Page 156 of A Dead End Wedding

"Well, of course Nathan is going to ask the boy about his intentions, dear," she said, except this time she was the one who patted my arm.

I yelped. "What? Aunt Celia, this is the Twenty-First Century. We don't ask men their intentions. Anyway, he works for, well,withme. It's not any romantic thing," I said, starting after them.

Celia gently caught my arm and stopped me. "Except he's always around when you need him, isn't he? And we've noticed the way he looks at you. Let the boys have their little chat. If your young man can't stand up to Nathan, he's not worth much, is he?"

"He's not my young man," I mumbled, but I was talking to empty air as she bustled off to make sure everything at the party worked according to her usual perfection. The air didn't stay empty for long, though, as people crowded around to hear about the alligator. I plastered the best smile I could muster on my face.

"Mr. Ellison? Oh, yes, he saved us all," I said. Then I spent the next hour and a half eating barbecue and playing Bingo and telling the story of Henry Ellison the Alligator Slayer over and over and over.

By the time Jake finally rescued me (he'd won Bingo twice, the turd, and worked his way through three plates of barbecue and two slices of pie), I thought my head might explode.

Exactly the right frame of mind to do some pushing of my own.

Jake followed me home, then headed off on some mysterious errands of his own. He promised to keep an eye on my house, and I wasn't stupid enough to refuse. Not after somebody had wanted to threaten me enough to deposit a live reptile in my office. Mr. Ellison had volunteered in a gruff voice to keep Daisy an extra night, since I probably had a lot of work to do. I hadn't wanted to say yes, because I was really getting attached to the little fur ball, but I'd seen in his eyes that he wasn't quite past his scare that she'd died. I'd thanked him and asked if he'd like to keep her till Monday, but I'd also added quickly that I'd get her for two whole days then.

He'd grinned and agreed, relief all over his apple-cheeked face, and I'd barely resisted the urge to hug him.

It had felt like the right thing to do, then, but now I looked around my empty house and felt the echoes of silence resonate in the scared corners of my mind. More than likely, anybody who'd wrestled an alligator that morning had to be too tired to do much harm by afternoon, right? So a nap would be pretty safe. Just a quick power nap. Then I'd get to work on Charlie's case again and try to figure out exactly what BDC might be covering up.

Or so I told myself, as I fell over on my bed, clothes still on, and sank immediately into a dreamless sleep. When I woke up, it was Sunday.

41

By Monday morning, after spending Sunday cocooned in my house, napping and working, I was back to my usual optimistic self. Or, maybe,stubbornself. Either way, I wasn't letting some low-rent criminal with bad spelling push me out of town.

I headed straight for the courthouse, since my hearing on the non-party production I'd served on Orange Grove Production was set for nine o'clock. I wanted all of their records about anything and everything to do with those bad insulin commercials. If I were right, and BDC was trying to cover up the fact that they'd known about the adverse reactions well before they'd reported it, somebody at BDC was in serious trouble.

It wouldn't hurt Charlie's case, either.

Sarah Greenberg had filed a blistering set of objections, claiming attorney work product. Work product is the stuff lawyers prepare for actual or expected litigation, and it's generally exempt from discovery. That means we don't have to turn it over to the other side.

This can include reports from non-lawyer third parties. So, for example, if I hired a private investigator to researchsomething about the case, the private investigator's findings and report would usually (remember, this is law, there are always loopholes) be considered attorney work product, and therefore exempt from discovery.

But claiming that information about the filming and production of commercials — that not onlyweren'tsecret, but that were actually created to beaired on public television— could be shielded from discovery under the work-product doctrine was a long reach on Sarah's part. No judge in the country would agree with her.

Or at least, so I believed, and so I'd fired back in my responses to her objections. Now we'd find out if Greenberg and Smithies' claims of "friendly" local judges had any basis in fact. Contrary to what TV and the movies might portray, I'd never yet met a judge who didn't appear to be fair and unbiased. Call me naïve – and I'm not saying that they were all brilliant legal minds – but the bar would come down hard on any judges who played favorites.

As I drove up to the courthouse, I realized I was smiling what Max would call my shark smile. This was a courtroom I was itching to conquer, which just goes to show that I should stick to my own arena. Civil litigation was my ballpark; from now on I'd leave the criminal law to the criminal attorneys.

The shark smile reminded me to call Max. I parked and pulled out my cell phone. She answered on the first ring.

"I'm here. Getting ready to find out exactly how bad Sarah looks this early in the morning," I said.

Max laughed, but then her voice turned serious. "Watch her face when you walk in, D. If she had anything to do with the alligator, she's going to be surprised to see you, or at least expecting you to be all freaked out."

"Don't worry, I'll be watching her like a shark."

"Isn't that 'like a hawk'?"

"That, too." I flipped the phone closed, then reopened it and shut it off completely. I'd known judges who fined lawyers a thousand dollars a pop for cell phones that rang in court. I didn't exactly have that kind of cash lying around these days. I put it in the pocket of my jacket, so I'd remember to turn it back on after the hearing.

As I walked to my courtroom, I aimed my icy-lawyer-of-death glare at anybody who dared to stare at me or, worse, snicker when I walked by. It would probably take a day or seventy to live down my "Founding Fathers" snafu, but today would be a good start.

Speaking of utter humiliation, Matt Falcon rounded a corner, looking down at a file, and nearly walked into me. I stepped to the side in time to avoid a collision. As he looked up with a ready smile, I saw the recognition flicker in his eyes. "Hey, December Vaughn. How nice to almost run into you today."

I smiled. "Nice to see you, Matt. Busy saving the world from crime and hapless lawyers who cite the Founding Fathers?"

I could see he was surprised I'd brought it up (and looked so calm doing so). Lead with your weakness, as any good trial lawyer will tell you, and you leave the opponent with nothing to exploit.

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