The Case Against William Read online

  "You'll get more."

  Frank sighed. "I wanted him to go to the Ivy League, but that's not what he wants. His dream is to play D-One. So, what, do we go to the schools to meet the coaches?"

  "Nope. They'll come to William. Like wise men to baby Jesus."

  Sam breathed out cigar smoke.

  "William's life is about to change, Frank. Big time."

  Becky Tucker stood down the sideline from her dad and a man smoking a cigar. She was eighteen and a senior cheerleader. The last few months, as the team had won more games and William had become the star quarterback, she had begun hearing rumors at school about her brother and the head cheerleader. Rhonda. She was a senior, too. She was not a virgin.

  Not even close.

  The thought of her little brother having sex with Rhonda made her want to throw up. He might be as big as a man, but he was still just a boy. And sophomore boys didn't need sex with senior girls. At the Academy, she had never heard of anyone having sex. Of course, some kids had to be doing it, but those who were didn't talk about it. At this school, that was all they talked about. Who was screwing whom. (Although no one said "whom" at a public school.) And they took cell phone pictures of their body parts and sexted each other.

  Gross.

  Becky had never bonded with the other girls. They were different. They were not girls. They were women. Sexually active women. Rhonda and the other cheerleaders were huddled together down the sideline, waving to the players on the sideline and then giggling. Gossiping. No doubt about who was screwing whom. Rhonda waved at the players. At a player.

  "William!"

  Becky saw her brother turn to Rhonda … and Rhonda blow him a kiss. That did it. Becky's anger rose inside her until she felt as if she might explode. She marched down the sideline and to the girls, put her hands on her hips, and glared at Rhonda, the bitch.

  "Are you screwing my brother?"

  Rhonda smiled.

  "Yes."

  All the girls had answered as one.

  Chapter 12

  "Daddy, I'm worried about William."

  The next morning, Frank sat at his desk in the study on the backside of the house looking out at the pool. The kids were at home with him; Liz had gone to the funeral of Beverly Joiner, another socialite who had died of breast cancer. Frank didn't know her or her husband, Dale. All he knew about them was what Liz had told him: he was in oil and gas, and they lived in a fifteen-thousand-square-foot home abutting the country club. On the phone were a dozen messages from corporate lawyers in the biggest firms in Texas and two dozen more from sports agents for top college and professional athletes who had run afoul of the law and now sought Frank Tucker's representation. The Bradley Todd case had put Frank in the national press again. His fame had grown. As had his son's. On the desk sat a stack of letters addressed to William Tucker from the head football coaches at UT, A&M, Notre Dame, LSU, Florida, USC, UCLA, Ohio State, Alabama, and two dozen other Division I-A football schools in the country. Recruiting a sophomore in high school. Sitting on the other side of the desk as if she were a client was Becky.

  "Why?"

  "He's changing."

  "How?"

  "He's becoming a star. It's changing him. His attitude. About himself. And girls. Daddy, he's having sex with the cheerleaders."

  "Which one?"

  "All of them."

  "Pretty cool, huh, Dad?"

  Becky had left, and William held a hand out for a high-five. Frank slapped his son's hand then they sat on opposite sides of Frank's desk. William was speaking of the recruiting letters, not sex with cheerleaders. He was drinking a protein shake.

  "Sure, son, it's nice that all these coaches think you could play college ball."

  "They love me."

  "No. They don't love you, William. They need you. There's a difference. They're paid millions to win football games, so they need players like you to keep their jobs. They need you, but they don't love you. Your family loves you, win or lose. And we'll love you even if you throw five interceptions."

  "I've never thrown five interceptions in one game."

  "You will."

  Frank leaned back in his chair.

  "Son, are you having sex?"

  "Dad, did you see they indicted Barry Bonds for lying under oath to a grand jury about the steroids scandal?"

  Barry Bonds was the all-time major league baseball home run hitter. His agent's message was on Frank's phone.

  "Don't change the subject."

  "And Marion Jones confessed to doping during the Olympics in Sydney when she won five medals."

  She was facing prison time. Her agent's message was also on the phone.

  "What about you? Are you confessing?"

  "To doping?"

  "To sexing?"

  "Is that really a word?"

  "It's a question."

  "Am I under oath like Barry?"

  "You're under my roof."

  They regarded each other a long moment then William smiled and shrugged.

  "What can I say? The girls love William Tucker."

  "You're speaking of yourself in the third person now?"

  Another shrug. "All the pros do."

  "You're not a pro. What's the girl's name?"

  "What girl?"

  "The girl you're having sex with."

  "Which one?"

  "There's more than one?"

  "Not at the same time."

  "You've had sex with more than one girl?"

  "Dad, it's no big deal. It's like texting. Bobby said—"

  "Bobby your center?"

  "Yeah."

  "You're taking advice from an offensive lineman?"

  "He's a senior."

  "That doesn't mean he's smart. Son, there are laws. If you have sex with younger girls—"

  "They're older."

  "How old?"

  "Juniors, seniors, college …"

  "You're having sex with college girls?"

  "They come home for the weekend."

  His son had stopped asking sex questions at the dinner table a few months before. Now Frank knew why: he was getting his questions answered by older girls. Frank decided that he had better ask a few questions of his own.

  "William, you know if you impregnate a girl and she has the baby, you're responsible for child support for eighteen years?"

  "All the girls are on the pill."

  "You can still contract a sexually transmitted disease, like AIDS."

  "They're good girls."

  "Are you using condoms?"

  "Seriously?"

  "Testosterone and stupidity strike again."

  "Huh?"

  "Your body is acting like a man, but your brain is thinking like a boy."

  "What?"

  "You're doing something stupid. You're playing Russian roulette with your life. I want you to stop."

  "Playing Russian roulette?"

  "Having sex."

  William regarded Frank as if he had just said, "Stop having protein shakes."

  "No way. Look, Dad, I know sex was a big deal back when you were my age, but it's not today. It's just a part of dating—go to the movie, get a burger, have sex. Everyone does it." He smiled his movie star smile. "Sex is good for William Tucker."

  Frank sighed. How could he protect his son from himself?

  "Then at least wear a condom."

  Sex used to be good for Frank Tucker. His first thought was that he was jealous of his sixteen-year-old son. His second thought was that he should grill his son a thick steak—he couldn't keep that kind of sex life up on protein shakes alone. But he quickly admonished himself for employing a double standard with his children. If Becky were having sex with several different boys every week, he'd be devastated, not proud. And he had to confess, he felt a twinge of pride in his son's sexual exploits. He shouldn't, but he did. His son was living every sixteen-year-old boy's dream, the same dreams Frank had entertained at sixteen. Should he criticize his son for succeeding where Frank h
ad failed? He did not see that William Tucker had taken the first step to entitlement. But he did see his son take the second step.

  "I need you to mow the lawn and wash the cars today," Frank said.

  William nodded, pulled out his new iPhone, and began texting.

  "I'll get my people on it."

  Frank chuckled. "You're a sophomore in high school. You don't have people."

  "Sure I do."

  He sent the text then sat back, as if waiting for a response. Thirty seconds later, he got one. He read the text then smiled.

  "Two freshman will be here in an hour to cut the grass and wash the cars."

  "You're kidding?"

  "Nope. Freshmen volunteer to do stuff for the football players."

  "Why?"

  "Because they can't play football. So doing stuff for us gives them a connection to the team. They want to help the team win."

  "By mowing your grass and washing your cars?"

  "Your grass and your cars."

  "William, other people don't exist for your convenience. They're not just part of your entourage. Being a football player doesn't make you special."

  "Sure it does."

  "No, it doesn't."

  His son gestured at the recruiting letters.

  "All those coaches think I'm special. Everyone does. The media, other players, parents, classmates, girls … Are they all lying?"

  "No. But they mean you're a special football player—that's determined by what you do on the field—not a special human being—that's determined by what you do off the field."

  "How many human beings can do what I can do on a football field?"

  "Not many."

  "So I'm a special human being."

  "No, William, you're a lucky human being." Frank pointed a thumb in the direction of the medical center in downtown Houston. "But you're no more special than a child over in MD Anderson's cancer ward. You're just luckier. There's a difference. Never underestimate the role luck plays in life."

  "I'd rather be big, strong, and fast than lucky."

  "William …"

  "Dad, Ray is a math/science genius. He'll probably discover the cure for cancer, but I'll make a lot more money playing football than he's going to make doing that."

  "Do you still see him?"

  William shook his head.

  "Why not?"

  "He still goes to the Academy."

  "He still lives right here in River Oaks."

  "And, you know, he's a nerd."

  "That didn't matter before."

  William shrugged. "We grew apart. Like you and Mom."

  He was sixteen. He understood now why his father and mother slept in different bedrooms.

  "People look at me differently," his son said. "Like I'm a star."

  "Who?"

  "Everyone. I see the dads staring at me when I walk from the locker room to the field. They line up to look at me, like I'm an animal at the zoo. Do people line up to look at you when you walk into a courthouse?"

  "No. Lawyers aren't heroes anymore. Athletes are our heroes now."

  "I'm a hero?"

  "Some people might look at you that way, William, like you're a star or a hero, but you can never look at yourself that way. You have to know that it's not real. They don't love you."

  "Girls do."

  "No. Some girls are attracted to star athletes—"

  He grinned. "A lot of girls."

  Now he was bragging. Frank shook his head. It was tough when your sixteen-year-old son was getting more sex than you.

  "Would they have sex with you if you were a math nerd like Ray?"

  His son laughed. "Nerds don't get laid."

  "William, what I'm saying is, you've got a lot of athletic ability, more than most boys. That ability makes you special on a football field, but nowhere else. You have to stay grounded. Fame and stardom can make a person lose their footing in life, slip and fall. Those people end up paying me to represent them. William, you're a great kid. Don't let the fact that some people worship athletes change who you are."

  "Like LeBron holding a national television special to announce his new NBA team?"

  LeBron James was the best basketball player on the planet. When he decided to leave his original team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and enter the free-agent market, he held a nationally televised event to announce where he would play basketball the next season, as if he were the president announcing that the country was going to war.

  "Exactly like that. Other people might think you're special, but you can't believe that. There's a difference between being special and being lucky. You stay the William Tucker you are now, and you'll be a happy man no matter what happens for you in sports. Or to you."

  "LeBron seems happy."

  William's phone pinged. He read the message.

  "My people are here early."

  "So what do these freshman boys get in return for being your people?"

  "Protection. No one at school messes with them. And I give them autographed jerseys."

  "Boys at your school want to wear your autographed jerseys?"

  "No. Their dads do."

  Frank sat back and sighed. He regarded his son. He was a good kid. But he was already falling into the celebrity athlete trap. How was his father to save him? How do you keep a boy grounded when the world kept putting him up on a pedestal? When the world told him daily that he's special? That he's a star? At sixteen, the fame snowball had already started rolling downhill for his son. And once it started rolling, it was hard to stop. It consumed everything in its path. And Frank worried that it might consume his son.

  That William Tucker might be too good for his own good.

  At forty-nine, life was good for Frank Tucker—apparently not as good as it was for his sixteen-year-old son, but good. He had two great kids. Becky would not win a volleyball scholarship, but she had won acceptance to Wellesley with a full scholarship from her father. Sixty thousand a year. She was worth every penny. And it was probably the only college tuition he would pay. William would win a scholarship to the school of his choice. His ticket in life. His sexual promiscuity at sixteen concerned Frank, but what could he do about it? Would he have stopped having sex with older girls when he was sixteen, even if his father had asked him? No. He would not have. Of course, he didn't have sex until his first semester at UT. And he hadn't stopped having sex until he was forty-three.

  When he was twenty-seven, he was sure his wife loved him. The truth of the matter is, he had married up. In his prime, he was a good-looking man; but he was not great looking. At best, he was a five or maybe a six. Liz was a ten-plus. She was a beauty queen at the University of Texas, no small feat. He had met her when he was a third-year law student and she was still an undergrad; he had already accepted a job with a Houston firm. He asked her out on a whim and was stunned when she said yes. Because you learn at an early age where you fit on the human food chain. Where you fit in terms of looks and wealth. You date accordingly. A nerd doesn't ask the homecoming queen to the prom; the star athlete doesn't ask the class ugly duckling. A poor boy doesn't date a rich girl; a rich boy doesn't date a poor girl. Humans don't work that way. They order themselves according to looks and wealth. They date their own kind. You don't stray outside your place on the food chain. That's the rule.

  Frank had always observed the rule. He dated cute girls. Sweet girls. Nice girls. But not beautiful girls. Not drop-dead gorgeous girls. Not girls like Liz. But he had asked her out, and she had fallen in love with him. He had broken the rules and had won the lottery.

  Or so he had thought.

  When you're young, you intentionally overlook such discrepancies. You convince yourself that she loves you for who you are, not how much you make. That you're her Prince Charming, not just her provider. Twenty years of marriage later, you realize she never really loved you. And you pray for that, for someone to love and someone to love you, hopefully the same person. You no longer want to have sex like a sixteen-year-old boy; you
want to make love like a man.

  He understood now that for Liz it was never about love, just about the cost of living. She wanted things. His profession was the law, but his job was to give her the life she wanted. The things she wanted. She had not given him love, but she had given him the children. And in the end, their love meant more to him than the love of a woman. Other men lived without money or success or children or good health. He had all that. So he lived without love and without complaint. He kept the peace.

  Every man makes his own bed. And then sleeps in it. Frank slept alone.

  It was an hour later, and Frank stood at the window watching two boys mow his grass. They were actually doing a good job. His son sat in a patio chair autographing jerseys.

  Something was wrong with that picture.

  Most dads would think it was a perfect picture. Their son the star quarterback. Having sex with cheerleaders and college girls. His entourage mowing his grass and washing his cars. That's the dream. For the son and the dad. But not for Frank. He knew what pressure could do to a human being, how it could push a good man—or woman—over the edge. Most of his clients were good people who had been pushed to the edge and then over by the pressure to succeed. Business was a high-pressure environment. Sports even more. Doping among professional athletes had become pervasive. Home run hitters hauled before Congressional committees then charged with perjury. Olympic track stars convicted and sentenced to prison. The pressure to win. The need to win. To feel special. To believe you're above the rules. Even the law. His landline rang. He pushed the speakerphone button.

  "Frank Tucker."

  "Frank. Scooter."

  He knew from Scooter's voice that this was not a social call.

  "They arrested Bradley Todd again."

  "For what?"

  "Same crimes: rape and murder."

  "That's double jeopardy. He was acquitted. They can't charge him twice for raping and killing the same girl."

  Scooter was silent for a moment. He sighed into the phone.

  "It's a different girl, Frank."

  Chapter 13

  Frank drove to Austin Sunday afternoon. He checked into the Driskill Hotel in downtown, bought and read the local newspaper, and then went to the Travis County Jail. He asked to see Bradley Todd then waited in one of the cubicles in the interview room on the visitors' side of the Plexiglas partition. Bradley was now a senior star on the UT basketball team. He was charged with the rape and murder of Sarah Barnes, his ex-fiancée. She had been stabbed forty-seven times. The Bradley Todd who soon appeared before him was not the same Bradley Todd the jury had acquitted two years before. His eyes were different. He sat and picked up the phone.