FOR WILL CHAMBERS, WINNING IN COURT had always been the first thing and the last thing. But now—and in fact for a long time—it was not enough. Now it merely provided him with a handy excuse for celebration, usually alone, usually drinking himself into the regions of full-blown self-pity, of which he was already hovering at the borders on a daily basis.
Driving back on Interstate 95 after winning Tiny Heftland’s case, Will entertained the idea of going straight back to the office. Working through lunch. Getting things under control at the office. As he cruised along in his Corvette convertible with the music blasting he decided to turn his cell phone off. He started to sour on the idea of skipping lunch. He needed to celebrate.
Will pulled off the freeway and into Monroeville. He decided he would go over to the Red Rooster tavern and grab a sandwich and a few drinks.
At the tavern, he ordered a steak sandwich but only took a few bites. He downed several vodkas while he pretended to watch the Orioles game on the overhead television.
Will lost track of time. But he got to thinking that maybe he had had too much to drink. He figured that he would go to the office, put in an hour or so, and then go home early and sleep it off.
When he pulled up in front of the law firm building he noticed a truck parked in front with men loading it. On his way up the stairs he noticed the moving men were carrying furniture that looked familiar. Then he realized they were walking down with the lobby chairs from his office. He began to run up the stairs but missed a step and almost fell facedown.
Jacki Johnson was waiting for him in the empty lobby area of the office.
“What is going on?” Will yelled out.
“We’ve been trying to call you on your cell phone.”
“Well, what can I say?” Jacki said, visibly upset. “Things are real bad. The partners voted you out, Will. They’re taking you out of the firm. They pulled the plug on you. The partnership property—the furniture and everything—is being taken down to the Richmond office. They’re closing the office here in Monroeville.”
Jacki could see that Will was thunderstruck.
“I’m really sorry to hit you with this,” she continued. “They’re sending you a check for your share of your partnership interest—less the amounts they say are due to the firm from you. We got the message by email and then by fax just a few minutes before the moving men arrived. They’ve taken all the files, and they say they have contacted all the clients. You’re closed out for good, Will—I’m so sorry.”
“This is not the partners, I’m telling you that right now. This is all because of that twisted ‘managing partner’ Hadley Bates—he’s behind this, that little scumbucket.” Will ran toward the telephone in his office.
Jacki grabbed him and looked him in the eye.
“You’ve been drinking,” she said in an irritated voice.
“I’m going to kill that…”
“No. You’re not going to pick up the phone, not right now. If you do, you’ll end up saying something to Hadley that you’ll regret.”
“He can’t do this.”
“He can. And he did. You have to move on. I think I’d better drive you home in your car. Betty can follow us in mine.”
Will was shaking with rage, but he was too humiliated to look at Jacki, so he kept his back to her.
“Come on,” Jacki said sympathetically, putting her hand on his back. “I’m going to drive you home to that big old mansion of yours. I just wish you had someone to be with you tonight.”
“I’ll be fine,” Will muttered, but his voice was barely audible.
Jacki drove Will’s Corvette away from the office with Will sitting in the passenger seat.
“This is ridiculous,” Will snapped, “I had two drinks.”
“Oh? Just two?”
“Maybe three.”
“That’s all you’d need now. To get arrested for DUI. You know, you don’t need an assistant lawyer. What you need is a full-time nanny, a drill sergeant, and a priest, all rolled into one. And frankly, Will, that person is not me.”
“Give me a break.”
“No. You give me a break. I tell people you’re one of my heroes. Which is really a remarkable thing considering the fact you’re white, and you’re a guy. But I’m tired of handling your screwups, like that client conference this morning.”
“What client conference?”
Jacki sighed heavily and shook her head.
“There is other stuff going on out there in the world, Will, besides your pain. You are going to have to get around to doing whatever you have to do—forgiving yourself for Audra—getting on with your life. Check yourself into rehab. I don’t know.”
“I’m no alcoholic.”
“Maybe not. But I’m seeing you heading for a cliff. And I’d rather not go along for the ride.”
Then Jacki took her left hand off the steering wheel and, reaching over across to Will, waved her hand in front of his face.
“Look at this, Will, what do you see?” Jacki asked.
“Nice manicure.”
“The ring, Will, the ring. Howard proposed to me two weeks ago. I’ve been wearing this diamond on my finger for two weeks. I wanted to see how long it took you to climb out of that cave you live in and notice it.”
“I noticed it.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything? ‘Congratulations.’ ‘Jacki, I’m happy for you.’ Anything.”
Will looked at her, then he laid his head back against the headrest, and looked out the window.
“Congratulations.”
They drove in silence for a few minutes. Then Jacki said, “We need to talk business, Will. You and me. My life is taking a different turn now. Howard and I are going to be married. I have to have my career settled. I can’t afford to work in an office where I don’t know what my future is.”
“Come on, you know what your future is with me.”
“Do I? Hadley said in his e-mail that the firm has secured written consents from every one of your clients in the last forty-eight hours—to dump you, now that you are out of the firm, and to continue with the firm instead.”
“Every client? He’s a liar.”
“Let me amend that,” Jacki said. “Every client except two. One is that big loser Tiny Heftland. Bates said that you can have him, and any money due to the firm from him—as if you will ever recover it—you can keep. And then there’s just one other client.”
“Yeah. Well, I just finished Tiny’s latest case today, so I guess that means I’ve got only one client.”
“What happened in court?”
“We won. Great, huh? A victory for a nonpaying client, and on the same day that I get booted out of my law firm.”
“Will, stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Listen, Jacki, Hadley has got to know that I will be taking him to court over the way he is dissolving my partnership share.”
“You want a friend’s advice?” Jacki’s voice was rising. “And frankly, I may be one of your only friends right now. Let it go. If you need to negotiate the figures with Hadley, let me work on him for you. But don’t make this a bloodbath.”
“Okay, so where do you fit in this mess?” Will asked.
“Hadley wants me to stay on with the firm—relocate up to the D.C. office,” Jacki said, a little bit more softly. “Which actually works out well, I guess, because I’m barred in D.C. And Howard works up in northern Virginia, so I would be closer to him and have a shorter commute. And what I guess I am saying is this—Will, I can’t afford to stay on with you if you’re going to go it solo now. I mean really, besides Tiny, you’ve got only one client.”
“Jacki, listen to me. I can build up the practice in a very short period of time. I want you to hang in there with me.”
“Will, I don’t want this to be any harder than it already is. Maybe I can help you out a little here or there, on the side. You know, if you need someone to cover for a deposition once in a while or do some legal research. But I have to stick with the firm. I know that sounds like I’m copping out on you. But my mind is made up. I’m sorry.”
Will gazed ahead blankly and said nothing for a few minutes. Jacki had made her point. He had been her mentor and friend. As of late she had covered for him, and even nurse-maided him since his wife had died. But that was all changing now. As Will sat slumped down in the seat of his prized Corvette, his long hair whipping in the wind, he was simply tired of fighting—tired of caring.
Finally Jacki broke the silence.
“So, you want to know something about your sole survivor? The single client that you’ve got left?”
“Yeah. Who’s the lucky winner?” Will asked sardonically.
“Angus MacCameron. Reverend MacCameron to be exact. He’s the new client I took for you this morning. A little weird—he actually made me take a ‘loyalty oath’—he wanted to make sure I believed in God. I’m going to be real interested to see whether he asks you the same question.”
Will gave Jacki a strange, puzzled look. It was the kind of look you would expect from someone at a Chinese restaurant who had just opened a fortune cookie and then read his own name inside.
Jacki continued talking, not noticing Will’s expression. She was looking for the cross street to start leaving the city—to leave the historic district with the two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old churches and the little shops and houses that were cloistered together, shoulder to shoulder—with their wood-planked front doors and black-iron door knockers—tucked up close to the cobblestone sidewalks of Monroeville.
“So this MacCameron definitely has a one-of-a-kind case. He wants to be defended in a defamation and libel case. You’ve really got to read the Complaint to believe it. Angus MacCameron and his magazine, Digging for Truth, are both defendants. He’s alleged to have written an article that libeled this big-wig professor about an archaeology discovery,” Jacki explained. “Some kind of ancient writing found over in Israel. The plaintiff—Dr. Reichstad—has published some scholarly journal stuff about the writing—it’s apparently a two-thousand-year-old piece of papyrus. Reichstad has been saying that the fragment proves that Jesus was never resurrected. MacCameron really flipped out over that and then wrote some nasty stuff about Reichstad in his little magazine.”
“Angus MacCameron. Why is this sounding familiar?” Will was musing.
“I don’t know,” Jacki replied. “You sounded like you didn’t know about the appointment.”
“I don’t remember this meeting being scheduled,” Will commented. “But Tiny was telling me about referring some new case to me. Oh man, this must be the case.” Will gave out a low groan. “You know, I don’t think Tiny has sent a decent case over to me in all the years I’ve known him.”
“No, that’s not true. Remember that case involving the police chief—I think that one was a referral from Tiny. Remember? The city wanted to terminate him for drinking on the job.”
“Yeah. I guess you’re right,” Will said, sounding distracted and distant.
“What was the deal on that case?”
“They said he showed up drunk at a bank robbery in progress.”
“Yeah, that’s it. He was the chief of police of some small town in southern Virginia, wasn’t he?” Jacki asked.
“Yep.”
“Yeah,” Jacki said, “I remember that. They had the bank surrounded. A single gunman was holding some hostages. And somebody died, right?”
“An officer died in a shoot-out,” Will responded quietly. “The board of inquiry blamed him for giving the order to go in shooting rather than waiting for the hostage negotiators. They said his drinking was a contributing factor.”
“So how did the case end?” Jacki continued.
“I got him his job back. There was a technical mistake in the way they fired him. We won on a procedural argument.”
“Whatever happened to him—the police chief?”
Will was silent.
“What ever happened to that guy?” Jacki asked again.
“He died.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
Will was silent again, but Jacki probed a little more. “So what was the deal with that guy? Did he stay on with the police department awhile, before he died?”
Will didn’t respond at first. But when he did, his voice was almost inaudible.
“After we won the case I tried to contact him. I called him at his house. He hadn’t showed up at the police station for a couple of days. He didn’t answer the phone. So I took a drive over to his house. His car was parked outside. The shades were drawn, so I couldn’t see in. I knocked on the door. No answer. I called the police.” Will paused for a few seconds. Then he concluded. “They broke down the door. They found him sitting in a chair with a glass of booze in his hand. Eyes wide open. His liver disintegrated—or he had a heart attack—something like that.”
They were in the Virginia countryside now, and Jacki pulled the Corvette into the long driveway that led, through the arch of trees, up to Generals’ Hill.
Jacki pulled the car to a stop near the front pillars of the old mansion, and then turned it off. She eased back in the seat for a moment. There was only the sound of the breeze rustling in the leaves, and a few birds up in the trees.
“Can he pay? This MacCameron guy?” Will asked.
“He’s got funding from the magazine, so he may be able to pay a fairly substantial retainer. I really didn’t talk money with him. I figured you ought to do that. His daughter, Fiona, was with him. She’s some kind of Christian singer. A very classy-looking woman. I did notice she didn’t have a wedding ring, which is interesting. Especially with a face that looks like it belongs on a fashion magazine. I got the feeling she’s sort of looking after dear old Dad. But Dad says he won’t take a penny of his daughter’s money—he insists on funding his defense himself. This guy MacCameron, he’s really a hoot. You know, a real ‘praise the Lord’ type, except I think he’s Scottish or something. And I read the article he wrote against this Dr. Reichstad; it’s something else. He brought the article with him. He really goes after Reichstad.”
“Oh. Like how?” Will asked, trying to act uninterested.
“Like accusing him of fraudulent scholarship in interpreting this piece of ancient writing he found. And MacCameron even implicated Reichstad in the murder of an archaeologist friend of his in Jerusalem.”
“Boy, that’s a bad start to the case. Accusations of professional incompetence, coupled with the imputation of the commission of a crime. Classic examples of defamation per se,” Will noted. “Tiny told me J-Fox is representing the plaintiff. Arguing a case against Sherman is like getting your teeth drilled.”
“Yeah. This Professor Reichstad must be really well-connected to snag the Sherman firm,” Jacki said, her voice trailing off. And then she added, with some genuine empathy, “Will, even if the money for your fees is there, maybe you need to let this case go. Sherman is going to try to bury you,” Jacki continued. “Once he finds out that you are on your own, and that you’re out of the firm, he’s going to smell blood—it’s going to be like a great white shark in a feeding frenzy. Not that you couldn’t handle it. But is it worth the hassle? Maybe you ought to cash in your 401(k) and just take some time off.”
But Jacki could already see that Will was thinking about the case.
“Anyway,” Jacki continued, “the way MacCameron describes it, this Reichstad is a media hound, and he’s clearly a public figure. So that means that your only real defense is to prove a lack of actual malice on MacCameron’s part. I mean, that’s basically what your defense would be, right?”
Jacki’s question hung in the air as the leaves rustled around them in the treetops.
“Maybe not.”
“Oh?” Jacki gave Will a strange little smile. “So what’s the defense? I mean, assuming you even want to get involved in this dogfight. What would the defense be?”
“Truth,” Will said as he reached over for the car keys and pulled them out of the ignition.
And then added as he climbed out of the car, “Truth is always a defense to a lawsuit for libel and defamation.”
Down at the bottom of the long, winding driveway Betty pulled up with Jacki’s car.
“You going to be okay?” Jacki asked.
“Sure. Me and Clarence. A man and his dog.”
Jacki then told him, with strained optimism, “I checked on our office space. The rent is paid up through the month. The firm gave notice they were vacating. I called the landlord. I hope that was okay. I told him that you would be personally renting the space from then on. He said you can keep working out of the same office, as long as you can come up with the rent.”
“Fine. Say hello to Howard for me,” Will said. “Tell him he is a very lucky man.”
“Look, it will take me a couple days to clear out. So you’ll be seeing some more of me. I do think you will have to talk to Betty. She wants to know if you can afford to keep her on,” Jacki added.
“Tell her I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”
“I’ll do that,” Jacki called out as she made her way down the driveway. “Oh, don’t forget, you’ve got this Reverend MacCameron coming back in again tomorrow. He wants to meet you personally.”
Will Chambers waved goodbye and trudged in the front door. Clarence, his golden retriever, came loping across the living room, his big pink tongue flapping. Will gave his dog’s head a quick pat as he headed for the liquor cabinet.