Steve Martini - Undue Influence

I’m thinking coroner’s shots. Then he says: ‘Of Laurel, at the house.’

‘Shooting Melanie?’ I cannot resist.

He shakes his head. ‘May as well be. Videotape of her arguing with Melanie on the front steps. Neighbors heard it. Security camera filmed it all until Laurel smashed the lens with a flowerpot.’ The way he says this, Jack clearly imputes a little method to Laurel’s madness, a purpose in destroying the camera. Something I suspect he’s either picked up from the cops or planted in their minds.

‘Where were you?’

‘I had a meeting. Didn’t get home till late that night.’

It was Jack who found Melanie’s body in the master bath and called police. According to what he tells me, forensics figures that about three hours passed between the row on the porch and the murder.

‘They believe Laurel probably went to get a gun and had to think about it for a while before she worked up the nerve.’ The ‘they’ Jack is talking about I suspect is Jimmy Lama, who is busy trying to inspire thoughts of premeditation and deliberation to some wily prosecutor.

‘How do you know it was her?’

A pained expression, like give me a break.

‘I suppose you still don’t know where she is?’

‘I don’t,’ I tell him.

‘Not a word from her?’

‘And if I had, I would tell you?’ I smile.

‘Touché,’ he says.

Jack’s musing over his drink, talking about Melanie’s funeral, which is scheduled for tomorrow.

I had not expected to see him in the office, a period for grieving. I tell him this.

‘It’s easier to cope if I go about my day,’ he says. Jack’s talking like he’s had time to think. The immediate rush of anger so evident at his house that night has passed. This is not unlike Vega. Jack has always lacked the stamina to hold anger for long. He talks about the kids, what to do with their mother. It’s not easy. It’s not his decision, but he and his children will have to live with whatever happens to Laurel.

‘For their sake,’ he says, ‘I cannot see her sentenced to death.’ It’s starting to sound like Jack is coming to his senses.

There are little beads of sweat running down his nose. He puts the side of the iced tumbler to his forehead and catches the sweat with the sleeve of his coat.

‘They will find her,’ he says. He is dogged in this. ‘What I want to know is what you’re going to do,’ he says.

I look at him.

‘When they catch her. Are you going to represent her?’

‘I hadn’t thought about it,’ I tell him.

He smiles. Bullshit is Jack’s native tongue. By nature he is not confrontational. Manipulation is his special gift. I get a lot of penetrating looks from across the desk as he sizes me for some pitch.

‘I suppose it would make sense if she were represented by someone who knew the family well. I mean the whole situation. It would be easier,’ he says, ‘for the kids, for all concerned if it was over quickly. And the evidence,’ he says, ‘is irrefutable.’ He goes on at length that there is a certain symmetry and sense to my representing Laurel. At least then I’d be in a position, in his words, ‘to make it easy on the family.’ Jack is taking me on his own sojourn of mercy. If he can’t keep me away from the case, Vega’s busy mining the circumstances for some silver lining. He would use me like a handy tool to have Laurel cop a quick plea.

‘It’ll keep her out of the deathhouse,’ he says. ‘And the kids. It’ll be easier on them.’ It’s like he’s talking to himself, thinking out loud. ‘Of course you’d have to know the circumstances. All the details. How she did it and why.’ He stops for a moment and looks at me as if perhaps I already know these and will share them with him now.

This is a conversation we shouldn’t be having. It is not only premature, it is ridiculous. I tell him that.

‘Just keep an open mind,’ he says.

‘You might do the same,’ I tell him.

‘I understand the kids were with you the night Melanie was murdered,’ he says. ‘Until this is over I’d like you to stay away from them. I think you can understand. I don’t want them in the middle.’ This from the man who had his two children on the discount rack at the custody mart.

‘Whatever you say, Jack.’

‘I knew you’d understand.’ It is all very civil, what you would expect from Jack once he’s had time to collect himself and find the direction of advantage. He will no doubt be trying to plan Laurel’s defense with me if she is arrested and charged. Anything that is short and sweet and leads to a long stretch will do.

He pushes forward and rises from his chair. The button of his coat catches on the edge of the desk. It tears the fabric and pops across the room like a rivet in an earthquake.

‘Damn,’ he says. A stupid smile, like look at me in my ruined thousand-dollar suit. With nothing to be done, he shrugs and reaches across the desk to shake my hand, leaving his jacket to flop open. In his mind I think Jack’s view is that we have buried some mythical hatchet. If he had a peace pipe at this moment he would offer me a smoke.

His is a big, affable smile.

‘Like I said the other day. We all have to do what we have to do.’ He ushers me to the door, one hand on my shoulder, renewing the vows of brotherhood.

He pats me on the shoulder one last time, bids farewell, and closes his door. I wander through the warren of offices like Moses after the promised land, any way to get out. With each step I weigh frantically every word spoken during our meeting against a single question in my mind.

Why was Jack Vega wearing a wire?

‘Guess who’s here?’ she says. Sarah has a big grin. She’s just answered the doorbell, and she knows I don’t have a clue.

‘Danny.’ She is jubilant.

‘Oh.’

My daughter dotes on her cousin. Everything that a seven-year-old girl can think about a teenager, the gamut from love to simple fascination. She looks up at him with oval eyes and a painted-on smile, stuttering as the words can’t come out fast enough.

She’s tugging on one of his hands, dragging him over to look at a picture she’s just finished in crayon, yammering about school and a book she is learning to read. She has plans to corral him on the couch while she struggles with the words.

‘Uncle Paul.’ Danny’s hat is in his hand. He’s wearing a black Raiders jacket that gives his body more bulk than it warrants.

I’m working over the stove, what passes for cooking in this house. I ask him if he’s hungry. Is the Pope Catholic? His eyes are looking in the pot as it steams. Nothing he recognizes, I’m sure, but then Danny is a risk-taker.

‘Does your dad know you’re here?’ I ask.

‘I’m out with Julie tonight,’ he says. ‘Took her to her boyfriend’s. Suppose to pick her up in an hour.’

I shudder. Plenty of time for the pointed little sperms to wiggle their way upstream. In his own evasive way, Danny has answered my question. His father doesn’t know he is here.

‘We had a talk today,’ I tell him. ‘Your dad thinks it’s best, for the time being, if we don’t see each other.’

‘’Cuz you’re helping Mom,’ he says. Just like that, the kid has put it all together. ‘I know. He told me,’ he says. He shrugs his shoulders. ‘I didn’t think you’d mind.’

Sarah is fuming, a bundle about to explode. Enough talk between grown-ups. She wants Danny in the other room, and she is not subtle. Sarah has him by a thumb and one finger, pulling with all her weight, about to commit an act of dislocation.

Sarah wants to ride around the block behind Danny on the little Vespa motor scooter, but I scotch this. She has no helmet, and besides it is beginning to get dark. He cons me with requests to stay just for a few minutes. Then looks at me doe-eyed.