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Dark Moon, A Work in Progress, Chapter Twenty-Two

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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Jim headed out of the parking lot at the hospital at eight that night. Since Alexa had been off the ventilator, he’d given her a cell phone programed with his number to call if she needed him. She’d been tired after her meeting with Sarah, and she’d slept most of the afternoon, but she’d bounced back by six when he arrived for dinner.
In the last week, he’d checked on her throughout the day and had kept her company at supper time, trying to tempt her to eat more than the tepid food the hospital provided. Sometimes he brought his own creations, sometimes he only had time to pick up fast food, but eating together in the evening had become a ritual in the past week.
She was lonely, and he was lonely. He knew what a dangerous combination that was. But as Alexa struggled back to life, he saw traces of the bright, charming woman she had once been in her thin, tired little form, and he was intrigued. Even if her memory about the events in her own life was cloudy, her ordeal had spared her legal mind. She was a gifted lawyer, and Jim enjoyed their legal discussions and liked hearing about the inner workings of the Supreme Court. He remembered poor Bob Metcalf’s happy face when he’d talked so gratefully about how Alexa’s writings had made him look good as a lawyer for the first time in his career.
He navigated the winding side streets until he reached Washington Street and then merged onto I-5 North to head home. He knew he needed to be honest, at least with himself. His newfound interest in Alexa was a soothing antidote on the nights when he knew Sarah was occupied with David Scott. Last week had been tough for him because he had offered several times to come by her place after he had felt it was okay to leave Alexa at the hospital, but she had turned him down because she had plans every time.
Driving along in the lonely dark toward his empty house, Jim knew how much he had wanted to see Sarah and how much her refusals had hurt. So it was quite natural, he assured himself, to be drawn to someone who needed his friendship.
But the thought of Sarah still nagged him. Since the night he’d first seen her in Trend, she had always been at ease and comfortably in charge. Yet this morning, she’d seemed hesitant and awkward in the interview with Alexa. Instead of the experienced Wall Street attorney she was, she’d had the demeanor of a fourth-year associate who’d been send on her first client interview without the supervising partner.
Suddenly as he drove down Garnet Avenue just minutes from his house, he was overcome by the need to see her. Recklessly, he abandoned the road toward home and headed up the back of Mount Soledad toward La Jolla and Sarah.
* * *
He was relieved when she answered on the first knock because it was less likely David Scott was lurking inside.
She was wearing soft gray sweat pants and a black t-shirt, and she was barefoot. The scar on her cheek seemed more prominent than usual. She was cradling a thick book in her arm like a baby.
“Is everything ok?” She was obviously surprised to see him.
He wanted to say no, why did you shut me out last week. But he knew better.
“Fine, just fine. I wanted to see how you thought the interview went this morning.”
“Oh.” Her face went blank as if she’d forgotten the whole thing. “Better come in and have a drink.”
He followed her into the living room where he could see she’d been curled up on one end of the sofa, doing legal research and scribbling on a yellow pad. She’d lost that air of hesitancy and was her usual in-charge self again. She motioned for him to take off his suit jacket and lay it across one of the chairs.
“Here, have a seat, and I’ll get another glass.”
He noticed the open bottle of wine on the coffee table and a half eaten sandwich wrapped in deli paper.  Instead of the chair facing her, he deliberately chose the other end of the sofa, but she was unphased when she came back from the kitchen.
“I thought the interview went pretty much as I thought it would.” She handed him the glass of wine. “No real surprises except her memory loss over Brigman. And just as Bob Metcalf said, we have nothing to prove domestic violence except her word.”
“So far.” Jim realized he had spoken too quickly because she looked over at him sharply.
“That’s right. So far.” She frowned slightly. “I mean, the typical domestic violence pattern is right there. We have the bright, intelligent woman who is drawn to the charming man. By the time she learns the truth, he’s beating her and controlling her through her children. I’ve never figured out why judges are so thick about this stuff. The fact patterns are all pretty much the same. The husband hits the wife and then finds a way to lie about it and to blame her for everything.”
“I’m going to find that nanny.” He realized he must have spoken with too much emotion because she looked surprised. Well, if she guessed his new interest in Alexa, so much the better. She held David Scott over his head.
“Ok. Fine. I figured you’d say that. But I’m not optimistic. Those people have a way of vanishing.”
“And we need to talk to the children.”
“No.” Sarah shook her head emphatically.
“What do you mean ‘no’?”
“I mean ‘no.’ It’s too big a risk.”
“I don’t see how.”
“We have no idea who Michael was arguing with that night.”
“Yes, we do. The kids said ‘a woman.’”
“Right. And Alexa is ‘a woman.’”
Jim frowned. “You mean Michael could have been arguing with Alexa?”
“It’s not impossible. We know she went to Brigman’s at 9. We know Brigman died at 11:00 and her gun killed him. Her only memory supposedly is ‘driving around.’”
“So you are saying what if she went to see Brigman, he made her angry, she came back and killed him, and then went to Michael’s where they argued and she killed him?”
Sarah nodded. “We shouldn’t do anything to stir up evidence against her. And right now I don’t think I have enough to get a court order to interview the children.”
“So what do we do next?”
“You continue to line up those witnesses for the bail hearing on October 1, and keep the hospital from killing our client. And if you could do some of your unauthorized FBI magic to find out about Coleman Reed and offshore accounts, that would be much appreciated. I have to go to court in the morning because Tara Jacobs is going to try to quash my subpoena’s for Brigman and Michael Reed’s U.S. bank records.”
“Can she win?”
Sarah patted the thick book she had been holding. “In a word, no. I’m hoping those bank records will give us something to work with.”
“Me, too. Can I make you something to eat before I leave?” He sensed she wanted him to go, and he wanted to stay.
“No. I had a sandwich.” She motioned toward the sad little concoction next to the wine bottle.
“I’m not sure that merits the name.”
“Well, you won’t even find eggs in the fridge tonight. Anyway, I have to get on with preparing for this hearing tomorrow.”
“Do you want me there?” He willed the answer to be yes.
“No, I asked Bob Metcalf to come. I thought he deserved to see Tara lose for a change. I need you to keep an eye on Alexa.”
“And do my unauthorized ex-FBI agent magic on those overseas accounts?”
“Absolutely.”
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Dark Moon, A Work in Progress, Chapter Twenty-One

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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Mid-September days in San Diego are mild and soft and wrap around you like the arms of a lover, Sarah Knight reflected on the third Monday of the month as she got out of her car in the UCSD parking lot in Hillcrest at ten o’clock. August’s fiery blasts were gone, and the breeze was light and crisp with the promise of fall. She wished she could escape work for the day and sit on one of the craggy bluffs overlooking the Pacific, thinking of nothing but the steady rhythm of the tide rolling in. She wanted to escape her life, and Jim, and Alexa Reed with every fiber of her being.
But Jim was already in Alexa’s room waiting for her because their client had finally recovered her voice enough to talk to them. Since Alexa had come out of her coma a week ago, Sarah had let Jim take the laboring oar at the hospital. She told herself she sent Jim without her because she needed to focus on pulling together the evidence that would keep Alexa from going back to jail. But in reality her overwhelming guilt kept her away. She had not slept a night through since the dark small hours of that Saturday when she’d called Alexa back in the name of her children. And now she was wracked with guilt because she had drawn Alexa’s spirit away from the threshold of eternity with a promise she could never keep: reunion with Meggie and Sam.
Sarah took a deep breath before pushing open the door to Alexa’s room. She seemed to grow smaller every time Sarah saw her. Her client was sitting up, propped against a number of large pillows; Jim occupied the chair next to her bed. He was entertaining her with small talk about Georgetown. Sarah saw the first-ever smile on Alexa’s face and felt that familiar unwanted pang of jealousy. Alexa and Jim had gone to the same law school, and they’d naturally become friends in the last week while Sarah had stayed away.
They both looked up as the door opened, slightly startled by her interruption. But Jim recovered impeccably, quickly standing to offer her the chair closest to the bed and pulling up another for himself some distance away.
Sarah looked over at the tiny figure watching her expectantly and suddenly felt awkward and unsure of how to begin. “I’m Sarah Knight, your attorney.”
Alexa nodded. “Yes.” Not surprisingly her voice was low and raspy. She took a sip of water from the covered plastic cup in her hands.
“I thought we’d start with the police report. You told Officer McColly Meggie phoned you at 11:15, upset because her father was in an argument with a woman.”
Alexa nodded.
“And you drove to the house to find Michael dead and the children crying.”
She nodded again.
“But you didn’t tell the police you had arrived at Ronald Brigman’s earlier that night at 9:00 p.m.?”
She frowned. “I don’t remember being at Dr. Brigman’s.”
“He had a surveillance camera focused on his front door. It shows you going in at 9:00 p.m. It doesn’t show you leaving.”
She looked upset and confused. “Then I must have been there. But I don’t remember it.”
Jim looked up from his notes and gave Alexa a sympathetic smile that registered in Sarah’s midsection as an acute pang of jealousy. “We’ve talked this week when she’s felt like it,” Jim sid. “There’s a lot she can’t remember. The doctor warned us about memory loss.”
Sarah nodded politely, trying not to show her irritation over his obvious bond with their client. “Well, then, let’s work with what you do remember. Tell me about that night.”
Alexa fixed her beautiful blue eyes on Jim as if Sara hadn’t asked the question. “I was driving in the car. I remember that. It was dark, and it was late. I don’t know why I was driving in the car. My cell phone rang, and it was Meggie. She was crying. She said Michael was arguing with a woman, and she and Sam were scared. She wanted me to come and get them.”
“Is that all you remember?”
“I remember walking into Michael’s house and seeing him lying in a pool of blood. Meggie and Sam were hiding in the closet in Meggie’s bedroom. I took them home, and called the police.”
“So you don’t remember being at Ronald Brigman’s at all?”
“No.”
“What about seeing Brigman dead on his living room floor?”
“No.” She frowned as she struggled to remember. “It feels as if there is something I should remember. But I can’t. I must have been very upset to have been driving around in the car alone at night.”
“In the vicinity of Michael’s and Brigman’s, too.”
Her lovely blue eyes seemed to have a mist over them. “Yes, right. I don’t know why I was there before Meggie called. I think I used to know. But I don’t remember now.”
“Do you remember having your gun with you that night?”
“No. I know I didn’t have the gun then.”
“Why?”
“Because it had been stolen.”
“When?”
“In March. Or maybe it was April. It was not long after Brigman announced he was going to give Michael eighty per cent custody of the children on June 1.”
“Did you remember why you had the gun?”
“Bob told me to get it. Michael kept threatening to kill me, and Bob said I had to take the threats seriously.”
“Were any of the threats in writing or in front of witnesses?
“No. Michael always bragged he was too clever to get caught. But Bob said even if we couldn’t prove them, the threats were real, and I needed to protect myself.”
“Where did you keep the gun?”
“I kept it locked in the trunk of the car. I was afraid to have it in the house because of the children.”
“How did you find out the gun was missing?”
“I checked on it several times a week to make sure it was secure. One Sunday afternoon, I opened the trunk and it was gone.”
“Did you make a police report?”
“Yes. I called Bob, and that’s what he said to do.”
“Did you know Trevor Martin says there was no police report?”
“He told me that. But I did talk to an officer that same afternoon, and he said he was going to write a report.”
“Do you remember his name?”
Alexa shook her head. “No. I’m pretty sure I didn’t write it down. It never occurred to me anyone would think I would lie about contacting the police.”
“Michael filed for divorce in January 2009?”
“Yes.”
“Were you surprised?”
Alexa sighed. “That’s not a simple yes or no answer.”
“What do you mean?”
“I found out early in our marriage Michael was unfaithful. By now you’ve heard about the paralegal he got pregnant during our first year at the firm. After I realized what was going on, I tried to get him to go to counseling with me. That’s when he started to hit me.”
Alexa focused on the blank wall opposite and went on as if reciting from a book. “Michael enjoyed his affairs, but what he enjoyed even more was humiliating me with them. He made sure I knew about every one. He liked to hit me while he bragged about them.”
“Why didn’t you leave?”
“I going to, but then I found out I was pregnant with Meggie. Michael stopped hitting me while I pregnant, and I thought he wanted to save our marriage. But I was wrong. He just didn’t want to take any chances my doctor would see bruises and ask questions.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because he told me. He started hitting me again when Meggie was six weeks old, when I had finished my post partum visits. I wanted to leave, but I had nowhere to go. My grandmother was my only family; and she died in 2005, the year I married Michael.
“I figured if I were pregnant again, Michael would stop hitting me, so I got pregnant with Sam when Meggie was six months old. And I was right; he did stop until after Sam was born.”
“Did anyone at Warrick, Thompson know?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. But I missed a lot of days of work because I didn’t want anyone to see the bruises. Michael stepped up the beatings after I went back to work after Sam was born. I didn’t want to leave the firm because I didn’t want to be isolated with Michael. But coping with two babies and never knowing when Michael would come at me again was very hard. It was almost a relief when Alan Warrick let me go because my billable hours were too low. The firm wasn’t making any money off of me.”
“When did you leave the firm?”
“October 2008. Alan called it a ‘leave of absence.” In theory I would come back when Sam was a year old.” Her voice cracked, and she took a sip of water from her cup.
“Did things get better after you stayed home with the children?”
“I wish I could say yes; but no, they didn’t. Michael wasn’t afraid of anyone seeing the bruises.”
“Why didn’t you leave Michael, then?”
“I was planning to. I saw a divorce attorney in November. I put my resume together to try to get a teaching job at one of the law schools in town. I talked to Alan about it, and he offered to be a reference. He had some connections at Cal Western, and he thought he might be able to get me a job teaching Constitutional Law.”
“But you didn’t file for divorce.”
“No, the family law attorney told me the court would not order supervised visits with the children for Michael even though he’d been violent with me. He wasn’t with them much, and he wasn’t patient, and they were so little. I was afraid for them to be alone with them, so I decided I’d better stick it out until they were older and could speak for themselves if Michael went after them.”
“So what led Michael to file for divorce?”
“I don’t know when Michael found out that I had seen the family law attorney. I never told him. But he confronted me about it when we got home from the big Warrick, Thompson Christmas party. He hit me so hard, he broke my left arm. He took me to the emergency room; but on the way he said I if I told the truth about how I’d been hurt, he’d file for divorce, and I would never see the children again. So I told the ER doctor I slipped and fell.”
“Did the doctor believe you?”
“I’m not sure. He seemed suspicious because Michael wouldn’t leave the room when he was talking to me. But if you pull those hospital records, you’ll see I didn’t tell the truth.”
“Are you sure no one else ever witnessed what Michael did to you?”
“There was someone, but she’s been deported.”
“Who?”
“I had a nanny named Guadalupe Caballero who helped out with Meggie and then later with Sam, so I could go back to work. She lived with us, so she not only saw the bruises, she heard Michael hitting me, too.”
“Where is she now?”
“She was undocumented, and Michael had her deported when he filed for divorce.”
“Did Bob Metcalf ever try to find her?”
“No. He didn’t know how to, and honestly, I don’t think she would have cooperated anyway. She was terrified when the INS came to get her.”
“What happened after Michael broke your arm in December?”
“Coleman got involved. He’d been unfaithful to Myrna for years and had been physically abusive, so he thought nothing of what Michael was doing to me. But he knew I had options to leave that Myrna didn’t have, and he didn’t want the world to know his or Michael’s secrets. He called me the day after they put the cast on and offered to pay me what amounted to a monthly income if I wouldn’t leave Michael.”
“A bribe?”
“Yes.”
“And you said?”
“No, of course. I was insulted.”
“How did Coleman react?”
“He was very angry. He told me that was the best offer I’d ever get, and I’d rue the day I turned it down. Then he helped Michael hide all of the community property in offshore accounts, so I wouldn’t get any.”
“How do you know that?”
“It’s an educated guess. Just before Michael filed for divorce, all our bank accounts suddenly went down almost to zero. Coleman liked to use offshore accounts for his various clients, so I think he used his expertise to help Michael hide the community property.”
“Was Coleman involved in money laundering?”
“You’d have to ask Alan Warrick since he was the one who monitored client finds in the firm’s trust account. But if Coleman was up to anything illegal, I doubt he would have let Alan know because Alan is very by-the book-follow-the rules, no exceptions.”
“Still, Alan might have known,” Sarah insisted.
“A pretty slim possibility,” Alexa whispered as she sipped from her cup, her eyes on Jim.
Her voice had dropped to a deep whisper, and her face was gray with fatigue. Sarah needed to ask a lot more, but she wanted out of that room at that moment more than anything else on earth. She wanted to be away from Jim’s steady quiet eyes on Alexa and his encouraging smiles as she answered Sarah’s questions.
“We’ve covered a lot of ground, and I think you’re too tired to go on right now. I’ll come another day when you’ve had a chance to rest.”
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Dark Moon, A Work in Progress, Chapter Twenty

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CHAPTER TWENTY
Alexa Reed was swimming upward from the bottom of the darkest ocean. Her eyelids felt like lead as she tried to force them open to see if she had surfaced yet. She worked to move her lips to speak, but she was still deep under water.
Her mouth was dry and her throat hurt. As she struggled through the darkness hoping to reach the light, she imagined ice water tingling on her tongue. She concentrated on the weights on each eyelid, willing them to vanish so she could see how much farther she had to go before she’d break free of the dark. But then there’d be the problem of swimming to shore. Her limbs were heavy, and she couldn’t imagine having the strength to keep going much longer. Something was pushing on her chest. Was she wearing scuba gear? But a scuba tank didn’t push the air into your lungs. Was she still alive or was this death?
* * *
Around 8 a.m. on Sunday morning, Jim saw Alexa’s eyelids flicker. He held his breath as he waited to see if she’d open them. His back was stiff and sore from the makeshift cot and from being in the chair by her bed for so many hours. The stubble on his chin itched, and he longed for a hot shower and a razor. He had been about to go for a brief walk in the hallway to limber up, but now he stayed put and tried to pray.
Religion, like the Bureau, had wedged itself between him and Gail. His parents had given God short shrift, and he was pretty sure neither of them believed. His maternal grandmother had taken him to her Lutheran services when he was very small. Jim liked the clean smell of the church, the ever-changing flower arrangements on the alter, and the sense of peace that reciting the words of the liturgy with everyone else gave him. But she died when he was twelve, and that was the end of his brush with God until he married Gail in a long Catholic mass, heavy with ritual and incense.
His grandmother had convinced him God was real, despite his parents’ obvious indifference; so when Gail became pregnant with Cody and told him how much it meant to her to have all three of them in the church, he’d been very willing to go along. He’d agreed to everything: Cody’s baptism, suitably Catholic godparents of Gail’s choosing, attendance at Mass every Sunday and on required holy days. He’d been ready to convert until those divorce papers came his way, and he’d found out his already Catholic partner was taking his place in his family.
The bitterness of that moment never ceased to sweep his lungs clean of air. As he watched Alexa’s eyes, hoping for some concrete sign she had decided to soldier on with life, he struggled both to find the words to a prayer and some air to pump into his own now empty lungs.
And then in a flash, Jim was looking at Alexa’s deep blue eyes; and they weren’t blank the way they’d been while she’d been lying on the jail cot. They were a mixture of confusion and anxiety. The doctor apparently had been right: her memory was gone, and she had no idea how she’d wound up here.
Jim got up and hurried over to the bed.
“Alexa?”
Her eyes met his, and tears began to flow. They streamed down her face, a torrent of unchecked emotion. He sat down on the side of the bed and did what he could to gather her into his arms. She was attached to so many machines, he couldn’t hold her very close, and he doubted the professional propriety of what he was doing, anyway.
But professionalism wasn’t the point, he reminded himself. Alexa Reed needed human contact at that moment, and fate had put him there to provide it.
“It’s ok, it’s ok,” he whispered over and over, patting what was left of her thin little body. “You’re going to be ok, now.”
But, of course, that wasn’t true.
The door opened and Sarah appeared, her eyes puffy from lack of sleep, her short hair sticking up wildly, and her clothes wrinkled from being slept in. Jim wasn’t sure if her eyes went wide with shock because Alexa was awake or because he was holding her in his arms. He felt even more uncomfortable.
“She just woke up.”
Sarah nodded, but said nothing.
“We’d better call the nurse.”
She remained silent but reached for the call button.
Jim eased Alexa back onto her pillows and awkwardly dabbed at her eyes with the end of the sheet.
“Here.” Sarah handed him a wad of tissue from the box by the bed.
“Thanks.”
Alexa’s eyes were now fixed on Sarah’s face as if she were seeing her for the first time. Jim’s heart sank. Significant memory loss for sure.
A crisp, newly on-duty morning shift nurse answered their call and quickly shooed them out of the room while she took Alexa’s vital signs and summoned a doctor. Once again, they stood in the corridor outside Alexa’s door and waited for news.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“She had just opened her eyes. When she started to cry, I didn’t have time to think.”
Jim’s empty stomach knotted because Sarah looked skeptical.
They stood in awkward silence in the corridor, waiting for the doctor to come out.
Finally, he emerged from Alexa’s room. His name badge said Dr. P. McMillan. Sarah notice Dr. McMillan was ten years younger than Dr. McCord of the previous evening but no less jaded and not particularly optimistic.
“Dropping her sedation has allowed her to wake up.”
“So is she going to be ok?” Sarah demanded.
“Too soon to tell. We need to wean her off the ventilator.”
“How long will that take?” Sarah had never seemed to be in a hurry before, Jim thought.
“I can’t say. Some patients can breathe on their own in six to eight hours. Others, it’s a long process.”
“When can she talk to us?”
“Not for several days, and that’s assuming the weaning process goes quickly. She’s going to have a sore throat and the tracheotomy has to heal.”
Jim saw Sarah’s shoulders sag.
Dr. McMillan noticed, too. “Look, these things take time.”
“I know. I know.” Sarah frowned. “But I really need to talk to her.”
Jim was disappointed she’d said “I” and not “we.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, Jim faced Sarah over bacon and eggs in the cafeteria.“I’m pretty sure these started life as powder in a tin and not as yolks and whites in shells,” he said.
But Sarah was already digging in. “I’d probably eat cardboard right now if you put it in front of me.”
He smiled. “When this is all over, I’m going to cook you the best brunch in San Diego.”
“Thanks, but I’m not sure how we’ll know when it’s over.”
Her eyes darkened as she reached for a slice of limp toast and began to butter it.
“You knew when the Menendez case was over.”
Sarah dropped the knife, and it hit the plastic plate so hard that the occupants of adjacent tables looked up. Her eyes met his, full of dark fire. “I don’t want you to mention that case again! I can’t talk to you about what happened because it’s covered by attorney-client privilege. And Alexa Reed’s situation is very, very different. If you mention Menendez one more time, even though I think you’re the best, I’ll get another investigator.”
The force of her fury startled him. “I’m apologize for bringing it up. I don’t want you to hire someone else.”
She sighed and took a long sip of coffee before picking up the knife and going back to buttering the toast. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
“It’s ok. We’re both exhausted. I was going to suggest going home and getting some sleep.”
“Do you think we can leave her now?”
“She’s going to be watched pretty closely while they try to get her off that ventilator. I say we go get some sleep and meet here again at six to see how she’s doing.”
“Agreed.”
“What are you going to do if she does come off the ventilator quickly? Sending her back to the jail isn’t safe.”
“I’m thinking about that. She has no right to bail because she’s charged with capital murder. She has the right to a bail hearing, but bail can be denied if the facts of guilt are ‘evident’ or the presumption of guilt is ‘great.’ Since we don’t yet have enough facts to know what our defense is going to be, I’m not sure how I can show that the facts of guilt aren’t ‘evident.’”
“You could call the night nurse who told me about the jail’s request for her medical records before they gave her the Lexapro. And you could call the EMT who did the tracheotomy that saved her life.”
Sarah listened thoughtfully. “That would prove they tried to kill her, but I’m not sure that would prove she might be innocent.”
“Bob Metcalf could testify about the war Michael Reed waged on her.”
She frowned. “That wouldn’t give us a Battered Woman’s Syndrome defense. We only have her statements to Bob that she was beaten, and those are hearsay and covered by the attorney-client privilege.”
“But the brutality of the court proceedings – you saw how thick that file was. Michael hauled her on the carpet every chance he got. She might have finally snapped that night and killed both of her tormentors.”
“True. That would be a manslaughter defense and would mean she’s not guilty of capital murder. I’m just not sure I want Preston Baldwin to know the defense theory of the case this early in the game.”
“Maybe you could try it with just the nurse and the EMT and not call Bob unless you have to.”
“That’s a thought. Did you get any contact information for the nurse?”
“Of course. And I wrote down the names of the EMT’s, too. I’ll contact them both tomorrow, although I can see if Tammi is on duty tonight when we come back.”
“I’ll go home and start drafting a motion for the hearing.”
“Don’t you think you should go home and get some rest first?”
“I’m trying to save her life. I haven’t got time to rest. I’m pretty sure if she goes back to jail there won’t be a trial.”
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Dark Moon, A Work In Progress, Chapter Nineteen

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CHAPTER NINETEEN
Jim was back at six, rested and clean shaven in fresh jeans and a white knit shirt. He pulled the vacant chair next to Sarah’s and sat down. She was immediately aware of the masculine energy he brought into the room. She wanted to put her head on his shoulder and feel his arm around her. This wasn’t good. She couldn’t have these thoughts. She had to stay focused on Alexa.
“Any change?”
She told him about Father Bennett’s observation.
“But nothing since?”
“No. And I gather the nurse wasn’t especially impressed when Father Bennett told her Alexa had opened her eyes.”
“That’s right.”
“You need to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I said, ‘you need to eat.’ This case is taking its toll on you.”
“Ok. I’ll run down to the cafeteria for a little bit.”
“Or you could go home and get some rest.”
“No. I want to be here if there’s any change.”
* * *
For the entire evening, they sat side by side next to Alexa’s bed while the machines hummed and pumped and kept her alive. The stray wicked thought came back, slightly altered from the morning: what if she and Jim could sit side by side in companionable silence every evening, like an old married couple. No, no. Never that. Never. Be quiet, she told her brain. You know the rules. She forced herself to concentrate on the work she had brought. But by eleven o’clock, she was too tired to do any more.
Jim, too, had put down his files. “You’ve been here all day. You should go home.”
“I keep thinking she’ll open her eyes again.”
The door swooshed and a new nurse appeared with her stethoscope draped around her neck and a blood pressure cuff in her hand. She appeared to be in her late twenties, very attractive with large dark eyes and long blonde hair that was confined to a surprisingly flattering on-duty pony tail. She caught Jim’s attention as she crossed the room to check Alexa’s vital signs. Sarah willed herself not to be jealous.
“Any change?” Jim asked.
“Her pulse is weaker. I’m going to call the doctor on duty.”
Suddenly Sarah’s heart began to race as if she could make up Alexa’s deficit with her own. She tried to rein in any show of emotion in front of Jim, but she had believed all afternoon Alexa was going to turn the corner because she’d opened her eyes for Father Bennett. She didn’t want to give up her shred of hope.
The door swooshed more abruptly than before. The attractive nurse had returned with a harried looking doctor who waved Sarah and Jim out of the room.
“Sorry. You’ll have to leave.”
They stood in the hall under the deputy’s suspicious gaze, waiting for news. Ten minutes felt like ten hours.
Sarah leaned against the wall and closed her eyes to keep from showing tears. She felt Jim watching her.
“It’s ok to feel something,” he said.
She shook her head. “No, it’s not. I never get involved emotionally with a case.”
“You’d have to have a heart of stone not to be involved in this one.”
“The thing is, I can’t decide if it would be better if she lived or died. Her children need her, but we’ve got almost nothing to work with for a defense.”
“That’s what they said about the Menendez case.”
“This isn’t the same thing!” She knew she was speaking too sharply, but she didn’t want to talk or even think about Joey Menendez ever again.
Before Jim could say anything else, the doctor came out of Alexa’s room, rattling off instructions to the pretty nurse who eyed Jim sideways as she listened. Sarah read his name badge for the first time. Dr. S. McCord. He was in his early forties, she guessed. Dark hair, a few streaks of gray. She bet Dr. S. McCord had two preteens at home and a Mrs. S. McCord who grocery shopped in tennis skirts and ran his house to perfection.
He finally noticed them standing in the corridor. “Are you her family?”
“Her legal team. We don’t think she has any family,” Jim said. “How is she?”
“We’re going to lighten up on the sedatives to see if her blood pressure will come up. But honestly, I’m not optimistic. The nurses say you’ve been here around the clock since Friday night.”
“We have evidence the jail gave her a drug she was allergic to on purpose and then waited to summon help, hoping she’d die.”
Despite the dramatic accusations, the doctor remained unphased. “Well, no one is going to do anything to her here. You should go home and get some sleep. You both look exhausted.”
But Sarah shook her head. “No. I’m responsible for her. I can’t leave. She opened her eyes around lunch time. She might do that again tonight.”
“It’s not likely. Coma patients often open their eyes for a few seconds at odd times. It’s not a sign she’s going to come out of it or that she hasn’t suffered brain damage.”
“But you don’t know that.”
“True. At this moment, I’m just trying to keep her from crashing. If you both insist on staying, why not take turns sleeping? There’s a chair that converts into a make-shift cot in the Family Waiting Room.”
* * *
In the wee hours, Sarah sat with Alexa, watching an IV drip into her arm. The pretty nurse returned often with the blood pressure cuff. She always gave Sarah a reassuring smile as she went about her business, but never said a word. Her name tag said, “D. Murphy.” D for Diana or for Dorothy or for Deirdre because Murphy was Irish? Odd how irrelevant details could calm your mind in moments of crisis.
Sarah sat beside the bed and held one dry, lifeless hand. “Stay for Meggie and Sam,” she whispered over and over, like a mantra, through the dark hours. “Stay for Meggie and Sam.”
She eyed the rosary often and was tempted to take it back and try to remember some prayers. Our Father. That was part of the rosary prayers, wasn’t it? Our Father who Art in Heaven. No, stop. She knew better. There was no such thing as Our Father and no such place as Heaven. If there was a God, she’d wouldn’t be sitting by a dying woman, charged with murder, wishing she could allow herself to fall in love with the man who slept down the hall. Jim Mitchell had come into her life on the same day Fate had planted Alexa Reed in her world. If Alexa disappeared, she could send Jim on his way, too. In fact, if Alexa disappeared, she absolutely had to send him packing. His references to Menendez made her way too nervous. No one could ever, ever know the truth about that case. Sarah looked down at the plug for the ventilator once more and wondered if she could convince everyone she’d simply tripped over it.
But fatigue had settled into her bones like drying cement. She sat in her chair and held Alexa’s hand and chanted her mantra, until Jim came to relieve her at 4 a.m. He tapped her lightly on the shoulder and smiled as he slid into the chair beside hers.
“I’m here. Go set some sleep.”
And she was so delirious with grief and so relieved to see him that she kissed him lightly on the cheek. Later, as she lay on the fold-out chair that smelled like Jim, too exhausted to think, she would try to decide if he had really kissed the scar on her own cheek in return. Of if she was so tired she was hallucinating.
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Dark Moon, A Work In Progress, Chapter Eighteen

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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sarah slept fitfully and was up by 9 to slip into comfortable gray yoga pants and a white t-shirt for her coming day of watching over Alexa. She put some work into her briefcase and headed for the hospital to relieve Jim at 10 as promised. She found him dozing in the chair next to Alexa’s bed, a never-before-seen growth of stubble on his chin. She laid her hand lightly on his shoulder to let him know she had arrived. A stray, wicked thought asked what would it be like to wake him up every morning.
Her touch startled him, and for a moment he looked around blankly, apparently having forgotten why he was there. His eyes went from the laboring machine to Sarah’s face, and then he gave her a small smile.
“Didn’t mean to go to sleep.”
“I’d say that was unavoidable. Looks as if nothing’s changed.”
“The doctor came by this morning before I dozed. He hadn’t expected her to make it through the night. But even though she’s still hanging on, he wasn’t optimistic about her future.”
“What do you mean?”
“He thinks she’ll have some sort of brain damage if she does wake up. At the very least, memory loss.”
“So she may never be able to tell us why she went to Brigman’s that night?”
“Exactly. The brain throws out the most traumatic memories first.”
“You need some sleep. Go home and rest.”
“I’ll be back at six.”
* * *
Sarah grew used to the hiss and whir of the ventilator as it pumped air into Alex’s lungs. Her chest rose and fell rhythmically, driven by the machine. The bright September sun streaming in through the windows had banished the sickly green glow from the walls, and now the room was pristine white again. Nurses came and went and gave her polite but puzzled looks as they checked Alexa’s vital signs and made notes in her chart.
Around noon, a man in a priest’s collar came in. He was in his early fifties with thinning gray hair, and a round open face.
“I’m Father Bennett,” he said. “I’m the Episcopal chaplain. Father Morley told me he’d been here last night. Were you the one who summoned him?”
Sarah nodded. “She seemed near death.”
“Any improvement?” Father Bennett looked at the lifeless form on the bed as he spoke.
“Nothing I can see.”
“You look tired. Have you had time to get anything to eat?”
Sarah hadn’t taken time for breakfast and hadn’t thought about food during her bedside vigil. But suddenly she realized she was hungry. “No, but I can’t leave her.”
“I’ll stay for a bit. Go down to the cafeteria and have lunch.”
* * *
When she came back, thirty minutes later, she found Father Bennet quietly reciting the Episcopalian version of the rosary as he sat next to Alexa. He turned at the swish of the door’s opening, and his excited eyes met hers.
“What happened?” Sarah asked.
“She opened her eyes. Only for a second or two. But she opened them. I told the nurse.”
“What did she say?”
“Not much. But it’s a good sign. We have to keep praying.”
“I don’t pray.”
His kind brown eyes looked puzzled. “But you summoned Father Morley last night.”
“Only because I respected Alexa’s beliefs. I have no use for God.”
He remained unperturbed. She had the feeling he’d had this conversation dozens of times. “Well, He has plenty of use for you.”
“No – He – does – not.” She spoke each word slowly and distinctly as if passing judgement for all eternity. “Didn’t they tell you why they’re trying to keep this woman alive? So they can legally murder her in twenty years.”
Again the priest was unmoved by her bitterness. “All the more reason to keep praying for God to spare her life. Were you raised in any particular faith?”
Sarah wanted to bite back a scathing “no,” but for some reason his kindness in the face of her anger made her tell the truth. “Yours.”
“Well, then, here.” He handed her the rosary. “You can put it to good use. And call me if anything changes.” He pressed his card with his cell number into her hand along with the beads, gave her a smile, and left.
Sarah slipped the business card into her brief case and sat down again by the bed. She stared at onyx beads with the silver cross at the center in her left hand and wondered what to do with them. She was suddenly sorry her connection to Alexa had brought the sore subject of religion back into her life.
Her parents had given her a blue crystal rosary after her confirmation when she was twelve. And she’d prayed it over and over and over through all those dark years until the day she’d thrown it into the Pacific, officially telling God she didn’t buy the myth of Him any more. So why now was she tempted to try to remember the prayers?
She held the large bead above the cross and tried to recall the words she was supposed to say. No clue. The Lord be with you. No, that was the priest’s invitation to the congregation, not the beginning of the rosary. And there was some sort of answer the congregation chanted back, but she couldn’t remember it. She couldn’t remember the rosary prayers. What had Jim said? The most traumatic memories are the first to go.
She studied the beads again and wondered what to do with them. As she was about to slip them into her brief case to be carted to the Pacific for disposal later, she looked over at Alexa’s lifeless hand, the one she’d freed from the handcuff. Sarah looped the beads over the thin wrist like a bracelet and laid the silver cross against her palm.
“Wake up,” she heard herself say. “For Meggie and Sam. Wake up.” download (11)

Dark Moon, A Work in Progress, Chapter Seventeen

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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
When the priest was finished, he took a few minutes to pack up the vials of holy water and oil in his little black leather sacrament case. Then he removed the stole from around his neck and folded it over his arm the way a maitre d’ carries a folded napkin.
“Thank you, Father.”
“Of course. That’s why I’m here. I’m on duty all night, so if things change, please call me. I think prayer over a departing soul eases its passage.”
I wish I believed in souls, Sarah thought. But aloud she said, “I’m sure you’re right.”
After the door swung shut behind Father Morley, Sarah sank into the chair by the bed once more. The puke green curtains turned the blank walls their sickly shade of death and disease in the low light. Sarah listened to the whir and thump of the ventilator, and watched it labor to keep Alexa Reed on this side of eternity. She considered once more what would happen if she eased its plug out of the outlet.
Jim would be upset with her; she knew that for sure. In his mind, the two of them were a team. He wouldn’t want her to make that kind of decision without him. And deep inside Sarah knew he wouldn’t want her to make that kind of decision at all.
Bob Metcalf had talked about bribes, so she had subpoenaed Brigman and Michael’s financial records yesterday. Maybe something in them would save Alexa, after all.
She was suddenly irritated that Jim had not come back after the priest left. She had drunk too much at dinner, and now it was 1:30 in the morning, and her head was throbbing with stale alcohol and fatigue. Her car was at Jim’s; and even if it had been at the hospital, she knew she was in no shape to drive.
She touched Alexa’s dry lifeless hand once more, and went out into the corridor to find Jim. No sign of him.
The deputy gave her a grudging nod. She thought of asking him if he’d seen her investigator but decided he wouldn’t tell her if he had. His face sent the message the jail guard had not hesitated to voice: in his world she was “defense lawyer scum.”
Sarah walked down the long, white deserted corridor until she saw the nurse’s station ahead. Jim was leaning over it, absorbed in something. Then, as she got closer, she realized he was flirting with an attractive red-headed nurse who was seated at a computer monitor. The woman alternated between pointing to something on the screen and looking up at Jim adoringly.
What had been fatigue and annoyance now threatened to boil over into visible anger. Sarah hadn’t taken Jim for a ladies’ man, but he was doing a good impression of one at that moment. She reminded herself to get her emotions in check before opening her mouth. After all, she had no right to criticize him; she was sleeping with someone else. And intended to go on doing that.
Jim looked up, and for a moment she thought she saw a flicker of embarrassment that he’d been caught. But his eyes immediately went dark and unreadable, and she wasn’t even sure she’d seen anything.
“Is the priest finished?”
“Yes. We can’t do any more tonight. I’m ready to go back and get my car.”
“There’s something I have to tell you first.” He handed the nurse his business card, who handled it the way a rockstar groupie cherishes a souvenir from her idol, took Sarah’s arm, and drew her down the hall to a tiny empty room marked “Family Waiting.” He pulled her inside and closed the door.
“What’s going on?”
“I chatted up the night nurse on purpose because I had a hunch.”
“A hunch?”
“That this wasn’t an accident.”
“You mean the jail psychiatrist tried to kill our client?” Sarah’s head was now spinning with shock as well as fatigue. “You’d need evidence of that, Jim. A hunch wouldn’t get you to first base with the court.”
“I know. But it’s way more than a hunch. Listen. Based on what happened today, I suspected Alexa was allergic to Lexapro, and that’s why they gave it to her.”
“And was she?”
“Yes. Her private doctors were all affiliated with USCD and this hospital. So all of her medical records are in their system. And they show that back in ‘09 a few months after Michael started the divorce war, the stress got to her. Her own doctor referred her to one of the psychiatrists here, and he gave her a low dose of Lexapro. She had a mild allergic reaction.”
“But that doesn’t prove the jail shrink tried to kill her.”
“Yes, it does. I haven’t finished. My little red-headed friend out there said the jail shrink requested all of Alexa’s records a few days ago, and privacy laws notwithstanding, they handed them over.”
“They should have contacted me before doing that.”
“True, but you know what the jail people think of defense attorneys. Anyway, at the time they gave her the Lexapro, they knew she was allergic, and they gave her a much larger dose than they should have, so her reaction was much more acute than before.”
“I’m still seeing negligence here, not intent to murder.”
“There’s more.”
“More?”
“They waited to summon medical help until they thought it would be too late. When the ambulance got there, her throat was nearly swollen shut, and she was almost gone. The only thing that saved her, was the emergency tracheotomy the paramedics did at nearly the last second.”
“And you learned all this from What’s Her Name out there?”
“Tammi. Nice girl. And willing to be helpful. Be grateful.”
“You’re right. I’m just exhausted.”
“I can see that. Here’s what I think we should do. Alexa shouldn’t be left alone. I’m able to stay up with her now and let you go get some sleep. I’m going to call you a cab. Be back tomorrow at 10 a.m., and we’ll take turns watching her.”
“USCD isn’t going to kill her.”
“Right. But we don’t know who else is lurking out there. We can’t leave her alone until she wakes up.”
“If she wakes up.”
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Dark Moon, A Work in Progress, Chapter Sixteen

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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.
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Dark Moon, A Work in Progress, Chapter Fifteen

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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.
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Dark Moon, A Work In Progress, Chapter Fourteen

/in /by

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.”
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Dark Moon, A Work In Progress, Chapter Thirteen

/in /by

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.
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