Lawyers In Love: In His Own Defense (18 page)

That afternoon, as Kristine searched out precedents for Andi, her emotions were in turmoil.

Was loving Tony what made her doubt her motives? Did she want him enough to abandon everything she’d worked toward? Did she believe she could learn to live with what had happened to Helen and her dad?

“Kristine?”

Andi stood in the doorway, the frown on her face hinting to Kristine that she wasn’t going to like what her boss was about to say.

Okay. She’d try to beat Andi to the punch.

“So far I’ve found six cases you can cite in the arson trial. I’m certain I can locate some that are more germane to the particular questions in your case, if I can have a bit more time.”

“Forget that for now. Harper wants to see us in his office.”

Kristine stood and followed Andi, though she was in no mood to spar with Mr. Wells.

It came to her that she’d made her choice. Though she disagreed with Tony’s position of advocacy for accused felons, she believed he would never violate the ethical tenets of the law.

She loved the man—and she’d take on his enemies as her own. Including her father’s closest friend, if necessary.

As opposed to the windowless cubicles and metal furniture his employees had to endure, the state attorney had a well-appointed corner office. Light flowed through four sparkling floor-to-ceiling panes of glass and reflected off a large chunk of clear crystal on a side table, drawing Kristine’s attention to the wolf’s head carved in its center.

“Sit down, ladies.”

Harper’s voice was resonant, ideally suited for swaying juries and wooing votes. Not wanting to look into his seemingly guileless face, Kristine focused instead on the bouquet of summer flowers that graced his credenza. Were they real or silk?

Silk, undoubtedly. Nature made zinnias in bold, bright colors, not the muted tones of rust, gold, and burgundy in the bouquet. And Nature created leather fern and baby’s breath in lush green and stark white instead of jade and ivory.

Like Wells himself, his flowers spoke silently of careful attention having been paid to projecting restrained good taste. Tradition. The arrangement whispered of old money and good-old-boy back room Tampa politics.

Though Tony’s condo lacked a personal touch, Kristine preferred its honesty of stark black and white, its accents in bold primary colors, over Harper’s unimpeachably tasteful choice of muted earth tones.

Distracted by pleasant memories, she half-listened as Mr. Wells eased into whatever it was he wanted to take up with her, Andi, and the three senior prosecutors who’d already been there when she arrived.

“Kristine?”

Obviously, she should have been paying better attention. “I’m sorry.”

“Harper asked if you saw any evidence that the defense had tampered with the jury or judge when you were trying the Manny Garcia case.” Andi sounded annoyed as she repeated their employer’s question. Kristine wondered whether it was the state attorney’s question or her own inattentiveness that had Andi on edge.

The question certainly put her own hackles up. Kristine schooled her features into what she hoped was a neutral expression and met the state attorney’s gaze. “No. Mr. Wells, I told you before that the evidence was too weak to get a conviction. And that I’d been surprised that the judge hadn’t directed acquittal.”

Wells scowled, but said no more to Kristine. She listened, horrified, while he badgered Andi and the others. His obvious purpose was to force them to concede that Tony and his associates might have used illegal means to win acquittal for clients in cases that they had prosecuted.

“Harper, Tony Landry has no need to tamper with juries. He’s the best defense attorney I’ve ever had the misfortune to go up against.” Scowling, Andi stood and moved toward the door. “I think I’d better leave now, before I say something we’ll both regret.”

One of the men who’d been there when Kristine had arrived stood and shook his head. “I’m no stranger to politics, Harper, and I like to win my cases as well as anybody. I draw the line, though, at trying to get rid of a thorn in my side by making false allegations about him. I’m out of here, and I want no part of this scheme of yours. You’ve gone too far.”

He stormed out and slammed the door behind him, leaving Kristine’s ears ringing from the sharp noise.

“Is there no one here who has a shred of loyalty for this office?” Wells looked first at the taller of the two remaining attorneys, then at the other.

One spoke up. “My loyalty’s to the state attorney’s office, not to you as an individual. You’re taking one hell of a risk, going after Landry, or any other Winston Roe partner for that matter.”

He paused, took a few steps toward the door. “No, I’m not particularly happy to have lost the only two cases I’ve taken to trial against Landry, but I don’t intend to be caught in the fallout I envision happening if you keep on pursuing these unfounded allegations.”

With that, he left, and the last of the other attorneys got up to leave. “Landry is good. Damn good, as Andi mentioned. He fights hard but fairly, and he certainly hasn’t tampered with juries on any cases I’ve handled. Count me out of your scheme. Slander actions aren’t anything I care to learn more about, up close and personal.” The parting look he shot at Wells personified repulsion.

Kristine sat, speechless. She stared, disbelieving, at the man who had comforted her when her father had died and left her without a single close relative. The attorney who had written her recommendations for law school and hired her to work as a clerk in his office before she’d even taken the bar.

Tears in her eyes, she recalled a Saturday years ago when Mr. Wells had gone with her, her parents, and Helen in search of treasure at the country club’s annual Easter egg hunt. She couldn’t have been more than five years old at the time, but the memory was still vivid.

Mr. Wells had just flushed more than twenty years’ respect—and eight years of her thinking of the man as the next best thing to having her father back—down the drain. Kristine’s heart ached, but she steeled herself to do what she must.

“Mr. Wells, I’ll be giving you two weeks’ notice.” She hoped he’d tell her to go now but doubted that he would.

His cheeks turned red, and his gaze was fierce when he turned it on her, but his tone was as even as if he were inquiring about the health of a mutual friend. “Might I have the courtesy of hearing your reasons?”

“I think you know, sir.” Kristine didn’t even try to mask her disillusionment.

“Landry. He’s gotten to you, too.”

Yes, Tony definitely had gotten to her. But that wasn’t the reason she couldn’t keep working for Harper Wells any longer than the two weeks’ notice period professional ethics demanded that she offer.

“It’s you, not Tony, who has forced my decision. I don’t want to go into the details, but if you give me no choice—”

“Never mind. Turn in your resignation. I’ll accept it. I would never have believed Dale Granger’s daughter would take up with a lowlife shyster like Tony Landry, but apparently I was wrong. Mark my words, Kristine, you’ll be sorry if you let him drag you down.”

“Tony may come from humble beginnings, but he’s twice the man you are, Mr. Wells. He’d never stoop to do what you just tried to do to him. Excuse me, I have a resignation letter to prepare.”

Tears rolling down her cheeks, Kristine walked out on her former mentor. By the time she reached her own small cubicle and opened the word processor program on her laptop computer, she was sobbing.

“I just quit,” she told Andi when the other woman came and sat on the corner of her desk. “I can’t work for Mr. Wells any longer.”

“I don’t blame you. If I didn’t have Brett to support, I’d be out of here at the speed of light, but with any kind of luck, we’ll have a new boss around here by this time next year, after elections.”

She handed Kristine a Kleenex. “Here. Think of all the fun you can have, coming at us from the other side. I’ll bet Landry will hire you in a minute.”

Kristine sniffed away the last of her tears. “Me? A criminal defense lawyer? I don’t think so.”

But the idea didn’t sound as distasteful as it would have before she’d gotten to know Tony. Before Harper Wells had tainted her outlook on prosecution and Tony had made her view the business of defense in a different light.

“You know, Andi, I don’t think I’m cut out for criminal law at all. I just don’t love the fight the way you do.”

“Then do something else.”

She typed another sentence of her letter while Andi gave her pretty much the same arguments Tony had voiced earlier. “If you don’t find a niche where you fit, Kristine, you’ll tear yourself apart.”

“Look, there are plenty of ways you can help people avoid the trap your sister fell into. Or you could help people who’ve gotten a raw deal when they’ve fallen through cracks in the legal system. If you don’t enjoy prosecuting defendants and you don’t want to defend them, you need to find another specialty.”

Kristine looked at Andi. Suddenly she realized she could make a difference without sending defendants to prison.

She could fight for people like Ezra Ruggles, help them win resources that would aid in their recoveries from injustices that could never be fully compensated. As Tony had suggested, she could redeem herself for Helen by helping crime victims instead of making criminals pay.

“You could become a victim advocate,” Andi said, echoing Kristine’s thoughts. “Whatever you decide, good luck.”

After Andi had left, Kristine finished her letter, printed it, and handed it to Harper Wells’s secretary.

Maybe she’d soon take on another new career too—as Tony’s wife. As she tidied the desk she’d be vacating soon, Kristine recalled his vision of what he wanted from life…from her. It was, she realized, what she wanted, too.

With only one proviso. She needed for Tony to grant her his full trust.

* * * * *

“Big shakeup at the state attorney’s office. Kristine Granger turned in her resignation.”

“Kristine resigned?” The question left his lips before Tony could call it back.

He looked at Hank Ehlers, who’d just come back from a session of plea-bargaining with one of the state attorney’s associates.

“One of the secretaries said she’d just taken Kristine’s letter in to Wells.” Hank separated himself from a gaggle of legal assistants and secretaries who’d gravitated toward the source of the gossip and headed toward Tony’s office.

Tony followed, uncharacteristically anxious to hear more. Had Krissy resigned because of him?

“Do you know why she’s quitting?”

“Word has it over there that she had it out with Wells on account of you.” Hank spread out some files before pulling a chair up close to one corner of Tony’s desk.

“I doubt that.”

But it could be true. Tony hoped it was true. If it was…then Krissy had given up everything she believed in for him. And if she’d done that, he could conclude logically that she loved him.

“I don’t doubt it at all. Brent Cohen said she was pretty adamant about defending you while Wells was doing his best to get at least one of the prosecutors who’ve gone up against you to support him in accusing you of tampering with juries.”

“What in hell are you talking about?”

“Wells is determined to discredit you any way he can, or so Brent said. Word had it he was mad as hell when he couldn’t badger any of his associates who’ve lost to you in court into giving him ammunition to use against you.”

“That’s because there isn’t any ammunition to be had,” Tony snapped. “Sorry, Hank. You know the saying, ‘Kill the messenger…’” He punched some numbers on his phone and apprised the firm’s managing partner of Wells’s latest effort to discredit him.

Hank waited silently until Tony ended the call, then leaned back in his chair and met Tony’s gaze. “No problem. Anyway, Kristine stayed in Wells’s office after everybody else had walked out. She stormed out with tears in her eyes a minute or two later. After she talked a few minutes with Andi Young, she handed a sealed letter to Wells’s secretary. Then she tidied up her desk and left.”

Tony wanted nothing more than to toss Hank out of his office so he could call Kristine, but he forced his mind onto business and reviewed the deals Hank had been able to wring out of the prosecutors on a couple of criminal cases he had no desire to take to trial.

“What do you think?” he asked Hank after going over the state’s offers.

“That you’ll be taking the Gerson case to trial.”

Tony nodded. He’d have had his client, who’d had one too many drinks when he allegedly caused a fatal accident, plead to involuntary vehicular manslaughter if Cohen would have agreed to probation instead of jail time. Since Cohen was insisting on imprisonment for his client, Tony would do his best to win an acquittal.

“Let Cohen know we’ll be trying this one. You can handle the pretrial motions.”

“All right.”

“What about Jernigan?” Tony asked, impatient to be done with business.

Hank explained that the prosecutor had agreed to drop two counts of burglary in return for their client’s guilty plea to a third.

“That sounds fair. What kind of sentence is Cohen willing to accept?”