Courting Trouble raa-9

by Lisa Scottoline

  “Save it, Mr. Starankovic. We both know that defense counsel is right on the law. Your conduct as class counsel has been a disgrace—even my law clerks could do better. How could you miss the deadline on your motion for class certification? It’s the one thing you have to do and you couldn’t even do that right.”

  “But Your Honor . . .”

  Bitter Man holds up a hand that looks like a mound of Play-Doh. “Stifle, Mr. Starankovic, as Archie Bunker used to say.” He glances around the room to see if anyone appreciates his joke. The gallery is too terrified to laugh, but the courtroom deputy smiles broadly. Your tax dollars at work.

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Starankovic bows slightly.

  “Now, Mr. Starankovic, even though Miz DiNunzio thinks she has you, you and I know that I have total discretion in deciding whether to grant her motion. I may grant it or I may deny it purely as a matter of my own inherent powers. Am I right?”

  Starankovic nods.

  “Of course I am. So your work is cut out for you. Your job is to give me your best argument. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t grant Miz DiNunzio’s motion.”

  Starankovic blinks rapidly. “Your Honor, if I may, the class is composed—”

  Bitter Man holds up a finger. “I said, one good reason.”

  “I was about to, Your Honor. The class is composed of some five hundred employees, and counting-”

  “No. No. You’re not listening, Mr. Starankovic. Repeat after me. ‘The one good reason . . .’”

  Starankovic licks his dry lips. “The one good reason . . .”

  “’You shouldn’t grant the motion . . .’”

  “You shouldn’t grant the motion . . .”

  “’Is . . .?’” Bitter Man finishes with a flourish, waving his hand in the air like a conductor.

  “Is . . .”

  “No, you idiot! I’m not going to finish the sentence for you. You finish the sentence.”

  “I knew that, Your Honor. I’m sorry.” The man is sweating bullets. “It’s hard to explain. I—”

  “One good reason!” the judge bellows.

  Starankovic jumps.

  The courtroom deputy looks down. The gallery holds its breath. I wonder why judges like Bitter Man get appointments for life. The answer is: because of presidents like Nixon. Someday the electorate will make this connection, I know it.

  “I made some mistakes, Your Honor, I admit it,” Starankovic blurts out. “I was having a rough time, my mother had just passed, and I missed a lot of deadlines. Not just on this case—on others too. But it won’t happen again, Your Honor, you have my word on that.”

  Bitter Man’s face is a mask of exaggerated disbelief. He grabs the sides of the dais and leans way over. “This is your best argument? This is the one good reason?”

  Starankovic swallows hard.

  I feel awful. I almost wish I’d never brought the motion in the first place.

  “This is the best you can come up with? The one good reason I shouldn’t grant the motion is that you were making a lot of mistakes at the time—and this was just one of them?”

  “Your Honor, it’s not like—”

  “Mr. Starankovic, you said your only concern was for your clients. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Do you care enough to give them the best lawyer possible?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Would the best lawyer possible fail to file his motion for class certification on time?”

  “No . . .Your Honor.”

  “But you failed to do so, didn’t you?”

  Starankovic blinks madly.

  “Didn’t you?”

  Starankovic opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

  “Didn’t you fail to do so, Mr. Starankovic? Yes or no will do.”

  “Yes,” he says quietly.

  “Then you are not the best lawyer possible, are you?”

  There is a silence as Starankovic looks down. He can’t bring himself to say it. He shakes his head once, then again.

  Socrates would have stopped there, but Bitter Man is just warming up. He drags Starankovic through every deadline he blew and every phone call he failed to return. I can barely witness the spectacle; the back rows are shocked into silence. Poor Starankovic torques this way and that, eyelids aflutter, but Bitterman’s canines are sunk deep in his neck, pinning him to the floor. There’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. There’s only pain and suffering.

  When it’s over, Bitter Man issues his decision from the bench. With a puffy smile, he says, “Motion granted.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” I say, dry-mouthed.

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” says Starankovic, hemorrhaging freely. He shoots me a look that could kill.

  “Next!” says Bitter Man.

  I stuff my papers in my briefcase and turn to go, as another corporate shill takes my place at counsel table. The pews are jam-packed with us, padded shoulder to padded shoulder, because the argument schedule is so late. I hurry by the freshly shaved suits in rep ties and collar pins. I feel like I’m fleeing the scene of a murder. I avoid the eyes of the men in the gallery, some amused, others curious. I don’t want to think about who sat among them at this time last year.

  I promised myself.

  I’m almost past the back row when someone grabs my elbow. It’s the only other woman in this horde of pinstriped testosterone, and her red-lacquered nails dig into my arm.

  “This has gone far enough!” the woman says.

  “What do you mean?” My chest still feels tight, blotchy. I have a promise to keep and I’m failing fast. I try to avoid looking at the pew where she sits, but I can’t help it. It’s where my husband sat with his first-grade class and watched me argue my first motion. The rich mahogany of the pew has been burnished to a high luster, like a casket.

  “He hates us! He hates women lawyers!” she says. She punches the bridge of her glasses with a finger. “I think it’s high time we did something about it.”

  I only half hear her. All I can think about is Mike. He sat right in this row and had to quiet the class as they fidgeted, whispered, and giggled through the entire argument. He sat at the end of the pew, his arm rested right here. I touch the knobby arm rest with my fingertips. It feels just like his shoulder used to feel: strong, solid. As if it would never give way. I don’t want to move my hand.

  “We have to file a complaint of judicial misconduct. It’s the only thing that will stop him. I know the procedure. You file the complaint with the Clerk of the Third Circuit, then it goes to the Chief Judge and . . .”

  Her words grow faint. My fingertips on the shoulder of wood put me in touch with Mike, and in touch with that day. It was a morning like this one. My first argument in court. I remember my own nervous excitement, presenting the motion almost automatically, in a blur. Bitter Man ruled for me in the end, which caused the first-graders to burst into giddy applause. Mike’s face was lit up by a proud smile that didn’t fade even when Bitter Man went ballistic, pounding his gavel . . .

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  Reality.

  I pull my hand from the cold, glossy wood of the pew. Mike isn’t here, Mike is gone. I feel my chest flush violently. “I have to go.”

  “Wait? How will I find you? I need you to sign the complaint,” the woman says, grasping at my arm. “I have at least two other incidents. If we don’t do something about this, no one else will!”

  “Let me go, I have to go.” I yank my arm from her grasp and bang through the courtroom doors.

  My promise is broken; my head is flooded with a memory. Mike and I celebrated the night I won the motion. We made love, so sweetly, and then ate pizza, a reverse of our usual order. Afterward he told me he felt sorry for the employees whose discrimination case I had gotten dismissed.

  “You’re a softie,” I said.

  “But you love me for it,” he said.

  Which was true. Two months later, Mike was dead.

 
And I began to notice a softer-hearted voice than usual creeping into my own consciousness. I don’t know for sure whose voice it is, but I think the voice is Mike, talking to me still. It says the things he would say, it’s picked up where he left off. Lately it’s been whispering to me that my on-the-job sins are piling up. That each hash mark for the corporate defense is a black mark for my soul.

  Judgment day will come, it says. It’s just a matter of time.

  Copyright © 1993 by Lisa Scottoline. All rights reserved.

  Final Appeal

  Do our judges do us justice?

  To Philadelphia lawyer Grace Rossi, who’s starting over after a divorce, a part-time job with a federal appeals court sounds perfect. But Grace doesn’t count on being assigned to an explosive death penalty appeal.

  Nor does she expect ardor in the court, in the form of an affair with her boss, Chief Judge Armen Gregorian.

  Then the truly unimaginable happens and Grace finds herself investigating a murder. Unearthing a six-figure bank account kept by a judge with an alias; breaking into another judge’s chambers, and a secret apartment. Following a trail of bribery and judicial corruption that’s stumped even the FBI. In no time at all, Grace under fire takes on a whole new meaning.

  Entertainment Weekly: “Good, speedy fun.”

  Chapter One

  At times like this I realize I’m too old to be starting over, working with law clerks. I own pantyhose with more mileage than these kids, and better judgment. For example, two of the clerks, Ben Safer and Artie Weiss, are bickering as we speak; never mind that they’re making a scene in an otherwise quiet appellate courtroom, in front of the most expensive members of the Philadelphia bar.

  “No arguing in the courtroom,” I tell them, in the same tone I use on my six-year-old. Not that it works with her either.

  “He started it, Grace,” Ben says in a firm stage whisper, standing before the bank of leather chairs against the wall. “He told me he’d save me a seat and he didn’t. Now there’s no seats left.”

  “Will you move, geek? You’re blocking my sun,” Artie says, not bothering to look up from the sports page. He rarely overexerts himself; he’s sauntered through life to date, relying on his golden-boy good looks, native intelligence, and uncanny jump shot. He throws one strong leg over the other and turns the page, confident he’ll win this argument even if it runs into overtime. Artie, in short, is a winner.

  But so is Ben in his own way; he was number two at Chicago Law School, meat grinder of the Midwest. “You told me you’d save me a seat, Weiss,” he says, “so you owe me one. Yours. Get up.”

  “Eat me,” Artie says, loud enough to distract the lawyers conferring at the counsel table like a bouquet of bald spots. They’d give him a dirty look if he were anyone else, but because he works for the chief judge they flash capped smiles; you never know which clerk’s got your case on his desk.

  “Get up. Now, Weiss.”

  “Separate, you two,” I say. “Ben, go sit in the back. Argument’s going to start any minute.”

  “Out of the question. I won’t sit in public seating. He said he’d save me a seat, he owes me a seat.”

  “It’s not a contract, Ben,” I advise him. For free.

  “I understand that. But he should be the one who moves, not me.” He straightens the knot on his tie, already at tourniquet tension; between the squeeze on his neck and the one on his sphincter, the kid’s twisted shut at both ends like a skinny piece of saltwater taffy. “I have a case being argued.”

  “So do I, jizzbag,” Artie says, flipping the page.

  I like Artie, but the problem with the Artie Weisses of the world is they have no limits. “Artie, did you tell him you’d save him a seat?”

  “Why would I do that? Then I’d have to sit next to him.” He gives Ben the finger behind the tent of newspaper.

  I draw the line. “Artie, put your finger away.”

  “Ooooh, spank me, Grace. Spank me hard. Pull my wittle pants down and throw me over your gorgeous knees.”

  “You couldn’t handle it, big guy.”

  “Try me.” He leans over with a broad grin.

  “I mean it, Artie. You’re on notice.” He doesn’t know I haven’t had sex since my marriage ended three years ago. Nobody’s in the market for a single mother, even a decent-looking one with improved brown hair, authentic blue eyes, and a body that’s staying the course, at least as we speak.

  “Come on, sugar,” Artie says, nuzzling my shoulder. “Live the dream.”

  “Cut it out.”

  “You read the book, now see the movie.”

  I turn toward Ben to avoid laughing; it’s not good to laugh when you’re setting limits. “Ben, you know he’s not going to move. The judges will be out any minute. Go find a seat in the back.”

  Ben scans the back row where the courthouse groupies sit; it’s a lineup that includes retired men, the truly lunatic, even the homeless. Ben, looking them over, makes no effort to hide his disdain; you’d think he’d been asked to skinnydip in the Ganges. He turns to me, vaguely desperate. “Let me have your seat, Grace. I’ll take notes for you.”

  “No.”

  “But my notes are like transcripts. I used to sell them at school.”

  “I can take my own notes, thank you.” Ten years as a trial lawyer, I can handle taking notes; taking notes is mostly what I do now as the assistant to the chief judge. I take notes while real lawyers argue, then I go to the library and draft an opinion that real lawyers cite in their next argument. But I’m not complaining. I took this job because it was part-time and I’m not as good a juggler as Joan Lunden, Paula Zahn, and other circus performers.

  “How about you, Sarah?” Ben asks the third law clerk, Sarah Whittemore, sitting on my other side. “You don’t have a case this morning. You can sit in the back.”

  Fat chance. Sarah smooths a strand of cool blond hair away from her face, revealing a nose so diminutive it’s a wonder she gets any oxygen at all. “Sorry, I need this seat,” she says.

  I could have told him that. Sarah wants to represent the downtrodden, not mingle with them.

  A paneled door opens near the dais and the court crier, a compact man with a competent air, begins a last-minute check on the microphones at the dais and podium. Ben glances at the back row with dismay. “I can’t sit back there with those people. One of them has a plastic hat on, for God’s sake.”

  Artie looks over the top of his paper. “A plastic hat? Where?”

  “There.” Ben jerks his thumb toward a bearded man sporting a crinkled cellophane rain bonnet and a black raincoat buttoned to the neck. The man’s collar is flipped up, ready for monsoon season, but it’s not raining in the courtroom today.

  “It’s Shake and Bake! He came!” Artie says. His face lights up and he waves at the man with his newspaper. “Go sit with him, Safer, he’s all right.”

  “You know that guy, Artie?” I ask, sitting straighter to get a better look. The bearded man grins in a loopy way at the massive gold seal of the United States courts mounted behind the dais, his grubby face tilted to the disk like a black-eyed Susan to the sun.

  “Sure. He hangs out at the Y, plays ball with me and Armen. You oughta see his spin move, it’s awesome when he’s not zoned out. I told him to stop by and see the judge on the bench.”

  Ben’s dark eyes widen. “You invited that kook to oral argument? How could you do that?”

  I don’t say it, but for the first time I agree with Ben. I am becoming a geek, a superannuated geek.

  Why shouldn’t he come to court?” Artie says. “It’s a free country. He’s got rights.” He stands up and signals wildly, as ill-mannered as a golden retriever puppy; Artie’s the pick of the litter out of Harvard, where they evidently do not teach common sense.

  The lawyers in the first three rows of the courtroom crane their necks at him, and I tug at the rough khaki of his sport coat. “Artie, don’t embarrass me,” I say.

  Sarah leans over. “Artie,
you’re crazier than he is. Sit down.”

  “He’s not crazy,” Artie says, still signaling.

  “He’s wearing Saran Wrap,” I point out.

  “He always does. It’s Shake and Bake, man. You gotta love it.”

  “Fine,” Ben says. “You like him so much, you go sit with him.”

  “Don’t mind if I do. Party on, Safer.” Artie claps Ben on the back and walks toward the back row.

  “Please rise!” shouts the crier, standing behind a desk at the side of the dais. “The Honorable Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.”

  A concealed door to the left of the dais swings open, and the judges parade out, resplendent in their swishing black robes. The federal courts decide appeals in three-judge panels, inviting comparison to the three wise men or the three stooges, depending on whether you win or lose. First comes the Honorable Phillip Galanter, tall, thin, and Aryan, with slack jowls like Ed Meese used to have and blond hair thinning to gray. He’s followed by a wizened senior judge, the Honorable Morris Townsend, shuffling slowly along, and finally the Very Honorable and Terribly Handsome Chief Judge Armen Gregorian, my boss.

  “Armen looks good up there, doesn’t he?” Sarah says, crossing her legs under the skirt of her sleek slate-gray suit.

  He sure as hell does. Towering over the two of them, Armen grins down at the crowd in an easy way. His complexion is tinged with olive; his oversized teeth remind me of an exotic JFK. There are precious few perks in working for the judicial branch, and a boss who looks like a sultan is one of them. I lean near Sarah’s perfumed neck and whisper, “I got first dibs.”

  “In your dreams.”

  “But you’re too young for him.”

  She smirks. “Too young? Is there such a thing?”

  “Bitch.” I elbow her in the ovary.

  “Oyez! Oyez!” calls the crier. “All persons having business with the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for this court is now in session. God save the United States and this honorable court. Be seated, please.”

  The panel sits down and the first appeal begins. Ben takes notes on the argument by the appellant’s lawyer, who had his civil case dismissed by the district court ten floors below us. The young lawyer has been granted ten minutes without questions from the judges to present his argument, but he’s blowing them fast. Armen’s forehead wrinkles with concern; he wants to cut to the chase, but this poor guy can’t get out of the garage.