We retire to one of the rooms back of the court, where Harry and I examine this stuff privately. It is gold; certified copies of the grand jury indictment and record of conviction, Jack’s plea to the federal district court on multiple counts of political corruption. Dana has even provided copies for Woodruff and opposing counsel, with a note that the press will be alerted to the conviction at two this afternoon. Jack can expect a crowd on his way out, boom mikes in the face and bright lights.
This afternoon Harry is ready to subpoena Vega’s bank records, personal and legislative, a legal copy service is waiting for him to telephone with the word. If Jack hired somebody to do the deed, as Dana suspects, there should be some large cash withdrawal in the period just before and possibly just after Melanie’s murder. When it comes to money, Vega is a prudent man. He would want to work on the installment plan.
This afternoon I go to work on a theme that will become central to our case, that Jack has every reason in the world for incriminating Laurel in this case. I ask him if he is sorry to see his former wife, the mother of his children here, at the defense table charged with murder.
In the tempered terms of a statesman he calls it ‘a tragedy.’
We review Lama’s earlier testimony that it was Jack who immediately fingered Laurel without a shred of hard evidence the night of the murder.
‘They asked me if I knew anyone who might want to kill my wife,’ he says. ‘She’d made death threats. What was I supposed to say?’ Jack has spent the noon hour having his ass kicked by Cassidy. He is now doing better, and he knows it.
‘When did you take legal custody of the children?’ I ask.
He gives me a date.
‘Then it was after the arrest of their mother for murder that you finally got what you wanted?’
‘She was no longer available to care for them. What else was there to do?’
‘She wasn’t available because she was in jail, based largely on your accusations.’
‘That she made death threats against Melanie,’ he says.
‘And the assertion that the bathroom carpet found in her possession was from your house.’ This is not a question, but he answers it.
‘It was not an assertion. It was the truth,’ he says.
‘Based solely on your word,’ I tell him. ‘And the fact remains, you got the children and she went to jail. I suppose that’s one way to end a bitter custody battle.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he says.
‘What do you think it means?’ Better from his mouth than mine.
‘If you’re trying to imply that I falsely accused her, you’re wrong. Worse,’ he says, ‘you’re a liar.’
‘So you wouldn’t do anything like that? You would never knowingly deceive the authorities in their investigation of the case?’
‘No,’ he says. Jack puts up a wholly indignant look, the pious and trusted public official.
‘You just forgot about the gun?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘Let’s talk about how you found out your wife was pregnant. You told the court in earlier testimony that your wife told you about this. Is that correct?’
He looks at me. ‘To the best of my recollection.’ More faulty memory.
‘To the best of your recollection?’ I smile broadly and turn toward the jury. ‘This is your wife telling you that she was about to have your child. Surely you would remember something like that?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I remember it.’
‘And when was this, approximately?’
He thinks for a moment.
‘Late last summer sometime.’
‘Can’t you be more specific?’
‘I think it was August or September. I can’t be sure.’
‘And where did she tell you this? What were you doing?’
‘I can’t remember. I think it was in the living room. I was probably reading.’
‘You can’t remember what you were doing? This news must have made a real impression on you,’ I say.
He looks at me. If Jack had something in his hand at this moment he would throw it.
‘Mr. Vega, do you remember receiving a telephone call on October tenth from a Dr. John Phillips, your wife’s obstetrician, when she was out of the house?’
It is a thick look I get from him, a flicker of eyelids questioning how could I know that.
‘Do you remember being told at that time by Dr. Phillips that Melanie was pregnant?’ As I say this I am holding telephone records in my hand, the familiar forms by the local carrier in this area with red lettering across the top that I am perusing. Jack cannot miss this. What he doesn’t know is that these are mine from my house, not his or the physician’s.
He considers for a moment. Wipes a bead of sweat off his upper lip. ‘I might have,’ he says.
‘You might have talked to Dr. Phillips?’
‘Yes.’
‘And he told you about the pregnancy, didn’t he?’ Telephone records might show a call was made. They wouldn’t tell me the content of the conversation. For this, either the doctor has talked, or I have information from the tap on his phone. Jack knew the feds had tapped. Either way there are risks in lying.
‘You’ve been prying into a lot of personal things,’ he says.
‘Your honor, I would ask that the witness be instructed to answer the question.’
Before Woodruff can speak. ‘He might have,’ says Jack.
‘The doctor told you about the pregnancy, did he not?’
‘The doctor, Melanie. What difference?’ he says.
Jack still doesn’t see where I’m coming from.
‘I’m going to ask you one more time. What did the doctor tell you?’
‘Something about a test,’ he says.
‘A pregnancy test?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about it?’
‘That the test was positive,’ he says.
‘Meaning?’
‘That Melanie was pregnant.’
‘So this was on October tenth?’
‘If you say so,’ he says. ‘I don’t know the date.’
‘Would you like to look at the medical records?’ I ask.
‘The doctor made a notation of the conversation,’ I turn to the table to get them. These we have subpoenaed from the physician.
‘I’ll take your word for it,’ he says.
‘Well, then, I ask you, how could Melanie have told you that she was pregnant as early as August or September if she wasn’t tested until October and the results delivered on October tenth?’
A lot of faces from Jack, mostly pained expressions. He could have a million answers for this, that women know these things before they are tested, that she wasn’t tested until later in the pregnancy, that he was wrong about when Melanie told him. But he doesn’t come up with any of these. Instead he backpedals and trips over his own lie.
‘I thought it was Melanie who first told me. Maybe I was wrong,’ he says. ‘Maybe I heard it from the doctor first. I don’t know what difference it makes.’
The problem here is that Jack can’t be sure what the physician has told me, if anything. Vega can’t recall whether he made admissions at the time of the telephone conversation that this was the first he was hearing of the pregnancy. I could show him the transcript of his tapped phone to assure him that, while as Dana said, ‘you could hear a pin drop,’ Jack did not actually say anything. But it’s too late. It is the problem that when you litter the landscape with too many lies you forget where the truth is.
Vega simply attributes this once more to a faulty memory. Only this time the jury is looking with more than a few arched eyebrows.
‘So from what you can remember now you did not hear about the baby for the first time from Melanie, but from the physician, and this was roughly three weeks before your wife’s death?’
‘I don’t know.’ Jack’s ultimate refuge when cornered.
‘Did you ever talk to your wife about the pregnancy?’
‘Sure we talked about it. What the hell,’ he says. ‘What? You think we wouldn’t discuss something like this?’