Missing Justice (18 page)

Seven.

It was there in the pile of custodies the next morning. My first Major Crimes Unit call-out had been cleared and was ready for issuing. Unit rules be damned; I grabbed the file off Alice Gerstein’s desk so I could prep the complaint against Melvin Jackson before turning to my screening cases.

For now, I kept the complaint simple, one count of aggravated murder and one alternative count of plain old garden-variety murder. Pleading the case as an agg murder requires a special circumstance. If Jackson killed Clarissa during the commission of either a kidnapping or rape, that would qualify. But there were problems with both theories. We had the condom and the ME’s opinion that Clarissa’s clothes were put back on her after she was killed, but we didn’t have the traditional indications of rape. Clarissa’s shoe and the paint provided circumstantial indications that Jackson pulled Clarissa into the van before he killed her, but if he killed her during the struggle and then put her in the van, it wasn’t a kidnapping.

I avoided both possibilities and instead used Clarissa’s employment as an administrative law judge as the special circumstance. As long as the jury believed that Melvin killed Clarissa because of her official judicial duties, that was enough.

I passed Frist in the hallway as I was walking to the printer to pick up the complaint.

“We need to talk about that cluster fuck of a press conference last night on the Easterbrook case. The guy was nice enough to confine his bitching to the bureau, but Griffith’s still gonna want a briefing.”

“I think we’re OK from that end. The husband’s attorneys turned over some information last night, and the police arrested Melvin Jackson a few hours ago.” I left out the part about one of the attorneys being my ex-husband. Although people in the office knew I was divorced, only a handful of them knew who the ex was. One of the advantages of keeping your own name. “When I left MCT last night, the husband’s people were playing nice. I think the press conference was a wake-up call.”

“Looks like it worked. Jackson’s the disgruntled tenant?”

I nodded.

“What did they find on him?”

I told him about Dunn Simon’s list of nonunion labor at the office park and the evidence the police found when they executed the search warrant. “I was just doing the complaint. Do you want to see the file before arraignment?”

“You know you should have called me, Kincaid.”

“I thought you told me to run with it until we got to proceedings.”

He looked at me skeptically.

“There’s nothing to worry about, Russ. Everything’s under control.”

In light of how things had come together, he couldn’t argue with that. “All right, let me see the complaint.” He took a quick look. “Good call. If you add in a rape charge, it might cloud the motive. Most newbies would’ve thrown in every theory they could think of.”

“You only need one when it’s good,” I said. “I’m going to head over at two for the arraignment. I assume you don’t need to come with me.”

“The DA at the Justice Center can handle it, Kincaid.”

“Nope. It’s my first arraignment on an agg murder. I’m doing it myself.”

“Are the screens done?”

“They will be soon.”

“All right. Don’t forget to call Duncan.”

I didn’t need to. When I got back to my office, I had a voice mail from Duncan’s secretary asking me to come down to his office. Terrific.

He had seen the press conference. Even worse, he had gotten a phone call from Dennis Coakley. Dennis must have slept on it and woken up even angrier.

I tried to calm him down by telling him about the Jackson arrest, but the distraction proved temporary.

“What exactly did we talk about in here yesterday?” he demanded.

“Duncan, I know you’re upset, but please don’t talk to me like I’m in kindergarten.”

“When you act like a child, Samantha, you get treated like a child.”

I couldn’t help it. I exhaled in a way that might have sounded like a scoff. “I can’t believe you actually just said that. Does anyone really say that?”

“Watch it, Sam. You’re a good attorney, but I won’t have my people talk to me that way.”

Threatening to fire me was the typical trump card around here, but now I had one of my own. “Or what, Duncan? You’re going to fire the woman who almost got killed last month on the job because she ruffled some feathers trying to find the madman who’s snatching women off the street?”

“Don’t even think about playing that game with me. Next thing you know, you’ll be the talented young attorney who was never the same after that shooting.”

The entire time I’d worked here, I’d always caved when it came down to the last shove. If I was going to stick around, it was time to set some boundaries. I couldn’t spend the rest of my career being lectured on a daily basis.

“I guess what it comes down to is how bad you want me to apologize. I refuse to suck up to Dennis Coakley.”

“You are so off base. This is not about Coakley, it’s about your respect for me and the authority of this office. I asked Dennis what time you hauled him over for the pissing match. You went straight from here to Lesh’s. You didn’t listen to me at all yesterday.”

“You’re forgetting the part where I went off on my detective about the polygraph request and then called you to make sure everything was fine.”

“See, only you could turn that phone call into something that helps you here. You didn’t mention anything about Coakley, did you? It’s always bits and pieces of information from you, Sam, and it’s getting old.”

“OK, so maybe I could have mentioned it to you then while we were talking,” I conceded, “but I won’t apologize for what I did to get those files. It was important, and Coakley was being an ass.”

“Well, at least you recognize that it wasn’t exactly masterfully executed internally.” We were finding just enough common ground for our egos to cling to as we brought the conversation down to a calmer level. “I don’t know, Sam, maybe I put you into this a little too quickly. I called Lesh. He did his best to cover for you, but I could tell he was worried about you too. And we haven’t even talked about this press conference. Wasn’t that your ex-husband?”

I nodded. Duncan’s memory ran deep.

“I think I should pull you off,” he said. “Maybe out of MCU entirely, but definitely off this case.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, Duncan, but if you do either of those things, I won’t want to work here anymore. And I won’t go quietly.”

Whether it was because he valued my work or feared what I could do to him in the media, the threat actually worked.

“Then here’s the deal. This is the last time we have one of these talks. You start thinking about the ramifications of what you do, or you’re going to have to go your own way.”

“Deal,” I said, with a salute. It was as much as either of us could hope for right now, but at least we were talking instead of yelling.

“Christ, your ex-husband? There’s stubborn, Sam, and then there’s just plain masochistic.”

“Think of it this way. I guarantee you: No way does Roger Kirkpatrick call you to complain about this case. It would take all the fun out of torturing me.”

“I’ll take some comfort in that, then. All right, if you’re staying on this thing, we’ll need to schedule a conference with the death penalty committee to talk about what sentence to seek.”

That’s right. We’ve got a death penalty committee. It’s not as bad as it sounds. When Duncan ran for district attorney in this liberal county, he acknowledged that he was personally opposed to the death penalty but nevertheless promised to administer it since it was Oregon law. The purpose of the committee is to have the same group of attorneys all experienced career prosecutors evaluate every aggravated murder case in comparison to previous ones and try to achieve the impossible: the even-handed application of the death penalty.

“I’ll send out an e-mail looking for times,” I said.

“They usually take about ninety minutes. And invite the family to come an hour after we start. I guess we’ll need to go through the husband’s lawyers now that he’s represented. And, remember, I don’t care what your ex did to piss you off. Be civil.”

I worked like a fiend all morning so I could run off some of my resentment at noon. I changed into my workout clothes in the eighth-floor locker room and was warmed up by the time I got to the river. I decided to bump it up from my usual flat three-mile loop along the Willamette and did a five-miler around the west hills instead.

I slowed to a jog after a brutal half mile up a steep incline. I was out of breath and wishing I’d brought a water bottle when I realized I was just a couple of miles from Susan Kerr s house. I decided I had time for a short detour.

I recognized the Expedition in the driveway with the OHSU parking permit. My immediate reaction was to wonder what Townsend was doing at Susan Kerr’s in the middle of a workday. Then I realized he wouldn’t be back to work this soon after his wife’s murder. So how suspicious was it for him to be here? The two of them did, after all, have a friendship through Clarissa and were both stomaching the same loss. Maybe they were talking about Jackson’s arrest.

Remembering Duncan’s ultimatum, I held off on interrupting them and decided to add Townsend’s visit to the list of things I needed to discuss with Susan Kerr.

By the time I made it down the hill, into the courthouse, and out of the locker room shower, I had just enough time to tuck my damp hair into a clip and walk across the Plaza Blocks to Jackson’s arraignment.

The Plaza Blocks’ official designation as a park is a bit of an overstatement. They’re nothing more than two city blocks of grass with a few trees and some benches. In the mid-1800s, the two blocks epitomized a quaint vision of city life, providing a forum for citizen oration and assembly. The south block, Lownsdale Square, was the gentlemen’s gathering place, while women congregated safely in the north side Chapman Square.

These days, the one thing that distinguishes the Plaza Blocks from some of the more remarkable downtown parks is their location beneath the seventh floor of the Justice Center, otherwise known as the Multnomah County Detention Center. Once word got out that MCDC inmates had a view of the park, the plaza blocks became home to more than their fair share of singing, sign holding, and breast flashing.

Although it was just after lunch, it was still pretty early in the day for your average criminal’s loved ones, but one young devotee was already out. She was probably in her twenties but looked older. Several years of chain smoking, combined with regular methamphetamine use, is hell on the skin. She wore skin-tight dark-blue Wrangler jeans, a thick brown belt with a heavy gold buckle, and patent-leather stilettos. A spaghetti-strapped red lace camisole revealed a multicolored tattoo of a large eagle in the cleavage of her impressive bosom. She was yelling, “I got this for you, Darryl! It stands for freedom, baby! Can you see it?” The refined gentlemen of Lownsdale Square would not have been pleased, but I decided I liked her.

I took the stairs to JC-2, the courtroom for the two o’clock arraignments. There was a stir when Judge Levinson called for Melvin Jackson. Given the continuous news coverage on the case, even the courthouse regulars were curious. Jackson’s orange jail uniform was accompanied by handcuffs and leg shackles. Apparently he hadn’t been on good behavior since his booking.

It showed. His hair was matted, and his eyes were blearier than the usual first-morning bloodshot. I suspected pepper spray.

Jackson qualified for court-appointed counsel. Because this was an aggravated murder case, the attorney was sure to be good, a member of Oregon’s capital defense bar.

This afternoon’s lucky winner? Graham Szlipkowsky, public defense veteran and colorful courthouse regular. Graham is probably fifty and tries cases in corduroys and tennis shoes. With salt-and-pepper hair cut like a mop and a matching beard, he looks more like a Muppet than one of the city’s most experienced trial attorneys. He told me once that his mother insisted on the waspy first name to even out his Polish father’s last name. As a result, neither of his names quite suits him, and everyone calls him Slip instead.

Slip’s a straight shooter, perfect for this case. He didn’t need the glory of a high-profile trial and would be smart enough to know the situation was hopeless. After some unsuccessful motions to suppress the critical evidence, he’d be looking for a plea to avoid a death sentence.

The appearance should have been perfunctory. A quick waiver of speedy trial rights from Jackson, a token request for bail from Slip, and Judge Marty Levinson would order the defendant remanded until trial. Any other result at an agg murder arraignment was largely theoretical.

On the other hand, there’s something about me and theoretical possibilities that seems to click. After the usual brief conference with his client, Slip asked Levinson for additional time in light of “some unusual circumstances.” A rookie defense attorney would’ve been torn a new one, but Slip had enough earned credibility that the judge deferred.

Great. For my own satisfaction, I’d walked over for a routine hearing that was technically the responsibility of the JC-2 DDA. Now that I knew “unusual circumstances” had arisen, I had to stay. You don’t know from waiting until you’ve spent time in a courthouse. Doctors? Mechanics? The DMV? Forget about it. I settled into a seat at the front of the galley while the assigned arraignment deputy moved through more routine matters.

Seven arraignments and forty minutes later, Slip informed the clerk he was ready to go back on the record in Jackson. I took my place again at counsel table, called the case, and asked the judge to hold the defendant without bail.

As expected, Slip contested the request.

“May it please the court, Graham Szlipkowsky for the defendant, Mr. Jackson. Your honor, my client respectfully requests that the court consider alternatives to remand without bail. We recognize that the charge of aggravated murder triggers a presumption of no bail, but it is, after all, merely a presumption. Mr. Jackson has no prior criminal record and is the single father of three young children who require his care.”