Executive Privilege - Softcover
For years, Edgar-nominee (Fade the Heat) Jay Brandon has enthralled readers with novels set in the legal world of his hometown of San Antonio, Texas. But with Executive Privilege, Brandon chooses a wider stage and brings the reader an all-new thriller set against the backdrop of our nation’s capital, the story of a wife’s desperate attempt to save herself and her young son from her husband, a man involved with selling our nation’s secrets and willing to do whatever he can to ensure that his family doesn’t get away. The wife? Myra McPherson, the First Lady of the United States.
When San Antonio attorney David Owens wins an important divorce case, he hopes the victory will bring him some new business. But he never imagined that the First Lady, a Texas native, would walk through his office door. Shy and fearful, the First Lady explains that she needs to divorce the President, to get herself and her young son out of the White House. The President is engaged in dangerous dealings . . . and has been unfaithful. But no woman has ever divorced a sitting President, and while every President has secrets, none are like the secrets this President wants to protect: his nefarious dealings with a billionaire businessman willing to use his money and power to manipulate even the leader of our nation.
When the news breaks, the publicity is huge, but the threat is even bigger. Orders have been given to kill the First Lady and her son, and all that stands in the way is her divorce lawyer and one Secret Service agent whose oath to protect her charges is more important to her than the power of the President.
With all the elements of a great thriller and a great courtroom drama, Jay Brandon delivers a novel sure to keep you up long past your bedtime.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
Jay Brandon is the author of twelve critically acclaimed novels, including the Edgar Award-nominated Fade the Heat. As an attorney, Brandon has practiced at the highest criminal court in Texas, the Court of Criminal Appeals. He continues to practice family and criminal law. Brandon lives in San Antonio with his wife and three children.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
Jay Brandon is the author of twelve critically acclaimed novels, including the Edgar Award-nominated Fade the Heat. As an attorney, Brandon has practiced at the highest criminal court in Texas, the Court of Criminal Appeals. He continues to practice family and criminal law. Brandon lives in San Antonio with his wife and three children.
CHAPTER
one
The Bexar County Courthouse in San Antonio is more than a hundred years old, the oldest working courthouse among the two hundred fifty-four counties of Texas. The red stone building had played host to thousands and thousands of trials over the years, most with little fanfare. On this particular May afternoon, though, the trial going on in the grand courtroom at the south end of the fourth floor drew more attention than any civil trial in a long time. Hearing that the week-long trial was nearing conclusion, courthouse employees, idle lawyers, reporters, and even a few honest citizens had trickled into the audience seats to hear the final arguments.
Usually only a high-profile criminal case, perhaps a capital murder trial, drew this kind of notoriety. But in the old civil district courtroom much more was at stake than a prison sentence. This was a divorce trial.
David Owens stood at the spacious front of the courtroom, facing the jury across an old-fashioned railing supported by carved wooden posts. To his right Judge Louise Shahan sat attentively, her eyes shifting from David to the opposing lawyer to the gallery of spectators. The twelve jurors seemed to be paying careful attention to David, as much attention to his pauses to collect his thoughts as to his arguments themselves.
David Owens looked very young during those pauses. He was thirty-two but didn't look it. His blue suit fit him a bit loosely; he had lost weight lately. David had black hair, intense blue eyes, and too pale skin, given the ample sunshine San Antonio provided in the late springtime. This case had aged him, but finally in the courtroom he had found fresh supplies of energy.
Out in the spectator area the wooden pews were filled with silent watchers, shoulders touching. The spectators, many of them lawyers, also watched David Owens carefully, not only to judge his speech-making ability, but for signs that the young lawyer knew how over his head he'd wandered in taking on this case.
At the other counsel table sat the highest-priced divorce lawyer in San Antonio, Ellen Bonham. Her client had chosen her not just for her experience and her reputation, but for her gender. In divorcing his wife of twenty-two years, the client, Rod Smathers, wanted not only to win but not to look like a bad guy. He wanted every minute of the trial to demonstrate that women shouldn't recoil from him in distaste. He was only doing his best for everyone. Hence the woman lawyer, who sat close to him and conferred with him head to head once in a while.
Smathers was the CEO of the only Fortune 100 corporation in San Antonio, the town's most important employer and corporate citizen. He must also have been one of the two or three richest men in town, and intended to remain so after this divorce became final.
David Owens had never done anything in his life that had drawn this much absorbed attention. But as he presented his case to the jury the weight of those stares didn't disturb him. He felt only one gaze on him, that of his client. He also felt the weight of three people who weren't in the courthouse, and his heart beat heavily.
To the jurors David said, "My opposing counsel has asked you whether Mr. Smathers should be punished for having made such a good life for his family. Should he be punished for his hard work, for providing his wife and children a beautiful home and lifestyle? Should he be punished for that by having his children taken from him now?
"Of course the answer is no." David saw the jurors' eyes widen, and heard a small gasp from his client. He went quickly on. "Mr. Smathers and my client Mary Smathers came to an agreement years ago, when their first child was born. He would work and provide income. She would take care of the children. That was the deal, and it worked well.
"But somewhere over the years their arrangement became more than a way to share responsibilities. Their roles took them over. Mr. Smathers's business began to consume his life. He became obsessed with rising to the absolute top of his company. He made it. But family life had to give way to his quest."
"Objection," Ellen Bonham said loudly. "There was testimony that my client spent lots of time with--"
Judge Shahan quickly cut her off. "The jury will remember the evidence as they heard it," she instructed, adding quietly. "Pay attention to your own memories, not to what the lawyers say."
"You heard the testimony," David said to the jury. "Not just of working long hours during the week, but of spending weekends on business trips or playing golf with important clients. That's what you have to do to get to the top of the business world, and Mr. Smathers did it."
David turned from the jury toward his client, and walked slowly toward her. "Meanwhile, something similar happened to Mary Smathers. She played her assigned role in the family, she stayed home with the children, but just as with her husband, her role took her over. Mary became a full-time mother in every sense. When a child woke up scared in the middle of the night, he called for Mom. And she came. When a child skinned her knee in the backyard, it was Mom who doctored it. For driving the car pool and chaperoning field trips and attending music recitals, the Smathers children have had only one parent."
David stood between the counsel tables, letting the jury look at the opponents who had once been lovers. Rod Smathers in his early fifties looked younger. He had kept in good shape, his jawline didn't sag, his dark suit fit him well. He looked authoritative and decisive. His wife across the aisle in her pale peach jacket and skirt didn't seem to belong with him. Mary Smathers had been very pretty when they had married, but frankly nowhere near beautiful enough to be the wife of one of the most important business leaders in Texas. In her mid-forties now, she seemed headed briskly for matronhood. She remained pretty, but in a mature way for which a different word was needed. Mary had become attractive in an almost middle-aged, lightly tended way. Trial had not brought out the best in her appearance. Her cheeks had red splotches and her eyes showed traces of those interrupted nights of motherhood and of tears recently shed. She gazed at her lawyer with obvious fright.
David asked, "Should either of them be punished for the roles they assumed? No. This isn't about punishment. This is about what's best for the children. The judge's instructions and your own good sense tell you that you have to look at your decision from the point of view of the children. If you award primary custody of these three children to their father, they'll have every material thing they could ever want: horses on the family ranch, private schools, cars when they're old enough, trips all over the world with Dad...once a year or so.
"But who's going to doctor their scraped knees every day? The maid. A housekeeper, a nanny. Or nobody.
"Giving this mother primary custody of the children won't hurt Mr. Smathers one bit. You've seen the standard possession order for the noncustodial parent. If Mr. Smathers exercises those times of possession--one evening a week and the entire weekend every other week, plus a month in the summer--it will be more time than he's spent with his children in their lives. He's never wanted that much time with them before. And now he says he wants even more. He wants primary custody. He wants to be the one to tuck his three children in every night."
David surveyed the jury, eight men and four women. Ellen Bonham had gotten her way there, using nearly all her strikes on women, who would be presumed more sympathetic toward David's client. But looking at the jurors, David had begun to feel a rapport with them. He wondered if trial lawyers always developed that feeling. David wouldn't know. This was only the fifth jury trial of his career, his second as lead counsel.
"It's Rod Smathers who thinks in terms of punishing people. That's what this trial is all about. That's the only reason he's asked for custody: to hurt his wife. To punish her for daring to ask for more of his money than he's--"
"Objection!" the other lawyer almost shouted, rising to her feet. "There is absolutely no evidence to support this argument of counsel's. Furthermore he knows very well that the division of property is no concern of this jury's. The only issue before them is custody."
Judge Shahan sat in thoughtful silence, casting back her memory over the whole four-day trial. "That's sustained. Move on to another topic, Mr. Owens."
David didn't. "I think you can figure it out for yourselves," David said to the jury. "You can see from Mary's testimony, from her very anxiety about this case, why she wants primary custody of these children. Because that's what's best for them, that they stay with the mother who's raised them. What's Mr. Smathers's reason for asking for primary custody? So that his children can be baby-sat by nannies and maids while he works late and jets around the country.
"Think about those motivations. Then you decide which of these parents has the best interests of these children at heart."
He didn't realize until he'd said it that that would be his closing sentence, but David at least recognized an end line when he heard one. He turned rather abruptly and resumed his seat beside his client. Under the table she took his hand and squeezed it so tightly the tips of his fingers turned instantly white.
Judge Shahan quickly dismissed the jury to their deliberations, but didn't leave the bench. Leaning casually in her high-backed black chair, she asked, "Ready for my part of the decision?"
Before the jury portion of the trial had begun, the parties had presented evidence concerning the Smatherses' community property to the judge. In Texas, juries have very narrow powers to decide issues in divorce trials, primarily custody of the children. Judges decide how to divide the property.
Ellen Bonham rose quickly to her feet. "If you are, Your Honor. Of course I'd like to present argument on the property division first."
The judge paused a beat, th...
one
The Bexar County Courthouse in San Antonio is more than a hundred years old, the oldest working courthouse among the two hundred fifty-four counties of Texas. The red stone building had played host to thousands and thousands of trials over the years, most with little fanfare. On this particular May afternoon, though, the trial going on in the grand courtroom at the south end of the fourth floor drew more attention than any civil trial in a long time. Hearing that the week-long trial was nearing conclusion, courthouse employees, idle lawyers, reporters, and even a few honest citizens had trickled into the audience seats to hear the final arguments.
Usually only a high-profile criminal case, perhaps a capital murder trial, drew this kind of notoriety. But in the old civil district courtroom much more was at stake than a prison sentence. This was a divorce trial.
David Owens stood at the spacious front of the courtroom, facing the jury across an old-fashioned railing supported by carved wooden posts. To his right Judge Louise Shahan sat attentively, her eyes shifting from David to the opposing lawyer to the gallery of spectators. The twelve jurors seemed to be paying careful attention to David, as much attention to his pauses to collect his thoughts as to his arguments themselves.
David Owens looked very young during those pauses. He was thirty-two but didn't look it. His blue suit fit him a bit loosely; he had lost weight lately. David had black hair, intense blue eyes, and too pale skin, given the ample sunshine San Antonio provided in the late springtime. This case had aged him, but finally in the courtroom he had found fresh supplies of energy.
Out in the spectator area the wooden pews were filled with silent watchers, shoulders touching. The spectators, many of them lawyers, also watched David Owens carefully, not only to judge his speech-making ability, but for signs that the young lawyer knew how over his head he'd wandered in taking on this case.
At the other counsel table sat the highest-priced divorce lawyer in San Antonio, Ellen Bonham. Her client had chosen her not just for her experience and her reputation, but for her gender. In divorcing his wife of twenty-two years, the client, Rod Smathers, wanted not only to win but not to look like a bad guy. He wanted every minute of the trial to demonstrate that women shouldn't recoil from him in distaste. He was only doing his best for everyone. Hence the woman lawyer, who sat close to him and conferred with him head to head once in a while.
Smathers was the CEO of the only Fortune 100 corporation in San Antonio, the town's most important employer and corporate citizen. He must also have been one of the two or three richest men in town, and intended to remain so after this divorce became final.
David Owens had never done anything in his life that had drawn this much absorbed attention. But as he presented his case to the jury the weight of those stares didn't disturb him. He felt only one gaze on him, that of his client. He also felt the weight of three people who weren't in the courthouse, and his heart beat heavily.
To the jurors David said, "My opposing counsel has asked you whether Mr. Smathers should be punished for having made such a good life for his family. Should he be punished for his hard work, for providing his wife and children a beautiful home and lifestyle? Should he be punished for that by having his children taken from him now?
"Of course the answer is no." David saw the jurors' eyes widen, and heard a small gasp from his client. He went quickly on. "Mr. Smathers and my client Mary Smathers came to an agreement years ago, when their first child was born. He would work and provide income. She would take care of the children. That was the deal, and it worked well.
"But somewhere over the years their arrangement became more than a way to share responsibilities. Their roles took them over. Mr. Smathers's business began to consume his life. He became obsessed with rising to the absolute top of his company. He made it. But family life had to give way to his quest."
"Objection," Ellen Bonham said loudly. "There was testimony that my client spent lots of time with--"
Judge Shahan quickly cut her off. "The jury will remember the evidence as they heard it," she instructed, adding quietly. "Pay attention to your own memories, not to what the lawyers say."
"You heard the testimony," David said to the jury. "Not just of working long hours during the week, but of spending weekends on business trips or playing golf with important clients. That's what you have to do to get to the top of the business world, and Mr. Smathers did it."
David turned from the jury toward his client, and walked slowly toward her. "Meanwhile, something similar happened to Mary Smathers. She played her assigned role in the family, she stayed home with the children, but just as with her husband, her role took her over. Mary became a full-time mother in every sense. When a child woke up scared in the middle of the night, he called for Mom. And she came. When a child skinned her knee in the backyard, it was Mom who doctored it. For driving the car pool and chaperoning field trips and attending music recitals, the Smathers children have had only one parent."
David stood between the counsel tables, letting the jury look at the opponents who had once been lovers. Rod Smathers in his early fifties looked younger. He had kept in good shape, his jawline didn't sag, his dark suit fit him well. He looked authoritative and decisive. His wife across the aisle in her pale peach jacket and skirt didn't seem to belong with him. Mary Smathers had been very pretty when they had married, but frankly nowhere near beautiful enough to be the wife of one of the most important business leaders in Texas. In her mid-forties now, she seemed headed briskly for matronhood. She remained pretty, but in a mature way for which a different word was needed. Mary had become attractive in an almost middle-aged, lightly tended way. Trial had not brought out the best in her appearance. Her cheeks had red splotches and her eyes showed traces of those interrupted nights of motherhood and of tears recently shed. She gazed at her lawyer with obvious fright.
David asked, "Should either of them be punished for the roles they assumed? No. This isn't about punishment. This is about what's best for the children. The judge's instructions and your own good sense tell you that you have to look at your decision from the point of view of the children. If you award primary custody of these three children to their father, they'll have every material thing they could ever want: horses on the family ranch, private schools, cars when they're old enough, trips all over the world with Dad...once a year or so.
"But who's going to doctor their scraped knees every day? The maid. A housekeeper, a nanny. Or nobody.
"Giving this mother primary custody of the children won't hurt Mr. Smathers one bit. You've seen the standard possession order for the noncustodial parent. If Mr. Smathers exercises those times of possession--one evening a week and the entire weekend every other week, plus a month in the summer--it will be more time than he's spent with his children in their lives. He's never wanted that much time with them before. And now he says he wants even more. He wants primary custody. He wants to be the one to tuck his three children in every night."
David surveyed the jury, eight men and four women. Ellen Bonham had gotten her way there, using nearly all her strikes on women, who would be presumed more sympathetic toward David's client. But looking at the jurors, David had begun to feel a rapport with them. He wondered if trial lawyers always developed that feeling. David wouldn't know. This was only the fifth jury trial of his career, his second as lead counsel.
"It's Rod Smathers who thinks in terms of punishing people. That's what this trial is all about. That's the only reason he's asked for custody: to hurt his wife. To punish her for daring to ask for more of his money than he's--"
"Objection!" the other lawyer almost shouted, rising to her feet. "There is absolutely no evidence to support this argument of counsel's. Furthermore he knows very well that the division of property is no concern of this jury's. The only issue before them is custody."
Judge Shahan sat in thoughtful silence, casting back her memory over the whole four-day trial. "That's sustained. Move on to another topic, Mr. Owens."
David didn't. "I think you can figure it out for yourselves," David said to the jury. "You can see from Mary's testimony, from her very anxiety about this case, why she wants primary custody of these children. Because that's what's best for them, that they stay with the mother who's raised them. What's Mr. Smathers's reason for asking for primary custody? So that his children can be baby-sat by nannies and maids while he works late and jets around the country.
"Think about those motivations. Then you decide which of these parents has the best interests of these children at heart."
He didn't realize until he'd said it that that would be his closing sentence, but David at least recognized an end line when he heard one. He turned rather abruptly and resumed his seat beside his client. Under the table she took his hand and squeezed it so tightly the tips of his fingers turned instantly white.
Judge Shahan quickly dismissed the jury to their deliberations, but didn't leave the bench. Leaning casually in her high-backed black chair, she asked, "Ready for my part of the decision?"
Before the jury portion of the trial had begun, the parties had presented evidence concerning the Smatherses' community property to the judge. In Texas, juries have very narrow powers to decide issues in divorce trials, primarily custody of the children. Judges decide how to divide the property.
Ellen Bonham rose quickly to her feet. "If you are, Your Honor. Of course I'd like to present argument on the property division first."
The judge paused a beat, th...
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherTor Books
- Publication date2003
- ISBN 10 0812575458
- ISBN 13 9780812575453
- BindingMass Market Paperback
- Edition number1
- Number of pages404
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