Somalia and his alleged forced confession. He wrote in detail about his transfer to and detention at Gitmo. In fact, Mr. Wakefield pretended to speak only Somali for his entire three years in captivity, until he was charged with murder. If Mr. Wakefield had been detained in Prague, we would have heard of it by now.”
Neil fell silent, realizing his mistake.
Jack rose. “Judge, may I speak?”
“No. I’ve heard enough.”
“Shit,” Neil said under his breath. “I pissed him off with that attorney-client smoke screen.”
“The government’s motion is granted,” the judge said. “The defendant will be allowed to testify at trial about his alibi if he so chooses. But until you show me more than Mr. Wakefield’s own belated claims of a secret facility in Prague, the defense will not have the subpoena power of this court to compel government officials to testify or to produce records about an alleged secret facility.”
“But-”
“That’s my ruling,” the judge said with a bang of the gavel.
“All rise!” said the bailiff.
Jack and Neil climbed to their feet as the judge made his way to his chambers. The side door opened, the judge disappeared into his chambers, and the lawyers gathered their papers. Neil looked as if he’d just been shot in the chest-or worse, as if he’d shot himself in the foot.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve never dropped the ball like that in my life. What in the hell was I thinking?”
Jack wasn’t one to judge, especially when it was someone as talented and ethical as Neil. Besides, Jack suspected that something else was at work-something much bigger than a misstep by his co-counsel.
“No worries,” said Jack.
“Swyteck,” said the prosecutor, “may I talk to you privately for a minute?”
Jack and Neil exchanged glances. “I’ll meet you downstairs,” said Neil. He closed up his briefcase and headed for the exit, leaving Jack alone with the prosecutor.
“Here’s the deal,” said McCue. “Wakefield pleads guilty to both counts-first degree murder and attempted murder-and I won’t seek the death penalty. Life without parole.”
“That’s not much of a deal.”
“We’re talking about a teenage girl brutally murdered and a cop who was blinded trying to save her.”
“You should be pitching this deal to Neil Goderich.”
“I’m not offering it to him. In fact, I’m only giving it to you because-”
The stop was abrupt, and as the silence lingered, the reality washed over Jack, making his blood boil. “Because my fiancee asked you to?”
McCue didn’t answer, and his body language was anything but a denial. Jack glanced across the courtroom toward the lawyer for the Department of Justice-the same agency that Andie worked for. She averted her eyes.
“I’ll give you until Monday,” said McCue. “After that, it’s the death penalty. No more deals. No more favors.”
Jack took a deep breath as he stood and watched the prosecutors leave the courtroom, and he wasn’t sure who made him more angry: the arrogant assistant state attorney with his Washington ringer or the meddlesome new blonde who had stopped wearing her engagement ring.
Chapter Eleven
On Saturday morning Jack found himself surrounded by a sea of spandex. Headed for CocoPlum, one of south Florida’s tony waterfront communities, he was stuck behind hundreds of cyclists-a side-by-side wall that stretched across three lanes and moved at the mind-numbing speed of eleven miles per hour. Cartegena Circle-a suburban south-Florida version of the vehicular insanity surrounding the Arc de Triomphe-was not just the meeting place of choice for weekend warriors on wheels. It was quite possibly the world’s greatest concentration of bulging blobs of jelly who had absolutely no business wearing form-fitting clothing.
Jack was inching around the circle in his ten-year-old Saab convertible with the ragtop down, practically riding on the rear bumper of a new Maserati-so new, in fact, that it had a temporary tag. Bullet gray with dark tinted windows. Chrome wheels so shiny that they couldn’t have left the showroom floor more than two hours ago. Jack wondered how anyone could plunk down a quarter-mill on a new Maserati in the post-hold-on-to-your-ass-cuz-I- just-lost-mine economy. The answer was splashed across the back window in block white letters:
FLORIDAFORECLOSURES. COM.
Talk about a sign of the times.
Jack steered into CocoPlum, stopped at the guard house, and rolled down the window. “I’m headed to the Mays residence,” he said.
The guard jotted down his license plate number and offered quick directions. Jack followed the line of tall royal palms toward the water.
Last night’s phone call had come as a total shock. Jack still hadn’t decided to try the case. Even if he had, never in a million years would he have guessed that his first interview would be the victim’s father. Then again, never in a billion years would Jack have thought that Chuck Mays would call and insist on meeting him-alone. Jack was fully prepared for an angry lecture on why he shouldn’t stoop to defending the man who had murdered McKenna Mays.
Jack pulled into the driveway of a tri-level Mediterranean-style mansion. The new Mays residence was far more impressive and in a much pricier neighborhood than the one that had burned to the ground. The eight- bedroom waterfront estate hadn’t risen from the ashes with just insurance proceeds. In the past three years, Chuck Mays had made a pot of money in the data-broker business with a service that delivered billions of dossiers to police, private investigators, lawyers, reporters, and insurance companies. Success was relative, however. He now lived alone.
Jack was walking up the driveway when that new Maserati came flying around the corner, tires squealing as it pulled into the driveway behind him. A muscle-bound man with a surfer’s suntan and shoulder-length blond hair stepped toward him.
“Chuck Mays,” he said, shaking Jack’s hand. He was wearing nylon shorts and a sleeveless work-out shirt, the “V” of sweat on his chest suggesting that he’d just come from the gym.
“Nice car,” said Jack.
“Not my style. Got it on the cheap, but I’ll probably sell it. Basically for guys with little dicks.”
“You own a foreclosure company?”
“You mean that sign in the back window? Fuck no. Mr. Foreclosures-dot-com got foreclosed on, and I snatched up his wheels. Ain’t that fucking great?”
Jack had come expecting to meet the still-grieving father of a teenage girl. Instead, he found Hulk Hogan’s younger clone, who dropped the F-word like a carpet bomber. But Jack wasn’t fooled. “Chuck Mays could be the most intelligent human being you will ever meet,” Neil had told him at dinner the night before.
“So,” said Jack. “You wanted to talk?”
“Yeah.” He pressed the keyless alarm, and the Maserati chirped. “Follow me.” He led Jack up the walkway and into the house. It had all the charm of an unfurnished hotel lobby: twenty-foot ceilings, enormous crown moldings, bare marble floors, and naked white walls-not a rug, painting, or framed photograph anywhere. The chandelier in the foyer still had the price tag hanging from it.
“How long have you lived here?” asked Jack.
“Moved in after Shada passed away,” Mays said.
Jack had, of course, heard about his wife’s suicide. Lose a daughter, then a wife, and who could give a rat’s ass about decorating a new house?
Jack followed him toward the kitchen. Mays offered him a barstool at the granite counter and went to the refrigerator.
“You want a beer?”
It was not yet noon, but pointing that out to a guy like Mays would have probably earned Jack a major
