The Color of Law

FIFTEEN

Scott Fenney led a double life: at the law firm, he was a successful lawyer practicing law like he played football-winning at all costs, working the margins, gaming the system, bending the rules, mastering the art of aggressive and creative lawyering, and making lots of money. At home, he was a good man, a faithful husband to Rebecca and a loving father to Boo, in whom each night at bedtime he tried to instill the virtues of living a good and decent life. Rebecca didn’t want to know what he did each day at the office and Boo didn’t need to know. The only part of his lawyer life he brought home each night was the money.

All lawyers lead such a Jekyll-and-Hyde life, diligently maintaining a strict separation between their dual lives, lying to their wives and children, and hiding their lawyer lives like a drug addict hides his illegal habit. Scott always told everyone he was a lawyer, but he never told anyone what he did as a lawyer. A lawyer learns that such matters are best left at the law firm. You walk into the office each morning and become a successful lawyer; you leave each night and become a good man again. But with each night, the transformation back-from Hyde to Jekyll-becomes harder. The lawyer in you doesn’t want to let go. But you beat it back because you cannot allow the boundary between your two lives to be breached. Scott Fenney had never brought his lawyer life home- never! — until the day he brought home a nine-year-old black girl.

Pajamae Jones was now part of his life-both lives. She was part of his home life, her mother part of his lawyer life. She loved her mother, and he was her mother’s lawyer. His decisions as her mother’s lawyer would determine if she had a mother much longer: if he said yes to Dan Ford, he was sending Pajamae’s mother to death row. The boundary between his dual lives had been breached, and now, like the last two teams standing at the end of a long season set to play for the championship, his two lives-Dan Ford versus Pajamae Jones-were locked in a life-and-death struggle for Scott Fenney’s soul.

I need an answer for McCall. Now.

Are the po-lice gonna kill my mama, too?

Would he be the lawyer Dan Ford wanted him to be? Or the man Pajamae needed him to be? He could no longer be both. He had to choose between his two lives. He had to face it head-on, like all those times when the blocking broke down and number 22 found himself alone on a football field facing five defenders. Then, as now, he had a choice to make: step out of bounds before getting hit or charge forward and take the hits and make the extra yards. Football coaches call those moments “gut checks,” because it is in those moments when you find out what you’re made of.

Scott Fenney was facing a gut check.

The trial date was one week closer, and Scott was sitting at the small table in the small room at the federal detention center next to Bobby and across from Shawanda. She was happy, upbeat, and full of energy. Bobby was showing her photos from Carl’s background checks.

“This is Clark in his better days. He ever try to pick you up before that night?”

She shook her head. “No, sir. Course, drunk white boys all look the same on Saturday night.”

Bobby held up another photo. “The honorable senator.”

Shawanda stared at the image of Mack McCall and said, “He make my skin crawl.”

“Yeah.” Bobby pointed to a big bald man standing in the background of the same photo. “You ever see this guy?”

“No, sir…and I wouldn’t forget that face.”

Scott said, “Who’s he?”

“Delroy Lund, McCall’s bodyguard. His goon, according to Carl. Ex-DEA. Carl says he can smell a dirty cop a mile away.”

“So what’s he got to do with the case?”

Bobby shook his head. “Nothing.”

“So Carl came up empty?”

“Yeah, but he never quits looking.”

With that news, Scott decided to make one last attempt to convince his client to accept the plea offer. “Shawanda, all we have is this Hannah Steele woman. Clark raped her a year ago.” Scott turned to Bobby. “Did Carl get a photo of Hannah?”

“No, she’s real shy, wouldn’t let him. Carl said she’s like a piece of china, a real fragile girl. Said he wouldn’t bet a six-pack on her holding up under a tough cross. And Ray Burns is gonna be damn tough, he’ll try to make her look like a…” Bobby’s eyes cut to Shawanda. “He’ll explore her sexual history.”

“Yeah.” Scott turned back to his client. “Shawanda, if you made a deal, at least you wouldn’t be facing a death penalty.”

“Mr. Fenney,” she said, “if I can’t be with Pajamae, I just as soon die.”

Scott sighed and nodded at Bobby.

“Okay, Shawanda,” Bobby said, “we’ll go to trial. But you’ve got to understand, the evidence against you is substantial, more than enough to put you on death row. Our only hope is Hannah. We’ll put you on first, then we’ll put her on. She’ll corroborate…back up your testimony, which gives the jury more reason to believe you.”

“Why can’t I take one of them lie detector tests, prove I ain’t lying? I seen them on that TV show-they make the boy wanna marry the daughter take a lie detector test, ask him if he was cheating.” She laughed. “Them white boys lie every time.”

Bobby was shaking his head. “That’s not a good idea, Shawanda.” He turned to Scott. “Scotty, I was thinking about those reporters calling you, asking for TV interviews with Shawanda? Maybe we should do that, let her tell the world what happened. That’ll condition the jury pool. And after she’s told her story, you can ask that any other woman who was beaten or raped by Clark McCall come forward so Shawanda doesn’t go to jail for a crime she didn’t commit.”

“That sound good to me, Mr. Fenney,” Shawanda said.

Scott dropped his eyes and said, “I don’t know, Shawanda, that might not be the best strategy.”

Scott’s eyes were still down when Bobby said, “Shawanda, Scotty and I need to talk outside.”

Bobby stood and knocked on the door. The guard opened the door, and Scott pushed himself up out of the chair and followed Bobby into the hall. They had walked ten steps down the corridor when Bobby stopped and leaned against the wall.

“She’s doing a lot better,” Scott said.

“She’s high.”

“What?”

“She’s feeling the rush.”

“You mean heroin?”

Bobby nodded.

“How do you know?”

“Scotty, my best clients are dopers. You can see it in their eyes when they’re on it. It’s like they own the world.”

“How’d she get it in here?”

Bobby shrugged. “Guard, janitor, who knows.”

“She looked good the last time. I figured she was over it.”

Bobby shook his head. “A junkie’s never over heroin. The cravings are always there. I get them probation conditioned on treatment, they get the methadone, stay straight a couple weeks, a couple months, then go right back to it like an old lover.”

“Her life’s on the line and she can’t stop shooting up? My wife’s pissed off at me, Dan’s pissed off at me, I’m taking all this grief so she can get high? All this for a goddamned junkie?”

“Scotty, if you lived her life, you’d probably shoot up, too. You got the best of life, she got the worst. But she can still be happy when she’s high. And now the stuff on the street is so cheap, she can spend every waking minute high-until she dies.” Bobby sighed. “And she’ll die from the stuff one day.”

“We’re trying to save her from the death penalty so she can kill herself with heroin?”

“Yep, that’s exactly what we’re doing. I can see it in her eyes, Scotty, she’s a junkie for life. And hers will be a short life.” He stared at his shoes a long moment, then stood straight. “But not as short as Ray Burns wants it to be. So, you catching some heat over this?”

Scott nodded. “Big-time. Why not a polygraph?”

“My junkie clients always think they can beat the machine. Course, when they’re high, they think they’re fucking Einsteins. But they always fail. She takes it and fails, she’s history.”

“Polygraphs aren’t admissible. Burns can’t use it against her.”

“Not in court. But Ray’ll leak it to the press, it’ll be front-page news. Every juror will know she failed.”

“Maybe she’ll plead out if she fails.”

“Look, Scotty, I know this is a tough decision for you and I know you don’t want to make it, but hey, man, that’s why you make the big bucks. What do you want to do?”

“McCall’s pressuring Dan Ford to get me to drop this defense, not to drag his dead son through the mud.”

“Clark lived in the mud, Scotty. He was a bad boy.” Bobby checked his shoes again. “So Dan told you to drop it?”

“He advised me to. He wants to be the president’s lawyer. Good for business.”

“But bad for Shawanda. Is your job on the line?”

“ My job? No! Dan wouldn’t fire me. I’m like his son.”

Bobby nodded. “Three, four years ago, I represented a father who killed his son over a football game.” He chuckled softly. “Look, Scotty, I’m not a big-time lawyer like you, I don’t represent important people, I don’t make much money,…but I’ve never screwed a client. I’ve always done my best for every client, even if my best isn’t much. Clark beating her up, raping Hannah Steele, maybe more women-Scotty, that evidence might be the difference between life and death for her.”

Bobby ran his hands over his head of thin hair.

“All my clients are just like her, poor, black or brown, living in an alternate world where daddies are dealing and mamas are hooking. Difference is, all my clients are guilty, no bones about it. But she may really be innocent-or at least have acted in self-defense. We drop Clark’s past, we’re sentencing her to death by lethal injection-you and me, Scotty, not a jury. We’ll be responsible, same as if we push that needle into her arm.” He shook his head. “Scotty, I need the money you’re paying me for working this case, but I can’t live with that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you drop this evidence, I’m out.”

“Bobby-”

“Scotty, I followed you every step of the way-high school, college, law school. Back then, I would’ve followed you anywhere. I was weak and you were strong and you protected me. But you ain’t Batman no more, and I ain’t Robin. I can’t follow you on this. It just ain’t right. She may not be a white society girl…she may be a junkie hooker, living in the projects, but her life means something, too. Maybe not to you, maybe not even to herself…but to me. And to her little girl. She needs someone strong to protect her…someone like you used to be.” He paused. “When your secretary called that day, said you wanted to have lunch, man, I about cried. All those years, I really missed you.” His eyes were watering. “And being around you again now, it’s been great…just to breathe your air again.” He breathed in and out. “But, Scotty, you do this to that girl, I don’t want to see you no more.”

“Come on, Bobby.”

“Scotty, the court appointed you. You’re her right to counsel. You do what you think is right.”

Scott turned away, wishing this gut check could be answered by simply running into five frothing-at-the-mouth testosterone-charged linebackers.

Scott got into the Ferrari, but he couldn’t go back to the office. Downtown suddenly felt claustrophobic. So he drove onto the Dallas North Tollway and hit the accelerator hard. He felt the power of the machine beneath him as he took the engine through the gears. The 360 Modena topped out at 180 miles per hour, but Scott eased off the accelerator at eighty, the customary highway speed in Dallas. No one drove the speed limit in Texas, not even women putting on their makeup. Northbound traffic was light at this time of the morning, so he drove unimpeded in the left lane. He often drove aimlessly about the 4,000 miles of roads in Dallas when he needed to think. For some reason, he thought better in a Ferrari.

Without thinking, Scott suddenly veered across three lanes of traffic and exited at Mockingbird Lane, cut over to Hillcrest, and drove north. He turned left, stopped three doors down on the right, and stared at the new two-story monster house, arched entry, dormers, vaulted roof. But in its place he saw the small one-story cottage that had once occupied this lot, the home he and his mother had rented from the good doctor. Living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, less than one thousand square feet including the porch where they often sat after dinner and waved at neighbors taking their evening walks. He remembered crawling into bed, lying back on the pillow, and waiting for his mother to come in, sit down, open the book, and read a chapter. And when she finished, she’d close the book and say, “Scotty, be like Atticus. Be a lawyer. Do good.”

It’s hard to do good when your clients are bad.

Lawyers never believe their clients because clients lie. They lie to the IRS and the SEC and the FBI. They lie about their taxes, they lie about their financial statements, and they lie about their lies. Most of the time, they don’t get caught. When they do get caught, usually for lying about their lies to the FBI-a felony called obstruction of justice-their lawyers stand outside the courthouse and proclaim their client’s innocence right up to the moment the client plea-bargains, pays a fine, and lives to lie again.

A lawyer always assumes his client is lying.

So Scott naturally assumed his heroin-addicted hooker-client was lying. But maybe he would believe a nice white sorority girl. He had gotten Hannah Steele’s unlisted phone number in Galveston from Bobby. Now he sat in the Ferrari and listened to the call ring through. A soft voice answered.

“Hello.”

“Hannah Steele?”

“Who’s calling?”

“Scott Fenney. I’m Shawanda Jones’s lawyer. My cocounsel, Bobby Herrin, spoke with you.”

“Yes, Mr. Fenney.”

“Hannah, I need to hear your story. I need to hear you tell me what Clark McCall did to you.”

A long sigh. “I’ve told Carl and Bobby, I don’t-”

“I know this isn’t easy, Hannah, but Senator McCall is pressuring me not to bring up Clark’s past at the trial, not to call you as a witness. For me to make a decision, I need to hear for myself what happened.”

“All right.”

Hannah Steele told Scott of her encounter with Clark McCall. She had met him on the SMU campus after a football game. He asked her out for the next night. He picked her up at her sorority house. They had dinner at a Mexican restaurant in the Uptown section of Dallas, the nightlife area between downtown and Highland Park. They had a few drinks and they went to the McCall mansion, where Clark attacked her, beat her, and raped her. Afterward, he acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. He gave her a ride back to the sorority house and even smiled at her when she got out of his car. She got in her car and drove straight to the police station and filed a complaint. She was taken to Parkland Hospital for a rape analysis and then returned to the sorority house. The next morning, a man came calling for her, saying he was Senator McCall’s lawyer. He handed her a document and a pen, said it was a release and confidentiality agreement, and he gave her a cashier’s check for $500,000 to settle all claims against Clark and cover her relocation costs.

“Relocation costs?”

“He said I had to leave town. He said my life would be better that way. He said I didn’t really have a choice, that if I pressed charges against Clark, his father would destroy me. He said they would bring out my prior sex life at trial, make me look like a whore.”

“What was his name, this lawyer?”

“I don’t think he told me.”

“What did he look like?”

“Like a lawyer. Old. Bald. Creepy. The way he looked at me and talked to me-my God, I’d been raped! He acted like it was just business.”

Scott ended the call and he knew. Lots of old lawyers he knew were bald and most were creepy. But he knew one such lawyer who would view paying off a rape victim as just business.

“You knew about Hannah Steele?”

“Of course.”

Scott had driven directly back to the office, parked in the underground garage, taken the elevator straight to the sixty-third floor, and hurried down the hall to Dan Ford’s office. He was now staring in disbelief at his senior partner, who was looking at Scott with a bemused expression.

“Scotty, you think this is the first time something like this has happened-college girl claiming a rich boy raped her? Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t, but she wanted money, she got money, everyone’s happy.”

“She didn’t seem so happy when I talked to her.”

Dan shrugged. “Seller’s remorse.”

“And you just bribed her to drop her complaint? Threatened to destroy her by bringing out her sexual history at trial?”

“Bribed her? Threatened?” Dan laughed. “How many girls have you paid off for Tom Dibrell? How many times have you threatened to bring up their sexual histories at trial if they didn’t settle? Do you still use my ‘every swinging dick’ line?”

When Dan had first taught him that tactic, it had seemed so clever, so goddamn lawyerly clever. As it had when Scott used it on Frank Turner, famous plaintiffs’ lawyer, negotiating a settlement with Tom’s last girl-what was her name, Nadine? Now, after talking to Hannah Steele, it didn’t seem so clever.

Scott sat down on the sofa and said weakly, “Tom’s girls didn’t claim rape. They claimed sexual harassment.”

Dan dismissed Scott’s comment with a wave of his hand.

“Semantics. Sexual harassment, rape-bottom line, someone got screwed. Scotty, my boy, you did exactly what a lawyer’s supposed to do, exactly what I taught you to do: you settled a legal dispute for your client. Just as I did.”

Even more weakly: “Doesn’t make it fair.”

Dan laughed again. “ Fair? Fair ain’t got nothing to do with the law, son. Fair is where you go to see farm animals and ride the rides.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about Hannah?”

“You didn’t need to know, Scotty. Why didn’t you tell me you hired a PI to go digging into Clark’s past?”

“Dan, I really believe Clark beat and raped Hannah.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, so do I. Of course, I believed all the others, too.”

“The others? There were more?”

“Seven, counting Hannah.” Dan shook his head. “That little fuckup cost his dad almost three million, just buying off girls. Plus, of course, my fee: twenty-five thousand dollars.”

“Twenty-five thousand dollars to buy off a rape victim?”

Another bemused look from his senior partner. “As I recall, you charged Dibrell fifty thousand to buy off his last girl.”

Scott’s face felt hot. “I thought it was just business.”

“It is, Scotty. It’s just business. Clark’s girls were just business, Dibrell’s girls were just business, and this is just business.”

“Not to Shawanda. It’s her life.” Scott met Dan’s gaze. “I can’t drop it, Dan.”

“Sure you can…because I’m asking you to. Scotty, are you going to say no to Mack McCall-to me — for a goddamn heroin junkie? For a prostitute?”

“No…for her daughter.”

“Her daughter?”

“Yeah. She needs her mother and her mother needs me. And I might be able to save her life.”

“Don’t start believing your own bullshit, Scott.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your campaign speech. You’re not Atticus Finch. No one is. Hell, who would want to be? He lived in a middle-class home, drove a middle-class car-what was it, a Buick?”

“Chevrolet.”

“You drive a Ferrari.” That amused Dan. “Scotty, that movie did more damage to the legal profession than Watergate. Lawyers of my generation, we went to law school to dodge the draft. But the generations that followed us didn’t have a war to worry about, so they went to law school to be some kind of goddamn hero. But that’s not what being a lawyer’s all about. And truth is, they don’t want to be another Atticus Finch any more than I do, any more than you do. He had nothing. But they-and you-and me, we want it all-the money, the house, the cars, all the things a successful lawyer can have today. And how does a lawyer become successful? By doing his job, which is making rich people richer. And we get paid very well indeed for doing our job, and not in chickens and nuts like Atticus. Our clients pay us in cash. Which is a very good thing, Scotty, ’cause you can’t buy a Ferrari with chickens and nuts.”

Dan walked over to the window and gazed out.

“When I graduated from law school, Scotty, a wise older lawyer gave me some good advice. He said, ‘Dan, every new lawyer must make a fundamental choice from which every other decision in his professional life will follow. And that choice is simple: Do you want to do good or do well? Do you want to make money or make the world a better place? Do you want to drive a Cadillac or a Chevrolet? Do you want to send your kids to private schools or public schools? Do you want to be a rich lawyer or a poor lawyer?’ He said, ‘Dan, if you want to do good, go work for legal aid and help the little people fighting their landlords and the utility companies and the police and feel good about it. But don’t have regrets twenty years later when your classmates are living in nice homes and driving new cars and taking vacations in Europe. And you have to tell your kids they can’t go to an Ivy League school because you did good.’”

Dan turned from the window.

“My son went to Princeton and my daughter went to Smith.”

Dan sat on the edge of his desk and folded his arms.

“That’s the choice every lawyer makes, Scotty, and you made your choice eleven years ago when you hired on with us. You chose to do well. You stood right there, said you were tired of being the poor kid on the block, said you wanted to be a rich lawyer. Now you want to be a good guy? I don’t think so.

“Scotty, this law firm exists for one reason and only one reason: to make as much goddamn money for the partners as humanly possible. And how does this firm do that? By representing clients who can pay three and four and five hundred dollars an hour for our services. By doing what our clients want, when they want it. By never saying no to our clients. Because we know they can always take their legal fees to a law firm across the street or across the state or across the country. Because there’s always another law firm ready to take our place at the trough.”

“Dan, she’s got a little girl. I’ve got to do right by her.”

“You’ve got a little girl, too. You want to do right by her?”

He rose and came over to Scott, sat beside him, and put his hand on Scott’s shoulder. His voice was now fatherly.

“Scotty, you’ve always followed my advice, and you’ve done okay by my advice, haven’t you?”

Scott nodded. “Sure, Dan, but-”

“Then follow my advice now. C’mon, son, don’t do this. Not to yourself, not to this firm…not to me. I need an answer for McCall, Scott. Now.”

Scott buried his hot face in his hands as the battle within raged on, Dan Ford versus Pajamae Jones fighting for his soul:

I need an answer for McCall. Now.

Are the po-lice gonna kill my mama, too?

And he heard Bobby’s voice: She needs someone strong to protect her…someone like you used to be. Gut-check time for Scott Fenney.

“No, baby, they’re not gonna kill your mama. I’m not gonna let them.”

“What?”

Scott removed his hands from his face and turned to Dan, who was looking at him oddly. Scott realized that when his gut had answered the call, it had done so out loud. He said, “Tell McCall no.”

Dan removed his hand. “That’s not the right answer, Scott. Try again.”

“My answer is no.”

Dan stood, walked across the room, and sat behind his desk. He folded his hands on the mahogany top.

“Scotty, Mack McCall’s a U.S. senator now. He dresses nice and talks nice on those Sunday morning political shows…but underneath that politician’s demeanor, he’s still just a Texas roughneck. He grew up poor in the West Texas oil fields, started working the rigs when he was fifteen. It’s a hard life, it makes a man hard-it makes some men mean. Mack’s one of those men.”

Dan picked up a pen and studied it a moment; then he said, “Back in college, we were at a party at Martha’s sorority house. She was Mack’s fiancee then, a pretty girl and wealthy. She was Mack’s ticket, and he wasn’t about to let someone else punch it. Well, a football player got drunk and made the mistake of flirting with Martha. Mack told him to leave, but he said no. So Mack told him to step outside. Now, that boy outweighed Mack by fifty pounds, but he didn’t stand a chance. Mack beat him with brass knuckles, might’ve killed that boy if I hadn’t pulled him off. I said, ‘Mack, why the hell did you do that?’ All he said was, ‘No one takes something that belongs to me.’”

Dan shook his head in apparent disbelief at the memory.

“Scott, I learned three things about Mack McCall that night: he doesn’t take no for an answer; he doesn’t fight fair; and he’s the meanest son of a bitch I’ve ever met.”

Scott let out a nervous chuckle. “So what’s he gonna do, beat me up?”

Dan sighed. “I don’t know what he’s going to do, Scotty. Forty-two years, I’ve never said no to him.” He paused, then said, “But I do know one thing, Scott: Mack McCall thinks the White House belongs to him.”