The Justice Game (45 page)

    Nothing helped. She was going to lose this battle.

    But just when she was ready to concede defeat, she felt a small shift in the current, very subtle—the gradual release of the riptide’s fingers. It was as if the fist of death had been pried opened by the hand of God.

    She swam a few more aching strokes until she had completely cleared the current. She caught her breath by floating on the surface for a few minutes before starting the grind toward shore. She picked the right angle, rode the waves, relaxed between swells, and eventually felt sand under her exhausted legs.

    She walked toward the beach and collapsed on her knees in the ankle-deep water. She stayed there for a minute, trying to catch her breath. How close had she been to dying? How many more minutes could she have fought the tide?

    She knew God had snatched her out of danger. In a private moment that no one else would share or comprehend, He had rescued her. But only after she had quit fighting against the riptide. Only when she had been ready to give up and let the powerful ocean claim its victim. That’s when she had felt Him move.

    Kneeling in the sand, she thought about some verses her dad had often quoted. The words of Jesus, though Kelly couldn’t remember when or where.
If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?

    The whole world—a law career, a reputation, national fame.

    
What do you benefit if you gain the whole world and lose your soul?

    To her horror, Kelly realized how much she had been toying with that bargain. Her pride and her shame had driven her away from God. She had been swimming against the need for repentance and reconciliation, trying to curry His favor with her crusades when what she really needed was mercy and acceptance.

    Kneeling there in the sand, she asked God to forgive her.

First thing Saturday morning, Kelly called her dad. “Can we talk?” she asked.

    “Sure, Kell. What’s up?”

    They had talked a few times during the trial, but Kelly was usually so busy that mostly her dad left voice mail messages telling Kelly how proud he was of the way she was handling the case.

    Last night, she had decided to call him today and tell him everything she had been hiding for the past seven years. But now that he was actually on the phone, it felt awkward.

    “I know you’ve got church tomorrow, but is there any way we could get together for a few minutes? I just really need to see you.”

    Kelly knew that Saturday was her dad’s day to fine-tune his sermon. Rule number one in the Starling house: don’t mess with Dad on Saturday. And the drive from Charlottesville to Virginia Beach one way would take nearly four hours.

    But her dad must have heard the catch in Kelly’s voice. He said he could be there by two that afternoon. He would get someone else to preach the next day. He had wanted to watch her closing argument anyway.

    She backtracked a little and put up some token resistance but it was a done deal.

    Early that afternoon, her dad called from the hotel lobby. He came up to Kelly’s room, and she told him everything.

    They sat on the edge of the bed, and her dad gently assured her of God’s forgiveness. She cried in his arms for what seemed like an hour.

Jason didn’t arrive at the office on Saturday morning until nearly 9 a.m. After his meeting with Kelly on Friday night, he had gone to the Virginia Beach General Hospital ER. The emergency-room staff had made him wait for an hour before they X-rayed his ribs and did a CT scan of his head. Though he hadn’t lost consciousness, they wanted to be cautious.

    The good news was that there was no discernible brain damage, and the ribs were just bruised, not broken. After a few pain pills, Jason managed to get about five hours of sleep.

    The pain was back in full force on Saturday morning, but he needed to think clearly, so he stayed away from the pain medication.

    “Sleeping Beauty’s in the house!” Bella announced when Jason came in the door. He smiled and grimaced all at once.

    “What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

    “I got mugged last night in the parking lot,” Jason said. He figured a half-truth would be easier to remember than an outright lie. This elicited lots of sympathy and required about a ten-minute explanation filled with enough small fibs that Jason was sure he’d never be able to tell it the same way again.

    Lassiter came out to the reception area about halfway through Jason’s explanation, requiring that Jason repeat it from the beginning. Bella cross-examined Jason for a few minutes and gave unsolicited advice on how to treat his injuries. Eventually, Jason managed to change the subject back to the day’s agenda. Both Lassiter and Bella were anxious to go over feedback from the shadow jury. Proposed jury instructions had to be drafted. And Jason needed to prepare his closing argument.

    “How good is Brad Carson?” Jason asked.

    The question about her former boss seemed to surprise Bella. “You mean in court?”

    “Yeah. Do you think he could come over for a few hours and help me with my closing? I need an outside perspective.”

    Bella lit up at the idea. “He’ll come,” she said confidently, “if I have to drag him here myself.”

    Before they got down to the day’s business, Bella handed Jason an envelope. “Somebody slid this under the door last night.”

    It had Jason’s name on it and it was marked
personal and confidential.
Jason recognized his dad’s handwriting. “I’ll meet you guys in the conference room in a minute,” Jason said.

    He went into his office, closed the door, and ripped the envelope open. His hands shook a little as he read the one-page note.

    Jason stared at the note for a long time. He wasn’t really sure how he should react. He knew how it made him feel—thankful, proud, confused. He tried dialing his dad’s number but ended up in voice mail. Later in the day he would call both his sister and Matt Corey. But for now, he just stared at the letter and read a single line over and over and over.

    
I want you to know that I’m proud of you.

    His dad needed help, and today he had finally admitted it. Maybe in a few weeks, they really could get together. Maybe there was hope.

    So long as Jason didn’t blow it all up by forcing Luthor’s hand.

    Jason thought about how hard it had been to write the intervention letter to his dad a few months ago. For the Noble family men, swallowing your pride and being vulnerable did not come easy. It must have been even harder for his dad to write this letter. But admitting that he had an addiction was the first step toward recovery.

    What kind of son would turn on his dad at a time like this?

On Monday morning, Jason swallowed hard and called Chief Ed Poole as a witness for the defense. Poole was a large and powerfully built man with the sloped shoulders of a football lineman. He moved slowly and methodically to the stand, glancing at the jurors as he did so.

    Poole was mostly bald with undersized facial features, gray hair on the sides of his head, and wrinkles that radiated from his eyes and creased his forehead. He was dressed in a gray blazer and white shirt, his tie so tight around his neck that the skin bulged at the top of his collar.

    He seemed comfortable and self-assured. He was a former police chief of a large city. He had seen a few things.

    Jason began by taking the witness through his impressive list of credentials. Like any good expert, Poole seemed reluctant to mention everything he had done and managed to come off as both highly qualified and charmingly humble. When Jason moved to have Poole qualified as an expert on the issue of gun trafficking, there was no objection.

    As Poole testified, he turned periodically to face the jury, throwing in a few wisecracks to keep them amused. He told them that 80 percent of guns used in crimes were purchased by criminals on the street or from their friends and family members. Those sales, of course, were entirely unregulated. Only 11 percent were bought legally at gun stores, and 9 percent of guns used in crimes were purchased illegally at retail stores like Peninsula Arms.

    “What about the designs of the guns?” Jason asked. “The jury’s heard a lot about semi-automatic assault weapons like the MD-9. In what percentage of crimes are these types of guns used?”

    “Actually, not very often,” explained Poole. He proceeded with a lecture about gun nomenclature and how he didn’t even like the phrase “semi-automatic assault weapon” because it was so misleading. At the end of his lecture, he looked back at Jason. “What was the question again?”

    “In how many crimes are these types of guns used as compared to other types of guns?”

    “Oh yeah,” said Poole, smiling. “Less than one in ten.”

    Jason ended with his payoff question. “Do you have an opinion, to a reasonable degree of certainty, as to whether Larry Jamison could have obtained a gun from the black market even if every gun store in America had refused to sell him one?”

    Poole laughed. “Surveys show that nearly 60 percent of high school boys say they can obtain access to a gun if they need to. That’s high school, Mr. Noble. For an adult like Jamison, give him a few hundred bucks and a few hours on the streets of downtown Norfolk, and you can take your pick.”

    Jason didn’t return the witness’s self-satisfied smile. “Thank you, Chief Poole. Please answer any questions that Ms. Starling might have.”

    Kelly stood quickly, anxious to attack. She was wearing a blue pin-striped matching jacket and skirt, navy blue heels, and a white blouse. She looked even leaner than normal, professional and sophisticated. Unlike Jason, she looked well rested.

    
How did she sleep at all last night?
Jason wondered. In the mirror that morning, his own bloodshot eyes had reflected another sleepless night. He had thrown on a suit that he had worn three times in two weeks without taking it to the dry cleaner and barely made it to the courthouse on time.

    “Are your answers, given under oath and under penalty of perjury, all truthful and correct?” Kelly asked.

    Poole leaned back a little and grunted, as if Kelly didn’t know whom she was accusing. “Of course.”

    “Have you ever lied under oath?”

    “Absolutely not.”

    “Are you presently in the midst of divorce proceedings?”

    Jason stood and objected. But it was merely a formality; he knew Garrison would overrule him.

    “I’ll link it up,” Kelly promised. “It goes directly to his credibility.”

    “You’re on a short leash, but go ahead,” Garrison said.

    Poole sighed heavily and shot daggers at Kelly. “Yes. Though I consider it none of your business, my wife and I are getting divorced.”

    “Did you have to file an accounting in your divorce case, under oath, that detailed all your assets?”

    Poole started to turn a little red around the ears. “Yes… and I did.”

    “
All
of your assets?”

    “Of course.”

    “You didn’t hide any secret accounts that you had used, let’s say… to pay a mistress?”

    The courtroom buzzed, and Poole’s brow furrowed—indignation giving way to concern.

    “Objection!” Jason said.

    “Overruled.”

    “I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Poole said. “Or what it has to do with this case.”

    Kelly smiled. She walked over to Jason’s chair and handed him a copy of the bank documents he had seen the week before. She asked the court reporter to mark for identification a copy of a bank statement as Plaintiff’s Exhibit 33 and a cell phone bill as Plaintiff’s Exhibit 34. “May I approach the witness?” she asked Judge Garrison.

    “Yes.”

    She handed the documents to a stricken Poole. “Can you identify what’s been marked as Plaintiff’s Exhibit 33 and Plaintiff’s Exhibit 34?”

    Poole took his time looking at both documents. Kelly stood in front of him, unmoving, like an avenging angel. “Well?” Kelly asked.