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

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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Sarah waited until eight o’clock on Friday night to go to the hospital to see Alexa. She knew Jim would be leaving about then because he called around nine every night when he got home to report on his work for the day and Alexa’s progress. She dreaded talking to her alone, but under the ethical rules that Coleman had disparaged so thoroughly, it was her responsibility to maintain communications with her client. Even if she felt horribly guilty because her client was still alive.
Alexa’s room was dimly lit, and Jim was helping her settle some pillows to keep her head raised because she still had discomfort from the healing wound in her neck. He was wearing his navy sport coat, the one he’d worn that first night at Trend. It made him a stand out in the tall and sexy department, and Sarah resented the way her heart went flip flop when she saw him. The two were absorbed in getting Alexa’s head at just the right angle and in making sure the pitcher of ice chips was close enough for her to reach in the night. The sweet intimacy of the little moment sent Sarah’s stomach churning with resentment.
“I’ll be back at seven thirty in the morning, and I’ll bring you my amazing scrambled egg sandwich.”
Alexa smiled up at him, and Sarah saw what a dangerously charming woman she once had been. Her killer intellect was hidden under a veneer of naive, sweet femininity. No wonder Michael Reed had thought she’d always play the role of long-suffering wife and mother and would never object to any of his affairs.
Suddenly Alexa looked up and saw Sarah. Michael’s eyes followed her startled ones. He said, “You didn’t tell me you were coming by tonight.”
“No, I didn’t,” Sarah agreed but volunteered nothing more.
“Do you want me to stay?”
“No, I’m sure you’ve had a long day.” His look of disappointment cut through her heart. He didn’t want to leave Alexa. And he’d be back early on Saturday morning. Well, they would be good together, Sarah had to admit if she was honest. After all, she could never have had Jim even if Alexa weren’t in the way. Joey Menendez had seen to that. Now she had another reason to save Alexa’s life: for a man who was actually capable of loving her.
“Good night,” Alexa smiled up at Jim, and he squeezed her hand. “See you in the morning.”
He hurried out without making eye contact with Sarah, as she pulled up a chair by Alexa’s bed.
“You’re looking better.”
“Thanks.” Her voice was less raspy but still very low. “Jim brought in a hairdresser, and it really helped.”
“Of course.” Sarah hoped her disappointment in the exemplary way her investigator was doing his job didn’t show. “I hope I haven’t come too late. But it’s been a busy week, and this was my first chance to tell you what’s been going on.”
“That’s fine. I have trouble sleeping, anyway.”
Don’t I know about that, Sarah thought. “Have you been able to remember anything else about that night or about why you went to Dr. Brigman’s?”
She shook her head. “I’ve tried and tried. I know the video shows me there, but it doesn’t make any sense. The only time I ever went to Ronald Brigman’s was to drop the children off for the so-called ‘therapy’ he had ordered to set them up for a change of custody. Meggie and Sam weren’t with me that night, so I had no reason to go to his house.”
“Ok. I understand. But if you do remember anything, even the tiniest detail, you’ll let me or Jim know?”
“Absolutely. I can’t stop thinking about it. But all I can remember is Michael lying on the floor in that pool of blood. Alexa became thoughtful in the soft twilight of the room lit for sleeping. “Honestly, I can’t imagine shooting anyone. I bought the gun because Bob told me to, and I took the introductory class. But I wasn’t any good at it. The recoil made me miss the target every time.”
“Well, there are some facts we might be able to use. The bullets in Brigman and Michael were deliberately placed. If you’re a lousy shot, that tends to rule you out. Do you remember who your firearms instructor was?”
“No, but it’s on the certificate they gave me. At home.” Her face suddenly fell. “You know, I never asked what happened to our things.”
“Your things?”
“After the court made us leave the house Michael and I bought in La Jolla, I rented a cottage in Pacific Beach for me and the children. I was arrested on June 3, so I assume Mary, my landlord, has thrown out our belongings by now and rented to someone else.”
“No, you’ve been amazingly lucky. She’s one of the few people solidly on your side. Everything is just as you left it, waiting for you to come back.”
Alexa’s eyes suddenly filed with tears. Sarah handed her a tissue from the box by the bed. “I had no idea.”
“Yeah, Mary’s on your side. We’re hoping to have you stay at the cottage under house arrest until trial. If I can win the bail hearing.”
“Jim says you are an extraordinary attorney.” Alexa fixed her big blue eyes on Sarah adoringly, and Sarah realized this same gaze must be irresistible to any man on earth.
“Jim exaggerates. I won a big case some years back that law enforcement thought they could never lose, and people have been telling crazy stories ever since. When a prosecutor gets too confident, he gets careless, and the defense can profit. Taking advantage of another’s mistake doesn’t make me extraordinary. It just means I’m doing my job.”
“You said some things happened this week that you wanted to tell me about.”
“Yes. To make a long story short, we were able to get Ronald Brigman’s bank records, but not Michael’s.”
“Let me guess. Coleman sent a squad of his Warrick, Thompson buddies to tell the court Michael’s were covered by attorney client privilege. Bob and I saw this all the time in the family law case.”
“Actually, Coleman had to use some attorneys from King and White. But otherwise, that’s pretty much what happened.”
Alexa brightened slightly. “I wonder why Warrick, Thompson wasn’t involved.”
“Probably because Alan Warrick doesn’t share Coleman’s view of you and this case.”
Alexa brightened even more. “Did Alan tell you that?
“No, Coleman did. Alan is still in Paris with Brenda.”
“Okay, now I get it. Coleman called to offer you a bribe to throw my defense.”
“That’s a shorthand way to explain it. After Tara Jacobs couldn’t protect either Michael’s or Brigman’s financials, Coleman called to pressure me to withdraw my subpoenas. He knew I was going to get Brigman’s records even though he could protect Michael’s. And he didn’t want me to see either one.”
“What did he offer you?”
“A partnership at Warrick, Thompson. But I had already turned that down long before I was appointed to represent you. Alan asked me to join the firm when I came out from New York, but I said no.”
“So what else, then?”
“He offered to send some of his former clients who are now with Warrick, Thompson my way. In short, he offered to make me a rich woman.”
“And you said no? Even though you know you’ll lose my case?”
“I don’t know that I’m going to lose.”
“I’ve been researching Battered Woman’s Syndrome as a defense.”
“Jim told me.”
“It rarely results in acquittal.”
“That’s right. Usually the jury finds voluntary manslaughter or maybe second degree murder. Voluntary manslaughter will get you eleven years; second degree murder is fifteen to life.”
“So you can save me from lethal injection, but you can’t get me back to Meggie and Sam.”
“We don’t know that right now.”
“But being back with my children is a long shot.”
“Right. A long shot.”
Alexa was silent for a while, staring at the blank wall opposite. The she said, “That so typical of Coleman.”
“What is?”
“Offering you a bribe. He thinks money is the reason for living.”
“He’s not alone. I just happen not to agree.”
“Do you think you can learn anything from Dr. Brigman’s bank records?”
“We’re going to try. Of course, if Michael was bribing him, having Michael’s would make it a lot easier to figure that out.”
“I guess Bob told you we suspected Brigman was being bribed.”
“Yeah. He said you lost too many hearings you should have won.”
“That’s true. I went from being an attorney who could write persuasive majority opinions for a United States Supreme Court Justice to an attorney who couldn’t win even one motion in family law court. My self-esteem went to zero.”
“That’s not hard to understand. You were one of the top attorneys in the country, and you felt you should be able to use your skill to save your children.”
Alexa gave her that soft, charming smile. “I was never able to put it into words the way you have; but, of course, you’re right. I wasn’t much of a lawyer if I couldn’t protect my children from Michael and Ronald Brigman. And I couldn’t.”
“Losing in family court wasn’t the mark of your ability as an attorney. You were up against an unfair system.”
“Bob said that. He told me to leave San Diego and not to look back because the court would forever keep me dancing to Michael’s tune. Bob told me to go where the really good attorneys are — the ones who’d appreciate what I do. You did that, didn’t you? You left San Diego and moved to New York?”
“I don’t talk about my life. The past is better left where it is. You may find that to be true one day.”
“Maybe. It’s just I can’t imagine never seeing Meggie and Sam again.” Her eyes filled with tears once more, and Sarah handed her another tissue.
“It might be better for now not to think that way. Just focus on getting through each day.”
Alexa nodded. “You’re right. Thank you for taking this case. I know it hasn’t made you popular.”
“I wasn’t destined to be popular here. I don’t practice law the way they do.”
“You know, you ought to reconsider Alan’s offer. I don’t mean because of Coleman’s influence. I’m sure Alan would want you because you’d be an asset to the firm. You’d like working with Alan and his partners because they play by the rules.”
“I know. But I was with a big firm for a long time, as you probably know. And I could go back to Craig, Lewis in a heartbeat if I picked up the phone and told Hollis Craig I was ready to come back. But that’s not what I want.”
“I understand. I’m lucky to have you.”
“Thanks. Now try to get some sleep. Jim will be around with that egg sandwhich in the morning; and although I’ve never had one of those, I know he is very talented in the kitchen. Should I turn out this light by the bed?”
“Please. But leave the night-light on.”
Sarah noticed a nursery night-light with pink bears plugged in under the window. Alexa looked a little embarrassed.
“I’m afraid I’ve become a child again. I can’t sleep if there is too much dark. Jim brought it too me.”
“Of course.” Sarah’s heart twisted at the kindness in Jim’s gesture for the woman who was might soon be facing death’s eternal darkness.
* * *
It was eleven thirty when Sarah got home. She had stopped at Trend for a drink after she left the hospital because she hadn’t wanted to face her guilt over Alexa alone in her empty house. But sitting at the polished bar, staring out at the dark ocean, had made her feel even worse. She’d kept wishing that by some miracle Jim would walk through the door.
You could call him, she told herself, as she sipped her wine and watched the waves dance under the stars. And if he weren’t otherwise occupied, he’d probably drive up from Pacific Beach and join her. But she knew she wouldn’t feel any better because she would spend their time together thinking about the way he’d settled the pillows behind Alexa’s head, and their smiles of anticipation when he’d said he’d be back in the morning.
She sat in her dark car in her dark garage for a few minutes, summoning her courage to go inside and face the too quiet house where her own thoughts could swarm unchecked. Suddenly she felt tears like pin pricks behind her eyes, so she got out of the car quickly and hurried into the kitchen to self-medicate with more wine before she could actually begin to cry. That was another one of her hard and fast rules. Never look back, and above all, never cry. She poured a large glass of cabernet and took a few quick gulps before going into the bedroom and slipping into her black silk pajamas.
She turned back her bed, settled comfortably against the down pillows, and tried to concentrate on the mystery thriller she was reading. But the picture of Alexa and Jim in the hospital continued to haunt her.
Bob Metcalf was right about Alexa. She was a sweet woman. Sarah thought they would probably have been friends if they’d had jobs at the same law firm. Craig, Lewis always liked to recruit former Supreme Court clerks as associates, and the ones who went the distance with the firm, always became partners. Sarah would have liked having a young associate in her practice who knew constitutional law as deeply as Alexa did. And she was bright and charming; and above all, juries would have warmed up to her. Sarah would have liked mentoring her to partnership in the firm. And without any doubt, Alexa would have become a Craig, Lewis partner. If only she hadn’t thrown away her career and her life by marrying Michael Reed.
“It’s your job to get her life back for her,” the Universe reminder her in the too-quiet house.
“I know. But I’ve already told you, I don’t want that job.”
“Too bad because it’s yours.”
“But I want off this hook.”
“Want away, but you have to come through for her. You know that.”
Suddenly her phone began to ring. The clock said midnight, and her heart began to flip flop like a teenaged girl’s, hoping Jim was calling.
“Hey, babe!” David Scott. Her heart stopped dancing and became as still as stone. “You stood me up tonight.”
“No, I didn’t. It’s over.”
“Like I said, it’s not over until I say it’s over.”
“I don’t have time for this. I’m trying to save a woman’s life.”
“And that just happens to include sleeping with your investigator?”
“I’m not sleeping with anyone. But if I were, it would not be your business.”
“Wrong again. It is my business, and I’ve got my man watching you right now. You’re lying to me about that investigator.”
Sarah shivered. “I’m going to get a restraining order for you and anyone connected to you first thing Monday morning.”
David laughed. “Please do. You know those orders aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.”
And that was only too true.
“Don’t cross me any more, Sarah. You don’t want to get hurt. And no one would ever know I’m responsible. I’ve done it before, and I can do it again. Why do you think Tessa stays in line so nicely?”
Sarah shivered again but said firmly, “Good night.”
A wave of raw terror washed over her as soon as she put down the phone. She crept through the silent house and peeked through the blinds in the front hall without opening them. Some sort of generic white car was parked in front of her neighbor’s house. It hadn’t been there when she’d come home.
She stood in the hall trembling and considering what to do. One part of her wanted to call Jim, but yet another part of her knew she should not to become dependant upon him. She had always fought her battles alone; nothing had changed in that department. She moved silently down the hall and into her bedroom. She decided not to turn out the light because she didn’t want whoever was in the white car to think she was going to sleep. She picked up her phone and dialed the San Diego police.”
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“I live in La Jolla Shores and there’s a suspicious car that’s been parked in front of my neighbor’s house for over an hour. My neighbor isn’t home, and I think they’re casing the place for a burglary.”
“Ok, ma’am. We’ll get right on it.”
And ten minutes later, Sarah smiled as she watched the police shine a bright light into the private investigator’s car. Ten minutes after that, he was gone.
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Dark Moon, A Work In Progress, Chapter Twenty-Six

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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The phone woke her at six next morning instead of her alarm. She had drunk enough the night before to give herself a headache, and she thought about not answering. But it might be Jim. And it might be another emergency with Alexa. So she rolled over and picked up the receiver and said, with great effort, “Hello.”
“Good morning, Ms. Knight. I believe it’s morning where you are. It’s lunchtime in D.C. This is Coleman Reed.”
Sarah sat up and forced her hung-over self to concentrate. “What do you want, Justice Reed?”
“Well, first to congratulate you. I heard about Ms. Jacobs’ debacle yesterday. Clearly she did’t graduate in the top of her law school class.”
“Actually she managed to pass the bar after going to an unaccredited law school, so she isn’t stupid. I’m not convinced discussing Tara’s educational shortcomings is the purpose of this call.”
“You’re very acute, Ms. Knight. I remember you in oral argument in the Lewis versus New York case, three years back. Fourth Amendment. Illegal search. You won for your client.”
“No thanks to you, Justice Reed. You wrote the minority dissent in that case.”
“Like I said, you’re very acute. Talented, even. Your work in the Joey Menendez case is legendary. As you know. And you turned six of my colleagues against me in the Lewis case. Because of you, Myron Lewis, an international drug dealer, walked away a free man. It’s too bad they appointed you to defend my daughter-in-law. You’re going to lose and that will tarnish your considerable reputation.”
“I don’t think you called to discuss my standing in the legal community.”
“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t.”
“Let’s get to the point.”
“You might not like that.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“You can’t win against me, Ms. Knight. Haven’t you figured that out, yet?”
“I have to do my job, Justice Reed. You know that.”
“And how do you define ‘do you job’?”
“This isn’t oral argument. I don’t have to answer that. Go read the Sixth Amendment.”
“‘A criminal defendant is entitled to the effective assistance of counsel.’ I know what it says. But ‘effective assistance’ doesn’t mean you have to commit professional suicide.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means don’t go prying into matters that don’t concern you.”
“As in your son’s bank records?”
“As in those and in Ronald Brigman’s.”
“You can’t stop me from seeing Brigman’s.”
“I realize that. And that’s why I’m calling you this morning.”
“I’m listening.”
“I could send a fleet of Alan Warrick’s best against you tomorrow to quash your subpoena for Michael’s bank records.”
“I’m not afraid of Warrick, Thompson attorneys, Justice Reed.”
“Of course, you aren’t. You cut your legal teeth with Hollis Craig and his partners.”
“Get to the point.”
“Okay. I can stop you where Michael is concerned. You know that. But I have no authority over Brigman’s financials.”
“And if I get Brigman’s, I’ll know about his dealings with Michael?”
“Right. So I’ve called to make you an offer.”
“An offer?”
“Withdraw your subpoenas. Leave the bank records alone. And stop defending Alexa like an angry pit bull. I don’t want her out on bail.”
“I don’t think the Sixth Amendment allows me to do that.”
“Of course, it does. Trevor Martin told you what to do in this case. Just go through the motions. File a few in limines that you will lose. Do some cross-examination. Make it look good. But don’t try to win. No one expects you to.”
“Throwing a case is not my job, Justice Reed.”
“What if your life depended upon it?”
“I’m sorry. Is that a threat?”
“You can call it what you want. No one will ever believe it came from me. Back off, Ms. Knight. I understand your business hasn’t grown much in San Diego. I can get you a partnership at Warrick, Thompson.”
“I’ve already turned down Alan Warrick’s offer of partnership in the firm. I like having my own shop.”
“Well, then, I still have a number of clients using Warrick who are loyal to me. I can send them your way. Alan and I aren’t seeing eye-to-eye right now over Alexa. I would love to damage his bottom line on your behalf.”
“Isn’t that a conflict of interest?”
“It is right now because you’re representing Alexa. But you are not going to be her attorney forever, Ms. Knight. The sooner she’s tried and convicted, the better for all of us.”
“If you’re offering me a bribe not to look at Brigman’s bank records, it’s a safe assumption there’s something there that will help Alexa. If anyone found out I’d made a deal with you to ignore exculpatory evidence for my own financial gain, her conviction would be overturned on habeas corpus in a heartbeat. And I’d be disbarred.”
“You know, Ms. Knight, I’m going to have to give you some advice. You and Alan take the Rules of Professional Responsibility way too seriously. The Law Offices of Sarah Knight will go down in flames if you play by the ethics rules. You aren’t in a Wall Street firm any more where you can afford to dither about what the State Bar thinks. Things are different in the local bar as Hal Remington has probably told you. Business is based on who you know. If you don’t play the game right, no one is going to send you any work, and an attorney’s bread and butter is referrals from other attorneys. If you aren’t a team player in that community, you’re going to starve. What the State Bar wants you to do for Alexa Reed, and what the legal community wants you to do, are two very different things. I can make you rich beyond your wildest dreams, Ms. Knight. Your solo practice could grow into a firm as big as Craig, Lewis, or Warrick, Thompson. Or bigger.”
“In exchange for Alexa’s life?”
“She’s already a dead woman. Save yourself.”
“I’m sorry, Justice Reed, is that a threat?”
“It certainly is.”
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Dark Moon, A Work in Progress, Chapter Twenty-Five

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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Jim waited impatiently all day to hear from Sarah. His anger mounted as the hours rolled by, and his phone remained silent. They were a team. Why wouldn’t she call to tell him how things had gone in court that morning?
Afer Alexa was settled for the night, he headed to Sarah’s place only to find a black, Porsche 911 S Turbo Cabriolet in her drive. Stay calm, he thought. You don’t know who it belongs to, and you have no right to be upset. But he headed for home tired and preoccupied.
He was surprised when his phone went off just as he parked in his garage. It was Sarah.
“I was wondering where you were,” he said. “I’ve been waiting all day for news.”
“It looked like a victory, but it wasn’t. And things since then have been complicated. Are you still at the hospital? Can you come by?”
“Actually, I just got home. But give me a few minutes, and I’ll be there.”
“Thanks.”
* * *
She was wearing black leggings and a gray hooded sweatshirt that seemed to have swallowed her when she opened her front door for him twenty minutes later. The night air was unseasonably chilly, and she invited him inside quickly to keep out the sharp wind.
She looked uncharacteristically shaken by something, and he wondered what had ruffled her normally unflappable exterior.
She looked down at the plastic container in his hand. “What’s that?”
“My world famous beef stew. I figured you hadn’t had any supper. I’ll warm it up in the microwave while you fill me in on the details.”
He followed her into the kitchen where he prepared to heat the container, and she poured him a glass of wine. Why did this feel so natural and comfortable, he asked himself, as if they spent every evening talking over the events of the day?
“How is Alexa?”
“Brightening up more and more, but she still can’t remember that visit to Brigman’s, and her voice comes and goes. She wanted to do legal research on Battered Woman’s Syndrome, so I gave her a laptop and let her use my Lexis password.”
The oven beeped, and Jim opened the door and pulled out the container with the potholders Sarah handed him.
“It smells heavenly.”
“It is.” He poured it into the bowl she had provided and smiled. “Eat.”
“Ok. Thanks. Come sit in the living room.”
She perched on one end of the sofa and described the hearing that morning between bites while he sat on the other end and listened.
“Should I say congratulations?”
“No. Tara made a fool of herself, but I’m sure Coleman is the executor of Michael’s estate, and he’ll be back in a heartbeat to quash those subpoenas.”
“On what grounds?”
“The same grounds that kept Bob Metcalf from getting Michael’s bank records in the divorce: attorney-client privilege. As soon as Coleman hears about Tara’s fiasco today, he’ll send some of his Warrick, Thompson partner buddies to do what she couldn’t do: protect his son’s financial privacy.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I wasn’t served with any more motions to quash today, but I’d guess they would have one ready to go by day after tomorrow.”
“But isn’t it time for the bank to produce the documents?”
“Yes, and if they come back before Coleman can get his act together, we could at least look at them before he gets a protective order, sealing them.”
“Then let’s hope that happens.”
“And there’s another thing. Coleman can’t keep us from getting Brigman’s records. He’s not the executor of Brigman’s estate.”
“Do you know who is?”
“His ex-wife. She lives in Tel Aviv. I sent her notice of the subpoenas through her attorneys in New York and not a peep out of her. I doubt she cares if her ex is embarrassed.”
“So we’ll get Brigman’s even if we don’t get Michael’s?”
“Right. And that may be enough to show us if there were bribes going on.” She put the empty bowl on the coffee table and smiled. “Thanks. It was delicious as usual.”
“Alexa liked it, too.”
“Alexa?”
“Yeah, I’ve been taking her extras at supper time because the hospital food isn’t so great.” He was pleased to see her eyes darken.
“Every night?”
“One of us has to keep an eye on her.”
She frowned and studied the black and white durie rug on the floor. “Of course.”
“You seem upset.”
Her eyes met his again, and she ran her fingers through her close-cropped hair. “To be honest, I am.”
“Is it something I’ve done?” He knew the answer was yes, but she would say no.
“No, of course not. It’s the David Scott thing. I shouldn’t talk to you about it.”
“You can if it helps.”
She told him about Tessa’s visit that morning.
“She threatened your life, you could call the police.”
“No, I can’t. Those photographs were not fakes, but her threats were just bluffing.”
“You can never be too sure.”
“I’m sure. And David was too.”
“David?”
“I asked him to come by tonight before I called you.”
So David Scott drove a 911 S Turbo Cabriolet. Useless piece of trivia. “And?”
“He laughed about the whole thing, and said he’d buy the photographs from her.”
“What if she won’t sell?”
“As David said, Tessa always has her price.”
“Well, then, you are both off the hook.”
“Except David wants the affair to continue after he’s acquired Tessa’s pictures, and I don’t.”
Jim was careful not to show how happy that news made him. “Well then, let Mrs. keep the photographs because she’ll have no reason to use them.”
* * *
Sarah was restless after Jim left around ten o’clock. Her demons didn’t haunt her in his presence, but they came roaring back the minute she closed the door behind him. She poured herself another glass of wine, hoping it would help her silence the inner voices and go to sleep.
But she was still grappling with her guilt over Alexa when the phone rang at midnight.
“Hey, babe.”
“David, it’s late, and there’s nothing more to talk about.”
“Wrong. There’s plenty to talk about. I came back to your place around 9:30 to tell you the news, but I saw you were otherwise occupied.”
“You have no right to spy on me.”
“Yes, I do. I bought Tessa’s pics and her silence for half a mil.”
“I didn’t ask you do to that.”
“Doesn’t matter. You owe me. Don’t get the idea you can dump me for someone else. My relationships end when I say they do. Period.”
“I’ve had enough threats for one day. Good night.”
“You’d better take mine seriously. Dinner, my place on Friday. Eight sharp.”
“I have plans.”
“Then unmake them.”
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Dark Moon, A Work In Progress, Chapter Twenty-Four

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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Sarah drove back to her office in La Jolla with her spirits lifted. Judge Tomlinson had shown he could be fair, and he seemed willing to give her a decent shot at putting on a defense for Alexa. He had agreed to grant funds to hire both a ballistics expert and to bring Jordan Stewart on board on domestic violence. Sarah suspected he was being generous because he was feeling guilty about ordering the meds after the competency hearing.
She wanted to tell Jim the news, and she regretted her decision not to have him at court today. She wished he’d been there to give her his own take on the hearing. Tara’s ignorance would have entertained him. She didn’t like admitting even to herself that she missed him.
She parked in the underground lot and hurried up to her La Jolla office. Even though there should have been no one in the waiting room, she decided to slip in through the back to give herself a few more minutes of privacy before facing her long-suffering law clerk who also doubled a receptionist.
She reached her office undetected, took off her suit jacket and hung it on the peg behind her door, and sat down to peruse the mail piled on her desk. A few seconds later, her phone rang, and she saw it was her clerk, Martin Browning.
“What’s up, Martin?”
“I heard you come in. Hope the hearing went ok.”
“It was fine. I got everything I wanted. I need a few minutes to look over this mail. Would you mind running downstairs and fetching me a latte from Starbuck’s?”
“No problem. But you might want me to bring back two coffees.”
“Why?”
“There’s a woman out here who’s been waiting at least two hours to see you. Her name is Tessa Scott.”
Damn, Sarah thought, and quickly ran through her options. Only she didn’t really have any options other than to accept the inevitable confrontation with David’s wife.
“Two coffees sound about right. Go ahead and show her in.”
Tessa Scott sashayed into her office a few minutes later like an angry Barbie in a red Versace suite with Angelina Jolie’s lips.
“You’re sleeping with my husband!”
Remain cool, Sarah reminded herself. “Would you like to sit down? My assistant has gone to fetch coffee.”
“I don’t want any coffee.”
“Well, what about a seat, then?”
Tessa shook her blonde layers like a Farah Fawcett throwback, and eyed the chair in front of Sarah’s desk as if it were a booby trap. After a few seconds, she folded her thin body into the chair and crossed her long legs.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Of course. Tessa, David’s wife.”
“Emphasis on ‘wife.’” She flashed the four carat diamond on her left hand at Sarah.
“Mrs. Scott, I’m sorry someone has given you false information, but I’m not sleeping with your husband.”
“Lying won’t help,” she snarled. “The household staff tells me what goes on when I’m not there.”
Shit, Sarah thought. I warned David about conducting an affair in his own house. Remain calm, she reminded herself. “I’m very sorry if someone close to you is trying to hurt you, Mrs. Scott. But I’m not sleeping with your husband. I’ve had dinner with him a few times because he hired me to straighten things out for your brother-in-law with the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
“You did more than have dinner with him.”
Martin knocked and entered with the two coffees.
“Thank you,” Sarah smiled as if everything were going her way. He looked over curiously at Tessa and left the room.
“Now, Mrs. Scott, as I said, I am not having an affair with you husband.”
“It’s been going on for months.”
Sarah decided going on offense would get rid of her. “I refuse to keep repeating myself. I’m not sleeping with your husband, and that is all there is to it. Your story about being tipped off by the household staff is completely false. Your husband pays them, Mrs. Scott. They are not going to give you any information that would put their jobs in jeopardy. Blackmail is a crime. Now please get out of my office. We have nothing more to discuss.”
“Oh, don’t we?” Tessa reached into her cavernous Gucci bag, pulled out a folder, and held up the photo on top.
Sarah’s mouth went dry. It was a picture of her with David on the terrace outside the guest room on the night Tessa had wavered about going to Cabo.
“Okay, so the staff didn’t tell me. That’s true. I hired a private investigator to catch the two of you.”
“I repeat, blackmail is a crime, Mrs. Scott.”
“I’m not here for money. I get plenty of that from my husband.”
“Then what are you here for?”
“I want you to stop sleeping with my husband.”
“You won’t publish those pictures and risk upsetting David. You need your allowance from him too much.”
But Tessa was unphased by the insult. “Oh, I’m not going to do anything to upset my husband. You’re right. I depend on my allowance. But if you don’t leave him alone, there are a number of accidents that could happen to you.”
With that, she got up and left the room, making sure to slam the door.
Sarah sat back and closed her eyes. She had been ready to end the affair with David, anyway. She didn’t enjoy his company, and the sex wasn’t great. And it wasn’t the first time she’d been confronted by an angry wife. Until today no one had threatened her life, but she didn’t take Tessa seriously on that point.
The photos, though, were a different story. She doubted Tessa would publish them because that would very likely end her marriage. But just knowing they existed made Sarah uneasy. If they did get out, it would damage her professional credibility. And she needed every ounce of that right now to defend Alexa Reed.
She opened her eyes and stared blankly at the deeply autumn blue ocean stretching vast and infinite toward the lighter sky. The guilt pangs that had racked her since Alexa came out of the coma had subsided for the first time during the hearing that morning, but they had returned and were stronger than before. She’d drawn a peacefully departing spirit back into a hellish world of lies, bribes, and probably certain death in twenty years under the watchful eye of a roomful of strangers. And she’d done it in the name of reuniting her with her children, even though that was a promise Sarah could never deliver. She didn’t care what Tessa Scott thought of her, but Alexa’s opinion mattered. Sarah didn’t want to be the one who broke her heart all over again, yet that was exactly what was going to happen. Saving her life was a very long shot, but getting her back to Meggie and Sam – that was impossible.
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Dark Moon, A Work in Progress, Chapter Twenty-Three

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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Good morning,” Judge Tomlinson beamed at his courtroom. “I trust everyone had a good weekend.”
Sarah smiled in return as she stood at the defendant’s table with Bob Metcalf dressed in another ill-fitting suit, but she noticed that Tara Jacobs on the plaintiff’s side with Preston Baldwin, remained taughtly grim-faced. Probably because her surgeon had eliminated any possibility of smiling a couple of facelifts ago. Everything about Tara was so sleek she looked plastic. Her dark hair was pulled into the tightest bun on record. Her cobalt blue suit appeared to have been steamed within an inch of its life to remove every wrinkle. She was so thin Sarah doubted she ever touched food. Her French manicured nails were so long she could barely pick up a pencil. Every bit of her screamed she was trying too hard to be sleek, chic, and expensive.
“Let’s see, we’re here this morning on a motion Ms. Jacobs filed to quash Ms. Knight’s subpoenas for Ronald Brigman and Michael Reed’s bank records. Is that right?”
“That’s correct, Your Honor.”
“Mr. Baldwin, this isn’t your motion. I’m not even sure why you’re at this hearing.”
“Well, Your Honor, the state is opposed to disclosure to the defendant of the sensitive personal documents of the victims.”
“They aren’t going to be disclosed to Mrs. Reed, Mr. Baldwin. Ms. Knight as counsel of record will receive them. And I’m still not sure what your interest is in this hearing.”
“The state represents the victims –”
“The state is seeking justice on behalf of the People, Mr. Baldwin.”
Sarah suppressed a smile. It was fun to watch the arrogant Preston Baldwin being raked over the Monday morning coals even if she guessed her own turn was coming.
“Well, of course, Your Honor, but – ”
“No ‘buts,” Mr. Baldwin. I’ve heard more than enough from you. Ms. Jacobs scheduled this hearing. If you don’t sit down and be quiet, I’ll ask you to leave.”
Preston Baldwin folded his lawyer tail between his legs and sat down next to Tara, who was still standing.
“Now, let’s see. I neglected to have you enter your appearances. Ms. Knight, obviously you are here on behalf of Mrs. Reed. I hear she’s doing better at the hospital?”
“That’s correct, Your Honor.”
“We like to hear every bit of good news we can get on Monday morning. And you have a gentleman with you whom I see is not your investigator.”
“That’s correct, Your Honor. This is Bob Metcalf, who represented Mrs. Reed in the family court proceedings. He may or may not be called as a witness.”
“Very good. Welcome, Mr. Metcalf.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.”
“Now, Ms. Jacobs, as to your appearance. Who are you here to represent?”
“Ronald Brigman and Michael Reed.”
“Hm.” Judge Tomlinson’s kind gray eyes studied Tara’s taught eagerness intently. “Don’t you have a bit of a problem, there?”
“Problem, Your Honor?”
“Yes, a problem of “standing.” You remember the legal concept of “standing,” Ms. Jacobs, from first year civil procedure in law school? You have to have “standing” to bring a matter before a court. You have to be an eligible party as the law defines ‘eligible party to a legal proceeding’ before you can ask the court to hear your position.”
Tara pursed her haughty collagen filled lips with utmost derision for the mild, rotund civil servant looking down at her from the bench. “Ronald Brigman and Michel Reed have standing to oppose disclosure of their personal bank records.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Jacobs, but you are wrong. They are both dead. That means they no longer have standing to oppose anything. The representatives of their estates can offer an opposition on their behalf, but Mr. Brigman and Mr. Reed are no longer able to be litigants in a court of law.”
“Yes, but I represented Michael in his family law matter.”
“Right, but you aren’t the executor of his estate nor do you represent the executor of his estate. And you’re not in family law court this morning. Correct?”
“Correct.”
“And I was not aware that Ronald Brigman was ever your client. If he had been, the State Bar would doubtless have been concerned about your conflict of interest since he was appointed to evaluate a number of your family law clients.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah saw Bob’s eyes widen as he struggled to keep the rest of his face lawyerlike and impassive. She guessed no judge in family court had ever talked to Tara this way. On the other side of the courtroom, Preston Baldwin was visibly shrinking in his chair as he began to understand the scope of the legal problem Tara’s ignorance had created.
“I – I well, Dr. Brigman was not a client. He was a friend.”
“Right. I understand that, but when has the attorney-client privilege applied to communications between friends?” Judge Tomlinson was enjoying watching her squirm because she was so obnoxious in her ignorance, Sarah thought.
“I – I – well, the privilege applies to Michael’s confidences to me. And some of those were disclosed to Dr. Brigman in the course of his work in this case.”
“And that gives you an even bigger problem, doesn’t it, Ms. Jacobs?”
“I’m sorry, Your Honor. How does telling a court-appointed evaluator information provided by my client create a problem?”
“Think hard, Ms. Jacobs. First-year law school again. Your first class in professional responsibility. What happens when you disclose a client’s confidences to a third party?”
Tara was bright red. “Well, they’re waived, of course. But, Dr. Brigman was a court-appointed evaluator.”
“Can you show me some authority that says court-appointed evaluators aren’t third-parties when it comes to attorney-client privilege?”
“I – I – no.” Tara looked stunned.
“Well, then. I think this hearing is over. You don’t have any standing to move to quash Ms. Knight’s subpoenas.”
“But Your Honor!” Preston Baldwin leapt to his feet and threw himself into the breach Tara’s incompetence had created.
“Mr. Baldwin, I thought I asked you to sit down and be quiet.”
“Please, Your Honor. At least hear Ms. Jacobs on the public policy issue.”
“Public policy issue?” Judge Tomlinson frowned.
“Yes, Your Honor,” Tara gave him the smile that apparently won judicial hearts and minds in family court. Only it wasn’t working here, Sarah thought.
“Okay. It’s Monday morning. I’ve had a nice weekend. I hear Mrs. Reed is recovering. I’m in as good a mood as I’ll probably be in all week. Tell me these ‘public policy’ reasons of yours to quash Ms. Knight’s subpoenas.”
Judge Tomlinson settled back in his chair and kept his eyes on Tara Jacobs.
“May it please the court.”
“Ms. Jacobs, I’m not pleased, in case you haven’t noticed. And this isn’t first-year law school moot court, nor are you in the court of appeal. This is superior court where I am vastly underpaid and very overworked. Just get to the point.”
“Sorry, Your Honor. The points is Alexa Reed should not profit by her decision to kill her husband and Dr. Brigman. Mrs. Reed is a lying, devious, manipulative individual with a psychopathic borderline personality disorder, whose only goal in life was to live off her husband’s money. She – ”
“Wait, Ms. Jacobs. Just wait, please.” Judge Tomlinson held up his hand. “No one, particularly a criminal defendant who is presumed innocent until proven guilty, is going to be called lying, manipulative, or psychopathic in my courtroom by an attorney, unless an expert has first testified to that based on authorities reasonably relied on by experts in the field. I am not persuaded by character assassination. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Your Honor. If I might finish?”
“You’re finished, Ms. Jacobs. I did my tour as a judge in family law court a few years back. The kind of language you are using disgusted me then, and it does now. I feel like levying a hefty sanction on you for wasting my time this morning. If you’d done your legal research, you’ve have known you had no standing. If you will kindly fold up your papers and exit now, I won’t impose the $2,000 fine I’m considering. Your motion was frivolous, and it is very, very denied.”
Sarah thought she heard a slight whimper from Tara as she swept her legal pad into her Louis Vuitton brief case and headed for the backdoor. She could see Bob was still working hard to suppress a grin of delight.
Fortunately, he continued to be successful because the judge turned to him next, “Mr. Metcalf. Again, thank you for spending part of your Monday with us. I’m going to let you go now, because I need to talk to Ms. Knight and Mr. Baldwin about scheduling in Mrs. Reed’s case.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.” Bob picked up his well-worn briefcase and headed for the exit.
Judge Tomlinson frowned at Preston Baldwin as the door closed behind Bob.
“Did you know that was going to be her motion?”
“No, Your Honor. I thought she was going to say she represented the estates of the two victims.”
“If I hadn’t been on the bench in family court and seen the way they practice over there, I wouldn’t have believed anyone who had passed the California Bar would have pulled a stunt like that. Anyway, that’s not why I kept the two of you. I understand Ms. Knight wants Mrs. Reed out on bail when she leaves the hospital.”
“That’s correct, Your Honor.” Sarah willed herself to be calm and not to give away too much of her case for Alexa’s release.
“Your Honor, Ms. Knight is as out-in-left-field as Ms. Jacobs. There’s no right to bail in a capital case.”
“True, but she has a right to a bail hearing. And you’ve calendared one for October 1, haven’t you?” Judge Tomlinson looked at Sarah.
“I have, Your Honor.”
“I was just putting out some feelers to see if the two of you might reach an agreement on Mrs. Reed’s custody status to save us the trouble of the hearing.”
“The people want her in jail. Period.”
“Then I think we’re on for October 1. You do know, Ms. Knight you have to show facts that demonstrate she may not be guilty?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“I just want you to be aware I’m not going to be any happier than I was today if you waste my time.”
“I understand, Your Honor.”
“And now I believe you wanted to talk to me about hiring the experts you need for Mrs. Reed’s defense?”
“That is correct, Your Honor.”
“Very well. Mr. Baldwin, you may go. I need to meet with Ms. Knight in my chambers for a few minutes.”
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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 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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