Jury Town (14 page)

CHAPTER 17

JURY TOWN

“Good morning, Ms. Wang.”

“Good morning.”

Kate sat alone in Jury Room Seven. As the previous candidate had instructed, she sat in the middle seat of the jury box’s front row, staring up at the camera, which was affixed to the wall above the stack of electronics equipment in the corner to her left. The four huge screens hanging from the opposite wall were all turned on, which was distracting. The movements on the massive screens kept catching her peripheral vision. But she managed to stay focused on the camera so the attorneys who were sitting in an intimate-looking courtroom in the tiny town of Abingdon in far southwestern Virginia could see her face as she answered. She
really
wanted to be part of this jury. Then she could always say she was a member of the first jury to ever hear a case at Jury Town.

But that wasn’t the extent of her agenda—far from it.

“Where is your home?”

“Leesburg, Virginia.”

“Where is that located?”

“About forty miles west of Washington.” She glanced to her right so she could see the screens and the two lawyers at the defense table leaning together to confer.

“What was your living arrangement?” one of the men asked as he came back to the microphone.

“Excuse me?” That seemed like a strange question.

“Did you live in an apartment or a house?”

“Oh, I lived in an apartment.” She laughed nervously and tugged on her necklace. “I thought you meant something else.”

“Did you pay the bills?”

“Yes, I lived there by myself.”

“Who provided your electric service?”

“Um, Commonwealth Electric Power.”

“And you paid that bill yourself?”

“Yes. I just said that, didn’t I?”

“Ever have any problems with Commonwealth?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Ever have any complaints about CEP’s service or had any problems with the bill?”

She shrugged. “No. Everything was always fine. Sometimes we lost power in the summer because of thunderstorms. But they were always real good about getting the lights back on.”

“Okay.” The defense attorney nodded to the prosecutor.

“Are you familiar with any legal problems Commonwealth has?” the prosecutor asked. “Any idea why you’re here?”

Kate raised both eyebrows and shook her head. “No.”

The prosecutor nodded to the defense attorney, then leaned back to the microphone. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Wang. We’d like you to be a member of this jury.”

“Okay,” she said calmly, giving away no hint of the thrill racing through her. She’d been worried that they might have detected her lie in her reaction and her response to the last question. She knew all about CEP’s coal-ash problem in southwestern Virginia outside Abingdon—which, she assumed, was what this case would be about. “Can I go?”

“Yes. Please tell the next prospective juror to come in. His name is Harold Wilson. And could you tell him to sit in the same seat you were sitting in?”

“Sure,” she called back as she headed for the big snack table to the left, which was covered with all kinds of goodies. She was going to grab a few 3 Musketeers Bars. They were her favorite.

GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT

“Did you hear what she did now?”
the Gray yelled.

Rockwell held the phone away from his ear. He’d barely said, “hello” before the man blurted out his vitriol. “No, what?”

“She switched out the damn jurors, every damn one of them.”

“What?”
Rockwell asked incredulously as he gazed at the computer screen in his Rockwell & Company office. He’d just pulled up the senior management section of the Commonwealth Electric Power website, and he was staring at the confidently smiling picture of the CEO—the brother of the man he was on the phone with right now. “What do you mean?”

“Late last night four buses pulled up to Archer Prison with a hundred and ninety-six people aboard. They got off and went inside. Then the hundred and ninety-six people who’d been bused up there from Richmond yesterday afternoon, the ones who’d attended the opening ceremony, got on the four buses, went back to Richmond and back to their boring lives. We thought the first group was the real juror pool, but obviously it wasn’t. Our contacts were all in that first group, but they were just part of an elaborate hoax Victoria Lewis was playing. That
bitch
!”

It occurred to Rockwell that the Gray who had called used the words “Archer Prison.” Rockwell had been warned over and over
never
to use actual names for
anything
during these telephone conversations. He wondered if the Gray even realized what he’d done.

“Wow.”

It also occurred to Rockwell that Victoria Lewis was turning out to be a formidable enemy.

“The good thing,” the Gray spoke up, “is that we’ve identified three of the people who are in there now, one of whom will be on the jury that I care very deeply about.”

Rockwell glanced at the picture of this man’s brother on the computer screen, wondering how in the world the Grays could have already identified one of the jurors on the Commonwealth Electric trial. At least the Gray hadn’t identified the case by name.

“I want you to check her out,” the Gray continued. “Her name is Felicity West, and she worked for CSX before going inside Archer.”

Rockwell cringed as the man used more names.

“Did you get that?”

“I got it,” Rockwell answered quickly. Suddenly, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be part of this anymore. For the first time since he’d joined he was hearing desperation in one of the Gray’s voices. People tended to do very stupid things when they were desperate.

“Get back to me as soon as you have anything on her.”

“I will,” Rockwell assured the man.

“What about the woman in Virginia Beach? Have you—”

“I’m already working on that,” Rockwell interrupted loudly. He definitely did not want the Gray mentioning Angela Gaynor’s name on the phone. Some woman named Felicity who’d worked for CSX was one thing. A Virginia state senator was quite another. “I’ll be back to you on both of them by COB today.”

“Good. I look forward to hearing from you ASAP. What about our young friend? Is he going to finish what we—”

“He’s been tasked. Believe me.”

“Fine. Call me as soon as you know anything.”

Rockwell exhaled heavily when the call was over, and for several seconds gazed ahead, suddenly ruing what he’d gotten himself into.

When he’d calmed down, Rockwell searched the Commonwealth CEO’s name on the Internet. It didn’t take him long to find out that the CEO had only one brother. It didn’t take him long to find out what that brother did, either. And it didn’t make him feel any better about the Grays and his situation with them when he saw what the man he’d just been speaking to did for a living when he wasn’t in northern Maine.

“Phil.”

Rockwell’s eyes raced to his office doorway and Shane Harmon, the man who headed the mergers-and-acquisitions department at Rockwell & Company. Fortunately, Rockwell’s screen was positioned such that Harmon couldn’t see it from the door.

“Yes?”

Harmon shook his head, as if he wasn’t sure he actually believed what he was about to say.

“What is it?” Rockwell pushed, a bad feeling coming over him. “What’s wrong, Shane?”

“Nothing. In fact, everything’s awesome.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just got a call from the CEO over at Hydra Corporation. They want us to advise them on the hostile takeover bid they got yesterday. They’re in play, so they know they’re going to be acquired by someone now. But the CEO doesn’t like the outfit that made the hostile tender offer. So he wants us to find him a white knight, or at least goose the hostile offer higher.” Harmon shook his head again. “One way or the other, we stand to make fifty million dollars on this deal, Phil.” Harmon laughed like his ship had just sailed into port with all flags flying. “Fifty million on one deal, Phil, and the publicity we get for being the investment bank on this deal will get me a lot more high-profile deals like this one. It’s unbelievable. I’d like to tell you I expected it, but I really didn’t.”

When Harmon was gone, Rockwell glanced at the computer screen again. The man he’d just been speaking to on the phone before Harmon had interrupted with his incredible news was the number-two official at the National Security Administration. No wonder the Grays could get information on anyone they wanted, whenever they wanted to get it.

He glanced at the doorway again. He was going to earn fifty million dollars on one transaction. As Harmon had candidly admitted, he hadn’t expected it. The Grays had sent another huge fee his way. Now he could buy that chalet high in the Swiss Alps he’d been drooling over for the last five years.

Rockwell clicked away from the Internet, unaware that he was leaving a trail leading from his computer directly to the Grays.

CHAPTER 18

VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA

Angela Gaynor closed her eyes as a refreshing breeze blew gently across her face. Like soft bristles of a child’s paintbrush, it tickled her cheeks. She hadn’t always appreciated the sea, not when she was a little, fat girl. But she could now.

“It feels so good to be here,” she murmured, aware of how much more acute the sounds and smells of the sea were with her eyes shut. They were twenty floors above the beach, leaning side by side on the balcony railing of Trent’s oceanfront condominium, elbows touching as they gazed out into a gorgeous day. “It’s beautiful, Trent.”

“So was that dinner you put on for those kids and their parents the other night,” he said, “very beautiful.”

“Thanks.”

“Know what I was most impressed about, Angie?”

She glanced up at him. “What?”

“You invited as many white kids as blacks.”

“I invited the whole second grade. The neighborhood’s fifty-fifty. It’s that simple. Don’t overanalyze.”

“Still.”

“Still . . . what?”

“You could have been selective.”

“Why would I?”

“You didn’t like white people when we were kids.”

“Neither did you.”

“
I’m
not denying it.”

“We lived in an all-black ghetto,” she said deliberately. “All we saw on TV were white people living the good life. Now I know better. Poverty plays no favorites. Many more poor white kids live in this country than poor black kids. I didn’t know that back then.”

“Innocent little white kids grow up to be prejudiced adults.”

“When did you get so cynical?”

“All I’m saying, Angie, is that you’ve got to keep fighting the fight.
We
have to keep fighting the fight. Too many before us sacrificed too much to ease up on the accelerator now, too many brothers and sisters felt the whip. Worse, they died inside a noose or at the wrong end of a gun. I don’t want you going soft.”

“No one’s going soft,” she snapped. “But I’m going to fight for everyone if I get elected to the United States Senate. I’m going to fight for what’s right, without regard for the color bar.”

“That sounds a lot like going soft to me.”

“I can’t be biased.”

“You
have
to be biased.”

Angela shook her head, exasperated. “You are amazing.”

“Well, thank you.”

“I didn’t mean it as a compliment.”

“Yeah,” Trent muttered, “somehow I didn’t think so.”

“How much did you make your last season in the NBA?” she asked.

“That’s getting a little personal.”

“Really?” she asked, digging her phone from her jeans and holding it up in front of him. “I bet I could get a pretty good idea in about four seconds.”

“Okay, eleven million.”

“Wow.”

Trent spread his arms. “
Wow?
You’re one to talk. I read an article in one of the local business rags last month that put your net worth at fifty million and climbing. My career’s over. Your company can go on forever.”

“Thanks for making my point.”

“Which is?”

“Everyone in this country has the opportunity to be successful.”

“That’s because a lot of people before us made the ultimate sacrifice.” Trent turned to face her. “I’m talking about a lot of
black
people.”

“No doubt about it, and I say a prayer for them every night. From Martin Luther King all the way to every black boy in Mississippi who got dragged into the woods and lynched for looking at a white girl the wrong way. But let me ask you a question,” she continued before he could break in and get on one of his rolls. “Don’t you think some white people had to be involved for us to have all these opportunities now? Do you really think we could have done it without having some of them on our side? If every white person wanted to keep us down, we’d still be down. I can assure you of that. Don’t you at least have some respect for the white soldiers in the northern armies who fought in the Civil War to free us?”

“Don’t kid yourself. Those men weren’t fighting to free slaves. They were fighting because they were ordered to fight. And they were ordered to fight because the fat cats wanted to keep the country together. They knew that this nation was stronger united. The north had factories. The south had raw materials. It wasn’t about freeing slaves. It was about the money, for most of them, anyway. Read your history books. It’s always been about the money and always will be about the money.”

“Spoken like a true fat cat.”

“Hey, I—”

“Sorry,” she said, holding up one hand, “that wasn’t fair. But answer me this. Who do you think sold our ancestors into slavery? Yeah, yeah, whites bought us, but who sold us? Don’t tell
me
about the history books. And who’s got you reading so much lately? I know damn well it can’t be one of those twenty-year-old floozies I see with you in
People
.”

“All I’m saying is that the fight isn’t done,” Trent answered. “There are still plenty of places where black people don’t have an equal shot.”

“Like the NBA?”

“Well . . .”

“Which is seventy-six percent black, and the NFL, which is sixty-five percent black. I looked it up.”

“It’s not like that in the owner’s box.”

“It will be.”

“Only if we keep fighting.”

Their faces were inches apart now, and her urge to be with him was powerful as they gazed intently into each other’s eyes, both of their angers boiling over. Anger was such an aphrodisiac.

She shocked herself as she slipped her hands to his face and then pulled him to her gently. As their lips met for the first time in their lives, a thrill coursed through her body, along with a wave of relief. She’d been terrified he’d resist.

She must have wanted it, she figured as their kiss went deep and passionate. She never did anything she didn’t want to do anymore. At this point in her life, she had that luxury, and she’d worked damn hard to get it.

“I want to be a United States senator,” she whispered as she finally pulled back. “And I need your help to do it, Trent. Will you help me?”

“I already told you. I’ll give you everything I have, Angie, every damn thing.”

“I’m going to announce my campaign very soon, and I want you to be there with me on stage when I do. I want you there right from the start.”

“I’ll be there every step of the way. Right up through election night. I can’t wait to hold your hand up in victory after Chuck Lehman calls to concede defeat. That will be one of the best moments of my life.”

Angela smiled up at him. “Mine, too.” She hesitated. “This one isn’t bad, either.”