Reilly 04 - Breach of Promise (32 page)

“I was just—I was just—”

“Telling the truth?”

“Objection,” said Rebecca.

Milne called Rebecca and Winston up for a conference. Nina drew stars all over her legal pad while she waited. After some whispered discussion, Rebecca took her seat and Winston resumed the podium.

“Now, you’ve known Mike for more than twenty years, and you’ve seen Mike and Lindy at every stage in their life together. So let me ask you, Mr. Galka, and please tell us the unvarnished truth. Wasn’t it very important to Mike that he appear to be the boss in the relationship and in the business, no matter what the real responsibilities were?”

“Well . . . I suppose,” Hector said almost inaudibly. He looked at Mike, who looked confused, as if he wasn’t sure what the problem was. Nina thought Mrs. Lim noted Mike’s reaction, as well as several of the other women.

If this didn’t win them some of the women jurors, nothing would.

Over the next several days, Riesner and Rebecca paraded the group Genevieve derided outside of court as “the lackeys and shills” of Markov Enterprises. They worked hard to contradict the team image Nina and Winston had carefully built of Mike and Lindy’s management style. On cross-examination, Nina and Winston worked to rebuild it.

The last significant witness for the defense, Rachel Pembroke, was scheduled to testify at the end of the week. All through the trial Rachel had sat just behind Mike, looking terrific, holding his hand from time to time, leaving with him. Nina knew Rachel’s deposition by heart and knew, because Rachel was engaged to Mike, that her testimony might seem prejudiced to the jury. Nonetheless, she dreaded Rachel’s personable, professional demeanor. She was grateful that the incident at Mike’s birthday party had already been ruled off-limits by Milne during pretrial motions, and the so-called attack on her everyone had gossiped about for weeks had never even entered the proceedings. Her injuries had been minor, and the event, if it had really happened at all, had been deemed irrelevant.

Rachel had spent months telling reporters about the sweetness of her romance with Mike and how hard they had fought their passion, and the tale that spilled out of her on the stand came with an engaging wistfulness born of practice. By the time she was done testifying, she had somehow shifted many minds around to considering that she, not Lindy, had suffered most in this sad love story.

“Call your next witness,” Milne said when she had finished and Riesner stayed seated.

Riesner stood up, saying, “Your Honor, we have decided not to call the final witnesses on the list.”

And, just like that, abrupt as a puff of air blowing out a candle, the defense rested its case. Sometimes it happened like that, catching everybody by surprise.

Without missing a beat, Milne turned to Nina and asked, “Will there be any rebuttal?” She had a quick whispered conference with Winston and Genevieve at the counsel table. “No, Your Honor.”

“The cross-complainants rest?” Milne said with a wide smile. He must be happy as hell at this sudden termination.

“That’s correct, Your Honor. Subject to admission of the exhibits marked for identification.”

“All right.” He turned to the jury and said, “The evidence portion of the trial is over. We are going to excuse you a bit early this afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I’m sure you won’t mind. Tomorrow we will return for closing arguments.” He repeated his daily cautions that they not talk to each other or anyone else about the case. Broad smiles and nods. Deputy Kimura led them out.

Another half hour of getting the exhibits admitted and ordered, and the court day was over.

“We got killed at the end, but overall made some points, Nina,” said Winston, as they left the building that afternoon. He stopped to grin for a flashbulb. “My God, I can’t believe it’s finally coming to an end.”

“You were great, Winston, just great,” said Nina, meaning it. He had done a beautiful job with his witnesses.

“Do you realize we’ll have a verdict soon? Incredible,” Winston went on, still hyped from his day in court.

“I think we’ve got at least five definites on the jury,” said Genevieve, trotting alongside as they headed for the cars. “If you want, I’ll go over everything with you and explain why. At least two of those are potential leaders . . . that’s one thing we didn’t really push hard enough during the
voir dire.
We didn’t really cultivate a leader.”

“Don’t fret, Genevieve. And if you don’t mind, I think we’ll skip the analysis. I need to get home and soak my ankle and fix dinner for Bob.”

“But when are we going to work on Winston’s closing arguments?” Genevieve asked. “Tonight?”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Nina. “We’ve gone over it. And I’ve made a decision. I’m doing the summation.”

They had stopped by Winston’s rental car. “Now wait a minute, we had this whole thing worked out,” Winston said. “I thought we all agreed I should close.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” What could she tell him now to sweeten such a bitter pill? She had talked to him about making the closing argument because she had been intimidated. But she was the lead counsel. Ultimately, the responsibility rested on her shoulders. Lindy had given her the case. Nina had to be the ultimate word. She had to be the one to blow it, if that’s what was going to happen. Not that she would tell him that.

“You’re not taking this away from me,” Winston said, starting to look angry.

“I think Winston’s on a roll,” Genevieve said. “He’s got the experience.”

“I’m sorry,” Nina repeated. “What matters is my case.”

Winston slammed his briefcase down on the hood. “Our case!” he roared. “Ours! We sweat equal buckets of blood over this. You’re not going to step in here and ruin everything now!”

“You don’t think I can handle it?” asked Nina. The two attorneys stood face-to-face, unconsciously squaring off like fighters in the ring.

“It’s arrogant!” said Winston. “You think you can get up there, flip your long hair, put a tear in your eye and convince that jury to hand Lindy millions of dollars? How many cases like this have you won? Zero! I’ve done dozens and won dozens! I can argue circles around you. . . .”

Genevieve stepped smoothly in front of Winston.

“Listen. You’re going to have to compromise on this,” she said to Nina. “He’s right. He’s at his peak. He knows what will sway that jury. He has a better chance to crack . . . the hard nuts, if there are any.”

“No,” said Nina. And this time, she didn’t say she was sorry. What would be the point?

“How about if he does half the argument, and you finish it off?”

“Finish it off is right!” said Winston.

“Milne won’t let us trade off in the final argument,” said Nina.

Winston turned and stalked around the car. He opened the door and sat staring straight ahead, furious.

“Let’s talk some more tonight. I’ll call you,” Genevieve said, putting her hand on Nina’s arm.

“I have to work on this my own way.”

“You act like you’ve lost all faith in us,” said Genevieve. “Have you?”

“Not at all. I’m sorry to make this change at such a late date. It’s nothing against Winston. It’s just . . . I’m the lead counsel. I can prepare better alone.” In her backyard, where she could address the trees without manipulating, sentimentalizing, influencing . . . the final argument would be hers.

“Nina, be careful about getting stuck with a decision you might regret. Shouldn’t you think this over?”

“Okay, say what’s on your mind, Genevieve,” Nina said. “Don’t you think I can do it? Is Winston smarter, or a better lawyer? Is that what you’re thinking?” She said it loud so Winston could hear. A few cars over, several people had angled their ears her way.

Genevieve studied her for a moment, then relented, apparently deciding this was one argument she could not win. “I know you won’t fuck up, Nina,” Genevieve said. “I just know you won’t. None of us can afford that.” Unintentionally leaving a sharp air of doubt behind to erode Nina’s confidence, she got into the car and Winston pulled out.

In the courtroom hush, Nina could almost pretend she was in her backyard where she had practiced her summation yesterday afternoon, face-to-face with the dark bark of a tree. All those moon faces out there were pinecones. Better to think of things that way than the other way, which was to admit the hundred judges to her performance. The only ones that counted were the faces of her jury, and those she smiled at before addressing.

She began at the beginning. She laid it out the way she saw it, and a couple of the jurors never started listening, but most of them made the valiant effort to follow. She felt intimate with them. She had wanted only one thing in the last weeks, and that was to connect to each one of them. They weren’t friends; they were closer than that now, and she believed some of them felt the same proprietary interest in her. She hoped so.

“And then Mike moved on.” Nina paced once across the front of the jury box, and then back to the other end, with her head lowered. She didn’t have the art to convey the devastation encapsulated in those words, all she could do was offer this silent prayerful moment to honor Lindy’s suffering.

“But Lindy had nothing to worry about, isn’t that so?” she continued, lifting her head to search the jurors, one by one. Mrs. Lim’s head was cocked her way.

“Right here in court, we all heard him, Mike said she had nothing to worry about. He would ’take care’ of Lindy for life.

“He said that. He felt some duty to take care of her, protect her, for the rest of her life. And how did he do that? You heard. He evicted her, fired her, and made sure his name was on every stick of property. Then he flung in her face a thirteen-year-old agreement that she’d signed when the business was worthless on the premise that he would marry her.”

She paused. “The judge will read you a legal instruction, because it may be applicable in this case. It sounds so simple. And it is simple. A promise, in this case, made in writing by Lindy to give it all away—in consideration of marriage—in this case, in return for Mike’s finally marrying her—is invalidated when there is no marriage.

“And that makes the so-called separate property agreement invalid!”

She looked directly at Cliff Wright. He yawned.

“Yes, it was in writing. But that piece of paper she signed without full knowledge of its contents was not notarized. No lawyer discussed or explained it to her at the time. That grotesque and unfair document did not come about through agreement. No reasonable person can think that under those circumstances she made an informed decision. It’s bogus, made in bad faith, and doesn’t meet reasonable requirements to be legally binding. You should disregard it.”

She went on to Lindy’s strong area, the implied contract argument, Lindy’s twenty years of working alongside Mike. She knew her summation so well that, in the pauses between sentences, she found time to reflect: on the faces of the jurors, intent, bored, tired, eager; on the long days of testimony that had brought them to this point; and on Lindy herself.

She was recounting Lindy’s life, trying to make the jury fully appreciate the loving dedication of this thin, wan woman on whom they must pass judgment. She spoke of the children Mike and Lindy never had, and said that the business, like a child, had belonged to both of them, but unlike a child could be split down the middle. And Lindy deserved half.

“It’s in your hands,” she said finally. “Thank you.”

Nina sat down, feeling drained. She had given Lindy her best.

Riesner, smiling and confident, matter-of-fact, kept his summation even more succinct, introducing Mike’s position with the plainest possible language to give the jury the impression that the decision they were faced with was easy.

“This is a simple situation,” he said, as he came to the finish. “Lindy and Mike break up. But Lindy’s now stuck with this agreement they made years ago. She’s got a real incentive to ’forget’ about it, or dispute its contents. There’s money there for the taking, she figures, and by golly, she wants some of it. She’s got to do something, so she hires a team of fancy lawyers to tell you it’s not a legitimate agreement.

“But it’s right here in writing, ladies and gentlemen. They agreed not to commingle assets. They agreed to keep separate accounts. The business, the properties, those stayed in Mike’s name because they belonged entirely to him. That was the expectation, the agreement. Just so that there would be no misunderstanding, they had a document drafted to make sure they agreed, which they both signed.

“That was the deal. The deal,” he repeated. “Plain and simple. Black and white. In writing. Read the exhibits. And don’t let greed win out this time.”

His last words sat there, gathering energy. Nina heard the shuffling and whispering start up behind her. Wanting to do something to soften the bite of these words, she touched Lindy’s wrist, even though she knew it wouldn’t help.

Only two things remained: to instruct the jury, and to set them loose.

The American jury system suffered from one indefensible flaw—the jury had to sit through the whole trial without knowing the legal framework on which the facts were supposed to hang. How they could, in the end, set aside whatever impromptu conceptual framework they had been using to adopt a new one, no one knew. Worse, the legal instructions were tedious, contradictory, and sometimes even mysterious.

To Nina, the instructions sounded laughably simplistic. Thousands of subtle distinctions, derived from thousands of cases over hundreds of years, flowed from each statement Milne made now, and the jury would hear only the one-syllable version.

The jury looked at Judge Milne, who adjusted his reading glasses. They seemed like a whole different group from the tentative individuals who had been sworn in at the beginning; a new collective had been born. They even dressed more homogeneously. Mrs. Lim’s stiff jackets had disappeared sometime during the trial, along with Kevin Dowd’s knit golf shirts and Maribel Grzegorek’s hair spray.

Today they had dressed up. They seemed self-conscious, dignified, impressive. Nina wondered if her impression was the result of the exaggerated part they played in her life right now. But no, she had seen it in other trials in which she had sat in the audience, this reassuring aura of decency that came upon the people about to render a verdict. They represented the American public, and they knew it.