‘Things like what?’
‘Stuff on the assemblyman.’ He tells me this, and then, like speak of the devil, his note pad is up to the corner of his mouth, shading it from any lip-reading, a nervous eye to the door.
Jack Vega has just entered the courtroom.
Dicks screws up his face a little, like maybe he’s not sure whether I’ve undone this particular family knot. Maybe Jack and I split poker pots on Thursday nights.
I let him know, in a few words under my breath, that there is no love lost.
‘What are you hearing?’ I say.
‘That he’s coming under some intense scrutiny — of the federal variety.’ He gives me a face like some Frenchmen judging a foreign wine. ‘FBI, and the U.S. Attorney,’ he says.
There has been talk of a hot federal probe for months, a lot of smoke but no fire. Everybody figured the air was clear when a state senator, the acknowledged subject of the inquiry, was given a clean bill of health. It came in a bland statement by the Justice Department, like a medical press briefing on the condition of the legislature — the patient has cancer coming out its ass, but we can’t find it on the X rays.
Still, maybe Jack’s power party is about to end. He has been doing business with an ardent passion lately, shaking the givers out of the political money tree. With his term ending, Jack’s running out of time, trying to sell his ass before it sinks to the value of Confederate currency.
‘What are they looking at, the feds?’ I ask him.
‘If we knew that, we’d be doing a story,’ he says. ‘But word is he’s under investigation,’ says Dicks. ‘We hear rumors, no sufficient confirmation yet, just rumors, of another federal grand jury.’
I would not want to shatter Dicks’ illusions, but if Jack is wearing a wire, he is no longer the one under investigation. Suddenly Vega’s electronic connections are beginning to make sense. It had nothing to do with Melanie’s murder. My guess is that Jack is aboard the good ship justice, chained and manacled, and in the brig. With a full federal court press, the squeeze on, if they got him on film taking a bribe, some hotshot agent looking for an Oscar, Vega would whittle in his pants on show night.
He would convince the feds that the Capitol is a den of thieves, not that they would need much convincing. And if anyone whispered the word wire, there is not a doubt in my mind Jack would show up with cables coming out his ears and a car battery strapped to his ass.
I see a guard bringing Laurel in through the steel door that leads from the holding cells. My conversation with Dicks comes to an end. He drifts off to circle again with the pack. Having planted this seed in my curiosity patch, he will no doubt watch to see if it sprouts during trial.
Laurel is sans the shackles and chains, though she is still wearing the orange jail jumper, like some farmer’s daughter in papa’s overalls. With no jury in the box, for the moment, her looks are irrelevant to the interest of justice.
She sits down at the counsel table and I join her.
Not a word, she takes my hand on top of the table. Her look over at me is only fleeting, a smile, forced in bad times. In our few conversations she has seemed embarrassed that her grief has been laid on my plate. There have been repeated promises that she will pay every dime of her legal fees. At one point she even told me to bring on the public defender. She would qualify for services.
‘What’s going to happen?’ she says. ‘Here today.’
‘Just conforming charges to evidence,’ I tell her. It is hard to imagine that they could do more damage. I am thinking maybe some legally ham-handed effort to shore up their special circumstances, to bolster the theory that Laurel was skulking around Jack’s house that night, hiding in closets, waiting for Melanie to come around a corner.
Harry has his own theory. He is guessing that they will charge Laurel with robbery — the theft of the bathroom rug that she was washing in Reno, and which she has yet to explain. The crime of robbery in connection with a murder falls under the felony-murder doctrine, its own form of special circumstances that justifies a death sentence.
I have told Harry this is garbage. Robbery would require evidence that Laurel formed the intent to take the rug before she confronted Melanie. No one has ever accused Nelson and his staff of being mentally wounded. It would take such an assumption for the state to try this case on the theory that Laurel murdered Melanie over a scrap of carpet.
Commotion, bodies moving, shadows in the corridor beside the judge’s bench. First I see Jimmy Lama, then a feline form coming out ahead of the bailiff. Duane Nelson has made his assignment of counsel, the prosecutor who will do this case.
Morgan Cassidy is part of Nelson’s A-list, one of four or five top trial deputies out of nearly a hundred lawyers in the office. She does only heavy-duty stuff, a woman with a death wish for every defendant. Five-foot-six, trim in the way only frenetic people are, a Dutch-cut brunette, she is not a lawyer to inspire trust among the defense bar. She has been known to win a few cases at any cost, a woman who will tangle with a judge, and in the best two falls out of three will come up wearing his balls.
She is driven, obsessed with the chase, one of those people who flail themselves hourly for their few missteps in life, who are haunted in their quest for success, but once victorious find no enjoyment in it. A trial against her is like milking a cow in competition with a machine. She has a plug on every leak in your case, with the suction turned on supercharge.
What is as distressing as her presence here is the fact that she comes to the courtroom from the direction of the judge’s chambers. With anyone else I might not care. With Morgan I am wondering what plot she hatches.
Cassidy doesn’t look at me, but Lama gives me a smirk as he passes in front of our table. He does a little shifting of the eyes under this shit-eating grin, to Cassidy then back to me as if to say, ‘Looky what warped soul I brought you.’
They get to their table and arrange a few papers. Lama will sit with her during the trial, the people’s representative. They are entitled to one, and as the detective in charge, Jimmy would be most familiar with the evidence — real, and, at times in Lama’s career, manufactured.
I would get up and talk to Cassidy, ply her a little, but there is no time. On their shadow is Tim Bone, presiding judge of the municipal court. He is up on the bench swinging wood and coming to order.
‘The matter of the People versus Laurel Jane Vega.’
The clerk reads the file number. The stenographer hitting the keys, taking notes.
Bone is tight-lipped, a skinny little man, bald as a baby’s ass, and not to be screwed with. He has a face like yesterday’s wash left too long in the dryer, a lot of wrinkles, and cold.
‘I believe the defendant was informed of her rights at the initial arraignment,’ says Bone. ‘So we can dispense with that here.
‘Ms. Cassidy, have you delivered a copy of the indictment to counsel yet?’ The way he says this makes me think that it has been the subject of some conversation in chambers between the two of them. Like maybe Bone is not happy that we’ve received no notice. As a legal principle it doesn’t matter. The purpose of the arraignment is to identify the defendant and to advise us of the charges pending. But Bone is a stickler for courtesy.
‘Doing it now, your honor.’ Cassidy snaps her attaché case open, takes out a sheaf of papers, and waltzes over to hand it to me. It is stapled, numbered in the left margin, and looks about the same as what we received in the first arraignment.
‘Mr. Madriani, you should take a few moments.’ Bone is beckoning me to read. ‘I’ve told Ms. Cassidy that this is not to happen again. Not in my court. In the future you will deliver copies of charging documents to opposing counsel in advance of arraignment,’ he says.
‘Yes, your honor.’ About as chastened as a hooker caught with her john.
I am reading down the page, the single count of murder, followed by the allegations of special circumstances — lying in wait. So far so good. If Cassidy has goosed it for advantage, I don’t see this. I flip the page. Nothing new. Turn it over. On page three, centered in the middle, big bold print: