Undue Influence (50 page)

He’s passing out copies, one set to the clerk and another to Lama at the counsel table, where he is joined by Cassidy. I show this document to Dana and she identifies it a list of federally protected witnesses on a computer-generated form, something used by Justice and electronically sent over secure channels to field offices around the country. She asks me where I got this. I do not tell her. It came from a gracious editor at a newspaper in Lexington, Kentucky. What finally brought me to my senses was the news article read to me by Harry months before, the piece about the botched computer sale by the Department of Justice, the weak magnet used to erase the computer hard discs, and the eventual sale of these computers, still containing their highly confidential information, to the public. It was the news article that Harry hung on the bulletin board of the dayroom at the county jail, the one warning snitches to beware. “Your department had reason to believe that the Merlows were compromised, didn’t they?”

“We had reason to believe that a number of relocated witnesses had been compromised.”

“Why?” She confirms the almost laughable folly with the computers. How Justice and the
FBI
tried to buy them back, even raided some homes and businesses, using warrants, to confiscate some of the equipment. I can tell this gets Harry’s ire, all the juices of the original story repackaged and concentrated. In the end the information was too far disseminated for the government to unring this particular gong. So they set about trying to relocate the witnesses, new identities on a priority basis, those believed to be most in danger first. “But they didn’t get to the Merlows right away, did they?”

“No.”

“Not until after Melanie Vega was murdered?” I say.

“That’s right.”

“Ms. Colby, I want you to think very carefully. I’m going to ask you one final question, and I want you to answer clearly for the court. What did the Department of Justice discover after the murder of Melanie Vega that so upset them, that caused them to conceal this information, to withhold it from an attorney defending his client on charges in connection with that murder? Tell us,” I say, “what was it that they found in those compromised computer records?” Everything I have done, the entire foundation I have laid up to this point, has led to this question. Dana sits poised in the box, the only person in the courtroom besides myself who knew that this moment would come.

l “They discovered… ” Her voice cracks a bit. “They discovered that the street address, the new street address on the computer records for Kathy Merlow, was wrong,” she says. “A typographical error.”

“Whose address was it?”

“It belonged to Jack and Melanie Vega.”

There is a palpable roar that echoes through the courtroom, an audible wave of indignation that rolls through the public areas of this room the thought that those charged with justice would conceal such an outrage.

An innocent citizen dead, another on trial for her murder, when the barons of bureaucracy in Washington have known the truth for many months. Reporters are out of their chairs heading for the cameras in the hallway outside, visions of the lead on “Headline News.” Woodruff is fanning pages of the computer document on the bench. When he finds it, he looks at me from on high, a glazed expression. His glasses fairly slide to the end of his nose before they drop off, where he catches them on the rebound off the blotter on the bench. He sinks back into the tufted leather of his chair. Melanie Vega and her child were murdered because a clerk in the bowels of the bureaucracy in Washington made a typographical error. At this moment, the expression on Woodruff’s face is a hybrid between wonder and fury. I can only surmise how high this thing goes. There is no doubt in my mind that Cabinet members in Washington will be ducking for cover by nightfall, an attorney general doing mea culpas, insisting that the buck stops at her desk, while she casts for underlings to throw onto the pyres of sacrifice, to appease the gods of politics. It is a scenario we have seen before, staged in other scandals. As I look at her, drained and worn in the witness box, there is not a doubt in my mind that Dana will figure high on their list of victims. Her dreams of judicial glory are wafting on the winds, like the odors of carbonized wood in the wake of a wildfire. Woodruff is banging his gavel on the bench, trying to bring the place back to order.

Cassidy is trying to holler some objection or a plea from her counsel table, but cannot be heard. Finally the judge’s voice breaks over the din. “There will be order or I will clear the room,” he says. “Mr. Bailiff, have those people sit down or tell them to leave.” It takes nearly a minute for what passes as order to be restored, a restless vapor of electricity floating just above our heads. “Your honor, we, the state, knew nothing about this.” Cassidy’s protestations from the counsel table.

“Speak for yourself,” says Dana.

For the first time this morning I am surprised by the words that pass from Dana’s lips. “I cannot prove that you knew,” Dana says. “But your investigator sure as hell did.” What is clear is that Dana is not going down on this alone.

With this Cassidy is floored, looking at Lama with a face of betrayal.

If it were anyone else she would not believe it, but with Jimmy’s track record to date, instinct tells Morgan not to jump to his defense too quickly. “Please explain that?” I say. Dana is still my witness.

“I mean that as liaison to the
FBI
in the postal bombing case, Lieutenant Lama was informed that the victim, Mrs. Reed, was a friend of Kathy Merlow, and that Mrs. Merlow was a federally protected witness.”

Suddenly there is more than a crack in the door. There is a stillness in the courtroom, the sense that even if they do not know how, a second shoe has just dropped. “Your honor, this was never disclosed,” I say.

“Exculpatory evidence critical to our case, withheld by the state,” I tell him. Lama has known since before we went to trial that Kathy Merlow was the target of a hired killer. I look at Cassidy, and I know in this moment that she is as much victim in this as Laurel and I. Lama has used her in his war with me. She is protesting that she never knew, that Lama never told her. Jimmy is out of his chair, singing a swan song, telling the court that he didn’t understand the significance, his reason that he never told anyone. He wants Woodruff to believe that this, dirt that every cop on the beat would chew on over doughnuts and coffee, a connection with their idols at the
FBI
, that Jimmy would keep this to himself ignorant of its consequences. Woodruff does not buy this. The only question, he says, is whether or not there was malice in this act of concealment. The judge is now talking legal parlance, the difference between a mistrial and outright dismissal. For us the distinction is cosmic. Cassidy is pleading for a mistrial, no hard evidence of any intentional wrong, she says. An oversight. This would give her the chance to retry Laurel, to put us to this agony one more time. If Woodruff dismisses with the jury in the box, jeopardy would attach.

Laurel would be a free woman. “You would subject the defendant to a second trial?” says Woodruff.

This he poses to Cassidy. She hems and haws. “A question I would have to discuss with my boss,” she tells him. Cassidy simply wants to avoid the hammer being dropped in this way, a judge forcing her to eat crow, feathers and all. “One question,” says Woodruff. “Knowing what you know now, would you, as a professional prosecutor, have brought charges against the defendant, Laurel Vega, in this case?” It is the ultimate issue. Cassidy hesitates for only the briefest moment, the answer is not on her lips, but in her eyes, an admission that Woodruff reads as well as I. It is in this instant of hesitation that I hear the silence of salvation. “That’s what I thought,” says Woodruff. “I will not subject the defendant to the uncertain anxieties of a second trial,” he says.

“The case is dismissed. The defendant is discharged. I will make my findings of malice in writing, to be submitted to the parties.” As he says these words, there is a baleful smile that passes across Austin Woodruff’s face, the kind you see when a judge knows that he has, in the end, dispensed justice. “This court stands adjourned.” I don’t even have time to thank him. There is a throng coming around the railing, Laurel pressed in a sea of bodies. I move to the table. “What happened?” she says.

“You are free.”

For what seems like an eternity, I think she cannot comprehend this, then suddenly she stands, her arms about my neck, the warmth of wet tears on the side of my face. “Can I go to my children?” she says. “You can go anywhere you want,” I tell her. “You are free.”

I tell her that Danny is in town. This brings her instantly back to the realm of sobriety. “Where?” is all she asks. I tell her at her apartment. She wants to see him immediately, and asks me to call Julie.

People pushing in with notepads, asking questions, how she feels, whether she thinks justice was done, whether she is angry with the government for not disclosing the truth about the federal witness, whether she is considering a civil suit. Harry stops her from answering this last in a moment of euphoria. “We are studying it,” is all he will say. Harry has his abacus out, wondering if we can add to the national debt. In this instant of chaos I am pushed away, floating in a current of bodies beyond Laurel’s reach as several reporters and some well-wishers get between us. Laurel shouts, cupped hand to mouth. I cannot understand her.

There is a fleeting image, a face beyond the crowd like a subliminal image on film, something from an arched church window in Hana, and then it is gone. I shake my head, fatigue and stress. She is shouting again.

“Dinner at Fulton’s, six o’clock,” she says. “My treat.”

I nod, and she is gone. And so we end on a cheery note, five happy humans sitting around a table in the underground digs of Fulton’s, a steak house in Old Town. Outside are flickering gas lamps, cobblestone streets, and broad board sidewalks that front the river where miners and gamblers once mingled in the heyday of the gold rush. We congregate around a table and toast Laurel and her freedom with after-dinner drinks. She is flanked by Danny on one side and Sarah on the other, and spends much time this evening alternately squeezing and kissing each of them. Julie is on a flight from Michigan, scheduled to arrive at the airport late tonight. I take it as a sign that this, the freedom to hold and love, to bond with the children, is in the end the ultimate reward of liberty, at least for Laurel. The kids join in salute with some dark fizzing cola from their glasses.

Danny actually proposes a toast “to the greatest mother a kid ever had.”

I give Sarah a squeeze as her expression becomes distant and her eyes misty with this, the knowledge that she will never be able to honor Nikki in this way what would make this night complete. Laurel exudes the weariness that comes from victory after great struggle, an emotional release that gives itself up in a kind of quiet and restrained euphoria, as if she might crack like eggshell china if she were to completely let go. After half a bottle of wine and a couple of cocktails the smile seems durably planted on her face, but she is rapidly becoming maudlin.

I sense a flood of tears just under the surface. What seven months behind bars and the prospect of death at the hands of the state will do to the normal psyche. except for Danny, who arrived on the little Vespa, Harry called taxis to bring us all here, to avoid the designated driver, a pack of drunks out on the town. He does me a favor and takes Sarah home. It is late and she needs to get to sleep. He will baby-sit for just a few minutes, as I have things to discuss with Laurel. Then I will head home myself, to the first restful night’s sleep in months. Laurel and I do Alfonse and Gaston in front of the waiter, fighting over who will pick up the check. When he finally takes her credit card it is only to return three minutes later to inform her that because payment has not been received in several months it is no longer valid. The final humiliation. Laurel is mortified. She leaves with Danny to wait for me outside by the Vespa while I pick up the check, assurances that she can pay me back when she has the means. It takes several minutes, and finally I climb the stairs to the street level and exit onto the plank sidewalk in front of Fulton’s. Second Street in Old Town on a weekend is racing cars and young girls in skirts to the crotch, hitting bars where the boys hang out. But tonight, a Monday, it is largely deserted. A single car, a small van, is parked at the curb in front of the restaurant. Across I Street at the corner, maybe seventy-five yards away, Laurel and Danny are talking by the little motor scooter with its wooden box, Danny’s catchall of possessions on the back. He has parked near a bike rack in front of the State Railroad Museum, a two-story brick-and-glass structure that takes up an entire block adjoining the old S.P. railyard. Laurel has her back to me, and seems deep in conversation with Danny as he works the combination on the chain lock to the scooter. It is early spring and the Delta breeze has kicked up, putting a chill to the night air. I stop on the corner for a moment to tuck the receipt for dinner into my wallet so Laurel does not see it.

She would insist on taking it and somehow paying me back tomorrow. A janitor is rolling the tools of his trade in a small cart over the rough pressed concrete sidewalk across the street, unlocking the main entrance to the Railroad Museum for his nightly rounds. I hoof it to the corner and step down a long foot onto the cobblestone street and start to walk.

Like a firefly in the tropics it alights on the stone surface a few feet ahead of me and just as quickly disappears. I saunter a step or two to the left, and it appears, only this time it seems to dance off the shoulder of my coat before projecting onto the roadway a dozen feet ahead of me, then, just as quickly, is gone again. It is then that it strikes me the intense narrow beam, the concentrated red dot of laser light. Before I can think, I take three quick steps to the left, and hear the pop of the silenced bullet as it streaks past my right ear and ricochets off the cobblestone street. Caught by the tenor of metal fracturing at the speed of sound, Laurel turns. By this time I am in full stride running away from Fulton’s, across the intersection, my arms flailing. “Run! Go! Get the hell out of here!” I must look like a rag doll.