Page 86 of The Devil's Advocate

‘It’s not enough,’ said Korn. ‘At the moment all we have is Flynn talking to a juror in a public restaurant, which of course he shouldn’t be doing, but it’s not enough for jury tampering. We need more. A lot more.’

‘Are you going to tell the judge about this? You could get the juror thrown off the trial and Flynn reprimanded by the bar?’

‘No. That’s not nearly enough. We could put Flynn behind bars for a long time, along with the juror, but we need evidence of money changing hands. Did you get a picture of them together at least?’

‘Sure did. If it’s a bribe, which it looks like, I can get a warrant to monitor her bank accounts.’

Korn said, ‘Flynn is too smart for that. It will be cash. Nothing that could be traced back to him. If we had the cash, then that might be enough because there would be no way for Sandy to explain where she got it. Yes, that might be enough. You’ll need to keep on Flynn. Watch him. He will have to get the money to her …’

He paused.

After thirty seconds Tom said, ‘You still there?’

‘I’m still here. I’m thinking. It takes two jurors to votenot guiltyfor Flynn to get a mistrial. We can ride this out a little ; there’s no immediate risk to the trial if he just has one juror. But there’s no guarantee when he will actually pay her off. He might wait until he gets the verdict, maybe even a few months, and then pay her. That would be the smart way to handle it.’

Korn neglected to add that this is exactly how he would’ve handled it.

‘Would she wait that long? Could she trust him?’

‘It’s safer for both of them. And I suppose if he didn’t pay her, she could always go to the police and rat him out. I remember her juror profile – she has a lot less to lose than Flynn.’

‘So, what are we gonna do?’

‘You stay on Flynn. Leave the rest to me. In forty-eight hours Flynn will be back in county lock-up and he won’t ever leave. Lot of bad people in there. Detainees stab each other all the time …’

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

THE PASTOR

The Pastor tapped his ring on the steering wheel as he watched Professor Gruber leading Francis Edwards from his home. Gruber unlocked his car parked outside the house, and both of them got in and Gruber drove away. They were going to meet some like-minded men. One in particular, named Brian Denvir. The Pastor would not ordinarily associate with men like Denvir, but they had their uses. They were simple men, really, with weak minds and an unusual amount of fear. Brian had organized a protest outside the court building yesterday, at the Pastor’s suggestion. As well as highly suggestible, Brian was friends with Gary Stroud, a similarly basic young man, who had been dating Skylar Edwards. Brian’s fear of change, and primarily his fear of the black community, and fear of immigrants, had led him to an unhealthy interest in firearms.

Racism armed Americans better than the NRA could ever have hoped.

The Pastor feared nothing, and he sometimes laughed to himself when he thought of men like Brian, who couldn’t go out and buy a donut without a handgun or sometimes a rifle hanging off their shoulder.

Little men. Simple men. Men who could be fed enough hate and fear to pull a trigger. To his disappointment, Francis was not proving to be quite as easy to mold as the Pastor had envisaged. They had spoken that morning. Francis called him in a panic.

‘I’ve been vomiting all morning,’ he said.

‘Was it something you ate?’ asked the Pastor.

‘You know damn well it wasn’t. I can’t stop thinking about it. Youkilledthat lawyer, and we carried that woman to the car. The woman you killed—’

The Pastor cut him off. ‘You mean the corrupt lawyer and his employee who were working to free the man who murdered your daughter?’

Francis was quiet for a time, and the Pastor listened as he caught his breath.

‘That doesn’t mean I should—’

‘Yes, it does. Have you learned nothing these past few months? This is a war, Francis. You have to pick a side. This isn’t about law and order when the system is rigged against us. We’ve got to fight it all. Make our stand. Your daughter was a casualty, and if that doesn’t get your ass fighting then I don’t know what will. But really, you don’t have a choice. The minute you watched me kill that lawyer, and grabbed Betty Maguire’s feet and helped me move her into that car – that’s the minute that you signed up. You became a soldier. It’s not a crime if it’s right. We’re building something better here …’

The Pastor talked to him for an hour. Calmed him down, but also let him know, in no uncertain terms, that he was now an accomplice. If he talked to the authorities, he would go to jail, and who would look after Esther if he was behind bars? After the conversation, the Pastor didn’t believe that Francis would talk to anyone about that night.

But he was also quite sure that without some major pressure, Francis would not be able to fulfill his ultimate objective.

It was only two days until the reckoning.

That’s why the Pastor was outside Francis’s home. He knew the one person who could bring Francis around, who could urge him to fully grasp his destiny, was his wife, Esther. The Pastor gazed from his vehicle at Francis’s house. A light burned in the window of the lounge. He would wait another few minutes before going inside. He didn’t want to appear as if he was maneuvering Francis out of the house so he could speak to her privately. That would arouse suspicion with Esther. And he wasn’t on good terms with her. He knew that she sensed something dark in him. Some people had that gift.