Perri O’Shaughnessy - Breach Of Promise

“Never mind,” said Nina hastily, scurrying into the building, unwilling to set off any further chains of events. She didn’t get far. The hallway was in shambles. Boxes of files and trash bags narrowed the aisle to allow only one person to pass at a time.

“Incredible how much accumulates during the course of a trial,” she said to Sandy as she entered the reception area.

“Some of the files we need to keep here, others can be stored in our storage area.”

“What storage area?”

“The one we just rented,” said Sandy. “You’re starting to pile up dead files. Until we rent more space, we need to be able to move around.”

“Sandy…”

“What?”

“Is… I mean. You seem…”

“What.”

“Kind of down.”

Sandy lifted her shoulders and began typing from a yellow legal pad.

Nina found Winston squatting on the floor in his sweats, in front of a tower of files in his office. “I think I’ve got this thing licked,” he said. “This pile here is stuff I take. This one,” he patted a stack, “is to stow somewhere. This is garbage. Where are the trash bags?”

“Sorry, I have no idea,” said Nina.

“Wish!” he hollered.

Genevieve, who had already packed, stood with her arms crossed, leaning against the wall watching him. “Winston, at this rate you’re never going to finish. Didn’t you have some kind of appointment this afternoon?”

“Trial over. Good-bye and good riddance?” he said.

“Of course not,” Genevieve said. “Just don’t drag it out. Packing’s a real pain, but I know how you feel. It’s like when you’re going to catch a plane. You fear you’re gonna end up at the counter without your passport.”

“There’s nothing really pressing. I just have better things to do than pile old papers,” Winston said.

“Just remember, Sandy will send anything along that you forget,” Genevieve said.

“I don’t like this,” said Nina.

“You don’t like what?” Winston asked.

“Everyone leaving,” Nina said. “This.” She waved her arms at the mess. “I got used to having company for lunch. I got used to you knowing better than me the things I knew perfectly well before you two came.”

“You’re a sociable critter, Nina,” Genevieve said. “You just don’t pander to that side of yourself enough. Now, Winston,” she said. “Move over and let me help you toss files haphazardly into that box. I can do that as well as you can.” Sidling over, she nudged him with her hip, but Nina thought Genevieve looked as upset as Nina felt.

Back in her own office, Nina closed the door and sat with her back to the window, thinking about how quiet it would be and wondering if she liked that. Rather than decide, she picked up her phone messages and began to return calls.

The morning passed quickly. By eleven, the yellow truck was on its way to return the furniture. Winston and Genevieve had relocated to the conference room next to Nina’s office, where there were still chairs. Sandy had ordered sushi and salad for an early lunch.

Winston ate quickly. “You know that island you told me about?” he asked Nina, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

It took her a minute to recall what he must mean. “The tiny one in Emerald Bay? Fannette?”

“That’s the one. Any idea where I could rent a kayak to get there?”

“Well, sure. Richardson’s Resort. Head west on the highway. Turn right at the ’Y.’ It’s just a couple miles up on your right. They have a marina and dock. Call first to make sure you can get one, though. It’s still early in the season.”

He called, and they listened while he arranged to rent one for the afternoon.

“That sounds like fun!” said Genevieve. “I’ve always wanted to learn to kayak.”

“I’m doing this for some upper-body exercise. I need to go fast. Maybe I can take you out another time,” Winston said.

Genevieve’s mouth turned down. “Okay.”

“Are you going to hike to the teahouse?” Nina asked.

“Maybe,” he said. “I’ll check it out and decide when I get there.”

Everyone helped clear away the trash. In deference to Sandy’s forbidding nature, Winston shook her hand. She thanked him again for the rabbit-skin blanket. Nina and Genevieve also came in for a final handshake. There seemed nothing left to say.

“I’ll be in touch, Nina,” Winston said, pulling away.

“You better be,” she said.

He saw her mood and gave her arm a squeeze. “Hey, we’ll do another trial again sometime. I feel it. Meanwhile, stay out of trouble. I mean it!” he said when they laughed at the thought. “Don’t you ladies do anything I wouldn’t do,” he said as he went out the door.

“Winston that’s just not a possibility,” Genevieve called after him. “I can’t think of a thing he wouldn’t do,” she said to Nina with a mischievous smile.

Susan Lim lived in a large, two-story home in Montgomery Estates. Paul always felt this particular development had a slight unreality to it, like a Twilight Zone of complete suburban normality on the cusp of the wild kingdom. Its landscaped yards fended off the wilderness, and the forest skulked just beyond its borders, threatening to engulf it again if the mowers ever stopped.

She answered the door. He introduced himself, giving the usual explanation for his questions, and she agreed to give him five minutes. She liked to be into work by ten in the morning, when the realty office opened, and was already running late.

They sat in two chairs on the porch at the front of the house. The lawn and flowers reflected the touch of a precise, artistic hand.

“First, I’d love your impressions of the mood of this jury as a whole, how they reacted to the testimony,” he said, notepad in hand.

A plain-featured woman with a helmet of shining dark hair, Mrs. Lim wore a hint of pink lipstick that matched her jacket and brightened her face. Sighing, she shook her head. “I found the process really grueling, since you ask. It seems like such a simple thing, to ask people to listen to some information, synthesize it, and decide the facts and evidence support one side or the other. Instead, what we had in the jury room was more of a free-for-all.”

“In what sense?”

“Everybody’s got an agenda,” she said. “I’m sure you know that. Usually, it’s not so obvious. We got in there and reason just flew out the window. Not that there was a window. That might have helped.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, what was your position?”

“I favored Lindy Markov. From the beginning, I thought it was obvious they had some arrangements they didn’t have in writing. They must have informally agreed to share things. She was too bright not to have at the very least squeezed some promises out of him. And people agreed with me, at least at first.”

“I understand on the first vote of the original jury, eight people supported her.”

“That’s right. Then Cliff brought out his presents and threats…”

“Threats?”

“Oh, yes. I believe he threatened Sonny Ball with prison. He’d found some evidence of drugs in the bathroom at one point. I believe he seduced Kris Schmidt. I suspect they slept together after that first day,” she said, clearly disgusted.

“Maribel craved attention, and he gave it to her. Ignacio, well that was a shame. He’s a good person with good instincts, but not someone who is used to argument on the level Cliff inhabited. Cliff dumped him in a maze and walked circles around him, all the time posing as the logician.

“Grace just needed some sympathy and he came along, the Good Samaritan giving her what she needed.”

“So Frank, Bob, and Kevin already favored Mike,” Paul said.

“Yes. They didn’t allow anything as messy as logic to sway them. They had picked a position and stuck with it, by God,” she said, with a tinge of sarcasm. “All Cliff had to do was ensure they knew how welcome they were in the anti-Lindy club with him.”