The Shakespeare Killer

THE SHAKESPEARE KILLER Douglas J. Wood Plum Bay Publishing, LLC New York, New York Morristown, New Jersey Copyright © 2023 by Douglas J. Wood All rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, contact the publisher at the website below Plum Bay Publishing, LLC www.plumbaypublishing.com Library of Congress Control Number: 2023904942 Hardcover ISBN: 979-8-9858564-2-2 Paperback ISBN: 979-8-9858564-1-5 eBook ISBN: 979-8-9858564-3-9 Cover Design: Dee Dee Book Covers Interior Design: Barbara Aronica-Buck Editors: Jeremy Townsend, Stephan Orovich and Kate Petrella Printed in the United States of America “One of the most fundamental questions people have about defense attorneys is, ‘How can you do that? How can you go to bat every day for a person that you may not know is guilty but you have a pretty good idea that he’s not so innocent?’ It’s a question that defense attorneys answer for themselves by not addressing.” —David E. Kelley, American television writer, producer, and former attorney Books by Douglas J. Wood Fiction Presidential Intentions Presidential Declarations Presidential Conclusions Dark Data Dragon on the Far Side of the Moon Blood on the Bayou Non-fiction Please Be Advised 101 Things I Want to Say Asshole Attorney Table of Contents Title Page Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Chapter 59 Chapter 60 Chapter 61 Chapter 62 Chapter 63 Chapter 64 Chapter 65 Chapter 66 Chapter 67 Chapter 68 Chapter 69 Chapter 70 Author's Note Acknowledgements Landmarks Cover Chapter One A Client to Die For On the Gulf of Mexico off Key West, Florida “Just sign the note,” demanded the man sitting across from him. Many considered Jacob Schneider among the finest criminal defense lawyers in the United States. He defended the most infamous of those accused of crimes. He had no interest in the innocence or guilt of his clients. That was not his job. His job—and at the core of his beliefs as a lawyer—was to ensure that every client was afforded his or her Constitutional rights and that the burden of proof to convict beyond a reasonable doubt remained with the prosecution. He used any maneuver that thwarted a district attorney or federal prosecutor from convicting his clients, no matter how guilty they may have been. Indeed, the more guilty the accused and the more heinous their crime, the more Schneider loved the challenge of winning. Even though that sometimes meant crossing ethical lines, he saw doing so as no different from the tricks and lies used by inept prosecutors or corrupt judges. Now he was facing the most challenging defense in his career. He needed to defend himself, something he’d never had to do. “I said, sign the note. Do you not hear me?” “I won’t do that,” Schneider responded, filled with the typical lawyer bravado that helped him win cases in court. He assumed the man was intent on completing the task before him—administering vigilante justice—but Schneider was confident he’d talk his way out of it. He was being held in a chair by two men, and saw no point in putting up a struggle. It wouldn’t help. He was only forty-two years old and in good shape, but there was no place to escape to. He was on a yacht far from land on the Gulf of Mexico for what he had thought was a meeting with a new client. The only defense he had left was his tongue. When the man first contacted Schneider, he had told him that he stood accused of crimes with overwhelming evidence against him. He never said he was innocent, and Schneider didn’t ask. He never did and didn’t care. As a precondition to the meeting, the man wired $200,000 into Schneider’s escrow account as a retainer. When the new client greeted Schneider upon his arrival in Key West, he gave the right impression of having plenty of money to pay his attorney. His yacht was over one hundred feet with a crew of five, and had a main stateroom furnished in mahogany and leather with windows that allowed a panoramic view of the Caribbean. The two men sat down on the back deck, the sun shining. As the boat got underway, gently rocking in the calm seas, the salty air made conversation easy. As the sight of land slowly faded away, they talked about the beautiful coastline and the wonderful people of Florida. The crew set up a couple fishing lines in the back of the boat; the client told Schneider that perhaps they could catch their lunch. A butler who looked more like a bodyguard than a domestic servant served them drinks, and the two were getting along fine. Schneider found the man’s accent mysterious and couldn’t quite place it. Regardless, he was the type of client Schneider loved: guilty as hell and rich as shit. The prospective client said he was facing charges in New York for murder, human trafficking, and pedophilia. Schneider didn’t bother to question how this person was on a boat at sea well beyond the reach of authorities, but the accused appeared wealthy. Money for