Page 2 of The 1 Lawyer

The guttural noise Mason made in reply could have been interpreted as neutral, but he followed it up with “Pretty bad.”

“No!” Jenny, seated next to Mason, leaned over and swatted the back of his head. “Are you trying to jinx him? It was great, Stafford Lee. Really good.”

“I’ve heard better,” Mason said under his breath.

“Mason, quit being so negative,” Jenny snapped. “You always do that.”

Jenny was right. Over the past fifteen years, we’d done the ritual of the trial run scores of times, and Mason did always do that.

I performed these run-throughs at my law office for an audience of two: Mason Burnett, a trial attorney with his own law office, and Jenny Glaser, a licensed private investigator. They were my closest friends and both were excellent sounding boards. Helpful, even when it hurt.

Predictably, Mason skewered my weak spots, especially what he called my lackluster delivery. Without Jenny’s supportive yin to balance Mason’s criticizing yang, on the first day of any jury trial, I might have walked right past the courthouse, kept going until I reached the waters of the Gulf, and dived in, fully clothed.

Mason said, “All right, it wasn’t a total flop. Remember the first time you did your opening for me, right after we graduated from Ole Miss? You essentially admitted your client’s guilt in the first two minutes.”

Jenny snickered. I didn’t blame her; that misstep could have destroyed my legal career before it began. But on that long-ago occasion, Mason had pointed out my gaffe, and we fixed it. To the surprise of everyone in the courthouse, I went on to win the case even though it was a loser, almost as tough as the case I was handling now.

Since that first jury trial fifteen years ago, I had managed to win them all. Whether that was due to good luck or good tactics, I’d be hesitant to opine. Criminal defense lawyers are supposed to lose, so mine was a pretty unusual record.

If it ain’t broke…

Leaning on a chairback, I asked, “Was there too much bio? Or not enough?”

Across the table, Jenny said, “The background on Daniel Caro was effective, the part about delivering babies and caring for mothers and daughters. People will respond to that.”

“They’ll like him until they hear the evidence.” Mason put his feet up on the conference table.

He was pushing my buttons, but I kept going. “Did it sound genuine, the stuff I said about Caro being a great guy?” I worried that the jury might detect a note of insincerity.

“Yeah, that was all right,” Mason conceded. “They’ll buy it. Unless they know him very well. Or know you at all.”

We were all Biloxi kids with a shared history going clear back to grade school. Mason’s mom had been my Cub Scout leader. She’d been like a second mom to me after my own mother passed away from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in her thirties. Jenny and I had had a brief romance in fifth grade—we went steady for almost forty-eight hours.

Jenny reached into a bright red attaché case and pulled out a stapled sheaf of papers. As she slid it across the varnished table, she said, “I did the background you wanted, ran more information down on the jurors and the alternate. No big surprises which ones might be defense-team-oriented and which lean toward the prosecution.”

Even from a cursory glance, I could see it was stellar work. “Jenny, you’re worth every damn cent I pay you.”

Mason chuckled. “Paste that quote on a billboard for your PI business, Jenny, right smack next to a picture of Stafford Lee. His fan club will love it.”

Jenny rolled her eyes. “Have you always been jealous of Stafford Lee, Mason? Even back when we were kids?”

“I’m not jealous of him.” Mason made a show of peering down at my feet. “But I’m seriously impressed by those shoes.”

I ignored the comment about my footwear and checked the clock again. I met Mason’s eyes and said, “Any final suggestions?”

Mason the irreverent comic disappeared. He was shooting straight and serious when he said, “The jurors are going to need a tangible reason to root for the defendant, so give them something to sink their teeth into. Go ahead and call the murder victim a floozy.”

I must have recoiled.

“Do it.” He raised his voice. “Call her a home-wrecker. Give her a black eye at the outset. They love that shit in Biloxi.”

Not my style, trashing the victim of a violent crime. But in this situation, it might give me a boost. God knew I was going to need one when the evidence started rolling in.

Jenny weighed in, playing her part in the ritual. “Mason, you can’t try the case in opening. And attacking that young woman is a dangerous gambit. If Stafford Lee offends jurors on day one, he’ll have trouble winning them back.”

We could have gone more rounds, but the chiming from my phone ended the fight. I turned off the alarm and slid my phone into my pocket.

My parting question: “What are the odds of winning this one?”

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