Romance aside, Julie Favreau was wonderful to work with. She was an attractive, diminutive woman with delicate facial features and raven hair that fell around her face in curls. A spray of youthful freckles across her nose made her look younger than she was. I knew she was thirty-three years old. She had once told me her story. She’d come to Los Angeles by way of London to act in film and had studied with a teacher who believed that internal thoughts of character could be shown externally through facial tells, tics and body movements. It was her job as an actor to bring these giveaways to the surface without making them obvious. Her student exercises became observation, identification and interpretation of these tells in others. Her assignments took her anywhere from the poker rooms in the south county, where she learned to read the faces of people trying not to give anything away, to the courtrooms of the CCB, where there were always lots of faces and giveaways to read.

After seeing her in the gallery for three days straight of a trial in which I was defending an accused serial rapist, I approached her and asked who she was. Expecting to find out she was a previously unknown victim of the man at the defense table, I was surprised to hear her story and to learn she was simply there to practice reading faces. I took her to lunch, got her number and the next time I picked a jury, I hired her to help me. She had been dead-on in her observations and I had used her several times since.

“So,” I said as I spread a black napkin on my lap. “How is my jury doing?”

I thought it was obvious that the question was directed at Julie but Patrick spoke up first.

“I think they want to throw the book at your guy,” he said. “I think they think he’s a stuck-up rich guy who thinks he can get away with murder.”

I nodded. His take probably wasn’t too far off.

“Well, thanks for the encouraging word,” I said. “I’ll make sure I tell Walter to not be so stuck-up and rich from now on.”

Patrick looked down at the table and seemed embarrassed.

“I was just saying, is all.”

“No, Patrick, I appreciate it. Any and all opinions are welcome and they all matter. But some things you can’t change. My client is rich beyond anything any of us can imagine and that gives him a certain style and image. An off-putting countenance that I’m not sure I can do anything about. Julie, what do you think of the jury so far?”

Before she could answer, the waiter came and took our drink orders. I stuck with water and lime, while the others ordered iced tea and Lorna asked for a glass of Mad Housewife Chardonnay. I gave her a look and she immediately protested.