Missing Justice (34 page)

“Right. She had notes in her file showing she’d done some legal research trying to find a theory she could use to rule for him.”

“OK,” Frist continued. “So what if you’re right, and she’s on the take with Gunderson? Maybe she calls in a marker of her own and gets Jackson the job.”

Minkins did, after all, say that Gunderson had told him he was hiring Jackson as a favor to a friend. I followed Frist’s theory. “But Jackson didn’t know that, of course, and is still pissed off about his eviction.”

“He kills her, dumps her at the site, and everything else falls into place.”

“Except the part where Gunderson tells Minkins to keep his mouth shut when Clarissa’s body turned up,” I said.

“But think about it. Gunderson knows he’s crooked on the bribery scheme, and all of the sudden the other half of the equation winds up dead on his property. Maybe he used it to scare Minkins into staying quiet about the Jackson hire, which might have shown a connection between the victim and the company.”

5B1

I completed the thought. “Which might’ve revealed whatever quid pro quo they had.”

“Or maybe Minkins made that part up,” he added. “It wouldn’t be the first time an informant threw in a little extra to help the case.”

Man. First Russ defends me, then he outsmarts me. It’s a crazy world, this one we live in. A world where Clarissa Easterbrook might have used her position with Gunderson to help out Jackson, only to have him kidnap and murder her.

I was frustrated that I hadn’t seen it earlier. I had been so focused on figuring out the connection between Gunderson and Clarissa that I had just assumed that it was related to Clarissa’s death. But I had never been able to figure out how Gunderson knew about Jackson in order to frame him.

Russ’s scenario gave our office a reason to send the cops back out to work: We still think Jackson did it, we could say, but we need to find out what Gunderson was up to so the defense doesn’t blindside the jury.

The truth was, my gut was telling me that I’d been wrong about Jackson. He did it. I’d never forgive myself if Slip actually got Jackson off using information I’d hand-delivered.

“The way things stand now,” I said, “I think we need to get MCT back on this right away.” I told Duncan about Prescott’s comments in the courtroom and the near certainty that the news would be breaking imminently.

“That’s just great. She had to make sure that my day was fully fucked. All right, here’s the deal. Thorpe’s got everyone’s attention on this thing. I’m supposed to meet at City Hall this afternoon with the MCT lieutenant, the mayor, and the city attorney to determine how to proceed.”

Noting our looks of disbelief, he said, “I know, it’s overkill. But the bureau already took an embarrassing hit on this case and doesn’t want it going down the drain, the city attorney’s worried about getting sued, and the mayor well, the mayor’s probably going to make sure we don’t all kill each other. If I had to guess, with so many offices involved, it could take a couple days before anything happens, but Jackson’s not going anywhere, right?”

I shook my head.

“The defense attorney’s not going to make any noise?”

I shook my head again. “But are you going to make MCT follow up on the Gunderson angle?” I asked.

“Like I said, Kincaid, I doubt anything’s going to happen for a couple of days.”

“But, in a couple of days, that’s what you’re expecting, right?”

“Not that I owe you an explanation, Samantha, but no, I wasn’t planning on asking MCT to look at a possible corruption case, because that’s not MCT’s jurisdiction. We’ll get the bureau on it, and we’ll get some answers by the time of trial, but that’s good enough for now.”

Now I saw Duncan’s take on the situation. If the corruption involving Gunderson wasn’t related to the Jackson murder case, there was no reason to start a beef with MCT about opening a closed case. The problem was, the bureau wouldn’t be under the gun to see the Gunderson investigation through.

“Duncan, I think it is appropriate to ask MCT to do the work. It’s Jackson’s defense attorney who’s trying to set up Gunderson as the killer, so it’s the detectives on that case who are going to be motivated to get to the bottom of it. If they find out that Gunderson was bribing Clarissa and blackmailing Caffrey but didn’t set up Jackson, everyone will be happy.”

“You don’t get it, Samantha,” he said. “MCT’s not going to be happy about anything that makes this case any more complicated than it needs to be. And if we ask them to look into Gunderson Development, it looks like we believe there’s actually a connection between Gunderson and the murder. And we don’t.” His point was a good one, but I wanted the work done well, and I wanted it done soon. “And, for the record, Sam: slight problem claiming Szlipkowsky came up with these witnesses on his own. How’d he know to serve the subpoenas on Jim Thorpe?”

Crap. I thought Slip had served Gunderson and Minkins directly. Apparently, he was willing to flirt with unconventional-ity, but wasn’t about to bypass retained counsel. The problem, of course, was that it looked like his knowledge of the representation came from me.

I couldn’t remember saying anything to Slip last night about Thorpe. But I did remember something else.

“Probably because Jim Thorpe represented Gunderson Development on the appeal in front of Clarissa. His name was in the file Slip found in her safe deposit box.”

Duncan didn’t like it, but he knew he couldn’t prove I had done anything wrong.

“Anything else?” he asked.

The last thing I wanted to do was set him off. But I couldn’t let him go into that meeting without telling him about Minkins’s immunity deal and the OHSU financial records in the safe deposit box. If those facts eventually came out later, he’d look foolish in front of the bureau and the mayor, and whoever put him in that position namely, moi would pay the price.

“Well, there’s a few other details you should probably know about,” I said.

“Details? Why do I have a feeling that, coming from you, Samantha, those details are going to be something like a pin that fell out of the grenade?”

I told him about my secret immunity deal with Minkins.

“Did you know about this, Frist?”

“No, sir, I didn’t.”

I couldn’t bear to look at him.

“Big surprise,” Duncan said, shaking his head. “Before I lose it, let me get this straight: You let a witness invoke on the stand, knowing you had given him immunity, without telling the defense attorney? No, forget about the defense attorney, without telling the judge?”

I never thought about it that way. I knew I was keeping something from Gunderson, but I didn’t owe him any information unless and until he was a criminal defendant. I had thought about Slip at the time, but figured I’d explain it all to him later, and he wouldn’t mind under the circumstances.

But, from a technical perspective, I had misled the court. Once a witness has immunity, he’s got no Fifth Amendment rights, so technically Minkins should have answered all of Slip’s questions. Even if Slip didn’t mind the lost opportunity, Judge Prescott wouldn’t be pleased that I used her courtroom to dupe Gunderson.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“See, that proves we’ve got a problem, Samantha. You’re better than that. I know you’ve got a tendency to go your own way, but this is something different. I don’t know if it’s the new caseload, the ex-husband, the mess that went down last month but for whatever reason, you’ve lost your judgment on this one.”

I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer. “No, I haven’t, and this is no different from what goes on around here every day. We can do whatever we want on our cases as long as no one’s paying attention, but the minute someone raises an eyebrow, we’re second-guessed at every turn. And if you’re not part of the club, you’re third-and fourth-guessed. And now it’s even worse, Duncan, because you’ve personalized it. Maybe I’ve made some mistakes, but don’t suggest there’s something wrong with my motives.”

“You’re the one choosing to make it personal, Samantha. You need to take emotion out of this.”

If I had a dollar for every time a pissed-off man told me I

was being emotional, I wouldn’t have to deal with angry men any more. Apparently rage is only an emotion when combined with estrogen.

“I’ll call Judge Prescott and take my licks, but I don’t hear anyone suggesting what I should have done as an alternative. If Gunderson was involved in Clarissa’s death, telling him that Minkins flipped wouldn’t just jeopardize our investigation, it would’ve put our informant at risk.”

Duncan was no longer in the mood to argue. He didn’t need to; he was the boss. “I’ll give some thought to all this, Samantha but right now we both need to cool our heels. Until you hear further: Russ, you handle anything having to do with Clarissa Easterbrook. And call Prescott. It’s better she hear about this from you as the MCU supervisor.”

I had expected Duncan to kick me off the case. Maybe it was even the right thing to do, given some of the calls I’d made. But having Frist apologize to a judge for something I’d done? I started to interrupt, but Duncan signalled for me to keep quiet.

“No, Samantha, I’m not risking it. If you’re not apologetic enough, she’s just going to pick up the phone and complain to me. If you’re lucky, she’ll figure you’re in enough trouble at home not to report you to the bar.”

I shook my head.

“I know what you’re thinking. If you want to resign, that’s up to you. Alternatively, you could turn your attention and your talent to the many other cases assigned to you. Your decision.”

All the earlier huffing and puffing aside, it had come down to this the ultimate trump card. Unfortunately, Duncan had seen me in action enough these past weeks to know that, when push came to shove, I’d rather put up with the crap I take here than fight over corporate money with attorneys like Roger and Jim Thorpe. Maybe Grace would give me a job sweeping up hair at Lockworks.

“I’ll let you know.” Then I walked out of his office, leaving him there with Melvin Jackson’s new prosecutor.

I had hoped to be out of the building before Russ made it up to the eighth floor, but he managed to catch me while I was still getting my things together. One more reason not to keep such a messy office.

“Don’t worry about the call to Prescott,” he said. “I won’t make you look like a jerk.”

“I think Duncan already took care of that,” I said, throwing my pumps in my gym bag. One of them didn’t quite make it in and hit Frist in the leg.

“Easy now. For what it’s worth, it would’ve been a lot worse if Duncan didn’t actually like you.”

“If you didn’t notice, I just got kicked off my first murder trial,” I said, pulling the pictures of Vinnie and my family from my cork board and tucking them safely away in my briefcase, just in case.

“Yes, but you walked out with your job and the case on track, and with very minimal ass-kissing. I know you’d rather hang on to it, but I won’t bungle it.”

“Better not,” I said, laughing, while I pulled my rain slicker on.

“You’re obviously going somewhere, but before you leave, why don’t you let me in on the parts you edited out for Duncan.”

I did my best to look confused.

“Cut the shit, Samantha. I can tell you’re leaving something out. If you need me to go into cross-examination mode, I’ll point out that you told Duncan there were some details you left out. As in plural. And you clearly had more to say to me before we got pulled into Duncan’s, but I don’t think it was the secret immunity deal, because you obviously didn’t realize it was going to be so explosive. So spill it: What were you saving up for last?”

What the hell. He’d stuck by me so far.

“Earlier, I thought it was a big deal, but now that you’ve convinced me I had my head up my ass” he laughed too “anyway, it’s probably nothing, but the safe deposit box that had the videotape and the Gunderson file?”

He nodded.

“Well, the one other item in the box was a password-protected floppy disc containing the budget information for Townsend’s new hospital wing.”

“And how does that fit in with everything we just talked about downstairs?”

“It doesn’t. If you’re right, it just so happens that Clarissa stored a backup of her husband’s data in the same place as the other things. But, earlier, it made me wonder if maybe Townsend had something to do with it. Maybe Gunderson coughs up money for the hospital in exchange for Clarissa’s help, something like that.”

“And he lets her sleep with Caffrey so she can deliver his vote for Gunderson? I don’t see it.”

Me neither. On the other hand, according to everyone who knew him, the pathetic guy we’d been talking to the past week wasn’t the same man Clarissa Easterbrook had married.

We talked it through but kept going around in circles.

When I finally retrieved my gym bag from under the desk, Russ handed me my briefcase. “So where are you going, if you don’t mind me asking?”

I wasn’t ready to answer that question yet. “Sounded like Duncan was going to steer the meeting toward a holding pattern. Let the news sink in and the personalities calm down.”

“I know,” he said. “I was there, remember?”

“It may have been a mistake to drag Gunderson into the murder case, but now he knows we’re looking at him on the bribery. Not the best situation for the preservation of inculpatory evidence.”

“You mean Slip’s mistake,” he said.

“Right.”

“Well, you heard the boss: Nothing’s happening until decisions get made at the highest level,” he said, like we were still shooting the breeze.

“But maybe someone could poke around a little on the side. Just to see what falls loose,” I said.

“Maybe.”

“You mind if I take the rest of the day as personal time?”

“Not if you need it,” he said. “Just tell me what you find out.”

9R9

Fourteen.

By the time I got to Metro Council headquarters, Terrence Caffrey’s office was already locked down. Metro was probably only a part-time legislative gig.

I took a chance and drove past the address I had copied from the mailing envelope Slip had found in Clarissa’s safe deposit box. T. J. Caffrey and his family lived in a brick colonial just a couple of houses south of Reed College. A woman probably Caffrey’s wife was planting bulbs along the front walk. A minivan and a Toyota Avalon were parked in the driveway.