Steve Martini - Undue Influence

‘One of the policemen said something about a victim inside,’ she says.

Suddenly there’s a knot in my stomach, cold sweat on my forehead. Hemple’s voice on the phone, her tone, was not the siren of concern over some mild monkeyshine cast as vendetta.

The driveway, the only break in a six-foot wrought-iron fence that seals off the front of the house, is barred with yellow police tape. Guys in plain clothes are wandering back and forth between the house and parked cars, the little satchels of forensics in their hands.

The portico of Jack’s house is a miniature of the executive mansion, everything but an honor guard and the Secret Service. Impressing the world is what Jack lives for. I have a clear view of the entry, wide open, lit like a Christmas tree, Corinthian columns all around.

There is a message conveyed by all of this — a victim without the urgent care of racing ambulances. The thought, the limited possibilities, leave me with a chill.

I tried four times to call Laurel at her apartment on the cellular on my way over here. There was no answer. I figure the kids must be with her.

‘Mr. Madriani.’ I hear a soft voice behind me and turn. It’s Gail Hemple. She’s standing with a small group twenty feet away, another woman and a couple arm-in-arm, near some bushes in the driveway of a house. The woman with Hemple looks vaguely familiar, a face I recognize to which I cannot put a name, someone from a past life. The couple, man and woman, young and shivering in the cold, stir no embers of recognition.

I move toward them and Hemple meets me halfway, a little huddle out of earshot.

‘What’s going on?’ I say.

Long sigh from her. ‘Bad news,’ she whispers. ‘There’s been a shooting.’

She can tell from my look that this does not surprise me, having wallowed in the sea of rumors getting here. I wait for the bottom line.

She reads my mind. ‘Melanie Vega’s dead,’ she says.

This takes my breath. My mind racing.

‘Where’s Laurel?’

‘You tell me,’ she says.

‘What about Jack?’

She makes a face, a question mark.

This takes a while for me to absorb, all the implications. ‘Maybe a burglary?’ I say this hopefully. Hemple shakes her head. She has no idea. ‘The cops aren’t talking,’ she tells me. But from the look on her face I can tell she is considering another scenario.

‘I called Laurel’s house as soon as Vega’s lawyer called me,’ she says, with the same result as I.

‘The kids?’

Palms up, shrugging shoulders. She has no idea.

‘Wonderful.’

While we are talking the woman with the familiar face, the one Gail had been talking to, comes up behind her. Good-looking, auburn hair, dressed in a jogging suit, the look of something grabbed from the closet at the sound of sirens.

I think maybe she wants to talk to Hemple. Then she looks straight at me, smiles, and says, ‘Paul. It’s good to see you again. Sorry it’s under such circumstances.’

She is now feasting on my blank stare, poorly masked by a witness smile. I give her a nod, something that conveys I haven’t got a clue.

She laughs. ‘Dana Colby,’ she says. ‘Law School.’ A little lilting uplift in her voice. ‘It’s been a long time. I was a year behind you,’ she says.

‘Ah, yes. I remember,’ I say. But my voice is filled with the distrust of my own memory. The game of names and faces has never been my strong suit.

As we stand and talk, recall sets in like the chills before a flu, vague recollections of this woman kicking my ass somewhere in a courtroom. It’s been some years since I’ve seen her. One of a dozen at the university back before the female rush. If I remember right, she was the one whose bones we all dreamed of jumping. Five-foot-ten, auburn hair, eyes like shimmering amethyst, a face like an angel, with a body that only God could have made. She has not changed. In the genes department she is what every woman thinks of when told that life is unfair.

Right now all I want is to get Hemple alone where we can talk. The couple that seems to be with Colby have moved up a notch, a young man and woman, mid-thirties. They seem to be attached to Colby like the stitched-on shadow of the great Pan.

Dana Colby looks at me, hesitates for a moment as if in doubt. ‘I’d introduce you,’ she says to them, ‘but I’m afraid I don’t know your names.’

‘George Merlow wife, Kathy.’ The guy nods at Colby and smiles. I shake his hand. ‘We live on the block,’ he says. ‘This is very disturbing. Just moved in,’ he tells us.

Kathy Merlow has a long and sallow face, dirty-blonde hair, and a bedded look like maybe she’s been sick. She is a small woman, her hand is twined around her husband’s arm and lost within the deep pocket of his wool overcoat, a tweed affair, its collar turned up around a five o’clock shadow and dark stringy hair. As he turns and stoops to whisper in his wife’s ear, I can see George Merlow’s thinning locks, arranged in a short ponytail. He has the grungy look of celebrity on vacation. There is a slight accent to his voice, something east of Omaha, maybe Massachusetts or New York, but not hard or fixed, like maybe the guy is rootless, that he’s moved around a lot.

As I look at him there’s a lot of agitation in the eyes, nervous posturing. Standing in the street, waiting for the coroner’s wagon, I attribute this anxiety to the events of the evening.

Our little group is of a mind. ‘It’s just awful.’ Kathy Merlow’s first words. ‘Shootings on the news every night since we arrived. A violent town,’ she says.

It sounds like Capital City has not made a good impression. I think maybe these people are from Mayberry, visions of whistling kids with fishing poles.

‘You walk on the street, you become bullet bait,’ says the guy.

‘Like any other big city.’ Colby’s chorus to the couple. ‘Still, we could have hoped for a better welcome wagon.’ Colby’s looking at the coroner’s van, which has just pulled in to the driveway of Jack’s house. Two cops ease the tape barricade back in place.

Hemple gives me a look, like let’s hope the cops are having the same thoughts about random violence.

I’m praying that maybe Laurel has an alibi — off doin’ Midnight Mass with the Sisters of Mercy. With Laurel, since the divorce, you never know. One night she showed up at our house with a Catholic priest. Nikki was commode-hugging sick, the aftermath from a session of chemo. I was left to entertain Laurel and his eminence in my pajamas at two in the morning. Seems Laurel was feeling particularly sinful that night. She ended up last in line for confession, and afterward with a friend invited their young confessor out to dinner. After doing penance over cocktails, Laurel managed to ditch her female friend and convince her companion in black to loose his collar while they did a few sashays on the dance floor. By the time they reached my house, shit-faced as they were, Laurel was busy putting the bans of celibacy to the ultimate test. There are times when my sister-in-law can be the devil in drag.

Still, I don’t think she could kill.

‘Understand you’re related?’ says Colby. She’s looking at me, nodding toward the house behind tape, in bright lights.

I look at Hemple. She gives me an expression, like ‘me and my big mouth.’

‘One-time brother-in-law,’ I tell her. ‘Past tense.’

‘Oh.’ Silence like she’s stumbled over some aging uncle’s peccadillo.

‘You live in the neighborhood?’ I ask her.

‘A few blocks away.’ She nods in a direction over her shoulder somewhere. The years have been kind to her.

‘You?’ she says.

‘Just passing by.’ As this escapes my lips I think, at two in the morning Colby must wonder what tavern I’m coming from. Still, I’m not anxious to advertise that I am here on business, in pursuit of the wayward Laurel, or to feed suspicions that she might be involved in the activities across the street.