A/N: With thanks to RebeccaInley for her hard work as a beta, and to Lynn46 for helpful feedback – and to both, for letting me badger them via email as I bat around ideas and sort out plot and structure.
Wrong Side Of The Aisle
Arraignment Court
11 am Monday May 7th 2007
Regan nearly turned left as she passed through the gate into the front of the courtroom. She hoped the slight stumble as she saw Connie Rubirosa standing at the prosecutor's lectern, and realized her mistake, wasn't too obvious.
She hoped as well that no-one could spot the nervous sweat beading her hairline and trickling between her shoulder-blades. And that my hands don't shake when I need to handle documents and that my voice doesn't crack and that I don't throw up.
All of those catastrophes seemed entirely possible as Regan set her briefcase on the table provided for defense attorneys and turned to double check that McCoy had followed her and was standing in the spot assigned to defendants.
He had. Regan thought that he looked about as sick to his stomach as she was to hers. Not nerves in his case, she guessed. When it came to courtroom combat, Jack McCoy didn't have a nerve in his body. If I feel out of place on this side of the aisle, how must he feel?
"Docket ending number 2-7-4," the clerk read out. "People v John James McCoy, assault in the second degree."
A quick buzz of whispering went around the courtroom. Regan ignored it. Don't blink, don't back down, she remembered her Gran-Da telling her when she started on foot-patrol. Never let them see you're frightened. She straightened her shoulders and said in her best calm I'm-a-police-officer-and-you-aren't-so-back-the-hell-up voice:"Your honor, Regan Markham. I represent the defendant."
"I know who you are, Ms Markham," Judge Antonia Mellon said, peering over the top of her glasses at first Regan, then McCoy. "And I take it from your presence that this is not the elaborate practical joke I first presumed?"
"There's nothing amusing about these charges, your honor," Connie Rubirosa said. "The victim suffered serious injuries to her face and head, and could have been killed or disabled by the assault."
"Injuries not caused by Mr. McCoy, your honor," Regan countered.
Judge Mellon cut them both off with a rap of the gavel. "Why does everybody think that trying their case in arraignment is the way to go? No, don't answer that, it was rhetorical. Mr. McCoy. Do you understand the charges against you?"
Regan glanced at McCoy, waiting for him to answer. His lips moved soundlessly, and then Regan saw his Adam's apple move convulsively as he swallowed hard, cleared his throat, and said firmly: "I do, your honor."
"And how do you plead?" the judge asked.
Regan held her breath. Over the past twenty-four hours she'd swung from being ninety percent certain McCoy would do as she asked and plead 'not guilty' to being seventy percent certain he'd play along with her right up to this point and then chose the hair-shirt Dr Margolis had referred to.
The previous evening's case conference had done nothing to set her mind at rest. Partly my fault. Regan had chickened out of telling McCoy in advance about the 'Jack McCoy Defense League'. He'd arrived at Abbie's expecting Regan, possibly Abbie as well – and the look on his face when he'd walked into the dining room to see Nora, Serena, Danielle and Sally sitting around the table had been a Kodak moment Regan didn't want to remember. Shock, then anger.
What had puzzled Regan was that for an instant before his brows had drawn together in a thunderous scowl, she had thought that the expression on Jack McCoy's face had been … horror.
Surprise, anger – predicable. But he looked as if the five of us at that table was his worst nightmare.
Then the anger, and the shouting, and Regan had been treated to a quick historical insight into Jack McCoy and Sally Bell. The two of them leaning towards each other over the dining room table, McCoy propped on his clenched fists, Sally poking him sharply in the chest with her finger, both shouting … then Danielle had gotten in on the act, barely coming up to McCoy's shoulder even in her heels but not in the slightest bit afraid of him. With Sally shouting at him from across the table and Danielle waving her finger in his face, McCoy had spun on his heel and headed for the door. When Regan bolted after him, catching him up in the hallway, she'd had to grab his arm to stop him. He'd turned, glaring at her.
Regan hadn't let him get a word out of his mouth before she jabbed him hard in the chest with one finger. She'd had no idea what she was going to say or how she was going to say it until the words fell out of her mouth. You owe me, hard as nails.
She'd gotten McCoy back into the room, where he sat at one end of the table, leaning back in his chair with his arms folded tight across his chest, the air of I-don't-want-to-be-here radiating off him impossible to ignore. Even Regan's speculation about GHB hadn't broken his mood. McCoy had pointed out the lack of supporting evidence, and when Regan had gone over the absence of any marks on McCoy's hands or any ring imprint on Keri Dyson's face, McCoy had seemed almost to take enjoyment out of demolishing her argument, as clinically as he might have in court.
Finally, Serena Southerlyn had leaned forward, almost pleading with him, saying but don't you see, Jack, you were framed, this is a set-up.
McCoy's response had come in a tone so cutting the usually perfectly composed attorney had been forced to blink away tears. The last argument of a desperate and incompetent lawyer, Serena – my client was framed. I see my judgment was correct when I let Arthur fire you.
That had been the end of the meeting.
"Mr. McCoy," Judge Mellon said, recalling Regan to the present. "How do you plead?"
"Not guilty, your honor," McCoy said in a monotone that to Regan's ears completely lacked conviction.
At least it's on the record. Regan blew out a silent breath of relief.
"Do the people want to be heard on bail?" Mellon asked.
"The charges are serious, carrying a prison sentence," Connie Rubirosa said.
"And will be vigorously defended," Regan countered promptly. "Mr. McCoy is not flight risk. He has been a prosecutor in Manhattan for more than twenty years. He's well-known, especially to New York's criminal classes. Remand pending trial would be inappropriate, and is unnecessary, given that Mr. McCoy's only priority is to clear his name of these false charges and return to his job. We ask for R.O.R, your honor."
"Ms Rubirosa?" Mellon asked.
"I have to ask for bail at one hundred thousand, your honor," Connie said.
Regan turned to look at her, aware out of the corner of her eye that Mellon was staring over her glasses at the prosecutor as well. I have to ask?
"Excessive, your honor," Regan said.
"I agree," Mellon said. "Mr. McCoy has caused both the criminal classes and the judicial classes of New York a certain amount of heartburn over the years, but I would be hard pressed to name a citizen with a greater reputation of respect for legal process. Release on own recognizance ordered."
"Order for discovery, your honor?" Regan said promptly.
"So ordered." Bang! Went the gavel.
"Your honor, I'd like to be heard on the question of a speedy trial," McCoy said.
"No you wouldn't," Regan hissed in a whisper.
McCoy ignored her. "Barker v Wingo, your honor, stipulates – "
"Mr. McCoy," Antonia Mellon said, staring at him incredulously. "This has to be the first time I've had a defendant try to argue for a speedy trial at arraignment."
"Determinations must be made on a case-by-case basis," McCoy said.
"Yes, I've read Barker v Wingo," Mellon snapped. "And you know very well a speedy trial motion is for the trial judge, not for me. I'll tell you what – I'll set it down for trial on Judge Wright's calendar, and you can argue this out before him. See his clerk for a chambers hearing, Ms Markham."
"Yes, your honor," Regan said numbly.
Bang! went the gavel again. Regan turned to McCoy and grabbed his arm.
"What the hell are you playing at?" she snapped.
McCoy turned as if he was going to answer her, and then froze, staring over her shoulder.
"Docket ending number 2-7-5," the clerk read out. "People v Keri Dyson, coercion in the second degree."
Regan turned to see Keri Dyson coming toward them, accompanied by a stout woman who looked far too old to be a practicing lawyer. The bruises had ripened on Keri's face, blossoming to purple, although her eye hadn't swollen nearly as much as Regan would have expected.
Keri saw McCoy and Regan and shrank back. "Don't let him near me!" she cried, clutching the older woman's arm in fear.
"Your honor, Lanie Stieglitz for the defense," the old lady said, her firm voice belying her apparent advanced age. "As my client is currently in the process of applying for a restraining order against Mr. McCoy, I ask that you have him removed from the courtroom."
Thank god this isn't something the jury can see, Regan thought. Keri stared at McCoy, lower lip trembling, as her lawyer put an arm protectively around her and glared at Regan and McCoy both, as if she expected to have to interpose her aging, fragile body between her client and McCoy's frenzied attack. And then – if this is the show they put on at arraignment, what is the jury going to see?
The thought made her sick, and distracted her just enough for McCoy to lean past her.
"Lanie …" McCoy said quietly.
"I advise you not to enter into any inappropriate ex parte communication with my client or myself, Mr. McCoy," Lanie Stieglitz said sternly. And then, hissed too quietly for any but McCoy and Regan to hear: "And you make me sick, Jack McCoy, when I think of all those fine self-righteous speeches about defending the helpless and prosecuting abusers."
Regan got her shoulder in between McCoy and the two women. "Let me caution you in turn, Ms Stie – Ms Stege – "
"Stieglitz," the lawyer said tightly.
Regan felt herself blush. "You client is a witness against mine," she went on, trying to regain a tone of authority, "Just as mine is against yours. I'd hate for there to be any concerns about interfering with prosecution witnesses raised at Ms Dyson's trial."
"If you've all quite finished," Judge Mellon interrupted from the bench. "Ms Markham, get your client out of here. Ms Stieglitz, save your theatrics for the jury. Ms Dyson, do you understand the charges against you?"
As Keri answered in a quavering voice that she did, Regan grabbed McCoy's arm and pulled him away, towing him up the aisle of the courtroom and out into the corridor.
"Okay," she said, steering him through the press of people to a window where the corner gave some privacy to those able to keep their voices down. "What the hell? Speedy trial?"
McCoy looked blankly at her. "Do you know Lanie Stieglitz?" he asked.
"No," Regan said shortly. "But I'm getting the feeling that before this is over, Lanie Stieglitz and I are going to develop a pretty intense relationship."
"She doesn't work much these days," McCoy said. "Just the cases that really interest her. She's always specialized in women's rights – defending battered women accused of murder, that sort of thing."
"Good for her," Regan said impatiently. "Now let's talk about Barker and fucking Wingo and what the hell you thought you were doing opening your mouth in there to say anything other than yes-your-honor-not-guilty."
"Lanie and I have never seen eye to eye on a lot of things," McCoy said, continuing to ignore her. "But we always respected each other's position. And I never felt that she – "
Regan's hand itched to slap him. He's not going to jail, she thought grimly, because in about ten seconds I am going to throttle the life out of him right here in the courthouse hallway. "Snap out of it, Jack!" she said sharply. "She's defending a client in a case where you're the sole witness for the prosecution! Stop letting her screw with your head!"
McCoy shook his head. "Lanie's never taken a case she doesn't agree with," he said. "Or a defendant she doesn't believe. That's her strength – and her weakness." He kept shaking his head. "She wouldn't take Keri as a client unless she was convinced that – that I – "
Regan laid her hand along the side of his face, stopping the repetitive motion. She could feel the pulse pounding in his neck. "Do not come unglued on me here, Jack," she ordered him very calmly. "Let's go home and talk about all of this there."
"You need to see Judge Wright's clerk," McCoy said. He covered her hand with his own, and Regan wasn't sure if there was a second's hesitation before he pulled her fingers away from his face. "Get a chambers hearing tomorrow on speedy trial. I can prep you for it tonight and – "
"I don't want a speedy trial!" Regan said a little too loudly. She glanced around to make sure there were no ADA's in immediate earshot and then lowered her voice. "I need time to work the case, investigate Keri Dyson, investigate the evidence, I'm not ready."
"My case," McCoy said. "My rules. Or I can get myself a new lawyer and you can get yourself a new job."
.oOo.
A/N: I know that Lanie Stieglitz would probably not still be practicing in 2007, but on the other hand, the actress who played her, Elaine Stritch, is still working, so …