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Dark Moon, A Work in Progress, Chapter Sixteen

December 6, 2013/in Uncategorized /by DeborahH

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Hospitals are white and barren at night, Sarah thought, as they headed down the wide linoleum corridor on the third floor where she’d been told she would find Alexa’s room. She matched her step to Jim’s long stride and raced along, praying the news wouldn’t be bad. Her heart was hammering hard in her chest. A big circle of clock pinned to the white tile wall said it was 11:30.
A deputy sheriff in his khaki uniform was on guard outside Alex’s room. He stopped them as they tried to enter.
“You can’t go in there.”
“Yes, I can. I’m her attorney, Sarah Knight, and this is my private investigator, Jim Mitchell.” They flashed their bar cards at the grim deputy as if they were light sabers, and went in.
Her breath caught the minute she entered. In the dim light, she could make out Alexa’s tiny form in the big hospital bed. They had tubes down her throat and an IV ran into one arm. The other was handcuffed to the bed. A machine was obviously breathing for her.
White-hot anger boiled up in Sarah like a monstrous dragon rising from the depths of the earth. She turned and pulled open the door and barked at the deputy, “Come in here, right now!”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I can’t – ”
“Yes – you – can!” Sarah formed each word with insulting clarity.
The deputy shifted his head from side to side to see who was watching, and then obeyed her.
“Take those handcuffs off right now!”
“I can’t, ma’am. The prisoner is being held for double murder.”
“I said, Take them off! There’s no possibility Mrs. Reed is going anywhere!”
The deputy frowned but obeyed. “You’re responsible if she escapes.”
“Gladly!”
After the deputy had shuffled back to his post in defeat, Sarah took some long breaths to calm down. Her pulse was racing as if she’d just run a marathon. Jim, who was standing beside her, laid a hand on her arm as if to remind her she wasn’t alone.
“It’s worse than I pictured,” she said.
“Agreed.”
The door opened and a fortiesh woman in dark gray scrubs with tired eyes and wisps of hair escaping what had started her shift as a bun came in. “Who are you? You can’t be in here.”
“I’m Alexa’s attorney, and this is my investigator. She doesn’t have any family that anyone knows of. We came to see what happened and how she’s doing.”
“She had a reaction to the drugs the jail gave her.”
“What were they?”
“Lexapro and Depakote.”
“Did they check for medical allergies before they prescribed them?”
“I have no idea. I work here. You’ll have to ask the people downtown in the jail what they knew about her medical history. Look, don’t give me a hard time, ok? I’m just supposed to check her vitals and fill in her chart and note that she’s still alive. Barely.”
Sarah frowned but said no more, bowing to the frazzled nurse’s exhaustion.
After she left, Sarah tired to sit down on the side of the bed, but because of all the machines close by there was no space. Jim pulled up a chair for her.
“Here.”
“Thanks.” Sarah sank into it as she reached for Alexa Reed’s lifeless hand.
“Do you want some time with here alone?” Jim asked.
“Yeah. I think so. Those handcuffs really set me off.”
“And they should have. As much as I hate to say it, she’s not looking as if she’s going to come out of this.”
Sarah sighed. “Agreed. They’re such bastards, they’d let her die without a priest.”
“Is she Catholic?”
“Pretty close. Episcopalian. I read it in her file. Brigman made a big stink about her wanting to raise the children in her church supposedly to alienate them from Michael who wasn’t religious.”
“I’ll go see if there’s any kind of priest on duty.”
“Even a Catholic one would do.” Sarah touched the lifeless form on the bed. “She deserves a better send off to the next world than she’s had in this one. How I wish I still believed in God!”
* * *
Sarah sat in the dim room with Alexa’s lifeless form for a long time. The respirator mechanically and rhythmically pushed her lungs up and down as if Alexa herself were resisting continuing to live.
Why save her for the purpose of killing her, Sarah wondered. What would happen to me if I pulled the plug on the machine? I could say I tripped. I could end all of this in a split second. She stared at the tangle of wires under the bed, trying to decide which one to disconnect to free Alexa Reed forever. She had a feeling Hal Remington and the San Diego legal community and Coleman Reed would be so grateful, she’d never lack for court-appointed work. Not that she cared about that.
This is when you pray, Sarah reminded herself. But she had prayed once. No, not once. She had prayed every day for hundreds and hundreds of days. She had worn out her knees proving there was no God because if there had been, her prayers would have been answered. But God was merely a figment of suffering peoples’ imaginations. He was no more than an effort to explain the unexplainable horror of unbearable suffering. The nightmare of those hundreds of unanswered prayers had altered her life forever. She would always be alone.
Suddenly and almost silently, the door swung open, and Jim appeared with a thirtyish man in a priest’s collar and black suit.
“Sarah, this is Father Richard Morely. He’s a Catholic priest, but he’s on duty right now as the night chaplain.”
“She needs the last rites, Father,” Sarah said. “She’s Episcopalian. Can you still do that for her?”
“Of course. Do you know if she was ever baptized? That’s more the important sacrament.”
“No, we don’t know. I’m her attorney. We don’t think she has any family. Her file says she grew up Episcopalian, so I’d bet she was baptized. I know her children were.”
“I’ll do both, just to be very sure,” Father Morley said. “I’ll need to fetch some holy water from the chapel and anointing oil. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
Jim’s kind eyes met hers, and she struggled to keep her face impassive. “Thanks for finding him.”
“Of course. I didn’t know you were religious.”
“I’m not. But Alexa is. Or was.”
Jim looked over at the little form on the big bed. He walked over and gently stroked the tangled blonde hair as if she were a child. Sarah marveled at the compassion in his touch.
As he smoothed Alexa’s matted curls he said, “I was religious once. Gail wanted Cody to be raised Catholic because she is. I went to mass with them every week. I thought of converting. But then Gail hit me with those divorce papers; and I lost what I loved best in the word. I wondered why God didn’t at least send me a warning. After that, I wasn’t so sure about Him anymore.”
“A benevolent God would have Alexa Reed home safe and sound with her children right now.” Sarah could see the bitterness in her voice had startled him. “I’m sure it’s a pretty safe bet that heaven is the empty hole we think it is.”
The door swung open and Father Morely came back with his priest’s stole, holy water, and anointing oil. Sarah was surprised when Jim suddenly left the room as if he didn’t want to watch what was about to take place.

Dark Moon, A Work in Progress, Chapter Fifteen

November 22, 2013/in Uncategorized /by DeborahH

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“You’re very quiet, tonight,” Jim observed.
It was Friday night, and Sarah had accepted another dinner invitation against her better judgement. She was sitting on the stool in his kitchen with a glass of wine, watching him pound veal for piccata. He’d wanted her to come over last night, but she’d been too drained after the interview with Bob Metcalf. She’d lied and said she had a date with David, although she had actually gone home, poured herself a drink, and sat on her patio, staring at the stars. She had wanted to shake her fist at God and demand why she had to be Alexa Reed’s lawyer. But she didn’t believe in God anymore so there was no one out there to shake her fist at. She could barely remember the days when she had believed, had gone to church, had sung hymns, had had what they called “faith.” But “faith” had only taught her God was the ultimate abuser and the consummate cosmic joke from a sadistic universe. What kind of compassionate God would create Alexa Reed’s hell? Or hers?
“I said you’re very quiet tonight.”
“Just tired.”
“Do you think we have an insanity defense now?”
“You mean after talking to Bob Metcalf?”
“You’ve got to admit, Alexa a had a good reason to snap under that kind of pressure.”
“We’d lose on insanity.”
“Why?”
“Because insane people can’t premeditate, and she had lots of time that night to plan her moves. She arrived at Brigman’s at 9:30, and he didn’t die until 11:00. That gives her a couple of hours to decide to kill him. Maybe I could argue it was a snap decision to go finish Michael off, too, but I doubt the jury would buy it. The story Bob told hurts Alexa more than it helps because it gives her a strong motive for first degree murder as revenge for all the injustice she suffered. If I were the prosecutor, I’d argue ‘vigilante justice.’”
“But there must be something in all that horror that would swung the jurors her way?”
“Only if we can show he beat her. Then we have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Battered Women’s Syndrome going for us. That would get us down to manslaughter and keep her from lethal injection. Based on Bob’s story, I’d say it was plausible she regarded Brigman as an abuser as much as Michael. We just need some evidence besides what has come out of Alexa’s own mouth.”
“I’m still trying.”
“I know you are.”
Sarah watched Jim cut, slice and pound with a thoughtful look on his face.
“What are you thinking about so hard?”
“Wishing there were some way we could get her off completely. Manslaughter would still get her eleven years. That’s too much after everything she’s been through. And a manslaughter verdict means she won’t get her children back.”
Sarah tried to find her tough-as-nails defense lawyer face, but she knew it wasn’t working. “Well, there’s jury nullification. It’s rare, and courts hate it. But sometimes jurors just say, we don’t care about the law. We’re not going to convict.”
“I’d agree with that one here,” Jim said as he started to saute the veal.
* * *
It was a warm night for September in San Diego, and they ate on Jim’s jasmine scented patio, listening to the ocean rolling onshore in the distance. The good food and the wine lulled the pain that had gripped Sarah’s soul since meeting Bob Metcalf. She drank too much as she listened to Jim talke about Cody’s passion for model trains and Lego’s.
“He has a huge train layout in Josh and Gail’s basement. And he uses the Legos to build cities for the trains to run through and to create the people who live in them. Every time he comes to see me, he wants to go to Legoland to get more ideas for his projects.”
“What’s Legoland?”
“Oh, I forgot. You don’t have kids. You know what Legos are, right?”
She nodded.
“The company is based in Denmark. They’ve built an amusement park here at Carlsbad with rides and sides, and tiny cities and people made out of Lego blocks.”
“And you like to go?”
“With Cody, yes.”
Sarah watched him stare vacantly at his empty plate. The visit to Bob had upset him, too.
“When do you see him again?”
“Christmas. If I’m lucky. More and more he doesn’t want to come because he has things to do with his friends. He’s beginning to be interested in girls. When he gets a girlfriend, he won’t come at all unless she can come, too. And you know her parents will say no.”
“It hasn’t happened, yet. Don’t borrow trouble.”
Jim gave her his heart-melting smile, and she reminded herself theirs was a business relationship in the end-of-summer romantic dark.
“Good advice. Go sit on the loveseat over there while I take these plates inside and bring desert.”
“Desert? No, I’ve eaten too much already.”
“You can at least taste it. Coconut flan with raspberry sauce. And since you don’t eat at home, too much here is a good thing.”
Spinning happily in her wine-induced haze, Sarah obeyed him even though a few minutes later, he had returned with one plate and two forks and was sitting much too close for a professional relationship. She tried to concentrate on the flan. The soft, sweet pudding was the ultimate comfort food.
“Good?”
“Fantastic. And I don’t like sweets.”
He grinned, happy at his triumph. But then his face darkened. “You know, the toughest thing for me is knowing Cody’s happy in a world I can’t belong to. I mean, I’m glad Josh filled the void in Gail’s life my stupidity created, but the pain never ends for me. Every day I think about Cody getting up, going to school, doing his homework, playing with those trains without me. And all I can do is send him more trains and more Legos, but I can’t build them with him or watch them run. Another man gets to do that.”
His pain was so raw and so real that without thinking, Sarah put her hand over his. His dark eyes held hers, and he leaned toward her, his lips inches from hers. She wanted him to kiss her, but she knew it would change everything. And she wasn’t ready for everything to change. Suddenly her cell phone shrilled, and she jumped up at the last minute to answer it.
* * *
What had he been thinking? Jim asked himself as Sarah frowned into her phone. She’d been sleeping with David Scott the night before. He’d been stupid beyond stupid to turn tonight into a show of his personal feelings. But how to control himself on a gentle summer night with the ocean purring on shore and the jasmine in full bloom and her own gardenia scent overwhelming his senses. She’d had just a little too much to drink, and he’d been hoping to keep her here tonight.
But now she was frowning into the phone with her lawyer face on, and he knew the moment was lost forever.
He heard her say, “Very well. I understand. I’ll be right there.”
She ended the call with a decisive click of the “end call” button.
“What’s wrong?”
“That was the jail. Alexa Reed is in the hospital and not expected to make it.”
Jim’s mouth went dry, and the bottom dropped out of his stomach. “I thought they had her on suicide watch.”
“They did. It wasn’t suicide. It was a reaction to the medication the jail psychiatrist prescribed for her. They took her to USCD in Hillcrest. I’d better get down there. She doesn’t have any family that I know about.”
“You’d better let me drive.”
* * *
The Lord Be with you. And also with you. As she lay on her bunk, day after endless day, Alexa liked to chant to herself the words of the Episcopalian liturgy. She was ten years old again and holding Gramma Beth’s hand and believing God would always keep her safe.The rhythm of the words brought her peace.
Someone was whispering outside her cell.
“I’ve prescribed Lexapro and Depakote for her. Here’s the first dose.”
When the guard opened the door with the white paper cup in her hand, Alexa said a prayer of thanks and downed all of it. Within ten minutes, she could not breathe.

Dark Moon, A Work In Progress, Chapter Fourteen

November 15, 2013/in Uncategorized /by DeborahH

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Metcalf had a seedy little office in a ratty brick building, two blocks down from the family law courthouse. Sarah led the way with Jim following up three flights of narrow dingy stairs to Suite 312, etched on the frosted glass door. Inside they found an empty receptionist’s desk, a cheap plastic couch with two matching gold plastic chairs, and some tattered magazines on a rickety coffee table.
Before they could sit down, the door to the inner office opened, and Bob himself appeared. He was in his late fifties with a thin, wiry build, a high forehead and a receding hairline. He was wearing a cheap brown suit and a light blue tie that bore the stains of a lunch, either past or present.
Sarah and Jim took the seen-better-days chipped pressed wood chairs in front of Bob’s desk and declined his offer of bottled water from the dorm-room fridge behind his desk.
“Thanks for meeting with me,” Sarah began. “This is Jim Mitchell, my private investigator.”
Bob shook all hands offered and sat down behind his desk. Sarah noticed a stack of thick folders in front of him.
“Are all those files Alexa’s case?”
He nodded. “If she got the children to Michael’s for visitation fifteen minutes late, he’d drag her to court over it. He litigated everything. How is she by the way?”
“Not good.” Sarah briefly recapped the hearing in front of Judge Tomlinson.
“Sorry to hear it. She’s a sweet woman. Not a malicious bone in her body, but she ruined her life by marrying a class A dick like Michael Reed.”
“Really? Her former criminal defense lawyer called her a ‘lying, manipulating bitch.’”
Bob Metcalf waved his hands impatiently. “Well, he didn’t talk to me, then. He must have been talking to Tara Jacobs. She was Michael’s lawyer.
“Alexa came in here just trembling the first time we met. She’d been served with one of the most vicious sets of divorce pleadings I’ve ever seen. Michael hired the nastiest family law attorney in San Diego County to make all out war on her. Obviously you can tell I don’t have high-end clients,” he waved his arms around the small office, full of sagging book cases, with the view of a pay-per-hour parking lot below. “The truth is, none of the attorneys who are able to stand up against Tara Jacobs would take Alexa’s case because she couldn’t afford them. And no one wanted to be crosswise of Coleman Reed.”
“Why did you take it?” Jim asked.
“Truth be told, at first I thought I’d get some attorney’s fees out of it. Not from her, of course. Michael had tied up all their money, so she couldn’t touch a cent. But judges usually award attorney’s fees out of the deepest pocket. Since Michael had all the money, I figured he’d have to pay for Tara and me, too.”
“But I gather that didn’t happen?” Sarah said.
“No. This was the damnedest case I’ve ever seen. Right from the get go.”
“What do you mean?”
“The judge threw her and the kids out of the family home in La Jolla and gave it to Michael. That’s unheard of. At the time, she had a two-year-old and a one-year-old, and she was a full-time stay-at-home mom. No judge makes the primary parent move out of the family home. But that was just the beginning.”
“Was that when you realized you weren’t going to get any money out of the case?”
He nodded. “I made the usual request everyone makes at the end of the hearing, and I thought Judge Watkins was going to hold me in contempt. He said, ‘Mrs. Reed graduated first in her class from Georgetown. She’s perfectly capable of getting a job that will pay your fees. I see no reason why she should sponge off the plaintiff.’”
“Wow!” Sarah breathed. She noticed Jim wince as he sat beside her taking notes on a yellow pad.
“Yeah, nasty stuff. And, again, remember she was unemployed with a toddler and an infant, and Michael was about to become a full equity partner at Warrick, Thompson. In most cases like that, the judge awards the wife a huge chunk of child support and temporary alimony. Alexa got a little, but nothing like what she was entitled to.”
“So why did you stay on the case?”
Bob shrugged. “I thought, why not? Most of my other clients pay me pennies on the dollar. She was so sweet and grateful, and I knew she was in a desperate situation. We worked out a deal. She’d prepare papers for me, memoranda, briefs, things like that. I’m a rotten writer, and I barely passed the bar after going to an unaccredited law school. She made me look really good on paper for the first time in my career.”
“So what happened after that?”
“I tried to negotiate a settlement with Tara Jacobs. It would have been in everyone’s best interests to settle. Alexa needed to focus on her babies and finding a job. Michael had no use for kids; his career and his women were his life.”
“Did you know about the abortion Warrick, Thompson paid for?” Jim asked.
“The paralegal he knocked up in his first year?”
Jim nodded.
“Sure. Alexa told me about that. And about his affairs.”
“So she knew about the other women?” Sarah asked.
“Yeah, Michael wanted her to know. He liked taunting her with them to show her how powerless she was. That was Michael’s biggest ego trip. He knew he had gotten where he was riding on his old man’s coat tails, and he hated Alexa because she was so much smarter and had earned her way to the top. I believe he married her solely for the sadistic pleasure of destroying her.”
Jim wrote faster and faster.
“Could you testify to this at trial?” Sarah asked.
He nodded. “Actually, it would give me great pleasure. It’s been far worse for Alexa, don’t get me wrong. But it took an emotional toll on me, too, having to go into those hearings with her and watching the judge call Michael a saint and her a no-account free loader.”
“Was it really as bad as that?”
“I can pull some hearing transcripts, if you’d like to read them.”
“I would,” Sarah said. “So how did Alexa react to Michael’s affairs?”
“The way any wife would. Tried to reason with him. Tried to get him to go to counseling. But he beat her instead.”
Jim’s head shot up from the legal pad. “I’ve looked for evidence of that, but I haven’t found any. What have you got?”
“Only Alexa’s word. That’s why Brigman got away with shafting her the way he did. He labeled her a borderline personality disorder and declared her a chronic liar. And she didn’t have the money to bring in an expert of her own to testify against him. Wouldn’t have done any good, anyway. All the family law judges thought Brigman was the voice of God. They just rubber stamped anything he said. What Brigman called borderline personality disorder was post traumatic stress disorder from all the beatings.”
“But a judge can’t do that,” Sarah insisted. “Wholesale adoption of expert opinion is an unauthorized delegation of judicial power.”
“You graduated in the top of your class like Alexa. That’s exactly what she said. And we took it to the court of appeal. And lost. Some of the judges up there had been on the family law bench before they were kicked upstairs. They knew how much they liked to have a so-called expert to decide the tough issues, so they didn’t have to split the baby themselves. They didn’t want to take that out away from their brother judges still on the hot seat.”
“How did Brigman come to be involved in Alexa’s case in the first place?”
“Ah, that’s where the plot thickens. When Alexa first came to me, I thought Michael just wanted to dump his inconvenient family and be free to do his fooling around on the books instead of off. He was a good-looking guy, as you know, and attractive to women. But he was about to make partner, and being a Warrick partner and the son of a sitting United States Supreme Court justice would make him hotter than George Clooney. So I thought he’d just pay Alexa off, do a couple of pro forma visitations a year with the kids, and let everyone go about their business.”
“But that didn’t happen?”
“Not by a long shot. As soon as I tried settlement negotiations with Tara Jacobs, I knew something really sinister was up. She laughed in my face, and two days later filed a motion to give Michael full custody of the children.”
“But he couldn’t raise them. His career wouldn’t let him do that.”
“Right. And that should have been the beginning and end of the matter. But he’s Michael Reed, son of Coleman Reed. If he wants something, he gets it.”
“And he wanted Alexa’s children?”
“Exactly. Because he could control her through them. For men like Michael, its only about power and control.”
“So what happened?”
“I tried to knock it out of the water at that first hearing on the career issue, but I never had a chance. The court ordered both parties into psychological evaluations. As a practical matter, that meant Ronald Brigman would decide who got the children.”
“And he gave them to Michael?”
“Not at first. Michael didn’t want that in the beginning because if he had gotten the kids from the get go, he would have lost his power to control Alexa. No, what Michael wanted was to humiliate her over and over again in the place a lawyer like Alexa should have been most respected – in the judicial system.”
Bob paused to open the top file on his desk, and Sarah marveled at his insights. Maybe he didn’t understand every esoteric legal innuendo, but he had a PhD. in street smarts.
“Here’s a couple of examples. A hearing on February 15, 2009, because she was ten minutes late bringing the kids for visitation. Her excuse: Sam pooped in his diaper as they were leaving the house and she had to change him. Court reamed her out. The next month, March 18, 2009, she was a half hour late because Meggie was crying and too upset to get in the car. Alexa’s explanation: Meggie was beginning to have nightmares because she had to sleep in a strange bed at Michael’s. The court told her it would hold her in contempt if she ever again referred to the bed at Meggie’s father’s house as a ‘strange bed.’” Bob let the file drop shut and looked at Sarah and Jim with his mild, watery eyes. “That went on from 2009 until the day Michael died.”
“How did Alexa manage?”
“She tried to hold up – at first. She obviously knew even better than I did that almost every word out of the judge’s mouth was a violation of her and the kids’ federal constitutional rights. That’s one thing I never understood in law school, con law. But Alexa had it down. Like you, Ms. Knight.”
“Sarah, please.”
“She’d sit up late at night, drafting motions and supporting memoranda in her case. Beautiful things. And I’d file every one of them. And then Tara Jacobs would come to court and snarl about how Alexa was just a lush who was demonstrating she had the smarts to go back to work as a lawyer but who was trying to live off her ex to punish Michael for divorcing her and showing the world what a crazy psycho she was.”
“And the court bought that?”
“Every time. I could never get the judge to listen to the legal merits of Alexa’s motions because Tara would turn every hearing into a character assassination. Little by little, defeat by defeat, it started to wear her down.”
“How was she supporting herself?”
“Ok. This next part I might not be able to testify to unless Alan Warrick agrees.”
“What do you mean?”
“The legal community here is really just one small town. Full of backstabbing and politics.”
“I’m discovering that.”
“Well, Coleman threatened to pull all of the clients that his rainmaking had brought to Warrick, Thompson and divert them to other firms if Alan hired Alexa back. And Michael poisoned every other legal well where she could have possibly gotten a job. I know that because Alan told me. That’s why he’d have to testify for you, if you needed that evidence.”
“So Tara Jacobs would stand up in court and claim Alexa was a lazy freeloader who wouldn’t go back to work, while Michael was making sure she couldn’t get a job in this town?”
“Exactly.” Bob nodded at Jim.
“And she couldn’t get a job out of town because Michael wouldn’t let her take the kids. So how did she make any money?”
“Alan sent her research projects to do for him and a couple of other sympathetic partners on the down low. He paid her in cash, so there’d be nothing to show up if Michael subpoenaed her bank records. And Michael did subpoena those records more than once.”
“So she eeked by on the secret work from Alan and the little bit she got from Michael?”
“Right. And then her world went up in flames.”
“How?
“Well, Meggie and Sam were afraid of Michael. They had barely seen him before the divorce. He was always at work or on a date. I mean kids that little don’t want to leave their mothers in regular families. But the stress on those babies was horrible. They cried, they wet the bed, and Meggie stopped eating for a while.”
“And Brigman blamed Alexa?”
“Who else? He claimed she was working to alienate them from Michael.”
“When they’d never been bonded to Michael in the first place.”
“Common sense was never part of Ronald Brigman’s approach to life. He was also a colossal control freak. I think he enjoyed tormenting Alexa as much as Michael did. She was smart enough to know everything he did was illegal, and he loved rubbing her nose in the fact she couldn’t do anything about it.”
“So what happened?”
“Well, Michel kept her in court pretty continually from January to July 2009. Then fate got a little kinder to Alexa for a bit The actual divorce went through in July, and Michael made partner in August. He was so hot on the dating market that, for a while, he forgot how much fun he was having in family court. And Alexa somehow got those little babies to understand that even if they had to go to Michael’s for a weekend, they’d always get to come back home. Of course, separation was the greatest fear for all three of them because Michael had built a record in family court that would have given him full temporary custody in a heartbeat if he decided to pull that string. It was the most powerful weapon he could have held over Alexa’s head.”
“So when did things change?”
“They managed to get through 2010 without much happening. But then, in January 2010, Michael lost it with Sam, who was going through the terrible two’s. Michael knew he was always at risk of beating somebody up, so he usually had a girlfriend there when the kids were with him. But one Saturday night, his date fell through and Sam ran all over the house after his bath and wouldn’t come put on his pajamas. Michael took the kids home on Sunday and told Alexa the bruises on his arms were from a fall in the backyard, but Meggie had seen the whole thing and told the truth.”
“So wouldn’t proving Michael was the abuser help Alexa’s case?”
“In a normal family law situation, yes. But, again, this is Michael Reed.”
“So what happened?”
“We went to court to change the visitation. The court denied the motion and referred the whole thing to Brigman again for another psych evaluation.”
“And he turned it all against Alexa?”
“Yep. His report said she did it, and she coached Meggie to lie. He ordered her to go to counseling with some hack court-appointed evaluator like himself, and the court ordered anger management counseling for her. It was one of Michael’s finest acts of humiliation.”
“Did you all appeal that?”
“No. Alexa had figured out that if she’d quietly dance to Michael and Brigman’s tune, she’d get to keep the children. And she loved them above all else. I mean, she was literally going through hell for them. And there was no chance of her starting a new life for herself. No man in his right mind would have wanted to get mixed up in that mess and get his own character assassinated in court.”
“So she did as she was told?”
“She did. But then Michael lost it again, this time with Meggie. It was January 2012. She was four and Sam was three. Brigman did exactly the same thing again: he turned it around on Alexa. But this time he went farther. He ordered the kids to go to counseling to ‘improve’ their relationship with their father. When he got it ‘improved’ enough, he was going to ‘enlarge’ their time with their father. In lay terms, that meant he was brainwashing the kids against their mother a little at a time to prepare them to go live with Michael full-time. And she was helpless to stop it.”
“Who was the therapist who was working on the kids?”
“Brigman himself.”
“But that’s a blatant conflict of interest. Not to mention the constitution does not permit involuntary psychotherapy to change children’s bond with their parents.”
“Again, that’s what Alexa said. And this time we went to the court of appeal.”
“And lost.”
“And lost. She actually argued her own appeal. You should have seen her in her suit. Alan Warrick came, too. He had tears in eyes when it was over. But he got out of there before Michael and Tara Jacobs saw him.”
“And after that?”
“I told her to pack her bags and get out of this town.”
“You mean, leave her children?”
Bob nodded grimly. “She was never going to have a life here. Michael and Brigman would see to that. I told her better a clean break with the kids than losing them a day at a time for years and years and never knowing when the final blow would fall. She had the credentials to make partner in one of those big Wall Street firms. I told her to go back east and rebuild her career, get married, and have some more kids with someone else.”
“What did she say?”
“That she’d never leave Meggie and Sam.”
“I can only admire your endurance, Mr. Metcalf.”
“Bob, please. If she ever wakes up, you’ll see she deserved my help and more. I’m glad she’s got someone at the top of the class, this time. I hope you can save her life.”
“Me, too. But there’s one more thing I have to ask.”
“Anything for Alexa.”
“This whole story is so one-sided – ”
“You’re going to ask if Michael was bribing Brigman. We think he was. We never had any way to prove it, though.”
“No evidence at all other than losing every hearing you went to?”
“There’s long been a rumor in the bar that Tara Jacobs has bribe deals arranged for her clients with certain evaluators. It’s possible that Michael decided to put Alexa through hell, heard about Tara, and signed up with her knowing his money would buy himself an evaluator.”
“So Michael filed for divorce in January, and Brigman was appointed in what month?”
“March.”
“Did you ever subpoena Michael’s bank records?”
“We tried, but Tara would only turn over his tax returns, and even though Alexa was entitled to see the bank records – Lord knows, he’d seen hers several times – the court bought his claim they were covered by attorney client privilege because he sometimes deposited client money in his accounts before it went into the firm trust account.”
“Another violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct.”
“The court didn’t care. It’s also possible that Judge Watkins was on the take, too. There were some judges up in Orange County back in the nineties who were caught favoring clients who donated to a “Judicial Retirement Fund” that funneled the money to individual judges. Let me know if I can do anything else to help you. I know what you’re up against.”

Dark Moon, A Work In Progress, Chapter Thirteen

November 8, 2013/in Uncategorized /by DeborahH

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jim drove Jordan to the train in Solana Beach that afternoon. Despite her protests she didn’t need any help, he carried her overnight bag across the parking lot to the gunmetal gray, half-cylinder station, surrounded by red, white, and blue Amtrak kiosks and a single coffee vender under a green umbrella with gold fringe.
“Thanks for putting me up,” Jordan said. “You were right about the breakfast. Michelin would give you six stars if they knew about you.”
Jim grinned. “For that I have to buy you coffee. You’ve got time before the train, and Amtrak isn’t stellar in the coffee department.”
They stood by the chain link balcony overlooking the tracks below, basking in the mild afternoon sun and the cool salt breeze as they sipped lattes from paper cups with lids shaped like toddlers’ tippee cups.
“Sarah is taking this loss pretty hard,” Jordan observed.
“I haven’t worked with her long enough to know how she usually reacts.”
“She’s normally unphased. Actually, sometimes I think she’s too unphased. She doesn’t seem to show much emotion except when she’s in front of a jury.”
“Some people aren’t upset easily.”
Jordan shook her head. “This is more than that with Sarah. It’s as if feelings bounce off of her. Or as if they are embedded so deeply inside her, she can’t experience them.”
“Any idea why?”
“No. She never talks about her past. As far as I know, she grew up here, went to Yale, and spent all her days and nights at Craig, Lewis, and Weller until she came back to San Diego in January. I will say, she seems more tightly wound since she came back. She was more relaxed in New York. I’d say something was bothering her in this town even before she took Alexa Reed’s case.”
“Most likely the stress of starting her own law practice. I suppose she told you she signed up to take cases like Alexa’s to generate business here in San Diego. All her work was coming from Los Angeles.”
“Maybe business stress is the answer.”
“And then, too, I suppose you know about David Scott?”
“The millionaire married realty tycoon? Well, I will admit that has gone on longer than her usual very-short lived relationships.”
Jim tried not to show any emotion, but Jordan was too quick for him. “Look, we’ve already established you have an interest in her. You don’t have to pretend the David Scott business doesn’t make you unhappy.”
“Ok, busted. It makes me unhappy. Have you met him?”
“I have. Picture stereotypical west coast over-forty male trying to look late twenties. The wife is a plastic surgeon’s version of blonde Barbie, boob job, nose job, and Angelina Jolie lips. No kids. I’m sure she wouldn’t want to spoil her figure for nine months.”
Jordan downed the last of her coffee and tossed it into the trash can. “The train will be here soon. I’d better get down on the platform, so I can get a good seat in business class. Why don’t you stop by Sarah’s place tonight and check on her? I’ll text you the address.”
* * *
He waited until 7:30 to drive to the cottage in La Jolla Shores where Sarah lived. She was three streets from the beach in one of the small stucco houses that had been built in the forties and probably had all of fourteen hundred square feet. Hers was the same shade of beige stucco as its neighbors, but the windows had deep terra cotta shutters that gave it a personality of its own. Land values had made these tiny homes worth millions; and every one, including hers, was an expensively landscaped gem with strategically placed potted palms in clay pots, pink bougainvillaea vines trailing up the walls, and a jungle of feathery maiden hair ferns in the flower beds.
He was as nervous as a kid on his first prom date as he stood on her front stoop in his jeans, loafers, and yellow knit shirt after ringing the bell. No one answered. The butterflies in his gut began to swoop and soar. This had been a stupid idea. What if she was tucked up with that Scott character? He didn’t embarrass easily, but he’d not get over that one in a hurry, especially because they worked together.
But he wanted to see her, so he threw caution to the wind and rang again. This time, he heard someone shuffling toward the door and felt himself being scrutinized in the peep hole before he heard the click of the deadbolt’s release.
She was barefoot, wearing black yoga pants, a black camisole, and no makeup. Her pixie hair was tousled as if someone had run fingers through it. Jim thought of David Scott once more with foreboding.
He licked his dry lips and tried to sound nonchalant. “I thought I’d come by and offer to take you out for a drink. I was thinking you might want to unwind after the hearing today, and I’ve got some new information on Michael Reed.” He wished he could add, “Are you alone,” but, of course, he couldn’t.
“Thanks, but I’m pretty exhausted.” His hopes fell. But she went on, “Besides, we can’t talk about the case in public. Why don’t you come in though and have a drink here, and you can tell me about Michael. I’d like some good news after today.”
The butterflies had left his stomach and were flying around his heart. He was weak with gratitude and relief. She was alone.
He followed her down the hall, his loafers clattering slightly on the polished, golden hardwood floor. She led him through the living room, where no lights were on and where he had a quick glimpse of casual but sophisticated white slip-covered Pottery Barn furniture. She led him through mahogany French doors that were opened onto a miniature stone patio surrounded by palms and bougainville mixed with more ferns and bright blue morning glory vines and red hibiscus.
She had been sitting on one of the redwood lounge chairs covered in crisp white linen cushions, apparently killing a bottle of expensive California red zin by herself in the soft pink twilight. She motioned to the other lounge chair and said, “Sit down. I’ll go get another glass. And another bottle of wine.”
“Have you eaten?”
“I’m not hungry.”
She’d been thin when they met, but she’d lost weight in the last month. Another reason to worry about what this case was doing to her.
“If I cook, you’ll be hungry.”
“But there’s nothing here to cook. I – I haven’t had time to go to the market.”
He bet she kept little in the house to eat as a general rule. “I’m a food wizard. Let me take a look.”
She led him back through the living room to the miniature but very modern white tile and stainless steel kitchen. He opened her Sub Zero refrigerator to find butter, eggs, cheese and some port wine salami.
“One of my amazing omelettes will fix you right up.”
She opened the second bottle of wine and poured him a glass. She watched in silence as he transformed her scant variety of ingredients into two omelettes that they ate on the patio in the deepening, brine-scented twilight.
“I like it here,” Jim said, as he put his empty plate on the table between the two chaise lounges where the bottle of wine now also stood.
“I wanted to be close to the ocean. The previous owner remodeled just before I bought it. Everything’s new. I was lucky.”
“You never asked how I found your address.”
“You’re an ex-FBI agent turned private investigator. I didn’t need to ask.”
“I hope you don’t mind that I came by. I thought you might want company because today was a tough loss.”
She shrugged and sipped her wine. “But not unexpected. Although, I will admit Judge Tomlinson got my hopes up when he wanted time to think it over. Jordan did her usual brilliant job. She’s believable because she’s honest.”
“Unlike the opposition.”
“True. But we have one more crack at this at the next hearing in thirty days. Meds may not bring her back enough to stand trial. The judge didn’t count out that possibility.”
“True.” He could smell her gardenia perfume across the small space that separated them. Like a high school kid, he wished they were side by side on a sofa where he could casually drop his arm across the back, hoping for skin-to-skin contact.
“Great food, again, by the way.”
“I have the feeling you need a personal chef.”
“I can’t cook. I burn everything. No patience.”
“Patience to do complex legal work but not to follow a recipe.”
“Yeah, go figure.” For the first time, she let her eyes meet his, and she smiled. His heart was like a runaway freight train on the downhill.
“You had news about Michael Reed? Evidence he beat his wife, I hope.”
“No, I haven’t found that yet. But interesting evidence, nonetheless.”
Sarah polished off her wine and poured another. “So tell me.”
“Okay, Michael, like his father The Honorable Coleman Reed, was chronically unfaithful to his wife.”
“Ah, chip-off-the-old block syndrome.”
“Exactly.”
“So as you’d expect, Michael had tons of affairs.”
“Did Alexa know?”
“Well, we won’t know that, of course, until she talks to us. But there were so many she must have known. He thought everything in skirts was fair game. She may even have known he got a Warrick, Thompson paralegal pregnant during their first year at the firm.”
“Are you sure?”
“Very sure. I have a copy of the payment to the abortion clinic from Warrick, Thompson.”
“Are you telling me, the law firm paid for her abortion?”
“Yep. I have a copy of the cashier’s check they used.”
“Who is your source?”
“Unfortunately, not someone we can call as a witness. A friend of mine is chummy with Warrick’s nonlegal personnel director. He managed to get me the names of all the women paralegals who were at the firm the year Alexa and Michael came to work there. When I was in D.C., I had heard rumors about Coleman’s infidelities. It was just a hunch that the apple wouldn’t fall far from the tree.
“Most of the women on the list don’t work for Warrick, Thompson anymore. But a Lisa Miller is still there, and she was willing to talk to me. She likes Alexa and thinks she was treated unfairly when they fired her. She’s a stunning redhead, about the same age as Alexa and Michel. And, of course, Michael had come on to her more than once.
“She said the woman Michael got pregnant was named Toni Anders. The firm paid for her abortion and gave her a big severance check. Toni gave Lisa a copy of the firm’s checks, one for the clinic, the other for the severance pay, in case something happened to her. If Lisa got word that Toni had been killed, she was to take them to the police to prove Warrick, Thompson’s involvement.”
“Any way to find Toni Anders now?”
“No luck so far.”
“Too bad. It would be interesting to know if Michael was violent with her. If I were a betting woman, I’d say yes.”
“Agreed. I’m going to keep looking, of course.”
“I don’t understand why the firm paid for an abortion. That’s not the kind of thing Alan Warrick would do. I know he and his wife have an arrangement like David and Tessa’s, but Alan would never use firm money for something as personal as that.”
Jim winced when she mentioned the real estate mogul. “I would bet Coleman Reed forced them to do it.”
“But he was on the Supreme Court by 2005.”
“Right, but he left his clients in the hands of Warrick, Thompson’s attorneys didn’t he? And he had a reputation as quite a rainmaker.”
“So you think he could somehow force Alan to pay for Michael’s mess up?”
“Yes.”
“I wonder if Alan would admit to that.”
“I still think we need to pay him that visit in Paris.”
“No time now. There are people here we need to see more urgently than Alan. I was going to call you to let you know her family law attorney, Bob Metcalf, agreed to meet with me tomorrow at two.”
“Do you want me along?”
“Yes. He might, indeed, be a witness in this case.”
His heart raced with joy.

Dark Moon, A Work in Progress, Chapter Twelve

November 1, 2013/in Uncategorized /by DeborahH

CHAPTER TWELVE
September 2013
Sitting at the defense table with Jim next to her on the Tuesday after Labor Day, Sarah stared up at The Honorable John Charles Tomlinson and tried to quiet the butterflies in her stomach. Judge Tomlinson was the opposite of Judge Tyler, who had been thin and sharp. He appeared to be around Sarah’s age, and he had no angles. He was slightly portly, with an open, round face, kind gray eyes, and a thatch of light brown hair sparsely streaked with gray. He treated everyone in the courtroom with the utmost politeness. He had been more than willing to listen to Jordan Stewart’s testimony although Sarah had entered the hearing very worried about whether her witness would be allowed to take the stand.
As expected, Percy Andrews had opined only psychotropic drugs would render Alexa able to stand trial. And he lied through his teeth about being biased when Sarah tried to impeach him with his loyalty to Ronald Brigman.
Then Jordan’s turn came, and she explained why, even if Alexa were given drugs, she still wouldn’t be competent to assist in her defense.
“She’s been through too much trauma. She lost custody of her very young children, and that was a shock. And then she was the one who found Michael dead that night, and that was a shock.”
“But it was a shock only if she didn’t kill him.” Judge Tomlinson broke in.
“At this point, Your Honor, we have to presume she’s innocent,” Sarah reminded the judge. “She reported finding Michael to the police, didn’t leave town, and went in voluntarily for questioning.”
“Okay. For the moment, I’m going to make that assumption. But haven’t you also testified, Dr. Stewart, that she’s so depressed it will require medication to get her even to talk to a counselor? Why put her in the hospital if meds will make her able to talk to her attorneys and assist with her defense?”
“Because there’s no guarantee medicating her will restore her to competency. She can only be competent after she heals from the underlying trauma. Drugs might make her able to talk again, but healing requires being able to talk about the traumas and working through her emotions. Right now she’s so overwhelmed by her feelings, she’s completely nonfunctional, and she will still be overwhelmed even if she’s no longer too depressed to talk.”
“I see.” Sarah watched the judge make notes on his yellow legal pad.
He continued to scribble furiously after Jordan stepped down. After a few more minutes of writing, he looked directly at Sarah.
“Ms. Knight, I have a few more questions for Dr. Andrews. Would you object to allowing Mr. Baldwin to recall him briefly?”
I object with every fiber of my being, Sarah thought. But she could tell Judge Tomlinson had taken Jordan’s testimony seriously, and she didn’t want to risk making him angry by saying no. “That’s fine, Your Honor.”
Percy Andrews slithered from the back of the courtroom and wrapped himself around the chair on the witness stand after being resworn.
“Dr. Andrews,” the judge began, “you’ve heard Dr. Stewart’s opinion. She believes medication alone will not restore the defendant. In Dr. Stewart’s opinion Alexa Reed needs counseling. Do you agree?”
“Not at all. A good drug like Lexapro will have Alexa Reed ready to assist her attorneys in her defense within two weeks. I’ve already said she’s faking mental illness to avoid being tried. She’s a very bright, clever young woman.”
Judge Tomlinson frowned. “I’m not seeing evidence of faking on this record.”
“That is my professional opinion,” Andrews insisted.
“Very well. I need a few minutes in chambers to look over the expert’s reports before I decide.”
Sarah watched Tomlinson’s round figure waddle off the bench. She and Jim stood up, and Jordan came from the spectator section of the courtroom to join them.
“I’m pleased he didn’t buy the ‘faking’ it line from Andrews,” Jordan said.
“I’m holding my breath.” Sarah was a taught as a wire.
“Whatever happens, I thought both of you did a great job,” Jim observed.
“Thanks,” Jordan smiled, but Sarah didn’t look at him. She was staring at the bench with a dazed look in her eyes as if she were reliving some horrible memory.
“Are you all right?” Jim asked.
“Of course.” She turned to him and smiled although he thought it was forced. “I’ve got to make a phone call. I’ll be out in the hall. If the judge comes back, let me know.”
“She’s letting this get to her,” Jordan remarked as Sarah vanished through the courtroom doors. “I’ve never seen her this worried about an outcome.”
“Were you involved when she did the Joey Menendez case?” Jim asked.
“No. Why do you ask?”
“She got a very big crime boss off. No one thought she had a chance in hell of succeeding.”
“And you’re thinking this is like Menendez?”
“Well, it’s certainly a case that looks hopeless on what we have now.”
* * *
Thirty minutes went by before Judge Tomlinson resumed the bench. Sarah had paced in the hallway the entire time, hoping against hope the delay meant a favorable ruling. Jim, who had remained in the courtroom, came to tell her the judge was ready to rule on Alexa’s competency to stand trial.
“Everyone can sit down,” Judge Tomlinson said. “You don’t need to be standing as if the clerk were reading the jury’s verdict.”
Sarah was grateful to feel the chair under her. She was so nervous her legs were shaking.
“Your expert makes out a good case for hospitalizing Mrs. Reed.” The judge’s mild gray eyes met hers. “Whatever the truth is about the night of June 2, she suffered a significant trauma. And being separated from her children certainly has to be a factor in her breakdown.
“I think from a medical/psychological stand point, Dr. Stewart has the better recommendation. But the trouble is, the law isn’t asking what is best for Alexa Reed from a medical/psychological point of view. The law is asking how to make her able to assist in her defense and to understand the proceedings at trial. And from that point of view, Dr. Andrews’ opinion better answers the question. So I’m going to adopt Dr. Andrews’ recommendation and find that there is no less intrusive procedure.”
“Your Honor, I have a request,” Sarah spoke up.
“And that would be Ms. Knight?” His mild demeanor never changed even though it was clear she was going to challenge him.
“I want to take this up to the court of appeal on a writ.”
Again Judge Tomlinson was unphased. “I’m not surprised. You’ve very set against using these drugs on her, aren’t you?”
“She’s on trial for her life. It’s not fair to put her in front of a jury looking like a drugged-up zombie.”
The judge looked over his half-glasses at Percy Andrews, who was sitting next to Preston Baldwin at the prosecution’s table. “Do you agree the drugs will alter her demeanor?”
Sarah expected him to lie through his teeth and deny they would have any effect. To her surprise he didn’t. “I can’t say for sure, but patients on these meds do have a rather flat affect. They don’t seem to feel anything, and they can appear distant and detached. On the other hand, not every one of these medications has that effect on every patient.”
“Okay.” The judge looked back at Sarah. “Here is my ruling, Ms. Knight; and I’m taking into consideration your concerns. I’m going to order the jail psychiatrist to prescribe the appropriate medications for Mrs. Reed. We’ll have another hearing in thirty days to hear from Dr. Andrews to see if, in his opinion, she is competent to stand trial. And I will be happy to hear from Dr. Stewart, too, if you want to bring her back. That is my order.”
* * *
The woman with the beautiful face with the terrible scar and the man with the kind eyes had come to see her. They had been coming for many days, Alexa knew, and she thought there might even be a pattern to their visits. Maybe every other day or every two days. Floating in her protective bubble dissolved time, so she wasn’t sure.
For the last several visits, they had talked about a hearing to decide if the jail could give her drugs to lift the depression, so she could talk to them and stand trial. The woman didn’t want that. She wanted Alexa sent to the psychiatric ward of the state hospital to talk to the doctors about everything that had happened.
“You need to be well before they put you on trial,” she said.
But Alexa had thought, “I will never be well because I’ve lost Meggie and Sam.”
Now they were here again, but the woman’s eyes were even sadder than before. And the man with the kind eyes squeezed her unresponsive hand just a little tighter and looked sad, too.
“We lost, Alexa,” the woman said. “The jail psychiatrist is going to prescribe antidepressant medication for you. Then there will be another hearing to see if you are able to stand trial. I’m so sorry. I wanted to win this one as much as I’ve ever wanted to win anything.”
But Alexa smiled inside because she could not smile outside. God hadn’t let the beautifulwoman win because He had other plans. He knew Alexa hadn’t killed anyone, and He had not forgotten her.

Dark Moon, A Work in Progress, Chapter Eleven

October 25, 2013/in Uncategorized /by DeborahH

CHAPTER ELEVEN
The man and the beautiful woman with the unexpected scar on her cheek kept coming to see her. It must be every couple of days. Alexa wished she could talk to them and explain how much she wanted to die. They spoke in soft, concerned voices when they came, urging her not to give up hope, begging her to talk to them. But the words stayed in her head and refused to go into her mouth. Besides, if she spoke, she’d wake up in hell instead of drifting in the out-of-body world she had managed to retreat to.
Sometimes she could hear Meggie and Sam’s voices calling to her. “Mommy, Mommy. You said you’d come after us, Mommy.”
Was it real or a hallucination? Either way, her heart broke all over again every time she heard them. Did Coleman hit them? She couldn’t bear to think about it. Coleman had been responsible for turning Michael into the monster she’d married.
Mary Moreno had warned her. “I know the Reeds appear very normal and successful on the outside, Alexa. But something isn’t right there. Coleman has a temper, and I think Michael does, too. Watch Myrna when she’s around either of them. She’s afraid. You’re too bright and gifted to get involved with Coleman and Michael Reed. They’ll destroy you.”
Alexa pictured her final appeal as a large stack of documents in front of Justice Moreno. She’d look down at them and stamp “Denied” in enormous capital letters on the top. “Alexa Reed is a fool who deserves to die.”
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. Wait, what was the next part? Alexa tried to remember how it felt to share the hymnal with Gramma Beth at church as they sang the hymns. Ah, there it was. That saved a wretch like me. Justice Moreno would say, a blind, foolish wretch who refused to be warned and who didn’t deserve to be saved.
But grace seemed to be coming to her aid. A tall, thin blonde woman with patient green eyes had started appearing with the man and the woman. She, too, begged Alexa to talk to her; and when she didn’t, the woman looked at the man and the woman with sad eyes who wanted to save her and said, “I think they might have to give her meds.” And the man and the woman always, said, “No! No!”
But Alexa knew the answer was yes, yes. But not for the reason the kind blonde woman thought.
* * *
On the last Thursday of August, Jim, Sarah, and Jordan met in the Sarah’s conference room to put the final touches on their preparation for the competency hearing on Tuesday. Sarah sat at the head of the table with Jordan on her left and Jim on her right. They had just come back from their last meeting with Alexa.
“Nothing changes,” Jordan began.
Jim liked her for being a straight shooter, even if she didn’t say the things he and Sarah wanted to hear. Sarah had been right: Jordan knew her stuff and had integrity in a world where many expert witnesses did not. She was tall and lean, in her mid-forties with blonde hair and green eyes that invited confidences. Her husband taught psychology at UCLA, and they had three teenage daughters.
“Agreed.” Sarah sighed. She had dark circles under her eyes, and she wasn’t eating. Jim wondered how many nights she’d spent with David Scott but knew he couldn’t ask.
“I think Alexa is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” Jordan began. “When the mind encounters more than it can process, it shuts down.”
“I’m not sure I can use that,” Sarah said. “She kills two people and develops PTSD. Not much of an argument.”
“What if she didn’t kill anyone?” Jim said.
Sarah turned from Jordan to him. “And how am I going to argue that?” She tried not to think of Jim holding Alexa’s tiny, unresponsive hand on all those jail visits. Jealousy was a highly unprofessional emotion, and she didn’t intend to feel it.
“The police report. According to Officer Brent McColly, who was the first person to interview Alexa, she said that she received a phone call from Meggie at 11:15 on June 2. She said Meggie was upset because her father was arguing with a woman, and she could hear blows being struck. Alexa rushed over to Michael’s to find him dead and the children crying. She called 911, and told the dispatcher her children were there and upset, and she was taking them home to Pacific Beach. She gave the 911 operator her address where the police could contact her. She never mentioned Brigman or indicated she knew he was dead. And she made no attempt to leave town. She doesn’t sound very guilty to me.”
“What about the bullets from her Glock in Brigman and Michael?” Sarah frowned.
“That doesn’t prove she killed them. Remember she told the police the gun had been stolen a month before the murders. And according to the ballistics tests, two of the bullets in Brigman didn’t come from Alexa’s Glock.”
Sarah waved her hands impatiently. “You’re grasping at straws. The ballistics report said three bullets in Brigman matched Alexa’s gun. The other two were too deformed to make a judgment about.”
“Will all due respect boss, I have almost twenty years of firearms experience. And there are new reports that say traditional ballistics testing is unreliable.”
“I know all about that.” Sarah’s tone said don’t-tell-me-how-to-do-my-job. “That’s what cross-examination of the state’s expert is for.”
“I think you need to get a defense ballistics expert, too.” Jim realized he was challenging her judgment.
Sarah paused and took a deep breath. “We aren’t here to talk about trial strategy. We’re here to talk about the hearing on Tuesday. Are you willing to give an opinion, Jordan, that she should be committed to the state hospital for treatment until she regains her competency to stand trial?”
“I am,” Jordan said. “I know you said Percy Andrews will insist she can go to trial on psychotropic drugs; and honestly, she is so depressed, they might have to use those to even get her to speak to a psychiatrist. But I do think she needs counseling sessions, in fact, a lot of them, before she can stand trial. Drugging her is only putting a tiny band-aid on her condition.”
* * *
Jim drove Jordan to Solana Beach to meet her 5:10 train to Los Angeles. Sarah remained behind to work on her cross-examination of Percy Andrews.
As Jim swung his black Range Rover onto the I-5 North, Jordan asked, “Have you known Sarah long?”
“Only a month. We ran into each other in a bar in La Jolla one night, and she happened to be looking for an investigator.”
“Sarah never gets involved with anyone.”
Jim glanced quickly over at her and then put his eyes firmly back on the road. “Am I that obvious?”
“I don’t think you are to Sarah. I’ve known her a long time. She’s the most work-oriented person I know. But, yes, I can see you’ve got a thing for her.”
“Has she ever told you how she got that scar on her cheek?”
“Nope.”
“And you’ve always had the good manners not to ask, right?”
“In my profession, we wait to be told. If the client doesn’t want to talk, we wait for her to be ready.”
“Except Percy Andrews isn’t willing to wait for Alexa Reed.”
“Sarah says you know this town. Fair isn’t fair here.”
“True. But I can’t stop getting angry about it at times. And Alexa is so helpless!”
“She brings out your knight in shining armor complex,” Jordan smiled.
“Does she?”
“You were arguing pretty strenuously she’s not guilty.”
“I don’t think she is. Call it a hunch, if you like. But it doesn’t add up. Why call the cops and give them your address if you had just murdered two people?”
“She might be a narcissist and convinced she’s invincible.”
“Even Brigman, who did the psych evals for the custody litigation, didn’t say she was a narcissist. And honestly, I can’t see a narcissist resigning a job at Warrick, Thompson to be a stay-at-home mother of two kids under two.”
“I agree. As the mother of three.”
Jim pulled into the parking lot at the train station and got out to help Jordan with her brief case and overnight bag.
“What time are you arriving on Monday? I’ll meet your train.”
“I’m coming down Sunday night, arriving at eight. I’m paranoid about being late for the hearing on Monday morning.”
“I’ll be here to pick you up. I have a guest room. Want to use it? I make a better breakfast than a five-star hotel.”
“Sounds great.”

Dark Moon, A Work in Progress, Chapter Ten

October 18, 2013/in Uncategorized /by DeborahH

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.”

Dark Moon, A Work in Progress, Chapter Nine

October 11, 2013/in Uncategorized /by DeborahH

CHAPTER NINE

Judge Jay Steven Tyler III’s court clerk, a harried middle aged woman in an ill-fitting black suit whose phone would not stop ringing, insisted between phone calls that Sarah would have to come back on Monday when she filed her ex parte motion to appoint an expert at one o’clock that afternoon.

“His Honor is presiding over a trial until four o’clock. He can’t hear your matter today.”
“It’s an emergency. It will only take five minutes of his time.”
“I can’t promise anything. If you want to sit in on his trial and see if he has a break when he is willing to hear you, you can do that. But, again, no guarantees.”
Sarah hated the idea of waiting three hours with no promise of any results, but she needed to get Jordan Stewart started on this case right away. So she tucked herself into a spot in the back of the courtroom watching a deputy district attorney and a public defender go at it over a gang shooting as she studied Judge Tyler. He was in his late fifties, with thinning gray hair, and a sharp face. His nose came to a point like a bird’s beak. He frowned a great deal at his computer screen as he observed it through the half-glasses perched on his nose. He barked at both lawyers from time to time, and Sarah decided she had her work cut out for her. Either this judge lived in a state of permanent irascibility, or he was having a bad day. Still, no one ever denied a motion to appoint a defense psychological expert when the issue was competency.
After an hour and a half, the court recessed for a break; and Sarah hurried up to the bench to make her request.
Judge Tyler gave his clerk a puzzled look. “Who’s this?”
“Sarah Knight, Your Honor. She’s here on an emergency ex parte motion in the Alexa Reed case.”
The judge stared down at Sarah, who was standing behind the lectern recently vacated by the other attorneys. He was sizing her up.
“You’re new in this courtroom.”
“I am, Your Honor.”
“Well, then, here’s some information. I only hear ex parte motions on the morning docket call. This is not the morning, and this is not a docket call.”
Sarah struggled to keep her anger out of sight. “I understand. But I’ve only been on this case a week, there are barely three weeks before the competency hearing, and I need an expert right away.”
Judge Tyler frowned. She could tell he was weighing his options. He would have to hear her motion; maybe he would just decide to get it over with.
“Well, not now. We are on a short break as you can see. If there is time at four o’clock, we can go in chambers, and I’ll listen. But no promises.”
Sarah suppressed a sigh and resumed her spot in the back of the courtroom. Waiting gave her time to wish she hadn’t turned Jim down for dinner and time to regret a weekend with David.
The gang expert finished droning on about “snitches” and “respect” at four fifteen. The judge apologized to the yawning jurors and sent everyone home. Sarah held her breath, hoping for the summons to his chambers to hear her motion. As His Honor stood up from the bench, he looked over the top of his glasses and saw her in the back of the courtroom.
“You’re still here.”
“I am, Your Honor.”
“Well, come into chambers. We might as well get it over with.”
The deputy district attorney and the public defender gave her sympathetic looks as she followed the judge out of the courtroom. They think he’s going to tear me apart, Sarah thought as she entered the judge’s chambers.
The room overlooked a parking lot at the back of the courthouse. It wasn’t well lit, and it was littered with books and paper from one end to the other. She thought of Hal Remington’s messy office and wondered if clutter was endemic to San Diego attorneys and judges.
Judge Tyler motioned for her to sit down, and she took the only empty chair. He hung up his robes and sat down at his desk. She said nothing while he read her motion through his half glasses.
After he had scanned through it, he said, “Put this together in a hurry, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Talked to Percy Andrews this morning, you say in here?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“And obviously you didn’t like what he said.”
“He isn’t basing his opinion on the facts.”
“And you say the facts are you have a catatonic client who hasn’t spoken since June 17.”
“Actually the jail records and her medical records say that.”
Judge Rodgers heaved a world weary sigh. “Motion denied.”
Sarah’s blood ran cold. “I’m sorry, Your Honor, did you say ‘denied’?”
“In plain English. I’ve heard your motion, now I have to beat the Friday afternoon traffic to La Mesa.”
“But Your Honor–”
“You aren’t from around here, are you Ms. Knight?”
“I grew up here, but I moved to New York at the beginning of my legal career.”
“You were in one of those fancy Wall Street firms, weren’t you?”
“Craig, Lewis, and Weller, Your Honor.”
“Like I said, fancy Wall Street firm. Our legal community is different, Ms. Knight. Percy Andrews has been doing evaluations for thirty years. Any judge in this courthouse will trust his opinion.”
“But he’s biased. Ronald Brigman was his friend and colleague.”
“So what? It doesn’t matter because your client is very guilty. Motion denied, Ms. Knight. Have a good weekend.”
* * *
David had invited her for dinner at his mansion in Rancho Sante Fe at eight. She parked in the gravel circle in front of the mock-French chateau, done in ubiquitous west coast beige stucco instead of sandstone, and surveyed the acre of manicured lawns and imported palms that surrounded the house. Jim’s cheerful red begonias were on her mind. Did he garden in his spare time? How had he chosen that particular shade of green for his house? Why didn’t he turn all his father’s money into a grand estate like this one? But she knew the answer: because he didn’t need ostentation to be happy.
David met her at the front door. He was tanned, fifty, and in top shape because his personal trainer worked him out six days a week. His close cropped blonde hair refused to go gray. He was handsome in the older Robert Redford way. When he met her in the marble entrance hall and gave her his signature Hollywood-style greeting, a hug and kiss on both cheeks, she noticed he didn’t reach Jim’s six feet.
“Hey, babe. Missed you. Come have a drink on the terrace while Michelle finishes up dinner.”
Sarah followed him outside where a bottle of champagne waited, wondering how David’s personal chef would stack up to Jim’s cooking.
“No champagne tonight. It hasn’t been a celebration sort of day.”
David arched an eyebrow, another annoying trait. She assumed he used it to intimidate his business staff, but she was beyond those kinds of tactics. “Scotch, then?”
“A good cabernet would be fantastic.”
David summoned his butler to fulfill her request and poured bubbly for himself.
“Well, I’m going to celebrate Tessa finally deciding to leave for Cabo. I thought she’d never go.”
“Do you think she called off the trip because she knows about us?” Sarah gratefully took her glass of wine from the long suffering Sam and took a big sip.
David shrugged. “Who knows? Who cares?”
“I thought you cared. Divorce would be extraordinarily expensive.”
He waived his hands. “Tessa hasn’t the guts to file for divorce, and she loves her lifestyle far too much. What we need to do is find her a boy toy to keep her occupied. Then we could spend a lot more time together.”
How did I get involved with this man, Sarah asked herself. But she knew very well. He was superficial enough to be someone she’d decided to have sex with.
Which was the subject on his mind at that moment. “Come on, baby. Let’s have a quickie before dinner.”
* * *
Sarah woke at midnight in David’s canopied four-poster guest room where he slept beside her. She refused to sleep in the bed he shared with his wife.
She got up, wrapped herself in a white silk robe, and crossed the room to the French doors, open into the cool, deep blue August night. She sat down in one of the chairs on the terrace that ran the length of the back of the house, and stared up at the stars and the newly waning moon in the soft night air. Her ghosts surrounded her, and she couldn’t push them away.
“I don’t want to be here,” she told the Universe.
“‘Here’ as in ‘here with David’ or ‘here’ as ‘at this point in your life’?” the stars responded.
“Both.”
“Well, the David part you can fix in a heartbeat. The other part is going to take some time.”
“I don’t want to go through that.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
She heard the sheets rustle, and then David called out, “Where are you, babe?”
“Out here.”
He got up and pulled on his own robe and came outside. He looked puzzled. “What are you doing outside? Come back to bed.”
Sarah shook her head. “Not yet. I need time to think.”
“About what?” He pulled her to her feet and tried to kiss her, but she turned her head away. He wasn’t happy. “Hey! What’s this? Don’t waste the little time we have by being moody.”
“I’m not moody. I’ve just gotten this new big case, and there was a hearing today that didn’t go well. I’m upset.”
“Hey! Remember the rules. No wife-talk. No work-talk.”
I remember, Sarah thought. I made those up. And now I regret them because I need someone to talk to. And you are not that someone.
“Come on, back to bed.”
She let him lead her out of the cool night, away from the friendly stars and the moon, into the bedroom where she didn’t resist when he went through the motions of sex one more time. She wanted to go home, but it would upset more apple carts if she did than if she just stayed until morning. It was what he expected, and it was easier just to go along. When he was quiet at last and ready to sleep again, Sarah lay awake and watched the stars through the open doors and thought about Jim.

Dark Moon, A Work In Progress, Chapter Eight

October 4, 2013/in Uncategorized /by DeborahH

CHAPTER EIGHT
Percy Andrews kept them waiting on Friday morning. Sarah was not amused.
Jim had met her promptly at nine at Andrews’ sterile glass and chrome office on the eleventh floor of the Ximed Building next to Scripps Hospital. He was way too attractive in a dark suit with a maroon tie, smelling of fresh shaving cream and laundry starch, and Sarah wished that two nights with David had done more to put him out of her mind.
“Looks like the court-appointed expert business must be pretty good,” Jim observed as they sat in Andrews’ glass and chrome waiting room gazing out at North San Diego, stretching flat and brown in the August heat toward the blue Pacific on the horizon.
“Agreed. Nice digs. These guys all practice the black arts for a considerable sum.”
He grinned and his eyes twinkled, and her heart flip flopped like a teen’s. This, she told herself, was not good. The implacable Sarah Knight, toughest defense attorney on Wall Street, had to return at once and banish the dangerous idiot with the school girl crush on the ex-FBI agent.
“I thought defense attorneys swore by hired guns.”
“No, you’ve got that wrong. I’ve met a few psychs with integrity, but not many.”
Percy appeared at the door to summon them to his inner sanctum. As they crossed the waiting room, Sarah heard Jim mutter under his breath, “Why do I think we are about to meet one of the latter?”
Percy Andrews, a thin balding man in his fifties wearing the cliche gray cardigan and baggy brown trousers associated with psychs, led them to his inner office which was cozier than the wasteland of his waiting room. He motioned for Sarah and Jim to sit on the large down sofa in the middle of the room, while he stretched out like a snake on a modern reclining chair opposite.
Did digging your heals into a thick, shaggy brown carpet make a patient want to spill his or her most private secretes Sarah wondered as her Jimmy Choos sank into the deep pile. She noticed a package of Rorschach test cards on his desk, and a sand box in the corner of the room, filled with dozens of tiny plastic people and animals, with sand spilled on the floor all around as if the childish exuberance of play with sand indoors could not be contained. Had Brigman used sand play to lure Alexa’s children in Michael’s direction?
“I’m Sarah Knight, and this is Jim Mitchell, my investigator.”
“I know. Let’s not waste anyone’s time here. I’m going to testify she’s competent to stand trial.”
“What?” Jim nearly lept out of his chair, and Sarah thought he was going to throttle Andrews. She pictured him standing next to Alexa’s cot on Tuesday and tried to extinguish the wave of jealousy.
“I said, I’m going to find her competent.”
Unlike Jim, Sarah had retained her lawyer cool. “On what basis? She’s practically comatose, and she hasn’t spoken a word to me or to Jim. In fact, we don’t know if she can speak.”
“Oh, of course, she can.”
“And she spoke to you when you evaluated her?” Sarah wished she could tell Jim to be silent and let her lead the interview.
“No, she was curled up on the cot, like she was when you visited, I bet.”
“Then how can that be competency to stand trial?” Sarah hoped Jim would take the hint and become the observer he was meant to be.
“Meds. Give her some Lexapro and she’ll be right as rain.”
“But there’s a very strict United States Supreme Court test for ordering medication. And Alexa doesn’t meet it.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass. She killed my colleague of more than twenty years, and she’s going to die for that.”
“But only after a fair trial in which she understands the nature of the proceedings and can assist in her defense.”
“What defense? Her cell phone puts her in the neighborhood at the time of the murders that were committed with her gun. She hasn’t got a defense, Ms. Knight. Ronald took her children away because she was a crazy lunatic, and she proved him right by killing him and Michael.”
“Obviously you aren’t familiar with the correct legal test.”
“I’m familiar with Sell v. United States. I’ve been a forensic psychologist for twenty-five years.”
“Then you know she doesn’t meet the test. You can’t show that less intrusive procedures such as counseling wouldn’t produce the same results as forcing her to take Lexapro or some other drug.”
“That’s a pile of crap, if you’ll excuse me for being blunt. Look, Alexa Reed is faking incompetency big time. She graduated first in her class from Georgetown Law School. She knows if she becomes a comatose blob, she’ll get sent to the state hospital, which is a lot cushier lifestyle than death row where she belongs. And she knows the state can’t execute her while she’s incompetent. She’s counting on me to say she has to go to Patten for treatment until competency is restored, but I’m not going to play her game and let her live out her life in a medical facility when she belongs on death row.”
“It’s not a game,” Jim spoke up.
“Excuse me?” Andrews raised his eyebrows as if Jim were an intruder without a right to speak.
“I said, she’s not playing a game. She’s mentally ill and unable to communicate to help us provide a defense.”
“Too bad for her, you aren’t the court appointed expert. She killed a close friend, and I’m not going to do her any favors.”
“You mean you are biased and you aren’t going to be fair,” Sarah said.
“Save your name calling for the hearing. It won’t do you any good.”
* * *
They were silent in the chrome elevators as they slipped effortlessly from the eleventh floor to the marble lobby of the XiMed building. When they got out, Sarah led the way to a quiet corner where they could talk undisturbed.
“That was not what I expected,” Jim began.
“I wasn’t surprised after my interviews with Hal Remington and Trevor Martin.”
“In other words, the legal community in this town is massed against her.”
“The criminal bar is, at least. I wonder how Alan Warrick feels about Alexa Reed.”
“Want me to go find out?”
Why did he sound too eager, Sarah asked herself. And why did that irritate her?
“I know Alan personally. Better that I approach him. The only problem is he’s on a three-month sabbatical right now. His wife is an artist, and they are in Paris until early October.”
“Jets take off for Paris every day.”
“He wouldn’t like being tracked down when he’s on a holiday. Besides, we’ll have plenty of time to talk to him when he gets back.”
“So what’s next, boss?”
“I’m going to go ex parte this afternoon and request appointment of a defense expert to evaluate her.”
“Got anyone in mind?”
“Jordan Stewart in L.A. I’ve used her before in cases that I tried in New York. She’s an international expert on battered women’s syndrome.”
“Do you think that’s going to be our defense here?”
“No idea. But Jordan knows her stuff, and she’s one of the few who won’t give an opinion just for the money. If she can’t testify favorably for the defense, she won’t get on the stand and perjure herself. According to Trevor Martin, Alexa told Brigman Michael had abused her, but Brigman refused to believe her.”
“Looks like I’d better do some digging on Michael, then. See if there are any police reports for domestic violence or hospital visits.”
“Would it be terrible if I said I hope you find some?”
“Not at all. What about dinner tonight to talk over what I find?”
“Plans, tonight. Sorry.”
“Wife still in Cabo?”
“Until Monday. We can talk about whatever you find on Michael in my office at nine on Monday morning.”
He tried to conceal his disappointment. “Okay. See you then.”

Dark Moon, A Work in Progress – Chapter Seven

September 27, 2013/in Uncategorized /by DeborahH

CHAPTER SEVEN
The jail was never quiet at night, but it was quieter than in daylight. Alexa Reed shifted on her cot so she could see the single star shining through the tiny window of her cell. She guessed it must be midnight. Everyone seemed to be asleep except for someone crying softly down the hall. Probably a new prisoner. Everyone cried at first until the sheer futility of grief became apparent.
Someone had come to see her today. Or was it yesterday? All the days ran together, and she couldn’t remember which was which. A woman with deep dark eyes and a scar down one cheek. A ragged, unexpected scar in a beautiful face. And she’d had a man with her. Tall, warm hands, and the kindest eyes she’d ever seen. They said they’d come to help her. If anyone could help, they looked as if it might be them. But no one could end the nightmare she was awake in.
If she thought too long about Meggie and Sam, she’d start to cry like the lost soul down the hall. She hadn’t seen them since the third of June. It must be July by now. No, probably more like August. Wrapped in her semi-conscious state, she had lost the ability to speak, so she could not ask what day it was. There were words in her head, but none of them would come into her mouth to be made into sounds. Grief had left her mute, but it didn’t matter. No one had believed anything she’d told them about that awful night. Mute was better than being called a liar.
She wished she could wake up and find herself back in the rented cottage in Pacific Beach with Meggie and Sam. She would have given anything to be following the old routine of supper, bath, bedtime story, prayers, and goodnight kiss. She was glad she’d never taken even a minute of it for granted.
She could see Sam’s chubby little hands playing with the cut-up bits of fish sticks on his Winnie The Pooh plate. He was out of the high chair now and into a booster seat at the table, but he had to stretch just a little to reach his food. He loved to wipe the bits of fish through the ketchup at least twice and then stuff them in his mouth, giggling at Meggie because he knew he was supposed to use his fork. Meggie, who took her older sister status very seriously, alway frowned and reminded him about that fork. Then Sam would look at Alexa and giggle some more because he’d gotten the hoped for rise out of his sister.
Alexa missed bath time, too. Meggie and Sam loved to play with Sam’s shiny black plastic submarine. Sam scooted it across the water, making what he imagined were boat noises even after Alexa reminded him subs ran silently. Meggie, who was endlessly patient and precocious, liked to take the red, green, and yellow baby subs out of the mother ship and line them up on the edge of the tub coming up with new patterns every night.
Alexa didn’t mind if they splashed a little. Michael, who had much stricter rules, was never there to complain. If he was in town, he was at the office until after midnight. But more often he was on the road for weeks at a time. Meggie and Sam never saw him; and they were both a little bit afraid of him. But she shouldn’t think about that.
After the games in the tub and after trying to sing Row, Row, Row, Your Boat as a round, there was always that wonderful moment of lifting each precious little body out of the water, wrapping their chubby pinkness in big fluffy terry towels, and breathing in the smell of gentle soap and baby shampoo. Alexa marveled at each perfect finger and toe as she helped them into pajamas. At six, Meggie could do everything except button her nightgown in the back. But Sam, who was five, would dance naked down the hall to escape clothes altogether if he could.
They shared a room. When it was time for Sam to give up his crib, he’d been frightened unless he could sleep in Meggie’s room. Alexa always sat on Meggie’s bed with the two of them between her to read their bedtime story. Sam’s favorite was Goodnight Moon, but Meggie adored Runaway Bunny. She loved the part where the Baby Bunny asks the Mother Bunny what would happen if he ran away, and the Mother Bunny says she’d come after him. Meggie always asked, “You’d come after us, too, wouldn’t you?”
That was before Michael realized how effectively he could use family court to terrorize them. He had cemented them as a threesome by leaving them alone together. And then he launched his attack to destroy them. The star twinkled down at Alexa, reminding her to stop thinking about Michael and his scorched earth litigation tactics to preserve whatever remnants of sanity she had left. Since the horror of being arrested on June third and the even greater nightmare of the preliminary hearing, she could stay in her semi-conscious state, floating free from everything that surrounded her only if she didn’t think about Michael and Brigman. If those memories crept in, or worse yet if she talked about what they had done, it would bring her crashing back to the horror of being locked in this cell. That’s why she was glad she could no longer speak, and that’s why she was glad she couldn’t talk to the man and the woman who’d come today. Or yesterday. She wasn’t sure.
The man’s eyes haunted her. They were so kind. She hadn’t seen eyes like that since her father died. She’d been just Meggie’s age when her parents went off to church one wet Sunday morning, leaving her with Gramma Beth because Alexa had a sore throat. Her father’s mother lived with them, and she often stayed with Alexa when her parents went out.
Who would have thought a drunk driver would crash into their car at 9:30 on a Sunday morning? Gramma Beth said her parents skipped church that day and went straight to heaven where they became angels looking after her. The childhood fiction was still comforting. The star twinkled down at her, saying, yes, your parents are still watching over you, and now Gramma Beth is with them. You aren’t alone. She liked to think all three were standing right there in the dark cell with her. She hoped they’d come for her soon. People who went into the white tunnel and then returned always said your loved ones were there to help you pass over. Her parents and Gramma Beth would be there when it was time.
She had tried to endure the horrors so that she could get back to Meggie and Sam. She knew what it was like to have your parents vanish. The woman with the scar and the man with the kind eyes had been trying to tell her to hang on a little longer. But she already knew that was useless. Michael had done exactly what he’d threatened to do: he’d made sure she was separated from her children forever.
If she’d had Meggie and Sam with someone like the man with the kind eyes, they’d still be together. The four of them would have been a forever family. She had known Michael was a mistake as soon as she was pregnant with Meggie, but she had thought she could endure for her children. She’d been dangerously wrong.
Her precious star was nearly out of sight. A star was a sign of hope. When she was a child, the priest had always insisted God would never let his people give up hope. She’d believed that through everything Michael had done to her until the day they arrested her for double murder. She closed her eyes and wished she could be ten years old again, sitting with her grandmother in St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, wearing her perfect attendance Sunday school pin and singing the hymns. Sometimes now she sang hymns to herself. Not out loud because she couldn’t speak. But in her head. One was beginning to play over and over now. “Savior, like a shepherd le-ad us.” Alexa had always loved the way “lead” was drawn out by the melody. What was the next line? She couldn’t forget that; chanting hymns to herself kept her floating in her out-of-body world. Ah, here it was. “Much we need thy tender care.” She knew she wouldn’t forget.
Nothing could ever be more precious to her than Meggie and Sam. Since Gramma Beth had died, they were the only people on earth who needed her. The thought of them with Coleman and Myrna Reed was more than she could bear. So she wouldn’t think about it. The star was gone, and it was time to stop thinking about anything.
But thoughts are hard to stop. Another hymn began to sing to her: “When I tread the verge of Jordan, all my anxious fears subside.” You crossed the river Jordan to reach the promised land. Death was now her promised land. Coleman wanted her to die, and she wanted to die, too. But not his way. Not after twenty years in a cell like this one, waiting while the lawyers like the ones who’d come today tried in vain to save her life. Would Justice Moreno still be on the Supreme Court when her last death row appeal came before the justices? Mary Moreno had liked her; she’d warned her not to marry Michael.
But, of course, neither Coleman nor Mary could hear her case if they were still on the Court when the end came for her. More words of the hymn comforted her: “Guide me oh thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land. I am weak but Thou are mighty.” Alexa was weak, but God wouldn’t let her down. She’d die, but not Coleman Reed’s way. God would find her the dignified exit she deserved because He still loved her. And He loved Meggie and Sam, too. God wouldn’t want them saddled with the stigma of their mother’s execution. No, He’d find a better way out of life for her. She had first thought starving herself was the answer; but the guards threatened to force feed her, so she ate just enough to prevent that and nothing more.
For now, she could only lie on this cot, waiting for the star every night, and praying God would come and get her very soon. He could see she was still the ten-year-old in the perfect attendance Sunday school pin, holding her grandmother’s hand; and she knew He’d answer her prayer. She knew it as surely as she knew she hadn’t killed anyone.