Undue Influence

by Steve Martini

‘And who was she referring to? Who was the person Laurel Vega was referring to as the bitch?’

  A lot of shrugging of shoulders, movement in the box, Lang like some unfortunate fish hooked through the gill.

  ‘Wasn’t it Melanie Vega that she was talking about?’

  ‘Yes.’ An explosion of tears from Lang. ‘I didn’t want to,’ she says. Imploring looks at Laurel, all the worse for our cause. Not likely that this is a lie, some fabrication concocted by an enemy. It is the stuff of which truth is made in the eyes of a jury.

  ‘That’s all for this witness,’ announces Cassidy.

  ‘Under the circumstances, we should give the witness time,’ says Woodruff. ‘Can you go on or would you like a recess?’

  Lang motions with her hand that she would rather go on, to finish this now.

  ‘Cross,’ says Woodruff.

  ‘Ms. Lang, just a couple of questions,’ I say. ‘When you heard these words from Laurel, did it strike you that she was serious, that she actually intended to kill Melanie Vega?’

  ‘Objection– calls for speculation on the part of the witness.’

  ‘Sustained.’

  Still, the seed is planted.

  ‘Let me ask you,’ I say, ‘in your life, during a moment of extreme frustration or pain, have you ever said to your children, your husband, to a friend, that there are times when you could kill someone?’

  ‘Sure,’ she says. Lang sees where I am going, anxious to help.

  ‘And when you made such statements, were you serious?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So it was a figure of speech, nothing more?’

  ‘That’s true,’ she says.

  ‘Let me ask you. Did you call the police to alert them when Laurel Vega told you that she could kill Melanie Vega?’

  ‘No,’ she says.

  ‘And why not?’

  I can see Cassidy cringing at the table. ‘Objection, calls for speculation.’

  ‘No, no. I’m not asking the witness to speculate about the defendant’s state of mind, but to comment on her own. Why she didn’t call the police.’

  The many ways to slice up evidence.

  ‘Overruled.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call the police and tell them about this comment on the part of Laurel Vega?’

  ‘Because I didn’t think she was serious.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I say. ‘You viewed it for what it was, a figure of speech and nothing more, isn’t that true?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ she says. A smile on Jennifer’s Lang’s face, redemption at last.

  ‘That’s all I have for this witness.’

  ‘Very well, you’re excused,’ says Woodruff.

  Lang rises from the stand. She tries to take Laurel’s hand at the table, some consolation, a show of support, but I am blocking her way, ushering her through the railing, out of the courtroom. Each move by Lang at this moment, grasping hands of friendship extended to Laurel, is like a pygmy shooting blow darts into the side of our case. It is not possible to assess what damage has been done here, but the fact remains that unlike the subjects in other figures of speech, Melanie Vega is dead. Clearly someone wanted to kill the bitch.

  Chapter 22

  It is perhaps the most singular and disturbing part of our case to this point that the one piece of evidence Laurel does not dispute is the testimony of Jennifer Lang. In the hallway to the holding cell after today’s session, Laurel apologized for not warning me. She had forgotten the remark made to Lang over lunch so many months before. Idle chatter, she called it. The stuff of a bitter divorce.

  All of this makes me wonder if she has said such things to others, whether Harry and I should brace ourselves. I have visions of a procession, Laurel’s acquaintances marched to the stand by Cassidy in a line reminiscent of the rush to the Klondike. Hopefully, the damage, which at this point is difficult to assess, is done.

  Tonight I am busy getting Sarah ready for bed when the phone rings.

  ‘Hello.’ The receiver in one hand, I’m trying to untie a knot in Sarah’s shoe with the other.

  ‘Hi.’ The voice on the other end is distant, something from another planet, and for an instant I do not recognize it.

  Then I say, ‘Danny?’

  Sarah’s eyes grow wide. ‘Oh, let me talk to him.’ She makes a swipe for the phone, but misses.

  ‘Later,’ I tell her.

  ‘Did I call at a bad time?’ he asks.

  ‘No. No. Not at all,’ I tell him. I suppress the urge to ask the one question that I cannot: Where are you?

  ‘How’s Mom doing? We don’t get much news back here, and I’m afraid to write,’ he says.

  It is clear that he and Laurel have discussed this, writing, and that she has cautioned him not to. A return address on an envelope, a postmark, and Jack would be all over her for conspiring to violate the court’s order of temporary custody. Letters to the jail are scanned and monitored in a dozen different ways.

  ‘She’s doing as well as can be expected, under the circumstances,’ I tell him.

  ‘Will she be out pretty soon?’ he asks.

  ‘We all hope so,’ I tell him. ‘We have a ways to go.’ I don’t talk about the downside; what if she’s convicted. But I can tell by the silence at the other end that this thought is now being processed in Danny’s mind.

  ‘I wanted to call her,’ he says. ‘At the jail, I mean. But I’m not supposed to. Mom told me they listen in.’

  I don’t say anything, but issue a few grunts on the phone. I can’t participate in this and take the stand if I am called again to testify in the custody case. I must be able to say truthfully that I didn’t tell him what to do, that I have no idea where he is.

  ‘Is Dad looking for us?’

  ‘Turning over every rock,’ I tell him.

  He laughs a little, nothing sinister, but amused, that perhaps he has finally outwitted his father.

  ‘You won’t tell him that I called.’

  I tell him his father and I no longer share much information or news of any kind. ‘When we pass in the hall, we don’t even say hello,’ I tell him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, like he is in some way responsible for this.

  ‘Not your fault,’ I tell him.

  ‘Sure,’ he says. I can sense some awkwardness on the other end, juvenile insecurities.

  ‘Is Mom gonna have to testify?’

  ‘I don’t know. We’ll cross that bridge later. There’s a lot of evidence against her, and it would probably help to answer some things if she took the stand.’

  ‘Then it’s not going so good?’ he says.

  ‘Some days yes, some days no,’ I tell him. ‘We’re not throwing in the towel just yet.’

  ‘I’m really glad you’re helping her,’ he says. ‘I know Mom is too. She doesn’t always say it, but I know she is.’

  Visions of Harry and me, Don Quixote and Sancho. I warn him that there are no sure things, a lot of evidence yet ahead of us, imponderables to explain. When he pursues for details I tell him that I cannot discuss these.

  ‘Maybe it would really help if I came back,’ he says. ‘What do you think?’

  Laurel would kill me. ‘That’s not for me to say. We shouldn’t be having this conversation,’ I tell him.

  ‘Oh. I didn’t realize.’ The sense of Danny retreating from the receiver at the other end.

  Before I can say another word, the operator breaks in.

  ‘That’ll be another ninety-five cents, please.’

  I hear the ding of coins tripping the meter of the pay phone.

  ‘We’ll have to talk quickly,’ he says. ‘I’m running out of quarters.’

  ‘Are you okay?’ I ask him.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Maggie’s real good to us.’

  The first clue that Julie is with him. I don’t ask who Maggie is. I don’t want to know.

  ‘Is Julie there?’

  ‘Yeah. Right here. You want to talk to her?’

  ‘Just a word,’ I say.
/>   Her voice comes on the line. ‘Hello, Uncle Paul.’

  ‘Hi, sweetheart. How are you doing?’

  ‘Not so good. I want to come home,’ she says. I hear a lot of grousing on the other end, Danny snatching for the phone.

  ‘Get away. I wanna talk.’ Julie fighting him off.

  ‘Uncle Paul, I don’t know what we’re doing here. Can you talk to Mom, see if we can come home?’ she asks me.

  ‘Just hang tough,’ I tell her.

  ‘Mom’s got enough problems,’ I hear Danny’s voice intoning.

  ‘We’re doing everything we can,’ I tell her. ‘It’ll be over before you know it. Then we’ll talk and see what we’re going to do.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she says. ‘Like who we’re gonna live with?’

  It’s tough to bullshit teenagers.

  ‘You’re going to live with your mother.’

  ‘And what if she’s convicted?’ she says.

  ‘I don’t think that’s going to happen.’

  ‘What if it does?’

  ‘Gimme the phone.’ Danny trying to grab it.

  ‘Stop it,’ I tell them, but they can’t hear me. Pain in my ear as the receiver slams into something solid on the other end. Danny wins the battle. His voice comes up on the line.

  ‘Don’t bother Mom with this. We’re fine,’ he says.

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ says Julie.

  ‘I wanna talk.’ Sarah’s tugging at my sleeve.

  ‘Just a minute,’ I tell her.

  ‘Tell Julie not to worry,’ I tell him.

  ‘Aw, she’s a spoiled brat,’ he says.

  ‘Your mom wouldn’t like to hear that,’ I tell him. ‘Give her a break. She’s younger than you, and she’s scared.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

  ‘Is there anything you need?’ I ask him.

  I have no idea what ruse I would employ to get it there without knowing the destination. My first thought is Harry, the doer of all things suspect. Harry would see this as a minor mission of mercy, and Jack’s lawyers would never ferret him out. Danny could call him direct.

  ‘No, we’re fine,’ he says. ‘Is Sarah still there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can I talk to her?’

  I put my daughter on the line.

  ‘Danny, where are you?’ she says.

  I want to hum and plug both ears at the same time. I am hoping that Sarah won’t repeat some place name in my presence. I’m using both hands to untie the knot in her shoe while she shows me a toothless grin, talking on the phone.

  ‘Where’s that?’ she says.

  ‘How far away?’

  ‘What are you doing there?’ My daughter is a litany of questions.

  ‘Who is Maggie? Is she nice? Why can’t you come home?’ she says.

  There’s a moment of silence as he tries to explain in tones that a seven-year-old might understand.

  ‘You know,’ she says, ‘everybody’s gone. Yeah,’ she says. ‘First Mom.’ Sarah says this as if her mother is off on a trip, like she may be returning any day. There are times when I have wondered if Sarah has really dealt with the death of her mother or simply withdrawn into her own protected world of fantasy.

  ‘Then Auntie Laurel disappeared, and now you guys,’ she says. ‘I want to know what’s going on. When are you coming back?’ she says. She is actually angry, like give me a break, enough of these adult games.

  For the first time it strikes me what all of this has done to Sarah. Every familiar point of contact in her world is now gone. And though I am trying to reassemble a part of her life, getting her aunt out from under the cloud of murder, even this makes me an absentee father who is either in court or locked in his office, mulling over papers until the wee hours.

  There is a lapse on the phone, Danny talking. She laughs a little, then listens some more.

  ‘There is a lady,’ she tells Danny. ‘Her name is Dana. But I don’t like her.’

  With this I look at Sarah.

  She’s studying me to see the effect. I suspect that this is intended more for me than Danny.

  ‘I didn’t say she was bad or anything.’ Sarah getting defensive. ‘Just I don’t like her.’

  ‘That’s not a nice thing to say,’ I tell her.

  She makes a face, like the truth seldom is, her ear glued to the phone.

  I have allowed Sarah to grieve for Nikki in her own way, and I see this, her attitude toward Dana, as a part of that normal mourning process. I would deal with it, except that I view it as both necessary and harmless. There is no real hostility here, but rather an undercurrent of suspicion on the part of my daughter toward anyone who might be seen as a surrogate for her mother. In this case the only apparent candidate is Dana, for we seem of late to have been thrown together. The circumstances of Laurel’s case have seen to that. For my own part it is not an unpleasant experience, this woman of mystical beauty and quick intellect. In the last week we have spent a couple of warm evenings by the fire at my house, after Sarah has gone to bed, sipping wine and talking until late. The hum of adult voices heard once more in my home. The communion of two lonely souls.

  For the last two days she has been in Washington, D.C., business on the impending judgeship. While Sarah tugged at my sleeve with demands that I read to her, Dana and I have spoken each night by phone, long distance.

  We have discussed in general terms a possible vacation to tropic climes in the fall, the three of us. Dana has suggested something like Club Med, where they have special programs for children. So we have started to collect literature.

  All of this, I suspect, has generated a kind of rivalry rippling just under the surface, little jealousies that a seven-year-old mind lacks the art to conceal.

  Suddenly Sarah is finished talking with Danny. In the abrupt way children end all conversations, she hands me the receiver and is off the bed and down the hall.

  ‘Danny?’

  He’s still there. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Don’t be a stranger,’ I tell him. ‘Call whenever you want.’ I tell him I’ll leave word with my secretary at work to break in if he should call. He has the number.

  ‘Is the Vespa okay?’ he says.

  ‘It’s fine. But I keep finding Sarah out there playing on it, pretending she’s taking you for a ride,’ I tell him. ‘But she’s very careful.’

  ‘That’s okay. Just don’t let her mess with the box on the back, all right? All my stuff’s in there.’ The world coming apart and Danny is worried about ‘stuff’ in the box on the back of his bike.

  ‘It’s locked, remember? I assume you have the key.’

  ‘Yeah, well, just tell her to be careful.’

  ‘I will,’ I tell him.

  ‘I’m sorry about all of this,’ his last words to me on the phone. A boy, growing into a man, taking on the burdens of his mother.

  ‘It’s not your problem,’ I tell him. ‘We’ll work it out. Try not to think about it,’ I say. And we hang up.

  Chapter 23

  Dr. Simon Angelo is the Capital County coroner hired two years ago from a state back east. He holds degrees from three universities and belongs to a score of professional societies. These litter his curriculum vitae, which Morgan Cassidy has just laid before me on the counsel table.

  Angelo is mid-forties, though by dress and appearance he looks older. He has a fringe of graying hair that rings his head above the ears like clouds with their tops sheared in the jet stream. He is slight of build, with sharp features, a chin that finishes the face in a rounded point, and deep-set dark eyes that give the appearance of a mind engaged in perpetual deliberations. Simon Angelo is every man’s vision of intrigue at the Court of the Medici.

  In front of him this morning, balanced on the railing that forms the front of the witness stand, is a square box, something that in the last century might have contained a woman’s hat.

  I stipulate on his qualifications to testify as an expert, and Cassidy passes out copies of his résumé to
filter through the jury box.

  Under the framework of a dozen preliminary questions, Angelo re-creates the death scene: Melanie Vega, lying at the bottom of a dry bathtub, her eyes open, pupils fixed and dilated.

  Time of death is the first evidentiary bridge he and Cassidy cross. It is a pivot point because of the argument between Laurel and Melanie on the front porch earlier in the evening. Cassidy would no doubt like to push the murder closer to that point in time.

  ‘Our original report placed it between eleven and eleven-thirty P.M,’ he says.

  Alarms go off. Revision on the way.

  ‘And do you still consider that to be an accurate estimate?’

  He talks about postmortem lividity and loses the jury in a sea of scientific jargon halfway through.

  ‘Could time of death have been earlier?’ says Cassidy.

  ‘It’s possible,’ he says. ‘Lividity can vary from case to case, and the information here was at best sketchy.’ What he means is that it was based on observations by the EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians) before Angelo arrived on the scene.

  ‘So fixing time of death is not an exact science?’ she says.

  Angelo gives her a benign smile, something well planned.

  ‘Not at all,’ he says.

  They are laying the groundwork for some major wiggle room. Before our pretrial motions, when Cassidy had Mrs. Miller to identify Laurel at the house near the eleven-thirty benchmark that appeared in the coroner’s report, the state was more than willing to live with their estimate as to the time of death. Now they would like to fudge a bit. Jurors might wonder why, if Laurel was so intent on killing Melanie, would she argue and then wait for three hours to carry out the deed?

  ‘Is it possible that the death could have occurred as early as eight-thirty?’ says Cassidy.

  This is less than ten minutes after the two women argued on the porch, and three hours earlier than their original time estimate.

  Angelo is a million pained expressions on the stand, the revisionist at work. He tells the court there are factors in this case that are unusual. Whether the body was wet or dry at the time of the crime. This could affect the cooling rate which normally goes into the equation, the fact that eye fluids – another measure of the time of death – were damaged by the fatal bullet. By the time he finishes he has thoroughly discredited his own earlier estimate.