Unfit to Practice

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  “Mom, he needs me, too. I told you that.”

  She tended to her clothes, folding some dirty ones into a zipper pocket, throwing others on her bed for the next morning. “Let me think about it, okay?”

  “I hate when you say that. You might as well just say no.”

  “I don’t mean no.”

  “You do. Think about it is a euphemism for no way.”

  “I am not saying that. I’m saying it’s probably all right, okay?”

  “So the answer is going to be yes?”

  “Just let me have a day or two to sit on the idea.”

  “Don’t bother. I have my answer.” He turned the sound up on the television. “You have to tell Dad, though. I’m not going to break his heart.”

  “Bob, I’m saying the answer is probably yes, not no! Nobody’s heart needs to be broken here! I just need time to be sure. I need to check some things.”

  He brightened instantly, jumped up, and hugged her. “I’ll call him and tell him tomorrow night, okay? We’ve got a lot of things to talk about. And that’ll give you some time.”

  “I haven’t promised you anything. Remember that,” she said, knowing it was useless. There was no going back. He had heard his power word, yes, and now he would never let her forget it. She sighed. “So what was all that stuff about Sweden and the North Sea?”

  “He’s teaching at the Stockholm Music Institute this summer. Says there’s a great program up there for me that he’ll pay for. He’ll arrange everything. Mom, I can learn Swedish!”

  Well, she thought a few minutes later, drawing a bath so hot it would burn her skin red, why the heck not? Swedish made as much sense as anything.

  27

  “D ID YOU SEE THE WAY he looked at me?” Nina said the next morning to Jack as they walked through the metal detector and into the reception area. Jeffrey Riesner sat in one of the small upholstered chairs in front of the circular table, lounging like a man who was relaxed and rich and on top of the world. Nina, on the other hand, had suffered another of the long, dark nights of the soul with Bob sleeping in the next bed over. She wasn’t far from rolling her bloodshot eyes at the judge after all, although eyedrops borrowed from the clerk at the hotel had helped.

  “Ignore him,” Jack said.

  “I knew this would be a tough day.”

  “All days here are tough, Nina,” Jack said, holding open the door to the witness waiting room on the right for her. They walked in and shut the door behind them. “Now forget about him. We’ve got to get to this Cruz guy.”

  “Jack, he’s gloating! I can’t help believing he’s behind this, and it’s driving me nuts, not knowing. Him or Scholl or Lisa or Kevin. Scholl or Lisa and Kevin together-”

  “Drink your coffee,” Jack ordered. “All of it. And concentrate on what we can do right now. I’m thinking Riesner’s testimony will last until the lunch break. Then I want you to do something, Nina.”

  If Riesner had his letter, and Scholl had hers, she would be too busy to do anything for Jack. If all had gone right, the three players had received letters at their hotels late last night that would occupy at least two of them during this upcoming lunchtime. Thank goodness all the witnesses had agreed to stay in town for the duration of the hearing in case they were needed. “What?”

  “I want you to talk to Kevin.”

  “No, Jack.” That couldn’t help now, and if her and Paul’s plan worked, it would not be necessary anyway. They would know who had set her up, and could proceed accordingly. Jack got his dark look, so she justified her refusal. “I tried to talk with him several times over the past several months, right after I got that letter from him and two other times. He doesn’t want to talk to me. Anyway, now we’re in the middle of this.”

  Although she thought of it frequently, she had never confronted Jack with the fact that if he hadn’t insisted on her rushing the insurance check to the Vangs over that fateful weekend, she might have averted that particular catastrophe by waiting until Monday, when Marilyn Rose had called, hoping she hadn’t yet sent the check. She didn’t blame Jack for pushing her to send it before she was ready. That wouldn’t be right. Still, she wished he could acknowledge the error. If he had noticed, he apparently didn’t see it as his mistake at all.

  “Kevin Cruz’s case isn’t a criminal matter,” Jack said. “He doesn’t have a lawyer representing him on this. You have as much right to talk to him as anyone.”

  “What exactly could you expect me to say at this point? ‘Thanks for the nonexistent roll in the hay? Hope it was good for you ’cause it wasn’t for me’?”

  “According to us, you never slept with this guy, never got involved sexually, were set up. It’s always hard to prove a negative. Look, I know it’s a long shot, but use your feminine powers of persuasion. Shut him the fuck up before he kills us.”

  “Jack, I have no leverage with this guy.”

  “You afraid?”

  “Don’t be idiotic.”

  “Then do it.”

  They had squared off. She had her arms folded. He had his folded. Jack, master of all he surveyed, she remembered him well. She couldn’t help laughing at the two of them, on the same side but acting like enemies, adversarial as they always had been and always would be, wishing to control each other, wishing the best for each other. He wanted her to do what he wanted her to do. She wanted different.

  “Whatever you say,” she said, because she used to say that when he made unreasonable demands and it always placated him long enough to get him off her back. She rubbed his arm to show she was friendly. She wasn’t willing to fight that way, using feminine wiles or legal wiles either; she was going to fight dirty. Jack would approve of their alternate plan when he heard all about it later if it paid off, because when it came down to it, Jack loved to win, however it happened.

  Before they went into court, she planted a light kiss on his cheek. She wanted him to remember her sweetness.

  After Judge Brock took his seat and the digital clock erupted into life, the attorneys spent the first few minutes going over some technicalities, then Nolan called Jeffrey Riesner.

  This morning, the state bar attorney wore a slightly less rigorous uniform, a blue suit so light it verged on pastel. Nina herself had slicked her hair into a relatively tame position, tied it in a band at the back of her neck, and wore her best suit, in forest green, with a gold abstract pin her mother had left her stuck prominently upon her left lapel. If they were going to bring her down, she would go down looking like the woman of substance she was, not as a victim.

  Riesner swore to tell the truth and sat down, a subdued and normal-appearing form of the devil Nina knew to be hiding up there in plain view.

  Gayle Nolan introduced herself, then went through his credentials at great length, while Riesner, acting the consummate professional, casually gestured with his Stanford ring. He was wearing a blue pinstriped suit Nina could swear was identical to the one he had worn the first time she met him. Well, he knew what worked. He looked sleek and vulpine as always. His bright, white canines twinkled as he flashed his teeth.

  “He’s an attorney in good standing with the bar,” Nina whispered to Jack. “We get that already!”

  Jack shushed her.

  Nolan finally got to the questions. She asked Riesner to summarize his custody case and representation of Lisa Cruz in that matter, then said, “You received a phone call on Friday, September seventh of last year regarding Ms. Reilly’s client in that custody case, Kevin Cruz, is that correct?”

  “That’s correct.”

  This was so Riesner, to parrot her formality when a simple yes would do. Nina couldn’t help it, she bristled over every word he spoke, every hand gesture, every slight movement of his cheek. Here it was, the moment in this hearing she had so dreaded. The colleague she disliked most in the world was here not only to witness her public vilification, but also to add to it. At last, it appeared, Jeffrey Riesner might win one big case against her, the biggest.

 
; “Please tell the court the content of that call.”

  He cleared his throat, a sound that made Nina want to gag. “Very early, I would say about six A.M. on Friday, September seventh, I received a telephone call at my residence. I had a particularly busy day-too many clients to count needed my personal attention, so I was already working, preparing for court. I answered the phone myself. I can’t tell you if the voice belonged to a man or a woman. It’s my considered opinion this person was using some kind of a sound-altering device.

  “The voice said that Kevin Cruz had a lover, an underage teenaged girl named Alexandra Peck. The voice also offered me her phone number, which I wrote down. I checked a cross-directory listing to get an address to match that number. I called, and spoke with one of her parents, verifying that she did indeed know Kevin Cruz and had been in contact with him almost daily through a cadet program. Her mother described them as former colleagues and friends. I then woke a few people up to arrange a subpoena demanding that Miss Peck appear in court at a custody hearing scheduled for that very day.”

  “And you notified Ms. Reilly of this new witness when?”

  “That same morning, via fax.”

  “And what was her reaction to the news that her case was about to burst wide open?”

  “Oh, she did the best she could do to discredit my motives and professionalism to the judge. That’s pretty much her defense style, resorting to personal attacks.”

  He stopped short of sticking his tongue out at her.

  “And what did the judge decide?”

  “To allow Ali Peck to testify, of course. Everything I did was perfectly legitimate. I did what I could to provide opposing counsel with prompt notification. Naturally, the judge wants all the information possible before determining a custody case. He didn’t want to decide based on false or limited information, when there was someone sitting right there in court with pertinent testimony, ready to come forward.”

  “And what was Ali Peck’s testimony?”

  At this point, Nina tuned out. She knew what had happened in court that day and she did not care to hear his version. She scribbled on her notepad and tried to drum up a tune to hum mentally. His voice settled like yellow smog over the court.

  Of course he presented himself in the best possible light and Nina in the worst as he gave lengthy answers to Nolan’s questions. They finally got to the heart of the matter. Yes, Riesner said, he believed that he had won temporary custody for his client based on Alexandra Peck’s testimony against Kevin Cruz. Yes, the leak of what had been in Nina’s confidential file was probably the strongest determining factor in that win.

  Once Nolan had finished, making sure the points were made and triple-made, Jack stood up.

  “Today in court, you say you received an anonymous phone call informing you about Ali Peck, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet that’s not what you told Ms. Reilly, is it?”

  “I told my opposing counsel exactly what she needed to know, no more than that.”

  “You suggested that Ali Peck had contacted you, didn’t you?”

  “You know how it is sometimes, when someone is just after you and after you about something-you toss them a bone because you don’t want to be engaged in exhaustive argument or confrontation. It’s not something I’m proud of, but you know, I wasn’t under oath when I was talking with her, unlike today.”

  “You lied to her, didn’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t characterize my comments that way at all. I may have allowed her to believe something that was incorrect. It’s the way things work in law. Sometimes you allow misunderstandings to float if they will serve your client.”

  “Help us out here. I don’t think this is very clear. In what way does having an anonymous phone call versus a direct phone call serve your client?”

  “It was my judgment that Ali Peck’s evidence would seem more credible to opposing counsel if she jumped to the conclusion that the information came directly from the girl, and was willingly offered. It was just a way to push opposing counsel a little off-balance, make an appearance of more strength than we had, a tried-and-true method I’m sure you’ve used in your day,” Riesner said.

  “It’s your judgment that it’s okay to lie if it suits your purposes.”

  “I did not lie. I said clearly that I did not know who made the call-” And he stirred up a frothy brew of obfuscation and confusion, trying to keep his actions palatable to the California State Bar. The testimony went on like that for a long time. Jack continued to beat away at him and Riesner continued to parry until Jack finally sat down again. He hadn’t scored, and he knew it.

  “You don’t make points with this guy,” he whispered to Nina. “You make war.”

  “Now you know.”

  28

  S TANDING IN THE HALLWAY outside the courtroom area and past the elevator banks, Nina decided they had a few minutes before they had to leave, and Paul had disappeared into the rest room. She called Sandy to check in. To her surprise, Wish answered the phone. “Where’s Sandy?”

  “Oh, uh-” He sounded distracted. “Sorry, there are two people who’ve been waiting in here for half an hour. What should I do with them?”

  “Who are they?”

  “I think they need legal representation.” His hand went down over the phone and she heard some muffled conversation. “Yep, that’s what it is.”

  “Take their names and numbers. Tell them we’ll call them to arrange an appointment later on today or tomorrow morning. Then send them home.”

  “Okay.”

  She waited while he achieved this feat.

  Sounding relieved, he came back on the phone. “They were waiting at the door when I got here. Mom left in such a rush she didn’t tell me what to do about them.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Remember that thing where the president came to Tahoe a few years ago and put some money into Indian projects and returned some land?”

  “Yes,” Nina said.

  “She headed a committee about that. She has also been on the Washoe Tribal Council and is real active in pressuring the government to return tribal homelands in the Tahoe Basin to the Washoe. Plus she and Dad have been doing a lot of work organizing the tribe, helping with zoning problems, helping people to figure out what to do with tribal lands, that type of thing. And of course, you knew she was a member of the Leviathan Land Council when they were persuading the feds to designate an abandoned sulfur mine a Superfund site?”

  “Uh. I guess I heard something about that.” But not from Sandy. Anything she had heard, she had read in the papers.

  “So she got a call yesterday. Some big shot is in town and wanted to talk to her.”

  “What about?”

  “A job. They’ve been after her for a while about it.”

  “What? She never said a word to me.”

  “They want her to work with the Bureau of Indian Affairs this summer on some huge report the government is doing about, uh, Indian affairs, I guess. Supposed to take months, but you know how those things go on for years.”

  Holy-Sandy could leave her? Before she had time to absorb the blow, Wish spoke again.

  “Don’t worry, Nina. Don’t get the wrong idea. She would never leave you high and dry. She just went to tell them no. Oh, and she left a note-something she wanted me to tell you.” He shuffled papers. “Here it is. ‘I talked to that graphologist lady after court when I was up there.’ ”

  “That’s all it says?”

  “Uh oh. There seems to be a second part missing. I tossed a bunch of these tiny sticky yellow slips a few minutes ago. Hang on and I’ll look.”

  “Wish, I’m sorry. I don’t have time to wait right now. Tell you what. You call me if you find it, okay?”

  “Mom won’t like this. She said it was real important.” He shuffled a few more papers. “But I guess it’ll have to wait. Nina?”

  “Yes?”

  “Is Brandy around?”

  �
��Not today, Wish.”

  The phone on the other side went down with a clunk. When Wish picked it up, he sounded congested. “I’ve got a major problem.”

  “Brandy?”

  “I can’t stop thinking about her. There’s no future for us because she loves that guy. Maybe someone else will come along like her, someone that-”

  “Wish, she’s going to marry Bruce-”

  “I’ve been thinking about generosity. Courage. All that stuff. How good people do the right thing even if it costs them. And don’t complain or even blow their own horns about it after, you know, except maybe Peter Pan. He was an awful braggart.”

  “Is there something I can help you with, Wish?” She didn’t have time, but he sounded so woeful.

  “Let me talk to Paul, okay? I’ll call back when I find that paper Mom wrote.”

  Paul had reappeared at her side. She handed the phone to him and went to get her things from the witness waiting room.

  “I took your advice,” Wish told Paul. “I told Bruce Ford to get circumcised.”

  “You-what?”

  “Just think, a girl caring so much that her fiancé wasn’t circumcised that she couldn’t marry him, but was still too chicken to tell him how he could fix things. She’d leave him first!”

  Paul put a hand to his mouth to keep it shut.

  “What’s funny is, once she broke down and told her sister, she told everybody who would listen. So why not tell him, is what I asked her. But she just couldn’t do it. So I did. I gotta tell you, Bruce Ford’s her kind of man, completely. He’d do anything to please her, turns out. They definitely belong together. No way would I go through that, not even for someone as foxy as Brandy.”

  “It was the right thing to do.”

  Wish made an inarticulate sound.

  “Wish, I’m sorry. I have to go.” Nina was standing over in front of the metal detector, pointing to her watch. “Nina says thanks for taking care of the office.”