Executive Privilege (6 page)

Shortly after moving to Portland to take a job with Reed, Briggs, Stephens, Stottlemeyer and Compton—Oregon’s largest law firm—Brad Miller rented a riverside apartment with a view of Mount Hood. When he opened his bedroom shades on this balmy morning in late June he beheld the sun rising behind the majestic, snowcapped mountain and a crew of eight women stroking with vigor along the far shore of the Willamette River. It was a scene that should have brought a smile to Brad’s face but this morning he had a good reason for feeling sad and empty.

Brad had experienced good days and bad days since moving across the country for his job. The longer he was away from New York and the everyday sights that reminded him of Bridget Malloy, the more frequent were his good days, but today was the seven-month anniversary of the day Bridget had broken off their engagement, and there was no view, no matter how magnificent, that could prevent him from being depressed.

Brad showered away some of his gloom, dressed for work, and walked to his office, stopping on the way for breakfast at a favorite spot on Third Avenue. He usually grabbed a quick bite at home, but there was a lull in work at the office and he was in no rush this morning. He read the newspaper while he finished his eggs. The Yankees’ extra-innings victory over Boston helped take his mind off Bridget. Brad may have left the East behind, but he was a Yankee fan for life.

When he’d finished his breakfast, Brad walked several blocks to a thirty-story, glass-and-steel office building in the heart of downtown Portland. Reed, Briggs’s main entrance was on the thirtieth floor. The first person clients saw when they entered the spacious waiting area was a gorgeous receptionist who sat behind a magnificent polished wood dais that displayed the firm name in shiny metal letters. Behind the receptionist were several glass-walled conference rooms with magnificent views of three snowcapped mountains and the river. While they waited, the clients sat on soft leather sofas and thumbed through copies of
U.S. News & World Report
or
The Wall Street Journal
. It was on this floor that the partners made big deals for important people in huge offices furnished by interior decorators.

Brad did not take the elevator to the thirtieth floor. Junior associates entered Reed, Briggs’s hallowed halls on twenty-seven and walked down a dull, windowless corridor to a plain door, where they tapped in an entry code on a keypad affixed to the wall. Inside, the support staff sat in cubicles that filled the center of the floor, surrounded by the unimpressive offices occupied by the firm’s newest members.

Brad filled a mug with coffee in the lunchroom and carried it to his tiny office. A narrow window above his credenza looked down on the roof of a hotel parking lot. The rest of the office was filled to capacity by a desk, two client chairs, a gunmetal gray filing cabinet, and a bookcase stuffed with a set of the Oregon Revised Statutes and the tax code. Brad’s only decorations were framed copies of his college and law school diplomas.

Brad’s desk was usually stacked high with assignments from the partners, but when he’d left his office the night before he’d had fewer files than usual to work on. This was because the partner he’d been assisting had just settled the lawsuit that had taken up a good part of Brad’s time since he’d joined the firm. When Brad walked into the office he stopped short and groaned. Three new files covered his blotter. A quick look at the memo on top of the center file let him know that he was in for a late night.

Brad took a sip of coffee while his computer booted up. After checking his e-mail, he started going through a forty-page contract between a subcontractor and a construction company that was building condominiums on the coast near Lincoln City. He was on page seven when his intercom buzzed and the receptionist told him that Susan Tuchman wanted to see him. Brad sighed, placed a yellow Post-it on the paragraph he was reading, and headed for the stairs that would take him up to the thirtieth floor.

The associates had nicknamed Tuchman the “Dragon Lady” and the aerie where the Gods of Reed, Briggs ruled, “Heaven.” Brad could have ascended there on the elevator but walking up stairs was one of the few types of exercise he was getting since he started working fourteen-hour days. Some of the other associates jogged or exercised in a gym before work, but Brad was not a morning person. He did play an occasional game of tennis at the Pettygrove Athletic Club, where all the partners and associates had memberships, and he did get in a run or two on the weekend, but he’d noticed that the numbers on his bathroom scale had been inching up and he was finding it harder and harder to run down cross-court forehands. By the time he opened the door to the thirtieth floor he had made a vow to watch his diet and get in at least four hours of exercise each week.

Susan Tuchman’s corner office was an homage to minimalism. Two large windows met at one corner giving her a wraparound view of Portland. A black leather sofa stood against a third wall under an all-white painting. The senior partner’s desk was a large sheet of glass supported by aluminum tubes and the only items on it were an in-box and out-box made of polished metal and a thick file. The only cluttered space was a wall decorated with awards Tuchman had won from the Inns of Court, the American Bar Association, and other legal groups, and photographs of Tuchman with celebrities from the worlds of politics, business, and entertainment.

Tuchman was five four and rail thin. Her blond hair was free of gray thanks to chemistry, and a Beverly Hills surgeon of national repute could claim credit for her skin being as tight as plastic wrap. The senior partner was wearing a black Armani pants suit with a white silk blouse and a necklace of black pearls. She was forty-nine but she’d been a partner for ten years as a result of a series of victories for a pharmaceutical client and a tobacco company. Tuchman’s first husband had been an associate at another firm but she had divorced him rather than set up a situation where an opponent from her husband’s firm could move to have her taken off a case on the grounds of a conflict of interest. A second, tempestuous marriage to a federal judge had lasted only as long as it took Tuchman to process the difference in the income contributions to their joint bank account.

“Sit,” Tuchman ordered, indicating a client chair made of the same black leather as the couch and supported by aluminum tubing similar to the tubing that held up Tuchman’s desk. Brad lowered himself onto the chair cautiously, expecting it to tip over backward at any second.

“I’ve had some good feedback about you from George Ogilvey,” Tuchman said, mentioning the partner who had just settled the lawsuit on which Brad had been working. “He tells me you’re an ace at research.”

Brad shrugged, not from modesty but out of fear that any support he gave for George Ogilvey’s opinion would encourage Tuchman to add to his workload.

Tuchman smiled. “I’ve been trying to pick an associate for an interesting project, and based on George’s glowing recommendation, I’ve concluded that you’re the man for the job.”

With all the work Brad had already he didn’t need any more projects, interesting or otherwise, but he knew it would be wise to keep that opinion to himself.

“You know that Reed, Briggs prides itself on being more than a money factory. We believe that our attorneys should give back to the community, so we take on pro bono projects. The projects are exciting and give our new associates a chance to work one-on-one with clients and get courtroom experience.”

Brad knew all about these pro bono projects. They were good PR for the firm but they were also time-consuming and brought in no money, so the partners foisted them off on the newest associates.

Tuchman pushed the file that occupied the center of her desk toward Brad.

“You’re not from Oregon, right?”

“New York. I’d never been on the West Coast before I interviewed for this job.”

Tuchman nodded. “Does the name Clarence Little mean anything to you?”

“I don’t think so.”

Tuchman smiled. “Snap quiz, name the president of the United States.”

Brad returned the smile. “Christopher Farrington.”

“Well done. And you know he was the governor of Oregon before he was selected as President Nolan’s VP?”

“Uh, yeah. I guess I knew that.”

President Nolan had died of a heart attack halfway through his second year in office and Farrington had suddenly found himself president of the United States. Brad turned toward the photographs showing Tuchman schmoozing with important people and suddenly noticed how many contained a smiling Christopher Farrington.

Tuchman noticed where Brad was looking. “The president is a close personal friend. I was his finance chairman during his run for governor.”

“What does President Farrington have to do with my assignment?”

“Mr. Little has filed a writ of habeas corpus, which is now in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. He is a convicted serial killer and he’s challenging a death sentence he received in Oregon. The murder took place while President Farrington was governor and the victim was the daughter of the governor’s personal secretary. The case created quite a stir here because of the tie-in to the governor but it may not have gotten much space in the New York papers.”

“I think I heard about it,” Brad said so Tuchman wouldn’t think that he was a typical New Yorker, who thought you fell off the edge of the Earth as soon as you left the five boroughs, but the case didn’t really ring any bells.

“The firm has taken on the representation of Mr. Little in federal court. I think you’ll find the assignment very challenging. Look through the file and get back to me if you have any questions.”

“I’ll get right on it,” Brad said as he stood.

“I’ll have the banker’s boxes with the rest of the file delivered to your office.”

Oh, no, Brad thought. Banker’s boxes were big, and Tuchman had just said that there was more than one. He remembered all the new work he’d just found piled up on his desk.

“Remember, Brad, this is literally a matter of life and death, and,” she added in a confidential tone, “it might get you up to the United States Supreme Court. Wouldn’t that be something?”

“I’ll work very hard on Mr. Little’s case, don’t worry,” Brad said with great enthusiasm, which disappeared as soon as he was out the door of the senior partner’s office.

“This is just what I need,” Brad muttered as he descended the stairs. Not only was he loaded with work for other partners but he knew absolutely nothing about criminal law and cared less. He’d taken the required course in criminal law his first year in law school and a refresher course when he was studying for the bar, but he remembered almost nothing he’d learned. Then there was the added pressure of knowing that a person might die if he messed up. Of course, that person was a convicted serial killer, someone he had no interest in saving from the gallows. If the guy really did it, society would be better off if Little was executed.

“Why me, God?” Brad muttered as he shoved open the twenty-seventh floor door. When he received no answer, he concluded that either the Deity wasn’t interested in his problems or the Gods on the thirtieth floor were more powerful than whoever he’d previously considered to be the Big Boss.

Brad spent the rest of the morning and afternoon working on the contract for the Lincoln City condominiums. It was five-forty-five when he finally e-mailed a memo outlining the problems that the construction company faced to the partner who’d given him the assignment. He was exhausted and he toyed with the idea of going home, but he had too much work and the assignments were going to keep coming.

Brad sighed and ordered a pizza. While he waited for the delivery, he went to the men’s room, where he recycled the coffee he’d been guzzling and splashed water on his face. Then he grabbed a Coke for the caffeine from the lunchroom refrigerator and got to work on the banker’s boxes that held the files for
Little v. Oregon
. One box contained the fifteen-volume transcript of the trial and the nine-volume transcript of Little’s sentencing hearing. Another had files with the pleadings, legal motions, and memos. A third contained correspondence, the police reports, and miscellany like the autopsy report and the photographs of the autopsy and the crime scene.

Two hours later, Brad was still at his desk, casting anxious glances at a manila envelope that lay a few inches from him in the center of his blotter. The only dead body he had ever seen was at his great-grandmother’s funeral, and he didn’t have a clear memory of that because he’d been five when she died. He did know that his great-grandmother had died peacefully in her sleep. She hadn’t been tortured and chopped up like Laurie Erickson, the teenage girl whose autopsy and crime scene photographs were in the envelope.

Brad knew Laurie Erickson had been hacked to pieces and tortured because he’d just finished reading the report of Laurie’s autopsy. It was very unnerving and read a little like a graphic review of a slasher movie, which was one type of film Brad avoided like the plague. According to the medical examiner, the cause of Erickson’s death was no mystery. She had almost been decapitated when Clarence Little had hacked away at every inch of her neck with a machete or similar object, tearing the skin to ribbons; there was a subdural hemorrhage over the brainstem for which the examiner could find no source, and not satisfied with simply killing the unfortunate young girl, Little had sliced off several body parts after Erickson was dead.

The temptation to view photographs of the ghastly crime drew Brad to the envelope in the same way a freeway accident drew the eye of every driver who passed by. What argued against opening the envelope were the autopsy’s gory details and the fact that he’d recently ingested three slices of pepperoni pizza. In the end Brad’s morbid curiosity won out. He pulled the envelope to him, opened the flap, and slid the top photo out while averting his eyes so he didn’t have a clear view. Then he turned his head toward the photograph slowly so he wouldn’t have to take it in all at once. The picture showed a young woman with skin the color of wax who was stretched out naked on a stainless steel table with her arms at her side. It took Brad a moment to register the hideous nature of the wounds the poor girl had suffered. When he did he grew light-headed, his stomach rolled, and he wished he’d followed his instincts and left the autopsy photos in the envelope.