjust his bow tie, and systematically dismantle Kelly Starling’s case.

  Jason’s BlackBerry vibrated before the plane hit the ground. As usual, he had refused to turn it off during flight, secretly switching the mode from normal to vibrate. The habit was probably indicative of some deep personality flaw born out of his rebellious and contrary nature, but his reasoning was simple: if cell phones actually messed up the navigational equipment, would they really let passengers even bring them on planes?

  He did, however, have the good sense not to check his messages until the plane touched down. As the flight attendant started her welcome-to-Norfolk spiel, Jason pulled the BlackBerry from its clip and started scrolling through his messages.

  Seven e-mails. Not bad for a ninety-minute flight. He could get through these before they hit the gate.

  But when he opened the third one, his hand froze around the device. The words sucked the wind from his lungs, causing an audible gasp. He read it twice and bowed his head, leaning against the seat in front of him, staring at the screen of his BlackBerry.

  Jason:

  The retired chief of police for the city of Atlanta would make an excellent expert witness in your case. His name is Ed Poole. Hire him.

  And Jason, you’ll want to do what I say. Otherwise, the entire world will be reading on the Kryptonite blog all about that little accident you had in high school.

  I know who was driving and I’ve got the proof.

  Don’t make me use it. I want to help. The Second Amendment is the only thing that staves off tyranny. Sic semper tyrannis!

  Luthor

  PS: Don’t let anybody talk you into settling this case. It’s very winnable.

  Jason took a deep breath and tried to calm his racing heart. His hands literally trembled, as if he had just watched an old friend rise out of the grave, point a finger at Jason’s chest, and accuse him of murder.

  He closed his eyes and, like a recurring nightmare, it all came rushing back.

  57

  Ten years earlier

  The irony was that Jason and his friends avoided the big party that night—the one with all the football players and cheerleaders and rich kids—because Jason and his buddies discussed it, and they thought there might be trouble.

  For the most part, Jason avoided parties altogether, feeling lonelier in big groups than he did staying home. But on this night, he had made plans with four of his soccer teammates and a small group of girls to hang out in a parking lot next to the tennis courts of a northern Atlanta subdivision. A senior with a fake ID brought the beer. Another kid grew his own weed.

  Jason rode to the party with a buddy named LeRon, a fast left wing on the soccer team, a player so full of bravado and bluster his teammates affectionately nicknamed him the Mouth.

  In some ways, they made a strange pair—the quiet son of a cop and the outspoken son of an AME preacher—but sports brought them together. The Mouth could hold his own intellectually, quoting King and Plato and T. D. Jakes, and he brought a nice balance to Jason’s biting sarcasm. The Mouth was an eternal and irrepressible optimist, even on a soccer team that hadn’t logged a winning season in five years.

  The Mouth also harbored big dreams. One day, he was going to be the next Johnnie Cochran. The next day, the world’s greatest sports agent. Once Jason tried to goad him toward politics, but the Mouth scoffed at the idea. “There’s no money in that.”

  On this night, like many others, the Mouth had a few too many beers and smoked a little too much weed. After a few hours hanging out, including the last thirty minutes inside the cars while a light rain fell, they all decided to go to a nearby Steak n Shake for something to eat. LeRon, to the surprise of everyone, begged off and handed his car keys to Jason. “Your daddy’s the cop,” he said. “They won’t bust you for DUI. You can take me home and crash at my house.”

  Jason agreed to drive, but not because he thought his dad would cut him any slack. He wasn’t as wasted as LeRon. He’d only had a few beers during the past two hours, four or five at the most. If he wanted to get home in one piece without calling his father and triggering the old man’s wrath, his own hand on the wheel provided the best hope of getting there safely.

  Trouble hit on the Highway 400 exit ramp. Jason lived off a different exit and nearly passed LeRon’s out
of habit. At the last second, he swerved to make the ramp. It might have been this abrupt maneuver, or the sharp curve of the ramp, or the slick road, or the nearly bald tires, or the wipers that smudged rather than cleared the windshield. It might have been the speed. It might have been the booze.

  The car started fishtailing, and Jason overcorrected, fighting back a surge of panic. LeRon reached out an arm to brace against the dashboard, shouting expletives. The car skidded, hit the shoulder, and flipped—once, twice, who knew how many times?

  The world spun and tumbled, turning violent and chaotic as if some giant had picked up the car, shaken it around, and thrown it against a tree.

  The tree. Jason saw it coming for a split second—nothing but a flash in his peripheral vision during one of the flips—and then felt it. The car slammed against it, metal crashing, shearing, practically exploding, Jason’s head bouncing violently against a doorframe, followed immediately by a jolt and the smell of smoke.

  Air bags?

  Within a split second, almost instantly, everything was quiet. Jason moaned—his head spinning, his subconscious screaming danger. Was he even alive? There was pain that said he was. A shoulder. His right leg. He could taste blood in his mouth.

  His chest. It felt like somebody had crushed his rib cage.

  He struggled for breath. He fought back darkness.

  He was hanging nearly upside down, his weight on one shoulder and his neck, the whole front seat of the car crushed. The driver’s-side window was pinned against the ground. There was no way out.

  “LeRon?” he said. It came out as a whimper. “LeRon?”

  He tried to twist around, pain shooting through his body. He had to see his friend. A surge of adrenaline-fueled panic blew away some of the cobwebs. The smoke—was the car going to explode?

  He twisted enough so he could see LeRon. His friend was not moving. His neck was wrenched around at a horrible angle, as if some superhuman force had twisted it like a bottle top. LeRon’s eyes were open, staring… lifeless.

  “No!” Jason tried to reach out to him, but the darkness was winning, overwhelming Jason, clouding his thoughts.

  He needed to get out, must get away from the car and get LeRon help… but he was trapped. He couldn’t focus. He started sinking deeper, faster, into a black hole of unconsciousness.

  Somehow, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell. He flipped it open and speed-dialed his dad. Jason was fading fast, gasping for breath. He spoke in chopped sentences. His dad said something—get away from the car? don’t move your friend?—the instructions were lost in the whirlpool of thoughts Jason could no longer control. He mumbled something about the off-ramp, exit 6, a tree. The phone dropped from his hand.

  The pain receded and the panic died, replaced by an oozing darkness and a sense of overwhelming loss.

  * * *

  Jason awoke in the hospital, his mind woozy from pain medication and trauma, his father sitting next to his bed. Jason stared at him for a moment, allowing the world to come into focus again. His father’s face was drawn, his eyes bloodshot.

  “LeRon?” Jason asked.

  His father shook his head.

  The pain medication blunted the grief, keeping Jason from lashing out or shouting. Instead, he closed his eyes, sadness seeping through every fiber of his being. He felt his life had changed forever.

  Immediately the questions started flowing.

  Why did LeRon die?

  Why did I survive?

  Who wants to live like this?

  When he opened his eyes again, his father had not moved. Jason felt tears rolling down his cheek, soaking into his pillow. His father leaned forward, glancing toward the door.

  “You weren’t driving,” he whispered.

  Huh? Jason furrowed his brow, trying to comprehend.

  “I called the accident in to Officer Corey, who was patrolling that area. Then I called 911.” His dad edged a little closer to Jason’s bed. “Matt Corey is a friend. He managed to get you both out of the vehicle before the paramedics arrived.”

  Jason shook his head. At least he tried to shake it. Small shakes. Adamant.

  He wasn’t going along with this.

  “Listen to me,” his father said sharply. “We’ve already lost one life. I’m not going to lose another.”

  Jason stared back. Even in his drug-induced state, he knew he had to fight this. He had already done enough damage to LeRon’s family.

  “Matt Corey put his career on the line for us,” Jason’s dad said emphatically. “If you don’t handle this right, you’re not just tossing away your life. You’re ending the career of a great and selfless cop.”

  * * *

  The hardest day of Jason’s life was the day of LeRon’s funeral. Jason showed up with his broken right leg in a cast and his left arm in a sling—nursing a broken collarbone, a compound fracture of his tibia, two cracked ribs, and a serious concussion. He used a crutch under his good arm to walk.

  He was showered with kindness and love by LeRon’s family.

  The physical pain was nothing compared to Jason’s broken spirit. During the investigation, he had nodded along as Officer Corey described the scene, even when Corey talked about prying Jason out of the passenger seat. Jason gave vague details about the events of that night—claiming that the last thing he remembered was being at the tennis court parking lots. He had downplayed the amount of drinking he had done. There was no mention of drugs.

  At the funeral, Jason watched in horror as LeRon’s mother sobbed uncontrollably in front of the casket. He cried quietly as LeRon’s dad eulogized his son, bringing the large crowd to laughter and tears and eventually to their feet as they applauded a life well lived.

  * * *

  For the next few months, suicide was never far from Jason’s mind. Nor was confession. On at least three separate occasions, he drove to the parking lot of LeRon’s church but couldn’t muster the courage to go inside and talk to LeRon’s dad about what had really happened.

  The accident changed him. He vowed never to touch a drop of alcohol again. He became more cynical, less social, at times despondent.

  It also served as the tipping point in an already strained relationship between father and son. Jason’s dad thought Jason should be grateful for a second chance at life. Instead, Jason felt resentment toward an officer of the law who would abuse the system and pressure his own son to lie about a matter of life and death. And he felt ashamed for his own part in the deceptive scheme.

  As time wore on, it became harder for Jason to think about setting the record straight. It would destroy both Officer Corey and Jason’s own dad, and what would it help? Would LeRon’s parents really find any relief in knowing that their son wasn’t driving? It wouldn’t bring him back. Jason would probably go to jail, which in some ways might be an improvement—the guilt he already carried seemed more suffocating than any jail cell.

  For months, remorse and shame stalked Jason, hanging over every waking moment, lurking in his nightmares, and reasserting their stranglehold the moment he woke up to face another tortured day. He rationalized his way through life, convincing himself each day that it was too late to turn back now.

  He went to LeRon’s grave and asked for his friend’s forgiveness. He left with the same weight on his shoulders he had brought there.

  * * *

  Two years later, during his sophomore year in college, Jason decided to pursue a career as a lawyer. Maybe it was a sense of guilt that he had survived the accident and LeRon had not. LeRon had wanted to be a trial lawyer, the next Johnnie Cochran. Maybe he would have been.

  Jason couldn’t bring his friend back. But he could at least honor his friend in some small way. Perhaps this accounted for Jason’s willingness to take on criminal defendants as clients. That’s certainly the type of law LeRon would have practiced.

  LeRon’s style would have been very different from Jason’s. LeRon argued out of passion; for Jason it was mostly theater. But maybe someda
y Jason would find himself sitting at his counsel table, defending someone who faced the full wrath of the state, and realizing that this is exactly what LeRon would have done.

  Jason would be switching seats again.

  But this time, he would make his good friend proud.

  58

  Jason stayed awake the entire night after receiving the e-mail from Luthor. He paced around his small apartment over the boathouse. Eventually he went outside and sat on the bulkhead, staring at the bay.

  Mostly, he asked questions.

  What “proof” could there be about the accident? It was ten years ago. Maybe some investigator at the time could have reconstructed the accident based on the damage to the interior of the automobile, the blood in the car, the injuries sustained by Jason and LeRon—that type of thing. But the car had been hauled to the junkyard and the case file closed. There could be no evidence left.

  Unless Matt Corey had preserved something. But why would he do that?

  The prospect of a lie-detector test popped into Jason’s mind and caused his pulse to pick up speed. As a lawyer, he knew he couldn’t be required to take a polygraph. But what if somebody raised a question about who was driving and suggested a lie detector to put the issue to rest? What reason could Jason give for refusing?

  Did Luthor really want Jason to win the Crawford case? If so, why had he threatened blackmail? If you want somebody to win, you call them in the full light of day using your real name.

  Jason had looked up the résumé of former Atlanta chief of police Edward Poole. The man’s credentials were impressive. And Jason could use an expert witness to testify about the black market for guns, someone to explain that criminals like Jamison can obtain guns regardless of whether stores engage in illegal straw sales. But did Jason dare use someone suggested by Luthor?