Around the table sat Scott, an empty chair beside him to which Kate returned, and on the other side of the room were three attorneys from litigation who had previously worked in the criminal department. All of them were male, all wore expensive suits that looked too tight and ties that were way too thin. They had given their names to Kate as Chad, Brad and Anderson. They didn’t offer to shake hands, but one of them, Brad, hit Scott with a fist bump. She didn’t know if Anderson was a first name or last name. It didn’t matter. Brad, Chad and Anderson looked as though they shared the same bleached-blond personality. Jocks with rich parents and trust funds.
Kate returned to the stack of papers in front of her – a potted history of the Avellino family with more details on Alexandra and Sofia. The more Kate read, the more she was convinced that Alexandra was the functioning, organized sibling who had her shit together and her life on track from a young age. While Sofia was a disaster with bouts of drug addition, rehab stints, counseling and more than one intervention regarding her destructive behavior. It made Kate feel good to know that she was obviously representing the innocent sister, but with that knowledge came weight.
The burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt lay with the prosecution, but the burden of having an innocent client on trial for murder was a much heavier one.
Innocence weighs a ton.
‘Let’s blue-sky this case. Enough reading, already. We’ve got forty-one days and counting to lodge our motions with the court. We need discovery, motions for dismissal, and a severance motion. What’ve you got, dogs?’ said one of the blond suits. With her focus on the case, Kate had forgotten which of them was which. She thought that might have been Anderson.
Scott said, ‘Anderson, don’t use that language here. We’re not all dogs, there’s a lady present.’
She was right, it was Anderson who had taken charge of the group and was asking for ideas. Anderson fixed Scott with an expression that said – really?
‘Alright, alright,’ said Anderson, ‘dogs and bitch. Is that better?’
One of the suits high-fived Anderson, the other was laughing so hard he was doubled-over on his chair. Kate glanced to her side, saw Scott trying to hold in a laugh, and failing.
Kate felt the blood flooding the skin around the base of her neck like a heat rash. Her skin was prickly, and alive.
Anderson must’ve seen her reaction because he put both hands out in front of him, palms up, like he was trying to stop a speeding car coming toward him, ‘Woah, I’m really sorry. I don’t mean any kind of offence. It’s just our sense of humor – absolutely nothing to do with you, personally.’
Chad, Brad and Scott calmed down and all of them apologized, with smiles on their faces – none with a single drop of sincerity. They apologized because they had to.
‘He’s really sorry,’ said Scott.
‘I am, too. So is Brad,’ said the one who must’ve been Chad.
‘Me too,’ said Anderson fighting down another bout of laughter. Brad, who looked to be a little quicker on the uptake than Chad, bit his finger in an effort to quell his mirth.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. I meant I’m sorry too. Not hashtag Me Too,’ said Anderson, rolling his eyes and making air quotes when he said me too.
‘Can we move on?’ said Kate.
The men straightened up, now a little worried that they had offended Kate. She’d had enough of this shit. She just wanted out of the room so she could go somewhere and calm down before she said something she would come to regret. Brad, Chad and Anderson had seniority at this table, and she had kept that firmly in mind while she bit down hard in case a flurry of expletives should escape.
‘By all means, you’re right. Let’s move on. Sorry, what’s your name again?’ said Anderson.
‘Kate.’
‘Sorry, Kate. Please, let’s have your thoughts,’ said Anderson.
There was a five-hundred-pound pause in the room. Thick and deep enough to drown a man.
‘I’ve been reading a lot about the family. It’s a little messed up, maybe no more than other families, but whatever went on in that house hit Sofia the worst. She’s a wreck. Serious mental health problems, a history of suicide attempts, drug and alcohol addiction and an ongoing problem with self-harming. The prosecution will have an easier time convincing a jury that Sofia could flip out and murder her father.’
Taking a second, Kate looked around the table.
The sniggers and snide half-smiles had gone. Scott and the blond suits were listening – seriously listening. What Kate was about to say sounded crazy, but she believed it could work. She just needed to believe in herself enough to say it.
Scott said, ‘After we sever the trials, we can’t dictate which trial the DA will take first. Maybe they’ll take Sofia’s case first and if she’s convicted, well that might be enough for Dreyer to have one scalp – maybe he won’t risk going after Alexandra. But there’s no way to make that happen. We can’t dictate which trial goes first after our motion to sever the trials is granted.’
Brad, Chad and Anderson nodded approvingly at Scott, then began looking at their own notes.
‘You don’t understand. I’m proposing we don’t sever the trials,’ said Kate.
Scott looked as though he’d been struck. His head rocked back on his shoulders, he frowned and wrinkles appeared on his forehead.
‘What do you mean, we don’t separate the trials? If the defendants are accusing one another we have to try – they’ll just destroy their own credibility by pointing the finger at each other. And what if Alexandra decides not to testify and Sofia testifies against Alexandra – we’d be screwed,’ said Scott.
‘It could only work if Alexandra testified,’ said Kate. ‘Look at it this way. In a separate trial, we have to beat the evidence from the DA. In a joint trial we only have to beat Sofia – a mentally unstable drug addict with a history of violence. Alexandra is a professional young woman, with a clear record, who is totally convincing when she says she had nothing to do with the murder. She’s a dream witness. Articulate, credible, sincere.’
‘It’s risky as all hell,’ said Anderson.
‘You know the old joke about the wildlife photographers who startle a lion on the African plain? The photographer closest to the lion changes out of his boots into a pair of Adidas running shoes. The other photographer says, You won’t outrun a lion in those shoes. And the first photographer says, Fuck the lion. I just have to outrun YOU.’
The meeting lasted another hour. Legal theories and strategies fired back and forth across the table. Now they would each go away and prepare notes. Not only would they present their strategies to Levy, but they were expected to critique each other’s strategies for any possible weaknesses. It was all riding on the paper that Kate would now write. The meeting with Levy tomorrow morning was her shot at second chair in the trial.
Kate ate dinner alone at her desk and typed furiously on her laptop, building her theory of proceeding with a joint trial. Every now and again she flipped between the memo she was writing for Levy, and the dossier their investigators had prepared on Alexandra.
If Kate could have Alexandra’s lifestyle, she would take it in a heartbeat. Until the arrest, Alexandra had been a tall, blonde, rich socialite on the Manhattan scene. Parties, limos, dinners, and dresses that Kate could only dream of buying. Her real-estate business ran itself – she listed properties for the uber-rich. And the uber-rich bought them, sometimes without even so much as a viewing. A long list of celebrity boyfriends had been photographed in the gossip and social life pages of magazines – basketball players, actors, the sons of actors, TV hosts, and even shock-jock podcasters. And she was smart, too. Alexandra had it all. A great life and great clothes. Oh my god, the clothes, thought Kate.