in the past but enough to have developed a friendship of sorts. About ten years before, the Florida Bar had given Jack a professionalism award and Tom, the previous year’s recipient, had made the presentation. They’d had a few that night and commiserated over the state of the profession.
“The professionals are losing, I think,” Tom had said. “Now it’s all about advertising and the money.”
“You’ve got that right,” Jack had replied. They were in a little beach bar in Daytona Beach across the street from the hotel where the awards ceremony had taken place. “The day the US Supreme Court allowed lawyers to advertise is the day this profession started to turn south.”
Tom had a son who was a lawyer in Miami, and Jack knew him as well, although the son, Kevin, never mentioned his father. Jack had learned through another lawyer that Kevin was Tom’s son. He verified it that night in Daytona, but Tom wasn’t very forthcoming about the relationship.
“I’ve met your son, Kevin, a few times. He seems like a nice young man.”
“Except that he works for Bernie Stang. My son and I don’t talk.”
The way he’d said the words at the time assured Jack that he didn’t want to discuss the whys and wherefores of why they didn’t talk. Bernie Stang was a prominent criminal lawyer in Miami who represented drug dealers almost exclusively. His name didn’t come up too often when people were discussing professionalism. Tom’s remark told Jack that the man was disappointed that his son was working for Bernie.
They’d met a few times since then at bar functions and always set aside a little time to reconnect. There were phone calls as well over the years, usually to refer cases, or to ask about judges and the like. Even on those occasions, they took a few minutes to touch base with each other.
“So you already had the bond hearing, is that right?” Tom asked when he had dried off and they were seated at the dining room table.
“Yeah. The state wanted me held without bond but the judge did me a favor and let me out for a million.”
“Some favor. Who is the judge and will he be doing the trial?”
“I believe so. His name is Holbrook. He’s a retired judge from the northern part of the county and he handled the evidentiary hearing for a new trial in Felton’s case. He’s a special appointment, probably because he’s familiar with all the underlying facts.”
“Is that a positive or a negative for us?” Tom asked.
“I think he’s probably a good trial judge, but he’s susceptible to public opinion. He should have granted us a new trial in Felton’s case but he didn’t. I had to go to the supreme court, although, in retrospect, he made the right decision.”
“Should we try and get him off the case?”
“We don’t have any grounds. Last time I checked, having a judge rule against you wasn’t sufficient grounds to have him kicked off your future cases.”
“Wouldn’t it be a beautiful world if that were so? Okay, we’re stuck with Judge Holbrook. Why don’t you tell me about the case.”
“You probably know the basic stuff, Tom. I got a serial killer, Thomas Felton, released from death row, and he started killing again. The first person he killed was the daughter of the police chief, Sam Jeffries. He’d already killed the man’s wife ten years earlier.
“I came upon Felton in the woods behind another cop’s house, a female named Danni Jansen. I told him to stop. He turned toward me and I thought he had a gun in his hand and that he was going to shoot me, so I fired my gun and killed him.
“You don’t know for sure whether he had a gun?” Tom asked.
“I can’t say for sure and I didn’t check the body after I fired my gun. Felton was coming from the vicinity of Danni’s house. After I shot him and saw him go down, I immediately went to check on her. She was fine. When we got back to the scene, Sam Jeffries was already there. Danni and I told him the story, which, in retrospect, was probably not a wise decision, and everything happened from there.”
“The amateur detective in me tells me there’s more to the story between you and this Danni woman.”
Jack smiled. “There is. We met two years before I took Felton’s case, and we had a brief romantic relationship at that time. She wanted to shoot me when I took Felton’s