Snap Judgment (Samantha Brinkman Book 3)

by Marcia Clark

  Alex shook his head as he steered onto the freeway. “Either they’re just off on the timing, or they’re hiding something.”

  Those were certainly the two options. “Have you had a chance to check out Davey yet?”

  Alex moved into the left-most lane. “I’m working on it. So far, nothing new. But I did track down that paralegal. The one who filed the sexual harassment claim against Graham back in the day.”

  It’d be good to know what she had to say. If reporters managed to find her, I wanted to be prepared. “Wasn’t that at a law firm on the east coast?”

  He pulled out the notepad he kept in the center console and handed it to me. “She’s out here in LA now. As I recall, she lives in Sherman Oaks.”

  I flipped to the last page of the notepad. She lived on Greenleaf. I knew the neighborhood. A very pretty—and redundantly leafy—slice of suburbia, lots of trees and well-tended houses, just a canyon away from my office. I read her information. “Emma Lucas, divorced, no kids, fifty-five years old, unemployed.” I looked at Alex. “She lives pretty well for someone with no income.”

  Alex raised an eyebrow. “Who said she has no income? The ex left her with a pile of dough, and she invested it well. She doesn’t need to work.”

  Sweet. “Let’s go see her. Can you set it up for tomorrow?”

  He gave me a self-satisfied grin. “Already done. I told her I’d confirm with a text tonight.”

  I smiled back at him. “What on earth would I do without you?”

  He knitted his brow. “That’s a very good question.”

  Traffic was light. We flew back to the office, and Alex dropped me off at my car. As I drove home, I could feel my eyelids growing heavy. I was working a lot of long days, and it was getting to me.

  When I got home, I put myself straight to bed and deliberately avoided turning on the television. Whatever disaster struck tonight, it’d have to wait until tomorrow.

  When I got to the office the next morning, I found Alex raring to go. He handed me a cup of coffee. “Emma’s confirmed for nine thirty.” He looked at his watch. “We should leave now.”

  Michy and I exchanged a look. When Alex was on the hunt, he had only one speed: supersonic. “Good morning, Michy. Good-bye, Michy.” She laughed. “We should be back by this afternoon.”

  I volunteered to drive, but Alex waved me off. “We need to take the Canyon, and Beulah’s got too much sway.”

  Benedict Canyon was a winding road, but it was a beautiful ride. The rains earlier in the month had turned the brown hills green, and the sun was shining in a deep-blue sky. I rolled my window down to inhale the clean, fresh air. Then rolled it back up again. The sun might be shining, but it was still cold as hell.

  We pulled up to Emma’s house—a white Tudor-style with green trim—right on time, and I noticed a fairly new black BMW 535i in the driveway. “You weren’t kidding. She really is doing well.”

  Alex rounded the car and joined me as we walked up the brick pathway to the house. Iceland poppies of all colors lined the walk, and purple princess bushes flowered at the foot of the steps. It was a gorgeous riot of color. The door was painted the same forest-green color as the trim, and a shiny brass knocker was mounted in the center. Even from the outside, I could tell the interior would be tasteful.

  Alex dropped the knocker once, and Emma answered right away. She’d aged very well. Her honey-blonde, perfectly highlighted hair was parted on the side, and it fell to her shoulders in soft waves. Her blue eyes had barely any crow’s feet, and her black yoga pants and T-shirt showed a body that was still trim and fit. She invited us in and led the way to a living room. The style was modern but not austere—a big, thick oatmeal-colored area rug and low-slung beige sofa and molded matching chairs arranged around a glass-and-chrome coffee table. And there were French doors that opened onto a beautiful backyard with a swimming pool and lush trees and rosebushes.

  Emma sat on one of the chairs, and we took the couch. As her eyes traveled between us, I noticed they lingered awhile on Alex. I glanced in his direction to see if he’d noticed. He had.

  He took the lead and thanked her for meeting with us, complimented her house, and did his overall charming routine—then he zeroed in on the reason for our visit. “We wanted to talk to you about Graham.”

  Her face clouded. “Such a terrible thing, what happened to his daughter. I feel so badly for him. And to know that she was killed in such a horrible way, her throat cut—” She stopped abruptly and looked away for a moment. When she’d composed herself, she continued. “So I don’t want to pile on. He’s been through enough.”

  I definitely liked the sound of that. “I agree. But just in case the press tries to run with this, I thought we should find out what caused you to file the complaint against him.”

  Emma looked worried. “Well, no one’s contacted me yet.”

  Alex reassured her in his usual smooth way. “And they may not. We just need to be prepared. Just know that anything you tell us will go no further. This is strictly confidential.”

  She still seemed a little uncertain, but she finally nodded. “This was all so long ago. Graham was a first-year associate, full of himself and loaded with testosterone—like a lot of those trial lawyers. He kept making dumb comments like, ‘Can I get fries with that shake?’ and, ‘That skirt shows you’ve got a lot of talent.’ Idiotic things like that.”

  Alex nodded, his expression disapproving. “Pretty obnoxious. Did he ever touch you?”

  Emma was emphatic. “No, and honestly, he was no worse than any of the other smart-ass young turks.” She sighed as she shook her head. “That kind of harassment was so common back then. All the girls were sick of it, but they were afraid to say anything. So I decided I may as well be the one. I reported on all three of them.”

  “Then it wasn’t just Graham?” Alex asked.

  She shook her head. “I’d hoped that would send a message, put a stop to it with all of them.” Emma paused, her expression hardened. “But the only one who got punished was Graham. They didn’t even discipline the other two guys.” She gave me a sardonic smile. “I bet you can guess why.”

  Sadly, I could. “Because their daddies were partners.”

  She nodded. “So poor Graham—who, by the way, was the only one who apologized to me—got fired, and the other two got to stay. After that, the partners treated me like dirt. I hung in there for a few months. I didn’t want to let them win. But I finally decided life was too short, so I quit and moved out here.”

  I didn’t blame her a bit. “I’m sorry it turned out that way. But good for you for taking a stand, Emma. Have you had any contact with him since that time?”

  “No,” she said. “Not because of any ill will. Just . . . why? We weren’t buddies; we were just coworkers. I didn’t even know he lived out here until his daughter . . .”

  Got murdered. She looked away as she said it. I liked Emma. But more importantly, I liked that she had no ax to grind. I wouldn’t have to worry about any shots being fired across our bow from her corner.

  FORTY-FIVE

  When we got back to the car, Alex stared at the house for a moment. “That was cool, the way she took on those assholes for harassing her.”

  I sometimes forgot that Alex might have suffered from similar kinds of mistreatment. “Were they like that at the dealership?”

  He turned and looked through the windshield. “And in high school, and at Jimmy’s, the diner where I worked during high school, and at—”

  I held up a hand. “I get it. What kinds of things would they do at the dealership?”

  His mouth turned down. “They’d say something—or someone—was ‘so gay,’ or they’d imitate customers they thought were gay, wave their hands around and talk with a lisp.” He looked at me. “And it went downhill from there.”

  I clenched my teeth. Never had I been happier about the fact that he’d ripped off that dealership for those cars—or sadder that he’d been caught. “Did you report it?
”

  Alex sighed. “No. I couldn’t afford to lose the job. My family needed the money. But I’ve regretted it ever since. Me? I could take it, but I knew others there who couldn’t. One of them quit. If only for him, I should’ve spoken up.”

  I could relate. “Don’t beat yourself up too much about it. I had a supervisor in the public defender’s office who managed to find a reason on a daily basis to pat our asses or do a boob sideswipe, and I never said a thing.” Largely because I’d been through so much worse. To me, it was laughably childish and just kind of sad. But also partly because I knew that if I complained, I’d be the one who suffered.

  Alex nodded. “I understand. You get so used to putting up with crap like that, you almost feel silly for calling someone out.”

  Which was exactly what empowered the jerks to keep on doing it. “Anyway, I’m glad to hear Graham apologized. And for what it’s worth, I’ve never seen him act like that.”

  “People can change. Sometimes all it takes is for them to realize that it’s not just a silly joke, that they’re actually doing harm.”

  I said with some bitterness, “Not often enough.”

  “No, I agree.” Alex started the car. “Anyway, I confirmed that the leads I got from Mandalay & Stokes are in pocket for most of the day. Unless you have something else that needs doing first, we should get them out of the way.”

  I leaned my head against the window. A nap would be so nice. “Yeah, may as well.”

  When the story came out about Graham’s sexual harassment complaint, I’d asked Alex to check out the rest of his work history. After Graham left the law firm where he’d worked with Emma, he’d moved out to LA and joined Mandalay & Stokes. He was there for a few years before he moved to his current firm, Hocheiser, Leslie & Friedman, where he’d made partner. The prevailing sentiment at Mandalay had been that Graham was a “great guy,” and Alex had said there was a fair amount of reluctance to say anything that could even remotely be called “talking smack” about him. But Alex had reminded them that we were on his side, that everything they said would of course be confidential, and that we were just trying to make sure we were prepared.

  The upshot was that one of the female partners and one male associate independently confided that Graham did seem to be “particularly close” to three of his female clients. They’d both played down the stories as likely gossip, but Alex had taken the contact information for the women anyway—better to talk to them and find out now whether we had a problem than to assume there was nothing there and get gobsmacked by bad press that would likely hit at the worst possible time.

  Since the firm offered full service to their corporate clients—which necessarily included estate planning—the women all lived locally, and they all lived well: in the “Platinum Triangle” that was comprised of Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills, and Bel Air.

  We’d dressed for our foray into Boardwalk and Park Place in slacks and blazers. Alex looked particularly gorgeous in his black blazer and white button-down shirt. I was hoping that would come in handy. “Let’s start with Olivia Torrinucci.” She lived in the westernmost area of the three, in Bel Air. We could start there, then work our way east.

  Alex typed her address into his phone and headed back to Benedict Canyon.

  When I’d seen that Olivia lived in Bel Air, I’d expected to find mile-high gates and a mansion shrouded in towering trees. I wasn’t even close. She lived in a medium-size ranch-style home on Somera Road. True, it was perched on a hill, so it probably had a great view of the canyon. But it definitely wasn’t the spectacular grandeur that I thought of as typical Bel Air.

  And she didn’t have the expected uniformed maid service, either. When Alex knocked on the door, Olivia answered it herself. She was a petite brunette with a stylish bob and a warm smile—one that was particularly directed at Alex.

  Honestly, I’d say this gets old—and it does—but I can’t complain about something that makes my life so much easier. Olivia ushered us into a spacious sunken living room with two sliding-glass doors that did indeed offer one hell of a nice view of the canyon. We sat down on a low-slung chocolate sofa that was piled with color-coordinated fur-covered pillows.

  “Can I offer you anything to drink? Coffee? Tea?” she asked.

  We both thanked her but declined. She sat down on a comfy-looking quilted beige chair, and Alex reiterated what he’d told her about our mission, AKA our cover story: that we were looking for potential character witnesses in case Graham wound up in trial.

  Olivia gave him a solemn nod. “Of course. It’d be my pleasure to help him in any way I can, that poor man.” She shook her head. “Such a terrible thing.” She looked at Alex. “He was very kind to me after my husband died. Graham was primarily focused on my husband’s business. He owned a string of Jack in the Box franchises. So technically, he didn’t have to take my calls after Carson died. We did have an estate-planning lawyer. But he could be a little . . . hard to find when I had questions. Graham always made time for me, and he was so gracious. He never made me feel like I was a bother.” She smiled. “Though I most certainly was.”

  Alex beamed at her. “I’m so glad to hear it. Are you still in touch with him?”

  Olivia glanced out the window for a moment. “We exchange Christmas cards, but that’s about it. Once the estate got sorted out, we kind of lost touch.”

  I tried to assess her tone. Did that disappoint her? If so, was it because she’d lost a lover? Or just a friend?

  Alex was studying her, too. “Just to get a sense of how well you knew him, did you spend any social time together? Go out to lunch or dinner?”

  Olivia’s smile turned nostalgic. “Both. We’d have lunch when I came in to the firm to sign papers, and whenever I was in the area around dinnertime, I’d give him a call. I’d say I got to know him fairly well.”

  Which only made me wonder: How well? Alex tried a version of that. “Did you ever have him over to your house for dinner?”

  She colored a little. “Once. He invited me out to dinner because Sandy and Alicia were out of town—visiting Sandy’s parents, I believe—and he was lonely. I thought he probably needed a homier experience, so I invited him to come here.”

  Alex paused—probably wondering if he should go for it—and then he did. “I don’t want to upset or embarrass you, but since the other side might ask the question, I need to find out what your answer will be. Did he spend the night?”

  Now, she colored a lot. “No, he did not. And he never acted inappropriately with me. He was always a complete gentleman. That’s why I knew it was safe to let him come to the house.”

  I gave an inward sigh of relief. Whatever the truth really was, if she didn’t want to admit to having had an affair, it’d be really hard to prove otherwise. We were safe. If we put her on the stand, Graham would come off smelling like a rose.

  Alex kept after her just to make sure there were no cracks or fissures that might let anything ugly seep through, but Olivia seemed solid.

  Half an hour later, we were back in the car and headed toward Holmby Hills and the residence of Sarah Feinstein. Driving through all these wealthy neighborhoods was a study in how the other half lives. The cars we passed were a mix of Teslas, Bentleys, and top-of-the-line Mercedes and BMWs. And when we passed the lone Toyota Corolla, I saw that the driver was a middle-aged Hispanic woman who was transporting two white toddler kids—who were scrolling on their brand-new iPads.

  Alex pulled to the curb in front of a house on Delfern Drive that was partially shielded from view by a dense collection of a variety of palm trees. The wrought-iron fence that surrounded the property was low, and it wound around a third of the block. We pressed a buzzer at the gate, and a voice asked who it was. Alex identified us. The gate swung open, and we walked up the driveway through the forest of palm trees and cacti that led to the house. It was a brown two-story Spanish-style—LA is very big on Spanish-style houses—with a red-tiled roof and a heavy arched wooden door that had an iron-
grilled peep window.

  I rang the doorbell—a classic ding-dong bell sound—and an older Hispanic woman in an apron answered the door. She stood back to let us enter, then led the way into a room the realtors call a “great room,” i.e., a very spacious room that’s usually created by knocking out the wall between a living room and a family room. In contrast to the Spanish exterior, it was jarringly furnished in a style best described as seventies Palm Springs—lots of bright oranges and yellows and whites and acres of leather furniture. It even had a neon palm tree in the corner. I was desperate to put on my sunglasses.

  Sarah was already seated on the long, curved white leather couch, and I noticed she was holding a highball glass that looked like it held Scotch on the rocks. Her boozy smile confirmed it. I glanced at my phone and saw it was just past noon. You’ve gotta love a woman who can tank it up that early—and one whose inhibitions might just be low enough to tell us the truth. She had a wild head of thick, bottle-platinum hair that fell down to the middle of her back and a pretty face that looked a lot younger than her hands, which I noticed, as I reached out to shake, were covered with age spots.

  I introduced myself and, even as we shook, her gaze drifted over to Alex.

  Alex made a little bow over her hand, and I thought for a moment he was going to kiss it. Thankfully—because I would’ve barfed—he didn’t and simply gave her a smile that would’ve made Enrique Iglesias envious.

  He ran through the same questions he’d asked Olivia. Sarah wasn’t the vulnerable widow Olivia had been—her husband was very much alive, and Sarah was actively involved in “Green Machines,” their lawn-mower-manufacturing company—but she’d definitely gotten some star treatment from Graham.

  Sarah tossed her mane and smiled at Alex. “He was very good to me. My husband is overseas a lot because he negotiates the deals for some of our parts with a Chinese company. So a lot of the day-to-day business dealings fall to me.”