Theo let him finish, then smiled and shook his head. “For a guy who gets laid on about every other solar eclipse, you sure have a knack for squeezing the maximum fuck-up value out of relationships.”
“Thanks. And for the record, that’s every other partial solar eclipse.”
“You’re an animal, dude.” Theo grabbed a handful of peanuts, munched as he spoke. “This Lindsey in deep shit?”
“Not sure. I tried to read the investigative report before I came over here, but my mind’s all over the place.”
“That talk about Jack Junior caught you a little off guard, huh?”
“A little? I’ve known about the adoption for a couple years now, ever since Jessie passed away. But I guess it really hit home when Lindsey showed me his picture. I actually have a kid out there.”
“No, it’s her kid. All you did was have sex with your girlfriend.”
“It’s not that simple, Theo. He looks just like me.”
“Does he, really? Or do you just see it because his mother says so, and for some weird-ass Darwinian reason you want it to be true?”
“Trust me. There’s a strong resemblance.”
“Could have been worse, I suppose. Could have looked like one of your friends.”
“Can you ever be serious?”
“No, but I can fake it.” Theo took a drink. “So, you gonna be her lawyer?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“What’s your gut tell you? She innocent?”
“Why should that matter? I’ve represented lots of clients who were guilty. I even thought you were guilty when I first took up your appeal.”
“But I wasn’t guilty.”
“I would have fought just as hard even if you were.”
“Maybe. But I sense that this case is different.”
“You see the dilemma, too?”
“Yeah, except where I come from, we don’t call it no dilemma. We call it gettin’ caught in your own zipper.”
“Ouch. But I guess it applies.”
“Course it applies. Let’s say your client is charged with murdering her husband and you agree to be her lawyer. Let’s say she’s guilty, but you’re able to work your magic and convince the jury she’s not. She walks. Where does that leave you?”
“Forget me. Where does it leave her son?”
“Living with a murderer, that’s where.”
Jack stared down into his bourbon and said, “Not something any self-respecting criminal defense lawyer should do to his own flesh and blood.”
“On the other hand, if you don’t take the case…Let’s say she’s innocent, but some boob of a lawyer blows it- like my trial lawyer did-and she gets convicted. The boy ends up losing both his mom and his dad, or at least the only mom and dad he ever knew. Can you live with that?”
“I’d say you’ve covered both horns of the dilemma.”
“Fuck your dilemma. That’s a thousand tiny metal teeth zipping right into your-”
“I got the picture, Theo. What do you think I should do?”
“Simple. Take her case. If you get into it and find out she’s guilty, resign.”
“That’s dicey. Once a murder case gets going, you can’t just withdraw. The judge won’t let you out if the only grounds you have for withdrawing are that you suddenly think your client is guilty. If that were the standard, you’d have lawyers dropping out in the middle of trial every day.”
“Then you gotta find a way to convince yourself that your client is innocent before you take the case. How about asking her to take a lie detector test?”
“I don’t believe in them, especially with someone as emotionally distraught as she is. Might as well flip a coin.”
“So, what are you telling me?”
“Bottom line, she could be indicted tomorrow, for all I know. I need a quick answer, and, as usual, there is none.”
Theo took the drink from his friend’s hand, placed it on the bar, and pushed it aside. “Then get off the fucking bar stool, go home, and read that investigative report. Read it the way you’d read it if that boy was just another boy.”
His tone was stern, and Theo wasn’t grinning, but Jack knew the words were coming from a friend. Jack rose, then laid a five on the bar to cover the two drinks.
“Hey,” said Theo. “I wasn’t kidding.”
“I know.”
“I mean the tab, genius. Till you find that sense of humor, I’m charging you double, remember?”
Jack reached for his wallet and threw another bill on the bar. “Thanks for teaching me a lesson,” he said with a chuckle. But as he zigzagged through the noisy crowd and headed for the exit, passing one pointless conversation after another, he couldn’t help but wonder what all the forced laughter was about, and his smile faded.
He wished Theo were right. He wished to God everything were funny.
3
The following afternoon, Jack was on the fifth floor of the U.S. attorney’s office in downtown Miami. He’d been up most of the night combing over a copy of the NCIS report Lindsey Hart had left with him. Jack had never seen an investigative report from the Naval Criminal Investigative Services before, but it was similar to scores of civilian homicide reports he’d examined over the years, with one major exception: the blacked-out information. It seemed that something-sometimes an entire paragraph, even an entire witness statement-was excised from each page, deemed by Naval Command to be too sensitive for civilian eyes.
Jack’s first thought had been that the NCIS was withholding information from Lindsey because she was a murder suspect. He phoned a friend in the JAG Reserves, however, and discovered that it wasn’t all that unusual for the family of slain military personnel to receive highly redacted investigative reports. Even when death was unrelated to combat-be it homicide, suicide, or accident-survivors didn’t always have the privilege of knowing exactly what their loved one was doing when he died, whom he’d last spoken to, or even what he might have written in his diary just hours before a 9 mm slug shattered the back of his skull. To be sure, the military often had legitimate needs for secrecy, especially at a place like Guantanamo, the only remaining U.S. base on communist soil. But it was Jack’s job to be skeptical.
“You know I wasn’t being cute on the phone, right, Jack? I really do have absolutely nothing to do with the Hart case.”
Gerry Chafetz was seated behind his desk, hands clasped behind his head, a posture Jack had seen him assume countless times when Gerry was his supervisor. Back then, they’d toil late into the evening, arguing over just about everything from whether the Miami Dolphins had won more football games wearing their aqua jerseys or their white jerseys to whether their star witness was a dead man with or without the federal witness protection program. Jack sometimes missed the old days, but he knew that even if he’d stayed, things could never have been the same. Gerry had worked his way up to chief assistant to the U.S. attorney, which would have made him a lot less fun to argue with, since now he knew everything.
“The case is here in Miami. Am I right?” asked Jack.
Gerry was stone silent. Jack said, “Look, it’s no secret that Lindsey Hart is a civilian who can’t stand trial in a military court. She’s originally from Miami, so it doesn’t take a breach of national security to figure out that if she’s indicted for the murder of her husband, it will be right here in the Southern District of Florida.”
Still no reply from Gerry.
A smile tugged at the corner of Jack’s mouth. “Come on, Gerry. You won’t even give me that much?”
