I let my voice go up and paused dramatically. Now for the zinger. “For all this,” I went on, “he is not the biological father of this child.”
I had a moment’s pure satisfaction as I heard the gasps and murmurs from the rows behind me. Judge Feinberg banged a gavel and the noise subsided.
I had her complete attention. Sylvia Feinberg was a slight woman, thin as a dancer, with jet-black hair—no gray, courtesy of Grecian Formula—pulled back into a bun. Her cheeks were streaked with badly applied blusher, and her eyes had a raccoon ring of eyeliner. The wine-dark lipstick she favored was continually rubbing off onto her large front teeth. She was easy to caricature, easy to imitate with her no-nonsense bluntness. But she had a mind few judges could equal; she’d been number one in her class at Columbia and was mentioned more than once for the New York Court of Appeals.
“My client tells me,” I explained, “that she had a menstrual period between Mr. Greenspan’s assault and the pregnancy. She cannot be absolutely certain as to the paternity of the child, which is why I am more than willing to submit to the DNA test already ordered by the Family Court, but—”
“Counselor,” Judge Feinberg interrupted, “what bearing, if any, does paternity have on the issues before this Court?”
If any. That was the clincher. Those were the words that told me Judge Sylvia was way ahead of me, that she knew exactly how I was going to answer that question, that she knew better than I what the legal ramifications of this case were. I felt like a golfer taking a swing she knew would carry the ball straight down the fairway.
“A child born in wedlock is presumed by the State of New York to be the child of the marriage,” I replied, stating what we both knew. “And this child was born at a time when Amber Lundquist was married to Scott Wylie. I offer the marriage certificate in evidence, Your Honor.” I handed the document to a court officer, who ferried it to the clerk for marking.
As I relinquished it, I tried not to picture an extremely pregnant Amber slipping out of Mrs. Bonaventura’s benevolent clutches and sneaking away to Staten Island’s Borough Hall for a brief marriage ceremony, while the indignant housemother thought she was at the mall. That picture smacked too much of the kind of calculation Marla had accused me of masterminding.
I pressed my advantage.
“It should be noted for the record that Mr. Wylie, whether or not he is the biological father of this child, is presumed to be its father. And his consent to this adoption was never obtained. The adoption is therefore voidable at his will.”
I took a breath. “We are here today, Your Honor,” I went on, “solely on the issue of temporary custody. We ask that this Court return the child to its birth mother pending a full hearing. As this Court knows, New York law provides that the best interests of the child take precedence over any claims, however legitimate, on the part of the adult litigants.” A nod from Feinberg; I was speaking her language.
“The question, of course, is what constitutes the best interests of the child. I am certain that my opponent will make a case that the best interests of this baby would be served by leaving custody with her clients until the larger issues are resolved. I could counter this argument by reciting the virtues of my client as the baby’s birth mother or by relying solely on the law of paternity in wedlock.”
I looked up from my papers and locked eyes with the judge. For a brief moment I put myself in her place. Solomon. Cutting the baby in half.
Doing my job was hard enough; I couldn’t imagine doing hers.
I pulled out my big gun: Nanette Dembitz. New York’s most famous Family Court judge, she had written a controversial book entitled Beyond the Best Interests of the Child in which she argued passionately that what children needed more than anything else was stability: one family, one home.
The way Feinberg lit up at the mention of Dembitz’s name, I knew I had her. I zeroed in for the kill with Baby Jessica, giving the good judge the same argument I’d used on Dorinda: better now than later. Amber would win eventually—why make the baby wait to bond with the woman who would be his lifelong mother? I tossed in a couple of barbs at Josh—he shouldn’t benefit from his lies; he’d used Amber and the Court—but the heart of my argument was the trauma to the baby if he was passed from hand to hand, his world shaken up by the vagaries of the adults in his life.
By the time I’d finished, I believed it myself.
“Mr. Greenspan is not a rapist, Your Honor,” Marla began. A good opening. “In fact, he is the one who was used. Yes, he had consensual sex with Amber Lundquist.”
I gave a tiny nod of approval; it was the best tack Marla could take. Sex yes, rape no.
“And afterwards Amber came to Josh, told him she was pregnant, and asked him for money which she said was for an abortion.”
More than a slight emphasis on the said. She punched home her meaning by adding, “The amount Amber asked for was seven thousand dollars, Your Honor.”
I turned toward the second row. Scott’s face reddened with anger, but Amber, cool and calm, contented herself with a decisive shake of the head. I turned back to the judge.
“It’s a common scenario, Your Honor,” Marla continued, her tone contemptuous. “It’s how a young woman blackmails a married man into paying her to keep the affair from his wife. She pretends pregnancy and asks for abortion money, which is really hush money.”
I had a quick flash of Amber’s princess room in the group home, of the way she manipulated Doc Scanlon. Amber had a way of exacting favors from men. Was Marla’s sordid little story completely out of the realm of possibility?
But she turned down the three thousand Josh offered through Marla. And she did it flat out; she didn’t counter with a higher figure. No, I decided; this was Josh’s best hope of deflecting Amber’s accusation of rape. Nothing more.
“Imagine her surprise,” Marla continued, sarcasm filling her voice, “when Josh Greenspan refused her the money and said he wanted to adopt the child instead.”
Marla dropped her hands, heavy with silver rings, onto the counsel table and gazed up at the bench. “Your Honor, Josh Greenspan did what any husband would do—he protected his wife from knowledge of his affair, knowledge he knew would hurt her. He paid Amber’s expenses and arranged for her to advertise in the Dreamchild newsletter, which his wife subscribed to. It was his sincere hope that he could adopt the child he’d fathered without his wife ever knowing the baby’s true paternity.”
It was good stuff. Plausible, told with just the right amount of I’m-sorry-and-I’ll-never-do-it-again humility.
“Nevertheless, Counselor,” interrupted Judge Feinberg, “it appears Ms. Lundquist married less than a week prior to the birth of the child. Given the law of New York State regarding the presumption of paternity, does it really matter which sperm ultimately connected with her ovum?” I looked at Sylvia Feinberg with new respect; I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard the word ovum in a sentence before.
“It did to Mr. Greenspan,” Marla replied. “He resisted the concept of adoption for a long time in hopes of producing a child from his own gene pool. And this woman,” Marla swept her hand toward my side of the table, “deliberately misled Mr. Greenspan into believing the child she was carrying was his. She had no intention of giving up this child, Your Honor. She defrauded the Greenspans, promising them the baby in return for their paying her medical expenses, knowing she was going to change her mind at the last moment. She lied to everyone, including this Court, in order to get revenge.”
“Revenge for a rape that never happened?” I said the words loudly enough to be heard, not loudly enough to put me on the record.
“Counselor,” Judge Feinberg admonished, holding up her hand. But I’d made my point.
“The only issue that matters here is what disposition will best serve the interests of this infant child,” the judge went on. My heart leapt; she was repeating the words I’d used; a good sign.
Marla’s stainless-steel voice showed the strain. Strident at the bes
t of times, it now had an edge that sounded unpleasantly like chalk on a blackboard.
“My clients love this child,” she said. “No matter who the biological father is. To take him away now and give him to a woman who lied and cheated and blackmailed, who used him as a weapon against the man who refused to pay her blackmail—how can that be in the baby’s best interests, Your Honor?”
She stopped, gripping the counsel table with white knuckles. “Ellie Greenspan is the only mother this child has ever known, Your Honor.” She stopped and hung her head, the platinum hair falling over her face like a shield. If I hadn’t known her better, I’d have sworn she was hiding tears.
I expected Feinberg to adjourn while she thought about her decision, but she straightened her glasses and began to talk.
“I have nothing but sympathy for Mrs. Greenspan,” she began.
My heart jumped, we’d won. “No matter who the father of this child may be, she has opened her heart to him. She has acted honorably throughout this proceeding. Her husband has not, and it would appear that Ms. Lundquist has likewise kept crucial facts to herself instead of telling the full truth to this Court. But, as Ms. Jameson rightly argues, the issue here is the best interests of the child. I find that those interests will be served by placing the child in the custody of the people most likely to prevail on the law, namely, Mr. and Mrs. Scott Wylie.”
The sound that came from behind me could have been made by a wounded animal mother fighting for her child’s life against a bloody-toothed predator. It was primitive, agonized, horrible.
It was Ellie Greenspan.
“I see no reason to delay the process of bonding,” the judge continued, in a flat voice that refused to acknowledge the existence of anything as sloppy and unjudicial as emotion. “So the child will be delivered to Mrs. Wylie within the hour. So ordered,” she finished, banging the gavel with a sharp rap that sounded like a gunshot.
We had won, but I felt no elation. I was as numb as if I’d succeeded in winning an acquittal for a serial killer. Behind me, Ellie sobbed, repeating, “No, no,” over and over in a rhythmic chant of denial.
“Your Honor,” Marla called out over the noise. “I’ve prepared the papers for a stay. I ask that you consider—”
“No, Counselor,” Sylvia Feinberg intoned, her thin lips drawn into a rictus of embarrassed sympathy. “I will not issue a stay. You’ll have to appeal to the Second Department.”
Marla was ready. “Then let the record show that I’m serving opposing counsel with notice of appeal and motion for a stay. I intend to proceed to the Second Department at once, Your Honor.”
She handed a blueback to the clerk and offered me an identical copy. No surprise; it was what I’d have done in her place.
“That is your right, Counselor,” Judge Feinberg said. She rose and left the bench, swirling her black robe around her as if to envelop herself in the symbol of her position.
I turned away from the front of the courtroom, ready to stand by my client as she accepted the fruits of her victory.
Ellie Greenspan sobbed into the baby’s blanket, her head shaking from side to side as if she were a survivor at an airplane crash site, totally unbelieving of the tragedy that had befallen her.
Josh sat next to her, his arm wrapped protectively around her shoulder, but his face was blank, his body devoid of energy. It was as though the life had been sucked out of him, leaving an empty shell.
Marla looked sick, her round face pale and sticky. She locked eyes with me in a mute appeal. I motioned Amber and Scott into the hall, leaving Marla to deal with the Greenspans.
“Let’s give them a few minutes,” I said. I walked Amber and Scott to the rear entrance of the courthouse; we stepped out into the glorious April morning. Scott lit up a cigarette and offered a drag to Amber, who sucked in a lungful of smoke and passed it back to him.
I took the opportunity to explain the ramifications of the appeal Marla would undoubtedly file, and the upcoming Family Court appearance. The baby’s blood had already been taken and typed at birth; it was no problem to use a sample for DNA testing. From the smug look on Scott’s face, I had no doubt of his confidence in his own paternity.
After about ten minutes, I reluctantly followed an eager Amber back inside. She walked straight to the courthouse and flung open the door. Ellie sat in the front row, her arms around little Adam as though shielding him from a tornado. Josh sat, white-faced, next to her. Court officers hovered discreetly. Marla was nowhere in sight.
“Where’s your lawyer?” I asked, addressing whichever Greenspan cared to answer.
Josh came to life; a bitter smile edged his lips and a glint of malice lit his eye as he replied, “At the Appellate Division. She went to get a stay.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Blood rushed to my face. I’d been careless; I’d been compassionate, giving Ellie a few minutes alone in which to say good-bye. But she didn’t want to say good-bye. Instead, she held her baby while Marla slipped out of the courthouse and made a dash for the appellate court she hoped would countermand Judge Feinberg and order the baby to stay with her clients pending appeal.
I looked into Amber’s accusing face. She knew instinctively that we’d been had.
“I’d better get over there right away,” I muttered, making for the courtroom door. Hoping it wasn’t too late, and knowing I’d given Marla plenty of time to get an order signed.
Before I reached the door, it swung open and Marla marched in. But there was no look of triumph on her face. She shook her head. My client was going to walk out of the courthouse with her baby after all, no thanks to me.
Ellie gave a long, drawn-out wail. Marla walked toward her; she shrunk away as if from a rapist. And all the while Josh sat like a statue, unmoving, unseeing.
Finally, it was over. Finally the tiny red-faced creature, who had woken up and begun to cry, was pried from Ellie’s iron grip and placed in Amber’s welcoming arms. Finally I walked out of the courthouse with my client and said good-bye at the curb. And walked all the way home before I remembered I meant to tell someone about the terrible offer Marla had made to buy Amber’s baby.
When the going gets tough, the tough go to the movies. And drink a little too much, and sit in their offices until after ten at night drafting motions in cases they know for a fact are going to plead out at the next appearance.
Anything except remember. Anything except hear again that awful animal cry of a mother deprived of her baby.
I sat at my desk, two days after my appearance in Feinberg’s courtroom, wiping sleep from my eyes, trying to concentrate on a set of subpoenas in a case that wasn’t on the calendar for another month.
The doorbell rang. I jumped in my chair; even criminal clients didn’t come ringing the bell at 11 P.M. I might get a phone call from the station house, or a message from night court that one of my clients was about to see the judge, but personal visits were something I discouraged.
I walked to the door and looked through the peephole.
It was Scott. The streetlight outside my window glinted off his lank blond hair. He pounded on the door, then stood back in indignation when no one appeared.
What the hell–
Only one way to find out. I opened the office door and stepped into the foyer, then unhooked the safety lock and opened the outer door. Scott all but burst into the hallway.
“Where is she?” he demanded, his head swiveling in an attempt to see around me into my office.
“Amber? Not here, Scott. Why would you—”
“Don’t lie to me, bitch,” Scott said. He shoved an angry hand into my chest and pushed me out of the way.
He strode through the double doors into the waiting room of my office. “Amber,” he called. “Amber. Get out here, you cunt.”
“What is this about?” I yelled after him. Pretending Scott was acting like a distraught husband out of his mind with worry for his wife, not a small-time hood eager to break kneecaps. Pretending I had some control over the
situation.
Scott reached my desk in the other room. He lifted his hand, then brought it down in a sweeping motion that cleared the objects off the top and sent them crashing onto the hardwood floor.
“Shit!” he screamed. “Double fucking shit!”
I almost smiled. I’d tagged Scott as a spoiled brat from the right side of the tracks, and here he was throwing a tantrum in front of my very eyes, regressing in seconds from twentysomething cool to two-year-old fury.
I almost smiled. But two-year-olds with knife sheaths on their belts are not that funny, especially when you’re the target of their unbounded rage.
“Amber is not here,” I repeated, sounding firmer than I felt. Hoping a touch of maternal calm, teacherlike authority, would defuse the situation. Hoping Scott wouldn’t realize I had no clue what the situation really was. Pushing to the back burner the questions I couldn’t answer but which were beginning to crowd out all other thoughts, including those about my own safety: if Amber wasn’t here, where was she? And where was the baby?
“I told you to stop fucking with me,” Scott replied. He marched back to where I stood in the doorway between the waiting room and the office proper. He stuck his finger in my face and fixed me with eyes that looked capable of anything.
“Nobody double-crosses me and gets away with it, so you damn well better tell me where that little—”
“Scott, what the hell are you talking about?” I shouted, pushing the finger aside with shaking hands. His rage terrified me, but so did the thought of letting him see my fear.
“What’s the point of these games, huh?” He gave my chest another pointed push. It hurt. There were going to be bruises.
Fresh Kills Page 9
