Undue Influence

Chapter 21

In the afternoon, Morgan Cassidy is licking her wounds. Lama has left her with a deficit: his ham-handed acquiescence in the notion that he arrested Laurel without sufficient evidence. Cassidy is now left to wonder whether Jimmy’s words might become the capstone of a later appeal should Laurel be convicted.

Lama’s testimony has painted a clear image in the jury’s mind of a slovenly investigation, of cops not interested in the details, not willing to sift for facts, on a myopic crusade to convict Laurel before there was any real evidence of her guilt.

In a way I view Cassidy as more dangerous because of this; her contortions in trial offer up all the anxiety of tracking a wounded tiger in the bush.

Colin Demming is everything Jimmy Lama is not. He is young, good-looking, articulate, and bright. While civies are usually worn to court, today the officer wears the uniform of the Reno Police Department. Demming is a patrolman in that force, and the man who initially took Laurel into custody at the laundromat on Virginia Street.

Ordinarily I would expect Cassidy to put Demming on the stand, extract what she needs from him, and get him down quickly. But Morgan has found another line of attack, and Demming is the perfect weapon: a cop not connected with an inept investigation.

Cassidy takes her time going over the details of the arrest, how Demming and the other officers were called to the laundromat when a woman spotted Laurel’s picture in a paper and called dispatch. How Demming checked for a warrant and found one in Laurel’s name. It was issued based on the eyewitness testimony of Mrs. Miller and her review of the single picture shown to her by Lama the night of the murder. I have now discovered where this came from. Laurel tells me that Jack pilfered it from some of Danny’s personal belongings, items left by the kid at Jack’s house on one of his visits. This was apparently a source of considerable friction between Danny and his father — that the boy’s picture of his mother had been used to launch a manhunt for her.

Morgan asks Demming what happened after the cops all assembled at the laundromat.

‘Two other units arrived, backup. One of them covered the rear of the building, while I and three other officers went in the front.’

‘What did you find inside?’

‘We observed a woman, at one of the commercial laundry units near the back. There were several other patrons. We asked them to step outside.’

‘So the suspect didn’t see you when you entered the premises?’

‘No. She was turned around when we entered. There was a lot of noise from the equipment — washers and dryers. I approached her and had to tap her on the shoulder before she noticed that I was standing there. I told her not to move. To place her hands against the laundry unit, to step back with her feet and to spread them wide. Then I asked her for some identification. She said she’d have to get her purse. I told her to stay where she was and one of the other officers got it.’

‘Where was her purse?’

‘It was on a chair a few feet away.’

‘Did you obtain identification for the suspect?’

‘Yes. We found a wallet inside the purse with a driver’s license. It identified the suspect as Laurel Jane Vega, the same name as that on the warrant.’

‘And do you see that woman in court here today?’

‘Yes. She’s sitting right there.’ He points to Laurel in the chair next to me.

‘Your honor, we’d like the record to reflect that the witness has identified the defendant, Laurel Vega.’

‘So ordered,’ says Woodruff.

‘Did you then take Laurel Vega into custody?’

‘We did. We read her her rights and handcuffed her.’

‘Now, during this time, as you confronted the defendant, while you were reading her rights and cuffing her, did she say anything to you? Make any statement?’

‘Yes. She wanted to know how we found her.’

‘What was her exact statement? Do you recall?’

‘I made a note of it,’ he says. He refers to a copy of the arrest report. ‘How did you guys find me?’ That’s what she said.’

‘ “How did you guys find me?” ’ Cassidy repeats this slowly, standing, facing the jury square-on. ‘And what did you tell her?’

‘We told her she could talk to a lawyer if she had any questions.’

‘Officer, I’ve asked you to bring some documents with you to court today. Do you have them?’

‘I do.’ He reaches inside a folder and pulls out a sheaf of papers. He hands several to Cassidy. She pages through them, hands a set to the clerk, who passes them to the judge, then sashays by our table and drops a set unceremoniously in front of me.

‘I’m referring to the form that’s entitled “Prisoner’s Inventory.” Do you find that one?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you tell the court what this form is?’

‘This is a standard form that is completed at the booking station in our department whenever an arrest is made. It’s used to inventory the items found in the possession of the person who is taken into custody and booked. The items are held, sealed in an envelope, and initialed by the prisoner to be returned if they make bail or whenever they’re released.’

‘And the particular form we have here?’

‘It’s for the suspect in this case, Laurel Vega.’

‘I take it that this was prepared at the time she was booked in Reno.’

‘Yes.’

‘Who completed this form, officer?’

‘As the arresting officer, I did.’ He points to his initials at the bottom of the form.

‘A lot of small personal items,’ says Cassidy. She’s reading from the form. ‘ “Handkerchief, car keys, lipstick.” Where were these items found?’

‘Those were the contents of the defendant’s purse,’ he says. He points to a notation on the form which verifies this.

‘I call your attention to item number eleven on the inventory sheet: “Woman’s gold compact with initials M.L.H.” Do you see that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was that one of the items found in the purse?’

‘It was.’

Cassidy retreats to the evidence cart, fishes for a second through a couple of paper bags, and a moment later is back with an object in her hand.

‘May I approach the witness, your honor?’

Woodruff snorts, gives a little nod.

‘Officer Demming, I ask you to look at this compact and tell me if you’ve ever seen it before.’

He turns it over in his hand, examines it closely, then looks up at Morgan.

‘It’s the compact I found in the defendant’s purse at the time of her arrest.’

‘The one marked as item eleven on this sheet?’

‘Yes. You can see the initials right here.’ He points.

‘Thank you.’ Cassidy wants it identified as People’s Exhibit next in order.

I have no objection. She will wait until Jack identifies it as belonging to Melanie, something stolen on the night of the murder, and then move it into evidence, one of the crowning pieces of her case, leaving us to answer the question of how it came to be found in Laurel’s purse three days later when she was arrested in Reno.

‘One more item,’ she says. She’s looking for it on the list.

‘Try number seventeen,’ I say.

Morgan looks at me, a condescending smile, as if to say, How do you know what I’m looking for?

On this stuff she is very methodical. The surprises will come later and from left field. Knowing Cassidy, I can only try to brace myself.

‘Sure enough,’ she says. ‘Officer Demming, I call your attention to item seventeen on the list: “One decorative three-by-five-foot rug.” Do you see it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where was this found?’

‘It was at the laundromat, in her possession, actually being laundered at the time we made the arrest.’

While he’s talking, Cassidy’s moved to the evidence cart. The rug is no problem to find, it is rolled and tied with twine, an intricate design in blue thread woven through it. She asks the bailiff to give her a hand. He picks the rug up and carries it over to the witness box.

‘Officer Demming, can you identify the carpet that the bailiff is now showing you?’

He looks at it, checks a tag that’s been affixed to one corner.

‘Yes. That’s the rug that we found in the defendant’s possession when we took her into custody. The one she was laundering.’

All the little pieces lining up in Morgan’s case. Whatever ground Lama has lost, Demming has more than made up. Cassidy has visions of Jack on the stand, identifying the rug as part of the murder scene that night, confirmation that Laurel was there. How else could she have acquired it?

‘Let’s get into the question of the laundry for a moment,’ says Cassidy. ‘You say that the defendant was washing this rug. Was this in an ordinary washing machine?’

‘No. It was a large commercial unit of some kind. The manager told me that it was one of the last ones left in the city. It uses chemical dry-cleaning solvents to clean woolen goods, other fabrics that you can’t clean in soap and water.’

‘So this would be pretty caustic stuff, these chemicals?’

‘Objection,’ I’m intoning to Woodruff, who seems like he’s dozing on the bench. His eyes suddenly open.

‘Unless the officer has a degree in chemical engineering that we haven’t heard about, the question calls for speculation.’

‘I beg to differ,’ says Cassidy. ‘This goes to the appearance of the chemicals as well as the defendant when she was using them.’

I get a quiver down deep inside. She’s nibbling around the edges of that which is verboten, the inference that Laurel was busy destroying evidence, though her question is just inside the foul pole for the moment.

‘Maybe counsel could clarify the question,’ says Woodruff.

Morgan makes a face, like if she has to, fine.

‘Could you smell these chemicals, officer?’

‘You bet.’

‘And what did they smell like?’

‘The vapors were very strong,’ he says. ‘They burned your nose and left a few of us coughing for a couple of minutes until we could get out of there, into the fresh air.’

‘Was the machine open at the time that you confronted the defendant?’

‘No.’

‘Then I don’t understand. How did the vapors escape?’

‘The defendant apparently had opened the machine during one of its cycles and had managed to get her hands into the solvent.’

‘Were you concerned about this?’

‘Enough to ask the manager what the stuff was.’

‘What did she say?’

‘Objection. Hearsay.’

‘Sustained.’

‘Well, let me ask you. Did you have occasion to look at the defendant’s hands?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘And what did they look like?’

‘A lot of red blotches,’ he says. ‘Chemical burns, all the way up onto her forearms.’

‘Did you ask her about this?’

‘Yes. She said it was an accident.’

‘Accident?’ says Cassidy. ‘Pretty clumsy, wouldn’t you say? Pretty convenient accident?’

‘Objection — calls for speculation.’

‘Sustained.’

‘Officer, do you know anything about gunpowder-residue tests?’

‘I’m going to object to this whole line of inquiry, your honor. The witness is not a forensics expert. He’s not been qualified.’

‘Good point,’ says Woodruff.

‘He doesn’t have to be a qualified expert to answer whether his department attempted to conduct any powder-residue tests on the defendant’s hands after her arrest.’

Woodruff gives it the smell test, a twitching nose. ‘That’s all you want to ask him?’

‘That’s it, your honor.’

‘Go ahead,’ says the judge.

‘Officer Demming — do you know whether your department attempted to conduct gunpowder-residue tests on the hands of the defendant after her arrest?’

‘I do not.’

‘Then you wouldn’t know whether such tests were possible given the chemical contamination of the defendant’s hands?’

‘Objection!’ I’m on my feet, shouting at the bench.

‘That’s it,’ says Woodruff. ‘Not another word,’ he says. ‘The question will be stricken from the record. The jurors are instructed to disregard the last question of the prosecutor. Ms. Cassidy, I want to see you in chambers with Mr. Madriani as soon as we are finished with this witness.’

‘Yes, your honor.’

‘Nothing further of the witness,’ she says. Cassidy takes her seat, declining to engage Woodruff’s eyes as they bore a hole through her forehead.

I am steaming down deep, under the collar, but I try not to show this. One of the biggest mistakes you can make on cross: unleashing your venom on a witness who will at least give the appearance of neutrality.

‘Officer Demming.’ I smile at him, big and broad, count to ten. ‘Thank you for coming all the way down here,’ I tell him.

‘Part of the job,’ he says. He looks at me with stern eyes. He knows I am the devil.

‘I have just a few questions by way of clarification.’

He nods like he understands, though his expression is something you might reserve for a trip to the dentist.

‘You say that when you received the call to respond to the laundromat that you checked for a warrant, and that you were informed that one had been issued?’

‘That’s right.’

‘You were also told that the suspect could be armed. Is that correct?’

‘It is.’

‘And when you took the defendant into custody, did you find a weapon in her possession?’

‘No.’

‘No weapon concealed on her body?’

‘No.’

‘No gun in her purse?’

‘If we’d found a gun, it would have been listed on the inventory sheet. Did you see one?’

Testy.

‘So you didn’t find one?’

‘That’s what I said.’

I could push him further, ask him if he thought this was strange, no gun, after being warned that Laurel might be armed and dangerous. But such questions with an obviously hostile witness have a way of imploding. Demming might speculate that if she had a gun, she could have dumped it somewhere, planting the damaging specter in the minds of jurors.

I leave this alone.

‘When you approached the defendant did she put up any kind of resistance? Did she struggle with you?’

‘No.’

I don’t belabor the point that she probably had a dozen handguns pointed at her at the time. Cassidy has wisely stayed away from this since Lama’s testimony, and it does not serve my own ends at this moment.

‘Other than the single statement by the defendant that you alluded to earlier, did the defendant say anything else when you took her into custody?’

He thinks for a moment. If he tries to say it again, I will cut him off.

‘No. Not that I can remember.’

‘She made no confession?’

‘No.’

‘She didn’t say “I did it”?’

‘No.’

‘She didn’t try to run?’

‘That would have been difficult,’ he says.

‘But she didn’t try?’

‘No.’

‘Officer Demming, you say you found the carpet belonging to Laurel Vega in a commercial laundry unit. Is that correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘Now, obviously, when you approached the defendant in the laundromat your first concern was not the contents of what was in the laundry, was it?’

‘I don’t understand the question.’

‘I mean, you had a dangerous suspect on your hands here. Someone you were told was armed and dangerous. Isn’t that correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, you were sort of preoccupied watching her, weren’t you? A little too busy to be noticing what was tumbling in the laundry unit?’

‘That’s true,’ he says.

‘So how did you find out that the rug inside the unit belonged to the defendant?’

‘She told us.’

‘She told you?’ I make a big point of this, a lot of emphasis in the voice.

‘Yes. That’s right.’

‘So she wasn’t trying to conceal her possession of this item from you?’

‘No.’

‘She volunteered the information that the rug was hers?’

‘That’s correct.’

The point is clear. If the rug is incriminating evidence linking her to the murder of Melanie Vega, why would Laurel tell the cops it was hers? Why not just leave it — walk away? Tell the cops that whatever was in that unit belonged to somebody else?

In Demming there is a little bit of the old adage that the worst witness can always give even the darkest cloud in your case some tint of a silver lining.

‘That’s all I have for this witness,’ I say.

Demming collects his papers and starts to get up.

‘Oh. One more question, officer.’ I’m halfway back to the counsel table when I turn.

‘About Mrs. Vega’s hands. You said that when you took her into custody they were inflamed, irritated. I think your words were’ — I look at my notes — ‘ “A lot of red blotches. Chemical burns, all the way up onto her forearms.”

‘This would be pretty painful, I would imagine?’

‘No doubt,’ he says.

‘Still,’ I say, ‘this didn’t stop you from using metal cuffs, and cuffing both of her hands up behind her back before pushing her into your squad car — did it?’

He looks at me. ‘Standard procedure,’ he says. ‘We’re required to-’

‘That’s all for this witness.’ I leave him standing there, offering the only excuse he can to the jury — a plaintive look.

Since we are between witnesses, we don’t retire all the way into the judge’s chambers, but huddle in a narrow hallway out of earshot of the jury, and off the record. Harry and I, Woodruff and Cassidy, stand in the little hallway leading to the judge’s office, in semidarkness. Lama has tried to edge his way in as the representative of the people, as best he can, but he is left dangling with his ass-end halfway in the courtroom, trying to look over the shoulder of the taller Cassidy.

Woodruff is clearly kindling some smoldering hostility. He looks at Morgan.

‘I’ve had all of this I’m going to take,’ he says. ‘Maybe I look the fool to you,’ he says.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ says Cassidy innocently.

‘I’m talking about matters that I ruled on in pretrial motions. Do you remember? Correct me if I’m wrong, but we had a conversation about inferences and evidence being destroyed, and you were told that comments on such matters would be off-bounds. Do you remember now?’ he says.

‘Certainly I do,’ she says.

‘Then what the hell was that all about?’

Cassidy gives him arching eyebrows, a look as if she’s not sure what he’s talking about. This is enough to ignite a flame under the judge.

‘You know very well what I’m talking about,’ he snaps. ‘That crap out there about gunshot residue,’ he says. ‘I gave you latitude for one narrow inquiry and you abused it. You want to be joining Mr. Madriani’s client in jail, just keep it up,’ he says.

I can tell by the look that Harry finds this particularly pleasing. If there were rocking loge seats, he would go for popcorn.

‘I keep a little score sheet up on the bench,’ Woodruff tells her. ‘Try me one more time,’ he says, ‘and a little mark goes down by your name. For the first one I’ll fine you. Collect two of them and when this trial is over I’ll want you back here with your toothbrush. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Your honor. The jury has to be allowed to hear the evidence, to form its own-’

‘Do I make myself clear?’ Woodruff booms in the little hallway. I know it can be heard out into the courtroom.

Harry is veritably itching, hoping, praying, that she will say just one more word.

‘Yes, your honor.’

The wrong ones.

‘Good.’ Woodruff pushes past her and leaves us all standing in the dark, looking at one another, Cassidy rolling her eyes, like what a bastard, but she’s playing to the wrong audience.

Jenny Lang is a problem for us. We thought she was chaff on the state’s witness list, several dozen false targets that the prosecution will always throw out, hoping that you waste your time investigating, chasing a name they have no intention of actually calling.

I look at Harry. He gives me a shrug, like let’s hope it’s nothing.

Lang is a friend of Laurel’s from a past life. A woman who shared her circle six years ago when their children attended the same private school and Laurel was married to Jack. Since then their paths have diverged. Lang works as a bookkeeper for a lobbying group downtown. She and Laurel do lunch on a rare occasion, the last time about eight months ago.

Cassidy has supplied no statement reduced to writing summarizing Lang’s testimony, and when Harry and I grilled Laurel as to why Lang’s name showed up on Morgan’s list of witnesses, Laurel didn’t have a clue. We figured she had to be a loss leader. We were wrong.

Today Lang is dressed in a suit, patterns of black and white with a dark cravat at the neck, and high heels, what the busy businesswoman wears on the job. Lang might stand five-foot-three and tip a hundred pounds on the scale, with salt-and-pepper hair cut short off the shoulders.

As she turns to take the oath, Harry and I are scrambling trying to figure where and how she fits in their case. She swings her purse from the strap off her shoulder, holding it in one hand while she raises the other and swears to tell the truth. If there is a sense of foreboding in all of this, it comes from the obvious manner in which Lang avoids eye contact with Laurel.

‘Please state your name for the record?’

‘Jenny Lang.’

‘Your full legal name?’

‘Jennifer Ann Lang.’ She is a feeble wreck on the stand, not happy to be here. This hangs like a sign about her neck, like an invitation to a mugging.

Morgan has positioned herself in a direct line between the witness and Laurel, feet spread wide, hands on her hips, forming an impenetrable barrier between the two women.

‘Ms. Lang. Do you know the defendant, Laurel Vega?’

‘Yes. We were, we are friends,’ she says.

‘Can you tell the court how long have you’ve known the defendant?’

‘Gee. It’s been — I don’t know.’ She thinks for a moment. ‘At least eight years, on and off,’ she says. ‘Our children went to school together.’

‘When’s the last time you saw each other, before today?’

‘Perhaps six months,’ she says. She tries to see around, to find Laurel for some confirmation of this, but is barred by Cassidy, who is now doing her own rendition of the Great Wall of China.

‘And what was the occasion of that last meeting?’

‘A luncheon date,’ she says.

‘Do you recall the location of that meeting?’ All the little details of her memory so that the jury will take with credence whatever damage it is that Lang is intended to inflict here.

‘It was at Sabrina’s. A restaurant on the Mall. We used to meet there quite often.’

There’s a lot of nervous posturing here by the witness, aimless smiles at the judge, at Cassidy, at no one in particular. Jennifer Lang seems to know where Cassidy is headed, and instinct tells me she is not particularly anxious to get there.

‘Let me take you back to June of last year, Ms. Lang, and ask you if you remember a conversation with another woman, a Ms. Ann Edlin, who worked in your office?’

‘I remember Ann.’

Suddenly Laurel grips my thigh under the table and leans into my ear. ‘Ann Edlin,’ she whispers. ‘She’s on Jack’s staff.’ In hushed tones Laurel tells me that this is trouble. The small world that is the Capitol.

‘And do you remember during a conversation relating certain things to Ms. Edlin, things that had been conveyed to you during your earlier luncheon meeting by the defendant, Laurel Vega?’

Jennifer Lang is looking up at the ceiling, her chin quivering, head starting to sway. I think maybe there are tears beginning to well in her eyes.

‘But you said-’

‘Do you remember…?’

‘Yes. I remember talking to Ann.’

‘Ms. Edlin?’

‘Yes.’

‘And do you remember telling her about matters involving the defendant’s marriage, information given to you by Laurel Vega over lunch?’

Lang bites her lower lip like she could chew it off. ‘I thought we weren’t going to have to get into all of this,’ she whines.

‘Just answer the question,’ says Cassidy. ‘Do you remember-’

‘Yes.’

‘Let me finish the question. Do you remember telling Ann Edlin about matters involving the defendant’s marriage — things related to you by Laurel Vega over lunch?’

‘Yes.’ Lang is upset. It is clear that some deception is being played out by Morgan. She is famous for little agreements, inducements to get a witness to testify, that suddenly go sour when the witness is on the stand. In Cassidy’s book this saves time and money that might ordinarily be spent preparing and serving subpoenas.

‘Can you tell the court what it was that you and Laurel Vega talked about that day over lunch?’

Lang doesn’t have a choice. Cassidy knows what was said, because she has a witness, unless Lang wants to backtrack and claim that she embellished on the earlier conversation when she repeated it to Edlin. The witness, caught in a trap of her own making.

‘We talked a lot about a lot of things,’ she says.

‘Like what?’

‘Like our kids.’

‘What else?’

What is happening is clear. Jennifer Lang has fallen into the pit of shifting loyalties. The Capitol employment market is not unlike the human auction blocks of the antebellum South. The only difference is that careers are bought and sold instead of people. This is a place where allegiances shift faster than most of us change our underwear. In such a setting there is no such thing as a friend, at least not an enduring one. Ann Edlin, it seems, quickly found the currency of advancement under the golden dome, a few closely held confidences whispered into the ear of her new boss, Jack Vega.

‘We talked about the divorce,’ says Lang.

‘That would be Laurel Vega’s divorce from her husband?’

‘Right.’ Lang is seething as she looks at Cassidy, a mix of anger and fear.

‘And what did Laurel Vega tell you about that divorce?’

‘She said it was becoming particularly difficult because of the children. You should understand — she was very distraught at the time.’ Lang is trying to sugarcoat it.

‘And why was the divorce becoming difficult?’

‘Because of the custody issue.’

‘The children?’ prods Cassidy.

Lang nods.

‘You have to answer so that the court reporter can hear you.’

‘Yes.’

Laurel seems to offer up psychic absolution to her friend at this moment, sitting forward in her chair, an idyllic smile on her face, though she cannot see Lang. Laurel’s is a hopeful expression, as if to say, ‘If the truth will out, I have nothing to fear.’ Such is the naiveté that seems to run like a disease through Nikki’s family and has afflicted Laurel at this moment.

‘This was particularly bitter, this custody battle?’ says Cassidy.

‘You bet. Her husband was being a real prick,’ she says.

Woodruff looks at her, a wrinkled brow.

‘Sorry, your honor. I could say it in other ways, but it would lose something in the translation.’

‘So Laurel blamed her former husband for this? The custody thing?’

‘You bet.’

‘Did she blame anybody else?’

Cassidy bears down now, going for the jugular. Lang looks at her from the box. She would like to say no, but she has to worry. The prosecutor has clearly talked to Edlin.

‘In part she blamed someone else,’ she says.

‘What do you mean in part? Who else was there? She didn’t blame the children?’

‘No. The children wanted to stay with their mother.’

‘At least that’s what she told you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, then, who else was there to blame?’ Cassidy has her back to me at this moment, but I can image the simpering little grin as she narrows the field.

‘His new wife,’ says Lang.

‘Melanie Vega. The victim,’ she says.

‘Yes.’

Cassidy pauses for a moment, and for the first time she moves, toward the jury box, facing them square on, like looky what I brought you.

Lang at this moment does not look at Laurel, but stares off, toward the ceiling and the back of the courtroom.

‘Tell the court,’ says Cassidy. ‘Why did she blame Melanie Vega for her problems in the custody case? Wasn’t it Jack, her former husband, who was initiating those proceedings?’

‘I think she was very upset. I don’t think she knew what she was saying.’

‘That’s not what I asked you,’ Morgan turns and snaps.

Lang shrinks an inch in the chair.

‘Why did she blame Melanie Vega?’

A long sigh from Jennifer Lang, like a body giving up the ghost. Then she says: ‘Laurel said that Jack would never have gone after the kids if Melanie hadn’t put him up to it.’

‘So she didn’t blame Jack, she blamed Melanie?’

‘She blamed both of them.’

Lang’s face is twisted up, a pitch for absolution from the stand, now aimed directly at Laurel, in which the return is a generous smile. I’m driving my knee into Laurel’s thigh to keep her from mouthing words of reassuring friendship to the witness, little encouragements like ‘It’s all right’ or “I understand.” Knowing Laurel, she will be uttering these when they strap her into the chair in the little green room.

‘What else did she tell you?’

‘Oh. This is so hard,’ says Lang.

‘Tell the court what she said.’ Cassidy is now moving on the witness box, closing the distance. I could object, but it would only draw more attention.

‘She said Melanie wanted the kids — to spite her. To destroy what was left of her family,’ says Lang. Each time she speaks it is a spike in our case, fuel to feed their theories of a motive.

‘What else?’ says Cassidy.

Enough, I think.

Jennifer is starting to break on the stand, tears coming with more frequency, a handkerchief out of her purse.

I could ask for time, to allow the witness to compose herself, but it would only serve to draw this out, lend more drama. What Morgan wants. Instead I am left at the table, feigning expressions of boredom and disinterest. Unfortunately, at this moment, the jury seems riveted.

‘What else did she tell you?’ says Cassidy.

‘She told me-’

‘In her own words if you can,’ Cassidy cuts her off.

Lang regroups, looking off at the middle distance. ‘She told me — she told me that there were times when she could have killed the bitch.’

This is what Morgan has been searching for, the gemstone in this load of swill.

At this moment there’s a rustle in the courtroom, one of those seminal moments in a trial where there is a palpable shift in momentum. Morgan senses this and turns the blade in the wound one last time, feeling for that mortal penetration.

‘And who was she referring to? Who was the person Laurel Vega was referring to as the bitch?’

A lot of shrugging of shoulders, movement in the box, Lang like some unfortunate fish hooked through the gill.

‘Wasn’t it Melanie Vega that she was talking about?’

‘Yes.’ An explosion of tears from Lang. ‘I didn’t want to,’ she says. Imploring looks at Laurel, all the worse for our cause. Not likely that this is a lie, some fabrication concocted by an enemy. It is the stuff of which truth is made in the eyes of a jury.

‘That’s all for this witness,’ announces Cassidy.

‘Under the circumstances, we should give the witness time,’ says Woodruff. ‘Can you go on or would you like a recess?’

Lang motions with her hand that she would rather go on, to finish this now.

‘Cross,’ says Woodruff.

‘Ms. Lang, just a couple of questions,’ I say. ‘When you heard these words from Laurel, did it strike you that she was serious, that she actually intended to kill Melanie Vega?’

‘Objection- calls for speculation on the part of the witness.’

‘Sustained.’

Still, the seed is planted.

‘Let me ask you,’ I say, ‘in your life, during a moment of extreme frustration or pain, have you ever said to your children, your husband, to a friend, that there are times when you could kill someone?’

‘Sure,’ she says. Lang sees where I am going, anxious to help.

‘And when you made such statements, were you serious?’

‘No.’

‘So it was a figure of speech, nothing more?’

‘That’s true,’ she says.

‘Let me ask you. Did you call the police to alert them when Laurel Vega told you that she could kill Melanie Vega?’

‘No,’ she says.

‘And why not?’

I can see Cassidy cringing at the table. ‘Objection, calls for speculation.’

‘No, no. I’m not asking the witness to speculate about the defendant’s state of mind, but to comment on her own. Why she didn’t call the police.’

The many ways to slice up evidence.

‘Overruled.’

‘Why didn’t you call the police and tell them about this comment on the part of Laurel Vega?’

‘Because I didn’t think she was serious.’

‘Exactly,’ I say. ‘You viewed it for what it was, a figure of speech and nothing more, isn’t that true?’

‘Absolutely,’ she says. A smile on Jennifer’s Lang’s face, redemption at last.

‘That’s all I have for this witness.’

‘Very well, you’re excused,’ says Woodruff.

Lang rises from the stand. She tries to take Laurel’s hand at the table, some consolation, a show of support, but I am blocking her way, ushering her through the railing, out of the courtroom. Each move by Lang at this moment, grasping hands of friendship extended to Laurel, is like a pygmy shooting blow darts into the side of our case. It is not possible to assess what damage has been done here, but the fact remains that unlike the subjects in other figures of speech, Melanie Vega is dead. Clearly someone wanted to kill the bitch.