Steve Martini - Undue Influence

Harry and I are like cattle with our ears punched, wearing tags that mark us as visitors. We are ushered to the lawyers’ conference room, a concrete closet on the tier above the day room. Laurel is waiting when we arrive. There is heavy plate glass between us, with a small mike embedded so we can hear each other.

She wears a hopeful expression, with the ‘B-word’ of passage for every prisoner on her lips before I can sit: ‘Any more word on bail?’ she says.

We have been up and down on this three times on separate motions to obtain bail in the last month.

She’s dressed in blue jeans and a blue work shirt. There’s a haggard look about the eyes that says she has not been sleeping well. Laurel is a person who fairly hums with physical and nervous energy, who finds it difficult to be still even for a moment, who always takes the stairs, never the elevator. Being locked in a six-by-ten cell with no windows must to Laurel be a living nightmare. The view from beyond the glass is of slowly crumbling human wreckage.

I have to dash her hopes. Our final attempt at bail has been denied, a hearing in which Morgan Cassidy played up the fact that Laurel was apprehended in another state. The court has bought into the concept that my client is a flight risk.

‘I could reopen the issue if I knew what you were doing in Reno,’ I tell her. This is a sore point, as Laurel has not been forthcoming.

‘That again,’ she says, ‘I can’t tell you.’ She’s looking at the ceiling, a pained expression. ‘Have you decided yet whether you will help me with Danny and Julie?’ she says.

This whole exercise is becoming circular. Somehow these things, her trip to Reno and the children, are wedded, but I haven’t yet figured out the connection.

‘I’m trying to help you,’ I say. ‘You’ve got to trust me. What is it you want?’

‘You know,’ she says. She makes a face but doesn’t want to say it out loud, wondering if others are listening over the microphone. It is a cryptic little dance we have done over two sessions now. She wants me to help her get the kids away from Jack, to usher them out-of-state, probably to her friend in Michigan, the one she told me about on the phone that day before her arrest when she called from Reno.

‘You know I can’t,’ I say.

‘You mean you won’t.’

‘We’ve been through this before. I’m an officer of the court,’ I tell her. ‘Jack has a temporary custody order. Do this,’ I say, ‘and the court will make it permanent.’

‘Help me and he’ll never find them.’ With all of her problems, lashing out at Jack — a preemptive strike involving the kids — still seems to be at the top of her agenda.

I shake my head in frustration. Dealing with Laurel is becoming a cross to bear.

‘The answer is no.’

‘Then I can’t tell you what I was doing in Reno.’ She turns her head away from me. This is her final answer. Unless I help her with the children, she is holding this information hostage.

‘You can’t do this. When we get to court, we have to be able to explain to the jury what you were doing there. That you weren’t on the run. That you weren’t fleeing from the crime. That your trip to Reno had nothing to do with Melanie’s murder.’

A long silence. Nothing from her.

‘It didn’t — did it?’

She looks at me, fire in her eyes. ‘No.’

But still she won’t tell me what she was doing there.

‘Let’s come back to that later. Let’s talk about the bathroom rug,’ I say. More ground we have been over.

‘Jack says it belongs to him. He says it was in the house, in the bathroom on the night of the murder.’

‘Jack’s a liar,’ she says. ‘He would say anything to make it look bad for me. The man is plainly vindictive.’ Coming from Laurel, this is like Typhoid Mary warning of a plague.

I have not told her about my theory that Jack himself may have had reason to murder Melanie.

‘Then where did the rug come from?’

‘I’ve told you,’ she says. ‘It was mine. It came from my apartment.’

‘What was it doing in Reno? Why were you washing it?’

‘We’ve gone over all of that.’

‘Let’s do it one more time.’

‘Fine,’ she says, like I’m wasting her time.

‘My cat slept on it. He used the rug as a bed. It was full of cat hair. It needed to be washed. How many times do I have to tell you?’

‘So you went to Reno to launder the rug? Is that what you want us to tell the jury?’ says Harry.

She gives him a face, a lot of sarcasm.

‘No. I went to Reno for other reasons. I figured while I was there I would wash the rug. I was killing time.’

‘Let’s hope that’s all you were killing,’ says Harry.

‘Screw you,’ she says. ‘Why don’t I just get the public defender?’ She’s up off the stool on her side, pacing as much as the space will allow.

‘Hot as a pistol,’ says Harry. ‘We gotta get her out of here. The place is having a bad effect,’ he says.

‘Fuck you,’ she says, ‘and the horse you rode in on.’

My sister-in-law is no wilting daisy. She is reaching the snapping point. If it weren’t for the glass I think she could tear out Harry’s throat. She has lost ten pounds since being jailed, weight she could not afford to give up. Still, she could take Harry two out of three falls.

‘Sit down,’ I tell her.

She looks at me, an expression I have seen on Sarah when she is certain not a soul in the world loves her.

‘Please,’ I say.

She sits and looks at me, a petulant child. It is the problem with Laurel, embattled, fighting wars on so many fronts she can no longer distinguish friend from foe. She is giving us a harder time than she gave the cops, forcing us to do the third degree.

‘You have to admit on its face it doesn’t make much sense. People don’t take dirty laundry on a trip.’

‘This person does.’ She says it matter-of-fact, like this is it, final answer on the subject.

Maybe it’s the problem with real life, but there are some things you just can’t tell to a jury — not and possess any credibility when you are finished. I tell her this.

‘Fine. Then make up some other explanation.’

‘Even if I were willing, my imagination isn’t that facile.’

‘Then the truth is the best answer.’ On this she has me.

For the moment we are dead on bail and no closer to a credible explanation of her conduct on the night of the murder.

We talk about something else. I want to know why she went after Melanie that day in the courthouse.

She looks at me. ‘I don’t know that I did,’ she says. ‘Did I hit her?’

‘Like she was a railroad spike and you were John Henry,’ says Harry. We have viewed the tape from the courthouse.

‘Well, I guess I didn’t like what she said on the stand.’

‘What in particular?’ I say.

‘What she said about drugs.’

‘But you said something that day. Something about Melanie staying away from your kids. What was that all about?’

She fumes, looks at the floor. ‘Oh, hell. I suppose it will all come out. Jack knows about it. He’s probably already told the cops.’

My chest starts to tighten. Like burnt toast, I smell some damaging admission on its way.

‘It happened the week before she died.’ This is Laurel’s characterization of Melanie’s passing, like some geriatric who slipped away in her sleep.

‘I was supposed to take Danny to a concert in the city.’

‘San Francisco?’ I ask.

She nods.

‘Pearl Jam was playing — ’

‘What’s a Pearl Jam?’ says Harry.

‘Rock group,’ she says.

A rolling nod like now he understands.

‘Except I couldn’t afford to buy the tickets. Jack was late with support payments as usual. I was short. It was either pay the rent or buy the tickets for the concert. I had to tell Danny. He was disappointed, but he took it well. Somehow, I don’t know how, whether Danny mentioned it to Jack, and Jack said something to her, but somehow she found out.’