Attorney-Client Privilege (4 page)

B
y the time we made it back to the courtroom, Girlie and To-nisha were already seated at the plaintiff’s table.

Lamarr hadn’t uttered one word during our short walk back and I could see the fear in his eyes. For him, this was the fourth quarter with a minute left on the clock. If the jury’s verdict came back in favor of Tonisha, his future on the field was anyone’s guess. As for his endorsement deals, he could kiss them good-bye. At least for the immediate future. Memories would eventually fade, but it would take time. Just ask Kobe, Ben Roethlisberger or Michael Vick.

Across the room, Tonisha rocked back and forth in her chair, while Girlie held her hand. Win or lose, the two of them would be hitting the talk show circuit so hard, they’d make Gloria Allred look camera shy.

A side door opened and the bailiff led the jurors to their seats.

Judge Pedrano wasted no time. “Madam Foreperson, have you reached a verdict?”

A middle-aged white woman with short, curly hair rose from her seat. “Yes, we have.”

I was shocked that Juror No. 1, a bashful-looking fifth-grade teacher, had been selected as the jury forewoman. None of the jurors made eye contact with me or Lamarr. Even the dental assistant no longer smiled Lamarr’s way.

Juror No. 1 cleared her throat. “In the matter of Tonisha Cosby versus Lamarr Harris, Los Angeles Superior Court Case Number LC-983388, we find Lamarr Harris liable for sexual assault and award Tonisha Cosby two-million dollars.”

“Two-million dollars! Hell naw!” Lamarr pounded the table with both fists. “This is some bullshit!”

One of his homeboys yelled some indecipherable expletive from the gallery. The entire room buzzed with chatter.

The unarmed bailiff was at our table in an instant, peering down at Lamarr like an angry school principal.

Judge Pedrano banged his gavel in quick, successive raps. “Order! I want order in this court!”

He aimed his gavel directly at Lamarr. “Young man, that kind of outburst is unacceptable in my courtroom. If it happens again, you and anybody else who’s out of line will end up in a holding cell.”

Tonisha apparently didn’t believe the judge’s admonition applied to her. “Thank you for believing me,” she cried out in hiccupping sobs. “Thank you so much!”

Lamarr’s chest heaved up and down and I thought he might be hyperventilating. I had explained the risks of going to trial and had even tried to convince him to settle shortly after Tonisha went public with her allegations. Back then, Tonisha probably would’ve agreed to drop her case for a tenth of the jury award. But Lamarr refused to pay
the lyin’ ‘ho a dime.
Days later, Girlie Cortez entered the picture and settlement was out of the question.

It took a few more minutes before the judge regained control of the courtroom.

I rose from my seat. “Your Honor, I would like to poll the jury.”

The poll revealed that nine jurors voted in favor of Tonisha, with three for us. To my surprise, the dental assistant went against us. The Lutheran minister, a security guard and a grocery store clerk voted for us. Tonisha needed nine of the twelve votes to prevail. If we’d had just one more juror on our side, Lamarr would be the one celebrating.

“Let’s go,” I said, when the judge had finished thanking the jurors for performing their civic duty.

Lamarr gripped the edge of the table. “You gotta get me a new trial. She just fucked up my career.”

No, you fucked up your own career.

The chances of the California Court of Appeal overturning the verdict was about as likely as Lamarr appearing on a Wheaties box tomorrow morning.

“I know an excellent attorney who specializes in appeals.”

“I don’t want another attorney. I want you.”

It was nice that Lamarr still had confidence in me, but I was ready to punt. I had my Big Buy clients to think about. Not to mention the rest of my caseload.

I instructed Lamarr and his buddies to wait in the courtroom while I dashed off to the ladies’ room. I wanted to freshen up before facing the throng of bloodthirsty reporters waiting outside.

Girlie exited the ladies’ room as I approached. “I’ll be giving you a call to discuss our next case,” she said sweetly.

Her words stopped me cold. “What next case?”

“Your sex discrimination lawsuit against Big Buy. I’m representing the company.”

Once her words registered, a slow grin radiated across my face. No case is a slam-dunk, but if half of what I knew about Big Buy was true, this case was pretty darn close. And those documents Judi Irving had called me about could only be icing on the cake.

“That’s great news.” I could almost kiss her for adding some sunshine to my downer of a day.

The bluster fell from Girlie’s face. She had obviously anticipated a different reaction from me.

“Your client has a real problem with the way it treats women,” I said, feeling chatty all of a sudden. “And I have the evidence to prove it.”

“Is that right?”

“Yep, that’s right.”

I continued into the ladies’ room with a renewed pep in my step. I was thrilled to have another opportunity to square off against Girlie Cortez. And this time, I was definitely going to kick her butt
.

D
etectives Mankowski and Thomas kept a close eye on the BMW two car lengths ahead of them on Sepulveda Boulevard.

They’d been trailing Robby Irving since he left home twenty minutes earlier. They presumed he was starting his rounds to doctors’ offices on the Westside.

“Judi Irving has lousy taste in men,” Mankowski said, browsing the information they’d dug up on Irving. He earned a nice six-figure salary as a pharmaceutical sales rep. He also had three Facebook accounts, where he spent way too much time trying to meet women. “Both of these guys are pricks.”

“You’re just jealous because they’re better looking than you,” Thomas joked.

“You think so?” Mankowski grabbed the rearview mirror, turned it in his direction and examined his face. “Naw, I’m way prettier.”

Irving turned left on a side street and drove his car into the parking lot of a large medical complex. Thomas pulled into a stall three cars away.

Irving was standing behind his trunk, opening boxes when the two detectives approached.

Mankowski held up his badge. “Mr. Irving, we’re detectives with the LAPD.”

Irving was just shy of six feet with dark hair and a too-thick mustache. His blue suit was expensive, his shirt monogrammed.

“You must be here about Judi.”

Mankowski nodded. “Can you talk for a moment?”

Irving glanced at his watch. “Yeah, sure. How’s she doing?”

“Still critical. So you know about the attack?”

“Yeah, her sister called me.”

“We’ll need to confirm your whereabouts between ten o’clock last night and eight a.m. this morning.”

Robby tugged at his nose with his thumb and index finger. “I was at home.”

“Can anyone verify that?” Mankowski asked.

 “Yeah. My girlfriend, Camille. But I thought it was a burglary? I’m not a suspect, am I?”

“So you have a girlfriend?”

“Yeah, but it’s not that serious.”

Thomas asked for her number and address as he pulled a notepad from his shirt pocket.

“We heard you had a beef with Judi over alimony,” Mankowski said.

“And who told you that?” A hot splash of red inched up Irving’s neck. “That gigolo who’s sponging off of her?”

“As a matter of fact, he was the source.”

“You need to be interrogating that sleazebag, not me. He didn’t care about Judi. She was just a meal ticket to him.”

“If she was his meal ticket, why would he want to hurt her?” Detective Thomas asked.

Irving smirked. “I guess he forgot to tell you about Judi’s insurance policy.”

“What insurance policy?”

“The one Judi took my name off of and replaced with his. I couldn’t believe it. She barely knew the guy. She only made him the beneficiary to piss me off. If Judi dies, that punk gets three-hundred grand.”

That, Mankowski thought, was exactly the kind of motive he was looking for. He smiled over at his partner, then turned back to Irving. “We’ll need you to come down to the station for questioning. We’ll also need a sample of your DNA.”

“DNA? Why? I didn’t hurt Judi.”

“We know that,” Mankowski lied. “We just need your DNA to rule you out.”

“I…I…uh, I hate needles.”

“What about Q-tips. You scared of those too?”

“What?”

“We can get your DNA from your saliva,” Thomas explained. “All they need to do is swipe the inside of your mouth with a Q-tip.”

That seemed to make Irving breathe easier. “Fine. No problem.”

“By the way,” Mankowski asked, “how did you find out that Judi had replaced you as her beneficiary?”

Irving hesitated, “Uh…I, uh…I called our insurance broker.”

“When?”

Irving shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I know how this looks. But Judi put me through a lot. Her sister didn’t think she was going to make it. I just wanted to make sure the policy hadn’t lapsed. That’s when I found out that punk was the beneficiary.”

“So when did you call your insurance broker?” Mankowski asked again.

“A couple hours ago,” he finally admitted. “But I didn’t hurt Judi.”

Thomas tossed his partner a triumphant smile, then flipped a page on his notepad. “So how much alimony were you paying her?”

“Thirty-one hundred dollars a month. Can you believe that? That’s crazy.”

Robby realized the implication of this revelation five seconds too late.

“I was upset about it, but I didn’t hurt her.” He turned away and started stuffing drug samples into a leather duffle bag.

Mankowski peered into the bag. “What kind of drugs you got in there? Got any Tylenol?”

Irving reached into one of the boxes, snatched a handful of Tylenol packets and handed them to Mankowski.

“If anybody had a motive for wanting to hurt Judi, it was Phillip Peterman,” Robby insisted. “In fact, he had three-hundred-thousand dollars’ worth of motive.”

F
or a lawyer, standing on the courthouse steps following a big victory, fielding questions from reporters is akin to having your moment on the red carpet. You smile humbly and talk eloquently about justice and the importance of the jury system.

But when you lose, it’s like showing up for a public stoning.

Lamarr stood off to my right, his eyes steel-like, his lower lip tucked in. He had agreed to keep his mouth shut and let me do the talking.

“Ms. Henderson, how do you feel about the jury’s verdict?”

My own doubts about my client’s version of events were threatening to bubble to the surface. But like a highly paid mouthpiece, I did the job I was being paid to do.

“I’m extremely disappointed in the verdict. The man I’ve come to know did not commit the acts he’s been accused of.” I glanced back at Lamarr for effect.

The reporters all started shouting their questions at once. Too bad I couldn’t respond honestly.

“So you think the jury got it wrong?”

How would I know? I wasn’t in that hotel room with ’em.

“Are you going to advise your client to appeal?”

Why should I? He probably did it.

Well over an hour later, I pulled into the driveway of my home in the Los Angeles suburb of Baldwin Hills, my physical and emotional batteries completely drained. All I wanted to do was climb into bed and pull the covers over my head.

I stuck my key in the door just as someone yanked it open.

“Hey, girlfriend.” Special swallowed me up in a bear hug. “Me and Clayton came over to cheer you up. We’ve been watching you on TV. Y’all got robbed.”

Special Sharlene Moore, my best buddy, was a tall, curvaceous spitfire, who had an ultra-feminine air about her. She had recently abandoned her weave for long micro-braids. She took my purse and satchel and escorted me inside.

“I picked up some grub from Grand Lux.” She looped her arm through mine and led me to the kitchen.

“Got everything you like. The duck pot stickers, the crispy Thai sushi rolls, the chicken jambalaya, and best of all, the red velvet cake.”

Looking at the spread made my stomach churn. I’d been running on adrenalin for the last two weeks and was on the verge of a full-fledge crash. I had no appetite for food or company.

“Hey, babe, get in here,” my husband Jefferson yelled out to me. “You’re on channel seven.”

Special and I dashed into the den where we caught the tail end of my sound bite. The video then switched to Girlie and Tonisha. They were both cheesing like they’d just won the lottery. And basically they had.

“Don’t worry about it, babe,” Jefferson said. “You’ll kick her ass next time.”

My husband was my staunchest supporter. Thick and compact like a tank, he sported a shaved head and a man’s man demeanor. He ran his own electrical contracting company.

“Both of those heffas know they’re wrong.” Special turned up her nose. “According to the word on the street, Ms. Tonisha’s been with half the NFL and a third of the NBA. And I hear her attorney gets around too. Can you believe she drives a Jag with a license plate that says
HotGirl
? How skanky is that?”

“Nobody knows what happened in that hotel room except Lamarr and Tonisha,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “And just because she slept around doesn’t mean Lamarr didn’t force himself on her.”

Six pairs of eyes lasered in my direction. By the stunned expressions on their faces, you would’ve thought I’d just confessed to attacking Tonisha myself.

“So you believe her?” Clayton asked. Special’s beau had the lean, athletic appearance of a baseball player. The two of them had recently reunited after a tumultuous breakup.

“I didn’t say I believe her. But we weren’t there, so we’ll never know for sure what happened. Just like we’ll never know for sure if O.J. really killed Nicole.”

Special scrunched up her face. “Girl, please. You know damn—” she stole a sheepish glance at Clayton. Her foul language caused his face to instantly harden in disapproval.

“Excuse my language, everybody. You know darn well O.J. is guilty. If I had my investigator’s license, I’d look into Lamarr’s case myself and find out the real deal.”

Clayton’s face clouded. He didn’t like the idea of his woman pursuing such a dangerous profession any more than her occasional use of expletives.

“My point is,” I continued, “we’ll never know with one-hundred-percent certainty because we weren’t there.”

“Well, I ain’t buying Tonisha’s story,” Special insisted. “That girl was looking for her fifteen minutes of fame. She lucked up and got that plus two mil.”

“I’m just glad you’re home,” Jefferson said, standing up. “’Cuz I’m starving and Special wouldn’t let us eat until you got here.”

He led Clayton and Special into the kitchen while I stretched out on the couch and instantly nodded off.

“Hey, girl, wake up.”

I refused to open my eyes, even though Special was bent over me, shaking me by the shoulder.

“Leave me alone,” I moaned. “I’m exhausted.”

“This is important. I’ve been dying to show you something.”

When I finally opened my eyes, Special’s hand was so close to my face, it made me cross-eyed.

“I’m finally getting married!” she said, waving her sizable diamond ring back and forth like a QVC model. “Can you believe it?”

I bounced off the couch and gave her a big hug. “Congratulations!”

Jefferson embraced her too, then gave Clayton a bump of the fist. “It’s about time, bruh.”

It thrilled me to see Special so happy. After being charged in a highly publicized criminal case a year earlier, she’d lost her job and split up with Clayton. But my buddy was a survivor. With my help, the charges were dismissed. She later landed a new job in collections at Verizon and got her man back.

“So when’s the big date?” I gave Clayton’s shoulder a brotherly squeeze before sitting back down.

“Well,” Special said, perching herself on the arm of the chair where Clayton was sitting, “we’re keeping our engagement a secret for a little while. We’re not even telling our parents yet.”

“A secret? Why?”

Special looked everywhere except at me. “There’s something we need to do first.”

“Let me tell ’em, baby.” Clayton took her hand. “We’re joining the Community of Islam. We aren’t announcing our engagement until we complete our orientation and get the blessing from our minister.”

Perhaps I was still groggy from my short nap and hadn’t heard him correctly. “Are you saying you’re converting to Islam?”

My question was directed at Special, but she just sat there, biting the nail of her baby finger.

Clayton, on the other hand, beamed like a new headlight. “That’s exactly what we’re saying.”

My mouth opened, but no words followed.

Jefferson bravely broke the awkward silence. “That’s cool. If that works for y’all, more power to you.”

Special smiled hopefully at me, no doubt waiting to hear me echo my husband’s blessings. I’d seen my friend do a lot of crazy things in the name of love, but abandoning her Christian faith was something I couldn’t cosign. Right now, I wanted to grill her like a hostile witness. The ringing of my iPhone put that on hold.

When I placed the phone to my ear, a frantic voice intermittently rambled and sobbed.

“Who is this?” I asked, trying hard to recognize the caller. “What’s the matter? Slow down. I can’t understand you.”

All eyes in the den were on me as I listened for close to a minute without speaking. When I finally understood what the caller was telling me, I sank even deeper into the couch, then pressed the phone to my chest.

Jefferson threw an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. “Babe, what happened? What’s the matter?”

My voice cracked as I tried to speak. “My client is dead.”

“Lamarr?” All three of them asked in starry-eyed unison.

I shook my head. “No, not Lamarr. It’s Judi. Judi Irving from my Big Buy case. She’s been murdered.”