Dark Moon, A Work in Progress, Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN
He arrived at her office in La Jolla at eight forty-five on Monday. He Was carrying two grande Starbuck’s lattes and a paper bag containing two scrambled egg and bacon sandwiches. He wished his heart didn’t beat so fast at the sight of her in tight jeans and a simple black blouse.
“You’re early.”
“I thought you’d be hungry.”
Sarah smiled and took a fortifying sip of coffee from the covered paper cup. “I can’t argue with that.”
He sat down in one of the two chairs in front of her desk and opened the sandwich wrapper. Sarah noted his uniform of casual khaki’s and starched shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He saw her take in his attire.
“Real men do wear pink.”
“I wasn’t disputing that. It looks good on you.”
“Thanks. And I’m admiring those jeans.”
“I’m not headed to court today. Thank, God. I can get away with these out here.”
“But not back on Wall Street I take it. So what happened on Friday?”
She recounted the debacle in Judge Tyler’s chambers.
“That bad?”
“Yeah. And the funny part is, I didn’t expect it. I thought he’d play fair and say yes.”
“This isn’t ‘Play Fair’ world.”
“I’m beginning to understand that. Sometimes I feel like Alice in Legal Wonderland. I’m expecting the see the Red Queen sitting on the bench at any minute.”
“So what are you going to do? Take a writ to the court of appeal and demand an order to get an expert appointed?”
“No. As I was leaving, Judge Tyler reminded me he plays golf with the presiding justice of the court of appeal every Tuesday afternoon. I have a feeling I’m going to be up there seeking a writ before this case is over, so I’d better pick my spots.”
“Go up too often, and you look like a whiner.
“Exactly.”
“Well, I’ve got some more bad news for you.” He licked the last drop of ketchup off his fingers as he spoke and noticed she had eaten a third of her sandwich and put it down. “Don’t you like the chow, by the way?”
“No, its great. Thanks. Talking about Judge Tyler took my appetite away. What’s your bad news?”
“I didn’t find any incidents of domestic violence on Michael Reed. Nothing. Nada. Zip.”
“Wow, and I assume you’ve illegally checked the Bureau’s data bases. So we are big time out of luck on that one.”
“For now. You don’t know what Alexa is going to say when she wakes up.”
“Oh, you mean when they med her to make her talk to us.”
“Look, I agree they’ll be acting illegally. But at least she’ll talk to us.”
“Meds are not a cure-all. Sometimes the clients hallucinate, and when they talk to you, you can’t tell what’s real and what’s fiction. And meds make them zombie-like in front of the jury.”
“Sounds like more issues for the appellate attorney.”
“Do you read lawyer fiction?”
Jim smiled. “Some of it.”
“Know what Scott Turow calls an appellate attorney? ‘The designated looser.’ I hate to think my sole function as trial counsel is making a record for him or her to take up on appeal.”
“Got you. Well, I’ll keep digging on Michael. There are more places to look.”
“And I want to give you some work in another case, too. This is a proposed witness list in a mail fraud prosecution that may or may not go to trial in federal court after the first of the year. I need to know what you find out about them. Hopefully lots of stuff to make them look bad in front of the jury.”
“Aye, aye, sir. Will get on it.” Jim was happy because she was enlarging his involvement in her work, despite David Scott. “So what are we going to do about an expert for Alexa?”
“I’m going to hire Jordan Stewart out of my own pocket.”
“Wow, you do want to win this thing!”
“Guilty as charged. And if we do get the evidence to use a battered woman defense, I want Jordan on board. And at that point, the court will have to pay for her. I’m going up to Los Angeles to see her in the morning.”
“Need me with you?”
“No, get going on those mail fraud witnesses. There are a lot of them. I will need you when we go to the jail to see Alexa.”
“And when will that be?”
“I’m thinking we should go every few days. For one, it might turn her around enough to talk to us. For another, I think how often I’ve tried to get her to cooperate might be a subject at the hearing.”
“You mean they’ll say you didn’t try hard enough.”
“As you know, the defense trial lawyer gets blamed for everything.”
“I’d like to say you’re being paranoid, but you’re not. So when do we go to see her again?”
“Let’s meet at the jail at two o’clock on Tuesday afternoon.”