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 or TWO years Joanne
Kuhlman had gone to bed each night not knowing whether her
children were dead or alive. That morning, Leah, her
fifteen-year-old daughter, had made her so angry that Joanne had
felt like shipping her back to her father. Even if she'd been
serious, the man was currently in jail and would more than
likely be sentenced to prison.
Exiting her white
Lexus, Joanne jogged toward the main entrance to the Ventura
County courthouse. She wondered how many people in her office
knew abou the situation with her ex-husband. Worrying about
gossip, she told herself, should be the least of her concerns.
Her prayers had been answered- Leah and Mike had been located
and returned. The fact that Doug's first trial would be held in
Los Angeles was another reason she should be grateful. At least
the divorce was final now. The papers had come through the
previous month. Joanne had filed over a year ago, yet with
Doug's whereabouts unknown, the proceedings could not be
finalized.
At thirty-nine, Joanne
was a petite and youthful-looking woman, with shoulder-length
chestnut-brown hair, pronounced cheekbones, and large hazel
eyes. Naturally slender, she self-consciously tugged on the hem
of her jacket. In less than three months, she had gained ten
pounds. People said she looked great. She didn't mind having a
curvaceous body, but she couldn't afford to buy a new wardrobe.
Pushing her way through
the heavy oaks doors, Joanne leaned against the back wall to
catch breath. Leah was shifting from one behavioral problem to
the next. The night before, she'd decided to go joyriding, then
failed to turn the headlights off once she returned home. The
battery on the Lexus had been dead that morning. With the help
of their neighbor, Emily, Joanne had scrounged up a pair of
jumper cables in the cluttered garage and managed to get the car
started. The court hearing had been scheduled for nine, however,
and it was already nine-thirty. Joanne was not only late, but
she had a run in her nylons and a grease stain on the front of
her turquoise blazer. Thrusting her shoulders back, she shook
her hands to release the pent up tension, then strode briskly
down the aisle to speak to the bailiff.
"Did Judge Spencer get
my message?" Joanne asked, glancing over her shoulder at the
defense attorney and his three clients. "My car.."
Officer John Shaw was a
stone-faced redhead in his late twenties. He tapped his
watch with his finger, his voice as flat as his personality.
"The longer he
waits..."
"Right," Joanne
answered, feeling idiotic for offering an excuse, particularly
to the bailiff. Unless something unexpected occurred, Shaw's job
consisted of saying a few words and the standing around like a
statue.
Shaw plucked a piece of
chewing gum out of his mouth, wrapped it in a scrap of paper,
then tossed it across the room into the trash can.
"Are we ready?"
Joanne was leaning
over, yanking her paperwork out of her green nylon backpack. Her
co-workers made fun of her, telling her she looked more like a
camper than an attorney. Compartmentalized to hold file folders
as well as her laptop computer, the backpack had been a birthday
present from her father. For years, she had lugged around the
heavy litigation cases or costly briefcases. Next month would
mark her ten-year anniversary as a prosecutor. Image no longer
mattered. All she cared about was distributing the weight evenly
on her back. "No, John," she said facetiously. "I thought we'd
just sit around and shoot the breezefor the next half hour."
The bailiff's jaw
dropped, but he knew to keep his mouth shut. Joanne Kuhlman
might be slightly frazzled today, but she was a major player in
the Ventura County judicial system. Although she'd declined for
personal reasons, she'd been offered a judgeship the previous
year. Everyone knew she was renting Judge Spencer's beach house,
and had even become friends with the presiding judge's wife who
lived next door.
Anne McKenzie, the
court clerk, was a pretty blonde with dove-grey eyes, and a
pleasant disposition. Dressed neatly in a white shirt and black
sweater, she took over for the bailiff. "Are you serious, Ms.
Kuhlman? Should I buzz Judge Spencer or do you want us to wait
for you to get organized? I've already called the jury room."
Picking up her pen and
jotting down a few notes to herself, Joanne answered without
raising her head. "I assumed you notified Spencer as soon as I
got here." When she discovered her pen had run out of ink, she
threw is aside and grabbed another one.
"I just thought..."
A muscle in Joanne's
face twitched. She started at the clock mounted on the wall over
the clerk's console, the minutes clicking off inside her head.
"I appreciate your consideration, Anne," she said, attempting to
smile.
"We should begin immediately, though, don't you think?"
Her neighbor had
lectured her over the hood of her car that morning. "A human
being can only take so much stress," Emily Merritt had told her.
"You need to take yoga classes, mediated, book yourself a nice
vacation."
Emily was married to
the persiding judge, Kenneth Merritt, a man twenty years her
senior and extremely wealthy. She knew Joannes's predicament.
When you lived at Seacliff Point, everyone knew your business.
The community consisted of only thirty-three homes, the lots so
narrow, they could hear each other's toilet's flushing.
Judge Kenneth Merritt
had inherited the fifty-acre parcel of prime coastal real estate
from an ancestor, then later sold lots to handpicked
individuals, most of them friends or family members. Unlike
Joanne, Emily spent her days shopping, sunbathing, or playing
bridge at the only commercial establishment Merritt had allowed
behind the gates at Seacliff Point, a spectacular structure he
had named the Cove.
Perched on a cliff
above the water, the Cove was shaped in the form of a star, with
the rooms branching out in five different directions. The
building was supported by enormous steel poles imbedded deep
into the core of the rock's surface. Merritt boasted that the
Cove was sturdy enough to withstand a major earthquake.
©
1996 Penguin USA
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