The Runaway Jury Read Online Free

his weakness.
    “I assume the plaintiff’s lawyers are ready,” asked another CEO.
    “Safe assumption,” Fitch said with a shrug. “There are enough of them.”
    Eight, at last count. Eight of the largest tort firmsin the country had allegedly put up a million bucks each to finance this showdown with the tobacco industry. They had picked the plaintiff, the widow of a man named Jacob L. Wood. They had picked the forum, the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, because the state had beautiful tort laws and because juries in Biloxi could at times be generous. They hadn’t picked the judge, but they couldn’t have been luckier. The Honorable Frederick Harkin had been a plaintiff’s lawyer before a heart attack sent him to the bench.
    It was no ordinary tobacco case, and everyone in the room knew it.
    “How much have they spent?”
    “I’m not privy to that information,” Fitch said. “We’ve heard rumors that their war chest may not be as loaded as advertised, maybe a small problem collecting the up-front money from a few of the lawyers. But they’ve spent millions. And they have a dozen consumer groups hanging around ready to pitch in advice.”
    Jankle rattled his ice, then drained the last drop of liquid from his glass. It was his fourth drink. The room was silent for a moment as Fitch stood and waited and the CEO’s watched the carpet.
    “How long will it last?” Jankle finally asked.
    “Four to six weeks. Jury selection goes fast here. We’ll probably seat a jury by Wednesday.”
    “Allentown lasted three months,” Jankle said.
    “This ain’t Kansas, Toto. You want a three-month trial?”
    “No, I was just, well …” Jankle’s words trailed off sadly.
    “How long should we stay in town?” Vandemeer said, instinctively glancing at his watch.
    “I don’t care. You can leave now, or you can wait until the jury is picked. You all have those big jets. If I need you, I can find you.” Fitch set his water on the mantel and looked around the room. He was suddenly ready to leave. “Anything else?”
    Not a word.
    “Good.”
    He said something to José as he opened the front door, then he was gone. They stared in silence at the posh carpet, worrying about Monday, worrying about lots of things.
    Jankle, his hands quivering slightly, finally lit a cigarette.
    WENDALL ROHR made his first fortune in the suing game when two offshore oil workers were burned on a Shell rig in the Gulf. His cut was almost two million, and he quickly considered himself a trial lawyer to be reckoned with. He spread his money around, picked up more, cases, and by the age of forty had an aggressive firm and a decent reputation as a courtroom brawler. Then drugs, a divorce, and some bad investments ruined his life for a while, and at the age of fifty he was checking titles and defending shoplifters like a million other lawyers. When a wave of asbestos litigation swept the Gulf Coast, Wendall was once again in the right place. He made his second fortune, and vowed never to lose it. He built a firm, refurbished a grand suite of offices, even found a young wife. Free of booze and pills, Rohr directed his considerable energies into suing corporate America on behalf of injured people. On his second trip, he rose even quicker in trial lawyer circles. He grew a beard, oiled his hair,became a radical, and was beloved on the lecture circuit.
    Rohr met Celeste Wood, the widow of Jacob Wood, through a young lawyer who had prepared Jacob’s will in anticipation of death. Jacob Wood died at the age of fifty-one after smoking three packs a day for almost thirty years. At the time of his death, he was a production supervisor in a boat factory, earning forty thousand a year.
    In the hands of a less ambitious lawyer, the case appeared to be nothing more than a dead smoker, one of countless others. Rohr, though, had networked his way into a circle of acquaintances who were dreaming the grandest dreams ever known to trial lawyers. All were specialists in