Dark Moon, page 6
Third Week of August 2013, Monday, Sarah’s Office, La Jolla
He arrived at her office in La Jolla at eight forty-five on Monday. He was carrying two grande Starbuck’s lattes and a paper bag containing scrambled egg and bacon sandwiches. He wished his heart didn’t beat so fast at the sight of her in jeans and a simple black blouse.
“You’re early.”
“I thought you’d be hungry.”
Sarah smiled and took a fortifying sip of coffee from the covered paper cup. “I can’t argue with that.”
He sat down in one of the two chairs in front of her desk and opened the sandwich wrapper. Sarah noted his uniform of casual khakis and starched shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He saw her take in his attire.
“Real men do wear pink.”
“I wasn’t disputing that. It looks good on you.”
“Thanks. And I’m admiring those jeans.”
“I’m not headed to court today. Thank, God. I can get away with these out here.”
“But not back on Wall Street, I take it. So what happened on Friday?”
She recounted the debacle in Judge Tyler’s chambers.
“That bad?”
“Yeah. And the funny part is, I thought he’d play fair and say yes.”
“This isn’t ‘Play Fair’ world.”
“I’m beginning to understand that. I feel like Alice in Legal Wonderland. I’m expecting to see the Red Queen sitting on the bench at any minute.”
“So what are you going to do? Take a writ to the court of appeal and demand an order to get an expert appointed?”
“No. As I was leaving, Tyler reminded me he plays golf with Justice Wilmont, the presiding justice of the court of appeal, every Tuesday afternoon. I have a feeling I’m going to be up there seeking a writ before this case is over, so I’d better pick my spots.”
“Go up too often, and you look like a whiner.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, I’ve got some more bad news for you.” He licked the last drop of ketchup off his fingers as he spoke and noticed she had eaten a third of her sandwich and put it down. “Don’t you like the chow, by the way?”
“No, its great. Thanks. Talking about Judge Tyler took my appetite away. What’s your bad news?”
“I didn’t find any incidents of domestic violence on Michael Reed. Nothing. Nada. Zip.”
“Wow, and I assume you’ve illegally checked the Bureau’s data bases. So we are big time out of luck on that one.”
“For now. You don’t know what Alexa is going to say when she wakes up.”
“Oh, you mean when they med her to make her talk to us.”
“Look, I agree they’ll be acting illegally. But at least she’ll talk to us.”
“Meds are not a cure-all. Sometimes the clients hallucinate; and when they talk to you, you can’t tell what’s real and what’s fiction. And meds make them zombie-like in front of the jury.”
“Sounds like more issues for the appellate attorney.”
“Do you read lawyer fiction?”
Jim smiled. “Some of it.”
“Know what Scott Turow calls an appellate attorney? ‘The designated looser.’ I hate to think my sole function as trial counsel is creating a case for another attorney to lose on appeal.”
“So what are we going to do about an expert for Alexa?”
“I’m going to hire Jordan Stewart out of my own pocket. We don’t have any other choice. And we should go see Alexa every few days. Frequent visits might turn her around enough to talk to us. I’m also thinking how often I’ve tried to get her to cooperate might become a subject at the competency hearing.”
“You mean they’ll say you didn’t try hard enough?”
“As you know, the defense attorney gets blamed for everything.”
“I’d like to say you’re being paranoid, but you’re not. So when do we go to see her again?”
“Let’s meet at the jail at two o’clock on Tuesday afternoon.”
* * *
Second Week of August, 2013 - San Diego Main Jail Downtown
The man and the beautiful woman with the unexpected scar on her cheek kept coming to see her. It must be every couple of days. Alexa wished she could talk to them and explain there was nothing they could do. They spoke in soft, concerned voices, urging her not to give up hope, begging her to talk to them. But her words stayed in her head and refused to go into her mouth. Besides, if she spoke, she’d wake up in hell instead of drifting in the out-of-body world she had managed to retreat to.
Sometimes she could hear Meggie and Sam’s voices calling to her. “Mommy, Mommy. You said you’d come after us, Mommy.”
* * *
Fourth Monday in August 2005, Michael Reed’s Townhouse, Georgetown
At four o’clock Alexa sat alone in the living room of her new husband’s townhouse, surrounded by boxes that the movers had packed that day. All their belongings were going to be loaded onto a moving van headed to San Diego in the morning. The house had been sold; the new owners were taking possession as soon as their things were on the truck.
It was far too late to heed Justice Moreno’s warning even though the memory of buying the one-way ticket to San Diego made her nauseous. When she’d said ‘yes’ to Michael in December, she’d had no idea she was going to be torn away from everything familiar by August and forced to move to a place she’d never seen.
They announced their engagement in January, with the wedding set for early August after Alexa’s clerkship ended in July. Alexa had expected to have a job waiting for her at one of Washington’s prestigious boutique appellate law firms when she left the Court. In February she had talked to the hiring partners at Harper, Spalding and at Williams, Pogue; and both firms had been very interested in offering her a job. She’d been excited about her starting salary at either firm, and about the prospect of being on the fast-track for partnership. She was also glad to be joining some of her fellow clerks from the D.C. circuit and some of her current colleagues, also leaving the Court with her in July, who would be scattered throughout both firms. It would be good to be working with people she liked and respected.
But all of Alexa’s expectations for her future changed radically one evening in May. Michael had pressured her to give up her apartment in Cathedral Heights and move in with him in March. Alexa hadn’t liked giving up her independence; but, at the same time, now that the news was out, she realized the world expected her to marry Michael Reed. Backing out would be embarrassing and would open the door to some unpleasant speculation and gossip.
Michael had come home around midnight, angry and upset. Alexa had never seen him in such a dark mood before.
He slammed the front door and hurried into the living room to pour himself a scotch from the drinks tray. Alexa, dressed in pajamas, hurried downstairs to welcome him home. But the welcome died on her lips when she saw his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ve been fired.”
The news hit her like a punch to the gut. “You’ve been what?”
“Fired. Let go. Oh, not immediately, but I was told tonight I’m not ever going to make partner at Steptoe, and I’d better start looking for a new job.”
“But I thought–”
“You thought they’d want me forever because Coleman is on the Court?”
“I–well, you always said your father’s job was important to Steptoe’s hiring decision.”
Michael gulped his scotch and poured another. Alexa suddenly realized he’d had way too much before he came home.
“Go easy on that. You’ve already had quite a bit.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” He threw the tumbler across the room, sending glass shards flying everywhere, and grabbed her by both wrists and shook her hard. “Don’t you fucking tell me what to do, you little whore!”
Alexa had never experienced this kind of violence before. It sucked all the air out of her lungs and made her feel as if she were floating above her own body, looking down.
“Michael, calm down.”
“Don’t you tell me what to do!” He screamed, twisting her left wrist painfully as he jammed his face into hers.
Alexa held her breath as a sharp pain stabbed her arm. Michael, still inches from her face, began to laugh hysterically.
“Didn’t like that, did you, bitch? I can fix the other one for you, too!” He started to twist her right hand, but something occurred to his drunken brain at that moment. “Oh, wait. You’ll tell your big, bad boss Moreno that I hurt you. Can’t have rumors about me floating around the Supreme Court.”
Abruptly he let her go, throwing her across the room backwards so that she lost her balance and fell against the coffee table, bruising her ribs.
“Didn’t expect that one, either, did you? I can take you, Alexa Harrison! Don’t think you can get away with doing anything other than what I tell you to do!”
Alexa lay still where she had fallen, waiting for him to leave the room. After he had poured himself another scotch and had gone upstairs, she found blankets and pillows and made herself a bed on the couch where she cried herself to sleep.
By morning he was sober and sorry. He brought her breakfast he had cooked himself. He was in tears as he begged her forgiveness. But she hadn’t given him an answer. She was still in shock. She stopped at a drug store on the way to work and bought an elastic brace for her sprained wrist. She left her suit jacket on in an attempt to hide it, but Justice Moreno’s sharp eye caught it right away.
“What happened?”
“I tripped and fell.”
Paula Moreno gave her an odd look, and Alexa had the distinct feeling she didn’t believe her. “You’re sure that’s what happened?”
“I’m sure.”
Alexa was glad the Justice was in conference during lunch and didn’t see Michael hurrying into her office with a blue box from Tiffany’s. She probably would have guessed the truth if she had seen him.
“I know I don’t deserve to be forgiven, but I at least wanted to give you something to say I’m sorry. I don’t deserve anyone as wonderful as you. If you want to call off the wedding, I understand.”
The normally powerful, confident Michael Reed was now an embarrassed schoolboy, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other as he stood in front of her desk. In the end, it wasn’t the diamond bracelet that melted her heart. It was what appeared to be his genuine anguish over what he had done.
They went to dinner that night at Bistro La Mer. She wore the bracelet over her elastic support bandage, and Michael offered her a thousand mea culpas until she was desperate to talk about something else.
“Well, then, I’ll give you the good news. I’ve been offered a job at my father’s old firm in San Diego, Warrick, Thompson, and Hayes.”
“You’ve been offered another job that quickly?”
Michael grinned. “Maybe I’m not as bad a lawyer as Steptoe thinks. But to tell the unvarnished truth, Coleman set it up for me. He brought a lot of clients to Warrick, Thompson when he left Eliot, Fitzgerald in New York. In fact, his clients represent forty percent of the firm’s annual billings. Coleman was the firm’s biggest rainmaker before he went on the bench.”
“So he used his influence to get you a job in San Diego?” Alexa’s stomach tightened at the thought of moving so far from everything she knew.
“I wouldn’t put it like that. His clients haven’t gotten the attention they received when my father was with the firm. He called Alan Warrick today and told him I need to be there to look after them the way he did. It’s a great opportunity. I’ll be a partner in no time.”
“But where does that leave me? Does Warrick, Thompson have an appellate department?”
A cloud passed over Michael’s face. “Um, no. They only have one partner who does appeals, Chuck Reilly. They’re going to offer you a job working for him. I told my father we are a package deal.”
Alexa frowned. “That’s not the job I’m looking for when I leave the Supreme Court. I want to work for Harper, Spaulding or Williams, Pogue.”
Michael frowned. “But I’ll never be offered anything like this opportunity in D.C. My father doesn’t have a stable of clients here to pass on to me.”
Alexa wanted to say then find your own clients the way everyone else does, but the memory of the prior evening stopped her. “I don’t want to live in San Diego. I grew up in Fairfax. Northern Virginia is my home.”
“I don’t want leave D.C., either. But, I can’t pass this up.”
Alexa frowned. “But the best job for me is here.”
“And the best job for me is in San Diego.”
And, in the end, Alexa reflected ruefully as she lay on her cot in the jail, Michael got his way. That was his speciality: getting what he wanted. She had tried to hide her elastic bandage under long-sleeved blouses in the inferno of an unseasonably hot spring while the sprain healed. She’d felt deeply and horribly ashamed, as if she were the one who had reacted violently and not Michael. She often wished she had the courage to tell Paula Moreno the truth, but Alexa was sure Paula would think less of her for not heeding her warning about Michael Reed. She was certain her boss thought her engagement was a mistake because she had never offered congratulations.
* * *
Last Week of August, 2013 - San Diego Main Jail Downtown
The man with the kind eyes and the woman with the scar on her cheek kept coming to see her, now accompanied by a tall, thin blonde woman with patient hazel eyes. She, too, begged Alexa to talk to her; and when she didn’t, the blonde woman looked at the man and the woman with the sad eyes and said, “I think they might have to give her meds.” And the man and the woman always said, “No! No!”
But Alexa knew the answer was yes, yes. But not for the reason the kind blonde woman thought.
* * *
Last Week of August, 2013 - Sarah’s Office La Jolla
On the last Thursday of August, Jim, Sarah, and Jordan met in the Sarah’s conference room to put the final touches on their preparation for the competency hearing on Tuesday. Sarah sat at the head of the table with Jordan on her left and Jim on her right. They had just come back from their last meeting with Alexa.
“Nothing changes,” Jordan began.
Jim liked her for being honest. Jordan was tall and lean, in her mid-forties with blonde hair and gentle hazel eyes that invited confidences. Her husband taught psychology at UCLA, and they had three teenage daughters.
“Agreed.” Sarah sighed. Her dark circles were that much darker, and she wasn’t eating. Jim wondered how many nights she’d spent with David Spineli but knew he couldn’t ask.
“I think Alexa is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” Jordan began. “When the mind encounters more than it can process, it shuts down.”
“Are you willing to give an opinion that she should be committed to the state hospital for treatment until she regains her competency to stand trial?”
“Yes,” Jordan said. “I know you said Percy Andrews will insist she can go to trial on psychotropic drugs; and honestly, she is so depressed, they might have to use those in the beginning just to get her to speak to a psychiatrist. But I think she needs counseling sessions before she can stand trial. She’s been through a lot that we don’t even know about, and right now she can’t tell us any of it. Drugging her is only putting a tiny band-aid on her condition.”
* * *
Jim drove Jordan to Solana Beach to meet her five o’clock train to Los Angeles. Sarah remained behind to work on her cross-examination of Percy Andrews.
As Jim swung his black Range Rover onto the I-5 North, Jordan asked, “Have you known Sarah long?”
“Only a month. We ran into each other in a bar in La Jolla one night, and she happened to be looking for an investigator.”
“Sarah never gets involved with anyone.”
Jim glanced quickly over at her, and then turned his eyes firmly back to the road. “Am I that obvious?”
“I don’t think you are to Sarah. I’ve known her a long time. She’s the most work-oriented person I know. But, yes, I can see you’ve got a thing for her.”
“Has she ever told you how she got that scar on her cheek?”
“No.”
“And you’ve always had the good manners not to ask, right?”
“In my profession, we wait to be told. If the client doesn’t want to talk, we wait for them to be ready.”
“Except Percy Andrews isn’t willing to wait for Alexa Reed.”
Jim pulled into the parking lot at the train station and got out to help Jordan with her brief case and overnight bag. “What time are you arriving on Tuesday? I’ll meet your train.”
“I’m coming down Monday night, arriving at eight. I’m paranoid about being late for the hearing next morning.”
“I’ll be here to pick you up. I have a guest room. Want to use it? I make a better breakfast than a five-star hotel.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Labor Day Weekend, August-September 2013, San Diego Main Jail
The memories were worse at night. They flew at her, thick and fast, like bats in the dark.
The guards had been talking about who was off on Monday, so Alexa guessed the calendar had reached September and Labor Day. That was the weekend in 2005 when Michael had insisted they put the offer down on the house on Mount Soledad in La Jolla. They’d been in town a week, and they were scheduled to start work at Warrick, Thompson on Tuesday.
Alexa had wanted to buy a smaller, older home in the historic Kensington neighborhood that felt more like the Virginia community where she’d grown up. But Michael was adamant that his new position as overseer of Coleman’s clients required him to have the five-thousand-square-foot mansion with the breathtaking ocean view. Coleman and Myrna had lived in La Jolla, and Michael insisted they must live there, too.
Alexa tried to embrace her new job with enthusiasm, but from day one she could see that working for Chuck Reilly was not going to be the equivalent of working for Paula Moreno, who had been a professor at Yale before she went on the Court; nor was it going to be comparable to working for any of the partners at Harper, Spaulding or at Williams, Pogue. Chuck was in his late fifties, with thinning hair, and a slight stoop because his six-feet seemed to be collapsing from being at his desk too much. He had gone to law school at UCLA, made law review, and clerked for a justice on the California Supreme Court. But despite his academic credentials, he wasn’t in the intellectual league Alexa had just left behind. And he was a loner through and through. He had never had an associate working for him before, and that was because he didn’t want one. He’d started in Warrick, Thompson’s litigation department, had done middling work in their law and motions practice, and then had decided to call himself an appellate specialist to avoid ever having to try a case.
He arrived at her office in La Jolla at eight forty-five on Monday. He was carrying two grande Starbuck’s lattes and a paper bag containing scrambled egg and bacon sandwiches. He wished his heart didn’t beat so fast at the sight of her in jeans and a simple black blouse.
“You’re early.”
“I thought you’d be hungry.”
Sarah smiled and took a fortifying sip of coffee from the covered paper cup. “I can’t argue with that.”
He sat down in one of the two chairs in front of her desk and opened the sandwich wrapper. Sarah noted his uniform of casual khakis and starched shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He saw her take in his attire.
“Real men do wear pink.”
“I wasn’t disputing that. It looks good on you.”
“Thanks. And I’m admiring those jeans.”
“I’m not headed to court today. Thank, God. I can get away with these out here.”
“But not back on Wall Street, I take it. So what happened on Friday?”
She recounted the debacle in Judge Tyler’s chambers.
“That bad?”
“Yeah. And the funny part is, I thought he’d play fair and say yes.”
“This isn’t ‘Play Fair’ world.”
“I’m beginning to understand that. I feel like Alice in Legal Wonderland. I’m expecting to see the Red Queen sitting on the bench at any minute.”
“So what are you going to do? Take a writ to the court of appeal and demand an order to get an expert appointed?”
“No. As I was leaving, Tyler reminded me he plays golf with Justice Wilmont, the presiding justice of the court of appeal, every Tuesday afternoon. I have a feeling I’m going to be up there seeking a writ before this case is over, so I’d better pick my spots.”
“Go up too often, and you look like a whiner.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, I’ve got some more bad news for you.” He licked the last drop of ketchup off his fingers as he spoke and noticed she had eaten a third of her sandwich and put it down. “Don’t you like the chow, by the way?”
“No, its great. Thanks. Talking about Judge Tyler took my appetite away. What’s your bad news?”
“I didn’t find any incidents of domestic violence on Michael Reed. Nothing. Nada. Zip.”
“Wow, and I assume you’ve illegally checked the Bureau’s data bases. So we are big time out of luck on that one.”
“For now. You don’t know what Alexa is going to say when she wakes up.”
“Oh, you mean when they med her to make her talk to us.”
“Look, I agree they’ll be acting illegally. But at least she’ll talk to us.”
“Meds are not a cure-all. Sometimes the clients hallucinate; and when they talk to you, you can’t tell what’s real and what’s fiction. And meds make them zombie-like in front of the jury.”
“Sounds like more issues for the appellate attorney.”
“Do you read lawyer fiction?”
Jim smiled. “Some of it.”
“Know what Scott Turow calls an appellate attorney? ‘The designated looser.’ I hate to think my sole function as trial counsel is creating a case for another attorney to lose on appeal.”
“So what are we going to do about an expert for Alexa?”
“I’m going to hire Jordan Stewart out of my own pocket. We don’t have any other choice. And we should go see Alexa every few days. Frequent visits might turn her around enough to talk to us. I’m also thinking how often I’ve tried to get her to cooperate might become a subject at the competency hearing.”
“You mean they’ll say you didn’t try hard enough?”
“As you know, the defense attorney gets blamed for everything.”
“I’d like to say you’re being paranoid, but you’re not. So when do we go to see her again?”
“Let’s meet at the jail at two o’clock on Tuesday afternoon.”
* * *
Second Week of August, 2013 - San Diego Main Jail Downtown
The man and the beautiful woman with the unexpected scar on her cheek kept coming to see her. It must be every couple of days. Alexa wished she could talk to them and explain there was nothing they could do. They spoke in soft, concerned voices, urging her not to give up hope, begging her to talk to them. But her words stayed in her head and refused to go into her mouth. Besides, if she spoke, she’d wake up in hell instead of drifting in the out-of-body world she had managed to retreat to.
Sometimes she could hear Meggie and Sam’s voices calling to her. “Mommy, Mommy. You said you’d come after us, Mommy.”
* * *
Fourth Monday in August 2005, Michael Reed’s Townhouse, Georgetown
At four o’clock Alexa sat alone in the living room of her new husband’s townhouse, surrounded by boxes that the movers had packed that day. All their belongings were going to be loaded onto a moving van headed to San Diego in the morning. The house had been sold; the new owners were taking possession as soon as their things were on the truck.
It was far too late to heed Justice Moreno’s warning even though the memory of buying the one-way ticket to San Diego made her nauseous. When she’d said ‘yes’ to Michael in December, she’d had no idea she was going to be torn away from everything familiar by August and forced to move to a place she’d never seen.
They announced their engagement in January, with the wedding set for early August after Alexa’s clerkship ended in July. Alexa had expected to have a job waiting for her at one of Washington’s prestigious boutique appellate law firms when she left the Court. In February she had talked to the hiring partners at Harper, Spalding and at Williams, Pogue; and both firms had been very interested in offering her a job. She’d been excited about her starting salary at either firm, and about the prospect of being on the fast-track for partnership. She was also glad to be joining some of her fellow clerks from the D.C. circuit and some of her current colleagues, also leaving the Court with her in July, who would be scattered throughout both firms. It would be good to be working with people she liked and respected.
But all of Alexa’s expectations for her future changed radically one evening in May. Michael had pressured her to give up her apartment in Cathedral Heights and move in with him in March. Alexa hadn’t liked giving up her independence; but, at the same time, now that the news was out, she realized the world expected her to marry Michael Reed. Backing out would be embarrassing and would open the door to some unpleasant speculation and gossip.
Michael had come home around midnight, angry and upset. Alexa had never seen him in such a dark mood before.
He slammed the front door and hurried into the living room to pour himself a scotch from the drinks tray. Alexa, dressed in pajamas, hurried downstairs to welcome him home. But the welcome died on her lips when she saw his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ve been fired.”
The news hit her like a punch to the gut. “You’ve been what?”
“Fired. Let go. Oh, not immediately, but I was told tonight I’m not ever going to make partner at Steptoe, and I’d better start looking for a new job.”
“But I thought–”
“You thought they’d want me forever because Coleman is on the Court?”
“I–well, you always said your father’s job was important to Steptoe’s hiring decision.”
Michael gulped his scotch and poured another. Alexa suddenly realized he’d had way too much before he came home.
“Go easy on that. You’ve already had quite a bit.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” He threw the tumbler across the room, sending glass shards flying everywhere, and grabbed her by both wrists and shook her hard. “Don’t you fucking tell me what to do, you little whore!”
Alexa had never experienced this kind of violence before. It sucked all the air out of her lungs and made her feel as if she were floating above her own body, looking down.
“Michael, calm down.”
“Don’t you tell me what to do!” He screamed, twisting her left wrist painfully as he jammed his face into hers.
Alexa held her breath as a sharp pain stabbed her arm. Michael, still inches from her face, began to laugh hysterically.
“Didn’t like that, did you, bitch? I can fix the other one for you, too!” He started to twist her right hand, but something occurred to his drunken brain at that moment. “Oh, wait. You’ll tell your big, bad boss Moreno that I hurt you. Can’t have rumors about me floating around the Supreme Court.”
Abruptly he let her go, throwing her across the room backwards so that she lost her balance and fell against the coffee table, bruising her ribs.
“Didn’t expect that one, either, did you? I can take you, Alexa Harrison! Don’t think you can get away with doing anything other than what I tell you to do!”
Alexa lay still where she had fallen, waiting for him to leave the room. After he had poured himself another scotch and had gone upstairs, she found blankets and pillows and made herself a bed on the couch where she cried herself to sleep.
By morning he was sober and sorry. He brought her breakfast he had cooked himself. He was in tears as he begged her forgiveness. But she hadn’t given him an answer. She was still in shock. She stopped at a drug store on the way to work and bought an elastic brace for her sprained wrist. She left her suit jacket on in an attempt to hide it, but Justice Moreno’s sharp eye caught it right away.
“What happened?”
“I tripped and fell.”
Paula Moreno gave her an odd look, and Alexa had the distinct feeling she didn’t believe her. “You’re sure that’s what happened?”
“I’m sure.”
Alexa was glad the Justice was in conference during lunch and didn’t see Michael hurrying into her office with a blue box from Tiffany’s. She probably would have guessed the truth if she had seen him.
“I know I don’t deserve to be forgiven, but I at least wanted to give you something to say I’m sorry. I don’t deserve anyone as wonderful as you. If you want to call off the wedding, I understand.”
The normally powerful, confident Michael Reed was now an embarrassed schoolboy, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other as he stood in front of her desk. In the end, it wasn’t the diamond bracelet that melted her heart. It was what appeared to be his genuine anguish over what he had done.
They went to dinner that night at Bistro La Mer. She wore the bracelet over her elastic support bandage, and Michael offered her a thousand mea culpas until she was desperate to talk about something else.
“Well, then, I’ll give you the good news. I’ve been offered a job at my father’s old firm in San Diego, Warrick, Thompson, and Hayes.”
“You’ve been offered another job that quickly?”
Michael grinned. “Maybe I’m not as bad a lawyer as Steptoe thinks. But to tell the unvarnished truth, Coleman set it up for me. He brought a lot of clients to Warrick, Thompson when he left Eliot, Fitzgerald in New York. In fact, his clients represent forty percent of the firm’s annual billings. Coleman was the firm’s biggest rainmaker before he went on the bench.”
“So he used his influence to get you a job in San Diego?” Alexa’s stomach tightened at the thought of moving so far from everything she knew.
“I wouldn’t put it like that. His clients haven’t gotten the attention they received when my father was with the firm. He called Alan Warrick today and told him I need to be there to look after them the way he did. It’s a great opportunity. I’ll be a partner in no time.”
“But where does that leave me? Does Warrick, Thompson have an appellate department?”
A cloud passed over Michael’s face. “Um, no. They only have one partner who does appeals, Chuck Reilly. They’re going to offer you a job working for him. I told my father we are a package deal.”
Alexa frowned. “That’s not the job I’m looking for when I leave the Supreme Court. I want to work for Harper, Spaulding or Williams, Pogue.”
Michael frowned. “But I’ll never be offered anything like this opportunity in D.C. My father doesn’t have a stable of clients here to pass on to me.”
Alexa wanted to say then find your own clients the way everyone else does, but the memory of the prior evening stopped her. “I don’t want to live in San Diego. I grew up in Fairfax. Northern Virginia is my home.”
“I don’t want leave D.C., either. But, I can’t pass this up.”
Alexa frowned. “But the best job for me is here.”
“And the best job for me is in San Diego.”
And, in the end, Alexa reflected ruefully as she lay on her cot in the jail, Michael got his way. That was his speciality: getting what he wanted. She had tried to hide her elastic bandage under long-sleeved blouses in the inferno of an unseasonably hot spring while the sprain healed. She’d felt deeply and horribly ashamed, as if she were the one who had reacted violently and not Michael. She often wished she had the courage to tell Paula Moreno the truth, but Alexa was sure Paula would think less of her for not heeding her warning about Michael Reed. She was certain her boss thought her engagement was a mistake because she had never offered congratulations.
* * *
Last Week of August, 2013 - San Diego Main Jail Downtown
The man with the kind eyes and the woman with the scar on her cheek kept coming to see her, now accompanied by a tall, thin blonde woman with patient hazel eyes. She, too, begged Alexa to talk to her; and when she didn’t, the blonde woman looked at the man and the woman with the sad eyes and said, “I think they might have to give her meds.” And the man and the woman always said, “No! No!”
But Alexa knew the answer was yes, yes. But not for the reason the kind blonde woman thought.
* * *
Last Week of August, 2013 - Sarah’s Office La Jolla
On the last Thursday of August, Jim, Sarah, and Jordan met in the Sarah’s conference room to put the final touches on their preparation for the competency hearing on Tuesday. Sarah sat at the head of the table with Jordan on her left and Jim on her right. They had just come back from their last meeting with Alexa.
“Nothing changes,” Jordan began.
Jim liked her for being honest. Jordan was tall and lean, in her mid-forties with blonde hair and gentle hazel eyes that invited confidences. Her husband taught psychology at UCLA, and they had three teenage daughters.
“Agreed.” Sarah sighed. Her dark circles were that much darker, and she wasn’t eating. Jim wondered how many nights she’d spent with David Spineli but knew he couldn’t ask.
“I think Alexa is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” Jordan began. “When the mind encounters more than it can process, it shuts down.”
“Are you willing to give an opinion that she should be committed to the state hospital for treatment until she regains her competency to stand trial?”
“Yes,” Jordan said. “I know you said Percy Andrews will insist she can go to trial on psychotropic drugs; and honestly, she is so depressed, they might have to use those in the beginning just to get her to speak to a psychiatrist. But I think she needs counseling sessions before she can stand trial. She’s been through a lot that we don’t even know about, and right now she can’t tell us any of it. Drugging her is only putting a tiny band-aid on her condition.”
* * *
Jim drove Jordan to Solana Beach to meet her five o’clock train to Los Angeles. Sarah remained behind to work on her cross-examination of Percy Andrews.
As Jim swung his black Range Rover onto the I-5 North, Jordan asked, “Have you known Sarah long?”
“Only a month. We ran into each other in a bar in La Jolla one night, and she happened to be looking for an investigator.”
“Sarah never gets involved with anyone.”
Jim glanced quickly over at her, and then turned his eyes firmly back to the road. “Am I that obvious?”
“I don’t think you are to Sarah. I’ve known her a long time. She’s the most work-oriented person I know. But, yes, I can see you’ve got a thing for her.”
“Has she ever told you how she got that scar on her cheek?”
“No.”
“And you’ve always had the good manners not to ask, right?”
“In my profession, we wait to be told. If the client doesn’t want to talk, we wait for them to be ready.”
“Except Percy Andrews isn’t willing to wait for Alexa Reed.”
Jim pulled into the parking lot at the train station and got out to help Jordan with her brief case and overnight bag. “What time are you arriving on Tuesday? I’ll meet your train.”
“I’m coming down Monday night, arriving at eight. I’m paranoid about being late for the hearing next morning.”
“I’ll be here to pick you up. I have a guest room. Want to use it? I make a better breakfast than a five-star hotel.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Labor Day Weekend, August-September 2013, San Diego Main Jail
The memories were worse at night. They flew at her, thick and fast, like bats in the dark.
The guards had been talking about who was off on Monday, so Alexa guessed the calendar had reached September and Labor Day. That was the weekend in 2005 when Michael had insisted they put the offer down on the house on Mount Soledad in La Jolla. They’d been in town a week, and they were scheduled to start work at Warrick, Thompson on Tuesday.
Alexa had wanted to buy a smaller, older home in the historic Kensington neighborhood that felt more like the Virginia community where she’d grown up. But Michael was adamant that his new position as overseer of Coleman’s clients required him to have the five-thousand-square-foot mansion with the breathtaking ocean view. Coleman and Myrna had lived in La Jolla, and Michael insisted they must live there, too.
Alexa tried to embrace her new job with enthusiasm, but from day one she could see that working for Chuck Reilly was not going to be the equivalent of working for Paula Moreno, who had been a professor at Yale before she went on the Court; nor was it going to be comparable to working for any of the partners at Harper, Spaulding or at Williams, Pogue. Chuck was in his late fifties, with thinning hair, and a slight stoop because his six-feet seemed to be collapsing from being at his desk too much. He had gone to law school at UCLA, made law review, and clerked for a justice on the California Supreme Court. But despite his academic credentials, he wasn’t in the intellectual league Alexa had just left behind. And he was a loner through and through. He had never had an associate working for him before, and that was because he didn’t want one. He’d started in Warrick, Thompson’s litigation department, had done middling work in their law and motions practice, and then had decided to call himself an appellate specialist to avoid ever having to try a case.
