Blind Justice (2 page)

“Yeah, well, nonetheless.” Ben rubbed the ice pack up and down the sides of his face. “Chickens. Jeez, that’ll help pay the rent. And think of the convenience, if a famine should suddenly strike Tulsa.”

“Speaking of paying the rent, Boss—I don’t like to be a nag, but my paycheck is overdue.”

“That’s true. Unfortunately, I’m fresh out of cash. But feel free to take all the chickens you want. By the way, is all that toilet paper still littering the lobby?”

“No. I cleaned that up right after the police hauled off Mr. Loving for assault with a practical joke.”

“Jones,” Ben said, pointedly ignoring the jibe, “may I ask who T.P.’d my office?”

“Who do you think?”

“Right.” Ben stretched out on the sofa. “If you’ll be so kind as to close the door on your way out, Jones, I’m going to lie here quietly for a few hours and see if I can bring my heart rate back down to the three-digit numbers.”

Jones didn’t move. “Boss?”

“Yes?”

“Was that true, what you said?”

“About my heart rate?”

“No. About Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner.”

“Well…they divorced and remarried once.”

“Oh. You lied.”

“I did not lie. I…exaggerated.” He touched the reddened skin around his eye gingerly. “Under the circumstances it was the best I could come up with.”

Jones still hesitated.

“Yes?”

“Wasn’t the Simmons trial scheduled to continue at ten o’clock today?”

Ben looked at his watch. “Ohmigosh. It’s already ten till! Jones, you’re supposed to keep me on time for my appointments!”

“Sorry, Boss. I was distracted by the gunplay.”

Ben grabbed his briefcase and bolted out the door, still pressing the ice pack to his head. If he ran all the way to the courthouse, he just might make it.

B
EN FOUGHT HIS WAY
out of the crowded elevator and scrambled toward Judge Hart’s courtroom on the fifth floor of the Tulsa County Courthouse. Christina was waiting for him just outside.

“What’s the matter, Ben?” she asked, grinning from ear to ear. “Forget to set the alarm clock?”

He ran up to her, gasping for breath. “I’ve been awake for hours. It was the gunfight that slowed me down.”

“
Gunfight?
What happened?”

“I’ll tell you later. Where’s Judge Hart?”

“She hasn’t taken the bench yet. She had some arraignments she had to call before the trial resumes.”

“Thank God for small miracles.”

“Yeah. Your planets must be in alignment.” Christina tossed her long strawberry blonde hair behind her shoulders. She was wearing a short leather skirt, hip boots, and yellow leotards. Standard Christina
accoutrements.
“Incidentally, Ben—happy birthday.”

Ben gave her a quelling stare. “You promised you wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Chill out already. I haven’t told anyone. But I do have a little something for you. Will you be in your office later?”

“As soon as the trial ends.”

“Mind if I drop by?”

“My door is always open to you, Christina. As long as you don’t start snooping around for information your boss can use against me in court.” He glanced at the courtroom doors. “Is Mrs. Simmons inside?”

“Yeah. I think you need to comfort her. She looks
les miserables
.”

“In what way?”

“Oh, the usual. Sweaty palms, knocking knees.”

Ben nodded. “Everybody gets the jitters before they take the stand. But thanks for the tip.” If Christina said talk to the client, Ben talked to the client. She had first-rate instincts, in addition to being the best legal assistant he had ever known. Pity she was on the other side.

Ben and Christina met and first worked together during Ben’s brief tenure as an associate at Raven, Tucker & Tubb, Tulsa’s largest, swankiest law firm. After he got the boot, she quit in protest and started working for Swayze & Reynolds. The change seemed to be good for her; the managing partner, Quinn Reynolds, was giving her important assignments and access to their most prominent clients. As far as Ben could tell, she was very successful, although success hadn’t improved her wardrobe or her penchant for abusing French clichés.

As they entered the courtroom together, Ben saw Reynolds shoot Christina a nasty look. She’d probably get chewed out later for fraternizing with the enemy. Although he was the managing partner at Swayze & Reynolds, Reynolds was, as a rule, arrogant, pretentious, and generally unlikable. Worst of all, he was a lousy lawyer—always obstreperous and unwilling to compromise. He liked to promote settlement by way of harassment and delaying tactics, both of which Ben had been fighting throughout this entire case. Reynolds would probably be ostracized by the majority of the legal community, but for one minor detail. His wife sat on the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Ben had heard people complain about Reynolds for months, but the stories always ended the same: “Hell, I’d like to tell the jerk what I really think of him, but what can you do? He sleeps with the judge.”

Ben found his client, Amy Simmons, sitting at plaintiff’s table by herself. She wore a tense, forlorn expression. Amy had been rear-ended in a car accident several months earlier. She brought a negligence action against the driver of the car that hit her, Tony Lombardi, seeking damages for her injuries. Reynolds was representing Lombardi and the insurance company that carried his policy.

“Morning, Amy. Sorry I’m late.”

She smiled faintly. “It’s all right. That legal assistant on the other side told me you were practicing your closing argument.”

Another favor he owed Christina. “Do you feel secure about your testimony? Are there any other questions you wanted to ask me?”

Amy’s face tightened. “Do I really have to go up there in front of the judge and everybody?”

“I’m afraid so.” He patted her hand. “Don’t worry about it, Amy. I’ll be here the whole time. You’ll do fine. Promise.”

“I hope so,” she said nervously. “I really do.”

After Judge Helen Hart entered the courtroom, she reassembled the jury and resumed the trial. Judge Hart was in her mid-forties and had been on the bench long enough to approach her work with a sense of grace and humor Ben found extremely refreshing. A good judge could make a tense trial like this one much more bearable.

Ben’s only remaining witness was Mrs. Simmons; she was the make-or-break witness for their case. The medical witnesses were perfectly convincing, but if Amy didn’t persuade the jury she had been injured in the auto accident and was still suffering resultant damage, the jury would never enter a verdict in her favor.

After she took the stand, Ben steered Amy gently through the direct examination they had prepared and practiced countless times in advance of trial. She was extremely nervous, but her answers were solid, and she appeared sincere. She discussed her neck injury and the symptoms she experienced periodically: the sharp, stabbing pain, the uncontrollable spasms, the inability to hold her head erect. Her doctor said she had a severe soft tissue injury and, after performing some minor surgery, he prescribed medication and physical therapy for the rest of her life.

After they completed their prepared questions, Ben stepped away from the podium. Amy’s testimony had been fine, but it hadn’t really captured the jurors’ heartstrings. It was a little too canned, too pat. Ben knew he needed to depart from the script and ask some zingers artfully designed to elicit jury sympathy.

“Amy, are you able to enjoy the same quality of life you had before the accident?”

Amy looked down at her hands. “Oh, you know. I do all right.”

Hardly a stirring response. “Amy, are you still able to play tennis?”

“Well, you know, Mr. Kincaid, I never really enjoyed tennis that much.”

“What about your golf game?”

“Well, now that I have grandchildren, I don’t heed to be out chasing a little ball all over the green.”

Ben took a deep breath. “Amy, are you embarrassed when your neck starts to twitch in public?”

“Oh, my. You know, I don’t give much thought to what other people think.”

Sheesh. This called for drastic action. Ben approached the stand and leaned over the rail. “Amy. I know you’re trying to be brave and uncomplaining, but you must be honest with the jury. I can see your neck trembling. It hurts, doesn’t it? It hurts right now.”

She pressed her hand against her neck. “Yes,” she whispered.

Good girl. He was leading the witness, of course, but Reynolds was probably too dim to notice. “It hurts every day, doesn’t it? So badly you can barely tolerate it?”

Her entire head was shaking. Her nod was barely perceptible.

“And if you can’t afford to pay for the medication and the physical therapy, that pain is going to continue unabated for the rest of your life, isn’t it?”

Her eyes were welling up with tears. “I-I guess so,” she said.

“Thank you. No more questions, your honor.”

Ben returned to plaintiff’s table, pleased. It was a struggle, but Amy finally managed to tell the jury what they needed to know. Just let Reynolds try to take her apart on cross. If he got rough with her, the jury would hate his effete little guts.

Reynolds walked slowly to the podium. He obviously saw the dilemma as clearly as Ben, and as a result, wasn’t sure how to begin. “Mrs. Simmons, my name is Quinn Reynolds.” He stood for a moment, poised in thought. “I represent the defendant, Mr. Lombardi.”

“And his insurance company,” Amy added.

“Move to strike,” Reynolds said, without missing a beat.

“Granted,” Judge Hart said. “The jury will disregard the witness’s last remark.”

“And I move for a mistrial,” Reynolds said.

“Don’t you wish,” the judge replied. “Proceed with your questions, counselor.”

“Mrs. Simmons, you claim you have suffered a soft tissue injury to your neck. Is that correct?”

“That’s what the doctor told me.”

“But Mrs. Simmons, isn’t what the doctor actually said—” Reynolds flipped through his notebook, then turned it over and flipped through it again. “Now where did I put that?” He walked back to defendant’s table and began burrowing through his huge stash of documents.

Ben smiled. There was nothing better than seeing a sleaze-meister’s dirty tricks backfire. Early in the case, Reynolds had issued a huge request for production of documents. Reynolds was obviously hoping to bury Ben, the sole practitioner, under a morass of paperwork, and to make the litigation as expensive for Amy as possible. Now Reynolds was unable to find the document he needed because it was lost somewhere in the morass of documents he brought into existence. Sweet irony.

Unfortunately, Christina, a far better legal assistant than Reynolds deserved, walked unobtrusively to the front of the courtroom, went directly to the proper file folder and retrieved the document he needed. Reynolds snatched it from her without so much as a nod and returned to the podium.

“As I was saying, Mrs. Simmons. Isn’t it true your doctor referred to your injury as ‘probably minor and easily removed’?”

“Easily removed?” A puzzled expression crossed her face. “May I see that?”

Reynolds didn’t want to, but Judge Hart gestured at the witness stand, indicating she wanted the witness to examine the document. He passed it to the bailiff, who handed it to Amy.

“Probably minor and easily removed,” Amy repeated, perusing the medical record. “Oh, I see now. This isn’t about my neck injury. This is about a wart.”

Reynolds blinked. “A wart?”

“Yes. See, at the top of the page, the doctor refers to my verruca vulgaris. That’s a wart.” She looked up at Reynolds. “You’re right; that was minor and easily removed.”

Ben covered his smile with his hands. This cross couldn’t be better if he had scripted it himself. He could see the jury verdict crystalizing before his eyes; dollar signs were flashing like neon lights.

Reynolds flipped a few more pages in his notebook. At least he had the sense to know when to start over. “You say your neck causes you pain on a regular basis?”

“That’s true.”

“That you experience disorientation and dizziness.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“And that you are subject to sudden uncontrollable neck seizures.”

“Yes. Particularly when I’m tired.”

What softballs, Ben thought. Reynolds must’ve given up trying to win the case and decided just to act sympathetic and hope for the best.

“And you’ve testified that the neck spasms are interfering with your work.”

“Well, as a nurse, I’m in contact with patients on a regular basis. A violent neck twitch doesn’t make for good bedside manner.”

“And these neck ailments began after the car accident?”

“Oh no,” she said cheerily. “I’ve had this problem all my life.”

Ben’s jaw practically thudded against the table.
What?

“Are you saying your injury was
not
caused by the car accident?” Reynolds asked.

Amy’s mouth opened, but no words came out. Apparently it had dawned on her that she might have said something wrong. She looked at Ben, as if hoping he would answer for her.

Judge Hart glanced down from the bench. “The witness will answer the question.”

Ben mentally envisioned the dollar signs slipping through his fingers. He jumped to his feet. “Your honor, I object. I can’t see what possible relevance—”

“Save it,” Judge Hart said, cutting him off. “Overruled. Not that I blame you for trying.”

“I’ve had neck problems since I was a little girl,” Amy answered. “I was about eight or nine when they started.”

“Mrs. Simmons, when I took your deposition two months ago, you described in great detail the neck pains you experienced the day of the accident.”

“That’s true,” she said. “I did have a bad attack that day.”

“But it was not the first time you had the problem.”

“Oh no. Not at all.”

Reynolds grinned malevolently. If her neck ailment predated the accident, then it wasn’t caused by the car accident, meaning the driver of the assaulting car wasn’t liable. Nor was his insurance company. “No more questions, your honor.”

“Any redirect?” Judge Hart asked.

Ben rose. “Yes, your honor.”