The Resurrection File Page 11

  The moderator responded firmly. “We are aware of that lawsuit. As we understand it, this lawsuit is some kind of blood feud, if I can call it that, between Dr. Reichstad and this fundamentalist preacher MacCameron. Further, we do not believe that a right-wing religious extremist like MacCameron has anything intelligent to add to the debate over the 7QA Jesus fragment.”

  As the reporters quickly pushed their way out of the room, one of them came over to Hornby.

  “Did you make it over to the press conference of the Union of Conservative Baptists and the American Evangelical Alliance this morning?”

  “Yeah,” Hornby said, “I caught most of it.”

  “I missed it,” the other reporter noted. “I didn’t think I could make that one and still get here for this one and then make my deadline by noon. So, anything interesting?”

  Hornby smiled. He knew he was being pumped for news by a competitor. Some reporters really took a hard line on that sort of thing, and many of them would ignore that kind of ploy and walk away; others, even more direct, would tell another reporter to “buzz off.”

  But Jack Hornby had worked out his own approach over the years. Being a veteran reporter and having won a Pulitzer Prize had given him a certain leeway that others didn’t have. He didn’t mind tossing a few bones to the competition. He believed in freedom of the press—and maybe that meant letting the other guys know what was going on. In the end, though, Hornby had his own line in the sand, where his cooperation with other reporters ended and his own personal drive for the story took over.

  “Those guys are the right-wing conservatives,” Hornby explained. “These guys at the Press Club, on the other hand, are the moderate-to-liberal mainliners,” Hornby noted. “Same lineup as usual this morning. The conservatives were suggesting a couple of possible explanations for the 7QA fragment. How it really doesn’t conflict with a bodily resurrection of Christ. Some of them still had doubts about its validity. I also heard that a couple of TV preachers are planning a big rally down in Atlanta over this.”

  Then the other reporter opened the door for Hornby, and as they stepped out onto the sidewalk, he followed up this thought, squinting a little in the noonday sun.

  “Jack, I think a lot more people are going to end up trusting this 7QA thing than the Bible. I think as time goes on, even a lot of churchgoing people are going to start thinking that, hey, you don’t bow down and worship Jesus if you know that he’s really still dead and his body is out there in a grave somewhere. The more I’m thinking about this, the more I believe we may have a real religious revolution in the making.”

  Hornby was silent, but he was eyeing the other reporter intently.

  “Right?” the reporter asked.

  But Hornby just kept looking at him, tight-lipped. The other reporter smiled. He knew he was getting close to Hornby’s line in the sand.

  “Maybe,” Hornby finally replied. “Maybe not. One thing I’ve learned in this business—things are not always as they seem.”

  “So what’s your take on this lawsuit by Reichstad?” the reporter asked as he flagged down a cab.

  “You take this cab, I’ll catch the next one,” Hornby shouted out as he walked in the opposite direction. The other reporter had just crossed the line.

  As Hornby walked away he paged through his small notebook, looking for the telephone number of attorney Will Chambers. Earlier that day he had checked the court file in Reichstad vs. MacCameron and Digging for Truth Magazine. Chamber’s Notice of Retainer had just been filed.

  The reporter hadn’t talked to Will Chambers for a couple of years. The last contact was over a story that Hornby had written about one of Will’s cases. Will had sued a federal agency for retaliating against his client, a low-level federal employee who had become a whistleblower over some illegal practices in the agency. Since that story had broken, the attorney had fallen off the reporter’s radar screen.

  Hornby pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and started dialing Will’s office. He was getting close to his deadline for getting the Reichstad lawsuit story in the next morning’s paper, but so far he had been running into a brick wall. J-Fox Sherman, who was usually more than happy to talk to the press, had not returned any of his phone calls.

  The veteran reporter figured he could coax some lively quotes out of Will. With that, and with his background investigation on the lawsuit, his editor would certainly run the story. It had all of the elements of a great feature: a controversial religious issue, defamation of the professional reputation of a renowned scientist, and an interesting match-up of lawyers.

  But earlier, when he had stopped at the U.S. District Courthouse just off Constitution Avenue and reviewed the file in the clerk’s office, he had found the defining reason why the lawsuit ought to make great copy. The case had been assigned to be tried before the brilliant and controversial jurist Judge Jeremiah Kaye.

  Kaye was the judge who had banned prayer at the meetings of the D.C. school board. Yet he was also the judge who had ruled in favor of the right of a Christian rescue mission to violate zoning laws by running a soup kitchen and “salvation chapel.” Unpredictable and always interesting, Judge Kaye never backed down from tough decisions. In one case he had ordered the President of the United States to obey a subpoena from Congress. In his order, Judge Kaye had given the President forty-eight hours to comply, and had indicated that he was prepared to send U.S. Marshals to the White House to enforce the order if necessary.

  Hornby walked down the sidewalk with his cell phone to his ear. As he waited for someone to pick up the phone at Chambers’ office, he felt certain that this case was as newsworthy as any story he had ever covered.

  Betty answered the phone and transferred the call to Will. In his typical blunt style Hornby zeroed in on the issues of the case. He said he wanted to do a feature—possibly the first part of an ongoing series on the lawsuit as it progressed. So, what did Will think of the allegations against Reverend MacCameron?

  Will gave him a few well-scripted comments. As Hornby walked past the statue of Blackstone, the famed English jurist, that stood guard over the front of the federal courthouse, he furiously scribbled down Will’s comments on his notepad.

  “Thanks, Will,” Jack said at the end of the conversation. “Look for it in tomorrow’s Herald.” Then Hornby circled the quote from Will that he planned on using at the conclusion of the piece:

  Our Constitution protects the right of free speech because that is how we can ensure that our nation will remain free. But in this case the stakes are even higher. If my client was correct in what he wrote, and it is our contention that he was—then truth itself is on trial.

  Hornby hailed a cab and started back to the paper. He decided to call his editor, and told him that he would be able to put the final touches on this story within the hour.

  Hornby kept his word, turning the piece in with five minutes to spare. But by late afternoon the reporter had heard nothing. He sauntered over to the city editor’s office. The door was closed, so he grabbed a cup of coffee and waited outside in the hallway. After a few minutes the door swung open.

  The managing editor stepped out of the office, giving Hornby a less than polite nod as he walked past him and disappeared up the stairs.

  When Hornby walked into the room the city editor did not look surprised.

  “Jack, sorry, we’ve decided not to run your piece,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “Why?” the reporter asked, bewildered.

  “Space. Several late-breaking things came in and bumped your story out.”

  “Like what? You mean like someone gets bit by the presidential poodle? I noticed that the story about the White House dog is going to be on page one. Is that the kind of really important late-breaking news you’re talking about? What’s going on here?”

  “Settle down, Jack. You always take this stuff so personally. Look, all you’ve got is a lawsuit—sure, some interesting stuff may eventually come out. But lawsuits get filed every day
in this city. Let’s give it time. See if it grows some legs.”

  “Lawsuits get filed,” Jack bulleted back, “but not like this one. You know that. Come on, tell me what the bottom line is here.”

  “Bottom line? Here it is,” the city editor shot back, “Your story got dumped by the managing editor. Go talk to him.”

  “I will,” Hornby snapped as he strode out of the office. And as he walked away he shouted, “I’ll be back.”

  “I’m always open to a good story,” the city editor yelled.

  “Sure,” Hornby muttered to himself as he charged up the stairs to the managing editor’s office, “as long as it’s got the President’s poodle in it.”

  The city editor immediately punched the extension number for the managing editor, and in a few seconds was warning him that Jack Hornby was on his way up.

  “He’s coming to pressure you about that Reichstad libel lawsuit story.”

  “What did you tell him?” the managing editor asked.

  “That we got crunched for space—late-breaking news—he didn’t buy it. But then, what else could I tell him?”

  “Keep Hornby out of this,” the managing editor said. “I’m getting some real clear signals from the publisher himself on this one. This story is considered not newsworthy.”

  “And since when does the publisher tell the journalists what is, or is not, newsworthy?” the city editor asked, slightly irritated.

  “You sound like a rookie when you talk like that,” the managing editor growled. “Get with the program. There will be no story on this lawsuit until I say so—and only if I say so. Meanwhile, if Hornby gives you any more problems, try this—tell him this is a religion story—and we’ve got religion reporters that will cover the story, if it needs covering. His beat is not religion.”

  “Sure,” the city editor sighed, “I’m sure a Pulitzer-winning reporter like Jack Hornby is going to swallow that.”

  “Then let me make it crystal-clear,” the voice on the other end of the telephone said. “This story on the Reichstad lawsuit is dead. And buried. Now, you just make sure it doesn’t miraculously rise up and walk out of the tomb on the third day, all right?” Before the city editor could respond, his superior had hung up on him.

  The city editor cleaned up a few things on his desk. As he grabbed his coat to leave early for the day he heard footsteps coming down the hallway. He knew it was Hornby—the footsteps were heavy and they were coming fast.

  As he braced for Hornby to blow into his office again, he said to himself out loud, “This is not going to be pretty.”

  15

  IT HAD ONLY BEEN TWO WEEKS since Will had filed his response to the Reichstad lawsuit and served it on the opposing side—the offices of J-Fox Sherman. The case was still in its infancy.

  So the item in Will’s morning mail took him by surprise. As he sat in the lobby of his office, Will opened up the envelope from Kennelworth, Sherman, Abrams & Cantwell.

  In it Will found a Notice of Deposition from Sherman. Will’s opponent had announced his intention to take the testimony of his client, Reverend Angus MacCameron, by deposition. It was scheduled to take place at Sherman’s offices in D.C. the following week.

  It was not the fact of a deposition that startled Will. Such procedures were the lifeblood of any lawsuit. Depositions—the giving of pretrial testimony—were usually taken in the offices of one of the attorneys and were more informal than a court proceeding, with only the opposing attorneys, a court reporter, and the witness present. With no presiding judge in attendance, they often created a free-wheeling kind of psychological drama as one attorney questioned, probed, and cajoled the opposing party under oath. At the same time the other attorney would object, obfuscate, distract, and defend, all the while hoping that his client would not make that one thoughtless, careless, case-destroying admission that the court reporter would dutifully transcribe for the court, for the jury later to read.

  The thing that intrigued Will Chambers most was the fact that it was coming so early in the lawsuit. Conventional litigation wisdom was that you go to written discovery first—questions that would have to be answered under oath, or written demands for the other side to produce notes or documents that might relate to the issues of the case.

  After getting the responses to written discovery a lawyer would then have a factual road map and could set up a deposition of the other party in order to gain live testimony on the precise issues—aiming for the center of the target with questions like heat-seeking missiles. The lawyer could hammer at the weak points as well as ask questions designed to fill in the blind spots of the case.

  So why, Will asked himself, was Sherman racing to take the testimony of MacCameron so quickly out of the gate? Was it merely bravado from one of Washington’s finest trial lawyers? Perhaps, although Sherman was too arrogant to feel he needed to impress anyone else. He was the kind of lawyer that just assumed you were already in awe of him.

  Will was mulling over that question when he walked into the coffee room. Betty was pouring herself a cup.

  “You know something, Will,” she commented, “I’ve read the Washington Herald every day since you had the telephone interview with that reporter. I don’t think they ever ran that story.”

  Will merely grunted in response, discovering a little sourly that Betty had taken the last full cup of coffee, leaving only a sinister black film at the bottom of the pot.

  “Betty, how about making some more coffee?”

  “How about you and I talking about my raise? Then we can talk about my making some more coffee.”

  “End of the day, today. We’ll talk.”

  “I’ll be there,” Betty said, half-smiling and walking back to her desk.

  The promise to give Betty a raise had slipped his mind. He had been preoccupied over the last two weeks. He had received inquiries from about a half-dozen prospective clients—however, only two had panned out. This was not good news. He was starting to shift into some heavy-duty anxiety about his professional future.

  Will had met with his mortgage lender in an effort to borrow some cash against his house. But he was told, flatly, that he was already mortgaged to the hilt. In fact, the state of the house—with its uncompleted renovation—made it bad collateral for another loan.

  Will had also been busy trying to negotiate a higher buy-out figure from his former partners. Despite his confrontational final meeting, he somehow believed that they would cut him some slack. But now that they were no longer returning his calls, Will was feeling desperate.

  The only complex litigation he had was the MacCameron lawsuit, and he wondered how long it would be before the money from the fundamentalist preacher’s tiny magazine would start drying up.

  Will buzzed Betty on the intercom and asked her to get J-Fox Sherman on the line. He knew that he had to buy some extra time before exposing his client to deposition questioning from someone as cunning as Sherman.

  Besides, Will was still unsure about the facts of such an unusual, complicated case. He was not expecting a report back from Tiny for at least another two weeks. Will had asked the big private eye to contact each of the archaeological experts who had written articles critical of Reichstad’s handling of the 7QA fragment. In Tiny’s interviews, hopefully some damaging information about Reichstad or his discovery of the fragment would surface. He was looking for any information they had in their back pockets—the kind of stuff that would be too controversial or scandalous, perhaps, to have made it into their polite scholarly writings.

  Betty’s voice came over the intercom, telling Will that Sherman’s office was on the line.

  Will picked up the phone. It was the receptionist from Sherman’s law firm. Chambers asked for Sherman, and he was transferred to the receptionist in the litigation department, and after that, to the personal secretary for J-Fox Sherman. Then Will was put on hold for several minutes.

  Finally, Will was able to explain to Sherman’s secretary that he needed to speak to Sherman
personally about a case they had pending together.

  In a few minutes Will was transferred again.

  Then he heard a man’s voice at the other end.

  “Mr. Sherman, Will Chambers here. I am calling on the Reichstad vs. MacCameron suit.”

  “I am not Mr. Sherman,” the voice at the other end responded. “I am Mr. Sherman’s chief law clerk. Mr. Sherman cannot talk to you right now, he is unavailable. Can I help you?”

  “I need to talk to Mr. Sherman personally about a deposition he just scheduled on one week’s notice, in a new lawsuit that isn’t even out of the cradle yet. I would like to get that deposition moved down the track a week or two.”

  “Oh yes, I’m familiar with that case. You would like to get the deposition adjourned for a few weeks?”

  “That’s what Mr. Sherman and I need to talk about.”

  “Just a moment,” the law clerk said. And then Will waited on the line for another ten minutes.

  When the voice came back on the other end it was the law clerk again.

  “I’m sorry, but Mr. Sherman regrets that he will be unable to reschedule the deposition. He looks forward to taking the testimony of your client next week at the exact time and date indicated in our Notice of Deposition.”

  “Mr. Sherman was capable of speaking to you.”

  “Why, yes,” the clerk replied.

  “Then he is fully capable of speaking to me about this.”

  “No, I’m afraid Mr. Sherman is too busy to talk to you.”

  “Mr. Sherman’s not attempting to intimidate me, is he?” Will bulleted back. “Because if he is, then Mr. Sherman is going to end up taking my self-improvement class—I call it ‘phone etiquette for the self-impressed, self-aggrandizing D.C. lawyer who likes to hide behind his support staff so he can try to look lofty and powerful.’”

  After a moment of silence, the law clerk said, “I will inform Mr. Sherman of your comments, Mr.…” and then the law clerk stifled a little laugh and said primly, “I am sorry. We’ve never heard of you before. What is your name again?”