Perri O’Shaughnessy - Breach Of Promise

Nina paced quietly around in front of the jury, hands behind her back, head lowered, as if pondering the scene. She was giving everyone plenty of time to get it, that Lindy had been horrified to learn she was not divorced from this man. She looked at the jury. Mrs. Lim took her notes. Kris Schmidt looked twitchy. Cliff Wright was hard to read. “Now on another topic,” said Nina. “Are you aware that Mr. Markov has a niece, age seventeen, who lives in Ely?”

“Yes. I have met her several times.”

“When she comes to the Markov house?”

“That’s right.”

“And when she comes to the Markov house, what does she call Mr. Markov?”

“Uncle Mike.”

“And what about Lindy Markov?”

“Aunt Lindy.”

Following the afternoon break, Nina took over for Winston, who had already begun with Mike Markov. She was attempting to show the jury that Mike had had all the benefits of marriage with Lindy without accepting the legal obligations, but Riesner had prepared his client well. For the last three hours of the day, stoic and impervious to provocation, Markov asserted that Lindy played only a minor role in the business. He alone had invented the Solo Spa. He had never referred to her as his wife in public or private.

Then it was Nina’s turn to play with pictures. She asked for the lights to be dimmed and inserted a video Paul had extracted from someone in the marketing department at Markov Enterprises.

Mike spoke from behind a podium. “Ladies and gentlemen, coworkers and friends. It gives me great pleasure to introduce my companion, my partner, my muse, my wife, Mrs. Lindy Markov!”

The screen went blank.

A sound escaped from beside Genevieve. Nina didn’t turn to look at Lindy, seated there.

“Does this refresh your memory?” she asked Mike Markov.

Before giving the rattled defendant a chance to recover from being shown up as a liar in court, she moved in for a strike, getting him to make the crucial admission that Lindy had said “Now we can get married” when she signed the separate property agreement.

At the end of the day, she canceled Friday night’s dinner meeting with Genevieve and Winston. They would have to haggle about the day’s work without her or wait until Saturday. In spite of their reasonably effective showing that day, she didn’t feel good. She couldn’t remember ever being in a case before where her actions in court, both good and bad, were so zealously analyzed afterward that she sometimes felt pulverized under the sheer weight of opinion.

Calling Sandy on her cell phone to fill her in and give her what advice she could about keeping things going at her poor, neglected practice, she drove home to Bob and managed to get a dollop of soup stuffed between his puffy, fevered lips before he conked out again at about seven-thirty.

When the phone rang, she didn’t answer. She was afraid it would be Lindy calling and she just couldn’t reassure her properly at the moment. She couldn’t even reassure herself.

This trial had an edginess she couldn’t remember feeling before. Everyone jumped at the slightest mistake. Every revelation rated frenzied scribbling in a reporter’s notebook.

She put on her nightgown and crawled into bed. Outside the wind blew. She tried to sleep as branches broke off and thumped against the roof, sounding to her groggy mind as heavy and ominous as bodies falling.

Over the weekend, Bob’s fever receded enough for him to take up his station at the computer, where he was lovingly creating a website with his cousin Troy based on their mutual loathing of phony people and love of Boogie-boarding. So, late on Saturday morning, Nina went into the office, straight from a glaring May sunshine into the waiting glare of Sandy.

“I can run this place alone,” she said, “but your other fifty-nine clients might not be so sure.”

“Sandy, I’m really sorry. But you know I’ve got trial, and Bob’s been sick…”

“Yeah. He called here while you were at court yesterday.”

“Was he okay?”

“Sounded low.”

“What did he say?”

“Not much. So, I told him about the shaman near Woodfords in my mother’s time. A healer. He used to smoke first, a plant that would help him see what was wrong. Then he had two methods for healing. He would sing. Sometimes that worked.”

“And then?” asked Nina, intrigued. Sandy must get lonely here all day…

“He sucked the sick person’s flesh to get rid of the ’Pain.’ “

“What did Bob think about that?”

“Said maybe he’d try listening to the radio first.” Sandy looked so serious, Nina squelched any desire to giggle.

Genevieve threw open the door to the office. “Hi, Sandy, Nina. Man, it’s been one helluva month, hasn’t it?” Her arms spilling files, she breezed her way through to the conference room. “Vanilla bean coffee! Sandy, you’re the best!”

Sandy and Nina watched as she whirled from here to there, bringing them both fresh cups and watering Sandy’s plants as she passed.

“You would never know she’s got that hearing problem,” said Sandy as the door closed behind her. “Isn’t it great to see a disabled person doing so well?”

Nina, still breathing in the clean air and optimism Genevieve always seemed to carry with her, agreed, wishing she felt half as optimistic. Where would she find the money to get her through this trial? What could she do about her clients?

“You know what I wish?” she asked. “I wish Bob and I could go somewhere right now, tonight, and sleep late every morning and get brown and spend the entire day in the water.”

“If you’re going to wish,” Sandy said, “wish for something useful. Wish for a million bucks, why don’t you?”

Winston showed up later bearing cold, roasted chicken and salad, which they ate while they talked.

For a few minutes, they indulged themselves in a discussion of all the places at Tahoe they hadn’t been and couldn’t wait to go to once they were out of the incarceration they imposed on themselves during any trial. Since they couldn’t actually do anything fun, they had fun imagining themselves having fun. Sandy sat with them through the first part of this discussion, then left to tap away on her computer.

Nina led off with her latest plan: to take Bob and Matt’s family to a picnic on Fannette Island. That intrigued Winston, who loved to kayak. He decided that would be his first stop, once they finished the trial. Then he wanted to spend at least a long weekend hiking. Then two days lying on the beach. Then he might take a swim up at the Squaw Valley pool and hike all the way back down the mountain from there.

Genevieve said she hadn’t spent enough time alone with a slot machine lately to claim more than a passing acquaintanceship. The trial was cutting into her gambling time.

“Okay, you’re waiting to hear from me,” she said once they had finished eating, with that charming confidence that a snide person might mistake for arrogance.

“We are?” said Winston, but he was joking.

“Analysis of how we’re doing in one word: fanfuckingtastic.”

“Is that like those bumper stickers people used to put on VW’s, ’fukengruven’?” asked Winston. “Because not too many of those old Bugs were in any shape to brag, you know.”

“I don’t think we have too much to brag about yet, either,” Nina said.

“Well, that’s fine. We don’t want you two getting smug.” Genevieve picked up a yellow sheet and read, then set it down. “So let’s start with the bad stuff. The Gilbert Schaefer thing hurt. Some of the jurors stopped listening to Lindy. Most of them frowned at some point during that testimony. I think we’re losing Kris Schmidt, and probably Ignacio Ybarra.”