“You okay now?”
“Yeah.”
“Chin up.”
After the break, Nolan called Sandy to the stand. She sat down in the box, arranging herself calmly. Dignified and impeccable, she wore her standards, a denim blue skirt and a white blouse, and had spiked her upswept black hair with a turquoise stick. Nina knew she had never testified in court before but wasn’t worried about Sandy. She could take Nolan down with a sneeze.
“So you took the new file that was handed to you and affixed the Client Intake Interview form to the back of the file?” Nolan asked.
“Yes. Like I always do.”
“Did you read the notes?” Judge Brock leaned in closer, wanting to hear the answer to this one.
“Might have,” Sandy said.
“What’s she doing!” Nina whispered. Jack shook his head slightly. They were both astounded. Sandy had told them several times that she had read the notes.
“Might have? Did you or did you not?”
“I might have.”
“You mean you have forgotten whether you read them?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Sandy said. “I’m the only one that does that.”
“Well, what do you mean, ‘might have’?”
“Maybe I did,” Sandy said. “I often did.”
“It was your practice to read the intake notes?”
“I often did.”
Clearly unnerved by Sandy’s attitude, Nolan handed Sandy the exhibit and had her read the notes. “Did you read these before or not?” she demanded. “You must answer to the best of your recollection.”
“I may well have,” Sandy said, nodding her head at the file. “I usually did.”
“Your Honor, I request that this witness be compelled to answer the question.”
“I think she’s doing the best she can,” Brock said. “Ms. Whitefeather, did you have any knowledge from that file or otherwise that Ms. Reilly knew her client had committed an arson?”
“No, sir. If I read these notes at the time, and it was my practice to do that, these last two sentences weren’t there. I do know that. Because I would have talked to her about it if they were. And she never would have filed the claim. Never. She’s one of the honest ones.”
“Request that whole statement be stricken,” Nolan said, glowering.
“She’s honest,” Sandy said again. “Unlike some I have known.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have asked the question,” Judge Brock said. “Sorry, Counsel. But her answer stands.”
25
A T LAST, A break.
Nina got into the elevator for the sixth floor with Jack with her head high and her self-confidence at an all-time low. Her entire life had been served up on a plate to prejudiced critics who made their livings feeding off the failures of their colleagues. Gayle Nolan didn’t hide her intolerance or feign objectivity. She hadn’t been acting; she felt disdain for Nina. Contempt, even! Nina’s colleague, who didn’t respect her, who even wanted to see her on her knees!
Although Judge Brock was less overt, she had a definite impression that her very presence in his courtroom embarrassed him, as if, in his view, only the worst lawyers fell this far down the system. He lumped her in with the dregs.
And Jack, standing beside her, humming a little tune? What did she want from him at this low point? Reassurance that she was a good person, this was what she wanted. But Jack gave her what she herself gave her clients: objectivity, strategy, a push forward. He assessed her like he assessed steak in the market. He had other worries besides her emotional well-being.
She felt like running right out those doors onto Howard Street, getting into her truck, and driving-where? She would never again look at a stricken client’s face without remembering this day.
Assuming she ever had a client again.
Their turn had come. With Kao Vang unavailable in the hills of Laos, they had only two witnesses for the defense on the Vang count, Mrs. Vang, who wouldn’t be arriving until later, and the handwriting expert, Lyuba Gleb, who was waiting for them as they came out of the elevator.
“Hello, there,” she said, shaking hands with Jack. “How is it going?”
“Just fine,” Jack said.
“You look so nice today, Jack,” Mrs. Gleb said. “I had no idea.” A chic woman of a certain age, she wore a neatly fitted Chanel suit. The flaring, emphatic eyebrows gave her the look of character she wore so gracefully. Her Roman nose and lips were accentuated by a faint mustache, and it all added up to a formidable, smiling, relaxed lady.
“You look ready for anything they can throw at you,” Jack said.
“What is to throw?” Mrs. Gleb said. “I can only tell the truth. Although, of course, it is a truth about art. They have their own expert all ready to refute what I say, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, Dr. Harvey Pell. I don’t see him around.”
“Look for a bright spot in any room. He seeks the limelight. You should see his signature, two lines under it like he is Napoleon. So they have brought him all the way from Chicago. He is competent, so I was surprised to read his opinion.” She turned to Nina. “Don’t worry, darling, I am right and I will make the judge see this.”
“Mrs. Gleb. You are a questioned-document examiner?” Jack asked.
“Yes. My specialties are handwriting identification, disputed handwriting, anonymous letters, and graffiti. I perform infrared photo work of all sorts. I am an expert on ink identification and on nineteenth-century paper. I have performed this work since 1972.”
“What is your educational background?”
“I received my baccalaureate in chemistry from the Sorbonne in 1970. I was employed by the Sureté in Paris to assist in certain analyses of papers in a war-crimes case. That is where I received my on-the-job training. I was sent to the U.S. to take part in several seminars on handwriting identification during the seventies. I continued working at the Sureté and became head of the department investigating questioned documents in 1978.”
“Please describe your experience.”
“I served as head of the department from 1978 to 1984. During this time I often testified in the French court system. I began consulting for Interpol in the area of check forgeries. In 1985 I accepted a position as chief document examiner with the Bank of America and oversaw all of its forensic documents cases for the following ten years. I then went into independent consulting and most especially assisting police departments all over the country in questioned-documents cases.”
“In which courts have you previously qualified as an expert witness in this area?”
“I have qualified and testified as a questioned-document examiner in various courts in Douglas County and Washoe County, Nevada; in Queens and Manhattan counties, New York; in San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin counties in California during the past five years.”
“Have you-”
“I am a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the International Association for Identification, and I am a member of and certified by the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners.”
“And are you-”
“In addition to my consulting work, I have taught numerous seminars for bank and insurance examiners all over the country.”
“Request that this witness be qualified as an expert in the area of examination of questioned documents,” Jack said.
Nolan barely looked up. “No objection.”
Jack picked up his legal pad. “During November of last year, were you requested by me to examine a certain original document and to provide your expert opinion as to whether the last two sentences of that document were written by the same person who authored the rest of the document?”
“Yes, you retained me for that purpose.”
“Directing your attention to Exhibit 18, is this the document I gave you to examine?”