With Bloch beside her silently lugging the box of prosecution disclosure, she hung onto that thought as the pair of them walked silently out of the courtroom and along the corridor, and into the elevator to the ground floor. When she stepped outside into the cold sunshine on Center Street, that niggling thought had grown into a major concern.
What if her client was lying? What if Alexandra murdered Frank Avellino? Kate’s strategy could send an innocent woman to prison for life.
Kate stopped, shook her head. It was as if she wanted to shake that thought loose and make it fall out of her ear onto the sidewalk.
‘Kate Brooks,’ said a voice. She looked up. A man in a tan coat and black wool cap approached. He had a kind face, and questioning eyes. He was just suddenly there, in front of her.
‘Kate Brooks?’ he said again.
This must be a reporter, thought Kate. Someone looking for an early story on the case. Reporters didn’t tend to show up at the hearings until they were likely to catch a quote along with a snap of the defendant looking pained and paralyzed with fear.
‘Yeah, I’m Kate,’ she said.
The man opened his tanned coat, drew out a letter-sized envelope and thrust it at Kate. Confused and somewhat startled, the moment she took it from him he said, ‘You’ve been served,’ and then walked away. Kate ripped open the envelope.
Kate’s cheeks flushed. She swallowed. She was now being sued.
For two million dollars.
Bloch took the papers from her and glanced through them.
‘It was bound to happen sooner or later,’ said Bloch.
Since Kate took the case away from her firm she’d been through various skirmishes with Levy, Bernard and Groff. First there were the polite calls to Alexandra who proved as good as her word, refusing every one of Levy’s calls and pleas to attend meetings. After a while, the phone calls to Alexandra stopped as the firm switched tactics. The first letter arrived in a brown envelope with all kinds of red stamps upon it bearing grave warnings to the recipient that if they didn’t open the damn thing immediately it was likely to burn their house down.
The letter said that Kate was in violation of the non-compete, non-solicitation clause in her contract as she had poached the firm’s biggest client. Second, she was also in breach of her confidentiality clause as she had used information held by the firm in order to solicit the client. In other words, she had checked the client database and found Alexandra’s address in order to visit her. The last paragraph said that if she resigned as counsel for Alexandra, all would be forgiven. She had seven days to decide.
Seven days later another letter arrived. This one repeated the allegations in the first letter but this time it said that the firm was going to sue her for breach of contract, loss of revenue and damages.
Kate knew the game. She sent a simple reply stating that considering she had been forced to leave her job because of constant sexual harassment and discrimination, she didn’t feel bound by any of her contractual terms. If the firm was going to ignore its anti-harassment policy, she was going to ignore the covenants that restricted her practice since it was the firm’s fault she had to leave.
That stopped the letters. No more came after that.
She imagined the rest of the equity partners conducted a thorough in-house investigation and decided it wasn’t worth it.
‘I thought they were going to let it go,’ said Kate.
‘Nah,’ said Bloch, ‘not without a fight.’
It was going to turn into a fight, that was for sure. Kate knew then she would have to countersue, citing Levy’s lecherous approaches, and while everything she would put in that suit would be true – there was no way of proving it.
Bloch put the box of discovery down on the sidewalk, took out her keys and blipped open her truck. Kate sat down on top of the box, cupped her face in her hands and tried to steady herself.
‘Come on,’ said Bloch. ‘We can deal with that later. Right now we’ve got a murder case to win. I’ve got a feeling all the answers are under your ass.’
Kate smiled, stood.
Together they lifted the box into the trunk, closed the lid. Kate got into the passenger seat, Bloch the driver’s seat. Kate buckled her seat belt, then noticed her hands were shaking. She gripped her knees and told herself everything was going to be alright. She didn’t believe a word of it.
The engine roared into life as Bloch pulled into traffic. Fifty yards ahead a stop light turned from green to yellow. Kate heard a motorcycle beside her. She turned and saw the rider wearing a black helmet, with a tinted visor. The rider stared straight at Kate. She could tell by the tight biker suit it was a woman. Suddenly, the motorcycle roared and took off, accelerating rapidly, the engine like a turbine in her ear. The motorcyclist, all in black, tore through the intersection on the yellow light, making the other side just before the red and then weaving through the traffic.
Bloch brought the truck to a stop for the light and said, ‘Nice bike.’
The rest of that day, and into the night, Kate and Bloch worked through the discovery in Kate’s apartment. They ordered in food, Kate kept the coffee coming and at two a.m., Bloch put down the last sheaf of paper and rubbed at her temples.
‘You finished?’ asked Kate.
‘I think both girls are finished,’ said Bloch.
The prosecution case rested on forensic evidence.
DNA from both defendants on the victim’s body.
Fingerprint and DNA evidence from both defendants on the murder weapon.
Hair fiber from Sofia Avellino on the victim’s body.
Bite marks from Alexandra on the victim’s body.
Both defendants had motive. Both had opportunity.
Both had a lot of the defendant’s blood on their clothes.
‘It’s hard to split the responsibility. It’ll come down to who the jury believe,’ said Kate.
Pointing at the stack of forensic reports, Bloch said, ‘That kind of evidence will put both of them away.’
The two-seater couch had a bow in the middle, where the central beam had broken. The rest of it wasn’t too comfortable either, but Kate sat down in the middle of the couch because she knew from experience she’d slide to the middle anyway, no matter where she chose to sit on it. She put her elbows on her knees and curled her hair around her finger – staring into space.
‘Let’s see what she says in the morning,’ said Kate. She saw Bloch to the door, then slept in her clothes until five a.m., when the cold got too much for her. Getting up, she brought her blankets to the radiator, and slept again, curled up on the floor.
By eleven that morning, Kate was showered and dressed in a new suit to meet Alexandra at her apartment. Her client let her in and offered her a seat at the small dining table.
‘I love your suit. Is it new?’ asked Alexandra.
‘It is. Thank you.’
They sat together at the table, sipping hot herbal tea and making small talk before Kate got down to business. She explained the forensic evidence to Alexandra. How damning it looked. The only upside, maybe, was that it was damning to both sisters.
‘There might be a way to minimize it,’ said Kate. ‘I want to stipulate we don’t challenge the DNA, blood and fingerprint evidence. You told the police you went to your father and grabbed hold of him. You also used the knife before, when you were cooking. None of that evidence means you killed your father, just that it could have been you. I think if the jury has to sit and hear all this evidence from the experts, the sheer weight of it will make them think you had to have killed him along with your sister. This is about minimizing the case against you. Best way to deal with it is to say that it fits with your story.’