Unfit to Practice

He ran a hand across the fuzz on his skull. “She worried that it might come out more than I did. I’d hate for her to go through this. Oh, man.”

“Kevin, joint legal custody gives you a lot of say, and I would make sure the visitation was generous. But it’s not the result we wanted.”

“I’m sick that this is going to happen, but I’m not going to give up. Like you said. Maybe the judge can see past Ali. I have to get Heather and Joey away from Lisa.” He shook his head. “No, we have to win. We have to fight.”

“Of course the choice is yours.”

He turned to look at Lisa and Riesner, then looked back at Nina. “I’m the better parent.”

“We still have a strong argument,” Nina said. “We’ll work around Ali. We have to.”

“Good. Thanks for not telling me to give up.” Nina felt a pang. He sure shouldn’t be thanking her when she might be part of his problem.

Nina looked over at Riesner and gave her head a sharp negative shake. He shrugged and bent to Lisa’s ear.

They all stood while Judge Milne entered the room and took his seat. Judge Milne, a tall, imposing man, had a deep golf tan and an untroubled brow. He trusted himself, that was his secret. He made his decisions and then never thought about them again. Luckily, if you appealed to his pragmatic side, his judgment was pretty good.

And luckily, he seemed to have a soft spot for Nina. She played to that. There were limits to high-mindedness.

After the preliminaries, Riesner, straightening an imaginary bend in his faultless tie, stood at his table.

“I would like to call a final witness,” he said.

“Objection, Your Honor.” Nina leafed through the pitifully small pile of papers relating to the case just to give herself another second to construct her reaction to this unsurprising news. “There are no further witnesses on his list, Judge. It’s improper and should not be allowed.”

“I see that,” Judge Milne said. “What’s going on here?”

“Your Honor, I have provided the court with a copy of a supplement to the witness list, duly faxed to counsel as soon as the witness was discovered and filed this morning. I just received some information about Miss Reilly’s client that has bearing on his fitness as a parent. I apologize that I was unable to give reasonable notice to his attorney, but this information came to me through a third party early this morning. I took Miss Reilly aside just before court and advised her again of the circumstances, so I hope we aren’t going to have a show of disingenuous surprise.”

“Inadequate notice, Your Honor.”

Judge Milne found the supplemental document. “Oh, here it is. A supplemental witness. Affidavit in support thereof. Ms. Reilly. You are requesting a continuance?”

Kevin shook his head. No.

Credit the judge for giving her a full ten minutes to argue her objection for the record. She realized from his expression almost from the begi

Nina sat down, already moving her mind on to the testimony. No sense letting this lost skirmish knock her off-balance. Judges were notoriously lenient about allowing evidence when it came to custody hearings. There was no jury to confuse and they wanted as much information as possible.

As Riesner escorted a young woman into the courtroom, Kevin no longer looked the confident father. He murmured something unpleasant and started to get up. Nina clamped a hand on his shoulder and shoved until he sat. “Settle down,” she whispered.

“I can’t just sit here and let them screw me!”

“Shh,” Nina said.

The buff-looking girl clumped up to the stand in jeans and hiking boots, her pink cheeks complemented by shiny black hair. Kevin clearly favored athletic women, Nina thought, as Ali swore to tell the truth. Riesner got right to it, rushing through the boring preliminaries and dallying in the salacious details.

An older version of the girl sat in the back of the courtroom, wincing. Ali’s mother.

“We went together for about three months,” Ali said in answer to a question.

“How often did you engage in sexual relations?”

She lowered her head. “A few times a week.”

“And you were seventeen at the time.”

“Yes.”

“Not even old enough to vote or drink a glass of wine, were you?”

“Objection,” Nina said. “She was seventeen. We get it.”

“Sustained.”

“And where did you have these sexual relations?” Riesner asked, steepling his hands on the table.

“Different places.” Her voice had a note of anger in it. Resentment at being hauled over here today? “Sometimes on a blanket in the woods.”

“Anywhere else?”

“In his car.”

“His patrol car?”

“No, his regular car. Never in the patrol car. We had a rule.”

“Anywhere else?”

She flushed a deeper red and didn’t answer.

“Did you ever have sex with Mr. Cruz at his home?”

Although Kevin seemed ready to explode, Nina put her hand on his arm and sat calmly. No point in objecting. Riesner would insist on this one and the judge would allow it.

“Yes.”

“Please tell the court how that came to happen.”

“We had finished for the day.”

“You mean, the youth cadet program?” he asked, with the emphasis on youth.

“Right. We were done for the day. We stopped at his house on the way to my house and, uh, we got carried away.”

“Where did you get carried away?”

“Uh, in their bed?”

“‘In their bed.’ ”

“Your Honor,” Nina started.

“We can hear, Mr. Riesner. No need to repeat,” said the judge.

“And where were the children?”

“Where do you think they were, asshole?” Kevin whispered. “Standing there watching?”

“I think they were gone somewhere. Yes, they weren’t there. We just got carried away. Kevin wouldn’t have-Kevin kept me away from his kids. I never met them.”

“Were there any other such incidents?”

“You mean did we do it in his house again?”

“Yes.”

“No. We didn’t. Except kissing once out front on the porch.”

“Where were the children that time?”

“Oh. They were supposed to be asleep but that one kid, the boy, he woke up. Kevin had to put him back to bed.”

Kevin jabbered into Nina’s ear. “Joey never saw anything, I swear it, Nina. We had no privacy-things got out of hand, but we were so careful. The door, that one time at our house, it was locked and the kids weren’t even home. I would never harm my kids, never expose them to anything like that.”

When Nina’s chance came to cross-examine the girl, she took only enough time to clarify the issues. The girl had entered into the relationship willingly and had, in fact, initiated it. The Cruz marriage had already broken down. Kevin Cruz had always shielded his kids from knowing anything about Ali. Nina kept her questions short. The longer she stayed up there, the worse things would be for Kevin.

Although Kevin tried to talk her into it, she decided not to put him back on the stand. Refuting the details of Ali’s statements might work just to etch sordid details of the relationship into the judge’s mind. And anything Kevin said now might be used against him in the further complications that were sure to develop due to Ali’s age. She had to protect him from incriminating himself.

Besides, what could Kevin say in his own defense?

Riesner made a powerful closing argument, holding forth on the virtues of Lisa Cruz, pooh-poohing the doctor’s report on her ongoing depression except to say that she was “striding toward a healthy future with her children.” He spoke glowingly of his client with zeal and warmth Nina knew was affected but seemed absolutely real. Now that he had Nina back where he wanted her, in the weaker position, he seemed assured and smooth, his old self.