Unfit to Practice (29 page)

“Objection!”

“Sustained.”

“Ever see Ms. Reilly and Officer Cruz together, Officer Scholl?”

“No,” Officer Scholl said flatly.

“You're darn right you haven't. I have nothing further, Your Honor.”

“Jack,” Nina whispered after he sat down. “What about the fact that she hates me for making her look like an idiot on the stand? What about the fact that she may have cooked up this whole malicious plot?”

“Let me ask you a question. Should we rock Brock to sleep with harebrained theories about what happened, or should we try to win this case?”

21

G
AYLE
N
OLAN WALKED
to the courtroom door and opened it. Stepping inside, she called her next witness. Bruce Ford entered, moving quickly to the stand. His date of birth put him in his late twenties, although he seemed older to Nina. Bristly hair fringed his face, and dark curls were cut tight to his head. Like almost all lawyers, he had to correct his eyes with specs, but these were a hip green-tinted pair. He appeared well ironed into an expensive suit, but not happy to be here.

She had heard Nolan had twisted his arm to come. He didn't want to come out publicly against a fellow attorney, although mean-spirited letter-writing was apparently acceptable practice. She shifted in her seat as Ford described his tax practice and educational background.

Gayle Nolan remained seated as she asked questions, the black notebooks on each side of the table framing her like big guns. Here was the chief trial counsel's place of power, Nina thought, behind these windowless walls, in this aridity, fighting what she probably considered the good fight, sinking incompetent attorneys.

Attorneys like
her
.

“Mr. Ford, please tell us the circumstances that brought you here today.”

Bruce Ford took his glasses off and wiped them with a handkerchief, then placed them carefully back on his nose. “My fiancée, Brandy, hired Ms. Reilly as her attorney. She and her sister, Angel Guillaume, were present at South Lake Tahoe's Campground by the Lake the night that Phoebe Palladino was killed. They had seen something that night, somebody running away from the tent Phoebe was in, so they went to ask Ms. Reilly for advice. They needed to talk to the police but were afraid about what would happen if they did. Turns out they were right to worry about that, only they should have been worrying just as much about who they chose to hire.”

“Shouldn't you object?” Nina whispered. “He wasn't even my client and he's stating opinions.”

“We want the judge to see we respect his intelligence. He knows opinions differ from fact.”

“So Ms. Reilly was not specifically your attorney?” Nolan asked Bruce Ford.

“She was representing my fiancée.”

“What happened to you after your fiancée consulted Ms. Reilly?”

“I was in my office one day. A guy bullied his way through my receptionist and into my office. He introduced himself as Cody Stinson, but at the time that meant nothing to me. I didn't know the name. Well, I see a lot of different types. First, I assumed he was a potential client who was just worked up about something. I get a lot of that. Then he started talking about strangling someone, and I suddenly realized he wasn't there to consult me about anything.”

“In your opinion, Mr. Ford, why had he come there?”

“He was there to threaten and intimidate me.”

“What was the intimidation designed to accomplish?”

“He wanted my fiancée to quit talking to anyone about what happened at the campground. He was perfectly clear on that point. He swore she'd be sorry if she didn't ‘shut her mouth'—only his language was much cruder than mine is here today. He threatened me, said he'd get me if I didn't do something about her.”

“Then what happened?”

“I don't know how I did it. Years of handling my alcoholic dad, I think. Anyway, I threw him out.”

“Did he go peaceably?”

“He broke a porcelain lamp that was on the secretary's desk.”

“How did he do that?”

“Knocked it down. He was yelling. Very angry.”

“After he left, what did you do?”

“Moved in with a friend.”

“Why?”

“As he was leaving, Stinson taunted me. Said he knew where I lived.”

“You were frightened?”

“Very.”

“Did you tell anyone where you were?”

“Not for a couple of days.”

“You didn't call your fiancée?”

He stretched his neck uncomfortably. “We were—having a hard time, but I tried to reach her. Didn't have much luck.”

“After a few days, you made contact?”

“She found me. I knew she could if she wanted to badly enough.”

“What effect did this incident have on your business?”

“I couldn't work. I didn't take calls. It cost me money and made it hard for me to complete the work I had at hand. It had a distinctly negative effect on my business.”

“And on you personally?”

“I suffered tremendous emotional distress. I had to see a doctor. It exacerbated the problems with my fiancée.”

Jack, taking a different tack, stood when he talked to Ford, although he stood behind the table. He moved his weight from one side to the other, his compact body swaying like a tree in a wild wind as he thought on his feet. “Mr. Ford, why didn't you know about Cody Stinson in the first place?”

“I hadn't talked to my fiancée, Brandy Taylor, for a couple of days.”

“And why was that?”

“She was out of town.”

“But you were on speaking terms.”

“Of course.” But the eyes behind the green tint blinked.

“Did she later tell you that she had been instructed by her attorney to contact you?”

“I don't remember that.”

“Did she say she tried to reach you before Cody Stinson ever came to your office to tell you what was going on?”

Ford had a toothache, judging from the tortured crook to his mouth. “Yes.”

“Why couldn't she reach you to warn you?”

“My cell phone was out.”

“Why couldn't she find you at the office?”

“She left some messages,” he admitted. “I was upset. I didn't call her back. Believe me, I regret that very much now. I was wrong.”

“Mr. Ford, isn't it true that you moved in with your friend several days before Cody Stinson showed up at your office?”

He was silent.

Busted, Nina thought. Jack hadn't told her about that.

“You were having some problems in your relationship and moved out. You weren't taking calls from your fiancée at home or at the office, isn't that so, Mr. Ford?”

The tongue went back to work the bad molar again. “I'm not proud of how I behaved. I hate fighting with her. I guess the timing of the whole thing got confused in my mind,” he said.

“I guess it did, Mr. Ford. So any harm to your business, aside from a lamp that may have been broken accidentally, is really due to the problems you were having in your relationship, isn't it?”

“Listen, that guy scared me. He threw me off my stride. He threatened my fiancée! He had no business doing that. She was scared to death. I felt so horrible when I found out.”

Ford didn't come off too badly, just as a protective boyfriend, but his indignation no longer carried the heft of righteousness. The judge lost interest. He turned toward the clerk and said something. The clerk nodded, then focused harder on the mysteries unfolding on her computer.

“How did you know about that?” Nina whispered to Jack.

“I read it in his eyes.”

“You did?”

He took pity on her bewilderment. He whispered, “Paul just found out. He called me late last night. Just when you write him off as useless, he comes up with something.”

The next witness, Brandy Taylor, brought a breeze through the door with her, rushed up to the witness stand, and said “Sorry” when she almost tipped over the bottle of water on Nolan's table.

Brandy wore a red jacket over a flowing chiffon skirt. Judge Brock gave her his full attention.

She gave her vital statistics, then began her story, her attitude apologetic. “I didn't want to complain, but my boyfriend was so upset. He's a lawyer and he said that it was like a civic duty, that what Ms. Reilly did to us was harmful. We could have died. You know, the truth is, we were all scared.”

Pushing her gaudy rims up tight to her eyes, Nolan straightened her padded shoulders and brightened all around. She laid on the sympathy lightly, as if knowing a heavy hand might twist things the wrong way. She didn't say outright, “Poor you,” but a warmth under her questions carried the implication with every sentence. “Tell us, in your own words, Ms. Taylor, what happened.”

Brandy told the court at great length about their trip to the campground, angling around her troubles with her boyfriend, emphasizing the fun of a visit with her sister, Angel. She said the arguments at the tent next door escalated after Cody Stinson arrived, and she described the arrival of the park ranger and how relieved they felt. Then, she said, they couldn't sleep anyway. “We got up in the middle of the night to use the—uh—bathroom.”

“You and your sister both?”

“We both went, yeah.”

“Tell us what happened then.”

“Well, it was super late at night and really dark. Even though the campground's lit and you can see the lights reflecting on the lake through the trees, it's not like daytime. On the other hand, it's not so dark you can't see. It was also quiet. When we got to the bathroom we waited a minute for this other woman to finish, then we were quick. It was on the way back that I saw Cody Stinson leaving Phoebe's tent.”

“Which caused you to consult with Nina Reilly?”

“That's right. We were frightened and didn't know what to do.”

Brandy wasn't enjoying this. In spite of Jack's admonition, Nina scribbled on her notepad, the mindless doodles she hoped looked like serious note-taking to anyone who happened to notice. The doodling helped her think, as if the stick figures and their little randomly generated activities freed up her mind for more logical paths.

She doodled an outhouse with a half-moon cut in the door, a woman walking away, two shadowy figures waiting.

Hmm, she thought, the woman in the washroom, out and about in the middle of the night. Brandy and Angel had mentioned her on their first visit to Nina. Could that mean anything? The campground had been crowded.

Could be anyone.

Could be someone?

When Brandy got to Cody's attack, she became teary. Gayle Nolan, entirely pleased with the girl's performance, egged her on, but Brandy wiped her eyes quickly, saying it was months ago now, and nothing had happened since Stinson was put in jail. She even put a plug in for Paul's role in Stinson's capture, which Nina appreciated, even though Jack seemed unmoved.

Nolan didn't let Brandy go before detailing the injury to Brandy and her sister. They had been menaced, attacked even, by this man who should never have had the information he had, which came straight out of Nina's confidential client file.

When Jack's turn came to question Brandy, she uncrossed her legs and pushed her back against the chair, as if recoiling from what she expected to be an unpleasant scene. Instead, he gently prodded her about the things Nina had done to prevent any harm the information in the file might have caused.

“She hired an investigator, who followed you even though you didn't request protection. He was there when Cody Stinson confronted you at the beach, correct?”

“That's right. She didn't have to do that. I like Ms. Reilly, don't get me wrong. I know she didn't mean for us to get hurt.”

“Would you mind going into a little more detail about what happened when Cody Stinson ‘jumped out' at you?”

“Certainly. We were just walking along, and there he was. I recognized him right away and I started screaming and kicking him, because Angel and I have two brothers, and I think it was just a reaction to the situation, you know? Because I recognized him right away. Angel kind of leaped onto his back.”

“And got knocked down.”

“Right.”

“What exactly did Cody Stinson do?”

“Well, he was shouting,” she said dubiously. “What do you mean, what did he do?”

“Did he pull a knife?”

“I didn't see one. Doesn't mean he didn't have one, though.”

“What was he saying?”

She shook her head in disbelief. “I wasn't listening, to tell you the truth. I was scared out of my brains.”

“Is it possible Cody Stinson just wanted to talk?”

“He knocked Angel down,” she said slowly. “So, no. I wouldn't say so.”

“After she jumped on his back.”

“He jumped us,” she said firmly.

“After you screamed and kicked him.”

“What was I supposed to do! He's a murderer and he shows up in the woods by the beach where I'm supposed to be meeting my fiancé! I'm damn proud we fought back!”

Jack calmed her down, praising her quick thinking, all the while making his points for the judge. When they got to the event at the women's shelter, he tried for similar points. Why did Stinson knock? Hadn't he said he just wanted to talk to them that night, too? Wasn't it possible the broken window was just a result of his frustration about not getting their attention? He established that the Taylor-Ford home and Ford's office were listed, as were Angel's address and workplace, “accessible to anyone that can read.”

When he finished, his usually cool forehead had a sheen of moisture. “Brandy's got the judge diving for his hanky,” Jack whispered to Nina. “Did you have to pick a client who's so damn adorable and sympathetic?”

Cody Stinson's jail jumpsuit hung on him. Escorted into the court by a guard, he took the stand nervously, stroking his goatee while Nolan shuffled through her notebooks for a minute. Then Nolan introduced herself and established that he was at present incarcerated and awaiting a trial in a murder case.

“You know why you're here today?” Nolan asked.

He pulled his mouth into a pucker. “I guess to say bad things about that attorney over there, Nina Reilly.”

“Do you know Ms. Reilly?”

“Not personally, no.”

“You have nothing personal against her.”

“No.”

“And no reason to say bad things.”

“Right.”

“You are accused of murdering Phoebe Palladino at Campground by the Lake in South Lake Tahoe in the early-morning hours of September the first, last year?”

“I didn't do it.”

“You've spoken to your attorney regarding your testimony here today?”

“I've waived my right to be silent and take the Fifth Amendment in writing. I want to talk about this. If I don't say anything, I'll never get out. You know, they let Mario Lopez go because of those bozo women. That's just so lame.”

“We're not here to determine your innocence or guilt, Mr. Stinson. What we'd like you to tell the court is how you received information about a confidential file on your case. How did you hear that Brandy Taylor and Angel Guillaume had some information of interest to the police regarding you in that case?”