by Amanda Brown
The Vandermark vultures blinked like dazzled Christmas trees, stammering, demanding explanations from their attorneys.
“A five-minute recess is ordered.” With another pound of the gavel, the judge turned to depart for her chambers. Elle crowded with the other interns around Christopher Miles to find out what had happened.
“That ruling is standard,” he explained to the students. “In an uncontested situation, the court may consolidate petitions for relief. The lawyers for the Mrs. Vandermark pageant over there”—Elle giggled as she glanced at a petulant few arguing with their attorneys—“made a routine motion to consolidate their claims. They wanted Judge Morgan to combine the estate administration with today’s will probate proceeding.”
Sarah scribbled notes as if Christopher were planning to quiz the interns on these facts at the next recess. Cari, who had researched several issues of procedure, nodded vigorously to show that she understood. “Today we’re only concerned with the Slayer Statute, then,” Cari announced. “Whether the will is to be enforced as written, or whether the judge will throw it out, since it leaves everything to the slayer.”
Christopher scowled and glanced over his shoulder. “To the alleged slayer.”
Cari gulped. “Didn’t I say ‘alleged’? I meant ‘alleged.’”
“Warner, can I have that witness list?” Warner sifted through document files on the desk while Christopher returned to his explanation of the court’s ruling. “Probate is a relatively informal proceeding. The judge has discretion to combine all matters of interpretation, appointment of a personal representative, and distribution of assets in one proceeding. She might still do it today, if they renew their motion after her decision on whether the will stands.”
Elle glanced at an uproar that was taking place between Chutney’s mother and her lawyer, who were leaving the courtroom to confer out in the hallway. “Wait, Christopher.” She waved her hand to get his attention. “I’m not sure I get all this.” Elle tilted her head to indicate the hubbub of quarreling women.
Sarah rolled her eyes and sighed with obvious exasperation. During the internship and their tutoring sessions she had seen how quickly Elle caught on when something was explained to her. She had gained a certain respect for Elle, watching her work, but she wasn’t about to show it in front of Warner. “Elle, please, can we have the remedial class some other time?” She smiled condescendingly at Warner, who ignored her.
Frowning briefly at Sarah, Christopher turned to Elle, who, knowing exactly what Sarah was doing, ignored her completely. “What is it you don’t understand, Elle?”
“Okay,” Elle began. “The only question for today, in the, um, probate part…” She hesitated, glancing at Christopher for confirmation. He nodded. “The question is whether Brooke did it. Whether she shot him. Right? And if the judge thinks she did, then she throws out the will, and then the estate is distributed by, um, you know, by statute.”
“By intestacy,” Christopher clarified. “Right. If the judge finds that Brooke feloniously and intentionally killed Heyworth.”
“And if the judge believes Brooke, then we have to deal with the will. Like, what it means, that he left everything to his most beautiful wife, but not exactly to Brooke by name.”
Cari tapped a Bic pen on her legal pad, impatient. “Thanks for the recap, Elle,” she scoffed.
“No, wait, that’s not my question.” Elle frowned. “Those women, the ex-wives…which side are they on?”
“What do you mean, which side?”
“Well, do they get anything under the intestacy statute, even though they’re divorced?”
“Chutney’s mother would,” answered the lawyer, “by law. A one-third share goes automatically to a former spouse who had children by the decedent. The rest of the wives didn’t bear Heyworth any kids, so their arguments will all be equitable claims, based on their contributions during marriage to the estate. Those are mushy, unlikely to win.”
“So they’re on Brooke’s side, then,” Elle concluded. “I mean, sort of. They want the will to be valid.”
“Well, that’s true, Elle, but if the will is valid then they’re out of her corner. Then we have to deal with the words Heyworth used to bequeath his estate.” The lawyer sighed, frustrated. “If he had just said ‘wife,’ that would mean Brooke, his wife at the time of his death. But thanks to Heyworth’s fancy description, we’ve got a beauty pageant of spouses who say he meant to refer to them.”
Warner handed Christopher the lengthy witness list just as Judge Morgan reentered the courtroom. “Thanks. Sarah, get those witness books in the order of names on this list, please. Right here.” He pointed to the desk. “Cari, do you have that brief on the Slayer Statute?”
Judge Morgan’s gavel called the court to order. Sidney’s beeping Game Boy subsided as the room grew quiet. Elle turned anxiously to look for Eugenia, who gave her a thumbs-up from the third row.
The day looked to be a grim one for Brooke, judging from the testimony of Thom Romeo, the first witness called by Chutney’s lawyer. Brooke’s personal trainer, Thomas Romero, had dropped his first name, going only by his changed last name, Romeo, after his first victory as Mr. Muscle Beach. As much of Romeo’s body as was visible was stained with a greasy surface tan so thick Elle wondered if he’d leave an orange ring on the seat. He had rolled up his sleeves to display his bulging forearms, and Elle marveled that the gym rat even owned a pair of long pants. Most likely he usually wore only an indecent Speedo.
Romeo described his regular house calls to the Vandermarks’ basement spa, where he sculpted Brooke’s body with exhausting weight tortures and had recently begun coaching Heyworth. When Henry Kohn asked him to describe Heyworth’s workouts, Romeo’s deep voice boomed low and ominous.
“Heyworth Vandermark told me Brooke was going to kill him. Like a stuck pig.”
It wasn’t until Christopher Miles’s cross-examination that the full story was revealed. Before Heyworth took up jog-walking, more to thwart his cardiologist than for his health, the old man had agreed to undergo various tests of his body’s fat content.
One such morning, while Heyworth was wrenching with fat-measurement devices poking him at every angle, Brooke popped into the weight room to check on him. Groaning, Heyworth complained to Romeo that Brooke was going to kill him like a stuck pig. So Brooke’s beleaguered husband had only been chafing under Romeo’s fitness tortures.
Henry Kohn insisted that Brooke’s physical persecution of her husband went “to motive.” Images of a contorted, miserable Heyworth begging for mercy in the weight room cut the heart out of Christopher’s argument that Brooke had encouraged exercise to prolong her husband’s life. A crafty move, the lawyer had to concede, crossing Romeo off the short list of witnesses he planned to call on direct.
After Henry Kohn called the mailman, Judge Morgan drew the line. The parade of doomsayers, whose collective antipathy toward Brooke had established that she was a meddlesome terror to work for, had become tedious. Henry Kohn’s repeated assurances that “it goes to motive” were growing increasingly far-fetched.
Carmen Marisca, the heavyset cook who had worked in the Vandermark home for twelve years before Brooke fired her, testified that Brooke tried to starve her husband to death with recipes from Oprah’s cookbook. Insisting that a man could not survive on dishes prepared from Gerber baby food, Carmen snuck Heyworth desserts on the sly. The ruse ended when Brooke found Moon Pies in her kitchen. She replaced Carmen with a chef from Olaf’s Organic Garden.
Neither the gardener, the cat trainer, nor the florist had a kind word for Brooke. Without supporting evidence, the florist claimed Brooke had been pricing funeral bouquets just prior to Heyworth’s death. On cross-examination, he admitted that she hadn’t exactly priced the RIP arrangement, merely eyed it, but he could tell what was on her mind. Christopher Miles didn’t even get the word “speculation” out of his mouth before Judge Morgan sustained his objection.
The mailman wore his dress blu
es to emphasize that he was, in some manner, a representative of the United States of America. He described mountains of Heyworth’s letters piling up untouched in the mailbox, a dilemma that forced him to brave the landscaper’s trenches and deliver door-to-door. Brooke picked up her own catalogs, but left her husband’s mail to rot, the mailman said, glowering, “as if he were already dead.”
Holding that further testimony from the veterinarian who treated Chutney’s Persian cat, which was in Brooke’s home and care during the time she was married to Heyworth, would be “cumulative, if even conceivably relevant,” Judge Morgan ordered a recess.
Elle encountered Warner alone in the hallway. “Elle, how’s it going?” He waved to call her over.
“Well, terrible, if you’re Brooke.” She shrugged with fatigue. “She hasn’t exactly endeared herself to the community. And the worst is yet to come. Henry still has to call Chutney.” Elle groaned in dread of Chutney’s eyewitness tale.
“Do you have a minute?” Warner motioned toward the witness room. Elle nodded, following him curiously. He shut the door behind them.
“What’s up, Warner?”
“Elle, I don’t know, it’s been so weird to see you,” he pointed, “all suited up like this. And asking these legal questions, these basic questions.”
Elle frowned. “What do you mean, ‘basic’?”
He approached her more delicately. “Elle, for God’s sake. You’re so creative, remember all the jewelry stuff you used to be into? I don’t know…are you even keeping up?”
“What do you mean, Warner?” Elle retorted. Her stare was sharp, pointed. “What about all that you said at dinner?” She recounted his words bitterly, all to Warner’s quiet acknowledgment.
“Remember?” she goaded, desperate to shake any response from his terrible silence. “Remember how you were so impressed, seeing me in law school, but not caving? Not blending into this horrible herd? ‘Being yourself’?” Elle imitated Warner’s low voice. She sneered as if swallowing something acidic. “What about that, Warner?”
“Get over yourself, Elle.” Warner ended the barrage of questions. “That had to do with me, not you.” He glared at her, annoyed. She suddenly realized she had had the effect of raising self-doubts within him. He hadn’t asked her to come to law school, to make trouble for him. Elle lost her patience with him. With the whole situation. She had more important things and people to think about.
“Take your own advice and get over yourself, Warner. I certainly have.” Elle turned and began walking away from him.
He grabbed her shoulder and tried what he thought was a flattering approach. “Elle, listen, this law school thing is ridiculous for you. I mean, let’s face it. Who are you trying to impress? Really, women like Sarah, they go to law school. They belong in law school. Come on, do you really see yourself as a lawyer?”
“Maybe.” She eyed Warner with suspicion. “Why do you think I came to law school?”
“Uh, maybe on a whim?” Warner laughed at his own joke. “Really, Elle, you came because I was here. Listen, you told me that much yourself at Halloween. Don’t let your memory get so selective.”
“I got the same internship as you, Warner Huntington,” Elle spat. “And as your precious Sarah. What makes you think I’m not as serious?”
Warner smiled at Elle, who grew more and more livid with his mocking tone. “Elle, I have something to say to you.”
“Say anything you want to, Warner. You’re the only one who’s listening.”
With that, she turned toward the courtroom and followed Christopher inside.
Henry Kohn practically skipped into the courtroom, tasting blood already. The only remaining witnesses were Brooke and Chutney. “Your Honor,” he began after Judge Morgan gaveled to recommence the hearing, “May it please the court, I call Brooke Vandermark to the stand.”
Brooke swore her oath and sat glaring sullenly in Chutney’s direction.
“Brooke”—Elle noticed Henry was licking his lips—“tell the court where you were at the approximate time of day, about four in the afternoon, when your husband was murdered.”
Brooke glanced at Christopher, who pleaded desperately with his eyes. “I was out of the house. I was at a meeting. And it’s Mrs. Vandermark to you,” she snapped at the lawyer.
“Mrs. Vandermark.” Henry smiled inappropriately. “What meeting, Mrs. Vandermark, was that?”
She tilted her head, annoyed. “You know what meeting it was. I told you already,” Brooke hissed. Christopher Miles dropped his head into his hands, wondering why he bothered with witness prep.
Henry Kohn paced toward the bench. “Your Honor, for the record, there was no outside communication with the witness. She refers to her deposition, I believe.”
Judge Morgan peered at Brooke. “When did you tell Mr. Kohn about this meeting, Mrs. Vandermark?”
Brooke whirled around to face the judge. “At that thing they dragged me to, with all the lawyers. They had someone taking notes,” she accused the stenographer, “like him.”
“At your deposition?” the judge clarified.
“Yeah, that.”
Henry Kohn swooped back toward Brooke like a bird of prey. “Please tell the court, Mrs. Vandermark, about this…meeting.”
Brooke heaved a weary sigh. “Okay, for the hundredth time, I was at my support group.” She peeked furtively at the crowd of Stanford spectators. “Shopper Stoppers Anonymous.”
Elle heard a yelp from the gallery that she was sure came from Sidney. Other chuckles were quickly muffled as Judge Morgan glared forward, then turned back to Brooke.
“Shopper Stoppers Anonymous,” Chutney’s lawyer said, suppressing his own smile with effort. “I take it, Mrs. Vandermark, that this group helped you with some sort of problem…associated with the Home Shopping Network.”
“Not a problem, a dependency,” Brooke corrected. “I was addicted to the thing, okay? I was totally attached to those people, the shopper-helpers, the ones who took your orders,” she rambled, as if opening a twelve-step sob story. “Heyworth was always so busy, and I used to order all these things, sometimes just to talk to the shopper-helpers. They have the gentlest, sweetest way about them…” She trailed off dreamily.
“This addiction filled, then, an emotional void in your life? In your marriage?”
“Objection, Your Honor.” Christopher Miles rose from his chair. “Pure speculation.”
“Sustained.” Judge Morgan scowled at Henry Kohn. “What’s the relevance of Brooke’s…addiction, Counsel?”
“It goes to motive, Your Honor. Her commitment to the Home Shopping Network is evidence that her marriage to Heyworth was emotionally unfulfilling, and—”
“That’s not true!” Brooke interrupted angrily. “Heyworth was everything to me, and first I started watching it to buy him things. But he didn’t really seem to like the Norman Rockwell plates”—she paused sadly—“and I kept trying to watch to find something he’d like better. Then I was watching it all the time, and I even stopped going to malls.”
Several Mrs. Vandermarks gasped, horrified. Chutney’s mother hid her face, toying nervously with the leather tassels of a Chanel key chain. Elle glared at Henry Kohn’s self-satisfied face, feeling Brooke’s frustration.
“I am not convinced you have shown a link between Mrs. Vandermark’s shopping habits, Counselor, and her marriage. Objection sustained. You may ask about the meeting, but only as it relates to Mrs. Vandermark’s location at the time in question.”
“Well, then. Mrs. Vandermark,” Henry continued eagerly, “one final question about the meeting. Did you attend this…counseling alone?”
“No,” Brooke sighed. “The rest of them were there, too. The other group members. About fifteen, maybe even twenty people, including the life leaders.”
“The life leaders?” Brooke had not gone into this detail in her deposition, or even in conference with Christopher, who looked increasingly gloomy. Henry Kohn bristled, sensing a surprise attack
.
“Who are the life leaders, Mrs. Vandermark?”
“That’s what we call the group captains. They have the same rank as the psychiatrist—” She caught herself. “Oops, I mean, the, uh, person who runs the program. See, anyone can be a life leader who overcomes the power of their addiction, and takes charge of their life. The support group is very egalitarian. The meetings are, like, totally life-affirming. They made such a difference for me.”
Henry Kohn didn’t like talk of life-affirming from the supposed murderess and directed his line of questioning to the main point. “Mrs. Vandermark, can any of the life leaders, or any group member, corroborate the fact that you were in attendance on the day in question?” Henry asked the rhetorical question slowly, savoring every word.
“They could,” Brooke began angrily, “and they would be here for me, I know it. We’re so committed to helping each other. But, see”—she shrugged—“the thing is, I can’t tell you who they are. It’s anonymous, an anonymous group. We all promised to protect that.”
“So I take it that you, Mrs. Vandermark, are the only person who will testify that you attended this…anonymous meeting? Although you claim there were ten, maybe twenty people in attendance? Is that correct, Mrs. Vandermark?”
Christopher slumped in his chair, not even bothering to object.
“Well, yeah,” Brooke admitted. “I mean, I’m stuck. I have my loyalty to the group, and I won’t turn on them.”
“Answer the question, please, Mrs. Vandermark,” directed Judge Morgan.
“He’s right,” Brooke said, and sighed. “I mean, yes. I’m the only one who will tell you that I was gone from the house, at my meeting.” Christopher made a cutting motion against his neck, but Brooke continued, exasperated. “So you got me. There’s not a soul here who will back me up. Okay?” She glared at Henry Kohn, standing up in a huff.
