The Lawyer's Lawyer

CHAPTER Twenty-Eight



Jesus, can they make these damn trucks any smaller? If they’re going to sell them in America, they should make them to fit Americans.”

Jack was mildly amused watching Henry negotiate the passenger side of his Toyota pickup. The man was just too big. His knees were banging against the underside of the glove compartment and the rest of his body was squished against the passenger door. He’d been squirming for the last three hours. Now he was starting to voice his complaints.

“They do make them for normal Americans, Henry, but you don’t fit into that category.”

“You don’t look so comfortable over there yourself,” Henry grumbled.

It was true. Jack wasn’t a small man either, although he wasn’t Henry’s size and he didn’t have his bulk. Still, he’d have been a lot more comfortable in the Suburban.

“Why didn’t we bring the Suburban?” Henry asked as if he’d read Jack’s mind.

“They have a great tree farm up in Tallahassee. I want to buy some trees and stick them in the pickup and take them home.”

“Haven’t you ever heard of shipping? You order the trees, have them shipped, and we drive to Tallahassee in comfort.”

“It’s not that easy. I like to see the trees and get a feel for them before I buy them. And I like the idea of transporting them myself.”

Henry just looked at him. “When did you become Chauncey Gardener?”

“What are you talking about? I’ve always liked to garden.”

“Yeah, and I always liked to play the violin, only I never had one. Your gardener quit last year. That’s when you started this stuff.”

“Okay. And I found I liked it. It’s soothing. It calms me. Do you have problems with that, Mister Macho Man?”

“No. Whatever floats your boat is fine with me, honey. The only thing I have problems with is this damn truck. What are we going to Tallahassee for anyway? I mean, what am I going for?”

“Ben wants to talk to us.”

“Us? Ben has never talked to me in my life except to say hello a few times. Do you know what it’s about?”

“I have no idea. I assume it’s a case.”

Ben Chapman was the executive director of Exoneration, the anti–death penalty advocacy group where both Jack and Henry donated their services, Jack as a lawyer and Henry as his investigator.

“Does he normally ask you to come talk to him personally about a case?” Henry asked.

“Never. It’s usually done by telephone, mail, or e-mail.”

“Then this must be something very unusual. What the hell does he want to talk to me about—how to investigate?”

“I have no idea, Henry. I have no idea.”



They found out soon enough. Their appointment was the next morning, Monday, at nine sharp. Ben Chapman was waiting for them. He was a mid-sized portly man, mid- to late-fifties, with a shaved head, a short gray beard, and a deep voice. Chapman was an attorney like Jack, but that’s where the similarity ended. He’d been a transactional lawyer with a tax background and had made his considerable fortune from acquisitions of all kinds, often taking a piece of a deal that he put together as his fee. After he’d been retired for a couple of years and bored stiff, he looked for a challenge to sink his teeth in. A Texas death penalty case he’d read about, in which a man had been executed for killing his wife and children and was later determined to be innocent, got him interested in the process. Then he started reading about other injustices, mostly across the South, and he was hooked. Unlike Jack, Chapman couldn’t offer his legal services since he had no experience in the courtroom, so he offered his considerable organizational skills. Before long, he was running Exoneration.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said in that booming voice of his. “Have you had any coffee?”

“We did. We just had breakfast,” Jack replied.

“Well, come on in then.” Chapman led them into his office, where they sat down in the two chairs in front of his desk.

“Are your accommodations okay?” He had set them up in a luxury hotel.

“Very nice, thank you,” Jack said.

“Good, let’s get to it then.” He handed them both a one-page document. “This is a very brief summary of the case of Thomas Felton. Have either of you heard of him?”

“I have,” Jack said. “He was the serial killer in Oakville about ten years ago.”

“Correct, although he was never convicted of being a serial killer. He was convicted of a double homicide.”

“But as I recall,” Jack continued, “the murder weapon had been identified from a previous murder.”

“That’s almost correct,” Chapman said. “Actually, there was an attempted murder, and the young lady who survived identified the weapon. She was subsequently killed, by the way.”

“So I take it,” Jack said, “that you want Henry and me to get involved in Mr. Felton’s case.”

“Precisely. The death warrant has been signed. His execution is scheduled for March fourteenth, and our office has been assigned to represent him in any post-conviction relief. The chief judge of Apache County has appointed Circuit Judge Andrew Holbrook to hear any post-conviction motions, and he’s set a status conference for the thirty-first of this month. That’s two weeks from now. We need to look at the case and decide if we want to file anything at that time. The judge, if he is going to set an evidentiary hearing, has to do it between the thirty-first of January and March fourteenth, leaving time for our client to appeal to the Supreme Court. We’re under the gun, gentlemen.”

“I don’t—”

Before Jack could finish his sentence, Chapman cut him off. “Before you say no, Jack, I want you to hear me out. This is the case we’ve been looking for. Nothing is more high profile than a serial killer. This is a circumstantial evidence case and, frankly, the evidence isn’t that strong. It’s pretty much all hearsay, or hearsay exceptions. Since the girl who originally identified the weapon is dead, the police officer she identified the weapon to testified in her place. So the weapon from a previous attempted murder was found at the scene, outside of the apartment in the woods, and that was the sole basis for the conviction. This guy was convicted because they were desperate to catch somebody.”

“You’re forgetting a couple of things, Ben.”

“What’s that?”

“Felton’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon and the murders stopped after Felton was arrested and convicted.”

“All I want to do is stop the execution. If Felton stays in prison for the rest of his life, I’m okay with that.”

“What if he gets off?”

“We don’t necessarily want that.”

“You don’t always get what you want, Ben. We could find a technicality that nobody came up with before. If I took Felton’s case, I would be ethically bound to give him the best representation I could muster. I can’t pick and choose how I’m going to represent him. So I have to make a determination at the outset if I want to give my best efforts to represent an alleged serial killer knowing that I might possibly get him off.”

Ben Chapman could see he was losing Jack. It was something he had anticipated. He had to approach the issue from another direction. This was where Henry came into the equation.

“Let’s just take this out of the realm of Mr. Felton for a second and look at the bigger picture. What is our work here? What is our goal? We want to eliminate the death penalty. We know the criminal justice system is flawed. Henry is a concrete example of that. He wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t exposed the flaws in the system, Jack.

“You’re the best lawyer we have. There’s no doubt about that. You’re a lawyer’s lawyer. But frankly, Jack, you cherry-pick your cases. You look to represent only those people you believe are innocent. So, in your cases, you’re not necessarily putting the death penalty on trial. The Felton case is high profile. It’s a circumstantial evidence case. We have the best opportunity we have ever had to expose the death penalty and the flaws in the criminal justice system to the world.”

“To what end though, Ben? I mean, is it better to expose the flaws in our system of justice and let a very dangerous man walk?”

“I’m not talking about letting this guy walk, Jack. I’m after the issue of capital punishment. I don’t need an answer now. Think it over. We can meet tomorrow or possibly the next day, but I need an answer soon.”



When they were outside the offices and headed for the parking lot, Henry finally piped up. “Boy, it’s much colder up here in North Florida,” he said, rubbing his hands up and down his upper arms.

“Yeah,” Jack mumbled. He was still mulling over Chapman’s words in his head. It was chilly, but the sun was shining and the wind wasn’t too bad.

“Now I know why he wanted me here,” Henry said when they were in the car and driving back to the hotel.

“Why is that?”

“He figures I’ll convince you to take the case. I’m his ace in the hole. He brings the two of us up here, goes through that dog and pony show, and leaves me to work on you for the next day or so.”

“And why is he so sure of you? You said he doesn’t even know you.”

“He doesn’t. But he does know that I spent seventeen years on death row. He assumes that I am a staunch opponent of the death penalty because of my own experience.”

“And?” Jack asked.

“You know I am. But I’m not necessarily opposed to some wacko serial killer being fried. I mean, nobody should ever mistake me for being a bleeding heart.”

“I certainly wouldn’t, Henry. Not after Oakville.” Jack was referring to the killing of the man who had been about to shoot him while he was jogging. It was something they had never spoken about. Since he’d brought the subject up, Jack decided to get some closure at the same time. “That is over, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Henry said without acknowledging his part in anything. “The Eel called me a few days later and said it was finished. It’s one less thing you have to worry about, Jack.”

“Good. I won’t bring it up again. Now back to this man on death row. You’re forgetting something, aren’t you, Henry?”

“What’s that, Jack?”

“A lot of people said pretty much the same thing about you. Nobody gave a rat’s ass about a career criminal like you going to meet his maker.”

“One slight difference, Jack: You don’t rehabilitate serial killers. They’re like vampires. You have to cut out their heart to make them stop.”

“Just because it’s a serial killer case, everybody, including you, assumes this guy is guilty. He could be innocent.”

“You’re the one who pointed out that Felton’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon and that the killings stopped after he was arrested.”

“The prints are pretty substantial evidence, but I don’t think the same way about the cessation of the murders. Serial killers for the most part are not stupid. And, contrary to popular opinion, most of them don’t want to get caught. So somebody gets arrested for the murders. It’s a perfect time to move on. The killings don’t stop, they just move to a different location. That can be new and exciting for a killer.”

“I guess you’re right,” Henry said. “You know, Jack, for a guy who has been clean as a whistle his whole life, you do a good job getting inside of the heads of criminals. So what are you going to do?”

“Don’t know yet.”

“And what’s a lawyer’s lawyer? I never heard that term before until Chapman said it.”

“It’s just a figure of speech.”

“What does it mean?”

“It’s a term to describe a really good lawyer—you know, the guy other lawyers want when they get in trouble.”

They arrived at the hotel. Henry slid out of the passenger seat chuckling.

“What’s so funny?” Jack asked.

“I was just thinking,” Henry said. “What happens to the lawyer’s lawyer when the lawyer’s lawyer needs a lawyer?”

“Is that a tongue twister? And why would you think it was funny that I wouldn’t have a lawyer?”

“I don’t know—sick sense of humor, I guess. Besides, I’m the only one of us who gets in trouble and I’ve got you.”

“Babe.”

“What?”

Jack was laughing now. “I’ve got you—babe.”

“I don’t know about you, Jack. I think I just might get my own room.”

Jack was still laughing. “More space for me. You were never meant for a double room anyway, Henry. And I won’t have to wear earplugs anymore.”

“Jesus, Jack, you’re brutal. Gimme a break, will ya?”

“You don’t mess with the lawyer’s lawyer, Henry.”



The next morning at eight, Jack called Chapman’s office and set an appointment for eleven. He hadn’t made up his mind yet but he wanted to set a deadline for himself. That left him three hours to bounce things off of Henry.

“I don’t mind taking the case. I really don’t. I think there’s merit in arguing that this was a circumstantial evidence case and that it doesn’t merit the death penalty. I mean, the murders were gruesome enough to warrant it, but the evidence was a little flimsy, at least according to Chapman. I haven’t seen anything yet.

“The thing that bothers me, and I don’t know why, maybe it’s just a feeling—what if there’s a loophole and this guy goes free? Do I want that on my conscience?”

They were at breakfast in the hotel dining room: silver coffee pot, cloth napkins, white table cloth.

“Don’t you have to ask that question in every case, Jack? I mean, you weren’t absolutely positive that I was innocent, were you? Yet, you got me set free.”

“I was pretty sure of you, Henry. I’d have staked my life on you by the time it was all over.”

“Why don’t you give this Felton guy the same opportunity to convince you of his innocence? Tell Chapman you’ll review the file and you’ll visit Felton and then you’ll make your decision.”

“He won’t like that. He wants me to represent Felton whether he’s innocent or not.”

“Who cares what he wants? You’re not looking at him when you look in the mirror in the morning.”

“I could still make a mistake.”

“You could, but you convinced me of something last night, Jack. Something I had not thought about in a while. This man might be innocent and you, my friend, are probably the only person capable of saving him from his date with the grim reaper.”

The two men’s eyes met. They didn’t often go back there because they didn’t need to. Henry was reminding Jack, as Jack had reminded him just the night before, that one man through his faith and his tenacity can make a transforming difference in another man’s life.

“Chapman made the right decision asking you to come along, Henry.”

“Good, because it’s going to cost him. Did I tell you I’m flying back to Miami, Jack? I want you and your trees to have an opportunity to bond.”



The meeting at eleven didn’t go that well. Chapman was furious that Jack put conditions on whether he would represent Felton.

“We’ve only got two months, Jack. What if you review the files and meet with Felton and decide not to take the case? It will be too late to get somebody else in and do an effective job.”

“No, it won’t. You’ve got the files right here.” Jack pointed to four boxes leaning against the wall in Chapman’s office. They hadn’t been there the day before, and Jack correctly surmised that they were the files on Thomas Felton’s case. Chapman had been pretty sure of himself.

“I can get through those files in a week and meet with Felton the following week. I probably want to meet with him at least twice before the case management conference with Judge Holbrook. Meanwhile, you can line up an alternate if I don’t take the case. I will certainly work with whoever you get to bring them up to speed. I’ll even attend the case management conference with that person.”

Chapman wasn’t satisfied although he had no choice but to acquiesce. Jack was not going to budge.

“Okay, Jack, you’ve got two weeks.”