by Susan Isaacs
“Call me ‘Sis’ one more time and it’s off.”
“Lee,” he sighed, and put out his hand.
She shook it and said, “Chuckie.”
While Will celebrated her decision to join Chuckie Phalen as if she had just been appointed attorney general, sending not merely a case of champagne to Lee’s new office but a six-foot-tall flowering hibiscus tree, Jazz reacted as if she’d told him she had bought new towels for the guest bathroom. “Great,” he said, bisecting his baked potato and hiding it under a dollop of sour cream only a person with a vigorous metabolism could consider. “I look forward to meeting him.” Lee ground some pepper on her half potato and waited for questions about their deal. Jazz wasn’t just her husband; he was a smart businessman as well as a lawyer. But he had no questions.
Lee was furious at his reaction: I have to listen to a two-hour diatribe about what the fur buyer at Bonwit Teller said about the buttonholes on raccoon jackets and then prove I’m listening by asking questions for another hour, and he can’t even ask: Hey, where’s your new office? But as she was doing with increasing frequency, she quickly transformed her anger to hurt, and then almost immediately transmuted her wounded feelings into sympathy. I understand Jazz is having trouble dealing with my career because he was brought up in such a hidebound, male-dominated world and because the whole subject of lawyering is painful to him. He’s trying so hard to be supportive, and he’s really thoughtful about everything else.
This was true. When she was on trial, he took over completely, coming home early from work, often giving their nanny a night off to be with her boyfriend, making dinner for two—him and Val. While Lee still fulfilled many of the usual female functions—buying birthday and Christmas gifts, keeping the social calendar and the family checkbook, gardening—Jazz took over the grocery shopping and stacked and emptied the dishwasher.
And he did it with such good nature. Lee could never get over his best quality, his innate cheer, and realized that it would have been wasted in the solemn halls of Johnson, Bonadies and Eagle. But in the retail business, his buoyancy, blue-blood manners, and brilliant smile brought him nothing but success. Where Leonard was insecure, Jazz was confident. The younger man was the one who decided to approach chichi department stores around the country and soon had them carrying Le Fourreur’s line of fun furs—jackets and coats designed for everyday wear. Emboldened by his success in the upscale market, Jazz, subtly and diplomatically, convinced his father-in-law to overcome his snobbery and go out for the low-priced trade as well; there were now three Furhavens in New York and New Jersey, with a fourth and fifth on the drawing boards.
So before their thirtieth birthdays, Mr. and Mrs. Jasper Taylor—as the place cards at the Fashion Congress’s annual Luxe Awards dinner had them—were already a well-to-do young couple.
“Turn around,” Sylvia said to Lee, eyes narrowing as she assessed her daughter’s outfit, a classic ivory strapless ball gown that gleamed, like the pearl choker she was wearing, against Lee’s golden skin. “Nice. Whose is it?”
“Valentino.”
“Impeccable. When did you get it?”
“Last month sometime.” Then she added, because she knew it would annoy her mother, “I went one day during my lunch hour.”
Sylvia sighed and shook her head at Robin, but fairly good-naturedly. Now that her younger daughter was drug-free and dressed in a four-thousand-dollar blue-and-green Saint Laurent peasant gown, she was easier about granting her elder daughter the right to be eccentric. “And I’ll bet you bought this because it didn’t need any alterations,” Sylvia said indulgently.
“Absolutely. My fashion philosophy is: If it zips up, I buy it.”
“I knew it!” Sylvia crowed. “See? I know you, Lee!”
The Penthouse at the St. Regis was filled with men in their black and white tuxedos and with their women, gorgeous peacocks strutting their colors in silks and jewels. Even in the soft dimness meant to approximate candlelight, Lee was nearly overcome by the beauty of so much smooth, bare skin against lustrous fabric, by the sweet and spicy scents of extravagant perfumes, by these people’s casual acceptance of their own incredible wealth. So different from her working world, from the savagery and sewer stench of the holding pens in criminal court to the wood-paneled, leather-chaired austerity of fine old law firms like Will’s.
“Are you okay, Lee?” Robin asked.
“Fine,” she said, as she watched Jazz dazzle a department store dowager agleam in emeralds and diamonds, the diamonds far whiter than the smile the woman was flashing back at Jazz. “I love to watch him work the room.”
“He’s not bad,” Robin said, then flung back her head and burst out laughing at her own understatement. Her long blonde hair, held only by a velvet ribbon, shone in the pale light. Jazz glanced in their direction and waved at them. “He’s a social genius is what he is. Can you imagine anyone feeling that at ease with themselves?”
Lee shook her head. She was glad Robin was there, because she certainly did not feel at ease. The cocktail hour was already stretched to nearly two, and no one except her seemed wiped out by the continuing parade of magnificence and the paucity of hors d’oeuvres. She needed her sister. Yet she wished Robin were elsewhere. It disturbed her that her sister’s life had not changed. Twenty-seven years old and still a volunteer at a day care center, still a college dropout, still living at home and vacationing with her parents. But Robin herself had changed, Lee knew, from her old self-absorption to being the most loving and reliable sister, an adoring aunt, a fond sister-in-law. Lee and Jazz often included her in their plans not out of familial obligation but because Robin was good company.
Jazz came over and put an arm around each of them. “Bearing up?” he asked, just as the lights flickered, signaling dinner.
“We’re fine!” Robin said happily.
“Fine,” Lee assured him. He shepherded them into the perfectly proportioned ballroom to their table, keeping perfect pace with the rest of the graceful crowd. Not an elbow was jostled, not a hem stepped on. He held out a chair for each of them and Lee watched as Leonard mimicked his courtesy and did the same for Sylvia. Several men at other tables followed suit, until a contagion of chair-pulling overcame the ballroom. “See what you started?” she asked Jazz, delighted. She took his hand until the banquet was served, a menu chosen less for taste than for its lack of drippiness.
She ate and watched her husband pick at his food, too busy being the Golden Boy to eat. He waved, he stood to chat with table-hoppers. He shook hands, kissed cheeks, accepted compliments with sweet modesty, and laughed. It was only when Jazz sat back down that she caught a glimpse of him pressing his tired back against the rear of his chair, closing his eyes for an instant. When he opened them, there was not a sign of laughter. His eyes seemed as old as those of the ninety-year-old shoe mogul in a wheelchair at the next table. Older, because the shoe mogul was swiveling his head, taking everything in, tearing off bits of his roll and stuffing them into his mouth, greedy for now and for banquets to come. It was only then that she understood that Jazz was just as miserable in this splendiferous company as she was.
She kept busy with the cases Chuckie handed over to her: a criminal possession of stolen property here, a grand larceny there. But although Lee received a few referrals from the attorneys she had come up against as a prosecutor, they were relatively minor matters. She knew she had to prove herself as a defense lawyer. It was easy for the Old Boys, and the younger ones as well, to brush her off with the explanation that anyone can win when representing the People; the facts are on the People’s side.
How do I get a big case? she asked Will during one of their daily phone calls. I want a showcase case, where they can see what I can do. Will said simply: Ask for it. What do you mean, ask for it? Start taking lawyers to lunch, he advised her. Tell them you’re looking to build up your own practice, that you don’t feel it’s right to rely solely on Chuckie. Talk shop with them. Let them see you as a colleague, not as a girl lawyer. If s
omeone has a big-mother case, ask if you can be second seat. Ask? she practically gasped. This is your professional livelihood—okay, Lee? It’s not like asking a boy out on a date. It’s permissible. It’s also permissible, if you hear of a big, fat, juicy crime, to try to get there before anyone else does.
The eleven o’clock Sunday-night news is really a no-news broadcast. Politicians announce nothing new on Sundays. Not a single press release is issued, and no one marches to protest anything. So on that night, television journalists elaborate on sports and weather and offer horrific reports of fires, rapes, and murders. On a cold and sleety Sunday night in February, she heard that Eddie Urquhart of Locust Valley had been savagely beaten that morning as he slept late. He was in a coma, and although a spokesman would not comment, a source at Glen Cove Hospital said he was not expected to recover. Lee, who had spent the day making Valentine decorations with Val and Kent, organizing her scarves and sweaters by color, making love with Jazz during Val’s nap, and going out to a new and mediocre Northern Italian restaurant with her parents and Robin, sat up in her bed. “Did you hear that?” she asked Jazz. “Beaten to death in his bed this morning. A million bucks it wasn’t a burglar. What burglar sneaks into a house on a Sunday morning?”
He glanced over the top of the business section of the New York Times. “What?”
“Shhh,” she said, as the barely postpubescent reporter, his face shiny with sleet, stood before a grand colonial house with white pillars and told her that Urquhart was the owner of Spectacle, a chain of eyeglass and contact lens stores located—“On Long Island!” Lee crowed. Nassau County police were said to be questioning Mrs. Urquhart for a description of the intruder. “She did it!” Lee announced.
“Who?”
“The wife.” Her pulse was racing.
“How do you know?” Jazz asked. Not waiting for an answer, he went back to an article on regional customs unions.
“I feel it,” she said, putting both hands over her heart.
At seven the following morning, she called and woke Chuckie, to find out who represented Spectacle. He didn’t know. At eight, she called Will at home, who said it wasn’t De Ruyter, Lefkowitz and Stewart, but he’d check when he got to the office, first thing, to see if anyone knew. At nine-twenty, she found out it was Keelan and Stern, Woodleigh Huber’s former law firm. Damn! she said. Will said, You’re going to worry if he bad-mouths you? His former partners probably don’t trust his opinion any more than we do. Okay, Lee said. Let me give it a shot. Will wished her bon voyage and extracted a promise that she would call immediately if anything happened.
At ten-thirty, she was sitting in the office of one of Keelan and Stern’s senior partners, Peter Pappas, a contemporary of Huber’s, a man given to high Victorian-style collars that hid his entire neck. Thus his large, bald head was a giant bubble emerging from his shirt.
“You don’t have to give me your curriculum vitae,” he told Lee. “I’ve heard of you.”
“From Woodleigh Huber?” she asked, prepared to defend herself.
“Nah!” he snapped, rather viciously, she thought. “Around. Grapevine.”
“Good,” she said. “I appreciate your seeing me on such short notice. I don’t want to waste your time.” Pappas nodded: good idea. “I understand you represent Eddie Urquhart. I’m sorry to hear about his troubles. But it’s his wife I’m interested in.”
“Why?”
“It sounds as if she might need a criminal lawyer. I’d like an introduction. For a woman of her background, I think I’d be the ideal choice.”
“You do?”
“Let me tell you why.”
At noon, Lee was in Locust Valley talking with Paula Urquhart, gathering information, finding out precisely how much the woman had already told the police. Two hours later, Paula Urquhart took Lee into the library, a low-ceilinged room filled with leather-bound unread books. It smelled like a crypt. Paula drew the dusty damask curtains and showed Lee the myriad lumps, concavities, and scars all over her body that were the result of the beatings Eddie inflicted during twenty-two years of married life. At a quarter to three, Paula signed a check for Lee’s ten-thousand-dollar retainer. Then she made a pot of coffee, and they sat around until the police came to arrest Paula for assault with intent to kill.
“You’re not giving me a hell of a lot to work with,” Terry Salazar told Lee. He had just opened his own investigative agency. In a blue suit just slightly too bright to be called navy and crepe-soled brown suede shoes, he still looked more like a cop than a capitalist.
“I don’t have a hell of a lot,” Lee responded. “Paula told the precinct cops that she’d been downstairs, reading the paper. When she came back upstairs around eleven, to shower, the window was open and Eddie had his head bashed in. She thought he was dead.”
“Except he wasn’t.”
“Right. Just comatose. The first cop on the scene noticed that the window was only open about nine inches. It would have to have been a pretty skinny burglar.”
“Who, by the by,” Chuckie added from the couch in Lee’s office, “was so busy bashing Eddie’s head in that he forgot to burgle anything.”
“This Paula babe doesn’t sound like a criminal genius,” Terry observed.
“I think Eddie bopped her on the head one too many times,” Lee said.
“Insanity defense?” Chuckie inquired politely.
“I’m not sure yet, but I don’t think so. She doesn’t seem at all nuts. Nice as nice can be. She put up a pot of coffee and defrosted a Mrs. Smith apple pie for the crime scene crew. Anyway, insanity is a real desperation defense. It hardly ever works.”
“Almost never,” Chuckie concurred.
Lee rubbed her face, trying to erase the fatigue. Now that she had the Urquhart case, she had no idea what she was going to do with it. Still, she finally had her own client, and a client who could afford to hire Terry. And Chuckie Phalen was sitting in her office, not she in his. It was all—she smiled to herself—exhilarating.
“What was the weapon?” Terry asked.
“One of her kids’ old ice skates. The blade.” Both men barely suppressed a shudder. “She says she was up in the attic going through the old sporting goods stuff, looking for a baseball bat, but then the bulb started to flicker, and she got scared so she grabbed the first thing she could. She knew it wasn’t as good as a baseball bat, so she made sure that her first hit was a hard one, and right between the eyes.”
“He’s a vegetable?”
“Now and forever.” She closed her eyes for an instant, trying to imagine Paula Urquhart as she made her first hit with the blade of the ice skate. Then she pictured the scarred, misshapen mess that was her client’s body. “She was deathly afraid,” Lee explained when she opened her eyes. “That’s why she tried to kill him.”
“Self-defense?” Terry asked with a chuckle.
“I hear it’s worked in a couple of states,” Chuckie said, squelching Terry’s chuckle. Then he turned to Lee. “Wasn’t Eddie sleeping at the time?”
“It’s still self-defense,” Lee told him. “He beat her, he terrorized her for years. She lived in that big house on the Sound. Alone. No housekeeper, no nothing. After the second kid went off to college, he took away her car. He said it was because she’d dented the fender twice and couldn’t be trusted. He would not let her out of that damned house! The only time she left in the last year was for her two trips to the emergency room. He was holding her prisoner. She knew it was only a matter of time until he killed her. And she had to save her own life.”
So this is the problem, Terry reported to Lee. I checked out all the hospitals she’s been to over the years, all the doctors. And she never once said, Hey, my husband is beating the shit out of me, punching me in the stomach till I’m puking up blood. Paula tells them she was in a car accident, or she had her steam iron fall on her—she used that one a lot—or she was in the garden and got hit by a rake, or she was cleaning out a closet and all the stuff fell onto her. There�
�s no record of her ever accusing Eddie of laying a hand on her. One doctor said he asked her: Is your old man beating you up? And you know what she said?: How dare you!
Go back, Lee told him. Find out if the doctors felt the injuries were more consistent with a beating than with an accident. And don’t let your hospital contacts read her medical records to you. I want you to look at them yourself. Somewhere, someone must have made a little note about isn’t it odd how her left wrist keeps breaking. Three times, as if someone twisted it and twisted it till it snapped. Ask if they’re willing to testify. If they’re not, tell them we’ll subpoena them. Speak to all his employees at the Spectacle stores: Has he ever flown off the handle at work? Gotten into any fights?
She spoke with social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists and academic experts in the still burgeoning field of domestic violence and hired expert witnesses. She employed a photographer who specialized in medical malpractice cases to photograph Paula Urquhart’s disfigured body. And she met daily with her client.
Paula Urquhart, unfortunately, looked perfectly capable of fending off whatever blows came her way. At forty-three, she was of slightly above average height and appeared solid, as if she was even larger but had been compacted. Her hair was light enough that the gray was not at first noticeable. She wore it off her face and seemed shaken when they took away her plastic tortoiseshell headband in the Nassau County Correctional Center. She was neither pretty nor homely, but totally forgettable. It was only when you stared at her, searching her bland face for the wielder of the ice skate, that you noticed one cheek was higher than the other, which had been flattened by repeated blows to the face.
“Paula, was there a telephone in the house?” Lee asked. They spoke in a small room in the women’s section of the jail, an area referred to as the Waldorf, where inmates charged with highly publicized cases were held. The Waldorf had a common room for meals and TV, a few cells, and a small, square interrogation room, which was used for lawyers’ conferences. It was furnished rather luxuriously for the center, with two chairs that were not nailed down and a couch covered in artificial blue leather. In her blue uniform, Paula seemed part of the furniture.
