good job, I thought.”
“Has Dad read it?”
“Oh yes. We’ve been discussing it in the kitchen.”
“Is he upset?”
She patted his knee and said, “No, Theo. Your father and I are both proud. It’s just that, let’s say, we’re concerned that you’re in the middle of a fight that perhaps should not include kids.”
“Oh really, Mom? What about the kids who go to school and play soccer out there? The kids who’ll be forced to breathe the diesel fumes? What about the kids like Hardie, whose family will lose its property and other kids who’ll lose their homes?”
Mrs. Boone took a sip from her cup and smiled at Theo. He was right, and she knew it. Still, he didn’t understand how brutal the game of politics could be when the stakes were so high. “I didn’t stop by to argue, Theo. Let’s just say that your father and I are very protective.”
“I know that, believe me I do.”
There was a long pause as they stared at the floor. After he took a long sip, Theo said, “Mom, the public hearing is next Tuesday. I really want to be there. Is that gonna be okay with you and Dad?”
“Certainly, Theo. I’ll be there, too. I’m opposed to the bypass and I want the commissioners to know it.”
“Awesome, Mom. What about Dad?”
“He’ll probably skip it. He doesn’t like long meetings, you know?”
“Sure.”
She left, and Theo followed her downstairs with Judge. He went through his morning ritual quicker than ever—shower, teeth, braces, clothes, and breakfast.
He couldn’t wait to get to school.
Chapter 26
Late at night, with his bedroom door locked, Theo opened his laptop and began typing the letter. It was a letter he’d been thinking about for days, and though he seriously doubted he would ever mail it, he wanted to write it anyway.
Dear Mitchell Stak:
I have in my possession some papers that clearly show your son-in-law, Stu Malzone, owns 20 percent of a company called Parkin Land Trust. Joe Ford and two other men own the rest of the company. I also have a copy of a legal document called an option, which gives PLT the right to buy two hundred acres from Mr. Walt Beeson near Sweeney Road if the bypass is approved by the commissioners of Stratten County. Looking at these papers, it is very clear your son-in-law stands to make a lot of money from the bypass. This is a gross conflict of interest on your part. I have no way of knowing what Joe Ford has promised you, if anything, but I’m sure the newspaper reporters will have a lot of fun digging through your trash. Here’s the deal: If you vote to approve the bypass next Tuesday night, then I will hand over these papers to Mr. Norris Flay with the Strattenburg Gazette. If you vote against the bypass, then the slimy deal between Joe Ford and your son-in-law will never be mentioned, at least not by me.
Sincerely,
A Concerned Voter
After a lot of research, Theo had learned that it was not against the law to send an anonymous letter. Anyone can use the US mail to send a letter or a package to anyone else without identifying themselves. And, as long as the anonymous letter is not threatening, then the person who sends it cannot be charged with a crime. Assuming, of course, that the person is ever discovered.
Was it against the law to threaten someone? Theo had struggled with this issue for hours. To commit a crime, a person making a threat must have the clear intention and the ability to carry it out. For example, if A threatens to kill B, but says so in a way that is harmless, then there is no criminal act. Likewise, if A threatens to kill B, and really means it, but is a quadriplegic stuck in a wheelchair, then he lacks the ability to carry out his threat. However, if A is dead serious and has the ability to make good on his threat, then the threat becomes a criminal act.
Such arguments were why Theo loved the law.
In the case of Mitchell Stak, though, Theo’s threat of public exposure could not be considered a criminal act even if he were serious and could follow through. Why? Because exposing corruption is far different from killing someone. Exposing corruption is not illegal; murder, of course, still is.
Theo read the letter again and it made him even more nervous. He felt like David staring up at Goliath. Mr. Stak was a powerful politician who’d served on the County Commission for fifteen years, since before Theo was born. Who did Theo think he was, trying to intimidate such a man?
On the other hand, Theo would not get caught, at least not in theory. If he in fact mailed the letter, he would do so in such a way that no one would ever know where it came from. That’s the purpose of anonymous mail, right? The sender gets to hide behind a wall of secrecy. He would use rubber gloves and not lick the stamp. Everything would be typed, nothing handwritten, and he would print the letter at school, where it couldn’t be traced. He would deposit it in a remote postal box, far from security cameras. He was certain he could pull this off.
Still, it did not feel right. It seemed kind of cowardly. There should be a better way to confront a crooked politician than by sneaking around firing off unsigned letters. But after three days of nonstop, hyperactive thinking and scheming, Theo had no other plan.
He turned off his computer, turned off the light, situated Judge at the foot of his bed, and tried to go to sleep. His eyes would not close.
The letter was a bluff and nothing more. It wasn’t a real threat because Theo could never reveal what he knew. He could never show Norris Flay or anyone else the papers now stuck away in a batch of retired files deep in the storage boxes at Boone & Boone. Theo knew the rules. Ike had made them even clearer. When it came to a client’s secrets, nothing left the law office.
So why not send the letter? What was the harm? It wasn’t a crime. The Joe Ford files would be protected. Mr. Stak would read the letter, know immediately that whoever wrote it knew the truth, and at that point he might be terrified of being exposed. The anonymous letter stood a good chance of bullying Mr. Stak into voting against the bypass.
Was this right or wrong? Theo flipped and flopped for an hour as Judge glared at him in the darkness. Then he thought of something else: Wouldn’t the letter reveal Joe Ford’s business to Mr. Stak? Yes, it certainly would. But then, Mr. Stak already knew about the shady land deal, right? So the letter wouldn’t reveal anything that Mr. Stak didn’t already know. Would this be a violation of a client’s secrets? “Maybe,” Theo said aloud. “And maybe not.”
The knot in his stomach was back, and he needed to use the bathroom. At midnight he was sitting in his bed, in the darkness, hunched over his laptop pecking away with some new ideas for the public hearing next Tuesday night. For the moment, the letter was forgotten.
* * *
He slept little, and at 6:30 got up and splashed water on his face. He turned on his laptop, and, as was his habit these days, went straight to YouTube. The bypass video had over 31,000 hits. Theo watched it again, a wide grin on his face. He then went to the Gazette and found another front-page story by Norris Flay. Evidently, Mr. Flay had ventured over to Jackson Elementary again and found a story about a teacher with a lot to say. Her name was Ms. Rooney, and she and her third-grade class had begun wearing yellow surgical masks as a sign of protest. This had quickly spread throughout the third grade, and the fourth, and there was a beautiful color photo of about fifty kids posing on the playground, all with the masks.
The yellow masks, a brilliant idea.
Below the photo there was another story about the bypass. The governor had passed through Strattenburg the day before to rally the troops and push for the project. He had spoken at a Business Forum luncheon and given his usual spiel about how much the area needed the bypass. There was a photo of him mugging for the camera with two of the county commissioners—Mitchell Stak and Lucas Grimes. He called both men “bold leaders” unafraid to make tough decisions.
Staring into the eyes of Mitchell Stak, Theo decided to mail his letter.
He waited until Friday afternoon. He had scoped out a mail drop-off box on a
street corner near Gil’s Bike Shop, a place he knew well. It was a typical large, blue metal US Postal Service box with a heavy pull-down slot at the top. As far as Theo could tell, there were no nosy video cameras on any of the nearby buildings.
He had three letters, all identical. The letters themselves were on plain white sheets of copy paper like a million found in every law office. The language had changed little since the original draft. The envelopes were plain white, too, but the wording was different. The return address was from a person who did not exist, a Mr. Toby Clemons, 667 Gorewood Street, Strattenburg. There was no such name in the phone book and no such street in town. Theo decided to use a return address to make the mailing look more authentic. One envelope was addressed to Mr. Stak at his home; another to his hardware store; and the third to the Office of the County Commissioners.
The mail was picked up at 6:00 p.m. each afternoon. At 4:10 Friday, Theo approached the drop box with the three letters in his backpack. He was a nervous wreck. Though he couldn’t pinpoint exactly why, he felt as though he was in the middle of a serious criminal act. For almost a week, he had debated this back and forth, up and down, pros and cons, inside and out, and he had made his decision. What he was doing wasn’t wrong. Maybe it didn’t feel completely right, but it could not get him in trouble. And, most importantly, it might just kill the bypass, and save the Quinn family farm, and keep polluted air away from kids, and so on. Theo was convinced he was right.
Well, he’d been convinced at school, and at the office, and as he rode his bike over to the mailbox, but when he stopped and pulled the letters from his backpack, a voice told him not to do it. “Don’t mail the letters. It’s wrong and you know it. You’re using secret information that you have no right to use. If you were a real lawyer, as opposed to a kid lawyer, you would be violating rules of ethics and could get into serious trouble. Don’t do it, Theo.”
His heart was pounding and his feet were heavy, and Theo knew he should listen to his conscience. The fact that something is not clearly wrong doesn’t mean it’s right. Ike had once told him that in court great lawyers always trust their gut. Right now, Theo’s gut was turning flips.