Undue Influence (5 page)

Nikki was commode-hugging sick, the aftermath from a session of chemo. I was left to entertain Laurel and his eminence in my pajamas at two in the morning. Seems Laurel was feeling particularly sinful that night.

She ended up last in line for confession, and afterward with a friend invited their young confessor out to dinner. After doing penance over cocktails, Laurel managed to ditch her female friend and convince her companion in black to loose his collar while they did a few sashays on the dance floor. By the time they reached my house, shit-faced as they were, Laurel was busy putting the bans of celibacy to the ultimate test.

There are times when my sister-in-law can be the devil in drag. Still, I don’t think she could kill.

“Understand you’re related?” says Colby. She’s looking at me, nodding toward the house behind tape, in bright lights. I look at Hemple. She gives me an expression, like “me and my big mouth.”

“One-time brother-in-law,” I tell her. “Past tense.”

“Oh.” Silence like she’s stumbled over some aging uncle’s peccadillo.

“You live in the neighborhood?” I ask her.

“A few blocks away.” She nods in a direction over her shoulder somewhere. The years have been kind to her.

“You?” she says.

“Just passing by.” As this escapes my lips I think, at two in the morning Colby must wonder what tavern I’m coming from. Still, I’m not anxious to advertise that I am here on business, in pursuit of the wayward Laurel, or to feed suspicions that she might be involved in the activities across the street. It seems the two women Hemple and Colby have done their thing together on the Queen’s Bench, a local club of women lawyers, where they’ve followed each other through the chairs of high office, part of the network for advancement among the fairer set. “Dana’s with the U.S. Attorney’s office,” says Hemple.

“White-collar unit.” She says this with emphasis, like hanging a sign “prosecutor present.”

“Ah.” It hits me. Where we did battle, Colby and I. A sentencing matter in the federal courts, back when I was with the firm. Dana Colby cleaned my clock. A federal district judge, another woman, probably one of their clan, put my client away for an ice age.

There is not enough good behavior this side of heaven to have seen his release. “You look cold.” Colby’s talking to Kathy Merlow.

“She’s just getting over the flu,” says her husband.

“You should take her home,” says Colby.

All of this is going right past Kathy Merlow. Her gaze is fixed on Jack’s house. “Do you think they’ll bring her out soon?”

For a moment I’m not sure who Kathy Merlow is talking about. Then it strikes me. She’s been bit by morbid curiosity. She wants to see Melanie Vega’s body cloaked in its shroud. “Did you know her?” I ask.

She looks at me for the first time, wide-eyed.

“Oh, no. No. We never met.” She seems emphatic on the point. “We didn’t know either of them. We just haven’t been here that long. We don’t know anybody, really,” she says, big round eyes looking at me. She seems relieved by the thought that the Merlows and Vegas were strangers, as if perhaps violence is something contagious, and that with distance comes immunity like a vaccine. “I think we should be getting home.” George is looking at his wife like maybe all of this has been too much for her. He looks at Colby, then whispers something in her ear. She nods, but no smile. I suspect he’s making amends to get his wife out of here. “Come on, let’s go,” he says. He tugs Kathy Merlow toward the street.

“Nice to meet you,” he tells me. “Wish it coulda been under better circumstances,” he says. They wander off toward the street. “Nice couple,” says Colby.

“Yeah.” I watch them as they go, across the cul-de-sac and up the driveway to their house. “But they must be recluses,” I say.

“Why’s that?”

“They don’t know the Vegas but they live next door.”

She looks at me, a puzzled expression. “You’re right,” she says.

Suddenly my attention is drawn to the “south lawn,” to the portico that is Jack’s fantasy of helicopters and grand trips of state. There’s action on the front porch I see Vega and another man come out. lack’s scanning the crowd in front of the house. Even from this distance his image is one of death warmed. His face haggard, there are bags the size of blimps under his eyes. But my focus is riveted on the guy behind him.

My blood runs cold at the sight of Jimmy Lama, the cop from hell. Lama and I go back a ways, to a time years ago when I had him drawn and quartered on charges of excessive force in the arrest of one of my clients. More recently we tangled in the trial of Talia Potter, when Lama, in violation of a court-issued gag order, leaked damaging information to the press, seeming to link me to the murder of Talia’s husband, Ben Potter, the senior partner of my old law firm. Talia and I had been an item. To my discredit we’d had a brief affair during a period when I was separated from Nikki. But Lama’s efforts to draw me into Ben’s murder came to naught when Talia was acquitted of her husband’s murder, and the riddle of who did it and why was solved. On Lama’s scorecard I am still ahead. Jimmy was disciplined for violating the court’s order, a suspension without pay, and a demotion. Vega’s searching the crowd, looking, shading his eyes against the glare of the lights, police vehicles in his driveway, some with their light bars gyrating with synchronous color. Then suddenly Vega points with an outstretched arm, finger like a cocked pistol, Jimmy Lama at his shoulder taking a bead dead center on me. “Counselor. Fancy seeing you,” he says. “And I thought life was too short.” The smile on Jimmy Lama’s face is nothing less than sinister. Lama’s most dominant feature is his blockhouse build. Lama is square, from the angle of his jaw to what is left of the hair on his head, leveled by shears to a flattop. The haircut is a holdover from his days in the military. I am told he once did M.P. duty in an embassy behind the iron curtain. I have often wondered for which side. Lama and I have a long and untoward history, a level of enmity that rivals things between Arabs and Israelis. Our respective bunkers have been the courthouse and the cop shops of this town. Lama stands about five-nine, though his moral stature is somewhat more dwarfed. He is ambitious to a fault, and corrupted in the way many aspiring people are, not by money so much as by the pursuit of upward mobility. His career has been stunted to a degree by our last outing. He has spent the last three years getting back to level ground following the disciplinary action for which he blames me. Tonight I wear this like a badge of honor. The young cop, the uniform who hauled me off the street, introduces me like I don’t know Lama. “So it’s lieutenant again,” I say. “That explains the noise,” I tell him, “that old familiar sound.”

“What’s that?” says Lama.

“The scraping of the barrel downtown,” I say.

Mean little slits for eyes. He utters some profanity, something that ends with his ass, and commands me to pucker. He says this low under his breath so that Hemple and the other cops can’t hear it. Maybe it is true that one mellows with age. Jimmy Lama has learned a little restraint.

Ten years ago my words would have earned a change in the contour of my head, conforming to the ripples in the handle of his flashlight. Lama’s sitting, sprawled in a leather club chair by the fireplace. He’s nibbling on a toothpick, a pacifier since he gave up smoking a few years ago. Gail Hemple has come with me inside Jack’s house, though she wasn’t summoned. I think Hemple is planning on playing lawyer-client games with Lama, privileges and immunities, trying to draw fire away from me. I could do the same thing, but it would take Lama only an hour and a couple of phone calls to find out that I never made an appearance in court as counsel on behalf of Laurel. Then he would be all over my ass like hot tar under feathers. “Where’s the lady?” he says. This is directed to me.

“Lose somebody?” I say.

“Your sister-in-law, jackass.” He shakes his head, grins around the toothpick. “Make it easy and tell us where she is?”

“You might try her apartment. That’s where she lives.”

“Nobody home,” he says.

“Really?”

Lama’s chewing the toothpick to a dull point.

Jack’s now joined us in the living room. On my way in, the coroner and an assistant were wheeling the body down the curved staircase, Jack following along behind. He gave me only a sideways glance, a look of vengeance. When he sees me now his eyes flame. Vega’s appearance tells me this is more than grief. He’s been seeking solace in a bottle. He’s looking for more. He heads for the liquor cart in the corner. Halfway there he stops, a thought he can’t suppress. “You son of a bitch,” he says. “I told you. I warned you.” His finger’s shaking in my face.

“Laurel was over the line and you knew it,” he says. He talks like all the facts are in, the deed done, case closed. All he needs now is to catch Laurel. It’s an awkward moment, wrestling with the spouse. I look at Lama.

He smiles. No relief here.

Finally I offer Jack my sympathies, tell him I’m sorry for whatever has happened, but that he’s making a lot of assumptions, jumping to conclusions. “Bullshit.” Vega jumps me verbally. I have given him what he wanted a target of defense for Laurel. “The bitch killed Melanie,” he says. “She’s got a loose screw. You saw her in court,” he tells me.

“Threats and violence. Went after Melanie in the hallway like an animal.” He’s trying to persuade now. “She was emotional,” I say. “An argument, that’s all.”

“An argument!” says Jack. His eyes are glazed over with anger. “What do you want, Kodachrome?” he says. “You want it in living color? Laurel pulling the trigger on videotape? “Oh, you’d love that,” he says. “Like all the rest of the lawyers, you’d chop it up into suey. A lotta freeze-frames and lies,” he says. “So you could charge Melanie with impeding the flight of a bullet. Well, it ain’t gonna happen here,” he says. “Laurel’s going down,” he tells me. “If I have to pull every fucking lever in the state.” He stands there for several seconds, waiting to see if I want to offer another line of reasoning. I want to ask him where he was tonight, whether he saw anything, whether in fact there is a videotape or if all of this is merely the wrath-filled ravings of Jack’s imagination. But discretion overtakes advocacy. I stand silent. There’s some mumbling under Vega’s breath, finally a victory in a bad day. He passes behind me. The next thing I hear is the tinkling of ice cubes in a tumbler, bourbon splashing on rocks. I would ask him for a drink, but I’m afraid he’d throw the bottle. Lama’s waiting to see if Jack can spray any more bile on me. One of Jimmy’s joys in life, spreading pain. He senses that it’s over. “You got pictures?” I turn this on Lama.

“You’re here to answer the questions,” he says. “I’ll ask them.”

“We’ve got nothing to say.” Hemple chimes in.

“Who invited you?” he says.

“I’m Laurel Vega’s lawyer.” Hemple pulls a business card from her jacket pocket. Hands it to Lama. He looks at it, smiles, then begins to pick his teeth with one of the card’s sharp little corners. “Oh, good,” he says. “Then you can tell us where your client is?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “Write that down,” says Lama. “Her lawyer has no idea where the suspect is.” Another detective across the room scribbles in a little notebook. “Maybe you know where she was earlier this evening about eleven-thirty?” says Lama. Silence from Hemple.

“Seems she doesn’t. Write it down,” says Lama. “Got anything else you want to tell us?” he says. A shit-eating grin on Lama’s face. Hemple doesn’t respond.

“Gee, thanks for coming.” He smiles, Mr. Duplicity, then motions to one of the uniformed cops, who escorts Hemple to the door. Lama turns his venom back on me. “And where were you at eleven-thirty tonight?”

“Gee, Jimmy, do I need a lawyer?”

“Not unless you know something we don’t.”

“Could you write that down,” I say this to the dick across the room, who offers up a little hiccup of a laugh. “Always the smart-ass,” says Lama.

“I understand you been playin’

guardian angel for your sister-in-law. Guess you kinda blew it tonight,” he says. I don’t give him a response.

“Guess you’d know her better than most people?”

A concession from my look.

“Then you’d probably know if she has a gun?”

I give him bright eyes like maybe he’s hit something.

“What kind?” I say.

“Nine millimeter, semiautomatic.”

“Wouldn’t have a clue,” I tell him.

Lama gives me a sneer. Now he’s given up information with nothing in return. My guess is they don’t have the gun. If they did, Lama would have made a make and model. I assume they have loose cartridge casings and whatever ballistics survive when lead meets tissue or bounces off bone. “When’s the last time you saw her?” he says. Now he’s pissed.

“Who?” I ask.

He gives me a look, “like don’t fuck with me,” snaps the toothpick in half, and spits the broken piece on the floor. I make a face, think a couple of seconds like maybe it’s a strain to consider back that far.

“This afternoon the courthouse.”

“And you haven’t seen her since?”

I shake my head.

The cop with the little book is making notes.

“Then you wouldn’t have any idea where the kids are?”

“I assume with their mother.” God’s own gift, I think. Two walking, breathing little alibis, for whatever they’re worth. “Goddamn,” says Jack. He’s shaking, hand with the glass outstretched, booze all over the rug. “She’s murdered my wife, now she running with my children. What the hell are you guys waiting for?” It was one thing when Jack was chewing on my ass, now he’s getting on Lama’s case. A head signal from Jimmy and suddenly Vega is being quietly hustled from the room. Condolences from the cop, but he’s got to go, official business being done here. Vega turns to look at me on the way out. “She’d better let ‘em go,” he says.

He’s talking about the kids. Jack has visions of Laurel in Rio. I know better. She has no money. “You hear me,” he says. “I’ll leave no stone unturned.” He says this like he honestly believes I can deliver a message. Then he’s history, out the door, straining to get a last look at me over the cop’s shoulder. Lama smiles, puts another toothpick in.