inside and outside of the courtroom. Still want to leave Sam Jeffries alone?”
“I do. We need to file the motion anyway if only to make a record for appellate purposes,” Jack said.
“I agree but they probably have Judge Holbrook in their pocket as well. Didn’t you say he was very much influenced by public opinion?”
“I did. And he’s probably influenced more by the people we’ve been talking about—the people he sees at the golf course and the country club—than any other group. All of a sudden this case is looking a lot more difficult.
“Last chance, Tom. Do you want out?” Jack asked.
“Not on your life,” Tom replied. “And one way or the other, it will be about your life, Jack.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
Tom and Jack were right about the fix being in. There were no editorials or demonstrations of any kind even though the national press and the foreign press were everywhere trying to foment outrage so that they could report on it objectively.
Still, after two weeks of watching and waiting in vain, Tom and Jack managed to prepare a pretty good motion for change of venue.
When Jack had first made an appearance representing Thomas Felton, the Oakville Sun had written some brutal editorials about Jack and his motivations for wanting to represent a serial killer. Numerous letters to the editor had followed, spewing the same vitriol. Not one letter had appeared supporting Jack for taking on the case. That wasn’t the worst of it, though. The worst came after Kathleen Jeffries was killed. The editorials were harsh, but the letters to the editor almost uniformly linked Jack and Felton and called for both of their heads—literally.
It was powerful evidence and formed the basis for the motion.
Two days after they filed it, Judge Holbrook set it for hearing along with a status conference.
Tom was staying in a one-bedroom condo right next to Jack’s that Ron also owned.
“We’re paying for this one,” Jack told Ron when he offered the place.
“Sure you are,” Ron said. “I’m going to need you later on in life, Jack. Let me do this and you can pay me down the road.”
Jack had just shaken his head at the time. There was no arguing with Ron.
“What do you make of this?” Tom asked Jack when he received Judge Holbrook’s order.
Jack looked at the order. “I think the judge is sending us a message, Tom. He’s setting the status conference at the time of the hearing to let us know before we get there that he is denying our motion.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” Tom said. “This judge is really going to be a problem. He’s also going to want to know our thoughts about a trial date when we get there.”
“You’re right. It’s always been my inclination, if I didn’t have a need to do any further investigation or preparation, to go as soon as possible. The State is always banking on the defendant’s asking for more time and they are never prepared.”
“I agree with you that we should go right away,” Tom said. “But I’ve done some research on this Merton fellow. He’s always prepared. And he’ll want to go right away, too. I’ll bet he has all his disclosures—names and addresses of witnesses and a list of the evidence—with him at the hearing. He’ll hand them to us and tell the judge he’s ready to go anytime.”
“And when do you think anytime will be, Tom?”
“With a specially appointed judge it could be as quick as two weeks if we don’t have any depositions.”
“Do we?”
“I don’t think so. I could take Jeffries’s deposition but it won’t get us anywhere and it will make him more relaxed than I want him to be.”
“So we just tell the judge we’re ready to go?” Jack asked.
“I think we should tell him he can set it three weeks out with the understanding that we may need more time if there’s anything in the discovery Merton gives us that we haven’t seen before.”
“That’s agreeable to me,” Jack said.
The summer after Thomas Felton’s brutal murder spree, Apache County and the City of Oakville built a spacious new court complex in downtown Oakville.
The previous courthouse dated back to the Civil War. The courtrooms were old and hot, the floorboards creaked, and the overhead fans rattled so badly, you thought at any time one of them might take off and power itself right out of the room like a wayward helicopter, or, even worse, land on some poor, unfortunate victim. There were three courtrooms in the