City of the Dead (Alex Delaware, #37)(9)

Added to that, he had a history of domestic abuse with three previous girlfriends, including a battery conviction that had earned him jail time.

The level of rancor hadn’t risen that high with the only woman he’d married. So far.

When I observed him with his daughter, he had no clue what to do, spoke very little, seemed detached. When he tried to engage the child, she shied away from him.

When she was out of earshot, I commented on her social distancing and he shrugged it off. “She’s too little to think.”

Despite first impressions, I took my time as I always do, observing interactions in my office, at the family home, and in a nearby park. Rapport between father and daughter never developed and it didn’t take long for him to begin canceling appointments.

I entered chambers with a clear notion of what I was going to say. Then the father’s lawyer blindsided the mother’s lawyer by announcing a surprise expert.

In the legal world, expertise is a formal status established in court. The process begins with direct examination of the purported sage by friendly counsel aimed at polishing image to a high gloss: ticking off every year of higher education, training, and experience; enumerating academic appointments, publications, teaching duties, professional awards.

When unfriendly counsel sniffs vulnerability, all of that is immediately challenged during cross-examination. When no chinks in the armor are spotted, the strategy shifts to damage control: try to cut the recitation short with a terse, “We stipulate.”

The practice of family law—of law, in general—has nothing to do with truth and everything to do with brinkmanship and illusion. The less a judge or jury hears about a solid witness, the better.

For all that, during most pre-trial proceedings, including meetings in camera, no formal screening takes place. A fact that the father’s attorney, a gruff-voiced bottom-feeder named Forrest Slope, had tried to exploit.

He introduced his savant with a flourish that raised the judge’s eyebrows.

“This,” he boomed, “is Dr. Cordelia Gannett!”

Moments later, in pranced a lithe blonde in her early thirties, wearing a tight black sheath dress, yellow stiletto-heeled shoes, and a centerfold smile directed at the judge. Then she turned the charm on me, tacking on a nanosecond pout.

Let’s be friends? Puh-leeze?

The mother’s lawyer was a hollow-cheeked, metallic-voiced SoulCycle fanatic named Lara Ettinger. Guess where she’d met her client.

She said, “Your Honor, expertise needs to be established.”

“That’s for court,” said Forrest Slope, grinning. “This is a free exchange of ideas. Correct, Your Honor?”

The judge, on the bench for four months, looked befuddled.

I’d been trying to re-engage Cordelia Gannett. Since I’d ignored the pout, she’d studiously avoided me.

I whispered something to Ettinger.

Slope said, “Ahem. Free exchange, not covert maneuvers from Mr. Delaware, Your Honor.”

Ettinger said, “Dr. Delaware. As a matter of fact, Professor Delaware.”

Slope said, “Professor? Those who can’t do, teach?”

Ettinger rose to her feet. “Your Honor, we had a predetermined agenda. Given Mr. Slope’s last-minute attempt at disruption, I request a recess to confer with Professor Delaware.”

“Professor,” said Slope, twirling a finger.

“Your Honor, Mr. Slope is out of line and causing the situation to degenerate into ad hominem attacks. Clearly the actions of one who knows—”

Slope said, “What I know is that I’m well within my rights to advance—”

The judge quieted the room with what sounded like a moan. Wiping sweat from his upper lip, he said, “This does change things. How long a recess do you request, Ms. Ettinger?”

“An hour.”

“It’s nearing lunchtime, let’s reconvene in two hours.”

As we left, Dr. Cordelia Gannett finally turned to me. Smiling again but her eyes betrayed her. Not even close to happy.



* * *



—

When Ettinger and I reentered chambers two hours later, neither Slope nor Gannett was there and Ettinger, manically ebullient, made her move. “If it pleases Your Honor, I’d like to discuss some recently uncovered info—”

The door opened. Slope slumped in alone, chewing his cheek. “The least you could do was wait, Lara.”

The judge waved him off. “What were you saying, Ms. Ettinger?”

Ettinger rubbed her palms together. “During the recess you so graciously granted, Your Honor, we did some background research on Mr. Slope’s alleged expert and found her to be anything but. Her alleged doctoral degree is from an uncertified correspondence school, her alleged experience in the field of child clinical or pediatric psychology or any variant of such is nonexistent and in fact, last year, she was brought up on charges of misrepresentation—”

Slope’s cheeks inflated. “Not relevant. Dr. Gannett knows my client well and has substantive information.”

“She knows your client quite well,” said Ettinger, “because she had an intimate relationship with him.”

Like a horny pigeon, Slope puffed his chest and upped the volume of his squawk. “Exactly, Lara! Intimate. Derived from the Latin intimatus, meaning ‘to make familiar.’ That is our goal here—your goal, I’m sure, Your Honor. Making the truth familiar rather than leaving it as a hazy abstraction. I posit, Your Honor, that in matters of child welfare, familiarity is highly relevant and that Dr. Gannett is in a unique position to shed light on my client’s interpersonal merits—”