“Come in,” she called.
Amy stepped inside the office. She held a file in her arms.
“I found out some interesting stuff on Mateo’s case.” The assistant raised her eyebrows, as if hoping some good news might cheer up her grumpy boss. “Remember that guy Stanton Escovar, the owner of that warehouse where Rogelio Gonzalez keeps inventory for his apparel business?”
“Yes,” Caroline said, “the place where Gonzalez has Mateo playing that spot-the-cop game.”
Amy nodded. “I asked Escovar how many pallets can fit into each storage unit—you know, in case I wanted to rent a unit myself.” She smiled slyly at her cover story. “The answer’s twenty-five, not that it matters.”
“Okay,” Caroline said, her voice rising in question.
“I got Escovar to tell me how many pallets of lingerie Rogelio Gonzalez ships to Mexico every year.”
Caroline decided not to ask how Amy had induced the warehouse guy to share the information. She hoped it didn’t involve Amy promising to go on a date with Stanton Escovar. There were limits to what a person should do to acquire information.
“Escovar told me that Perez Shipping does two shipments a year,” Amy continued. “One in July and one in December. Each time, Perez takes six pallets down to Mexico. The shipping manifest reflects this. Plus, Rogelio Gonzalez told Escovar the same thing.”
“Okay,” Caroline said again. It was sounding like a math problem. Or a logic puzzle.
“Now look at this.” Amy handed the file in her hands to Caroline.
Caroline looked at her assistant with a question in her eyes.
“That’s the police report your friend Boyd gave you for Rogelio’s brother, Fernando. You know, the file Boyd got from that woman Shaina in the DA’s gangs unit, detailing the evidence supporting Fernando Gonzalez’s conviction for drug dealing.”
Caroline remembered. It was the file Boyd had handed her before she’d gone to the mug shot room to try to find Patricia Amos.
“Read the report from Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” Amy said. “It describes a search the Border Patrol did at the Otay Mesa, California, border crossing in December 2015.”
Caroline flipped to the page.
In succinct prose, the Border Patrol described stopping an eighteen-wheeler on its way south to Mexico. The truck was operated by Perez Shipping. Federal agents had opened containers from Rogelio Gonzalez’s apparel business. They’d found nothing but lingerie.
“They didn’t find any drugs,” Amy said, “but that’s not the point.”
Caroline kept reading. Apparently, the Border Patrol had attempted a bust as part of the investigation into Fernando’s suspected drug dealing. The bust had failed. The Border Patrol had found only a bunch of panties and bras. Nothing different than what Rogelio had already copped to: selling lingerie both at home and abroad. Rogelio Gonzalez, Panty King.
But then Caroline’s eyes fell on the number of pallets the Border Patrol had searched.
Twelve.
“This isn’t right,” Caroline said. “Escovar says Rogelio only shipped six pallets in December 2015.”
“Exactly,” said Amy. “There’s a discrepancy. Someone’s numbers are wrong. Either the shipping manifest from Perez Shipping or the Border Patrol report miscounted the pallets. I just don’t know what it means.”
Caroline just shook her head. She didn’t know what it meant, either.
“It’s not like Rogelio got caught shipping drugs,” Amy continued. “He wasn’t. That’s why he escaped conviction when his brother went down. And anyway, the shipments are going in the wrong direction—Rogelio is shipping goods to Mexico, not the other way around. He isn’t bringing anything into the country.”
Caroline frowned. Her headache was coming back.
“I’m inclined to believe the Border Patrol’s numbers,” Amy continued, “which means Rogelio lied to the warehouse manager and on his shipping manifest. At the very least, he’s dishonest, right?” She raised her eyebrows hopefully.
After a moment’s thought, Caroline nodded. It was better than nothing.
Satisfied, Amy withdrew.
Alone in her office, Caroline continued studying the file. Rogelio Gonzalez’s shipping manifest clearly stated a number of pallets that the Border Patrol had found to be false. But why? Perhaps with enough passion, she could persuade the court to give her just a little more time to keep looking for the answer.
She drafted a quick declaration and attached the materials Amy had found. Then she prepared a request for judicial notice, asking Judge Flores to review the indictment file from the Fernando Gonzalez matter, including the Border Patrol’s records of its search in Otay Mesa.
As an afterthought, she forwarded her filings to the assistant DA in the gangs unit, Shaina Parker. Perhaps the information would prove useful to the DA.
Thanks, came the e-mailed response from Shaina Parker. I’ll take a look at what you found and follow up as needed.
Caroline raised an eyebrow. Shaina was a quick draw. After having been blown off by Boyd, Caroline found Shaina Parker’s responsiveness gratifying. And encouraging.
Rubbing her eyes, she forced herself to focus on the screen. Mateo’s guardianship hearing was in less than a week. She didn’t have much time to find out the truth about Rogelio Gonzalez’s business. No matter how tired she was or how distracted she’d been by the mystery of the missing watch, she needed to keep searching for answers for Mateo.
She opened the file she’d created about Rogelio Gonzalez. It contained several documents. The guardianship petition. The excerpts from Rogelio’s tax return that he’d included as support for his petition. The materials she’d scanned from his brother’s criminal files.
Her gaze fell on Rogelio’s declaration in support of his petition. In it, he’d described the success of his business, his devotion to his family, and his favorite hobbies, including his newfound passion for boating—something he promised to share with Mateo, if he was awarded a guardianship over the boy.
Caroline navigated to the Department of Motor Vehicles website.
Using Rogelio’s address and name, she pulled up his records.
The results were interesting. Rogelio owned a boat: a sixty-eight-foot 2015 Sunseeker Predator 68.
He also owned two cars. A 2015 Tesla and a 2016 Escalade.
Neither car could be cheap.
What about the boat?
A quick search provided the answer: the price of a Sunseeker was $2 million.
“That’s a lot of lingerie,” Caroline murmured as she prepared another short declaration to file in the Hidalgo matter. Unusual property holdings or assets were an indication of drug money. Judge Flores might find that suspicious, too.
Another tap on the door broke Caroline’s reverie.
“Sorry to bug you again,” Amy said, poking her head into the office.
“It’s all right,” Caroline said, waving her inside. “What’s up?”
“Oasis filed a demurrer,” Amy said.
Caroline grabbed the pages.
She scanned them for the highlights. Or rather, lowlights. The fake charity had filed a pleading that argued that even if the court assumed that everything in Caroline’s complaint was true, she still hadn’t stated any possible legal claims against Oasis.
Caroline shook her head.
The arguments were almost laughably bad. No court would be persuaded by them.
Her eyes traveled up to the upper left-hand corner of the caption page.
“This is embarrassing work from Buckner, McKinnon & Thibodeaux.” She wasn’t surprised to see a high-end firm handling the case—it was a reminder that she faced a powerful foe. But the quality of the papers was miles below the firm’s blue-chip reputation.
“Totally,” Amy agreed, tucking an errant blonde curl behind her ear. “We stated viable claims. An Oasis employee manipulated an old person into giving money to Oasis. That’s undue influence. Easy-peasy. Why bother filing that ki
nd of junk?”
“Buckner McKinnon’s just churning,” Caroline concluded. She hated big-firm tactics, including the meritless motions designed to force the other side to waste resources responding. For Caroline, who was representing herself, the cost in money wouldn’t be felt, but the cost in time would be.
She handed the pages back to Amy.
“When’s the hearing calendared?” The deadline for filing an opposition to a demurrer was always the same: nine days before the hearing. She’d have to put aside some time to prepare her opposition. Even though Oasis’s motion was trash, she couldn’t risk failing to oppose it.
“Friday—September 23,” Amy said.
Blood rushed past Caroline’s ears.
“What? That’s impossible. That’s three days from now.” The deadlines weren’t flexible. They were etched in granite by the legislature. And by statute, a hearing on a demurrer had to be at least thirty-five days from the date of the demurrer’s filing.
“Apparently, Oasis went into court ex parte the day after we filed our complaint to ask the judge to hear the demurrer on shortened time,” Amy said. “The judge granted their request.”
“Why didn’t we get notice of that request?” Caroline asked.
“I don’t know,” Amy said, her expression pained. “I was checking the docket so I could create a caption page for our opposition for the demurrer—you know, so I could get the case number and the judge’s name. That’s when I saw the notation on the court’s docket about Oasis’s notice of motion to shorten time to hear the demurrer. Maybe they didn’t serve on us?”
In answer, Caroline turned to her laptop and brought up the civil court register. The other side’s failure to give proper notice of the ex parte hearing was a problem, but it was a mere speed bump compared to the bigger issue she faced: she had a judge who’d thought he or she could alter a statutory notice period. The Los Angeles Superior Court had many capable, committed jurists. It also had a handful of boobs. She feared she might’ve drawn one.
When the court’s register flashed onto Caroline’s screen, it confirmed what Amy had said: the demurrer hearing would be in three days.
“Oasis’s proof of service shows they personally served us with the motion to shorten time,” said Caroline, shaking her head. “More like gutter service.”
She released a long breath. She could argue in court that Oasis had lied about serving her. But she also needed to oppose the motion on its merits. One way or another, she had to defeat Oasis’s effort to shut down her case.
Caroline closed her research file on Gonzalez.
Mateo’s case would have to wait. So would everything else on her desk. The judge’s mistake in calendaring the hearing so soon didn’t leave her much time to write an opposition.
The arguments would be simple enough. But the stakes demanded that she get them right. Without Boyd, her only avenue for investigating her suspicions was her civil suit. She could not allow the court to dismiss it.
CHAPTER 9
Three days later, Caroline entered the courtroom with the same vomit-on-her-shoes nervousness she always felt before a court appearance. She accepted the queasiness as normal. After a year in practice, she no longer worried that she might pass out at the podium. Instead, she tried to relax while she waited for the battle to begin.
She checked the calendar set out on a fake wooden table at the back of the gallery.
Hitchings v. Oasis Care Co. was first.
Good. Less time for panic attacks.
She caught the bailiff’s eye.
He waved her forward, inviting her to get her materials prepared at counsel’s table.
Caroline took her seat at the thick wooden table. She opened her laptop and pulled up the relevant pages of the cases describing the elements of undue influence and elder abuse. Beside her laptop, she mounted her tablet, where she’d loaded the demurrer papers.
Ready to go.
Taking a calming breath, she pulled the strand of worry beads from her pocket. Looping them around her hand, she closed her eyes and let her fingers travel through the onyx stones.
Behind her, the low door that separated the gallery from the counsels’ tables clicked.
A shuffle of movement told Caroline her opponent had arrived.
She turned to see a man in a navy suit towing a rolling briefcase topped with a small bronze tag with the firm name and address. With his gray hair trimmed close against his scalp, the lawyer had the half-asleep poise of someone who’d been to court thousands of times. A poise that Caroline could only hope to achieve someday.
Suddenly, something occurred to Caroline: Oasis didn’t have an associate or even a junior partner handling the hearing. Oasis had a senior partner presenting argument. Perhaps he’d come to do damage control? Maybe he’d seen the sorry state of the demurrer that some associate had filed and he’d come to try to salvage the situation?
When the gray-haired lawyer reached his chair at the table across from Caroline’s, he snapped open his briefcase. With practiced movements, he removed a thick book, which he positioned in front of him.
Even without seeing the title, Caroline knew it was The California Reports. The book was one in a series that had reported California case law for more than a hundred years. No lawyer under fifty years old read anything in hard copy anymore, now that Westlaw and Lexis and a dozen other web-based services published all California case authority online. But the library at Hale Stern had been filled with the tan volumes.
At another click from the gate, Caroline turned to see Conrad Vizzi.
She recognized the job-training director from his picture on the Oasis website’s biography. With curly brown hair and a slight physique, he cut a decidedly unimposing figure. Instead of a blue work shirt, he wore an inexpensive suit—the kind of humble garb that endeared litigants to judges and juries.
Ignoring Caroline’s presence, Vizzi handed a note to his lawyer, then retreated to his seat in the gallery.
The senior litigator tilted his gray head as he read the note.
With a hint of a smile flickering across his wrinkled features, he glanced at Caroline.
Flushing, Caroline looked away.
“Good morning,” the senior litigator said in her direction, forcing her attention to him and to her own awkwardness.
“Good morning to you, too,” Caroline answered, meeting his eyes.
The senior lawyer leaned back confidently in his chair.
He looked Caroline over.
Then he cocked his head and raised an amused eyebrow.
“How old are you?” he asked. A note of paternalistic scorn colored his voice, and Caroline heard the parade of indictments tucked like time bombs in the question. She was too young. Too inexperienced. Too inadequate to sit opposite him.
Caroline weighed how to respond.
She eyed the tan volume of The California Reports.
Then she met the senior litigator’s smug half grin.
“How old are you?” she asked, forcing every negative implication she could pack into the four words.
She watched the senior litigator’s eyes drop to the volume on his table, then come back up to meet hers. The grin had left his face.
At the front of the courtroom, the bailiff stood.
In Pavlovian response, the courtroom hushed.
“Come to order. Court is now in session,” the bailiff called, his voice formal and the words formulaic. “The Honorable Beatrice S. Chandler presiding.”
Judge Chandler emerged from her chambers.
Caroline recognized her from the court’s website. The official judicial biography indicated that Judge Chandler had graduated from some no-name law school and received her appointment after only three years as an assistant district attorney. Must be nice to be the daughter of the governor’s biggest campaign contributor, Caroline reflected.
Judge Chandler sat down on the high-backed leather armchair.
“Please state your appearances,” she ordered
the waiting attorneys.
“Caroline Auden for plaintiff.”
“Francis Thibodeaux for the defense.”
“I’d like to hear from the defense first,” said Judge Chandler. “Since it’s your demurrer.”
Caroline poised her ballpoint pen above her legal pad, preparing to take notes. In longhand. Despite her love of technology, she’d learned that handwritten notes worked better than trying to navigate on an iPad or carry a laptop up to the podium when it came time for her to argue. With practice, she’d gotten fast at jotting down her opponents’ arguments so that she could rebut them, one by one.
Now she readied herself to summarize Thibodeaux’s arguments. They’d be strong. Presenting them had to be why he’d come to court himself rather than sending an associate.
Caroline had considered just arguing waiver—that Oasis’s failure to previously raise whatever arguments Thibodeaux was now going to make barred the court from hearing those new arguments. But she’d decided that she’d need to be ready to answer whatever new arguments he made, as well.
Thibodeaux rose from his chair. He made no move to approach the podium that stood between the two counsels’ tables.
“I’m comfortable submitting on our papers,” he said. Then he sat down.
A rush of blood sped past Caroline’s ears.
Had she heard right? Was this senior litigator from a well-respected firm just submitting on the weak arguments in the demurrer itself? His firm’s arguments leaked like a torpedoed World War II cargo convoy. He couldn’t possibly win on his papers.
“Okay, Mr. Thibodeaux. That’s fine. Thank you,” said the judge, turning to Caroline. “Please go ahead.”
Caroline left her blank legal pad at counsel’s table and went to stand at the podium. She tried to divine why Judge Chandler wanted her to present argument when everything had already been briefed in her papers and the other side had essentially abdicated.
“Thank you, Your Honor,” she began. “First, I’d like to bring up the obvious defects in service—we received no notice of the ex parte hearing.”
The judge shrugged. “Your appearance here today cures any defect in notice.”
Proof (Caroline Auden Book 2) Page 10