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  Praise for Lee Goodman and INDEFENSIBLE

  “Goodman takes the reader by the hand and leads them into a frightening world they will never forget. . . . This book is top-notch!”

  —Suspense Magazine

  “Complex and intelligent, fantastically well-plotted. Indefensible is as good as it gets.”

  —John Lescroart, New York Times bestselling author

  “Indefensible is the kind of gem we all love to stumble on, a novel that delivers its story flawlessly. Lee Goodman has created characters we care about deeply; when he puts them through the wringer, we feel their pain. Add to this a compelling insider’s look at prosecution and law enforcement, language that sings, a stunning series of plot twists, and the result may well prove to be the outstanding debut novel of the year.”

  —William Kent Krueger, New York Times bestselling author

  “Lee Goodman is a rare find in a crowded field: a talented writer who knows the true intricacies and ironies of the American criminal litigation system. Before reading Indefensible, be sure to put on your helmet and fasten your five-point harness. You’re in for a wild ride.”

  —Walter Walker, author of Crime of Privilege

  “Goodman’s debut legal thriller is compelling from start to finish—well-written, populated with intriguing multidimensional characters, and with many plot twists leading to a surprise ending.”

  —Library Journal

  “As legal thrillers go, this one is right up there with the best of them. That’s not because of its nonstop action, but because of its slow-burn pacing, unpredictable characters, and lots and lots of plot switchbacks. . . . And the big bonus is that author Lee Goodman’s writing style makes me want to come back for more. And more. And more.”

  —BookReporter

  “Attorney Goodman easily makes the transition to fiction writer, as have his brethren Scott Turow and John Lescroart.”

  —Booklist

  “Goodman ties up every loose end in surprising ways, making for a deeply satisfying read.”

  —Authorexposure.com

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  For Barrie and for Gray

  Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity and ruin.

  —Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

  PART I

  CHAPTER 1

  LIFE IS SWEET.

  That, in any case, is the opinion of a character from the funny pages, which I have taped to the stand of my desk lamp here at the cabin. Lizzy, my eighteen-year-old daughter, clipped the panel and glued it to an index card for me last July. “Dad, this made me think of you,” she wrote.

  But that was before the murder, and it was before my wife, Tina, suggested I find an apartment where I could live alone while she stayed home with our son, Barnaby, using my absence to “figure some things out.” And it was before I discovered that the very incarnation of evil and misery had burrowed its way into the heart of my job and family.

  It was on July 3, Barnaby’s fourth birthday, when Lizzy gave me that cartoon, but the gesture wasn’t as sweet as it sounds. The character in the comic strip wears a squiggle-mouth expression of befuddlement as if the idea of life’s sweetness is an alien concept that the androgynous little freak has just stumbled upon at that moment. It taunts me, daring me to burn it, flush it, crumple it, stomp on it—whatever—smug in its certainty that anything I do to be rid of its hateful irony will only invite more calamity.

  Life is not sweet.

  Life sucks.

  But on July 3 I still had a simplistic confidence in my identity as a vigilant father, a loving and beloved husband, and a shrewd federal prosecutor.

  The third was a Wednesday. I remember because one of the assistant U.S. attorneys had a trial that day, which was the first event in what we, in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, expected to be a wide-ranging series of prosecutions for bribery, extortion, and political corruption. This first case would be the quick trial of an unimportant player. My associate Henry Tatlock was going to try the case. Henry was a new lawyer and relatively untested in the courtroom, so I was second-seating for him.

  I felt good about the trial. I liked playing mentor to new lawyers like Henry. Also, I was excited—the whole office was excited—about the burgeoning corruption investigation. This trial was the warm-up act, the first rollout.

  I was also happy about the trial because of a little deception I was perpetrating on the court. The trial would take no more than one day, but when I saw that we were calendared for Wednesday, July 3, I told Henry to inform the clerk’s office that we expected to need two days. Everybody blocked out Wednesday the third and Friday the fifth for trial. The fourth, of course, was a holiday. So if we actually did wrap up trial on Wednesday, and we all celebrated July 4 on Thursday, we’d have Friday the fifth completely open. Voilà! I’d created a four-day weekend!

  Every year on July 4, the city has a celebration at Rokeby Park, with an evening concert by the state symphony orchestra, ending with an exorbitant fireworks display. No matter how cynical you are, it’s hard not to feel some civic pride in the renaissance of this once-rotting mill town that has clawed its way back from the despair and economic desperation of the ’70s and ’80s.

  Barnaby was especially looking forward to the fireworks. Tina kept warning him that the booms and pops could be scary, but he wasn’t having it. He just ran around the house screaming “Boom!” and throwing his hands in the air.

  We had invited the extended family over for a barbecue before the concert on the Fourth. On the fifth, if my scheme worked, Tina and Barn and I would drive up to our cabin on the lake for the weekend to formally celebrate Barn’s birthday.

  Adding to all this, Tina and I were quietly celebrating another milestone. Two years earlier Tina had had a malignancy removed from her left breast. The surgery went well, but a year and a half later, her doctor found “something of concern” in the latest mammogram. He wanted to give it six months and then look again. Now the six months were over, and the follow-up exam, done just two days before Barn’s birthday, had given Tina a clean bill of health. We were confident and excited about our future.

  Children; spouse; health; extended family; career.

  Life certainly seemed very sweet on July 3.

  CHAPTER 2

  July 3 is now months in the past. I’ve been living up here at my cabin on the lake for several weeks, writing this summary of everything that happened. The trial will be starting soon, and I believe it will help to have things written down, especially in a case like this, where it all got so tangled up together and where, I’ll be the first to admit, my own recollections and objectivity could be called into question.

  I’ve been a prosecutor for nearly thirty years, but I still feel a moment of awe when I step into the courtroom. The polished wood of the rails and benches, the waiting seats in the jury box, the imposing altitude of the judge’s bench, the smell of the carpet, and the crackle of the sound system: It is an arena, a coliseum in which great and tragic events play out. The hush of an empty courtroom is electric with incipience. Remorseless and indifferent, it awaits its gladiators.

  I am a gladiator. And on the morning of July 3, pushing through the swinging gate into the courtroom proper and laying my briefcase atop the prosecutor’s table, I felt that thrill.

  Henry and I were the first ones in the courtroom. I had an urge to put my hand on his shoulder and ask how he was faring. He struck me as vul
nerable and a bit out of his depth as a trial lawyer. My instinct was to be avuncular toward him, offering encouragement and reassurance. But I resisted. Henry deserved to be treated as an equal and a professional.

  “You nervous?” I asked.

  He shrugged.

  “You didn’t puke, did you? I’ve known lawyers, even experienced ones, who get so nervous they throw up before a trial.”

  Henry laughed. “Not my thing,” he said.

  “And some guys take beta blockers. They say it doesn’t hamper their performance, but I don’t know.”

  Henry took a pill vial from his pocket and shook it like a rattle. “Antihistamines,” he said. “I used to get hives whenever I got nervous.”

  “You’ll do fine,” I said. I hoped it was true. Henry had more cause than most to worry about how the jury would receive him.

  The judge’s clerk came in. “Good morning, Mr. Davis,” she said to me, then looked at Henry, paused, checked her docket, looked around the room distractedly for a moment, then said, “And this would be Mr. Tatlock?”

  “Yes, one of our newer assistants,” I said. “Henry, this is Paula, Judge Baxter’s clerk. Be nice to her. Rumor has it that Judge Baxter is really an animatronic device created by Spielberg or NASA or something, and that Paula runs the controls.”

  Henry laughed. Paula laughed.

  The defendant and his lawyer walked into the courtroom. The lawyer was my “frienemy” Kendall Vance.

  Kendall is about my age. He’s a very physical guy. As he walked to his seat, he seemed to ripple with masculine brawn. He has a weight lifter’s chest and a shaved head and a “don’t fuck with me” look in his eye. When he saw me, he smiled expansively. “Nick,” he said—or bellowed, really—as he steered the defendant into a chair, then came and stood in front of us, overflowing with happiness at the prospect of this legal sparring match.

  “Two of you versus one of me,” Kendall said, looking at Henry. “Seems I ought to get some kind of dispensation to even things out: a few extra preemptives, maybe, or—I know!—I get to have Morgan Freeman come in and read my closing argument.”

  “That sounds fair.”

  “Plus, you’ve got another advantage,” Kendall said, “because I’m dead tired. Barely slept last night. You could knock me down with a feather. See, I’ve been rereading some of the classics from college days. High school, even. And I got so deep into A Tale of Two Cities last night that I couldn’t put it down. You’ve read it, haven’t you? Anyhow, just finished it a couple of hours ago, so I brought you my copy as a gift.”

  This all came out in a breathless stream. He waved a tattered copy of the novel in front of us, smacked it down on the table, then went and sat with his client.

  “Um. Thank you,” Henry said.

  “Call me after you read it,” Kendall said. “We’ll get together for a little book club. Just us three lawyer guys.”

  I knew Kendall too well to believe his generosity was inspired by sudden enthusiasm for Dickens.

  When the jury panel came in, we stood and faced them. It’s a trial lawyer’s number one job to be liked by the jury—so I’m always trying to find just the right facial expression for meeting them—somewhere between friendliness, seriousness, and integrity. It’s tough. But on this occasion, as I stood there beside Henry, the prospective jurors didn’t pay me any attention. One by one I saw them curiously scan the room until they noticed Henry; then they paused and looked away for a second but quickly had to look back. Though you could see them trying not to look, inevitably they did, studying him with sideways glances.

  Henry is a burn victim. His face looks as if the whole thing simply melted off and the doctors who put him back together had to re-create it from whatever they could salvage. Some things are missing; some things are in the wrong place. Nothing looks as intended. It takes time after meeting him before you can see anything beyond his disfigurement.

  The one thing Henry has said to me about his appearance is that while he has come to accept it and doesn’t really even mind it anymore, he wishes more than anything that he could at least have a glimpse of how he would have looked were it not for what happened to him.

  Jury selection was quick. It was a small case. We had a full jury within an hour, and after a brief recess, Judge Baxter gaveled us to order. She read the date, time, and case number into the record, listed the attorneys present, stated that the defendant was charged with one count each of burglary and criminal trespass of a federal facility, and noted that the defendant was not detained but, rather, was free on bond. Then she looked at Henry and said, “Mr. Tatlock, you may begin.”

  Henry walked over, stood directly in front of the jury box, and with one hand he motioned a circle in the air around his face. “Don’t worry,” he said, “you’ll get used to it within an hour or two. I was in a fire as an infant. I have no memory of looking any other way. Anyhow, consider yourselves lucky: You got to have your morning coffee at home before coming in here to look at me. Think how I feel. First thing every morning, there I am in the bathroom mirror. Yikes!” Henry laughed.

  A few of the jurors laughed politely.

  “But you know what?” he said. “This trial isn’t about me, is it? It’s about the law and the defendant. So to the extent possible, I’m asking you to disregard me. I’m just the messenger . . .”

  It was a good way to open. We’d talked about it. I felt Henry needed to address his appearance outright. Let the jury gawk a moment, then let it go. He did okay with his delivery. Henry is neither a great orator nor a brilliant legal strategist, but he’s likable.

  I had worried about Henry’s appearance when I hired him. Would the jury be put off by his disfigurement? Would it make him appear untrustworthy? I struggled over it, and while I wouldn’t in a million years have discriminated against him for his appearance, it was my job to protect the public from bad people, and if Henry’s disfigurement made it even an iota harder for him to convict a criminal, then my hiring him was not in the public interest.

  Ultimately I decided it was a wash: Some jurors might subconsciously resist him, while others would feel compassion and subconsciously side with him.

  “What the evidence will show,” Henry said, gesturing at the man in the defendant’s chair who sat cradling his head in his hands, “is that the defendant broke into the offices of the Environmental Protection Agency with the intention of committing a felony inside that building. The EPA is a federal agency. The defendant rifled through files of that office . . .”

  Immediately I saw the jury lose interest. They wanted something juicy for their time on a federal jury. They wanted big crimes, not somebody snooping in a business office.

  “What the evidence will show,” Henry continued, “is that the defendant was working for a company known as Subsurface Resources, Incorporated . . .”

  Now they were interested again. Subsurface is a mining services contractor. Our investigation of them was extensively reported in the newspaper. This burglary case was a tiny offshoot of a huge corruption case that could bring down some powerful people in the state. Subsurface was bribing (and maybe blackmailing) politicians to defeat new tax legislation aimed at natural gas extraction. A grand jury had been convened. Indictments were raining down.

  Today’s defendant, Jimmy Mailing, was known to us as a corporate security hack for Subsurface, Inc. So when he was found burglarizing the EPA offices, we tried leveraging him to get to his bosses. We offered him a walk on the burglary if he’d testify that his superiors at Subsurface had authorized the break-in.

  But Jimmy Mailing wasn’t playing. He lawyered up, denied having burgled the federal office, and claimed that somebody else, perhaps the FBI themselves, had planted those files in his car. So we were coming down on him as hard as we could.

  While Henry gave his opening, the defendant stared down at the tabletop. This was strange. Kendall is scrupulous about getting his clients to sit up straight, pay attention, and appear engaged. But this guy seemed
morose, and Kendall made no effort to jar him out of it. I figured he must be a difficult client who had already used up all of Kendall’s patience.

  And something else: Kendall’s clients are always perfectly groomed—suit and tie, clean-shaven, conservative haircuts. But here this guy was in a dark turtleneck with black jeans and his hair falling down over his forehead. From what I could see of his face, which wasn’t much because of the way he sat, he had strong cheekbones and a long chin. He looked sinister. I felt sorry for Kendall, trying to help this ne’er-do-well who apparently wasn’t lifting a finger to help himself.

  Henry’s first witness was the security guard who had found the intruder in the building. The guard was earnest, overweight, and seemed credible. Henry led him through a direct examination:

  HENRY: What was your first indication that something was amiss?

  WITNESS: I heard him. I heard someone like, you know, like moving stuff around.

  HENRY: And you did what?

  WITNESS: I went to investigate.

  HENRY: Did you approach the intruder?

  WITNESS: Not at first. I watched him without him seeing me. I was behind him, and I stood behind a pillar, peeking around it to keep an eye on him.

  HENRY: For how long?

  WITNESS: Two or three minutes, I guess.

  The security guard looked at his watch to give authority to his estimate of two or three minutes. He was a good witness. He wore his uniform, which was sharp and well fitted, even though it covered a considerable expanse of belly. And he was well groomed and sat up straight and made eye contact with Henry. He even looked over toward the jury a few times.

  HENRY: And did you, at some point, get a good look at the intruder?

  WITNESS: Yes, sir. As he prepared to leave, I stepped from around the pillar. I had my weapon, but I didn’t draw it. I shouted at him. I said, “Halt. Turn around and identify yourself.”