Steve Martini - Undue Influence

‘It is a possibility,’ I tell her.

‘No. Rain tomorrow is a possibility,’ she says. ‘That Jack would lie when the truth will do just as well, that’s more like the law of gravity,’ she says.

‘Just be natural. Be yourself,’ I tell her.

‘If I were being natural I would knee him in the nuts and scratch his eyes out,’ she says.

‘I take it back. Don’t be yourself.’

‘Sorry to be difficult,’ she says.

I don’t want to place Laurel in an emotional straitjacket.

If Jack tells a whopper, the jury will expect some normal reaction of denial. What I don’t want are histrionics at the table.

‘High emotion,’ I tell her, ‘is the stuff of which murder is made. Show them a temper, a flash of anger, and it is easier for them to see you with a gun in your hand.’

‘I understand,’ she says. ‘I can call him a liar, just not a fucking liar.’

‘Something like that,’ I say.

We gather ourselves. She takes my hand and squeezes it, and together we head out, Laurel, I, the sheriff’s guard, and a female matron, toward the courtroom.

There are extra rows of press here today, the overflow from Louis Cousins’ case, as well as some of the capital press corps, all with sharpened pencils. There is an electricity in the air. It is the smell of news when crime is injected under pressure into the political class and ignited by a spark. Like the stench of ozone after lightning.

We take a seat at the counsel table. Some guy with a notepad comes up and starts to ask questions of me over the bar railing — what I think Vega will say on the stand. I tell him to watch and see.

Then he starts talking about the post office bombing and my fingerprints. As soon as this happens three more join him, and when I turn around there is a small crowd. I tell them I have no comment but they persist.

Woodruff’s bailiff wanders over.

‘Either take your seats or we’ll be giving them to people waiting outside in the hallway.’ Suddenly there are bodies racing in a dozen directions like the last land rush.

As the jury is led in, I can tell that the bombing story has taken its toll. The usual drifting of gazes about the room is absent. This morning all eyes are riveted on me, murmurs between a few of them like perhaps they are surprised I am here and not in shackles.

Woodruff takes the bench. Cassidy directs Vega to a chair inside the railing, where she holds him for the moment.

‘Before we start today,’ says Woodruff, ‘there is some business I must get out of the way.’

He immediately talks about the news article, the letter bomb, and my fingerprints at the scene. He polls the jury as to effect. Three of them say they have never seen the piece, nor heard any reports in the media. Some people live on Mars. The others concede that they have seen it, and to varying degrees were curious. One juror, a man in the second row, says if there is smoke there must be fire. According to this guy I should not be trying the case if there is even a hint of suspicion. He is immediately excused by Woodruff and replaced on the jury by one of the alternates. This brings a lot of sober expressions from the others. Any further polling at this point would be an idle exercise. They will not be volunteering their private thoughts.

Then, in wooden tones the judge reads them a carefully crafted instruction that they are not to consider any of this in judging the evidence of this case. He nibbles around the edges of exoneration, that I have cooperated fully with authorities, that I am not at this time and have not been a suspect in the bombing, that inferences to this end in the article are inaccurate.

I can hear the scratching of pencils in the press rows behind me. Then, as abruptly as he started, he brings it to a close. I can sense that there are a dozen hands that would go up like skyrockets if this were a press conference. Cassidy and Lama sense this too; there is a wicked grin on Jimmy’s face. Enough latitude for more speculation in tomorrow morning’s newspaper.

‘Call your next witness.’ Woodruff looking at Cassidy.

‘Mr. Jack Vega.’

Jack takes the stand and is sworn.

When he identifies himself for the record it is with his legislative title as a member of the Assembly. He wears this like a badge of honor, oblivious to the fact that in opinion polls on the issue of integrity it places him well beneath those who go door-to-door peddling aluminum siding, and only a half-notch above the lawyers who are about to question him.

‘Do you know the defendant, Laurel Vega?’ asks Cassidy.

‘I do. We were married for some years, until divorced,’ he says.

‘And do you have children by the defendant?’

‘Two,’ he says. ‘A boy and a girl, thirteen and fifteen, though I haven’t seen them for nearly a month.’

‘Who has legal custody of these children at the present time?’

I am getting uneasy feelings about where this line is taking us.

‘I do.’

‘But you have no idea where they are?’

‘No.’

‘Your honor. I am going to object on grounds of relevance. Where is this taking us?’

Without hesitation Cassidy says, ‘Into the issue of motive, your honor.’

‘Overruled. Continue,’ he says.

‘When was the last time you saw your children?’

‘It was twenty-eight days ago,’ says Jack. ‘My daughter told me she was going to stay overnight with a friend.’

‘And your son?’

‘He’d left the house, though he hadn’t told me where he was going. I found out later that he went to see his mother at the county jail.’

‘The defendant, Laurel Vega?’ says Cassidy.

‘Right,’ he says.

‘And that was the last time you saw either child?’

‘Right.’

‘Have you reported them missing to the police?’

‘For what good it would do,’ he says. ‘She knows where they are and won’t tell.’

‘Objection.’ I’m on my feet. ‘Move to strike.’

Woodruff orders the comment stricken from the record and tells the jury to disregard it. But the seed is planted.

‘They’re treating it as a civil domestic matter,’ says Jack.

‘What does that mean?’

‘Objection. Calls for speculation.’

‘Sustained.’

‘Mr. Vega, were you involved in a battle with the defendant over legal custody of your children?’

‘I was. She made it very bitter,’ he says. ‘And then she blamed it all on my wife, Melanie.’

‘Objection, your honor.’

Woodruff is getting angry with Vega. ‘Sir, do you know what a question is?’

‘Sure,’ says Jack.

‘Then just answer the questions and keep the commentary to yourself. Do I make myself clear?’

Jack forgets that he is not in the Legislature, the forum of political princes who float on an ether of arrogance without rules of conduct or evidence. He is not used to such treatment. He doesn’t answer Woodruff, but instead gives him a curt nod.

‘Yes or no for the record,’ says Woodruff. The road to contempt if Jack keeps it up.

‘I understand,’ says Vega.

‘Do you recall during this custody battle a physical assault made by the defendant, Laurel Vega, on the deceased Melanie Vega?’ says Cassidy.

‘I remember it very well,’ he says. ‘She.’ He points to Laurel. ‘She hit her, Melanie, very hard with a heavy purse. My wife complained to me later about a bruise and a sore arm as a result.’

‘And do you remember threats being uttered against Melanie Vega by the defendant at the time of this attack?’

‘You bet,’ he says. Jack can hardly contain himself in the box. Given a platform, he would be doing some hefty table dancing at this moment.

‘She said she wanted to kill Melanie.’

‘Those were her words?’