FiFty Fifty

Chapter Ninteen

KATE

Kate watched Dreyer get into the old judge's face. She'd heard all about Harry Ford. Most young lawyers knew the stories. He was a legend. Smart, fair and fearless. What every judge should be.
She heard Dreyer call Harry boy.
At that moment, she wanted Harry to punch Dreyer in the face. Kate sniggered when Harry rose to the bait, called out Judge Stone, who was the exact opposite of Harry. She knew then that if her strategy paid off, Eddie's client was going to jail, and she was helping Dreyer to do that. A knot formed in her stomach. Bloch grabbed the box of prosecution discovery, Kate packed away her files and as she passed Eddie, she gave something away.
It was a little thing. Just to let him know Alexandra had decided to take the lie-detector test. This made Eddie's decision with his client a little less speculative. If both sisters had declined the test, the prosecution would have a better chance of convicting both of them. If Alexandra passed, Kate knew it would be a big point in her client's favor. Especially if Sofia failed the test, or didn't take it.
Sofia passing the lie-detector test didn't enter Kate's mind. Alexandra was convincing – even Bloch had been impressed. Kate had absolute faith in her client's innocence, which automatically made Sofia the murderer. And it was right that murderers were convicted and sent to jail. That's what she told herself. Yet something in the back of her mind hesitated at the thought of pointing her finger at another person and calling them a murderer. That was the prosecutor's job. She was a defense attorney at heart. Prosecutors were a different breed.
With Bloch beside her silently lugging the box of prosecution disclosure, she hung onto that thought as the pair of them walked silently out of the courtroom and along the corridor, and into the elevator to the ground floor. When she stepped outside into the cold sunshine on Center Street, that niggling thought had grown into a major concern.
What if her client was lying? What if Alexandra murdered Frank Avellino? Kate's strategy could send an innocent woman to prison for life.
Kate stopped, shook her head. It was as if she wanted to shake that thought loose and make it fall out of her ear onto the sidewalk.
 
'Kate Brooks,' said a voice. She looked up. A man in a tan coat and black wool cap approached. He had a kind face, and questioning eyes. He was just suddenly there, in front of her.
'Kate Brooks?' he said again.
This must be a reporter, thought Kate. Someone looking for an early story on the case. Reporters didn't tend to show up at the hearings until they were likely to catch a quote along with a snap of the defendant looking pained and paralyzed with fear.
'Yeah, I'm Kate,' she said.
The man opened his tanned coat, drew out a letter-sized envelope and thrust it at Kate. Confused and somewhat startled, the moment she took it from him he said, 'You've been served,' and then walked away. Kate ripped open the envelope.
Kate's cheeks flushed. She swallowed. She was now being sued. For two million dollars.
Bloch took the papers from her and glanced through them.
'It was bound to happen sooner or later,' said Bloch.
Since Kate took the case away from her firm she'd been through various skirmishes with Levy, Bernard and Groff. First there were the polite calls to Alexandra who proved as good as her word, refusing every one of Levy's calls and pleas to attend meetings. After a while, the phone calls to Alexandra stopped as the firm switched tactics. The first letter arrived in a brown envelope with all kinds of red stamps upon it bearing grave warnings to the recipient that if they didn't open the damn thing immediately it was likely to burn their house down.
The letter said that Kate was in violation of the non-compete, non-solicitation clause in her contract as she had poached the firm's biggest client. Second, she was also in breach of her confidentiality clause as she had used information held by the firm in order to solicit the client. In other words, she had checked the client database and found Alexandra's address in order to visit her. The last paragraph said that if she resigned as counsel for Alexandra, all would be forgiven. She had seven days to decide.
Seven days later another letter arrived. This one repeated the allegations in the first letter but this time it said that the firm was going to sue her for breach of contract, loss of revenue and damages.
Kate knew the game. She sent a simple reply stating that considering she had been forced to leave her job because of constant sexual harassment and discrimination, she didn't feel bound by any of her contractual terms. If the firm was going to ignore its anti-harassment policy, she was going to ignore the covenants that restricted her practice since it was the firm's fault she had to