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| Categories | Thrillers & Suspense |
| Author | John Grisham |
| Publisher | Anchor; Reprint edition (December 27, 2005) |
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 400 pages |
| Item Weight | 10.4 ounces |
| Dimensions |
5.25 x 0.79 x 7.99 inches |
I. Book introduction
The King of Torts (2003) is a legal/suspense novel written by American author John Grisham. Doubleday published the first edition (ISBN 0-385-50804-2) in hardcover format; it immediately debuted at #1 on The New York Times Best Seller list, remaining in the top 15 for over 20 weeks. Dell Publishing published the paperback edition later in 2003 (ISBN 0-440-24153-7). Penguin Random House released an audiobook version in 2007.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The office of the public defender is not known as a training ground for bright young litigators. Clay Carter has been there too long and, like most of his colleagues, dreams of a better job in a real firm. When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing, he assumes it is just another of the many senseless murders that hit D.C. every week.
As he digs into the background of his client, Clay stumbles on a conspiracy too horrible to believe. He suddenly finds himself in the middle of a complex case against one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, looking at the kind of enormous settlement that would totally change his life—that would make him, almost overnight, the legal profession’s newest king of torts…
Plot
Clay Carter is a poorly paid Washington, D.C. public defender who dreams of joining a large law firm. One day he reluctantly takes on the case of Tequila Watson, a man accused of a random street killing. Watson insists that he somehow was not in control of his body when he pulled the trigger, a story which Clay tries to dismiss but cannot get out of his mind. Clay tries his best to help his client, plunging into the capital’s most dangerous slums in search of evidence. Clay finally gets a subpoena forcing drug rehabilitation centers to hand over Watson’s medical records, as well as those of another man accused of a similar murder.
Meanwhile, Clay has been dating Rebecca Van Horn, a junior congressional aide. Clay and Rebecca are deeply in love, but he deeply loathes her father, Bennett Van Horn, an aggressive real estate mogul whose developments are destroying the countryside of Northern Virginia. When Clay refuses an offer to work for a senator who is closely involved with these deals, Bennett pressures Rebecca into cutting off relations with Clay and hastily marrying a rich corporate lawyer.
Clay is unexpectedly contacted by a mysterious man named Max Pace, who tells him that Watson’s medical records are evidence of a potentially major scandal. It is revealed that Watson and other recovering drug addicts were illegally given an experimental drug called Tarvan, which caused some of the test subjects to commit random and senseless killings. Pace says he has been hired by the drug company responsible, and asks Clay to resign from his job as a public defender and arrange secret payoffs to the victims. While doing so would mean hiding exculpatory evidence from his client, Clay goes along with the scheme, partly to win back Rebecca’s affections with his newfound wealth.
Clay opens a law firm specializing in mass torts, hiring several of his friends and colleagues: lawyer Paulette, paralegal Rodney and computer expert Jonah. He continues to work with Max, who provides insider information concerning Dyloft, a carcinogenic drug produced by Ackerman Laboratories. Advised by Pace, Clay orchestrates an intensive TV campaign which results in a $100 million settlement, being dubbed the “King of Torts” by the media. While Clay and his employees enjoy the millions of dollars in returns from the settlement, his clients are bitter at getting only a bit more than $50,000 each.
Max offers Clay information on yet another defective drug called Maxatil. Expecting to repeat his success, Clay recklessly incurs enormous expenses: launching a coast-to-coast TV campaign; signing up dozens of additional legal and medical staff; renting additional office space; and signing up thousands of “Maxatil clients.” However, Clay finds that conclusively linking Maxatil to negative side effects is far from easy. Moreover, it is produced by Goffman, a company known for unwillingness to compromise on tort suits. The future of the Maxatil tort suit depends on the outcome of a single, long drawn out test case run by an aging maverick lawyer in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Meanwhile, the FBI questions Clay on suspicion of insider trading. A criminal lawyer tells Clay that, having sold Ackerman shares short while knowing he would sue the company and push down the value of its shares, he is indeed culpable and could face up to five years behind bars. Max turns out to be a con artist who is wanted by the FBI and has disappeared without a trace. Next, after Dyloft’s effects are found to be deadlier than first thought, terminal patients who were kept from suing Ackerman for millions instead sue Clay for malpractice. Clay faces the prospect of being forced to consume all of his assets to pay his former clients.
Desperate for money, Clay turns to a mass tort against Hanna, a building supplies company which had produced batches of defective cement. The company’s directors are willing to offer a fair compensation to disgruntled homeowners, but only if Clay agrees to cut his share of the compensations. Clay refuses to give up anything, resulting in Hanna’s bankruptcy, the loss of thousands of jobs, and an economic disaster for the town where the company is based. When it becomes known that the collapse was caused by “a greedy lawyer,” Clay is ambushed and beaten by some men from the town.
While Clay is slowly recovering in the hospital, Rebecca shows up to tend to him, having divorced her husband and estranged herself from her father. Regaining her love helps Clay take calmly the final blow to his career: the jury in Arizona has rejected the Maxatil tort suit, and all the millions which Clay invested in Maxatil goes down the drain. Clay is forced to declare bankruptcy, close down his firm, give up his assets, and surrender his license to practice law. The FBI stops pursuing their case against Clay due to the loyalty of an old friend who refuses to provide incriminating evidence.
Having nothing more to lose, Clay discloses his involvement in the Tarvan affair to an investigative journalist; a criminal lawyer will attempt to re-open the cases of the Tarvan test subjects, including Watson. Clay and Rebecca fly to London, where they would have a happy life without the opulence Clay no longer misses. It is, however, implied that Clay will still end up with a few million dollars in the end, because Paulette and Rodney—with whom Clay was extremely generous and loyal in distributing his initial lucrative settlements—both promise of their own accord to return some of the money to him, never forgetting that they owe their financial success to him.
Editorial Reviews
- “Rousing . . . Another pedal-to-the-metal crowd-pleaser.”—People
- “Offers everything one expects from Grisham . . . delivers with a vengeance.”—The Seattle Times
- “Satisfying . . . a lot of fun . . . When you finish it, you’re ready to dash on to the next Grisham.”—Entertainment Weekly
- “A thrill ride of twists and turns.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer
About John Grisham
John Grisham (born February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas) is an American novelist, lawyer and former member of the 7th district of the Mississippi House of Representatives, known for his popular legal thrillers. According to the American Academy of Achievement, Grisham has written 28 consecutive number-one fiction bestsellers, and his books have sold 300 million copies worldwide. Along with Tom Clancy and J. K. Rowling, Grisham is one of only three authors to have sold two million copies on a first printing.
Grisham graduated from Mississippi State University and earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981. He practised criminal law for about a decade and served in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1983 to 1990.
Grisham’s first novel, A Time to Kill, was published in June 1989, four years after he began writing it. Grisham’s first bestseller, The Firm, sold more than seven million copies. The book was adapted into a 1993 feature film of the same name, starring Tom Cruise, and a 2012 TV series which continues the story ten years after the events of the film and novel. Seven of his other novels have also been adapted into films:
- The Chamber,
- The Client,
- A Painted House,
- The Pelican Brief,
- The Rainmaker,
- The Runaway Jury, and Skipping Christmas.
Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction.
When he’s not writing, Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and of Centurion Ministries, two national organizations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in our criminal justice system.
John Girsham lives on a farm in central Virginia.
II. Reviewer: The King of Torts
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1. CALVIN93 reviews for The King of Torts
THE KING OF TORTS is John Grisham doing what John Grisham does best (and what he used to do more regularly) – present a compelling legal thriller which reads quickly and delivers a solid message. Granted, Grisham rarely rises to the level of “literature” (maybe once, in A TIME TO KILL) and he does not go so in depth with his characters or plot lines as, say, Scott Turow, but he is the undisputed master of the quick-hit legal thriller. Yet some of his recent offerings – THE TESTAMENT, THE STREET LAWYER, THE SUMMONS – have been devoid of the power punch that his mid-90s works had (I left out THE BRETHREN from that critique as I thought it was excellent). Well, THE KING OF TORTS returns to the level of, say, THE RUNAWAY JURY or THE CHAMBER in delivering both a quick and thrilling story and a message about something wrong with the American legal system. Without ruining too much of the plot (there are some excellent twists along the way), THE KING OF TORTS follows the rise of a lawyer who had been toiling as a Washington D.C. Public Defender before stumbling into a multi-million dollar venture as a mass tort lawyer suing companies for faulty drugs.
Grisham allows the reader to share the thrill of all the new money that lands on the main character – before slowly pulling open the curtain on some serious institutional and ethical problems with this type of lawyering. There are some very memorable characters in this book – most notably a colorful expert mass tort lawyer who befriends and partners with the main character – but the tone of the book follows Grisham’s usual depth (nothing too involved) and at time, Grisham (as he has always done) paints characters in black or white – this is a guy you hate; this other person is a saint. Still, that is a formula that always worked well for him, and most happily, THE KING OF TORTS is a return to the “social consciousness” aspect of his writing (taking on the death penalty in THE CHAMBER; the tobacco lobby in THE RUNAWAY JURY) – notably absent in THE SUMMONS – he forces the reader to ask, does all the litigation against big business really HELP the citizens injured by those businesses? Does it just help the lawyers? Both? Are legal reforms which cap jury award a good thing? A hurtful thing? And on THAT topic, Grisham paints in grays, leaving the reader to ponder the right answer. (Other lawyers may read this book as a blueprint on how to make $100 million in one year without working to hard… though I think that boat has sailed). THis book is an excellent commentary on a recent/current legal fad, as well as a return to what is my favorite aspect of Grisham’s writing. Grisham fans will be happy that the author is back to peak form.
2. KEVIN C.KROPF reviews for The King of Torts
Not since The Firm had I torn through a Grisham book like I did with KOT and yet I finished feeling unsatisfied. There is no doubt that J.G. is the King of page turning action; however, one small plot twist at the end does not keep this book from being predictable.
Would I have been excited about King of Torts as I was about The Firm, Pelican Brief or A Time to Kill if I had read this first, I think I would have. We have been spoiled by the freshness of his earlier books and let’s be honest, his latest works have been of the same quality yet are no longer fresh. It’s tough for Grisham to surprise us anymore because of the number of books he has written and how he has trained his readers to truly expect the “unbelievable,” the “unexpected,” and the customary trip to the Caribbean-do you think he has to travel there for background information all the time, must be nice!
Is it just me or is Grisham just a little more didactic in this tome than in his previous works? I think he did an excellent job with the main character and you could see the greed and ethical conflict boiling below the surface (like father, like son) as J. Clay Carter II decided to plunge into the depths of mass tort law. Grisham does paint a vivid picture of the slide from “doing good” to “doing well” and character development has always been this author’s strength.
In the end, this book is worth 4 or 5 hours of your time and even though you know where the book is going, you don’t mind it when you know it is Grisham taking you there.
3. DR BEVERLY R VINCENT reviews for The King of Torts
This is a rather unique Grisham book. At first, it seems like everything is going the protagonist’s way. But beneath it all is the palpable sense that Clay’s bubble is doomed to burst. It just keeps swelling larger and larger until the reader is almost cringing. How far will he fall? How bad will it get? From which direction will it come? Clay is an everyman upon whom enormous wealth and power is thrust virtually overnight. Suddenly he’s the biggest shot in law in Washington D.C. His smiling face is in Time and the New York Times. While Clay enjoys his sudden lucre, what tickles him more is to realize that the nouveau riche parents of his ex-girlfriend (who thought he was a loser in a dead-end job) must be hating his launch into high society.
Readers can see that his upswing has to come to an end. They will shudder at the way he bleeds money, wasting it on frivolous things like, oh, a private jet and a house in the tropics for his trophy girlfriend.
This is risky stuff for Grisham. Having the main character’s story arc suddenly plummet near the end may not be to every reader’s liking. But Grisham is writing about truth — about hubris and pride and being blinded by sudden fame. It’s easy to step back and say “I wouldn’t behave that way,” but [millions of] dollars can do strange things to anyone!
Watching the crash is sort of like watching a car accident. It’s horrible, but you can’t look away. This is powerful writing and a refreshing change of pace for Grisham. I enjoyed every moment of it — though it had my nevers on edge the whole way through.
4. RON ROBSON reviews for The King of Torts
I have not read Grisham for some years.I was pleasantly surprised. The book had a good story which reflects contemporary events in the world. The start was a little slow but developed into a good read. It is a nice long book which you can get your teeth into. The end became a little predictable but hey for all the content and a good story who cares. The Tort lawyers are an interesting bunch and the way they stack the odds so they can win should be expected, however the way that they lose touch with the individuals they represent was not. I guess it is all a numbers game. Throw enough mud and some sticks. This book gives an interesting insight into how people can be treated as and dollar generators. I suspect that it is not far removed from real life.
5. W reviews for The King of Torts
This is one of my favourite Grisham books.A poorly paid public defender stumbles on to a case which leads him to an enormous settlement and changes his life.
The most interesting part of the book is where Grisham describes the lavish lifestyles of lawyers who win huge settlements and then indulge in all the luxuries that money can buy.
That expensive lifestyle isn’t sustainable,and needs ever greater amount of money.Eventually,the consequences of this relentless pursuit of money,are disastrous for the protagonist.
I was interested to read about the staggering sums of money awarded in class-action litigation in the US,and how the biggest beneficiaries are not the victims,but the ambulance chasing lawyers,who profit hugely,and then try to make a career out of it.
A top-notch legal thriller.
6. NATALIE VELLACOTT reviews for The King of Torts
Another Grisham book ticked off my list. I don’t remember having read this one before. The author has blended his usual mix of courtroom drama, rich lawyers and powerful companies in this novel. It will have you hooked until the last page.
I actually preferred this novel to The Street Lawyer which I also read recently. I didn’t like the way that Grisham had focused on charity/benevolent work amongst the homeless almost as a selfish pursuit for the young lawyer to find himself. This novel, however, was different–it is totally secular with no real mention of faith/God or anything similar. Sometimes it is better not to try and mix the spiritual with the secular unless you are going to be accurate and ensure you represent the right principles.
This novel tells the story of Clay, a young lawyer struggling to make a name for himself at a little known firm. He is approached apparently randomly by a man who promises riches and fame if he follows his instructions to the letter. The requirements seem at first to be ethical and Clay is drawn into the web. He becomes a millionaire and the King of Torts leading mass civil litigation where-ever it exists. But it all seems a little too good to be true…….
The biblical principles in this novel are obvious. The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. The rich man went away sad when Jesus suggested he should give up his wealth. Another man stored up wealth in barns but was called a fool when God took his life and he wasn’t prepared to meet his Maker. We are told not to love the world or anything in the world. There are numerous warnings about those who choose money over God. Even from a less religious perspective we know that absolute power corrupts absolutely….
Most people are chasing money in some form or another. The point that this novel makes is that even when one gains more of it than they know what to do with. They will not be happy. It brings out the consequences in terms of friendships, relationships, health and just generally the emptiness of a life focused on temporary things that will be worthless in eternity.
This is a good book for those who believe that if they get that promotion, that new house, that new car or whatever it might be, it will satisfy. It won’t.
There is some bad language and violence but nothing graphic. There are sexual inferences and some lude remarks but again not graphic.
What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world yet loses his own soul.
7. PRISCILLA reviews for The King of Torts
This is one of those books I can’t stop thinking about! I read it for a business law class I’m taking and it is great!
Clay Carter is working for Washington D.C.’s Public Defense Office when he is given a murder case. The murderer is a young, black man and Clay assumes it’s a typical murder case. Then, he is approached by Max Pace, an agent for a pharmaceutical company. Max explains a bigger case behind the murder: the murderer was taking pills, the side effects made him unusually violent. Max hired Clay to settle the potential lawsuits, quietly and outside of court. In return, Clay would be paid well.
When that case is successful, Max gives Clay another case, which results in large attorney fees for Clay. He begins to catch public attention, winning cases with large amounts of clients and large amounts of attorneys–mass tort law. Clay begins spending his money: new house, boat, plane, money to pay his co-workers well. He tries not to get caught up with the game of sueing, but eventually it comes back to bit him in the butt.
Tort law is especially fascinating and this book does a great job at giving a human story for the lawyers who are behind it. Clay doesn’t want to be the greedy and selfish lawyer, but he gets so caught up in the hype, he can’t help himself. He wants to remain a good and ethical lawyer, but it is a slippery slope. This is a very Grisham style book and I would recommend it to anyone who likes that genre.
8. BRYAN reviews for The King of Torts
Whenever I see another class-action lawsuit advertisement on T.V. I will always think of this book.
The story revolves around a lawyer in the trenches of the D.C. criminal defense system, Clay Carter, who works for Washington D.C.’s Public Defense Office. He and his whole department are overworked and underpaid, and the career ladder there is pretty grim. He loves his girlfriend Rebecca but the low pay and prestige of his job takes a toll on their relationship, especially aggravated in no small part by her nouveau-rich parents who burn for their daughter to elevate higher in society. They disapprove of Clay greatly.
Meanwhile, after some attentive investigation by Clay into the murky drive behind his latest client’s crimes, a dark stranger by the name Max Pace who represents a pharmaceutical company drops into Clay’s life and offers him an opportunity to make riches. However, this would be by changing teams to settle potential lawsuits of families affected by both his client’s crime and a slew of other criminals in the D.C. area who have been influenced to commit the crimes. Representing all these families early in a class-action lawsuit a.k.a. a mass tort, would stop cold the chance the lawsuits going to a courtroom trial and avoiding potential sky-high punitive penalties against the influencing organization responsible.
This settlement sets the stage for other even greater pre-trial mass tort settlements, initiated by further tips obtained by Max Pace via questionable sources and methods. The strategies on snagging and holding onto as many clients as possible in a national pharmaceutical mass-tort is laid out, including the massive shock-and-awe advertising with fear-hyped t.v. commercials, the jockeying among regional tort lawyers to get as many clients as possible, the strong-armed negotiated portions of winning case money for the lawyers, the tort operations committee steering, and the cash-flow and human resources. Clay and his fellow lead tort lawyers splurge heavily at committee meetings in beautiful and exotic locations. They receive greater and greater animosity from the traditional trial lawyer as well as the newspapers and media. Clay himself gains regional and then national hype and hate, and his winnings help instigate regulations proposed to clamp down on mass-tort. Clay’s initial identity of a modest guy and fiscal conservative mutates in parallel with his winnings, and becomes akin to the greed-driven and materialist-absorbed tort lawyers he initially loathed. His early thrifty expenditures blow out of control into huge ego-driven purchases. However even though he loses Rebecca, his heart still holds fast for her.
Eventually the murky foundations behind some of Clay’s settlements begin to rear their ugly heads, drawing attention from the justice system. Further, the ruthless cuts his firm demanded from its clients backfire into his face with aid from an anti-tort New York ringer lawyer. Clay’s past kindnesses pay him back at this time and the friends he stood by reflect this kindness when he most needs it.
All in all, the novel was an interesting and eye-opening top-level look at class-actions/max torts, while also maintaining a solid rags to riches anon story.
9. KARAH reviews for The King of Torts
I love a good Grisham book, especially when I haven’t read one in awhile. This is the story of Clay Carter, a young lawyer in Washington DC, working for the public defender’s office. His job pays him next to nothing, his 4-year relationship is in a rut, and he’d love to live on his own–without a roommate. After wrapping up a lengthy murder trial, he gets stuck with another one. Everything appears to be the typical street crime/indigent story until a mysterious phone call lands Clay in a posh hotel with a very mysterious man.
The man explains to Clay that his defendant was on a drug called Tarvan, which was amazing at cleaning up junkies had one serious problem– after about a week of being off the drug, some of it’s users had the uncontrollable urge to kill–totally at random. The drug company was now asking Clay to pay the victims’ families (and Clay) a substantial sum of money to keep the story quiet. Clay agrees– and so begins his slippery journey with big pharmaceuticals and mass cases.
Clay finds himself suing a large company for a bad drug– all with the help of this mysterious man who has befriended him. When he becomes a multi-millionaire overnight, the smell of money and his greed only increase. He is hailed as the “King of Torts” and instantly thrown into the spotlight. He buys houses and jets and big boats. He becomes even more greedy and careless, and ultimately winds up with next to nothing.
This was a quick and fun read– about the life of the rich & famous (a life I’ll never know personally). Grisham always does a great job of weaving together several stories and making his characters very life-like. It’s impossible not to root for Clay, even though we see his personality shift throughout the story. Although Grisham doesn’t always wrap things up neat & tidy (the way the reader might want them), I liked the way he ended this book– a penniless guy who lived a moment in the spotlight and still gets the girl.
10. COREY reviews for The King of Torts
Another interesting story by Grisham, about the corruption in legal practice and greedy lawyers taking advantage of clients. It almost felt like a Mobster film, where the main character starts out from beneath, slowly works his way up making it to the top, then in the end everything goes south and starts to crumble.
Clay Carter seems to be getting nowhere in life, a low-paid Public Defender in Washington DC. But one day, Clay is made an offer he can’t refuse, after taking the case of a man charged with what is seemingly a random street killing. But as Clay digs deeper, he finds himself up against one of largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Clay decides to start a new chapter in his life, leaving the life of a Public Defender and working his way up, building his own Law Firm specializing in torts, and making more money a year than he could ever imagine.
An insightful story about greed and corruption, some of the legal jargon was a little overplayed, causing the story to drag at times, but other than that, an entertaining read!
III. The King of Torts Quotes
The best book quotes from The King of Torts by John Grisham
“Rich folks can tolerate almost anything, but not rejection.”
“[Golf Club description:] Once it had enough members to sustain itself, it began the obligatory practice of excluding others.”
“Street life was a struggle to survive today, with no time to reminisce and nothing in the past to get nostalgic over. There was no future so that point of reference was likewise unknown.”
“had a flair for the narrative”
“Mass tort litigation was not practicing law. It was a roguish form of entrepreneurship.”
“Some OPD lawyers were zealously committed to defending the poor and oppressed, and for them the job was not a stepping-stone to another career. Regardless of how little they earned or how tight their budgets were, they thrived on the lonely independence of their work and the satisfaction of protecting the underdog.”
“He was ashamed of his greed and embarrassed by his stupidity. It was sickening what money had done to him.”
Excerpted from The King of Torts by John Grisham
Chapter 1 – The King of Torts
THE SHOTS THAT FIRED the bullets that entered Pumpkin’s head were heard by no less than eight people. Three instinctively closed their windows, checked their door locks, and withdrew to the safety, or at least the seclusion, of their small apartments. Two others, each with experience in such matters, ran from the vicinity as fast if not faster than the gunman himself. Another, the neighborhood recycling fanatic, was digging through some garbage in search of aluminum cans when he heard the sharp sounds of the daily skirmish, very nearby. He jumped behind a pile of cardboard boxes until the shelling stopped, then eased into the alley where he saw what was left of Pumpkin.
And two saw almost everything. They were sitting on plastic milk crates, at the corner of Georgia and Lamont in front of a liquor store, partially hidden by a parked car so that the gunman, who glanced around briefly before following Pumpkin into the alley, didn’t see them. Both would tell the police that they saw the boy with the gun reach into his pocket and pull it out; they saw the gun for sure, a small black pistol. A second later they heard the shots, though they did not actually see Pumpkin take them in the head. Another second, and the boy with the gun darted from the alley and, for some reason, ran straight in their direction. He ran bent at the waist, like a scared dog, guilty as hell. He wore red-and-yellow basketball shoes that seemed five sizes too big and slapped the pavement as he made his getaway.
When he ran by them he was still holding the gun, probably a .38, and he flinched just for a instant when he saw them and realized they had seen too much. For one terrifying second, he seemed to raise the gun as if to eliminate the witnesses, both of whom managed to flip backward from their plastic milk crates and scramble off in a mad flurry of arms and legs. Then he was gone.
One of them opened the door to the liquor store and yelled for someone to call the police, there had been a shooting.
Thirty minutes later, the police received a call that a young man matching the description of the one who had wasted Pumpkin had been seen twice on Ninth Street carrying a gun in open view and acting stranger than most of the people on Ninth. He had tried to lure at least one person into an abandoned lot, but the intended victim had escaped and reported the incident.
The police found their man an hour later. His name was Tequila Watson, black male, age twenty, with the usual drug-related police record. No family to speak of. No address. The last place he’d been sleeping was a rehab unit on W Street. He’d managed to ditch the gun somewhere, and if he’d robbed Pumpkin then he’d also thrown away the cash or drugs or whatever the booty was. His pockets were clean, as were his eyes. The cops were certain Tequila was not under the influence of anything when he was arrested. A quick and rough interrogation took place on the street, then he was handcuffed and shoved into the rear seat of a D.C. police car.
They drove him back to Lamont Street, where they arranged an impromptu encounter with the two witnesses. Tequila was led into the alley where he’d left Pumpkin. “Ever been here before?” a cop asked.
Tequila said nothing, just gawked at the puddle of fresh blood on the dirty concrete. The two witnesses were eased into the alley, then led quietly to a spot near Tequila.
“That’s him,” both said at the same time.
“He’s wearing the same clothes, same basketball shoes, everything but the gun.”
“That’s him.”
“No doubt about it.”
Tequila was shoved into the car once again and taken to jail. He was booked for murder and locked away with no immediate chance of bail. Whether through experience or just fear, Tequila never said a word to the cops as they pried and cajoled and even threatened. Nothing incriminating, nothing helpful. No indication of why he would murder Pumpkin. No clue as to their history, if one existed at all. A veteran detective made a brief note in the file that the killing appeared a bit more random than was customary.
No phone call was requested. No mention of a lawyer or a bail bondsman. Tequila seemed dazed but content to sit in a crowded cell and stare at the floor.
PUMPKIN HAD NO TRACEABLE father but his mother worked as a security guard in the basement of a large office building on New York Avenue. It took three hours for the police to determine her son’s real name–Ram-n Pumphrey–to locate his address, and to find a neighbor willing to tell them if he had a mother.
Adelfa Pumphrey was sitting behind a desk just inside the basement entrance, supposedly watching a bank of monitors. She was a large thick woman in a tight khaki uniform, a gun on her waist, a look of complete disinterest on her face. The cops who approached her had done so a hundred times. They broke the news, then found her supervisor.
In a city where young people killed each other every day, the slaughter had thickened skins and hardened hearts, and every mother knew many others who’d lost their children. Each loss brought death a step closer, and every mother knew that any day could be the last. The mothers had watched the others survive the horror. As Adelfa Pumphrey sat at her desk with her face in her hands, she thought of her son and his lifeless body lying somewhere in the city at that moment, being inspected by strangers.
She swore revenge on whoever killed him.
She cursed his father for abandoning the child.
She cried for her baby.
And she knew she would survive. Somehow, she would survive.
ADELFA WENT TO COURT to watch the arraignment. The police told her the punk who’d killed her son was scheduled to make his first appearance, a quick and routine matter in which he would plead not guilty and ask for a lawyer. She was in the back row with her brother on one side and a neighbor on the other, her eyes leaking tears into a damp handkerchief. She wanted to see the boy. She also wanted to ask him why, but she knew she would never get the chance.
They herded the criminals through like cattle at an auction. All were black, all wore orange coveralls and handcuffs, all were young. Such waste.
In addition to his handcuffs, Tequila was adorned with wrist and ankle chains since his crime was especially violent, though he looked fairly harmless when he was shuffled into the courtroom with the next wave of offenders. He glanced around quickly at the crowd to see if he recognized anyone, to see if just maybe someone was out there for him. He was seated in a row of chairs, and for good measure one of the armed bailiffs leaned down and said, “That boy you killed. That’s his mother back there in the blue dress.”
With his head low, Tequila slowly turned and looked directly into the wet and puffy eyes of Pumpkin’s mother, but only for a second. Adelfa stared at the skinny boy in the oversized coveralls and wondered where his mother was and how she’d raised him and if he had a father, and, most important, how and why his path had crossed that of her boy’s. The two were about the same age as the rest of them, late teens or early twenties. The cops had told her that it appeared, at least initially, that drugs were not involved in the killing. But she knew better. Drugs were involved in every layer of street life. Adelfa knew it all too well. Pumpkin had used pot and crack and he’d been arrested once, for simple possession, but he had never been violent. The cops were saying it looked like a random killing. All street killings were random, her brother had said, but they all had a reason.
On one side of the courtroom was a table around which the authorities gathered. The cops whispered to the prosecutors, who flipped through files and reports and tried valiantly to keep the paperwork ahead of the criminals. On the other side was a table where the defense lawyers came and went as the assembly line sputtered along. Drug charges were rattled off by the Judge, an armed robbery, some vague sexual attack, more drugs, lots of parole violations. When their names were called, the defendants were led forward to the bench, where they stood in silence. Paperwork was shuffled, then they were hauled off again, back to jail.
“Tequila Watson,” a bailiff announced.
He was helped to his feet by another bailiff. He stutter-stepped forward, chains rattling.
“Mr. Watson, you are charged with murder,” the Judge announced loudly. “How old are you?”
“Twenty,” Tequila said, looking down.
The murder charge had echoed through the courtroom and brought a temporary stillness. The other criminals in orange looked on with admiration. The lawyers and cops were curious.
“Can you afford a lawyer?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so,” the Judge mumbled and glanced at the defense table. The fertile fields of the D.C. Superior Court Criminal Division, Felony Branch, were worked on a daily basis by the Office of the Public Defender, the safety net for all indigent defendants. Seventy percent of the docket was handled by court-appointed counsel, and at any time there were usually half a dozen PDs milling around in cheap suits and battered loafers with files sticking out of their briefcases. At that precise moment, however, only one PD was present, the Honorable Clay Carter II, who had stopped by to check on two much lesser felonies, and now found himself all alone and wanting to bolt from the courtroom. He glanced to his right and to his left and realized that His Honor was looking at him. Where had all the other PDs gone?
A week earlier, Mr. Carter had finished a murder case, one that had lasted for almost three years and had finally been closed with his client being sent away to a prison from which he would never leave, at least not officially. Clay Carter was quite happy his client was now locked up, and he was relieved that he, at that moment, had no murder files on his desk.
That, evidently, was about to change.
“Mr. Carter?” the Judge said. It was not an order, but an invitation to step forward to do what every PD was expected to do–defend the indigent, regardless of the case. Mr. Carter could not show weakness, especially with the cops and prosecutors watching. He swallowed hard, refused to flinch, and walked to the bench as if he just might demand a jury trial right there and then. He took the file from the Judge, quickly skimmed its rather thin contents while ignoring the pleading look of Tequila Watson, then said, “We’ll enter a plea of not guilty, Your Honor.”
“Thank you, Mr. Carter. And we’ll show you as counsel of record?”
“For now, yes.” Mr. Carter was already plotting excuses to unload this case on someone else at OPD.
“Very well. Thank you,” the Judge said, already reaching for the next file.
Lawyer and client huddled at the defense table for a few minutes. Carter took as much information as Tequila was willing to give, which was very little. He promised to stop by the jail the next day for a longer interview. As they whispered, the table was suddenly crowded with young lawyers from the PD’s office, colleagues of Carter’s who seemed to materialize from nowhere.
Was this a setup? Carter asked himself. Had they disappeared knowing a murder defendant was in the room? In the past five years, he’d pulled such stunts himself. Ducking the nasty ones was an art form at OPD.
He grabbed his briefcase and hurried away, down the center aisle, past rows of worried relatives, past Adelfa Pumphrey and her little support group, into the hallway crammed with many more criminals and their mommas and girlfriends and lawyers. There were those in OPD who swore they lived for the chaos of the H. Carl Moultrie Courthouse–the pressure of trials, the hint of danger from people sharing the same space with so many violent men, the painful conflict between victims and their assailants, the hopelessly overcrowded dockets, the calling to protect the poor and ensure fair treatment by the cops and the system.
If Clay Carter had ever been attracted to a career in OPD, he could not now remember why. In one week the fifth anniversary of his employment there would come and go, without celebration, and, hopefully, without anyone knowing it. Clay was burned out at the age of thirty-one, stuck in an office he was ashamed to show his friends, looking for an exit with no place to go, and now saddled with another senseless murder case that was growing heavier by the minute.
In the elevator he cursed himself for getting nailed with a murder. It was a rookie’s mistake; he’d been around much too long to step into the trap, especially one set on such familiar turf. I’m quitting, he promised himself; the same vow he had uttered almost every day for the past year.
There were two others in the elevator. One was a court clerk of some variety, with her arms full of files. The other was a fortyish gentleman dressed in designer black–jeans, T-shirt, jacket, alligator boots. He held a newspaper and appeared to be reading it through small glasses perched on the tip of his rather long and elegant nose; in fact, he was studying Clay, who was oblivious. Why would someone pay any attention to anyone else on this elevator in this building?
If Clay Carter had been alert instead of brooding, he would have noticed that the gentleman was too well dressed to be a defendant, but too casual to be a lawyer. He carried nothing but a newspaper, which was somewhat odd because the H. Carl Moultrie Courthouse was not known as a place for reading. He did not appear to be a judge, a clerk, a victim, or a defendant, but Clay never noticed him.
….
Note: Above are quotes and excerpts from the book “The King of Torts by John Grisham”. If you find it interesting and useful, don’t forget to buy paper books to support the Author and Publisher!
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