Steve Martini - Undue Influence

She is wearing a flowing brown skirt, pleated from the waist, and a white double-breasted blouse, cotton broadcloth with long sleeves, all very plain except for the collar, which is nonexistent and a little severe.

I comment on this.

‘A touch from Mary Queen of Scots,’ she tells me.

Harry, the resident historian, gets into it, that in fact they wore big ruffled collars back then.

‘Not when they cut off her head,’ says Laurel.

Harry considers this for a moment, then concedes the point.

Laurel, it seems, has a refined and sharpened sense of gallows humor.

Still, her dress is tasteful. I have known clients who left to their own devices on the first day of trial would show up looking like the heroine in some potboiling bodice-ripper, blouse tattered by a cat-o’-nine-tails, and tied to a stake like Joan of Arc.

We go over the lineup of probable witnesses for the day.

‘First up is Lama,’ I tell her. ‘Unless they changed the order.’

Cassidy is at work, assembling the bits and pieces of their case.

Word is that Jimmy is particularly angry with me. My treatment of him during pretrial motions. As if this, being the subject of Lama’s enmity, is a new experience for me.

I am hearing rumors that Jimmy has stumbled over dirt from the post office bombing, physical evidence involving fingerprints, my own, that federal investigators turned up at the scene. Knowing him as I do, Lama is no doubt puzzled by the fact that the feds are not all over me at this moment like some cheap blanket in a rainstorm. Seeing only a part of the picture, Lama wouldn’t know that they’ve already taken my statement, that in fact they know what I was doing there. I am not anxious to have Jimmy know this, as it would give up a part of our theory surrounding Jack and the Merlows.

‘Lieutenant Lama, can you tell the court how the body was discovered?’ Cassidy has him on direct.

Lama’s on the stand, pursed lips as if the question takes some consideration before responding. I think Jimmy’s disappointed. There’s only a smattering of press in the front rows. We are not likely to get the full contingent until the Cousins trial is over. Woodruff has allowed the spectacle to be piped outside the courtroom to the cable channel that specializes in notorious trials. But it seems that Jimmy has even lost out on this. While it’s true they are taping it, there will be no live broadcast. Without some heavy precedent, some wild advance in the law of severed penises or other legal novelty to boost ratings, Jimmy’s testimony is likely to fill the dead air in the middle of the night.

‘The victim was found by her husband,’ he says, ‘lying in the bathtub of the couple’s master bedroom.’

‘By the victim’s husband, you’re referring to Mr. Jack Vega?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘And about what time was this called in to the police?’

Jimmy looks at his notes. ‘According to our log sheet at the station, the call was received at exactly zero-forty-three hours.’

‘And in civilian time?’

‘Twelve forty-three in the morning,’ he says.

‘Just before one A.M.?’

‘Yes.’

‘And were you the first officer on the scene?’

‘No. A patrol car with two officers was the first to arrive. They were followed by the EMTs-’

‘The emergency medical technicians?’

‘Yeah. That’s right. I got there about-’ He reviews his notes. ‘One-thirty.’

‘A.M.,’ says Cassidy.

‘Correct.’

Cassidy is slow and meticulous, like a mason with bricks, skillful with the mortar, knowing that to build her case everything on these lower courses must be true and level.

‘And what did you find when you arrived?’

‘The body. The victim was lying on her back in a large bathtub in the master bath. There was some blood in the tub, no evidence of any struggle.’ He pushes this, a lot of facial ticks and misplaced emphasis. But it’s a big point. The state is trying to shut the door on any last-minute ploy for manslaughter, inferences of a battle for the gun, and an accident. They have been moving in this direction from the inception of their case.

‘There appeared to be a single gunshot wound under the chin — here.’ Lama points with a forefinger like a cocked pistol up under the jaw, to one side, a little to the right, close to the throat, showing the path of the bullet up into the head.

‘Was the body clothed?’

‘No. She was, ahh-’ He motions with his hands, groping like he’s not sure how to say it. In the buff. Bareass. Jimmy, who no doubt clawed his way out of the womb spitting profanities about darkness and water, is now busy doing the sensitive detective.

‘She was in the altogether,’ he finally says.

‘She was naked?’ Cassidy looking at him.

Fine. There — a woman has said it.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Naked.’

‘Like maybe she was getting ready for a bath?’

‘Objection. Leading.’ I shoot at it while seated, with the eraser end of a pencil.

‘Sustained.’

Cassidy regroups.

‘Did you have any way of determining what the victim was doing just before she was shot?’

‘It looked like she was getting ready to take a bath,’ says Lama. Oh, good. He got it.

‘There was a folded towel on the floor near the bath, and some bath oils on the side.’

‘You indicated earlier that you found no evidence of a struggle. How did you determine this?’

‘A number of things,’ he says. ‘It’s true that there was a couple of broken bottles on the floor across the room, but quite a distance from where the body was found,’ he says. ‘There was no obvious tattooing around the bullet wound.’

Lama’s all over the place, mind starting to wander.

‘You mean powder burns from the gun?’ Cassidy clarifies.

‘Yeah. Powder burns. There was none of those. So we figured the range of fire was some distance, maybe ten, twelve feet, probably while the victim was lying prone in the tub. We believe the bottles were broken when the killer panicked and brushed into them, knocked them off a shelf after the murder.’

‘Objection. At this point we have only a dead body — no evidence of murder.’

‘Sustained. The reporter will strike the last part of the witness’s answer.’

‘Lieutenant, could you rephrase your last response?’

‘We think the bottles were busted when the perpetrator panicked.’ He spits the p ’s of each word at me.

‘Besides,’ he says, ‘the bath towel was on the floor nice and neat, not disturbed or anything like it would have been if there’d been a fight.’ He looks at me like that’ll teach you to object.

A cold and calculated shot from a distance is better for their case. It offers the jury some hint of premeditation and deliberation.

‘And there was no evidence that the body was moved after the shooting?’

Shameless leading, but I let it go. Lama might put the shooter in another building with a scoped-sight if I push it.

‘That’s right. From what we could see, she was shot while lying in the tub.’

‘Did you find any fingerprints?’

‘No. That was real curious,’ he says.

‘Why do you say “curious”?’

‘’Cuz we dusted real good. And there were places you would expect to find some prints, especially for the victim.’

‘And you didn’t?’

He shakes his head, lips turned down, an expression from the Old World. ‘We didn’t even find prints for the victim on the door to the bathroom or on the front of the tub. You’d expect porcelain would hold good prints,’ he says. ‘And how’s the lady going to get down into the tub without at least touching the outside edge?’ Jimmy looks at Cassidy like this is a riddle, playing it like high drama.