‘I don’t believe this, your honor. A smokescreen,’ says Westaby. He’s in Jack’s ear at the counsel table. We clearly have Vega’s attention. He’s looking at me, eager eyes, wondering where we’re headed, what I know.
‘I used a chartered gamblers’ special,’ she says, ‘and a bus to get them there.’
This is Laurel’s explanation of what she was doing in Reno the night Melanie Vega was murdered.
‘I had to get them away.’ She’s talking about the children, Danny and Julie. ‘They couldn’t deal with that house any longer, or with their father.’
I think she is coloring it, in shades of her hatred for Jack.
‘And don’t try looking for the kids. You’ll never find them.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of it.’
This morning Laurel is a new woman, bright-eyed and intense when I visit her in the glass-walled cubicle of the county jail.
Harry has carried out his threat made some weeks ago: the news article about the sale of the Justice Department computers and the compromised federal witnesses. He has given copies of this thing to one of his clients downstairs. It has made its way like some political tract onto the bulletin board of the dayroom on each floor of the jail, a kind of cryptic warning to those who would trust the state and might be tempted to snitch on their compatriots. As Harry says, ‘If necessity is the mother of invention, government is the father of fuckups.’
There are no rings of fatigue under Laurel’s eyes. She talks of the impending trial as if it is something to savor, like whatever doesn’t kill you only serves to make you stronger. A lot of bravado now that her kids are beyond Jack’s reach. What a good vendetta will do for the spirit.
This is the story that I am to sell to a jury as to Laurel’s whereabouts on the night of the murder – the image of a woman trekking over the mountains to obtain plane tickets to spirit her children away from their father while the question of custody is pending before a court. That she sees nothing wrong in this illustrates the poverty of judgment that settles like ground fog in a bitter divorce. Morgan Cassidy would no doubt remind the jury that it is inspired by the same venom that leads to murder.
‘We weren’t going to win the custody case,’ she says. ‘I had to do something. I won’t say where they are.’ She is adamant on this. I don’t tell her, but I have no desire to know, particularly after my last curtain call from Jack and his lawyer. For the moment I am off the hook while Harry and Westaby brief points and authorities on the law of attorney-client privilege.
‘They are safe and well cared for.’ Laurel giving me assurances about her kids.
‘I’ll tell the judge. He’ll be relieved.’
This has never been my concern. Knowing Laurel, it would have been the first item on her agenda, that her children be taken care of.
‘Why didn’t you just buy two plane tickets in Capital City?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, at a thousand dollars a pop,’ she says. ‘What was I supposed to do, go to Jack and ask for the money? Try getting two tickets at anything approaching fair price without a fourteen-day wait,’ she says.
‘You could have waited.’
She looks but doesn’t respond.
‘What were you afraid of?’
‘I wanted them out of that house. Just leave it at that,’ she says.
I have the thought that crosses every mind. But while Jack may be many things, I have never pegged him as a pedophile.
‘So you went to Reno?’
‘I had a friend. She works at one of the casinos. She has access to tickets on charter flights.’
Laurel makes a face, a little embarrassment. ‘Freebies,’ she says. ‘People fly into town to gamble, they drink, they get carried away, and they miss their flight out. It happens almost every time,’ she says. ‘So there’s open seats.’ What’s more important, she tells me, there’s no record of the names for the substitute passengers, no flight list that Jack’s lawyers or a PI can scrutinize to find the name Danny or Julie Vega. The woman is not stupid.
‘They’re probably going to subpoena you to answer questions in the custody case.’
‘I’ll take the Fifth,’ she says.
I try to explain to her that unless we can convince the judge that in some way the custody issues are related to the criminal charges, the privilege against self-incrimination does not apply.
‘What can he do if I refuse to talk, put me in jail?’ She takes in the concrete walls around her and gives me one of her better smiles.
‘The first time in my life I’ve felt completely invulnerable,’ she says.
It is as if she is drawing strength from her circumstances, nothing to lose, the kids out of harm’s way, toe to toe with Jack and the fates. At this moment when I look at Laurel I am moved by the fact that she is consumed with the fervor of the battle, in the way Joan of Arc led the troops before being fried at the stake.
‘To hell with him,’ she says. She’s talking about Jack.
She gives me a look, something that says: ‘And to hell with you too for not helping me with my children.’ This last I read whether from my own guilt or the demon look in her eye.
I’m afraid Laurel at this moment is not considering the consequences if we lose.
But she is right about one thing. Jack is running out of options for finding the kids. As for myself, the judge seemed satisfied that I had no personal knowledge regarding the whereabouts of the Vega children. He seemed reluctant to allow Westaby to explore what might be privileged communications with a defendant facing capital charges. He has sent the lawyers off to do what judges always do when they can’t make a decision – churn more paper. All in all, Jack has hit a stone wall when it comes to finding his children. No doubt he will play this, too, for sympathy when it comes time for sentencing on the charges.
I don’t tell her about Jack’s fall from grace, his sealed indictment, or plea of guilty to dirty politics. This would no doubt buoy her spirits. It might also lead her to talk, tales of jubilation. Jails have ears. At this moment Jack’s travails and the fact that a curtain has been thrown over them by the federal court is like my card facedown in a game of blackjack – something that, if the gods are with me, Morgan Cassidy does not know.
‘Tell me about Jack’s operation.’ I’m talking about the vasectomy.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Why did he do it?’
‘To clear the decks for action.’ She gives me a little laugh, as if to say, ‘Why else?’
‘You know Jack. He never saw a skirt he wouldn’t chase. And he didn’t like condoms. Jack had a saying, usually reserved for the cronies he ran with, but I heard him more than once. Jack used to say that rolling latex was for housepainters. That was back before AIDS was part of the lexicon,’ she says. ‘Jack had a special talent for rubbing my nose in his affairs.’
‘How did you feel? About the operation, I mean.’
She laughs. ‘You think he consulted me? He went off and had it done, an hour in the doctor’s office. He didn’t tell me until later, months later.
‘By that time it probably didn’t matter,’ she says. ‘We were married in name only. He’d leave me and the kids all night and go off with his friends, lobbyists with a license to take their limit of trollop.’
I remember these nights, Laurel and the kids, Julie younger than Sarah is now, coming over to visit with Nikki and me, Laurel on a constant search for social interaction, confirmation that she could still relate in an adult world. Jack would come home with the morning paper, smelling like a brewery, wrinkled clothes, his underwear inside out, telling Laurel that he’d been at a meeting. Vega was always transparent. To him, being a legislator meant that people had to believe your lies.
And Jack could get in trouble. For a man with a wandering eye, he was intensely jealous. Twice he’d gotten into fights over women he had not seen before that night.
To Jack, commitment was always geared to the cut of the tush and the size of the bra – double D s
tood for dueling. Sniff in the wrong place and Jack could rack horns like a moose in heat. When it came to women, Vega had a herd instinct. Possession was always nine-tenths. I’d seen his nose bloodied and his eye blackened after one of these brawls.
‘Do you know who the physician was who did the vasectomy?’
‘I’d have to look in a phone book, but I think I could find it. If he’s still in practice,’ she says.
‘And he’d have the medical records?’
‘I suppose. I could call it to your office tomorrow,’ she says.
‘No. I’ll have Harry come by in the afternoon with a notepad.’ I don’t trust the telephones in this place. Conversations have a way of getting to prosecutors.
‘One other thing, then I’ve got to go,’ I tell her. ‘Do you remember the gun that Jack had? The chrome pistol in the walnut box?’
‘That was a long time ago,’ she says.
‘But you remember it?’
‘How can I forget? He spent more time with that thing than he did with me. Until the novelty wore off.’
What she means is like everything else in Jack’s life.
‘Do you know what happened to it?’
‘Last time I saw it Jack had it. Made a big deal out of it in the property settlement agreement.’
This would be like Jack. Give up half his retirement benefits for a shiny gun.
‘Do you have a copy of the agreement?’
‘At home with my papers. The box in my closet,’ she says.
I have the key to her place, Sarah and I watering her plants, taking care of the place.
‘Maybe he sold it or lost it?’ I’m thinking out loud.
‘Not likely. Why?’
“Cuz when the cops asked him, the night Melanie was murdered, if he ever owned a gun, he told them no. They searched the house pretty well. If it was there they would have found it.’
‘You think that was the gun?’
‘No. But I’m wondering why he lied.’
It’s four-thirty in the afternoon, Harry and I locked in a heated argument over the strategy on pretrial motions. My intercom buzzes. I pick up the receiver.
‘Dana Colby. She says it’s important.’ The receptionist.
‘What line?’
‘No. She’s here in the office.’
I tell Harry, make a face like search me, and excuse myself for a moment.
I find her out in the reception area, looking at one of the prints on the wall, Harry’s pride, a black-and-white daguerreotype of two riverboats locked in the dead heat of a race, steaming under streams of black smoke up the river from the Delta, before the turn of the century.
She hears me and turns. ‘Sorry to bother you.’
‘No problem, what is it?’
‘I’ve got something I have to show you,’ she says. ‘Can we talk someplace private?’
I lead her to the library and close the door. I offer her a cup of coffee. She says no. I pour myself a cup.
Dana breaks open her briefcase on one of the library tables and pulls out a manila folder.
‘I have some pictures I’d like you to take a look at.’
I’ve been doing this on and off for days at the federal building, looking for the face of the courier in FBI mug books, broken down by specialty; people who do bombs.
The fact that Dana has brought this set to my office tells me that maybe they think they have something hot.
‘Bear with me,’ she says.
She arranges the photographs, various sizes, facedown on the coffee table.
‘I want you to look carefully at each one,’ she says, then flips over number one, an eight-by-ten glossy. A guy, caucasian, in his twenties, white numbers on a black plaque jammed under his chin, a lot of dead in the eyes. I shake my head.
Number two is a little older, military haircut, no numbers, more clean-cut, but he rings no bells.
She turns over the third picture. Still no prize.
The fourth picture is a tiny one. She turns it over. Color on a blue background. Not a mug shot, but something from Motor Vehicles. I have to squint to see it, hold it in my hand, and suddenly I am standing bolt upright, big eyes like someone has fed me cyanide.
Dana sees my expression and stops.
‘That’s him. The courier,’ I tell her.
‘You’re sure?’
‘I could not forget that face.’
Thin lips, hair clipped like someone ran a mower over it. Eyes as cold as an Eskimo’s ass. As for age, it could be the picture of Dorian Gray, anywhere from twenty to forty-five, but in good shape, like he works out. He looks more mature in the picture than he did that day at the post office. I attribute this to the uniform he wore. The eye sees what the mind expects. A lot of couriers are college students making ends meet.
‘Who is he?’
She reaches for a notepad in her briefcase.
‘Name is Lyle Simmons, alias Frank Jordan, alias James Hays, and so on and so forth. Former Green Beret, sometime soldier of fortune. Hires himself out for odd jobs.’ The way she says this I know she’s not talking about gardening.
‘He’s under suspicion in two unsolved murders in Oregon. No convictions. Fancies himself a high-tech security type. That’s what he claims to be his legitimate business. When you can find him.’
‘Any record?’
‘He’s been arrested three times on weapons violations, two convictions. It seems they always catch him on the way to or from work, never at it,’ she says.
‘How did you find him?’
‘It wasn’t easy. We backed into him, based on your theory about Jack. The thought that maybe he hired somebody to murder his wife.’
I’m all ears.
‘We had an informant. A hanger-on around the fringes of politics in the Capitol.’ She makes a face like this is not someone you would take home to meet your family.
‘This informant saw Jack in some sleazoid bar across the river some time ago. A real dive,’ she says. ‘Not one of the places your brother-in-law usually frequents. We know. We’ve watched him. He was in tow with another man, the two of them talking over a table, guzzling beer.
‘A state legislator in a thousand-dollar suit, Vega stood out,’ she says. ‘The guy, our informant, took notes.’
‘Why would he bother?’
‘He’d been netted in the Capitol probe. A sometime lobbyist, one of the guys who ultimately led us to Jack. He was low on the political food chain and was looking to play, make a deal. He didn’t know what we were doing, but he knew we had an eye on Jack. So among other things he got the license off of Mr. Simmons’ pickup truck. It was in the notes on Jack’s case. We hadn’t pursued it at the time.’
I am sitting, saying nothing. Letting it all sink in.
‘This informant. Where is he?’
‘That’s the bad part. The man seems to have slipped off the edge of the earth. At least momentarily. The agent who was his point of contact hasn’t seen him in at least three weeks. Word is he’s on vacation, but nobody knows where. We’re looking.’
‘And where’s this Mr. Simmons?’
‘We don’t know that either. He gave DMV a false address.’
Wonderful. Having seen him kill once and try on a second occasion, he is probably staking out my house at this moment. I mention this to Dana. She tells me not to worry. They have already thought of this. Agents have the house under surveillance twenty-four hours a day, she says. They are also watching Sarah at school. If Simmons shows as much as a hair on his ass they will take him down.
Then to more professional concerns. ‘This meeting between Simmons and Jack. When did it take place?’
‘I’m glad you asked,’ she says. ‘Five days before Melanie Vega was murdered.’
I am stone cold, the kind of shudder that courses through your body and chills your brain, like a double shot of adrenaline. My theory about Jack has just taken on the flesh of reality.
After meeting in the office, I called it a day and asked Dan
a to join me for dinner at the house. She is fixing the salad. Sarah is helping, standing on a stool in the kitchen like she used to do with her mother. I cannot help being bothered by this. Thoughts of Nikki and the hole that is left in my daughter’s life. I have my work. Sarah has a lot of loneliness, kids at school who ask why her mother doesn’t come to class on Monday mornings, teacher’s helper, as she used to do. At seven, children don’t have a solid concept of the finality that is death. Sarah is starting to learn, a long, painful lesson.
‘Maybe you’d like to pour the dressing while I toss the salad?’ Dana’s trying to take Sarah under her wing.
‘No. You do it,’ says Sarah. ‘I want to help Daddy with the corn.’
Like most children Sarah takes a while to warm to strangers. She is starved for a mother’s affection, a real hugger. Sarah would spend twenty minutes every morning cuddling with Nikki on the couch in the family room before dressing for school. I have the corner on this market now, giving her what she craves, a father’s love, her last sanctuary against life’s insecurities. Though when my daughter now looks at me, it seems too often that she is measuring me with wary eyes, fearful that I too might leave her.
Sarah holds the bowl while I put the hot cobs of corn in with metal tongs.
‘The steaks will be a couple of minutes,’ I tell them.
‘Quick. We’d better set the table,’ Dana moving toward the cupboards. ‘Show me where they are.’ She looks at Sarah, trying to make this a game.
But my daughter doesn’t budge, instead she is clinging to my side. Since Nikki’s death I have found that Sarah is possessive, of the house and its contents, but most of all of me. She does not like change. The few times I have talked about moving to a smaller place that is easier to take care of, she has thrown a pitched battle. It is as if as long as we stay here, Nikki is present, at least in spirit. It seems that she has taken a turn for the worse now that Danny and Julie are gone. Danny had, at least once a week, and regardless of his father’s objections, slipped by to visit with us, to tease and play with his cousin.
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