The Justice Game (22 page)

    Sherwood was silent for a moment; he probably wasn’t used to someone being so blunt. “Jason, I would have loved nothing more than to part with Andrew on good terms. Did you know we paid him $2.5 million and let him keep his 15 percent share in the company?”

    Jason didn’t respond. Maybe Sherwood was fishing to see if Lassiter had been talking about details of the deal. Maybe there was a confidentiality agreement.

    “That’s what I figured,” Sherwood said. “He didn’t tell you that. Go ahead and work with him, Jason, but be careful. He internalizes everything, and then suddenly, like a coiled snake, he lashes out.”

    Jason almost chuckled at the description of Lassiter as a snake. The man would have trouble stepping on a cockroach.

    “I’ll keep that in mind,” Jason said.

Jason picked up his prototype MD-45 from Richmond Sporting Goods on Wednesday morning. At the store, he paid careful attention to the paperwork. He was required to fill out ATF Form 4473. He also had to produce a government-issued photo ID and a bill showing his address, then wait for the National Instant Criminal Background Check to clear his name.

    The bulk of Form 4473 consisted of a “Certification of Transferee,” containing a number of questions that Jason had to answer and a space for him to sign. The very first question was the most important:
Are you the actual buyer of the firearm(s) listed on this form?
The question was followed by a boldfaced warning:
You are not the actual buyer if you are acquiring the firearm(s) on behalf of another person. If you are not the actual buyer, the dealer cannot transfer the firearm(s) to you. (See Important Notice 1 for actual buyer definition and examples.)

    Jason read through all of the examples as the clerk watched him. After a few seconds, the impatient clerk decided to provide a little help. “Most people just answer ‘yes’ to question 12a and ‘no’ to questions 12b through 12k. If you answer ‘yes’ to anything on 12b through 12k, I can’t sell you this gun.”

    “Thanks,” Jason said without lifting his head.

    Despite the clerk’s prompting, he took the time to read each question.

    
Are you under indictment or information in any court for a felony?

    
Have you been convicted in any court of a felony?

    
Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana, or any depressant, stimulant, or narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?

    
Have you ever been adjudicated mentally defective?

    
Have you been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence?

    
Are you an alien illegally in the United States?

    At the end of the long list of questions was a paragraph full of boldfaced warnings, informing the purchaser that he or she could face felony prosecutions for falsifying any information.

    “They take this stuff seriously,” Jason said, signing the form.

    “Yeah,” the clerk groused. “Unless you buy your guns on the street or at a gun show. The ATF just likes hassling legal purchasers.”

    Jason had read about the gun show debate. Thousands of gun show sellers skirted Form 4473 because they weren’t federally licensed firearms dealers. He decided not to take that bait. The gun used to kill Rachel Crawford had been purchased at a gun store. The straw purchaser, Jarrod Beeson, had certified that he was the actual purchaser and signed his name to this form. The gun store clerk allegedly knew that the gun was really intended for Larry Jamison but sold it anyway, despite the bold-print warning.

    Beeson was serving time. The gun store owner and clerk had been indicted and were rumored to be considering a plea bargain.

    Jason purchased a few rounds of ammunition, thanked the clerk, and decided to head straight to the firing range.

Just as he remembered, the gun had a nice heft to it and a sleek feel. It responded cleanly when he pulled the trigger and was easy to sight in. He liked knowing that the gun could only be fired by him. His fingerprints unlocked all this power.
His
gun.

    On the way home, it felt a little strange to have the gun in the car. On the one hand, he felt more secure. After all, his MD-45
was
the great equalizer. But on the other hand, the gun seemed to bring a new aura of danger—as if the world had suddenly become too risky to navigate without firepower.

    He called Melissa Davids and told her that he was the proud new owner of an MD-45.

    “Have you applied for a concealed carry?” she asked.

    He hadn’t thought about that. His main concern right now was working on the case, not playing Dirty Harry. “Not yet.”

    “It might help you get one if you had some actual death threats,” Davids said matter-of-factly. “If you need a few, just let me know. I’ve got extras.”

    Jason thanked her but said he could probably generate all the death threats he needed on his own.

    “I’d like to get together before your deposition next week,” he said, changing subjects. “I’m coming to town Friday for some family business. Can we meet then?”

    “Why?”

    “To prepare for your deposition.”

    “I’ve been deposed before,” Davids said, her tone dismissive. “I’m a big girl.”

    The response made Jason bristle. “You haven’t been deposed on this case before. You hired me to be your lawyer. We really ought to meet beforehand.”

    “I hired you to be my
trial
lawyer. This is a deposition. I can take care of myself.”

    “There aren’t many objections I can legitimately make at a deposition,” Jason countered, trying hard to remain patient. “It’s tough to defend a witness who isn’t prepared.”

    “Jason, I don’t care if you go to the shooting range during my deposition. I’ve done this before. I can handle Kelly Starling.”

    For a few seconds, Jason let the silence register his objection. “You’re the client,” he said grudgingly.

    “That I am.”

Blake Crawford showed up right on time for his deposition preparation. Kelly started with the general advice. Listen carefully to the questions. Don’t guess. Look at the camera. Think before you answer. Those types of things.

    Next she spent a few hours playing the role of Case McAllister or Jason Noble, grilling Blake with questions, trying to throw him off or make him lose his cool. Occasionally, she would stop the questioning and give him some pointers.

    Overall, the man did amazingly well. He was soft-spoken and sincere. Even during the practice questions, he choked up when he talked about Rachel and the baby. At one point, Kelly stopped and asked him if he needed a break.

    “Let’s just get through it,” he said.

    He was at his best when talking about Rachel’s hopes and dreams. Blake was a high school math teacher and tennis coach. He and Rachel had moved to Virginia Beach from Florida less than a year earlier when Rachel had been offered a job as an investigative reporter. It was a bigger market and a better assignment than the small station Rachel had been working for in the Florida panhandle. For Blake, it meant moving in the middle of the school year and looking for work as a substitute teacher in Virginia.

    “That’s quite a sacrifice,” Kelly said.

    Blake shrugged. “Not really. Teaching jobs are a dime a dozen. But Rachel loved broadcast journalism. And she had a gift. Everywhere I went, I was pretty much known as Rachel Crawford’s husband.”

    After Kelly had asked her last question, she pronounced him ready. “You’re going to do great. Just be yourself. We’ve got nothing to hide.”

    Blake swallowed hard and stared past Kelly for a moment. “Can I ask you a question now?”

    “Sure.”

    “Your dad’s a pastor, right?”

    The question caught Kelly a little off guard. “Um, yeah.”

    “Do you think it’s
right
for me to pursue this?” He squirmed a little and toyed with a pen as he spoke. “I don’t mean from a legal perspective. I mean as a Christian. Do you think it’s the Christian thing to do?”

    Kelly didn’t hesitate. “Yes. Definitely. Why do you ask?”

    Blake put the pen down. Concern furrowed his forehead. “A lot of my friends at church think I’m on the wrong side of this. You know… they don’t say it that bluntly. But I pick it up from little things. Some of them have a hard time with this suit because they really believe in the Second Amendment. I don’t know, maybe they feel like this is a big step toward the government taking away our right to defend ourselves. They’re not big fans of the government to begin with.”

    Kelly wanted to interrupt and maybe suggest a change of churches, but she knew enough to hear him out.

    “Others probably feel like I’m just doing this for the money. Especially since we didn’t even sue the people who are really responsible. And then there’s the whole thing about whether Christians should sue at all.”

    Kelly’s mind raced as her client shared these rambling thoughts. Her own understanding of God as a God of justice was so deeply ingrained that she considered cases like this almost a special calling. How could somebody who apparently worshiped the same God see things so differently?

    “God cares about justice,” she said. “It’s all throughout the Old Testament.” She tried to think of some specific examples but she really wasn’t much of a Bible scholar. “Even in the New Testament, the apostle Paul appealed his own case all the way to Caesar. And the only reason Christ refused to defend Himself was because there were bigger issues at stake. In His case, justice demanded sacrifice.”

    Blake looked skeptical. Even to Kelly’s ears, her argument sounded muddled. Then she had a thought. “You want me to see if I can get my dad on the phone?”

    Blake thought it was a good idea, and Kelly slipped into the hallway so she could talk to her dad on the cell phone and privately explain the situation. A few minutes later, she put him on the speakerphone in the conference room and introduced Blake. “The question, Dad, is whether it’s right for Blake to be pursuing this case as a Christian.”

    She looked at Blake. “Is that it?”

    “Basically. Yeah. I mean, I hate to sound so conflicted. But some days, it just feels like I’m on the wrong side of this issue and alienating a lot of people I care about, and most of them are just too kind to say anything right now. I don’t know.”

    “It’s a great question,” Kelly’s dad said. One thing Kelly had always appreciated about her dad was that he wasn’t afraid of tough questions. “And it’s pretty natural to feel conflicted about something like this.” His voice was calm and reassuring—Kelly called it his “pastor’s voice,” as in, “Don’t use that pastor’s voice on me.” Today, however, it sounded great.

    “Like a lot of matters in life, the first thing you probably need to do is search your heart. Only you know why you’re really pursuing this lawsuit. Is it for the money? Is it revenge? An attempt to fill a hole in your heart left by Rachel’s death?”

    Her dad waited, and Blake seemed to be considering these things.

    “Or is it a desire to keep others from going through the same pain you suffered? Justice is a noble concept, Blake. But the line between justice and revenge is thinner than most people realize. Vengeance belongs to the Lord, not us.”

    Blake nodded. “I ask myself those questions all the time. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell what’s really driving me.”

    “Fair enough,” said Kelly’s dad. “And that’s a question only you can answer. As for the theological questions—it is true that in the New Testament Christians are told not to file lawsuits against fellow believers, but that wouldn’t prevent a lawsuit against MD Firearms. And it may help you to know that our entire tort system is actually derived from the Mosaic law of the Old Testament. When Kelly decided to make a living suing and defending people, I did a little research on this.”

    
Interesting,
Kelly thought.
He’s never shared this with me.

    “Let me read you a passage from Exodus that might apply here. You’ve heard the expression ‘It all depends on whose ox is being gored’?”

    “Yeah,” Blake said.

    “It comes from Exodus 21. Keep in mind that in those days, they talked about dangerous bulls, not dangerous guns, but you’ll see the parallels. ‘If a bull gores a man or a woman to death, the bull must be stoned to death, and its meat must not be eaten. But the owner of the bull will not be held responsible. If, however, the bull has had the habit of goring and the owner has been warned but has not kept it penned up and it kills a man or a woman, the bull must be stoned and the owner also must be put to death. However, if payment is demanded of him, he may redeem his life by paying whatever is demanded.’”

    “Wow,” Kelly said, excited to discover that her lawsuit might actually have a biblical foundation. “It’s the exact same principle. We’re saying that MD Firearms knew about the dangerous habits of this dealer and did nothing. Didn’t keep him penned up, so to speak. Consequently, it’s not just the dealer who should pay but MD Firearms as well.”

    She looked at Blake. He didn’t seem to have quite the same spark as Kelly, but the sag in his shoulders had lifted a little. “Does that make sense?” she asked.

    “Actually, that helps a lot.”

    The three of them kicked it around for a few more minutes, and Kelly’s dad warned Blake that life seldom served up black-and-white choices. “The apostle Paul understood this when he said he was ‘perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.’ Sometimes we have to move forward one step at a time, just waiting for the fog to lift.”

    When they hung up, Kelly could tell the conversation had helped Blake. But she also knew her dad well enough to realize that Blake may not have been his only, or even his primary, audience.

    After her client left, Kelly called her dad again.

    “Thanks, Dad. That was exactly what he needed.”

    “He’s asking the right questions, Kelly. He’s going to be fine.”