I was surprised when a maid answered Susan Kerr’s front door. Definitely not a Portland thing. This woman had real money.
The maid led us through three rooms and told us to sit in the fourth. Big on color-coordinated stripes, dots, and paisleys, Susan Kerr’s taste was the decorating equivalent of a Laura Ashley orgy. And, as far as I could tell, every room we passed was what most would consider a formal sitting room and what I would consider useless: no bed, no TV, no snacks. Maybe that was the purpose of the home improvements; I could hear construction noises coming from somewhere deep inside the house.
I recognized Susan Kerr from the press briefing. As I took in her powder-blue suit, French twist, and full face of makeup, a few bars of that Stephen Sondheim song about ladies who lunch came to mind. She had that great dewy skin I always envy, beautiful dark hair and eyes, and had probably even had some work done, but she looked seriously uptight.
Before we’d even completed the introductions, the maid was back with a tray of coffee and tea. “Thanks, Rosie. You heading out to yoga?”
Rosie nodded.
“Go ahead and take my car. I’m not going anywhere.” When Rosie left, Susan explained. “I’ve turned her on to yoga for some back spasms she’s been having, but her sunroof’s leaking, and the shop can’t fix it until next week. Poor thing showed up this morning soaking wet.”
Maybe I had judged Susan Kerr prematurely.
“Sorry about all this banging,” she said, gesturing in the air the way people do when they try to point to a sound. She pulled a clip from her hair and shook her head slightly. Loose brown waves tumbled past her shoulders. “I’ve got this creepy basement fit for Freddy Krueger, and I finally broke down to have it refinished. Anyway, I’m sorry I wasn’t at Clarissa’s last night. I was at a fund-raiser for the museum and didn’t get Tara’s message until nearly midnight. She told me to call her, but I can’t believe she didn’t tell me why. When I woke up this morning, Clarissa’s disappearance was all over the news. Of course, I called Tara at once to find out who I could talk to. She’s the one who gave me your number, Detective Johnson.”
“Tara and Townsend tell us you’re probably Clarissa’s closest friend,” Johnson said. His gentle comment called for a response but didn’t steer the conversation in a particular direction.
“Better than friends, detective.” Kerr leaned forward and touched Johnson’s forearm as she spoke, a gesture that was somehow more reassuring than flirtatious. She must have sensed that Ray had arrived at her home with some preconceived notions. “With my parents gone, I’ve known Clarissa longer than anyone else in my entire life. She’s the closest thing to a sister I’ve got. We’ve been through it all together.”
We stayed silent during her pause. For Johnson and Walker, the silence was probably part of the strategy. I was quiet because I couldn’t help but think of Grace and how lost I’d be if anything ever happened to her.
“I want to believe that there’s an explanation,” Susan said, “but I keep coming back to what I know is true. This is totally unlike Clarissa. She’s so…responsible. Predictable. She’d never go off like this without telling someone: Tara, Townsend, me, her parents. She’s surrounded by people who are close to her. She’d never let us worry this way. Something terrible must have happened.”
This time, the silence that followed wasn’t enough to prod Susan into speaking, so Johnson gave a gentle nudge. “Everything we’ve learned about the case so far leads us to think that we’re investigating a crime here, not just a missing person. Part of what we’re doing now is putting together a timeline for the last few days. Maybe you can start by telling us about the last time you talked to Clarissa.”
“Sure. It was just Saturday. Townsend was working at the hospital—nothing new there—so Clarissa had the whole day free. We had a late lunch, then went to the Nordstrom anniversary sale.”
“How was her mood?” Johnson asked.
“Same old Clarissa. Fun, talkative, sweet. Afraid to spend money.” Susan paused and smiled. “Sorry. If you knew Clarissa…well, you’d know what I mean. Best sale of the year, and I had to talk her into buying a couple of sweaters. She’s very practical.”
Susan and Clarissa clearly lived in a different world from most of us. I’d seen Clarissa’s closet, after all. I couldn’t imagine what Susan’s must be packed with.
“Any financial problems that you know of?” Johnson asked.
Susan laughed. “Oh, God, no. She and Townsend do fine. It’s just Clarissa’s way. We grew up in southeast Portland, you know. About half a step up from the trailer parks. Well, she was half a step up. I was basically right in there. She worked her way out by studying hard and putting herself through school.”
“Did you go to school together?” I asked.
She laughed again. “Sure—through high school. If you’re asking how I dealt with my generational income challenge, I won’t waste your time by making it sound heroic. I was lucky enough to be the prettiest aerobics instructor at the Multnomah Athletic Club when my husband Herbie decided to settle down. We were married for ten years before he passed away. I’ve always felt a little guilty for having at least as much as Clarissa when I can barely balance a checkbook.”
I had to hand it to her. Susan Kerr had a hell of a personality. There’s something reassuring about a person who is so comfortable about who and what she is.
“So when exactly was she with you on Saturday?” Walker asked.
“I picked her up at her house around one. We had a long lunch, probably until three, then shopped at Lloyd Center until I dropped her off around seven.”
“Can you think of anything unusual that came up?” Walker was quicker to move to narrow questions than I would have been.
“Like what?” she asked.
“Anything,” he said. “Someone following her, a run-in with someone, something she seemed worried about. Things like that.”
“Anything at all that you think possibly could be helpful,” I added.
She shook her head. “No. We certainly didn’t notice it if someone was following us. I mean, who would follow us?” Susan’s comment seemed to trigger her own memory. “Well, actually, about a month ago, she did mention some guy in her caseload who was getting a little creepy. She usually writes off the stuff people say to her as nothing, but this guy had her a bit unnerved. I told her to call the police if she was really worried, but I don’t think she ever did. She told me a few days ago that she hadn’t heard anything else from him; I forgot to ask her about it on Saturday.” She was no doubt wondering whether she’d ever have another chance.
“Her assistant at the office mentioned something similar to me, but she couldn’t give me the file. Do you remember anything else about the case?” I asked.
“I don’t recall whether she ever used his name. The irony is that Clarissa actually felt sorry for the guy, but there wasn’t anything she could do for him. He was getting evicted from public housing under some policy that lets them kick you out if someone visits you with drugs?”
I could tell she wasn’t sure if she had it right, so I nodded to let her know that I was familiar with the policy.
“Anyway, it was a big mess. Clarissa didn’t think she could stop the city from doing it, but the guy said he’d lose custody of his kids if he didn’t have a place for them to live. She was worried that if she called the police about the letters and it turned out that he was only blowing off some steam, she’d make it even harder for him to keep his kids.”
“Do you know what he did that had her on edge?” I asked.
“Just a couple of letters, I think. Ranting and raving the way a lot of people do, but something about how she should have to know his pain someday. I know I agreed with her at the time that it sounded a little threatening.”
“And you don’t know whether she did anything in response?”
“No. It alarmed her at first, which was why I suggested she call the police. I asked her about it a few times after that, but she seemed to have gotten over it.”
I’d had similar experiences. A defendant gets in your face, and it feels like a conflict that could rip your guts out. By the end of the week, it’s just another story to share at a cocktail party to distinguish yourself from all the other boring lawyers.
“Is that enough for you to be able to find the file?” she asked.
“Should be,” Johnson said. “We’ll be sure to follow up on it. What about Clarissa’s personal life? She seem happy in her marriage?”
Susan Kerr leaned back in her chair, took in a deep breath, and smiled politely. “I was wondering when you’d get to that. Classic, right? Whenever something goes wrong, it’s got to be the spouse. Hell, poor Herbie died of a heart attack, but don’t think I didn’t know what some of his friends were whispering behind my back.”
Johnson had clearly dealt with this kind of response before, because he handled it like a pro. “I know this is upsetting for you, but, as Clarissa’s best friend, you’re the one who can be most helpful in pointing us in the right direction.”
“Well, thank you for that, but whatever the right direction is, that ain’t it. If I thought for a second that Townsend had anything to do with this, I’d be leading the charge. Shit, I love the man, but I’d probably kill him myself.”
“This early in the case, we have to consider every scenario.”
“Well, you’re on the wrong track. Townsend and Clarissa are a great team. To the extent she ever complains, it’s the stuff every couple deals with—finding enough time for each other, who does the dishes, boring shit like that. I doubt Townsend’s ever raised his voice to her, let alone what you’re thinking. It’s just not in him.”
Johnson and Walker were polite enough not to roll their eyes. They’d been around long enough to know what ordinary citizens don’t want to believe—you can never tell who has it in them to kill.
It was almost two by the time Johnson and Walker dropped me off downtown, and I was starving. The rain had finally stopped, so I walked the two blocks to Pioneer Courthouse Square, got a small radiatore with pesto from the pasta cart on Sixth and Yamhill, and headed back to eat at my desk. When I went to erase my sign-out on the whiteboard, I found that anonymous coworkers had written, Shoe shopping, Back to Hawaii, and Does Kincaid still work here? next to my original OUT. The graffiti made me laugh, but I went ahead and erased it while I was at it.
I hit the speakerphone to check my voice mail but was interrupted by the rap of fingers against my open door. I swung my chair around to find Jessica Walters, the only female supervisor in the office and someone who I was pretty sure had never spoken a word to me during my tenure as a DDA. As usual, she wore a tailored pantsuit and oxford-cloth shirt, her trademark pencil tucked neatly behind her ear.
“Jessica. Hi.” My surprise to see her, combined with the more than mild intimidation she inspired in me, ruined any chance I might have had at witty repartee. Walters had been a prosecutor for nearly two decades, put more men on death row than any other DA in the state, and, as far as I could tell, never had cause to doubt that she was smarter and quicker than anyone else in a room. She was currently in charge of the gang unit.
“Welcome to the club, Kincaid. You’re the first of your kind up here. Congratulations.”
“Thanks, but I thought you were the first. Weren’t you in MCU before you got your own unit?”
“Yep, was up here for almost ten years. So was Sally Herrington, before she jumped ship to join the dark side. But you’re the first hetero—a role model for all the straight women in the office who said it couldn’t be done.”
There was a crowd of paranoid younger women in the office who were convinced that the boss created the appearance of gender fairness in the office by promoting lesbians who were perceived to be less likely to rock the cultural boat captained by his buddies. The truth was sadder. The atmosphere here was so rough, both for women and for dedicated parents, that the lawyers who were (or intended someday to be) both of those things requested other “opportunities” in the office. So-called voluntary transfers to nontrial units like appeals, child support, and parental terminations became their own kind of self-imposed mommy track.
If anything was going to kill the conspiracy theory and the office culture, it was the increasingly rampant rumor that Jessica and her drop-dead gorgeous partner of nine years were trying to get pregnant. I couldn’t wait to watch a tough guy like Frist wiggle in his seat while “Nail Them to the Wall” Walters breast-fed her kid during a homicide call-out. Payback for every time I’ve had to listen to colleagues bemoan uniquely masculine complaints like jock itch and beer-goggle bangs.
“To tell you the truth, I was beginning to wonder what was going on with you in that department. Now all the support staff can talk about is you and Forbes. After all the ninnies in this office that guy has bagged, he’s stepping up in the world.”
Given my general anxiety about dating a cop, the last thing I needed was a reminder of the many brief relationships this particular one has had over the years. If ours turned out to be as fleeting, I might be known as yet another Forbes conquest.
Jessica must have realized that I didn’t take the comment as she intended it. “I was saying you’re a good catch, Kincaid, but I should probably keep my mouth shut and stick to work. It’s a well-deserved shot you’ve got here. You’re gonna be great.”
“Thanks, Jessica. That’s really nice of you to say.”
“No problem. Just remember, don’t let these fuckers give you too much shit. You’ll need to pay your dues at first, but then it’s about carrying your fair share of the load. Don’t be afraid to get in their faces if you need to.”
I thanked her for her advice before she left, mentally crossing my fingers that there wouldn’t be a need for me to demonstrate that I already knew how to push at least as hard as she did.
Among my many waiting voice mails was one from the City Attorney, Dennis Coakley. He’d chosen to leave me a message at my desk even though I’d given the receptionist my cell phone number. I’d intentionally phone-tagged people before and knew there was only one way to win this game.
I called the number he’d left for me, which, of course, led to his assistant. She told me he was in a meeting but assured me she’d tell him I called.
“He is back in the office?” I asked. “I just want to make sure he’s going to get the message.”
“Yes, he’s back. I’ll let him know you called just as soon as he’s out of his meeting.”
With that, I threw my running shoes back on, signed out, and trekked over to City Hall. I gave the receptionist at the City Attorney’s Office my name and explained that I wanted to see Dennis Coakley.
She seemed confused. “Didn’t we just speak on the phone?”
“Yep, that was me.”
“Um—did he call you back or something? I haven’t given him the message, because he’s still occupied.”
“That’s OK, I’ll wait,” I said, as I settled into a chair near the front door. Nonresponsive answers might be objectionable in court, but they work wonders in the real world. Ten minutes later, Dennis Coakley himself came to the front desk and called my name. Faster than a doctor’s office.
Coakley’s office was conservative but well furnished, and I took a seat at the small conference table he led me to. I’d seen him around town before, and he looked no different now than he always did: wheat-colored bowl cut, glasses thick as microwave doors, bad suit.
Before I had a chance to say anything, he took the lead. “Given your presence here, Ms. Kincaid, I feel I need to say something that I shouldn’t have to. I know your line of work requires you to deal with some people who—well, let’s just call them uncooperative. But I hope you didn’t feel you needed to come over here personally to exert pressure on me. Frankly, I find it a little insulting. I happen to know Clarissa Easterbrook and would like to do whatever I can to help find her.”
“It’s nothing like that. In fact, I appreciate your calling me back so quickly. It’s just that this is my first day back in the office for a while, and I needed the air. Your assistant mentioned you were in, so…” A lie, to be sure, but much better than admitting my tendencies to be an untrusting freak.
If Coakley sensed the fib, he was kind enough to gloss over it. “Good. No misunderstandings, then. Tell me what you need from us to help.”
“At this point, we don’t know. Officially, it’s still a missing person case, but so far nothing suggests that Clarissa took off on her own, and the police don’t have any leads. You probably heard that they found her dog and her shoe by Taylor’s Ferry Road.” He nodded sadly. “You can imagine the scenario that brings to mind. But we haven’t ruled out the chance that this could have something to do with her work. We just want to go through her office to see if anything there leaps out at us.”
He scratched his chin as if I had just asked him to calculate the circumference of his coffee cup using only the diameter. “This has never come up before. I’m not sure I can let you do that. Let me look into it, and I’ll get back to you tomorrow. As long as there are no legal hurdles, it shouldn’t be a problem.” He started to get up to walk me out.
I stayed in my seat. “I assumed we’d be able to get in today. The sooner the better.”
“I’d like to be able to do that, but I don’t see how I can.”
“Unlock the door, and I can have an officer here within the hour.”
“I can’t just let the police roam through a judge’s files, Ms. Kincaid.”
“Call me Samantha. And of course you can. She’s not an actual judge; she’s a hearings officer. I assume if any other city employee was missing, this wouldn’t be an issue.”
“But the fact that she’s a city employee makes Clarissa my client. I just need enough time to make sure there’s no privileged information in her office. If there is, I’ll let you know I’ve withheld something, and we can go over to the courthouse and figure it out from there.”
“Look, this isn’t tobacco litigation. What kind of privileged information are you worried about? We’re just trying to find out where she is.”
“I know, and that’s why I’m probably going to stay here all night doing document review in her office, so you can get in as soon as possible. But our hearings officers call for legal advice and might keep memos of those conversations. If something like that exists, and I turn it over to you, it waives privilege. I can’t do that.”
“I’m sorry, Dennis, but that makes absolutely no sense. How can the judges call you for advice when the city’s a party to the disputes they’re handling?”
“Well, obviously we don’t give advice on how to resolve individual cases as hearings officers, but we are their attorneys in their status as city employees. It’s a complicated relationship. All the more reason for me to make sure we dot our i’s and cross our t’s, which I assure you I will do by tomorrow.”
“I’ll do the search myself, if that helps. I’m an attorney too, and I won’t disclose anything that shouldn’t be disclosed.”
Unfortunately, Coakley knew that’s not how attorney-client privilege works. “But you don’t represent the city, so I can’t let you fish around in the files without reviewing them first. If you knew specifically what you wanted, I could look for it right now and give it to you, assuming nothing needed to be redacted. I got the impression, though, that you won’t know what you’re looking for until you find it.”
“I think that’s probably right. I know she was having a problem with one of the appellants in a public housing eviction case. Both her clerk and her friend mentioned that he’d written letters to Clarissa that she found threatening, but they didn’t know his name. Is there some way you could track that down, short of doing an entire review of her office?”
“Should be.”
I told him everything I knew so far about the case.
“Let me see what I can find out. You want to wait here, or should I call you?”
“I’ll wait. Thanks.” He seemed to find my choice insulting.
Five minutes later, I felt my pager go off. The MCT number again.
I took the liberty of using the phone on Coakley’s desk to return the call. This time, I was expecting Johnson to pick up, but the voice that answered “MCT” belonged to someone I’d known for fifteen years: Chuck Forbes.
The first time I saw Chuck screech his yellow Karmann Ghia into the lot at Grant High and then step out in his washed-out 501s, I was hooked. As much as I didn’t want to be, I had to admit I still was.
I hesitated a moment too long. “Hi, it’s Samantha Kincaid. I think Detective Johnson might have paged me?”
“You need to shake the salt water out of your ears, Kincaid. It’s Chuck.”
“Oh, hey. What’s going on?”
“Two weeks in Hawaii, and that’s all I get? What’s going on? Bad news is going on, but Raymond’s standing over my shoulder waiting to break it to you. Everything all right?”
“Sure,” I said. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Ray’s glaring at me,” he said, “so I’m going to hand you off. But call me later, OK? I want to hear about your trip.”
I had tried to play it cool, but Chuck and I were way past new-relationship head games. “And I want to tell you all about it. I missed you, Chuck.”
“Yeah. Me too,” he said sweetly, before handing the phone to Johnson.
“They found a body in Glenville. I’m heading out there now.”
“Is it Clarissa?” I asked.
“We don’t have an official ID yet, but, yeah, looks like it’s going to be her.”
What I felt at the moment couldn’t have been about any meaningful personal attachment to Clarissa Easterbrook. But I nevertheless felt myself go empty at the confirmation of what I’d already been suspecting, and I wondered how I was going to handle a job that would make this feeling routine.
“Kincaid, you still there? I got to bounce.”
“Sorry, yeah, I’m here. Tell me where it is, and I’ll meet you there,” I said, fishing a legal pad from my bag. The lead detectives needed to arrive at the crime scene as soon as possible, so it was mutually understood that I’d have to fend for myself. I scribbled down a street address that Johnson told me corresponded to a construction site at the outer edge of the suburb of Glenville.
“I need to take care of a couple things and pick up a county car, but I’ll meet you guys out there as soon as I can. Call me if you need anything.”
I walked out of Coakley’s office, telling his assistant that something had come up and I needed to leave.
“He went down to Judge Easterbrook’s office, if you want to try to catch him,” she offered.
Dennis Coakley was leaving Clarissa Easterbrook’s chambers as I was walking down the hall. He carried a legal-sized manila file folder and a small stack of documents.
“You really crack the whip, don’t you? Here I thought I’d worked pretty fast.”
I tried to muster a smile. “I’m sorry. Something came up at the office and I need to head back. I thought I’d try to catch you on my way out.”
“Good timing, because I think I found what you were looking for. Looks like this is it,” he said, holding up a file labeled Housing Authority of Portland v. Melvin Jackson. “No privileged information there, so I had Clarissa’s assistant make copies if you want to just take them with you.”
He handed me about twenty pages of paper that had been clipped together.
“I’m sorry I can’t do more for you right now, but, like I said, I’ll do the review as fast as I can.”
I let him think I was satisfied leaving it at that. For now.
I started to head directly to the county lot by the Morrison Bridge to pick up a car, then remembered Russell Frist’s admonition not to run the case solo if it turned into a murder.
I stopped in the office, hoping Frist would be in an afternoon court appearance. My plan was to leave him an e-mail so he’d know how hard I tried to follow his advice. Unfortunately, he was at his desk shooting the shit with Jessica Walters. I rapped on the door to interrupt.
“Good to see you, Kincaid. I was beginning to wonder whether this morning’s screening duty was enough to chase you out of here,” he said.
“I’m not so easily chased.”
“There you go. Don’t let this guy push you around.” Jessica was getting up from her chair. “I’m out of here. VQ after work?”
The Veritable Quandary was a veritable institution of downtown drinking and a longtime hangout for the big boys at the DA’s office. Russ told Jessica he’d stop by for a quick beer, then asked me if I wanted to join them.
“I doubt I can make it. Something’s come up and I’m actually on my way out to Glenville.”
“Anything having to do with Glenville is my cue to leave,” Jessica said. “Russ, I’ll catch you later. Sam, if I can’t get you a beer tonight, we’ll do it next time.”
“So,” Russ asked, “what in suburbia could possibly be more important than a Monday-night drink?”
“Ray Johnson just called. I don’t have the details, but someone found a body near a construction site out there. The unofficial ID suggests it’s Easterbrook.”
To my surprise, Russ made the sign of the cross. “Damn it. Just once, I’d like to see a happy ending on one of these cases.”
I was tempted to ask whether he was sure what ending was happier: closure for the living left behind or the hope that remained in a missing person’s absence? I kept the thought to myself.
“I told the MCT guys I’d meet them out there,” I said. “Are you coming with me?”
“You think you’re ready for this, Kincaid?”
“Look, Russ, I appreciate the concern, but if I didn’t think I was ready, I wouldn’t have accepted the rotation. You told me this morning you thought I was in over my head, so I’m asking if you want to go. Make up your mind, because I’m leaving.”
“You’ve been on a call-out before?”
I flashed my best sarcastic smile. “You know I have, Dad.” All new DDAs tag along on a homicide call-out when they first start in the office. If you counted the scene at my house a few weeks ago, I guess I’d been to two.
“Fine, then. I’m switching into good-boss mode. If you don’t think you need me, go on your own. But page me if you need me, promise?”
I gave him my most earnest assurances while he wrote down his pager number.
“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” I said.
“I’ll limit myself to two beers at VQ just in case. Call me later, just to let me know what’s up?”
It was fair enough, so I told him I would.
I made a brief computer stop to check out Melvin Jackson and get directions to the address Johnson had given me.
I ran Jackson for both local and out-of-jurisdiction convictions. Nothing but a two-year-old DUI and a pop for cocaine residue a year before that. Maybe the second one sounds major, but a stop with some burnt rock in your crack pipe translates into a violation and a fine in Portland, Oregon. What did I expect to find on his record? Repeated offenses for stalking and kidnapping? Despite common perceptions, a remarkable number of murder defendants have no prior involvement with law enforcement.
Next stop: Mapquest. Glenville’s one of those new suburbs. You know the kind: stores in big boxes, houses with four-car garages on quarter-acre lots, plenty of Olive Gardens for family dining. I’d watched it grow over the past five years, passing it on the freeway each time I drove to the coast. But I’d never be able to find my way around it without a little virtual help.
I clicked on the option for DRIVING DIRECTIONS and then entered the addresses for the courthouse and the construction site. Two seconds later, voilà—turn-by-turn directions with accompanying map. Whenever I try to figure out how a computer can provide driving directions between any two points in this enormous country of ours, it starts to hurt my head. I choose to chalk it up to magic.
I hoofed it to the county lot, checked out a blue Taurus from the fleet, and did my best to follow the painfully detailed directions.
Around mile four on Highway 26, my cell rang. MCT again. They should have been using my DA pager to reach me. I was careful not to give my cell number out for work.
The call turned out to straddle the line between the personal and professional, a differentiation I’d successfully maintained until a couple of months ago. It was Chuck.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Just past the zoo. I’m on my way to Glenville.”
“Good, I was hoping to catch you in the car. Sorry to bug you on a call-out, but I wanted to make sure you knew that Mike and I are working on this thing too. It didn’t sound like Johnson got a chance to tell you.”
No, he hadn’t. This was great. A relationship with Chuck broke not only my no-cop rule but also the completely independent, profession-neutral rule against dating Chuck. He makes me, in a word, crazy. He is stubborn, headstrong, mule-minded, and every other synonym for a particular characteristic that does not blend well with what I like to call, in contrast, my well-established personality. Dating him would be hard enough; working with him would only make matters worse.
“Russ Frist is running MCU now, and we haven’t talked yet about how to handle this. Hell, Chuck, you and I haven’t even talked about it. Given that we haven’t spoken to each other in two weeks, maybe this is a nonissue. But right now my mind is on this case, not our relationship. Your working on this investigation is going to force the issue.”
Chuck, of course, had no problem talking about “us” just minutes after learning about a murder. He had been in MCT for nearly two years now, which translates into roughly forty homicide cases. Work in this business long enough, and you see death as a detached professional, the way a plumber must view a burst pipe.
“Whoa, back it up, Kincaid. I haven’t talked to you for two weeks because you said you needed time away with Grace.”
“And I did. All I was saying, Chuck, is that things were all hot and lusty for a while there, and now you haven’t talked to me in two weeks. More importantly, I’m in the middle of my first murder case and just can’t deal with this right now.”
“Hot and lusty, huh?”
Damn him. “Shut up and answer the question.”
“I didn’t hear a question, counselor.”
Crazy. That’s what he makes me. Two minutes on the phone with him, and I already had visions of running my Jetta off the road. I hung up instead.
The phone rang immediately.
“I think we got disconnected,” he said.
“You know these pesky west hills,” I replied.
“Cut you off every time. Look, I’m sorry I pissed you off. All I was trying to say was that you went to Maui because you needed some space. The funny thing about space is that you only get it if the people close to you step back and give it to you.”
“I needed to get away from work and from my house, where really bad things happened, Chuck. I didn’t need distance from you.”
“OK, I understand that. I was there for the aftermath, remember?”
I passed a sign announcing the approaching exit for Glenville and realized I needed to wrap this up. “Look, I’m sorry we didn’t talk earlier,” I said. “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is.”
“Sure it does. Let’s say it’s my fault.”
That’s my boy. “The point is, we still don’t know if it’s a good idea to work together. I’ll tell Frist to call your lieutenant and take care of it.”
“What, like your father called Griffith? You know what kind of shit I’d take down here for that?”
Yes, that had been a bit embarrassing. Dad’s a retired forest ranger and former Oregon State Police officer. He can be a little protective. After the recent festivities at my house, Martin Kincaid had called the District Attorney to make sure that no further coworkers would be getting shot in my living room or otherwise endangering his little girl.
“All right,” I conceded, “no calls to the lieutenant.”
“It’ll be fine. The LT knows about the situation so he’s got Mike and me doing the grunt work. No confessions, no searches, strictly backup. The priority right now is to hurry up those phone records Johnson’s been waiting on. As other things come up that need to be run down, we’ll take care of it while Johnson and Walker work lead. Glamorous, huh?”
“When you say it that way.”
“Can you live with it, Kincaid, or do I need to turn in my badge and gun? Your choice.”
“You’d do that for me, Chuck Forbes?”
“You bet. But then I wouldn’t have a job. Might hang out at your house all day and night, unshaved and overfed. What do you think?”
“I think you better get off the damn phone and find me some phone records.”
“Ooh, baby, that’s very hot and lusty.”
“No more of that,” I said. “Call me later, OK?”
“Ball’s back in my court?”
“For now,” I said, and hung up.
When I finally got to the point where I was supposed to go .18 miles and then turn right for .07 miles, I nearly ran into the yellow crime scene tape.
PPB had used the tape to close off the entirety of what the sign declared was a state-of-the-art office park, COMING SOON. A young officer stood at the foot of a gravel road leading to the construction area. I flashed my District Attorney ID, and he described the several turns I’d need to make around the various office buildings.
The day was beginning to lose its light, and the bureau’s crime scene technicians were erecting floods at the edge of a wooded area that surrounded the new development. I could see Johnson and Walker were already here, talking to some of the techs. I parked behind one of the bureau’s vans and prepared myself for Clarissa Easterbrook’s corpse.
I’d seen four dead bodies in my life. One was my mother’s, two were in my living room last month, and one was on my first and only homicide call-out. On that one, I’d been lucky enough to draw a fresh OD. Depending on how the events leading to her death unfolded, Clarissa Easterbrook could have been dead up to 35 hours.
Johnson met me at the car and we walked toward the woods. I could tell from the surrounding area that the developer had clear-cut the old growth that must have previously covered these hundred acres or so. When we reached the end of the clearing, Johnson turned sideways and stepped carefully through the trees. I followed and, just a few feet later, saw what used to be Clarissa Easterbrook, still in her pink turtleneck and gray pants. A lot of good that piece of investigative work had done.
In novels, there’s often something beautiful or at least touching about the dead. A victim’s arms extended like the wings of an angel, her face at peace, her hand reaching for justice. This was nothing like that. Clarissa Easterbrook’s body was laid on the dirt, face up. The right side of her head was gone, and I could find nothing poetic about it.
The only worthwhile observations to be made about the corpse were scientific. I initially focused on the disfigurement of her head, but Johnson pointed out the discoloration on what remained of her face. Purple streaks stained the left edge of her face and neck, like bruising against skin that otherwise looked like silly putty. “Looks like someone moved her.”
When blood is no longer pumped by a beating heart, it settles with gravity to the parts of the body closest to the ground. Clarissa Easterbrook was on her back now, but immediately after her death she had almost certainly been lying on her left side.
I watched as crime scene technicians methodically photographed and bagged every item that might potentially become relevant to our investigation. A candy wrapper, several cigarette butts, a rock that looked like it might have blood on it. These items meant nothing now, but any one of them could prove critical down the road. I looked at Clarissa’s body again, surrounded now by all this construction and police work, and swore I’d find whoever did this to her.
I gave Johnson and Walker the file on Melvin Jackson’s case that Dennis Coakley had copied for me at City Hall. I also gave them approval to file the standard search warrant application used after a homicide to search the victim’s house. We agreed, though, that they’d continue to take it easy on Townsend unless the evidence started to point to him.
The police would be working the crime scene for the rest of the night, but I signed out after a couple of hours, when Johnson and Walker left to deliver the news to Clarissa’s family. I don’t envy the work of a cop.
It’s not as if prosecutors don’t have bad days. Our files are filled with desperation and degradation. Even the so-called victimless cases involve acts that could be committed only by pathetic, miserable people who’ve lost all hope. Compare that to fighting over money for a banking client, and it looks like we’re doing the heavy lifting.
But, in the end, I’m still just a lawyer. I issue indictments, plead out cases, and go to trial. When it comes to the investigation, I might make some calls on procedure, but it’s the police who do the real work. They’re the ones who kick in a door when a search needs to be executed. They’re the ones who climb through the dumpster when a gun gets tossed.
And Johnson and Walker would be the ones to visit Clarissa Easterbrook’s family members tonight to tell them that their lives would never be the same again. These days, that concept is overused, as we all say that the crumbling of two towers changed the world forever. The kind of change I’m talking about can be claimed only by the families of the three thousand people trapped inside. It’s the kind of change that causes every other second of life—the birth of a child, a broken leg, the car breaking down at the side of the road—to be cataloged in the memory in one of two ways: before or after that defining moment in time.
From what I knew of it, everyone deals with the grief of a murder in his own way. There is shock, then rage, then depression, and ultimately some level of acceptance. But then the differences emerge. What kind of survivors would Townsend, Tara, and Mr. and Mrs. Carney become? The ones who die inside themselves and walk around each day wondering when their body will catch up to their soul? The ones seeking numbness in a bottle, the neighbors whispering about how things used to be different? The ones who run the Web sites and help lines and victims’ rights groups? Clarissa’s family still had options for the future, just not the ones they thought they had when they woke up yesterday.