by John Decure
“Any time now, Counselor,” Foley said. “Today would be preferable.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Let me first say I’m sorry, Your Honor, for not bringing this up with you last week. Like everyone else, I read the petition and the social worker’s report, with Mr. and Mrs. Danforths’ statements attached. Because there was absolutely no reference to Ronny in any of the files, and because Ms. McWhirter made no mention of Ronny when we spoke about the case”—I regarded Belinda—“I assumed the department had no issues regarding Ronny, nor did you, Your Honor. I can see now that my assumption was incorrect, and I was remiss in not mentioning Ronny. But I would suggest, Your Honor, that although the Randalls were certainly premature in making arrangements for Ronny to stay with his grandparents without the court’s permission, it was an understandable mistake.”
“To say the least,” Foley said.
“Everyone here has been focusing on Nathan because this petition is about an adoption gone bad,” I said. “It’s not your typical sexual or physical abuse case where every kid in the house is at risk as long as the offending parent is around. No one was concerned about Ronny, except his mother, who sought to protect him by removing him from the public eye. But the real case, Your Honor, isn’t about Ronny, it only concerns Nathan’s adoption.”
“How do we know they won’t try to sell the other child, too, Your Honor?” Gilbride said.
I was not about to give Gilbride an inch. “If the Danforths were concerned about the welfare of Ronny they certainly had a unique way of showing it,” I answered, holding up my file. “There’s page after page of information here, most of it provided by the Danforths, and not a word about Ronny. It’s everyone’s fault, Your Honor, but then again, it’s nobody’s fault.” I paused to glance at Gilbride’s clients. “The Danforths only want Nathan.”
“I still don’t like what your clients did,” Foley said. His eyes were right on Sue Ellen. “But the department paved the way. I don’t like being in the dark like this, Miss McWhirter. Shoddy work.” He slapped down the court file.
“Your Honor,” Belinda said, “Mr. Shepard should’ve told me last week—”
“Told you what, Counsel?” Foley said. “That you should look into seeking jurisdiction over another one of his client’s kids? He’s a defense lawyer in this matter, in case you haven’t noticed. Don’t expect him to do your job for you.” Foley fixed on me. “And you, you could have made this easier for me, Mr. Shepard, but you didn’t speak up last week. I don’t like to be deceived.”
“That was not my intention, Your Honor,” I said.
“Your Honor,” Belinda said, “if you might grant us leave to amend the petition, perhaps—”
“I will do no such thing!” Foley shouted, slamming his hand on his desktop.
“Your Honor,” Lily Elmore said, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Belinda, “I would like to at least have the opportunity to interview the other child.”
“Miss Elmore, you don’t even represent the other child,” Foley said. “Haven’t you been listening here? Find the page and get with the program, will you? The boy is in banjo country, two thousand miles away, and I’m not using taxpayer money to bring him back here just so you and Miss McWhirter can decide what you might want to do.” He looked at all of us. “The petition will not be amended to include Ronny Randall.”
“Excellent,” I whispered to Sue Ellen as she stared at the judge.
“Uh, Judge,” Nelson Gilbride said, “might I interject—”
“You may not,” Foley said. “Here are my orders. The minor Nathan Randall is to be detained with the Danforths . . .”
“Oh no!” Sue Ellen said, the tears starting.
“Hang on,” I whispered to her. “Foley figures we’re going to trial. He doesn’t want to ping-pong Nathan back and forth between you and the Danforths depending on what happens in the case.” But that was only part of it, I knew. Because of Ronny, Foley now believed he could not trust Sue Ellen.
At my insistence, Foley ordered that Sue Ellen be allowed twice-weekly visits with Nathan at the department’s offices.
Foley looked up at me, then toward Belinda. “Any chance this case might be settled without a trial?” he asked us.
“I’m always open to settlement discussions, Your Honor,” I said, trying my best to sound affable as I opened my weekly calendar. “But if you’re not inclined to release Nathan to his mother, I’ll have to request that you set this matter for a no-time-waiver trial.”
If a child is not returned to the parents at the detention hearing, the parents have a statutory right to a trial within ten court days. Asking for a no-time-waiver is a gamble, since two weeks is not much time to prepare for trial, but it’s a risk worth taking if the department’s case appears jumbled or fatally flawed, for you can force a bad hand and regain custody of a minor in short order. I didn’t want the Danforths to automatically keep Nathan for two to three more months, which is the standard wait for a trial. They would gain too great an advantage as the bonded caretakers. A no-timewaiver would put the pressure on everyone to be ready. Or settle this thing, which was to be my next objective.
“Mr. Shepard can’t ask for a no-time-waiver now,” Belinda said. “He had to ask for it last week, at his client’s first appearance.”
“That’s right,” Foley said.
“Begging your pardon, Your Honor,” I said, “but you arraigned my client today. I didn’t argue the issue of detention last week.”
“Uh, Your Honor,” Gilbride said, back on his feet and roaming the space behind the partitions, “if I might be heard on this?”
Foley smiled at his clerk and shook his head. “Good Lord, this case never quits,” he said.
“Just a minute, Your Honor,” I said. I quickly stepped around Sue Ellen and whispered some short directions to Boris.
“Your Honor,” Boris said, his voice still rattling with the remnants of a chest cold, “on behalf of Father, I request a no-time-waiver trial.” Because this was Ty Randall’s first appearance, there could be no controversy in his asking for a no-time-waiver.
“Very smooth, Counselor,” Foley said to me. “Let’s calendar this thing.”
Sue Ellen had not even seen Nathan since the day he was born. On the bonding front, every day she spent apart from her son meant more ground lost to Gilbride and the department. A no-time-waiver trial would get Nathan home to Sue Ellen quickly. That is, if we prevailed.
“Monday, September sixteen, and every day thereafter until we’re done,” Foley said, studying his personal calendar. His clerk nodded in assent.
“We’ll be here, at this table, ready to go,” Gilbride said, waving a hand at the counsel table six feet in front of him.
“Excuse me, Your Honor,” I said, “but the Danforths’ counsel lost his motion for de facto parent status. He should not be at this table.” I mimicked Gilbride’s sweep of the hand.
“Don’t push it,” Foley said to me. “This issue was already decided. Mr. Gilbride and his clients may sit in the gallery, but you, sir,” he said to Gilbride, “will not participate during trial.”
Belinda and Gilbride exchanged secretive nods in a way that made me think I’d missed something. She was a competent trial lawyer, but perhaps not so confident in her skills to turn down the infamous Nelson Gilbride if he offered to be at her service. One day last summer I saw Belinda reading a copy of Gilbride’s book, Bundle of Joy, as she sat in the gallery waiting for her cases to be called. I figured that same copy would be autographed by the author himself before Foley decided the Nathan Randall petition.
We scribbled on our legal pads until the judge finished making his orders. Trial was in two weeks, and I didn’t know a damn thing about what really happened between Sue Ellen and the Danforths. The death grip I used to clutch my pen brought on a savage hand cramp, but I kept up with my notes as Foley made his orders.
“Your Honor?” three attorneys said at once.
Foley closed the court file. “
Good-bye, people,” he said without looking up. “Go in peace.”
Six
We had two options now: settlement and trial. I asked the others on the case to stick around until after I had a chance to confer with Sue Ellen. Perhaps she’d have another change of heart about her son.
Sue Ellen shook her head. “That was brutal.” The courtroom had cleared for noon recess.
“Get used to it,” I told her. “Those people want your baby.” I looked away.
“You’re upset I didn’t tell you about Ronny, aren’t you?”
I didn’t bother to respond.
“I shouldn’t have listened to Ty,” she said.
I was sick of clients not heeding my advice. “I had to lie for you to keep you from looking like the liar in there. What else haven’t you told me? Did you really take those people for a ride?”
“Of course not!” Sue Ellen took a tissue from a box on the table and dabbed her eyes. “Don’t ya believe me?”
“Your credibility is shot. We’re lucky Foley listened to me. Let’s get something straight right now, okay? We won’t get far this way, especially at trial. You want your kid back, you have to tell me everything, no surprises. No holding back.”
She continued to sob. “I tried to tell you before the hearing. I just didn’t get a chance.”
“Oh, come on.” I recalled our conversation of a half hour ago. She had tried to spit something out before Boris Kousnetsov burst in on us, scuttling the interview. Sue Ellen’s turn to speak had never really come.
“I tried, Mr. Shepard.”
“Okay. But you still went about it wrong,” I said. “You blew any chance of getting Nathan back today.” I remembered my list and the question about preschool I failed to ask in time. I’d blown it, too.
She gritted her teeth, her eyes fierce. “No holding back, huh? Well what about you? You didn’t even try to get Nathan back to me last week, you said we’d get him back this week. Now look at us.”
“Listen, you didn’t tell me about Ronny. You also had no place to live.”
“I want my Nathan!”
“Then start paying closer attention to what I tell you,” I said. “What’s your husband been cooking up that sounds so much better than your own attorney’s specific advice? And why didn’t his parents bail him out? He looked like a . . .”
Sue Ellen looked at her white Keds. “What, a criminal?”
“Never mind,” I said.
“His folks couldn’t raise enough money. His daddy wants us to enter pleas with the D.A., take a misdemeanor and probation.”
“Well gosh, don’t you think you should talk to your public defender about that? There’s no way the D.A. can prove felony fraud against either of you. The money you received was all support as part of the adoption agreements. You sent Kitty Danforth home from the hospital with Nathan.” My client seemed incapable of seeing this case as I did. I felt utterly exasperated. “I told you all this last week, in detail. Their burden of proof is very high, and there are too many facts that count in your favor. Haven’t you talked to Ty about this?”
“I told him everything you said.”
“No response?”
“He said you don’t know what you’re talkin’ about ’cause you’re just a kiddie lawyer.” She hesitated. “Even worse than his public defender.”
“Is that so?” It was wrong, I knew, to get so hot over a loser client, to bet heavily on myself when I alone couldn’t win the case. But Ty’s remark had nicked my pride. “Well, fuck him if he can’t take a joke.”
My remark apparently offended her. “Oh, I get it,” she said. “So he’s right after all?”
In that moment I glimpsed what I had become: a watered-down advocate, a gracious loser. With recognition came anger.
“He’s right all right,” I said. “Your man’s quite the arch strategist, real Phi Beta Kappa thinker, isn’t he? Tell you what, next time you see big Ty, you tell him—”
“Stop it!” She cupped her hands over her ears. I checked my watch, insensitive to her pain. “He won’t listen to me,” she cried. “Can’t ya see? He’s still upset at me ’cause my folks wouldn’t bail him out. My daddy called him a luckless fool.”
My client’s daddy probably had plenty of evidence to back up his claim. I felt my anger draining away. Ty Randall’s opinion of me didn’t matter. “Sorry,” I said. “Let’s just get through this, okay?”
Sue Ellen had recovered somewhat. “Guess Ty’s stock didn’t go up any this week, did it?” She waited for my response, but none came. “I’m thinking about leaving him,” she added.
“Tell me,” I said, “was the adoption his idea?”
“It was mostly mine. I didn’t want an abortion, but Ty didn’t want another mouth to feed.” She told me that Ty had worked security at a frozen food warehouse but lost his job a few weeks after she found out she was pregnant. “It was my idea to come to L.A., too. My girlfriend Rayanne, she moved here last year and got a job cleaning cruise ships while they were between cruises? Said she could get Ty a job in maintenance, but when we got here, the position was filled. We told Rayanne we’d stay on a week or two, just until Ty found something else, but he couldn’t find anything that suited him and three weeks turned into three months. Then she found out Ty turned down a sanitation job with the cruise company, got mad and gave us the boot.” Sue Ellen shrugged. “Can’t really blame her. Didn’t have no room for us in the first place.”
“Have you ever worked?”
“Not since I married Ty. He won’t let me.”
“Great. Unemployed, but he has his pride.”
“He’s not such a bad fella, Mr. Shepard.”
“How are you going to make it if you leave him?” I said.
“I’ll go home to my folks for a while, maybe go back to school, junior college. My Aunt Maddy’s got a hair salon. I could probably work for her.” She ran her fingertips together as if she was about to pray.
“Kentucky?” I asked.
She nodded. “Gotta go back to get Ronny now, anyhow.”
We both stayed silent for a time. “Stay with him,” I said.
“Who?”
“Your husband. Think about it. What could be worse than a baby seller? A baby seller who’s a single mother.”
“I did not sell my child,” she said.
“I know. I just think your chances of getting Nathan back from this judge are better if your situation looks as stable as possible.”
“Even if it’s a shambles?” she said.
“Yes. We need every advantage.”
Sue Ellen had a thought. “That first couple, the Pontrellis? That report makes it sound like we ditched them.”
“The worker says you terminated the adoption without even giving them notice.”
“Not so! Go talk to the landlord at the apartment the Pontrellis were helping us rent,” she said. “We gave him notice, a letter. The landlord’s Mr. Pontrelli’s cousin.”
“Have you got a copy?”
“Most of our stuff got thrown in the trash over at Los Feliz.”
“Great,” I said. My faith in Sue Ellen’s honesty was on the wane; it seemed too conveniently impossible to verify any part of her story. “I’ll check out the landlord. What else?”
“Corwin Danforth even paid for the moving van when we quit with the Pontrellis. Now they’re tryin’ to make it sound like we’re frauds because we skipped out on the Pontrellis, even though the Danforths knew all about it.”
“It doesn’t matter. The Danforths will deny knowing anything about your arrangement with the Pontrellis.” I took out a legal pad. “What else?”
She told me about the recent visit a private investigator made to the Los Feliz neighborhood. He’d apparently stood on every porch in the neighborhood, a coat hanger in hand, asking if anyone had seen Sue Ellen beating Ronny with it.
“Who told you this?” I asked.
“Arturo. I don’t know his last name. Lives at the end of the street in a
house with a fence around it and a big dog in the yard. Arturo’s old, but he takes a walk every day around noontime. Used to stop and talk about anything, his rose bushes, the street gangs on Sunset. You’ll find him easy enough.”
We talked about Lois Nettleson, the adoption counselor—or baby broker, as Holly Dupree’s reports had tagged her—who’d connected the Randalls first with the Pontrellis, then with Gilbride and the Danforths. Lois Nettleson was the person Sue Ellen had contacted to demand Nathan’s return when she realized the “open” part of the adoption was never going to happen. The good counselor Lois had done everything she could to talk Sue Ellen out of reclaiming Nathan. So far the case report contained no information about Lois Nettleson; the social worker said she tried to reach her before completing her investigation but never connected. But the Danforths’ statements referred to Lois as if she were a key witness to the Randalls’ fraud.
“I have to talk to Lois Nettleson,” I said. “The department will probably call her to testify.”
“She’s one of the D.A. witnesses; that’s what my public defender says,” Sue Ellen explained.
“Any idea why Lois Nettleson is against you?”
“No sir. Maybe she doesn’t get paid if the adoption falls apart.”
“Good point,” I said. Sue Ellen smiled cautiously. “We’ll find out how she got paid.”
I took down the name and number of Sue Ellen’s public defender. Lois Nettleson’s address and phone number were not in the report. “Is Lois Nettleson in the phone book?” I asked.
“Santa Barbara. When we read her adoption ad in the yellow pages, we were at a motel out in the desert on our way to L.A. We thought she lived in the desert, too. I didn’t know it then, but she had this local phone number that switched you over to Santa Barbara. Went up there once. Other two times she came down to L.A.”
“You signed a contract with her?”
Sue Ellen nodded. “I think so.”
“I need a copy of it.”
She sighed. “Gone, along with our other stuff.”
“Right.” Another important document conveniently missing. We were making little headway. “What about Gilbride?” I said. “What was your arrangement with him? Did you sign anything, like a retainer agreement, when you first met him?”