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?’