The Runaway Jury

"Wow," Hoppy said, showing a mouthful of potatoes.

"Mr. Cristano thought you should sneak this to your wife," Nitchman said. "She should show it only to those she can trust on the jury."

"Right about that," Hoppy said, quickly folding and stuffing it into a pocket. He looked around the crowded dining room as if he was completely guilty of something.

WORKING from law school yearbooks and the limited records the registrar would release, it was learned that Jeff Kerr enrolled as a first-year law student at Kansas in the fall of 1989. His unsmiling face appeared with the second-year class in 1991, but there was no trace of him after that. He did not receive a law degree.

He played rugby for the law school team his second year. A team photo showed him arm in arm with two pals-Michael Dale and Tom Ratliff-both of whom had finished law school the following year. Dale was working for Legal Services in Des Moines. Ratliff was an associate for a firm in Wichita. Investigators were sent to both places.

Dante arrived in Lawrence and was taken to the law school, where he confirmed the identity of Kerr in the yearbooks. He spent an hour looking at faces from 1985 through 1994, and saw no female resembling the girl known as Marlee. It was a shot in the dark. Many law students skipped the picture taking. Yearbooks were sophomoric. These were serious young adults. Dante’s work was nothing but a series of shots in the dark.

Late Monday, the investigator named Small found Tom Ratliff hard at work in his tiny window-less office at Wise & Watkins, a large firm in downtown Wichita. They agreed to meet in a bar in an hour.

Small talked to Fitch and gathered as much background as he could, or as much as Fitch would give him. Small was an ex-cop with two ex-wives. His title was security specialist, which in Lawrence meant he did everything from motel watching to polygraph exams. He was not bright, and Fitch realized this immediately.

Ratliff arrived late and they ordered drinks. Small did his best to bluff and act knowledgeable. Ratliff was suspicious. He said little at first, which was what could be expected from a person unexpectedly asked by a stranger to talk about an old acquaintance.

"I haven’t seen him in four years," Ratliff said.

"Have you talked to him?"

"No. Not a word. He dropped out of school after our second year."

"Were you close to him?"

"I knew him well our first year, but we were not the best of friends. He withdrew after that. Is he in trouble?"

"No. Not at all."

"Perhaps you should tell me why you’re so interested."

Small recited in general terms what Fitch had told him to say, got most of it right and it was close to the truth. Jeff Kerr was a prospective juror in a large trial somewhere, and he, Small, had been hired by one of the parties to dig through his background. "Where’s the trial?" Ratliff asked.

"I can’t say. But I assure you, none of this is illegal. You’re a lawyer. You understand."

Indeed he did. Ratliff had spent most of his brief career slaving under a litigation partner. Jury research was a chore he’d already learned to hate. "How can I verify this?" he asked, like a real lawyer.

"I don’t have the authority to divulge specifics about the trial. Let’s do it like this. If I ask something which you think might be harmful to Kerr, then don’t answer. Fair enough?"

"We’ll give it a shot, okay? But if I get nervous, then I’m outta here."

"Fair enough. Why did he quit law school?"

Ratliff took a sip of his beer and tried to remember. "He was a good student, very bright. But after the first year, he suddenly hated the idea of being a lawyer. He clerked in a firm that summer, a big firm in Kansas City, and it soured him. Plus, he fell in love."

Fitch desperately wanted to know if there was a girl. "Who was the woman?" Small asked.

"Claire."

"Claire who?"

Another sip. "I can’t remember right now."

"You knew her?"

"I knew who she was. Claire worked at a bar in downtown Lawrence, a college hangout favored by law students. I think that’s where she met Jeff."

"Could you describe her?"

"Why? I thought this was about Jeff."

"I was asked to get a description of his girlfriend in law school. That’s all I know." Small shrugged as if he couldn’t help it.

They studied each other for a bit. What the hell, thought Ratliff. He’d never see these people again. Jeff and Claire were distant memories anyway.

"Average height, about five six. Slender. Dark hair, brown eyes, pretty girl, all the bells and whistles."

"Was she a student?"

"I’m not sure. I think maybe she had been. Maybe a grad student."

"At KU?"

"I don’t know."

"What was the name of the hangout?"

"Mulligan’s, downtown."

Small knew it well. At times he went there himself to drown his worries and admire the college girls. "I’ve knocked back a few at Mulligan’s," he said.

"Yeah. I miss it," Ratliff said wistfully.

"What did he do after he dropped out?"

"I’m not sure. I heard that he and Claire left town, but I never heard from him again."

Small thanked him and asked if he could call him at the office if he had more questions. Ratliff said he was awfully busy, but give it a try.

Small’s boss in Lawrence had a friend who knew the guy who’d owned Mulligan’s for fifteen years. The advantages of a small town. Employment records weren’t exactly confidential, especially for the owner of a bar who reported fewer than half of his cash sales. Her name was Claire Clement.

FITCH RUBBED his stubby hands together with glee as he took the news. He loved the chase. Marlee was now Claire, a woman with a past who’d worked hard to cover it up. "Know thine enemy," he said aloud to his walls. The first rule of warfare.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The numbers returned with a vengeance Monday afternoon. The messenger was an economist, a man trained to look at the life of Jacob Wood and put a concise dollar figure on it. His name was Dr. Art Kallison, a retired professor from a private school in Oregon no one had heard of. The math was not complicated, and Dr. Kallison had obviously seen a courtroom before. He knew how to testify, how to keep the figures simple. He placed them on a chalkboard with a neat hand.

When he died at fifty-one, Jacob Wood’s base salary was $40,000 a year, plus a retirement plan funded by his employer, plus other benefits. Assuming he would live and work until the age of sixty-five, Kallison placed his lost future earnings at $720,000. The law also allowed the factoring of inflation into this projection, and this upped the total to $1,180,000. Then the law required that this total be reduced to its present value, a concept that muddied the water a bit. Here, Kallison delivered a quick,friendly lecture to the jury on present value. The money might be worth $1,180,000 if paid out over fifteen years, but for purposes of the lawsuit he had to determine what it was worth at the moment. Thus, it had to be discounted. His new figure was $835,000.

He did a superb job of assuring the jury that this figure dealt only with lost salary. He was an economist, quite untrained to place a value on the noneconomic value of one’s life. His job had nothing to do with the pain and suffering Mr. Wood endured as he died; had nothing to do with the loss his family had endured.

A young defense lawyer named Felix Mason uttered his first word of the trial. He was one of Cable’s partners, a specialist in economic forecasts, and, unfortunately for him, his only appearance would be brief. He began his cross-examination of Dr. Kallison by asking him how many times a year he testified. "That’s all I do these days. I’ve retired from teaching," Kallison answered. He took the question in every trial.