Fatima’s cross-exam went on for another little bit after that, and it would’ve lasted almost a full half hour longer if I hadn’t given her the signal to cut it off. Cross-examination was the point at which far too many attorneys shot themselves in the foot, the same way Fatima had done during her prior trial against Amir. Being the aggressor was a delicate balance, and Fatima had already shown that she had the right instincts for ferreting out problems, but still didn’t know when to rein it in.

Once Fatima wrapped up and sat back down, Moe (or Mr. Monroe, I supposed) stood up from the defense’s table, and received permission to enter the well of the court.

“Mrs. King,” he began, “my friend on the other side has just spent quite a while lambasting you for the difference in size between two stacks of paper. What other explanation might you have for this disparity?”

My ears tilted back in interest and slight concern. That was… genuinely a good question. Reframing a bad answer elicited on cross? That was exactly what you wanted to do on redirect.

“Well you see, that’s because luxury buildings have to handle maintenance requests and complaints a bit different!” Mrs. King answered, brightening up now that she actually had room to elaborate. “Those were all escalated complaints, the ones that couldn’t be immediately handled by the front desk, leasing office, or maintenance team!”

“And how often would these escalated complaints happen, compared to the resolved ones?” Moe prompted, taking two steps back from Mrs. King and directing her focus on the jury at large.

“Well, about one in a thousand, really!” she crowed. “Our team was always good at handling those requests.”

“So, how did things differ for the Hillside Courtyard and similarly zoned properties to produce the amount of paper we were shown?”

“Well, we need a deeper paper trail for all those ‘low income’ units,” Mrs. King said, and I saw several jurors shift uncomfortably at the emphasis she placed on certain words. “Otherwise some reprobate could strip the copper, or steal the appliances, or so many other things, an’ we wouldn’t have any way to prove it!”

“I see,” Moe said, stepping back until he arrived at the top of the jury box. “What other procedures were in place to verify complaints in order to ensure the government had its paper trail?”

“Well, smaller stuff could be handled over the phone, but for bigger allegations, we’d have to visit the property and check in. We’d drive out there; or, well, my brother-in-law would drive us out, I’m no good behind the wheel anymore, it’s my eyes, you see—”

It took every iota of self control I had just to keep my poker face on. I wasn’t able to do anything about how my ears snapped straight up in attention, the sudden movement drawing Julio’s attention.

And I would only admit to grabbing my tail so it didn’t start wagging if I was under oath.

I tuned out all but the most obvious details of Mrs. King’s testimony after hearing that partial answer, only listening for a repeat of that particular phrase because holy shit, holy shit! No, we weren’t going to get ourselves a Perry Mason Moment, but I should think the Matlock or Columbo we might’ve just been handed would serve as a good consolation prize! I wrote out a quick note on a legal pad, silently thanking God (or whoever was in charge of me now; Inari? Amaterasu? Fuck if I knew) that I was left-handed, because the twinges in my back told me I wasn’t quite able to release the death grip my right hand had on my tail.

rq rc b4 r/c

got smt

‘We need to request a recess before recross; we’ve got something to double check’

Once the note was written out, I tossed the legal pad over to Julio (who passed it along to Fatima), nodded furiously at the incredulous looks I got back from both of them, and pulled out my phone to type a message to Casey.

ctrl+f depo 4 family mems

witness mentioned BIL

poss. conflict

My text message got three responses: exclamation marks, then a thumbs up, and then the sound of Casey standing up and exiting the courtroom. He was headed for the lawyer’s lounge, where he could pull out the small firm laptop I brought along for exactly these kinds of things, and could go through all of our exhibits to find Mrs. King’s disclosures and employment paperwork.

Casey sent me what I’d asked for within ten minutes, and when I opened it, I found exactly what I expected. Or rather, I didn’t find what I knew was supposed to be there, but had never been.

And if not for the witness going and snitching on herself on the stand, we might never have had a finger to point.

Julio spent the rest of the direct examination giving me odd looks, trying to figure out what I’d cottoned onto, while Fatima set all of her focus on disrupting the direct with objections. And while there were a few valid ones, most of them were just fluff, meant to piss off the witness. And while that was one of the valid ways to use objections, I worried that she was getting a bit too into it.

After another twenty minutes, though, Moe finished up with his questions, and the ball was back in our court. Judge Friedman turned to us, and I briefly relished in the look of sudden and terrified anticipation that flitted across Mrs. King’s face when she realized that the judge hadn’t dismissed her yet.

“Does the plaintiff have any new questions for this witness?” Judge Friedman asked.

I tapped my pen on the desk and drew Fatima’s gaze, whereupon I pointed out the note I’d written down, and gave her a meaningful look. She frowned, clearly angered and disappointed that I was slowing her roll, but gave a terse nod.

“Your Honor,” she began as she stood, “while we do have additional questions, we would request a brief ten-minute recess before continuing.”

I let out a quiet sigh of relief, ears lowering as the worry faded from my neck and shoulders. There was a nonzero chance I would’ve had to step in and pull rank, but thankfully, that didn’t happen.

“Hmm. Very well,” Judge Friedman said. “Let’s make it a thirty-minute recess, and reconvene at 11:47.”

When he brought the gavel down, I wasted no time standing from my seat and using the intimidation factor of ‘obvious Moonshot’ to make sure we could get out of the courtroom before anybody else. The gallery stayed silent and seated until we were out of the courtroom, and once we were clear, I began to power-walk towards the attorney lounge as fast as I could in three-inch heels. If I didn’t have company, I’d have just blinked over there in fifteen seconds, but I wasn’t about to abandon my junior attorneys.

“What is it?” Julio asked.

“Not here,” I snapped at him. He reared back a bit at my tone of admonishment, but he also should’ve known better than to ask about case strategy where somebody could overhear. Another bad habit from his days as a public defender, no doubt.

A minute later, we were in the attorney lounge, where we regrouped with Casey and sequestered ourselves in a quiet corner, monopolizing a pair of couches, three armchairs, and a low table. Given the proximity to lunchtime, only two other attorneys were actually in here, and if we spoke quietly enough, then there was no worry of being overheard.

“So are you going to tell us what’s going on?” Fatima asked.

“She fucked up,” I told her. “The witness mentioned her brother-in-law, right? You caught that?”

“What about it?” Fatima asked, confused.

“Casey?”

At my prompt, our enterprising little 3L student attorney turned his laptop to face Fatima, and showed her the exact spot on the document he’d found for me. Her eyes went wide at the sight, which prompted Julio to look over her shoulder and see what had gotten such a reaction out of her.

“Madre de Dios,” he murmured, clearly putting two and two together in his head. “It’s no smoking gun, but it’s definitely smoke.”

“And where there’s smoke…” I said, trailing off. “Now, the defendants may be privately owned companies, so we don’t get to use an argument that they’re beholden to shareholders. But a quick check shows that they are owned by major equity holding companies, which are publicly traded, which opens this issue right back up.”

“Okay, so when we get back in there, I ask her about—”

“No,” I interrupted. “Fatima, good job so far, but I’m taking the recross.”

“What!?” Fatima stood from her armchair, outrage clear on her face. “Why!? I’ve done a damn good job and you know it! She probably only slipped up so quickly because of how hard I grilled her!”

“And how many times during your cross-exam did the judge take issue with how you addressed the witness?” I asked.

“Only one time!” she exclaimed.

“Uh-huh,” I said, disbelief in my tone as I glanced over at my second seat and lowered an ear in prompt. “Julio?”

“He only said something the first time.” Julio’s voice was quiet and uneasy, his expression telling me that he didn’t like being on the spot like this. Unfortunately, this was a skill he needed to learn, and I’d rather he be exposed now than during the final moments of a losing case. “There were another nine times where he looked about to say something, but then settled down.”

“And most of those times, he looked over at me, and I had to let him know that I got the message,” I said with a groan. “Do you have any idea how annoying it is to try and use my ears like semaphore signals? No, no, forget it, I’m getting off track,” I said, waving them off. “The point is, Fatima? You made a lot of mistakes in how you addressed the witness, ones that only got the pass because the judge had a much more convenient target for his ire already there. You’re good on cross, terrifying really, but you are a shark, and this needs something else.”

“What?” Fatima questioned. Her expression had slowly gone from angry to shocked and worried as Julio and I spelled out just how close she’d gotten to losing the judge’s favor.

“You’re a shark,” I repeated. “You smell blood in the water, and you go right for it. But you also have zero restraint. You don’t know how to pull back and give them hope before you land the kill shot, and you monofocus on your witness so strongly that you lose awareness of everybody else in the courtroom. And that approach can work, don’t get me wrong! That’s what Amir does! But!” I continued, cutting off Fatima’s protest before she could voice it. “You need to be a good team player, because the shark approach has awful problems with tunnel vision, and if you’re not running that play with a team to pull back on the reins, then it will backfire more often than not.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on NovelBin. Report any occurrences.

“Such as by losing your jury,” Julio muttered. “S’how I got some easy wins as a public defender. Lotta prosecutors are bulls, so just wave a red flag.”

“Julio, please don’t dilute my metaphor. Also, don’t go thinking you’re sitting pretty there, you made plenty of fuck-ups of your own, and I’m only not going into them next because they’re not relevant right this very second,” I griped, ears low. Julio, to his credit, immediately offered Fatima a whispered apology. “Point is, this?” I pointed at the computer screen. “This is not your area of expertise. This isn’t going to be me rushing down wounded prey. This is going to be me outfoxing her.”

Casey and Julio both groaned. And while Fatima’s body language still screamed a combo of indignance and contrition pointed squarely my way, she managed to give me an unamused half-lidded stare at the pun.

“How?” Fatima asked. “What’re you gonna do with her?”

“Tell me, Fatima,” I began, my tail swaying behind me in eager anticipation. “Did you know that most interrogations start off with a friendly approach?”

“Is the plaintiff ready to question the witness?” Judge Friedman asked, eyes squarely on Fatima as he asked the question. She took a deep breath, then slumped a bit, and looked at me. I took her prompt and stood, catching Judge Friedman’s surprised gaze.

“Yes, your Honor,” I said. “Permission to approach?”

“Granted,” he said.

I entered the well of the court and stood close to both the jury and witness, just as Fatima did before. I needed Mrs. King off balance, and she’d just had thirty minutes of direct examination on this side of the courtroom, then enough of a break that maybe she’d actually forget where Fatima had questioned her from.

“Before anything else, I do apologize for taking up more of your time, Mrs. King,” I said, offering a soft, disarming smile. “I just have a few more questions I wanted to ask before letting you go. Nothing major, I assure you,” I lowered my ears and raised my hands slightly as I said this, in an apologetic affectation. “Just a few small points of clarification, really.”

I doubted she would just forget the six-plus hours of deposition I’d spent grilling her, but the difference between my demeanor then versus now should be enough to throw her off her game, even if only a little bit.

“I suppose,” Leslie King said, voice somewhat churlish as she kept her hands on her lap. Arms kept close, legs crossed… defensive body language. Okay, hopefully I could get her to loosen up slightly before going in for the kill.

“So, you mentioned not being the one to actually do the driving when visiting the properties you managed,” I said, stepping forward slightly in order to upstage the jury. “And I know you said it was because your eyesight isn’t quite what it used to be, but do you still maintain a valid driver’s license?”

“I do,” Mrs. King said, immediately pulling back after answering, only to instead lean back forward when she realized I wasn’t immediately cutting off any follow-up she might have. “But between you and me, it isn’t just that. All the cars are so big these days that I can’t even see past the dash in some of them, don’t you know?”

“Um, I actually don’t?” I said, offering an embarrassed giggle as I lowered my ears and flicked my tail. “I, um, can’t drive for more than a few minutes at a time. They don’t really make car seats for tails.”

I turned slightly to the side and gave my tail another flick, drawing some laughter from the gallery and jury — and, crucially, from Mrs. King.

“But while I don’t quite get it from personal experience, I do understand. Is that why you asked your brother-in-law to drive you?”

“Of course!” she crowed, her posture loosening as the questioning went on. “Ol’ Dicky is six foot two and all, so he’s got no problem seeing the road. I feel so much safer with him behind the wheel of any car than I ever did driving my old station wagon!”

“That’s awfully kind of your brother-in-law then, isn’t it?” I commenced my movement after this question, taking two steps away from the jury box as I continued my approach.

“How do you figure?”

“Well, he’s taking time out of his hard-earned retirement to ferry you from apartment building to apartment building every month so you can do your job, isn’t he?” I asked.

“I’m sorry?” Mrs. King asked back, a somewhat confounded expression on her face.

“Objection!” Moe called, and thankfully, it didn’t take too much self-control to keep my ears from giving away my annoyance. “Your Honor, where’s the relevance here?”

“Just another few moments of the court’s indulgence, your Honor,” I said. “Like I said at the start, I’m asking for clarification on a few points, and unfortunately that sometimes needs foundation.”

“Hmm. I’ll allow it for now, but you’ll want to get to the point soon, Ms. Ziegler,” Judge Friedman said. “The witness will answer the question.”

“I-I’m sorry, what was the question again?” Mrs. King asked, the same confusion I’d read on her face now present in her voice.

“Oh, I was just asking about how your brother-in-law must be quite the saint to ferry you to and from a dozen or so apartment buildings every month, what with being retired and all?”

“O-oh, Dicky isn’t retired!” Mrs. King replied hotly, leaning forward on the witness stand.

“He’s not?” I asked, frowning in slight confusion. “Where did — hm, okay, I must’ve misheard that. Sorry about that, it’s easy to get distracted by other sounds with ears like mine.”

I waggled both ears for effect, then made a show of swiveling one towards the gallery, letting my eyes unfocus, and turning in that direction.

“Also on that note, could whoever is eating sunflower seeds in the gallery please take their snacking outside the courtroom, or wait until the next recess?” I asked, laying my ears flat atop my head. “Please? I know it’s getting close to lunch time and people are getting hungry, but I can hear you cracking open each and every seed, and it is maddening!”

Despite the chuckles from the jury, the audience, and Mrs. King (hah, got you, bitch!), nobody stood up to exit the courtroom. Judge Friedman cleared his throat and leaned into the microphone on the bench.

“There is to be no eating in my courtroom,” he announced. “Water, coffee, and tea are okay. Anything else, I want out.”

Once again, nobody moved. As expected, because there was nobody eating sunflower seeds in the gallery! But who was going to countermand me when it came to overhearing something? Nobody! Which meant I’d gotten away with my little stunt, and accomplished two goals in the process. One, I’d gotten the witness to fully let her guard down.

And two, I’d crossed over to the other side of the well of the court, directing Mrs. King’s attention away from the jury, and she hadn’t noticed.

“Hmm…” I made a show of swiveling my ears over the gallery, listening closely for nonexistent sounds. “Well, whoever it was, they seem to have stopped at least. Good enough I suppose, whatever. Anyway!” I spun back around to face my witness. “Mrs. King! Remind me, you’d just said that your brother-in-law was not a retiree, correct?”

“Objection, asked and answered,” Moe said as he briefly stood to state his objection before sitting back down, not even bothering to push his chair back.

“Well, that answers that, I suppose,” I said, offering the jury and witness a shrug, which again received some chuckles. “Anyway, um… so if your brother-in-law… Dicky? Is it okay for me to call him that, too? Not Richard?”

“Oh, he’s outgrown his Richard days,” Mrs. King replied.

“Okay, Dicky it is then,” I affirmed, taking another step back and away from the jury box. “So, ‘Dicky’. I assume since he’s not retired that he accompanied you to those site visits as part of his job?”

“Why yes, yes he did,” Mrs. King replied. Her posture had fully loosened up, at this point. The clear contrast between how Fatima had gone for the throat and the way I still had the kid gloves on was clearly doing what I wanted it to.

“So I assume, then, that he works for the same company you do?” I asked. “Property Management Solutions?”

I heard the faintest bit of a strangled gasp from the gallery, the front row directly behind the defense’s table. My left ear briefly swiveled in that direction, but I angled it back towards the witness only a moment later. She probably didn’t notice, but from the way my juniors perked up, both of them certainly did.

“Oh, no, he works for, oh, what was the full name?” Mrs. King snapped her fingers, apparently trying to remember. “Oh, you know! Like that black actor!”

“William C. Smith & Company?” I offered.

“Yes, that’s the one!” Mrs. King responded, one last triumphant snap as she pointed at me. “Ol’ Dicky works for them!”

“I see,” I said, pacing up towards the center aisle, “that would explain why he’s… wait, hang on. Is that even allowed?”

“… I’m sorry, I don’t follow,” Mrs. King said with a frown. But thanks to the angle I had her looking to follow me, she didn’t catch how the jury shared looks with each other, and leaned forward.

“I mean, it’s just that… well, your company gives bonuses based on performance as rated by the building owners who contracted out to you, yes?”

“Well, yes.”

“And given that your brother-in-law is the one who apparently was your opposite number at WCS, and therefore ostensibly in charge of evaluating those performance metrics, that means you have a family member responsible for writing the thing that decides how much extra free money you get at the end of the year, yes?”

Mrs. King still hadn’t quite noticed the trap that I’d gotten her to walk into.

“Well, it’s not just Dicky’s input, you know!” Mrs. King replied, offering a bit of a shaky chuckle at the end.

“But he was the only one who accompanied you on-site to get a good look around, wasn’t he?” I pressed.

“Well, yes, but—”

“So that means, and I’m not accusing you of anything here!” I rushed that last bit out, hands up and placating, but I did offer a half-grin and a quirked ear to the members of the jury who had their eyes glued to me. “But, wouldn’t that be a conflict of interest?”

“No!” Mrs. King exclaimed, steadfast in her denial.

“Are you sure? Because, well, if the two of you were to… I don’t know,” I gesticulated a bit with my hands, drawing the attention of the jury. “Say you were to fudge the numbers a little bit, under- or over-exaggerate the state of things on the properties at issue, then nobody would ever actually know if you saw one thing at the properties and wrote down another. And if you did that, you could get a bigger holiday bonus or better raise, and nobody would ever know, would they? That sounds like a classic conflict of interest to me, and possibly even fraud. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“What—why I never—”

“Mrs. King, I really am so sorry to press you on this, but I do need you to answer the question, if that’s alright with you?” I kept my tone light, pleasant. Like butter wouldn't melt in my mouth.

It was the exact same tone she’d used at the start of her deposition, late last year.

“That… it…”

“Hmm… your Honor,” I turned to the judge briefly. “Do I have permission to inform Mrs. King of all her options here?”

“Proceed,” Judge Friedman said. I gave him a nod of thanks, and turned back to my witness.

“Mrs. King, I understand that answering the question I asked of you could, in theory, constitute confessing to a criminal offense. If that is in fact the case, you have the option to invoke your Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. Do note, however, that this is a civil matter, not a criminal one.” I gestured over towards the jury. “Because this is a civil matter, if you take the Fifth, the jury can make assumptions based on that. Now, you’re not on trial — your boss is, yes, but not you.

“So with all of that in mind.” I stalked closer to Mrs. King, teeth bared in a tight smile. “Do you wish to invoke your right to remain silent? Or will you answer the question?”

Mrs. King did not answer, face pale as she leaned back as far from the jury as she could. Silence stretched for four seconds, five, six.

At the seventh second, Judge Friedman cleared his throat.

“If the witness wishes to take the Fifth, then she must clearly and unequivocally state that she is invoking her Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.”

Judge Friedman gave the witness a meaningful look. She met his gaze briefly, and gulped, looking at her employer’s representative on the other side of the courtroom.

“I…” she cleared her throat. “I w-would like to, to invoke my right to remain silent.”

The courtroom erupted in murmurs, which Judge Friedman allowed to persist for only a few seconds before bringing his gavel down to silence the gallery.

“Counselor?” the judge asked me.

“Nothing further for this witness,” I said.

“Your Honor,” Moe broke in as I finished, “defense has no further questions for this witness.”

“In that case,” I continued, “the plaintiff rests.”

“Very well,” the judge said as I made my way back to my seat. “The witness is excused.”

“Naomi,” Julio whispered as I sat down, drawing my attention away from the judge asking if the defense was ready to put on their case in chief this afternoon. “How did you know that would work?”

“She spent thirty minutes expecting more of Fatima going for her throat,” I said, making sure both of my juniors could hear me. “So I subverted her expectations at the start, she dropped her guard, and the whiplash did the rest.” I looked past Julio and stared Fatima square in the eye. “This is why we step on the brakes sometimes. You don’t always need to be out for blood. Sometimes it’s better just to sell them a bit of rope.”