“I was getting to that,” Nolan said. “That’s right, we will begin with Officer Scholl.” She clamped down on the words, as determined as a basketball player getting the ball back for her team.

“Sorry,” Jack said. “Didn’t mean to step on your toes within the first two minutes.” He smiled, but the judge and the prosecutor stuck to their poker faces.

“Fine,” Judge Brock said. “Are we ready, then?”

“Ready,” Nolan said.

“Ready, Your Honor.” Jack patted Nina’s hand.

“Call Officer Jean Scholl.” Officer Scholl hustled in. “Raise your right hand.” She swore to be truthful, then launched into a minor complaint about having to take the whole day off to be in San Francisco for this hearing. The uniform accentuated her strong build and handsome unadorned face. Setting her clipboard in her lap, she gave Nolan, who was standing, her full attention.

“Good morning. I’m Gayle Nolan, I represent the State Bar of California.”

“Good morning,” Scholl said.

Over the previous several months, Paul had uncovered some more interesting details about Officer Scholl. Early in her career, she had worked with Kevin Cruz. On one occasion, Scholl had been along for the ride when Kevin Cruz busted a group of three young men for cocaine possession with intent to sell. The bust netted Kevin his first and only promotion, but rumors flew.

The three young men were honors students from UC Davis up for a weekend of skiing. None had ever been arrested for drugs before. One was in the middle of writing a senior thesis on the effects of illegal drugs on brain function. One had already inherited more family money than an oil baron, and therefore had little to gain and a lot to lose from selling drugs. Nevertheless, they had all been convicted, thanks to the testimony of Cruz and Scholl.

Scholl was as biased as they come, and maybe more. Nina leaned forward and tried to catch her mood, which was all too easy.

“You are a patrol officer with the South Lake Tahoe Police Department?”

“For the last eight years I’ve worked with the Patrol Watch Unit. Lately, I’ve also been working in conjunction with the Detective Unit, assisting on burglaries and robberies and undertaking some traffic-case investigations. It’s a small department so I get involved in several types of police work.”

“On or about September seventh of last year, were you called to the scene of a reported auto theft?”

The officer consulted her clipboard. “The call came in at seven-fifty A.M. Officer Dave Matthias and I responded and arrived at 96 Kulow Street, a single-family residence in the Pioneer Tract, at eight-twenty-four A.M.”

“And were you met at the scene by anyone?”

“By the defendant there. Ms. Reilly.”

“You already knew Ms. Reilly?”

“She’s an attorney who does-did-a lot of criminal-defense work. Trying to get her clients out of things. I had her in traffic court several times.”

“You testify regularly in the South Lake Tahoe court, where the defendant practices law?”

“Just about every week. She’s only been around a couple of years, but she picked up quite a few defendants. She started showing up as defense counsel in some of the big felonies up at the lake, which surprised and upset some of the local attorneys, I can tell you. She pushed hard for the high-profile cases, getting her name in the paper to promote her business. Quite a few of my colleagues came into contact with her.”

All of a sudden, the humdrum opening questions and answers had flown into unfamiliar realms. Police officers always tried for at least a semblance of objectivity. She had never heard Scholl get opinionated like this. Jack wasn’t moving, so she shifted in her chair. He had warned her not to expect the usual rules of court.

“You had several chances to observe the defendant at work?”

“Right.”

“How would you describe her work?” Jack sat like a fleck of lint. They should be talking about the Bronco, not about how this cop liked being cross-examined by Nina in court!

She nudged him. Jack leaned over. “They can’t do this,” she said. He held up a hand to shush her and turned his attention back to Scholl.

“Well, I felt that she wasn’t-I guess you would say, systematic. She rushed in at the last minute. She showed up late once or twice, as a matter of fact. She would try anything to get her clients off. Tricks. She had a reputation.”

“Jack!”

He gave Nina a nod, nothing more.

“A reputation in the police department?”

“Yes.”

“And can you describe that reputation?”

“Everyone said she would do just about anything to get her clients off. She attacked the officers in court, gave us a hard time and made us go over each and every detail hoping to find something wrong. She was-well, fly-by-night, always looking for some jazzy way to slip by the facts.”

“Can you give the court any specific example of this irresponsibility?”

“Objection,” Jack said, finally jumping up like his nimble namesake. About time. None of this would have been admissible in the courts Nina knew. Jack had entered the game late, but he would put a stop to this ridiculous character-bashing.

“Counsel should rephrase that,” was all Jack said, and sat down. Nina gave him an incredulous stare.

“I’ll decide that,” Judge Brock said. To Nolan, he said, “The word ‘irresponsibility’ calls for a conclusion. So I’ll sustain that objection.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Nolan kowtowed. “Did you observe how Ms. Reilly related to her clients?” Boggled as a kid in a toy store by the myriad possibilities for character assassination that appeared available to her, Nolan seemed to have forgotten her question about the specific acts of irresponsibility she’d been trying to learn about a second earlier.

“You bet I did,” Officer Scholl said. “She was much more friendly with them than the other attorneys, I thought. She’s a toucher. There were physical intimacies. She would hug them, set a hand on their shoulders right in the middle of the hearing. I saw her put an arm around one of her clients. She acted more like a friend than a person in a business relationship.”

Nina’s mouth dropped open. Now she knew exactly what Scholl had been thinking during those long days in court when she picked at Scholl’s police reports, looking for ways out for her clients. Now she understood the broader picture. She had won against Officer Scholl, and Officer Scholl did not forgive or forget. Nina no longer harbored doubts about whether Scholl had it in her to frame Nina and run her out of town. Scholl detested her.

Nolan cleared her throat. “So the defendant called you to her home. What did she tell you?”

“That her vehicle, a Ford Bronco, had been stolen during the night.”

“Could you summarize her statement to you?”

“She said she drove home from her office in the rain the night before about six P.M. and ran inside. She had not been able to locate her key earlier in the day, so she used a spare one. Later that night she remembered that she had some important files out in her car but she was sleepy so she went to bed instead of going out to retrieve them. Around seven the next morning she discovered the vehicle and its contents were gone.”

“Okay, let me back up a little. She said she lost her key?”

“Yes.”

“And that whole evening she knew that she had left it somewhere. Meanwhile, the vehicle sat outside unguarded and unprotected-”

“We’re leading just a little bit here,” Jack said.

“I withdraw that question. What exactly did the defendant say about what she did for the time period between six P.M. and seven A.M. with regard to locking her truck or removing the key from the ignition?”

“She claimed she locked the truck with her spare key. Is that what you mean? She said she knew the truck was out there and her key was gone and her files were in the back in the briefcase but she basically couldn’t be bothered.”