Undue Influence (45 page)

Woodruff slams the gavel on this and points it at Laurel. “Madam you can be bound and gagged in that chair,” he says. “Counsel, control your client,” he tells me. I apologize for her conduct. I’m telling her to cool it, in tones that the court can hear. “Go on,” says the judge.

Cassidy saves the emotional blast for last, the story of how Jack came home and found his young wife dead, shot through the head in the bath.

Jack relates all of this in morbid detail, and actually produces a tear, a single lonely bead running down one cheek for the jury to see. All the while Laurel has one hand on top of the table, rubbing two fingers together in an obvious gesture, the world’s tiniest violin. I move as quickly as I can to cover her hand, but Cassidy sees this and complains.

“A nervous tic,” says Laurel.

“Your honor, she’s sending signals to the jury,” says Cassidy.

“Commenting on the evidence.”

“I can’t help it,” says Laurel. “It’s a nervous condition I have whenever the sonofabitch lies.”

“That’s it,” says Woodruff. “Counsel to the bench. And you, madam. You shut your mouth. Do you understand?” We go up and Woodruff makes a show of fairness, but most of the hunks taken are out of my ass. He tells me if I cannot control her he will do it, and the picture for the jury will not be pleasant. We go back out and Cassidy picks up again with Jack. Vega tells the court that he lost not only a wife but a child. “Mr. Vega,” says Cassidy, “can you tell the court when it was that you first learned that Melanie was pregnant?” On this Jack weaves a yarn that it was Melanie who first told him, that they were looking forward to the new child, a melding of his existing family, the older children with the new. He tells the jury that they had taken no precautions, that Melanie was not on the pill. I am incredulous. He says nothing about his own vasectomy. At this moment it hits me. Jack has told Morgan nothing about this. Vega, the ultimate deceiver, has laid her bare on the biggest element of our case, Jack’s jealousies, the motive for murder, that somebody else had fathered his wife’s child. It is on this plateau of martyrdom that Morgan leaves Jack, turning him over to me on cross. For a long moment, one of those watersheds, a dramatic pause at trial, Jack and I study each other with wary eyes as I approach the witness box. I make a face for the jury to see, like I accept only a small portion of his testimony as gospel. In dealing with Jack, the order of evidence is critical. My task is clear:

to dismantle his character a stick at a time and then hammer on the joint themes of motive and opportunity. “Mr. Vega. We know each other, don’t we?”

He looks at me but does not answer, uncertain whether I am referring to kinship, or perhaps the fact that I know him by character. “I mean to say that we were once related by marriage. Is that not so?”

“Yes,” he says. He tells the court that he once considered me a friend.

His use of the past tense is not lost on the jury. I want to get this before them early so Jack cannot use it later, inferences that I bear personal animus toward him based solely on the sorry family experiences between him and Laurel. Jack would use this like a shield, as if I am beating on him in some personal vendetta. Then I ease into it, reading one of his statements to the police the night of the murder, when he told them he never owned a gun. He insists that he does not. I remind him about the chromeplated collector’s item, the nine-millimeter pistol given to him by some lobbyist to toughen his stance against a gun-control bill, years before. Darting eyes in the box, he decides to tough this out, my word against his. “I, ah I have no recollection of that,” he says. It is classic Jack. No denial, just a weak memory. The paper blizzard starts. I hand copies to Cassidy and the court clerk for use by the judge. “Mr. Vega, do you recognize this document?” I hand him a copy. He pulls a pair of cheaters from his pocket and reads. “Looks familiar,” he says.

“It should,” I say. “Is that your signature at the bottom of the last page?” He looks. “Yes,” he says.

“Is this not the property-settlement agreement you signed with the defendant, Laurel Vega, at the time of your divorce?” Then it dawns on him. “I remember now,” he says. “There was a gun. Long time ago. I’d forgotten,” he says. “Would you look at page twelve, item eighty-seven?”

“I’ve already said I remember about the gun.”

“Fine. Now look for the item.”

A lot of anger in his eyes, Jack flips through the pages and finds it.

“Could you read that one item?”

“Fine, for what it’s worth,” he says. “To the Petitioner, one chromeplated nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol in walnut box,” he says.

“There. I already told you about it.”

“But you didn’t tell the police about it the night of the murder. Why not?”

“For the obvious reason that I forgot.”

“What happened to the gun Mr. Vega?”

“I, ah… I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t remember.”

I am convinced that this is not the murder weapon. Jack may be a fool, but he is not demented. He would never use a gun that could be traced back to himself, not when it is so easy to get another weapon and some body else to pull the trigger. What this does, however, is to set a pattern for the jury, of Vega’s convenient memory. “So it wasn’t true what you told the police the night of the murder,” I say. “That you never owned a gun?”

“People forget things,” he says. “How am I supposed to remember everything I owned all of my life?”

“Do you often have trouble with your memory?” I say. It is a stinging question, but not subject to objection. He doesn’t answer, but gives me a look, something that might turn the more timid to stone. “Well, then, let me ask you this,” I say. “Do you consider the listing of items in this document, the property-settlement agreement signed by yourself and the defendant, to be a more accurate reflection of physical possessions, yours and the defendant’s, than your memory?” I say. “That’s why people usually write things down, isn’t it?” he says. “Because they tend to forget. ”

He puts all the emphasis on the last word, like this should be obvious to any idiot. “Precisely,” I say.

He starts to hand the document back to me.

“Not quite yet,” I say. “Would you turn to page four, item twenty-six?”

He flips pages.

“Please read it aloud to the court?”

He scans it first, then looks at me, an expression like some doe about to be nailed by a train. “Read it,” I say, my tone stiffening.

“To Respondent ” He stops reading and silently absorbs this.

“Fine. With the court’s permission I’ll read it. To the Respondent, one handorafted white woven bath rug, with geometric floral design, label by Gerri.’ ”

“But she didn’t get it,” he says. “I did.” Jack’s coming out of the chair. “Did you sign this agreement?”

“Yes,” he says.

“And who was the Respondent in your divorce?” I ask him.

He’s seemingly baffled, wondering how this could have happened. The gun is one thing. He doesn’t answer the question. “You were the Petitioner.

Isn’t it a fact that the bathroom rug with the label by Gerri’ belonged to your former wife, to Laurel Vega? Isn’t it a fact, sir, that it went to her as part of the property-settlement agreement following your divorce?” A lot of shrugging shoulders. Jack looking at the print on the page like if he studies it long enough it might disappear. I retreat to the evidence cart and grab the rug, approach the witness box, and flip the back of the carpet, sticking it six inches under Jack’s nose.

“Tell the jury what that label says,” I tell him. “Read it to the jury.”

When he looks up at me, the cheaters have slid halfway down his nose.

“What does it say?”

““By Gerri,’ ” he says.

“Thank you.”

I leave the rug balanced in front of him on the railing, like an albatross around his neck, and turn. When I do, I see Cassidy looking at me, wondering how they could have missed this. I cannot blame them. I would never have found it myself, except for my recollections about Jack’s antics with the gun, and Laurel’s admonition the day I met with her in the jail, that Vega had raised such a stink about the pistol, demanding that his claim be embedded in the settlement agreement. When I got to reading, one item led to another. What Jack must be thinking at this moment the things we do that bite us in the butt. There is now a major cloud hovering over the last piece of physical evidence linking Laurel to Melanie’s murder. And while Jack is still insisting that the rug was in his house the night she was killed, he has no clever explanation for its appearance under Laurel’s column in the property settlement agreement. This afternoon Harry drinks his lunch in celebration of this, two Manhattans and a Long Island Tea. His nose is redder than Rudolph’s by the time we return to court, where a courier is waiting for me with a large box. True to her word, Dana has delivered Jack into our arms, not with a kiss, but a kick. We retire to one of the rooms back of the court, where Harry and I examine this stuff privately. It is gold, certified copies of the grand jury indictment and record of conviction, Jack’s plea to the federal district court on multiple counts of political corruption. Dana has even provided copies for Woodruff and opposing counsel, with a note that the press will be alerted to the conviction at two this afternoon. Jack can expect a crowd on his way out, boom mikes in the face and bright lights.

This afternoon Harry is ready to subpoena Vega’s bank records, personal and legislative, a legal copy service is waiting for him to telephone with the word. If Jack hired somebody to do the deed, as Dana suspects, there should be some large cash withdrawal in the period just before and possibly just after Melanie’s murder. When it comes to money, Vega is a prudent man. He would want to work on the installment plan. This afternoon I go to work on a theme that will become central to our case, that Jack has every reason in the world for incriminating Laurel in this case. I ask him if he is sorry to see his former wife, the mother of his children here, at the defense table charged with murder. In the tempered terms of a statesman he calls it “a tragedy.”

We review Lama’s earlier testimony that it was Jack who immediately fingered Laurel without a shred of hard evidence the night of the murder. “They asked me if I knew anyone who might want to kill my wife,” he says. “She’d made death threats. What was I supposed to say?” Jack has spent the noon hour having his ass kicked by Cassidy. He is now doing better, and he knows it. “When did you take legal custody of the children?” I ask.

He gives me a date.

“Then it was after the arrest of their mother for murder that you finally got what you wanted?”

“She was no longer available to care for them. What else was there to do?”

“She wasn’t available because she was in jail, based largely on your accusations.”

“That she made death threats against Melanie,” he says.

“And the assertion that the bathroom carpet found in her possession was from your house.” This is not a question, but he answers it. “It was not an assertion. It was the truth,” he says.

“Based solely on your word,” I tell him. “And the fact remains, you got the children and she went to jail. I suppose that’s one way to end a bitter custody battle.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he says.

“What do you think it means?” Better from his mouth than mine.

“If you’re trying to imply that I falsely accused her, you’re wrong.

Worse,” he says, “you’re a liar.”

“So you wouldn’t do anything like that? You would never knowingly deceive the authorities in their investigation of the case?”

“No,” he says. Jack puts up a wholly indignant look, the pious and trusted public official. “You just forgot about the gun?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Let’s talk about how you found out your wife was pregnant. You told the court in earlier testimony that your wife told you about this. Is that correct?” He looks at me. “To the best of my recollection.” More faulty memory. “To the best of your recollection?” I smile broadly and turn toward the jury. “This is your wife telling you that she was about to have your child. Surely you would remember something like that?”

“Yes,” he says. “I remember it.”

“And when was this, approximately?”

He thinks for a moment.

“Late last summer sometime.”

“Can’t you be more specific?”

“I think it was August or September. I can’t be sure.”

“And where did she tell you this? What were you doing?”

“I can’t remember. I think it was in the living room. I was probably reading.”

“You can’t remember what you were doing? This news must have made a real impression on you,” I say. He looks at me. If Jack had something in his hand at this moment he would throw it. “Mr. Vega, do you remember receiving a telephone call on October tenth from a Dr. John Phillips, your wife’s obstetrician, when she was out of the house?” It is a thick look I get from him, a flicker of eyelids questioning how could I know that. “Do you remember being told at that time by Dr. Phillips that Melanie was pregnant?” As I say this I am holding telephone records in my hand, the familiar forms by the local carrier in this area with red lettering across the top that I am perusing. Jack cannot miss this. What he doesn’t know is that these are mine from my house, not his or the physician’s. He considers for a moment. Wipes a bead of sweat off his upper lip. “I might have,” he says. “You might have talked to Dr. Phillips?”

“Yes.”

“And he told you about the pregnancy, didn’t he?” Telephone records might show a call was made. They wouldn’t tell me the content of the conversation. For this, either the doctor has talked, or I have information from the tap on his phone. Jack knew the feds had tapped.

Either way there are risks in lying. “You’ve been prying into a lot of personal things,” he says. “Your honor, I would ask that the witness be instructed to answer the question.” Before Woodruff can speak. “He might have,” says Jack.

“The doctor told you about the pregnancy, did he not?”

“The doctor, Melanie. What difference?” he says.

Jack still doesn’t see where I’m coming from.