Reckless Disregard (25 page)

“The book is much better than the movie,” she says without turning around.

At 10:05, Lovely crosses her legs and begins bouncing the top one up and down. She twirls a strand of hair around her finger. At 10:10, she shakes her head, making her silver earrings wobble. “I’ll give him ten more minutes and then I’m out of here. I knew this was all a big joke.”

“If you do that we’ll take the position that you’ve waived the right to depose him,” I say. “Twenty minutes is nothing. Especially when your boss is never less than forty-five minutes late for a depo.”

“Ten more minutes.”

Janine never takes her eyes off her novel.

At 10:18, Lovely checks her watch and makes a move to pack up her deposition outline, but then the box
Poniard is video calling
pops up on the screen, and my hands begin to tremble as if I were in court for an argument, so it’s a good thing Janine is in control of the computer. She deftly moves the cursor over the green
answer
bubble and clicks the left mouse button. A window opens, but there’s no image yet, only a black background and a maddening white circular arrow tracking in a clockwise direction with the words
Starting video
underneath.

The window suddenly expands and flickers. He’s looking down at us.

Because the picture is too large for the quality of the video feed, it’s gauzy and slightly choppy. But it’s more than clear enough to reveal that Poniard is in his mid-twenties, maybe even younger. He certainly fits within the stereotypical demographic for a video gamer, and for some reason I find that disappointing. It explains a lot, though—the brashness, the snarkiness, the testosterone-driven iconoclasm that’s gotten him into so much trouble. He’s handsome, almost pretty, with longish brown hair, a pale complexion, smooth rosy cheeks (he probably shaves every third day), full lips, and a long, straight Irish nose. His chin is firm and full, almost regal, and his dark, inward-looking eyes peer at us intensely below thick dark brows that save him from looking effeminate. I’ve confirmed one fact. The photograph that Brenda found early on of the tall man known as Vladimir Lazerev—rumored to be Poniard—isn’t the person on this video screen.

All the Internet chats that I’ve had with Poniard take on different aspects now that I’ve seen his face. He’s retroactively more credible, more authoritative. The appearance of an attractive face after so many impersonal conversations can miraculously reshape past perceptions. He’d make an appealing witness—if I could convince him to come to trial.

Lovely gazes at the screen. She looks neither smitten nor antagonistic but rather puzzled. Janine has that tabula rasa expression of a court reporter who’s emptied her mind of all thoughts so she can mechanically process the words of others.

“Good morning, Mr. Poniard,” Lovely says.

“It’s just Poniard, Ms. Diamond,” he says. He speaks with an aristocratic British accent. So now the three of us in this room have information millions of fans and media reporters have been dying to know for some time. I can already feel the weight of the secret pressing on my insides. All my other secrets will have to make room.

“And while it’s morning where you are, I will not concede that it’s morning where I am,” he continues. “You are not entitled to know where I am.”

“I’m going to admonish you, Mr. Poniard,” Lovely says, “that if you’re going to make smart-ass comments like that, we’re going to be here all day, and probably back again another day. I don’t think you want that to happen.”

“You ought to censor your own comments if you’re so anxious to finish, counsel,” I say.

“Have we met before, Poniard?” Lovely asks.

“Certainly not,” he says. “I’d remember meeting such a beautiful woman.”

“Please swear the witness in,” Lovely says.

Janine administers the oath, and though she’s recited the words thousands of times, I detect a slight tremor in her voice. She’s obviously read up on the case and my client.

Poniard agrees under penalty of perjury to tell the truth.

“State your full name for the record,” Lovely says.

“Poniard.”

“Your legal name,” she says.

“I object and instruct the witness not to answer in accordance with Judge Triggs’s order prohibiting questions about his identity,” I say. I make the same objections to questions about Poniard’s address, phone number, e-mail addresses other than the one listed on his public website, location of his web servers, place and date of birth, and educational and occupational history since high school. Despite my repeated objections, Lovely seems delighted with the way the deposition has started, probably because she doesn’t want Poniard to answer these questions. Rather, she wants to go to Judge Grass after the deposition and ask her to overrule Judge Triggs’s order that let Poniard keep his identity secret.

“Poniard, did you create the video game called
Abduction!
?” Lovely asks.

“Oh, I most certainly did. I’m the writer, producer, director, designer, graphic artist, and so on.” There’s an off-putting arrogance not only in his words but also in his tone. But I’ve known from the start that Poniard is arrogant.

“How would you describe the game
Abduction!
?” she asks.

“It’s a multiplayer online game dedicated to solving the mystery of how and why your client William Bishop kidnapped and, I believe, murdered Paula Felicity McGrath.”

“What evidence do you have that William Bishop kidnapped Felicity McGrath?”

“I’ll object on the grounds of attorney-client privilege regarding any information that Poniard learned from me,” I say. That will stop him from testifying about my finding
The Boatman
cast list. I want to keep that a surprise for as long as possible.

“There are the letters between Felicity McGrath and Scotty showing that she was involved with William Bishop just before her disappearance and that she was afraid of him,” he says.

“Where did you get those letters?” Lovely asks.

“From Scotty,” Poniard says.

I lurch forward in my seat, a show of emotion that has no place in front of the opposition. Janine glances up at Poniard but quickly looks away, clearly embarrassed that she reacted. While on the record court reporters try to act not like human beings but like extensions of their steno machines. I’m sure Lovely noticed Janine flinch, but she doesn’t react, just keeps looking at Poniard with cold, unblinking eyes. If I were sitting next to my client, I’d take a break and pull him out of the room to find out why he blindsided me. When I asked about Scotty months ago, he pleaded ignorance. This is what happens when you don’t prepare. I should’ve refused to let the deposition go forward unless he and I had a videoconference or at least a phone call.

“Who’s Scotty?” Lovely asks.

“I won’t answer that,” Poniard says.

“But you know his identity?”

“Yes.” Again, he’s more honest with Lovely than he is with me. Harmon Cherry once talked about what he called the deponent’s mini-Stockholm syndrome, a client’s self-destructive tendency to want to please the adversary during cross-examination. I’ve never had a client suffer from that until now.

“What’s Scotty’s full name?” Lovely asks.

“I won’t answer that,” he says.

Lovely turns to me and says, “Mr. Stern, I insist that you disclose the name of this Scotty person.”

“I can’t do that,” I say.

“Then we’ll pay another visit to Judge Grass and make a motion to compel. And I’ll seek sanctions not only against your client but against you for withholding relevant evidence.”

“Do what you have to do, Lovely,” I say.

“Call me
Ms. Diamond
.”

“Thanks for the clarification,” I say. “Because I certainly don’t know who you are anymore.”

Her lower lip droops in a slight pout of injury. She’s made the mistake that so many young lawyers make—thinking you can separate life and the lawsuit. It can’t be done—the lawsuit
is
your life.

“Don’t quarrel, children,” Poniard says. “Ms. Diamond, Parker can’t tell you about Scotty because he doesn’t know who Scotty is.” He hasn’t looked at me once, which is good, because I don’t want him to appear that he needs my help to testify. But I don’t think he’s really looking at Lovely, either. His eyes seem to be riveted on a spot on the wall between us.

Lovely shakes her head, incredulous. “Who’s Scotty, Mr. Poniard? What’s his name?”

“I won’t tell you who Scotty is no matter what you do,” he says.

Over my objection, she asks ten more questions designed to get at Scotty’s identity, all slight variants of the first question but none similar enough that I can object that the question has been asked and answered. She’s trying to wear Poniard down, to get him to slip up or, short of that, make him look completely intractable. I taught her the technique.

Lovely checks her notes, glances at Poniard, check her notes again, and watches the screen for a long time without asking a question. Poniard looks back down at her. She shoots up out of her chair and says, “Let’s take a short break.”

“We’ve just gotten started,” I say.

Instead of arguing, she sits back down on the couch and turns her laptop computer completely away from me. She feverishly inputs keystrokes and stares at her own small screen for a while.

“Is everything OK?” I ask.

She brushes the hair out of her eyes and lowers her head in a glower, a look she reserves only for people she holds in contempt. She’s never given me that look. “Back on the record,” she says, expectorating the words.

Lovely waits for Janine to get ready and then says, “Poniard, would you be willing to trade your kingdom for a horse?”

“Objection,” I say. “You accused him of being a smart-ass before, and now you’re—?”

Poniard holds up his hand. “I’m afraid Ms. Diamond has won this level,” he says. “She is, indeed, as highly intelligent as I’ve heard. More so. I would imagine that people tend at first to dismiss you because of your beauty and background, but they clearly shouldn’t. You know who else that happened to, Ms. Diamond? Felicity McGrath. Which is why you should empathize with her much more strongly than you do.”

I feel as if I’m at a dinner party where everyone suddenly begins conversing in Chinese.

“How could you go along with this charade, Parker?” Lovely says.

“Oh, my dear Ms. Diamond,” Poniard says. “The poor man doesn’t have a clue, any more than he knows who Scotty is. You’re much more astute than he, I’m afraid.”

She appraises me for a moment and softens. “Not more astute. Just more realistic about who and what you really are. Your attorney has a trusting side that gets him into trouble. It’s also what makes him a great lawyer.”

“I’m in the room,” I say. “What’s going on?”

“Let me ask some questions,” Lovely says. “We’ll get it on the record.”

I want to object, but I can’t think of a reason.

“Poniard, that’s not really your face I’m seeing on this Skype session, is it?” she asks.

“No, it is not,” he says.

“What Mr. Stern, the court reporter, and I are seeing is a digitally animated face.”

“Correct.”

“In fact, a replica of the face of King Richard the Third of England.”

“Also correct.”

“King Richard’s body was found under a parking lot in February of 2013?”

“Yes.”

“And archaeologists created a computer reconstruction of King Richard’s face from the skull that they found?” Lovely says.

Poniard nods.

“And the face we’re seeing on the screen is the reconstructed face of Richard the Third, and not your face, isn’t that right, Poniard?”

“Bull’s-eye, Ms. Diamond.”

“And we’re not hearing your actual voice either?”

“Right about that, too, counsel.”

“You don’t have an English accent in real life, do you?” she asks.

“I’m not going to answer that,” Poniard says. “You’re not entitled to know that about me under Judge Triggs’s order. Is she, Mr. Stern?”

“What technique are you using to make the animated character respond to my questions?” Lovely asks.

“I’m using a proprietary 3D facial animation system that I developed that speaks and gestures in real time and that responds to the emotions and inflections in my voice.”

I should end this right now, but I’m too rattled to speak.

“So basically, you’re the puppeteer and we’ve been watching the puppet,” Lovely says. By the accusatory look she gives me, she clearly thinks that Poniard is controlling more than one puppet.

“That’s a crude way of putting it,” the talking head says. “But close enough.”

“Remarkably lifelike,” Lovely says. “I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t remembered the news reports about how they discovered King Richard’s body after so many centuries.”

“This is what I do,” Poniard’s avatar says. “I’m good at it.”

All this time I’ve been staring at the screen speechless, but now the intense heat of humiliation rises, and my voice spasms with rage. “We’re taking a break.”

“We’ll break when I’m done with this line of questioning,” Lovely says.

“We’re taking a break or this deposition is over,” I say.

At any other deposition, Janine would just go off the record, but she seeks permission from Lovely, who’s in total control now. I hope Lovely will refuse my request and let me end the deposition so she can run down to court and complain about the trickery. But she’s too savvy for that. She knows that a delay will only give me a chance to fix this disaster. “Five minutes,” she says.

Once Lovely and Janine have left the room, I say to Poniard, “What the fuck is going on?”

The avatar frowns. “I thought that I should give the judge and jury a voice and a face.”

“You’ve committed a fraud on the plaintiff and on the court.”

“Oh, come on, counselor. Judge Triggs ordered that they couldn’t inquire into my identity. That allows me to disguise my voice and appearance.”

“You’re a worse lawyer than you are a witness, which is saying something.”

“Diamond seems to think the whole thing’s funny. And it is, if you think about it.”

“That’s the last thing she thinks. She’s not your friend or even your worthy opponent. She’s burying us, damn it. She’s gotten you to refuse to identify Scotty, which gives her ammunition to go down to court and argue that you’re not meeting your discovery obligations. That refusal alone can result in a judgment against you.”