shed a little more light on the girl herself.
Maybe.
She had David on the line before she'd even brought up the next computer screen.
"Is it too early?" she asked the attorney she'd hand-picked for Kyle when he was about to lose his beloved farm to his witch ex-wife. David was straight up. Smart as a whip.
One of Chandler's shining stars.
And he loved his wife, Susan, who happened to be Chuck's sister.
"Of course not--what's up?" David said in spite of the fact that it wasn't yet seven. He liked to prepare before 8:30 a.m. court. Or maybe he left home early to avoid the morning chaos of four young children. He hadn't seemed as eager as Susan to pop out babies one after the other.
Of course, that could just be Sam's take on it. She couldn't imagine a woman wanting to do that to herself.
"How's Susan feeling?" Pierce had told Sam the news of the Abrams' impending fifth child the day before at lunch.
"Good. No morning sickness so far this time."
"And how about you? You ready to do it all again?"
"Susan does most of the work," he reminded her. "And if she's happy, I'm happy."
Not quite a glowing testimony to fatherhood.
"I'm just being nosy here, but I was wondering what you know about Maggie Winston."
"Maggie Winston? I don't know the name. Who is she?"
"A fourteen-year-old kid. She was apparently at your house the other morning." She told him when.
"Oh. That was probably Glenna's friend. She's the only person I know of who stopped by. Susan never mentioned the girl's name."
"Glenna?"
"Glenna Reynolds. She's been helping Susan out all summer and wanted to bring a friend of hers who's willing to pinch-hit whenever Glenna can't make it. It's her senior year and her mom's sick so she'll have a lot on her plate. But she doesn't want us to find another nanny. She needs the money so she's trying to find a backup instead."
Babysitting. A normal teenage activity.
Sam had been wriggling around on her belly like a worm doing surveillance on a potential babysitter. Not the victim of a pedophile.
"Did the meeting go well?"
"It was brief. Susan had already done some checking and didn't like the girl's background. She started to tell me about her, but Devon's been sick all week and we just never got back to it. Why, is the girl in trouble? I can ask Susan for more details if you need them."
"No. No. Don't do that. There's no problem. She's a good kid. A friend of mine just mentioned something...."
"Well, now that I know she's just fourteen, she wouldn't have worked for us, anyway. Susan and I need a sitter with a driver's license. That way we can leave our van behind when we go out and know that all the kids would have a safe means of transportation in case of emergency."
Leave it to David to think of everything.
Chandler, Ohio
Thursday, September 2, 2010
I was facing a full day. Starting in about ten minutes. Back-to-back clients all morning, the soup kitchen at lunch, followed by the forty-minute drive to the airport and a flight to Denver, where I'd be assessing a young woman believed by the defense attorney who'd hired me to have inflicted physical abuse on herself and then blamed his client--her husband. Not the best domestic-abuse defense, but possibly the truth. I suspected the young woman could be suffering from a form of Munchausen syndrome.
People with Munchausen--named in 1951 after a German cavalry officer in 1700 who was a teller of tall tales--had a severe need for attention and invented illnesses or injuries to get it. To them, doctors and hospitals were like a bar to an alcoholic.
It was a tough one. You had a young woman with severe bruising over sixty percent of her body, a swollen face and a broken arm--which would certainly elicit jury sympathy. And a young man who stood to have his life irrevocably changed for the worse when he'd possibly done nothing more than fall in love with a sick woman.
Or...you had a moneyed and privileged young man who could afford an imaginative defense attorney--and
Maybe.
She had David on the line before she'd even brought up the next computer screen.
"Is it too early?" she asked the attorney she'd hand-picked for Kyle when he was about to lose his beloved farm to his witch ex-wife. David was straight up. Smart as a whip.
One of Chandler's shining stars.
And he loved his wife, Susan, who happened to be Chuck's sister.
"Of course not--what's up?" David said in spite of the fact that it wasn't yet seven. He liked to prepare before 8:30 a.m. court. Or maybe he left home early to avoid the morning chaos of four young children. He hadn't seemed as eager as Susan to pop out babies one after the other.
Of course, that could just be Sam's take on it. She couldn't imagine a woman wanting to do that to herself.
"How's Susan feeling?" Pierce had told Sam the news of the Abrams' impending fifth child the day before at lunch.
"Good. No morning sickness so far this time."
"And how about you? You ready to do it all again?"
"Susan does most of the work," he reminded her. "And if she's happy, I'm happy."
Not quite a glowing testimony to fatherhood.
"I'm just being nosy here, but I was wondering what you know about Maggie Winston."
"Maggie Winston? I don't know the name. Who is she?"
"A fourteen-year-old kid. She was apparently at your house the other morning." She told him when.
"Oh. That was probably Glenna's friend. She's the only person I know of who stopped by. Susan never mentioned the girl's name."
"Glenna?"
"Glenna Reynolds. She's been helping Susan out all summer and wanted to bring a friend of hers who's willing to pinch-hit whenever Glenna can't make it. It's her senior year and her mom's sick so she'll have a lot on her plate. But she doesn't want us to find another nanny. She needs the money so she's trying to find a backup instead."
Babysitting. A normal teenage activity.
Sam had been wriggling around on her belly like a worm doing surveillance on a potential babysitter. Not the victim of a pedophile.
"Did the meeting go well?"
"It was brief. Susan had already done some checking and didn't like the girl's background. She started to tell me about her, but Devon's been sick all week and we just never got back to it. Why, is the girl in trouble? I can ask Susan for more details if you need them."
"No. No. Don't do that. There's no problem. She's a good kid. A friend of mine just mentioned something...."
"Well, now that I know she's just fourteen, she wouldn't have worked for us, anyway. Susan and I need a sitter with a driver's license. That way we can leave our van behind when we go out and know that all the kids would have a safe means of transportation in case of emergency."
Leave it to David to think of everything.
Chandler, Ohio
Thursday, September 2, 2010
I was facing a full day. Starting in about ten minutes. Back-to-back clients all morning, the soup kitchen at lunch, followed by the forty-minute drive to the airport and a flight to Denver, where I'd be assessing a young woman believed by the defense attorney who'd hired me to have inflicted physical abuse on herself and then blamed his client--her husband. Not the best domestic-abuse defense, but possibly the truth. I suspected the young woman could be suffering from a form of Munchausen syndrome.
People with Munchausen--named in 1951 after a German cavalry officer in 1700 who was a teller of tall tales--had a severe need for attention and invented illnesses or injuries to get it. To them, doctors and hospitals were like a bar to an alcoholic.
It was a tough one. You had a young woman with severe bruising over sixty percent of her body, a swollen face and a broken arm--which would certainly elicit jury sympathy. And a young man who stood to have his life irrevocably changed for the worse when he'd possibly done nothing more than fall in love with a sick woman.
Or...you had a moneyed and privileged young man who could afford an imaginative defense attorney--and
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