“Listen,” he continued, seeing the look of consternation on her face, “I’m leaving here, probably in the next few days. It all depends on how soon I can get my affairs in order.”
“Where are you going?”
“To a little town called Bass Creek-ever hear of it?”
“Sure. My father’s taken me there a few times when he’s gone fishing,” she replied. Jack knew there was yet another reason he liked this girclass="underline" She goes fishing.
“Why are you going there?” she asked.
“Well, it has always been my dream to open a little country office.”
“You? A country lawyer?” The incongruity overcame her concern for a moment and she started laughing.
“Why not?” he asked, a smile breaking across his face.
“Jack, those are real people over there. They’ve got mud on their boots. They spill coffee on your carpet. There’s no Momma Corinnes over there.” Jack was laughing wildly now. Corinne could hear him from the outer office. She wondered what the two of them were doing in there this time. It was awful and she was so embarrassed.
“Stop, you’re killing me,” Jack said, and then he was serious again. “I’ve been planning this for a long time but some pieces are missing.”
Nancy got it all at once. “Oh no, not me. I’m not going to be your Momma Corinne. You need to find somebody else,” she protested.
“Think about it for a minute or two, Miss Impulsive. I’ll give you a twenty percent raise, same benefits. Do you know what you can do with that kind of money in Bass Creek? Hell, you can buy the best house in town with an apartment for your father if he wants to visit or even stay. I’ll tell you what, I’ll buy you a house. I’ll give you a mortgage and you can pay me.” Jack had done his homework. He knew the points to hit and to hit quickly. He could see Nancy turning the offer over in her mind, picturing her own house and her dad fishing every day.
“Why are you doing this? Why me?”
“Because I like you and I want to be comfortable in my new digs-none of this formal crap. We’ll work hard and we’ll have fun and you’ll learn a lot, I promise you. Maybe you’ll be a lawyer someday.”
Nancy blushed at the thought. “Can I think about it? I want to talk to my dad.”
“Sure. Take your time. I can probably take Rick for another two days or so.” They both laughed again. It was good, comfortable. Nancy stood up.
“I’ll let you know in two days.”
Two weeks later, Nancy started her new job in Bass Creek. Jack had already been there for a week. Before she made her final decision, he’d let her know what his plans were both for Rudy’s case and for the aftermath.
“I may burn a few bridges before this is over, in which case I’ll go back to my original plan, being the country lawyer. Either way-at the state attorney’s office or in private practice-you’ll be with me and you’ll have the same salary and benefits we agreed on.”
He’d lived up to his other promises as well. A week after she agreed to take the job, she’d found a place in Bass Creek for her and her dad, a two-story clapboard house with hardwood floors and a huge front porch shaded by two giant oaks-a house she could only have dreamed about in Miami-and Jack had bought it for her. It had a garage apartment but she had already decided that dad was going to live in the house with her. If she ever met somebody and they decided to roll around in the sack, they could use the garage apartment. The house was unoccupied and Jack paid cash, so the closing was a few days later. The mortgage he drew up for her was a sweetheart deal as well-thirty years with an interest rate well under prime.
“What if I quit tomorrow?” she asked him just before signing the note.
“Nothing,” Jack replied. “No strings attached.”
“All right,” she said as she put pen to paper. She knew she was in for the long haul anyway.
He’d also advanced her five thousand dollars to buy furniture and had given her that first week to shop for whatever she needed. When she started her new career with Jack, Nancy and her dad were already living in their house. She and Jack had five weeks left to try to save Rudy.
That Monday morning, as Jack and Nancy sat down in his office to discuss their plans for the next five weeks-he behind his desk in his new burgundy leather swivel, she in one of the two equally impressive burgundy leather early American client chairs-there was a knock on his door. Before he or Nancy could get up to answer it, Pat Morgan walked in.
“Am I late for the meeting?” she asked, a smile spreading across her face. Jack was totally perplexed.
“What meeting?” he stammered.
“The first meeting with your investigative team on the Rudy Kelly case, what else?” she replied.
“How did you know we were having a meeting on Rudy’s case?”
“Let’s just say a little birdie told me.” Pat looked at Nancy and they both laughed. Jack was still completely puzzled so Pat filled in the blanks.
“You told me to ask for Nancy when I called you at work if you weren’t there, so I did. And Nancy and I started talking and she told me what your plans were and I decided to come down and help.” Jack started to break in, but Pat went right on.
“Look, I’m retired like you. I don’t know what to do with myself, so I decided you needed my services. I’m organized; I’m good with figures; I know computers; and I can cook and even wash dishes.”
She sat down in the vacant client chair. Jack looked at Nancy, who just shrugged her shoulders and then broke into a big beaming smile. This was a deal that had already been made.
“I guess it’s settled then. We now have a chief cook and bottle washer. Welcome aboard, Pat,” he said as he stood up and came around the desk to give her a hug. “And may I introduce my executive secretary, Ms. Nancy Shea?” and they all started laughing.
“All right, let’s get started,” he said, once they’d all taken their places again. “Let me tell you what we’re up against. Two appeals have already been filed and denied in this case. The only way we will have even a remote chance of success is if we come up with some new evidence-something that was missed, something that creates a reasonable doubt about Rudy’s guilt.
“My initial plan is to gather all the documentation that exists on this case. I’ve already made a public records request with the state and the public defender’s office for a copy of their files-they should be here soon. I need to read and reread that information until I’m thoroughly familiar with everything that has been done in the past. Then we need to look for the holes. What evidence was missed? What lead wasn’t followed up on? If there are holes in this case we have to find them. That’s our only chance on appeal.”
“What about solving the murder?” Nancy asked. “Isn’t that better than an appeal?”
“Absolutely!” Jack replied. “But we’re ten years down the road. Solving the murder is the remotest of possibilities. Finding a winning issue for an appeal is still possible. Let me give you the timetable: Two weeks from now I have to file my brief with the Florida Supreme Court. Because this is a death case the court will immediately set a schedule, probably giving the state five or six days to file a response and setting oral argument five or six days after that. They’ll have a decision a couple of days before the execution date because, if they rule against us, we’ll have one last shot with the United States Supreme Court.
“Any investigation-any new information-has to be uncovered in the next two weeks.
“Pat, you and Nancy start setting up to receive all this information,” Jack continued. “Make sure we have all the equipment we need so this operation is completely computerized and that we have a system in place where we can retrieve information instantly. You know what I mean.”
Pat nodded. “I know exactly what you mean. But it’s going to be expensive.”
“That’s not important. Let’s just do what we have to and give it everything we’ve got. Any other questions?”