Undue Influence

Chapter 27

He is the centerpiece of the state’s case — the grieving widower. Jack is at the front of the courtroom, some last-minute words with Cassidy. Vega as usual is up on his toes, prancing in place like some kid about to wet his pants. He’s been escorted to the stand by Jimmy and one of the minions, who act like two cruisers pushing reporters away.

Vega wears a suit the price of which could support a family for a year, a silk tie and a matching kerchief in the breast pocket, maroon, Jack’s standard colors.

As he talks he cannot keep his gaze off me, darting little slits, sallow cheeks and lips stretched white with tension. I am assembling papers at the counsel table, but I refuse to divert my eyes from him. Jack and I play a game of ocular chicken.

Vega’s is a face not so much of determination as pure meanness. I have seen him turn this on witnesses in legislative committee before unleashing his wrath, usually in defense of some protected interests which has lavished its largess to sweeten Jack’s judgment. Vega is merciless on those without influence, volunteers for consumer groups, or students with a brief for the environment. Under Jack’s rules those without money have no business living in a democracy.

This morning I go back to meet Laurel in the holding cells, a few words of caution before she is led out into the courtroom.

When I see her inside the cell she is putting the final touches on her hair with a brush. It seems she has taken more interest in her personal appearance now that the kids are out of the way, to her view, safe and out of the clutches of Jack.

I tell her that he is outside ready to take the stand, that the jury will be watching her for each telltale sign of a response to everything he says.

‘Anything, a twitch of the nose, a pained expression, and they can read into it. It’s vital that you hold your emotions. There is no telling what he will say.’

This is shorthand for the obvious, that of all the witnesses Jack is the one most likely to embellish on the evidence, to take liberty with the facts where he can.

‘You don’t think he would lie?’ She gives me a stark expression.

For an instant, the very fact that she could ask this with a straight face catches me off guard. Then little cracks in her demeanor, wrinkles around the mouth, and the dam breaks. We both laugh.

‘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?’

‘No. She said she wanted to “kill the bitch.” ’ As Jack says this he looks at Laurel and me, fire in his eyes. He has been suppressing this venom for months. Now it spills like some oozing toxic gel over the witness box.

They embellish this around the edges, a few more pithy quotes all attributed to Laurel, who by now, if you could defame the dead, would be standing trial for slander. Jack should be writing headlines for the tabloids. Then Cassidy has him identify the rug from the evidence cart. Jack is adamant that this scrap of carpet was located in the master bath of his home the night Melanie was murdered. The only way Laurel could have gotten it, according to Jack, is if she had been present in the home that night.

Morgan then takes him on a blistering cruise of several conversations, most of which I suspect never took place. These are supposedly private encounters between him and Laurel during periods of visitation when she would come by the house to deliver or pick up the kids. To listen to Jack, these were angry tirades issued by Laurel, none of which were provoked by either him or Melanie.

Through most of this, tight-lipped and tense, Laurel is restraining herself, protesting only quietly in my ear. Then at one point she says, ‘He’s a fucking liar.’ Almost loud enough for Woodruff to hear.

When I look over she is not smiling.

During one of these encounters, according to Jack, there was a particularly ugly conversation during which Laurel said she wished the two of them, he and Melanie, were dead.

‘I suppose half a loaf is better than none,’ she whispers through a cupped hand in my ear.

Cassidy, I think, hears it, though the jury does not.

When I look at Laurel there is a willful gleam in her eye. It is the reason I worry about putting her on the stand.

‘Laurel was always jealous and angry, particularly at Melanie,’ says Jack. ‘She couldn’t deal with younger women,’ he says.

‘Maybe if you’d screwed fewer of them during our marriage my outlook would have been different.’

Several of the women on the jury giggle.

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 chrome-plated 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 chrome-plated 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 somebody 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 tries 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 handcrafted 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 lead 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.

‘I’m going to ask you one more time. What did the doctor tell you?’

‘Something about a test,’ he says.

‘A pregnancy test?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about it?’

‘That the test was positive,’ he says.

‘Meaning?’

‘That Melanie was pregnant.’

‘So this was on October tenth?’

‘If you say so,’ he says. ‘I don’t know the date.’

‘Would you like to look at the medical records?’ I ask.

‘The doctor made a notation of the conversation,’ I turn to the table to get them. These we have subpoenaed from the physician.

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ he says.

‘Well, then, I ask you, how could Melanie have told you that she was pregnant as early as August or September if she wasn’t tested until October and the results delivered on October tenth?’

A lot of faces from Jack, mostly pained expressions. He could have a million answers for this, that women know these things before they are tested, that she wasn’t tested until later in the pregnancy, that he was wrong about when Melanie told him. But he doesn’t come up with any of these. Instead he backpedals and trips over his own lie.

‘I thought it was Melanie who first told me. Maybe I was wrong,’ he says. ‘Maybe I heard it from the doctor first. I don’t know what difference it makes.’

The problem here is that Jack can’t be sure what the physician has told me, if anything. Vega can’t recall whether he made admissions at the time of the telephone conversation that this was the first he was hearing of the pregnancy. I could show him the transcript of his tapped phone to assure him that, while as Dana said, ‘you could hear a pin drop,’ Jack did not actually say anything. But it’s too late. It is the problem that when you litter the landscape with too many lies you forget where the truth is.

Vega simply attributes this once more to a faulty memory. Only this time the jury is looking with more than a few arched eyebrows.

‘So from what you can remember now you did not hear about the baby for the first time from Melanie, but from the physician, and this was roughly three weeks before your wife’s death?’

‘I don’t know.’ Jack’s ultimate refuge when cornered.

‘Did you ever talk to your wife about the pregnancy?’

‘Sure we talked about it. What the hell,’ he says. ‘What? You think we wouldn’t discuss something like this?’

‘I don’t know. Did you?’

‘Absolutely,’ he says.

‘When? Where?’

‘Several times,’ he says. ‘Lots of places. We were very happy about the child.’

‘You wanted this baby?’

‘Absolutely.’ Jack is absolute about everything except the details.

‘Quite a feat, wasn’t it?’

‘What do you mean?’ he says.

‘Your child must have been one of the miracles of modern medicine.’

‘How’s that?’

‘Isn’t it true, Mr. Vega, that twelve years ago you underwent minor surgery, a procedure carried out in your doctor’s office, a vasectomy?’

Jack suddenly swallows his Adam’s apple, three or four heaving bobs. ‘Whatya-’

‘As a result of this procedure is it not a fact that you were incapable of fathering a child during your marriage to the victim, Melanie Vega?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Isn’t it a fact, Mr. Vega, that the unborn child who died in your wife’s womb was fathered by someone else?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘That’s not true.’

‘Should I get your medical records? I have them right here.’

‘No. I had the vasectomy,’ he says. ‘But the child was mine.’

‘How is that possible?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not a doctor. But sometimes things happen. I just figured it didn’t take.’

‘You figured it didn’t take?’

It is the key to our case, the crowning blow, the fact that the child is not Jack’s, that he has known this from the inception and now lies about it bold-faced before the jury, the motive for murder.

‘Mr. Vega, isn’t it a fact that you didn’t discuss this child at all with your wife? That she kept the pregnancy a secret? That she went to her death believing you knew nothing about it? Isn’t it a fact that she tried to conceal it from you because she was having an affair with another man, and that you found out about this?’

‘That’s not true,’ he says.

‘She didn’t know about the call from her physician, did she? The one you intercepted.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You didn’t tell her though, did you?’

‘No. I forgot.’ The same old saw.

‘Isn’t it a fact that your wife had another lover?’

He sits staring at me in the box, wordless.

‘Isn’t it true that she had another lover and that you found out? Who was it, Mr. Vega? Who was it that got your wife pregnant? Who?’ I say. ‘Who…?’

‘Enough.’ When the word comes it is screamed at me from behind, a female voice, anguished and broken. I turn, and it is Laurel. Standing at the counsel table, tears lining her face.

‘Enough,’ she says.

Harry has a hand on her arm, trying to get her to sit, a stunned expression on his face like she erupted without warning.

Even Woodruff is dumbfounded, palming the handle of his gavel but not striking the bench.

A matron moves in behind, putting two hands on Laurel’s shoulders, a signal for her to sit, evidence in the eyes of the jury that she is not free to move about as she wishes.

‘Enough about the child,’ Laurel says, and with that she slumps back into her chair.

I look, and the jury is mesmerized. All eyes on Laurel.

Almost in a daze I say: ‘Your honor, could we take a brief recess?’

We regroup back near the holding cells, and I tell her that this is not good. Her conduct has injected a whole new element into our case. What the jury thinks of this I have no way of knowing.

I cannot read them as to Laurel’s emotive appeal, whether they might see this as an admission that she had something to do with the murder, or was merely taking pity on Jack.

What she tells me is that she could no longer deal with the matter of the child, my picking away further at questions regarding this dead infant and its origins.

‘Everybody is talking about it like it was a thing. An event and nothing more,’ she says. ‘It wasn’t. It was a living breathing human being. A baby,’ she says. ‘A little baby. Its life snuffed out before it had a chance.’ Laurel, the good mother. It is the most troubling aspect of the case to her, that an innocent child has been killed.

She apologizes, but says she simply cannot deal with the dead infant.

I tell her that I will stay clear of it. My hand in the air, two fingers like a scout. The point is now made, I tell her.

It is all I can do given her explosive attitude on the subject. One more outburst and there is no telling what could happen to our case.

‘Nothing further will be said by me about this child until my closing argument,’ I tell her. ‘Then I will have to talk about it. But I will do it briefly and discreetly.’

She nods as if she understands.

‘Are you all right?’ I ask.

‘Yes.’

I take her by the arm and we head back out. When we get to the courtroom, Cassidy turns a wicked gaze on Laurel. Lama actually grins. She has given them something they have not been able to make from their own case, the whiff of suspicion, the suggestion that Laurel is now gored by conscience, that she cannot deal with the unintended consequences of her own violent act.

I can tell by the look in Morgan’s eye that we have not heard the last of this dead child. I shudder to think what might happen if I am forced to put Laurel on the stand.

Woodruff comes out. The bailiff calls the court to order, and Jack heads back into the box. The judge tells me to proceed.

‘Mr. Vega, how long have you been a member of the Legislature?’

‘What does that have to do with anything?’ he says.

‘Just answer the question.’

‘Twelve years,’ he says.

‘You’re not planning on running for reelection, are you?’

‘No. I’m retiring,’ he says.

I look to Harry and he lifts the top off the box.

‘Retirement?’ I say.

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve heard some of them called “country clubs,” but I’ve never heard the people who are sent there called retirees,’ I say.

He’s looking at me, not saying a word. But from the expression I know that Jack is the only other person in the room at the moment who knows what I am talking about. For the first time today we are speaking the same language. His face like a stone idol, struck by a lightning bolt. He’s looking now at the box. I can only imagine what is running through his mind. For Jack, an out-of-body experience.

‘I’m going to object to this.’ Morgan is out of her chair, about to step on a land mine. ‘The question of Mr. Vega’s future plans is irrelevant. If counsel has a question, he should ask it, and stop badgering the witness with inane comments,’ she says.

‘Then I will,’ I say. ‘Mr. Vega, is it not a fact that you have entered a plea of guilty to multiple felony counts, violations of federal law relating to political corruption?’

There is a swell of movement, like an undulating wave through the press rows, an audible gasp from the audience, the kind of revelation that comes in a courtroom once in a blue moon. A reporter in the second row actually says ‘Holy shit,’ loud enough for Woodruff to hear it but ignore. One guy near the center aisle turns, pad in hand, and with a finger in the air circles his hand in a quick motion, like the signal to start engines. I can see cameras and lights outside through the glass slit in the courtroom door, revving up — part of the media ride that Jack will be taking.

He still hasn’t answered my question.

‘I…’ Cassidy breaks off before she starts her sentence. Heated whispers in Lama’s ear. Jimmy is all shrugs, like a cheap stuffed doll that’s been repeatedly kicked in the ass. He doesn’t have a clue.

‘Your honor, I’m going to object to this … to this line of questioning. We’ve… We’ve received no notice of any of this.’

‘Nonetheless, it is true, is it not?’ I’m bearing down on Vega.

Woodruff holds up a hand. ‘The witness will not answer. There’s an objection pending.’

‘Your honor, we have certified copies both of the indictment and the record of conviction. We are not responsible for the state’s lack of knowledge in this area. We are not required to share the fruits of our own investigation with them.

‘I would point out that Mr. Vega is the state’s witness. We did not call him. These convictions go to his qualifications to testify. If he chose not to disclose this disability to the state, that’s their problem. They should take it up with him.’

‘But, your honor,’ says Cassidy.

‘He’s got a point,’ says Woodruff. ‘You called the witness.’

‘But the conviction wasn’t public record.’

‘First maybe we should find out if there was a conviction.’ Woodruff motions for the papers, to examine them.

I hand a set of the documents up to the bench, and Woodruff scans them. Another goes to Cassidy, who quickly sits and pores over them with Lama, a lot of grim looks.

All the while Jack sits in the box, turning various shades of gray. A couple of times Woodruff consults with him quietly over the edge of the bench and receives sober nods from Jack.

‘It appears these are authentic,’ says Woodruff. ‘Certified copies,’ he says. ‘Subject to a later motion to strike, I will allow counsel to explore the question,’ he says.

Cassidy’s still protesting. ‘Unfair surprise,’ she says. ‘We’ve been sandbagged by federal authorities,’ she tells Woodruff. At one point she actually mentions Dana by name, in the same way one might spit out another four-letter word.

It is all to no avail. Woodruff says her objections are noted and tells her to sit down.

I hand a set of the documents to Jack, the only player who hasn’t seen them, and I ask him if in fact they do not accurately reflect the convictions entered in his name in the federal court.

He starts to whine about his deal. ‘They weren’t supposed to release any of this until the end of the trial,’ he says. ‘We had an arrangement,’ he tells Woodruff. He’s ignoring me like I’m not here, making his appeal to the black robes.

‘Take it up with the federal court,’ says Woodruff. Jack is pitched back into the dark pit with me.

‘Mr. Vega, I ask you one more time. Do these documents accurately reflect your convictions under various pleas of guilty to felony charges in the federal court?’

‘I suppose,’ he says. ‘I’m not a lawyer.’ Like the iron statues of Lenin, you can hear the thud, the sick leaden sound. Jack the upright legislator has just toppled.

With this there’s a swell of murmuring in the front rows. Pencils worked to a dull point. A couple of the electronic folks head out to strike postures and make news in front of their cameras.

The final blow. I reach into the packet of documents and pull out a sheaf of stapled pages, four in all. It is a sentencing brief prepared by Jack’s lawyers. I call the court’s attention to the document, and a minute later we are all singing from the same sheet. I ask Jack to read it. When he is finished I wade in.

‘Did your lawyers prepare this?’ I ask him.

‘Yeah.’

‘Then you advanced this argument to the federal court. That because your wife was murdered you made a hardship appeal for straight probation on the federal charges. No prison time,’ I say. ‘Is that right?’

‘The kids needed a father,’ he says. ‘She was in jail.’ He’s pointing to Laurel.

‘Yes, based almost entirely on your allegations,’ I say. ‘There are some who might suggest that you should have been there instead.’ I’m talking about jail.

‘I didn’t commit murder,’ he says.

‘And neither did my client. And you know it,’ I tell him.

He doesn’t respond to this. The best answer I could have hoped for.

‘The fact remains,’ I say, ‘that while your wife was dead and your former wife was in jail awaiting trial on charges of murder, that the only one who actually seems to have benefited from this sorry state of affairs was you. Isn’t that so?’

‘How did I benefit?’ he asks.

‘Your wife has a lover. You were jealous. She got pregnant. So you killed her, framed your former spouse, and used the tragedy to ease your own sentence on criminal charges. Masterful,’ I tell him. ‘Brilliant. It almost worked.’

‘That’s bullshit,’ he says.

‘What one could expect from a man who has survived by his wits in the Legislature for two decades.’ I speak like this is some den of thieves, a rabbit warren for breeding organized crime, which Jack has now confirmed by his own conduct. What the public suspect, what we both know, that there is a litany of further indictments in the offing. With any luck these will be breaking during our case-in-chief.

He repeats the denial, Jack’s stock-in-trade: ‘Bullshit. This is bullshit.’

Woodruff seems to give him license here, realizing that the witness is at a loss for words, that in defense he should be allowed his best form of expression. It has its effect on the jury, and Jack slowly realizes this.

‘I lost my wife.’ He sits up straight in the chair, finds the last scrap of dignity, and stares me in the eye.

‘And you found the silver lining in that adversity, didn’t you?’ I wave the sentencing brief in my hand for him to see.

It is a question that requires no response. The answer lies in Vega’s weary eyes as he surveys the media, knowing what is in store. It is a classic case, Jack digging himself a hole by his convenient memory. It started with the gun, a throwaway issue in this case, that he could easily have disclosed to the cops. But to Jack there was more intrigue in concealment. The adventure of deception has made up the better part of his life. This first slipup tainted him as to the second, the rug and its true ownership. If Jack had been a standup guy on the pistol and told the cops about it, his word might have carried more weight as against the black-and-white terms of the settlement agreement.

As it is, this all now devolves in a common theme about Jack’s neck, that nothing he says can be believed, that here sits a man who is a stranger to the truth. It is a portrait now stretched and displayed in the chipped and frayed frame of political corruption, an image that could be properly hung only in a rogues’ gallery.