Steve Martini - Undue Influence

For two days Dana has been grilling me on my meeting with Kathy Merlow. Over coffee and at lunch she has been relentless, going over every aspect of my recollection of the brief conversation. The FBI has interviewed me, obtained descriptions, and had me look through endless mug shots on the off-chance of finding the courier who delivered the letter bomb. On all counts we have struck out.

Dana was not so much angry when I told of my foray to the little cemetery near Hana, as probing for an opening, something to get her teeth into on the bombing, some lead. This crime now looms big in Capital City as details have been made known in the press. She demanded to know what Kathy Merlow had told me, and at first seemed skeptical when I told her that she never had time to tell me anything. On matters pertaining to her office, Dana is dogged.

Yesterday she had a long telephone conversation with Jessie Opolo in Hawaii. She now seems more convinced than I that Jack is at the root of Melanie’s murder, and that the bombing and the fate of the Merlows are the tangled result of some witless crime, a daisy chain of inept violence, what some people do when confronted by panic. She seems so convinced of this that I wonder if Dana knows something that I do not.

‘Raise your right hand.’

‘Do you solemnly swear…?’

We do the routine and I take the stand.

Alex Hastings is on the bench, the judge of mangled marriages.

Jack’s lawyer, Daryl Westaby, is eyeing me with beady dark pupils. He is an out-of-towner from the Bay Area, a major hired gun, one of the legal thugs of family law who can transform the most rational parties to a divorce into a raging funeral pyre of domestic animosity. At this moment Jack is at the counsel table, whispering in his lawyer’s ear, pouring verbal venom like liquid nitrogen into Westaby, about to light the fuse and send him my way.

Laurel is not here for these proceedings, but she is represented. Harry is at the counsel table. The only man in Capital City who knows less about family law than I do. Still, if Harry doesn’t know the law, he has a willing fist to pound on the table and the wits to drop sand in the gears at the appropriate time.

I am subpoenaed here this morning because Danny and Julie Vega have disappeared, gone, kaput, vanished. They left with only a note to Jack telling him that they would not return until this mess over custody between their parents was finished. Between the lines Danny made it clear that he would not live with his father.

I have no idea where they have gone. My only complicity in this is that somehow Danny’s Vespa, with its locked wooden box on the back, has been left in my garage. It is a sore point since Sarah asks me about Danny each time she sees this, and has been playing, sitting up on its seat at every opportunity.

Hastings is concerned. His initial order for temporary custody seemed the only rational recourse, given that Laurel is in jail. Today the judge seems shaken by the disappearance of the kids.

Jack is frantic, not so much out of worry, as with knowledge that, somehow from her cell, Laurel has engineered this. Jack has spent a million dollars in legal and expert-witness fees to screw her, and Laurel has, with a quarter and a phone call, creamed him. If I had to venture a guess, which I am not required to do here under oath, it is that the kids are probably playing in the snow — visions of Laurel’s friend in Michigan, the one she told me about when she called on the phone that day from Reno.

I should have seen it coming — Danny’s visit to his mother at the jail that day, the last time I saw him, coming as it did on the heels of my refusal to help her. I suspect that it was there that Danny got his marching orders from Mom.

‘State your name for the record, please?’

‘Paul Madriani.’

We go through the basics. Westaby establishes my relationship to Laurel, family and legal; that I was married to her sister and represent Laurel in a murder case. He draws the details of this out, quotable items of presumed bias for the press, who Westaby has invited, a half dozen reporters, getting color and background for the murder trial. If nothing else, Jack knows this may poison the jury pool a little more. If he keeps it up we may be pushing for a change of venue, though I have my reasons for avoiding this.

‘You’re aware, are you not, that the legal custody of these children has been granted to their father, Jack Vega?’

‘I wasn’t served with a copy of the order, but I’m aware of it.’

‘You do not represent Laurel Vega in the child-custody proceedings, is that correct?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Have you ever represented her in those proceedings?’

Westaby’s skirting the question of attorney-client privilege.

‘No.’

He smiles. Closing the net.

‘Mr. Madriani, do you know where Danny and Julie Vega are?’

‘I do not.’

‘You have no idea?’

‘I don’t know where they are.’ I don’t give him a direct reply to his question. Instead I dodge it with another answer. Perjury is a crime constructed around specific words. The games lawyers play. Westaby thinking for a moment, should he follow through?

Harry waiting, primed with an objection that the question calls for speculation.

Westaby thinks better of it.

‘Have you discussed the matter with Laurel Vega?’

‘What matter is that?’

‘Where the children are?’

‘No.’

And I don’t intend to. But I don’t say this.

‘You’re not interested? This is your niece and nephew we’re talking about. You’re not concerned for their welfare?’

Hemming me in. Damned if I do. Damned if I don’t.

‘Objection. Irrelevant. The issue is whether the witness knows where the children are. He’s answered that.’ Harry and his sand machine.

‘I’ll allow the question.’ Hastings is worried about the kids. A good judge.

‘Certainly I’m concerned about them,’ I say.

‘But you won’t tell us where they are?’

‘Objection. Argumentative. Assumes facts not in evidence. The witness has already stated that he doesn’t know where they are.’

‘Sustained.’

‘Have you ever had conversations with Laurel Vega concerning these custody proceedings and the children?’

‘Ever is a long time.’ Harry is getting into the spirit of things, figuring out that Family Law is, after all, a lot like crime. In the end it all comes down to kicking ass in a courtroom.

‘Maybe counsel could put his objections in a proper form,’ says Westaby.

‘Fine. The question is overly vague as to time.’ Harry would rather put the point of his shoe up Westaby’s ass. ‘Why don’t you try at least limiting it to a specific century,’ he says.

Westaby and Harry are into it.

‘Hold on.’ Hastings from the bench. He repeats this two more times without effect and finally hammers his gavel on wood.

Harry wants to know what Westaby was doing during Evidence in law school. ‘Obviously it was over your head,’ he says. The parting shot.

This draws furrowed eyebrows from the judge, like two furry mice kissing on his forehead. Hastings is a gentlemen’s judge, not someone used to the likes of Harry in court. For the moment the two are quiet, looking up at the bench.

‘Mr. Hinds, if you have an objection you will address it to the bench. Do you understand?’

Harry nods.

‘I don’t want to see your head, I want to hear your voice,’ says Hastings.

‘Yes, your honor.’

‘And you, Mr. Westaby — you will allow the court to rule on any objection. That includes any questions as to form. Is that understood?’

‘Absolutely, your honor.’

A lot of nodding from the lawyers. Harry does something that looks like a curtsy to the bench. Hinds has an attitude when it comes to judges. Always on a thin edge.