Trial by Fury

by KG MacGregor

  “Frazier looks pissed,” Hank observed. “He ain’t even trying to smile for the cameras anymore.”

  After more than a hour into the coverage, Cliff Reynolds, the sportscaster who’d challenged Theo regarding the athletes’ version of events, opined from the sportscasters’ booth, “I can promise you, Ed, these teams will rue the day they snubbed Frazier and Caldwell. Both of these players have the talent to turn a franchise around.”

  “What a dick!” Gloria spat. “Talk about tone deaf.”

  Ed Wainwright, the second commentator, wasn’t quite so bombastic in his support. “They’re talents, all right. But clearly, teams have done a lot of research on these guys. Let’s go to Derek Osgood for a perspective on what some of these GMs are thinking.”

  The screen split to a remote reporter, a crisp-looking preppie type standing on the sidewalk in front of the Garden. “Thanks, Ed. I’ve talked to about ten sources in the league today and they’re all saying the same thing. Frazier and Caldwell are toxic.”

  “Woo!” Theo yelled, adding a fist pump.

  “I just don’t get that,” Reynolds whined. “What’s their deal exactly? I know there’s talk out there about the DA filing charges, but I have to think if these players were going to be arrested, it would have happened already. The evidence just isn’t there. It’s all going to come down to who you believe—there’s not a single witness who can claim they saw what went down.”

  Philip huffed. “That’s right. It’s just a video, dickhead.”

  “And even if charges are filed,” Reynolds went on, working himself into a lather, “there’s no certainty they’ll be convicted. Are you telling me there aren’t two GMs out there willing to take a chance on guys this skilled with a basketball? This whole fiasco could go away tomorrow and nobody’s going to have the right to sign them.”

  “Douche bucket!” Gloria screamed.

  “What part of toxic don’t you understand, Cliff?” Osgood retorted with a chuckle. “Convicted or not, no one I’ve talked to wants to take a chance on angering their fan base, particularly their female fan base. GMs are telling me their wives have watched that video too, and they aren’t happy with what they saw. It doesn’t matter how skilled Frazier and Caldwell are, convincing families to come out and get behind a player who participated in an incident like that…let’s just say that’s a hard sell for the ticket office.”

  Ed interrupted. “Let me jump in here. I’ve just been alerted that Matt Frazier has left the Garden with his family. We don’t know if he got a call from his agent…or maybe someone in the league. Whatever the reason, we’re down to the eighteenth pick of the night, and he’s apparently decided to sit the rest of this one out.”

  Jalinda suddenly blurted, “That’s right, jerk wad. Go home and watch with Caldwell. You’re both nobodies again.”

  * * *

  It couldn’t have been a better night as far as Theo was concerned. Good food, good friends, good times. And a pair of assholes getting their due.

  Best of all, Celia seemed to have hit it off with everyone. She’d laughed heartily at Hank’s absurd story of busting into what he suspected was a drug deal, only to find a white collar junior executive learning dance moves from a couple of gang bangers. And she’d listened intently as Philip and Sofia described their birthing plans in intimate detail. But her best connection was clearly with Gloria. They shared a scholarly curiosity about the world and the joy of their role in shaping it.

  True, Celia was an experienced actress who could put on whichever face she wanted. If this was an act, it was Oscar-worthy.

  Theo waited for a lull in the conversation. “Celia, I think you should tell everyone about your first job.”

  “I can’t believe you brought that up!” she squealed.

  She watched their faces as Celia revealed her Hollywood career. The only hint of recognition came from Philip, who vaguely remembered his younger sisters watching the show. All the others were too old or too young to know of Little CeCe.

  “I think we’re all actors to some degree,” Gloria said. “We want to make people believe everything we say is absolutely real. Teachers perform every time they step in front of a lecture hall. And Theo…you should see her in front of a jury. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those people come out of the courtroom feeling as bad as the victims.”

  Celia nodded along with every word. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? I’ve seen her on TV. You’d think after thousands of years of developing ways to communicate, our bullshit detectors would be more attuned. We’d recognize the cues and know when someone was trying to manipulate us.”

  Theo planted her hands on her hips. “Excuse me, did you just accuse me of being a bullshitter?”

  “Not you,” Gloria explained. “Or not just you. Everybody. Only the extremely naive trust everything they hear. The rest of us wonder if what we’re hearing is a brazen lie, or if it’s only selectively true because we don’t have the whole picture.”

  Hank laughed. “That’s practically my job description. Except I don’t wonder about shit. I know most people I talk to are lying about something.”

  “But it’s all in the performance,” Celia added. “Some people are really, really good actors. Everything that comes out of their mouth feels real.”

  Mark, who’d been relatively quiet all evening—though he and Jalinda had kept up a private conversation on their shared love seat—spoke up. “It’s what makes people interesting. Having to figure them out, I mean.”

  “He’s right,” Jalinda chimed in, a pleasant surprise for Theo. It was nice to see her enjoying the young man’s company, and Hank probably felt the same way about his son, whom he’d secretly labeled a world-class nerd. “If everyone always spoke the truth, conversation would be boring. Or worse, there’d be fights breaking out all the time.”

  “Right. What do you mean you don’t like my new haircut?” Theo said.

  Gloria gave her a stern look. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. And that brown suit you wore on TV the other day…tsk.”

  As everyone laughed at Theo’s expense, the phone rang.

  * * *

  After noting the caller, Theo had gone into her office and closed the door, leaving Celia in a roomful of people she hardly knew. For a fleeting moment, she was uncomfortable.

  “Whoever that is, it looks important,” Gloria said. “Let’s hope she hasn’t violated the gag order. I hate it when Theo gets tossed in the slammer for contempt.”

  Celia laughed. “Seriously, has that ever happened?”

  “Let’s see,” Philip started. “There was the Anderson case, where she refused to produce her client because the woman was in hiding with her daughter.”

  Jalinda spoke up, “And that hostile work environment case against the paint store. The judge told her she couldn’t refer to the defendant as a sexist, so she called him a misogynist, then a chauvinist. He locked her up when she got to woman-hating pig.”

  “Come on, the guy actually had a tattoo of a woman wearing a dog collar.”

  “But the judge wouldn’t make him show it because it amounted to testifying against himself.”

  Gloria shook her head, chuckling. “The best one, though…I wish you all could have been there.” Her voice turned serious. “It was right after Theo won the SCOTUS case, so she was feeling invincible, really full of herself. The case was one of the most outrageous injustices I’d ever seen—and I’ve seen a lot. A woman who became pregnant by a rapist couldn’t give up her child for adoption without the father’s permission, and he wouldn’t give it unless she promised not to testify against him.”

  Celia was horrified. “Please tell me she won that case.”

  “Only on appeal. The district court ruled against her. That’s when she went off, telling the judge he had two conflicting statutes—parental rights of a monster versus a woman’s right to due process against her rapist. He’s banging his gavel and she’s yelling at him that the root word of judge is just, not
unjust.”

  “It’s what I like about her,” Hank said. “She don’t take no shit.”

  Theo returned and placed her hands on her hips, as if bracing for her big announcement. “Time to get back to work. That was Penny. She just got an email alert from the courthouse that Harwood filed its answer—a motion to dismiss. We get our copy first thing in the morning.”

  “Any idea what it says?” Celia asked.

  “I could guess. First, they’re going to say Donald Lipscomb doesn’t have standing to sue because he’s not Hayley’s next of kin. Then they’ll say, even if he is next of kin, he’s suffered no monetary damages that warrant remedy. If we get past that, they’ll argue Hayley’s suicide wasn’t foreseeable. And if it was, because they knew her personal circumstances made her susceptible to mental health issues, a legal remedy would have a chilling effect on Harwood’s future acceptance of applicants who come from less than ideal backgrounds.”

  Philip cut in, “Then they’ll pick apart the defendant list, arguing why this person or that person shouldn’t be held responsible. My guess is the deepest pockets want out—that means the board of trustees and the university administrators. If the case goes to trial, they’ll want to whittle it down to just the players.”

  Theo turned to Jalinda. “I want you to pull Sabrina off the wage theft case to help us, but make sure you run that by Kendra. Have her check every citation, read them all for context. Somers likes to cite the dissent if it helps make his case, so make sure he’s not trying to pull one over on the judge. And Gloria, I want you and Jalinda to look for any material disputes.” To Philip, she added, “You know your job—sharpen the argument on damages. Everything you can find on profit from tort and disgorgement.”

  As she rattled off orders, Celia remembered her impressions from the first few times they met. Knowing her intimate side had done nothing to diminish the feeling she was watching the real Theo—professional, calculating, competent. Determined to win justice for her client, to make yet one more dent in the hegemony that said women were worth less than men.

  She found it sexy as hell. Standing with her arm around Theo’s waist as the last of their guests walked out the door, she said, “Do you have any idea how awesome I think you are?”

  “Don’t say that yet. The biggest hurdle’s the first one,” Theo said, sliding toward the mess left behind in the kitchen.

  “You don’t really think the judge will dismiss the case?”

  “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. Suicide’s complicated. It could go either way.” Hovering above the dishwasher, she stopped midmotion. “It would kill me if we lost. I know this is going to sound selfish…I’ve staked a lot of my professional reputation on this case. All those interviews. If it gets tossed, there’ll be blowback. They’ll savage me in the press, which is bad enough. The real problem’s going to be the women who decide it’s not worth it to fight back.”

  “Theo…” Celia pulled her into a fierce hug. “You can’t fight all the world’s battles in one case. Look at everything you’ve done for your clients…and for women who didn’t have to hire attorneys because you already took care of it.”

  Like a pouting child, Theo went limp and whined, “But I want to win for you too.”

  “You already have. Frazier and Caldwell lost forty million dollars tonight, and that’s the least of their worries. We don’t know how bad it’s going to get. You said it yourself—there’s still the DOJ and Title IX. All because you made noise.”

  “You made the noise, Celia. I just cranked up the volume.”

  They finished in the kitchen and moved on to prepare for bed. It was clear from her silence Theo was beating herself up with doubt.

  When they climbed between the sheets, Celia nestled under the crook of her arm and hugged her tightly. “Look, you’ve done everything in your power to make this right. Stop worrying about letting me down or letting Hayley down. These bastards knew from day one they might get away with this because that’s the way it is when men make the rules and enforce them. It’s not your fault.”

  A low groan told her Theo was wrestling with deeper emotions than guilt. After a long pause, she finally said, “Sorry, this is what I look like when I start worrying I might lose. Half of it’s rage. I try to keep it buried so I won’t take it out on people I care about.”

  “You haven’t lost anything.”

  Celia realized she’d begun a slow comforting massage of Theo’s torso as they talked. From the subconscious to the deliberate, she continued her caress. Ease the worry, release the tension.

  After a subtle shift, she was poised on top, looking down into Theo’s anguished face. “No matter what happens with this case, I won’t ever feel anything but grateful that it brought us together. I love you, Theo. I can’t believe I’m saying this already, but I could see myself making a life with you.”

  As she lowered her lips for a kiss, her hand slid up the nightshirt and found the part of Theo she claimed as her own. She tickled it gently, feeling a surge of passion when Theo opened her legs. Every stroke was wetter until she slid inside with ease.

  Theo answered with a steady rocking of her hips. One hand caressing Celia’s face while the other clutched her back, pulling her tighter with each rise.

  With their tongues tangled in an endless kiss, Celia flicked her thumb across the knotted nerves.

  “I love you so much,” Theo whispered before throwing her head back. Her body went rigid and began to tremble.

  Celia felt the walls clench around her fingers, as though she were being pulled inside. In that moment, they were one.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Theo spun away from her colleagues and stepped out of the conference room into the quiet hall. More times than not, she needed privacy whenever she spoke with Celia on the phone. “What do you mean, ‘What am I wearing?’ You practically dressed me this morning.”

  “And I plan to undress you tonight. What did it say?”

  “Pretty much everything we guessed last night. The one I’m worried about most is their challenge to our premise. It was well-stated, good citations. Basically they’re saying, even if everything happened exactly the way we said it did—the guys raped her, the university covered it up—they still aren’t legally liable for her death because Georgia law doesn’t allow the finding of culpability for suicide. Whereas we say, maybe not in certain circumstances, but this case is different and here’s why. We aren’t asking the judge to rule on the evidence right now, just to let us have our chance to prove it to a jury.”

  Left unsaid was the possibility an appeals court would throw out the verdict even if a jury found in their favor, all because Somers had done a superb job outlining how the case law favored the defendants. Though confident she could make her case for trial, there was no question she was fighting an uphill battle.

  “I need to get back to work, sweetheart. We’ve got about eight people looking over the motion and picking it apart. See you at home for dinner?”

  “And more.”

  The day had begun with a front-page story hailing Harwood’s motion to dismiss, as if it were proof the lawsuit was frivolous and without merit. The very fact that the paper had gotten its hands on the motion before it was delivered to Constantine and Associates meant someone from the university had leaked it. University officials had been careful to avoid being quoted on the record lest they be held in contempt for violating the gag order, but their proxies were out in force—loyal alums and their handpicked legal experts.

  It made Theo only more determined to file her response quickly, if for no other reason than to get the public momentum back on her side. It worried her that almost a week had gone by and Shane hadn’t yet moved to indict the players, as if he were waiting to see how her case played out. That put added pressure on her team to get the motion denied.

  Back in the conference room, Kendra was lending her professional eye to Theo’s draft response. “I like what you did here. Your initial filing might have fo
cused too much on the recklessness angle. You needed this emphasis on implied malice. Harwood had seen the evidence and knew its players deserved to be investigated. Instead they acted with an abandoned and malignant heart, and that’s what sets this case apart from Appling.”

  “Thanks, that’s helpful. Sabrina, make sure we haven’t overlooked anything on malice. Civil or criminal.”

  Jalinda had made copies of the motion with color-coded tabs for each of the defense’s counterpoints. As expected, the university’s attorneys had argued to excuse administrators and police from the case. Theo had already drafted a rebuttal, calling them conspirators in denying Hayley due process.

  She picked up the section no one else wanted, another argument she’d been expecting—a motion from the players to excuse them as defendants. Their well-funded attorney, from a firm of sports agents in Los Angeles, was still clinging to the initial claim the sex was consensual. The videotape, he claimed, depicted only a portion of the sexual activity and excluded moments when Hayley Burkhart was lucid and solicitous of their attentions. As they’d not committed the precipitating offense, it was logically impossible they could be held responsible for Hayley’s subsequent suicide.

  “We might need somebody to help with this argument from the players’ attorney. Who do we know with a strong background in criminal litigation?”

  Jalinda had the information at her fingertips. After sorting a spreadsheet, she provided the names of three attorneys they’d worked with in the past. “I’ll set up a consult.”

  All in all, Theo was pleased with where they stood. There was nothing in the answer she couldn’t counter by fine-tuning her original complaint. Her anxieties from the night before now under control, she was ready to dig in and get this case back to the court for a ruling.

  “Here’s something, Theo,” Philip said. “A malpractice case filed by the family of a woman who hanged herself after taking a prescribed drug for depression. A judge found the prescribing doctor wasn’t required to know she was suicidal, only that there was reason to know.”