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Dark Moon, A Work on Progress – Chapter Four

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CHAPTER FOUR
A jail is nothing but gray, Sarah thought on Tuesday afternoon. She and Jim had been sitting in gray metal chairs at the gray metal table in the attorney-client interview room for a half hour without any sign of Alexa Reed. Sarah looked around to keep from being mesmerized by Jim’s gentle eyes, studying her from his seat at the end of the table. He looked good in a suit. She’d never seen him in one before. Feelings would complicate things; she couldn’t have feelings. But his eyes tempted her to have them. She needed a night with David and soon to make her forget about Jim. Hadn’t he said his wife was in Cabo this week? She’d call him after work, and see if he was free that evening.
She took in the dust-gray walls, the gray chairs and the table where they were seated, the gray door they had come through and the metal bars over the peek-hole window. A guard in a gun-metal gray uniform peering at them through the large glass security window directly in front of her completed the set. Sarah hadn’t been in a jail in a long time. Her clients were all wealthy business executives who bypassed lockup with millions of dollars worth of bail.
“I think she’s standing us up,” Jim said.
“Maybe. Trevor said she’s been curled up in a fetal position and hasn’t spoken since the preliminary hearing.”
“So she’s incompetent to stand trial.”
“I’d say yes for sure, but there’s a hearing September 3 to make that determination. I’m going to interview the psychologist who’s evaluating her as soon as I can get an appointment.”
“You’ll want me there in case he lies on the stand at the hearing.”
Despite her best judgment, Sarah’s eyes darted to his and remained fixed on their brown depths longer than she’d intended. “Yes, I will. Definitely.”
The gray metal entrance door began to slide to the right, extremely slowly, creaking as it moved. She and Jim turned toward it, thinking Alexa was about to appear. Instead, they saw only a portly fortiesh woman guard with a sour look on her face.
“Are you Sarah Knight?” she demanded. “Where’s you bar card?”
Sarah tried to stifle her annoyance, knowing a rise from her was what this nameless jail official wanted; but she’d shown her state bar identification card more times in the last half-hour than she had ever displayed it in her entire career. She was tired of dragging it out of her wallet.
But she did, and the guard scanned it for several minutes as if she thought it was counterfeit.
“And you? “ she demanded of Jim. “Where’s yours?”
Without a word, he patiently handed over both his California bar card which showed he was on inactive status as a lawyer, and his private investigator’s license. Sarah noticed he fumbled with his ex-FBI agent’s association id card for the grumpy guard’s benefit.
“You used to be an agent?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why are you working for defense lawyer scum?”
“Have to make a living.” Jim gave her a half-smile and put his credentials away.
“Well, bad news. Your client won’t get up to talk to you. She’s lying on her bunk, eyes open, saying nothing.”
“And this has gone on for some time?”
“Since they brought her back from the prelim on June 17. Somehow she eats enough to stay alive. But that’s it.”
“I’d like to go down to her cell and introduce myself,” Sarah said. “She’s never met me.”
“It’s against jail policy.”
“I can get a court order if you’d rather.”
The guard frowned at them both, delaying the moment when she’d have to admit defeat.
“You don’t have to. I’ll escort you down there.”
The interior corridors were even grayer, Sarah reflected a few minutes later as she and Jim followed the woman to Alexa’s cell. They twisted and turned through narrow hallways with the astringent smell of lemony disinfectant until they reached the tiny space Alexa Reed occupied.
Their sour guide dialed a combination lock on the door of the cell, and then used a key to complete opening it. Sarah and Jim stepped inside when it swung open, but there was barely room for both in the tiny dark space lit only by a three by three window high up on the outside wall.
She was a tiny bag of bones, Sarah reflected as she looked down at the woman in the navy blue prison scrubs curled up on the single cot. Her blonde hair was matted and uncombed, and apparently unwashed for weeks. Her large light blue eyes stared straight ahead, unfocused and distant. She was about five feet tall, Sarah guessed, and must have weighed all of ninety pounds.
She knelt by the cot. “Alexa, I’m Sarah Knight, your new attorney. And this is my investigator, Jim Mitchell. We’ve come to hear your side of things. Will you go down to the interview room with us where we can talk?”
No response. Alexa’s blue eyes remained blank and fixed on the opposite wall.
Jim leaned over and took one of Alexa’s small hands in his much larger one. Sarah couldn’t explain why she didn’t like that. She thought she saw a flicker in Alexa’s otherwise vacant blue eyes when Jim took her hand, but it might have been her imagination.
“She isn’t going to talk to you,” the hostile guard announced. “You’re going to have to leave.”
Jim let go of Alexa’s tiny fingers and stood up. He really did look good in a suit, Sarah thought once more, and then wondered why she was thinking about Jim’s looks and Alexa’s hand in his.
Sarah stood also and turned toward the door. Suddenly, on impulse, she paused and fished one of her business cards out of her brief case. She pressed it into Alexa’s unresponsive hands.
“Here’s my card, Alexa. We’re here to help you.”
* * *
That night, Sarah found herself standing in front of Jim’s olive green bungalow at seven thirty. He’d insisted on making dinner again to give them a chance to talk over the day’s events. She had called David as soon as she’d gotten back to her office, ready to cancel the evening with Jim if he was free. But his wife had unexpectedly backed down from her Cabo trip, so seeing him was out of the question. Had Tessa guessed about their relationship? That possibility nagged at Sarah as she thought of calling Jim to set up a meeting at a restaurant where she would feel more in control. But the need for confidentiality trumped her scruples about being alone with him.
He put a glass of cabernet in her hand and motioned for her to take a seat on one of the tall stools around the island in his kitchen.
“I was in the mood for burgers, although not the ones you burn over a gas grill. Feeling the French bistro vibe tonight, so I’ve made grilled onion confit and Bearnaise sauce and shoestring sweet potato fries.”
“I’ll have to work out tomorrow for sure.”
He turned from stirring the onions and gave her a once over. “I doubt that. You look very Audrey Hepburn tonight in those black skinny pants and black shirt with your hair cut short like hers. Do people ever tell you that you look like her?”
“Once in a while. When they don’t otherwise know my ‘day job.’”
“I have to admit you had me fooled that night at Trend.”
Was it really less than a week since they’d met, Sarah reflected. Why did she feel as if she’d always known him?
“That was tough today at the jail,” Jim observed, turning back to his onions.
“Yes, it was.” Sarah paused to take a long drink of her wine, wondering if she should have asked for scotch instead.
“She’s barely alive.”
“Trevor Martin warned me, but it was much worse than I’d pictured.”
“She’ll be declared incompetent to stand trial. She’s completely incapable of assisting with her defense.”
“Yeah, that’s blatantly obvious. Still, I want to interview Percy Andrews to find out what he’s going to say at that competency hearing. I’ve got an appointment with him on Friday at 9 in the morning.”
“I’ll be there with bells on.”
* * *
They ate in Jim’s small dinning room at a small antique maple table. He dialed the lights down, and lit candles in clear glass holders. Sarah wondered if he considered the evening a business or personal occasion.
“How long have you been in San Diego?” He asked as he put the plates on the table and motioned for her to take the seat opposite his.
“Since January. What about you?”
“Two years, now. It’s easier being on the opposite coast.” His eyes darkened as he spoke, but he gave her that gentle, honest smile that she found hard to resist. “Do you miss New York?”
“Sometimes.”
“Why didn’t you go with a big firm here like Warwick, Thompson?”
“I thought about it. I talked to Alan Warwick. In the end, I was tired of working for someone else.”
Jim smiled. “I can understand that. Any broken hearts left behind in New York?”
“Only the ones I mentioned the other night, the dry cleaning delivery boy and the Chinese food messenger. But I doubt they miss anything but the tips. I was always generous. What about you?” Why was she picturing him holding Alexa Reed’s tiny fingers?
“I’ve tried. No luck. Still head over heels for Gail.”
Jealousy was an inappropriate emotion Alexa reminded herself as he refilled her wine glass. “What is she like?”
“Funny, smart, beautiful. Taffy hair, big blue eyes. Knockout figure. Grew up in Boston. She teaches third grade and loves it. Cody has a half-sister, Brittany, whom he adores.”
Sarah studied him across the table. A white knit shirt tonight with navy linen pants. Such a kind, gentle face. Hard to believe he hadn’t found someone else by now.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
“My hourly rate is a lot higher than that.”
“Guess I can’t afford them, then.”
“I thought you were a trust fund baby.”
He laughed. “I tend to forget about the old man’s money. I did without it all those years. Ok, I’ll pay your hourly rate if you tell me why you’re looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“As if you were reading my mind.”
“Now that would be a useful skill for a defense attorney. But I don’t do mind reading. I was just thinking a guy like you should have hooked up with someone by now.”
“I could say the same about you.” The tone of his voice made her tummy flutter, and she decided this conversation had to end and quickly.
“I do see someone. From time to time.”
Did he look disappointed? She wasn’t sure.
“Lucky him. What’s he like?”
“A busy important, CEO of a commercial real estate firm. His brother, who works for him, had a minor problem with the Securities and Exchange Commission last winter, just after I got here.”
“And you took care of it for him?”
“Made it all go away.”
Jim studied her in the candlelight. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
Sara traced the circle of the bottom of her wine glass. “Now you’re reading minds.”
“I’ve interviewed hundreds of witnesses. I know when someone’s holding back.”
Her dark eyes met his, and she smiled. “You’re really good. I’ll give you credit. David Scott is very married.”
“Ah, I see.” He crossed his knife and fork on his plate in a gesture of finality before bringing his eyes back to study hers. “Then why waste your time?”
“He’s witty, well educated, and charming.” And I can’t fall in love with him. But Sarah would never say that out loud.
“Does the wife know?”
She frowned as she thought of the defunct Cabo trip. “I don’t think so.”
“But you’re not sure.”
“She was supposed to be in Cabo tonight.”
“And he was supposed to be with you?”
“But she cancelled. I don’t think it had anything to do with me and David.”
“Well, my luck that she stayed in town.” He leaned over and started to refill her glass, but she put her hand over the top.
“I’m driving, remember?”
“And I’ve got that guest room, remember? This was a tough day. You need it. Let me put the plates in the sink and then join you in the living room. I’ve learned a lot about Alexa Reed since this afternoon. I think you’re going to be interested in what I’ve found out.”
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Dark Moon – A Work in Progress, Chapter Three

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CHAPTER THREE
Trevor Martin had done well for himself, Sarah reflected, as she sat opposite his massive mahogany desk on Monday, sipping the coffee his assistant had brought in. He could afford a three-office suite on the thirtieth floor of 600 West Broadway to house himself and his two associate attorneys. The associates were tucked into the interior spaces, but Trevor’s office overlooked San Diego Bay, now sparkling in the August morning as if the sun had thrown handfuls of diamond dust over the gray-blue waves.
“You aren’t going to like what I have to say about this case,” Trevor began.
“Try me.”
“Well, to get straight to the point, your client is as looney as they come. The court declared a doubt about her mental competency to stand trial a week after the preliminary hearing. Basically, she went straight back to her cell at the jail after the prelim, curled up on her bunk, and hasn’t spoken a word since.”
“Wouldn’t it be a bit of a shock to be held for trial on two murders, knowing she’s facing the death penalty?”
Trevor shrugged. “She’s a lawyer, herself. She had to know what was going to go down from the minute she pulled the trigger on Brigman.”
“Did she tell you she did it?”
“Of course not. She claims she left Brigman’s at 9:30 and went home to Pacific Beach. But that can’t be true because her cell phone shows her in Brigman and her ex-husband’s neighborhood at 11:15 p.m. Alexa had just enough time to kill Brigman and then drive over to Michael’s and shoot him.. She was between murders when Meggie called. And, as you probably know, the Glock .9 used to kill them both was registered to her.”
“How did she explain the cell phone evidence?”
“Not very well. She says she was driving around because she couldn’t sleep and was missing her children.”
“Isn’t that possible? They were little. She’d be likely to miss them.”
“Oh come on!” Trevor leaned back in his chair and shook his head at her stupidity. “In what universe does a woman with motive and opportunity just happened to be driving around the neighborhood of the two men she hates above all others at the very same time someone is using her gun to kill them?”
“What does she have to say about the gun?”
“That it was stolen. She claims she reported the theft to the police, but there’s no record of a police report.”
“How can you be sure there’s no report?”
“Preston Baldwin is the deputy district attorney who’s prosecuting the case. He’s the number three man in that office, and we go back a long way. He’s turned over all the discovery, and no police report.”
Sarah studied Trevor until he began to squirm in the silence. If you put an ill-fitting, thousand-dollar suit on a donkey and turned it into a person then added a beer belly, you’d get Trevor Martin, she reflected. He was thin, except for the paunch, in his late fifties, with a bulbous nose, and squinty dark eyes of an undefined color. He combed his sparse gray locks over Donald Trump-style and wore a suit that matched his hair. Everything about him said mediocrity. Sarah reckoned he’d earned his high-class address based on cunning and deceit and not on legal talent.
“You mean you’re conducting your investigation into your client’s defense relying solely upon the word of the man who’s prosecuting her?”
“Look, you’re making way too much out of this. I told you, Preston and I go way back. We’ve tried probably a hundred cases against each other. We socialize. In fact, I was at a barbecue at his house the night after the prelim. If that report had been in his file, he’d have turned it over.”
Sarah tried to keep her face impassive, but she could tell Trevor was becoming more and more agitated by her disapproval. He leaned over his desk and hissed, “Don’t waste your time on sympathy for this woman. She’s a consummate lying, manipulating bitch.”
“I’m sorry, did you just call your client a ‘bitch’? What about fiduciary duty and duty of loyalty to the client? Did you tell her you were partying with opposing counsel the night after she was bound over to face the death penalty?”
Trevor was incensed. “Don’t quote the Rules of Professional Conduct to me. I know them. But I also know how to survive in this town. My relationship with Preston Baldwin has lasted for twenty years. Clients come and go. As will Alexa Reed. No, I didn’t tell her Preston and I are friends. That’s my private life, and I’m not bound to reveal my private life to clients.”
“But that’s not how it works,” Sarah said. “Our duty of loyalty is to our clients, not to the attorneys we try cases with. If you had a social relationship with opposing counsel, you should have told her.”
Trevor shrugged. “I can see you’ve got a lot to learn. This isn’t New York, Ms. Knight. We do things our own way.”
“This is beginning to sound like my meeting with Hal Remington.”
“Better not cross Hal if you want to work in San Diego.”
“Funny, that’s exactly what he said.”
Trevor leaned back in his padded leather executive chair and adopted a paternal tone. “If you want to go on some sort of crusade, claiming we’re all unethical, you’re welcome to do it. But remember, we’ve all been here more than twenty years, doing our jobs, and not getting into any trouble with the state bar. If you start accusing us of shafting our clients – even if we do – you won’t get to first base. Who do you think the state bar is going to believe? You and a string of convicted felons, complaining about their trial attorneys? Or us?”
“That’s the speech Hal Remington gave me.”
“And he was right on the money! Look, Ms. Knight. Alexa Reed was a washed up associate at Warwick, Thompson, and Hayes. She got herself pregnant twice without much time between babies to hide her incompetence and to give herself an excuse to leave the firm. Michael, on the other hand, was a brilliant young lawyer who made partner in four years.”
“Was he brilliant or just the son of a sitting United States Supreme Court justice who was a former Warrick, Thompson partner himself?”
“If I have to answer that question, you haven’t heard anything I’ve said so far. Anyway, Alexa gets herself knocked up twice. The firm lets her go; and then she files for divorce, claiming Michael beat her and persuaded the partners to fire her. Ronald Brigman did her psychological evaluation in the custody case and found she was lying about the beatings and about why she was fired. Based on those findings, Brigman decided to give primary custody of the kids to Michael. Not less than a month later, Brigman and Michael are dead, killed with the gun registered to Alexa, who claims she was just driving around aimlessly in the neighborhood when someone else used it. Come on, Ms. Knight. How much time do you think anyone should waste investigating this case?”
“As much time as it takes to get it right. Did you interview the children?”
“Meggie and Sam? Of course not. They’re only six and five.”
“And they were in the house when their mother supposedly shot their father. What if she didn’t shoot him, and the children are the missing to prove it?”
Sarah noticed Trevor Martin’s face begin to go dark red. Could he be on the verge of a heart attack? “Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no way anyone can prove Alexa Reed is innocent. Interviewing the children wouldn’t change a thing. Besides, Coleman Reed and his wife Myra took Meggie and Sam to D.C. to live with them as soon as Alexa was arrested. Justice Reed requested a protective order from the superior court to keep people like you from bothering them. You want to talk to the children? You’d better have an airtight reason. Look, Ms. Knight. Remember what Hal Remington said: don’t try too hard if you expect to work in this town. Just file a few in limine motions to make it look good, do some cross examination, and accept the inevitable outcome. This client is a guilty nut job and them some. You’re here to make it look good and get paid. That’s all.
“And by the way, this case is going nowhere fast at the moment because Alexa Reed is curled up in that catatonic ball in her cell. She wouldn’t talk to me, and I doubt she will talk to you.”
“So I gather there’s a hearing coming up to determine whether she is competent to stand trial?”
“Right. On September 3, the day after labor day.”
“And who is the psychologist who is evaluating her for that hearing?”
“Percy Andrews.”
“What didn’t you request someone out of L.A.?”
“Because I didn’t need to. Percy Andrews has been doing court appointed evaluations in this town for twenty years.”
“And that’s my point. Isn’t it a conflict of interest to have him evaluating the woman accused of killing a colleague?”
His mouth became a tight line and he stood up abruptly. “I’ve got another appointment coming in ten minutes. I’ve given you all the help I can. And I’ve warned you. If you have any questions after you go over the file, you can call me.”
But not bloody likely you’ll answer, Sarah thought as she shook hands and left his office.
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Work in Progress: Dark Moon, A Novel – Chapter Two

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CHAPTER TWO
Her second thoughts about Jim Mitchell began the moment she walked out of Trend, and they continued as she rang the bell at his Pacific Beach bungalow the following night. The house stood out from its beige stucco neighbors in a fresh coat of olive green paint with bright red begonias smiling from the flowerbeds. Not only did he seem strong and wise, seasoned in the ways of the world and his own man, he also appeared to have an artistic streak. She liked him; but, at the same time, she questioned her decision to hire him. This was a new experience for her. She had advanced in the competitive world of Craig, Weller because she was smart and because she had excellent judgment. She rarely had any reason to think twice once she’d made a decision.
But Jim presented a number of challenges beginning with his dark hair, decisively dimpled chin, and firm, square-jawed good looks. He was six feet, two hundred pounds of well-honed muscle that any woman would have found attractive, and she never dated or slept with anyone she worked with. It was a rule set in stone. And even though Jim’s background meant he knew his way around the tough world of criminal defense, he had the kindest brown eyes she had ever seen; and their empathy tempted her to open up about herself in a way she would never have considered with anyone else. But never looking back was another implacable rule. Finally, his honesty about his responsibility for the loss of his marriage and his love for his former wife, surprisingly tugged at her heart, an organ that was nearly impossible to touch after years spent turning herself into one of the toughest lawyers on Wall Street. So Sarah considered telling Jim Mitchell the deal was off as soon as they had settled down to dinner on his charming patio in the ocean-scented remnants of the soft summer evening.
But she hesitated. He was not the average private detective. Even his dress that night was not average California casual. No slouchy knit shirts and faded jeans. Instead, he wore an I-mean-business blue Oxford cloth shirt, sleeves rolled back to the elbows, and impeccable tan linen slacks. Everything about him broadcast confidence and professionalism. If she searched the entire west coast for an investigator to work on behalf of Alexa Reed, she couldn’t do better than Jim. And loyalty to her client was, according to the cannons of legal ethics, her top priority.
“Where did you learn to cook like this?” She had just tasted the lamb chops in a delicate mustard cream sauce with tiny spring peas and braised leeks.
“You were expecting steaks from the butane grill.” His eyes teased her.
“Most definitely. You do not look like a sous chef.”
He grinned. “Thank you, I think. My mother came from old money. Her father was an investment banker and a Cravath client. She insisted on having a professional chef. I liked hanging out in the kitchens to learn about cooking. Drove my old man nuts because he was afraid I’d go to culinary school.”
“You’d have been very successful.”
“Doubtless. But in the end, I wanted to catch the bad guys more.” He smiled. “My cooking skills came in handy when I was living on a government salary and couldn’t afford five-star restaurants.”
“And now you can?”
“In theory. My father died three years ago and left me, his only child, his fortune along with my mother’s money. In trust, of course. But the monthly payments have made me financially independent. It’s unlikely I’ll ever need to touch the capital.”
“So why keep working? And on the side of the bad guys?”
“I keep working because I love doing investigations. Every one is a new story, with a new plot, and new characters. And the clients aren’t ‘bad guys.’ They’re innocent people I’m keeping out of prison. I’m still on the side of justice.”
“Well, then, you may not want to work on Alexa Reed’s case. She’s very guilty.”
“Tell me about it.”
Sarah sighed and traced patterns on the base of her wine glass with one finger. “In the interests of full disclosure, I should let you know that I didn’t want this case.”
“How’d you get it, then?”
“When I left Craig, Lewis and set up shop out here alone, I brought a few clients with me who are based in Los Angeles. One was accused of masterminding a Ponzi scheme, two others were indicted for insider trading, and the fourth was on the hook for racketeering.”
“Isn’t defending clients under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act a speciality of yours?”
She felt herself stiffen and hoped he didn’t notice. “I’ve done a few RICO cases, that’s true.”
“But you won one of the most influential and toughest cases of all time, the Joey Menendez case.”
Sarah’s mouth went dry at the name, and she gulped a sip of wine to make her tongue work. “How’d you know about Menendez?”
“It’s famous throughout law enforcement. You persuaded a jury to acquit the head of the Menendez drug cartel of six counts of murder for hire and twenty counts of extortion. No one ever thought that would happen, including the U.S. Attorney who opposed you. What’s wrong? You look upset.”
“No. Of course not.” But she gripped the base of the wine glass to keep her hands from shaking. He was violating one of her iconoclastic rules: don’t look back. She needed to change the subject quickly. “Anyway, I didn’t want the Alexa Reed case.”
“So how’d you become counsel of record then?”
“In a word: blackmail. Last month I settled all but one of the four cases I started with. I’ve picked up one or two new ones as I’ve gone along, but they are all out of L.A. I haven’t developed any business in San Diego. So I put my name on the list of attorneys willing to accept trial court appointments for indigent defendants. Yesterday morning, Hal Remington, who heads the appointments panel called and insisted I come to his office at 10 a.m.”
“He couldn’t offer you the case on the phone?”
“Apparently not.” Her hands had stopped shaking, and she paused to fortify herself with a sip of wine.
“So what happened?”
“I found his office in the basement of the old Justice Building on the third try. They’ve hidden it pretty well. Remington turned out to be a scruffy version of Ichabod Crane, slouched behind a desk so covered in paper, I doubt he’s ever filed anything in his entire career. He told me he was appointing me on Alexa Reed’s case, and I said no.”
Jim leaned over and poured more Australian Shiraz into her class as he asked, “And then?”
“And then he said if I didn’t take the case, I’d never work in this town. He’d personally guarantee it.”
“I didn’t know whether to believe him or laugh in his face.”
“I hope you believed him.”
“What do you mean?”
“People have their own way here. Money and influence talk.”
“But surely they follow the state bar’s ethical rules just like everyone else?”
“Some do. Some don’t. Have you ever heard of Patrick Frega?”
She shook her head.
“He was a San Diego attorney. Back in 1992, he was caught by us feds bribing two very willing superior court judges. They all three got disbarred and sentenced to federal prison. What did you tell Remington after he threatened to blackball you?”
“I told him I couldn’t take the Reed case because I’m not death qualified in California. Alexa is facing the death penalty because it was a double murder.”
“And then what?”
“Remington said my death qualification in New York was enough, and I’d better take the case. Then he leaned over his desk and said, ‘For a woman who graduated number three in her class from Yale, you’re kind of dense. You’re getting this case because you aren’t qualified, and you’ll lose it because that’s exactly what Coleman Reed wants. He wants the woman who killed his son to die by lethal injection as quickly as possible. You and twelve citizens of this city are going to oblige him. You were hand-picked because you look qualified, but you aren’t.”
“He actually said that?”
“I wish I’d been wearing a wire. I asked him what made him think I’d lose; after all, I did graduate number three, and I’m a quick study.”
“And?”
“And he said, ‘Yeah, you were editor of the law review at Yale. Big f’ing deal. That means nothing in this town. I’m It when it comes to handing out defense work. You want to survive professionally? Better not win Alexa Reed’s case.’
“When I reminded him that was unethical, he laughed and said, ‘Then go tell the state bar. You’ll never prove a word out of my mouth. There’s only me and you in this room, and I’ve been appointing lawyers for twenty years. Everyone knows me, but you’re some New York hot-shot who doesn’t belong here. It’s my word against yours, and mine will win. Why don’t you go back where you belong?”
“Wow. So you took the case?”
“He made me angry. I wasn’t going to let anyone treat me like that.”
“Who had the case before you?”
“Trevor Martin. He represented her at the preliminary hearing. I picked up her file from his office yesterday, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to him. I read his withdrawal motion. He claims his mother has inoperable brain cancer, but I think he just doesn’t want to lose a high-profile case.”
Jim reached over to refill her glass one more time, but she put her hand over it. “No, thanks. I’m driving.”
“You can stay here. I have a guest room.”
She looked through the open french doors into his living room, full of an eclectic mix of old and new furniture, antiques and Ikea pieces. Maple and mahogany and a few painted chairs and chests here and there. Cozy and comfortable. The kind of room you’d be tempted to put your feet up in and snuggle into a soft throw on the sofa. Jim was probably like that, too. Safe and comforting. She reminded herself she didn’t get close to men who were like that. She had one-night stands with married men like David, and men she’d never see again. But men like Jim, who were capable of relationships, were dangerous to the self-contained, tightly controlled world she had created.
Her dark eyes locked onto his mellow, softer ones. “No, thanks. And let’s get one rule very clear: I never sleep with anyone I work with.”
“I wasn’t inviting you into my room. There really are two.” He grinned, and the tension broke. “Now, tell me why we’re going to lose.”
She shrugged. “Simple really. She did it. June 2 was a Sunday night. Meggie, who’s six and Sam, who’s five, were with their father at his house on Mount Soledad in La Jolla. Alexa was alone in her rented place in Pacific Beach. Ronald Brigman, who lived about ten minutes away from Michael, had a surveillance camera recording traffic at his front door. The video footage shows Alexa arriving alone at 9:00 p.m. but doesn’t show her leaving. Brigman was killed around 11:00 that night and Michael was shot about twenty minutes later. Meggie called Alexa on her cell phone around 11:15, and the call pinged off a tower that shows Alexa moving from Brigman’s to Michael’s. The Glock .9 millimeter used in both murders was registered to her and was found next to Michael’s body. Ballistics show five bullets in Brigman, and four in Michael, all from her Glock.”
“A Glock magazine in California only holds ten rounds. So I’m assuming there was one left in the magazine?”
“No idea. I haven’t read anything other than Trevor Martin’s motion to withdraw. I’m going to look over the police reports and ballistics evidence tomorrow. I’m meeting with Martin at 10:00 on Monday morning.”
“Do you want me there?”
“No. I don’t expect him to be a witness in her case, and he’ll open up to me better if we’re alone. But I’m going to the jail to see Alexa Tuesday afternoon. I’ll need you then. Two o’clock.”
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Work in Progress: Dark Moon, A Novel

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I’ve spent the week writing blog posts for Dance For a Dead Princess for blogs that didn’t happen. Sigh. Oh, well. And I’ve been working on novel three (novel two being in the editing stages), so since I haven’t had time to write for my own blog, I’m sharing the first chapter of Dark Moon with you this week.
CHAPTER ONE
August 2013
She was sitting at the bar, staring at the full moon over the glass smooth, night-black Pacific. Her back was toward him, but Jim Mitchell could see her reflection in the mirror behind the bar. Her dark hair was very short like a child’s pixie cut, and she was all eyes. They were the saddest brown eyes he had ever seen as they gazed through the window at the blank ocean.
Judging by her long elegant legs and graceful posture, he guessed she was a model or a dancer. But no, he told himself. Models and dancers don’t hang out at La Jolla’s exclusive Trend Bar in conservative black couture suits and impossibly expensive white silk blouses. She was obviously a business woman. A retired model, he decided who now ran her own modeling agency. He was glad he’d worn his business casual tan chinos and thrown his navy sport coat over his white knit shirt. She didn’t look as if sloppy have appealed to her.
She was lost in thought, and she didn’t turn when he slid onto the stool beside her. He wondered what such a beautiful woman was doing alone on a bar stool at 9 p.m. on a Friday night, and he wondered how many of the losers several stools away had tried to gain the seat he now occupied. And he wondered how long she would let him hold it.
“Mind if I sit down?”
“Help yourself.” Her eyes riveted on his, still sad but now guarded. He noticed a long scar snaking across her left cheek. He guessed it must have ended her career in front of the camera. She watched him glance down at her left hand.
“If I were married, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Me, either.” The bartender shifted from one foot to the other, waiting for his order. “Martini, two olives. And may I get something for you? Your glass is just about empty.”
“Another one of my usual.”
Satisfied the bar tender scurried away to earn his tip.
“If he knows your usual, you must come here often.”
“Not an original pickup line. Besides, you had me at ‘mind if I sit down.’ My office is just down the street. I like to come by on Friday night to wind down.”
“But happy hour is long over.”
“I don’t do happy hour. Too crowded.”
“Me, either.”
“Is you office just down the street?”
“No. I work out of my home in Pacific Beach.”
“Then why aren’t you in a bar in Pacific Beach?”
“Too loud. Too noisy. And I’m too old.”
He saw the first glint of amusement in her dark eyes as she appraised him. “You don’t look too old.”
“I’m forty-two. That’s too old for twenty-something coeds.”
She laughed, a deep honest laugh that he liked. “I know plenty of men your age who wouldn’t agree with that.”
“They have their preferences. I have mine. If I feel like a drink on Friday night, I drive up here. What about you? You could be down in PB with the party crowd.”
Her eyes darkened slightly, but her tone remained light.
The bar tender appeared with their drinks, and he noticed her “usual” was red wine.
“To Friday night! I’m Jim Mitchell, by the way.” He held up his glass.
“Sarah Knight,” and she lightly touched his glass with hers.
Afterward he said, “I’m not believing the ‘too old’ stuff about you.”
“Thanks, but it’s true. I’m four years ahead of you.”
“You look ten years behind me.”
She smiled. “I’ve finally reached the point in life where that’s an advantage. When I first started out as an attorney, no one took me seriously.”
“You’re an attorney?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. Lots of women are these days.”
“No, no. I didn’t mean that. I took you for a former model, now head of her own agency.”
Sarah threw back her head and laughed. “Now that’s a first. Thank you. I think.Ever heard of Craig, Lewis, and Weller?”
“Sure. They’re big time rivals of my old man’s stomping grounds, Cravath, Swain, and Moore.”
“Well, I went with Craig, Lewis out of law school– ”
“Which was Harvard, I bet.”
“Wrong, Yale. And I became a partner in their white collar crime section eleven years ago.”
“A woman who looks like a model and who does white collar crime.This has got to be a movie. I would never have guessed.”
She smiled. “I think looking like a kid gave me an advantage in front of juries, particularly with the female jurors.”
“So what brought you back to San Diego?”
“I grew up here, and I got tired of New York winters.”
“I can relate to that.”
“If your dad was a Cravath partner, you obviously grew up in New York.”
“Well, not in the city. We had the regulation big house in the Connecticut burbs.”
“And you are Jim, Junior, and your father wanted you to follow in his footsteps.”
“Now, I think you’re psychic. James Chapman Mitchell, III. He sent me to Andover because it was his prep school, and he sent me to Brown because it was his college, but then I rebelled and went Georgetown because it wasn’t Harvard, his law school.”
“And did you go to work for Cravath?”
“For one miserable year. And then I joined the FBI.”
“It’s difficult to see that as an act of rebellion.”
“As far as my father was concerned, it was.”
“Why’d you pick the FBI?”
“I wanted to put the bad guys away. I thought it would give some meaning to my life.”
“And did it?”
“Too much meaning as it turns out. I got very caught up in my work. Finding a lead in a cold case was like an addiction. But my partner, who was single, had no trouble leaving work at six o’clock to hang out with my wife, who was tired of sleeping alone. Seven years ago, Gail handed me the divorce papers and put Josh’s ring on her finger instead of mine.”
“Sounds tough.” Her eyes were unreadable again.
“The toughest part is being away from my son Cody. He’s thirteen, and I only get a few weeks with him every summer. He’s just gone back to Baltimore where his mother lives. What about you? Ex-husbands? Children?”
“No time. Remember I made partner at a Wall Street firm at thirty-five. I couldn’t date my clients, and I don’t like office romances. That left the dry cleaning delivery boy and the kid who brought Chinese takeout when I got home before midnight. And I don’t do younger men.”
“Darn. And I was just getting ready to proposition you.”
“An ex-FBI agent propositioning a criminal defense attorney? In what universe?”
“This one. I’m a private investigator now. I had to leave the Bureau after Gail married Josh. I saw and heard too much, and I couldn’t take it. I’m still in love with Gail, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“I noticed.”
“I moved out here two years ago to get a fresh start. I literally closed my eyes and stuck a pin in the map. And San Diego it was. Here’s my card. I’m really good. You never know when you might need an outstanding gumshoe.”
She took the card in her long, graceful elegantly manicured fingers and studied it for a moment. She seemed to be thinking something over. Finally she said, “Actually, I do need someone.”
“I can’t believe my luck.”
“You might not think that when I tell you about the case.”
“Try me.”
“Do you know who Alexa Reed is?”
“Sure. The daughter-in-law of United States Supreme Court Justice Coleman Reed. She was arrested here in June for the murder of her husband, Michael, and a local psychologist, Roland Brigman. She and Michael, who was a partner at Warwick, Thompson, and Hayes were locked in a custody battle for their two children. Brigman seems to have been on Michael’s side. The papers say Alexa was losing custody even though she had given up her career at Warwick, Thompson to be a stay-at-home mom. She snapped and killed Brigman and her ex.”
“I was appointed to represent Alexa today.”
“Wow! That’s going to be a tough one.”
“You have no idea. There’s a lot more, but I can’t talk about it here in public.”
“Of course not.”
“Are you in?”
“Definitely. Hey, I know a great little restaurant where we can talk. Tomorrow night at seven.”
“Ok. And where would that would be?”
“My place. Here’s the address.”
download (11)

What if Your Lawyer Wore Pajamas to Court – Or Don’t Leave Home Without Your Editor

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I started life as a listener, became a writer, worked as an editor, and drifted into being a lawyer. While a listener, I learned to love stories. While a writer, I learned to tell them. While an editor, I learned to tell them well.

It never occurred to me until I became a lawyer that the process of writing is a mystery to many people. Law schools have something called “law reviews” where students edit each other’s “case notes.” “Case notes” are not notes at all but are long deadly dull treatises on legal subjects not even a lawyer can love. The point of being on the law review is to learn how to pick a subject, write about it, and use a legal style manual to make sure all the citations and use of punctuation throughout the deadly dull case note are consistent. The theory is that later on, when lawyers write trial memoranda and appellate briefs (intended to keep the reader awake, unlike case notes), their written work will look professional instead of sloppy and haphazard. A legal brief with correct grammar and punctuation and consistent citation style is the equivalent of putting on a suit to go to court instead of appearing in your pajamas.

In the book publishing world, everyone knows traditional publishers have editors and proofreaders and copy editors. Their function is to make the fiction and nonfiction books the house publishes look professional. Like lawyers, publishers set standards for their written work by designating the style manual or manuals and the rules for punctuation, grammar, and citations that will make the house’s book internally consistent and appealing to readers. The point is not that every publisher uses the same style manual or follows exactly the same rules. Rather, the point is consistency within the works the house offers for sale.

One of the last steps in producing a brief for the court of appeal is editing and proofreading it. Proofreading yourself accurately is nearly impossible. Back in my editor days, we used to take turns acting as proofreaders for other editors’ projects because after anyone has read and re-read a document a number of times, the accuracy rate for proofreading slips into the toilet. Since I work without staff, I have to proofread my own work; and I have found that reading aloud and taking the sections of the brief out of order help me find my errors. And because I used to teach writing and grammar and punctuation, I do know where those pesky commas go. (They are logical little beasts; and no, they don’t go where you pause to breathe when reading out loud.)

This has always been my world. First, the story. Second, the writing. Third, editing the work. Whether writing poetry, fiction, non-fiction or legal briefs (a sometimes blend of fiction and non, but never mind), I never thought of deviating from this routine. And I’m not going to stop now.

But after I published my novel and began to read author discussions on various forums, I was surprised to discover that many who call themselves authors do not respect the process of editing. They see it as optional. That, in my mind, creates a problem in the world of self-publishing. Whereas a reader can rely on a traditionally published book to be edited and internally consistent, buying a self-published book can be a crap shoot. It might be presenting itself to the world in its professional dress. Or it might have been let loose still wearing its pajamas. I’ve downloaded a few of those books, and I haven’t gotten beyond page twenty-five in any of them. And failing to respect the editorial process leads to a divide among reviewers. A lot of them either won’t consider a non-traditionally published book, or they demand assurances a self-published book has been edited.

Treating editing as optional hurts everyone in the self-publishing community. Ignoring the editorial process is a mistake. A good editor has the art of cleaning up a manuscript while preserving the authentic and individual voice of the author. Good editing is never, ever optional. No reader wants to buy a book still in its pj’s.

Chicago Manual of Style

The Grandaddy of Style Manuals

Another Icon

Another Icon

Legal Style Manual: Dreaded Blue Book

Legal Style Manual: Dreaded Blue Book

California's Answer to the Dreaded Blue Book

California’s Answer to the Dreaded Blue Book

Just Say No to Bread on Drugs – or Thank You, Gwyneth Paltrow

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It all began in Costco with Gwyneth Paltrow. I hit Costco about twice a month because one of my dogs has to have prescriptions filled in the pharmacy. Otherwise, I might not be much of a Costco shopper because the warehouse is off my beaten path, and I can wrangle most things I want out of Vons and Trader Joes now that we’ve become a household of one or two.
Fortunately I have never been afflicted with Costco Syndrome. I have never gone into a warehouse planning to spend a hundred bucks and come out with a five thousand dollar hot tub or a monster flat screen. I know people who’ve done that and cut up their membership cards immediately afterwards. (Good thing, too.)
No, I put my consumer blinders on whenever I enter those massive doors and buy the prescriptions and the boring stuff like enough paper towel, TP, and garbage bags to last through a ride on Noah’s Ark; a mega box of Clif Bars for my son who lives on them; and two bottles of my favorite zin, twelve bucks and under, for nights when I’m ready to unwind from writing unbrief briefs and my current novel in progress.
But I admit I have one weakness: I browse the book table after I’ve munched through the samples (and resisted buying of all the preservative laden convenience foods Costco is pushing that particular day). The book table, however, is my Armageddon. Like most word-obsessed people, I have a weakness for books. And I’m a foodie on top of that, so a cookbook is not to be resisted. Not long ago, I staged a personal intervention in which I promised my rational self not to buy another cookbook until I had cooked at least one thing from all the others I’ve been acquiring after visits to Anthropologie. BUT THEN . . . .
That day, “It’s All Good,” Gwyneth Paltrow’s latest cook book sang its siren song to me in all it’s glossy picture laden, healthy food glory. I didn’t buy her first one – maybe because I didn’t find it at Costco dirt cheap – but “It’s All Good” became my extravagance of the day.
I sat up nights reading it along with the other cookbooks languishing in the Give Us Attention Pile. Soon I was concocting Gwyneth’s warm mustard lentil salad (a major yum) for lunch and her olive oil fried eggs for breakfast. (I added my own sprinkle of crisped prosciuto on top.) AND THEN I discovered “Avocado Toast.” As she says, it isn’t really a recipe. You stick some sliced up avocado (or mashed up) on some toast with Vegenaise and maybe sprinkle on some chili flakes.
Being Ms. Paltrow, she puts her avocados on gluten free bread. But I took one look at that stuff at Vons and decided bread made from sawdust is not my thing. So I began to browse the bread aisle, a low-carb dieter’s nightmare.
And that’s when I met Dave’s Killer Bread. The picture of the ex-con on the package was riveting, along with his statement, “ I was a four-time loser. I spent fifteen years in and out of prison.” Now, I write unbrief briefs week after week for more than four-time losers, and I was intrigued by anyone who could leave that life behind and bake bread. In fact, lots and lots of bread. There were so many varieties with seeds and sprouts and no bad things in them (ok, Gwyneth, they did have gluten, but it’s not a problem for me) that I thought I’d died and gone to Foodie Carb Heaven.
As soon as I got home with my loaf of Dave’s Lite Killer Bread, I made a beeline for the website. And here’s what I found:
Dave Dahl is the son of Jim Dahl, who purchased a bakery in Portland, Oregon in 1955. Jim worked extremely hard to develop bread made with whole grains and no animal fats. His bread from the 1960’s, “Surviva,” is still popular today. All of Jim Dahl’s children, including Dave, worked in the family business as they grew up. But Dave, who suffered from severe depression, didn’t appreciate his father’s work ethic, and went on to a life of drugs, assault, armed robbery, and burglary. And to terms in prison in Oregon.
But after fifteen years, Dave decided to be treated for his depression, and he learned drafting design while in prison. He expected to continue with that work, but after he got out his brother Glen, who now ran the bakery after Jim’s death, welcomed him back. Dave put everything he had into developing “Dave’s Killer Bread,” and the family business quickly had a hit.
Here is a link to a great video of Dave telling his story. You want to see this, I promise. http://www.daveskillerbread.com/daves-story/video.html
Dave believes in giving back in lots of ways. One third of his work force consists of ex-felons like himself. And he returned to the prison where he was incarcerated to tell the others they, too, could turn their lives around if, as Dave puts it, they had the humility to ask for help.
Having seen so much hopelessness in my “day job,” I was overwhelmed when I read Dave’s story. And the bread – by the way – makes the most divine Avocado Toast.
“Dave’s Killer Bread – Just Say No to Bread on Drugs!”

Dave

Dave


The Killer Bread

The Killer Bread

The Flag Ladies of Freeport, Maine

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I wanted to have this post up by the Fourth of July, but life intervened. The machine at my local FedEx that binds my unbrief lawyer briefs sputtered and died for the third time in the last month. Although I am one of the biggest accounts at that store, corporate FedEx is hemming and hawing about fixing the machine or firing me as customer. In the meantime, I am driving across the county to get the unbrief briefs copied and bound.
But enough corporate soap opera. Even if it’s after the Fourth, this is the kind of story that will make you smile any day of the year.
On September 11, 2001, when Carmen Footer, Joanne Miller, and Elaine Greene heard that America had been attacked, they felt they had to do something. So they grabbed their flags, walked up to Main Street in their hometown of Freeport, Maine, and began to wave Old Glory. The response was so overwhelming they pledged to be there every Tuesday for a year. Now, twelve years later, the Freeport Flag Ladies, as they are now called, are still there. And they haven’t missed a Tuesday since 9/11.
In a recent ABC news feature, Elaine Green explained their mission. People drive by and wave and honk every Tuesday because, “They’re happy to have that gentle reminder, this is their country. Freedom is not free.” The Flag Ladies make everyone who passes by “feel more connected to their country.”
The Flag Ladies’ mission has grown since that first tragic day in our country’s history. They now go to schools, churches, and community events with their patriotic message. And they travel five hours to greet military flights leaving and returning from overseas.
Elaine met a solider heading to Iraq in 2004 whom she will never forget. “His father called me about three to four months later to thank me. He said, ‘My son was killed. When he left, he was in a very dark place but I got a call when he arrived in Iraq and he said, I met some ladies and dad, and I’m going to be okay became I met people worth dying for, if it has to be.’ His father was calling to thank us because we gave his son his dignity. He didn’t die in a dark place. If I never did another thing in my life, it’s all I ever had done, it would have been enough,” Said Greene.
On September 11, 2001, Carmen, Joanne, and Elaine set out to be three tiny sparks of light in the darkness. They never knew how their lights would grow and shine and touch so many others. See? A story that will make you smile on any day of the year.
The Flag Ladies

The Past – Slaying a Dragon

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The self-growth community, which likes to clutter my inbox with fantastic offers for $10,000 worth of free life changing bonuses if only I will divulge my e-mail, vociferously insists we must all LET GO of the Past. I sometimes wonder if the induction ceremony for an authentic, card carrying self-growth guru is to have his or her memory wiped like a malfunctioning hard drive.
Personally, I would miss my Past. Not all of it, you understand. But even the terrible, terrorizing moments taught me things that, having sweated blood and endured raw fear to learn, I would not want to forget. And aren’t we doomed to repeat the Past until we finally learn what It is trying to teach us?
The thing is, what would artists make their art out of if they didn’t have their Pasts? Sylvia Plath, without her miserable, doomed love-affair with Ted Hughes, would never have become a Great Poet. Ditto for W.B. Yeats who made a highly successful poetic career out of mourning his loss of the ever elusive Maude Gonne. And then there is the mysterious woman of Shakespeare’s sonnets. No lost love, no great sonnets. Thank goodness for the rest of us Plath, Yeats, and Shakespeare lived before the onslaught of self-growth emails insisting you can’t be Anybody until you LET Go of the Past.
And in my case, wiping my personal hard drive would be a rather long affair, since I have memories back to a very, very early age. Now, I am not one of those people who can cite chapter and verse every day of every week of my life. (I think that much recall would be boring.) But let’s just say I have some vivid and accurate recollections of certain major events before age three. And I’d miss them like I’d miss an arm or a leg if they vanished.
On the other hand, Too Much Past is the equivalent of those hoarding reality TV shows that I never watch. You know the ones, where some poor soul stills owns every McDonald’s wrapper and styrofoam Big Mac container that ever came into his or her life? The literary equivalent is poor Miss Havisham in Great Expectations.
I began to meditate upon the proper balance for The Past in my life this weekend when I finally rebelled against another Saturday and Sunday spent writing unbrief briefs and invited the sky to fall if it wanted to because I was LEAVING MY COMPUTER for the weekend. Something about rebelling against the lawyer’s code which says “real men work weekends” (note, I know I’m not a man and maybe I’m not real), always brings out the Tidy Up, Throw It Out impulse in me.
After tackling my guest room, which needed considerable tidying and spiffing, my eyes lit upon my garage floor, covered in boxes of files in pending, but not currently active cases, which were supposed to go to offsite storage weeks ago. My MiniCooper had been complaining that His garage was too full of things besides Himself. And he was right. So after bribing my Stronger-Than-Me son to move the boxes, I suddenly spied a shelf filled with old calenders dating back ten years.
When I retired from law practice and became full-time Mommy in 1986, I used to order those calenders from the Smithsonian and National Geographic that came as little coil bound books, week on one side, breathtaking photo on the other. I scribbled things like pediatrician appointments, play dates, and my few-and-far-between babysitter relief afternoons in them. But mostly I loved the ever changing artwork.
But then, the divorce settled like ash from Vesuvius over our world. My beautiful little calendars became part of my family law attorney’s files – alibis to prove what I’d been up to for the last eight years. And I had to once again put on the great grey mantle of law practice. In place of my lithe little photographic calendars, I had to order those big clunky green-striped DayTimers, six inches thick, which arrived each year with their own grey coffin of a box to store them in. Forever, apparently.
Then on Saturday afternoon I looked at those boxes as they sat on my garage shelf, neatly labeled like Old Father Time with the year of his reign on the spine, and I asked myself when was the last time I’d opened any of them. Answer: on December 31 of the year they had passed into oblivion. In fact, all the briefs’ due dates they had chronicled were long past. The cases were closed out, and I could barely remember the clients’ names. Here was my chance, I realized, to throw out a cumbersome Past that really was THE PAST. Here was a hard drive that had long needed wiping. Joyfully I seized each and every one and gleefully threw them away.

Green-Lined Day Timer

Green-Lined Day Timer


They come with their own coffins

They come with their own coffins


Smthsonian Engagement Calendar

Smthsonian Engagement Calendar


Smithsonian Calendar

Smithsonian Calendar

Winning the JUST 4 U Wars

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You can always tell when a store is offering a promotion that benefits them, not you. A few years ago, it was Costco. They came up with their “cash back” American Express card. Now, for anyone who wanted another credit card, I’m sure it was a THRILLING DEAL. But for those of us who don’t like plastic and who have enough already, it was not attractive.
The thing is, Costco would not take no for an answer. Their AmEx “specialists” aggressively chased me across the store so many times that I finally left written complaints in BIG LETTERS on feedback cards every time I shopped. Once I went lawyer on one of them and threatened to file a complaint for a PC 422. I hadn’t the slightest intention of course, but I was tired of being chased and harassed. (And it wasn’t a PC 422, it was a PC 245, but 422 sounded more intimidating and came out of my mouth first because I was working on one of those cases.)
Eventually Costco penned up the AmEx Card hustlers (I like to think it was because I complained), and I could just avoid them. For a while.
But then they started a campaign at check out for those of us who were holdouts on the GREAT DEAL. We still had the tell tale white membership cards. Put one of those babies on the checkout conveyor belt, and your fate was sealed. You were going to get a talking to from the cashier with all the fervor of a Southern Baptist street preacher who suspected Jesus Christ was NOT your lord and savior. Finally, I paid Costco an extra $60 bucks a year for a black card that is not a credit card, but that entitles me to a paltry rewards certificate every January. It’s enough to buy a couple of good bottles of wine, and so far it has been a stake in the heart of AmEx vampires.
Having lived through the Costco AmEx campaign, I was not thrilled when some baby B-schooler created JUST 4 U at my local supermarket. I mean, the title was an instant give way. It was definitely NOT 4 ME.
The whole thing began pretty innocuously with tables just inside the entrance doors where pleasant-faced employees gave out little flyers telling us how sign up on our computers at home. Ever obedient, I did just that. But I went no farther. Why, you ask? Because the object of the exercise was to get me to decide what I wanted to buy BEFORE I went to the store, click on a bunch of e-coupons and somehow magically have these on my cell phone to be scanned at check out. Do you see where this is going, Highly Intelligent Reader? Yep. You got it. The store was sneaking up on paper coupons and trying to make them extinct.
Now back in the days when all four of us were home, I did clip coupons like paper dolls from the glossy Sunday inserts. I had one of those cute little coupon organizers with wallpaper patterns on the front that I wagged with me every weekend. In those days, I often did plan my meals for a whole week in advance, created shopping lists, and executed them (in every sense of that word.) Only problem with this activity: it killed the whole weekend, EVERY WEEKEND. (Another form of execution.)
But as my children grew up and left home bit by bit, I had little need for an elaborate food plan every week. And, as a foodie, I love to roam the aisles and Impulse Buy. I may know three things I want before I hit the supermarket, but I don’t know the other ten. It is just not fun to sit at a computer and pretend I’m putting tunes on my iPod when in fact I’m hunting for paperless coupons for the Android for things I don’t even know I want yet.
Being Southern and polite, I just decided to silently drop the whole thing. But not the supermarket. Oh, no. The employees behind the tables now began to shout at us as we entered, DEMANDING we sign up They came armed with laptops to do the deed ON THE SPOT. They pushed free cookies and coffee to waylay unsuspecting victims. (That was an easy one for me to ignore, but no mom can get a kid past a plate of free cookies.) Still even if a shopper managed to run the entrance gauntlet, he or she still had to face to the Sign Up table in back across from the meat counter. (I guess vegetarians escaped this one.) And finally, the fresh-faced cashier would smile and demand the JUST 4 U info at check out like some sort of Free Mason hand shake that if I got right, would allow me to take the food home. Masonry went extinct in my family in my father’s generation. So, faced with leaving the groceries on the counter or finding a new place to shop, I learned to cleverly hand over my store club card and say, “This is all the discount I wanted for today, thank you.” (I mean the whole club card thing is a pain, too. Why can’t they just give you the low price to begin with?)
Lately, like the AmEx herd that got bullpenned, the JUST 4 U pushers are fewer and farther between. (I think the moms complained about the free cookies.) There are still plenty of customers with cute little coupon savers at checkout, handing over wads of rainbow-hued clippings. I actually haven’t seen a single phone scanned. I’m thinking the baby B-school genius who visited this plague upon us is Looking For Another Job right now. B-school genius has learned the hard way no one is going to deprive me of the extemporaneous fun of being an Foodie Impulse Buyer. Absolutely no one.

Me Versus the Painter or Drip, Drip, Part II

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I’ve had the uncomfortable feeling all week that I’m fighting the painter for possession of my house. Perhaps I’m reaping the other end of my current karma – although I haven’t squashed anything lately including ants. But since fixing the leaking sink and drying out the downstairs ceiling went so smoothly a couple of weeks ago , perhaps hitting a snag in the fixing process was inevitable.
The first hurdle was finding a painter at all. I called five or six on the first round and got zero callbacks. Hmm, I thought, perhaps I should give up law and fiction and learn painting. Although standing on high ladders is not my forte.
By and by a slick corporate outfit gave me an estimate, and a wiry little self-employed Irishman from Dublin bid on the job. Same price, both of them. Now I should explain I actually have two ceilings to paint. A month before the sink hit an iceberg, a strange, dark H shape appeared on my bedroom ceiling which is upstairs, just above the ceiling the sink would souse a few weeks later. I convinced myself it was a shadow for about two days, and then gave in and called the insurance company. The adjuster (and her rather cute boyfriend) diagnosed a leak in the circa 1978 skylight which sits high atop my roof. My buddy with the cute boyfriend sent me a check for painting the ceiling minus my deductible and left me to fend for myself with the dreaded Homeowners Association, who had jurisdiction over the skylight. Normally the HOA would rather die than move quickly but since it was about to rain, for once they acted promptly and fixed the leak. Whew! I thought I was home free, until the sink did its thing, and I wound up with two damaged ceilings. (Louise Hay has all kinds of wisdom about avoiding the thoughts that attract illness, but she says nothing about what kinds of thoughts attract wet ceilings. If I knew, I’d never have those thoughts again!)
Anyway, now flush with insurance company cash to paint both ceilings (within two dollars of the bids, can you believe it), I set out to hire a painter to do the downstairs ceiling which had two brown spots about the shape and size of Australia and New Zealand and the upstairs ceiling thoughtfully monogrammed with my last initial. (Or the beginnings of Helter Skelter, take your pick.)
You guessed it I picked the Irish painter. Three reasons. First, I am self-employed, and I try to hire other self-employed people. Second, the slick corporate guy also owned a day spa called “Coconuts,” and he kept talking about the “girls” who worked there. Did that make me a “girl lawyer” I wondered but didn’t dare ask. Third, I spent some time in Dublin when I was working on the Ph.D. that became a J.D., and I hadn’t heard anyone say “tink” and “mudder” for years. And, then, the Irish are born storytellers, and I love a good story.
But now it is Thursday night, I’m tired of stories, and my house has been a mess since Monday. Worse than that, the job was supposed to be finished today, and while the H has disappeared (thankfully) upstairs, Australia and New Zealand are still plainly visible downstairs. He’s turned them white, but he hasn’t made them go away. I have a bad feeling he doesn’t know how to. Just in case, I have developed a backup plan. If I’m still looking at albino continents this time tomorrow night, I’ll hire an artist to paint a full color world map on the ceiling. Might as well go with the flow.

Australia and New Zealand ceiling art to be

Australia and New Zealand ceiling art to be