Perri O’Shaughnessy - Breach Of Promise

“What was happening at that time in your relationship?”

Lindy was looking at Mike again. Mike tried to look indifferent and failed. Rachel leaned forward from her seat behind him and whispered something.

“We were broke. We had liquidated our business in Texas. I’ve never seen Mike in such a bad state. Until now.”

“Move to strike the last two words as nonresponsive,” Rebecca said from next to Mike.

“The jury will disregard the last two words.”

“When you say ’bad state,’ what do you mean?”

Lindy said carefully, “Mike had failed before. He was angry. I think he felt helpless. He talked a lot about his ex-wife, how she had taken everything he had saved during his years in the ring. He thought our business troubles were a direct result of starting out with no money, and he blamed her.

“Every day, we got dunning letters. Creditors made phone calls. Our agent there was trying to sell off the assets and salvage something for us. We were living in a motel in Sacramento run by a gloomy man who called every morning at eight o’clock and said, ’Your rent is due,’ like we were criminals climbing out the back window. That little room was so hot. Cockroaches ran in the kitchen all night and the back balcony looked out over a sewage ditch. It was August and over a hundred degrees day after day. I’d sit at the dressing table all day and make calls and write letters, trying to get some money in, and Mike would just lie on the bed. Mike started-he got angry at me.”

“Why?” Winston’s soft, sympathetic voice.

“I was handy,” Lindy said. “He’s a proud and stubborn man. He started imagining that I was going to leave him as soon as the agent sent our check, take the money and get as far from him as I could. Then he said he was going to disappear one day and I’d be better off. He was having such a hard time, I didn’t know what he would do.”

“And what was your response to that?”

She had everyone’s attention. Nina saw a few unconvinced looks, and hoped Winston’s next few questions would erase those.

“I told him he could have all the money when it came, and put it in a bank account just in his name, if it would make him feel better. I wouldn’t take anything. That way he wouldn’t have to worry anymore that I would leave him or something.”

“You offered to give him your share of the check?”

“It made no difference to me, as long as we were together.”

“If you made yourself penniless, a pauper, made yourself completely powerless, gave up everything, he would feel better? Then you couldn’t leave him? He needed you to sacrifice all you had to shore up his bruised ego?”

Lindy pushed herself up. “I never said that!”

At the same time, Riesner jumped up from his chair and began objecting.

And at the same time, Winston calmly said, “Withdrawn.”

Milne called Winston and Riesner to the bench. Leaning away from the jury so he wouldn’t be heard, Milne hissed a few words to Winston that had Winston nodding his head and promising he’d never do it again. Winston had sprung that inspired cruelty on Lindy; it had certainly never been rehearsed in the office conference room. Nina was sure it was spontaneous; he hadn’t prepared that outburst of eloquent questions that had forced Lindy into a protective stance and made the real relationship spring to life for the jury.

Now, as Winston received his dressing-down, the jury had plenty of time to sit there and think about Mike and Lindy, about a man’s irrational and sour fears when he hits bottom for the second time, and a woman’s willingness to give too much to help him.

Nina knew she couldn’t have done that to Lindy. She would feel too much compunction. Also, she felt Lindy’s mortification at having these things stated so baldly. Lindy looked shamefaced, like a wife admitting to but excusing a husband that beats her every Friday night.

Dynamite, Genevieve scribbled on her pad for Nina’s benefit.

“What happened then?” Winston now said. The lawyers had returned to their places. Lindy sat very straight and stared straight ahead. She no longer trusted Winston.

“I had found a space we could use to set up a boxing ring and a supplier who would set us up on credit. That week a check came from the agent. All we had from seven years of hard work. Twelve thousand five hundred dollars. That night, Mike asked me to type up and sign this exhibit.”

“Referring to Cross-Complainant’s Exhibit One. And you have already testified that you signed it.”

“Yes.”

“Now, let me ask you this, Lindy.” Winston’s voice dropped, and everybody leaned in closer so as not to miss a word. “Let me ask you this simple but important question.”

“Yes?” Lindy was all but vibrating, knowing what was coming.

“Why did you sign this document?”

In the silence that followed Nina heard Mike’s stentorian breathing.

“Because Mike said we would get married if I signed it. We’d get married and try to gut it out.”

A mass exhalation. Several jurors wrote that statement down.

“He promised to marry you?”

“Yes. You know, legally.”

“So long as all the money and power were kept completely in his hands?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way. So long as-his property was kept separate. He needed that. It was important to him, and it didn’t matter to me, don’t you see?”

Winston started to comment on her reply, then thought better of it. He thought for a moment, tapping his hand on his chin, and Nina saw again how he used pauses to suck in all the wandering attention. She was learning from him.

He said eventually, compassionately, “But you didn’t get married.”

Lindy explained again how Mike pocketed the agreement and left for Texas to sign the final paperwork terminating their business there. Winston let her talk.

“When he got back, I kept saying to Mike, let’s do it, it’s so simple, just go to a justice of the peace and make it official. But“-she held her palms up and shrugged-”we just never did.”

“You opened a checking account to deposit the check?”

“Mike did, yes.”

“Was your name on it?”

A wary shake of the head. “No.”

“Did you move?”

“Oh, yes. Within a week. To an apartment near Howe Avenue.”

“Was your name on the lease?”

“No.”

“Did you lease the exercise facility and sign some contracts for services and equipment?”

“No.”

“Mike did?”

“Yes.”

“Did the business begin making money?”

“It took off, and we never looked back,” said Lindy with whatever pride Winston had left her.

“Did the business eventually incorporate as Markov Enterprises and were stock certificates issued in that name?”

“Yes,” she said, and in a voice Nina could barely hear, she added, “and my name wasn’t on them.”

“Did you protest to Mike?”

“No. I just asked him again-this was about ten years ago. Could we-let’s get married, I said. Like you promised. And he said when the time was right. And I let it go.”

“You relied on his promise?”

“I relied on Mike. I always have. I always gave him my complete trust.” Her voice sounded surprised, as if only now, in front of the jury that would judge her actions, could she acknowledge that she had been foolish.

“You subsequently established your primary manufacturing facility for exercise equipment here in Tahoe-”

“Yes.”

“And…”

“And, yes, my name wasn’t on anything.”

“Then you bought that beautiful house up on Cascade Road. That wonderful mansion,” Winston said sadly. “Who found the house and dealt with the realtor?”

“Mike was busy, so I…”