Every Reasonable Doubt

by Pamela Samuels Young

  Neddy returned to her chair, as if she needed to distance herself from Tina. She closed her eyes for just a second and an uncomfortable silence filled the room.

  “Well, Lawton Joseph Brown was never really good to me,” she said. “Don’t ask me how I fell in love with a man who humiliated me for most of the time I was with him.” Her hands gripped both arms of the chair and her voice fell to a sad monotone. “I’d be too embarrassed to even describe the way he treated me sometimes. Losing my son was the worst of all.”

  All look of concern glazed Tina’s face and I assumed she wanted to ask Neddy how her son died. So did I. But we didn’t. We both somehow knew that Neddy just needed to talk. So we listened.

  “Lawton is the classic womanizer,” Neddy continued, seemingly more for her own benefit than ours. “For him, lying is as easy as breathing. He feels no guilt saying exactly what he thinks you want to hear. I can still remember the precise moment that I knew I had to leave, no matter how much I thought I loved him. We’d had a really ugly fight. Tears were streaming down my face. I reminded him that we supposedly loved each other. You know what he said to me?” She looked as if she were still shocked by his words. “I’ll never forget his words as long as I’m black. He said, and this is a quote: ‘I know I said I love you, but those are just words and words don’t mean nothing to me.’”

  The pain on Neddy’s face was real enough to touch. My heart went out to both her and Tina.

  “The difference between your husband and mine,” Neddy went on, “is that Lawton doesn’t mind lying and hurting people. Every woman he was with thought she was the one and only. They had no idea he was married. He can’t blame who he is on his mother. He had two wonderful parents.”

  Tina looked away.

  All this emotion was dragging me down. I felt lucky as hell. All my husband wanted was a son. I needed to run home to Jefferson and tell him how much I appreciated him.

  Kinga popped in to refill Tina’s empty wine goblet. I wondered how she knew exactly when to show up. Was she listening in? Her arrival allowed our conversation to finally turn to the case. Neddy reviewed the various pretrial stages and then discussed our preliminary defense strategy. She told Tina that we’d have a better idea of our precise strategy once we saw the prosecution’s witness list and evidence. Neddy was hoping to arrange a voluntary surrender if Tina was charged. She reminded Tina for the second time that it was important not to withhold any information from us, good or bad. Doing that, she said, could cause us to be blindsided in court. Neddy then called Kinga back into the room and instructed both of them to call us immediately if the police or anyone else contacted them about the case.

  Tina showed us to the door and we walked somberly down the walkway together. The minute we got outside the gate, Neddy headed off in the direction of her car without even saying good-bye to me.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” I said, taking giant steps to catch up with her. “Are you really serious about asking for a leave of absence?”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I will.” She seemed anxious to leave.

  “Well, there’s no way I’m going to handle this case with David.”

  “That’s not my problem,” she said coldly.

  I couldn’t believe her attitude. The old Neddy was definitely back. I tried to remember that she was probably just stressed out from everything her husband was putting her through. “Well, it would’ve been nice if you’d discussed your plans with me before raising it with the client.”

  “I don’t report to you,” she snapped.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t care what she was going through. It didn’t give her the right to be rude to me. “I have no idea why you find it so easy to be such a bitch,” I said, my hands on my hips. “There’s no reason our relationship has to be like this. I know you’re going through a difficult time right now, but I—”

  “I don’t need your sympathy.”

  “And I don’t plan on giving it to you,” I spat, “because you don’t deserve it. You make your own situation worse by being so damn hateful.”

  She glared at me for a long time, then totally shocked me by crumbling into tears right before my eyes. She let her briefcase and purse fall to the ground and dumped her head into her hands. Her sobs were so loud I had to look around to make sure we weren’t drawing any attention. We were standing on a public sidewalk and Neddy was bawling like a five-year-old. I had no idea what to do.

  Damn! Part of me wanted to reach over and hug her, but I didn’t know if the snake in her would rear up and bite me. So I just stood there hoping she wasn’t having a nervous breakdown.

  “I’m sorry,” she said finally, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “You’re right. I’ve been a total bitch. It’s just that I—that everything is so crazy right now. I just—”

  She started sobbing again.

  I watched her for a few more seconds, then took a step closer. When she didn’t move away, I took another step.

  “You don’t have to apologize,” I said finally. I reached over and pulled her into my arms. And to my surprise, she let me.

  CHAPTER 18

  Thirty minutes later, Neddy and I were sitting outside the Starbucks on San Vicente Boulevard near the UCLA campus, sipping iced lattes and watching the traffic whiz by. We didn’t talk much. Just enjoyed the warm, early evening air, lost in our own individual thoughts.

  After a long while, I blurted out words that surprised even me. “I have to get pregnant.”

  “You have to get pregnant? Says who?”

  “Says my husband.”

  “Whoooaaa. I have to warn you,” Neddy said, turning to face me, “it’s kinda hard for me to talk about the male species in an objective light these days. But I’ll say this, it must be nice to have a man who actually wants to be a father. Lawton wanted me to have an abortion.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that statement, so my lips remained sealed.

  Neddy shifted in her chair and stared straight ahead. “Colin would’ve been four years old today.” Her voice was just a whisper, as if she was speaking only to herself.

  That explained her outburst outside Tina’s house earlier. My heart went out to her. I couldn’t imagine what it was like to lose a child.

  “Thanks,” she said after a few minutes.

  “For what?”

  “For not saying something useless, like ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ I can only imagine the rumors that circulated through the firm. For the first six months after Colin died, they watched me like I was a pressure cooker ready to blow any second, and I guess I was. I know I’ve been really awful to deal with lately, but I just can’t seem to get it together.”

  “What happened to your son?” I finally asked.

  She paused and then continued as if she were reading directly from a police report. “Lawton left the front door open and Colin marched right out of it into the path of a 2002 Ford Explorer driving 45 in a 25-mile-an-hour zone. California license plate number XZ57145. My worthless excuse for a husband, who happened to be between jobs at the time, was busy smoking a joint and talking to his bookie on the phone.” She fidgeted with her empty Starbucks cup. “I have no idea why I can still remember that license plate number.”

  Tears began to well up in her eyes and she turned away. “Why don’t you want kids?” she asked.

  “I do, but the timing’s a little off.”

  “Your husband’s not willing to wait?”

  I began cracking my knuckles, a nervous habit of mine I was trying to break. “I think he’s just concerned about how long he’ll have to wait.”

  “And how long will he?”

  “Okay, now you sound just like Jefferson,” I chuckled. “Frankly, I’d like to make partner first.”

  “Motherhood is an incredible gift,” she said. “Don’t take it for granted. I can’t imagine a deeper love.” For just a moment, she had a blissful look in her eyes. “When Colin was born, he was so tiny and helpless, I was scared
to death I was going to do something wrong and maim him for life. When I looked at him, I would have these incredibly intense feelings. I found it so amazing that we had actually produced another human being. Anybody who says miracles don’t happen never witnessed the birth of a child. I thank God for the few years I had him.”

  “You’re not angry with God for taking him from you?”

  “Nope. Never was. I guess that’s what faith is all about.”

  The traffic on the street in front of us was finally beginning to thin out. We refocused on the cars zooming by.

  “Just make sure your husband is who he says he is,” Neddy advised gently.

  I grabbed a chair from another table and propped up my feet. “You can never be sure of that,” I said.

  She nodded. “That’s certainly no lie. I’m a good lawyer. I’m smart, I’m perceptive and I’ve made my living for quite awhile defending murderers and rapists. Not everybody has the chutzpa to do that type of work,” she said. “But I definitely fell for the okey-doke when it came to Lawton. He showed up at a time when my life was all work and no play. And frankly, there hadn’t been that many guys before him. He promised to love me for life and I never stopped to look at who he was. Everything about him flashed warning signals.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “First, he couldn’t keep a job for more than a couple of months. Then, he insisted on getting married right away. I met him at a hotel in Atlanta, where I was attending a conference. It should’ve rung a bell when he proposed after only five months of long-distance dating and agreed to pick up and move to L.A. Supposedly because he couldn’t stand being away from me. While he was looking for work out here, he ran through money, my money, like it was water.”

  She lowered her head for a moment. “But I’d never had a man who made me feel like he could stop the earth from turning for me. When we were dating, he pampered me to death. Trips, gifts, foot massages, you name it. But then we got married and I needed a husband, not a little boy. But he couldn’t be somebody he wasn’t. And, of course, I wasn’t the only woman in his life. Never was.”

  “Sometimes it’s hard to see the bad side of a person when all he’s showing you is the good,” I said.

  “I saw the signs,” Neddy said, not content to put it all on Lawton. “But I ignored them. After the third time an angry woman approached our dinner table or called our house at two in the morning when I was visiting him in Atlanta, I shouldn’t have accepted his excuse about her being an unstable ex-girlfriend. I think I knew, but I told myself I was special. He’d never been married before and he chose to marry me, not one of them. Of course, in retrospect, my financial status obviously played a big role in that decision. Lawton definitely could’ve given Mr. Max Montgomery a run for his money. Except he didn’t have the cash to bed-hop around the world.” She laughed.

  “You’ll fall in love again,” I said.

  “Not if I can help it.” She tossed her cup into a nearby trashcan. “Sorry about tonight. You’re right, I should’ve talked to you before telling Tina about my plans to take a leave of absence. I was also out of line by not trying harder to reach you that night Tina was called in for questioning.”

  “No problem,” I said.

  “No problem? Girl, you were ready to kick my ass.”

  I nodded playfully. “Yeah, I thought I was going to have to eventually. You know I’m from Compton, right? Don’t let this suit fool you.”

  She grinned. “Girl, I’d whip you like Laila Ali.”

  “I don’t think so. I got youth on my side.”

  “Aw, now that was cold!”

  I laughed and enjoyed hearing her do the same. Finally, I was seeing the real Neddy, the one O’Reilly had described, and I liked what I saw.

  “Don’t leave the case,” I said, changing our light mood. “I don’t want to work with David again.”

  “Wow, you despise the guy so much you’d rather work with me?”

  “Any day,” I said. “You’ve got your mood swings and all, but I hear you’re an incredible trial attorney. I could probably learn a lot from you.

  “Hey, buttering me up might actually work.”

  Our attention drifted back to the dissipating traffic on San Vicente Boulevard. After a few minutes Neddy stood up. “You want a refill?”

  “No, thanks.”

  She returned a few minutes later with another iced latte and quietly sipped it.

  “How long did it take you to get to the point where you could defend somebody you knew might be guilty and feel okay about it?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Not that long, really. It’s kind of an ego trip to see if you can get them off. For every guilty person I help go free, there’re a dozen innocent brothers rotting in some prison cell. So it all balances out in my mind.”

  “I have a good friend who’s a public defender. That’s his rationale, too,” I said.

  Neddy sat her drink on the table and stretched her arms over her head. “Don’t give me that,” she said, yawning. “You’ve defended people accused of discrimination.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Not really.”

  “My clients never killed anybody,” I insisted.

  “Yeah, but I’m sure you’ve thought some of them were actually guilty of discrimination,” Neddy said. “Are you telling me you never forced a mediocre settlement down the throat of some poor black man when you knew if the case went to trial and all the facts came out, a jury would award him ten times what the case settled for?”

  I couldn’t exactly say that I hadn’t.

  “So in my mind, what you do is not much different from what I do when I defend a murder suspect,” she continued. “We both protect the bad guys. In your cases, the victim’s alive, but his life’s been destroyed by your client’s actions just the same.”

  I had never looked at it quite that way. “I guess you may have a point,” I said.

  Neddy began tracing the rim of her cup with her finger. “To be honest, I’ve had some issues with some of the people I’ve defended over the years, but I don’t have any issues with Tina Montgomery. In fact, I think I empathize with her. You do everything you can to love a man and he refuses to love you back. It would drive anybody to murder.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said, sitting up. “Not anybody. I don’t think I could kill.”

  “Then you’re fooling yourself. Everybody has the potential.”

  “If my life was in danger or if I was trying to protect somebody I loved, yeah, I probably could,” I said. “But I’m just not the kind of person who flies off into a rage. If I went home tonight and found Jefferson in bed with another woman, I’d be devastated but I wouldn’t run to the kitchen, grab a butcher knife, and start stabbing him to death.”

  “Well, maybe you’re different, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have dreams about seeing Lawton laid out on the floor with a chalk line around his body.”

  “Nobody deserves to die the way Max Montgomery died,” I replied.

  “Lawton does,” she said quietly.

  I looked at her in disbelief. “You don’t really mean that.”

  “Like hell I don’t. Every time I think about the fact that I’m going to have to pay that asshole alimony, that’s exactly how I feel.”

  “Well, we asked for equal rights didn’t we?”

  Neddy twisted her lips. “I don’t know what’s so damn equal about it. Lawson didn’t work for almost the last six months before I moved out because he was too busy getting high. Just tell me how in the hell he’s entitled to nearly a fourth of my monthly income for the next four years and half the value of the house I bought. He never paid a dime of the mortgage?”

  “Hey, you happen to live in a no-fault divorce state. It’s the law.”

  “Law, my ass. I should’ve gotten a prenup. Then he wouldn’t be getting jack.”

  I laughed. Neddy was beginning to remind me of Special.

  She shook her head. “If I had asked for a p
renup, he probably would’ve tried to talk me out of it. And I was so in love with him I would’ve let him. But there’s no way I could’ve endured what Tina Montgomery did.”

  “Well, I just hope the police don’t end up charging her,” I said. “There’s a good chance my marriage might not survive it.”

  “If Tina is charged, you can handle the arraignment,” Neddy offered.

  “So you’re not leaving the case?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, her face a ball of confusion. “One minute I want to stay, the next, I want to leave. Unlike a lot of lawyers, I really love this stuff. It could be a pretty challenging trial. It’s probably just what I need to keep my mind off the divorce.”

  “I know my motives might be a bit suspect,” I said smiling, “but I agree wholeheartedly. A nice juicy, attention-grabbing trial is exactly what an experienced trial attorney like you needs to get your engines all revved up again. And thanks, but no thanks, regarding the arraignment. I’ve never done one before. I’d like to watch you work for a while.”

  “It’s easy,” she said encouragingly. “It probably won’t even last five minutes.”

  “I’d still prefer to defer to you,” I said. “Anyway, Tina likes you better.”

  Neddy made a face. “No she doesn’t.”

  “Yes, she does,” I insisted. “I was dying before you got there tonight, trying to think up something to say to the woman. She definitely has a better rapport with you.”

  “If that’s true,” Neddy said dryly, “it’s only because we share something in common—the pain of betrayal.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Within a couple of days, Neddy was dropping by my office and chatting me up like a long-lost sorority sister. We’d even had lunch together and were planning to do it again. O’Reilly was right. She was actually a pretty cool person. I just prayed that this new kinder, gentler Neddy would stick around for a while.