Unfit to Practice (34 page)

“Two thousand four hundred dollars.”

“For writing a letter to the insurance company?”

“The case involved an extensive set of exhibits. I put in numerous hours helping the Vangs collate their receipts.”

“Couldn't your secretary have done that? Collate receipts?”

“I preferred to do it.”

“Let me see, you were charging forty dollars an hour to collate receipts, so that would be—oh, here it is. Sixty hours. Sixty hours you put in to write this letter?”

“To meet with the clients, to help them assemble their claim, to negotiate, to write the claim letter, to follow up—yes. Sixty hours. In the end, the negotiated claim was for more than two hundred thousand dollars.”

“Isn't it true that the price for your honor and integrity was two thousand four hundred dollars? That you were willing to commit a fraud for that amount, assuming you could hide behind the attorney-client privilege and no one would ever know your client had told you he did the arson?”

“Objection! Argumentative, compound, misstates the testimony, calls for a conclusion,” Jack said.

“It's totally untrue,” Nina answered before the judge could rule, but her voice was choked. She could not disregard the cavalcade of feelings coursing through her, no matter how determined she felt. Such a pathetic amount of money it was they figured for the price of her soul. “I'm proud of my profession! I would never . . . !”

Judge Brock cut her off. “I will sustain the objection. Rephrase, Counsel.”

“That's all right, Your Honor. I am finished with this witness.”

“Mr. McIntyre?”

“Ms. Reilly,” Jack said. “I just want this to be very clear for the record. Are you positive you never wrote those last nineteen words?”

“Positive.”

“You had no intent to defraud the insurance company, and so far as you know, Mr. Vang did not commit any arson?”

“That's right.”

“You spent sixty hours working on this claim and obtained a settlement of two hundred and ten thousand dollars for your clients?”

“Yes.”

“Let the record reflect that Ms. Reilly's fee amounted to one point one percent of the recovery,” Jack said. “I have nothing further of this witness.”

“We will adjourn. Court will resume at three.”

Freed, Nina got out of the box and walked tall back to Jack's table. Gathering up documents from the other table, Nolan gave her a cynical smile. Jack took Nina by the arm. “Out we go,” he said.

The elevator arrived, jammed with people. Jack pushed forward and stuffed her into an invisible gap.

“How did I do?” she asked Jack as they ate sandwiches across the street.

“You sounded tremulous, but Brock will make allowances for that,” Jack said.

“I didn't feel scared, Jack, if that's what you're thinking. My anger shook me. I had no idea how difficult it would be testifying. I wanted to leap off the stand and land a good one-two on Nolan's nose. I kept seeing those dumb glasses under my high heels, broken on the floor. I bet her eyes look weak without them.”

“You okay now?”

“Yeah.”

“Chin up.”

After the break, Nolan called Sandy to the stand. She sat down in the box, arranging herself calmly. Dignified and impeccable, she wore her standards, a denim blue skirt and a white blouse, and had spiked her upswept black hair with a turquoise stick. Nina knew she had never testified in court before but wasn't worried about Sandy. She could take Nolan down with a sneeze.

“So you took the new file that was handed to you and affixed the Client Intake Interview form to the back of the file?” Nolan asked.

“Yes. Like I always do.”

“Did you read the notes?” Judge Brock leaned in closer, wanting to hear the answer to this one.

“Might have,” Sandy said.

“What's she doing!” Nina whispered. Jack shook his head slightly. They were both astounded. Sandy had told them several times that she had read the notes.

“Might have? Did you or did you not?”

“I might have.”

“You mean you have forgotten whether you read them?”

“Don't put words in my mouth,” Sandy said. “I'm the only one that does that.”

“Well, what do you mean, ‘might have'?”

“Maybe I did,” Sandy said. “I often did.”

“It was your practice to read the intake notes?”

“I often did.”

Clearly unnerved by Sandy's attitude, Nolan handed Sandy the exhibit and had her read the notes. “Did you read these before or not?” she demanded. “You must answer to the best of your recollection.”

“I may well have,” Sandy said, nodding her head at the file. “I usually did.”

“Your Honor, I request that this witness be compelled to answer the question.”

“I think she's doing the best she can,” Brock said. “Ms. Whitefeather, did you have any knowledge from that file or otherwise that Ms. Reilly knew her client had committed an arson?”

“No, sir. If I read these notes at the time, and it was my practice to do that, these last two sentences weren't there. I do know that. Because I would have talked to her about it if they were. And she never would have filed the claim. Never. She's one of the honest ones.”

“Request that whole statement be stricken,” Nolan said, glowering.

“She's honest,” Sandy said again. “Unlike some I have known.”

“Maybe I shouldn't have asked the question,” Judge Brock said. “Sorry, Counsel. But her answer stands.”

25

A
T LAST,
A
break.

Nina got into the elevator for the sixth floor with Jack with her head high and her self-confidence at an all-time low. Her entire life had been served up on a plate to prejudiced critics who made their livings feeding off the failures of their colleagues. Gayle Nolan didn't hide her intolerance or feign objectivity. She hadn't been acting; she felt disdain for Nina. Contempt, even! Nina's colleague, who didn't respect her, who even wanted to see her on her knees!

Although Judge Brock was less overt, she had a definite impression that her very presence in his courtroom embarrassed him, as if, in his view, only the worst lawyers fell this far down the system. He lumped her in with the dregs.

And Jack, standing beside her, humming a little tune? What did she want from him at this low point? Reassurance that she was a good person, this was what she wanted. But Jack gave her what she herself gave her clients: objectivity, strategy, a push forward. He assessed her like he assessed steak in the market. He had other worries besides her emotional well-being.

She felt like running right out those doors onto Howard Street, getting into her truck, and driving—where? She would never again look at a stricken client's face without remembering this day.

Assuming she ever had a client again.

Their turn had come. With Kao Vang unavailable in the hills of Laos, they had only two witnesses for the defense on the Vang count, Mrs. Vang, who wouldn't be arriving until later, and the handwriting expert, Lyuba Gleb, who was waiting for them as they came out of the elevator.

“Hello, there,” she said, shaking hands with Jack. “How is it going?”

“Just fine,” Jack said.

“You look so nice today, Jack,” Mrs. Gleb said. “I had no idea.” A chic woman of a certain age, she wore a neatly fitted Chanel suit. The flaring, emphatic eyebrows gave her the look of character she wore so gracefully. Her Roman nose and lips were accentuated by a faint mustache, and it all added up to a formidable, smiling, relaxed lady.

“You look ready for anything they can throw at you,” Jack said.

“What is to throw?” Mrs. Gleb said. “I can only tell the truth. Although, of course, it is a truth about art. They have their own expert all ready to refute what I say, isn't that right?”

“Yes, Dr. Harvey Pell. I don't see him around.”

“Look for a bright spot in any room. He seeks the limelight. You should see his signature, two lines under it like he is Napoleon. So they have brought him all the way from Chicago. He is competent, so I was surprised to read his opinion.” She turned to Nina. “Don't worry, darling, I am right and I will make the judge see this.”

“Mrs. Gleb. You are a questioned-document examiner?” Jack asked.

“Yes. My specialties are handwriting identification, disputed handwriting, anonymous letters, and graffiti. I perform infrared photo work of all sorts. I am an expert on ink identification and on nineteenth-century paper. I have performed this work since 1972.”

“What is your educational background?”

“I received my baccalaureate in chemistry from the Sorbonne in 1970. I was employed by the Sureté in Paris to assist in certain analyses of papers in a war-crimes case. That is where I received my on-the-job training. I was sent to the U.S. to take part in several seminars on handwriting identification during the seventies. I continued working at the Sureté and became head of the department investigating questioned documents in 1978.”

“Please describe your experience.”

“I served as head of the department from 1978 to 1984. During this time I often testified in the French court system. I began consulting for Interpol in the area of check forgeries. In 1985 I accepted a position as chief document examiner with the Bank of America and oversaw all of its forensic documents cases for the following ten years. I then went into independent consulting and most especially assisting police departments all over the country in questioned-documents cases.”

“In which courts have you previously qualified as an expert witness in this area?”

“I have qualified and testified as a questioned-document examiner in various courts in Douglas County and Washoe County, Nevada; in Queens and Manhattan counties, New York; in San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin counties in California during the past five years.”

“Have you—”

“I am a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the International Association for Identification, and I am a member of and certified by the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners.”

“And are you—”

“In addition to my consulting work, I have taught numerous seminars for bank and insurance examiners all over the country.”

“Request that this witness be qualified as an expert in the area of examination of questioned documents,” Jack said.

Nolan barely looked up. “No objection.”

Jack picked up his legal pad. “During November of last year, were you requested by me to examine a certain original document and to provide your expert opinion as to whether the last two sentences of that document were written by the same person who authored the rest of the document?”

“Yes, you retained me for that purpose.”

“Directing your attention to Exhibit 18, is this the document I gave you to examine?”

Mrs. Gleb took the exhibit. From a pocket she pulled out a small box and from the box she took a small magnifying eyepiece, which she appeared to screw into her eye. She bent to the document, and suddenly, all her animation froze on the task. Even her breathing halted. She wasn't kidding around.

She lifted her head and rejoined them in court. “Yes, this appears to be the original document. I recognize the writing. I know it as well as my own at this moment.”

“All right. And did you examine the document during the month of December and thereafter?”

“Yes. It was obtained for me by you, and I examined it at my lab. I returned it to you in early March.”

“And what did you understand to be the purpose of your examination?”

“Well, as you said earlier, to find out if this attorney, Ms. Reilly, who did write all of the document up to the last two sentences, also wrote the final nineteen words.”

“Please describe the steps you took in examining the document.”

“First, I examined the ink content. I had it analyzed by a lab that I have used for years, Allied Laboratories. Their report came back in January.”

“And their conclusion?” Jack had the report and Nolan had stipulated that it could come into evidence.

Mrs. Gleb raised an eyebrow. “The ink in the final nineteen words was identical to the ink in the previous sentences.”

“What did that mean to you?”

“That the same pen had been used. I called you and questioned you further.”

That the pen used in the forgery belonged to her had distressed Nina for a full day. Only late that evening did she figure it all out and call Jack.

“You asked about the circumstances of the theft of the document, correct?” Jack asked.

“Yes. And you advised me that Ms. Reilly's briefcase had been stolen. And inside was her Waterman pen. I had the ink reanalyzed, and all the ink used on this document was the standard ink used in Waterman ballpoint-pen cartridges.”

Nolan took notes, unperturbed. She knew all this already.

“Were you able to make any sort of examination as to the paper?”

“Just on the off chance that the entire third sheet might have been substituted, I performed my own analysis of the sheet. The third sheet was from the same standard type of yellow legal tablet as the others. I could not determine from the paper anything else. I did examine the entire document microscopically for overwriting, underwriting, any evidence of alteration. I found no sign of alterations.”

“What other examination did you undertake?”

“In my primary examination, I compared the last sentences, which are the ones in question, with the writing in the rest of the document. I used glass alignment plates to check the angle of writing, the height, the spacing. I used a comparison microscope as to one word that was repeated, the word
don't
. I examined all the writing on the third page using magnifications from ten to fifty times in an attempt to ascertain whether there were signs of forgery.”

“And what would be some of the signs you might look for?”

“For example, signs of tracing. Signs of hesitation in the writing, wavering. Difference in pen pressure. Difference in slant and shape of letters. As to the writing itself, differences in, as I've said, height, angle, spacing.”

“Were you able to come to any conclusion regarding the question you were asked to address?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And what was your conclusion?”

“I determined the writing in the last two sentences was a forgery. By a forger of limited skill and mediocre talent, I must add.”

“And on what specifically did you base this conclusion?”

At Mrs. Gleb's signal, the bailiff brought up a slide on a screen to her right. Nina couldn't see it very well.

“Lights,” Brock said.

The last words floated up there in the darkness.

“No immediate sign of hesitation. The writing flows,” Mrs. Gleb said. “However, there is an alteration in the pace of the writing, the flow, here. Look at the two dots above the
i
's. They are directly above although the rest of the writing rushes forward, like Ms. Reilly's writing. These
i
's were dotted too carefully, later. Compare this with Ms. Reilly's enthusiastic, optimistic
i
on page two of her notes.”

The
i
's appearing in the phrase
liquor-store killings
in the part of the document Nina had written had dots that were far to the right of the letter. Nina looked at her
i
's. They did seem to hurry toward the right margin of the paper.

But there was more to come. “Now the ends of the words,” Mrs. Gleb said. “Examine the final nineteen words again.” Magnified several times, they achieved the monumental abstract forms of a Motherwell painting, which was fitting, considering the monumental effect of these nineteen words on her life. To Nina, the last sentences looked like they arose out of the same hand as all the others—hers.

“Now look at this sentence from page one,” Mrs. Gleb went on. “I have put the two sentences side by side for comparison.” Nina saw no difference. “Note the terminals on the final letters of each word. The final letters in the last sentence have very small tails on them, you see? This writer wanted to put on even longer tails but restrained himself or herself. The writer of the last sentence wanted the final strokes to go upward, the sign of an extrovert, a gregarious person. You know how the song goes, ‘people who need people'? Our forger probably enjoys parties and loads up his or her spare time with all kinds of frivolous social events.

“Now, in contrast, study the final letters on the words Ms. Reilly admits she has written. No tails. The letters finish and by golly they are finished. Abruptly. Look here. The final stroke on the small
d
comes down below the basic line. This is a primitive stroke and denotes that the writer is opinionated and perhaps unreasonable at times. Ms. Reilly is perhaps a stubborn personality who casts off unnecessary details. She is not gregarious. She is not extroverted.

“Third point of difference. The breaks between letters. Look at the word
advised
from the last sentence. Note the breaks after the letters
a
and
d.
Under the microscope—where is that slide—thank you—very faint connecting lines can be seen. The forger is again acting contrary to his or her real personality in placing breaks between the strokes. The forger wants to connect these letters to the rest of the word, because he or she is a logical person, wary of intuition.

“All forgers are devious by nature, able to subsume the real personality. This forger is able to duplicate Ms. Reilly's handwriting in a workmanlike manner, with only small, crass hints of form that reveal a covert crudeness in the character. He or she has some limited talent as a craftsman, with these limitations exposed by the roughness of this effort. It is Ms. Reilly, with her tricky breaks between letters—look here, she is practically printing—who is the creative person, the artist. I must say I cannot understand what she is doing in the law.”

As this unfortunate sentence came out of the garrulous expert's mouth, Nina tried to suppress a nervous giggle. She hoped the judge wouldn't agree with Mrs. Gleb.

“Anything else?” Jack said quickly.

“Point four. The loops that extend downward from the
y
and the
f.
Look at the lower loops of the nineteen words in question. The forger extends the stroke downward and there is just the minutest angle as he swoops into a big loop like Ms. Reilly's. He doesn't really want to make that big loop, he just wants a long line down. He is faking it.” Nina stared at the letters. The lower loops looked enormous. The bottoms of some of the loops didn't look smooth, as though someone had done just what Mrs. Gleb was saying. She pictured the forger in a workshop lit by candlelight, crafting away like Geppetto.

“This forger is a practical type, perhaps interested in money. A controlling personality. Not a natural looper. In contrast, Ms. Reilly makes almost exaggerated lower loops, expressing the earthy demands made upon her by her own nature. Her loops indicate that her nature is sensuous. Her instinctive physical drives are strong.”

Mrs. Gleb paused while Nina died of embarrassment. She hadn't sat in on Jack's previous discussions with Mrs. Gleb.

“Anything else you based your decision on?”

“A strong feeling, my own intuition based on many years of experience,” Mrs. Gleb said. “However, I would have disregarded that if I did not find the other external evidence I have discussed.”

“And your conclusion, once again, based on your years of training and experience?”

“The final nineteen words were not written by the same person who wrote the rest of the document.”