Motion to Dismiss (3 page)

What I said instead was, "I think Grady should be the one to tell you."

Marc kicked me in the shin too late.

For a moment there was dead silence. Grady picked up his wineglass and took a sip. His hand trembled. "Let's talk about this after dinner, shall we?"

Nina shook her head. "I want to know. Now."

"Maybe we should leave," Marc said, starting to rise.

"No." Nina put a hand on his arm to restrain him. "You two already seem to know what this is about." Her voice was almost strident, her face flushed.

"Well?" When none of us answered, she grabbed the edge of the table, breathing hard. "Tell me, goddammit."

Grady sent her an imploring look. "I love you, Nina. You do know that, don't you?"

She rocked back as though she'd been slapped. "Oh, God. Don't tell me you're having an affair!"

"No, not that." Grady shook his head. "Never."

"Never again, you mean."

"Please, Nina. This is hard enough as it is."

"It's not another woman?" Her breathing became easier. "I'm sorry. It's just that I couldn't stand it. Not now."

Grady nodded. His elbows were on the table, hands folded against his chin. I fought the urge to smack him hard between the eyes.

"Are you in some kind of trouble?" Nina asked, reaching for his hand. "Is that it?"

"Nina, sweetheart. I wanted to spare you this." He took a gulp of air. "I made an error in judgment. And now, well, things have gotten out of hand."

"Is it something with the company? Are there problems with the offering?"

"No, it's not that."

Nina waited. When Grady didn't continue, she turned to Marc. "Would somebody tell me what's going on?"

"Grady's been accused of sexual assault," Marc explained without inflection.

"Sexual..." Nina's expression was puzzled at first, then comprehension dawned. She pulled her hand from his. "You mean rape?"

"Date rape," Marc said.

There was a moment of heavy silence, before Nina spoke. "
Date rape?
What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"I didn't do it, Nina." Grady's voice cracked. He looked at her imploringly. "I swear."

"Then why's she accusing you?"

"I -- "

Nina cut him off. "You
were
with a woman though?"

He nodded.

The tendons in Nina's neck rippled. "When?"

"Last Saturday. I met her at a bar."

"Who is she?"

"No one."

"What do you mean, no one. Everyone is someone."

"No one important, It's not like -- "

"Jesus, Grady. Jesus fucking Christ." Her voice rose hysterically.

"I didn't do it, Nina." The pitch of Grady's voice matched Nina's.

I got out of my chair and went to Nina, touching her shoulder. "Try to stay calm. All this agitation can't be good for the baby."

Nina nodded, but her breathing was uneven, as though she were sobbing without tears. She continued to rock back and forth in her chair, building momentum.

"But you were with her," Nina sputtered. "I'm flat on my back with your baby. I've got cancer eating away at me, cancer I can't begin to fight until the baby is born. And you had sex with some woman you met at a bar."

I wondered if Nina would ever forgive him.

"No." Grady spoke with the vehemence of one wrongly accused. He leaned across the table and met Nina's eye. "No, I did not. I didn't do anything wrong."

I looked at Grady. So did Marc. Then we exchanged a glance between ourselves.

"I gave her a ride home," Grady continued, "that's all. I swear to you. And now she's concocted some harebrained story."

"Why?" Nina stopped rocking, but her shoulders remained tight. "Why would she do that?"

"We intend to find out," Marc said, wading into the lie without a moment's pause. He looked at me, eyes narrowed. "Don't we?"

I hesitated, trying to put myself in Nina's place.

Simon appeared in the doorway just then, saving me from further moral debate.

Behind him were two uniformed police officers. "Mr. Barrett," one of them said, "we have a warrant here for your arrest."

Marc followed Grady and the police downtown while I stayed with Nina. He and I met later that night at Olivetto's on College Avenue.

The cafe was crowded and noisy, and the table between us so small, we had to angle sideways to avoid touching knees. Although we'd never gotten beyond the salad course at dinner, we'd opted for late night coffee and dessert instead of a full meal.

"The press is going to have a field day with this," Marc said, scowling. "It's just the sort of dirty laundry they love." He dipped an edge of biscotti into his cappuccino and crunched down loudly.

"Maybe it will slip by them," I offered, not believing it for a minute.

He ignored me. "And right when the momentum is finally building on the stock offering. The price is going to take a nosedive because of this crap."

"So are a few people," I said pointedly.

Raising his eyes, Marc gave me one of those uneven smiles he's so good at. "I know that, Kali. I'm not completely heartless. Nina and Grady are my friends too, don't forget."

I smiled back, in spite of myself. It wasn't easy to resist Marc's charm, although when I'd agreed to help Nina out, I'd promised myself that I would. I'd managed so far by keeping my distance and reminding myself what a jerk he'd been ten years earlier.

"I feel sick about the whole thing," I said. "How could Grady do this to Nina?"

"I'm sure he's asking himself the same question."

"It's a little late for that." I poked at the apple tart with my fork. "Did they let you talk to him?"

Marc shook his head. "I might as well have not been there. How's Nina holding up?"

"She's angry, worried, confused." While she was clearly upset, hysterics were not Nina's style. She possessed an inner strength that always amazed me.

"You didn't tell her, did you?" Marc asked tersely.

"You mean about Grady's lie?" I put heavy emphasis on the last word.

Marc nodded.

I'd been tempted, but had decided against it. "No, I didn't tell her. I'm not so sure I won't at some point though."

Marc scooted his chair farther from the aisle to avoid the passing throng. "This is why I prefer corporate work. It's clean and neat."

"I've heard some pretty heated exchanges coming from the conference room. You can't convince me that some of your deals aren't emotional."

Another half-smile. "Impassioned maybe, but always with a sense of direction and purpose. There's none of this under-the-skin stuff."

I marveled again that Nina and Marc had ended up working together. Marc, who didn't let much of anything get close to him, and Nina, who embraced the world like a puppy on a picnic. It was a strange alliance.

"You'll be there tomorrow for the arraignment, won't you?" he asked.

"I don't think Grady needs us both."

Marc slid his hand around the coffee mug. "It would be a show of support."

I raised a brow.

"It's not going to help Nina any to have a husband in jail for rape," Marc added.

A valid point, but it didn't do much to ease my discomfort. "Even if he didn't rape the woman, he still cheated on Nina. Cheated on her when she was already down. And now he's lying about it."

"You'd rather rub her face in the fact that her husband slept with some woman he picked up at a bar? What purpose would that serve?"

Some vague principle of morality and truth, maybe. But we were talking about Nina, not abstract principles. He was probably right. In this instance the truth was not going to help her.

"Sure, I can be there," I said finally. "The arraignment is the easy part. It's the next phase that's got me worried."

"You really think they'll go ahead with it?"

"My guess is that the police are working closely with the D.A.'s office on this. They wouldn't have arrested him unless they were planning on following through."

Marc licked his lower lip. "I bet somewhere down the line they drop it."

"We'll have a better idea how things look after the prelim. Prosecutors don't like to waste time or credibility on a losing case."

The furrows of tension between Marc's brows softened slightly. "Grady will make a hell of a good witness in his own defense. He's bound to come across better than the cupcake who's accusing him."

I leaned back and folded my arms. "What makes you so sure of that?"

"Look at him. He's a respected businessman. Educated, urbane -- "

"Even if the" -- I paused for emphasis -- "
cupcake
is not equally educated and urbane, which we don't know for a fact, it won't necessarily work in Grady's favor. Not unless we end up with a jury of middle-aged male CEOs."

"I wasn't using the term in a derogatory sense." He sounded defensive.

"Of course not."

Marc started to say something more, then stopped and raised both hands. "Truce," he said. "I'm too tired to fight." He eyed what was left of the apple tart on my plate. "You're not going to eat the crust?"

I scooted it across the table in his direction. "It'll go straight to your waist."

He raised an eyebrow. "Since when are you worried about my midsection?"

"I was speaking in the abstract." Not that I hadn't, on occasion, given Marc's rugged frame a more than cursory glance. He'd filled out some in the years since law school, but he was still trim and firmly muscled. And still possessed of that goofy, boyish allure that had tempted me years ago.

"It's not just that I'm uncomfortable with Grady's lie," I said, sipping my coffee. "It may also prove to be a stumbling block in his defense."

"How's that?"

"If Grady will admit to having sex with the woman, then we have to argue only the issue of consent. But if he insists on sticking with this story he told Nina tonight -- that he did nothing but give her a ride home -- it's going to be a whole lot harder."

Marc lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "It
could
have happened that way."

"But it didn't."

"I'm just saying it's a possibility, is all. Isn't that what the defense is supposed to do?" He shifted forward. "It doesn't seem so far-fetched to me. Grady meets this woman." He cocked his head to make sure I caught the change of reference. No cupcake this time. "She's come to the party with a friend, so he gives her a ride home, to be helpful. She's taken with the guy, wants him to come in. When he shows no interest, she gets angry. Concocts this story of rape to get even."

I gave him a don't-take-me-for-a-sucker look. "Let's wait to see what the police have. And what this woman is actually like."

Marc finished off the rest of my tart and then slid the plate back in my direction.

He looked at me with narrowed eyes. "Grady's not a bad guy, you know."

"I never said he was."

Marc leaned over and poked a finger gently against my temple. "You don't have to say so. I can feel you thinking it."

Grady's arraignment was scheduled for the two o'clock calendar the next afternoon. He was third up, after an armed robbery and a carjacking. The judge, mumbling in the same monotone he'd used with the two preceding cases, released Grady on his own recognizance. Arraignment is one of the rare stages in the justice system where things move briskly. Grady and I were in and out in under an hour, brushing past the cluster of reporters with a terse "no comment."

I was grateful to see that there were no cameras. For the time being, at least, we'd been spared the humiliation of a video clip on the courthouse steps.

"Where's Marc?" Grady asked when we were finally alone. He was in need of a shave, and his clothes were rumpled, but he came across looking as though he'd spent the night in a high-stakes negotiation rather than jail.

"At the office," I explained. For all his talk about showing support, Marc had decided at the last minute that only one of us was needed at the arraignment after all. "He'd like you to call him as soon as you get a chance. Something about nervous investors."

"If they're nervous now, just wait until they learn I've been arrested." Grady laughed without humor. "The timing of this thing couldn't be worse. When I screw up, I do it in neon, don't I?"

"I don't imagine there's ever a good time."

He rubbed his cheek. "How's Nina taking it?"

"She'll be happy to have you out of jail."

"Not half as happy as me. It was a sobering experience."

We stepped outside to a gray afternoon sky, but Grady lifted his face as though basking in the sun's warmth. He breathed deeply. "I never thought exhaust fumes would smell so sweet." He turned abruptly. "You can get the charges dropped, can't you?"

"I don't know. I haven't even seen the woman's statement yet."

"It's ludicrous that I have to be subjected to this nightmare solely on the basis of some cockamamie allegation."

We stopped at the corner and waited for the light to change. "I'm going to talk to the prosecutor later this afternoon," I told him. "I'll try my best to convince her to drop the case, but you'd best prepare yourself for a trial."

"Jesus. This could go on for months."

"Nobody's saying it's going to be easy."

"And meanwhile the bitch who started the whole thing gets to go about her business as usual." A spasm of irritation crossed his face. "She points the finger, cries foul, and that's the end of it as far as she's concerned. I could wring her goddamn neck."

"I wouldn't advise it."

Grady awarded me with a withering glance. "It's not just me I'm thinking about here. Can you imagine what this is going to do to Nina?"

That, I thought, was something he should have considered before banging someone other than his wife. But Grady wasn't expecting an answer, so I kept my opinion to myself.

"I want her to believe me," he said solemnly. "That's very important, especially with ... with everything else."

Again I bit my tongue -- and bought a little more deeply into the lie.

"We'll know more how the case shapes up after I've had a chance to look over the police reports, particularly the statement given by the complaining witness."