Breach Of Promise

“Thank you. Let’s get these marked as exhibits.” While stickers were placed on the exhibits, not a word was said. Lindy looked at Mike; Mike glared at her. Riesner sighed, sat back, crossed his legs. The room felt too hot. Nina sketched abstracts on her legal pad. Outside, cars mushed through the barely plowed street.

“All right. Cross-Complainant’s Exhibit One. All records, memoranda, notes, written memorializations, and any other document of any sort whatsoever tending to support Cross-Defendant’s claim that the parties agreed that the businesses and other property in issue were to be and remain the separate property of Mikhail Markov,” Nina read.

“For the record,” Riesner began, “Cross-Defendant continues to object to this Request on grounds that it is overbroad, calls for a conclusion, is vague, ambiguous, and unintelligible, and all the other grounds set forth in our opposition thereto last week.”

“Noted,” Nina said briefly. Riesner could object until he gave himself a sore throat, but he still had to turn the documents over. Mike still hadn’t opened his mouth. Riesner passed over a manila file stuffed with papers, and Nina began picking them up one by one, identifying them for the record, and having Mike authenticate them. Before the day was over, Sandy would copy them. There were originals of the corporate documents she had already seen, Articles of Incorporation, Bylaws, registration documents, Profit-and-loss Statements, and so on. The next group included the deeds to the Markov homes, several titles to vehicles, and other titles to property, all in Mike’s name.

Then came the tax returns, both corporate and personal. After Mike had stated for the record what they were, Nina put these aside for copying. She would go over them with the accountant down the hall from her office this evening so she could ask intelligent questions about them tomorrow.

The next group seemed to be a series of interoffice memos and correspondence with suppliers and customers in which Mike made various policy and executive decisions. So what? She wasn’t impressed. Lindy had a similar pile of documents lying in wait for Mike. Each note and memo had to be identified for the record. Nina was very careful, very formal as she described the documents for the reporter.

Exhibit 1 was the most important of the lot. If Mike didn’t have some kind of smoking gun here, they’d be all right. They’d have a good chance.

Mike kept on, polite, unfaltering, answering each question after a short pause, sometimes consulting for a moment in a low voice with Riesner. As the morning wore on, the tediousness of the process settled them all down.

Unwritten rule of legal practice number 13: If you dread it, it will come. It came just before noon. Riesner had put it at the bottom of the stack just to raise a little more hell with her.

A sheet of lined notebook paper like the kind Bob used in school, the document in question was crumpled, stained, and had been drafted on a manual typewriter that needed a new ribbon. SEPARATE PROPERTY AGREEMENT was typed in capital letters at the top.

Mikhail Markov’s apparent signature at the bottom was followed by Lindy’s.

Lindy, who had her eyes on the document, too, scratched her arm, the only reaction she showed. Her silence at this moment was a worrisome omen.

“What’s this, Mr. Markov?” Nina said sharply.

“That is a separate property agreement between Lindy and me,” Mike answered, keeping his face impassive. But Riesner couldn’t resist. Victory flashed across his long face, and his false smile turned real before Nina’s eyes.

You son of a bitch, she thought, shaking her head, her mind boggled by this blow.

She began asking narrow questions about the exhibit, and Mike answered everything in an unhesitating, well-rehearsed voice.

He and Lindy had agreed that if they ever split up, they would keep each other’s property separate. The business was in his name and she understood that only he would continue to run it on that basis. They had sat down and talked about it the day they moved to California, thirteen years before, on October 12, and Lindy had typed their agreement up on their old Underwood. They had both signed it. Mike spoke in a flat voice, just spitting out the facts, keeping his eyes off Lindy.

“Let’s take the lunch break,” Nina said. “We’ll start again at one.”

“Oh, let’s,” Riesner said. He and Mike got up, two wealthy, successful men without a care in the world, and walked out, leaving the exhibits to fester on the table. Nina left, too, and went back into her office. Sandy laid out box lunches for both of them on Nina’s desk while Lindy visited the bathroom.

Nina hadn’t moved by the time Lindy returned. Lindy sat down heavily beside her. “Well?” Nina said.

“Well what?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She let her anger show.

“There’s nothing to tell. I do remember, during the time he’s talking about, we were in the red. Mike was feeling very insecure. Things were rocky between us. We were arguing a lot. You argue a lot when money is low, it’s natural.”

“So you signed an agreement that you have never once mentioned to me.”

“I never saw that piece of paper before in my life,” Lindy said, shaking her head. “It’s a forgery. Or a joke.”

“Look at it again.”

Lindy picked it up and studied it. “Looks like our old Underwood,” she said. “That’s strange, because I gave that typewriter to Goodwill years ago. Maybe he took it out and hid it somewhere. Or I suppose it’s possible he typed the agreement way back before I donated the machine.” She said the right words but her tone was wrong, all wrong.

“Lindy?” Nina said. “You see this paper? If it sticks, it means we’ll probably lose. Both of us.” She got up and leaned her arms on the table, moving in close to extend the full force of her enraged gaze onto Lindy. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’ve never seen it before.”

Nina shook her head, incredulous.

“Anyone can forge a signature,” Lindy was saying. She held the paper at arm’s length, squinting at it. “I’d even swear it was mine if I didn’t know better.”

“You need reading glasses, Lindy,” Nina said, leaving the room.

Riesner and Mike came in a little late and took their places, the cool air and clean scents of the outdoors trailing behind them.

The load of wet concrete Riesner had dumped on Nina was drying now, tightening, weighing heavier and heavier, suffocating in its implications.

She didn’t believe Lindy. If real, that piece of paper might be worth a hundred million dollars to Mike. If a fraud… but it wasn’t. Riesner would never take a risk like that. He had to know Nina would discover a fraud, and that the jury would reward Lindy accordingly.

Could Mike be lying to Riesner? No. Riesner would already have had the thing looked at by professionals, because he never trusted his clients.

Why would Lindy keep the knowledge of this devastating evidence from her own lawyer?

Stupid question. Denial, fear that Nina would bow out, hope that Mike had lost it…

What now? Walk barefoot over a bed of burning coals all afternoon. The joy of law.

“Let the record show we are gathered here again and all parties are present,” Nina said to the gri

Nina walked the hot coals all afternoon without even giving her opponents the pleasure of an ouch. Mike claimed he kept the agreement in his fishing tackle box, where he also kept his Social Security card. He insisted that Lindy signed the agreement of her own free will after a calm discussion. He said his divorce back in the sixties had cost him everything he had, and that at the time the agreement was signed he had feared that Lindy, too, would leave him and take the little that he had struggled to build. He readily admitted that he had initiated the discussion, but he said Lindy had typed it up. He kept looking at Lindy, who seemed to have zoned out.