A Good Mother

by Lara Bazelon

  Friday, January 20, 2006

  11:13 p.m.

  Willowick, Ohio

  From: sexxygirljax@yahoo.com

  To: travman@hotmail.com

  oh so its like that now. yeah, ill get the test. u want the results mailed to the base???

  Tuesday, January 24, 2006

  8:14 a.m.

  Willowick, Ohio

  From: sexxygirljax@yahoo.com

  To: travman@hotmail.com

  Haven’t heard back from u. should i mail the results to the base, c/o the Mrs.?

  T, i need u to take responsibility if u don’t i will act.

  Tuesday, January 24, 2006

  5:28 p.m.

  Ramstein Air Base

  Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany

  From: travman@hotmail.com

  To: sexxygirljax@yahoo.com

  Jaxx do not do anything krazee im doing what i can on my end but for now im stuck here in this situation of my making i know but i have to figure a way out you gotta trust me.

  V day is cuming up, so send me some more pix, puleeze!!! betchu look hot all knocked up...

  Tuesday, February 14, 2006

  10:05 a.m.

  Willowick, Ohio

  From: sexxygirljax@yahoo.com

  To: travman@hotmail.com

  hey there sexxxy valentine! did you get the cards and the pix?

  so good to hear yr voice on the phone last week wish it wasn’t so $$$ so we could phone fuck every week. not sure if its this pregnancy thing but im hella horny. did u look at the sonogram? gonna be gorgeous like his daddy. Waitin for u to tell The Mrs. like you promised. did u???!!!

  Tuesday, February 28, 2006

  8:03 p.m.

  Ramstein Air Base

  Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany

  From: travman@hotmail.com

  To: sexxygirljax@yahoo.com

  Jaxx,

  Thx for the v day presents came late damn mail but they were well-received that i can tell u.

  there’s been some issues here and i can’t move fast the way you want. i’ll explain later but u gonna have 2B patient.

  T

  2007

  Sunday, February 18, 2007

  7:43 p.m.

  Conference Room

  Office of the Federal Public Defender

  Los Angeles, California

  “You have to do it harder.”

  Will steps back, releases his grip. There are red marks where his fingertips have pressed into Luz’s neck just below her jawbone. She stays where she is with her back up against the wall, where he has cornered her. They are both breathing heavily, Will stripped down to his undershirt. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  She looks at him, hair disheveled, eyes dark and unreadable. “You have to. Just like I have to hurt you. It won’t work if it isn’t real.”

  This is the fifth, or maybe the sixth time—he’s losing count—that they have reenacted those last fatal moments in the hallway where Travis died. Each time, Luz had pushed him: to yell, to shove, to hit, to strangle harder. Each time, Will had gone a step further and so had she: screaming, kicking, scratching him. His face burns where she’s slapped him and there is a line of blood scabbing on his cheek where she’s raked the skin with her fingernails. Each time, Will had reacted instinctively: pushing, shoving, and choking her more forcibly, then instantly pulling back, horrified and disgusted at what he was doing to someone half his size and little more than half his age. To a girl.

  Will imagines one of his colleagues walking in, thankful they are here on a Sunday night. His brilliant idea is starting to seem foolish, even dangerous. He had been so excited about the chance to execute his plan that he had spent most of the afternoon rearranging the furniture, pushing the conference table and chairs to the side wall so that the long, rectangular space was wide open. Then, as best he could, he had reconstructed the layout of the Germany apartment with blue tape, referring repeatedly to the bird’s-eye floor plan and measurements provided by the government as part of their reconstruction of the crime scene. Will had gotten so absorbed that he had forgotten to be irritated when Luz had arrived late, yet again, wearing a sundress rather than the sweatpants and tee shirt like he’d told her, to mimic the clothes she was wearing that night.

  “This isn’t who I am,” he says, a note of desperation in his voice.

  “It’s who he was,” she says.

  Now that they’ve broken out of role, Will is having a hard time looking at her directly. She is too close to him. He smells her perfume and beneath it, sweat. He takes another step back. “Let’s take a five-minute break. Get some air.” He points to the sliding glass doors that lead to the concrete terrace outside the conference room.

  She shakes her head, crosses her arms over her chest. He averts his eyes from her cleavage.

  “You said everything rides on my testimony. You said it was the—” she reaches for his word “—centerpiece of the case.” Her eyes search his. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he says reluctantly.

  “If the jury doesn’t believe that I thought I was going to die when this was happening,” she says, and motions with her hand back and forth between them, “then I’m convicted.”

  Will presses his fingers to his cheek. They come away bloody. “Yes,” he says again.

  * * *

  That, in essence, was about all he had been able to get across. At the beginning, Will had tried to talk it through with Luz: to get her to tell the story of that night, to share her feelings with him about what had happened. But Luz had not been interested in talking and sharing. She had shut him down, saying, You’ll only understand if I show you. And Will had backed off. He wasn’t one for long talks and feelings-sharing, either. It wasn’t what Meredith would have called his strong suit. But it was necessary, he thought, to establish control over the situation—control over her. The lack of information feeds his unease. He had pictured a movie where he was the director and she was his star. She followed his instructions to carry out his vision. She let him save her. It wasn’t working out that way.

  “If they don’t believe that story, I’ll go away.” Luz’s voice catches and she shakes her head. Tears form, then run down her face, black with mascara. “I will not be separated from Cristina. I will die first.”

  To Will’s horror, his eyes start to fill. He can’t remember the last time that happened—it’s been years. Crying, Will’s father liked to say, was for funerals. He braces his forearms against the wall, his head between them, and shuts his eyes. But the tears come anyway. “I understand,” he says trying to get his voice under control, “these are high stakes, I know—”

  “No, you don’t.” Beside him, he hears her let out a long, ragged breath. “You have no idea. What’s it like to be a mother and have your baby taken away from you.”

  “You’re right,” he says, holding his hot, wet face against the cool, dry surface of the wall. “I have no idea. But I am going to do everything I can to stop that from happening.”

  When she doesn’t answer, he looks over at her in profile beside him: her wild hair, the dark lines on her cheeks, the smear of lipstick at the corner of her mouth. Her hoop earring has twisted sideways and he reaches over to fix it. She takes his hand and raises it to her mouth. He tries to jerk away and she tightens her grip.

  “What are you doing?” he whispers.

  She turns to look at him, her face inches away. She opens her mouth, slides his index and middle finger inside.

  “Don’t,” he says, hearing the panic in his voice as his body responds. “No.”

  With her other hand, she reaches for his belt and pulls him closer until he is right up against her, hard. Then she takes his free hand and guides it under her dress.

  Feeling the heat between her legs, and the smooth, perfect curve of her
ass under the silky material of her underwear makes him groan. “No,” he says again, but he doesn’t move his hand away. She sucks each of his fingers in turn, runs them down the line of her throat. Will stands frozen, the tears drying on his face, his heart hammering in his chest.

  “This is how it ended,” she says softly, putting her cheek against his so that her lips are against his ear. “Except for that night, this is how it always ended. This is how I made it stop. It’s the part that’s missing. We need to do this part or we won’t get the rest of it right.”

  “No,” he repeats, but the refusal, even to his own ears, is tinny and unconvincing.

  She bites down on his earlobe hard. “I want to go again,” she says. “Throw me up against the wall.”

  “I can’t,” he says. And then he does.

  Monday, March 12, 2007

  4:27 p.m.

  United States District Court

  for the Central District of California

  Dars Ducey’s perpetually harried clerk calls Luz’s case last, at which point it is nearly 4:30 p.m. The courtroom, emptied out except for the reporters, is deadly quiet. The only other person in the gallery is Jorge Estrada.

  As Abby and Will walk with Luz over to the counsel table, Abby notices that Luz looks pale. Luz had spoken with Estrada during one of the breaks in the endless afternoon cattle call, off to the side in the hallway. From what Abby could see, it appeared that Estrada had done most of the talking. She whispers to Luz, “This is a crazy move by the prosecution and it’s not going to work, so don’t worry.” She turns to Will, trying not to look irritated. “Could you please—”

  Will steps forward robotically and pulls out Luz’s chair, his face tight and drawn, a long scratch on his right cheek livid under the fluorescent lights.

  Dars makes a show of welcoming them all, then settles back in his chair. “I understand the government has a motion,” he says, and nods at Shauna.

  She stands. “Your Honor, the defendant consulted with an attorney, Jorge Estrada, in the months and days leading up to the murder. The government believes that Mr. Estrada will be a key witness at trial, which is scheduled to begin next week. We’ve subpoenaed him here today because he has rebuffed our attempts to speak with him, claiming that his conversations with the defendant are protected by the attorney-client privilege.”

  Dars passes his hand over his pompadour, slick as sealskin. “Well, aren’t they? That’s what I learned in my first year of law school anyway. But maybe we do things differently at Harvard.” He smiles at Abby. “Ms. Rosenberg, isn’t that what you recall learning when you were there?”

  Abby feels her smile freeze in a rictus on her face.

  Dars turns to Shauna. “I’m a bit older than your worthy opponent, so we didn’t overlap. But as I recall, an attorney has a sacred obligation to keep the contents of his communications with his client a secret. What’s that case when Bill Clinton was in office, the White House Counsel who killed himself?” Dars looks up and snaps his fingers. “Vince Foster. The Supreme Court said even when Foster was buried six feet underground, they still couldn’t make his lawyer talk.” Dars smiles his ghastly smile again. “So why should I make that extraordinary demand of Mr. Estrada?”

  Shauna says evenly, “Your Honor, there is a crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege. If the communication was for the purpose of aiding the defendant in committing a crime—”

  Dars raises his eyebrows. “Indeed, there is. But what evidence do you have that that’s the case?”

  “The dates on Mr. Estrada’s invoice. The defendant spoke with him the day before the victim requested to change his life insurance policy. And that’s not all. Before, the proceeds were equally divided between Sergeant Hollis’s mother and father. The new policy names the defendant as the sole beneficiary. Weeks later, she murdered him.”

  Dars turns to Abby. “Have you spoken with Mr. Estrada?”

  Abby looks briefly at Will before getting to her feet. “Not as to the contents of his conversations with our client, no. We don’t believe it would be appropriate, for the reasons Your Honor stated.”

  “Really?” Dars tilts his head at her, steeples his fingers under his chin. “That explanation, coming from a lawyer so thorough and dogged as yourself, seems a bit thin to me. Maybe, just maybe, what you don’t believe is that talking to Mr. Estrada would be helpful to your case.”

  Abby feels her stomach start to turn, like the first sign she’s eaten a bad oyster. “If the court will indulge me,” she begins.

  “Always, Ms. Rosenberg. As you know, I am always happy to indulge you.”

  Abby tries her best to keep smiling. Dealing with Dars when he was the prosecutor in Rayshon’s case—his casual misogyny, his calculated race-baiting, his arrogance—had been a trial in itself, but at least back then they had been equals. Now that he’s wearing a black robe and high up on a dais, she’s had to accept the hard truth: Dars’s determination to dig his thumb into every bruise was something to be endured rather than combated.

  “Ms. Gooden is taking a perfectly ordinary situation and trying to recast it as an evil plot. Every soldier is provided a life insurance policy by the government. It’s called Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance and it automatically provides a death benefit of $400,000. Sergeant Hollis needed to change the policy. His father, one of the original beneficiaries, had died. And he had a wife and a baby on the way. The baby, Cristina Rivera Hollis, is the contingent beneficiary on the policy. He could not leave the money to Cristina directly because she is a minor. This arrangement—leaving the money to Mrs. Rivera Hollis to use for the care of the child in the event of an unexpected tragedy—was the most practical thing to do.”

  “Practical,” Dars repeats softly. “Yes, I suppose that’s one word for it.”

  “People with young children who have preexisting policies naming other family members do it all the time,” Abby continues stolidly. “There’s nothing nefarious about it.” She pauses. “In fact, my son’s father, who is a veteran, just did the same thing himself.”

  “Did he now? Well, that’s heartwarming to know.” Dars smiles cheerfully. “And did you stab him afterward?”

  Over Luz’s audible gasp, Shauna clears her throat. “Your Honor, if I might, Sergeant Hollis made no changes to the policy prior to this point. To paraphrase Ms. Rosenberg, it is common practice for people to change the beneficiary on their life insurance policy when they get married, to make sure their spouse is taken care of. That did not happen. It did not happen for months after he knew he was going to be a father. It happened less than three weeks before his wife—the newly named sole beneficiary—killed him. Without that policy, the defendant was never going to inherit anything other than the $244 in their joint checking account. They had no home, no car, no investments. The policy was the victim’s only real asset and until the defendant spoke with Mr. Estrada, that policy named his parents.”

  Abby tries again, “The deceased never consulted with Mr. Estrada at all. There is no evidence linking Sergeant Hollis’s decision to change his life insurance policy to my client’s decision to talk to a lawyer. And Ms. Gooden’s insinuations undermine her own theory, which is that my client killed her husband hours after finding out about his infidelity because his girlfriend, Jackie Stedman, emailed her to disclose it and to disclose the fact that he had a child with her.”

  “What about it, Madame Prosecutor?”

  Shauna shakes her head. “With all due respect to Ms. Rosenberg, the defense is in no position to be telling this court what the government’s theory is. And anyway, the government is entitled to investigate its case and alter its theory when new information comes to light.”

  Seeing Dars start to nod, Abby interjects, “There are multiple calls between my client and Mr. Estrada starting back in December of 2005. Sergeant Hollis died in October of 2006. Mr. Estrada has a general practice
. My client could have talked with him about any number of matters.”

  “Well, that’s what we are going to find out.” Dars claps his hands together. “Ladies, ladies, I thank you for this excellent oral argument. Truly. It is amazing to me that we once prohibited you from practicing law.” He gives each of them an avuncular nod of approval, and Abby, whose stomach is now roiling, takes her seat. Dars turns back to Shauna. “Ms. Gooden, you are excused.”

  Shauna looks up, startled. “Your Honor—”

  Dars jerks his thumb toward the door. “Move along. You can’t be here, not unless and until there’s a reason to believe Mr. Estrada can break the privilege.” He looks at the rows of reporters. “You people, too. Out.” There is the sound of murmuring as the disgruntled reporters gather their possessions. “Mr. Estrada, have a seat in the witness box. The clerk will swear you in.”

  Beside her, Abby hears Luz gasp again. “Look down,” Abby whispers, “look down at the ground and do not say a word.”

  The courtroom doors swing shut behind Shauna and press gaggle as Estrada comes forward, his back straight, eyes looking neither right nor left. He is wearing a gray suit and a white shirt, well-pressed. Will had told Abby that Estrada was an older guy, and he is, but not in the hoary, done-in way she expected of strip mall storefront lawyer. He looks good for his age, handsome with his carefully combed silver hair and wire-rimmed glasses.

  Estrada sits down and raises his hand as the clerk haltingly administers the oath.

  Dars swivels to face him. “This is a closed proceeding and the transcript will be sealed. You can speak freely, so go ahead and give me a summary of what you and the defendant talked about when you spoke on the phone. Ten, twenty minutes, you’re off the stand, I make my ruling, and everyone goes home. How does that sound?”

  Estrada looks at Dars for a moment. “No.”

  Dars’s eyebrows lift. “Excuse me?”

  “As I told Mr. Ellet, my conversations with Mrs. Rivera Hollis are protected by the attorney-client privilege.”