Chapter 5
By Monday morning, news of Tom Loomis’s grisly demise had hit the global tabloid web.
It made for a clickable story. Handsome news anchor at the prime of his career brutally slain by his wife while he slept.
It was driven in part by Tom’s modest fan club.
His perfect veneers and surfer blond hair smiled at me the moment I fired up my laptop.
I had three messages from Joe, wanting my answer about whether I’d take the case. But in the end, he wasn’t the one who swayed me.
“She’s just come in,” Miranda whispered. She stood outside my office door, holding her mug of coffee.
“Did she say anything?”
Miranda shook her head. “She doesn’t look good.”
Emma hadn’t answered a single text or call from me all weekend. Joe broke the news to her but didn’t give me details about how she took it.
“She’s in her office?” I asked.
“I’m right here,” Emma said. Miranda jumped a bit, not having heard Emma come up the stairs. Miranda was right. Emma looked awful. She had dark, puffy circles under her eyes and pallid skin.
“I’ll let you two talk,” Miranda said. “Sure you won’t let me bring you something to eat, honey?”
Emma shook her head. She thanked Miranda and walked into my office, taking a space on one of the couches at the far end of the room. I came out from behind my desk to join her.
“I guess I don’t have to ask you how you’re taking all of this,” I said.
Emma closed her eyes and shook her head. “I’m trying to wake up from a nightmare. This can’t be real. Can it?”
“You can’t let this derail you,” I said. “You’re in the homestretch with school. That should be your main focus.”
“How can it be? Aunt Cass, I’m still mad at Katy. Furious, really. She ruined everything. She’s still guilty of walking out on us and breaking my dad’s heart. My heart. But this? Murder? She didn’t do this. She can’t have done this.”
“It’s pretty shocking.”
“We have to help her,” Emma said.
“Emma …”
“No. We have to. Promise me. She needs you. I’m still angry with her. Maybe I’ll always be. But Katy’s my mom. She just … is.”
“I know,” I said. “But this is complicated.”
“No,” she said. “It’s not. She needs help. It’s so bizarre. There’s this part of me that feels like this whole thing is fate. My calling to be a lawyer, if that’s what it is. Like maybe it’s all been leading to this. So I can actually do something when somebody I care about is in trouble.”
“I want to help her too,” I said. “I just don’t think I ethically can.”
“You can,” Emma said. “I’ve spent the whole weekend diving into this. Researching the rules. There’s a way, Aunt Cass.”
“Is this a private party or can anyone join?” Jeanie stood in my doorway, her face still glowing with her Barbados suntan.
She walked over to Emma, sat beside her, and pulled her into a hug.
Emma collapsed against her. If Katy was the closest thing she’d ever had to a mother, Jeanie was the closest she’d ever had to a grandmother.
Miranda walked in next. She carried a Styrofoam box and a cup of coffee. She set both in front of Emma and opened the box. She’d gotten Emma’s favorite. Cherry Danishes from Sweet Delights.
“Eat,” Miranda said. “It’s non-negotiable.”
I thought Emma would protest. But her stomach growled and she reached for a Danish.
“What’s the plan, Cass?” Jeanie asked.
“The plan?”
“Oh, come on,” Miranda said, taking a seat on the other side of Emma. “We’ve all been mulling it over for days. You want to tell me you haven’t?”
“I could be called as a witness,” I said. “Joe will be called as a witness. Emma, I can’t promise that you won’t be called. Katy will be on trial for murdering her husband. Her history with Joe is at issue. If I were Sharon DePaul, that’d be the most obvious motive.”
“I’m not sure about that,” Jeanie said. “What are you a witness to, really? Joe and Katy’s marriage is public record.
As far as their more recent, um, dalliances, Joe said he openly admitted everything to Detective DePaul.
There’s no need to call you to establish that fact. So, I mean … technically …”
“She’ll sign a waiver,” Emma said. “I’m sure of it. Jeanie’s right. Your testimony about my dad’s relationship with Katy isn’t required. Neither is mine.”
“He’s not a person of interest anyway,” Jeanie said.
Emma put her half-eaten Danish down. “I pretty much crawled into and set up camp in the MRPC this weekend,” she said. She went to my small bookcase and pulled down my copy of the Michigan Rules of Professional Conduct, which covered lawyer ethics. She tossed it to me.
“Rule 3.7,” she said. “Your testimony would relate to an uncontested fact. You won’t be called as a witness, so check that off the list. And you just need a waiver and consent on any other conflicts of interest. I told you.
Katy will sign it. We’re still a family. A messed up one, granted, but still.”
“You sound like your dad,” I said. “Fine, let’s assume you’re right about the rules. Just because I can do this doesn’t mean I should. Katy needs somebody who can look at her case objectively and counsel her without emotion.”
“You’re wrong,” Emma said. “That’s the complete opposite of what she needs. She needs a pit viper who knows how to fight mean when it’s necessary. Who knows her well enough to show people who she really is, not who she looks like on paper. That’s you.”
“Pit viper?” I said. “Thank you. I think?”
“She has a point,” Miranda said. “The jury is gonna know Katy cheated on your brother. But seeing you stand beside her anyway. That could carry some real emotional weight. You’d be a character witness by your sheer presence.”
Jeanie raised a brow. Her wheels were turning too. If I looked at it clinically, Miranda had a strong point. But that was the trouble; there was no way for me to look at it from an objective perspective. I knew Katy too well.
I knew Katy too well.
I understood Emma’s feelings because I shared them.
I hadn’t gotten over my own anger at her betrayal of Joe and Emma.
But they both still loved her. Deep down, so did I.
That said, my brother had been utterly devastated by their break-up.
Had she not thrown him over for Tom Loomis, we wouldn’t be sitting here having this conversation.
And yet, there was still a giant elephant in the room. “Okay,” I said.
“Okay?” Emma said, her face lighting up.
I put a hand up in a cautionary gesture.
“Hold on a second. Not okay, I’ll do it.
But okay, everyone’s right. Katy may well need the toughest defense team she can get.
My instinct to help her is strong; I’ll admit that.
If she were some random client who I believed was innocent, that would be the end of the discussion.
As long as the check cleared, I’d go in there and put the prosecution to its proofs.
It’s just … we aren’t objective. None of us.
So somebody needs to ask the questions we’d all have if she were some random client. ”
I got blank stares from all of them. I waited for a beat, then took a breath.
“Guys,” I said. “What if she’s not innocent? What if she actually killed Tom Loomis?”
Jeanie looked down at her shoes. Miranda looked at Emma. Emma stared straight through me.
“You can’t think …” Emma started.
“I can,” I said. “I don’t know Katy’s side of the story.
And I can’t very well march over to the jail and demand she tell it to me unless I’ve already agreed to take her case.
I told her that three days ago. If I’m not her lawyer, anything she tells me I can be compelled to testify about.
So never mind whether the court or the Attorney Discipline Board has an issue with it, that’s my personal issue with it. ”
Jeanie rose off the couch. She circled it, walked to my desk, then walked back.
“There’s a way,” she said. “You agree to represent Katy. You get her to sign all the waivers you need. Then we do this together. Co-counsel. If Katy tells you something incriminating, as her lawyer, it’s privileged.
But if we’re at trial and something happens where you don’t feel you can ethically continue, then none of your issues would apply to me. I can take over.”
“That’s perfect,” Emma said. “And I’ll be walled off. I’ll stay a million miles away from this.”
Their logic was sound. But again, logic wasn’t the only problem.
“I suppose you’d want to do this pro bono.” Miranda sighed.
“She can’t afford us,” Emma said. “But she needs us. We can’t leave her to a public defender, Aunt Cass. Please. I’m begging you. Shamelessly. If you can’t do this for Katy, or my dad, then I’m asking you to do it for me.”
“You’re killing me,” I whispered. “All of you.”
Emma smiled. She came over to the other couch and wrapped her arms around me.
“I love you,” she said. “And I love Katy. Even when I hate her.”
“That right there is the true definition of a real mother/daughter relationship,” Miranda joked.
“Fine,” I said. “But all of it. Waivers. Walling Emma off. Jeanie as my backup. But Emma, when I mean walled off, I mean completely. I don’t even want you talking to your father about this case. Do you think you can do that?”
“Yes,” she said. “I promise.”
“I’m not saying yes,” I said. “Not yet. But I can represent Katy at her arraignment today. Then she and I will have a serious talk. If I don’t come away from it feeling good, it ends there.
They still won’t be able to call me to testify against her, but I can remove myself from any further entanglement. ”
“Perfect,” Emma said.
I resisted the urge to tell her this whole thing was about as far from perfect as a case could get. But she was right. I didn’t want Katy thrown to the wolves without helping her put up a good fight.
Now I just had to hope she hadn’t actually killed her husband.