Unfit to Practice

“He’s an attorney in good standing with the bar,” Nina whispered to Jack. “We get that already!”

Jack shushed her.

Nolan finally got to the questions. She asked Riesner to summarize his custody case and representation of Lisa Cruz in that matter, then said, “You received a phone call on Friday, September seventh of last year regarding Ms. Reilly’s client in that custody case, Kevin Cruz, is that correct?”

“That’s correct.”

This was so Riesner, to parrot her formality when a simple yes would do. Nina couldn’t help it, she bristled over every word he spoke, every hand gesture, every slight movement of his cheek. Here it was, the moment in this hearing she had so dreaded. The colleague she disliked most in the world was here not only to witness her public vilification, but also to add to it. At last, it appeared, Jeffrey Riesner might win one big case against her, the biggest.

“Please tell the court the content of that call.”

He cleared his throat, a sound that made Nina want to gag. “Very early, I would say about six A.M. on Friday, September seventh, I received a telephone call at my residence. I had a particularly busy day-too many clients to count needed my personal attention, so I was already working, preparing for court. I answered the phone myself. I can’t tell you if the voice belonged to a man or a woman. It’s my considered opinion this person was using some kind of a sound-altering device.

“The voice said that Kevin Cruz had a lover, an underage teenaged girl named Alexandra Peck. The voice also offered me her phone number, which I wrote down. I checked a cross-directory listing to get an address to match that number. I called, and spoke with one of her parents, verifying that she did indeed know Kevin Cruz and had been in contact with him almost daily through a cadet program. Her mother described them as former colleagues and friends. I then woke a few people up to arrange a subpoena demanding that Miss Peck appear in court at a custody hearing scheduled for that very day.”

“And you notified Ms. Reilly of this new witness when?”

“That same morning, via fax.”

“And what was her reaction to the news that her case was about to burst wide open?”

“Oh, she did the best she could do to discredit my motives and professionalism to the judge. That’s pretty much her defense style, resorting to personal attacks.”

He stopped short of sticking his tongue out at her.

“And what did the judge decide?”

“To allow Ali Peck to testify, of course. Everything I did was perfectly legitimate. I did what I could to provide opposing counsel with prompt notification. Naturally, the judge wants all the information possible before determining a custody case. He didn’t want to decide based on false or limited information, when there was someone sitting right there in court with pertinent testimony, ready to come forward.”

“And what was Ali Peck’s testimony?”

At this point, Nina tuned out. She knew what had happened in court that day and she did not care to hear his version. She scribbled on her notepad and tried to drum up a tune to hum mentally. His voice settled like yellow smog over the court.

Of course he presented himself in the best possible light and Nina in the worst as he gave lengthy answers to Nolan’s questions. They finally got to the heart of the matter. Yes, Riesner said, he believed that he had won temporary custody for his client based on Alexandra Peck’s testimony against Kevin Cruz. Yes, the leak of what had been in Nina’s confidential file was probably the strongest determining factor in that win.

Once Nolan had finished, making sure the points were made and triple-made, Jack stood up.

“Today in court, you say you received an anonymous phone call informing you about Ali Peck, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Yet that’s not what you told Ms. Reilly, is it?”

“I told my opposing counsel exactly what she needed to know, no more than that.”

“You suggested that Ali Peck had contacted you, didn’t you?”

“You know how it is sometimes, when someone is just after you and after you about something-you toss them a bone because you don’t want to be engaged in exhaustive argument or confrontation. It’s not something I’m proud of, but you know, I wasn’t under oath when I was talking with her, unlike today.”

“You lied to her, didn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t characterize my comments that way at all. I may have allowed her to believe something that was incorrect. It’s the way things work in law. Sometimes you allow misunderstandings to float if they will serve your client.”

“Help us out here. I don’t think this is very clear. In what way does having an anonymous phone call versus a direct phone call serve your client?”

“It was my judgment that Ali Peck’s evidence would seem more credible to opposing counsel if she jumped to the conclusion that the information came directly from the girl, and was willingly offered. It was just a way to push opposing counsel a little off-balance, make an appearance of more strength than we had, a tried-and-true method I’m sure you’ve used in your day,” Riesner said.

“It’s your judgment that it’s okay to lie if it suits your purposes.”

“I did not lie. I said clearly that I did not know who made the call-” And he stirred up a frothy brew of obfuscation and confusion, trying to keep his actions palatable to the California State Bar. The testimony went on like that for a long time. Jack continued to beat away at him and Riesner continued to parry until Jack finally sat down again. He hadn’t scored, and he knew it.

“You don’t make points with this guy,” he whispered to Nina. “You make war.”

“Now you know.”

28

S TANDING IN THE HALLWAY outside the courtroom area and past the elevator banks, Nina decided they had a few minutes before they had to leave, and Paul had disappeared into the rest room. She called Sandy to check in. To her surprise, Wish answered the phone. “Where’s Sandy?”

“Oh, uh-” He sounded distracted. “Sorry, there are two people who’ve been waiting in here for half an hour. What should I do with them?”

“Who are they?”

“I think they need legal representation.” His hand went down over the phone and she heard some muffled conversation. “Yep, that’s what it is.”

“Take their names and numbers. Tell them we’ll call them to arrange an appointment later on today or tomorrow morning. Then send them home.”

“Okay.”

She waited while he achieved this feat.

Sounding relieved, he came back on the phone. “They were waiting at the door when I got here. Mom left in such a rush she didn’t tell me what to do about them.”

“Where is she?”

“Remember that thing where the president came to Tahoe a few years ago and put some money into Indian projects and returned some land?”

“Yes,” Nina said.

“She headed a committee about that. She has also been on the Washoe Tribal Council and is real active in pressuring the government to return tribal homelands in the Tahoe Basin to the Washoe. Plus she and Dad have been doing a lot of work organizing the tribe, helping with zoning problems, helping people to figure out what to do with tribal lands, that type of thing. And of course, you knew she was a member of the Leviathan Land Council when they were persuading the feds to designate an abandoned sulfur mine a Superfund site?”

“Uh. I guess I heard something about that.” But not from Sandy. Anything she had heard, she had read in the papers.

“So she got a call yesterday. Some big shot is in town and wanted to talk to her.”

“What about?”

“A job. They’ve been after her for a while about it.”

“What? She never said a word to me.”

“They want her to work with the Bureau of Indian Affairs this summer on some huge report the government is doing about, uh, Indian affairs, I guess. Supposed to take months, but you know how those things go on for years.”