Reckless Disregard (23 page)

Brenda takes a middle-row seat, and I follow the bailiff into chambers. I expect the stage fright to come on any moment, but instead I feel a slight rush of adrenaline, the welcome kind that used to fuel my performance in bygone days when I was at my best in a courtroom. Maybe bleak reality has blunted irrational fear.

I walk through the chambers door to find Anita Grass behind her huge desk wearing the dill-pickle expression that passes for her normal mien. Her mousy hair is so short that from behind she could be mistaken for a man. Her steel-framed bifocals are perched on a grotesque turned-up nose, the product of a botched rhinoplasty. Her eyes are small and uneven.

Lou Frantz and Lovely Diamond are already sitting in easy chairs across from the judge. I nod to them, but only Frantz nods back. Lovely stares forward, her hands folded in her lap. She’s wearing a dark gray pantsuit, unusual, because she ordinarily wears a skirt to court.

The judge directs me to sit in the remaining chair.

“You’re late, Mr. Stern,” she says.

“It’s only eight-twenty-two,” I say. “Judge Triggs set the hearing for eight-thirty upstairs on the seventh floor. So technically, I’m eight minutes early . . . Your Honor.”

Her already hooded eyes narrow to tight slits, and I think she’s about to admonish me, but instead she picks up a document from her desk. “We’re going to talk about certain things informally so the news media won’t disrupt us. Depending on what happens, we’ll put this on the record.”

“I object,” I say. “The media has a right to be present during official court proceedings.”

“Objection overruled,” she says. Not even the Constitution can stop Anita Grass from exacting vengeance.

“I’ll start by handing you all an order,” she says. “Follow along.” She gives us each a copy of a one-page single-spaced minute order and begins reading aloud.

In Chambers:

On September 16, 2013, Plaintiff William Bishop filed this action for defamation against Defendant, the individual known as Poniard, arising out of accusations in Defendant’s video game
Abduction!
that Plaintiff was associated with the disappearance of Paula Felicity McGrath, an actress who went missing in 1987. The case was assigned to T. Tedford Triggs, Superior Court Judge. On October 24, 2013, Plaintiff brought a motion to disqualify Plaintiff’s attorney, Parker Stern, for an alleged conflict of interest in violation of Rule of Professional Conduct 3-310. The Court set the matter for hearing on December 19, 2013.

Late in the evening of December 18, 2013, Judge T. Tedford Triggs received a call from Homicide Detective Angela Tringali alerting him that the Los Angeles Police Department had received a 9-1-1 call from Ms. Lovely Diamond, one of the attorneys for Plaintiff William Bishop. Ms. Diamond reported that the video game
Abduction!
had portrayed the murder of a character with the exact likeness of Judge Triggs. Detective Tringali informed Judge Triggs that two LAPD patrol cars were en route to his residence to protect him from any violence. Detective Tringali further informed Judge Triggs that she considered the depiction in the video game to be a credible threat because a potential witness in the case, Herman Kreiss, and his wife Isla, had previously been murdered, allegedly after their deaths were depicted in the video game.

In light of the foregoing, Judge Triggs cannot preside over this matter objectively and hereby recuses himself. Plaintiff’s pending motion to disqualify Parker Stern shall be determined by the judge who is designated to assume responsibility for this matter.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: December 19, 2013 __________________

J. Tedford Triggs,

Superior Court Judge

Since Philip Paulsen was killed, the only way that Brenda and I can monitor
Abduction!
is by trying to keep up with the blogs, because neither of us is any good at playing the game. But we’ve been so busy that we missed this development. We shouldn’t have. My hands start quivering so violently that I have to put the order down on the judge’s desk to stop it from fluttering. This isn’t courtroom stage fright but rather rage at William Bishop. I’ve finally become convinced that Poniard has nothing to do with this. Judge Triggs ruled in our favor on both matters that were before him. His disqualification helps Bishop, not Poniard, especially since Grass is his replacement. And Bishop has the resources to hack the video game.

I glare at Lovely until she catches my eye. Neither of us will break the stare. The distrust that each of us has of the other’s client has widened the rift between us. Now she finally seems like a true adversary.

“Any questions?” Grass says but doesn’t wait for an answer. “No? Then I’m going to turn to the motion to disqualify Mr. Stern. I reviewed the motion and opposition papers this morning, and I’m ready to rule.”

She’s going to order me off this case. There’s no way that she’d give up the chance to brand me an unethical lawyer. I want to stay on this case more than ever. I represent not only Poniard’s interest but also the memory of Felicity McGrath.

“I’d like to be heard on the motion to disqualify,” I say.

“We won’t have oral argument, counsel,” Grass says. “Nothing you could say will change my mind.”

“Then I want to have your order announced in open court in front of the media and a court reporter,” I say. “Open access to the courts is required, and I want to make my record to memorialize for the Court of Appeal that you’re refusing to allow oral argument.”

“Denied,” she says.

Frantz leans forward and jovially slaps his hands on her desk. “I’m going to save you some time, Judge Grass. Although we continue to believe that Mr. Stern has a conflict of interest, we withdraw our motion to disqualify and consent to Mr. Stern’s continued representation of the defendants.”

The judge sits back in her chair, trying to process this. I glance again at Lovely and notice the slightest flush just above her cheekbone in the shape of a small rosy star that probably only I notice, physical evidence of remorse, one of her least favorite emotions. I told her a long time ago about my run-in with Anita Grass, and she’s told Frantz. They want me to stay on the case because they know that the judge will do everything she can to destroy me. Ed Diamond was right—Lovely is going to litigate this case as if I’m just another lawyer.
Scorched earth, baby
, she once said after a defense lawyer tried to take advantage of her when she was at the US Attorney’s office.

Grass takes her glasses off and rubs her eyes, unable to hide her disappointment. “Although I was prepared to disqualify Mr. Stern, it’s your call, Mr. Frantz,” she says. “At some point, we’ll schedule trial, to be tried by the court, not a jury according to the record.”

I stand, but Frantz remains seated and says, “It’s good to see you, Anita,” to which she replies “Same here, Lou.” I exit chambers, leaving my adversaries to have a pleasant chat with their friend the judge.

The courtroom is empty, except for Brenda, who’s still sitting in the same row. She looks like a forlorn child. When I walk over to her, I see tears in her eyes.

“Thinking about Philip,” she says. A tear rolls down her cheek.

As if she were my daughter, I pull my shirt cuff over my palm and use it to caress the tear away. She doesn’t recoil, just smiles sadly. At that moment, Lovely Diamond comes out of the back room carrying papers under her arm.

“I forgot to give you these,” she says, her eyes seething with reproach. “Do I give them to you or your . . . assistant?”

We look at each other, my silence conveying that I don’t owe her an explanation. “Either of us is fine,” I say. “Brenda and I are a team.”

“I’ll take them,” Brenda says. As if literally closing ranks, she moves so near that our bodies touch. “And you know what, Ms. Diamond? I think you’re being very disloyal to Mr. Stern.”

“I don’t give a flying fuck about what you think,” Lovely says. She turns sideways so her back is toward Brenda and says, “I never got a chance to tell you how sorry I am about Philip Paulsen. You used to say such nice things about him. I’m sorry that I never got a chance—”

“You should be sorry that your client murdered him,” Brenda says.

“Are you going to let her talk to me like that?” Lovely says.

“Is there anything else we need to discuss?” I say.

Lovely’s jaw goes half-slack. She slowly shakes her head and leaves the room without waiting for Frantz, who’s evidently still in chambers schmoozing the Wicked Witch of the California Judiciary.

“She’s not nice,” Brenda says as she skims Lovely’s legal pleading. “A trashy mouth.”

“She’s—”

“Oh, my.” Brenda hands me Lovely’s document. It’s a formal notice scheduling Poniard’s deposition for Monday, December 30, 2013, eleven days from now, to take place in the offices of Louis Frantz. The notice demands that Poniard appear in person, in violation of Judge Triggs’s order early in the case. The scary part is, now that Anita Grass is the judge, I don’t know if Judge Triggs’s order is in effect anymore.

When we leave the courtroom, the reporters surround us and ask why Poniard wants to kill Judge Triggs. I take Brenda’s arm and push through the inner circle of media reps and the outer ring of court watchers. Then the crowd magically parts and creates an opening, through which Detective Tringali and a uniformed police officer emerge.

“Mr. Stern, Ms. Sica, you’re coming with me now,” Tringali says.

Detective Tringali takes us to police headquarters, where she interrogates me about the threat on Judge Triggs and about the Kreiss and Paulsen murders. I don’t answer, repeatedly invoking the attorney-client privilege and emphasizing that it would make no sense for Poniard to attack our supporters. I especially don’t want to talk about Philip, don’t want to revisit yet again the discovery of his shredded body, especially after I’ve gone over the story with the cops many times. They’ve made no progress on finding his killer, undoubtedly because they refuse to investigate William the Conqueror. Tringali demands that I provide her with Poniard’s mailing address and phone number, refusing to believe that I don’t know them. When I insist that she investigate Bishop’s role in the murders and the threat on Judge Triggs, she responds that the department is following up on all possible leads.

“I’m beginning to think that you and the department are in Bishop’s pocket,” I say. “Just like your predecessors were back in 1987 when Bud Kreiss was kicked off the force.”

If this were an earlier era, she’d have a couple of burly jailers take me into a back room and teach me a lesson, but instead she exacts her revenge by keeping me in the interrogation room another hour while she comes in and out and asks the same questions over and over. When she finally lets me go, I find Brenda waiting for me in the lobby. She says they questioned her for only fifteen minutes.

We get back to The Barrista just as the lunch rush is ending. Brenda goes into the back room. I order a coffee, sit down at my usual table, and boot up my computer. Improbably, my client is there as soon as the Yahoo! chat program launches.

Poniard:

>The Triggs level was a mistake

PStern

>
Please tell me you were hacked.

Poniard:

>I’m responsible for anything that appears in my video games

PStern

>Are you saying that you included the Triggs level? And the Kreiss level?

PStern

>Was your server hacked?

Poniard:

>I’m Poniard

PStern

>Answer my questions!

Poniard:

>Asked and answered, I am Poniard

PStern

>Well, Poniard, I want you to shut
Abduction!
down immediately. Enough is enough.

Poniard:

>Not until justice is done

PStern

>People’s lives are at stake, and besides that, the damn game is hurting our chances of winning a lawsuit.

Poniard:

>A game can’t kill anyone

PStern

>Many think video games kill, and that yours is the most dangerous.

Poniard:

>I will NOT disable the game, not until we know its outcome

PStern

>Don’t you know the outcome already? It’s your game.

Poniard:

>
No. You and the players are responsible for how the game ends

PStern

>Well, here’s something I don’t control—Frantz and Diamond have scheduled your deposition for December 30th, 11 days from now. And he wants you to appear in person.

Poniard:

>Judge Triggs’s order says I don’t have to do that

PStern

>Judge Triggs recused himself today because of the threat against him. The new judge, Anita Grass, dislikes me—so much so that Frantz withdrew the disqualification motion so I could stay on the case.

Poniard:

>Good news

PStern

>Not so good. She’s biased against me, which means she’s biased against you.