The Law of Second Chances Read Online Free Page A
Author: James Sheehan
right away if I hadn’t been busting your balls
.
3
Florida, 1998
Clang!
The gates of the maximum-security state prison in Starke, Florida, slammed shut behind Jack Tobin as he entered. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sound. This had been his work for the last two years—representing people on death row. There were aspects of the endeavor that he loved and aspects that he hated. One of the things he hated most was entering the prison, with its dank odors and its chaotic sounds bouncing off the bare walls and steel bars and ricocheting up and down the corridors. The racket reminded him of the Central Park Zoo when he was a kid, when it was the sounds of animals that rang in his ears and the smells of their excrement that filled his nostrils. Zoos had changed since then. Apparently, some experts decided that animals thrived in a more open, natural environment.
Maybe someday a lightbulb will go off somewhere and they’ll realize that a better environment might work for human beings as well
, Jack thought as he walked down the corridor and into the visiting room accompanied by a uniformed guard.
He was visiting an inmate named Henry Wilson. Jack did not know the complete details of the case. He knew that Wilson, who was black, had a rap sheet about six miles long, that he had been a criminal and a drug addict his entire adult life, and that he’d been convicted seventeen years ago of murdering a drug dealer named Clarence Waterman.
Jack had been a very successful civil trial lawyer in Miami for twenty years. He had started his own firm, andwhen it grew to one hundred lawyers and he could no longer stand it, he had negotiated a twenty-million-dollar buyout of his interest. He had planned on retiring to the little town of Bass Creek near Lake Okeechobee and becoming a part-time country lawyer and a full-time fisherman. Other matters intervened, however. First, the governor offered him the position of state’s attorney for that county. Even though he didn’t want the job, he couldn’t say no. And then he learned that his best friend from his childhood years in New York, Mike Kelly, had died, and that Mike’s son, Rudy, was on death row in Florida. Thus began a quest to save Rudy from the electric chair. It was through the process of representing Rudy that Jack realized he had a calling and that his particular calling was to represent death-row inmates.
The visiting room was as stark and uninviting as the rest of the facility, with nothing in it but a steel table and steel chairs bolted to the ground. Jack took his seat and waited for the sound of Henry Wilson coming down the hall. It was always the same. You heard them long before you saw them: chains clanging, feet shuffling. Still, Jack was shocked when Henry Wilson walked in the room. He was an imposing figure, standing at least six feet, five inches tall with a wide, thick, muscular frame. His brown eyes were dark and inset, and the corners of his lips turned downward in a perpetual scowl. He looked like he could break his shackles, overpower the guards, and walk through the walls to freedom anytime he wanted.
Jack also noticed that there were three guards with Henry Wilson instead of the usual two and they were watching Wilson’s every move. Jack took his cue from them.
Henry shuffled in and stood in front of the bolted chair on the opposite side of the table. “Hello, Mr. Wilson, I’m Jack Tobin,” he said rising from his seat. He did not offer his hand because he noticed that Henry’s cuffs were shackled to a waist belt. “I’m a lawyer.”
Henry Wilson looked across at the man standing on the opposite side of the table. He appeared to be in his late forties, early fifties, and he had a tough, weathered look abouthim—kind of like an old marine. At six-two, Jack was not quite as tall as Henry; his thinning gray hair was short and he looked fit, even muscular. Henry Wilson said nothing in reply to Jack’s introduction. He simply gave the lawyer a bored
.
3
Florida, 1998
Clang!
The gates of the maximum-security state prison in Starke, Florida, slammed shut behind Jack Tobin as he entered. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sound. This had been his work for the last two years—representing people on death row. There were aspects of the endeavor that he loved and aspects that he hated. One of the things he hated most was entering the prison, with its dank odors and its chaotic sounds bouncing off the bare walls and steel bars and ricocheting up and down the corridors. The racket reminded him of the Central Park Zoo when he was a kid, when it was the sounds of animals that rang in his ears and the smells of their excrement that filled his nostrils. Zoos had changed since then. Apparently, some experts decided that animals thrived in a more open, natural environment.
Maybe someday a lightbulb will go off somewhere and they’ll realize that a better environment might work for human beings as well
, Jack thought as he walked down the corridor and into the visiting room accompanied by a uniformed guard.
He was visiting an inmate named Henry Wilson. Jack did not know the complete details of the case. He knew that Wilson, who was black, had a rap sheet about six miles long, that he had been a criminal and a drug addict his entire adult life, and that he’d been convicted seventeen years ago of murdering a drug dealer named Clarence Waterman.
Jack had been a very successful civil trial lawyer in Miami for twenty years. He had started his own firm, andwhen it grew to one hundred lawyers and he could no longer stand it, he had negotiated a twenty-million-dollar buyout of his interest. He had planned on retiring to the little town of Bass Creek near Lake Okeechobee and becoming a part-time country lawyer and a full-time fisherman. Other matters intervened, however. First, the governor offered him the position of state’s attorney for that county. Even though he didn’t want the job, he couldn’t say no. And then he learned that his best friend from his childhood years in New York, Mike Kelly, had died, and that Mike’s son, Rudy, was on death row in Florida. Thus began a quest to save Rudy from the electric chair. It was through the process of representing Rudy that Jack realized he had a calling and that his particular calling was to represent death-row inmates.
The visiting room was as stark and uninviting as the rest of the facility, with nothing in it but a steel table and steel chairs bolted to the ground. Jack took his seat and waited for the sound of Henry Wilson coming down the hall. It was always the same. You heard them long before you saw them: chains clanging, feet shuffling. Still, Jack was shocked when Henry Wilson walked in the room. He was an imposing figure, standing at least six feet, five inches tall with a wide, thick, muscular frame. His brown eyes were dark and inset, and the corners of his lips turned downward in a perpetual scowl. He looked like he could break his shackles, overpower the guards, and walk through the walls to freedom anytime he wanted.
Jack also noticed that there were three guards with Henry Wilson instead of the usual two and they were watching Wilson’s every move. Jack took his cue from them.
Henry shuffled in and stood in front of the bolted chair on the opposite side of the table. “Hello, Mr. Wilson, I’m Jack Tobin,” he said rising from his seat. He did not offer his hand because he noticed that Henry’s cuffs were shackled to a waist belt. “I’m a lawyer.”
Henry Wilson looked across at the man standing on the opposite side of the table. He appeared to be in his late forties, early fifties, and he had a tough, weathered look abouthim—kind of like an old marine. At six-two, Jack was not quite as tall as Henry; his thinning gray hair was short and he looked fit, even muscular. Henry Wilson said nothing in reply to Jack’s introduction. He simply gave the lawyer a bored
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