The Lawyer's Lawyer

CHAPTER Sixty-Three



Tom didn’t talk to Jack before he was taken back to his jail cell. Instead, he went looking for Henry.

“I need you to come back with me to the jail. We’ve got to talk some sense into Jack.”

Up to that point, Henry had not been involved much in the trial strategy and he had not been in on Jack and Tom’s conversations during the trial, so he didn’t know with any specificity what Tom was talking about.

“Sure, I’ll go with you,” he said.

Jack was in his usual position when they arrived, stretched out on the bed in his yellow jumpsuit with his back propped up against the wall and his hands behind his head. Tom sat across from him on an empty cot. Henry, not particularly fond of jail cells, leaned against the far wall after Jack gave him a big hug. They had not seen each other in a few days.

“So why did you ask to approach the judge there at the end?” Jack asked Tom.

“I wanted him to adjourn early so I could come back here and talk to you about the cross-examination of Danni Jansen.”

“I thought I was clear. I don’t want you to cross-examine her. Look, I know that last part was a surprise to you. I hadn’t thought about the night I visited her and so I didn’t tell you about it. I didn’t expect her to testify about it either. I was almost as surprised as you. But she told you the truth today. All you had to do was look at her and you could see that she did not want to be there. She probably gave Sam the information in a conversation and then they subpoenaed her to court. I don’t want you to cross-examine her. Period.”

“Do you realize she just cemented the State’s case against you with that testimony about you coming out of the woods? If we don’t attack her credibility with every weapon we have, this case may be all over. I know you like this woman, Jack, but she’s not your friend.”

“It’s not about me liking her, Tom. I trust her. I trust her to tell the truth.”

“Henry, will you talk some sense into him?”

Henry looked at Jack, and the two men just smiled.

Tom thought they were crazy. Jack was on trial for his life, and they were smiling like two kids who had a big secret between them.

“What’s going on here? Do you two know something I don’t?”

“You’re a fisherman, Tom,” Jack said. “You’ve told me about your lake house and how you like to go out on your boat alone and fish.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well, Henry and I fish together, and we talk constantly. One of the things we talk about is how people always see others so clearly and never see themselves.”

“I’m not following you at all.”

“Jack trusted me,” Henry said. “He believed in me when nobody else did. Both he and I trust Danni Jansen to tell the truth.”

“I’m lost. How the hell does that have anything to do with your fishing conversations?”

“You,” Henry continued. “You think you see us clearly but you don’t because you don’t see yourself.”

“I can’t believe I’m sitting in this jail cell and asking this question, but I guess I’ll go along with you for shits and giggles—how do I not see myself?”

“You’re just like us,” Jack said. “You believe in your people when nobody else does. You believed in Rufus Porter—that black man you represented who was accused of rape—when nobody else believed in him.”

“There’s a big difference between my believing in Rufus Porter and the two of you believing in this Danni woman.”

“And just what is that big difference, Tom?” Jack asked.

“Rufus and Henry were telling the truth. Danni Jansen isn’t. Everything she said under oath today might be technically true, but deep down in her core, whether she comes to grips with it or not, she knows that Sam Jeffries has set you up. She may be lying to herself about it, but it’s still a lie.”

They were silent for a minute or two as Tom’s words sank in. Then Henry spoke.

“Tom’s right, Jack. She was with you that day. She has to at least suspect that Jeffries set you up. She also has to know something about what happened ten years ago when that bowie knife was planted. Jeffries is lying about that, too.”

“Look,” Jack said. “She worked with Sam Jeffries for twenty years. She went through the murder of his wife and then his daughter with him. She has to believe in him to a certain extent. She may have had some doubt but not enough to refuse to testify as to what she knows. I’m not going after her.”

“It may cost you your life, Jack,” Tom said.

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Don’t be foolish, Jack.”

“It may look that way to you, Tom, but this is who I am. I can’t go after somebody I believe in.”

Tom stood up to leave.

“I’m through trying to talk sense into you. That woman abandoned you when she took that stand today. She knew exactly what she was doing. She may not have liked it, but she did it.”