“No. I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m going to play soccer in college and have a modeling career. Mom and I have been looking for talent agents.”
Suddenly, I’m acutely aware of something that people forget about my daughter, even me. She’s still a clueless child.
Or, is that explanation too facile, a father’s rationalization? Are her words a symptom of something far darker and more disturbing than mere childish naïveté?
Chapter 14
When I get back to the office, Debra is typing on her computer. I report my conversation with Hailey.
Debra slams her laptop cover shut and says, “This is bad.”
“It’s not really—”
“Oh, it really is. The prosecution hasn’t divulged even a fraction of the evidence they have against her. Lundy always hides the ball—as you know better than anyone. Worse, Hailey hasn’t been forthcoming. When she gets found out, she comes up with these ridiculous explanations: her close friend Ethan is a vindictive rejected suitor; the coach doesn't like her because she quit a youth soccer team; Farah created bogus e-mails and committed suicide just to get back at Poor Little Hailey. Well, she’s not the victim. Farah Medhipour is.”
“You’ve known Hailey since she was ten years old. Do you honestly think she’s guilty?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. What matters is that the wrong jury could convict her. She’s not appealing.”
“She’s beautiful and poised. At least all those beauty contests helped with that.”
Debra shakes her head. “People hate the popular girl. And I don’t mean to offend you, but she’s cold. What’s the word? Imperious.” She takes a deep breath. “I have something to tell you. You won’t like it. I called Josh Lundy a little while ago and floated the idea of a plea bargain.”
“You did what? How dare you do that without consulting me? Do you want to ruin Hailey’s life? All you’ve done is make Lundy think we have no confidence in our case.”
“He says he’ll agree to a maximum of five years as an adult, but I think he’ll go for eighteen months in juvy if we make a deal now.”
“No fucking way.”
“If she weren’t your daughter, you’d consider it.”
I walk out of Debra’s office, collect my things, and go to my car. As I drive, my viscera begin to twist in indecision, because I do know that Debra is right. A plea bargain is something to consider.
When I arrive home, I ask Hailey and Janet to join me in the living room. When Daniel starts to follow, Janet says, “This is a private conversation.”
“I want Danny to stay,” Hailey says.
Once everyone is seated, I broach the subject of a plea bargain, explain the risks of going to trial.
“This is Debra’s doing,” Janet says.
“It’s part of any discussion when you represent a defendant,” I say. “Most cases plead out.”
“No. This is Debra. She’s gotten you to doubt your own daughter.”
“That’s not true.”
“I want that woman off the case,” Janet says. “I want her out of our lives. End the partnership. She’s been holding you back for years, anyway.”
“I’m not going to fire Debra. She’s my partner.”
“And what the hell am I?”
All the while, Hailey has, as usual, sat silently and watched us argue, her demeanor reminiscent of a tennis referee. Daniel is more like a ball boy, hunched over, subservient, and unobtrusive.
Finally, Hailey says, “Stop fighting, you guys. Dad, I’m not going to make a deal. I’m innocent. Mom, I want Debra on the case. Dad needs her. I need her.”
Janet frowns.
“You have to consider this, Hailey,” I say. “A plea bargain could mean that you’d avoid a possible sentence in an adult prison, that you’d be out in a year and a half and start your life. Sometimes guilt and innocence don’t matter. Freedom always matters.”
To my surprise, Hailey asks Daniel’s opinion.
He thinks for a moment. “Aren’t guilt or innocence the only things that matter, Dad? Aren’t you always telling us that the law is all about justice? If Hailey’s innocent, wouldn’t it be unjust if she spends a second behind bars?”
And that ends the discussion. Only later do I realize that Daniel said if Hailey is innocent rather than because she is innocent.
Chapter 15
Before the financial crisis in 2008, O’Mahoney’s Irish Pub in mid-city was a popular sports bar where stockbrokers, bond traders, and big law attorneys went to drink and dine after the markets and their offices closed. These days, it’s mostly a hangout for middle-aged soccer fanatics, Irish expats, and broken-down former athletes. At five o’clock in the afternoon, a few days after Hailey’s preliminary hearing, I walk into the bar to find Nicholas Volokh, coach of Hailey’s high school and former club teams, sitting alone at a back table. Although O’Mahoney’s touts its array of ales on tap, Volokh is a whiskey drinker. He’s been known to show up at soccer practice with an obvious hangover. But he’s a good teacher of the game, and more importantly, a winner, and even in youth soccer, everyone loves a winner.
He’s a tough guy—he played a bit of pro soccer in the UK—but I’m a larger man. When he sees me, he starts and makes a move to get up.
“Sit back down, Nick,” I say, moving to within six inches of him.
“Why should I?”
“You wouldn’t want the school to know that its soccer coach and recovering alcoholic smells like he’s been guzzling Tennessee moonshine during school hours, would you?”
He complies, and I sit across from him.
“The DA told me I didn’t have to talk to you, Hovanes.”
“I just want to know why you threw Hailey under the bus when you know it’s all lies. My God, you’ve coached her since she was twelve. You could’ve at least given me a heads up. You didn’t even have the loyalty to do that.”
“You’re not one to talk about loyalty after moving her to the Southern City United.” Although Volokh coaches the high school team, the true competitive soccer is played in the club leagues. The colleges, and sometimes even the pros, recruit from the club leagues.
“We’ve been over this. She needs that college scholarship, and you don’t get scholarships playing below premier. Is that really what this is about? Your star player leaves your team, so you accuse her of a crime?”
He chugs the rest of his drink and signals to the server to bring him another. I order a glass of water.
“Hailey intentionally set out to hurt Farah,” he says. “She was jealous because Farah was about to take her position, and I think your daughter saw that scholarship flying out the window. So she tried to injure the girl. One of the dirtiest tackles I’ve seen in girls’ competition; hell, in boys’ competition. Farah’s down, writhing in pain, and Hailey taunts her and yells, ‘I warned you, bitch. Next time I won’t be so nice.’”
Interesting. This fact wasn’t in Volokh’s declaration.
“And the attack wasn’t only physical,” he continues. “Hailey got the other girls to freeze Farah out, in practice and in games. They wouldn’t pass to her even when she was wide open, wouldn’t come to the ball when she was double teamed. It was disgusting. Cost the team a victory, maybe two.”
“Hailey isn’t that kind of player.”
“How would you know?”
He’s right. I saw only one high school game this season, and Hailey received a yellow card for an overly aggressive play. I’d never seen that before. But the girls have gotten older and stronger, and the competition has gotten more intense, so you’d expect more physical play. Hell, one of Volokh’s techniques is to have them scrimmage against boys’ teams to make them tougher.
“It’s tragic,” he says. “If Farah had continued to develop, she would’ve been a special player.”
“According to Hailey, Farah was stalking her.”
His tippler’s laugh is derisive. “What I saw was that she looked up to Hailey—admir
ation, not stalking. She was nerdy, and your ever-so-cool daughter doesn’t like nerds.” The server brings Volokh another shot, which he chugs down. “I have nothing against you. The fact is that Hailey didn’t behave well. At least your daughter is alive. Farah’s mother is a broken woman. Do you know she came to see me afterward? I was afraid she was going to shame me for not protecting her daughter. She thanked me for making Farah’s life a little happier. I spoke with the district attorney because I want to see justice done for that girl. Now, this interview is over.”
“I’m not finished talking to you, Volokh.”
“Oh, I think you are.” He glances over my shoulder, and I follow his eyes. Two roughnecks are standing over me. I recognize one as Vlad, who spent a month as Volokh’s assistant coach until the parents found out he’d been arrested two years earlier for assault and battery. More accurately, I did a records search and found out. Vlad doesn’t like me. I don’t recognize the second man, whose most prominent characteristic is a massive chest.
“Well, if it isn’t the lawyer,” Vlad says, smirking. “The lawyer bothering you, Nick?”
“Mr. Hovanes was just leaving,” Volokh says.
I know a credible threat when I see it, so I get up. “More soon, Coach.” And there will be more soon. I’m going to destroy this guy because of what he’s trying to do to my daughter. I know just how to do it.
Chapter 16
All attorneys seem to have the ability to convince themselves of their own righteousness. It’s an occupational hazard. Which is why I’m able to persuade myself that it’s a good idea to visit Farah’s mother unannounced even though she’s steadfastly refused to meet with Debra.
On a Saturday morning, I drive to Shirin Medhipour’s Tudor-style house in the Hillcrest district, a neighborhood far more upscale than mine. The home seems too spacious for only the girl and her mother. How empty it must feel now.
I park my car, climb the stonemasonry steps, and reach out to ring the doorbell. My hand begins to tremble. What am I thinking, invading this grieving mother’s privacy? If I were only Hailey’s lawyer, this might be all right, but I’m not only Hailey’s lawyer.
Impulsively, I press the button anyway.
There are footsteps, and the door opens. Shirin is an attractive woman in her mid-to-late thirties—black hair, full lips, a Greek nose. She’s dressed casually, in yoga pants and a long t-shirt. What did I expect, mourning garb? Her doleful brown eyes indict me for having the temerity to show up on her doorstep—indict me for being Hailey Hovanes’s father.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I say, and flush hot with embarrassment at the trite words.
“Thank you. I mean that sincerely. But you must leave now.” Surprisingly, there’s no venom in her tone. She has a slight Persian accent, but she’s obviously spoken English most of her life. I’ve already seen enough to know that she’ll make an appealing trial witness. She starts to shut the door.
All the stratagems for easing my way into this “interview” elude me, and all I can think to say is, “Wait! I just want you to know that my daughter is a good kid. She didn’t do what they say. It’s all a misunderstanding. Teenagers sometimes—”
“What do you want, Mr. Hovanes?”
“I just want to talk so we can get to the truth.”
“I know the truth. Your daughter is a bully, and my daughter is dead because of it. If you’re looking for forgiveness for yourself, you don’t need it, because I don’t blame you. If you’re looking for forgiveness for your daughter, it’s too soon, because there can be no forgiveness until justice is done. And if you’re here as her attorney to get me to say something that will help in your daughter’s defense, well, sir, that would be unforgivable.”
From inside the house, a man shouts something in Farsi.
“It’s nobody, Kamron,” she replies in English. To me, she whispers, “Go now. Before my brother—”
Too late. The brother comes to the door. He looks at least ten years older than Shirin.
“What are you doing here?” he says, his accent much thicker than hers.
“He came to give his condolences,” Shirin says. “He’s leaving now.”
“Leaving? That is bullshit. You are running because a real man came to the door. It is very easy to harass a woman. You are a coward and a bully, just like your daughter!”
I turn and take two steps toward my car. He runs out the door and shoves me. I almost tumble down the stairs but somehow regain my balance and only go down to one knee. The brother is glowering at me in hatred. Although I have at least six inches and forty pounds on him, he charges and takes a wild roundhouse punch, which I deflect with a forearm.
“Kamron, don’t!” Shirin screams.
He swings again, and all I can do is tackle him. Like absurd characters in an antiquated Saturday-morning cartoon, we grapple and grab and tug, rolling down the lawn. I finally subdue him and pin him to the ground, but he continues to struggle, so full of rage that foamy spittle leaks from the corner of his mouth. I understand his feelings completely. So, why do I have an almost irresistible urge to punch him in the face?
Shirin runs down the lawn. “It’s enough! Both of you, it’s enough.” When her brother struggles again, she says something to him in Farsi and then begins to cry.
Still glaring at me, he relaxes under my grip. Though his anger hasn’t diminished one whit, the fight is over. I rise, and fortunately, he stays down.
“I’m sorry I intruded,” I mumble. I hurry to my car and speed away, dazed and mortified. Somehow, I manage to get back to the office without crashing into anyone. I don’t even remember the drive.
“Oh, my God, what happened to you?” Debra asks when she sees me at her office door.
I take inventory. There are grass stains on the elbows of my coat. My pants are ripped at the right knee, and the fabric is soaked with blood. I didn’t notice any of it until now.
I explain what happened, and instead of giving me the expected—and well-deserved—dressing down, she says, “We’ll get through this. Now, go wash that cut off and put a Band-Aid on it.”
I clean up in the men’s room, raid the first-aid kit for an alcohol swab and a bandage, and go back to my office, trying to work on some other case files but getting nothing done. Unwittingly, I just tortured a woman whose daughter died in torment.
Thirty minutes later, my office phone rings. “Matthew Hovanes. It’s Detective Ernesto Velasquez. I’m here with Joshua Lundy.”
I wait.
“I’m going to say this once, Hovanes,” Lundy says. “If you ever bother the Medhipour family again, I’ll have you arrested for stalking.” The line goes dead.
Chapter 17
Judge Sears scheduled the trial to begin in early July so school would be out for Hailey and the student witnesses. Not the way any of us planned to spend our summer vacation. It’s hot and humid, and even in my summer-weight suit I’m drenched in sweat by the time I walk the half-block from the parking lot to the courthouse steps.
Debra, Hailey, and I make our way to the courtroom and take our seats at the defense table, and now I’m shivering because the air conditioning has been turned up so high. Or maybe I’m shivering because Farah’s mother and uncle are in the gallery, sitting in the first row behind the prosecution.
Hailey has tried to dress “young.” But because of her poise and good looks—and what after all these years I finally recognize as a kind of haughtiness—she could pass for a twenty-two-year-old. The good thing is that she doesn’t appear anxious. Or maybe that’s not such a good thing, either. Maybe the jurors will see her as cold and uncaring. I fear that my dual status as lawyer-parent is already affecting my judgment.
The judge takes the bench, and during the morning session, we pick a jury. In the end, a decent draw. Six of them have children, and five are young and might understand that kids use the internet to say things to each other that seem vile but that are actually benign in the world of a teenager.
Jud
ge Sears says, “The attorneys will give their opening statements. We’ll hear from the People first. Remember that what the lawyers say isn’t evidence.”
Openings might not be evidence, but usually they’re the most important part of a trial. Studies show that 80 percent of jurors have made up their minds immediately after opening statements. I’ve got to win this phase, or at least stay even.
Lundy takes the lectern and faces the jury. He was a plodder back in the day. I hope that’s still true.
“In every homicide, there’s a weapon,” he says. “Usually, it’s a gun or a knife or a blunt instrument. In this case the weapon was a computer keyboard, but just as lethal. And that weapon was wielded by Hailey Hovanes, who harassed, bullied, and, yes, tortured Farah Medhipour, knowing that Farah was suicidal, knowing that words and deeds could kill Farah. That’s what Hailey’s words and deeds did—drive Farah to her death.” The best trial lawyers don’t use notes, and in the old days, Lundy relied on them extensively. Now, he’s speaking extemporaneously. He summarizes the evidence, succinctly, powerfully. He describes Farah’s video and warns them what they’re going to see is disturbing, horrific—but also Farah’s way of bringing her tormentor to justice. He tells the jurors that they’ll hear from people who were close to Farah—her friends, her longtime coach—who’ll testify she was harassed by Hailey.
Then, as he holds on to the lapels of his coat like some down-home country lawyer, he says, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, when all the evidence is in, you will conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Hailey Hovanes bullied Farah to death knowing of the girl’s fragile emotional state. At the end of this trial, the People will ask you to return a verdict of guilty.”
Experienced trial lawyers never look at the jury during opposing counsel’s opening so as not to give credence to what the opponent is saying. I don’t need to see the jurors to know that they’re riveted. Joshua Lundy is a plodder no more.