Mistress of Justice (37 page)

He didn’t truly live anywhere but here.

In murky, echoing rotundas of courthouses like this.

In marble corridors lit by milky sunlight filtering through fifty-year-old grimy windows, in oak hallways smelling of bitter paper from libraries and file rooms.

At counsel tables like the one at which he now sat.

Mitchell Reece studied the courtroom around him, where the opening volley in
New Amsterdam Bank & Trust, Ltd. v. Hanover & Stiver, Inc
. would be fired in a short while. He studied the vaulted ceilings, the austere jury box and a judge’s bench reminiscent of a conning tower on a warship, the dusty flag, the pictures of stern nineteenth-century judges. The room was unlit at the moment. There was a scuffed, well-worn aspect to the place; it reminded him of old subway cars. Well, that was appropriate; after all, justice was just another service provided by government to its citizens, like public transportation and trash collection.

He sat for a few minutes but grew restless; he stood suddenly and began to pace.

And what, he speculated, would happen if Taylor
didn’t
find the note?

He supposed he could find alternatives. But because Mitchell Reece was so very driven, because he was someone who, as Taylor had once said, had left behind reason and logic and even safety in this mad sojourn, he felt a fierce desperation to find that tiny piece of paper.

He wanted to win this one oh-so-badly.

He rose and walked to the soiled window, through which he watched men and women hurrying along Centre Street: attorneys and judges and clients. Everyone was wearing a suit but making the distinction among them was easy. Lawyers carried big litigation bags, clients carried briefcases and judges carried nothing.

He wandered to the judge’s bench then to the jury gallery.

Theater.

Winning is about theater, he reflected.

The revelation had come to him early in his career—he was representing a young boy blinded in one eye when a lawn mower fired a rock out of the grass chute and into the child’s face. The boy’s father had used a hacksaw to cut off the safety deflector panel, believing the motor labored harder with the deflector in place and used more gas. Reece sued the manufacturer, claiming that the unit was defective because there was no warning that users should
not
cut the panel off.

It was understood by virtually everyone that—because the proximate cause of the injury was the father’s removal of the device—Reece had absolutely no chance of winning. The bored judge knew this, as did the arrogant lawyer for the defendant and the complacent lawyer for the defendant’s insurance company.

Seven people did
not
know the impossibility of the suit, however. One was Mitchell Reece. The others were the six members of the jury, who awarded the snotty, self-pitying little kid one point seven million bucks.

Theater.

That was the key to litigation: a dab of logic, a bit of law, a lot of personality, and considerable theater.

He glanced at the door to the courtroom, willing it to open and Taylor Lockwood to hurry inside, the note in hand.

But of course it remained closed.

After he’d heard nothing more from her after she left to go to the firm at 3
A.M
. He’d gotten a few hours’ sleep, shaved and showered then dressed in his finest litigation Armani. He’d gathered his documents, called the clients to have them meet him at the courthouse then limoed downtown, where he slipped into the cavernous domed cathedral of New York State Supreme Court.

Well, the matter was out of his hands, he now reflected. Either Taylor would find it and life would move in one direction, or she would not and an entirely different set of consequences would occur.

Mitchell Reece had not prayed for perhaps thirty years but today he addressed a short message to a vague deity, whom he pictured looking somewhat like blind Justice, and asked that she keep Taylor Lockwood safe and to please, please let her find the note.

You’ve done so much, Taylor; now do just a little more. For both of us.…

Taylor Lockwood stood in Wendall Clayton’s private bathroom.

The time was now 9
A.M
. and she’d hidden here for hours, waiting for the partner to take a break so that she could continue going through the remaining stack of papers.

But Clayton had never even stood up to stretch. In this entire time he’d remained rooted at his desk, reading, picking up the phone and calling partners and clients. The news he was receiving was apparently good for his side; it was clear to her that the merger would be approved and that both firms would sign it up later in the day.

Reece would be in court by now, probably despairing that he hadn’t heard from her.

But there was nothing she could do other than wait.

Ten minutes passed. Then ten more. And finally Clayton rose.

Thank God. He was going to check on something.

She would grab the remaining stack and flee with it to her cubicle, looking through it there. Then—

Her gut jumped hard. Clayton wasn’t leaving the office at all. He needed to use the rest room and was walking directly toward where Taylor Lockwood now hid, a room without a single closet or shower stall where she might hide.

“Bench conference, your honor?” Mitchell Reece asked. He was standing in front of the plaintiff’s table.

The judge looked surprised and Reece could understand why. The trial had just started. The opening statements had been completed and it was rare that a bench conference—a brief informal meeting between lawyers, out of earshot of the jury—should occur at this early stage; nothing had happened so far that the two attorneys could argue about.

The judge raised his eyebrows and Hanover & Stiver’s slick, gray-haired lawyer rose to his feet and walked slowly to the bench.

The courtroom was half empty but Reece was distressed to see some reporters present. He didn’t know why they were here; they never covered cases of this sort.

Someone’s political hand? he wondered.

At the defendant’s table sat Lloyd Hanover, tanned and trim, his hair combed forward in bangs, his face an expression of blasé confidence.

The two lawyers stood at the bench. Reece said softly, “Your honor, I have a best-evidence situation. I’d like to move to introduce a copy of the promissory note in question.”

Hanover’s lawyer turned his head slowly to look at Reece. It was the judge, however, who was more astonished. “You don’t have the note itself?”

No one in the jury box or elsewhere in the courtroom could hear this exchange but the surprise on the jurist’s face was evident. Several spectators looked at each other and a reporter or two leaned forward slightly, sharks smelling blood.

The Hanover lawyer said tersely, “No way. Not acceptable. I’ll fight you on this all the way, Reece.”

The judge said, “Was it a negotiable instrument?”

“Yes, your honor. But there is precedent for admitting a copy at this stage, as long as the original is surrendered before execution of the judgment.”

“Assuming you
get
a judgment,” the Hanover lawyer countered.

“Bickering pisses me off, gentlemen.” When the jury wasn’t listening the judge could curse to his heart’s delight.

“Sorry, sir,” Hanover’s lawyer murmured contritely. Then he said, “You prove to me the note’s destroyed—I mean, show me ashes—and then you can put a copy into evidence. But if not, I’m moving for dismissal.”

“What happened to the original?” the judge asked.

“We have it at the firm,” Reece said casually. “We’re having some technical failure accessing it.”

“ ‘Technical failure accessing it’?” the judge blurted. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“Our security systems aren’t functioning right, as I understand it.”

“Well, wouldn’t that be convenient, to have the note disappear just now?” the Hanover lawyer said. “Especially since we intend to call into question certain aspects of the execution of the note.”

Reece gave a bitter laugh. “Let me get this right—you’re saying that you gladly took my client’s money but now you’re not sure they executed the loan agreement correctly so you don’t have to pay it back?”

“Our thinking is that the bank tried to give itself an out because interest rates turned and they want to invest the capital elsewhere.”

“Your client missed six months of interest payments,”
Reece said, raising his voice just loud enough for the jury to hear. “How exactly—”

“Was I not making myself goddamn clear? No bickering, no fucking comments on the merits of the case in a bench conference.… Now, Mr. Reece, this is very unusual. A suit on a note, especially a negotiable note, requires the original document. Under the best-evidence rule if you can’t explain the note’s destruction, you’re precluded from entering a copy into evidence.”

Reece said calmly, “I’d like to make a motion to submit other evidence of the existence of the note.”

“Your honor,” opposing counsel said, “I would point out that it is Mr. Reece’s client that sued on the note it alleges is properly executed. It is his responsibility to present that note. A copy won’t show that there’s been tampering on the part of Mr. Reece’s client.”

Reece countered, “Your honor, it is very important that the administration of justice not get bogged down in technicalities. The note is merely
evidence
of the debt owed—and remaining unpaid, I should point out—by Hanover & Stiver. It is true that the best-evidence rule generally requires the original but there are exceptions. We’re all familiar with the rules of civil procedure, I’m sure.”

“But this isn’t a bill of sale, Mr. Reece,” the judge said. “It’s a negotiable instrument worth hundreds of millions of dollars.”

“With all due respect to Mr. Reece,” the Hanover lawyer said, “I am reminded of a case once in which a similar claim of a missing note was made and it turned out that the document in question had been sold by the bank to a third party. I would never suggest that New Amsterdam Bank was guilty of such wrongdoing but … we can’t take that chance.”

Reece walked to the counsel table and returned with some documents. He handed one copy to the lawyer and one to the judge. “Motion papers. I move to allow the introduction of secondary evidence of the note. I’ve briefed the issue in here. If you would like to recess for twenty-four hours to allow my opponent here to respond—”

“No more delays,” the judge snapped. “This case has fucked up my calendar enough.”

The other lawyer shook his head. “You lost the note, Reece, I’m ready for trial. Your honor, I move for a directed verdict in my client’s favor.”

The judge flipped through the lengthy brief that Reece had prepared then lifted an impressed eyebrow. “Good work, Mr. Reece. Brilliant analysis.” Then he tossed the brief aside. “But it doesn’t cut it. No secondary evidence will be allowed.”

Reece’s heart sank.

“On the other hand, I won’t grant a directed verdict for Hanover. What I will do is grant a motion to dismiss
without
prejudice. That will allow Mr. Reece to bring his case in the future. However, given the nature of defendant’s financial condition, I doubt they’ll have much money for your client to collect, Mr. Reece. You’d better talk to your malpractice carrier. I think your client may look to you for restitution in this matter. And that’s to the tune of two hundred and fifty million dollars.”