Unfit to Practice (28 page)

The comment didn't make a point, it slashed like a machete. Fussy adherence to petty concerns, reckless disregard for issues of serious import, and suggestive interactions with notorious lowlifes—Nina had done it all. The prosecution's entire case relied on nothing more substantial than the imaginative slanders of this officer who hardly knew her.

“Do something!” Nina whispered to Jack. He shook his head sharply, warning her to stay out of it. As the questioning went on, Nina's hands shook with frustration.

“The son had no car? He had to ride around on a bicycle?”

“He's underage for a license.”

“And Nicole Zack?”

“She doesn't have one yet. Not that that would stop her.”

“Did the defendant tell you anything else?”

Officer Scholl examined her report again. “Not until later. She called and gave us the names of three files. She said she had checked with the clients and they had allowed her to do that.”

“And what were those names?”

“Angel Guillaume and Brandy Taylor. Kao and See Vang. Kevin Cruz. But she claimed it was all confidential. She wouldn't tell us anything about the contents of the files.”

“Now, Officer Scholl, were you also assigned the investigation of this theft?”

“I was. I located the vehicle several days later at the Heavenly parking lot. It looked like somebody had a long joyride and dumped the vehicle there. The defendant couldn't identify any damage. I had it examined for forensic evidence and fingerprints. There were a number of prints of the defendant and her son. Dog hairs all over. Trash in the backseat, half-empty Gatorade and water bottles, a coffee cup that had been there awhile.”

Oh, great. Now she bad-mouthed Nina's domestic inadequacies.

“Nothing that would help identify the perpetrator,” Scholl added.

“What about the missing key?”

“Left on the seat. Wiped clean of prints.”

“Were the files found in the vehicle?”

“No. The files were missing, and so was the briefcase.”

“Were the files ever located to your knowledge?”

“Not to my knowledge. I did interview Nicole Zack and the boy. I put out an APB on the truck. I did what I could, but without the defendant's full cooperation, I couldn't mount a full-scale investigation. I just had to wait until the truck got dumped. The auto-theft case is still open.”

“Let me ask you something now, Officer. Do you have any independent knowledge that these files were ever in the defendant's stolen vehicle?”

“No.”

“The defendant could have accidentally left her briefcase in a supermarket or lost them in some other, even more egregious fashion?”

Officer Scholl looked thoughtful. “For all I know.”

“And used the auto theft as an excuse to claim she wasn't totally responsible for the loss?”

“I never saw any files. I don't know if there were in fact any files in a briefcase in that vehicle.”

“And has the perpetrator of the theft been identified at this time?”

“Not at this time. As I say, I'm still in charge of an open investigation.”

“Thank you. Nothing further.”

“We will take the midmorning break,” said Judge Brock. Nolan left. The clock stopped. The clerk took off her headphones and disappeared.

Jack nodded at the door.

“I'll stay here for a minute,” Nina said, “and try to remember how hardworking and innocent I looked to myself only yesterday.”

“I warned you. They trowel on the accusations. Hearsay, opinion evidence, all sorts of character-battering is an integral part of the proceedings. You'll get a better crack at showing a balanced picture of your career, who you are, how well you've done in your work, during the next phase, the mitigation hearing. This is a different kind of court.”

“Yeah, it's a quasi-court practicing quasi-law with quasi-rules of procedure. And quasi-protection for the defendant.”

Jack said, “You're right. Welcome to the Bizarro universe of law.”

“I read the rules, but I can't believe the way they play out in practice. This is not supposed to be a criminal action, but it sure feels like one.”

“If only it were a criminal matter,” Jack said. “Then you might have the statutory presumption of innocence. You don't get that here. You already know that the technical rules of evidence in criminal cases aren't applicable. The case doesn't even have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. It's unclear how much hearsay evidence can come in, and Hugo likes to hear it all.”

“Then why do I need an attorney?” Nina said rather rashly. “You don't object. You can't keep the worst slimeballing out. You can't do anything but sit there.”

“I haven't cross-examined yet.”

“Is that when you start defending me?”

“Look, we got off to a rough start this morning. I'll take some of the blame.”

“I hate sitting there unable to open my mouth and defend myself. I feel like a crash-test dummy.” She helped herself to some of the bottled water.

“Back at my office, I have a quote from Kafka taped inside my drawer. Funny guy, in his bitter European way.
The Trial
speaks to some of your ordeal. You remember, this clerk, K, keeps getting hauled off to this court in this crummy run-down warehouse, and he can't find out what the charges are. At first he scoffs, but he finally starts believing in the whole strange system. At that point he's doomed.”

“Then he and I have nothing in common,” Nina said. “I refuse to let this sorry system ruin my life.”

“All they can do is lift your license.”

He said it lightly, but she heard the worry behind his words. Jack was being kind. They both knew this could go beyond the California bar court into a criminal investigation of fraud. “That can't happen,” she said. “We won't let it.”

“If it happens, it won't be the end of the world.”

“Nobody is running me out of this career that I worked so damn hard to achieve.”

Silence while he digested this. “Good, because you're exactly the kind of lawyer we need out there, dirty-kneed, trudging through the trenches.” He lifted her chin to look at her. “Ah, Nina. How life changes.”

“I've never feared change, Jack. I see it as an opportunity.” She got up. “I'm out of here. When does the kangaroo court resume?”

Jack looked at his watch. “Nine minutes. Nina—”

“What?”

“Relax a little with the constant pen and paper, okay? It makes the judge nervous. And you might want to slap a little lipstick on or powder your nose or something. Look like a winner. You look too worried.”

Wanting to fume in private, Nina went down a floor, an old trick of hers when she wanted to be alone, and paced around in that hallway. Nine minutes passed, then they returned to their tables in the ice-cold court.

Judge Brock entered and they all stood and sat down again in a clumsy shared motion. The clerk detached, plugging her headphones into some distant place like Mars, her eyes looking somewhere into the middle distance of the room where there was nothing but dead air to view. Officer Scholl was advised that she was still under oath.

“Good morning, Officer,” Jack said, receiving a curt nod in return.

“So you already knew Ms. Reilly from traffic court?”

“Yes.”

“You hand out the traffic citations, she fights them?”

“That's about it.”

“How many times have you come up against Ms. Reilly?”

“Oh, five or six.”

“And every single time, she beat your ticket, didn't she?”

“Objection,” said Nolan.

“Goes to bias.”

“Overruled.”

“She beat you, didn't she?” Jack said with a little smile.

“I can't remember every case.”

“Do you need me to refresh your recollection by having you go through this stack of records here and then putting in evidence each of the instances?”

“She got her client off on the tickets each time.”

“You say she resorted to trickery. What tricks did she pull?”

“She took advantage of the situation. She attacked the calibration of the radar gun. She continued cases until I or the other officers had a conflict and couldn't make it to the court appearance, and got a dismissal that way. She knew we couldn't remember every detail of a traffic stop from months before. She made one little inconsistency look like we were lying.”

“‘We were lying'? Wasn't it just you up there?”

“She made it look like I was lying, which I wasn't.”

“So you were humiliated by her tactics?”

Scholl flushed. “I take personal pride in my work.”

“She blighted your otherwise good record?”

“My record is otherwise very good.”

“Did the issue of your frequent losses in court on cases against defendants of Ms. Reilly come up during discussions with your superior officer about an upcoming promotion to the Detective Unit?”

Scholl paused and thought before she spoke. “Yes.”

“Did you get the promotion?”

“No.”

“Do you attribute your failure to be promoted to Ms. Reilly?”

“I can only say the citations were good, and I was accused of lying on the stand, and the judge dismissed the citations. And this was a factor.”

“Did she ever get sanctioned by a court for her tactics?”

“I wouldn't know about that.”

“Did she ever get found in contempt?”

“I have no way of knowing.”

“So she attacked the prosecution's case and got her clients off on the tickets,” Jack mused as if to himself. “Guess that didn't make her too popular with law enforcement up at Tahoe.”

“Exactly. She could not be trusted.”

“It sure didn't make her very popular with you, did it?”

“I—I didn't like her tactics.”

“You didn't like her success, you mean. How do you like criminal-defense attorneys in general, from your viewpoint in law enforcement?”

“They are a necessary ev—they are part of the system.”

Smiling, Jack said, “They could all get shipped off to Timbuktu and you wouldn't miss 'em, would you?”

“Not really.”

“I appreciate your forthrightness,” Jack said. He had a rhythm going, Nina thought. He wasn't half bad. A small relief released some of the built-up pressure in her chest.

“Now, you mentioned that it didn't help your investigation that Ms. Reilly wouldn't tell you her clients' names.”

“I felt she was not cooperating with the investigation.”

“Ever heard of Rule 1.6 (a)?”

“I'm not a lawyer.”

“Indeed you aren't. Let me put it this way. Did you know that there is a rule of practice for attorneys that prohibits them from revealing any information relating to the representation of a client unless the client consents after consultation?”

“Not even the name?”

“Not even the name.”

“No. I didn't know that.”

“And Ms. Reilly did give you the names as soon as she had talked to her clients?”

“Yes, but without knowing more about what was in the files we couldn't tell if the theft might be related to one of the clients.”

“What about the attorney-client privilege? Ever heard of that?”

“Yes, but I'm not a lawyer. Like I said.”

“But it caused you trouble, Ms. Reilly fulfilling her duties as a lawyer?”

“I'm just saying—”

“Did she do anything besides protect the confidentiality of the files that caused you a problem?”

Officer Scholl thought that through. “I felt she was defensive about her relationship with Nicole Zack. I felt that individual was a suspect.”

“Didn't you tell her Ms. Zack was bad news, in so many words?”

“It's the truth.”

“And she defended Ms. Zack to you?”

“She wouldn't hear a word against her.”

“Let me ask you this. Did you at any time in your investigation develop a shred of evidence, a scintilla of evidence, that Ms. Zack had anything to do with this theft?”

“No. But I still—”

“Now then. You testified that Ms. Reilly is a touchy-feely type who has gone so far as to hug a client in your presence?”

“That's correct.”

“In what circumstances did she do this?”

“Well, the jury came in.”

“With a verdict?”

“Yes.”

“An acquittal?”

“Yes.”

“And they hugged each other?”

“That's right.”

“Do you believe that hugging a client after an acquittal leads to moral turpitude, oh, for example, sleeping with her male clients?”

“Objection! There's so much wrong with that question I don't know where to start,” Nolan said, on her feet.

“Why, Counsel, isn't that exactly what you were trying to imply?” Jack said innocently.

“Rephrase it, Counsel,” Judge Brock said, amusement twitching the corners of his mouth.

“Well, you know that Ms. Reilly is accused of sleeping with one of South Lake Tahoe's finest, don't you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think she gets too intimate with her clients?”

“She befriends them. She hugs them.”

“Shocking, isn't it.”

“Counsel, let's move on,” Brock said.

“Just one last thing. When you found Ms. Reilly's vehicle, it was full of papers and used coffee cups?”

“It was pretty trashed.”

“Do you attribute that to Ms. Reilly's generally being a trashy person?”

“What kind of question is that?” Nolan said. “I object. Counsel is making fun of the witness.”

“She's calling my client trashy, Your Honor.”

“Move on.”

“Was the truck locked when it was found?”

“No.”

“Anyone could have had a few Gatorades and left them in the back. The thief could have gotten thirsty while riding around in the stolen vehicle, isn't that correct?”

“Correct or incorrect, it's irrelevant and it's frivolous,” Nolan said.

“Anyone could have left that trash,” Jack said. “I feel it's a relevant point.”

“Objection sustained,” the judge said.

“Did you have the Gatorade bottles tested for DNA? Trashy people drink out of the bottle, you know.”

“We don't have the resources to go that far for a simple auto theft.”

“How about the coffee cup?”

“It looked like it had been there a long time.”

“You assumed it was Ms. Reilly's cup?”

“Well, it seemed to be.”

“So let's see if I can summarize your testimony up to this point,” Jack said. “You took the report, you can't stand Ms. Reilly or criminal-defense lawyers in general, you did a half-assed investigation and got lucky and finally stumbled across the truck, and you think Ms. Reilly must have slept with Kevin Cruz because you saw her hug a female client after an acquittal by a jury?”