A week later, I attended the funeral with Chuck and my father.
I don’t know why I went or why I made anyone come with me. Maybe because death was still new to me. Or maybe part of me actually felt sorry for him.
Susan Kerr may have tried to put all the blame on Townsend, but in the end he had the last laugh. He had found one decent concluding act to his life. He left a note. He’d probably written it as the final dose of painkillers settled in, but I was confident it was reliable. Unlike most coconspirators, Townsend no longer had a reason to point the finger at others. He just wanted, finally, to tell the truth.
These are my words, not his, but the truth went something like this: Townsend Easterbrook had believed that building the pediatric wing was the most important accomplishment of his life. He knew he’d earned his position more for his administrative skills than his healing ones, and the new wing was his way of securing a legacy at the hospital. Several months earlier, Susan Kerr had offered to help, and Townsend had happily accepted. The money came rolling in.
But then, on the Friday before Clarissa’s death, he discovered the deal’s strings. Clarissa sat him down and told him that, in exchange for Susan’s generosity, she had rigged a decision in favor of a company in which Susan had an interest. She said she’d done it to help the hospital wing and out of loyalty to Susan, but now things had gone too far. Susan was asking her to do even more, and Clarissa planned to say no. The money would dry up.
Townsend told her to put her foot down. Screw Susan. They’d build the wing without her.
But that’s not what happened. Clarissa left the house to meet Susan on Saturday for lunch. A couple of hours later, Townsend got a call. Something was wrong with Clarissa, Susan said. He needed to come over.
When he got there, Clarissa was dead, lying in a pool of blood in the basement. Susan claimed that Clarissa had tried to destroy some documents and attacked her when Susan put up a fight. According to Susan, it was self-defense.
While Townsend was still reeling, Susan said she’d blame it all on him if he told anyone Clarissa had been with her that day. The documents detailed the connection between Clarissa’s thrown case and the donations to the hospital project. Townsend would lose everything. Then she told him something he’d never even suspected—Clarissa had been cheating on him. Guilt over the affair was the reason she’d been willing to fix Gunderson’s case in the first place. Susan even had a videotape to back the story up.
Because Clarissa had died shortly after lunch, all they needed to do was make sure her body wasn’t found for a day or so, and make it look as if she’d eaten her Saturday meal on Sunday. As a doctor, Townsend knew some of the rules about determining time of death—“garbage in, garbage out,” as Dr. Sandler had put it.
Townsend ensured that the police found a fresh take-out container in the house by using a short break between surgeries to dash to the nearby Pasta Company. He’d also set up the initial call-out by leaving Clarissa’s loafer to be found in the gutter, and dropping Griffey, on his leash, along Taylor’s Ferry Drive. Susan had taken care of the rest. She’d shown up at the house Saturday night with an empty Nordstrom shopping bag to put in Clarissa’s dressing room. She told Townsend she’d make sure the body wasn’t found until Monday. He realized that the medical examiner would figure out her clothes had been switched, but it didn’t seem to bother investigators. And when the evidence against Melvin Jackson came out, he assumed that Susan must have set up the plan ahead of time. By then, he was too out of his mind on OxyContin to figure a way out.
He’d been considering suicide for days, but Roger’s call on Monday night had sealed the deal. He took the pills, wrote his letter, placed a plastic bag over his head, and let go of the situation. Whether we’d get the note in at trial remained to be seen, but I knew in my heart it held all the answers.
The services were modest, arranged as a courtesy by Dr. and Mrs. Jonathon Fletcher. Townsend’s death had made headlines, as had Susan’s arrest and Jackson’s release, but so far the official explanation for his suicide and its relationship to those other events was under wraps.
Clarissa’s family chose not to attend. From what Tara had told me, she and her parents were still coming to terms with the idea that Clarissa had been killed by people they’d treated as family. The only eulogists were Townsend’s professional acquaintances. They remembered his commitment to patients and his love for Clarissa, careful to keep their comments general enough that they reflected a relationship that once was.
Roger found me in the lobby of the funeral home. I told Chuck and Dad I’d meet them in a second.
“I’m surprised you came,” he said.
I shrugged.
“I hope you realize that I didn’t know,” he said. “If I had—”
“Don’t worry about it. I know. I was fooled too, remember?”
“I should have sensed it, though. I could have talked him into coming forward.”
“Really, Roger, you don’t need to say anything. It’s fine.”
We stood there awkwardly while he searched for something else to say.
“So Jackson’s out, huh?”
“Released last Wednesday,” I said. “Took a couple days, but he couldn’t be happier.” He hadn’t been the only one. Mrs. Jackson was waiting in the lobby with Melvin’s kids. She burst into tears with the first look at her freed son, and before long we all lost it. Walker insisted the sniffle I overheard was from allergies, but I knew better.
“Is the poor guy still getting evicted?”
“Some people are working on it.” Dennis Coakley of all people was intervening with HAP to hammer out an agreement for Melvin and the kids to stay in public housing.
“So how does your case look?” How strange that after our years together, this conversation would be like any typical one between lawyers.
“Not too bad,” I said.
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you lay the foundation for Townsend’s letter. I was the last one to talk to him, I guess.”
“All right, thanks.”
“You’ve probably got enough evidence without it. Jim Thorpe’s been keeping me up to date,” he said by way of explanation.
Gunderson had already cut a deal for three years on bribery and abuse of corpse for helping Susan move the body. It was a gift, but, in the end, we were never able to prove he’d been in on the murder. In exchange, he had delivered the goods. Gunderson had come to suspect that Susan wasn’t quite as loyal as his old pal Herbie and recently began taping their conversations. The recordings of Susan telling Gunderson to hire Jackson a week before the murder and to come to her house the night Clarissa died would be gold at trial. Add the documents he had confirming Susan’s investment in Gunderson Development, and we had motive to go with opportunity. As for means, we’d ask the jury to infer from the blood in the house that she had hit Clarissa in the head and then planted the hammer at Jackson’s.
“We’ll see, right?” Roger knew me too well not to sense the impatience in my voice.
“I’m holding you up. Just humor me on one more question: Was it premeditated?”
Gunderson had confirmed that Susan was the one who asked him to hire Jackson, but we knew Clarissa was trying to find a job for Melvin. Susan may very well have made the request on her behalf. And from what our shrinks were telling us about Susan, she was far more likely to kill in a rage triggered by what she saw as Clarissa’s betrayal. The more closely we looked into her background, the more stories we were hearing like the one Grace had told me about Susan burning her husband’s favorite humidor. My best guess was that, in Susan’s screwed-up mind, she’d done Clarissa and Townsend a favor by hooking them up with Gunderson.
“I don’t think we’ll ever know,” I said, “but my gut tells me it wasn’t.”
“Well, you’ve always had good instincts.” More awkward silence. “So I’ll see you later, I guess.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
He stopped me before I walked out. “I know it’s not my business, but I couldn’t help but notice that you came with Forbes.”
I followed the direction of his glance to Chuck and my father in the parking lot. “You’re right. On both counts.”
He nodded. “I guess the two of you always were close.”
“Uh-huh.” It wasn’t the most articulate response, but talking to my ex-husband about my boyfriend was awkward, to say the least.
“You know, Sam,” he said, “it might not matter to you anymore, but I do feel bad about what happened between us.”
So that’s what he’d been hemming and hawing about. As if “what happened” had involved both of us?
“If it makes it any easier, she didn’t even mean anything to me.”
I looked at the floor while I summoned my patience. There was nothing to gain by fighting him. “I always knew that, Roger. And that’s why I couldn’t stay with you.”
I left him then, wondering if I’d ever get over the fact that a man who loved me as much as he knew how to love another person had thrown it all away for someone who hadn’t even mattered.
Outside, I was greeted by the sun for the first time in weeks. Dad put his arm around me. “You OK there?”
“I’m good,” I said, walking to the car. “Less sad than I was a few hours ago. Maybe it’s because the rain finally stopped.”
“Maybe,” he said. He gestured to the lobby. “What was that about?”
I paused, wondering the same thing. “Nothing that mattered. We talked about the case a little.” I looked at Chuck and smiled.
“You mean the case where you’re the star witness?” I could always count on Chuck to lighten the mood.
“That would be the one.” I was still off the case—I couldn’t testify and prosecute—but Russ had assured me I could help plan the trial. Looking Susan Kerr in the eye and giving evidence against her would be even more rewarding than sitting first chair.
If my first two weeks in MCU were any indication, my first major trial would come soon enough. In the meantime, I was happy to wait it out.