Undue Influence (35 page)

“Was the machine open at the time that you confronted the defendant?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t understand. How did the vapors escape?”

“The defendant apparently had opened the machine during one of its cycles and had managed to get her hands into the solvent.”

“Were you concerned about this?”

“Enough to ask the manager what the stuff was.”

“What did she say?”

“Objection. Hearsay.”

“Sustained.”

“Well, let me ask you. Did you have occasion to look at the defendant’s hands?”

“Oh, yes.”

“And what did they look like?”

“A lot of red blotches,” he says. “Chemical burns, all the way up onto her forearms.”

“Did you ask her about this?”

“Yes. She said it was an accident.”

“Accident?” says Cassidy. “Pretty clumsy, wouldn’t you say? Pretty convenient accident?”

“Objection calls for speculation.”

“Sustained.”

“Officer, do you know anything about gunpowder-residue tests?”

“I’m going to object to this whole line of inquiry, your honor. The witness is not a forensics expert. He’s not been qualified.”

“Good point,” says Woodruff.

“He doesn’t have to be a qualified expert to answer whether his department attempted to conduct any powder-residue tests on the defendant’s hands after her arrest.” Woodruff gives it the smell test, a twitching nose. “That’s all you want to ask him?”

“That’s it, your honor.”

“Go ahead,” says the judge.

“Officer Demming do you know whether your department attempted to conduct gunpowder-residue tests on the hands of the defendant after her arrest?”

“I do not.”

“Then you wouldn’t know whether such tests were possible given the chemical contamination of the defendant’s hands?”

“Objection!” I’m on my feet, shouting at the bench.

“That’s it,” says Woodruff. “Not another word,” he says. “The question will be stricken from the record. The jurors are instructed to disregard the last question of the prosecutor. Ms. Cassidy, I want to see you in chambers with Mr. Madriani as soon as we are finished with this witness.”

“Yes, your honor.”

“Nothing further of the witness,” she says. Cassidy takes her seat, declining to engage Woodruff’s eyes as they bore a hole through her forehead. I am steaming down deep, under the collar, but I try not to show this. One of the biggest mistakes you can make on cross: unleashing your venom on a witness who will at least give the appearance of neutrality. “Officer Demming.” I smile at him, big and broad, count to ten. “Thank you for coming all the way down here,” I tell him. “Part of the job,” he says. He looks at me with stern eyes. He knows I am the devil. “I have just a few questions by way of clarification.”

He nods like he understands, though his expression is something you might reserve for a trip to the dentist. “You say that when you received the call to respond to the laundromat that you checked for a warrant, and that you were informed that one had been issued?”

“That’s right.”

“You were also told that the suspect could be armed. Is that correct?”

“It is.”

“And when you took the defendant into custody, did you find a weapon in her possession?”

“No.”

“No weapon concealed on her body?”

“No.”

“No gun in her purse?”

“If we’d found a gun, it would have been listed on the inventory sheet.

Did you see one?” Testy.

“So you didn’t find one?”

“That’s what I said.”

I could push him further, ask him if he thought this was strange, no gun, after being warned that Laurel might be armed and dangerous. But such questions with an obviously hostile witness have a way of imploding. Demming might speculate that if she had a gun, she could have dumped it somewhere, planting the damaging specter in the minds of jurors. I leave this alone.

“When you approached the defendant did she put up any kind of resistance? Did she struggle with you?”

“No.”

I don’t belabor the point that she probably had a dozen handguns pointed at her at the time. Cassidy has wisely stayed away from this since Lama’s testimony, and it does not serve my own ends at this moment.

“Other than the single statement by the defendant that you alluded to earlier, did the defendant say anything else when you took her into cu tody?” He thinks for a moment. If he tries to say it again, I will cut him off. “No. Not that I can remember.”

“She made no confession?”

“No.”

“She didn’t say I did it’?”

“No.”

“She didn’t try to run?”

“That would have been difficult,” he says. “But she didn’t try?”

“No.”

“Officer Demming, you say you found the carpet belonging to Laurel Vega in a commercial laundry unit. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Now, obviously, when you approached the defendant in the laundromat your first concern was not the contents of what was in the laundry, was it?”

“I don’t understand the question.”

“I mean, you had a dangerous suspect on your hands here. Someone you were told was armed and dangerous. Isn’t that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you were sort of preoccupied watching her, weren’t you? A little too busy to be noticing what was tumbling in the laundry unit?”

“That’s true,” he says.

“So how did you find out that the rug inside the unit belonged to the defendant?”

“She told us.”

“She told you?” I make a big point of this, a lot of emphasis in the voice. “Yes. That’s right.”

“So she wasn’t trying to conceal her possession of this item from you?”

“No.”

“She volunteered the information that the rug was hers?”

“That’s correct.” The point is clear. If the rug is incriminating evidence linking her to the murder of Melanie Vega, why would Laurel tell the cops it was hers? Why not just leave it walk away? Tell the cops that whatever was in that unit belonged to somebody else? In Demming there is a little bit of the old adage that the worst witness can always give even the darkest cloud in your case some tint of a silver lining. “That’s all I have for this witness,” I say. Demming collects his papers and starts to get up. “Oh.

One more question, officer.” I’m halfway back to the counsel table when I turn. “About Mrs. Vega’s hands. You said that when you took her into custody they were inflamed, irritated. I think your words were” I look at my notes ” A lot of red blotches. Chemical burns, all the way up onto her forearms.’ “This would be pretty painful, I would imagine?”

“No doubt,” he says.

“Still,” I say, “this didn’t stop you from using metal cuffs, and cuffing both of her hands up behind her back before pushing her into your squad car did it?” He looks at me. “Standard procedure,” he says.

“We’re required to ”

“That’s all for this witness.” I leave him standing there, offering the only excuse he can to the jury a plaintive look. Since we are between witnesses, we don’t retire all the way into the judge’s chambers, but huddle in a narrow hallway out of earshot of the jury, and off the record. Harry and I, Woodruff and Cassidy, stand in the little hallway leading to the judge’s office, in semidarkness. Lama has tried to edge his way in as the representative of the people, as best he can, but he is left dangling with his ass-end halfway in the courtroom, trying to look over the shoulder of the taller Cassidy. Woodruff is clearly kindling some smoldering hostility. He looks at Morgan. “I’ve had all of this I’m going to take,” he says. “Maybe I look the fool to you,” he says. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Cassidy innocently.

“I’m talking about matters that I ruled on in pretrial motions. Do you remember? Correct me if I’m wrong, but we had a conversation about inferences and evidence being destroyed, and you were told that comments on such matters would be off-bounds. Do you remember now?” he says.

“Certainly I do,” she says.

“Then what the hell was that all about?”

Cassidy gives him arching eyebrows, a look as if she’s not sure what he’s talking about. This is enough to ignite a flame under the judge.

“You know very well what I’m talking about,” he snaps. “That crap out there about gunshot residue,” he says. “I gave you latitude for one narrow inquiry and you abused it. You want to be joining Mr. Madriani’s client in jail, just keep it up,” he says. I can tell by the look that Harry finds this particularly pleasing. If there were rocking loge seats, he would go for popcorn. “I keep a little score sheet up on the bench,” Woodruff tells her. “Try me one more time,” he says, “and a little mark goes down by your name. For the first one I’ll fine you.

Collect two of them and when this trial is over I’ll want you back here with your toothbrush. Do I make myself clear?”

“Your honor. The jury has to be allowed to hear the evidence, to form it’s own ”

“Do I make myself clear?” Woodruff booms in the little hallway. I know it can be heard out into the courtroom. Harry is veritably itching, hoping, praying, that she will say just one more word. “Yes, your honor.”

The wrong ones.

“Good.” Woodruff pushes past her and leaves us all standing in the dark, looking at one another, Cassidy rolling her eyes, like what a bastard, but she’s playing to the wrong audience. Jenny Lang is a problem for us.

We thought she was chaff on the state’s witness list, several dozen false targets that the prosecution will always throw out, hoping that you waste your time investigating, chasing a name they have no intention of actually calling. I look at Harry. He gives me a shrug, like let’s hope it’s nothing. Lang is a friend of Laurel’s from a past life. A woman who shared her circle six years ago when their children attended the same private school and Laurel was married to Jack. Since then their paths have diverged. Lang works as a bookkeeper for a lobbying group downtown. She and Laurel do lunch on a rare occasion, the last time about eight months ago. Cassidy has supplied no statement reduced to writing summarizing Lang’s testimony, and when Harry and I grilled Laurel as to why Lang’s name showed up on Morgan’s list of witnesses, Laurel didn’t have a clue. We figured she had to be a loss leader. We were wrong. Today Lang is dressed in a suit, patterns of black and white with a dark cravat at the neck, and high heels, what the busy businesswoman wears on the job. Lang might stand five-foot-three and tip a hundred pounds on the scale, with salt-and-pepper hair cut short off the shoulders. As she turns to take the oath, Harry and I are scrambling trying to figure where and how she fits in their case. She swings her purse from the strap off her shoulder, holding it in one hand while she raises the other and swears to tell the truth. If there is a sense of foreboding in all of this, it comes from the obvious manner in which Lang avoids eye contact with Laurel. “Please state your name for the record?”

“Jenny Lang.”

“Your full legal name?”

“Jennifer Ann Lang.” She is a feeble wreck on the stand, not happy to be here. This hangs like a sign about her neck, like an invitation to a mugging. Morgan has positioned herself in a direct line between the witness and Laurel, feet spread wide, hands on her hips, forming an impenetrable barrier between the two women. “Ms. Lang. Do you know the defendant, Laurel Vega?”

“Yes. We were, we are friends,” she says.

“Can you tell the court how long have you’ve known the defendant?”

“Gee. It’s been I don’t know.” She thinks for a moment. “At least eight years, on and off,” she says. “Our children went to school together.”

“When’s the last time you saw each other, before today?”

“Perhaps six months,” she says. She tries to see around, to find Laurel for some confirmation of this, but is barred by Cassidy, who is now doing her own rendition of the Great Wall of China. “And what was the occasion of that last meeting?”

“A luncheon date,” she says.

“Do you recall the location of that meeting?” All the little details of her memory so that the jury will take with credence whatever damage it is that Lang is intended to inflict here. “It was at Sabrina’s. A restaurant on the Mall. We used to meet there quite often.” There’s a lot of nervous posturing here by the witness, aimless smiles at the judge, at Cassidy, at no one in particular. Jennifer Lang seems to know where Cassidy is headed, and instinct tells me she is not particularly anxious to get there. “Let me take you back to June of last year, Ms. Lang, and ask you if you remember a conversation with another woman, a Ms. Ann Edlin, who worked in your office?”

“I remember Ann.” Suddenly Laurel grips my thigh under the table and leans into my ear. I “Ann Edlin,” she whispers. “She’s on Jack’s staff.” In hushed tones Laurel tells me that this is trouble. The small world that is the Capitol. “And do you remember during a conversation relating certain things to Ms. Edlin, things that had been conveyed to you during your earlier luncheon meeting by the defendant, Laurel Vega?” Jennifer Lang is looking up at the ceiling, her chin quivering, head starting to sway. I think maybe there are tears beginning to well in her eyes. “But you said ”

“Do you remember… ?”

“Yes. I remember talking to Ann.”

“Ms. Edlin?”

“Yes.”

“And do you remember telling her about matters involving the defendant’s marriage, information given to you by Laurel Vega over lunch?”

Lang bites her lower lip like she could chew it off. “I thought we weren’t going to have to get into all of this,” she whines. “Just answer the question,” says Cassidy. “Do you remember ”

“Yes.”

“Let me finish the question. Do you remember telling Ann Edlin about matters involving the defendant’s marriage things related to you by Laurel Vega over lunch?”

“Yes.” Lang is upset. It is clear that some deception is being played out by Morgan. She is famous for little agreements, inducements to get a witness to testify, that suddenly go sour when the witness is on the stand. In Cassidy’s book this saves time and money that might ordinarily be spent preparing and serving subpoenas. “Can you tell the court what it was that you and Laurel Vega talked about that day over lunch?” Lang doesn’t have a choice. Cassidy knows what was said, because she has a witness, unless Lang wants to backtrack and claim that she embellished on the earlier conversation when she repeated it to Edlin. The witness, caught in a trap of her own making. “We talked a lot about a lot of things,” she says.