Chapter 57
Judge’s Chambers
Monday Morning
The wood-paneled room felt smaller with all four of them in it—Harlan behind his desk, Eleanor and Reid opposite, April by the door with a legal pad.
Harlan set a printout on the blotter between them.
A still image from Catch My Draft stared up from the page—Eleanor half-turned, Lila in the background, the blurred edge of a raised phone catching the frame.
“I take it,” he said dryly, “neither of you arranged for half this county to wake up to a video of lead defense counsel publicly identifying Ms. Grant as ‘Lila Allen’ in the middle of a bar.”
“No, Your Honor,” Reid said. “The State had no contact with either podcast or their crews. I found out about it when the clip hit my phone, same as everyone else.”
Eleanor kept her hands folded in her lap.
“I didn’t invite it either, Your Honor,” she said. “I went to dinner with a friend. The podcasts followed.”
Harlan’s gaze sharpened.
“Be that as it may,” he said, “I now have video circulating that shows lead defense counsel in a public confrontation with a media figure tied to this case, discussing matters entirely outside the evidence and inflammatory enough to give me judicial heartburn.”
He turned the paper back toward himself, glanced at it once more, then shoved it aside as if it offended him on principle.
“I am not declaring a mistrial because two podcasts can’t tell the difference between journalism and opportunism,” Harlan said. “But I will not have this jury poisoned if I can prevent it.”
He looked directly at Eleanor.
“I am inclined to poll the jurors individually before we proceed.”
Eleanor’s stomach dropped.
Of course he was.
She had stood in a bar and publicly identified Lila Grant as Lila Allen in front of God and everybody with a cell phone. She knew exactly how it looked. Exactly what any appellate lawyer would do with it later.
Weeks of work. Tons of preparation. David’s life dropped back into limbo because for one terrible minute, she had stopped being careful.
“Your Honor—”
“I think I have to,” Harlan said, not unkindly. “If any of them saw the clip or related coverage, I need to know now.”
Reid looked once at the printout, then back at the judge.
“I agree,” he said. “This could affect my case as much as hers. If jurors have seen any of this—or any outside information suggesting this case is being driven by something other than the evidence—they need to be questioned.”
Eleanor turned toward him before she could stop herself.
For one second, she just stared.
Seriously?
The anger flashed hot and immediate. Of course, he agreed. Of course, he would sit there and sound calm and reasonable while the judge talked about the possibility that she had just damaged her own client’s case.
But underneath the anger was the harder truth: he was right.
She had done this.
She had spent her entire career being careful, ethical, controlled. And now, because of Lila and Charleston and two and a half years of swallowed anger, she had stood in a bar and given them exactly what they wanted.
Reid did not look back at her. His eyes stayed on Harlan, jaw tight.
“The State has no objection,” he finished.
Harlan looked from one to the other, measuring.
“I’ll question them,” he said. “Briefly. Then we are done with this.”
He shifted his attention to Eleanor.
“Ms. Harper,” he said, his tone not softer exactly but less abrasive, “I cannot order you to stay out of public on weekends. But I can tell you this: every time you walk into a place right now, you run the risk that somebody with a camera wants to make you part of the story.”
He leaned forward slightly, his shadow falling across her legal pad.
“If you let a podcaster bait you into a street fight, you are no longer a victim of Charleston. You are helping it happen again. Do I make myself clear?”
A flicker passed through Reid’s face at that, gone almost before it formed.
“I understand, Your Honor,” Eleanor said.
Harlan turned to Reid.
“And Mr. Calloway, if any witness, staff member, deputy, intern, cousin, friend, or courthouse stray cat connected to your side is found coordinating with either of these outfits, I will be spectacularly unamused.”
“They are not, Judge,” Reid said. “And I’ve made that clear.”
Harlan exhaled.
“Return to the courtroom,” he said. “We’ll do this now.”
Twenty minutes later, the jury was back in the box.
Harlan folded his glasses in one hand and looked over the tops of them at both counsel tables.
“That is enough,” he said.
The courtroom went still.
“We are not stopping this trial every time someone with a phone and a podcast decides to manufacture a headline.”
His gaze landed briefly on Lila in the gallery.
“This case will be decided in this courtroom. By this jury. Based on evidence. Not by internet commentators, amateur sleuths, or anyone else determined to turn Jackson County into a circus.”
He looked back to Eleanor and Reid.
“I have questioned the panel. None of them has been exposed to anything that rises to the level of prejudice. We are proceeding.”
His expression hardened.
“And let me be perfectly clear: I do not intend to spend the next week polling this jury every time somebody in this town decides to point a camera at one of you. We are finishing this case.”
He looked directly at Eleanor.
“Ms. Harper, stay away from Ms. Grant.”
Then to Reid:
“And Mr. Calloway, if anyone connected to your office is feeding information to these people, I will discover it, and you will regret it.”
Reid braced himself as if taking a blow. “Understood, Your Honor.”
“Good,” Harlan said. “Call your next witness.”