Undue Influence

Chapter 22

It is perhaps the most singular and disturbing part of our case to this point that the one piece of evidence Laurel does not dispute is the testimony of Jennifer Lang. In the hallway to the holding cell after today’s session, Laurel apologized for not warning me. She had forgotten the remark made to Lang over lunch so many months before. Idle chatter, she called it. The stuff of a bitter divorce.

All of this makes me wonder if she has said such things to others, whether Harry and I should brace ourselves. I have visions of a procession, Laurel’s acquaintances marched to the stand by Cassidy in a line reminiscent of the rush to the Klondike. Hopefully, the damage, which at this point is difficult to assess, is done.

Tonight I am busy getting Sarah ready for bed when the phone rings.

‘Hello.’ The receiver in one hand, I’m trying to untie a knot in Sarah’s shoe with the other.

‘Hi.’ The voice on the other end is distant, something from another planet, and for an instant I do not recognize it.

Then I say, ‘Danny?’

Sarah’s eyes grow wide. ‘Oh, let me talk to him.’ She makes a swipe for the phone, but misses.

‘Later,’ I tell her.

‘Did I call at a bad time?’ he asks.

‘No. No. Not at all,’ I tell him. I suppress the urge to ask the one question that I cannot: Where are you?

‘How’s Mom doing? We don’t get much news back here, and I’m afraid to write,’ he says.

It is clear that he and Laurel have discussed this, writing, and that she has cautioned him not to. A return address on an envelope, a postmark, and Jack would be all over her for conspiring to violate the court’s order of temporary custody. Letters to the jail are scanned and monitored in a dozen different ways.

‘She’s doing as well as can be expected, under the circumstances,’ I tell him.

‘Will she be out pretty soon?’ he asks.

‘We all hope so,’ I tell him. ‘We have a ways to go.’ I don’t talk about the downside; what if she’s convicted. But I can tell by the silence at the other end that this thought is now being processed in Danny’s mind.

‘I wanted to call her,’ he says. ‘At the jail, I mean. But I’m not supposed to. Mom told me they listen in.’

I don’t say anything, but issue a few grunts on the phone. I can’t participate in this and take the stand if I am called again to testify in the custody case. I must be able to say truthfully that I didn’t tell him what to do, that I have no idea where he is.

‘Is Dad looking for us?’

‘Turning over every rock,’ I tell him.

He laughs a little, nothing sinister, but amused, that perhaps he has finally outwitted his father.

‘You won’t tell him that I called.’

I tell him his father and I no longer share much information or news of any kind. ‘When we pass in the hall, we don’t even say hello,’ I tell him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, like he is in some way responsible for this.

‘Not your fault,’ I tell him.

‘Sure,’ he says. I can sense some awkwardness on the other end, juvenile insecurities.

‘Is Mom gonna have to testify?’

‘I don’t know. We’ll cross that bridge later. There’s a lot of evidence against her, and it would probably help to answer some things if she took the stand.’

‘Then it’s not going so good?’ he says.

‘Some days yes, some days no,’ I tell him. ‘We’re not throwing in the towel just yet.’

‘I’m really glad you’re helping her,’ he says. ‘I know Mom is too. She doesn’t always say it, but I know she is.’

Visions of Harry and me, Don Quixote and Sancho. I warn him that there are no sure things, a lot of evidence yet ahead of us, imponderables to explain. When he pursues for details I tell him that I cannot discuss these.

‘Maybe it would really help if I came back,’ he says. ‘What do you think?’

Laurel would kill me. ‘That’s not for me to say. We shouldn’t be having this conversation,’ I tell him.

‘Oh. I didn’t realize.’ The sense of Danny retreating from the receiver at the other end.

Before I can say another word, the operator breaks in.

‘That’ll be another ninety-five cents, please.’

I hear the ding of coins tripping the meter of the pay phone.

‘We’ll have to talk quickly,’ he says. ‘I’m running out of quarters.’

‘Are you okay?’ I ask him.

‘Oh, yeah. Maggie’s real good to us.’

The first clue that Julie is with him. I don’t ask who Maggie is. I don’t want to know.

‘Is Julie there?’

‘Yeah. Right here. You want to talk to her?’

‘Just a word,’ I say.

Her voice comes on the line. ‘Hello, Uncle Paul.’

‘Hi, sweetheart. How are you doing?’

‘Not so good. I want to come home,’ she says. I hear a lot of grousing on the other end, Danny snatching for the phone.

‘Get away. I wanna talk.’ Julie fighting him off.

‘Uncle Paul, I don’t know what we’re doing here. Can you talk to Mom, see if we can come home?’ she asks me.

‘Just hang tough,’ I tell her.

‘Mom’s got enough problems,’ I hear Danny’s voice intoning.

‘We’re doing everything we can,’ I tell her. ‘It’ll be over before you know it. Then we’ll talk and see what we’re going to do.’

‘What do you mean?’ she says. ‘Like who we’re gonna live with?’

It’s tough to bullshit teenagers.

‘You’re going to live with your mother.’

‘And what if she’s convicted?’ she says.

‘I don’t think that’s going to happen.’

‘What if it does?’

‘Gimme the phone.’ Danny trying to grab it.

‘Stop it,’ I tell them, but they can’t hear me. Pain in my ear as the receiver slams into something solid on the other end. Danny wins the battle. His voice comes up on the line.

‘Don’t bother Mom with this. We’re fine,’ he says.

‘Speak for yourself,’ says Julie.

‘I wanna talk.’ Sarah’s tugging at my sleeve.

‘Just a minute,’ I tell her.

‘Tell Julie not to worry,’ I tell him.

‘Aw, she’s a spoiled brat,’ he says.

‘Your mom wouldn’t like to hear that,’ I tell him. ‘Give her a break. She’s younger than you, and she’s scared.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

‘Is there anything you need?’ I ask him.

I have no idea what ruse I would employ to get it there without knowing the destination. My first thought is Harry, the doer of all things suspect. Harry would see this as a minor mission of mercy, and Jack’s lawyers would never ferret him out. Danny could call him direct.

‘No, we’re fine,’ he says. ‘Is Sarah still there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can I talk to her?’

I put my daughter on the line.

‘Danny, where are you?’ she says.

I want to hum and plug both ears at the same time. I am hoping that Sarah won’t repeat some place name in my presence. I’m using both hands to untie the knot in her shoe while she shows me a toothless grin, talking on the phone.

‘Where’s that?’ she says.

‘How far away?’

‘What are you doing there?’ My daughter is a litany of questions.

‘Who is Maggie? Is she nice? Why can’t you come home?’ she says.

There’s a moment of silence as he tries to explain in tones that a seven-year-old might understand.

‘You know,’ she says, ‘everybody’s gone. Yeah,’ she says. ‘First Mom.’ Sarah says this as if her mother is off on a trip, like she may be returning any day. There are times when I have wondered if Sarah has really dealt with the death of her mother or simply withdrawn into her own protected world of fantasy.

‘Then Auntie Laurel disappeared, and now you guys,’ she says. ‘I want to know what’s going on. When are you coming back?’ she says. She is actually angry, like give me a break, enough of these adult games.

For the first time it strikes me what all of this has done to Sarah. Every familiar point of contact in her world is now gone. And though I am trying to reassemble a part of her life, getting her aunt out from under the cloud of murder, even this makes me an absentee father who is either in court or locked in his office, mulling over papers until the wee hours.

There is a lapse on the phone, Danny talking. She laughs a little, then listens some more.

‘There is a lady,’ she tells Danny. ‘Her name is Dana. But I don’t like her.’

With this I look at Sarah.

She’s studying me to see the effect. I suspect that this is intended more for me than Danny.

‘I didn’t say she was bad or anything.’ Sarah getting defensive. ‘Just I don’t like her.’

‘That’s not a nice thing to say,’ I tell her.

She makes a face, like the truth seldom is, her ear glued to the phone.

I have allowed Sarah to grieve for Nikki in her own way, and I see this, her attitude toward Dana, as a part of that normal mourning process. I would deal with it, except that I view it as both necessary and harmless. There is no real hostility here, but rather an undercurrent of suspicion on the part of my daughter toward anyone who might be seen as a surrogate for her mother. In this case the only apparent candidate is Dana, for we seem of late to have been thrown together. The circumstances of Laurel’s case have seen to that. For my own part it is not an unpleasant experience, this woman of mystical beauty and quick intellect. In the last week we have spent a couple of warm evenings by the fire at my house, after Sarah has gone to bed, sipping wine and talking until late. The hum of adult voices heard once more in my home. The communion of two lonely souls.

For the last two days she has been in Washington, D.C., business on the impending judgeship. While Sarah tugged at my sleeve with demands that I read to her, Dana and I have spoken each night by phone, long distance.

We have discussed in general terms a possible vacation to tropic climes in the fall, the three of us. Dana has suggested something like Club Med, where they have special programs for children. So we have started to collect literature.

All of this, I suspect, has generated a kind of rivalry rippling just under the surface, little jealousies that a seven-year-old mind lacks the art to conceal.

Suddenly Sarah is finished talking with Danny. In the abrupt way children end all conversations, she hands me the receiver and is off the bed and down the hall.

‘Danny?’

He’s still there. ‘Yeah.’

‘Don’t be a stranger,’ I tell him. ‘Call whenever you want.’ I tell him I’ll leave word with my secretary at work to break in if he should call. He has the number.

‘Is the Vespa okay?’ he says.

‘It’s fine. But I keep finding Sarah out there playing on it, pretending she’s taking you for a ride,’ I tell him. ‘But she’s very careful.’

‘That’s okay. Just don’t let her mess with the box on the back, all right? All my stuff’s in there.’ The world coming apart and Danny is worried about ‘stuff’ in the box on the back of his bike.

‘It’s locked, remember? I assume you have the key.’

‘Yeah, well, just tell her to be careful.’

‘I will,’ I tell him.

‘I’m sorry about all of this,’ his last words to me on the phone. A boy, growing into a man, taking on the burdens of his mother.

‘It’s not your problem,’ I tell him. ‘We’ll work it out. Try not to think about it,’ I say. And we hang up.