Steve Martini - Undue Influence

‘Yes.’

‘You’ve shared whatever information you have pertaining to this case with her? You’ve discussed the testimony that you planned to give here today?’

‘Yes.’

‘In fact, isn’t it true that in preparing to testify here today you’ve gone over your testimony with her in some detail? In fact rehearsed it?’

‘We talked about it.’

‘How many times?’ I ask.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Two, three?’ I play the numbers game.

‘I can’t remember.’

‘That many?’ I say.

He gives me a look.

‘Isn’t it true that in preparing to appear here today you rehearsed your testimony with Ms. Cassidy, that you went over it in considerable detail a number of times to ensure that you would get it right?’

Ordinarily I might not press this. But given Jimmy’s slamming in pretrial motions, it’s a safe bet that Morgan has had Lama closeted with one of the drones from her office for days, more dress rehearsals than a Broadway production.

‘We talked a few times.’ It’s all he will say.

‘You didn’t talk to us, did you?’

‘Whadda ya mean?’

‘Well, you didn’t sit down and talk to the defense attorneys — Mr. Hinds and myself — and tell us precisely what you were going to say here today, did you?’

‘I don’t have to,’ he says.

‘Exactly,’ I say. ‘Because it’s your job to convict the defendant, isn’t it?’

I’m busy destroying the myth that cops are neutral, simple crime fighters with no ax to grind. The police mind-set in any investigation usually fixes quicker than mercury. Show them a suspect, sometimes with scant evidence, and they point with the relentless force of a compass to a magnet.

‘It’s my job to solve crimes,’ he says.

Cape-and-blue-tights time. Lama as the masked avenger.

‘Oh — so you have no interest in convicting this defendant?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘No, you didn’t, did you?’

I let the jury savor the point for a moment.

‘Can you tell us, Mr. Lama’ — somewhere along the way Jimmy’s lost his rank. Why cloak him with authority? — ‘was there an all-points bulletin issued for the arrest of a suspect on the night that Melanie Vega died?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Who issued that APB?’

‘I did.’

‘And who was it issued for?’

‘Your client,’ he says. ‘Laurel Vega.’ Having screwed up so badly on the first effort, this time Jimmy doesn’t try to point, but merely gestures with his head in the casual direction of our table.

‘So you determined fairly early on that Laurel Vega was the principal suspect in the case?’

‘That’s right.’

‘How many years of experience do you have investigating crimes?’

‘Thirty-two.’

‘And I guess after all that time you get a pretty good feel for this kind of thing? How to exercise judgment as to when to issue an APB? When to pick up a suspect?’

‘Lots of things come with experience,’ he says.

‘And this APB — did it identify the suspect as possibly armed and dangerous?’

‘It did.’

‘This means that police in apprehending the suspect would probably do so with drawn weapons?’

‘If they valued their lives,’ he says.

‘Why was that?’

‘Because she was dangerous.’

‘And how did you form all of these opinions so quickly that evening? The opinion that Laurel Vega was the principal suspect and that she was armed and dangerous?’

‘The victim had been shot. We didn’t find the gun. We had to figure she had it on her.’

‘Very good, Mr. Lama. But how did you determine that Laurel Vega was the principal suspect?’

‘Well — we had the tape. The security tape,’ he says.

‘Oh. You were able to play the tape back that morning at the scene to review it?’

I flip through some pages in my hand, a copy of the police report from that night.

Lama suddenly becomes clairvoyant, sensing where I am headed, eyes like a rabid dog.

‘Come to think of it,’ he says, ‘we didn’t.’

‘Didn’t what?’

‘We didn’t view the tape that morning.’

‘Why was that?’

‘The camera was broken,’ he says.

‘And without a functioning camera for this particular equipment, you couldn’t actually play the tape back, could you?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘We couldn’t.’

I know this from reading the follow-up investigative reports. The cops weren’t able to review the security tape from the house for nearly five hours, until a vendor for the system supplied them with the necessary equipment. By that time the APB had been in effect for nearly four hours.

‘So you didn’t have the tape at the time the APB was issued. So what evidence did you rely on in issuing the bulletin for the arrest of Laurel Vega, the information that she was armed and dangerous?’

‘Well … her husband,’ he says.

‘You mean Jack Vega? Laurel Vega’s former husband?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And what did Mr. Vega tell you that caused you to issue the bulletin to arrest Laurel Vega?’

‘We asked him if he knew of anyone who might have wanted to kill his wife.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘He gave us the name of Laurel Vega.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Well … and some other things.’

‘What things?’

‘That Laurel Vega hated the victim. That she was jealous. You know,’ he says, ‘the stuff you expect in a divorce.’

‘Just the usual stuff?’ I say.

‘Yeah. Pretty much.’

‘And did Mr. Vega tell you that he actually saw Laurel Vega commit this crime?’

‘No. He wasn’t home at the time.’

‘Well, did Mr. Vega tell you that he’d seen Laurel Vega at his home that night?’

‘No.’

‘So what we have here is Mr. Vega’s bald allegation, without any evidence to support it, that Laurel Vega hated his wife. Certainly enough to talk to the defendant. To question her,’ I say. ‘So the evidence for her arrest must have come when you went to question her?’ I say.

‘No.’ He says this through locked jaws, all the sound emanating down onto his chest.

‘What?’

‘No.’ Louder so the jury can hear it now.

‘I don’t understand, then. What evidence did you have for arresting Laurel Vega?’

‘We had a dead body,’ he says.

I look at him, dead center in the box. ‘Are you telling this court that except for the unsupported suspicions of Jack Vega — bald allegations without any evidence — that you had no basis to issue the all-points bulletin that morning?’

‘She had a rug that came from the scene,’ he says.

‘She had a rug that you now claim came from the scene, but you didn’t even know that at the time of the APB.’

He would jump on the horse of the eyewitness, Mrs. Miller, but that is now excluded evidence. If he mentions it, opens his mouth, any hint, I will have a mistrial in the flash of an eye.

‘We found a compact in her purse that belonged to the victim. Hell, she was in Reno, running from the scene, when they found her.’

‘After you arrested her,’ I tell him. ‘You found the compact days after you issued the all-points bulletin calling my client armed and dangerous, subjecting her to arrest at the point of loaded pistols. And you had no idea where she was when you issued the APB — did you?’

‘At the time she was our best suspect,’ he says. Righteous indignation on the stand.

‘To this day she remains your only suspect because you haven’t bothered to look for any others. Isn’t that true?’

He looks at me, a tortured expression. Lama would like to answer but doesn’t know what to say. If he concedes the point, he’s damned; if he says this is not true, I will ask him what other suspects he’s pursued, what other leads he’s rooted out of the swill of his investigation. We both know the answer to that one.