It wasn’t easy for my father to get through his story; I had to prod him along occasionally like any reluctant witness. But as I finally understood it, my father’s concern about my involvement in the Easterbrook case began the morning of the first press conference, which he had caught on the local news.
He recognized the woman standing near the podium, the one in the light blue suit. He never knew her personally, but the man she eventually married had changed the course of his life back when she was probably still a teenager. Given the connection, he couldn’t help but notice their marriage announcement and the occasional reports about their many community activities that followed over the years. Yes, the woman in the blue suit on the television was definitely Mrs. Herbert Kerr.
As an Oregon State Police officer in 1979, he found himself pulling escort duty for Representative Clifford Brigg. Brigg would ride in the back of Dad’s highway patrol car, using the time to read the paper, confer with other bigwigs, or occasionally sneak in a round of footsie with his large-breasted, short-skirted so-called legislative aide. He paid little attention to my father, but my father paid plenty of attention to Brigg. It was his job.
On a sunny afternoon in July 1980, my father drove Brigg to Salem from a press event in downtown Portland to announce the groundbreaking of a new office building. As usual, Brigg was multitasking, this time meeting with major campaign supporter Herbert Kerr during the ride. Watching the two discreetly in his rearview mirror, Dad saw Kerr slip an envelope to Brigg. From the way Brigg stuffed it into his coat pocket, my father concluded that the deal was rotten.
Others would have let it drop, convincing themselves that it was either none of their business or nothing to worry about. Or perhaps they’d seek cover before talking, reporting the observation to a supervisor or perhaps anonymously to the press, happy to let someone else steer the course. But not my father.
The next time he had Brigg in the car to himself, he made the mistake of confronting him. I don’t know how my father expected Brigg to react. Maybe he was naive enough back then to believe he’d come clean and return the money. But, instead, Brigg denied any wrongdoing. He gave Dad a choice. He could let the matter slide, in which case Brigg and his cronies would make sure he worked his way straight up the OSP ladder. Or he could repeat the story, in which case Brigg’s legislative aide was prepared to file a complaint that my father had groped her.
My father’s face tightened at the memory, his palms working the edge of the kitchen table where we sat. “You should have seen his girlfriend when she told me later the things she was willing to say if it came down to it. These were truly ugly people, Sam.” Herbert Kerr would back up Brigg’s denial, and my father’s career would be ruined.
The arguments he had with my mother were not, as I had inferred, about his hours or the physical dangers of police work. The truth was that they didn’t see eye to eye about Clifford Brigg and his threats.
To my father, the choice he’d been given was no choice at all. He wanted to blow the whistle, career be damned. He’d work as a janitor if he had to.
“And Mom?” I asked.
One look at his face, and it all became clear to me. Mom was a good woman, about as good as they’re made. But she and Dad didn’t always approach the world from the same perspective. She loved my father, but part of her probably wished he’d earned more money or recognition. She was ecstatic when I announced my engagement to Roger, while my father feigned acceptance. And, although she never said as much, she no doubt wondered how different her life would have been if she could have quit teaching and pursued her passion for painting.
Dad didn’t need to fill in the blanks. My mother must have wanted him to play the game and accept Brigg’s deal.
But instead, my father hung up the state system and found a quiet, humble job with the federal forest service. He told my mother about his decision only after he had given notice at OSP. He hoped Brigg and Kerr were smart enough to see the move as a sign that he planned on going silently, and he had been right. He never heard another word about it.
“Not from him, at least,” I had said.
He did his best to explain that my mother’s concerns were for me. She didn’t believe Dad could run away from the problem. And since he wouldn’t be able to convince anyone that he’d seen something suspicious, he might as well get what he could out of Brigg and Kerr.
But for my father, the decision wasn’t about pragmatism. Brigg was forcing a choice between the two most important components of his character—dedication to his family, and an unwavering commitment to good over evil.
My father had found a third way. He should have been proud. He had avoided accepting the favors of corrupt men like Brigg and Kerr, and he had refused to let martyrdom destroy his reputation and family. But to him, his departure from OSP felt cowardly—an easy way to tell himself that he’d rejected a deal with the devil, without actually confronting Brigg. It was the kind of moral equivocation he despised.
When he saw Susan Kerr on television that Monday morning, the unfairness of the choice Brigg had given him and the shame of his response came flooding back. His instinct was to save me. If someone was going to stumble onto the secrets of someone like Clarissa and her friends, Dad reasoned, let it be someone other than his daughter. His family had paid their dues.
I felt a wave of anger. I had suspected all along that someone was blackmailing Clarissa; if he’d shared his story about Brigg and Kerr earlier, I might have made the connection to Susan instead of spinning my wheels all week. Maybe I hadn’t been particularly forthcoming with details of my own about the case, but it would have been easy enough for him to bring me into the loop.
I understood why he’d been struggling, though. From his perspective, the pit in his stomach had seemed irrational, a sour remnant of his own mistakes. Why, after all, should he have assumed that a woman who married Herbert Kerr years after his own encounter with the man was herself corrupt? Nevertheless, his instincts were what they were—and he’d been right.
My plan was to call information to find the closest Pasta Company, but then I had a better idea. I pulled the garbage can from beneath the kitchen sink. On top of the heap lay a take-out bag with the receipt still inside. Tuna niçoise salad, just as she’d said.
I used Susan’s phone to call a sergeant I knew at central precinct. He agreed to send a patrol officer to meet me at the restaurant with the pictures I needed.
Pulling out of the driveway, I waved to Dad in my rearview mirror. He followed me to the bottom of the west hills, letting loose a final honk before going his own way.
At the light at Fourteenth and Salmon, I paged the medical examiner, Dr. Jeffrey Sandler. We’d never worked together before, so I had to explain who I was and what I was calling about before we got down to business. But then the business was quick.
“Just how sure are you on the time of death?” I asked.
“Time of death’s never as certain as they make it sound on TV shows. You draw inferences from the forensic evidence, but in the end, it’s exactly that—an inference. I often tell people that in my thirty-eight years of experience I’ve only seen one case where I could pinpoint the exact moment of death. And that was because the defendant unplugged a clock from the wall and used it to bash in the victim’s skull.”
For a disgusting story, it was actually pretty cute.
“So what about Easterbrook? You calculated time of death based upon her stomach contents?”
“Exactly. By the time she was found, her body temperature was already down to the ambient temperature at the crime scene, so her liver temperature was of no use. Rigor mortis had already come and gone, which would normally signal at least thirty hours postmortem, usually more like thirty-six.”
“But she was found Monday afternoon, putting her death at Sunday morning, not Sunday afternoon.”
“You’re still assuming more precision than exists. I said it would normally be thirty-six hours or so, but change the facts and it could be entirely different. Say, for example, there was significant physical exertion immediately before death. Through the exertion, the victim’s already depleting her body of the chemical that keeps her muscles relaxed. So the stiffness sets in sooner, quickening the entire process.”
I could see why the DAs all said that Sandler was a pro on the witness stand. No jargon or scary science stuff.
“Here,” he explained, “we got lucky. Once Johnson told me he knew what time the victim ate lunch, I went by that instead. Death stops digestion. Based on the state of her stomach contents, she died an hour or two after she ate.”
“What if Johnson was wrong about the time?”
“It’s just like any other system of inferences. Garbage in, garbage out.”
“Is it possible she died Saturday night?” I asked.
“Sure. Like I said, this isn’t down-to-the-minute stuff, especially once you’re past the first twenty-four hours. To reconcile the physical state of the corpse with what Johnson told me about the victim’s lunch on Sunday, I had to make certain assumptions, like the physical exertion before death that I mentioned early. I also assumed she was kept somewhere warm, which was consistent with what we knew about the body being moved. With the very same state of deterioration, sure, the death could have occurred on Saturday, especially if the body were kept in a relatively cool atmosphere.”
I had a feeling I knew exactly where that cool spot was.
When I pulled into the Pasta Company parking lot, a young patrol officer was already waiting for me. I still had a quick call to make, though. I dialed into my voice mail box at work and jotted down Russ Frist’s home telephone number.
I got lucky. Unlike most of the lawyers on the office homicide call-out list, Frist apparently didn’t screen his evening calls.
“Russ, it’s Samantha Kincaid.”
“You better not be calling me to give notice.”
“That depends on how you react to what I’m about to tell you.” I spelled everything out for him. “Johnson and Forbes are on their way to the airport, but I need you to get together with Calabrese and Walker for a search warrant for Susan’s house. Make sure the judge approves destruction if necessary. I’ve got a feeling the crime lab will find blood evidence beneath a wine cellar she’s got going over there.”
“And where are you off to?” he asked.
“To get you the rest of the evidence you’re going to need for that warrant.”
The dinner rush was over by now, so I was able to walk right up to the hostess desk. Unfortunately, when I got there, the two girls at the counter felt free to ignore me while they finished discussing the pressing issue of the day—whether the new waiter had been checking out Stacy, another hostess who was supposedly a “skank.” Given that these two appeared to have all skank bases covered, that was saying a lot.
I waited patiently until the one with the hoop through her navel made eye contact with me, but they immediately resumed chatting. I resisted the temptation to grab the edge of the other girl’s purposefully exposed thong underwear and deliver the mother of all wedgies. Instead, I got their attention by using my District Attorney badge.
“Hey. Girls. I need the two of you to plug back into the world that doesn’t revolve around you and pay attention. Were either of you working a week ago Saturday night?”
They rolled their eyes at each other to be cute, but they at least seemed to be listening. “We both were,” said Thong.
“Yeah, Saturday’s like totally crazy around here.” Belly Button obviously thought I was like totally clueless for so not knowing that.
I showed them the DMV photographs of Clarissa and Susan that the officer from central precinct had run for me. “Do you remember seeing them in here together?”
The idea of doing something that might get someone else in trouble seemed to appeal to them and they actually took a close look at the photographs. Unfortunately, their facial expressions remained completely vapid. Nope, not the slightest bit of recognition. On the other hand, these girls probably paid little attention to women outside of their age range of competition.
I was reaching for the photographs when one of the waiters stopped by to complain that the hostesses had put too many screaming kids in his section. When he noticed the badge I was still holding, he leaned in to take a look at the pictures.
“Cool, man. You got some Matlock action going on here or what?” He pushed his long highlighted bangs from his forehead to get a closer peek.
“Are you even old enough to remember that show?” I asked.
“Syndication, señorita.”
“And I apparently remind you of Andy Griffith?”
“Sure, if he was a little younger with a knockout fem bod.”
I know, I’m a total hypocrite. You take all those characteristics that infuriate me in a teenage girl and bundle them together in a nice-looking boy package, and I’m done.
“I was hoping someone here might recognize these women from last weekend,” I said, pointing to the pictures.
“Yeah, I remember those birds. That one was pretty well preserved for her age, if you know what I mean,” he said, gesturing toward Clarissa.
This one definitely had a thing for mature women. God bless him.
“Do you remember what day that was?”
“Not exactly. But if it was last weekend, it was Saturday. Sunday’s for wind surfing. Yeah, that definitely could have been Saturday. I remember it was the lunch menu, and I don’t work days except Saturday.”
“Do you remember what time?”
“Weekend lunch menu’s good till four, and I don’t come in until two. You do the math.”
“Do you remember what they ordered?”
He laughed and pushed the hair back again. “I don’t have nearly that many brain cells left.”
When you looked like this guy, you probably didn’t need them. “Is it possible the well-preserved one had linguine with browned butter?”
“Yeah, might have been something like that. ’Cause I remember the other one saying something bitchy about the pasta. She was one of those salad-with-the-dressing-on-the-side types. You chicks can be terrible to each other, you know?”
He had no idea.
It wasn’t the perfect ID, but it was enough for probable cause. I called Russ as soon as I left the restaurant.
Before I even made it to the precinct, I got a call from Chuck. “We found her on a flight roster for American Airlines, outbound to JFK. She had a one-way ticket to Portugal.”
“Otherwise known as one of the last few lovely retirement areas that puts up a fuss about extraditions. So you’ve got her?”
“It took a fight, but we finally convinced the airline to hold the flight. We’re bringing her in now.”
“Is she talking?”
“Not yet. Ray’s putting her in the car. We figured we’d wait until we got her in the box downtown.”
Once they had her in a holding room, Russ and I watched the questioning through a one-way mirror. Susan played it cool. According to her, she “might” have gotten tied up in a scheme Townsend had with Gunderson, but Chuck and Ray were nuts if they thought she’d do anything to hurt Clarissa.
Then Walker called my cell with some preliminary feedback from the search at her house.
“I don’t know how you figured it out, Kincaid, but it’s just like you said. We found a copy of the video of Clarissa and Caffrey. It was right there in the entertainment center with a bunch of yoga tapes. And the lab guys are saying there’s some seepage in the concrete beneath that wine room. It could definitely be blood, but it’s going to take awhile to confirm it.”
“No sign of those documents I saw piled next to the file cabinet in the basement?”
“Nothing.” Johnson didn’t find them in Susan’s car either. She must have dumped them somewhere on her way to the airport.
“Sorry you can’t be here for the questioning,” I said. “You might’ve gotten a second chance at catching the look.”
“Yeah, right. That’s OK, as long as I get to see a different kind of look—the look on Jackson’s face when we release him. I feel like shit we had the wrong guy; every cop’s worst nightmare, right?”
“Should be. But you didn’t know, Jack. Susan Kerr sent us off track from the very beginning.”
“Well, you did real good, Kincaid.”
“Thanks,” I said, flipping my phone shut so I could pass the word on to the rest of the team.
Russ and I watched Johnson and Chuck break the news to Susan. She’d already met the nice Ray at her house, so Chuck was playing the bad cop. If I hadn’t been so nervous, it might have been fun to watch his performance.
The MCT guys were pros. They told her about the videotape first, reeling her in with questions about the bribery scheme before confronting her with the murder.
“It’s not what you think,” she said, changing to a resigned tone. “This was all Townsend and Gunderson. Townsend found out about Clarissa’s affair and used it to guilt-trip Clarissa into ruling for Gunderson in exchange for the hospital donation.”
Like all coconspirators, she was spinning a version that undoubtedly shifted the blame from herself but which nevertheless contained some undercurrent of truth.
“So what was the videotape for?” Chuck asked. “And what were you doing with it?”
“Clarissa brought it over here a couple of weeks ago to show me. She must have left it. Townsend initially had it made to get an upper hand in the divorce, but then he told her he’d mail it to Caffrey’s wife unless she convinced Caffrey to vote in favor of development in Glenville. I guess Gunderson stood to make a lot of money, and Townsend would be rewarded in kind.”
“Could that be it?” Russ asked me.
I shook my head. “If Gunderson and Townsend hooked up at a cocktail party and reached this one-time deal to help Gunderson’s Railroad District project, how would Gunderson even know that Clarissa could get to Caffrey? Or if Townsend’s the one who thought of this, how would he know that Gunderson had investments out in Glenville? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“So what’s your theory?”
“Susan’s the link. She pretends she’s a trophy widow, but she learned everything she knows from Herbie. I think she, Gunderson, and MTK are all still in bed together. They were bribing Jane Wessler at the city for the Railroad District licenses. When Wessler went on maternity leave without giving Gunderson his permit, Susan turned to Clarissa. I always thought it was weird that Clarissa hadn’t told Susan about her relationship with Caffrey. I think she did, and that her best friend turned around and used it to convince her that she owed this to Townsend. Then even that wasn’t enough. She got that videotape and told Clarissa she’d mail it to Caffrey’s wife if Clarissa didn’t deliver Caffrey’s vote.”
Back in the holding room, Susan’s explanations continued to contain just enough truth to confirm at least part of what I suspected. Chuck and Ray had broken the news to her about the blood in the basement.
Her demeanor changed again, and this time she feigned sadness for the loss of her friend. She even managed to shed some tears. “It wasn’t me. It was Townsend. Clarissa called me Saturday, completely hysterical. I guess she told him that morning that she wasn’t going to go along with Gunderson anymore. If they were going to mail the videotape, she was willing to go to the police. She was over here telling me about it when Townsend showed up. They went down to the basement to have a private conversation, and the next thing I knew there was yelling. It sounded like a terrible struggle. I ran downstairs.” Her voice cracked for effect. “Oh, my God, I couldn’t believe it. Townsend told me I had to help him, or he’d tell everyone I’d been in on it. I realized how it would look. My house, my husband’s old business partner—I panicked.”
“You didn’t panic.” Chuck spoke quietly, but was convincingly disgusted. “You went shopping, Susan. You went and picked out an outfit to dress your dead friend in, so it would look like she died Sunday. You hired carpenters for a fucking remodel. Don’t lay this all on Townsend.”
I made a mental note to have a handwriting analyst check the charge receipt for Clarissa’s purchases last Saturday at Nordstrom. My guess is that the signature would be close, but not quite right. I was also pretty sure that, as much as Susan had joked about Clarissa being the reluctant shopper, we’d find out that Susan hadn’t bought anything for herself that day.
“But it was his idea,” Susan was insisting. “He’s the doctor. He’s the one who cooked up this whole thing about using the food in her stomach. You tell me, how could I come up with that myself? I still don’t even understand it.”
Russ poked me in the side with his elbow. “She’s got a point there.”
I nodded. “Sure. Townsend came up with the idea of throwing us off with the take-out container from Sunday, but she’s still the doer. You met Townsend. It had to have been the other way around. Clarissa confronts Susan; Susan kills Clarissa and then tells Townsend he’d better help or she’ll pin it all on him.”
“It would certainly explain why the guy’s been a walking corpse. But what about the poly?”
“He passed it because of the questions.” I told him about the transcript of Townsend’s interview. He was asked if he’d been at the hospital Sunday, if he killed Clarissa, and if he hired, solicited, ordered, or asked anyone to kill her. But they neglected to ask the money question: “Do you know who killed your wife?”
Chuck was asking Susan to walk them through the rest of the plan.
“Townsend called Gunderson to come over for Clarissa’s…to get Clarissa,” said Susan. “He came over and took Clarissa to the Glenville property, then stashed the hammer at Jackson’s.”
“And how would Gunderson know that Jackson had a grudge against Clarissa? Your story’s not adding up.” Chuck did a better bad cop routine than most. His tone struck the perfect balance between anger and dismissiveness.
“She’s cooperating, OK?” Johnson said.
Susan looked at Johnson. She probably recognized the routine, but she played along anyway. “Townsend told him about Jackson.”
“And Jackson just happened to work for Gunderson? Wrong again, Susan.”
“Clarissa got Gunderson to give Jackson a job. I told you she felt sorry for the guy. I think she was probably trying to turn what she’d done into some kind of good deed. Karma and all.”
“God, she’s good,” I said.
“Maybe,” Russ said, “but I still can’t believe she hasn’t lawyered up.”
I shook my head and smiled. “That’s because you don’t know Susan Kerr. She thinks she’s way too smart for all of this. She’s been manipulating people her whole life, getting away with it every time. And she probably figures, Hey, she’s a woman, she’s in here first; she’ll be the one to get the deal. She’s convinced Gunderson and Townsend will go down, and she’ll waltz out with a few months of local jail.”
“That’s not going to happen, is it.” It wasn’t a question.
“No way,” I said.
“Ready to call Duncan?”
“Let’s do it.”
It took a good forty-five minutes, but we finally laid it all out for the boss.
“And you think we’ve got PC for Townsend and Gunderson?”
“I do,” Russ said. “We’ve got a coconspirator implicating Townsend directly in the murder, and at the very least she’s implicating Gunderson in the cover-up. Add the circumstantial evidence of the various connections between everyone, and we’ve got enough for warrants.”
“Start working on search warrants,” Duncan said, “but call their lawyers and give them an hour to turn themselves in.”
“What?” I screeched into the speakerphone. “You’ve got to be kidding. This is a murder case, Duncan.”
“No shit, Samantha. But we’re not dealing with a bunch of gangbangers here. You don’t need a perp walk on this one. They’ll turn themselves in.”
“Right,” I said. “Just like Susan Kerr did. In case you forgot, we pulled her off a plane after she tried to kill me.”
“Don’t be dramatic. She locked you in a room,” Duncan argued.
I looked at Russ and shook my head. “Yeah, Duncan, without any air.”
“Look, Samantha. You’re new to this. We let guys TSI all the time, even in murder cases. Russ, if you’re worried about it, call the airlines and make sure they know not to let these guys fly out. But giving them an hour’s not going to kill anyone.”
If only he’d been right.
When the deadline came, Gunderson was there with Thorpe, but Roger had been stood up. We dispatched cars immediately, but we were too late. Townsend Easterbrook was dead.