Without a Doubt - [5]

So I was unhappy with my job and unhappy in my marriage. I knew I could limp along like this, or I could take some decisive action to turn my life around. In December 1993, I asked for my old job back. And I asked Gordon to leave.

I’d spent most of my adult life with a man under the same roof, and now, trying to cope with plumbing problems, cable bills, and the furious demands of being a working mother, I was constantly terrified. It was, I knew, a hell of my own devising-I had no grounds to complain about it. At times I was ready to break down and ask my husband to come back. Yet I resisted the temptation to return to a lousy marriage just for the sake of expediency. Even so, I let the separation drag on for six months before I took Lynn’s advice: “Let him know it’s over.” So I went out and bought myself one of those do-it-yourself divorce kits. Money was tight; it seemed like a good idea at the time. But the lawyer who represents herself has a fool for a client.

There were no reporters in the bushes, no paparazzi peeping through the windows, when I filed the divorce papers on June 10. Three days later, O. J. Simpson crashed into my life like a meteor.

On Monday morning, June 13, 1994, I was struggling to get out of the house. Any parent with a preschooler knows the drill.

Honey, we’re late.

I don’t want to go!

Shoe!

By the time he reaches nursery school, that same child will run off happily to play with his pals.

I had a parking space in the lot behind the Criminal Courts Building, and that morning when I pulled in I waved to one of the attendants, Arturo.

“Mucho trabajo hoy?” he called out to me.

“Sí, como siempre.”

In fact, that morning, I had no court appearances, no witness interviews. There was nothing on my calendar to indicate that this would be anything other than a short-skirt day. No need for a “believe me” suit.

It was 9:30, and I was late-as I usually am when I don’t have to make it in under the gavel. Well, the truth is, I am just chronically late. It’s a character flaw, but one I can’t seem to rectify. My friends even have a term for it: Marcia Standard Time.

I’m not proud of being late, but it does afford a slight advantage at the CCB. It allows one to avoid the crush at the elevators, which are, by far, the slowest in L.A. County. During rush hours, attorneys who are headed for Special Trials on the eighteenth floor and imprudent enough to arrive on time often find themselves fifteen to twenty minutes behind schedule for court, because the “express” elevator-specially designed by outside consultants-inevitably stops mid-route. Latecomers, however, running on Marcia Standard Time, often enjoy a clear shot.

At the eighteenth floor, the elevator doors open upon Mordor, Land of Darkness: my private name for the courthouse’s dreary labyrinth of smog-soiled cement hallways. On some mornings a touch of claustrophobia leaves me breathless until I open the door of my high-ceilinged office, where I find sunlight streaming through the window. For seconds afterward, motes of dust swirl like snowflakes in that strong, welcome light.

No civil servant takes a window for granted. Certainly not me. During my early years on the job, I toiled away in sunless, airless cubicles in a series of far-flung outposts of the L.A. District Attorney’s dominion. West L.A., Beverly Hills, Culver City. In my early days as a baby D.A., I caught mainly deuces-drunk driving charges. Every once in a while I’d get to do the preliminary hearings on a homicide. That was what made the overtime worthwhile. Murder is so much more compelling than other crimes. There’s more complexity, more sophisticated forms of evidence. You get tool marks. You get blood markers. There’s stuff to play with.

I was always itching to get beyond the preliminaries to trials. Real trials. Criminal trials where you have to think quickly, react quickly. I wanted to be drawn into an experience that was totally absorbing. Trial work is especially appealing to the workaholic. I’d go through the docket like Pac-Man, grabbing cases no one else would touch, putting in ten- to twelve-hour days in the process. What gave rise to this fervor is hard for me to explain. Work offers a defensible escape from a private life on the skids. Working myself to the point of exhaustion left me feeling purified. Exhilarated. I think it also gave me a sense that I was cheating mortality. Ever since I was small, I’ve been dogged by the premonition that I would die young. I couldn’t imagine living past forty. Forty-five, tops. That kind of deadline adds a sense of urgency to everything. It’s like-I can keep on living if I run fast enough.

Beyond that, the courtroom is the ideal venue for someone who likes to argue. For most of my life I’ve been contentious, and it’s gotten me into a lot of trouble. But verbal dexterity and strong opinions are welcomed at the bar. There are clearly delineated rules of combat, rules that favor reason. Humans may be capricious-but, to my naive way of thinking, justice was not.