In case anyone missed it, this chapter covers 4 years of conflict in a very summarized fashion. The above sentence, shortly into the section after the newspaper headline, needs a little work as it doesn't make sense as written. The woman referred to is Mrs. Patterson. It looks like there should be a "not" after "could", and there should be a verb somewhere after Mickey. I get the sense that Mr. Patterson is pleased Mickey had his ex on the defensive.
It's nice to see Mickey turn from being an attorney on the offense to being a philanthropist.