James Sheehan - The Law of Second Chances

Johnny made the team that first year, but there were times he wished he hadn’t. Practices were two nights a week and on Saturdays until the season started. Then the games were on Saturday mornings. Johnny had just turned sixteen and was by far the youngest person on the team. He barely saw any playing time .

There were eighteen teams in the Greater Metropolitan League, and they were equally divided into Eastern and Western divisions. The season was eight games long, and the winner of each division made it to the championship game. The Lexingtons were the only team from Manhattan. Four or five were from Brooklyn, and the rest were from the Bronx .

The Lexingtons didn’t have a home field; every game was an away game for them. They also didn’t have a sponsor to pay for uniforms and transportation and things like that. So they wore white shirts and white pants that each player had to supply for himself, along with his own equipment. And they had to find their own way to the football fields in the Bronx and Brooklyn. For Johnny that meant lugging his equipment on the subway. It was okay, though. He usually went with Mikey and his brothers .

You had to be at least sixteen and not older than nineteen to play, and everyone had to submit a copy of his birth certificate at the beginning of the season to prove it. The age requirements were the biggest joke in the league. You could change the date on the copy of your birth certificate pretty easily if you wanted, but it was even easier than that to beat the system. All you had to do was borrow a younger guy’s birth certificate; nobody ever bothered to check whether it was really yours .

As a result, ringers were rampant. That first year, Johnny saw guys showing up to play games with their wives-and kids! The referees never batted an eye .

Late in a game if the score was lopsided, Johnny would be sent in to play-usually at a position that required no skill, like defensive tackle. Johnny, who was six feet tall and maybe 170 pounds soaking wet, would often line up against a 250-pound, thirty-something man .

“When that ball is snapped I’m gonna kick your fucking ass, kid,” was not an uncommon line for Johnny to hear. It was a far cry from high school football, where he should have been playing. But Johnny, like everybody else on his team, was a street kid. He knew bullshit and bluster had to be ignored. He also knew that Frankie O’Connor, who played middle linebacker, expected him to do the job when he was in there, no matter what the score or who he was up against. Even though he was scared, he was not going to be intimidated in front of Frankie. He might not be stronger than the guy on the other side of the scrimmage line, but he was usually faster and he was definitely tough enough. Late in the season, after he had made some tackles for losses and recovered a couple of fumbles, the coach started to play him more-probably at the suggestion of Frankie .

I’ll be starting next year, he told himself . I’ve just got to show them I’m an athlete and I’m tough.

Jack called Dr. Erica Gardner early the next morning after Pat left for work. In his previous life as an insurance company defense attorney, Jack had represented many physicians in medical malpractice cases and had used the services of some of the most prominent physicians in the United States to testify as expert witnesses on behalf of his clients. Erica Gardner was one of those experts. She was from St. Louis and had graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Medical School, one of the relatively few African American women to do so. She was board-certified as a specialist in internal medicine and had a very successful and busy practice in Miami. Jack hoped he could get Pat in for an appointment within the next month.

He gave his name to the receptionist and was on hold waiting for the scheduling secretary when he heard Erica’s voice on the other end of the line. “Is that really you, Jack Tobin? I heard a rumor that you had moved to Tibet and become a monk.”

“Not quite, Erica, but close. I’m living in a small town called Bass Creek.”

“I’ve heard of Bass Creek. It’s a lovely town over by Lake Okeechobee.”

“That’s the one.”

The small talk was now out of the way. “What can I do for you, Jack?” Erica asked.

“It’s my wife, Erica.” Jack explained that Pat had had stomach pains for some nine months and her local physician kept telling her it was related to her gallbladder operation and would get better.

“Did he do a CT scan, do you know?”

“No, he hasn’t. That’s one of the reasons I’m calling you.”

“How about a pelvic ultrasound?”

“Nope. No tests of that nature.”

“Let’s get her in here right away.”

That afternoon Jack called on Ted Griffin in Miami. His office was in a run-down two-story masonry building in a seedy part of town. The inside didn’t look much better.

Ted Griffin was as tall as Jack and much heavier, with big hands and big feet. His attire was as sloppy as his office. He reached out affably to shake hands and then put his arm around Jack’s shoulders.

“You probably don’t remember me, Jack,” he said in a deep Southern drawl. “I had a few personal injury cases about twenty years ago when you were on the other side. You pasted my behind so bad that I convinced myself to stay with criminal law.”

Jack honestly couldn’t remember ever meeting the guy. He was certain they’d never tried a case against each other. He never forgot lawyers he litigated against. “I’m sure that’s an exaggeration, Ted. I’ll bet we settled.”

“We sure did, Jack-for a pittance.”

Jack detected a little resentment in the tone, yet when he looked at Ted, the man was smiling from ear to ear. He was certainly not like the typical criminal lawyers Jack had known over the years.

“What can I do for you, Jack?” Ted asked as he cleared papers off one of two client chairs in front of his desk and motioned for Jack to sit. Ted sat in the other chair next to Jack. He would have been invisible behind the desk, which was stacked almost two feet high with files.

“Well, Ted, I want to ask you some questions about an old client of yours, a man named James Vernon.”

“I remember James, all right,” Ted said quickly. “He was one of my regulars until he got himself killed a few years back. He was a slippery, slimy son-of-a-bitch. The kind of guy you could never be comfortable around. He was cold and edgy and dangerous. What do you want to know about him? Whatever it is, I’m sure he did it.”

“I’m investigating the murder of Clarence Waterman.”

Ted leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling for a moment before answering. “Did I represent James on that one?”

“No, he was never charged. Somebody else was, a man named Henry Wilson. Clarence Waterman was a drug dealer and a hairdresser as well, and somebody slit his throat.”

“The hairdresser. Oh yeah, I remember the hairdresser,” Ted said, almost as if he was recalling a fond vision from the past.

“You do?”

“Oh yeah.”

“I’m surprised.”

“About what?”

“I’m surprised you answered so quickly,” said Jack. “I mean, the murder happened seventeen years ago. Yet as soon as I mentioned he was a hairdresser, you recalled it. Why?”

“Because James told me he slit the hairdresser’s throat. It’s not every day your client tells you something like that.”

Jack almost fell off his seat. At best, he’d expected Ted to confirm the story James Vernon had told Wofford Benton. Instead, he confirmed that Vernon had told him exactly what the snitch, Willie Smith, had testified to at trial.