Undue Influence

by Steve Martini

  I have had roller-coaster rides with less G force than the trip back to Hana behind this guy. Like some Toon-time character with an anvil for a foot, the cop drives as if the road will stretch like ribbon to hold his tires in the turns. We highball through town like a rocket sled, no siren or lights, nothing that might give the odd pedestrian or stray dog an even chance.

  Two miles on the other side, he turns down a road to the right, onto the flat plain leading to the airstrip. A second right and a few hundred feet up a dirt road he comes to a stop behind another police car and two unmarked vehicles. A small group is gathered, talking in the headlights. I see Dana, and Jessie Opolo. They’re both wearing blue nylon jackets with the letters FBI emblazoned on the back.

  As soon as Dana sees my car, she moves quickly toward me, a tight expression on her face.

  I kill my lights, and before I can get out she’s posturing at my door.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Pursuing a lead,’ I tell her.

  ‘You had us worried sick,’ she says. Dana’s face is a map of fury at this moment, but her voice is restrained. ‘We didn’t have any idea where you’d gone. Taking off like that.’

  ‘So you sent the troops?’ I point to the cop car that brought me in like I was on some kind of tractor beam.

  ‘Jessie had them put out an all-points for your car,’ she says.

  ‘Discreet,’ I tell her.

  ‘Well, you should have told us where you were going.’

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Jessie and his men got a lead on the Merlows. One of the mail carriers saw them driving to a house up the road here. We think it’s where they’re holed up.’

  ‘Wonderful. What are they waiting for?’

  ‘Jessie wants to go in carefully. We’re not exactly sure what we’re dealing with.’

  I’m trying to move toward Jessie and the agents. She’s got her hand on my arm.

  ‘What did you find?’ she says.

  ‘Nothing. Dead end,’ I tell her.

  There is little sense telling her about meeting with Kathy Merlow or my close call with the netherworld at the hands of the courier. It would only make her more angry. If they have found the Merlows, Dana will know the story soon enough. We can get them on a plane and I can grill them both for five hours to the drone of jet engines.

  We’ve made our way to where Opolo and the cops are standing.

  ‘Hey, man, we were worried about you. She chew your ass good?’ A big smile on the Hawaiian’s round face.

  I don’t answer.

  ‘Where’s the house?’ I ask.

  ‘Up there. About a hundred yards,’ says Opolo.

  Just then one of agents comes down the road, a steep incline. He holds his voice until he reaches us.

  ‘Lights are on, but no movement. If they’re inside they must be sitting down doing something. We can’t see a thing.’

  ‘Should we go?’ Opolo quizzing his men. There’s a debate.

  ‘We don’t have a warrant.’ One of the agents is worried.

  ‘Hell, we’re not looking to arrest them,’ says Opolo.

  ‘I’d like somebody to hold them,’ I break in. ‘At least until we find out what they know.’

  ‘No problem,’ says Opolo. ‘We got cause to hold them. To talk to them about the bombing at the post office. If what you say is true, they know something about whoever sent the bomb.’

  ‘Yeah. We just want to talk.’ One of the agents chiming in. ‘If it turns out they’re witnesses, we’ll bag ’em and ship ’em,’ he says. ‘We’ll hold ’em until you can get a subpoena or an order of extradition if they’re involved.’

  ‘Well, let’s do it,’ I say.

  Opolo looks at me, makes a face like okay.

  With the appearance of the courier, the shooting at the cemetery, the longer we wait, the greater the risk that Kathy and George Merlow are going to run. My biggest fear at this moment is that we will find an empty house, the Merlows and their bags gone.

  A minute later we’re up the road, cars screaming to a halt in front of the house, a small bungalow built off the ground on pilings, a corrugated metal roof. What the locals call a plantation house.

  The cop cars have their light bars blazing. Opolo and the two agents are up the front steps. One of them is carrying a small battering ram from the trunk of the car.

  The cops hoof it around the house to cover the back.

  Opolo pounds on the door hard enough to cause it to bow in its frame. His gun isn’t drawn, but he’s holding it inside his coat by the grip.

  Dana and I have been told to stay at the foot of the steps.

  ‘FBI. Open the door.’

  No answer.

  He pounds one more time and waits just a few seconds.

  He tries the doorknob. It’s locked. He motions to the other agents.

  They take the battering ram, a four-inch-diameter metal pipe loaded with concrete, and swing it between them. The forces of momentum send the door flying in an arc on its hinges, splintered wood and broken metal at the lock.

  Caught up in the rhythm of the chase, Dana and I move to the top of the steps.

  Opolo looks at us. ‘Stay here.’

  He and another of the agents are inside, guns drawn.

  ‘FBI. Federal agents. If you’re in here, let’s hear it.’

  They’re moving through the rooms, flipping on lights. Through a window on the porch I can see them edging for angles with drawn pistols in doorways. A few seconds later one of the cops comes through from the back of the house.

  ‘Nobody,’ he says. A lot of frenetic movement as they hit the last few cubbyholes where anyone could hide.

  Opolo waves us in, holstering his pistol.

  ‘If they were here, they’re gone,’ he says. ‘And it looks like they left in a hurry.’

  My worst fear.

  He leads us into the kitchen. One of the cops has turned off the burner on the stove. A pan of rice is burned to a crisp, long grains charred the dark color of some exotic African ant.

  One of the agents comes down the hall. ‘I don’t get it. If they left, why didn’t they take their clothes?’

  I look at him.

  ‘Closet’s full,’ he says. ‘Their bags are on a shelf, up in the closet, empty.’

  ‘I may have the answer.’ A voice from the other room, deeper in the house, down the hall. We move toward the sound. One of the cops is in the doorway to a small room at the end of the hall, the door half open.

  He steps aside and lets us through, Opolo first, followed by Dana and myself.

  I hear the guy whispering to the other cops outside. ‘No bodies,’ he says, ‘but lots of blood.’

  The room is streaked with it, what forensics would call spatter evidence, on the walls and the ceiling. The bed has a dark pool at the low point where the mattress is worn in the middle. This has yet to congeal, though most of it has soaked into the mattress.

  At the foot of the bed is a single item of clothing, stained with blood. One of the arms is ripped, jagged tears in the upper back, like maybe it has been punctured by a knife or some other sharp implement. It is a coat of many colors.

  Besides the brown hue of drying blood there are specks of pastel and dried blue acrylic on the silk kimono, the duster worn for painting this afternoon by Kathy Merlow.

  Chapter 16

  It was only by my plea of ignorance to things domestic in the law that I was allowed to remain on the spectators’ side of the bar in Laurel’s brawl with Jack over custody. This morning I find myself in the unenviable position of being dragged to the other side and up onto the witness stand.

  The veins in my eyes look like threads of red dye that someone spilled into egg whites. I’ve been back three days from the islands, but with little time to sleep. Harry and I have been burning the oil trying to piece together a defense. It is a patch quilt of theories, what we know from my conversation with Marcie Reed, and what I can surmise from the facts as we kno
w them.

  This without the critical information that might have been obtained from George or Kathy Merlow. According to the FBI, their best guess is that the Merlows are now serving as fish food, somewhere at the bottom of the Pacific. I have been given little information other than this.

  For two days Dana has been grilling me on my meeting with Kathy Merlow. Over coffee and at lunch she has been relentless, going over every aspect of my recollection of the brief conversation. The FBI has interviewed me, obtained descriptions, and had me look through endless mug shots on the off-chance of finding the courier who delivered the letter bomb. On all counts we have struck out.

  Dana was not so much angry when I told of my foray to the little cemetery near Hana, as probing for an opening, something to get her teeth into on the bombing, some lead. This crime now looms big in Capital City as details have been made known in the press. She demanded to know what Kathy Merlow had told me, and at first seemed skeptical when I told her that she never had time to tell me anything. On matters pertaining to her office, Dana is dogged.

  Yesterday she had a long telephone conversation with Jessie Opolo in Hawaii. She now seems more convinced than I that Jack is at the root of Melanie’s murder, and that the bombing and the fate of the Merlows are the tangled result of some witless crime, a daisy chain of inept violence, what some people do when confronted by panic. She seems so convinced of this that I wonder if Dana knows something that I do not.

  ‘Raise your right hand.’

  ‘Do you solemnly swear…?’

  We do the routine and I take the stand.

  Alex Hastings is on the bench, the judge of mangled marriages.

  Jack’s lawyer, Daryl Westaby, is eyeing me with beady dark pupils. He is an out-of-towner from the Bay Area, a major hired gun, one of the legal thugs of family law who can transform the most rational parties to a divorce into a raging funeral pyre of domestic animosity. At this moment Jack is at the counsel table, whispering in his lawyer’s ear, pouring verbal venom like liquid nitrogen into Westaby, about to light the fuse and send him my way.

  Laurel is not here for these proceedings, but she is represented. Harry is at the counsel table. The only man in Capital City who knows less about family law than I do. Still, if Harry doesn’t know the law, he has a willing fist to pound on the table and the wits to drop sand in the gears at the appropriate time.

  I am subpoenaed here this morning because Danny and Julie Vega have disappeared, gone, kaput, vanished. They left with only a note to Jack telling him that they would not return until this mess over custody between their parents was finished. Between the lines Danny made it clear that he would not live with his father.

  I have no idea where they have gone. My only complicity in this is that somehow Danny’s Vespa, with its locked wooden box on the back, has been left in my garage. It is a sore point since Sarah asks me about Danny each time she sees this, and has been playing, sitting up on its seat at every opportunity.

  Hastings is concerned. His initial order for temporary custody seemed the only rational recourse, given that Laurel is in jail. Today the judge seems shaken by the disappearance of the kids.

  Jack is frantic, not so much out of worry, as with knowledge that, somehow from her cell, Laurel has engineered this. Jack has spent a million dollars in legal and expert-witness fees to screw her, and Laurel has, with a quarter and a phone call, creamed him. If I had to venture a guess, which I am not required to do here under oath, it is that the kids are probably playing in the snow – visions of Laurel’s friend in Michigan, the one she told me about when she called on the phone that day from Reno.

  I should have seen it coming – Danny’s visit to his mother at the jail that day, the last time I saw him, coming as it did on the heels of my refusal to help her. I suspect that it was there that Danny got his marching orders from Mom.

  ‘State your name for the record, please?’

  ‘Paul Madriani.’

  We go through the basics. Westaby establishes my relationship to Laurel, family and legal; that I was married to her sister and represent Laurel in a murder case. He draws the details of this out, quotable items of presumed bias for the press, who Westaby has invited, a half dozen reporters, getting color and background for the murder trial. If nothing else, Jack knows this may poison the jury pool a little more. If he keeps it up we may be pushing for a change of venue, though I have my reasons for avoiding this.

  ‘You’re aware, are you not, that the legal custody of these children has been granted to their father, Jack Vega?’

  ‘I wasn’t served with a copy of the order, but I’m aware of it.’

  ‘You do not represent Laurel Vega in the child-custody proceedings, is that correct?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Have you ever represented her in those proceedings?’

  Westaby’s skirting the question of attorney-client privilege.

  ‘No.’

  He smiles. Closing the net.

  ‘Mr. Madriani, do you know where Danny and Julie Vega are?’

  ‘I do not.’

  ‘You have no idea?’

  ‘I don’t know where they are.’ I don’t give him a direct reply to his question. Instead I dodge it with another answer. Perjury is a crime constructed around specific words. The games lawyers play. Westaby thinking for a moment, should he follow through?

  Harry waiting, primed with an objection that the question calls for speculation.

  Westaby thinks better of it.

  ‘Have you discussed the matter with Laurel Vega?’

  ‘What matter is that?’

  ‘Where the children are?’

  ‘No.’

  And I don’t intend to. But I don’t say this.

  ‘You’re not interested? This is your niece and nephew we’re talking about. You’re not concerned for their welfare?’

  Hemming me in. Damned if I do. Damned if I don’t.

  ‘Objection. Irrelevant. The issue is whether the witness knows where the children are. He’s answered that.’ Harry and his sand machine.

  ‘I’ll allow the question.’ Hastings is worried about the kids. A good judge.

  ‘Certainly I’m concerned about them,’ I say.

  ‘But you won’t tell us where they are?’

  ‘Objection. Argumentative. Assumes facts not in evidence. The witness has already stated that he doesn’t know where they are.’

  ‘Sustained.’

  ‘Have you ever had conversations with Laurel Vega concerning these custody proceedings and the children?’

  ‘Ever is a long time.’ Harry is getting into the spirit of things, figuring out that Family Law is, after all, a lot like crime. In the end it all comes down to kicking ass in a courtroom.

  ‘Maybe counsel could put his objections in a proper form,’ says Westaby.

  ‘Fine. The question is overly vague as to time.’ Harry would rather put the point of his shoe up Westaby’s ass. ‘Why don’t you try at least limiting it to a specific century,’ he says.

  Westaby and Harry are into it.

  ‘Hold on.’ Hastings from the bench. He repeats this two more times without effect and finally hammers his gavel on wood.

  Harry wants to know what Westaby was doing during Evidence in law school. ‘Obviously it was over your head,’ he says. The parting shot.

  This draws furrowed eyebrows from the judge, like two furry mice kissing on his forehead. Hastings is a gentlemen’s judge, not someone used to the likes of Harry in court. For the moment the two are quiet, looking up at the bench.

  ‘Mr. Hinds, if you have an objection you will address it to the bench. Do you understand?’

  Harry nods.

  ‘I don’t want to see your head, I want to hear your voice,’ says Hastings.

  ‘Yes, your honor.’

  ‘And you, Mr. Westaby – you will allow the court to rule on any objection. That includes any questions as to form. Is that understood?’

  ‘Absolutely
, your honor.’

  A lot of nodding from the lawyers. Harry does something that looks like a curtsy to the bench. Hinds has an attitude when it comes to judges. Always on a thin edge.

  ‘Now, is there an objection?’

  ‘Vague as to time,’ says Harry.

  ‘I’ve forgotten what the question was,’ says Hastings. He has the court reporter read it back.

  ‘Sustained. Would you like to restate the question, counsel?’

  Westaby regroups.

  ‘During the last month,’ he says, ‘have you discussed with Laurel Vega any matters, any matters at all, pertaining to this custody proceeding?’

  ‘I’m going to object to that, your honor.’ Harry’s up again.

  ‘On what grounds?’ Westaby’s into him before the judge can move.

  ‘Mr. Westaby –’ Hastings has his gavel halfway off the bench.

  ‘On grounds that any conversations regarding these custody proceedings are now intimately connected with the criminal case involving Mrs. Vega. As such we would contend that communications between Mr. Madriani and Mrs. Vega are protected by the attorney-client privilege.’

  There’s stirring in the press rows.

  ‘That’s garbage,’ says Westaby. ‘There’s no attorney-client relationship. How are they connected?’

  ‘We don’t have to disclose that,’ says Harry. ‘To compel an answer to the question would be to force the defense in a capital case to disclose vital information concerning its strategy.’

  ‘And we’re just supposed to take your word for it?’ says Westaby.

  ‘I’d appreciate it,’ says Harry.

  ‘Well I’m not prepared –’

  Hastings cuts him off. ‘You’re telling this court that issues regarding these proceedings, the custody of the Vega children, bear directly on Laurel Vega’s criminal defense?’

  ‘I am, your honor.’

  ‘I’d like to hear it from Mr. Madriani,’ says Hastings.

  ‘That’s correct, your honor.’

  Harry and I are talking about the theory that Jack cooked up the custody petition as part of a scheme, coupled with Melanie’s murder, when he found out she was having an affair with another man. And now he is using his children and the demise of his wife to dodge doing time on the federal corruption sting, a conviction that Hastings knows nothing about. I wonder what he would say if he knew that Jack could be headed for a federal penitentiary. No doubt the kids would be wards of the court.