Perri O’Shaughnessy - Breach Of Promise

She slowed down. “We’re trying to get going on the Markov depositions, but we’re having trouble with Mike Markov’s lawyer.”

“Deposition. That’s where you interview the people in the case and it’s all written down, right? And then later you trip them up when they say something different during the trial.”

“How did you know that?”

He shrugged. “I think from TV.”

At Bob’s school, trucks and SUVs and Subarus jammed the parking lot. She kissed him good-bye and watched him disappear into the white, running in spite of the slipperiness and his heavy backpack.

Through the rest of November and into December, Nina continued to fight with Riesner over what documents would be produced at the depositions, which had to be postponed twice so they could go before the Hearing Examiner and obtain rulings. Riesner refused all her calls and she had to fax every communication.

Professional courtesy in this case consisted of faxing motions at five o’clock on Friday so the other guy got them on Monday and lost three days of prep time, informal press conferences in which the object was to influence the entire jury pool, and stonewalling on each and every interrogatory.

She had known how it would go and she paid back each trick, even adding a few of her own. She became friendly with Barbet Schroeder of the Tahoe Mirror and fed her tasty tidbits once a week until Barbet was following her around with her tongue hanging out. The producer of a show on Court TV called and asked what she thought about televising the trial. This kept her up a few nights, until the producer finally called back and said it wasn’t going to happen as there was a juicy sex murder going at the same time in Indianapolis that they had chosen to televise instead.

Lindy called almost every day, demanding detailed progress reports.

“But this case is going very quickly,” Nina reminded her.

“Being broke sure got old fast. Whenever I come into town, Alice has to pay for everything. I hate it. I feel like I owe everyone something all of a sudden. I want this thing resolved. I want to see the look on Rachel’s face when Mike loses. I want my money.”

Nina knew how she felt.

Lindy was spending a fair amount of her time raising hell at the casinos with Alice. A few oblique references in the paper gave way to full-blown mentions on the gossip page of the San Francisco paper after one incident, when they were both thrown out of Prize’s Club.

During one of Lindy’s late night calls to Nina’s house, Nina asked Lindy about it.

“They blow every little thing I do out of proportion,” Lindy said. “Except for that one night. The night before going to Prize’s, I saw Mike. I’m not going to go into that. It was bad. Alice and I went out the next evening to play craps. I guess I had more than my share to drink. She hardly ever drinks but she kept me company. Then we got onto the topic of her divorce and that really set her off. Well, you saw how she gets. She pulled out that stupid gun. Took a few potshots at the craps table.”

“My God!” Nina said. “Did she hit anyone?”

“She hit the table,” Lindy said. By now, she was laughing. “She’s such a nut. I don’t know if she did it out of anger or just to cheer me up because I was losing. I doubt she could tell you, either.”

“Were you arrested?”

“She knew the pit boss so they didn’t call the police. They just tossed us out of there like sacks of rotten potatoes.”

“Lindy, this is serious. No matter how bad you feel, you need to keep a low profile. All of the jurors in your case will come from this area. You don’t want them reading about your wild, drunken exploits right before they decide whether to give you money for being such a hardworking businesswoman, now do you?”

“You’re right, Nina. I’m sorry.”

“And another thing. Your friend should not have a gun.”

“She doesn’t anymore. I took it away from her right then and there.”

“Where is the gun, now?”

“I hid it in my suitcase. She won’t find it there, because she’s a privacy freak.”

After calling Paul’s number in Carmel for weeks and not reaching him, she called his office ten days before Christmas and got a new number for him in Washington. “Run, run as fast as you can,” she teased when he answered. “I will still catch you.”

“I could swear I left my new number on your machine one lonely evening when you were out carousing with another man,” Paul said.

“More like having a late meeting.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, but he didn’t sound worried.

“Anyway, I’m sorry I haven’t been able to call more often. I’m really swamped. Why did you change hotels?”

“They moved me to an apartment at the Watergate. It’s more comfortable than a hotel room.”

“More of a long-term place,” she said.

“Well, yes. I couldn’t spend all my time in a hotel. That’s no life.”

“No,” she agreed, actually preferring to think he had no life there.

“Nina, you would love it out here,” he said, changing the subject. “Talk about being in the thick of it! Guess who I ran into in an elevator of an office building on K Street. Ralph Nader. Almost knocked him down. And then I saw Henry Kissinger in a corner grocery store in Georgetown one day. It’s so different from California. The history here-well, it’s out walking around the town, buying Twinkies.”

“Wow,” said Nina. “Sounds like you are enjoying yourself.”

He assured her he was not, that he missed her and all the other mountain folk, keeping it light, asking after Bob, and Andrea and Matt’s family. They talked for a while, catching up. Then Nina asked the question uppermost in her mind. “When can you come back?”

“Not until late January. I’m stuck here over Christmas,” he said.

“Oh, no,” said Nina. “You can take a few days, can’t you? I thought we might sneak in some skiing over the holidays. I don’t have much time, but I thought maybe we could swing a weekend up at the lodge at Squaw Valley.”

“There’s the alternative.”

“What’s that?”

“Wrap yourself up in a pretty bow, put yourself on a plane, and appear on my doorstep.”

“You want me to come to Washington?”

“ ’Want’ is weak. I long for it. I desire it.”

“Paul, I’m busy, too. Even though Bob and I will celebrate Christmas over at Matt’s, I still have to buy presents, decorate the tree, do the whole number. I just can’t take any time away.”

“If that’s the way you want it,” said Paul, sounding pissed.

“That’s just the way it is,” she said, “same for me as it is for you.”

Eventually, he cheered up. In the end, he agreed to call the minute he had some time to help with the Markov case.

He left her with the suggestion that he couldn’t wait to show her something new he had thought up, something involving the four tall bedposts of her new pine bed.

The holidays came and went in a blur of green and red and family visits. Bob seemed happy with the new software she’d scrimped and saved to buy him and did not ask again about seeing his father. She knew he hadn’t forgotten. He just didn’t want to hurt her.

In order to keep Winston informed about developments in the case, and therefore involved, Nina continued to send him copies of all the written battles and arguments. He called regularly with encouraging words and some excellent strategic advice, but he always seemed too tied up to come up to Tahoe. In this way, without it ever being plainly expressed, she learned that famous trial lawyers don’t sully their hands with the dirty little processes of pretrial discovery.

Genevieve stayed in Tahoe long enough to observe Nina a few times and to attend a short civil trial in another matter in which Riesner was the plaintiff’s attorney to, as she put it, “search for the soft underbelly.” Before she left, she and Nina set up a conference call with Winston, who agreed with Genevieve that Riesner would appeal to underdeveloped personalities who didn’t like to make their own decisions, and stronger conservative types looking to harden their positions.