“Listen to me, Robert. You’re going about this the wrong way. There’s no need for confrontation. Change your behavior and this will all be forgotten.”
“By you maybe, but not by me.”
Chesterfield stood up.
“You people think you’re so high-and-mighty. Well, we’ll see who comes out on top,” Chesterfield said before he made a military about-face and left the terrace.
The judge sighed. Everyone knew that Lily’s marriage to Robert Chesterfield had been a terrible mistake. Lily’s children, Crawford’s wife, and several other women in the club had tried to make her see how big a mistake it would be, but Lily was not that bright and she could be incredibly stubborn. The word was that Lily had been drinking and taking antidepressants since her husband’s heart gave out unexpectedly. Crawford believed that Lily had fallen for the debonair and exciting Robert Chesterfield to escape the extreme depression that was crushing her. The judge didn’t want to hurt Lily, but Chesterfield was an intolerable blot on the club’s reputation. Everyone wanted him gone and he hoped that goal could be accomplished without subjecting Lily Dowd to more grief.
In addition to her mansion on the coast and homes in Aspen, London, and the Caribbean, Lily Dowd owned a five-thousand-square-foot penthouse in Portland. Chesterfield drove to the condo in a rage, barely avoiding two accidents. All his life, people like Crawford and Moser had treated him like something you find on the bottom of your shoe. He had not put up with it before and he didn’t intend to start now.
“What’s wrong?” Lily asked when her husband stormed in.
“We’re resigning from the Westmont,” Chesterfield said, his face flushed with anger.
“I… I can’t leave the Westmont. All my friends are there.”
“It’s those prissy bastards who pretend to be your friends who’ve defamed me.” Chesterfield gripped Lily’s shoulders. “They don’t care for you, Lily. They only care about the prestige you bring to the club, and your fortune.”
“What happened, Bobby?”
“I’ve been accused of cheating at cards, of making sexual advances to secretaries. It’s disgusting and it’s a lie, and I won’t stand for it.”
“They said you made sexual advances?”
Chesterfield looked into Lily’s eyes for a moment, then pulled her into his embrace. “There’s only one woman in my life and that woman is you.”
“But the Westmont… I can’t, Bobby. Please don’t ask me.”
Chesterfield pushed Lily to arm’s length. “I will never ask you to do something that you do not want to do. But I will not set foot in that den of liars again.”
“Oh no. Please don’t resign.”
“They’ve made it impossible for me to stay. How can I show my face at the club, knowing that everyone will be whispering falsehoods behind my back?”
“But, Bobby, it has to be a mistake. I’m sure if we talk to Landon—”
“I talked to him after Samuel Moser insulted me. He backed that offensive toad.”
Lily looked lost. “The Westmont. Frank and I were married there. I just can’t quit.”
“You must do what you think is best, Lily. I would never force you to leave a place that means so much to you. But I can’t stay a member and maintain my dignity.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Beauty can be a curse. When Regina Barrister was in her twenties, she was tall and slim with ivory skin, sparkling blue eyes, golden hair, and a dazzling smile. She also had an IQ that put her in the top one percent of the top one percent, but men could not see an IQ. Even though she had finished first in her high school and college classes, her nickname had been “The Cheerleader” when she arrived at Harvard Law in the mid-eighties. She hadn’t been taken seriously until she finished—once again—at the top of her class at the end of her first year.
Regina had encountered some of the same problems when she returned to Oregon to practice law. Male judges and attorneys made passes and treated her with disdain until she started winning case after case. Within a few years of opening her practice she had a new nickname, “The Sorceress,” because of her uncanny ability to win unwinnable cases. At thirty-seven, Regina’s looks still made men pause in midsentence and women commit the sin of envy, but now that Regina was one of the best criminal defense lawyers in the state the sexist attitudes that had dogged her early years were a thing of the past, unless shewas trying a case against an insecure, narcistic chauvinist like Peter Ragland.
Peter Ragland was the son of Jasper Ragland, the legendary United States Attorney for Oregon. No detective who had worked on a case with Peter had anything nice to say about him. He was a mental midget who thought he knew everything and would not listen to advice. The general consensus was that Ragland was trying to prove that he was just as good as his brilliant father. If that was his goal, he was failing miserably. Ragland lost cases he should have won and had victories reversed on appeal by committing stupid errors of law.
Regina loved going up against Ragland. He was obnoxious, but he was also incompetent and so ego centered that he made terrible errors of judgment, like the one he had made when he had treated Regina with disdain a month earlier when she had come to his office in an attempt to get him to drop a DUI case against the majority leader in the state senate.
“What can I do for you, Regina?” asked Peter, who had begged for the case because of the publicity it was going to get.
“I’m representing Bridget O’Leary.”
“She must really be desperate if she’s willing to pay your fees.”