“Yes.”
“In what regard?”
“To discuss whether I would represent him in an insurance matter.”
“A claim against Heritage Insurance?”
“Yes.”
“And did you agree to that representation?”
“Yes.” She watched Jack. He nodded encouragingly. They had agreed that she would go that far.
“What did you agree to do for Mr. Vang?”
“I would respectfully like to state that I am only answering this entire line of questions because I have been ordered to do so by this court after making written objection through my attorney. Otherwise I would not answer these questions.”
Nolan smiled at that. Tapping her chin, she said, “Well, I don’t know why not, since at least thirty or forty people have seen the contents of the file by now, but let’s go ahead. You submitted a claim for Mr. Vang based on an alleged arson that destroyed his business, am I correct?”
“Yes.” The business was co-owned by Mrs. Vang, Nina wanted to say, but she and Jack had decided that she would volunteer nothing.
Nolan got up and went around to the front of her table, placing her at front and center. She folded her arms. “And during the course of that first meeting with Mr. Vang, was anyone else present?”
“Just Mr. and Mrs. Vang and their translator, Dr. Mai.”
“Did you or anyone tape record that initial conversation or videotape any part of it?”
“No.”
“Did you take any handwritten notes?”
“Yes.”
“Is this your usual procedure when first meeting with a client?”
“Yes. I have a form called Client Intake Interview. I fill in basic information about the client. Then I take notes of the discussion.”
“As the conversation is taking place?”
“Yes, although I might add something after the meeting is over that I want to remember.”
“And what is the purpose of this note-taking?”
“Well, to remind me of the information.”
“Who else sees this form?”
“No one, except my secretary, who might see it while she is affixing it to the file or-that’s about it.”
“And she might read it?”
“I have never told my secretary not to read it. She is free to read it. She needs to know what the case is about in order to perform her duties.”
“Does the client see this form?”
“Never.”
“If I asked you as your client to give me a copy, why wouldn’t you give me one?”
Nina said, “Because I may place my personal reactions and judgments into those notes. Not just the information stated. These are my personal confidential notes.”
“Are they entered into a computer at any point?”
“Never.”
“Where are those intake forms kept?”
“In a locked file behind my secretary’s desk.”
“All the time?” Nolan had begun walking back and forth as she warmed up.
Nina watched her like a cobra hypnotized by a flute-playing swami.
“From time to time I take files home that contain client-intake notes.” She glanced at Jack, who hid his embarrassment on her behalf well from the court and poorly from her. Oh, why in hell had she done that!
“And why would you take files home?”
“To work on them.” Do not volunteer, she reminded herself. Nolan was leading her toward the precipice.
“Did you, on September sixth of last year, take the client file of Mr. and Mrs. Vang to your home? The file that contained your intake interview?”
“Yes.” Nolan took her through the truck sequence, the evening, the storm, her fatigue, the lost key, the next morning, and the realization that the files had been in the truck. Nina kept her voice low and pleasant. She looked at the judge, as she had so often counseled her clients to do, but he turned his eyes to something on Nolan’s table and did not notice. She felt again, acutely, how she had let the three sets of clients down, but right alongside that feeling ran a defiance she simply could not quash.
“When was the next time you saw the Vang file?” Nolan asked, pacing in front of her, not looking at her either. Nolan was trying to keep her train of thought, keep the rhythm going, get the points out bang-bang-bang. Aware of Nolan’s thinking and Jack’s thinking as well as her own, Nina felt psychologically jerked around, as though she were playing all the roles in an enigmatic drama.
“I didn’t see it until my attorney and I went to your office. You called my attorney and said that the file had been recovered from Marilyn Rose, the previous witness.”
“And at that time did you come to my office with Mr. McIntyre?”
“Yes.”
Nolan dug out Exhibit 16. Nina tensed. “Is this the file you saw at my office?”
Nina took the exhibit and saw the familiar blue label, “Kao Vang.” “I’d have to look inside.” Nolan nodded and Nina opened it. The only contents were the three sheets of scribbled notes she had taken. The claim and its supporting documents had been kept in another file. She turned to the last page and saw the last sentences, the damning ones she hadn’t written.
Nolan said very carefully, “And is that the file you saw in my office, with the same contents?”
“Yes, it’s the one I saw in your office.”
“With the three-page form inside?”
“Yes, but this is not the three-page form in my original file. This form has been altered.” At last we come down to it, Nina thought.
The judge seemed to sigh and deflate a little. He looked down upon her at last, and she nervously decided she preferred his detachment after all.
“So,” Nolan said. “It’s the same manila folder?”
“Yes.”
“It’s the first page of notes you wrote at the time of the interview?”
“As far as I can tell, yes.”
“Same second page?”
“As far as I can tell, yes.”
“Same third page?”
“No. There are additional words. The last sentences. I didn’t write them.”
“These words? ‘Client breaks down, says he set fire himself! Advised him don’t say any more, don’t want to hear this’?”
“Yes.”
“Ms. Reilly, please close that exhibit. Now, I want you to tell me the first full sentence on the second page.”
“Objection!” Jack said. “Irrelevant. Just because she can’t recite the whole thing by memory doesn’t prove that she can’t recognize words she never wrote.”
“She says she doesn’t remember writing these words,” Nolan said. “Let’s see what words she does remember.”
“That’s not a fair test, Judge. She knows what she was thinking at the time, what information she had heard at the time. That’s one reason she knows she didn’t write the words, because of the fact that the information was never given to her.”
“I think you’re getting ahead of yourself, Counsel,” Judge Brock said. “I will allow some limited testing of the witness’s memory as to the file contents.”
“The first full sentence on the second page, Ms. Reilly,” Nolan said, coming closer. “What does it say?”
“I have no idea,” Nina answered. “However, I know that what I wrote in that first sentence was based on something the client told me. So I know I wrote it. I also know that the last sentences on the third page are forged because they reflect information my client never gave me.”
“But you testified earlier that the notes often contain observations and judgments that are your own thoughts, did you not?”
“Yes, but the forged statements were not observations or judgments of mine at the time of the interview.”
“You also testified that you sometimes add things in later, after the client has left.”
“I didn’t add those final nineteen words. They were forged.”
“So you say. Is that your handwriting in those final sentences?”
“It looks like my handwriting. I might not even know it wasn’t my handwriting, except I know I never wrote those last words. That’s a forgery.”
“You’ll admit it looks like your handwriting?”