“Wait a minute. Last time we talked, I’d be selling my soul to take that job.” He sounded more than a little annoyed.
“Well, you would be,” she said lightly. “I’m just trying to say the right thing here, Paul. I don’t want to be selfish and hold you back. On the other hand, I want you to make the decision that is right for you.”
“I see,” he said, looking at her with an expression she could not interpret. “Well, I’m playing it cool. I haven’t said one way or another.”
“You haven’t turned it down?”
“No.”
“I was just wondering,” Nina said.
“I’ll let you know when I decide,” he said.
“Oh, good.”
There was a short pause. Nina looked for something in her briefcase and Paul looked at her. “So how did the pseudo-trial go today?” he asked finally.
“Alarming. Provocative,” Nina said quickly, eager to move on in the conversation. “Not that our substitute Riesner looks or acts anything like Jeff Riesner at all. He’s an attorney friend of mine named Rufus who can talk the same talk, but has an entirely different effect on me. He sounds darned reasonable. I can’t speak for the pseudo-jury.”
Paul grinned. “That dirty rat Riesner. Just your luck to get him on the other side.”
“But who better to represent Mike Markov? In court, he’s pure, scorched-earth aggressiveness. He’s going to have the jury believing they have to strike down this evil, predatory female. ’She can’t let go.’ Something like that will be his pitch. Oh, if it was only someone besides him. Someone decent like Rufus. I win, I take him out to lunch. With Riesner, I win, I watch my back.”
“So who won the case today?”
“Well, you have to understand. First, this shadow trial is a pretty pale rendering of the real thing. It lacked several real elements. Drama. Passion. Tedium. Andrea was Lindy. She laughed a few times in the wrong places, and Winston had a handkerchief hanging out of his back pocket like a fluffy little tail for the longest time that nobody even noticed except the jury. I guarantee that won’t happen at trial.”
“Where was your notoriously clever jury consultant during this kinky event?”
“Quietly running the show from the sidelines. Generating these statistical models she likes so much. I reminded her she promised to protect me from that stuff, so now we skip to the generalizations. Anyway, we started by running through the testimony, at least the way they think the testimony will be presented at this point. As I figured, the stickiest mess was the one relating to that separate property agreement Lindy supposedly signed one fine evening, Rufus’s favorite toy and probably Riesner’s when the real time comes.”
“And?”
“In our first opening and closing arguments, we emphasized the promises made verbally, that unofficial wedding ceremony they went through years ago, the assumptions and expectations of the parties.”
“How’d your jury like that?”
“They didn’t. We lost. We ran through another version, where we stressed Lindy’s role at the company and kept up the attack on the agreement. That one seemed to ring the right bell. Our second approach proved more persuasive. We won, sort of. They awarded her twenty-five percent of the net worth of the stock.”
“Surprised?”
“Not really. I felt all along that Lindy’s work would make or break her case. That’s a visible thing. We can point to real evidence of her contributions, evidence of Mike’s reliance on her, evidence of her regular participation in big business decisions, evidence that directly links her efforts to the success of the corporation.”
Paul nodded.
“After it was all over, before collapsing into a heap, Winston, Genevieve, and I did a quickie analysis and discovered things were exactly as Genevieve had predicted based on her preliminary research, questionnaires, and statistical models. We had a sexual Armageddon on our hands. The men initially sided with Mike, the women with Lindy. Of course, that picture changed as we got into our arguments, and that’s another place Genevieve comes in. She needs some time now to go over the results along with some questionnaires and interviews she’ll be conducting over the next couple of days. Then she’ll write up specific recommendations.”
“So is any of this going to help you win?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Do you believe in this, Nina? Shouldn’t you just put your best case on, and hope the unpredictable crowd somehow fumbles its way to justice? People aren’t cattle. You can’t presume to predict which cereal they’ll choose on a given day.”
“Rice Krispies for Andrea, Raisin Bran for Matt, Lucky Charms for Bob, and Grape Nuts for me, pretty much every day except Sunday. So don’t be so sure, Paul.” Nina found a fresh piece of paper and poised a pen above it. “Now, let’s go over where you are.”
His notes neatly arrayed on the side opposite hers, Paul ran a hand through hair that looked blonder than ever and longer than Nina remembered. He had accumulated an extensive file on Mike Markov, which held a lot of detail about his long friendship with Galka and recent indiscretions with Rachel. He was also working with a woman in the marketing department at Markov Enterprises who thought she remembered a video from a sales show made a few years before that might help them nail Mike in a lie at trial.
“And here’s something you might not know. Rachel is still friendly with her ex-beau Harry Anderssen. Sees him once in a while for dinner, without Markov.”
“The male model?”
“That’s right. She lived with him for years and picked up most of the tab because his income has always been erratic, except during the time he worked at Markov. I’d say their financial involvement goes way back.”
“Harry Anderssen,” Nina said, nodding. She told him what she had witnessed between Harry and Mike outside of the courthouse the day of the hearing.
“Not a surprise that he’s pissed she’s leaving him for Mike.”
“We already figured he’d be on our side. My God, Paul. You think she’ll go back to him?”
“At the moment, she seems determined to stick it out with Markov. But apparently Harry’s no stranger to violence. Sounds like he restrained himself out there with Mike. Before he took up modeling and cleaned up his image, he was a bodybuilder who specialized in street fights. Maybe Harry’s putting on a show for Rachel, hoping he can tap into the gravy train even after she marries Markov. Was she there to see the argument?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
They spent almost another hour looking through what he had and discussing the list of chores Nina had put together for him.
When they were finally finished, it was past nine. They had drunk all the Cokes and it was snowing again. She needed to get back to Bob, who was alone at home. Paul also looked ready to call it a day. He had begun a tap-tap-tapping with his foot that suddenly sounded very loud.
“What’s the matter, Paul?” She pointed down.
“Huh?” Noticing, he stopped his foot. “It’s just-never mind.”
“No, come on. Tell me.”
“Okay,” he said, reluctantly. “Keep in mind, you asked. Now here we have a woman who has enjoyed the pampered existence for years because of this man’s success with his business. Pools, castles, servants, the whole bit.”
“She had a big hand in the business.”
“Yes, that’s right. And, according to you, she was paid a salary for her work. Now, let’s try to look at this objectively. They lived together without being married, in spite of her frequently expressed interest in marriage, ergo, she had to know he never wanted to marry her. She agreed to the deal.”
That last sentence sounded like an awfully good mantra for Jeff Riesner. Nina hoped he’d never think of it.
“But she claims that he held out marriage as bait several times, most crucially when he forced her to sign that paper,” Nina said.
“So your strategy is going to be that she’s a poor victim of this bully? I mean, this
guy is obviously just trying to protect his assets. Maybe he gets a scent of what’s coming, and he wants to reassert the deal they had all along, that they would keep their assets separate. And she signs it. He doesn’t hold a whip on her, he asks her to do it and she does it. He puts it away in a drawer. Because he never intended to marry her, simple as that.”
Paul went on, his face reddening slightly. “Does she run to a lawyer to protest this forcible signing of a contract? No, she does not. Now, years later, she says she’s forgotten all about signing it but that if she did, he must have promised he’d marry her in return. It’s too convenient. If he said that, I’ll eat my shorts.”
“You have no idea what he said. The things that go on between two people are complicated,” Nina said. “How can you begin to know what the dynamics were that night?”
“Okay, let’s go even further back. From the start she knew damn good and well what she was getting in Mike Markov. A person who refused legal ties with her. A man who was very up-front about his feelings.”
Nina shook her head. “What she knew is not the issue. What she anticipated or hoped for isn’t either. The question is, what are her rights under the law? Did they have a contract? Did she agree to forfeit her rights to their business in return for a promise of marriage? These are fine legal points. She operated as his wife for many years, working with him, building up a company, sharing everything with him.”
“Except that for all those years they were together, the bottom line is that they never married. The man put his assets in his own name and she agreed to it.”
“That may be true, but…”
“Lady love, it is so true.”
Nina hadn’t even noticed how angry she was getting, but she knew it now. “I’d better make a note for Genevieve. You’re exactly the guy we don’t want on the jury. A man with two ex-wives and a gripe.”
“Hey, my sweet-faced petunia, my wives never took me to the cleaners.”
“If your prejudices and your professional attitude are clashing too much, let me know so I can hire less-troubled help. Oh, and please. Call me Nina. Even ’boss’ is beginning to sound good.”
“It’s obvious what’s happening here. She can’t have him anymore, so she wants plenty of the next best thing, hard cash,” said Paul with an obstinate look in his eye. “And so do you.”
Nina threw her files into a case and snapped it shut. “I’m damn tired. I’ve had a long day. I’m going home.”
“Hey, wait a minute. You’re not going to let a little disagreement ruin the evening? Come out and have a nightcap.” He tried to catch her by the arm, but she twisted away. “Look, I’m sorry. I had a long drive-”
“Paul,” she said, walking out the door, “quit attacking my motives. I’m an advocate for this woman in a legal case. She has every right to decent, thoughtful representation. She has every right to present her claim in court.”
“Decent and thoughtful, huh?” he said, stomping after her to the front door. He followed her all the way out to the parking lot. “If that’s the way you see yourself, why are you so touchy the instant I disagree with you? Huh? Tell me that. You’re usually so levelheaded.”
She climbed into the Bronco and turned on the headlights and wipers. Snow began to settle on his hair. “Okay, then I’ll tell you why,” he said. “There’s too much money here. It’s twisting you up. It’s coming between us. You’re being a hypocrite, and you’re letting all those dollar bills blow over your eyes and make you blind.”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” she said. As she drove away, she watched him in her rearview mirror, standing with his hands in his pockets, letting the snow pile onto his shoulders, still as a snowman.
Later, buried in the warm nest of her down comforter, her anger dissipated and her humor returned. Why, I’ll be damned, she thought. She and Paul were no different than the shadow jurors. Their emotional loyalty lay with their own sex, and that was that. She didn’t like the thought that followed, that Genevieve could easily have predicted their argument, right down to Paul’s descent into name-calling there at the end.
13
“Lots of lawyers have intuitive theories about jury selection,” Genevieve said. She had organized a meeting to discuss the shadow jury’s recommendations. It was late Saturday morning, and after changing the timetable to suit him, even Winston agreed to attend. They had so much to do before May that they had begun keeping long hours at the office. He let everyone know that one thing he would not do was neglect his exercise. Here he was in Tahoe and he intended to enjoy it, get out there and run in the morning even in the dead of winter, and when the weather nicened up, do some boating and swimming.
Beyond the picture window in the office across from Nina’s where Winston and Genevieve had moved in, the winter sun glared off wet new snow. Icicles twinkled on treetops, melting.
Winston smothered a yawn, and looked at his watch. “I don’t mean to be rude, but can we speed things up here? I’ve got a few things to do today.” He wore sweats, and his pet radio, a compact, enigmatic-looking black box the size of a thick wallet, lay on the table in front of him. His hair glistened, still dewy from the shower he had taken after his run.
“As I was saying. Clarence Darrow thought about culture and religions when he looked for friendly jurors. For example, he liked the Irish for the defense, and excused Scandinavians whenever he could. He thought they had altogether too much admiration for the law. The San Francisco attorney Mel Belli had a whole system worked out for himself. He divided people up by their occupations. For the defense, he’d pick a waiter over a salesperson, or a doctor over a secretary.”
“But not us,” Winston said. “We don’t do intuitive anymore.”
Genevieve went on as if he hadn’t spoken. Gone today was the country-fried humor and the ole girl persona. Though the Southern accent didn’t change, when she talked about her area of expertise, it toned down considerably. Genevieve even looked a little nervous. Today was her day to show she was worth the money Nina had been paying her. At two hundred an hour, her billings this month had been horrendous.
“Of course, everyone’s got funny ideas about race,” Genevieve went on. “Conventional wisdom has always held that African Americans will vote for the plaintiff if it’s a civil case, and vote for the defendant if it’s criminal. Asian Americans are said to be easily persuaded by the majority on a jury, and Hispanics tend to be passive.”
“Not everyone,” said Winston. “I know better.”
“Will you kindly let me finish?” asked Genevieve.
“C’mon, Winston, quit teasing. Give her a break,” Nina said. Winston folded his arms in front of him and leaned back in his chair.
“Males favor women, females favor handsome young men. Females tend not to look kindly upon other females,” Genevieve continued firmly. “Conventional wisdom.”
“Bosh,” said Winston. “Fairy tales. You know what Alexander Pope said about your precious jurors? ’Witches hang that jurymen may dine.’ Now that’s the truth. That’s the reality.”
“I agree,” said Genevieve.
“You agree?” asked Winston.
“We have to forget about conventional wisdom. People today are going to be influenced by culture, religion, TV, current events, and yes, even the state of their stomachs-our lives aren’t as narrow as they used to be. We’ll need to make our choices based on very pragmatic considerations. For example, here’s a simple recommendation for you from our panel, Nina. Lighten up.”
“You’re not the first to recommend it, but what exactly do you mean?” asked Nina.
“I’m talking about the color and style of your clothing. The big shoulders, the severe suits make you look authoritative, but they’d rather you persuaded them more softly. Go for something quite neutral with a hint of warmth. A taupey-peach. Pastels mixed with beiges. You need to emphasize the feminine in this trial. This is a case about a woman, don’t forget, and it’s classic in the sense that it’s a woman who’s get
ting shafted by a man.”
“Taupey-peach? You’ve got to be kidding,” Nina said.
“Other impressions were fairly uniform. They thought you seemed quite professional. They liked your manner, except that they find you too reserved.”
More smiling, Nina reminded herself, practicing.
Winston said, “What about me?”
“You know you’re good, Win. You started off well. They liked the simple statements of fact, and they liked it that you didn’t raise your voice or get emotional on them. But once you got past the essentials, I’m afraid you wandered too far afield and lost them.”
“Oh?”
“They didn’t want to hear in dollars and cents how much Lindy made, how much she should have made, how much they made when they started out, their current per annum income before taxes. What’s at stake is so ungodly huge, it doesn’t compute compared to ordinary experience. So we don’t talk about specific amounts. We just say, she ought to get half.”
“Don’t want them thinking about how much each one of the Markovs blows on car wax each month,” said Winston.
“That’s right,” said Genevieve, snapping open her briefcase. She handed out to each of them a report fastened inside transparent binding. “These are all my suggestions, based on telephone interviews, the demographics, the shadow jury comments, the focus groups, and so on.” At twenty-five pages long, it barely fit inside its binding. Winston picked it up and let his arm drop to his side heavily, pretending he couldn’t even hold it up.
“I’ve spoken with Lindy and told her to lose the beautiful clothes, let some of the gray show in her hair and not to be afraid to show her feelings on the stand,” Genevieve said. “This is no time for discretion.”
Breach Of Promise Page 17
