The Case Against William Read online

  "He finally got his indictments.

  "Four charges of official misconduct. Second-degree felonies. He claims that Senator Ramsey, while serving as Texas Secretary of State, used state employees to conduct her personal and political business and then ordered them to destroy records evidencing such acts.

  "Wow. That sounds pretty serious, doesn't it? A corrupt politician in Texas. We've seen a few of those, haven't we? We've had politicians who bought prostitutes with state money. Who used inside connections to make profitable stock and land purchases. Who even stole state welfare funds. So what was the felony crime Senator Ramsey is alleged to have committed?

  "She had her secretary write thank-you notes."

  Two jurors rolled their eyes. The senator was very well liked in the state of Texas. So Frank had tried not to alter that affection. Each morning on their way into the Travis County Justice Center, she had given interviews for the throng of reporters, smiled for the cameras camped out front, and signed autographs and taken photos with her constituents. She looked like a television mother, like the mom in that show Frank watched reruns of as a kid, Leave it to Beaver. Would June Cleaver intentionally break the law? Frank didn't think so. Neither would this jury.

  "Thank-you notes, and now she stands before you, a sitting United States senator from Texas, indicted by a jealous prosecutor. Mr. Dorkin wants you to send her to prison for thank-you notes. To serve hard time with murderers, rapists, and drug lords. For thank-you notes."

  Frank Tucker pointed at the district attorney.

  "He has wasted your time and your money to seek revenge against his rival. He is a failed politician taking his political frustrations out on an innocent defendant. He's like the school bully, using his power to abuse a classmate. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, as American citizens, you are the senator's classmates. Are you going to stand by and let him bully your friend? Or are you going to stand up to the bully?"

  Judge Harold Rooney charged the jury in the matter of The State of Texas versus Martha Jo Ramsey and sent the jurors to deliberate at 11:04 A.M. After the jury had left the district courtroom in downtown Austin, the judge motioned counsel to the bench.

  "This could take a while, gentlemen. I'm thinking Thursday at the earliest."

  He turned to defense counsel.

  "Frank, if you want to go home to Houston, I'll hold the verdict until you have time to drive back up. The senator should stay in Texas."

  "Thank you, Harold."

  Frank felt the district attorney's eyes boring holes in his skull. Dick Dorkin and he had been classmates at UT law school twenty years before. Frank had graduated number one in their class; Dick had graduated number two-thirty-three. Out of four hundred. Frank had hired on with a large Houston firm; Dick had hired on with the district attorney's office. Frank was a good lawyer; Dick was a good politician. Twenty years later, Frank was a name partner in the firm; Dick was the elected district attorney of Travis County. Having failed in his attempt at a Senate seat, word was he now had his eyes on the Governor's Mansion just a few blocks from this courtroom. A high-profile conviction could shorten that distance.

  Dick Dorkin had been Frank's rival in law school; he had never really known why. Today, Frank Tucker had made him an enemy for life. But that is what a lawyer must do when an innocent defendant faces the loss of her freedom. A lawyer must fight for his client, even if that means making enemies. A lawyer must be able to live with himself. With his own verdict. Of himself.

  "So, Frank," the judge said, "I hear your son's quite the football player down there in Houston."

  "He's twelve."

  "Only six years till he's playing for the Longhorns."

  The judge was also a UT law grad.

  "Well, that's a long—"

  "Excuse me, Judge Rooney."

  The bailiff had walked up to the bench.

  "Yes?"

  "The jury has a verdict."

  "A verdict?" He looked at the clock. It was 11:19. "In fifteen minutes?"

  The bailiff shrugged. "Yes, sir."

  The judge looked at counsel. His eyebrows arched. He turned back to the bailiff.

  "Well, bring them in."

  The jury acquitted the senator on all counts.

  Chapter 6

  The first college scout showed up when William was fourteen.

  "He's the best I've ever seen, Frank."

  The last two years had been a blur. The case against Kobe in Colorado had been dismissed; the case against Enron in Houston had not. Kobe paid the desk clerk a reported $5 million to go away; the Enron chairman of the board and CEO were going away to prison. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned the obstruction of justice conviction of Arthur Anderson, Enron's accounting firm, but it was too late to save the company or its eighty-five thousand employees. Martha Stewart served prison time for insider trading; the speaker of the House of Representatives did not. George W. Bush won reelection, and then Hurricane Katrina inundated New Orleans and Bush's presidency. Tom Brady and the Patriots won their third Super Bowl. Major League Baseball instituted a steroid testing program after most of the record-breaking home run hitters of the nineties had been implicated in the performance-enhancing drug scandal. Lance Armstrong won his seventh straight Tour de France; at least there was one clean athlete in America. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan waged on. Something called Facebook was launched, as if thousands of people were really going to put their entire personal lives on display for the world. Frank tried more white-collar criminal cases and won them all. William played more private school football games and lost them all. It was a Thursday afternoon in late October, and his eighth-grade team was losing again. His father stood along the chain link fence that surrounded the Academy field. Sam Jenkins stood next to Frank and smelled of Old Spice and tobacco. Sam was short and stocky and smoked a cigar. He was a college scout.

  "He's fourteen," Frank said.

  "He's special."

  "He's a kid."

  "He's an athlete. With a big-time future. If you manage his career correctly."

  "His career?"

  "That's right. His career. A career that could be worth a couple hundred million dollars, Frank. Top pro athletes make more than movie stars today … and a hell of a lot more than lawyers."

  "He's playing eighth-grade football."

  "He's four years from playing college ball, eight from pro ball, maybe six if he leaves college early."

  "He won't."

  "Play pro ball?"

  "Leave college early."

  Sam nodded. "That's what they all say. But when an NFL team offers millions, a college degree doesn't seem so important."

  "What are the odds of William playing pro ball?"

  "What are the odds of winning the lottery? But someone always wins."

  Sam exhaled cigar smoke that lingered in the air.

  "Frank, if William was a music prodigy—a pianist—would you nurture that gift?"

  "Sure."

  "Well, he's a football prodigy."

  "How many pianists suffer concussions and long-term brain damage?"

  "How many make ten million a year? Frank, your boy's got a gift. I've been scouting kids for thirty years now, I've never seen a fourteen-year-old boy like him."

  "You scout fourteen-year-old boys?"

  "No. I scout twelve-year-old boys. Problem is, they're just hitting puberty, and half of the good ones come out of puberty no bigger than they went in. Normally I'd tell you to hold him back in school a year, maybe two, give him a chance to grow before varsity ball. But that's not an issue with William. He's already big—what is he, six foot?"

  "Six-one."

  "What's his shoe size?"

  "Thirteen."

  Sam whistled. "Size thirteen at age fourteen. He'll go to size sixteen, maybe seventeen. I figure he'll top out at six-four, maybe six-five. How big are his hands?"

  "Bigger than mine."

  "What does he weigh?"

  "One-sixty."

>   "In eighth grade. He'll go two-twenty, and he won't need steroids to do it. Which is always a concern. You look at sixteen-, seventeen-, eighteen-year-old bulked-up boys, and you always wonder if they're using."

  "High school boys are using steroids?"

  Sam chuckled. "You're spending too much time in the courtroom, Frank. Hell, yes, high school boys are juiced. They get through puberty and realize they're not going to be big enough, decide to give their bodies a boost. Anything to live the dream. So I always check their hands and feet."

  "Why?"

  "I see a pumped-up boy weighing two-twenty but wearing size ten cleats, I know that doesn't add up. Too big for his feet. Same with their hands. Boys grow into their hands and feet, not vice-versa."

  "You've got scouting down to a science."

  "Size and strength is science, but heart and guts isn't. A boy's got to have the guts to compete and the heart to win. You can't coach that."

  On the field, William ran left, juked two defenders, broke four tackles, and sprinted down the sideline for a touchdown. Sam regarded Frank's son with awe. He pointed the cigar at the field.

  "You can't coach that either, Frank. A boy's either got it or he doesn't. Your boy's got it."

  Sam sucked on the cigar and again exhaled smoke.

  "When I got started in the scouting business, my mentor was an old-timer who scouted Namath in high school. Said watching him play was like having an orgasm. I never understood what he meant. Until now."

  "An orgasm? You're scaring me, Sam."

  Sam smiled then spit a bit of cigar.

  "Gives me chills, watching your boy play." Sam ran his fingers over his forearm then held his arm out to Frank. "Here, feel the goose bumps."

  "I'll pass."

  "Last time I got even half this excited watching an eighth-grader was Troy Aikman up in Oklahoma. That boy could play. I ranked him number one coming out of high school. He did okay in football: went number one in the NFL draft, won three Super Bowls with the Cowboys, made the Hall of Fame, earned millions. But he wasn't as good as William at fourteen. Frank, if you don't nurture his gift, give him a chance to live his dream, he'll hate you."

  "He'll hate me?"

  Frank smiled. He assumed Sam was joking. He wasn't.

  "He will."

  Frank couldn't imagine his son hating him.

  "So what's your advice, Sam?"

  "First, he's in a small private school. He's got no team around him to work with." Sam gestured at the field. "He can't develop with a bunch of losers."

  "Losers? They're nice boys."

  "They're lousy athletes. He's got no offensive line, no receivers who can catch. He only throws the ball ten times a game. He can't develop his quarterbacking skills playing an old-style offense that runs the ball. The forward pass is the game today, Frank. The pro game is all about passing, which means the college game is all about passing, which means the high school game is all about passing. That's why freshmen can start and excel in college, why they can go pro and start in the NFL. They've been running pro offenses since middle school. You need to put William in a big public school that runs a pro-style offense, throws fifty times a game, and has players around him, preferably black players with speed and skills. And an indoor practice field."

  "An indoor practice field?"

  "It rains in Houston, Frank. Rain days are lost practice days. So all the big public schools in Texas build indoor practice fields."

  "I thought our public school system was broke?"

  "There's always money for football. When they played the Super Bowl in Dallas, the teams practiced in indoor arenas at high schools."

  "But he loves his school."

  "Frank, families move across the country so their sons can play at the best public high schools running the best pro offenses."

  "You're kidding?"

  "Do I look like I'm kidding?"

  He did not.

  "He's got to get on track now—if you want him to play in the NFL."

  "I don't care."

  "He cares."

  "He's fourteen. Every fourteen-year-old boy dreams of being a star pro football player."

  "Difference is, Frank, his dream can come true. He can be a star. He's got it. The size, the strength, the speed. Bigger stronger faster."

  He said the three words as if they were one.

  "I read about you, Frank, that profile in the New York Times after you won the senator's case—"

  Frank Tucker had become famous. The senator's acquittal had propelled him to the top of the heap of criminal defense lawyers in America. He could have specialized in defending members of Congress accused of ethics and criminal violations, but he didn't want to spend so much time in Washington away from his family. And there were plenty of white-collar defendants in Texas. Why travel?

  "—how you've never lost a trial. Why do you win all your cases?"

  "Because justice is on my side."

  Sam snorted. "Yeah, right. You win because you're smarter. In a court of law, smarter beats dumber every time, right? That's the law of man. On a football field, bigger stronger faster beats smaller weaker slower every time. That's the law of nature."

  Frank gazed out at his son's smaller, weaker, and slower team losing to a bigger, stronger, and faster team.

  "Second, he needs to spend his summers in quarterback school."

  "What's that?"

  "Summer camps run by former pro quarterbacks and coaches. They work with the top prospects in the nation. Throwing motion, footwork, leadership skills, passing drills, reading defenses, recognizing coverage, calling audibles … They teach the boys how to play the position. He does that for a couple of summers, then goes to an Elite Eleven camp."

  "What's that?"

  "Quarterback camp for the best of the best. They hold them all over the country, invite fifty or sixty boys to each camp. Maybe one boy from each camp moves on to the five-day Elite Eleven finals up at Nike's headquarters. They call it 'The Opening.' "

  "How much does all that cost?"

  "Thousands. Tens of thousands."

  "That's a lot of money."

  "They end up signing for millions."

  "What else?"

  "You need to put him on a training program with a personal trainer. Chisel his body. Quarterbacks today, they're ripped. You ever see players at the combine meat market, standing up on stage in their skivvies so the owners and coaches can take a look?"

  "Uh, no. I haven't. And I don't want to."

  Sam chuckled. "It is a bit strange, white team owners and coaches eyeballing these big black studs same way white plantation owners used to eyeball black slaves being sold on the docks in Galveston—I saw a show on cable about that, struck me—but difference is, these black players are going to make millions not pick cotton. Anyway, I can give you some names of trainers here in Houston. And a speed trainer, like Michael Johnson up in Dallas. Olympic gold medal guy, he trains NFL prospects and players to get that extra step for the combine. From four-five in the forty to four-four. One step faster can be the difference between playing in the NFL or working at Wal-Mart."

  "How much will that cost?"

  "Nothing a famous lawyer can't afford."

  "What else?"

  "A nutritionist. Boys eat fast food, they build fat instead of muscle. He needs to be on a strict diet."

  "At fourteen?"

  "He should've been on it at twelve."

  "Public school, quarterback school, personal trainer—"

  "And seven-on-seven tournaments."

  "Which are?"

  "Passing tournaments. A QB plus six receivers against seven D-backs. They run them all summer."

  "What about family vacations?"

  "You vacation at the tournament locations." Sam inhaled on the cigar and exhaled. "Look, Frank, if you want William in the NFL, that journey starts now. His family's got to get on board, dedicate their lives to that one goal."

  "Why?"

  "Because every other
William Tucker out there, his family is. That's what it takes today."

  "Are there any other William Tuckers out there?"

  "No. But their parents think they are."

  "Why do they do it?"

  "Fame and fortune. There are thirty-two NFL teams. Thirty-two starting quarterbacks. Average salary is five million. By the time William is drafted number one, he'll get twenty million. A year. Guaranteed."

  "But he needs to get a good education, maybe at an Ivy League school, then—"

  Sam laughed. "Ivy League? Shit, Frank, most high school teams in Texas can beat the hell out of Harvard's football team. Forget the Ivy League, Frank. William's got to go to a big D-One school."

  "—medical or law school."

  "And be a lawyer like his daddy?"

  "Maybe."

  "When do you figure on retiring, Frank? Sixty-five?"

  "Depends on how much my wife can spend between now and then."

  "NFL quarterbacks retire at thirty-five. You watch the Olympics?"

  Frank nodded.

  "You see those little gymnasts? They're sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, been living in dorms since they were ten, so they can be near their coaches, train every day for their one shot at glory. One shot at fame and fortune. One shot at a life. Sports today, it's younger than ever. You've got ten years max to make it. You're in the game at twenty-two, out at thirty-two. If you're lucky and don't get a career-ending injury. But if you play it right, you're sitting on a pile of money. You're set for life."

  "So it's about money?"

  "It's about William doing what he was born to do. Play football."

  Frank watched his son play football. Was that what William Tucker was born to do?

  "You ever been wrong, Sam? About a boy?"

  "Sure. There was a boy named Montana. Skinny, slow, couldn't throw a football fifty yards. You wouldn't pick him for your high school team. But he had ice water running through his veins. He won a national championship at Notre Dame and four Super Bowls."