Steve Martini - Undue Influence

‘Actually I was going to ask you for a favor,’ I say.

‘Have I ever refused you anything?’ She gives me a look that could defrost my freezer. At this moment I think neither of us is certain whether we should laugh or just jump each other’s bones.

‘I’m not worried about your taking the bench,’ I tell her. ‘I’m worried about when it might happen.’

‘No, you’re not. You’re worried about when my office is going to take the wraps off of Jack’s sealed indictment, and his plea.’

‘Always the lawyer.’ I smile at her and sit back a little in the couch.

‘I think Jack Vega deserves whatever he gets,’ she says.

‘It’s no secret that I didn’t embrace the notion of letting him walk based on hardship. That decision was driven by higher authority.

‘And it is true we cut a deal with him. Of course, exactly when we release the news concerning that deal, well, that’s more of a housekeeping matter.’

‘Can I take it that I’m talking to the upstairs maid?’

‘Monsieur. Perhaps you will allow me to polish the knob of your gentleman’s walking stick.’ Dana is quick.

If state prosecutors find out that Jack has copped to a couple of felonies, they will never put him on the stand. If I subpoena him into my case-in-chief, it won’t take Jack and his lawyers long to figure that I am grooming him for the lead role in Melanie’s murder. He would refuse to testify, take the Fifth, and leave the jury thinking that he was merely worried about more political carnage, additional uncharged crimes involving corruption.

In trial, as in life, timing is everything.

No doubt Cassidy, the prosecutor, is building a good part of her case around Jack the victim — Jack the psychically martyred widower. What could be better than a community leader bereft by the loss of his wife and the murder of his unborn child? With any luck, and if the gods of timing are on my side, there will be a mugging on the way to Jack’s canonization. But if I have my way, Vega will end up just a few miracles shy of sainthood. As I gaze into Dana’s gleaming eyes, I get a shiver of excitement that shutters all the way down to my sphincter, what for a defense lawyer is the equivalent of an intellectual orgasm — the prosecution is building its case around a convicted felon and they don’t know it.

Judge Austin Woodruff is from an old-line GOP family in the valley, more conservative than God, but without the compassion. He is fifty-four, with a ruddy complexion and an aristocratic bearing made more patrician by his utter lack of humor. Woodruff is a stone-face that could slay a dozen comics.

He has the look of authority, like some aging anchorman from the network days of yore — a flowing gray mane and eyebrows like spun silver. He is what the average citizen thinks of when he or she hears the word ‘judge.’

He can be called fair in every way that the word is defined and spelled, from lack of bias to ability on the bench. Though at times I have wondered if he has ever seen a defendant he likes or a golf course he does not. He is stern, with the personality and warmth of a bronze bust, which has moved some cruel observers to lay on a few monikers. I have heard cursing references to the Ice Prince and Old Marblehead issuing forth from stalls in the men’s room, but the one I like best, and which seems to have stuck, is Chuckles.

For better or worse, Austin Woodruff is our trial judge. At the moment he’s shuffling papers on the bench.

Harry and I are in Department Twelve to argue motions intended to prevent the state from putting its own spin on the various faces of truth. Dana has joined us today, just behind the railing. She is here earlier for a luncheon date. Since Hawaii she has taken a particular interest in the case.

This morning Morgan Cassidy sits at counsel table with Jimmy Lama, the cop from hell, and a young assistant DA, a kid getting his first glimpse down into the volcano of crime.

Laurel is not present, as is the custom when a defendant is in custody. I have tried to impress upon her the significance of these motions. Lose on a critical piece of evidence here, and half of our case can be flushed before the judge impanels the first juror.

The state’s case is one of circumstance. The prosecution will argue that Laurel is a woman consumed by jealousy, a former spouse shed like old clothes, who was embittered and furious with Melanie for stealing her husband. They will insist that this rage was stirred and rekindled when Jack made a grab for the kids. Among suspects, they will show that Laurel had the best motive, as well as ample opportunity to kill. The state will argue that that is exactly what she did.

To the idle observer all this might seem the barest of suspicions, and they would be right if it were not for a few items of evidence that put the cloak of credence on this theory. Cassidy has these, items of evidence fixed into her case like screws in a coffin lid.

Two pieces of physical evidence presumably purporting to show that Laurel was at the scene the night of the murder could be viewed as highly incriminating; the small rug that Laurel was busy laundering when she was arrested in Reno and which Jack insists was in the master bath the night Melanie was shot, and a gold compact with Melanie’s initials found in Laurel’s purse after the arrest.

The police also have a witness, Mrs. Miller who will testify that Laurel was seen in the neighborhood, near the Vega house, about the time of the murder.

Woodruff’s voice has the tonal qualities of an aging baron of broadcast, like a bullfrog who swallowed honey, mellifluous and deep, as it is this morning when he asks us if we are ready to proceed.

He doesn’t wait for a reply, but immediately launches a series of questions, like torpedoes under the waterline of our first motion.

‘What is this about the rug?’ he says. ‘You want to keep it out? On what grounds?’

‘No, your honor.’ I am waving him off. ‘That’s not our motion.’ Something more defensible, I tell him.

‘Well, what is it?’

Not an auspicious start. Woodruff hasn’t read any of the moving papers, our written agreement.

‘The rug can come in,’ I tell him. ‘Though I would alert the court that there is a factual dispute as to its ownership and where it came from.’

‘That’s a question for the jury,’ he says. ‘Not for this court. Not for a motion.’

‘I agree.’

Our motion is more subtle, not exactly home turf for Chuckles. So I lead him through the argument. Jack’s testimony that the rug came from the murder scene is damaging enough, though Laurel will insist otherwise. I can hope for some neutral pitch on this, a jury that is at least in doubt as to who they will believe.

What I want to avoid are the unstated inferences by Cassidy that might allude to Laurel destroying evidence when she washed the rug or dipped her hands in solvent.

I am a believer in the adage that facts seldom settle an argument. It is the implications drawn from them that most often win the day or cause the damage.

This is the case in the state’s lab report given to us in discovery. It refers to gunpowder-residue tests which were ‘inconclusive because of chemicals into which the defendant intentionally dipped her hands.’

I make my pitch to Woodruff, and we go at it tooth and tong, Cassidy and I. She is insisting that the rug speaks for itself. A talking rug is one thing. What I’m afraid of is that left to her own devices in trial, Cassidy may try to jump on this thing and fly.

‘What other reason could the defendant have for taking it to Reno and washing it,’ she says, ‘but to remove blood or other evidence?’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ I tell the judge. ‘That kind of speculation.’