Steve Martini - Undue Influence

‘That raises a question,’ I say.

‘What’s that?’

‘Would you have told me about the sting with Jack if I hadn’t stumbled over the wire?’

She smiles, little crinkles at the corners of her mouth.

‘Probably not. We would have seen no connection to the murders. No foul, no crime,’ she says. ‘Unless you know something we don’t.’

I give her a stone face.

‘You don’t really think that somebody tried to kill him that night to silence him?’

I am a shrug, a downturned mouth.

‘Tell me about his marital problems,’ I say.

She looks at me over her coffee mug.

‘The other day, over dinner, you said that on top of everything else, the screws you folks were turning, that Jack had marital problems.’

She takes a sip. ‘Hmm — that,’ she says. ‘No offense. I know he’s your former brother-in-law and all.’

‘You can put the emphasis on the word former ,’ I tell her.

‘I suspect if his wife was sleeping with other people she probably had good reason,’ says Dana.

‘You sound like you’re not a fan of Jack’s.’

‘I take a hot shower with lots of soap every time I have to deal with the man.’ She tells me it’s not just Jack’s corrupting ways.

‘Every look you get from him, it’s like he’s having optical intercourse with you,’ she says. ‘I’m not talking mild glances. The guy would zero in on cleavage, a gap in your knees, any open opportunity,’ she says. ‘And it didn’t stop with looks.’

‘I’ve never noticed,’ I lie.

‘You’re not a woman,’ she says.

I can believe that having set his eyes on Dana, Jack would have developed eyes that could fuck.

‘Was Melanie doing it with somebody else?’

‘More like everybody else,’ she says.

There’s a long sigh, like she’s not sure she should be getting into this. Then she finally looks up at me.

‘You didn’t hear it here,’ she says. She reaches across the gulf between the couch and the coffee table and puts the mug down. Little pockets of fabric open on her blouse and I can see a lot of lace underneath, then I divert my eyes. The ravages of the guilty male mind. She’s sitting up again, straight. I lock eye contact to keep my own from wandering.

‘He allowed us to put a tap on his home phone. I don’t think his wife knew.’

‘You heard her talking to other men?’

‘I didn’t. But agents who were monitoring did. Liaisons out of the house, and some there.’

‘Did Vega know?’

She nods.

‘How do you know?’

‘The guy was awful with the wire,’ she says. ‘He’d leave the thing on for hours. Forget to turn it off. Then twice when it was off and there were important conversations, he forgot to turn it on. We know,’ she says, ‘because the people showed up on the video in his office.’

The image of this, like some silent movie, pictures and no sound, somehow is chilling. I make a mental note not to be seen in Jack’s office again.

‘We had to send him back,’ she says. ‘I mean, it was terrible. He mealymouthed his way back into some guy’s office and told him he forgot what they’d discussed ten minutes before, about the contribution, wink, wink, and what piece of legislation was the quid pro quo. Can you believe?’ she says. ‘Like talk into my tie clip.’

‘And I’ll bet the guy repeated it all.’

‘Oh, yeah.’ Dana is all big eyes. A face filled with expression. Incredulous. ‘These people believe in trust,’ she says.

Why not? I think. They’re talking to Jack Vega, the patron saint of political corruption. Who was dirtier than Jack?

‘It was impossible for Vega to have a secret from us. Even things we didn’t want to know.’

‘So he suspected that his wife was having an affair? He said this?’

‘At least twice,’ she says. ‘Once to one of the young aides in the office. A woman. It was pretty bad,’ she says. ‘He was producing a pity play for sympathy, complete with sound and cameras. Crying on a soft shoulder. The gal was in her early twenties, didn’t know what to do. This slobbering guy all over her, arms around her neck. I couldn’t tell if he was serious or if it was just a pitch to get into her pants,’ she says.

Knowing Jack, I can form my own conclusion. He always operated on a double standard. If it moved, Jack would fuck it. But let Melanie step out with some other man, and you can imagine Jack — capable of almost anything.

‘And there was one other time,’ she says, ‘on the phone to somebody. We don’t know who. It was all very cryptic.’

‘Do you know what they talked about?’

She shakes her head.

‘You have the tapes?’

‘At one time,’ she says. ‘I don’t know if we kept them. Policy is to get rid of anything not relevant.’

‘Could you check?’

‘Is it important?’

‘Could be,’ I tell her.

She’s looking at me, intense. Wheels turning inside of wheels, then they click, and lock, coming up all bars and bells. The dawning of light.

‘You’re thinking he killed his wife,’ she says.

‘I’m considering the possibilities.’

Harry and I are on the way to the county jail, a meeting with Laurel. We’re doing the seven blocks on foot. It’s easier than trying to find a parking space.

‘You sure there’s not just a little family venom propelling this thing?’ he says. Harry’s talking about my ruminations that maybe Jack killed Melanie.

I’ve been beating this drum in my head all night, even in my sleep.

‘Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to hang the fucker,’ he says. The fact that Vega is a politician is enough for Harry. The fact that he is dirty is to Harry merely part of the job description.

‘I admit I bear a little enmity,’ I say. ‘But there are things I haven’t told you.’

‘Like?’

‘Like the fact that Jack lied to the cops the night of the murder.’

I look over and Harry is a half stride behind. His interest piqued, he is now catching up.

‘He told them that he never owned a gun. That was a lie. A sloppy one. But then that’s Jack,’ I say. ‘The question and his answer were in the police report.’

‘He owns a gun?’

‘At least at one time he did. In his office, on the credenza, behind his desk, there are three trophies, a lot of marble and chrome,’ I say. ‘If you look, you’ll see they’re for target shooting. Pistols,’ I tell him. ‘One of those legislative tournaments where all the lobbyists and the people who hire them let the pols win.’

Jack was heavily into the gun culture. He took trips to the big national gun shows, paid for junkets, one in Dallas, another in Miami. Jack got trophies just for showing up. He also got a pistol, nickel plated in a walnut box, a lot of tooling and scrolling engraved on it. From one of the manufacturers. Tokens of appreciation for a vote against a gun control bill. He showed the thing all around the family a few years back, twirling it on one finger. ‘A semiautomatic,’ I tell Harry. ‘Nine millimeter.’

Harry whistles. ‘The cops went over the place with a tooth comb. They didn’t find it. You think he did it and got rid of the piece?’

It is a possible scenario, but I am reading other tea leaves.

‘What troubles me about the theory,’ I tell Harry, ‘is that I do not conceive Jack as a doer. Don’t get me wrong. I can see him, with enough motivation, planning a murder. But doing it is another thing. It is not Jack’s style. He is somebody who would brood over the justifications. Think about it for a while. Then go to some middleman, somebody he trusts, someone with connections in sleazoid circles to job it out.’