Missing Justice (26 page)

When he got to the corner where I was waiting, he tried to give me a peck on the lips, but I held a hand up.

I led the way up the escalator to the main lobby. Nelly was already waiting.

She was visibly alarmed that I wasn’t alone, and seemed even more uncomfortable when I told her Chuck was a cop. For a second, I thought I was going to have to give her the “I’m not your lawyer, so there’s no privilege” speech, but Nelly had obviously been paying attention during her ethics classes. “I guess even if I talked just to you, you could turn around and tell him everything anyway.”

“And I would. Now why don’t you go ahead and tell me what’s going on. You sounded pretty worked up on the phone.”

She looked around the lobby to confirm that no city hall types were around. “I don’t know whether to be worked up over it or not. But when I got back to the office after I testified, Dennis Coakley was in Judge Loutrell’s office. He’s the chief administrative judge.”

I nodded.

“I’ve been helping him out, now that I’m down to one judge. Anyway, they were talking about Judge Easterbrook and were saying something about privileged information. I don’t think they heard me come in at first, but then when the phone rang and I answered, they closed the judge’s door.”

“Could you tell what kind of information they were talking about?”

“No, but it sounded like the judge thought they should tell you about it, and Coakley was saying they couldn’t because it was privileged.”

“They were talking about me specifically?”

“Well, I don’t know if Judge Loutrell knew your name, but he said something about telling the DA, and then Coakley said something like, “We can’t tell her anything that’s privileged.””

“And you don’t have any idea what they could have been referring to?”

“No. I knew Coakley had reviewed Judge Easterbrook’s files for privileged materials, but he said he didn’t have to remove anything.”

Nelly stopped talking, but I could tell from the way she ended the sentence that she had cut herself off.

“But?”

“I went back to the chambers and searched Judge Easterbrook’s office. I didn’t find any files other than the ones you already saw, but I did find a key.”

“To what?”

She reached into her jacket pocket and removed a tiny silver key. “I don’t know, but it looks like it could fit a safe deposit box.

I found it in the drawer she keeps her personal junk in. She used to throw her purse in there during the day with some makeup and a hairbrush, that kind of thing.

“It’s probably nothing,” she said, “but I was still getting over my nerves from testifying, and when I heard them talking about the case and then shutting the door, I got majorly paranoid. I was in her office searching like crazy. I opened her compact, and this was in the bottom with the puff. At the time, it felt important but now I guess it sounds a little stupid.”

It was definitely worth looking into. Given its location, the key had clearly been important to Clarissa. I took it, gave Nelly my home number, and asked her to call if she overheard anything else about the case.

“For what it’s worth,” she said before turning away, “you were great in court today. I think Judge Easterbrook would have really trusted you to handle this case.”

Chuck gave me a look but knew me well enough not to comment on the compliment. When we were leaving the building, he said, “You’d look kind of cute with a haircut like that. Maybe purple instead of the hot pink.”

“You’re into that kind of thing, are you?”

“Nope. Can I have my kiss now?” he asked.

“Not a chance. You know my views on PDA.” There is a reason for every rule, and the reason for this one is that the only adults I ever see making out in public are ugly. I doubt there’s a cause-and-effect relationship, but I’d rather not risk it.

He mock-sighed, then turned his attention to the key I was rotating between my fingers. “You want me to tag that and put it in the property room?”

“That’s OK. I’m going to hold on to it.”

“Why do I get the feeling that you’re about to make some mischief? After that run-in you had with Johnson the other day,

he’s not going to like it if you do anything to mess up what’s standing as a perfectly good case.”

So Johnson had told the rest of them about the dress-down. “And why do I get the feeling that if Russell Frist made the same call you’d keep any doubts you had to yourself?”

He looked away for a few seconds. When he turned back toward me, he pushed my hair behind my ear and said, “Sorry, Kincaid, but you’re so much cuter than he is. I’ll try to get used to it.”

“About that PDA you wanted?” I said, leaning into him.

“Uh-huh?”

“Come over around nine. We’ll order a pizza, and I’ll display some affection in private.”

I had just enough time to touch base with Russell before meeting Slip. I found him chatting in his office with the other MCU boys.

“Sorry, I’ll come back.”

“No, that’s all right,” he said, waving me in. “Sorry, guys, but we need to talk about a case real quick.”

They all filed out without saying a word to me, clearly disappointed that they’d have to move the socializing to a smaller office.

“How’d it go today?”

I filled him in on the preliminary hearing and Slip’s request to meet with me at the end of the day.

“He’s probably hoping for a quick plea,” he said. “If he offers to take a life sentence to avoid the death penalty, you’re going to find yourself in a bind. You want me to come along?”

Duncan hadn’t formally announced his decision not to seek a death sentence, but I knew his mind was made up. Letting

Jackson enter a plea without that information might not violate the ethics rules, but it still seemed sleazy.

“That’s all right. It’s just talk for now. I won’t make a deal without running it by you and Duncan.”

“Anything else?” he asked.

I decided not to hold back on him. I told him about my conversation with Nelly and the key she’d given me. “I might ask Johnson to track it down for me, find out what she was hiding.”

“Don’t even think about it, Sam. How many times do I have to tell you? The case is cleared. You eat up bureau overtime chasing down what’s probably a stupid luggage key, and there’s going to be pressure to rein you in. Save us both the headache.”

I pulled the key from my pocket and showed it to him. “It’s not a luggage key. It looks like it’s for a safe deposit box.”

“Jesus Christ, Kincaid. Why isn’t that in the police property room? You can’t go lugging evidence around in your pocket. Get it through your head: You’re the prosecutor, not Jackson’s defense attorney. You put that in the property room, make sure Slip gets a copy of the receipt in discovery, and forget about it.”

In the spirit of cooperating with my new, relatively decent supervisor, I would put the key away as instructed, but I wasn’t about to forget about it.

It took the guy in the precinct property room less than five minutes to add the key to the other evidence seized in the Jackson case and complete a supplemental report to document the addition. I pocketed two photocopies of the supplemental, one for the file and one for some mischief-making.

Slip was waiting at the bar at Higgin’s, looking at his watch. “You starting to think I was standing you up?” “There are a couple of people in your office who find that sort of thing humorous,” he said.

“And do I strike you as one of them?”

“Nope. That’s why I waited.”

We ordered our drinks at the bar and found a quiet table in the corner. Higgin’s looks exactly like the kind of bar where you’d expect lawyers to meet after work to talk cases. Dark wood, brass fixtures, the works.

“So how’ve you been, Sam? I haven’t seen you much since you handed my ass to me in trial about a year ago.”

I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t remember it being quite that bad.”

“So tell me the truth. How many times have you pulled that “Don’t take it out on my case that I’m young’ shit?”

“Only with you, Slip. Had to do something to level the playing field against your cords and tennies.”

I have this thing I do to counteract the shtick that some of the older attorneys have developed over the years. In my final closing, I give the jury my best doe-eyed look, even turning slightly pigeon-toed if I can get away with it. Then I say something like, “I might not have as much trial experience as the defense attorney, but don’t take it out on this case. The evidence is there,
etc.
etc.” It gets the jury back on track, and is a lot more subtle than saying, “I’m not as slimy as the rest of these guys.”

In my last trial with Slip, he’d gone after my cops on a reverse drug buy. I suppose it’s the only tack for a defense attorney to take when his client insists on putting his word against an undercover officer’s. When little innocent me got done with the jury, they saw things the way they really were.

“Well, it’s a cute trick, Kincaid. I wanted to haul out your power resume and hold it up against my University of Oregon degree.”

“As much as I enjoy your company, Slip, I assume we’re not here to reminisce. What’s up?”

“The Jackson case, of course.”

“What about it?”

No attorney ever wants to be the first to say plea. It’s a sign you don’t have faith in your case. I’d sit here all night if I had to, but Slip was the one who’d asked for this meeting.

“It’s fishy.”

Now that was not what I was expecting.

I plucked a ten from my wallet and put it on the table as I stood to leave. I had planned on giving Slip the report from the property room to make sure Clarissa’s secret key didn’t get lost among the discovery, but now that I knew his agenda, it was time to go. That old saying about family describes how I feel about my cases: Only I can bad-mouth them. I got enough argument from defense attorneys during the workday; I wasn’t about to spend my Friday night on this.

“Please stay, Sam. I thought you knew me well enough, but ask around the courthouse if you have to; I don’t bullshit. Posture one too many times, and you can never get a prosecutor to listen to you again.”

That was his reputation.

“Hear me out,” he said. “I know it rarely happens, but I really am starting to think this guy’s being set up. And it’s a good set-up. He’s poor, and he’s black, and your victim is incredibly sympathetic.”

I was still standing with my briefcase, but I hadn’t walked away.

“Honestly, I’m scared shitless I’m going to lose this case and never be able to sleep again.”

I think I had been fearing the same thing. I sat down again, and he started his pitch.

“What’s bothering me most is how neatly it all adds up. What’s a guy who lives hand-to-mouth doing getting a phone call one day on a fancy new development job?”

“Easy,” I said. “Developers are greedy and will try to save money wherever they can. What do they care who does the landscaping?”

There was too much evidence against Jackson for that one nagging point to prove a setup, especially since Grace had explained it wasn’t particularly unusual for developers to use day labor. I told Slip he’d need to explain away the most incriminating pieces before I could take him seriously.

“Without waiving privilege?” he asked.

I gave him my word.

“First of all, we’ve got that thing your cops keep calling an admission.”

“It’s a classic admission, Slip. The police kick the door, and your guy blurts out, “I know what you’re looking for.” Leads them right to the paint.”

“Right. He leads them to the paint. If he’s giving himself up, why doesn’t he point them to the hammer? Because he didn’t know it was there.”

“But what made him think they were there for the paint? Because he saw the early news stories about paint being on the dog,” I said, answering my own question.

“No, Sam, because he stole it. He’s been keeping his nose so clean he thought the police were barging in over a couple of cans of paint he took from the building site. He was going to paint his mom’s house.”

“Isn’t that sweet?”

“You’re starting to sound as insensitive as the rest of your office.”

“Sorry, Slip, but I’m not buying it. A judge he’s threatening turns up dead, and when the police look at him, he thinks it’s for petty theft?”

“He didn’t know the woman was dead. This is not a man who keeps up with the news. I’m telling you, I believe him. You’ve got to understand, the only thing that drives this guy is keeping his kids. He thought if he got caught with the paint, he’d lose the Glenville job and it would hurt him with everything else that’s going on. I guess one of the other workers at the site saw him take it, so when the police showed up, he assumed the guy had ratted.”

Now that was interesting. It would tie whatever Slip was talking about back to the property. “What do you mean someone saw him?”

“He noticed that some workers had left a couple buckets of paint outside on Friday, so he went back with his truck to pick them up. He says another worker was still there and saw him. Melvin started to make up a story, but the guy told him to go ahead; he wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Does he know who the man was?”

“Since we’re being so honest with each other, all he could tell me was ‘some white guy.” But, c’mon, there are lawyers in your office who’ve given a witness a lineup with worse initial statements. Get me some pictures and I’ll see what I can do.”

I shook my head. “There’s a ton of people working down there. And it doesn’t do you any good anyway. So what if he stole the paint? It’s still on the victim’s dog, so he’s still tied to the victim’s disappearance.”

Unless, of course, the mystery man who spotted him with the paint had something to do with it.

“Let me ask you something,” I said, “what does Jackson say about how he got the job?”

Slip pulled a file from his briefcase. “I was getting there. Melvin runs an ad in the Penny Power classifieds. Two lines only costs a few bucks, and he occasionally gets a home maintenance job, that sort of thing. Well, last Monday, he gets a phone call from a Billy Minkins. Melvin’s pretty sure about the name, but he never actually met him. He hired Melvin as an independent contractor for twenty bucks an hour, more than Melvin’s ever made.”