soft underbelly.” Before she left, she and Nina set up a conference call with Winston, who agreed with Genevieve that Riesner would appeal to underdeveloped personalities who didn’t like to make their own decisions, and stronger conservative types looking to harden their positions.
They followed up with a discussion of Mike’s potential witnesses. Nina told them that, aside from Mike, his girlfriend would pose the biggest threat to them at trial if she could shake off her credibility issues with the jury. Rachel Pembroke had a long history at Markov Enterprises, a responsible position there and a personal view of the Markov relationship that would undoubtedly bolster Mike’s position.
Then at Genevieve’s suggestion, they brainstormed what she called the “mantra” for their case.
“Let’s get it all down to five words or less,” she insisted. “Look for an inspiration as we keep draggin’ our nets through the facts.”
“We’ll know it when we see it,” Nina said, “as Justice Potter Stewart said.”
“ ’It’s trophy-wife time,’ “ Winston said.
“Ooh, that’s good,” said Genevieve.
“She made him rich, then he dumped her,” Nina said.
“Too long,” said Genevieve. “We need something catchy like ’Where’s the beef?’ Or like Paula Jones and the President’s ’distinguishing marks.’ That was the mantra for that case.”
Winston laughed.
“We sound so cynical.” Nina soft-balled the criticism by including herself as a target. “There are important questions in this case. Things like, what is a marriage? What actually is a family? You know?”
“I like it,” Winston said, rolling happily over her objection with his enthusiasm. “ ’What is a family?’ Only it doesn’t cover the business aspect.”
They ended up with something Lindy had told Nina: the business was their child. That summed up Lindy’s position. Nina liked it because it seemed to reach for a deeper truth, an emotional truth she hoped a jury would embrace.
Outside, the snow deepened along the roads and in the woods. The landscape turned from dusty olive, tan, and blue to blinding white and blue, while Squaw Valley, Heavenly, Sierra Ski Ranch, and the other resorts hustled to get the maximum number of lifts operating. The town filled up again after its autumn lull. The winter season had begun.
Depositions began on the first Tuesday in January. Nina beat Sandy to the office and spent an hour going over notes before she arrived.
At ten o’clock, the parties assembled in Nina’s cramped conference room. After one memorable pitched battle the Hearing Examiner had decreed that Mike Markov would have the honor of being deposed first. Special rules had been devised to limit the number of hours per day, and Nina would have only two days with him. He sat across from her now.
After commenting on the lamentably disheveled state of Nina’s conference room and the generally inelegant surroundings, Riesner was suspiciously calm and quiet. He had the chair on the left. At the end of the table the stenographic reporter, Madeleine Smith, tried to lighten things up by chatting about the fantastic weather. Wearing beige pants tucked into boots and a knit sweater that covered her almost to the knees, Lindy fidgeted, appearing uncomfortable. In a week, it would be her turn.
“Swear the witness.” Mike raised his right hand and the reporter made him promise to tell it like it was. He wore a tweed sports coat over an open-throated golf shirt. His thin black hair was brushed neatly back, and his soft suntanned face shone slightly from soap and water. He had an odd expression on his face. Nina couldn’t quite identify it. Shame? Guilt?
Her goal for his deposition was quite simple. She would be trying to scare up anything she could use against him. She would listen for inconsistencies and she would gather details in enough bulk to trip him up during the trial.
From three feet away, he didn’t look like the evil despot Nina had tried to make him in her mind; but Riesner did. He wore the Stanford ring, his personal fetish, on the manicured hand resting on top of the pile of papers they would be going through. His lips curled, but she couldn’t say they formed a smile.
Nina placed her new leather attache, a gift from her dad, directly in front of her, making sure Riesner noticed, feeling rather petty. When he had entered her offices for the first time months ago, she felt he had seen at a glance exactly what she was, a shoestring practitioner with shallow pockets. She couldn’t compete at this level, but by God, she would show off what she had.
“Okay,” she said. “Mr. Markov. On November first you were served with Requests for Production of Documents numbered one through thirty-five. It has been subsequently ordered that you bring all documents in response to this deposition at this time.”
“He has complied with the Requests except as modified in subsequent hearings,” Riesner said. “Here are the responses, numbered from one to thirty-five.”
“Thank you. Let’s get these marked as exhibits.” While stickers were placed on the exhibits, not a word was said. Lindy looked at Mike; Mike glared at her. Riesner sighed, sat back, crossed his legs. The room felt too hot. Nina sketched abstracts on her legal pad. Outside, cars mushed through the barely plowed street.
“All right. Cross-Complainant’s Exhibit One. All records, memoranda, notes, written memorializations, and any other document of any sort whatsoever tending to support Cross-Defendant’s claim that the parties agreed that the businesses and other property in issue were to be and remain the separate property of Mikhail Markov,” Nina read.
“For the record,” Riesner began, “Cross-Defendant continues to object to this Request on grounds that it is overbroad, calls for a conclusion, is vague, ambiguous, and unintelligible, and all the other grounds set forth in our opposition thereto last week.”
“Noted,” Nina said briefly. Riesner could object until he gave himself a sore throat, but he still had to turn the documents over. Mike still hadn’t opened his mouth. Riesner passed over a manila file stuffed with papers, and Nina began picking them up one by one, identifying them for the record, and having Mike authenticate them. Before the day was over, Sandy would copy them. There were originals of the corporate documents she had already seen, Articles of Incorporation, Bylaws, registration documents, Profit-and-loss Statements, and so on. The next group included the deeds to the Markov homes, several titles to vehicles, and other titles to property, all in Mike’s name.
Then came the tax returns, both corporate and personal. After Mike had stated for the record what they were, Nina put these aside for copying. She would go over them with the accountant down the hall from her office this evening so she could ask intelligent questions about them tomorrow.
The next group seemed to be a series of interoffice memos and correspondence with suppliers and customers in which Mike made various policy and executive decisions. So what? She wasn’t impressed. Lindy had a similar pile of documents lying in wait for Mike. Each note and memo had to be identified for the record. Nina was very careful, very formal as she described the documents for the reporter.
Exhibit 1 was the most important of the lot. If Mike didn’t have some kind of smoking gun here, they’d be all right. They’d have a good chance.
Mike kept on, polite, unfaltering, answering each question after a short pause, sometimes consulting for a moment in a low voice with Riesner. As the morning wore on, the tediousness of the process settled them all down.
Unwritten rule of legal practice number 13: If you dread it, it will come. It came just before noon. Riesner had put it at the bottom of the stack just to raise a little more hell with her.
A sheet of lined notebook paper like the kind Bob used in school, the document in question was crumpled, stained, and had been drafted on a manual typewriter that needed a new ribbon. SEPARATE PROPERTY AGREEMENT was typed in capital letters at the top.
Mikhail Markov’s apparent signature at the bottom was followed by Lindy’s.
Lindy, who had her eyes on the document, too, scratched her arm, the only reaction she showed. Her silence at this moment was a worrisome omen.
“What’s this, Mr. Markov?” Nina said sharply.
“That is a separate property agreement between Lindy and me,” Mike answered, keeping his face impassive. But Riesner couldn’t resist. Victory flashed across his long face, and his false smile turned real before Nina’s eyes.
You son of a bitch, she thought, shaking her head, her mind boggled by this blow.
She began asking narrow questions about the exhibit, and Mike answered everything in an unhesitating, well-rehearsed voice.
He and Lindy had agreed that if they ever split up, they would keep each other’s property separate. The business was in his name and she understood that only he would continue to run it on that basis. They had sat down and talked about it the day they moved to California, thirteen years before, on October 12, and Lindy had typed their agreement up on their old Underwood. They had both signed it. Mike spoke in a flat voice, just spitting out the facts, keeping his eyes off Lindy.
“Let’s take the lunch break,” Nina said. “We’ll start again at one.”
“Oh, let’s,” Riesner said. He and Mike got up, two wealthy, successful men without a care in the world, and walked out, leaving the exhibits to fester on the table. Nina left, too, and went back into her office. Sandy laid out box lunches for both of them on Nina’s desk while Lindy visited the bathroom.
Nina hadn’t moved by the time Lindy returned. Lindy sat down heavily beside her. “Well?” Nina said.
“Well what?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She let her anger show.
“There’s nothing to tell. I do remember, during the time he’s talking about, we were in the red. Mike was feeling very insecure. Things were rocky between us. We were arguing a lot. You argue a lot when money is low, it’s natural.”
“So you signed an agreement that you have never once mentioned to me.”
“I never saw that piece of paper before in my life,” Lindy said, shaking her head. “It’s a forgery. Or a joke.”
“Look at it again.”
Lindy picked it up and studied it. “Looks like our old Underwood,” she said. “That’s strange, because I gave that typewriter to Goodwill years ago. Maybe he took it out and hid it somewhere. Or I suppose it’s possible he typed the agreement way back before I donated the machine.” She said the right words but her tone was wrong, all wrong.
“Lindy?” Nina said. “You see this paper? If it sticks, it means we’ll probably lose. Both of us.” She got up and leaned her arms on the table, moving in close to extend the full force of her enraged gaze onto Lindy. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I’ve never seen it before.”
Nina shook her head, incredulous.
“Anyone can forge a signature,” Lindy was saying. She held the paper at arm’s length, squinting at it. “I’d even swear it was mine if I didn’t know better.”
“You need reading glasses, Lindy,” Nina said, leaving the room.
Riesner and Mike came in a little late and took their places, the cool air and clean scents of the outdoors trailing behind them.
The load of wet concrete Riesner had dumped on Nina was drying now, tightening, weighing heavier and heavier, suffocating in its implications.
She didn’t believe Lindy. If real, that piece of paper might be worth a hundred million dollars to Mike. If a fraud… but it wasn’t. Riesner would never take a risk like that. He had to know Nina would discover a fraud, and that the jury would reward Lindy accordingly.
Could Mike be lying to Riesner? No. Riesner would already have had the thing looked at by professionals, because he never trusted his clients.
Why would Lindy keep the knowledge of this devastating evidence from her own lawyer?
Stupid question. Denial, fear that Nina would bow out, hope that Mike had lost it…
What now? Walk barefoot over a bed of burning coals all afternoon. The joy of law.
