Trophy Widow

CHAPTER 1 You'd have thought this was my first time. Not even close. I don't specialize in celebrities, but I've had my share. The list includes a member of the Chicago Bulls, two major-league baseball players, and the entire morning drive-time crew for one of the highest-rated FM stations in St. Louis. And that only covers contract negotiations and endorsement deals. I've sued Riverport on behalf of an Atlanta rap group in a gate-receipts dispute. When the case ended, the group's manager offered me a walk-on in their next music video. I told him I'd prefer to have my fees paid in full. I've represented a Hollywood star accused of trashing his hotel suite while on location here for a shootand we're not talking just any star. He madeEntertainment Weekly's "20 Sexiest Men" two years running. Alas, he's also two inches shorter than me andas I learned while defending him in a four-hour deposition in a small conference roomafflicted with rhino breath. But the odd thing is that I never felt the tiniest tingle before meeting any of themnot even a hint of that magical frisson that's supposed to radiate from real celebrities like, well, steam from a baked potato. And lest you get the wrong idea, I'm not one of those snooty types who professes to be above all that fawning. Far from it. I once was rendered dumbstruck on an elevator in the Met Square building when I realized that the tall man standing next to me was none other than number 45 himselfHall of Famer Bob Gibson. For a diehard Cardinals fan, that's the equivalent of coming around the bend on Mount Sinai and finding yourself face to face with a Charlton Heston look-alike in flowing robes and sandals carrying two stone tablets. I rode several floors in flustered silence until I worked up the nerve to ask Mr. Gibson for his autograph, which he graciously signed on a sheet from my legal pad that I have since had laminated. And that gaga response isn't limited to baseball gods. I would kill to spend an afternoon with Jane Austen. I would swoon like a schoolgirl before Clark Gableespecially the Clark Gable ofIt Happened One Night. And if Marvin Gaye were alive and well; I might just follow him from concert to concert like a Motown version of a Deadhead. With those folks we're talking frisson. Cosmic frisson. But not for my celebrity clients. For whatever reason, with them it always seems to be business as usual. Attorney-client. Strictly professional. Until today. Today I was driving halfway across the state of Missouri to meet my newest client. A housewife. More precisely, a former housewife. Probably the most famous former housewife in America, and surely the only one serving thirty-to-forty in Chillicothe Correctional Center. Today I was definitely in the grip of that old black magic. That's because today I was going to see Angela Green. Yes,theAngela Green. The same one whose murder trial came in at number 3 onPeoplemagazine's "Top Ten Murder Trials of the 1990s," just behind O. J. Simpson (no. 1) and the Menendez brothers (no. 2), but ahead of Timothy McVeigh (no. 4) and Jeffrey Dahmer (no.5). The same one whose prime-time jailhouse interview with Oprah Winfrey drew a 41 share and ended with that shot reprinted in newspapers and magazines around the countrythe one of Oprah, tears streaming down her cheeks, her head resting on Angela's shoulder as Angela gently patted her on the back. The same Angela Green who had Anita Hill deliver her acceptance speech in absentia at theMs.magazine "Women of the YearKahn, Michael A. is the author of 'Trophy Widow', published 2003 under ISBN 9780765341402 and ISBN 0765341409.