A Good Mother

by Lara Bazelon

  “Estrada to Luz to Travis out of the mouth of Ravel? That’s double—no, that’s triple hearsay. Dars won’t let it in.”

  “I disagree. Estrada is unavailable because he’s made himself unavailable.”

  “Even so, we are talking about an attorney-client communication.”

  “Which is not protected if Luz shared it with Travis.”

  “Who is not available to testify.”

  “Because Luz made him unavailable by killing him,” Abby points out. “Shauna will argue that what Travis told Ravel comes into evidence under the exception of forfeiture by wrongdoing. And as a last resort, she can say she isn’t offering any of it for the truth, only to show Travis’s state of mind.”

  Will says, tightly, “Travis’s state of mind isn’t what’s relevant here. He’s not on trial.”

  “We’ve made it relevant by raising self-defense. Was Travis Hollis a violent person who dominated and abused his wife or was he a troubled, patriotic soldier with a drinking problem who was manipulated by his conniving wife?” Will starts to say something and Abby holds up her hand. “I know, it’s a stretch to say that Ravel should be allowed to talk about what was going through Travis’s mind weeks before the killing. But I know Dars. It’s coming in.” She brushes back a lock of hair that has fallen across her cheek.

  “You know Dars,” he repeats flatly.

  She turns. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Will takes another pull from the bottle. “One thought that’s been running through my mind since last week’s debacle is how Luz is supposed to get a fair trial, with you, as you say, knowing this judge like you do.”

  “I’m relieved to hear there is a thought running through your mind,” Abby says sweetly. “For days now you’ve been like a dead man walking. One thought that’s been running through my mind is how Luz is going to get a fair trial with you sitting there like a zombie.”

  Will rises in his chair as he considers dumping the rest of his beer down the sink and following Nic out the door. Maybe Will can locate Nic at the Short Stop and commiserate with him. They’d certainly have plenty to talk about.

  Abby waves him down. “We can’t afford to fight. This is about Luz, not us, so let’s just focus, use the time we have.” She is back to rocking Cal, her eyes half-shut in concentration. “Ravel’s testimony is going to be damaging, the only question is how damaging. We need to be prepared. And we need to be on the same page.”

  That she’s right only adds to Will’s frustration. He has to put aside the way he feels, they both do. He reseats himself, then says in what he hopes is a conciliatory tone, “With the right questions, we may be able to show that Ravel had his own feelings for Luz. According to her, he did.”

  “What man can resist her?” Abby’s tone is light, but Will doesn’t like the way she’s looking at him. He changes the subject.

  “Have we heard back from Antoine’s expert about Travis’s emails?”

  “No,” she says. “Some kind of software issue, something about the hard drive, I don’t know. We had to request another copy of it. Antoine thinks we may not get it until in the middle of the trial.”

  “At which point we’re supposed to do what with it? We already have admissibility issues and Shauna will say we’re sandbagging her.”

  “It’s not sandbagging if it’s newly discovered evidence,” Abby says. “Let’s just deal with it when we get the report.” Her voice has risen, and now there is a stirring from the pouch. Will sees the shape of an elbow jutting against the fabric. Abby resumes her back-and-forth rocking and Will resumes drinking, getting up to set the empty bottle down by the sink. “There’s more in the fridge,” Abby says, in what Will guesses is her best attempt at a mollifying tone. He nods, not needing to be told twice.

  “So,” she says, when Will is once again seated at the table, beer in hand. “I was thinking Tuesday for Luz’s mock cross-examination. In the conference room like you’ve been practicing so she’s in a familiar space. You’ll go through the direct, then I’ll cross her. Jonathan has agreed to play Shauna’s part in raising objections, Paul can be Dars, and I’ve invited a few other people from the office to observe and give us their feedback. I think it’s just as important to have other people weigh in on your direct as it is to have her practice getting cross-examined.”

  The panic Will feels is scorched with rage. “You did this without asking me?” He fights to keep his voice in check, his expression in check, but his throat feels constricted and he’s starting to sweat.

  Abby stares at him. “Without asking you? I thought you’d be happy that I dealt with the logistics of setting it up.”

  “No,” he says, and it is an effort to unlock his jaw. “I’m not happy.”

  “Clearly.” Another long stare and Will looks away.

  “This is what our office does,” Abby says. “We put our witnesses through the meat grinder. Especially the clients who testify. Maybe it was different in JAG, I don’t know, but this is our procedure. We know we did our job when our clients say that dealing with us was worse than facing the actual prosecutor.” Abby’s voice has gone up again, and there is another shifting in the pouch, accompanied by an ominous mewl.

  “What happens with Luz is my responsibility,” he says tightly. “You do not interfere.”

  “This isn’t interference. Like I said, it’s our office’s procedure.”

  “It’s not our procedure,” he says. “Hers and mine.”

  Abby’s look is one of amazement, and Will can see that she is starting to feel a panic of her own. “You—you want to put her up there, a nineteen-year-old girl, without letting anyone have a crack at cross-examining her? Without letting anyone—not even me—watch the direct examination before you actually do it in court?”

  The mewling from the pouch has become louder, more sustained, and Abby is back to rocking, furiously now. Will stares out of the kitchen window to his right, drinking steadily. Eventually, Cal stops making noise and there is silence, deep and prolonged; Will can hear the clock on the far wall ticking.

  “We made a deal,” he says, “that day in the car. I expect you to stand by your end of the bargain.”

  “No,” she says fiercely, “we agreed that when it comes to her testimony you would have the primary relationship with her, not own her. We’re a team, Will.”

  “You are a piece of work, you know that?” Will tries to laugh—both at the truth of this statement and the homely expression, which might as well have come from a ventriloquist dummy on his father’s lap—but the sound strangles in his closing throat and he has to stop to drink some more beer. “You don’t even know what the word team means.” He leans across the table and zips his index finger across her face as he raises his voice to imitate her. “That’s my problem to figure out. Just file something, I’ll deal with it afterward in my own fucked-up secretive way.” He fixes her with a hard stare, then settles back in his seat. “You have never wanted me, you have never trusted me, and you have never told me the truth. Not from the beginning and not now. Well, guess what, darlin’? It works both ways.” His throat is bone-dry, and he lifts the bottle to his lips again, drinking deeply.

  There is silence then, the ticking of the clock so loud Will feels its emanating like a metronome placed next to his eardrum. All the while, Abby continues to rock Cal, who had started up the mewling noises when Will had raised his voice, but has quieted. Finally, she says, almost casually, “Meredith called me last night, looking for you.”

  “What?” Beads of sweat are sliding down his back now and his throat closes up again.

  “You were more than an hour late coming home. She called to see if I knew where you were.”

  Will trains his eyes on the windowpanes. There are six of them, three on top, three on the bottom, the edges bordered by a coppery-looking metal. The beer that had pooled in his stomach is roiling, and h
e is afraid he will be sick.

  “What did you tell her?”

  “That Luz had been late to your meeting. That you were on your way home and she had nothing to worry about.”

  He feels his body go limp with relief and straightens up, careful to keep his eyes on the window. “That’s the right answer.”

  “Is it?”

  There is a scraping sound; startled, Will turns to look at Abby, who is attempting, gingerly, to set herself and the bundle down in the chair across from him. The pouch opens slightly and he can see inside: a halo of corn-silk hair, violet eyelids opening and closing on two startlingly blue eyes. The baby regards him seriously with his father’s probing expression.

  “Do I have anything to worry about, Will?”

  Will finishes off his beer and stands so that he is towering over her; it feels important right now, that he be the one in the higher position to drive home his point. “You want to worry about something, Abby? Why don’t you focus on your own relationship. People in glass houses.”

  “This isn’t about me and you know it,” she says, and the quiet in her voice unnerves him, though he does his best to pretend it does not.

  “No?”

  “Listen to me, Will. If we do this right, we can win. We can walk Luz right out of that courtroom.”

  Will blinks, the realization setting in. That’s what she wants more than anything. A walk, which in federal court, is nearly impossible. Some lawyers go their entire careers without a single acquittal. Abby has had her big win, but it has only made her hungrier. He looks at her glassy eyes and realizes he’s looking at an addict. How has it taken him so long to see it—and to understand that it’s the surest way to get what he wants: to have Luz to himself.

  He takes care to keep his voice neutral. “You do your part, I’ll do mine.” He sets his beer down. “I’ll deliver, okay? She and I will deliver. But we need more time. She’s fragile. Raking her over the coals is going to ruin all the hard work we’ve done up to this point.”

  As he says the words, Will can almost believe they are true. In fact, Will is the fragile one, the tiny cracks spreading wider and deeper every day. It is Will who wouldn’t survive five minutes of coal raking.

  Cal has started crying. Abby stands up, tries rocking him again, but the mewls are screams now, and she soon gives up and begins unfastening an endless series of straps. Will crosses to the kitchen sink and sets the second empty bottle beside the first. Abby has Cal under one arm now, still tangled up in the harness.

  “I’m leaving,” he says in the second of quiet that comes with one of Cal’s freighted inhales.

  “No,” Abby says. As she struggles to unwind herself, Cal lets out a series of staccato wails, the sound stabbing Will someplace deep behind his eyes. “Wait,” she yells, “let me just feed him and we can finish talking.”

  “We are finished talking,” Will says as the baby pauses to suck in another breath. When he shuts the door behind him, Cal is screaming again.

  Tuesday, March 20, 2007

  9:30 a.m.

  United States District Court

  for the Central District of California

  In full dress uniform, Captain James Aronson walks to the witness stand with his shoulders straight back, standing at attention as the clerk administers the oath. He looks younger than his fifty-one years, his skin unlined except around the eyes and mouth, his small toothbrush mustache and close-cropped hair with just a few glints of silver.

  Abby listens as Shauna spends the first ten minutes establishing Aronson’s not-insignificant biography and credentials. He enlisted in the air force in 1989, was honorably discharged in 1994, graduated college, and was a happily married civilian father of three managing a Walmart store in St. Louis when 9/11 happened. He joined up again immediately afterward, this time as an officer. After taking a series of exams and obtaining a series of promotions, he was deployed to Germany in 2003. Two tours in Iraq and one Purple Heart later, he became the first African American soldier to be named security forces flight commander at Ramstein Air Base, in charge of hundreds of military personnel and their families.

  “As Sergeant Hollis’s supervising officer, have you had the opportunity to review his personnel file?” Shauna asks.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Based on your review of that file, can you tell the jury about Sergeant Hollis’s military career?”

  “Before Sergeant Hollis’s deployment to Germany in 2005, he served on an air force base, Fort Irwin, in Barstow, California, as a member of the tactical security fire team. I brought the file with me. May I—”

  Shauna smiles, gives an encouraging nod. Aronson takes out a manila folder and removes several stapled sheets of paper.

  “The job was to find and neutralize security breaches along the perimeter of the base and to provide—let’s see here—brief postings to leadership and distinguished visitors.” Aronson looks up, sees that Shauna is waiting, and continues, “After serving in that position for approximately nine months, he was recommended for promotion to MP.”

  “MP, meaning military police?”

  “Correct.”

  “Can you tell the jury the basis for that promotion?”

  “‘Sergeant Hollis has demonstrated razor-sharp tactical skill as an assault force member during annual unit force-on-force exercise.’” Aronson is reading directly from someone else’s report, double hearsay from a document not in evidence. But Abby isn’t saying anything. Popping up with technical objections will annoy the jury and serve no useful purpose; Aronson will just use his own words to repeat what he’s already said. None of which is good for them. “‘He is committed to career advancement and expeditiously completed security forces career development courses. An articulate, gregarious young airman whose devotion to duty makes him an asset to the air force—promote now.’”

  Shauna nods, looking pleased. She asks, “Did you know Staff Sergeant Travis Hollis personally?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ve supervised him going on two years.”

  “In that two-year period, did you come to know him well enough to form an opinion about his character?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What was that opinion?”

  “He was strong, tough, never complained. Followed orders. Did a twelve-month tour in Iraq in 2003, where he served with distinction. Big and burly, but a gentle giant.”

  Abby writes down the last two words as Shauna shifts gears. “I want to turn your attention to the night of—well, the early morning hours of October 14, 2006. Do you recall receiving a phone call from a woman who identified herself as Mrs. Rivera Hollis, the defendant?”

  Aronson inclines his head slightly. “Yes.”

  “You received the call at 02:46 hours, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “Why was the defendant calling you?”

  “She said that her husband, Staff Sergeant Hollis, was drunk and being loud and waking up their baby. She said something to the effect of ‘he can’t stay here,’ and she was asking that I remove him from the house.”

  “Did she sound upset?”

  “No. She was talking in a normal tone of voice, not yelling. She sounded maybe a little tense.”

  “Angry?”

  “Maybe a little, yes.”

  Shauna turns to face the jury. “Did she say she was afraid? That her husband was threatening her or that she was in danger?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Did she say the baby was in danger?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Abby’s eyes are on the jurors. They are fixed on Aronson, who answers the questions in an even tone while looking slightly uneasy. A decent man balking at airing someone else’s dirty laundry. Far better if he was puffed up with self-importance, enjoying himself at Luz’s expense.

  Satisfied, Shauna walk
s back to the podium. “After the defendant told you that the victim—”

  Abby objects and Dars overrules her. “When it’s your turn, you can use a different word.”

  “After the defendant told you that the victim was being too loud to stay in the house, what did you say?”

  “I said, ‘Well, what is he doing exactly?’ Because I was trying to find out, you know, what the situation was.”

  “What did the defendant say?”

  “She didn’t say anything. There was silence, and then some kind of thumping and I could hear kind of a muffled sound, like maybe she had put her hand over the receiver. And I—I didn’t know what to think at that point. I was—well, I was getting concerned, and I said, ‘Put Hollis on the line. Put him on the line now.’”

  “Did Sergeant Hollis get on the line?”

  “Not to speak to me directly. I heard a sound, though, like heavy breathing.”

  “What did it sound like?”

  Aronson leans forward, puckering his lips and blowing slowly into the microphone. Shauna makes a continuing motion and Aronson does it a second time, then a third before resuming his default upright position.

  “Then what?”

  “I said, ‘Hollis? Hollis? This is Captain Aronson. What is going on there?’”

  “Did the victim respond?” Shauna asks.

  “Not to me directly, but yes, he spoke.” Aronson hesitates. “He used a profanity.”

  Dars leans in, caterpillar eyebrows drawn together, an unmistakable gleam in his eye. “What profanity did he use, exactly?”

  Now Aronson looks distinctly uncomfortable. “Your Honor, I’m not sure it is appropriate—”

  Dars shakes his head firmly. “This is a murder trial, not ladies’ social tea, Captain Aronson. Answer my question.”

  “He said—” Aronson looks once more at Dars, then apologetically back at Shauna “—‘you stupid cunt.’”

  The gym teacher puts a hand to her mouth and one of the stay-at-home mom’s eyes go wide.

  Shauna does an excellent job of looking unfazed. “Did the phone call continue?”