Chapter 17
“Morning, Abbie,” McCoy said as
She walked past without acknowledging, a
frown of concentration on her face.
“Abbie?”
Looking over her shoulder, she answered
distractedly, “Oh. Hi. I didn’t see you.”
McCoy joined her as they continued down the
hallway. “Something wrong? You seem a little preoccupied.”
“Anything I can help with?” McCoy asked,
settling into the overstuffed chair across from her desk.
After hanging her coat, she sat down and
sighed. “I’m almost finished presenting my witnesses and I don’t feel I’ve done
enough to establish that Sara Grayson planned her husband’s death rather than
acting on the spur of the moment with self-defense in mind. I still have the
lawyer who drew up the guardianship agreement to put on, but I don’t think it’s
going to be enough. I need a strong finish that’s going to stick in the jurors’
minds even after Calea puts on her version of the facts.”
“Juries do sometimes have short attention
spans. By the time the defense finishes putting on their case, they’ve
forgotten a lot of what the prosecution had to say,” he noted. “Do you have
anything in mind?”
“I thought you said Calea and the mother
wouldn’t allow you to speak with the children.”
“I didn’t ask Calea or the mother. I asked
and received permission from the person who now has legal custody of the
children, thanks to the guardianship papers Sara Grayson signed,”
McCoy’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “Don’t
you think that’s kind of risky? If the mother really was being abused, the girl
could get up there and convince the jury that her father got what he deserved.”
“I know kids don’t make reliable witnesses
and I know they tend to cover for their parents. But I spent some time talking
with her and what she had to say would help my case. I think I can get what I
want out of her.”
“What you get out of her isn’t what should be
concerning you,” McCoy reminded her. “On cross, Calea may drag all sorts of
horror stories from the daughter. It’s what she gets the girl to say that you
should be worried about.”
Shaking her head,
Thinking back on what he had learned that
weekend, McCoy wondered if
“I know Calea. She told me once that she had to
testify in a suit brought against her parents and doesn’t think any child
should be put in that situation. She won’t ask Alissa any questions about her
father.”
McCoy knew she was probably right. But
knowing the background behind Morgan’s decision made what
“And maybe the reason they don’t want to put
any of the children on the stand is because the children have nothing to say
that the defense can use,”
McCoy grew thoughtful. “Given everything
you’ve seen and heard to this point, do you think Sara Grayson was abused?”
Standing up, McCoy said, “You’re taking a big
risk putting the girl on, Abbie. I hope it doesn’t blow up in your face.”
Grabbing her briefcase,
Turning around at the door, McCoy said
indignantly, “I’m not questioning your abilities, only your judgement. You know
why Calea feels so strongly about children taking the stand against their
parents. You’re using something you know about her personal life against her
and I don’t think that’s right.”
“Aren’t you the one who told me to use what I
know of my opponent to my advantage?” she asked defensively.
He shook his head. “This is different. You’re
forcing her in between a rock and a hard place with this witness, based on
information she shared with you in confidence. At least, I’m sure she thought
it was in confidence.”
“Would you rather I lose the case? I thought
winning was the object of the game,”
McCoy regarded her for a moment, then said
quietly, “Take it from someone who’s been there, sometimes the stakes are too
high. You stand to lose a lot more than a case here.”
Reading the conflict in her eyes, McCoy
nodded slowly. “I hope things work out.” As
“I left the notice to add Alissa to my
witness list with security at Calea’s office yesterday. She usually stops by
there before court every morning. I thought I’d wait for it to hit the fan down
at the court building; makes it easier for her to find me.”
McCoy gave her a half smile. “Better take an
umbrella. You’re going to need it.”
***Morgan’s
quick footsteps rang out in the almost empty courtroom. Dropping her briefcase
with a thud onto the table opposite where
“What about the words ‘off limits’ do you not
understand? I made it clear to you that my client would not give her permission
for you to speak with her children.”
“Sara didn’t sign over her rights as parent.
The agreement between her and Sandy was a temporary one. It deals specifically
with the care of her children in the event of her death or incapacitation. She
is still the children’s mother and as such, has the right to decide what’s in
their best interest.”
“Sara is in jail,”
“You flexed your prosecutorial muscle and
coerced
“I didn’t coerce anyone,”
“Save that speech for a stranger, Abbie. I
know you better than that.” She turned to snatch a paper from her briefcase.
Tossing it onto the polished table in front of
***Judge
Yee sat behind her desk, studying the document in her hand. “The agreement does
specify that it is valid only on a temporary basis, until more permanent
arrangements could be made with Mrs. Grayson’s family, in the event of her
death or permanent incapacitation.” She laid the paper on her desk and removed
her glasses. “But I have to agree with Ms. Carmichael. At this time, Mrs.
Grayson is essentially incapacitated where her children are concerned. She
isn’t capable of caring out her duties as parent from prison. As far as I can
see, Mrs. Hamilton does in fact have legal guardianship of the children, as per
the contract. Her permission to question the minor was all Ms. Carmichael
needed.”
“Your Honor, the wishes of the girl’s mother
have to take precedence here,” Morgan argued. “Mrs. Grayson is extremely
concerned about the effect that testifying will have on the emotional
well-being of her child.”
“I’m sorry, but your client is the one who
made the custody arrangements. I’m simply enforcing the agreement she put into
place. I’m ruling Alissa Grayson’s statements admissible and allowing the
prosecution to call her as a witness.”
Morgan handed a document across Yee’s desk.
“I only received this notice to add Alissa Grayson to the prosecution’s witness
list this morning. It will take time to review the statements she made. I
request a continuance.”
“The statements are fairly simple, Ms.
Morgan. You have the rest of the day,” the judge granted. “We’ll resume at 9:00
tomorrow morning.”
The two attorneys exited Judge Yee’s chambers
together. Carmichael stepped out into the hallway ahead of Morgan and waited
until the door was closed before saying lightly, “I don’t suppose you’ll want
to meet and go for a run tonight.”
Morgan glared at her angrily, then turned on
her heel without a word.
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” Carmichael said
to herself as she turned in the opposite direction.
***McCoy
knocked softly on the frame of Morgan’s open office door. “Anybody home?”
Morgan visibly jumped and spun around from
where she had been standing in front of the window. “Jack! You nearly scared me
to death!”
“I’m sorry. I was sure you had heard me come
in.”
Recovering her composure somewhat, Morgan
returned to her chair. “Well, I didn’t. How did you get in here, anyway? I
thought the front door was locked.”
He casually walked toward her desk, hands in
the pockets of his jeans. “I caught Melissa downstairs as she was leaving. She
let me in.” Taking note of her dejected look, he sat down across from her desk.
“Rough day?”
Morgan shrugged. “I’ve had worse, but it
could have been better. What brings you here?”
“I stopped by to see if I could talk you into
having dinner with me tonight.”
She shook her head. “I would be pretty poor
company. I was planning to finish up with a couple of things and head home to a
hot bath. Maybe some other time.”
“Are you sure? Can’t I tempt you with some
pasta or something?”
“I don’t feel very sociable tonight. Can I
take a raincheck?”
He smiled and nodded. “That could be
arranged. But since you turned me down, I need a ride home. The cab I took over
here is long gone and it will take forever to get another. Do you mind dropping
me at my place?”
“Not at all. I just need to gather some notes
for tomorrow.” As she began to clear her desk, she asked, “How did your day
go?”
“It went well. We started on the
circumstantial part of our evidence today and the defense wasn’t able to shoot
any major holes in it. So far, so good.”
His dark eyes followed Morgan as she got up
to return a file to a cabinet behind her desk and pack the last notes into her
briefcase.
“I think I’m ready,” she informed him.
McCoy followed her down the hallway and out
of the offices, holding her briefcase as she locked the door.
On the way down the stairs he asked, “Did
Drew and Grace get to the airport all right yesterday?”
“Yes, they did. They both said to tell you
what a great time they had the other night. And Grace said she had an
especially good time Friday.”
With a grin, he said, “I like Grace. She’s
all right. Did you know she carries a gun?”
She nodded. “I’m the one who helped her get
the permit and I don’t think Drew has ever completely forgiven me for doing so.
He was really against it. But she took a gun safety course and I had her speak
with a couple of cops I know. It wasn’t a hasty decision and she’s handled the
whole thing responsibly.”
“Well, I for one wouldn’t want to be on her
bad side,” he acknowledged.
When they reached her car, Morgan handed
McCoy the keys, allowing him to drive. On the way to his apartment, she was
quiet and he found himself doing most of the talking.
Once they reached his place, instead of
pulling to the front, he parked around the corner in the tenant’s parking area.
After turning off the ignition, he kept the keys in his hand. “I have a
confession to make: Asking you to bring me home was only a ploy to get you
here. Before I came to your office, I stopped and picked up some dinner for the
two of us. It’s waiting inside. Since I don’t care for vegetable ravioli, if
you don’t come in and eat it, it will go to waste. After all the trouble I went
to, you wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?”
Morgan let out an exasperated sigh. “What
happened to taking a raincheck? I’ve had a rotten day and I’m in a lousy mood.
I need to go home.”
“I’m not asking you to entertain me, just to
come in and have dinner.”
“Jack…”
“I asked around. This is supposed to be one
of the best Italian dishes in Manhattan,” he interrupted. “Come on. You know
you’ll feel better once you’ve had something to eat.”
Reaching up to rub the back of her neck, she
sighed again. “Okay, okay, you win. But don’t be upset if I eat and run. It’s
been a really long day.”
He smiled. “I promise not to keep you too
late.”
McCoy led the way into the building and then
his apartment. He was glad he had spent time cleaning over the weekend; it
hadn’t had time to get too messy.
“Why don’t you take off your coat and make
yourself comfortable,” he suggested once they were inside. “We can either sit
at the bar or on the floor at the coffee table. Your choice.”
Leaving her shoes by the door and her coat on
a chair, she followed him to the kitchen. “The floor is okay with me, if it’s
all right with you.”
“The floor it is,” he agreed, hanging his
jacket on the back of a barstool. “I’ll let you take the food to the living
room while I get us something to drink.”
When they were settled across from each other
with McCoy sitting between the table and the sofa, Morgan said, “Your source
was right. The ravioli is excellent. And thanks for picking it up. To be
honest, I really didn’t feel like going home and scrounging. I didn’t have time
to shop or cook over the weekend and my cupboard is bare.”
“I knew you hadn’t had the best day, so I
thought you could use a break.”
“And how do you know about the kind of day
I’ve had?” she asked curiously.
He shrugged. “I spoke with Abbie after court.
I know what she’s planning to do tomorrow and I know you can’t be too happy
about it.”
“Now there’s an understatement.” Morgan
picked at her food absently, staring at her plate. “I spent the day trying to
decide what I should do: sacrifice the daughter by asking her to tell the world
what a low-life her dad was in order to save her mother, or refuse to use her
to back up what her mother is going to say when she takes the stand. And more
than anything else, I resent being put in the position of having to choose.”
“I thought you might be having a tough time
with this,” McCoy noted.
She shook her head. “I feel as though Abbie
is using something against me that she only knows as a result of our
friendship. I haven’t told her how it came about, but I did tell her I had to
testify against my father when I was a kid. She knows how I feel about putting
children on the stand. It’s as if she’s testing me, intentionally backing me
into a corner. In the statements she sent over, she never once asked Alissa
about the abuse. I thought she would have done so for her own peace of mind, if
for no other reason. I told her from the start that Alissa admitted the abuse
to me. Abbie has to know I can find a way to bring it up when Alissa is on the
stand. I can’t figure out what she’s thinking.”
Since he was beginning to feel a pinch of
conflict in presenting a united front, he sidestepped the issue by asking,
“What does your client want you to do?”
“She’s torn. She doesn’t want her daughter
anywhere near the trial, but she realizes that Alissa could really be
instrumental in getting her out of all of this and back to her family. Alissa
is terrified, but says she’s willing to answer whatever I ask. So Sara is
leaving the decision to me; she says she trusts I’ll do what’s right.” Morgan
huffed out a breath. “As if I know.”
McCoy watched her play with her food for a
moment and then suggested kindly, “Maybe you’re making this harder than it has
to be by allowing your past to cloud your judgment. If you were to look at the
situation a little more objectively, it might make your decision easier.”
“So it’s objectivity that I’m lacking when I
have a problem with publicly humiliating a fifteen year old girl,” she reasoned
with a hint of sarcasm.
He leaned toward her. “What happened to not
taking what happens in the courtroom personally?”
“I’ve never made that claim,” she reminded
him with a slight smile. “You’re the one who made a statement to that effect,
remember? I take some things very personally and I don’t mind admitting it. I’m
also well aware that my past is influencing my view of this situation, but
there isn’t much I can do about that.”
“You have to find a way to set aside what you
feel and look at things more dispassionately.”
“Like you do?” she suggested pointedly.
“I’ll agree that there are cases that affect
me, but for the most part I don’t allow myself to take my job or things that
happen in the courtroom personally,” he insisted.
Morgan looked at him skeptically. “I seem to
remember hearing some stories that would seriously contradict that claim.
Whether you choose to admit it or not, you take things personally, too, and
your past experiences have a lot to do with the decisions you make every day.
We are all products of our individual histories; it’s what shapes us into the
people that we are and how we view the world. And since all of our decisions
are affected by personal experiences, complete objectivity is just not
possible.”
“I don’t agree with you. Judges make
objective decisions all the time. So do juries. Objectivity is possible, you
just have to work at keeping personal feelings and experiences in their place,”
McCoy explained.
She rolled her eyes. “Right. How many times
have you been shot down by a judge with a personal agenda, or had a jury be
swayed by emotion rather than the facts presented? We can’t separate who we are
from how we perceive the world around us. The most we can hope for is a certain
degree of impartiality.”
Deciding that it was something not worth
arguing over, McCoy chose to change the subject. “Speaking of decisions, have
you considered the precedent it will set if you get your client off? How are we
supposed to handle the next case where a woman kills her unsuspecting husband,
then uses abuse, or mental duress, or PMS as an excuse?”
“You will handle it the way you always have,”
she answered matter-of-factly, “on a case by case basis, carefully weighing the
facts and making an unbiased decision.”
McCoy’s eyebrows shot up. “Did I hear a
compliment in there somewhere? You make me sound as wise as Solomon himself.”
“I was making a general statement. You
shouldn’t take things so personally,” she quipped.
He chuckled, then grew quiet. After a moment
he asked, “Do you honestly think Sara Grayson was justified in killing her
husband?”
“I don’t know,” Morgan admitted. “Everyone
has their breaking point and she did put up with him for a long time. I do
think that everything she and her children have had to endure is punishment
enough, though. In no way is she a threat to society; putting her in prison on
top of all that she’s been through is just wrong.”
“Maybe, but my mother put up with my father
for a lot longer and she didn’t resort to killing him. And you didn’t kill
Frank,” he reminded her. “I find it hard to justify your client bypassing the
system and meting out justice the way she saw fit.”
“There were plenty of times when I felt the
only way out of my situation was death,” Morgan admitted quietly, “either mine
or his. Your mother and I may not have killed our husbands, but I can guarantee
you that we both felt a sense of relief when we realized they could no longer
hurt us.”
McCoy sadly nodded his agreement. “I don’t
think my mother truly felt that until after my father died.”
“For me, I think that moment came when you
told me Frank was going to go to prison,” she acknowledged. “I only hope I can
earn my client an acquittal so she can come to the same realization about her
husband. Right now, she’s still very much feeling the effects of Mitchell
Grayson’s abuse.”
“So what are you going to do about the
daughter?”
With a long sigh, Morgan pushed her plate
aside. “I’m going to toss and turn all night, change my mind at least half a
dozen times, then play it by ear tomorrow. I probably won’t make a final
decision until after Abbie has questioned Alissa and I see how she does on the
stand.”
“Sounds like the way I work things out
sometimes.” Leaning back against the couch and stretching his arms out on the
cushions, he added, “I hope you won’t allow all of this to affect your
off-the-clock relationship with Abbie. The two of you are good friends; I’d
hate to see that change due to a little courtroom spat.”
“We’re not six year olds fighting over whose
Barbie has the better clothes, Jack. I told her Sara’s kids were in no shape to
testify, but she chose to go ahead anyway, without any regard for their
welfare. I think what she’s doing is unconscionable,” Morgan stated resolutely.
Then with a shrug, she added, “But I’ll get over it, eventually.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I know how women can
hold grudges.”
Shaking her head, Morgan said, “There you go
with your preconceived misconceptions about women again. When are you going to
learn that some of us are different?”
“Oh, you’re all different,” he agreed. “That’s
what keeps us men guessing and reaching for the hard liquor.” He felt the same
sense of pleasure at her quiet laugh as he had before. “You didn’t eat much. Do
you want me to wrap it up for you to take home?”
“Yes, I’ll definitely take it with me. It’s
too good to leave behind with someone who doesn’t like veggie ravioli.” As she
picked up her plate and glass, he did likewise, following her to the kitchen.
When the food was wrapped and the dishes put
away, they made their way back to the living room. Morgan placed the plastic
bag containing her pasta on a small table next to the door. McCoy stood beside
her in front of the sofa.
“Would you like to watch a movie or just talk
for a while? It might take your mind off of work. A little diversion can
sometimes help put things into perspective.”
She moved away and picked up her shoes.
“That’s a tempting offer but I’ll have to pass. I have to be up early in the
morning.”
“Anxious to get started on all that tossing
and turning?” he teased.
Morgan smiled. “Given the kind of day I’ve
had, I should’ve run tonight, but I had a late client and then you showed up.
So now I have to go home and try to soak some tension away. The tossing and turning
will come later.”
She sat down in the chair beside his
grandfather clock to put on her shoes.
McCoy stood watching her. “What time is Abbie
putting your client’s daughter on tomorrow?”
“Besides Alissa, she only has one other
witness left to call: the attorney who drew up the guardianship agreement for
Sara. I can’t see his testimony being of any great length, so unless she
springs another surprise, I think she’ll wrap up the People’s case by noon.
I’ll probably start calling defense witnesses as soon as we return from lunch.”
As she picked up her coat, he suggested, “Why
don’t I come by and get you for lunch? The two of us can find somewhere quiet
to eat and you can tell me how things turn out.”
When he had helped her into the coat, she turned
to face him. “Let’s play it by ear. I may not be in the mood for conversation
by the time it’s all over with.”
McCoy smiled and nodded. “All right. I’ll
stop by when we break for lunch and you can let me know then what you decide.”
He stepped into his shoes and opened the door for her.
As they walked out of his building and into
the chilly night air, she said, “Thank you for dinner this evening. What you
did was thoughtful and I do feel better after having eaten. Thanks for lending
an ear, too. I’m sorry I wasn’t better company.”
“You’re welcome for the food, and you don’t
need to apologize for anything. I enjoyed tonight. It’s nice to know I’m not
the only one who sometimes struggles with a difficult decision regarding a
case. Anytime you need to talk to someone, you know where to find me.”
When they reached her car, he pulled her keys
from the pocket of his jeans, unlocked the door and then handed them to her.
“Thank you,” Morgan said. “I’ll probably see
you tomorrow. Enjoy what’s left of the evening.”
“You too. And try not to worry too much.
Things will work out,” he assured her.
She nodded and got into the car. “Good-night,
Jack.”
“Good-night, Calea. Drive safely.”
When she pulled away, he stuffed his cold
hands into his pockets and quickly returned to the warmth of his apartment.